Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Iran Taunts Israel, U.S.
Aug 23rd, 2010
DailyNewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday taunted both Israel and the US in an interview with Al Jazeera, insisting that neither nation had the stomach for a military showdown with the Islamic Republic.

"Israel doesn't have the courage to do it," said Ahmadinejad when asked about the possibility that Israel would strike Iran's nuclear facilities. "Israel is too weak to face up to Iran militarily." The Iranian leader said the US had failed to beat even a small insurgency in Iraq, so was also afraid of starting a war with Iran.

Ahmadinejad was bolstered by the weekend activation of the Bushehr nuclear reactor in southern Iran, and the inauguration of Iran's new long-range bomber aircraft, which he called an "ambassador of death."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu long warned that without a viable threat of force, the international sanctions against Iran would never succeed in convincing Ahmadinejad and his regime to back down.

Clinton Announces Israel - PA Talks, But They Already Look Doomed
Aug 23rd, 2010
DailyNewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Peace Process

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the weekend announced the impending resumption of direct peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel hailed the development as a significant achievement, but the Palestinians were already throwing cold water on the talks before they ever began.

Clinton told a press conference in Washington that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas had been invited to the US capital in September 2 to officially relaunch direct talks, and that she believed the negotiations on a final status peace agreement could be "completed within a year."

Netanyahu's Likud Party issued a statement welcoming the final resumption of negotiations without preconditions. "It took a year and a half to persuade the international community and the Palestinians that direct dialogue is the only way to try to reach a solution to the conflict," said Likud spokesman MK Ofir Akunis. "This is further proof that when you stand up for your principles and do not give in, you can attain diplomatic achievements."

Another unnamed Likud official later told The Jerusalem Post that while Netanyahu is hoping to conclude an accord with the Palestinians, he is committed to bring any agreement to the Israeli people before signing it.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, were far less optimistic, and appeared determined to sink the talks even before Netanyahu and Abbas reach the negotiating table.

Nearly every Palestinian faction outside of Abbas' own Fatah movement slammed the decision to negotiation with Netanyahu, and accused Abbas of surrendering to American pressure. Abbas' top aides sought to reassure his Palestinian critics by insisting that if Israel continued building new Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank"), Abbas would pull out of the talks. The threat included Jewish housing projects on the eastern side of Jerusalem, which, despite being home to hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews, the Palestinians claim as their capital.

"Even if Israel builds one house in the settlements," the negotiations will come to an end, declared Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member Hanna Amireh.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat added that if Israel did not extend its self-imposed 10-month settlement building freeze that is set to expire on September 26, there would be nothing to negotiate about.

"If the Israeli government decides, on 26 September, to continue to permit the submission of settlement bids, then there will be no talks," said Erekat.

It is widely believed that Netanyahu will quietly extend the building freeze in Jewish towns around Judea and Samaria in order to give talks a chance, but that construction in large Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem will continue, giving the Palestinians the opportunity they need to again sidestep an opportunity for a negotiated peace.

Abbas to PLO: Give Talks a Month
Aug 23rd, 2010
DailyNewsJpost
Categories: Today's Headlines;Peace Process

PA president believes negotiations will fail when moratorium ends.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asked the PLO Executive Committee to allow a one month trial period for direct peace negotiations with Israel before deciding what further action to take, Palestinian sources said, according to a Monday report in the London-based Arab language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

According to the report, executive committee member Hana Amira said that Abbas believes the talks will fail once Israel's moratorium on building in the West Bank ends on September 26.

Amira added that no vote to approve Palestinian participation in the talks was taken at the Friday meeting of the committee as half of the body's members were not in attendance.

Abbas dispatched a letter to the members of the Mideast Quartet: the US, Russia, EU and the UN on Sunday, stating that the Palestinians will withdraw from the talks with Israel if construction in the settlements continues.

The document was delivered to representatives of the Quartet by chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat.

In the letter, Abbas urged the Quartet members to abide by resolutions of the UN pertaining to the Israeli-Arab conflict, the principles of the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, the 2002 road map and the 2002/2007 Arab Peace Initiative.

Abbas’s letter is seen in part as an attempt to reassure critics that he hasn’t abandoned his conditions for negotiating directly with Israel.

PA's decision to hold direct talks faces strong Palestinian condemnations

With the exception of Abbas loyalists in the PLO and Fatah, all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have strongly condemned the PA’s decision to hold direct talks.

Hundreds of Palestinian political figures and organizations have signed a petition warning Abbas against succumbing to American and Israeli pressure to drop his conditions for direct talks.

“Settlements and peace are two parallels that don’t meet,” Abbas wrote in his letter to the Quartet.

“If Israel continues with the settlement construction, we will withdraw from the talks.”

PA officials in Ramallah said that Washington’s invitation to conduct direct talks came as a surprise to Abbas and his aides.

Abbas was “enraged” when he heard that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was about to issue the invitation without informing him in advance, the officials said.

Abbas even considered issuing a public statement rejecting the US invitation, one official said.

In the end, Abbas and his aides were persuaded to accept the invitation after receiving four urgent phone calls from the State Department, another PA official said.

“The Americans have forced us to drop all our preconditions,” the official complained. “This makes us look bad in the eyes of our people.”

Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official who also serves as an adviser to Abbas, expressed dismay over Washington’s failure to invite representatives of all the Quartet members to the launch of direct talks in Washington early next month.

The Palestinians would have liked to see the Russian president and the UN secretary-general at the talks, Ahmed said.