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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Israel not to undermine peace talks with the Palestinians after a report found it had nearly doubled Jewish settlement construction.

On her seventh visit this year in a long-shot push for a peace deal by January, Rice said the two sides were “somewhat closer” in their talks despite deep public scepticism about the chances of ending the six-decade conflict.

Rice offered no further details, but said: “God willing, and with the goodwill of the parties and the tireless work of the parties, we have a good chance to succeed.”

At a joint news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Read more »

DAMASCUS - When the armies of Israel, France and Great Britain began a massive operation on Egypt in October 1956, to punish Gamal Abdul-Nasser for nationalization of the Suez Canal, the first world leader to visit the Kremlin was Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli. He pleaded with Nikita Khrushchev to send in “the great red army that defeated [Adolf] Hitler”.

Fifty-two years later, the Georgian army rumbled into the breakaway Georgian area of South Ossetia on August 7, with the blessing of the United States, making the Russians very angry. The “great red army that defeated Hitler” responded by large-scale bombardment, then invaded South Ossetia, Read more »

Als Geste des guten Willens hat Israel die Freilassung von 200 Palästinensern beschlossen.

Darunter sind auch zwei Gefangene, die wegen Anschlägen auf Israelis seit 30 Jahren im Gefängnis sitzen. Ein Sprecher von Ministerpräsident Ehud Olmert sprach am Sonntag von einer vertrauensbildenden Maßnahme, um den Friedensprozess zu fördern und die moderaten Kräfte unter den Palästinensern zu stärken. Ein Berater von Palästinenser-Präsident Mahmud Abbas bezeichnete die Ankündigung als Schritt in die richtige Richtung. Allerdings müssten nicht Hunderte sondern Tausende palästinensische Häftlinge freigelassen werden, sagte Nabil Abu Rdainah.

Die Gefangenen sollen um den 25. August freikommen, noch vor Beginn des muslimischen Fastenmonats Ramadan, wie ein israelischer Regierungsvertreter erklärte. Eine Namensliste sei noch nicht endgültig fertiggestellt. Aber es seien Gefangene Read more »

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks on as he waits for his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Tehran August 11, 2008.

The United States has turned down Israeli requests for military hardware to help it prepare for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, a frontpage report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said on Wednesday.

The unsourced report said the Americans had warned Israel against carrying out any such attack and had refused to supply offensive military hardware. Instead they had offered to improve the Jewish state’s defenses against surface-to-surface missiles.

Interviewed on Israeli Army Radio, Defence Minister Ehud Barak did not deny the Haaretz story, but refused to discuss it. “It would not be right to talk about these things,” Read more »

Israel has built heavily on occupied land in the West Bank and Jerusalem Israel has offered a peace deal to the Palestinians which would annex 7.3% of the West Bank and keep the largest settlements, Israeli reports say. In return the Palestinians would be given land equivalent to 5.4% of the West Bank in the Negev desert, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. Palestinian officials confirmed that such a plan had been put forward, but called it totally unacceptable. The two sides have been in peace talks sponsored by the US since November. Israel wants a new border similar to the route of the barrier it is currently building in and around the West Bank, Haaretz reports. The proposed deal also covers Palestinian refugees and security arrangements, as well as the future of Gaza, Haaretz says, but not the issue of East Jerusalem and the ring of settlements around it. On Monday, a delicate truce over Gaza’s border was shaken when unidentified

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Revived talks have produced signs of warmth but little visible progress Israel’s strategy in negotiations could force the Palestinians to abandon their goal of a two-state solution, a top Palestinian negotiator says. Ahmed Qurei says they may instead seek a binational solution, that is a single state for Israelis and Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel fears such a this would spell the end of the Jewish majority state. Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. Its negotiators have always resisted full withdrawal from them. Mr Qurei told a meeting of the ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank that the Palestinian leadership had been working to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. “If Israel continues to reject this and prevent us from achieve our choice, we will call for the alternative solution for the Palestinian people and their leadership - that is a single binationalist state,”

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Um scharfe Worte nie verlegen: Israels stellvertretender Ministerpräsident Schaul Mofas

Der mögliche Olmert-Nachfolger Schaul Mofas hat den Iran scharf angegriffen. Seine Äußerungen stimmen bedenklich in einer Zeit, in der der Atomstreit mit dem Iran zu eskalieren droht.

Das iranische Atomprogramm sei eine Gefahr für die Existenz des jüdischen Staates, sagte Mofas am Mittwoch (06.08.2008) im Sender Radio Israel. Der Iran sei “die Wurzel alles Bösen”. Mofas warf der Regierung in Teheran zudem vor, im Atomkonflikt auf Zeit zu spielen. “Das ist seit Jahren ihre Strategie: Zeit zu schinden und die Anreicherung weiter zu betreiben”, sagte Mofas.

Der 59-Jährige zählt zu den härtesten Iran-Kritikern im israelischen Kabinett. Erst im Juni hatte er gesagt, ein Militärschlag gegen die islamische Republik könne unausweichlich sein,

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