Tuesday's Oval Office meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the subsequent press conference appeared to go well, but right-wing Israeli lawmakers said they remain wary of the American leader.
Obama and Netanyahu discussed, among other things, Iran's nuclear program and the upcoming expiration of Israel's settlement building freeze.
Though it was self-imposed, Netanyahu declared the building freeze under heavy US pressure. The White House hoped the gesture would prompt the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. That hasn't happened, and many of Netanyahu's ministers and supporters are demanding he let the 10-month freeze expire in September.
During Tuesday's press conference, Obama dodged questions regarding the expiration of the freeze, but did say he believed direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians could only begin during such a freeze, hinting that it must not expire until that goal is reached.
Ayoub Kara, an Israeli Druze deputy minister from Netanyahu's Likud Party, wasn't convinced by what he characterized as Obama's diplomatic charade.
"He doesn’t sound evil now because he needs Jewish votes and money," Kara told The Jerusalem Post. "But I won’t forget the pressure he put on Netanyahu and the stress I saw in the prime minister the last time he came back from Washington. He is acting the way he is for political reasons."
Netanyahu last visited Washington in late May, and was scheduled to meet with Obama at the White House. But the Israeli leader was told to stay away after Israeli commandos intercepted a violent humanitarian aid flotilla trying to break the maritime blockade on the Gaza Strip. Just days earlier, Obama had tacitly supported a Non-Proliferation Treaty summit that ignored Iran's defiant nuclear program and instead demanded Israel submit itself to nuclear inspections.
Another Likud lawmaker, Danny Dannon, said he thinks Obama is finally realizing that he can't man-handle Israel, but cautioned that the president is still misappropriating his focus when it comes to restarting peace talks.
"[Obama] is wrong if he thinks the [settlement building] freeze must continue for direct talks to begin. He instead must pressure the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table, regardless of the freeze," said Dannon. "He sounds nice now but after November, I am worried that he will sound different."
Obama's Democratic Party is in danger of losing control of the two houses of Congress in mid-term elections this fall, and Israelis believe he is playing nice with Israel until then in order to influence the votes of American Jews and Christians who support the Jewish state.
source:http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=21471
Friday, July 9, 2010
Somali Islamists execute Christian convert
by ASSIST News ServicePosted: Thursday, July 8, 2010, 19:49 (BST)
A human rights organisation has learned that members of the Al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamist group, Al-Shabaab, publicly executed a Christian convert from Islam.
The execution occurred in Hudur district, Somalia, on July 1.
International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that Muhammad Guul Hashim Idiris, a Christian convert from Islam, was travelling from Kalafo, an Ethiopian border town. He planned to visit his mother in Mogadishu.
ICC said a fellow passenger recognised Idiris' "Christian background" and asked him if he thought the prophet Muhammad was a genuine messenger from God. Idiris responded by saying, "If I thought so, I would have believed in him instead of the Messiah."
Once they reached the Hudur district, ICC said, a stronghold of the Al- Shabaab terror network, the Muslim man reported Idiris to Al-Shabaab and had him detained on June 27. Idiris was accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad. It is a serious sin under Islam to consider Muhammad not to be a genuine prophet and it warrants the death penalty.
ICC said that Sheik Adan Yare, the Al-Shabab governor of the Bakol region, spoke to the press on July 1 and said, "Our holy warriors have today, on July 1 at 11: 45 am, executed in front of angry Muslim witnesses a young man whose name was Muhammad Guul Hashim Idiris who insulted our beloved prophet."
The execution, which took place at a make-shift soccer stadium, was attended by hundreds of people, including school children who were forced to watch the grizzly scene.
ICC said Idiris had been married since Jan 26 and is survived by his pregnant widow.
Idiris' paternal uncle and a Christian convert from Islam spoke to ICC from Addis Ababa, calling the Al-Shabaab execution "further evidence of Al-Shabaab's attempt to eliminate Christianity from among Somali people in the Horn of Africa".
Jonathan Racho, ICC's Regional Manager for Africa, said in a news release, "We are deeply saddened by yet another execution of a Somali Christian. Al-Shabaab and Islamic extremist groups in Somalia have repeatedly vowed to wipe out Christians from Somalia.
"Al-Shabaab has murdered several Christians, chopped off the hands of Muslims suspected of crimes and even stoned Muslim women to death for allegedly committing adultery.
"The cruel and inhumane action of Al-Shabaab shows its complete disregard for human life."
source:http://www.christiantoday.com/article/somali.islamists.execute.christian.convert/26257.htm
A human rights organisation has learned that members of the Al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamist group, Al-Shabaab, publicly executed a Christian convert from Islam.
The execution occurred in Hudur district, Somalia, on July 1.
International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that Muhammad Guul Hashim Idiris, a Christian convert from Islam, was travelling from Kalafo, an Ethiopian border town. He planned to visit his mother in Mogadishu.
ICC said a fellow passenger recognised Idiris' "Christian background" and asked him if he thought the prophet Muhammad was a genuine messenger from God. Idiris responded by saying, "If I thought so, I would have believed in him instead of the Messiah."
Once they reached the Hudur district, ICC said, a stronghold of the Al- Shabaab terror network, the Muslim man reported Idiris to Al-Shabaab and had him detained on June 27. Idiris was accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad. It is a serious sin under Islam to consider Muhammad not to be a genuine prophet and it warrants the death penalty.
ICC said that Sheik Adan Yare, the Al-Shabab governor of the Bakol region, spoke to the press on July 1 and said, "Our holy warriors have today, on July 1 at 11: 45 am, executed in front of angry Muslim witnesses a young man whose name was Muhammad Guul Hashim Idiris who insulted our beloved prophet."
The execution, which took place at a make-shift soccer stadium, was attended by hundreds of people, including school children who were forced to watch the grizzly scene.
ICC said Idiris had been married since Jan 26 and is survived by his pregnant widow.
Idiris' paternal uncle and a Christian convert from Islam spoke to ICC from Addis Ababa, calling the Al-Shabaab execution "further evidence of Al-Shabaab's attempt to eliminate Christianity from among Somali people in the Horn of Africa".
Jonathan Racho, ICC's Regional Manager for Africa, said in a news release, "We are deeply saddened by yet another execution of a Somali Christian. Al-Shabaab and Islamic extremist groups in Somalia have repeatedly vowed to wipe out Christians from Somalia.
"Al-Shabaab has murdered several Christians, chopped off the hands of Muslims suspected of crimes and even stoned Muslim women to death for allegedly committing adultery.
"The cruel and inhumane action of Al-Shabaab shows its complete disregard for human life."
source:http://www.christiantoday.com/article/somali.islamists.execute.christian.convert/26257.htm
Palestinian leader calls for Arab invasion of Israel
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, branded a "moderate" by the international community, let his true colors show during a recent meeting with writers and journalists when he stated that he would favor a pan-Arab military offensive against the Jewish state.
The official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Tuesday wrote that when Abbas met recently with media figures at the home of the Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, he recounted that during an Arab League Summit in Libya in March he told his fellow leaders that he still preferred war against Israel, but could not do it alone.
"We are unable to confront Israel militarily, and this point was discussed at the Arab League Summit," said Abbas. "There I turned to the Arab States and I said: 'If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it.'"
The Arab states of the Middle East have tried at least three times to militarily destroy Israel, but each time ended up losing territory to the Jewish state.
The "Palestinian crisis" that was birthed after Israel's liberation of Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank") in 1967 is seen by many Israelis as nothing more than a more calculated and patient approach to ultimately removing Israel from the map.
Yasser Arafat admitted as much in 1993 when he told fellow Palestinians in a pre-recorded message played on Arab television as he signed the "Oslo Accords" that his PLO's guerilla tactics and eventual land-for-peace diplomacy was a phased strategy that would lead to the complete replacement of Israel with another Arab Muslim state:
"Do not forget that our Palestine National Council accepted the decision in 1974. It called for the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian land that is liberated or from which the Israelis withdrew... This is the moment of return, the moment of gaining a foothold on the first liberated Palestinian land."
The 1974 decision referenced by Arafat was the PLO's official acceptance of a phased strategy for destroying Israel, as opposed to the more direct strategy of military conquest that had been employed up until the Yom Kippur War a year earlier.
Despite co-founding the PLO with Arafat, Abbas has long been whitewashed by an international community eager to impose its idea of peaceful conflict resolution on the region. That is why Abbas' remarks in Arabic, such as the one above, are regularly ignored by the world media and Western leaders. But Israelis warn that his views, and the influence they have an the Palestinian general public, ensure that a genuine and lasting peace is impossible to achieve.
source:http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=21473
The official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Tuesday wrote that when Abbas met recently with media figures at the home of the Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, he recounted that during an Arab League Summit in Libya in March he told his fellow leaders that he still preferred war against Israel, but could not do it alone.
"We are unable to confront Israel militarily, and this point was discussed at the Arab League Summit," said Abbas. "There I turned to the Arab States and I said: 'If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it.'"
The Arab states of the Middle East have tried at least three times to militarily destroy Israel, but each time ended up losing territory to the Jewish state.
The "Palestinian crisis" that was birthed after Israel's liberation of Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank") in 1967 is seen by many Israelis as nothing more than a more calculated and patient approach to ultimately removing Israel from the map.
Yasser Arafat admitted as much in 1993 when he told fellow Palestinians in a pre-recorded message played on Arab television as he signed the "Oslo Accords" that his PLO's guerilla tactics and eventual land-for-peace diplomacy was a phased strategy that would lead to the complete replacement of Israel with another Arab Muslim state:
"Do not forget that our Palestine National Council accepted the decision in 1974. It called for the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian land that is liberated or from which the Israelis withdrew... This is the moment of return, the moment of gaining a foothold on the first liberated Palestinian land."
The 1974 decision referenced by Arafat was the PLO's official acceptance of a phased strategy for destroying Israel, as opposed to the more direct strategy of military conquest that had been employed up until the Yom Kippur War a year earlier.
Despite co-founding the PLO with Arafat, Abbas has long been whitewashed by an international community eager to impose its idea of peaceful conflict resolution on the region. That is why Abbas' remarks in Arabic, such as the one above, are regularly ignored by the world media and Western leaders. But Israelis warn that his views, and the influence they have an the Palestinian general public, ensure that a genuine and lasting peace is impossible to achieve.
source:http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=21473
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