Arab-Israeli Conflict: Part 1

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But here you are talking about ethnically cleansing people because they converted to Islam.
I'm just irritated that so many ignores the inconsistency in that Muslims whine about having Palestine stolen from them while ignoring the fact that almost all Muslims worldwide are living on land that they stole.
 
I'm just irritated that so many ignores the inconsistency in that Muslims whine about having Palestine stolen from them while ignoring the fact that almost all Muslims worldwide are living on land that they stole.

???

The vast majority of Muslims in the world are converts.

Palestinians are Hebrews that converted to Islam.
 
Converts only because of threat of death or economic sanction.

Like the Maccabees forced everyone to convert to Judaism? like the Romans forced everyone to convert to Christianity?

How does that changes anything? Palestinians are natives while the Ashkenazim are not.
 
Like the Maccabees forced everyone to convert to Judaism? like the Romans forced everyone to convert to Christianity?

How does that changes anything? Palestinians are natives while the Ashkenazim are not.
You make a good point, but I prefer to take it directly from the horse's mouth instead.

Zuheir Mohsen - PLO leader between 1971 and 1979 said:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
All the arabized/Islamized people should go live in the saudi desert where they belong.
 
Ultimately there are two choices: make the West Bank Palestinians citizens of Israel or create a functioning Palestinian state. Israel will not give political rights to West Bank Palestinians in Israel because it is a bigoted state. Israel's course of action over the last couple of decades is to take as much of the West Bank as possible before the day that a true Palestinian state is created. The issue is how little can Israel get away with leaving to the West Bank Palestinians. Until American political figures stop supporting Israel's policies in the West Bank, Israel will continue to expand settlements. Israel isn't going to allow for a non-Jewish majority. Many of the same American politicians who support this decry the mixing of religion and politics in the US.

Israel left Gaza for these exact reasons.
 
I used to be more against Israel but realistically they are surrounded by people who want to, and have tried, exterminating them. Sure, they are acting illegally. Who wouldn't? If I were a Jew I'd be in the military just waiting to kill for Israel. And I think I'd be fairly justified.

How do you feel about Elor?
 
Arabs and Isreali's both are troublemakers.
But if I have to pick sides I pick the Jews, since none of their
men rape, attack and bomb the people of the countries they live in,
on a massive scale.
 
Palestinian gunman kills three Israeli guards at West Bank settlement

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HAR ADAR, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian man with security clearance to work at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank opened fire at a checkpoint on Tuesday, killing two Israeli security guards and a paramilitary policeman.

The assailant, who was armed with a pistol and also seriously wounded a fourth Israeli, was shot dead, police said.

The incident was unusual in that the 37-year-old man had been issued an Israeli work permit - a process that entails security vetting - unlike most of the Palestinians involved in a wave of street attacks that began two years ago.

A police spokeswoman said the gunman approached Har Adar among a group of Palestinians who work at the settlement, and aroused the suspicion of guards at the entrance checkpoint.

Challenged to halt, the Palestinian “opened his shirt, drew a pistol and fired at the security staff and troopers at close range,” the spokeswoman said.

Residents of the settlement told Israeli media the man worked as a cleaner. One of them, Moish Berdichev, said he had domestic problems - his wife had left him - and speculated he may have carried out the attack knowing he would not survive.

“He was a guy with a good head on his shoulders. It’s a shame. Very sad,” Berdichev told Army Radio.

The Shin Bet internal security service identified the man as Nimr Jamal and said he had “severe personal and family issues, including domestic violence”.

The man lived in the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Suriq, the police said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in public remarks to his cabinet that the man’s house would be demolished and any work permits issued to his relatives would be revoked.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-p...-guards-at-west-bank-settlement-idUSKCN1C10F4
 
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Interpol approves Palestinian membership, angering Israel
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | September 27, 201​

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PARIS (AP) — International police agency Interpol voted Wednesday to include Palestine as a member state, in a new boost to Palestinian efforts for international recognition and influence amid long-stalled negotiations with Israel for full statehood.

The decision drew an angry Israeli reaction and threat of retaliation. It also raised concerns that the Palestinians might use their elevated status to seek the arrests of Israelis, though Palestinian officials said there were no immediate plans to do so.

Interpol announced the inclusion of the "State of Palestine" as well as the Solomon Islands on Twitter and its website Wednesday after a vote by its general assembly in Beijing.

With the new votes, Interpol will have 192 member countries. Interpol didn't immediately announce how many members supported Palestinian membership.

Over Israeli objections, the U.N. General Assembly recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state in 2012. Since then, the Palestinians have sought to join various U.N. and international bodies to buttress their dream of gaining independence. Israel has condemned the campaign as an attempt to bypass negotiations.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki hailed Wednesday's vote as a "victory for law enforcement" and a "voice of confidence in the capacity of law enforcement in Palestine." He promised to uphold Palestinian commitments to combating crime and strengthening the rule of law.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision "seriously harms the chances to achieve peace."

In a meeting with U.S. Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt, Netanyahu also said the "diplomatic warfare" carried out by the Palestinians will not go unanswered.

He did not elaborate. But earlier, Cabinet Minister Zeev Elkin, a close Netanyahu ally, said Israel should cancel gestures granted to the Palestinians, such as permits to work and enter Israel, and special travel permits for Palestinian leaders.

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In this photo provided by Interpol, delegates are seated for the 86th session of the General Assembly, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. International police agency Interpol voted Wednesday to include the Palestinian state as a member state, in a new boost to Palestinian efforts for international recognition and influence amid long-stalled negotiations with Israel for full statehood. (Interpol via AP)

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak called it "another failure" for Netanyahu.

In Washington, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that the Palestinian membership could harm peace efforts.

He said he was concerned that the Palestinians would now issue Interpol "red notices," which the U.S. Justice Department describes as the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today.

"The international community has a great deal at stake in pursuing the peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis," Cardin said. "There's only one way forward: two states living side by side in peace; a Palestinian state and a Jewish state. To try to use international organizations to advance the cause only sets back that opportunity."

Cardin said any "red notices" issued by the Palestinians "will not be recognized in many countries, including the United States."

In a statement, Interpol said red notices are not international arrest warrants, but rather act as an alert to member countries, and are issued based on a valid national arrest warrant. Each member country decides how to respond to such a notice and Interpol can't compel its members to arrest a wanted person who is the subject of a red notice.

Omar Awadallah, the head of the U.N. organizations department in the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, said the Palestinians "now have the right to sue anyone" and could theoretically use their Interpol status to pursue legal steps against Israelis suspected of crimes in Palestinian territory.

"But this is a political issue and needs a political decision," he said.

The Palestinians already have been providing evidence in a preliminary war crimes investigation against Israel at the International Criminal Court, another international body they have joined.

A senior Palestinian official said there were no plans to sue any Israelis through Interpol. He said the purpose is "to pursue criminals who commit crimes here and escape."

He said one target would be Mohammed Dahlan, a rival of President Mahmoud Abbas. Dahlan, convicted in absentia on corruption charges, now lives in exile after a falling out with the Palestinian leader. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal Palestinian deliberations.

The Palestinian prime minister applied for Interpol membership in 2015, and submitted a formal letter this July promising not to use the organization "for any political, military, racial or religious interventions or activities," and to cooperate with Interpol, according to minutes of the Interpol meeting.

The approval vote requires the Palestinians to pay membership dues worth 0.03 percent of the Interpol budget.

Interpol, based in Lyon, France, is an international clearing house for arrest warrants and police cooperation against cross-border terrorism, trafficking and other crime.

http://www.nydailynews.com/newswire...-membership-angering-israel-article-1.3524461
 
Israel set to put West Bank, Gaza under 11-day closure for Sukkot
Exceptionally long closure comes after Har Adar attack;
By Judah Ari Gross | October 1, 2017

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In a rare move, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman approved a plan to shut off the West Bank and Gaza Strip for 11 days for the Sukkot holiday and the following Shabbat, his office said Sunday.

An IDF spokesperson confirmed that this was the current decision. However, she stressed that the closure was subject to further assessments ahead of the holiday and could change.

Closures for Jewish and Israeli holidays are a routine procedure. However, in the past, Israel has shut down the West Bank and Gaza only at the start and end of week-long festivals like Sukkot, rather than for the entire holiday.

As the holiday ends on the evening of October 11 — a Wednesday — the closure is scheduled to last through the weekend, until midnight on October 14, for a total of 11 days.

Channel 2 news reported that Liberman’s decision went against a recommendation by the army and was due to pressure by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, following the deadly stabbing attack at the Har Adar settlement last week in which a Palestinian terrorist shot and killed three security officers and wounded a fourth.

The defense minister’s office dismissed the unsourced report as “nonsense,” and the army similarly denied the claim.

According to both the minister’s and an army spokesperson, since the Har Adar attack, the IDF’s stance has been in favor of a closure for the entire holiday.

The military said that prior to the Har Adar terror attack, it did advocate closing the West Bank and Gaza for only the first and last days of the holiday, but that assessment changed after the attack.

Liberman’s spokesperson said that the new “recommendation was accepted by the defense minister.”

In general, the Jewish high holiday season, which began last week with Rosh Hashanah, is seen by defense officials as a time period of increased tension in the region, when the risk of terror attacks is higher.

Ordinarily, tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank enter Israel and Israeli settlements for work each day. A far smaller number of Gaza residents also travel to Israel, mostly to receive medical treatment.

The IDF makes exceptions to the closures for humanitarian and other outstanding cases, based on assessments by the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration.

West Bank and Gaza closures for holidays are intended both to prevent attempts at terror attacks in Israel during the holiday period and to allow the Israeli security officials who operate the crossings to celebrate the festival.

A similar closure was imposed on Friday and Saturday for Yom Kippur and last week, for Rosh Hashanah.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israe...sukkot/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
 
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The Arabs' Historic Mistakes in Their Interactions with Israel
By Fred Maroun | July 10, 2016

  • We Arabs managed our relationship with Israel atrociously, but the worst of all is the ongoing situation of the Palestinians.
  • Our worst mistake was in not accepting the United Nations partition plan of 1947.
  • Perhaps one should not launch wars if one is not prepared for the results of possibly losing them.
  • The Jews are not keeping the Arabs in camps, we are.
  • Jordan integrated some refugees, but not all. We could have proven that we Arabs are a great and noble people, but instead we showed the world, as we continue to do, that our hatred towards each other and towards Jews is far greater than any concept of purported Arab solidarity.
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In May 1948, Azzam Pasha, the General Secretary of the Arab League, announced, regarding the proposed new Jewish part of the partition: that, "This will be a war of extermination, a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."


In the current state of the relationship between the Arab world and Israel, we see a patchwork of hostility, tense peace, limited cooperation, calm, and violence. We Arabs managed our relationship with Israel atrociously, but the worst of all is the ongoing situation of the Palestinians.

The Original Mistake

Our first mistake lasted centuries, and occurred well before Israel's declaration of independence in May 1948. It consisted of not recognizing Jews as equals.

As documented by a leading American scholar of Jewish history in the Muslim world, Mark R. Cohen, during that era, "Jews shared with other non-Muslims the status of dhimmis [non-Muslims who have to pay protection money and follow separate debasing laws to be tolerated in Muslim-controlled areas] ... New houses of worship were not to be built and old ones could not be repaired. They were to act humbly in the presence of Muslims. In their liturgical practice they had to honor the preeminence of Islam. They were further required to differentiate themselves from Muslims by their clothing and by eschewing symbols of honor. Other restrictions excluded them from positions of authority in Muslim government".

On March 1, 1944, while the Nazis were massacring six million Jews, and well before Israel declared independence, Haj Amin al-Husseini, then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, declared on Radio Berlin, "Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."

If we had not made this mistake, we might have benefited in two ways.

Jews would likely have remained in the Muslim Middle East in greater numbers, and they would have advanced the Middle Eastern civilization rather than the civilizations of the places to which they fled, most notably Europe and later the United States.

Secondly, if Jews felt secure and accepted in the Middle East among Arabs, they may not have felt the need to create an independent state, which would have saved us from our subsequent mistakes.

The Worst Mistake

Our second and worst mistake was in not accepting the United Nations partition plan of 1947. UN resolution 181 provided the legal basis for a Jewish state and an Arab state sharing what used to be British-controlled Mandatory Palestine.

As reported by the BBC, that resolution provided for:

"A Jewish State covering 56.47% of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem) with a population of 498,000 Jews and 325,000 Arabs; An Arab State covering 43.53% of Mandatory Palestine (excluding Jerusalem), with 807,000 Arab inhabitants and 10,000 Jewish inhabitants; An international trusteeship regime in Jerusalem, where the population was 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Arabs."

Although the land allocated to the Jewish state was slightly larger than the land allocated to the Arab state, much of the Jewish part was total desert, the Negev and Arava, with the fertile land allocated to the Arabs. The plan was also to the Arabs' advantage for two other reasons:
  • The Jewish state had only a bare majority of Jews, which would have given the Arabs almost as much influence as the Jews in running the Jewish state, but the Arab state was almost purely Arab, providing no political advantage to Jews within it.
  • Each proposed state consisted of three more-or-less disconnected pieces, resulting in strong geographic interdependence between the two states. If the two states were on friendly terms, they would likely have worked in many ways as a single federation. In that federation, Arabs would have had a strong majority.

Instead of accepting that gift of a plan when we still could, we Arabs decided that we could not accept a Jewish state, period. In May 1948, Azzam Pasha, the General Secretary of the Arab League, announced, regarding the proposed new Jewish part of the partition: that, "This will be a war of extermination, a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." We initiated a war intended to eradicate the new state in its infancy, but we lost, and the result of our mistake was a much stronger Jewish state:
  • The Jewish majority of the Jewish state grew dramatically due to the exchange of populations that occurred, with many Arabs fleeing the war in Israel and many Jews fleeing a hostile Arab world to join the new state.
  • The Jews acquired additional land during the war we launched, resulting in armistice lines (today called the green lines or pre-1967 lines), which gave Israel a portion of the land previously allocated to the Arab state. The Jewish state also acquired much better contiguity, while the Arab portions became divided into two parts (Gaza and the West Bank) separated by almost 50 kilometers.
Perhaps one should not launch wars if one is not prepared for the results of possibly losing them.

More Wars and More Mistakes

After the War of Independence (the name that the Jews give to the war of 1947/1948), Israel was for all practical purposes confined to the land within the green lines. Israel had no authority or claim over Gaza and the West Bank. We Arabs had two options if we had chosen to make peace with Israel at that time:
  • We could have incorporated Gaza into Egypt, and the West Bank into Jordan, providing the Palestinians with citizenship in one of two relatively strong Arab countries, both numerically and geographically stronger than Israel.
  • We could have created a new state in Gaza and the West Bank.
Instead, we chose to continue the hostilities with Israel. In the spring of 1967, we formed a coalition to attack Israel. On May 20, 1967, Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad stated, "The time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." On May 27, 1967, Egypt's President Abdul Nasser declared, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel". In June, it took Israel only six days to defeat us and humiliate us in front of the world. In that war, we lost much more land, including Gaza and the West Bank.

After the war of 1967 (which Jews call the Six-Day War), Israel offered us land for peace, thereby offering us a chance to recover from the mistake of the Six-Day War. We responded with the Khartoum Resolutions, stating, "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel".

Not having learned from 1967, we formed yet another coalition in October 1973 and tried again to destroy Israel. We achieved some gains, but then the tide turned and we lost again. After this third humiliating defeat, our coalition against Israel broke up, and Egypt and Jordan even decided to make peace with Israel.

The rest of us remained stubbornly opposed to Israel's very existence, even Syria which, like Egypt and Jordan, had lost land to Israel during the Six-Day War. Today Israel still holds that territory, and there is no real prospect for that land ever going back to Syria; Israel's Prime Minister recently declared that, "Israel will never leave the Golan Heights".

The Tragedy of the Palestinians

The most reprehensible and the most tragic of our mistakes is the way that we Arabs have treated Palestinians since Israel's declaration of independence.

The Jews of Israel welcomed Jewish refugeesfrom Arab and other Muslim lands into the Israeli fold, regardless of the cost or the difficulty in integrating people with very different backgrounds. Israel eagerly integrated refugees from far-away lands, including Ethiopia, India, Morocco, Brazil, Iran, Ukraine, and Russia. By doing so, they demonstrated the powerful bond that binds Jews to each other. At the same time, we had the opportunity similarly to show the bond that binds Arabs together, but instead of welcoming Arab refugees from the 1947/48 war, we confined them to camps with severe restrictions on their daily lives.

In Lebanon, as reported by Amnesty International, "Palestinians continue to suffer discrimination and marginalization in the labor market which contribute to high levels of unemployment, low wages and poor working conditions. While the Lebanese authorities recently lifted a ban on 50 of the 70 jobs restricted to them, Palestinians continue to face obstacles in actually finding employment in them. The lack of adequate employment prospects leads a high drop-out rate for Palestinian schoolchildren who also have limited access to public secondary education. The resultant poverty is exacerbated by restrictions placed on their access to social services".

Yet, Lebanon and Syria could not integrate refugees that previously lived a few kilometers away from the country's borders and who shared with the country's people almost identical cultures, languages, and religions. Jordan integrated some refugees but not all. We could have proven that we Arabs are a great and noble people, but instead we showed the world, as we continue to do, that our hatred towards each other and towards Jews is far greater than any concept of purported Arab solidarity. Shamefully to us, seven decades after the Palestinian refugees fled Israel, their descendants are still considered refugees.

The worst part of the way we have treated Palestinian refugees is that even within the West Bank and Gaza, there remains to this day a distinction between Palestinian refugees and native Palestinians. In those lands, according to the year 2010 numbers provided by Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet at McGill University, 37% of Palestinians within the West Bank and Gaza live in camps! Gaza has eight Palestinian refugee camps, and the West bank has nineteen. The Jews are not keeping the Arabs in camps, we are. Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas claims a state on those lands, but we can hardly expect him to be taken seriously when he leaves the Palestinian refugees under his authority in camps and cannot even integrate them with other Palestinians. The ridiculousness of the situation is rivaled only by its callousness.

Where We Are Now

Because of our own mistakes, our relationship with Israel today is a failure. The only strength in our economies is oil, a perishable resource and, with fracking, diminishing in value. We have not done nearly enough to prepare for the future when we will need inventiveness and productivity. According to Foreign Policy Magazine, "Although Arab governments have long recognized the need to shift away from an excessive dependence on hydrocarbons, they have had little success in doing so. ... Even the United Arab Emirates' economy, one of the most diversified in the Gulf, is highly dependent on oil exports".

Business Insider rated Israel in 2015 as the world's third most innovative country. Countries from all over the world take advantage of Israel's creativity, including countries as remote and as advanced as Japan. Yet we snub Israel, an innovation powerhouse that happens to be at our borders.

We also fail to take advantage of Israel's military genius to help us fight new and devastating enemies such as ISIS.

Worst of all, one of our own people, the Palestinians, are dispersed -- divided, disillusioned, and utterly incapable of reviving the national project that we kidnapped from under their feet in 1948 and that we have since disfigured beyond recognition.

To say that we must change our approach towards Israel is an understatement. There are fundamental changes that we ourselves must make, and we must find the courage and moral fortitude to make them.

The Jews are not keeping the Arabs in camps, we are.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8388/arabs-israel-historic-mistakes

A lot of speculation here.

Also Holocaust propoganda. Everyone knows 6 million is an exaggerated lie.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ny-rabbi-not-even-1-million-jews-killed-in-holocaust/

Israel exists at the expense of others.
 
Hamas picks new deputy chief who helped sparking Gaza war

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GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas named as its new deputy chief on Thursday a formerly Turkey-based commander whom Israel has accused of orchestrating a lethal triple kidnapping that helped trigger the 2014 Gaza war.

Saleh al-Arouri’s promotion comes as Hamas seeks to close ranks with U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after a decade-old schism, in an entente Israel says will not revive peace talks unless Hamas recognizes its right to exist and disarms.

The Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas-linked news site, said Arouri, who was born in the occupied West Bank and was exiled by Israel in 2010 after long stints in its prisons, had been elected as deputy to the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh.

“He (Arouri) is now the Hamas movement’s No. 2 man,” the site said. “Twenty-three years of detention and expulsion have not weakened the resolve of the leader Saleh al-Arouri, 51.”

After three Israeli teens were abducted and killed in the West Bank in June 2014, Arouri - then in Istanbul - claimed responsibility in the name of Hamas.

Israel responded with a West Bank security sweep which, along with the revenge killing of a Palestinian youth from Jerusalem by a group of Israelis, spiraled into a 50-day war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas’ fiefdom. Gaza health officials say 2,100 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, while Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

Israel also pressed Ankara’s Islamist-rooted government to crack down on Arouri, describing him as the mastermind of the kidnappings and other Hamas militant attacks.

Hamas sources said Arouri left Turkey in late 2015 for Qatar and later Lebanon. They declined to give his current location.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ames-for-helping-spark-gaza-war-idUSKBN1CA1NM
 
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NEW YORK – President Donald Trump said Saturday he will shelve plans to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem until a deal between Israel and the Palestinians is given a chance.

“I want to give that a shot before I even think about moving the embassy to Jerusalem,” Trump said on a show hosted by former Arkansa governor Mike Huckabee.

He added that his administration would make a decision on the embassy “in the not too distant future,” but for now negotiations took precedence.

Trump’s campaign pledge to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem sparked outrage in the Palestinian Authority and the Arab world at large. In May, the president signed a waiver that delayed its fulfillment for another six months, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express “disappointment.”

At the time, the White House said the decision does not affect the U.S.’s strong relationship with Israel and added that Trump still has every intention of moving the embassy in the future.

“While President Donald J. Trump signed the waiver under the Jerusalem Embassy Act and delayed moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no one should consider this step to be in any way a retreat from the President’s strong support for Israel and for the United States-Israel alliance,” the White House statement said.

During the interview with Huckabee, Trump was cagey about what the deal entailed but hopeful that it could be struck.

“We’re working on a plan that everybody says will never work,” he said. “If that doesn’t work, which it’s possible that it won’t, to be totally honest, most people say it’s an impossible deal. I don’t think it is impossible, and I think it’s something that can happen, and I’m not making any predictions.”

He continued by saying that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would pace the way for peace in the region, “which has to happen.”

Several reports have suggested that the deal may include the normalization of ties between Israel and the Arab world.

http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/...-moved-to-jerusalem-until-peace-given-a-shot/
 
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Palestinian Factions, Hamas and Fatah, Sign Unity Deal
By DECLAN WALSH and DAVID M. HALBFINGER | OCT. 12, 2017

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CAIRO — The main Palestinian factions signed a reconciliation agreement on Thursday that aims to mend their decade-old rift and places Gaza and the West Bank under one government for the first time since 2007.

Under the agreement, the Palestinian Authority, which now controls the West Bank, would in the coming weeks take administrative control of Gaza and police its borders, merging its security forces and ministries with those of Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the coastal strip.

While both sides hailed the agreement as a significant step toward uniting the Palestinian territories — and potential relief for Gazans suffering dire shortages of electricity and medical supplies — it left many thornier issues unresolved, including the fate of the main Hamas militia and the network of tunnels under Gaza used by fighters and smugglers.

Officials from both sides stressed that the agreement, brokered by Egypt, was a first step, and that much depends on how events unfurl on the ground in the coming weeks.

The two sides agreed to begin talks next month to form a unity government that would oversee both territories. Those talks would have to wrestle with the issues that derailed previous peace initiatives.

Palestinian officials said the deal reached in Cairo on Thursday enjoyed a greater chance of success because it is backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and, they believe, the United States and Israel.

But the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, threw cold water on it, saying that Israel “objects to any reconciliation that does not include” accepting international agreements, recognizing Israel and disarming Hamas.

In the short term, the agreement promises to ease conditions in Gaza that aid organizations have warned constitute an emerging humanitarian crisis.

The Palestinian Authority has promised to lift sanctions that it imposed on Gaza earlier this year as part of its effort to pressure Hamas into talks. The government, led by the Fatah faction, cut electricity supplies to a few hours a day and stopped paying government salaries in Gaza.

Egypt, which brokered the agreement, has promised to open the Rafah border crossing once it comes under Palestinian Authority control. Egypt and Israel had closed Gaza’s border crossings out of security concerns, tightly regulating the flow of goods and people in what critics called an economic blockade of the territory.

“The people need to feel there is something from this agreement — electricity, medical supplies, the ability to travel for surgery,” said Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official.

Palestinian officials said that if all went well, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, could visit Gaza in the coming month, his first visit to the embattled coastal strip in a decade. Although he was not in Cairo, Mr. Abbas gave his blessing to the deal, which he hailed as a “final agreement,” according to Agence France-Presse.

Yet the agreement left others underwhelmed, including skeptical Israeli officials who questioned its viability. Among the many unresolved differences between the two sides is the gulf between the Palestinian Authority’s goal of achieving statehood through diplomacy and Hamas’s mission of armed resistance and liberation.

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel, and has insisted on its right to maintain control of its “weapons of resistance,” including thousands of rockets, missiles and drones, as well as a network of fortified tunnels.

Israel has warned that it could not accept a unity government that included Hamas.

A statement from Mr. Netanyahu’s office said that Israel would “follow developments on the ground and will act accordingly.”

But later on Facebook, Mr. Netanyahu warned that a Fatah-Hamas rapprochement would make “peace much harder to achieve,” and issued a lengthy denunciation of Hamas. “Reconciling with mass-murderers is part of the problem, not part of the solution,” he said.

Palestinians cautiously celebrated the deal, their enthusiasm tempered by memories of many failed previous initiatives.

In Gaza City, vendors passed out sweets to children in Soldier’s Square, a park at the center of town. Mona Khfaja, 37, a pharmacist who said she had been unable to leave Gaza for a year to seek treatment for kidney disease, said popular dissatisfaction under the border restrictions — what she said had verged on a “hungry revolution” — had forced political leaders to the table.

“The consequences of division are worse than the repercussion of wars,” she said. “We do not want the flags of Fatah and Hamas, only the Palestinian flag.”

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Abu Ahmad, 56, said he welcomed the news but was wary about getting his hopes up. “Many agreements have been signed in the past, but something has always caused these political parties to back away,” he said, “and I’m afraid there’s still a chance for that to happen again.”

The agreement followed two days of talks at the headquarters of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, which brokered the negotiations. At a brief signing ceremony there on Thursday, the deputy leader of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, embraced Azzam al-Ahmad, the head of the Fatah delegation.

Egypt’s State Information Service said that the rivals had agreed to hand full control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority by Dec. 1. But the statement also acknowledged continuing “divisions,” and said that all Palestinian factions were invited to the next meeting, to start talks for a possible unity government, on Nov. 21.

Ahmed Yousef, an adviser to the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, said the two sides would first work to integrate their rival ministries. One major challenge, he said, would be to reduce the bloated Palestinian civil service, which has 200,000 employees in the West Bank and Gaza. He estimated that it needed to be cut by as much as 20 percent.

But, he added, the two sides had not discussed a number of critical questions, including a joint strategy for dealing with Israel, the conduct of any future elections and, crucially, the state of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.

Ayman Rigib, a Fatah negotiator in Cairo, said the two main obstacles to a broader deal were the Qassam Brigades and Hamas’s extensive tunnels beneath Gaza.

“We’re worried about the tunnels,” Mr. Rigib said. “We’ve seen Hamas use them in 2014. Will they give us the maps? Will they shut them down? It has not yet been discussed.”

Grant Rumley, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the issues still to be resolved would be the most difficult.

“Hamas may be willing to cede more administrative control of Gaza,” he said, “but the parties have so far avoided the issues likeliest to derail the talks: namely the relationship with Israel and what to do with Hamas’s military wing.”

When leaders from Hamas and Fatah signed a similar deal in 2011, Mr. Abbas said, “We have turned the black page of division forever.” But the deal quickly foundered amid opposition from Israel, which denounced it as a “victory for terrorism.”

This time, a broad Arab coalition is backing the deal, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

“This merger is going to cost a lot of money, and they will help us financially,” Mr. Yousef said, referring to Emirati and Saudi support for the deal. “The Egyptians also clearly got a green light from America. They are obviously trying to cook up something to help end this conflict.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/world/middleeast/palestinians-fatah-hamas-gaza.html
 
In picturess: Palestinian rivals end decade-long division in Cairo
By: Ahmed Gomaa Thu, Oct. 12, 2017


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Palestinian delegations of both Fatah and Hamas rival parties after reaching a reconciliation deal in Cairo, ending a decade-long division


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Members of Palestinian rival parties ahead of press conference in Cairo to announce reconciliation deal


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Members of Palestinian rival parties ahead of press conference in Cairo to announce reconciliation deal


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