Step towards unity? Hamas and Fatah to meet next week
Mikaela Levin for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)
In the wake of the apparent failure of the Palestinian bid for full membership in the United Nations, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced this week that he would meet with Hamas counterpart, Khaled Meshaal.
Palestinian demostrators march with the Palestinian flag. (Photo: flickr/sheffield_psc)
Abbas and Meshaal will meet next week in Cairo. According to Fatah and Hamas officials, the date for general elections will be announced. In the meantime, a transitional governmental, that will not include Prime Minster Salam Fayyad, will be established. Abbas and Meshaal will also discuss steps towards reconciliation, which was agreed upon in May of 2011.
Elections are expected to be held in May of 2012.
"In order to expedite the implementation of the reconciliation, we will continue to make every effort to speed up the resolution of the remaining issues -- first among them the presidential and legislative elections, as well as those for the Palestinian National Council, and the formation of a government of independents to oversee the elections," Abbas explained on Wednesday during a speech given in Ramallah, on the 23rd anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s 1988 declaration of Palestinian independence.
It is not the first time that Abbas announced the reconciliation with Hamas and, hence, the reunification –at least, politically- of West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But there is a crucial difference--Fayyad, who is considered an obstacle to unity, has promised to step aside.
Next week in Cairo, Abbas and Meshaal will have to agree on the list of ministers that will compose a unified, transitional government until the elections next year. The two Palestinians leaders also need to agree on steps to implement a security cooperation that will eventually create a real reintegration of the Fatah security apparatus in the West Bank and the Hamas one in Gaza. This will include the release of all the political prisoners in Palestinian jails.
The political reunification of the two Palestinian territories is a necessary step towards any domestic discussion of a peace process. Internationally, it would reinforce Abbas’ argument of a solid and functioning Palestinian state in a defined Palestinian territory.
But Abbas and the Fatah party could pay a price for these steps.
In recent months, the US and Israel froze PA funds and aid as a punishment for the UN bid and the UNESCO membership. While US Congress finally released the funds, Republicans leaders have already warned that they would push to cancel them if Hamas was included in the Palestinian government.
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On the Contrary: Rachel Abrams, Jennifer Rubin and the Media's Talmudic Double-Standard:
Russian Warships Enter Syrian Waters To Prevent NATO Attack:
Russian Warships Enter Syrian Waters To Prevent NATO Attack
By Paul Joseph Watson on November 18, 2011
Paul Joseph Watson – Propagandamatrix November 18, 2011
Russian warships have entered Syrian territorial waters in an aggressive move designed to prevent any NATO-led attack on the country under the guise of a “humanitarian intervention”.
“Russian warships are due to arrive at Syrian territorial waters, a Syrian news agency said on Thursday, indicating that the move represented a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country’s civil unrest,” reports Haaretz.
Russia has stepped up efforts to defend Syria in recent days, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov keen to frame the violence in the country as a civil war in defiance of claims by western powers that President Bashar al-Assad has overseen a bloody crackdown on innocent protesters.
As we saw prior to the attack on Libya, which was also framed as a “humanitarian intervention,” NATO powers are keen to demonize Assad’s government by characterizing attacks by his forces as atrocities while largely ignoring similar attacks by opposition forces, such as this week’s raid on a Syrian air force intelligence complex that killed or wounded 20 security police.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner rejects Russia’s claim that Syria is in a civil war, stating, “We believe it’s very much the Assad regime carrying out a campaign of violence, intimidation, and repression against innocent protesters.”
Of course, we heard similar rhetoric even as NATO-backed Al-Qaeda rebels were commandeerng fighter jets and firing rocket-propelled grenades in Libya, actions also undertaken by “innocent protesters,” we were told at the time.
As we have previously reported, despite overwhelming speculation that Iran will be the next target of a military assault, Syria is the likeliest target for the next salvo of NATO-backed regime change.
US President Barack Obama got the ball rolling back in August when he called on President al-Assad to step down. The UN has already withdrawn all non-essential staff from the country.
Without Russia’s help, Syria would be largely defenseless against a NATO attack. “I don’t see any purely military problems. Syria has no defence against Western systems … [But] it would be more risky than Libya. It would be a heavy military operation,” former French air force chief Jean Rannou commented.
Given that the western press has proven adept at manufacturing lies to justify military interventions, whether the actions of Assad’s regime represent genuine atrocities or legitimate conduct in the midst of a civil war remains unclear. Some have claimed the abuses are being embellished, while both former CIA agent Robert Baer and ex-MI6 officer Alastair Crooke point out that the Syrian people definitely want change, but not in the form of a NATO “humanitarian” assault.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
Source
Sources expects Israeli attack on Iran with US logistical support early 2012! | Pakalert Press:
Sources expects Israeli attack on Iran with US logistical support early 2012!
Posted on truther on November 17, 2011by Debka
A senior Foreign Office official says British government ministers have been told to expect Israeli military action in the wake of the UN watchdog report “as early as Christmas or very early in the new year,” the London Daily Mail reported Thursday, Nov. 10. The ministers were told that Israel would strike Iran’s nuclear sites “sooner rather than later” – with “logistical support” from the US.
According to the British paper, which has good military and intelligence ties in London, President Barack Obama would “have to support the Israelis or risk losing Jewish-American support in the next presidential election.” The bigger concern is that once Iran is nuclear-armed, it will be impossible to stop Saudi Arabia and Turkey from developing their own weapons to even out the balance of nuclear terror in the Middle East.
The Daily Mail goes on to report that in recent weeks, British Ministry of Defense sources confirmed that contingency plans had been drawn up in the event that the UK decided to support military action.
debkafile refers to an earlier report that the British chief of staff, Gen. Sir David Richards, paid a secret visit to Israel on Nov. 2, followed the next day by the arrival in London of the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak for talks with British defense and military heads.
The reference to US logistical support is explained by our military sources as pointing to the Libyan model of military intervention whereby France, Britain and Italy spearheaded the action against the Qaddafi regime while the United Statesfrom “a back seat” laid on satellite and aerial intelligence and placed at their disposal its logistical supply network, including the in-flight refueling of bombers and ordnance.
Transposing this model to an offensive against Iran, Israel’s air and naval forces would front the attack on Iran with logistical and intelligence backup from the United States, while leading NATO powers France, Britain,Germany, Holland and Italy would participate directly or indirectly in the Israeli operation.
Since this attack would almost certainly bring forth reprisals from Tehran and its allies, Syria, Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami, it would almost certainly expand into a wider Middle East conflict, thus also broadening US and West European military intervention.
Prospects are fading for the alternative to military action – tough new sanctions able to choke Iran’s financial operations and oil exports after the nuclear agency confirmed its surreptitious attainment of a nuclear weaponcapability.
Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov promised visiting Iranian official Ali Baqeri that “Any additional sanctions against Iran will be seen… as an instrument for regime change in Tehran. That approach is unacceptable to us and the Russian side does not intend to consider such proposals.”
China will certainly go along with Russia on this.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first response to the IAEA report was to attack its credibility and declare that Iran would continue its nuclear program regardless of its findings.
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