India Safe to Travel: Israel

TEL AVIV News: At a time when the US, the UK, Canada and Australia have told their citizens that India is facing a severe terrorist threat, Tel Aviv, has given its citizens the green signal to visit India.

The Bureau of Counter Terrorism in Israel’s National Security Council, an agency that reports directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has declared India safe for its citizens to tour.

Rough translations using of the  travel advisories on the bureau’s website says: the bureau believes that there is a drastic drop in security threats to India and the warning issued in Oct 2009 stands cancelled.

“Israel was among the nations which suffered high casualties during the Mumbai attacks and had been among the first to react with a travel advisory in October,” said a senior government official.  “In security matters the Israeli’s are acknowledged to be the last word as they take security seriously.
Union Ministry of Tourism  officials are also upbeat hoping that the Israeli stamp of approval may hold sway with non-Israeli tourists too.

U.S Lack the Courage to Attack Israel: Ahmadinejad

BRASILIA News Update: Visiting Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said that US and Israeli military threats against Iran were a thing of the past, and that, in any case, “they don’t have the courage” to attack Iran.

“The age of military attacks is over, now we’ve reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past,” the Iranian told a joint press conference with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, closing his one-day visit.

Fielding a question on whether he feared an attack from Israel or the United States, Ahmadinejad said armed confrontation was no longer a possibility.

That’s clear “even for mentally challenged people,” he said with a smile.

Besides, he added, “those you mention (Israel and United States) don’t have the courage to attack Iran. They’re not even thinking about it.”

Ahmadinejad met for three hours with Lula to discuss Iran’s controversial nuclear program, over which Lula urged Teheran to find a “just solution” with Western powers.

Iran’s Threats to Target Tel Aviv if Israel Attacks

TEHRAN: Representative of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini said that if Iran is attacked then it will target Israeli city Tel Aviv. Iran is to begin large-scale air defence war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from possible attack.

The drill comes as a top clerical official renewed his threat to target “the heart of Tel Aviv” should Israel attack Iran.

The five-day drill will involve Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard and the regular army and will cover 230,000 square miles of central, western and southern Iran, said air force General Ahmad Mighani.

As Iran has pressed forward with its nuclear program, Israel has repeatedly threatened military action to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The US has also not ruled out military action should diplomacy fail to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities.

The West suspects Iran aims to use a civilian nuclear program as cover to produce weapons, and Iran has effectively rejected a new UN proposal aimed at easing those concerns.

Tehran denies any intention to make nuclear weapons and says it only wants to generate power.

The defence drill will involve an attack by planes representing a hypothetical enemy.

“Reconnaissance enemy planes will violate our air space and try to disrupt electronic and radar systems, identify sensitive facilities, take photos and … attack air defense sites,” Gen Mighani said. “Our air defence system will confront the intruding planes.”

A planned key component of Iran’s air defences, an anti-aircraft missile system from Russia, has yet to be delivered.

Gen Mighani criticised Russia, saying the months-long delay in the S-300 missiles was apparently the result of Israeli pressure, not technical issues, as Moscow claims.

India Put On Alert At Nuclear Plant

NEW DELHI : India has put its nuclear power plants on alert and tightened security after intelligence about possible attacks, a report said on Monday. The step comes after a man arrested in the United States on charges of plotting attacks in India was found to have travelled to Indian states that have nuclear installations, the Press Trust of India (PTI), the country’s biggest news agency, said.

PTI quoted unnamed sources in the home ministry as saying that state governments had been asked to step up security around their nuclear plants as a “precautionary measure”. “The step is precautionary in nature. The states have been asked to increase the vigil and patrolling to thwart any sabotage attempt aimed at these vital facilities,” a home ministry official was quoted as saying by the news agency.

Indian media often reports security alerts based on unnamed intelligence sources. A senior home ministry official, who is not authorised to speak to the media, told Reuters that some states had been asked to tighten security around “vital installations”, without giving out more details.

Monday’s report came only days before the first anniversary of the militant attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people, and there have been various reports of attacks being planned in India, including from Israel and Australia, around this time.

US authorities arrested David Headley, a US citizen, on October 3 on charges of hatching a plot to attack a Danish newspaper whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed led to deadly protests by Muslims. New Delhi has asked to interview Headley over possible plans to attack Indian targets and are investigating various visits to the country.

The US government said Headley also travelled to Pakistan where he met a leader of a group with ties to al Qaeda, Harakat-ul Jihad Islami, and communicated with members of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), according to the US government. India blames the LeT of carrying out several attacks in Indian cities, including last November’s strikes on Mumbai.

U.S. Against Unilateral Offer of a Palestinian State

WASHINGTON : The United States voiced opposition Monday to unilateral Palestinian moves to seek recognition for an independent state, saying negotiations with Israel were the best way forward.

A State Department spokesman reiterated US commitment to a future Palestinian state but poured cold water on an initiative to ask the United Nations Security Council to recognize a state unilaterally.

“We support the creation of a Palestinian state that is contiguous. We are convinced that has to be achieved through negotiations between two parties,” said spokesman Ian Kelly.

On Sunday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said they would “go to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and with June 1967 borders.”

This in turn drew a warning from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “any unilateral action will undo the framework of past accords and lead to unilateral actions from Israel.”

Kelly said he was not aware the Palestinians had sought American support for their initiative and refused to be drawn on whether the US, if it had to, would veto any bid at the Security Council.

“I think that the thing we have to do is get the two parties to sit down and that is what we’re putting all of our efforts behind,” he said.

US Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said Washington was likely to veto such a proposal, which he said would be “a waste of time.

“I hope and presume that the United States would veto such an attempt when and if it ever came to the Security Council,” he told a press conference in Jerusalem.

The move for UN recognition is the latest in a series of options the Palestinians have warned they could take if the Middle East peace process remained stalled.

Others include unilaterally declaring independence, asking the UN to determine final borders of their promised state, dissolving the Palestinian Authority and seeking equal rights within Israel.

The administration of US President Barack Obama has so far been unable to convince Israelis and Palestinians to resume their peace talks amid deep disagreements on the issue of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

The Palestinians insist on a freeze of all settlement activity before talks restart, while Israel is offering a temporary and limited ease on construction, saying the issue will be resolved during the negotiations.

End Provocations’ in Jerusalem, The UN Chief to Israel

UNITED NATIONS - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged Israel to end its “provocative actions” in east Jerusalem and to abide by its commitments to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, Geo news reported on Tuesday.
“The Secretary General is dismayed at continued Israeli actions in occupied east Jerusalem, including the demolition of Palestinian homes, the eviction of Palestinian families and the insertion of settlers into Palestinian neighbourhoods,” a UN statement said.

“The eviction today of a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem is just the most recent incident,” it added.

Warning that such actions “stoke tensions, cause suffering and further undermine trust,” Ban urged Israel “to cease such provocative actions.”

He also reiterated his call on Israel “to implement its commitments” under the blueprint for Middle East peace put forward by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations “by freezing all settlement activity, including natural growth; dismantling outposts; and reopening Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem.”

Earlier Tuesday, dozens of Israeli settlers took over a house in mostly Arab east Jerusalem, armed with a court order secured after a protracted legal battle with a Palestinian family, witnesses and police said.

Members of the Al-Kurd family demonstrated in front of the house along with other Arab residents and pro-Palestinian activists as the settlers hurled the family’s belongings out into the street, a neighbour told media.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmulik Ben Rubi said police who were sent in to break up the demonstration arrested one activist.

Israel’s support for Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and its demolition of Palestinian homes built there without permits have drawn international criticism in recent months.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called settlements in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank an “obstacle to peace” during a visit to Jordan on Tuesday and expressed “concern” over the events at the Al-Kurd house.

Israel Releases 6 Palestinian MPS

GAZA: Israel Releases 6 Palestinian MPs, Israel has released six members of the Palestinian parliament affiliated to the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) who were jailed after resistance fighters seized Gilad Shalit in a 2006 cross-border raid. Israel Releases 6 Palestinian MPs

The freed lawmakers were identified as Ahmad Attoun and Wael Al-Husseini from Jerusalem Al-Quds, Khalil Ar-Rabai, Samir Al-Qadi, and Mahir Badr from Hebron (al-Khalil), and Mahmoud Al-Khatib from Bethlehem (Beit Lahm).

“The detention of Palestinian lawmakers was a crime against humanity and the international community should call Israeli occupation to account for that violation,” Gaza-based Hamas lawmaker and head of the International Campaign for the Release of Abducted Members of Parliament Mushir Al-Masri said.

Al-Masri stressed that the campaign he leads will continue to lobby against the detention of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

Eighteen other Palestinian legislators are still in Israel’s custody, including 15 affiliated to Hamas, two from Fatah, and one affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Israel arrested 45 Hamas lawmakers in the West Bank in the aftermath of Shalit’s capture.

Clinton calls Israeli concessions ‘unprecedented’ (AP)

AP – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that Israel is making “unprecedented” concessions on West Bank settlement construction — a position clearly at odds with the prevailing Palestinian view.

Originally posted here:
Clinton calls Israeli concessions ‘unprecedented’ (AP)

Israel Demolishes Palestinian Homes

Israeli troops demolished Palestinians’ houses in Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque area and ousted them from there. Israeli officials said that the houses were constructed without permit while Philistines say that Israel wants to oust them forcefully by demolishing their houses.

They maintained that Tel Aviv is using demolition tactics to tighten its hold on the occupied territory, and again with the aim of destroying the Islamic identity of Jerusalem Al-Quds.

Earlier this year, The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called for a halt to home demolition in East Jerusalem Al-Quds.

Amnesty Says Water Shortages In Israel To The Palestinians

WEST BANK: Human rights group Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday that Israeli restrictions prevented Palestinians from receiving enough water in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The report said Israel’s daily water consumption per capita was four times higher than that in the Palestinian territories.

“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality, subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Amnesty’s statement that Israel was depriving the Palestinians of water as “preposterous”.

Israel (Occupied Palestine) says it has met its obligations under the 1993 Oslo agreement while Palestinians have failed to meet their own requirements to recycle water and were not distributing water efficiently.

“Israel supplied Palestians 20.8 million cubic litres above and beyond what it is obliged to do under the water agreement,” said Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev.

Israel, itself facing unprecedented water shortages and rising tariffs, controls much of the West Bank’s supplies, pumping from an aquifer that bridges Israel and the territory.

Israel sells some water back to the Palestinians under quotas agreed in the Oslo accords that rights groups say have not been increased in line with population growth.

The report said Gaza’s coastal aquifer, its sole fresh water resource, had been polluted by infiltration of seawater and raw sewage and degraded by over-extraction.

Israel maintains a blockade of the Gaza Strip, an area taken over by the Islamist Hamas movement, which defeated Palestinian forces loyal to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

Israel’s water authority called the report “biased and incorrect, at the very least” and said that while there was a water gap, it was not nearly as big as presented in Amnesty’s findings.

Amnesty said water consumption in Israel was 300 litres a day per person and 70 litres a day in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel’s water authority said those numbers were misleading because they took into account internal distribution and did not compare total water consumption. It said the total figures were 408 litres per day for Israelis and 287 litres for Palestinians.

The Amnesty report described how Palestinians in the West Bank relied on water from tankers that were forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads off-limits to Palestinians.

The situation had led to steep increases in water prices, the report said.

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