Below I pulled 10 articles on the Peace process and tensions surrounding it.
There is so much pomp and circumstance surrounding these events. The speeches, photo ops, and state dinners. How amazing is it that we think we can bring peace. It is our nature.
It was prophesied that Jerusalem and Israel would become the center of attention for the world during the end times and this is certainly coming to pass. There are hundreds of articles out there on a weekly basis.
There is no other way to explain it, how does a little country, with no real claim to fame economically, survive where it is geographically, let alone consume so much attention. It is God’s Will being enacted, as he brings focus onto Israel, allowing him one more opportunity to turn people back to him.
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Tensions Rise as Mideast Talks Begin
As Summit Opens in Washington, a Second Shooting and Protests by West Bank Settlers Raise the Threat to Peace
Rising tensions in the Mideast cast a shadow over the start of the first direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in nearly two years Wednesday, and leaders at the Washington summit vowed to press on with negotiations.
A day after gunmen from the militant Islamist group Hamas killed four Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Palestinian security services detained dozens of alleged Hamas members, and thousands of settlers turned out for emotional funerals.
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Hamas leader rejects compromise, peace with Israel
Mahmoud Zahar criticizes Abbas for joining negotiations, says he has no right to represent Palestinian people, claims the “enemy of Palestinian people is Zionist enemy.”
GAZA CITY — The top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip rejected compromise with Israel in a fiery speech Wednesday, a day after gunmen killed four Israelis.
In an address to Hamas members, Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar said the movement would resist peace efforts and criticized the Palestinian president for joining the negotiations.
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Israeli, Palestinian Leaders Resume Peace Talks Despite Violence
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sits with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, right, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as she hosts the re-launch of direct negotiations at the State Department in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010. (AP)Nearly two years after direct negotiations broke off, Israeli and Palestinian leaders returned to the U.S.-hosted bargaining table Thursday for the latest round of peace talks again beset by a backdrop of terrorist violence in the Mideast.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted the formal opening of negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after they spent a day and evening in one-on-one White House talks with President Obama.
In a ceremony at the State Department, Clinton said the Obama administration is committed to reaching a settlement in a year’s time. But she stressed that after decades of failed attempts the main work belongs to Netanyahu and Abbas.
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Settlers defy peace talks with new construction across West Bank
Yesha council says settlers will start building in at least 80 settlements, breaking a government freeze that ends on September 26.
Hours before peace talks were set to begin in Washington, Jewish settlers defiantly announced plans on Thursday to launch new construction in their West Bank enclaves in a test of strength with Palestinian Islamists.
Naftali Bennett, director of the settlers’ Yesha council, said settlers would begin building homes and public structures in at least 80 settlements, breaking a partial government freeze on building that ends on September 26.
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PA official vows: ‘We’ll hit Hamas with an iron fist’
Fatah official Dahlan says negotiations doomed to fail because US is biased in Israel’s favor; PA police promise Hamas crack down.
Palestinian Authority security forces have vowed to arrest Hamas members and bring order to the West Bank, according to a Thursday report by London daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
“We arrested hundreds of Hamas members, and we’ll continue to do so,” a high-ranking Palestinian Authority official told Asharq. “We will prevent them, however we can, from bringing anarchy to the West Bank. We will hit them with an iron fist.”
‘The negotiations’ fate is failure’
Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan said that the PA went to washington without a “safety net” or promises it can rely on, and added that spoken promises from Washington can not be trusted.“I am convinced that America’s mission is to satisfy [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu, and not to continue the peace process,” Dahlan claimed. “This will not bring peace, because in the core subjects, one side will not change the stances it presented in the past.”
Dahlan predicted: “The negotiations’ fate is failure.”
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Netanyahu to Abu Mazen: “You’re My Partner for Peace”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) are making last-minute preparations for the much-touted direct talks, set to begin at 5 PM Israel time (10 AM in Washington).
With so many weighty issues in the background, the foreground talks themselves are sometimes hard to make out. Looming behind the scenes are the two Palestinian terrorist attacks over the past two nights that claimed four lives and wounded two others, the fast-approaching end of the Jewish construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, and the threats by Abu Mazen to quit the talks if the freeze is not extended.Netanyahu turned to Abu Mazen on Wednesday night and said, “You are my partner for peace.” He said he came to Washington to achieve “secure, durable peace for all sides,” not to play “a blame game” or “to find excuses.”
However, he emphasized, he would not make any concessions in terms of security. “Peace must provide security,” he said, and the “West Bank,” as he called it, must not become one that is dominated by terrorists, as occurred in Lebanon and Gaza. He said he is confident that peace is possible.
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Peres, Pope to Discuss Peace Talks
President Shimon Peres plans to meet Thursday with Pope Benedict XVI in Italy. The two are to discuss the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In addition, the two will talk about captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Iran’s nuclear program, and ties between Israel and the Vatican.
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Barak: Israel May Divide Jerusalem, Internationalize Holy Basin
Defense Minister Ehud Barak says it is likely that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will agree to divide Jerusalem with the Palestinian Authority.
Barak told the Hebrew-language newspaper Haaretz in an interview published Wednesday that he believes the best chance for peace lies in a peace deal in which all the Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would be handed over to the PA in order to create a capital for a new Arab country.
“If Netanyahu leads a process, a significant number of rightist ministers will stand with him,” he told the newspaper. “So what is needed is courage to make historic, painful decisions. I’m not saying that there is certainty for success, but there is a chance. This chance must be exploited to the fullest.”The peace plan described by Barak includes the following:
* two states for two nations
* an end to the conflict and the end of all future demands
* demarcation of a border “that will run inside the Land of Israel” dividing a demilitarized PA state from an Israel that includes the “settlement blocs”
* retrieving and relocating the “isolated settlements” into the settlement blocs or within Israel
* a solution to the refugee problem within the PA state, or rehabilitating them through international aid
* comprehensive security arrangements
* a “solution to the Jerusalem problem.”
As for the “Jerusalem problem,” Barak told the newspaper that the western side of the city plus “12 Jewish neighborhoods that are home to 200,000 residents will be ours.” The neighborhoods in which nearly 250,000 Arabs are living “will be theirs.”
In addition, Barak envisions a “special regime” with “agreed-upon arrangements” to administer the Old City, the Mount of Olives and the City of David.
Prior to his re-election as Israel’s prime minister nearly two years ago, Binyamin Netanyahu warned a gathering at the Jerusalem Conference in January 2009 that leftist politicians would try to internationalize the holy sites in Jerusalem – and he vowed to fight the move.
“Some politicians are trying to blur the importance of the Temple Mount to the Jewish People by referring to it as the ‘Holy Basin’,” he told the crowd at the time. “We, as Jews, know who built the Temple Mount.”
Netanyahu promised the packed hall, “We have demonstrated in the past, and will continue to demonstrate our commitment to a complete, undivided Jerusalem… Everyone knows what will happen if we were to leave those areas and divide Jerusalem. Someone will enter – and that someone will be Hamas.”
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Dr. Kedar Warns: Iran May Take Over Persian Gulf
Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an expert on Arab politics and Islamic Fundamentalism at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies warns that Iran may be planning a full takeover of Persian Gulf states. He is also concerned that Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon may try to build a nuclear reactor similar to Iran’s Bushehr reactor, and obtain atomic weapons that could be used against Israel.
In a blog post which appeared on News1, Dr. Kedar says that there are several reasons that pressure is building between Iran and the Arab states in the Persian Gulf:
Firstly, Arab states in the Gulf believe that Iran’s saber-rattling and aggressive statements towards Israel are actually a decoy, aimed at shifting the focus from its real purpose, a full takeover of the oil and gas-rich Persian Gulf…..
Secondly, Arab states assess that Israel and Iran will not attack each other, since each side is fearful of the outcome of such attack and its necessary counter-attack….
Thirdly, in recent years, tens of thousands of Iranian citizens have immigrated to other Arab states in the Gulf. Kedar says that Arab leaders fear that many of these ex-Iranians are actually sleeper cells, who, when activated, could supply Iran with the necessary intelligence information to successfully stage an attack on Arab Gulf states….
Finally, Kedar warned that the next dangerous threat against Israel could be a Hizbullah attempt to imitate Iran’s nuclear ambitions, by building a nuclear reactor in Lebanon, similar to Iran’s Bushehr reactor….
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Obama: Direct Talks Will ‘End the Occupation’
U.S. President Barack Obama announced Wednesday afternoon he is optimistic his team would succeed in jumpstarting direct talks aimed at ending Israel’s “occupation” and leading to formation of a new Palestinian Authority country.
The talks, scheduled to begin Thursday, have already spawned two terrorist attacks this week alone. Two days ago, a Hamas terrorist cell ambushed and murdered two Jewish men and two Jewish women near Kiryat Arba, one of whom was nine months pregnant. Last night (Wednesday) another Jewish couple was wounded in a separate attack on the same road, near the Rimonim junction north of Jerusalem. Hamas also claimed responsibility for the second attack as well, along with a renegade Fatah faction, the Al-Namir group that said it was part of the Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades terrorist group.
Speaking to reporters prior to a working dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair, Obama acknowledged the task would not be easy.
“After all, there’s a reason that the two-state solution has eluded previous generations,” he said.
Nevertheless, Obama remains convinced that his administration will be able to announce a final status agreement between Israel and the PA within a year.
“These will be direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. These negotiations are intended to resolve all final status issues,” Obama stated firmly. “The goal is a settlement negotiated between the parties, that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with a Jewish state of Israel and its other neighbors. That’s the vision we are pursuing.”
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myBlessedHope 