D
droid
Guest
They did air the Darfur and Chad Crisis Appeal in May 2007. Is that the one you mean?it seems the BBC - AFAIK - did not broadcast, say, the Darfur and Chad Crisis Appeal initiated on 29th February last year.
They did air the Darfur and Chad Crisis Appeal in May 2007. Is that the one you mean?it seems the BBC - AFAIK - did not broadcast, say, the Darfur and Chad Crisis Appeal initiated on 29th February last year.
more evidence that Netanyahu is an irredeemable twunt of a man
The front-runner in Israel's election said in an interview published Monday that he would let Jewish settlements expand in the West Bank if he's elected prime minister
wonderful
Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement
...The official database, the most comprehensive one of its kind ever compiled in Israel about the territories, was recently obtained by Haaretz. Here, for the first time, information the state has been hiding for years is revealed. An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements - about 75 percent - construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents...
Minor wobbles aside, EU support for Fatah has meant consistent opposition to Hamas, writes RORY MILLER.
no Hebrew skills i'm afraid Droid, but here's something from me for everybody, and on topic (!)
rest here.
it's evident that Hamas must be talked to as it stands, but you cannot argue with Miller's last sentence:
Now Hamas has nowhere to turn and no one to blame but itself.
"But just when it looked like Europe would have to respond to humanitarian and political realities and bring Hamas in from the cold, the group’s overthrow of Fatah in Gaza in 2007 ended any chance of this happening."
Well, I certainly would argue with that sentence, on the basis that his previous sentences was:
...
Especially when you consider that Hamas' actions against Fatah was essentially a pre-emptive coup against Israeli/US armed and trained groups who were on the brink of ousting Hamas from power...
(no suicide bombs since they entered the political process)
This has got more to do with a certain wall, rather than the "entrance" of Hamas to "the political process".
And of course you have to take into account that Hamas has offered ceasefire after ceasefire, made genuine efforts to control terror (no suicide bombs since they entered the political process), and have offered Israel peace on the basis of pre-1967 borders, only to be rewarded by a blockade, more violence, and political isolation from possibly the one group capable of breaking the diplomatic deadlock.
They have pledged $52 million of their own funds to help repair lives, the money divvied up by category.
Shehadeh Shehadeh, 39, a Gaza City pastry chef who learned his trade in Israel a decade ago, said he voted for Hamas in 2006 but said he believes the group must become more pragmatic.
He sold his last black forest cake a month ago and can't bake anymore because he's run out of ingredients available only in Israel.
But one of the things that they committed to me that was very significant, and they announced it publicly, by the way, to Al Jazeera and others, was that they would accept any agreement that's negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians if it's submitted to a referendum in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians approve it. That means they would accept Israel's right to exist if that's in the agreement and so forth. So that's really very significant. And I don't have to tell you about their willingness to have a cease-fire for 40 years if it's mutual.
And entering into any kind of agreement constitutes de facto recognition by Hamas.
Hamas and the hudna / hafsakat esh: worth discussing in terms of is it a genuine irreversible, historically permanent ceasefire that takes into account the legitimate demands of Zionism etc, or is it a fluid piece of rhetoric (eg 50 years or so long, but no more)?
So the international community and Israel gathered all these PLO fighters from around the world, released thousands of PLO fighters from Israeli prisons, gave them uniforms and guns, and called them security forces. And the result was the people who had never received any basic training, people who had never finished high school, became colonels and generals in Yasser Arafat's Authority. He established sixteen different security forces with the help of the Americans, the Europeans, and the Israelis. And they started pouring money into this regime that they called the Palestinian Authority. Billions of dollars with the hope that Arafat would deliver.
Now, there's no need to elaborate. As you all know, Arafat turned out to be a crook.
...
When I tried to alert my foreign colleagues in 1995, 1996, and 1997, to the fact that there was corruption in the Palestinian Authority, many of them asked me if I was on the payroll of the Jewish Lobby. I wanted to know where was this Jewish Lobby? If there was one maybe they would pay me.
...
So Arafat cracked down on the reformists and the democrats and the people who wanted good government. And he sent the rest of the people into the open arms of Hamas. He cracked down on the reformists and he refused to crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
...
Listen. Look. We must stop dreaming about the New Middle East and coexistence and harmony and turning this area into Hong Kong and Singapore. If anyone thinks a Palestinian will wake up in the morning and sing the Israeli national anthem, that's not going to happen. If anyone thinks an Israeli Jew will go back to doing his shopping in downtown Ramallah or to see his dentist in Bethlehem or eat fish in Gaza City, that's not going to happen. There has been a total divorce between Jews and Palestinians. We don't want to see each other.
I think that's good. Separation is good.
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Believe me, if you listen to Hamas and Fatah in Arabic there isn't much of a difference, especially these days. Fatah fought alongside Hamas in Gaza. Today they said they lost 36 fighters and fired 900 rockets at Israel. Fatah.
A Hamas official said Tuesday that Israel has offered to allow in 75 percent of the goods it currently bans from entering the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, according to the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency.
The remaining 25 percent are goods Israel says could be used to make weapons.
Salah al-Bardawil, a leading Hamas member in the Palestinian parliament, told the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency that his movement would be ready for a prisoner exchange with Israel starting Thursday.
He added that Hamas would, as part of a cease-fire, agree to stop firing projectiles into Israel, and said Hamas had asked for Egypt's help in convincing other factions to show restraint.