Netanyahu to Kerry: I’m determined to end conflict with Palestinians
(JNS.org) At a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I am determined not only to resume the peace process with the Palestinians, but to make a serious effort to end this conflict once and for all.”
Netanyahu said his talks with Kerry about the peace process dealt with two key matters: Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and security arrangements. Israel wants to discuss these issues with the Palestinians and is demanding that the Palestinians present their positions on those matters.
Kerry characterized his talks with Netanyahu as “extremely friendly” and “very productive.”
“I think it’s fair to say that we made progress, that we were pleased with the substance of the discussion and agreed, each of us, to do some homework,” Kerry said.
Palestinian officials in Ramallah told Israel Hayom on Tuesday that Kerry’s meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday had produced positive progress toward the possibility of restarting peace negotiations with Israel. But the Palestinian officials said that the peace plan that Kerry plans to present in the future is still clouded with uncertainty.
“Kerry came with much determination, willingness and goodwill,” a senior official from Abbas’s office told Israel Hayom. “He explained in his meeting with Abbas that he does not plan to impose timelines for resuming negotiations on the sides, but rather intends to focus first on building trust between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
Hezbollah added to terrorist list of Bahrain, a first in the Arab world
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Bahrain Council of Ministers has approved adding Hezbollah to its list of designated terrorist organizations, making Bahrain the first Arab nation to blacklist the Lebanese group, Saudi Arabian news outlet Al Arabiya reported on Wednesday.
Bahrain says it has proof that Hezbollah was providing logistical and material support to subversive groups in Bahrain that have been making efforts to unseat the government, including a popular uprising that was sparked in early 2011.
Bahraini MP Abdul Halim Murad, representing the Salafist Al Asalah party, told Al Arabiya that a Syrian officer informed Bahrain officials that Hezbollah and Iran were “conspiring” in Bahrain against the government.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has accused Bahrain of killing Arab protesters on the island nation and using chemical weapons against women and children.
A little over two years ago, as popular uprisings spread throughout the Arab world in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, among other nations, largely Shiite protesters took to the streets in the Bahraini capital of Manama calling for immediate reforms to laws they said favored the Sunni minority.
The army in Bahrain—backed by some 2,000 troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—squashed the uprising less than a couple of months after it began, killing dozens of protesters.
Manama has accused foreign elements, like Hezbollah, of sowing the seeds of discord in Bahrain and trying to spread Shiite influence throughout the largely Sunni Gulf region.
A Bahraini MP told Al Arabiya on Tuesday that Manama has evidence that Hezbollah has backed terrorist cells in Bahrain, and that the decision to blacklist the Lebanese group, a close ally of Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was to “protect Bahrain’s security and stability.”
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Egypt Pope Tawadros II slams Morsi
(JNS.org) Egypt’s Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II slammed Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi over his response to recent attacks against Christians in Egypt.
Four Christians were killed in sectarian clashes north of Cairo over the weekend. Violence then broke out during the funeral service of the four Christians at Cairo’s St. Mark’s Cathedral, when mourners were attacked by a crowd after leaving services, one Muslim and one Christian were killed and another 89 were injured, according to AFP.
“Inside the cathedral we chanted ‘Down with the Brotherhood rule’ and that was aired live on television. At the exit (of the cathedral), the people were ready and waiting for us,” Coptic Christian Hani Sobhi told AFP.
Following the incident, during an interview with the Egyptian TV station ONTV, Tawadros said that the Egyptian state was “collapsing” and described the weekend’s attacks on Christians in central Cairo, as “breaching all the red lines,” the Associated Press reported.
“Egypt’s laws must be adequate to deal with the situation. This is a society that is collapsing. Society is collapsing every day,” Tawadros said.
Tawadros added in the interview that Morsi also did nothing to protect the cathedral, one of Coptic Christianity’s holiest.
The latest violence underscores the growing Muslim-Christian tension in Egypt since the 2011 revolution that overthrew the government of secular president Hosni Mubarak.
Morsi, an Islamist, has condemned the weekend’s violence and said he considered an attack on the cathedral to be an attack on him personally.
In a statement issued after Tawadros’s remarks, Morsi said that the presidency will “will not allow any attempts to divide the nation, incite sedition, or drive a wedge among Egyptians under any pretense.”
Since being elevated to the Egyptian Papacy late last year, Tawadros has taken a more outspoken approach in speaking out against persecution of Christians in his native Egypt than his long-time predecessor Pope Shenouda III.
“The church has been a national symbol for 2,000 years,” Tawadros said, the Associated Press reported. “It has not been subjected to anything like this even during the darkest ages… There has been no positive and clear action from the state, but there is a God. The church does not ask for anyone’s protection, only from God.”
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Kerry promotes Palestinian economic growth
(JNS.org) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promoted a plan to grow the Palestinian economy and revive a decade-old Arab League peace plan as his vision to restart the stalled peace process during his three-day visit to the region this week.
“Economic growth will create greater confidence in the [peace] process going forward,” Kerry said in Tel Aviv, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The plan would include both U.S. government funds and private-sector investment to encourage the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which administers portions of the West Bank under the Oslo Peace agreements, has been struggling to pay the salaries of its workers and security forces as foreign aid from the Arab world and the West has dried up over the past few years due to the global financial crisis.
In a joint meeting with Kerry, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was receptive to the “economic components” in reengaging with the Palestinians, but that security remained “foremost in our minds,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
“I am determined not only to resume the peace process with the Palestinians, but to make a serious effort to end this conflict once and for all,” Netanyahu said, the Times of Israel reported.
Meanwhile, Kerry also said during his visit that a revival of the decade-old Arab Peace Initiative, a 2002 plan in which the Arab world promised full relations with Israel in return for Israeli pullout of all territories captured in the 1967 Six Day War.
“Any statement, any document, where you have a proposal for peace, and where you have dozens of Arab, Muslim countries, willing to make peace, needs to be taken in its value, and respected,” Kerry said.
At the time, Israel expressed skepticism of the plan as it was also overshadowed by the terrorism and violence associated with the Second Intifada. Israel has also rejected calls to pull back to the pre-1967 lines, which it considers indefensible.
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