 by Khaled Abu Toameh Arab journalists are under growing pressure from the Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to avoid “hanging the dirty laundry in the open.” Arab journalists are often taught that they should place the interests of their leaders, governments and homelands before above anything else, including the facts and the truth. Americans and Europeans who are pouring billions of dollars on Abbas and Fayyad need to be aware of the absence of an independent media in the West Bank. One can understand why the Iranian-funded Hamas is repressing journalists, but there is no reason why American and European taxpayers should be funding a regime that has no respect for independent reporters. If the West nevertheless insists on dealing with corrupt secular regimes to keep radical Muslims away, then Washington and its Western allies should demand good government and free media.
Western donors have every right to demand something positive in return for their money. The financial corruption and lack of democracy and freedom of expression is, meanwhile, driving many Arabs into the open arms of Hamas and al-Qaeda. Journalists are forced to go and work in the international or even Israeli media to be able to practice some form of real journalism. The absence of a free and independent media in the Palestinian territories has driven a majority of Palestinians to rely on foreign media outlets as a reliable source of information. Public opinion polls have even shown that most Palestinians prefer Al-Jazeera to the Hamas and Fatah media. The pressure is taking place in the context of the power struggle between Fatah and Hamas that has been raging in the Palestinian territories since the Islamist movement won the parliamentary elections in January 2006. Since then, the two rival parties have been waging a smear campaign against each other, using every available platform to discredit and undermine one another. Many local journalists have found themselves caught in the middle of this ongoing dispute. In the West Bank, the Western-backed “moderate” government of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad has been exerting pressure on journalists to “toe the line” and refrain from reporting news that might reflect negatively on the two men. Abbas and Fayyad are using the US-trained Palestinian policemen not only to crack down on Hamas supporters in the West Bank, but also to silence critics and intimidate local reporters and editors. Some journalists who have dared to publicly criticize the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have either found themselves behind bars under the pretext of “supporting” Hamas - an allegation aimed at keeping human rights organizations and Westerners silent. Other journalists who are not renowned as Fatah loyalists often receive threats over the phone directly from officials close to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. This policy has resulted in the creation of a media that is not much different than the ones existing under Arab dictatorships. The three major Palestinian newspapers, Al-Quds, Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, are controlled, directly and indirectly, by Abbas and Fayyad loyalists. Criticism of these two men and their policies in the local media is unheard of. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of journalists who seek jobs with the Palestinian media in the West Bank are required to be Fatah loyalists. Of course no one is expecting Abbas and Fayyad to employ Hamas-affiliated journalists, but what about those who don’t belong to any political faction? And there’s certainly no shortage of fine and independent Palestinian journalists. Hamas’s attitude toward Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip has not been any better. Many journalists living there are afraid to speak out or report stories that might anger Hamas. Under this frightening atmosphere, many of these journalists nowadays sound as if they are Hamas spokesmen. A free media is one of the basic foundations of a healthy and prosperous society. It’s also an important element in the construction of a solid infrastructure for the much-desired Palestinian state. Hudson New York 
 Canada is redirecting its Palestinian aid away from a United Nations agency and toward specific projects. The shift in Canadian policy was announced this week by Vic Toews, president of Canada’s Treasury Board, who wrapped up a five-day trip to Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. Canada is not reducing the amount of money it gives to the Palestinian Authority, “but it is now being redirected in accordance with Canadian values,” Toews said. The move “will ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA.” In the past, Canadian aid earmarked for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, went into a general operating fund in the PA’s treasury.
The U.N. agency runs 59 Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In a meeting in Ramallah, Toews refused a request by the PA’s minister of planning and administrative development, Ali al-Jarbawi, for aid to be given “directly” to the PA treasury, the Jerusalem Post reported. Among the projects receiving the redirected aid are those training prosecutors, judges and police, and shoring up the Palestinian judicial sector by building courthouses. “If we train people properly, we will have the emergence of proper institutions necessary for a state,” the Post quoted Toews as saying. “It is obviously more difficult to monitor the use of money sent into general funds than specific projects.” A statement from Toews’ office said Canada is “on track” to deliver on its pledge of $300 million over five years to the PA. Toews said Ottawa needed “to ensure that [the Palestinian Authority] has less wide discretion.” B’nai Brith Canada praised the shift away from funding UNRWA, which reportedly has been infiltrated by Hamas. With thanks to www.vladtepesblog.com
 Israel has been roundly and repeatedly condemned by the UN and pretty much everyone else for civilian casualties in Gaza. We have repeatedly pointed out that there are numerous signs (including open admissions) that jihad groups in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon intentionally mount attacks from civilian areas in order to draw responses from Israel that kill civilians and can be used for propaganda purposes, but no one seems to care. And now, Gaza residents themselves are rising up against this. "Gaza Residents Enraged Over Hamas IEDs In Densely Populated Areas," from MEMRI, January 13 A website close to Fatah claims that Hamas militias are placing powerful IEDs near densely populated buildings in Gaza in regions far from the border with Israel, as part of preparations for war with Israel. It was reported that this is infuriating the residents and sparking clashes between them and Hamas members. Source: Alaahd.com With thanks to JihadWatch
 ISRAEL will build a security fence along the length of its border with Egypt, stretching across the Sinai desert from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the $500 million fence on Thursday with the aim of thwarting drugs and people-smuggling rackets that operate across the border. ''In the end, there will be no choice but to close off the state of Israel by a fence on all sides,'' Mr Netanyahu was quoted as telling his cabinet. ''The state has to be fenced off completely on all sides. Why? Because Israel is the only country in the First World to which people can walk on foot from Third World countries and Africa,'' Mr Netanyahu said. ''If we don't fence ourselves off, Israel will be flooded by hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and illegal residents,'' he said. Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon are already sealed with fences and concrete walls and wire fences surround the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The border with Egypt however has been relatively porous. According to the new plan to seal the border, the barrier will consist of two parallel barbed-wire fences designed to delay anyone trying to cross it until the arrival of border police. The fences will be built along either side of a 180-kilometre stretch of natural barrier that separates Israel and Egypt. Radar systems and other detection devices will be installed along the border to warn of potential infiltrators, along with increased border patrols. Construction of the fence is expected to take about two years. Egyptian security officials were reported as saying that Israel had not notified Cairo of its plan to build a fence between the two countries. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit was expected to issue a statement today. Meanwhile, violence around the Gaza Strip was escalating last night as Palestinian militants continued to fire mortar shells and home-made Qassam rockets at targets in southern Israel. Since last Friday, Palestinians have fired about 30 mortar shells and Qassam rockets into Israeli territory. All landed in open territory, causing no damage or injury. On Sunday, the Israeli air force attacked several targets in Gaza on Sunday, killing three Palestinian fighters believed to be members of the extremist Islamic Jihad group. The three were said to be engaged in preparations for firing a rocket or mortar shells at Israel. Islamic Jihad issued a statement claiming two of the operatives as its members. The third was believed to have been a member of Hamas. Israeli military officials said last night that Israel had spotted the Palestinians in the act of preparing to fire rockets at Israel. ''The air force spotted, in two different instances and just moments before launch, terrorist cells firing rockets and took advantage of that in order to attack,'' a military spokesman said. ''We have no intention of using restraint in response to launches of any kind. ''Any attempt to harm the civilians of the state of Israel or IDF troops will receive a clear response. They had better not think that we're blinking,'' the spokesman said. The Age H/T: J.R.
 by Khaled Abu Toameh Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, are hoping that Israel will withdraw to the pre-1967 lines within the next two years to enable the Palestinians to establish an independent state with half of Jerusalem as its capital. But under the current circumstances, an Israeli pullout from these areas could, ironically, mark the beginning of the end of the Abbas-Fayyad era. In an interview published this week in a Kuwaiti newspaper, Abbas revealed that he had solid proof and “verified information” that Hamas was planning to take over the West Bank. It could also see the Iran-backed Hamas movement and its allies sitting on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. If Israel wants to pull back from any territory, it needs to make sure who is going to be in control of that area. The last time Israel withdrew from a territory was in the summer of 2005, when it handed the Gaza Strip over to forces loyal to Abbas. Two years later, Hamas managed to toss Abbas’s people out of the Gaza Strip in less than a week. If Israel repeats the same mistake and hands over the West Bank to Abbas and Fayyad when they are still weak and do not enjoy much credibility among their own people, there is no doubt that Hamas will end up sitting on hilltops overlooking Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv, and the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority say that Hamas has never abandoned its dream of extending its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. Hamas, on the other hand, has never hidden its intention of overthrowing the Abbas-Fayyad regime and replacing it with a government that reports directly to Bashar Assad in Damascus and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. Abbas and Fayyad are in power in the West Bank largely thanks to the presence of the Israeli security forces in these territories. Abbas and Fayyad know very well that had it not been for the presence of the Israeli army in the West Bank, it is highly likely that Hamas would have been able to achieve its goal a long time ago. Many Palestinians are convinced that if a free and democratic election were to be held in the West Bank these days, Hamas would win again for two reasons: first, because the US-led sanctions against Hamas have earned the movement greater sympathy among Palestinians and, second, because of Fatah’s failure to implement major reforms and get rid of icons of financial corruption among its top brass. Despite ongoing efforts to reconstruct the Fatah-dominated security forces, they are still far from being able to assume full responsibilities in the West Bank. Over the past few years, the IDF, in cooperation with the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), has been waging a relentless war on Hamas and other terror groups in the West Bank, including Abbas’s armed militia, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. This war has resulted in the killing or detention of hundreds of terror suspects and the confiscation of large amounts of weapons and ammunition. But the war has not yet ended and there is still a lot that needs to be done to clean the area. While Israel has been struggling to eliminate hard-core terror cells in the West Bank, the security forces controlled by Abbas and Fayyad have been focusing their efforts mainly on Hamas’s political activists and supporters. Those suspected of involvement in terror activities end up in Israeli prisons and detention centers, while the Palestinian security forces are busy rounding up mosque preachers, university professors and students, as well as charity workers suspected of being affiliated with Hamas. The massive clampdown on Hamas may have caused serious damage to its terror infrastructure, but it has by no means affected popular support for the movement among Palestinians in the West Bank. Hudson New York
 The recent statements by the European Union's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton criticizing Israel have once again brought international attention to Jerusalem and the settlements. However, little appears to be truly understood about Israel's rights to what are generally called the "occupied territories" but what really are "disputed territories." That's because the land now known as the West Bank cannot be considered "occupied" in the legal sense of the word as it had not attained recognized sovereignty before Israel's conquest. Contrary to some beliefs there has never been a Palestinian state, and no other nation has ever established Jerusalem as its capital despite it being under Islamic control for hundreds of years. The name "West Bank" was first used in 1950 by the Jordanians when they annexed the land to differentiate it from the rest of the country, which is on the east bank of the river Jordan.
The boundaries of this territory were set only one year before during the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan that ended the war that began in 1948 when five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish State. It was at Jordan's insistence that the 1949 armistice line became not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations." (Italics added.)
This boundary became the famous "Green Line," so named because the military officials during the armistice talks used a green pen to draw the line on the map. After the Six Day War, when once again Arab armies sought to destroy Israel and the Jewish state subsequently captured the West Bank and other territory, the United Nations sought to create an enduring solution to the conflict.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is probably one of the most misunderstood documents in the international arena. While many, especially the Palestinians, push the idea that the document demands that Israel return everything captured over the Green Line, nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution calls for "peace within secure and recognized boundaries," but nowhere does it mention where those boundaries should be. It is best to understand the intentions of the drafters of the resolution before considering other interpretations. Eugene V. Rostow, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in 1967 and a drafter of the resolution, stated in 1990: "Security Council Resolution 242 and (subsequent U.N. Security Council Resolution) 338... rest on two principles, Israel may administer the territory until its Arab neighbors make peace; and when peace is made, Israel should withdraw to "secure and recognized borders," which need not be the same as the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 194." Lord Caradon, the British U.N. Ambassador at the time and the resolution's main drafter who introduced it to the Council, said in 1974 unequivocally that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial." The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, made the issue even clearer when he stated in 1973 that, "the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal." This would encompass "less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory, inasmuch as Israel's prior frontiers had proven to be notably insecure." Even the Soviet delegate to the U.N., Vasily Kuznetsov, who fought against the final text, conceded that the resolution gave Israel the right to "withdraw its forces only to those lines it considers appropriate." After the war in 1967, when Jews started returning to their historic heartland in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, as the territory had been known around the world for 2,000 years until the Jordanians renamed it, the issue of settlements arose.
However, Rostow found no legal impediment to Jewish settlement in these territories. He maintained that the original British Mandate of Palestine still applies to the West Bank. He said "the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, was made unassailable.
That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors." There is no internationally binding document pertaining to this territory that has nullified this right of Jewish settlement since. And yet, there is this perception that Israel is occupying stolen land and that the Palestinians are the only party with national, legal and historic rights to it.
Not only is this morally and factually incorrect, but the more this narrative is being accepted, the less likely the Palestinians feel the need to come to the negotiating table. Statements like those of Lady Ashton's are not only incorrect; they push a negotiated solution further away. —Mr. Ayalon is the deputy foreign minister of Israel
 The pilgrims will be there as midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity is again broadcast live around the world this Christmas Eve -- but the town of Bethlehem is fast losing its last few year-round Christian residents. Christians are fleeing the town of Christ's birth, and the much-reported hardship that Israel inflicts on residents of the West Bank town has little to do with it.
It's the same reality across the Arab world: rising Islamism pushes non-Muslims away. Islamists frown on real-estate ownership by non-Muslims -- Christian, Jew or anything else.
And though the secular Palestinian Authority still controls the West Bank, the clout of groups like Hamas is growing: Even in Bethlehem, where followers of history's most famous baby once thrived, Christians are ceding the land. Yes, ever since the PA took control of the West Bank in the early '90s, its leaders have taken care to show the world an idealized picture of Muslim-Christian solidarity.
But it's a facade -- a way to score anti-Israeli political points. That tradition continues: Monday, the Palestinian news agency Maan reported on Palestinian Christians "trapped" in Gaza as Israel refuses to let them travel to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas with their brethren. In fact, the Israelis decline to let people travel from Hamas-controlled Gaza for the simple reason that Hamas is still sponsoring suicide-bomb and other attacks on its civilians. (It also threatens the secularists of Fatah, the ruling party in the West Bank.) Gaza residents can't go to Egypt, either (Cairo's even building a wall to keep them out), because Hamas and its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood, threaten the regime. Back to the exodus: Fifty years ago, Christians made up 70 percent of Bethlehem's population; today, about 15 percent. Indeed, the Christian population of the entire West Bank -- mostly Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic, with Copts, Russian Orthodox, Armenians and others -- is dwindling. But, again, the story's the same in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere in the Mideast. Practically the only place in the region where the Christian population is growing is in Israel. In Bethlehem, Christians now feel besieged. Growing numbers of rural southern West Bankers from the Hebron area have moved north to Bethlehem in recent years. Many see the land as Waqf -- belonging to the Muslim nation. They increasingly buy or confiscate land -- and talk of laws to ban Christian landownership. Seeing the trend, many Christians have decided to sell while they still can; real estate is leaving families that have owned it for generations. Then, too, the Christians of the West Bank have traditionally been wealthier and better educated than the Muslims. When Jordan ruled the area from 1948 and 1967, Christians could get permits to travel abroad -- and emigration became part of the tradition. Now, having relatives abroad means a chance to escape. There are frequent attacks on Christian cemeteries and churches; Christian-owned businesses are often defaced -- and government jobs have grown scarce for non-Muslims. For all of the late Yasser Arafat's respectful talk about Christianity and its common purpose with Islam, the West Bank Christian population (not counting Jerusalem) dropped under his rule by nearly 30 percent, from 35,000 in 1997 to 25,000 in 2002. It's even lower now -- less than 8 percent of the population. Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote recently that, before Pope Benedict visited the Holy Land in May, a Christian merchant told him jokingly, "The next time a pope comes to visit . . . he will have to bring his own priest with him [to] pray in a church because most Christians would have left by then." A researcher of Arab and Muslim affairs, Jonathan Dahoah Halevy, says Islamists think that "soft" Christians around the world wouldn't intervene on behalf of their brethren in places like Bethlehem. Benedict's visit seems to bear that out: He criticized Israeli policies while ignoring the crucial role Islamists play in chasing Christians out of town. So there may or may not be room at the inn when you arrive at the little town of Bethlehem, but the innkeeper is unlikely to be a Christian. NYPost
 Palestinian security agents who have allegedly tortured Hamas supporters in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the UK's Guardian newspaper has reported. The US Central Intelligence Agency has co-operated with the Preventive Security Force (PSF) and General Intelligence Service (GI) in the Palestinian territory, the report on Friday said. "The [Central Intelligence] Agency consider them as their property, those two Palestinian services," a western official told the Guardian. Most of the detained Hamas supporters are held without trial and allegedly tortured by the Palestinian agencies in the West Bank. Hamas backed the Guardian's findings on Friday during a press conference, and blamed Keith Dayton, the US General commanding the Palestinian National Security Force in the West Bank, for the arrest and torture of its supporters. Hamas called on Barack Obama, the US president, to remove Dayton from his position and said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and Fatah leader in the West Bank, was responsible for the "crimes" against Hamas in the West Bank. Human rights organisations say it is common for detainees to be badly beaten and subjected to "shabeh", where they are shackled and held in painful positions for long periods. Hamas, which has de facto control of the Gaza Strip, has faced allegations that its own forces have detained and tortured people allied with Fatah, a rival Palestinian group that is a member of the Palestinian Authority. Between 400 and 500 Hamas supporters are currently being held by the PSF and GI, officials from the PA have said. But Adnan Aldenari, a Palestinian police spokesman, denied that the security forces in the West Bank were abusing detainees. "We have nothing to hide; or nothing to be ashamed of. When we had mistakes [they] were individual as committed by some officers and not expressive of our policy. "Our prisons and detention facilities are open and not secret as they are in some other countries. They are open to the media and human rights organisations." The Guardian reported that at least three detainees have died in custody this year due to being mistreated. The most recent was Haitham Amr, a 33-year-old nurse from Hebron, who died four days after he was detained by GI officials last June, the newspaper said. Shawan Jabarin, the general director of al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, told the Guardian: "The Americans could stop it any time. All they would have to do is go to [prime minister] Salam Fayyad and tell him they were making it an issue. "Then they could deal with the specifics: they could tell him that detainees needed to be brought promptly before the courts." A regional diplomat told the newspaper that "at the very least" US intelligence officers were aware of the torture and were not doing enough to stop it. The CIA does not deny working with the PSF and GI in the West Bank, but Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said that the US agency does not hold a supervisory role. "The notion that this agency somehow runs other intelligence services ... is simply wrong," he told the Guardian. "The CIA ... only supports, and is interested in, lawful methods that produce sound intelligence." Al Jazeera
 A delegation of Israelis from the West Bank on Sunday brought copies of the Koran to the Palestinian village of Yasuf, where two days earlier a mosque was torched and vandalized allegedly at the hand of angry settlers.
The delegation from the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, led by peace activist Rabbi Menachem Froman, met the village elders at a nearby checkpoint after being held up for several hours by the Israel Defense Forces.
The delegation said they brought the Muslim holy books to show their condemnation for the attack and to replace those burnt by vandals.
Security officials say they fear that the torching of a mosque near Nablus on Friday could lead to reprisal attacks by Palestinians on Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel's security services to find the people behind the arson, which Jewish extremists are suspected of perpetrating.
Immediately after the attack on the mosque at the village of Yasuf, Palestinian residents scuffled with members of the Border Police, a few of whom were lightly wounded. Several Palestinians were also hurt.
The arson prompted army and Border Police commanders to increase their presence in the Nablus area to prevent further attacks by Jewish extremists and reprisals by Palestinians. Security sources said such reprisals were a concern because the arson attack offended Palestinians' religious sentiments.
"The attack on the mosque was a dangerous provocation that could cause a further and unnecessary conflagration," one security official said.
Israel Defense Forces officers in the West Bank say that some settlers may escalate their opposition to the temporary freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population - the "price tag" policy.
Attacks like the arson have provoked similar attacks by Palestinians, which the Shin Bet security service calls "popular attacks." These include acts that require little planning like stabbings, stone throwing and the hurling of Molotov cocktails.
The assailants - whose acts drew condemnations from U.S., Palestinian, Israeli and settler leaders - entered Yasuf before dawn Friday, according to the police.
They burned prayer carpets and a book stand containing Muslim holy texts, and left graffiti on the floor reading "Price tag - greetings from Effi." The vandals escaped. Police officials said they had no definite leads. The Shin Bet declined to discuss the investigation.
"We condemn this attack in the strongest terms and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice," the U.S. State Department said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has condemned the act as a bid to thwart the peace process with the Palestinians. "This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government's efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel's future," he said on Friday.
President Shimon Peres urged officials to do "everything in their power to bring to justice" the people behind the attack, which he said ran contrary to Israel's fundamental values.
"The government, the security forces and the law-enforcement institutions must take every measure, with the utmost urgency, to find the perpetrators and put them on trial in accordance with the gravity of the acts," Peres said in a statement.
According to opposition leader Tzipi Livni in a speech in Herzliya on Friday, "while a human rights march goes on in Tel Aviv, in Samaria extremist elements set fire to a mosque in a severe, despicable act of provocation."
In a statement yesterday, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, added that the "profanation of the mosque and the torching of copies of the Koran found in it, and the spraying of racist graffiti on the mosque's walls against Islam and Muslims represent blatant aggression against the sanctity of sacred places."
Danny Dayan, who heads the Yesha Council of settlements, said the vandalism was "a wrong and foolish act." He added that "whoever did this does not wish for the good of the settlements in Judea and Samaria."
But far-right activist Itamar Ben-Gvir said that "Netanyahu must freeze these racist edicts to calm the atmosphere."
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) added that "those who wish to wipe out the Jewish people must not expect us to identify with their symbols and centers of incitement. I ran out of condemnations when the synagogues at Gush Katif were burned."
 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A healthy man in blockaded Gaza faked cancer, hoping the deadly disease would be his ticket out of the territory that has become an open-air prison for its 1.4 million residents. His ploy failed, but several thousand others succeeded in fleeing this shabby sliver of land this year using bribes and fake medical reports, a sign of Gazans' desperation over growing poverty and misery under the strict border closure enforced by Egypt and Israel since Hamas militants overran Gaza in June 2007. The blockade has few loopholes. Israel allows passage to top business people and a limited number of Gazans seeking treatment for serious illnesses. Egypt sporadically opens its border for university students and those with residency abroad. Everyone else is stuck, even as Palestinian polls suggest nearly half the population would like to leave if they could.
Deepening the Gazans' sense of imprisonment, they must now also obtain permission from the Hamas government before attempting to leave, further complicating an obstacle-ridden path to freedom. Those trying to bribe their way out usually approach middlemen who put them in touch with local doctors, Palestinian health officials or Egyptian bureaucrats and military officials. Akram Ghneim, 31, an unemployed father of six living off food handouts, told The Associated Press he promised $260 to a Palestinian middleman, who obtained for him a bogus medical report saying he had cancer. Ghneim said he hoped he'd get a rare spot on the list of Gaza patients with life-threatening illnesses who are allowed to enter Israel for treatment. Once in Israel, he planned to disappear and work illegally. But Israeli intelligence officials, who review applications, rejected him last summer, saying his cancer report was forged. "This is what the blockade does," said Ran Yaron, of the Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights, which helps bring Gazans into Israel for treatment by lobbing Israeli defense officials. "Most are frustrated and devastated people." Yaron said fakers are a minority, but clog up the system for real patients who have to go through longer checks as a result. Of more than 7,000 Gazans who crossed into Israel this year to seek medical treatment, some 500 haven't returned, said Col. Moshe Levi, an Israeli defense official. Some stay in Israel, while others move to the West Bank, a territory controlled by Israel but partly administered by Palestinians loyal to Fatah, bitter rivals of Hamas. One Fatah loyalist, a healthy 30-year-old woman, said she was desperate to leave Gaza after being harassed by Hamas officials. She bribed a Gaza doctor with $100 to certify she had "whatever cancer could only be treated in Israel." The doctor then paid off a physician serving on a Palestinian committee that certifies medical reports for Israeli military officials, the woman said. She eventually succeed in reaching the West Bank and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being sent back to Gaza by the Israeli authorities. More at FoxNews
 BEIRUT - Palestinian National Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), said that there will be no parliamentary and presidential elections in the West Bank if Hamas does not accept holding a vote also in the Gaza Strip, a territory that they have controlled since 2007. This was reported by the press in Beirut, according to which, at the end of his official two-day visit to Lebanon, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), said: "if Hamas continues to refuse calling elections in Gaza, I will not allow them to be held in the West Bank."
Due to Hamas' refusal, the electoral commission advised postponing elections in the Palestinian Territories, initially set for January 24. Abbas, whose mandate as PNA President has already expired, underlined that his refusal to rerun "is not a political manoeuvre.
 In the Wall Street Journal, Tom Gross provides an eye-opening antidote to the usual boilerplate fantasies about Palestinian deprivation: Wandering around downtown Nablus the shops and restaurants I saw were full. There were plenty of expensive cars on the streets. Indeed I counted considerably more BMWs and Mercedes than I've seen, for example, in downtown Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. ... The shops and restaurants were also full when I visited Hebron recently, and I was surprised to see villas comparable in size to those on the Cote d'Azur or Bel Air had sprung up on the hills around the city. Life is even better in Ramallah, where it is difficult to get a table in a good restaurant.
New apartment buildings, banks, brokerage firms, luxury car dealerships and health clubs are to be seen. In Qalqilya, another West Bank city that was previously a hotbed of terrorists and bomb-makers, the first ever strawberry crop is being harvested in time to cash in on the lucrative Christmas markets in Europe. Local Palestinian farmers have been trained by Israeli agriculture experts and Israel supplied them with irrigation equipment and pesticides. A new Palestinian city, Ruwabi, is to be built soon north of Ramallah. Last month, the Jewish National Fund, an Israeli charity, helped plant 3,000 tree seedlings for a forested area the Palestinian planners say they would like to develop on the edge of the new city. Israeli experts are also helping the Palestinians plan public parks and other civic amenities. ...In June, the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl related how Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had told him why he had turned down Ehud Olmert's offer last year to create a Palestinian state on 97% of the West Bank (with 3% of pre-1967 Israeli land being added to make up the shortfall).
‘In the West Bank we have a good reality,’ Abbas told Diehl. ‘The people are living a normal life,’ he added in a rare moment of candor to a Western journalist. Nablus stock exchange head Ahmad Aweidah went further in explaining to me why there is no rush to declare statehood, saying ordinary Palestinians need the IDF to help protect them from Hamas, as their own security forces aren't ready to do so by themselves yet. The truth is that an independent Palestine is now quietly being built, with Israeli assistance. When might we read this in the British press or hear it on the BBC? Melanie Phillips
 After handing out construction freeze orders to all West Bank council heads, the Civil Administration on Monday sent supervisors to patrol West Bank settlements and enforce the orders approved by the cabinet. The supervisors carry different documents that are meant to help them determine whether any changes were made on the construction grounds. They will also receive aerial shots taken last Friday, to help compare the existing land conditions with any changes made in the future. According to the directive, all construction work that began by last Friday and did not lay foundations, must be stopped. Violation of the directive will prompt an immediate order to halt construction. If construction continues, work tools can be seized and enforcement forces can be called on scene. Violators may be charged and face up to two years in prison. As of Monday, a few orders were handed out to seize construction in several locations; however no unusual incidents were reported. Data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics confirms the claim that construction in the West Bank region was already at a low point prior to the cabinet's decision to freeze construction. According to the data, 1,199 new construction projects began between January and September – a 27.6% decrease from last year's number. Despite the nation-wide decline in construction, an increase was recorded in several areas such as Jerusalem, which recorded a 25% increase. The sharpest decline was recorded in the Tel Aviv area (39%), while the West Bank region came in second. Meanwhile, controversy among cabinet ministers over the freeze order continued. Minister Silvan Shalom, who was out of the country during the cabinet vote on the construction freeze, said he did not know the vote was scheduled to take place – but would have voted against it. "Freezing the construction is unnecessary, and will not bring Palestinians back to the negotiations table," Shalom said. Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon called for the establishment of a governmental committee that will deal with the hardships facing West Bank residents under the new conditions. Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday announced the recruitment of an additional 40 construction inspectors that will help the 14 currently employed inspectors enforce the temporary freeze. Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan criticized Barak, saying "he is not so innocent; he has a political agenda." The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel filed a petition with the High Court of Justice to revoke the decision to halt construction, until a suitable governmental decision is made. The petition, which was filed against Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Security Cabinet, claimed the construction freeze severely harms the basic rights of West Bank residents. The petition further claimed that the decision was not rooted on defense considerations and therefore should be made by the government and not the cabinet. YNet
 Thousands of Palestinian workers in Dubai may lose their jobs due to the financial crisis there, economists project.
Over the past few months, thousands of the estimated 100,000 Palestinian laborers working in Dubai have lost their jobs.
The Gulf state's economy is grinding to a halt, due to the huge international debts the country took on to drive its breakneck expansion coupled with the global economic crisis.
Last week, the Dubai government announced its flagship conglomerate needed a six-month halt to interest payments on $59 billion worth of debt.
Arab financial analysts said the crisis in the Gulf states, compounded by debts and falling oil prices, will affect the economy in the Palestinian Territories, where many families depend on money from relatives working in Dubai, primarily in construction.
Other Palestinians work as engineers, instructors and in technology-related professions in Dubai. Some have started construction businesses there, such as Arab-Tech, which was among the country's first victims of the financial crisis.
This recession resulted in the cancelation of building contracts and projects and sent the industry into a freeze, prompting many Palestinians to leave Dubai for neighboring Qatar - which last month injected $6 billion in fresh capital into its banking system to "restore confidence" in its own economy - and in Saudi Arabia. Some have returned to the West Bank.
One Dubai-based Palestinian businessman said Palestinians working in Dubai were generally "highly skilled personnel with long years of experience in their respective fields."
"Many West Bank families are losing their sources of income, as these people are no longer sending much money," he told Haaretz.
The sheikdom of Dubai, ruled by the Makhtoum family, has staked its future on plans to become the tourist, transport and finance hub of the Middle East, encouraging outsiders to buy apartments in the plethora of new tower blocks sprouting like poplars across the sand.
But the international financial conglomerate Citigroup warned has warned that several Dubai developers have been caught in a severe squeeze, and their projects are increasingly unlikely to be finished.
 IT was the moment the Palestinians might have had a state, with a capital in East Jerusalem. For a single moment, the dove of peace hovered hopefully over the Middle East. On September 16 last year, the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, offered the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the most far-reaching and comprehensive peace deal any Israeli prime minister has ever offered. Mr Olmert recalls his pleas to Mr Abbas to accept the deal: "I said to him, do you want to keep floating forever - like an astronaut in space - or do you want a state? I told him he'd never get anything like this again from an Israeli leader for 50 years." Mr Olmert, who as a rule avoids the media these days, has undertaken hours of discussion and interviews with The Weekend Australian and provided unprecedented detail of his peace offer to Mr Abbas. The interviews took place amid growing tension over West Bank settlements. Palestinians appealed to the US yesterday to raise pressure on Israel, saying an Israeli plan to halt new construction in the West Bank was insincere. Mr Olmert says such disputes could have been resolved with his deal. He recalls meeting Mr Abbas more than 35 times for "intense, serious" negotiations, in the two years leading up to the September 16 offer last year. Mr Olmert says his offer to Mr Abbas included a Palestinian state occupying 94 per cent of the West Bank and all of Gaza. This would have allowed Israel to keep the major Jewish population areas in the settlements in the West Bank. But in return he would have given the Palestinians an equal parcel of land from Israel proper in compensation. He offered Palestinian sovereignty over all the Arab areas of East Jerusalem, so that it could function as a capital for the new Palestinian state. Dividing Jerusalem is an explosive issue in Israeli politics. Mr Olmert recalls his own struggle to come to grips with his offer on Jerusalem: "This was a very sensitive, very painful, soul-searching process. While I firmly believed that historically and emotionally Jerusalem was always the capital of the Jewish people, I was ready that the city should be shared." Perhaps Mr Olmert's most radical and audacious proposal was for an international administration of the sites in Jerusalem holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians. Mr Olmert proposed forming an area of "no sovereignty" to be administered jointly by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the new Palestinian state, Israel and the US. He offered to build a tunnel, under Palestinian control, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Mr Olmert says every European leader, and senior Americans, who knew of the plan acknowledged it as the most far-reaching and extensive peace offer Israel has made. Mr Olmert still regards Mr Abbas as a peace partner for Israel. "I think he's genuine in his desire to achieve a Palestinian state and he recognises the right of Israel to exist," he says. Mr Olmert speculates that Mr Abbas didn't accept the deal because he felt he could not deliver the Palestinian commitment to it, or perhaps because he feared the outcome of approaching Israeli elections. But nor did Mr Abbas directly reject the deal. Instead he said he wanted to bring experts back with him the next day. But the next day, the Palestinians' chief negotiator postponed the meeting. "I never saw him again," Mr Olmert says. The Australian
 How did the media report building plans for a Jerusalem suburb?Israel has recently come in for international criticism over the approval for construction of 900 housing units in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Irrespective of one's views on this policy, it is the responsibility of the media to report on Gilo accurately and with the relevant context. So how did some of the media refer to Gilo? -
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The "Gilo settlement in Jerusalem." - Reuters -
A "Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem." - BBC -
A "controversial settlement on the outskirts of east Jerusalem." - The Guardian -
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"one of a dozen Israeli settlements in mostly Arab east Jerusalem." - AFP -
A "part of Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians." - LA Times
The Christian Science Monitor could not even decide on Gilo's location, introducing it as a "Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem" in the first paragraph of the story and then referring to the "area in southern Jerusalem" in the next. The prize for the worst inaccuracy, however, goes to The Times of London, whose staff editorial spoke of "Israel's decision to go ahead with new settlements around Jerusalem." Of course, Gilo is certainly not new and, while some existing areas are being developed within existing boundaries to allow for natural growth, there are no plans whatsoever on the part of the Israeli government to create any new settlements in the Jerusalem region. Is this symptomatic of the journalistic laziness surrounding the entire issue of settlements and precisely what these actually refer to? After all, many media outlets do nothing to dispel the largely mistaken image of all Israeli settlements as a collection of isolated homes on windswept hilltops. In the case of Gilo, this is as far from the truth as could be possible. And who then is influencing the language of those international politicians who are critical of the Israeli building plans? Are the media responsible for creating a skewed impression of Gilo due to past indiscretions regarding the language of settlements? As Maurice Ostroff, writing in the Jerusalem Post, explains: The $64,000 question then, is whether Gilo is in fact a settlement and if so, what type of settlement it is. To all who prefer to analyze a situation before arriving at a conclusion it is important to look at the facts in context. ... The reality is that Gilo is very different than the outposts in the West Bank. It is not in east Jerusalem as widely reported.
It is a Jerusalem neighborhood with a population of around 40,000. The ground was bought by Jews before WWII and settled in 1971 in south west Jerusalem opposite Mount Gilo within the municipal borders. There is no inference whatsoever that it rests on Arab land. The current building approval was not a deliberately provocative political decision by Binyamin Netanyahu as reported in some media. The plan was initiated a long time ago by the Israel Land Administration.
Since Gilo is an integral part of the city, the approval was given by Jerusalem's Construction and Planning Committee and, as Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement released by his office, "Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between east and west of the city. The demand to cease construction just for Jews is illegal, as in the US and any other enlightened place in the world. The Jerusalem Municipality will continue to enable construction in every part of the city for Jews and Arabs alike." The Washington Post, at least, was more nuanced in its language, describing Gilo as a "disputed neighborhood of Jerusalem" and providing a map to put Gilo in some geographical context. CNN also referred to Gilo as a "disputed neighborhood on Jerusalem's southern outskirts". Indeed, CNN is one of a number of media outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Boston Globe and CBS News, which have all, in the past, recognized the particular geography of Gilo, referring to it as a "neighborhood." For more background, see this Jerusalem Post article and keep an eye out on how your local media outlet reports on Gilo. HonestReporting
 The security cabinet approved Wednesday evening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal to halt construction in the West Bank settlements for a period of 10 months. Eleven ministers voted in favor of the plan, while Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau opposed the initiative, which was coordinated with the US in an effort to jumpstart the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) and Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias were absent from the vote. Shortly after the vote Netanyahu told a televised press conference at his Jerusalem office that the step was designed to "encourage resumption of peace talks with our Palestinian neighbors." "It's not an easy step and we are taking it out of broad national considerations," he said, adding, "I hope that the Palestinians and the Arab world will be wise enough to take this opportunity to move forward in the path of peace," he said. Netanyahu stressed that the settlement freeze would not be implemented in east Jerusalem. "We do not put any restrictions on building in our sovereign capital," the prime minister said. "Now is the time to begin negotiations, now is the time to move forward towards peace. Israel today has taken a far-reaching step toward peace; it is time for the Palestinians to do the same," he added. "Israel's government has made an important step toward peace today, let us make peace together." Netanyahu further told reporters, "As soon as the suspension period concludes, my government will resume the West Bank construction policy of previous governments." "I have promised to allow our 300,000 brothers residing in the West Bank to continue to lead normal lives, and therefore construction that is already underway will not ne halted. We will continue to build synagogues, schools and kindergartens," he said. Among those who backed the initiative were hardliners Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Ministers Moshe Yaalon and Benny Begin. Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) said after the vote, "It’s an important and historic decision, one of the most important decisions this government has made. The decision will leave the Palestinians with only one choice – join the political negotiations. They have no reason to stall anymore." Earlier, a US official said the United States hopes Netanyahu's proposal can help revive Middle East talks, "We're hoping this will in some way contribute to the resumption of negotiations" between the Israelis and Palestinians, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Israel has been under heavy international pressure to halt its construction in settlements built on captured lands claimed by the Palestinians. Some 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to about 180,000 people living in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Netanyahu earlier floated the idea of suspending construction in existing settlements. Wednesday's offer was the first time he has given a firm timeline for how long he is willing to stop the building. Palestinians already rejected the move before the announcement because the freeze does not include construction in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed it soon after. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a total halt to settlement construction before peace talks can resume. On Wednesday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said there was nothing new in Netanyahu's announcement, pointing to the 3,000 new housing units under construction in the West Bank. "This is not a moratorium. Unfortunately, we hoped he would commit to a real settlement freeze so we can resume negotiations and he had a choice between settlements and peace and he chose settlements." Palestinian presidential adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh said the proposed freeze would be unacceptable if it didn't include east Jerusalem. "Any Israeli offer that doesn't include Jerusalem will be rejected immediately," he said in a phone interview from Argentina, where he was traveling with President Abbas. "No Palestinian, no Arab can cross this line." Netanyahu, a traditional ally of the settler movement, has argued that some construction should be permitted to allow for "natural growth" in their communities. His latest offer applies only to "new construction permits", meaning that some 3,000 homes already approved for construction would not be affected. YNet
 JERUSALEM – In defiance of President Obama's demands that Israel cease building in sections of Jerusalem and the West Bank, New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind laid the cornerstone for the second phase of a new Jewish construction project in the Nof Tzion neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem.. Together with Knesset Member Danny Danon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, Hikind spoke with reporters about the Jewish right to build in Israel's capital city. Hikind, a Democrat, asserted banning Jews from building in neighborhoods was segregation. He expressed wonder that an African-American president would endorse such a policy in the 21st century. Speaking with the media, Hikind blamed Obama for stalling the peace process. According to the assemblyman, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has latched onto Obama's calls for a settlement freeze as an excuse not to negotiate with Israel. According to Hikind, a Jew cannot even build a bathroom in Jerusalem without international condemnation. Israel recently announced the construction of several hundred housing units in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood to the chagrin of the American administration.
Danon told WND that Gilo, a neighborhood of 40,000 Jews within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, is completely within the Israeli consensus, stating that even Tzipi Livni, opposition leader of the Kadima party, was behind the expansion. Hikind was in Israel leading a solidarity mission of 50 American Jews. During the past week the group met with leaders of Israel's settlement enterprise and national camp. The purpose of the mission was to strengthen Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and Jerusalem by acquiring property in the disputed areas. Hikind himself expressed interest in buying an apartment in Nof Tzion. A representative of the Ateret Kohanim organization, which reclaims Jewish land in Jerusalem, accompanied the group to Nof Tzion, explaining the history of the disputed areas. The Americans were amazed to learn that such predominantly Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem as Silwan were historically Jewish. Silwan was a Yemenite Jewish community until it was evacuated and turned over to Arabs by the British, following Arab pogroms in the late 1930s. During the cornerstone laying and subsequent press conference, a small group of demonstrators from the extremist Peace Now organization stood nearby calling for the division of Jerusalem. One demonstrator, a Jew from Britain, held a sign which stated, "Hikind – you're a shame to your party." As Hikind attempted to leave, he was accosted by the demonstrator. The assemblyman gave the young man his telephone number, offering to take him out to dinner to speak about the issues in a less charged setting. WND
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by Khaled Abu Toameh
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