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Israel frets over Iraq report, dispatches FM to Washington

Various | 09.12.2006 19:44 | Anti-militarism | World

Every time the Zionists get frightened that someone will make them deal honestly with the Palestinians, I can't help but see the looks on the faces of those defeated, disgraced Nazis, who were faced with the repurcussions of their actions - actions they knew to be wrong - after the war.

Israel frets over Iraq report, dispatches FM to Washington
Dec 08 7:29 AM US/Eastern

Israel's foreign minister has arrived in the United States amid worries that the Jewish state's main ally could shift course after a report urged Washington to redouble Mideast peacemeaking efforts.

Tzipi Livni will meet with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other officials during her visit, which will focus on the repercussions of a report released Wednesday by the Iraq Study Group, her office said.

"This trip will be an occasion to review with her counterparts the report and to discuss its meaning," a foreign ministry spokesman said.

That report said progress towards Arab-Israeli peace was key to saving Iraq.

It also called for direct US talks with two of Israel's most fearsome foes, Syria and Iran, the latter of which is believed to be steaming ahead in its bid for nuclear weapons.

A day after receiving the top-level commission's report, the United States and Britain signalled the start of a renewed diplomatic push in the region.

President George W. Bush promised "concerted efforts to advance the cause of peace" and said British Prime Minister Tony Blair would soon travel to the region for talks with Israel and the Palestinians.

The prime minister's visit was to set the stage for Rice, in early 2007, to make her eighth trip in two years to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Rice's spokesman said.

The renewed focus on Mideast peacemaking and growing domestic pressure on US leaders to end the imbroglio in Iraq has Israelis worrying about a possible policy shift by Bush, who for six years has largely ignored the intricacies of Mideast peacemaking.

"The fact that he has decided to support Blair's visit to the region and to present this trip as a joint mission of Britain and the United States shows that Bush intends to at least try to change his policy," Israel's Yediot Aharonot daily wrote Friday.

The newspaper went on to slam the Iraq report, accusing its chief authors James Baker and Lee Hamilton of ignoring Israel while preparing the report.

"If the truth be told, they barely paid any attention to us," the newspaper lamented. "For 14 years, Israel enjoyed warm and pampering attention, under Clinton and Bush. Now, in light of the catastrophe in Iraq, Baker and Hamilton wish to restore us to our proper proportions."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also expressed disatisfaction with the report's recommendations. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he said US problems in Iraq "are entirely independent of the controversy between us and the Palestinians."

He also said that restarting peace talks with Syria, as recommended by the report, was unlikely in the near future.

In statements sure to allay Israeli concerns, Bush has rebuffed some of the report's recommendations and maintained his insistence that Damascus and Tehran renounce support for extremists and pledge support for Baghdad's fledgling government and that Iran freeze sensitive nuclear work before any direct talks.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, meanwhile, have both welcomed the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that Bush revitalise Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts.

On the ground, a Palestinian rocket struck southern Israel on Friday, causing neither injuries nor damage. It is the 18th rocket to hit the Jewish state since a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip took effect 13 days ago.

That truce agreement had rekindled international optimism about restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, dormant since the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, in September 2000.

www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/08/061208122947.vnyuf8tw.html

Or at least, since Israeli Aggression and Zionism's unwillingness to Negotiate or Compromise, and bring an end to its perpetual war to wipe Palestine off the map, necessitated a second Intifada ...

There's a big shock. The Zionist Extremists know that their tenuous hold over the US military arsenal, through the like-minded Extremists installed to power with Bush and empowered to actions by 911, is the only thing keeping them afloat, and will not sacrifice this for anything.

Peace, after all, threatens their power and wealth inside Israel. The world can now see just who is and isn't interested in peace.
Israel rejects Iraq study ideas

Arabs say the injustice of Israel's occupation fuels wider unrest

Israel has rejected claims by a team of elder US statesmen that the Iraq crisis cannot be resolved unless the US also tackles the Arab-Israeli conflict.

PM Ehud Olmert, reacting to the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report, said he had a "different view" and would not talk to Syria as the report recommends.

He said conditions were not right for a resumption of negotiations, effectively suspended in 2000.

But he said Israel is trying to restart Palestinian talks "with all our might".

Israel and Syria participated in on-off peace talks between 1991 and 2000, focusing mainly on the fate of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 war.

I don't think there is a Syrian desire for war. That doesn't mean conditions are ripe for us to negotiate with them
Ehud Olmert

Syria welcomes change
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has periodically issued calls for a resumption of talks, the latest being earlier this year.

Mr Olmert said Syria first would need to break ties with Israel's arch-foe Iran, and with anti-Israeli militant groups in Lebanon and the occupied territories.

"I don't think there is a Syrian desire for war with us. We certainly don't have a desire to fight with them. That doesn't mean conditions ripe for us to negotiate with them," Mr Olmert told an annual gathering of Israeli journalists in Tel Aviv.

Policy priority

James Baker and Lee Hamilon's bipartisan ISG report says: "The US will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the US deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict."

It recommends directly involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians in talks at the earliest opportunity.

The BBC's Matthew Price in Jerusalem says it is no surprise that the Israeli prime minister disagreed with the ISG assessment.

Israel knows President George W Bush's foreign policy priority is Iraq and it does not want its greatest ally to start seeing it as part of the problem, he adds.

Correspondents say many Arabs see the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory, and the injustice experienced by those living under occupation, as a major cause of unrest throughout the region.

Although he rebuffed Syrian overtures, Mr Olmert said Israel was keen to restart talks with the Palestinians and would work "with all our might" to make them happen.

Israel has set a series of conditions on the Palestinian Authority before they can take place.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6217656.stm

Israel brushes off Iraq report, no to Syria talks

By Jeffrey Heller
Reuters
Thursday, December 7, 2006; 6:36 AM

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel's prime minister on Thursday said it was wrong to link the Arab-Israeli conflict with woes in the Middle East and ruled out any immediate talks with Syria despite a U.S. report urging negotiations.

Ehud Olmert said he expected little pressure from Washington in the wake of the high profile report by the Iraq Study Group, which called on President George W. Bush to push for Arab-Israeli peace as part of efforts to ease regional tensions.

"The Middle East has a lot of problems that are not connected to us," Olmert said at a conference in Tel Aviv.

"I am not convinced that this report foists all of the U.S.'s troubles on Israel's shoulders."

The report from a bipartisan commission led by former Secretary of State James Baker said the United States could not achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it dealt directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

While the report dealt mostly with proposed shifts of course in the unpopular war in Iraq, its key recommendations included a call for direct talks as soon as possible involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians.

Olmert, referring to a meeting he held with Bush in Washington last month, said he had heard nothing that indicated a change in Washington's position not to negotiate with Syria.

"I can only say that the opinions I heard from the president and from all senior administration staff on the Syrian issue are such that he did not see a feasibility in talks on the American-Syrian track or on the Israeli-Syrian track," he said.

Olmert said the time was not ripe for talks with Syria, partly because of Damascus's support for the ruling Palestinian movement Hamas, a group sworn to Israel's destruction.

"The way Syria is acting these days, especially its subversive action in Lebanon and its support for the extremist Hamas... does not create a picture of the possibility for talks in the near future," he said.

U.S. mid-term elections last month showed deep discontent with the war in Iraq and raised speculation in Israel that Bush could try to cap his two-term presidency with progress on Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

Arab leaders say the festering Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the core of the Middle East's deepening woes.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks foundered in mid-2000, just before the start of a Palestinian uprising. Israeli negotiations with arch-foe Syria collapsed in early 2000.

While calling for a resumption of long-stalled talks, the Iraq Study Group report said Syria must meet a list of international demands.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Dan Williams in Jerusalem)

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120700361

Analysis: It's Madrid redux
By HERB KEINON

If US President George W. Bush accepts the recommendations the Iraq Study Group placed on his desk Wednesday, it will constitute a dramatic turnaround in US Mideast policy, and it won't be long before Israeli representatives find themselves sitting in a gilded room across from representatives of their neighbors for a Madrid-style peace conference.

This should come as no real surprise, since one of the two heads of the Iraq Study Group was former secretary of state James Baker, the same Baker who pushed Israel and its neighbors into the Madrid conference in 1991.

www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881835409&pagename=JPost/JPArtic

Consider the source. War with Zionism's enemies good, peace with Zionism's enemies, bad.

White House rules out one-on-one talks with Iran

Wed Dec 6, 2:03 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday said it has ruled out one-on-one talks with
Iran about
Iraq unless Tehran suspends nuclear activities, after the Iraq Study Group recommended more engagement with the Islamic republic.
ADVERTISEMENT

The report by the bipartisan panel recommended that the White House overcome its resistance to dealing directly with Iran and
Syria.

"It's not clear ... whether the report advocates one-on-one talks with Iran, there is talk about developing a support group," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

"There may be a difference between one-on-one talks with Iran, which is something that we have ruled out," he said. "Unless Iran verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities."

President George W. Bush has repeatedly said Iran must suspend its nuclear activities program. "The president believes that Iran has to change its behavior," Snow said.

He emphasized that the White House would look carefully at the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. "I don't want to rule out entirely because it's worth taking a look at what all this means."

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061206/pl_nm/iraq_group_iran_dc

Various

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