(Reuters) - Leaders of rival Palestinian factions displayed rare unity on Saturday as they marked their "day of catastrophe" or nakba at a rally in Gaza, raising hopes of reconciliation between the two bitter rival parties.
Renowned US scholar Noam Chomsky has been denied entry to the West Bank by Israeli immigration officials.
Prof Chomsky, renowned for his work on linguistics and philosophy, was planning to deliver a lecture at Birzeit University.
Prof Chomsky, 82, had been trying to enter from Jordan.
An Israeli interior ministry spokeswoman said it was to trying to clear the matter up and allow Prof Chomsky to enter.
Prof Chomsky said the officials were very polite but he was denied entry because "the government did not like the kinds of things I say and they did not like that I was only talking at Birzeit and not at an Israeli university too."
He added: "I asked them if they could find any government in the world that likes the things I say."
Prof Chomsky's Palestinian host for the visit, Mustafa al-Barghouti, told Reuters: "This decision is a fascist action, amounting to suppression of freedom of expression."
The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip is accusing Egyptian security forces of torturing Palestinian detainees.
"Some 30 members of the Palestinian factions are being held by the Egyptian security forces, 11 of them Hamas members," said an organization spokesman. He demanded that Egypt release the men, claiming that the Egyptian authorities have done nothing on the matter, "although are subject to shocking torture." (AFP)
Dr. Gabi Barkai, senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University and recipient of the Jerusalem Prize for Archaeology, says Israelis must demand that Israeli antiquities law be enforced at Israel's most important archaeological site– the Temple Mount.
"It is the most important site in the world for the Jewish people," Barkai told Benny Tucker of Arutz Sheva's Hebrew newsmagazine in a Jerusalem Day interview, "as well as the most important archaeological site in Israel, and despite all this, Israel has abandoned it. Over the past ten years, the Waqf has taken control, making major changes in the status quo: It has conducted illegal digs, built mosques and the like, and the situation has changed from one extreme to the other."
"Some years ago," he said, "they took 400 truckloads of dirt from the Temple Mount and dumped it into the Kidron Valley – totally illegally. This is dirt that is filled with Jewish history from many periods: the Canaanites, the First Temple, the period of the return to Zion [from Babylonia], the Second Temple, including the Hashmonaim period and King Herod, and up to now. Over the past several years, we have been sifting through the dirt. This is of course not the optimum way to perform archaeology, because you need context, layers and the like, but this is the best we can do in light of these barbaric digs, and we are trying to get the most out of it. Jerusalem is filled with archaeological digs, but the most important site has never been done; this dirt is the only source we have."
Barkai explained that despite the conditions, "We have made thousands of amazing finds that have changed the way we understand that period."
Asked later to elaborate, he told Israel National News, "For instance, we have found many small floor tiles, of different colors, which confirm the Talmud's description of the floor of the Second Temple as being reminiscent of the ocean."
Other finds have included fragments of stone decorated with ornaments known to be from the Second Temple Period, arrowheads from Nebuchadnezzar's army and also from the Romans, as well as coins and decorations from many periods. Among the most exciting finds were bullae (seal rings), ostracons written in ancient Hebrew script, seals, and more.
The "Screening the Waste" project is being carried out in Emek Tzurim, to where the dirt was transferred. Emek Tzurim is located above the Kidron Valley northeast of the Old City wall, part of the National Park around the walls of Jerusalem, and the project is being conducted under the auspices of the National Parks Authority, sponsored by the Elad (a Hebrew acronym of "To the City of David") Association.
"We demand that the law regarding antiquities be enforced," Barkai said, "and our sovereignty be activated there. These are cultural assets for which we have a tremendous responsibility towards future generations… I would like to see the removal of all the Waqf's heavy equipment, and I would like to see the Waqf observe the law; the Israel Antiquities Authority must be allowed to always be on site to supervise, and not have to come in various disguises and the like."
Barkai explained that in addition to building mosques on the site, the Moslems clearly have the goal of detaching Israel from its past and Holy Temple connections: "They wish to undermine Jewish ownership and bonds to the Temple Mount. They've built a giant mosque there in Solomon's Stables [under the Temple Mount] and another one nearby – but aside from that, they have an ideological goal which is even making inroads to naïve circles in the west, and it is called 'Holy Temple denial.' They act as if there never was a Holy Temple. This is very very grave; regarding the Holocaust, there are living people who still remember it, but the same cannot be said regarding the Temple…"
"We must demand that Israeli law and sovereignty be enforced on the Temple Mount," Barkai concluded.
A few weeks shy of the 10th anniversary of Israel’s May 24, 2000 unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon, last Friday Yediot Aharonot chose to devote its weekend news supplement to a retrospective on the event. It included a fawning five-page interview with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who ordered the withdrawal during his tenure as prime minister and defense minister. It also included a two-page spread featuring interviews with the IDF commanders who carried out the withdrawal, recalling their adrenalin rushes as they retreated their forces across the border.
Nearly hidden between the two puff pieces was a little article titled “We told you so.”
It featured an interview with retired former Meretz leader Yossi Sarid who opposed the withdrawal. He told Yediot that in hindsight, he’s glad the withdrawal went through, even though it led directly to the wars that followed. Following Sarid’s self-congratulatory modesty, Yediot gave former defense minister Moshe Arens and National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau a sound bite apiece to lash out at the withdrawal. That base covered, the paper dismissed them both as “right-wingers.”
ALTHOUGH UPSETTING, Yediot’s treatment of the Lebanon withdrawal was not surprising. The unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon – which was a failure on every rational level – was a strategy concocted and championed for the better part of a decade by Yediot and its media colleagues at Israel Radio. The paper’s decision to publish a 10-year anniversary retrospective two weeks early was undoubtedly an attempt to preempt and prevent any further discussion of the withdrawal.
Yediot praised it as a work of operational genius because no one was wounded, kidnapped or killed during the 48-hour retreat. Of course, by presenting force protection as the IDF’s highest goal, the paper ignored basic strategic realities.
The fact is that the withdrawal was an operational fiasco. In its rush to the border, the IDF left behind huge quantities of sensitive equipment that Hizbullah commandeered. Israel abandoned thousands of loyal allies from the South Lebanon Army and their families to the tender mercies of Hizbullah. These were men who had fought shoulder to shoulder with the IDF since 1982. Those who managed to escape to Israel before the gates were locked were treated as unwanted deadweight by Barak and his media flacks, who couldn’t be bothered with the treachery at the heart of the operation.
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The Hamas regime has been seizing property believed owned or operated by the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian sources said Hamas security forces have taken over scores of vacant apartments or homes in the Gaza Strip in 2010. The sources said the properties were believed to have been abandoned by PA officials when they fled the Gaza Strip during the Hamas takeover in 2007.
"We take money from the rich to give the poor not vice versa," Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on May 1. "The nature of the taxes that are imposed by the government is that they are few and not much."
Some of the confiscated apartments were located in the upscale neighborhood of Rimal in Gaza City. Many of the occupants had been PA and Fatah officials who either fled or were killed during the Hamas takeover in 2007.
"Hamas knows exactly who ran away and who left property," a Palestinian source said. "They have decided to allow Hamas officers to live in them."
The sources said the Hamas policy would affect more than 1,000 houses, apartments and other assets left behind by the exiled PA officials. Most of those who fled the Hamas takeover were members of the PA security forces, including the Preventive Security Apparatus, Military Intelligence, General Intelligence Services and the Presidential Guard.
"In some cases, those who fled left behind others who moved in and kept the apartments," the source said. "Those being occupied by Hamas officers and officials are those that have been vacant for at least a year."
The sources said Hamas planned to intensify its confiscation of assets by absentee PA officials and Fatah members. They said Hamas, amid a cash flow crisis, has begun seizing apartments vacant for less than six months.
The sources said Hamas has also justified the seizure of apartments owned by Fatah members accused of economic crimes. They cited the case of Aliya Aweida, who found her apartment taken over by a Hamas police officer in April 2010. The Hamas Interior Ministry said Ms. Aweida's father, Said, who owned the apartment, had been charged with embezzlement.
Details of security scandal released: Fifty-two-year-old Ameer Makhoul from Haifa, a well-known figure in the Arab community in Israel, and 50-year-old Omar Said of Kfar Kanna, were arrested on suspicion of committing serious security offences, including espionage and contact with a foreign agent from Hezbollah. A gag order on the matter was partially lifted at Ynet's request on Monday, meaning some of the affair's details are still confidential.
Makhoul was arrested in his home in Haifa last week in front of his wife and children. He is suspected of being in contact with a Lebanese element of the Hezbollah terror group, espionage and contact with a foreign agent. Several computers were confiscated from his home.
A new security-related affair is causing a firestorm within the Israeli Arab community and has reignited a furious debate on secrecy and national security.
The latest episode comes only weeks after authorities lifted a media ban on a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) investigation into former IDF clerk Anat Kamm, who is accused of stealing thousands of classified army documents during her service at the army’s Central Command headquarters in the capital’s Neveh Ya’acov neighborhood, and leaking a number of them to Haaretz.
Andrew Breitbart has been waiting 45 minutes for a filet mignon. He drums his fingers on the table in this plush Italian restaurant off Times Square, a place where the media types he regularly trashes used to flaunt their expense accounts — back when they still had them. Breitbart looks around for a waiter and launches into a stem-winder about collusion between Hollywood and the press — the “subtle and not-so-subtle use of propaganda to make a center-right nation move to the left.
“It’s not just the nightly news,” he says. “You’re also getting television shows that reflect the same worldview, where Republicans are always the bad guys. Al Qaeda’s never the bad guy. The Republican is always the bad guy.”
From anyone else, this would be just talk — or talking points. (No terrorist bad guys on TV? Really?) But Breitbart is one of the people who rams those points into the popular consciousness. Until last September, the beefy 41-year-old with graying blond hair was a largely covert power in the right-wing media, the hidden hand behind the popular Drudge Report who also, weirdly, cofounded the liberal Huffington Post. But then he struck out on his own. Today his collection of Web sites draws more than 10 million readers a month. He has a book deal worth more than half a million dollars, and he’s a regular presence on Fox News — where he’s headed later tonight, in fact. The covert thing is out the window.
Pakistani merchants and job seekers in the United States, still reeling from economic hardship since the September 11 attacks of 2001, are posing as Indians to avoid discrimination in the wake of the Times Square bomb attempt.
Once again, a man of Pakistani descent is at the center of a security story, leading to backlash against the Pakistani-American community.
Faisal Shahzad, 30, a naturalized American born in Pakistan, was arrested on Monday, two days after authorities say he parked a crude car bomb in New York's busy Times Square.
Suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and convicted 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef are also of Pakistani decent, and anti-American militants fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan take refuge in Pakistan.
In Brooklyn, home to one of the largest Pakistani populations in the United States, business is scant at the various grocery, halal meat and sweet cake shops since a Pakistani-American was suspected in the Times Square plot. More than 100 businesses along Coney Island Avenue have closed due to a 30 percent drop in business since 2001, a merchants' association said.
In Washington, an American man of Pakistani descent told of coming under suspicion this week when he tried to buy garden fertilizer. The Times Square car bomb contained a non-explosive type of fertilizer.
While there have been no reported incidents since the failed car bomb attack last Saturday, some Pakistanis are bracing for reprisals. Police have increased foot patrols.
"A lot of Pakistanis can't get jobs after 9/11 and now it's even worse," said Asghar Choudhri, an accountant and chairman of Brooklyn's Pakistani American Merchant Association. "They are now pretending they are Indian so they can get a job."
The Hamas regime has launched a crackdown on a major Palestinian faction.
Hamas has been arresting members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the wake of criticism by the Marxist faction of the Islamic regime.
The Hamas crackdown came amid a financial crisis in the Gaza Strip. Hamas officials acknowledged that the regime has been unable to pay the salaries of 32,000 civil servants for the second straight month as the regime imposed taxes on cigarettes, fuel, automobiles and property.
On April 27, PFLP issued a statement that accused Hamas of imposing arbitrary and exhorbitant taxes on residents of the Gaza Strip.
"The right to freedom of opinion and expression is guaranteed under the Palestinian Basic Law and relevant international conventions," the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said.
Hours after the PFLP statement, Hamas security forces raided the homes of several key members. Palestinian sources said 15 PFLP operatives were detained from such locations as Gaza City, Khan Yunis, Jabalya, Shati and Tel El Hawa.
"These measures taken by the security service in the Gaza Strip constitute a violation of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, which is guaranteed under the Palestinian Basic Law and relevant international conventions," PCHR said on April 29.
The human rights center said PFLP operatives were interrogated regarding the statement against Hamas. PCHR said the detainees, 11 of them released on April 28, had been ill-treated.
At the same time, Hamas police and Internal Security Service officers attacked PFLP and tried to break into the movement's office in Khan Yunis on April 28. Palestinian sources said PFLP leaders in Gaza City and Syria have intervened in an effort to end the Hamas crackdown.
"PCHR confirms the right of political opposition to express political opinion, including criticizing the government, and opposing its policy through all forms ensured by the law, including press releases, peaceful demonstrations and all forms of peaceful protest," the human rights group said.
President Barack Obama Monday renewed US sanctions on Syria for a year, accusing Damascus of supporting "terrorist" groups and pursuing missile programs and weapons of mass destruction.
There had been no expectation that Obama would lift the measures, but the renewal came at an especially sensitive time in often tense US-Syria relations, despite efforts by the administration to return an ambassador to Damascus.
The United States has also recently accused Syria and Iran of arming Hezbollah with increasingly sophisticated rockets and missiles, which it says are undermining stability in the region.
Obama said in a message to Congress renewing the sanctions imposed by former US president George W. Bush in 2004, that the Syrian government had made "some progress" in suppressing the infiltration of foreign fighters bound for Iraq.
But he added that its "continuing support for terrorist organizations and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States."
Obama also called on Syria to demonstrate "progress" in the areas that Washington says justify sanctions, to allow them to be lifted in future.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the risk of sparking a regional war if he supplies long-range Scud missiles to Hezbollah, a Shiite militia group.
"President Assad is making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region," she told a pro-Israel group.
The guard at the entrance cocked his rifle with a click-click that echoed around the cell block. Then with his thumb he unlocked the safety catch, and begin swivelling the barrel of his Kalashnikov towards me. I was standing behind a metal grille in a dark cell and had nowhere to hide. He pointed the barrel towards my chest; then, instead of firing, he pulled his gun slowly upward, and laughed.
It was day one of my incarceration in Gaza, where I was held in solitary confinement, denied books to read and a pen and paper, at times placed within earshot of violent torture, and threatened with imminent death several times. It lasted less than a month in February and March this year – hardly comparable, I am aware, with, for example, the years of imprisonment and exile endured by Mónica González Mujica, the intrepid Chilean journalist who today (World Press Freedom Day) will receive a World Press Freedom award from Unesco. But for me those 26 days seemed endless. For most of that time I was convinced that death was the most likely outcome.
"You are not a witness, you are an accused!" the military prosecutor had yelled at me when I was summoned into his office alongside the military court. I had come to give evidence in support of Mohamed, a young man who was the subject of one of my films. He had been part of a militant group that had fired numerous rockets into Israeli civilian areas. I discovered when I returned to Gaza in 2009 that he had left the group, ensuring immediate antagonism from all militants, and had begun to criticise the efficacy of these attacks and the justification for them. "Our rocket fire at their civilians only gives Israel the excuse and the justification to attack us," he told me on camera.
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Hamas confirmed Sunday it is unable to pay thousands of government workers in full for a second straight month — a new sign that the Islamic militants are caught in what may be the most serious cash crunch in three years of ruling Gaza.
Hamas dismisses rumors of a financial crisis, and insists its money woes are temporary. However, it has resorted to an unpopular tax drive to raise money, suggesting that a heavy blockade on the territory, an Egyptian crackdown on smuggling and an increasingly expensive government bureaucracy are taking their toll.
The hunt for revenue has prompted a rare public backlash, hinting at a small crack in Hamas' hold on power. A 40 percent tax on cigarettes set off a flurry of angry text messages among smokers, and a small opposition group warned the new taxes could unleash a popular revolt.
Hamas acknowledges it is having trouble bringing in money from abroad — no small problem for a government that says it raises only 10 percent of its revenue locally.
The Islamists are secretive about the sources of their money, but they are believed to get large sums from Iran and a network of Hamas supporters abroad, with cash smuggled through a network of tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt.
The current crisis reflects Hamas' dilemma: It wants to be both a militant group and a government providing for 1.5 million people. Hamas' refusal to soften its hardline ideology, for fear of losing its militant credentials, has perpetuated a border blockade by Israel and Egypt. The closure has further impoverished Gazans and has put a heavier load on the government.
Still, Hamas largely managed to make ends meet.
In recent months, however, Egypt disrupted the balance by clamping down hard on the smuggling — building a steel wall to gradually close off the tunnels, blowing up entry shafts on Egyptian soil and confiscating contraband. Just last week, four Palestinians were killed when Egypt blew up a tunnel shaft. In March, Egypt arrested 45 smugglers, including a man suspected of carrying $242,000 for Hamas.
Issa Nashar, mayor of the Gaza border town of Rafah, says he believes dozens of some 400 tunnels are idle.
An Arab diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to brief reporters on security issues, said Egypt is trying to disrupt the cash flow to pressure Hamas into signing a reconciliation agreement with its Western-backed rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas drove out Abbas' forces when it seized Gaza in 2007, leaving him with only the West Bank. Egypt has staked its prestige on ending the rift, but Hamas won't commit to Cairo's plan to give Abbas a foothold in Gaza.
As the money flow slows, running Gaza's government is becoming more expensive. Hamas has increased the size of its public payroll from a few thousand to 32,000 civil servants and troops, in part a response to pressure to find jobs for supporters.
With a 2010 budget of $540 million, Hamas needs $16 million a month just for salaries, said Deputy Finance Minister Ismail Mahfouz. In March, the government was unable to cover the payroll in full, paying each employee only $400; those who normally earn more were promised the rest later. A midlevel civil servant makes about $700 a month and a top earner about $1,100.
Mahfouz confirmed Sunday that April salaries would also not be paid in full.
Later Sunday, Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said some 25,000 unemployed laborers would receive $100 each to mark May Day. The unemployed only receive occasional handouts.
Mahfouz said Hamas isn't broke, just short of cash.
"We are having difficulties in getting the money in (to Gaza) because of the siege, and this will not last long," Mahfouz said in comments posted on Gaza's Finance Ministry's website. "The government has its own reserves, and it can make them available, but it needs a way of getting them."
Bank transfers are not an option, said Jihad al-Wazir, head of the West Bank-based Palestine Monetary Authority, which regulates the banking system in the West Bank and Gaza. The Gaza branches of Palestinian banks avoid ties with the militants so as not to run afoul of anti-money laundering regulations or lose business abroad.
"We have a firewall between us and the Hamas government in Gaza," said al-Wazir.
The Arab diplomat said Hamas launders some money through Gaza importers, but the volume is limited because of the blockade.
Some speculate that Hamas is saving for a time it might be forced from power, that it has too much cash tied up in business ventures such as real estate or that there is friction over money between the Hamas movement and the Gaza government. But Hamas' secretive nature makes such claims difficult to verify.
Gaza analyst Mukheimar Abu Sada said Hamas' willingness to impose taxes, at the risk of eroding support, suggests the Islamists need cash badly.
Tunnel smugglers say they've been asked to pay at least $1,000 for each car they import, and gas station owners are charged 3 percent on smuggled fuel. The Gaza City municipality, which provides services to 600,000 residents, is now demanding taxes from businesses and households, after Hamas stopped paying half of the municipal budget six months ago.
Hamas portrays the new cigarette tax as a crusade against smoking, not a money maker.
But Gaza smokers, who now have to pay $2.95 for a pack of Marlboros, up from $2.15, don't buy that.
"Message from the rightly guided government — smoking hurts your health but keeps the government alive," read one of the many sarcastic text messages Gazans sent to each other.
Rami Franji, 20, who runs his family's small grocery in Gaza City, said he can't afford to pay local tax and doesn't want to, either, because he no longer supports Hamas.
His father Nasser, 47, who is being asked to pay tax on his tiny car repair shop, said Hamas has done well in ending chaos in the streets, but has failed in providing for Gaza's citizens. "The situation is bad," he said. "There is security, but there is no food."
Three heroic cops and a quick-thinking street vendor stopped a madman from detonating a car bomb in the heart of Times Square Saturday night, law enforcement officials told the Daily News.
"It looked like someone tried to detonate it and we got to it in time," a police source said. "This is a big deal. It has the makings of a real car bomb."
The federal government views the incident a "potential terrorist attack," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday.
"We're taking this very seriously," Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union" program. "We're treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack."
Cops evacuated and shut down the Times Square are Saturday night, but all streets were reopened by 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
The T-shirt vendor - a Vietnam vet - told Officer Wayne Rhatigan there was smoke coming from a Nissan SUV on the southwest corner of 45th St. and Broadway about 6:30 p.m., sources said.
Rhatigan approached the car, saw the smoke and sprang into action.
"I did a lap around the vehicle. The inside was smoking," Rhatigan told the Daily News. "I smelled gunpowder and knew it might blow. I thought it might blow any second."
He alerted two rookie female cops patrolling the area. Together, they pushed hundreds of people away from the scene as they called for backup, he said.
The Fire Department and bomb squad rushed to the scene.
What they found was stunning: a running SUV packed with three propane tanks, two red 5-gallon plastic jugs of gasoline, a clock, electrical components and a canister of gunpowder, police sources said.
