Abbas threatens to appeal Israeli building to ICC

Analysis: Israeli building in Oslo’s E-1 will spark Palestinian retaliation

The Media Line
Published:     04.28.13, 21:23 / Israel News
   
Ramallah – Senior Palestinian officials warned that if Israel begins construction in the area designated “E-1” by the Oslo peace process, a sensitive piece of land Israel acquired in 1967 that is adjacent to eastern Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and seek indictments of Israeli military officials on war crimes charges.

The ability to join the ICC comes after “Palestine” became a non-member observer state in the United Nations last November. The Media Line has learned that Abbas promised US Secretary of State John Kerry the PA would not to attempt to join any United Nations organizations before the end of May as a sign of good will as Kerry seeks to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that have sat idle for more than four years.

Abbas is currently engaged in consultations to form a new government after Prime Minister Salam Fayyad resigned.

"According to the law, Abbas now has five weeks to form the new government — enough time for Kerry to decide whether there is ground to re-launch the stagnant Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and enough time for Hamas to decide whether they want elections,“ a senior Fatah official told The Media Line.

"When he began his efforts, Kerry asked President Abbas for a period of eight weeks to explore the possibilities of resuming negotiations. According to our calculations, this period will end on May 23rd, whereas the law gives him until June 2nd to form a government," the official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak with media, added.

As a UN non-member observer state,“Palestine” now has the right to seek membership in international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, where it could pursue war crimes charges against Israel.

"President Abbas has the power to go to the United Nations again — tomorrow. He has the power to ask to be a part of an agency or to be recognized now,” Kerry told the House Foreign Relations Committee. “He is restraining from doing that. That is his sign of good faith at this moment. He would like to see if we could get this process moving."

Yet, it could all change if Israel begins construction in the controversial E-1 area adjacent to the Israeli community of Ma'ale Adumim. Currently, there is an Israel police station on the site, and it is home to hundreds of Bedouin. Palestinians say that Israeli building there would make an independent Palestinian state virtually impossible by cutting-off east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. Palestinians say east Jerusalem, which Israel annexed following the 1967 war, must be the future capital of a Palestinian state.

In a recent report known as "Study 13," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat suggested that, "In the case that the Israeli government started the implementation of the construction in the 'settlements' of E1, Givat Hamatos, and Ramot Shlomo, then the Palestinian state should put the whole matter before the International Criminal Court.”

The study, which was obtained by The Media Line, said building in E-1 would be a "moment of truth.”

Secretary of State Kerry has suggested that negotiations should first revolve around the issues of borders and security, according to Palestinian sources.

“He thinks that if the issue of borders is solved, then the Israelis will know which lands will be under their control, in the context of land swaps, and thus they will know where they can build,” a Palestinian official said. “And the Palestinians will know which lands will belong to their state, thus solving the issue of ‘settlements.’”

According to a senior Palestinian official, Abbas asked Kerry to demand that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provide a map depicting the borders he would offer for a Palestinian state. In addition, Abbas insists that Netanyahu must accept a two-state solution explicitly based on the pre-1967 borders – both demands that the Israeli leader is unlikely to agree to.

In order to develop trust between the two sides, Kerry has suggested mutual confidence-building measures. He suggested that Israel release Palestinian prisoners, allow West Bank development projects, and end Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas.

According to a Western diplomat, Netanyahu is willing to release prisoners as a unilateral step, but not within the context of an agreement with the Palestinians. Both Abbas and Netanyahu have said that they will cooperate with a West Bank economic development project that Kerry recently launched.

During his visit to Turkey, Kerry told journalists that he discussed the project with Quartet representative Tony Blair, as well as the president of the Coca-Cola Company and other business people. The goal, he said, is "to try to change life in the West Bank as rapidly as possible and to create some transformative economic initiatives.”

Some 60 percent of the West Bank, known as “Area C,” is under Israeli security and administrative control while 18 percent, “Area A,” is under sole Palestinian control. The rest, “Area B,” is under joint control.

Privately, Palestinians are not optimistic about Kerry’s effort, but don’t want to be accused of sabotaging it. A senior Palestinian official told The Media Line that, "It is difficult to connect some Palestinian villages in Area C with water and electricity, so it is difficult to believe that huge projects can be built in that area.”

“What is needed is decisive action from the United States to get the Israelis to stop building settlements and go immediately to negotiations to discuss withdrawal to the borders of 1967. Otherwise, it will be crisis management and not solving the crisis,” he added.

Recently, Abbas announced his intention to form a new government, just two weeks after accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is popular in the West. Yet, Fayyad was often criticized by Hamas, which had demanded his removal from office, and they welcomed his resignation. It could pave the way for “national reconciliation” between Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas, and clear the way to new elections.

“Abbas has thrown the ball in Hamas’s court,” Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the central committee of Fatah in charge of dialogue with Hamas, told The Media Line. “They kept saying that Fayyad was the obstacle, now Fayyad has left; they said that the US is against reconciliation and now he proved that there is no obstacle; so it’s their moment of truth.”

According to al-Ahmad, “Consultations will begin first with Hamas, but this will not change the fact that the government will be a government of independents implementing the program of President Abbas,” he said. “We are talking about a three month government that will prepare for elections – presidential, legislative, and for the Palestinian National Council of the PLO,”

Abbas will go to Cairo next month for a meeting with the Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to discuss implementing the reconciliation agreement, al-Ahmad said.

Until forming the new government, Fayyad will continue leading the caretaker government.

“We’re on a track, and I hope the track we’re on is one that can come to a positive place, and of course, maybe over the next weeks, month or so, where we are capable of sort of really laying out a road forward. That’s our hope. I say hope. I’m not going to express levels of optimism or qualify it. It’s a hope,” Kerry said in Istanbul.

“Salam Fayyad will stay on for the next 35 days or more, somewhere in that vicinity. He’ll be a caretaker prime minister. There’ll be a careful transitional process. And I am convinced Salam Fayyad will continue to be involved in the development efforts and the politics of the Palestinian Authority. I have no doubt about that,” Kerry added.

Article written by Abed Daoud

Mork and Mindy star Jonathan Winters dies at 87

14 April 2013 Last updated at 10:21 ET

Winters (bottom) played Robin Williams' on-screen son, Mearth

 

US comedian and actor Jonathan Winters - best known for his role in sitcom Mork and Mindy - has died aged 87.

A pioneer of improvisational stand-up comedy, he influenced a generation of comedians including Robin Williams, Jim Carrey and Steve Martin.

On the big screen, he appeared in films such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and The Loved One.
But it was his role as Williams's on-screen son in Mork and Mindy that brought him international fame.
The 1981-82 show saw him play Mearth, the off-spring of an alien race that ages backwards, who - having hatched from a giant egg - was the size of an adult but had the mind of a child.

Williams paid tribute to the actor saying: "First he was my idol, then he was my mentor and amazing friend. I'll miss him huge. He was my Comedy Buddha."

Other comics also took to Twitter to pay their respects including Carrey who said Winters was "the worthy custodian of a sparkling and childish comedic genius".

Steve Carell said he was "wildly funny" while Kathy Griffin said "there was no-one like him".
Dick Van Dyke added: "The first time I saw Jonathan Winters perform, I thought I might as well quit the business. Because I could never be as brilliant."

Robin Williams said Winters had been his 'mentor and amazing friend'

 

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Winters joined the Marines aged 17 and served two years in the South Pacific.
In the early 1950s, after stints as a radio disc jockey and TV host in his home state, he moved to New York where he became a nightclub comic doing impressions of John Wayne and Cary Grant, as well as creating new characters of his own.

He also made regular appearances on The Tonight Show with hosts Jack Paar and then Johnny Carson, The Andy Williams Show and his own TV variety shows - The Jonathan Winters Show and The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters - in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In later years, his voice talents were used on many cartoons and animated films. He played three characters in the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle movie in 2000 and he provided the voice of Papa Smurf in the 2011 Smurfs film - a role he reprised for its sequel due for release this July.

Winters won a best supporting actor Emmy for playing Randy Quaid's father in the sitcom Davis Rules in 1991. He was nominated again in 2003 as outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for an appearance on Life With Bonnie.

He also won two Grammys - one for his work on The Little Prince album in 1975 another for his Crank Calls comedy album in 1996.

He also won the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for humour in 1999, a year after Richard Pryor.
Winters' friend, Joe Petro, said the actor died at his California home of natural causes surrounded by friends and family. He is survived by two children.

Farewell, Jonathan. One of my favorite all time comedians. One of the best of them too.

Women held for breaching ban at Jerusalem Western Wall

BBC News

11 April 2013 Last updated at 05:12 ET

The women say they should have the right to wear religious items at the Wall like men

Five women have been detained at Jerusalem's Western Wall for breaching a ban on performing religious rituals Orthodox Jews say are reserved for men.

The women are part of a movement seeking to overturn the prohibition, issued by the High Court in 2003.
Authorities are working on a compromise to try to resolve the dispute.

The Western Wall - a relic of the Biblical Temple compound - currently has separate sections where men and women are allowed to pray.

At sunrise on Thursday morning, about 120 women gathered inside their section at the wall to pray.
The BBC's Erica Chernofsky, who was at the scene, said five of the women from the Women of the Wall (WoW) movement wore phylacteries, kippot and colourful prayer shawls, religious items traditionally worn by Orthodox Jewish men.

About 100 men on the other side of the division heckled the group, while an ultra-Orthodox woman unfurled an umbrella with slogans on it denouncing the women, our correspondent says. The woman, and an ultra-Orthodox man who set fire to one of the WoW's prayer books, were also detained.

“If these things can be done at the Western Wall without hurting others, and this can bring about compromise and serenity, I don't object” Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz Rabbi of the Western Wall

The group have vowed to lead prayer services at the site every month, and members have previously been arrested there for violating the ban.

However, a compromise could see a new area for mixed-gender and women-led prayer.

The proposal has come from Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency - a government-backed organisation that facilitates the immigration of Jewish people to Israel.

"One Western Wall for one Jewish people," said Mr Sharansky, expressing hope that the site "will once again be a symbol of unity among the Jewish people and not one of discord and strife".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to consider Mr Sharansky's proposals, an Israeli official told Reuters news agency.

Correspondents say the proposal risks upsetting Israel's powerful ultra-Orthodox community as well as Muslims who worship near the Western Wall, reflecting the complex religious sensitivities in the area.
In a boost for the plan, the Western Wall's Orthodox Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz endorsed the new prayer section.

"I want everyone to pray according to Orthodox Jewish religious law, but I don't interfere," he told Israel's Army Radio.

"If these things can be done at the Western Wall without hurting others, and this can bring about compromise and serenity, I don't object."

Women of the Wall say their central mission is to be able to "wear prayer shawls, pray, and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall".

One of the big reasons we suffer continuous Abrahamic religious warfare is due to the fact that Abrahamic religions put into social practice are defined by their most conservative or fundamentalist practitioners, not the most liberal ones. And because Abrahamic religions are all territorial control oriented theologies, this translates into continuous friction between Abrahamic fundamentalists be they Jewish, Pauline Christians or Muslims. Certainly Israel's so-called "democracy" is a farce in this situation when ultra-Orthodox Jews control the politics of the nation. You may wonder how a Christian can bash Abrahamic religions. Well, that is due to the lack of cultural information about "my" people, the early Jewish Christian Gnostics who actually started Christianity but were ousted from history by the successful efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to ban and banish all Gnostic Christian Gospels and all Gnostic interpretation of the New Testament Gospels. I am a Jewish Gnostic Christian and our beliefs were never Bible centered, actually never Yahweh centered. I follow God Most High and the Spirit of Christ which is true to the Celestial Torah that was lost in the earthly Jewish Torah.

IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

The ACLU has obtained internal IRS documents that say Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail messages, Facebook chats, and other electronic communications.

by Declan McCullagh

CNET News 

April 10, 2013 8:18 AM PDT 

The IRS continued to insist on warrantless e-mail access, internal documents obtained by the ACLU show, even after a federal appeals court said the Fourth Amendment applied.

(Credit: Getty Images) 

 

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail.
Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge.

That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that require search warrants for hard drives in someone's home, or a physical letter in a filing cabinet.

An IRS 2009 Search Warrant Handbook obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union argues that "emails and other transmissions generally lose their reasonable expectation of privacy and thus their Fourth Amendment protection once they have been sent from an individual's computer." The handbook was prepared by the Office of Chief Counsel for the Criminal Tax Division and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, said in a blog post that the IRS's view of privacy rights violates the Fourth Amendment:

Let's hope you never end up on the wrong end of an IRS criminal tax investigation. But if you do, you should be able to trust that the IRS will obey the Fourth Amendment when it seeks the contents of your private emails. Until now, that hasn't been the case. The IRS should let the American public know whether it obtains warrants across the board when accessing people's email. And even more important, the IRS should formally amend its policies to require its agents to obtain warrants when seeking the contents of emails, without regard to their age.

The IRS continued to take the same position, the documents indicate, even after a federal appeals court ruled in the 2010 case U.S. v. Warshak that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mail. A few e-mail providers, including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook, but not all, have taken the position that Warshak mandates warrants for e-mail.

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request from CNET asking whether it is the agency's position that a search warrant is required for e-mail and similar communications.

Before the Warshak decision, the general rule since 1986 had been that police could obtain Americans' e-mail messages that were more than 180 days old with an administrative subpoena or what's known as a 2703(d) order, both of which lack a warrant's probable cause requirement.

The rule was adopted in the era of telephone modems, BBSs, and UUCP links, long before gigabytes of e-mail stored in the cloud was ever envisioned. Since then, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Warshak, technology had changed dramatically: "Since the advent of e-mail, the telephone call and the letter have waned in importance, and an explosion of Internet-based communication has taken place. People are now able to send sensitive and intimate information, instantaneously, to friends, family, and colleagues half a world away... By obtaining access to someone's e-mail, government agents gain the ability to peer deeply into his activities."

A March 2011 update to the IRS manual, published four months after the Warshak decision, says that nothing has changed and that "investigators can obtain everything in an account except for unopened e-mail or voice mail stored with a provider for 180 days or less" without a warrant. An October 2011 memorandum (PDF) from IRS senior counsel William Spatz took a similar position.

A phalanx of companies, including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, eBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and Twitter, as well as liberal, conservative, and libertarian advocacy groups, have asked Congress to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act to make it clear that law enforcement needs warrants to access private communications and the locations of mobile devices.

In November, a Senate panel approved the e-mail warrant requirement, and last month Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat whose district includes the heart of Silicon Valley, introduced similar legislation in the House of Representatives. The Justice Department indicated last month it will drop its opposition to an e-mail warrant requirement.

Gazan heads to Oxford University on unusual scholarship

3 April 2013 Last updated at 20:00 ET

By Jon Donnison BBC News, Gaza City

The scholarship offers Rawan Yaghi a life-changing opportunity

 

Rawan Yaghi is a bookish 19 year old who, appropriately for a student of literature, arrives to meet me in Gaza with a text tucked under her arm.

It is a well-thumbed copy of Catch 22, Joseph Heller's classic satirical novel on the absurdities of war; not an inappropriate choice for somebody who's spent her entire life amid one of the Middle East's most intractable conflicts.

But Rawan's life is about to take a different direction. Currently a student at Gaza's Islamic University, she has just won a scholarship to Oxford University to study linguistics and Italian.

“Most people think [Gaza] is like a war zone and that everyone here is really depressed and involved in politics. But it's not always about war. It's also about families, friends and love” Rawan Yaghi Gazan student

She is looking forward to moving from the minarets of Gaza to the city of "dreaming spires".

"I'm very excited. I can't wait," she smiles. "It's going to be different but it's going to be fun."

Unusual scholarship

  Few have made such a journey. But what is even more unusual is that all the other students at Oxford's Jesus College will pay some of the cost of Rawan's studies.

As part of the recently established Jesus College Junior Members Scholarship most of the other students have each agreed to pay £3.90 ($5.90) per term towards Rawan's fees.
The scholarship was set up by Oxford graduate Emily Dreyfus after she realised that few Gazans had ever had the chance to study at one of Britain's most prestigious universities.

She says most other students at Jesus were happy to contribute.

Emily Dreyfus says most students are happy to contribute to Rawan's scholarship. Emily Dreyfus expects the young Palestinian will be given a warm welcome.

 

"They voted for this from the outset. They recognise that this is a very small contribution to make which has a disproportionately positive benefit."

The student contributions will raise around £6,300 a year towards Rawan's living costs. This is only a fraction of the estimated £30,000 annual costs needed to complete the four-year course.
But the university has agreed to waive around 60% of the tuition fees.

The rest of the costs are being paid for by three charities: The Hani Qaddumi Scholarship Foundation, the AM Qattan Foundation and the Hoping Foundation which supports Palestinian refugees around the world.
Rawan still had to apply for and win the place against fierce competition, but she knows the other students at Jesus have given her a rare opportunity.

"I really appreciate that Emily believed in people here and she gave somebody like me a life changing chance," she says.

Rawan has only once before left the tiny Palestinian territory, when she went on a study trip to the United States.

Israel's blockade of Gaza and the ongoing conflict with Hamas which governs here make it difficult for Palestinians to leave through Israel.

In the past, Israel has refused permission for Palestinian students to leave Gaza in order to carry out studies abroad.
 
It is likely Rawan will leave Gaza through Egypt in order to travel to Oxford.

She is currently completing a degree in English literature studying, among other books, George Orwell's Animal Farm and William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

She says her favourite book is Mornings In Jenin by the Palestinian American writer Susan AbulHawa.
The novel follows the story of three generations of a Palestinian family who became refugees after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Rawan is also a fan of JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books.

Jesus College students will each contribute £3.90 per term towards Rawan's fees

 

"Her style of writing is very subtle. There are little things in her stories that grab your attention."
Education is highly valued in Gaza. There are no fewer than seven universities in the territory for a population of 1.7 million people.

But Rawan is expecting a different study experience at Oxford.

"The education system is completely different. I'm going to have my own tutors not like in Gaza where I am among hundreds of students who have the same teacher."

Cultural differences

  She will also have to get used to mixed education. At the Islamic University, where she studies now, men and women are taught separately.

"I don't think it's going to be a problem. The culture there is obviously very different but I'm open to that."
Rawan also accepts that she is going to miss home.

"Of course I will be homesick. But I have to go through that and get used to it because I have something more important to achieve."

Graduation day at Gaza's Islamic University: Rawan is expecting a very different cultural experience at Oxford

 

"I'm confident that she's going to have a wonderful time and I know that there are a lot of people at the college eager to meet her and to welcome her to their community."

And Rawan is looking forward to telling people about a different side of life in Gaza.

"Most people think it's like a war zone here and that everyone here is really depressed and involved in politics," she says.

"But it's not always about war. It's also about families, friends and love. It's not only about the conflict with Israel."

And despite the chance to broaden her horizons, she is adamant that once she has finished her four years in Oxford, she will return to Gaza.

"I still haven't thought about what I'll do after university but I'll definitely come back here. Although it may seem difficult to live here, it's still interesting and adventurous at times," she says with a wry smile.

"There is ugliness in Gaza but you can't leave it and turn your back on it."