Semaine 37 / 2009

            The Prime Minister's Office, faced with reports Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a clandestine trip to Russia, on Wednesday night appeared to stick to its original version of events: that he was occupied with "secret and classified activities" during an unexplained absence of more than 12 hours on Monday. The PMO announced that that military attaché Lt.-Gen. Meir Kalifi was not in contact with the prime minister. According to the announcement, Kalifi undertook an... [Lire la suite]

           The percentage of Americans who believe Islam encourages violence has declined in recent years but remains far above where it was in 2002, while very basic knowledge about the faith has shown modest increases, according to a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life. The poll's findings, released ahead of the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, come against the backdrop of U.S. President Barack Obama's attempts to reach out to the Islamic world and eroding public... [Lire la suite]

           If over the past few weeks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to be making some order in his office, his conduct and that of his advisers regarding his secret trip to Moscow reveal that anarchy, turf wars and mendacious responses to both the media and the public are but a few of the manifestations of the organizational culture prevailing in the office that runs the State of Israel. To understand the story properly, we must go back to Monday morning, when reporters who called the... [Lire la suite]

                UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed "deep concern" on Wednesday about Israel's decision to approve new settler homes in the occupied West Bank and urged the Jewish state to end all such activity. "Such actions and all settlement activity are contrary to international law and the roadmap," said a statement read out by UN spokesman Farhan Haq. The 2003 Middle East roadmap drawn up by international mediators calls on Israel to halt settlement... [Lire la suite]

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal's recent visit to Egypt has brought the Islamist movement and Fatah closer to ending their differences, sources close to Hamas in the Gaza Strip revealed on Tuesday. In another sign of rapprochement between the two parties, Hamas has welcomed plans by senior Fatah officials to visit the Gaza Strip for talks aimed at resolving the crisis. The Fatah officials who are expected to visit the Strip include Nabil Sha'ath, Jibril Rajoub, Mahmoud al-Aloul and Fakhri Bsaiso. The sources said that Mashaal has... [Lire la suite]

            Iran presented world powers on Wednesday with a proposal for new talks with the West, though Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ruled out negotiations over the central issues of his country's controversial nuclear program. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki gave a package of proposals to diplomats representing the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany in a meeting in Teheran attended by journalists. He announced no details of the package. The proposals... [Lire la suite]

            The United States says it has "serious concerns" that Iran is deliberately trying - at a minimum - to preserve a nuclear weapons option. Glyn Davies, Washington's chief envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, also warned that the latest report by the nuclear watchdog shows that Teheran is either very near to or already in possession of enough low-enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon, if the decision were made to further enrich it to weapons-grade.... [Lire la suite]

              The head of the UN nuclear oversight agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Monday that his organization was in a "stalemate" with Iran over its nuclear program. He said Iran had not stopped enriching uranium or answered lingering questions about its nuclear program and urged Iran to "respond positively to the recent U.S. initiative" on a dialogue about nuclear issues. ElBaradei made clear that Iran had not complied with many of the agency's requests. Separately,... [Lire la suite]

              Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Egypt for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah next week. The prime minister's bureau confirmed the trip on Tuesday morning after it was reported by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news network. The two leaders will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and West Bank settlement construction, Israel Radio reported. Netanyahu's visit will follow trips to Egypt over the weekend... [Lire la suite]

              Some two weeks after going public with his ambitious plans of establishing a de facto Palestinian State within two years, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of Monday said he was baffled as to Israel's displeasure and silence over his plans. In an interview to Newsweek, Fayyad said he did not understand why Jerusalem was so unwelcoming of his initiative, and said the Israelis were missing the point. "If you look at all the variables around us, we really don't have... [Lire la suite]