You first sentence is true. However, I think that we should give Abbas a chance. He is no Ysar Arafat. The Palestinians are tired, as witnessed by their children pleading for peace. Give Abbas some incentive to keep Hezbollah off his back, and we may see real progress.

I stand by my first statement that IMO this admin. has done more than any admin. previously in support peace between Israel and the Palestinians. They were given two golden opportunities (the death of Arafat, Illness of Shiron) to achieve some kind of lasting peace and this admin. is taking advantage of that.

Gix, do you disagree with me about the Israeli influence on our Government being too great or not? Or is this a name calling, conversation expanding statement.

The only thing this Bush administration has accomplished is being the best recruiter for the madmen of all stripes in the Muslim Jewish and Christian worlds.
Rapture on up kiddies or wait for the Messiah.

I have also read that the United States is the largest contributor of aid to the Palestinians in the world. We give more to them than the rest of their Arab brothers combined. Yes yes, I know we give more to Isreal and well we should if we are going to give to anyone. Isreal is recognized by the United Nations as an independent country, Palestine is not.

You can believe whatever you like about Bush. I am not a fan of his, will never be a fan of his. However, I think it is a big mistake to believe that this president (or any president) has not contributed some positive things to their admin. IMO-one of those things for this admin. is that they are the first to really try and achieve peace with Isreal/Palestinians.

The have not done anything to try and acheive peace. I don't know what you are talking about.

http://jordantimes.com/mon/news/news1.htm

King warns against damaging Islamic shrines in Jerusalem

Monarch condemns Israeli attempts near Magharebah Gate, adjacent to Aqsa Mosque’s Western Wall

AMMAN (JT) — King Abdullah on Sunday warned against damaging Islamic holy sites in occupied Jerusalem.

At a meeting with a delegation of Arab members of the Knesset, the King condemned Israeli attempts to demolish the road of the Magharebah Gate, adjacent to the Western Wall of the Aqsa Mosque, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

“Any attempts to change the nature of such holy sites [in Jerusalem] and remove its Islamic characteristics are condemned,” the King said.

The Monarch said Arab Israeli leaders play a key role in supporting efforts to revive the peace process.

He added that Jordan was keen to enhance relations with the Arab Israeli leadership to serve the Palestinian cause.

Meanwhile, Hamas political leader Khaled Mishaal lashed out at Israel for its attempts to damage the Aqsa.

He told reporters in Damascus that such attempts would make it easier for Israeli troops to attack the revered Al Aqsa Mosque and other Islamic sites nearby in the future, according to the Associated Press.

"Israel, which today is playing with fire when it touches the Aqsa, knows the consequences of this playing with fire," Mishaal said.

He also called on Palestinians in Jerusalem and everywhere to launch a "comprehensive, popular and continuous action to defend the Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem".

Mishaal warned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that this action would mimic the riots that erupted — then turned into years of uprising — after former Israeli premier, Ariel Sharon, visited the Aqsa compound in 2000.

"Olmert must learn the lesson... the Israeli military and security command must learn the lesson of Sharon who sparked the Intifada," Mishaal said.

Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated at the mosque earlier in the day to protest the Israeli scheme, which is widely perceived in the Arab world as part of Israel's attempts to demolish the mosque.

The Jordanian Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs issued a statement urging governments and organisations of the world to “intervene immediately to stop the dangerous Israeli practices, including a plan by the Israeli government to remove a hill near the Magharebah Gate”.

The panel charged that the Israeli move was designed to benefit from the inter-Palestinian fighting in the Gaza Strip.

“This is a flagrant aggression on an Islamic shrine and Jordan's sovereignty over it, a violation of the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty and a challenge for the UN resolutions,” the panel said in its statement.

Also, the Organisation of Islamic Conference and a Saudi-based body of Muslim scholars condemned Israeli work near the Aqsa Mosque.

"The most serious element is plans to excavate under the walls of the Aqsa Mosque and its underground tunnels," the Islamic Jurisprudence Academy said in a statement carried on Saudi state news agency SPA.

"The academy expresses its sorrow about blatant violations of the sanctity of the mosque, whose existence is threatened," said the Jeddah-based academy, which groups prominent Sunni and Shiite clerics from around the world.

Monday, February 5, 2007

http://jordantimes.com/tue/news/news3.htm

Jerusalem dig unites Palestinians

By Matti Friedman
The Associated Press

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — In the space of one day, a small archaeological dig in Jerusalem's Old City became a rallying call aimed at uniting Palestinians against Israel.

The dig — a few waterlogged sandbags and black buckets of earth behind aluminum walls — is meant to prepare the way for a new pedestrian walkway up to one of the world's most holy sites, the compound known to Muslims as the noble sanctuary.

Though archaeologists insist there is no danger to the walled compound, it inflamed Muslim fears that Israel was planning to damage Islamic holy sites and briefly caused rival Palestinian factions to put aside their differences and condemn Israel together. The new walkway is supposed to replace an unsafe old ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago.

But even minor maintenance can have deep implications in Jerusalem.

For Palestinians, no symbol is more emotive than the noble sanctuary, where the Prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven in a nighttime journey recounted in the Holy Koran. The compound houses Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock Shrine.

When Israel opened a tunnel alongside the compound in 1996, it sparked clashes that killed 80 people. In 2000, then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site. The next day, riots erupted, leading to years of violence.

With the Palestinians in the throes of a bloody internal conflict, the Israeli dig offered a chance to display a rare unity.

"Israel, which today is playing with fire when it touches Al Aqsa, knows the consequences of this playing with fire," said Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Cabinet and advocates Israel's destruction.

Fighting between Hamas and Fateh, the more moderate movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has claimed over 130 lives since May. Despite the internal fissures, Fateh and nearly all other Palestinian factions were not far behind Mishaal.

Islamic Jihad, a small and violent group funded by Syria and Iran and responsible for dozens of suicide attacks on Israelis, warned on its website that they would "shake the land underneath the legs of the Zionists" and that Israel was "opening the door for a new war with the Islamic nation." The Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a Fateh-linked group, weighed in with similar fiery threats, along with Hamas' Qassam Brigades. Inside Israel, Raed Salah, the fiery leader of the Islamic movement, called on his followers to come from all over the country to protect the site.

But on Monday, the high compound was placid and nearly empty: A handful of tourists walked around snapping pictures in a brisk wind, eyed by Israeli policemen and guards from the Islamic Waqf, which administers the holy site.

Adnan Husseini, the waqf's director, said he was concerned the new walkway could damage the original ramp up to the compound's Magharebah Gate. The ramp, he said was waqf property and the new construction constituted a violation of the site.

"This is a very dangerous project that will damage things of great historical value in this very sensitive place," Husseini said.

Husseini said he suspected that the excavations around the holy site were attempts to tunnel under it, and demanded that Israel cease all digs immediately.

"We call for an end to all excavations," he said.

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority, rejected claims that the excavations posed any danger to the holy site.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

http://jordantimes.com/wed/news/news1.htm


Jordan strongly condemns Jerusalem dig, gov’t protests


By Khalid Neimat
with agency dispatches

KING ABDULLAH ON Tuesday strongly condemned Israel’s excavation work near an entrance to the Aqsa Mosque compound and said he was deeply concerned about the Jewish state’s practices against Islamic shrines in occupied Jerusalem.

“Israel dangerously escalated its practices in the past hours following the announcement of the digging, which threatens the foundations of the Aqsa,” the King said in a statement, carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

An Agence France-Presse reporter saw a small bulldozer digging up a path next to the Magharebah Gate that leads to one of the mosque entrances, near the Western Wall. And Israeli police stationed reinforcements in the alleyways of the walled Old City to head off feared violence at the third holiest site in Islam — at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“Jordan will exert all efforts with Arab and international parties to safeguard Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, in line with the Kingdom’s duty as well as the peace treaty with Israel,” the Monarch added.

He warned that Israel’s “unacceptable violations” will not contribute to efforts seeking the revival of the peace process.

The waqf trust said two underground rooms connected to the mosques lie under a mound, the focus of the works, and that levelling it would threaten the foundation of the compound.

King Abdullah said he directed the government to urgently contact Israeli authorities to stop its measures.

Jordanian Ambassador to Israel Ali Ayed said he informed Tel Aviv of Amman’s strong condemnation of the work.

Ayed said Jordan demanded Israel halt the digging, warning of the “consequences of such unilateral and irresponsible action which represent a provocation for the feelings of Muslims around the world”.

Tayseer Tamimi, head of religious courts in the Palestinian territories, said on Al Jazeera television that “the occupation bulldozers are headed [to the mosques] to destroy the historic route from Magharebah Gate.”

He urged Palestinians to go immediately to the compound to protect the site from the Israeli works.

Jerusalem’s mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein, also denounced the “aggression”.

Speaking to reporters before leaving the Gaza Strip for talks in Saudi Arabia, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called on “all the sons of Palestine to unite and rise up en masse to protect the Aqsa Mosque”.

The compound, which houses both the Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, is where the second Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 following a controversial visit by then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said there was absolutely no basis for accusations that holy sites would be harmed.

“The works are not intended to harm any of the holy sites. On the contrary, the purpose is to maintain the sites because of some erosion that happened in the past,” she said after talks with her British counterpart Margaret Beckett.

Eleven protesters were arrested in occupied East Jerusalem, but none in the Old City, the Israeli police said.

In Gaza City, dozens of Palestinians marched to denounce the “Israeli aggression”, and a similar protest was held in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Islamic Jihad said a rocket attack on southern Israel — which caused no casualties or damage — was “in response to the criminal Zionist aggression against the Aqsa Mosque”.

Only a few dozen Palestinians gathered at Magharebah Gate, among them the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah.

“What’s happening here is criminal and it could reach into the depths of the Aqsa Mosque,” he told reporters.

Former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia accused the Israeli government of “playing with fire”, saying in a statement its behaviour could “start a new Intifada”.

In Cairo, the Arab League voiced its “extreme concern and ire” over the excavations, and the supreme leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood called on “all Arabs, Muslims... to express their anger and reject this Zionist crime”.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Do you really believe that Israel willingly pulled out of Gaza and uprooted their settlements their? Do you not think that there was a great deal of pressure put on them?