Gaza Resist

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip rejected compromise with Israel in a fiery speech Wednesday, a day after gunmen killed four Israelis in a strong reminder that the Islamic militant group cannot be ignored in any Mideast deal.

President Barack Obama denounced the West Bank ambush as he launched a two-day summit marking the first Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in nearly two years.

“The message should go out to Hamas and everyone else who is taking credit for these heinous crimes that this is not going to stop us,” he said after greeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

Hamas has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s shootings, a vivid reminder that the Iranian-backed group may be locked out of the peace negotiations but remains a key player in determining their outcome.

Late Wednesday, gunmen wounded two Israelis in a drive-by shooting in the northern West Bank, the military said.

Assailants in a car overtook an Israeli vehicle and then opened fire, seriously wounding an Israeli man.

’Unprecedented’ challenge to save Chilean miners

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — The effort to save 33 men trapped deep in a Chilean mine is an unprecedented challenge, mining safety experts said Tuesday. It means months of drilling, then a harrowing three-hour trip in a cage up a narrow hole carved through solid rock.

If all of that is successful, the freed men will emerge from the earth and “feel born again,” said an American miner who was part of a group dramatically rescued in 2002 with similar techniques. But that rescue pulled men from a spot only one-tenth as deep.

“They’re facing the most unusual rescue that has ever been dealt with,” said Dave Feickert, director of KiaOra, a mine safety consulting firm in New Zealand that has worked to improve China’s dangerous mines. “Every one of these rescues presents challenging issues. But this one is unique.”

Archaeologists say they have unearthed Iron Age temple

AMMAN, Jordan — Archaeologists in Jordan have unearthed a 3,000-year-old Iron Age temple with a trove of figurines of ancient deities and circular clay vessels used for religious rituals, officials said.

The head of the Jordanian Antiquities Department, Ziad al-Saad, said the sanctuary dates to the eighth century B.C. and was discovered at Khirbat ’Ataroz near the town of Mabada, some 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of the capital Amman.

He said the complex boasts a main room that measures 388 square feet (36 square meters), as well as two antechambers and an open courtyard.

The sanctuary and its artifacts — hewn from limestone and basalt or molded from clay and bronze — show the complex religious rituals of Jordan’s ancient biblical Moabite kingdom, according to al-Saad.

“Today we have the material evidence, the archaeological proof of the level of advancement of technology and civilization at that period of time,” he said.

Video: Captured Mexican drug lord knew top capos

MEXICO CITY — A former Texas high school football player and petty street dealer who allegedly rose to become one of Mexico’s most savage assassins says he personally knew the country’s top drug lords and shipped cocaine from Colombia through Panama.

In a video released by Mexico’s federal police, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as “the Barbie” for his fair complexion and green eyes, also told his interrogators that he transported cash hidden in trailers and spent $200,000 to make a film based on his life.

The suspect — he once owned a bar in Acapulco called “XXXoticas” — decided not to release the movie because it might reveal too much information.

A US energy industry expert estimates that international companies may soon join exploration efforts for oil and gas in Israel.

The expert, Fred Zeidman, told Globes website that it is very likely that international firms will join the exploration efforts on Israeli territory, a year after the ‘Tamar’ and ‘Dalit’ discoveries in the Mediterranean Sea. One international firm is already involved: Noble Energy, which was the partner of Delek and Isramco in the discoveries.

Two of Israel’s largest financial groups – Nochi Dankner’s IDB group and Ofer Nimrodi’s Israel Land Development – have also entered the sector.

‘A crazy rush’
“It happens all the time,” Zeidman said. “We see in the US that the moment a company discovers oil or gas that can be transported, there’s a crazy rush to the region by other companies, and that’s a function of the size of the reserves found. Around the world, as soon as Noble goes to a place, many other companies follow in its wake. The prospects here are amazing, and I have no doubt that we’ll see an economic boom, and a rush of more companies to Israel from overseas following Noble.”

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 122 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, recoverable natural gas are in the Levant Basin Province in the eastern Mediterranean region, according to a new report.

The area includes the coastal areas near Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

“The Levant Basin Province is comparable to some of the other large provinces around the world,” stated Brenda Pierce, USGS Energy Resources Program Coordinator. “Its gas resources are bigger than anything we have assessed in the United States.”

The Levant Basin Province also holds an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, that can be recovered with existing technology. This is the first time the USGS has assessed the Levant Basin area for extractable resources.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Syrians and Palestinians have gathered in a Damascus square in a government-orchestrated ''march of anger'' against Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem.

The crowd at the central Youssel al-Azmi square waved Syrian and Palestinian flags and pictures of Hamas leaders as they shouted anti-Israel slogans Friday.

Senior Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal condemned what he called Israel's ''brutal aggression'' on holy sites.

The U.S. and Arab countries want Israel to stop building Jewish homes in east Jerusalem -- the section of the city that Palestinians want as the capital of a future state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses, saying the entire holy city must remain Israel's eternal capital.

Israel will be allowed to replace the senior Mossad station chief being expelled from Britain if it offers assurances that forged UK passports will never be used again for clandestine operations, it was reported Thursday.

But such a declaration would be tantamount to an admission of Israel's guilt in the targeted assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, according to the Independent newspaper.

The Israeli regime has shown no signs so far that it will acquiesce to the demand made by Foreign Secretary David Miliband to pledge that "the state of Israel would never be party to the misuse of British passports in such a way".

The Jewish Chronicle said that the Israeli diplomat being expelled is believed by the Foreign Office to be directly linked to the forgeries but reported an Israeli official confirming that a replacement would be sent to London in due time.

Australia, France, Germany and Ireland also conducting their own investigations into the forging of their passports used by the Mossad hit squad and have yet to announce any action against Israel.

Commander of the United States Military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) Gen. David Petraeus, whose widely-reported recent claim that Israeli intransigence was a problem for the US military in the Middle East and was fomenting conflict caused much concern within the Israeli security and political establishment, attempted on Wednesday to set the record straight, claiming that bloggers "spun" his words.

In the written testimony to the senate last week, Petraeus charged that the Arab-Israeli conflict hurts America’s ability to advance its interests in the Middle East, fomenting anti-American sentiment and limiting America’s strategic partnerships with Arab governments. He also called the conflict one of the “root causes of instability” and “obstacles tosecurity ” in the region – which aids al-Qaida – and argued that serious progress in the peace process could weaken Iran’s reach, as it uses the conflict to fuel support for its terror group proxies.

Earlier this month, a posting on the Foreign Policy website claimed that the general “sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers.”

In addition, according to the dispatch, Petraeus requested that the West Bank and Gaza be shifted to his Central Command (from European Command) so that the US military could “be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region's most troublesome conflict,” The American Spectator reported.

Speaking to TAS at a briefing prior to an appearance in Manchester, New Hampshire, Petraeus said he never requested to have the West Bank and Gaza added to his responsibilities as leader of the military’s Central Command.

In addition, he explained that the quote that bloggers attributed to his Senate testimony was actually plucked out of context from a report that Central Command had sent the Armed Services committee, TAS reported.

“There’s a 56-page document that we submitted that has a statement in it that describes various factors that influence the strategic context in which we operate and among those we listed the Mideast peace process,” he said. “We noted in there that there was a perception at times that America sides with Israel and so forth. And I mean, that is a perception. It is there. I don’t think that’s disputable. But I think people inferred from what that said and then repeated it a couple of times and bloggers picked it up and spun it. And I think that has been unhelpful, frankly.”

In an effort to tamp down the controversy, Petraeus told TAS, he spoke to IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and reassured him that the reports were inaccurate.

When asked about the claim that the perception that the US is too reflexively pro-Israel puts American soldiers at risk, Petraeus said, “There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.”

JERUSALEM and the WEST BANK—Atop Mt. Zion sits the Cenacle, considered by historians the likely setting of the Last Supper. High tourist season in Jerusalem arrives a few weeks before Easter, so on a recent weekday the main floor (cena means dinner) was filled to capacity: Roman Catholics from the Philippines prayed and sang together in one corner; Italians listened to a tour guide in another; Russian Orthodox nearby studied the Armenian capitals that top columns in the Crusader-era vault; and a group of evangelicals from Alaska waited their turn outside in midday sun. From the Jewish school at the site came the sounds of male prayer chanting.

A synagogue was here long before the apostles reportedly established it as a place of worship following Jesus' death and resurrection. It was destroyed by Persians in 614, rebuilt, destroyed by Muslims in 1009, regained by Crusaders in 1099, who built the basilica that partially survives today. The Franciscans took it over until another Muslim invasion—when it was transformed into a mosque and closed to Christians until the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Since the Six Day War in 1967, the Diaspora Yeshiva has run the compound.

Arab leaders are currently meeting in Libya in a ritual summit held almost annually since the end of the Second World War.

Although the League of Arab States (also commonly referred to as the Arab League) was established in 1945, it was not until 1964 that member states met for the first time at the Cairo headquarters to discuss the Israeli threat - to water resources.

Arab leaders met in a unified bid to study the danger of Israeli plans to divert the waters of the River Jordan. The summit plan was as effective as the subsequent Arab military plans to deal with the Israeli threat.

The Arab League was founded at the behest of the British, just as the Gulf Co-operation Council was founded at the urging of the US. One should not mistake these external pressures as efforts to push for Arab unity; in fact, quite the opposite is  true.

Western powers have always been hostile toward all efforts of Arab unity, especially when Gamal Abdel Nasser,the late Egyptian president, stood as the symbol of Arab nationalism.But Western powers have favoured regional alliances that promoted Western security and political agendas.

The Arab League was a compromise between Arab popular expectations for a larger Arab political entity, and British concerns about Arab nationalism getting out of hand.

Arab summits have failedto get the Arab public's attention since the defeat of Jordan Syria and Egypt by Israel in June 1967. Prior to that date, Arabs had hoped that their leaders would plan and execute a serious military operation to defeat Israel and liberate Palestine.

Grand promises

 Prior to Israel's occupation of Palestine in 1948,Arab newspapers used to send their top correspondents to cover pan-Arab meetings. Press clippings from that era were full of references to solid plans to defeat Zionism without even allowing for the Jewish state to be created.

Speeches were fiery and promises were grand. Arab leaders even signed a joint military pact.  The key word was "joint". Arab leaders were supposed to coordinate their political, diplomatic, and military moves especially when it came to confronting Zionism and helping the Palestinians.

Of course, the first war in 1948 was a humiliating experience for the Arabs, and a devastating blow to Palestinian aspirations.

The joint military pact did not amount to much: the rag-tag Arab troops that entered Palestine to prevent the Jewish state from occupying Palestine often engaged in "friendly" gun fights amongst themselves.

Ultimately, the regimes that led the Arab armies in 1948 were overthrown (except in Jordan). New Arab governments came to power in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and later in Sudan and Libya. The new regimes spoke the language of Arab nationalism and promised a quick fix for the occupation of Arab lands.

Amin Hafiz, the Syrian president in 1963, claimed that he had a solid plan that would defeat Israel in three days. Nasser, to his credit, was more cautious and stressed that planning for the liberation of Palestine required years of careful consideration.

But he also was ill-prepared and made fateful decisions (such as being dragged into the war in Yemen, appointing the notoriously incompetent Abdul-Hakim Amir as commander of the Egyptian forces, and allowing himself to be pushed by Jordan and Syria in 1967 into taking uncalculated risks that produced the eventual defeat).

Watershed moment

Arabs in general drew distinctions influenced by Nasser's political rhetoric between "progressive Arab regimes" and "reactionary Arab regimes" - the "tails of colonial powers", as Nasser called them.

That distinction was buried in June 1967 during the Six Day War,a watershed event in Arab history. All the hopes that were pinned on Nasser and the Baathist socialist ideology were dashed. It would be fair to say that Arab summits never mattered after that day—at least as far as the Arab people are concerned.

No more was the distinction made between the two camps in Arab politics relevant to the Arab people. Both had failed in fulfilling their promises.

Arab leaders continued to meet in irregular summits. But no one was paying attention anymore. No one expected Arab leaders to confront Israel when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, or when it attacked Gaza in December 2008,or when it attacked Lebanon in 2006, or when the US attacked Iraq - twice.

Arab leaders now meet for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the aspirations of the Arab people or dreams of Arab unity.They meet first and foremost to bestow the honour of hosting the summit on one another.

Every year, an Arab ruler and country play host to the summit. That carries with it a certain degree of formal prestige. The leader of that country receives more visitors and dignitaries than usual and is seen on his state TV receiving heads of state, and representatives of international organisations.

Impression of business

Secondly, Arab leaders often meet in order to follow US dictates.

Hosni Mubarak,the Egyptian president, hastily arranged an Arab League meeting in Cairo in the summer of 1990 in order to prevent an Arab consensus from developing  to resolve the crisis created by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, because the US was pursuing its own agenda to expel Saddam's army, and to project its power in the region.

The Arab summit in Beirut in 2002 was also an attempt (largely by Saudi Arabia, but also by other Arab governments as well) to fend off the wrath of the Bush administration in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Arab leaders have another reason to meet. They like to project an impression of business; that they are attending to the problems of the people. But at some level, they are well aware that no one is paying attention.

Long flowery statements are still issued by Arab leaders, but they are not read anymore. This is not the age of Nasser. This is the era of ageing Arab leaders (or their sons) who lack charisma and popularity.

This is the age of US dominance in the Middle East where Arab leaders are given little room to manoeuvre.

Arab summits were capable of at least rhetorical surprises: the "Three No's" of Khartoum (no to peace with Israel, no to recognition, and no to negotiation) in 1967 are the most famous, but now we know that those governments that officially endorsed the formula were already negotiating secretly with the Israelis.

The US government now keeps a very tight lid over the regimes that it controls.  When King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch, referred to the US occupation in Iraq as "illegitimate" during his opening speech at the Riyadh Arab summit in 2007, a diplomatic crisis ensued and the King has never used that expression since.

The Arab people now are accustomed to gatherings that produce long, tedious documents that no one (except translators at foreign embassies) actually read.

Between watching Syrian and Turkish TV serials, and watching proceedings of Arab summits, the Arab people may be worshipping the remote control. Gone are the days when they were subjected to one state-controlled channel that bombarded them with speeches and daily movements of the "dear Arab leader".