Taliban threatens polling stations in Afghanistan

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The Taliban are threatening to attack polling centers in the key southern province of Kandahar, a warning likely to have a chilling effect on potential voters in this week's presidential election.

Afghanistan's intelligence service chief, meanwhile, said authorities were making progress in convincing some Taliban to leave voters alone Thursday, when Afghans will select a president and members of provincial councils.

Militants have promised to disrupt the poll, in which President Hamid Karzai hopes to win another five-year term. Some have warned people to stay away from voting centers, close businesses and not travel on election day.

In leaflets pinned on mosque walls in the city late Saturday, the militants warned they will use "new tactics" as they try to undermine the vote.

"You should not participate in the elections and should not go to the polling centers because officials might be there and there might be attacks against them," said the letter signed by Ghulam Haidar, the Taliban's operational Kandahar commander.

"You should not participate in the elections because you might be the victims of our operations," said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

The Taliban also warned people not to allow the voting to take place on their property or rent their houses to election officials.

The head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, Amrullah Saleh, indicated talks were under way with local Taliban leaders to avoid attacking voting centers, but he gave few details.

"When we started this, we found out that there is no cohesion of command" within the Taliban, he said.

Separately, a rocket hit a shop in Kandahar city, wounding two children inside, police official Mohammad Jan said. No group immediately claimed responsibility.

The attack came a day after a suicide car bomb killed seven people and wounded 91 outside NATO's military headquarters in Kabul. The Taliban said it was responsible.

Iran tries more activists in post-election turmoil

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer



TEHRAN, Iran – Iran on Sunday put on trial 25 more activists and opposition supporters, including a Jewish teenager, for their alleged involvement in the turmoil following the recent presidential election.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attempted to paint those who took to the streets after the June election to protest his disputed victory as agents of foreign enemies seeking to topple the country's Islamic system.

The president pushed ahead with preparations for his next term Sunday by announcing that he will nominate three women to join his new Cabinet, a move that could produce the first female ministers in the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The announcement appears to be an attempt by Ahmadinejad to enlist the support of Iranian women as he fends off criticism from the opposition that his re-election was fraudulent. The appointments seem unlikely to appease reformists, however, since both women he named Sunday are fellow hard-liners.

The prosecutor opened Sunday's trial with a general indictment of all 25 defendants, accusing them of plotting the post-election turmoil years ahead of time, said the state news agency.

During the trial, authorities played a film showing attacks on public property, cars and a mosque by protesters.

Earlier this month Iran held two other court sessions for more than 100 reformist politicians and activists accused of attempting to overthrow Iran's Islamic system during massive protests that erupted after the June 12 vote. The opposition has called the trial a sham.

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly accused the U.S. of fueling the post-election unrest despite President Barack Obama's denial and his attempts to step up diplomatic engagement with Iran to defuse tension over the country's controversial nuclear program.

The Iranian president indirectly criticized Obama while speaking to a group of clerics Sunday, saying "the excellency who talks about change made a big mistake when he openly interfered in Iran's domestic issues," according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

One of the people who went on trial Sunday belongs to Iran's tiny Jewish community.

Yaghoghil Shaolian, 19, was quoted by Fars news agency as saying he wasn't an activist and didn't even vote, but just got carried away and threw some stones at a bank branch in central Tehran, resulting in his arrest.

Iran's sole Jewish parliamentarian, Siamak Mereh Sedq, confirmed the detention of Shaolian and his Jewish identity to The Associated Press. He said Shaolian's detention was not related to his religion.

"He is innocent. We hope to see his release soon based on Islamic mercy," he said.

Shaolian's trial is the first time a Jew has been tried in Iran since 2000 when 13 Jews were charged with spying for Israel. Iran is home to 25,000 Jews, the largest such community in the Middle East outside Israel.

Ahmadinejad's new judiciary chief, Sadeq Larijani, will take responsibility for the controversial trials after his inauguration Monday.

The president named two women on state television Sunday who he said he would appoint to his Cabinet: Marzieh Vahid Dastgerdi, a 50-year-old gynecologist, as health minister and Fatemeh Ajorlu, a 43-year-old lawmaker, as minister of welfare and social security

He did not name the third woman but said he will nominate at least one more female minister to the Cabinet. Ahmadinejad currently has a female vice president on his Cabinet who is in charge of the environment.

Iran's last female minister, Farrokhroo Parsay, served from 1968 to 1977. She was executed on charges of corruption after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought hard-line Islamists to power.

Every minister has to be approved by parliament — an uncertain prospect since some lawmakers have criticized Ahmadinejad for not consulting with them prior to making his nominations.

Ahmadinejad also named cleric Haidar Moslehi as the new intelligence minister Sunday. Moslehi currently serves has the head of the department of endowment and charity affairs. The president said the names of all 21 ministers and 12 vice presidents on the Cabinet will be announced Wednesday.

Newspapers on Sunday reported that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims he won the June election, will form a new political organization to pursue freedoms within the framework of the country's constitution.

Mousavi named the body "the Green Path of Hope" and said it was aimed at regaining people's constitutional rights.

He said volunteer and social networks would form the body of his organization without further elaborating.

The move comes as pressure mounts on Mousavi and his allies by hardliners, who have been calling for him to be tried as well.

During Sunday's trial, one of the defendants, Mehrdad Aslani accused Mousavi of planting the idea of election fraud in the mind of their supporters.

"Mr. Mousavi, do you know there are seats here for you and your friends who were the cause of this plot?" he said. There have been no official indictments against Mousavi.

Difficult terrain works against Calif. fire crews

By JARED GRIGSBY, Associated Press Writer

DAVENPORT, Calif. – California residents are being urged to follow orders to leave their homes as crews struggled to control nearly a dozen wildfires burning in areas with inaccessible terrain.

"These fires will be different than most of the fires because of the terrain," California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Saturday during a tour of the Lockheed Fire zone. "It's very hard to get equipment in there and the resources in there. That's why you see a lot of helicopters and fixed winged aircraft being used."

The fire has blackened more than 10 square miles of remote wilderness since Wednesday and prompted mandatory evacuations of the mountain communities of Swanton and Bonny Doon, which have about 2,400 residents and several wineries.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi declared a state of emergency Friday for Santa Cruz County.

The blaze damaged two small structures and was threatening more than 1,000 homes and buildings. No homes were destroyed, but Schwarzenegger said 25 firefighters had been injured. The extent of their injuries wasn't immediately known.

"We pray that they heal as quickly as possible," Schwarzenegger said.

More crews have arrived to help with the blaze, which currently was being held back by a total of 2,000 firefighters, Nadim Yehia of CalFire said late Saturday. The fire was about 40 percent contained, he added.

Meanwhile, a separate fire in Yuba County north of Sacramento tripled in size Saturday to more than 6 square miles as the flames jumped the north Yuba River and began burning in Nevada County, according to CalFire spokeswoman Joann Cartoscelli. It was about 15 percent contained Saturday.

Schwarzenegger said the Lockheed Fire was among 11 burning up and down the coast in the state. Other blazes have forced evacuations and knocked out power, and smoke and ash from the growing wildfire in Santa Barbara County whirled into the Los Angeles area, prompting an unusual weather forecast of "scattered smoke."

Bonnie Bartling with the National Weather Service said that forecast was expected for the Santa Monica Mountains, San Fernando Valley, and other areas of northern Los Angeles County.

The Yuba fire, which was ignited by burning feathers from a red-tailed hawk that flew into a power line, destroyed two homes Friday, forced the evacuation of about 120 residences and knocked out power in the Sierra foothills town of Dobbins, said Cartoscelli. Residents of about 40 homes were allowed to return after evacuation orders were lifted.

She added that the number of firefighters was more than doubled to 1,300 from around the state to battle the blaze.

Teams were trying to prevent the fire from spreading to the Colgate Powerhouse, the oldest powerhouse in the state and which provides electricity to the Dobbins area.

She said the area around the Yuba River was creating "difficult" problems, describing it as "very rough terrain. It's steep. You can't drive to it."

Farther north, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department said Saturday that a week-old wildfire burning in the Los Padres National Forest was started by a campfire set by marijuana growers, part of a drug operation run by Mexican nationals.

More than 230 homes and ranches remained under evacuation orders as more than 2,000 firefighters took on that blaze, which has burned 131 square miles of timber and brush in the forest about 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles. It was 25 percent contained.

In Alameda County, which includes part of the Bay area, more than 400 firefighters were struggling to control a wind-driven grass fire burning an area of about 23 square miles near Tracy, according to a CalFire report. The Corral Fire was 60 percent contained, and Alameda County Fire department spokeswoman Aisha Knowles said Saturday that there was no threat to the nearby interstates 5 and 580.

In far northern California, 60-year-old Brenda Eitzen of Los Molinos has been accused of sparking a blaze by throwing away a lit cigarette Wednesday. She faces a maximum of four years in prison if convicted of starting the Coffin Fire, which had scorched nearly 19 square miles before full containment Saturday evening.

To the east, residents of 10 rural homes were allowed to return Saturday after a wind-whipped fire near Burney forced evacuations. Firefighters contained about 85 percent of the nearly 11-square-mile blaze about 200 miles north of Sacramento.

"They are making very good progress" said James Stewart, a CalFire spokesman. "It's just a matter of putting everything out now."

NKorea threatens retaliation over US, UN sanctions

By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Sunday to retaliate against the U.S. and South Korea over sanctions imposed on the communist regime, a day after South Korea's president renewed his offer of conditional aid for the impoverished country.

The U.S. is moving to enforce U.N. as well as its own sanctions against North Korea to punish its second nuclear test in May and a spate of missile tests.

The U.N. sanctions strengthened an arms embargo and authorized ship searches on the high seas to try and rein in Pyongyang's nuclear program. The council also ordered an asset freeze and travel ban on companies and individuals allegedly involved.

If the U.S. and South Korea "tighten 'sanctions' and push 'confrontation' to an extreme phase, the (North) will react to them with merciless retaliation ... and an all-out war of justice," said a North Korean military statement reported Sunday by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

"Should the U.S. imperialists and the Lee Myung-bak group threaten the (North) with nukes, it will retaliate against them with nukes," it said, referring to South Korea's president by name.

The North's latest warning came in response to an annual computer-simulated war game Seoul and Washington will kick off Monday.

North Korea routinely condemns joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, calling them preparations for an invasion.

The U.S. and South Korea say the maneuvers are purely defensive.

On Saturday, Lee called for a "candid dialogue" with North Korea about dismantling its atomic programs so the communist nation can prosper economically.

It was unclear if Seoul's proposed aid offer — which still has strings attached — would prod North Korea to back down from its promise to restart its nuclear program. Lee has made similar aid offers in the past, but the North has rejected them.

For years, South Korea had been one of Pyongyang's biggest benefactors, but since taking office early last year, Lee suspended unconditional aid to the impoverished North as part of a new hard-line approach. The North responded by cutting most ties and curtailing key joint projects.

Lee also offered talks on reducing conventional arms and troops along the mine-strewn demilitarized zone, a 2.5-mile- (4-kilometer-) wide buffer bisecting the Korean peninsula.

About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.

South and North Korea have hundreds of thousands of combat-ready troops and heavy artillery along the 155-mile- (250-kilometer-) long border.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jung-eun, who traveled to Pyongyang last Monday to secure the release of a Hyundai employee held there, extended her stay for another day — the fourth time since arriving, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.

Ezra Nawi: Jewish Pacifist Facing Jail for Aiding Arabs

By TIM MCGIRK

A plumber by trade, Ezra Nawi is a Jewish member of a small band of Israeli peace activists who put themselves on the line week in and week out by traveling to the stony hills outside Hebron to help Palestinians defend their land against right-wing Jewish settlers. And he has the lumps to show for it. Four years back, some settlers at Susya had tried to drive a Palestinian family off their land by tossing a dead dog into their well in order to poison the family's water. The following day, Palestinians hauled the dog out of the well and were trying to draw water under the protection of Nawi and some other volunteers from an Jewish-Arab peace group known as Ta'ayush. Masked settlers appeared, smashed one activist with the butt of a gun and broke a long wooden stick over Nawi's head.

Nawi reacted as he always has - by holding his ground - without resorting to violence. In his many confrontations over the years with Israeli police, soldiers and settlers, Nawi has never struck back, say his colleagues at Ta'ayush. "Non-violence is Ezra's natural affinity," says David Shulman, a Ta-ayush member and professor of Sanskrit who has on multiples occasions witnessed Nawi's encounters with settlers and police. "He is amazingly gentle and empathetic. He's not capable of violence."

That's not how Israel's police and courts see Nawi. The avowed pacifist, who is one of the stalwarts of a dwindling Israeli left, is to be sentenced on Sunday after being convicted by an Israeli court for allegedly assaulting a policeman. After the 2007 incident, in which a riot ensued after Israeli soldiers were sent to tear down an Arab home in the West Bank, Nawi was videotaped in handcuffs on the back of a police truck, surrounded by police taunting him for helping Arabs. "I was also a soldier, but I did not demolish houses," Nawi replied. "The only thing that will be left here is hatred."

He is expected to face several years in jail. But Nawi's case has become an international cause cÉlÉbre, with a petition pleading for a dismissal of the case against him drawing over 100,000 signatures, including many prominent Jewish progressives and intellectuals around the world. "The police are lying in their testimony," Nawi tells TIME. "They don't know what to make of me, and it drives them crazy. I'm Mizrahi [a Jew whose family immigrated to Israel from the Arab world] and I'm gay."

Nawi's activism, say his friends, stems from his relationship with a Palestinian lover, through whose hunted eyes he saw the injustices of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. "I'm against the occupation," he says. "We have to be fair to people. Some people see me as the enemy. Others as a good guy."

There's no question of Nawi's "good guy" status among the poor Palestinian shepherds and farmers of the Hebron hills, or among Israel's shrinking circle of peaceniks. Once a mainstream movement, the Israeli peace movement withered during the second Palestinian Intifada that started in 2000, as a wave of suicide bombings in cafes and buses turned most Israelis cold on the promise of trading "land for peace."

A movement that was once able to bring tens of thousands of Israelis onto the streets today consists of only a small number of left-wing activists who do such things as monitor the behavior of Israeli security forces at checkpoints, defend the civil rights of Palestinian prisoners and shield Arabs from settler violence and land grabs. Israeli hawks are baffled that anyone would want to aid "the enemy" and decry these activists as naÏve or, worse, as "self-hating Jews." Nawi says that the Israeli authorities consider him a "provoker" and have tried to scare away Palestinian supporters by claiming that he is gay and has AIDS.

As Nawi contemplates a prison term, pacifist groups like Ta'ayush are not optimistic about the future. The U.S.-sponsored peace talks remain stalled because the Palestinians refuse to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until he agrees to halt construction of the Jewish settlements. But this lack of progress doesn't deter Nawi. His plumbing business may be in shambles, but he says he is happiest when out in the Hebron hills trying to make life a little easier for the areas inhabited by marginalized Palestinian farmers and Bedouins, some of whom live huddled in caves. "I think that because of what we're doing, the police and the settlers are acting with more restraint. They know that the world is watching," he says.

Wedding fire in Kuwait kills at least 41 guests

KUWAIT CITY – A fire at a wedding tent Saturday has killed at least 41 women and children guests and injured 76 others, authorities said.

The official Kuwait News Agency quotes the fire department chief, Brig. Gen. Jassem al-Mansouri, as saying 41 bodies have been recovered from the scene in Jahra, a tribal area west of Kuwait City. KUNA said 76 people have been hospitalized with burns.

Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Mohammed al-Saber said the cause of the fire has not been determined and authorities were having difficulty evacuating the injured because of relatives and onlookers flooding the scene.

He said Kuwait Army ambulances helped transport the injured to the country's hospitals.

Wedding parties in this conservative oil-rich country are held separately for men and women. Children attend the women's party.

Al-Mansouri said holding such parties in tents could be banned after Saturday's fire.

Palestinian Authority wants better ties with Iran

PressTV

August 15, 2009

Acting Palestinian Authority Chief, Mahmoud Abbas, has expressed eagerness to boost relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

"Iran is a friend to our country and we have a political representative in that country, moreover, when we hear supportive speech from Iran (referring to Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman announcing Tehran's intention to boost ties with Fatah and the PA during President Ahmadinejad's second term in office), we embrace the chance," IRIB quoted Abbas as saying in a program broadcast on the Al Arabiya news channel on Friday.

He added that the Palestinian nation endorses the chance of improving ties with the Islamic Republic.

The Palestinian Fatah party kicked off its sixth general conference in the West Bank city of Beit Lahm (Bethlehem) on August 4 to renew its leadership, the first in 20 years and the first on Palestinian soil. The conference has officially announced the new central committee which is made up of 19 Fatah members.

Fatah's second coming

Khaled Amayreh

Having succeeded in holding its first general conference on Palestinian land, Fatah's ultimate success hedges on the extent to which it can extricate Palestinian rights from Israel's parsimonious hands, writes Khaled Amayreh in Bethlehem

August 15, 2009

The week-long Fatah sixth general conference in Bethlehem was wrapped up Tuesday with the election of a new 18-member executive committee, fourteen of them new faces. The newly-elected members include several former chiefs of the Palestinian Authority (PA) security agencies, including Muhammed Dahlan, the controversial former Fatah strongman who is widely considered an arch-foe of Hamas.

Many of the movement's veteran leaders, such as Ahmed Qurei' and Al-Tayeb Abdul-Rahim, failed to win a seat on the powerful committee. Receiving the highest vote were veteran Fatah leader Abu Maher Ghunim, who received 1338 votes, followed by imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi with 1063 votes.

Fifteen of the 18 elected or re-elected members are based in the occupied Palestinian territories, something that means that the estimated 4.5 million Palestinian refugees living in the diaspora will have the lowest representation ever in the movement's most powerful body.

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas who was selected as Fatah chief for a second term will appoint three other members to the committee, including a woman, a Christian and a third person. There are speculations that Abbas might appoint his arch-rival Farouk Kaddumi as a member. However, it is uncertain whether Kaddumi will accept such an offer.

A few weeks ago, Kaddumi accused Abbas and his former aid Muhammed Dahlan of having connived with Israel to poison the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Abbas called the charges a "cheap attempt" to derail the convening of Fatah's conference.

However, during the conference, Abbas sought to extend a hand of reconciliation to Kaddumi: "And to our brother Abu Lutf (Kaddumi's nom de guere) we say we are human beings, we sin and mistake, but the best of sinners are those who repent. In any case, you remain our brother, and we all belong to the warm bosom of this great movement."

The controversy over Kaddumi's charges and Hamas's adamant refusal to allow Fatah delegates from Gaza to travel to the West Bank initially created not a small amount of perplexity within the Fatah leadership.

However, Abbas's determination to hold the conference on time, come what may, eventually proved to be a right decision if only because he succeeded in bringing in more than 2200 Fatah delegates representing the movement's grass-root supporters at home and in the diaspora.

Most observers in Palestine believe that Abbas is likely to enhance his standing, both within Fatah and the larger Palestinian community after the conference. Fatah, too, stands to gain, at least in terms of popularity, as it manages to rebuild and renew itself, guided by a new executive committee and revolutionary council the majority of whose members come from the movement's younger generations.

However, it is also true that much of the optimistic talk about Fatah's "new birth" is based on the assumption that the movement has learned the right lessons from its past blunders. But this assumption is not necessarily accurate, since the Bethlehem conference has left most files having to do with corruption, especially financial corruption, nearly completely untouched.

In fact, some of the most notoriously corrupt Fatah officials have been elected to the executive committee as well as the less important revolutionary council.

Corruption notwithstanding, the post- Bethlehem euphoria might well prove to be completely unjustified if the enduring deadlock with Israel continued as is widely anticipated.

The conference concluded with Fatah adopting a political program that sought to satisfy everyone. The 30-page document reasserted the traditional "Palestinian constants", including a total Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967, and a just solution to the plight of the refugees, in accordance with UN resolution 149.

Furthermore, Fatah's platform reaffirmed commitment to the two-state solution based on the borders of the 4th of June, 1967, and warned that the Palestinians wouldn't resume negotiations with Israel unless the latter froze all settlement expansion activities. It also stressed the right to use all forms of resistance to end the occupation, including armed struggle, which Israel considers "acts of terrorism."

However, it is widely believed that the reference to armed struggle in the final document is mostly rhetorical given the fact that Fatah can't really wage armed struggle and enjoy Israel's benediction at the same time.

Indeed, Fatah leaders are well aware that it was Israel that allowed the Bethlehem conference to take place, and that had it not been for the Israeli consent to hold it, the conference would have never seen the light of the day.

As to the rift with Hamas, it is possible that a more confident Fatah could show more flexibility in reconciliation talks with the Islamic movement. Hani Al-Masri, a Palestinian columnist argues that the composition of Fatah's new executive committee is going to be advantageous to the cause of national unity. "It is true that Abbas has become stronger, but the new executive committee is also strong and is not going to be a mere rubber stamp in his hand as the previous one was," Al-Masri says.

Hamas elaborated tersely on the outcome of Fatah's convention, calling the conference "an internal Fatah affair." The organization's spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said "the new Fatah leadership will be judged by the extent to which it commits itself to the national cause and interests."

There is no doubt that the Fatah conference in Bethlehem was an important step towards the rebuilding and renewal of a movement plagued by internal feuding, corruption and cronyism. However, it is also true that one should not exaggerate what a single conference can do in terms of resolving the numerous, insurmountable problems facing the Palestinian people and their enduring cause.

Fatah's ultimate success -- as indeed is the case with other Palestinian groups -- hedges on the extent to which it can do in terms of extricating Palestinian rights from Israel's parsimonious hands.

Hence, the more logical question to be asked is not what Fatah, and other Palestinian factions for that matter, will do, but rather what can they do, given the harsh political reality.

The proceedings of Fatah's general conference took place in a Bethlehem building overlooking the Israeli settlement of Har Homa. This fact alone must have demonstrated to the 2200 Fatah delegates that the road to true freedom is still very long.

Haneiyah: We were obliged to act against Jund Insar Allah

Gaza - Ma'an : The Hamas government was obliged to act against Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers for God), de facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said publicly following overnight clashes between the ultra-Islamist group and Hamas police.

"Members of the group had worked against the government, described it as unreligious and armed themselves in opposition," the de facto Prime Minister said at a conference on Saturday. "These were radicals who blew themselves up in the midst of security officers," he said.

Haniyeh described the group as one that took advantage of youth and infused them with "strange ideas" based on acting against so-called atheists in a violent way. In all ways, he added, this came about because of the Israeli siege on Gaza, and the war Israel perpetrated against the people of the Strip. He said the dire conditions fostered negative thinking in younger generations.

Six de facto government police and one Hamas leader were reportedly killed in the clashes that arose after the Jund Ansar Allah took over a Rafah city mosque and, along with hundreds of armed supporters, declared the city of Rafah an Islamic Emirate. Another six civilians were confirmed dead, including two young girls. Ten others from the ultra-Islamist movement including Jund Ansar Allah leader Sheikh Abdul Latif Moussa were also killed.

Sources said two loud explosions were heard during clashes, reportedly Jund Ansar Allah fighters blowing themselves up amidst Hamas police.

Israeli Containment Strategy: Gaza Misery Used to Intimidate West Bankers

Shir Hever, Alternative Information Center (AIC)

August 14, 2009

All Israeli governments since the collapse of the Oslo Process have lacked plans for the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). A state of paralysis has taken hold of Israeli politics, and all major Zionist parties-from liberal-Left Meretz to quasi-fascist Israel Beitenu, agree on the following points:
1. Israel shouldn't withdraw from the OPT unless a permanent peace can be reached with the Palestinians, as a unilateral withdrawal will.
2. Israel cannot control the entire OPT forever, because the international community doesn't recognize the occupation and because the Palestinians will continue to resist it.
be perceived as weakness.
3. The Palestinians will never agree to peace without true sovereignty, East Jerusalem as their capital and recognition of the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees. *
4. Israel should never allow the Palestinian refugees to return to within the borders of pre-1967 Israel, and should never own up to all of the crimes committed in 1948 and since 1967.

This wide consensus in the Israeli political sphere leaves no room for proactive action, only for eternal procrastination. Unless the Palestinians will miraculously "forget" the atrocities committed against them and decide to compromise on all of their rights for which they have fought for many decades, Israeli governments will continue to contend that there is "no partner for peace." No partner, that is, to accept Israel's unilateral dictates.

This political paralysis has created fertile ground for the design and implementation of creative policies intended to buy time for Israel. Policies intended to put the Israeli public to sleep include the separation policies, forbidding Israelis to enter "Areas A" in the West Bank and Gaza, allowing the settlers to keep building, and finding countless excuses to avoid negotiations with the Palestinians. Privatized checkpoints in the West Bank also help the authorities temper resentment from soldiers, who are tired of the pointless and physically arduous task of manning the checkpoints.

Policies intended to deflect international pressure on Israel to end the occupation include the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" (in other words, announce their support of ethnic discrimination against them), the massive marketing efforts by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to convince the world of Israel's righteousness and the fake withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 (which was called by a senior Israeli official the "amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians").

But the trickiest part of the Israeli delay tactics is how to suppress Palestinian resistance. After the 1948 Naqba and 42 years of military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the Palestinians have become familiar with the various Israeli tricks. They cannot be fooled again with the disingenuous promise of negotiations, or with Netanyahu's rehashed idea of "economic peace" that lacks real substance. The policy against Palestinians is therefore not merely deception, but containment and active suppression. Israeli authorities crack down on Palestinian institutions and organizations, deploy military force and extensive surveillance measures, but are also fighting a psychological war against Palestinians, striking terror into the hearts of people so that they will be reluctant to act against the occupation, and single themselves out for punishment.

The division imposed by Israel between Gaza and the West Bank is a classic "divide-and-conquer" policy, in which Israel attempts to present the severance of the two areas as an internal Palestinian conflict, as if Gazans are all Hamas supporters and West Bankers are all Fatah supporters. In reality, the two policies enacted by Israel towards the two regions are components of a single policy to contain the Palestinian resistance, and bide for time.

The siege on Gaza is a "primitive" form of containment, a simple repressive siege which has transformed the Gaza Strip into the world's largest prison. The people of Gaza are held as prisoners by restricting them to a small location, and by strictly controlling everything going in or out of that area. Like in most prisons, a smuggling industry is thriving in Gaza and, like in most prisons, the prisoners are taught a cynical lesson that "might makes right."

The containment strategy over the West Bank is more sophisticated and complex, but the message Israel is sending the Palestinians in the West Bank is clear: "If you resist the occupation, we can do to you what we do in Gaza!" The more violent and cruel measures Israel applies in Gaza, the more fear it can instill in the hearts of Palestinians in the West Bank.

* Israelis from the Zionist Left often do believe that Palestinians will be willing to give up the Right of Return if sufficient economic prosperity gives them the incentive to end the conflict, but this group is a minority in Israel.

U.S. sees shift in Pakistan focus

By Adam Entous

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan has been shifting its forces by historic proportions from its Indian border to the Afghan frontier, gaining ground against militants and giving the United States room to focus more on economic problems threatening the nuclear-armed state, Washington's envoy said. Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, told reporters traveling with him to Islamabad on Saturday his current focus on economic and social issues, rather than security, reflected gains by the Pakistani military in the Swat and Buner valleys.

The offensive has brought the apparent killing of Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader in Pakistan. U.S. intelligence officials say the missile strike on Mehsud by an unmanned CIA drone has sparked a power struggle in militant ranks.

Holbrooke cited "signs of progress" on the security front, including Pakistan's renewed control of Mingora, the capital of the Swat region. But he cautioned: "We don't know whether the Taliban were destroyed or merely dispersed."

"If you compare the situation in Pakistan today to what it was in March and April, there's been a dramatic change," Holbrooke said. After several days of talks with leaders in Pakistan, Holbrooke plans to travel to Afghanistan, where elections will be held on Thursday.

"Swat has been retaken. Buner has been retaken. Baitullah Mehsud is gone and it looks like there's a struggle for succession among his commanders. It doesn't mean the problems are solved far from it -- but that's a hell of a lot better than it was a few months ago."

OFFENSIVE ON HOLD

After Swat, the Pakistani military had planned to quickly turn its attention to an offensive in the remote, mountainous region of South Waziristan on the Afghan border -- Mehsud's stronghold.

But the anticipated offensive appears to be on hold, at least for the moment, U.S. officials said.

Swat proved costly to Pakistan, creating a refugee crisis. Many parts of Swat have yet to be fully secured and the job of reconstruction is expected to be daunting. Pakistan knows an all-out assault on Waziristan could prove far more difficult, they said.

Pakistani officials have made clear to their American counterparts that they want to see how the Taliban's power struggle plays out before moving in. They also worry that taking military action too soon will spur rival factions to put aside their differences and re-unite.

"The issue with Waziristan is complicated for them," Holbrooke said. "There's a moment to attack and there's a moment not to. And the Pakistani government will have to decide that for itself."

The United States, Holbrooke said, has been "scrounging for parts" sought by Pakistan to bolster its fleet of Cobra helicopters.

"We're giving helicopters, assistance of all types to them, night vision goggles," he said. "But it's a long complicated supply chain that involves Congress, it involves very strict accounting procedures that the Pakistani government has not always followed."

Pakistan has long been under Western pressure to shift its forces westward to where the Taliban and their allies have their strongholds. Such a move would increase the effectiveness of U.S. anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan. "Why it's historically significant is clear," Holbrooke said.

Britain suffers 200th Afghanistan death

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer

LONDON – A British soldier wounded in an explosion in Afghanistan died Saturday, the defense ministry said, bringing the country's military death toll there to 200.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the grim milestone "deeply tragic news." It is sure to raise more questions about Britain's increasingly perilous mission in Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defense said the soldier from 2nd Battalion the Royal Welsh died Saturday at a military hospital in England.

He had been wounded in a blast while on vehicle patrol Thursday in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. Three other British troops were killed by roadside bombs in a separate incident in Afghanistan the same day.

Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, most based in Helmand, a center of Taliban insurgents.

The British military suffered 22 fatalities in July, its bloodiest month since the invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Nine British troops have been killed so far this month.

The rising toll — more than the 179 personnel who died in Iraq — has reignited a debate in Britain about its role in the war and the quality of its military equipment. The Afghan campaign has long been divisive, with polls showing Britons about evenly split between supporters and opponents of the mission.

Graham Knight, whose son Ben was killed when a Royal Air Force Nimrod plane exploded over Afghanistan in 2006, said it was "time for an end to military action" in Afghanistan.

"We are ill-equipped and ill-advised," he said. "We should be getting the non-militant Taliban around the table and begin talks so we can embark on a withdrawal."

The prime minister said the mission to defeat the Taliban was essential to British security because "three-quarters of terrorist plots against Britain come from the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan."

"British troops are fighting bravely there to protect us," Brown said. "The best way to honor the memory of those who have died is to see that commitment through."

Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth said it was a "grim day" but that Britain must stay focused on its mission in Afghanistan.

"This is a difficult time but we must all take solace from the fact that, although sometimes slow, we have been making good progress in Afghanistan," Ainsworth said. "We must all stay focused on the mission, on why it matters and what is at stake."

Afghans are due to vote Thursday in presidential elections, seen by the international community as a key marker of the country's progress towards becoming a stable democracy.

Militants have staged a series of attacks in the run-up to the vote, including a suicide car bombing Saturday near NATO headquarters in Kabul that killed seven people and wounded nearly 100.