CHINA CONFIDENTIAL
Israeli PM Calls for Retreat to Pre-'67 Lines
Foreign Confidential....
Israel should cede parts of eastern Jerusalem and retreat to near its pre-1967 borders, Ehud Olmert said.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist, the current Israeli prime minister said Rabin "understood that if we want to maintain Israel as a democratic Jewish state, we must concede to a lack of choice and to our great torments and give up parts of our homeland for which we dreamt for generations of yearning and prayers."
By returning to its pre-1967 borders, Olmert said, Israel will be able to "cultivate a new Zionism that is practical, realistic, responsible and courageous." But, he added, "If, God forbid, we procrastinate, we could lose support for a two-state solution," with an eventual Palestinian majority overwhelming the Jewish state.
Olmert was among several dignitaries who spoke at Rabin’s gravesite on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl. Israeli President Shimon Peres used the opportunity to slam Jewish extremism. In recent months, extremists from Israel’s far right have stepped up violent attacks against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. Several weeks ago, a prominent left-wing professor, Zeev Sternhell, was bombed at his home, sustaining light injuries. He blamed Jewish extremists for the attack.
"Now, just like back then," Peres said, referring to Rabin’s assassination by Yigal Amir, "there is a small minority of reckless, unrestrained people who boldly defy the state’s authority, attack Palestinians just for being Palestinian and challenge the law enforcement mechanisms which, among others, protect them, too."
- JTA
# posted by Confidential Reporter @ 11:54 AM 
Hamas Says it Met with Obama Aides Before Election
Foreign Confidential....
Say it ain't so, Mr. President-elect.
As if to vindicate and confirm pre-election fears and criticism of The Candidate of Change, officials of Hamas--an Islamist group that the United States State Department has formally branded a Foreign Terrorist Organization--say its officials met Obama aides before the U.S. election.
Avi Issacharoff reports:
The Arab daily Al-Hayat on Tuesday quoted a senior Hamas official as saying that United States President-elect Barack Obama's advisors met with members of the Palestinian militant group before the U.S. presidential election.
Ahmed Yusuf [sometimes spelled Yousef or Yusef], a political advisor to Hamas' Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh, reportedly told the London-based paper that, "The connection was made via email and after that we met with them in Gaza."
Al-Hayat reported that Yusuf also said the relations were maintained after Obama's electoral victory last Tuesday. He said the president-elect's advisors requested that the relations be kept secret so as not to aid his rival, Senator John McCain.
During Obama's campaign, he pledged that his administration would only hold talk with Hamas if it renounced terrorism, recognized Israel's right to exist, and abided by past agreements.
On Saturday, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshal told Sky News that he is willing to hold talks with Obama, and that he is challenging the newly elected leader to follow through on past statements indicating a willingness to sit down with America's chief adversaries on the world stage.
Obama's Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Denis McDonough told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday: "This assertion is just plain false."
But Ayman abu Leilah, a spokesman for Yusuf, confirmed the statements as true, adding that the most recent meeting took place in early October “one month before the election.” He said Yousuf had first met the Obama people some years ago when he was studying in the U.S.
Mark Regev, foreign press spokesman in the Israeli Prime Mimister's Office, said the government had "absolutely no confirmation" that such a meeting ever took place, and said he would not comment on what they considered only a hypothetical situation.
A Victory for Islamists?
Is Obama's victory also a victory for Islamist Movements? Will Obama accelerate a policy of accommodation toward so-called acceptable Islamists--a concept that increasingly seems to only exclude Al Qaeda?
Elias Harfoush, writing in Al-Hayat's English-language edition, says the answer to the above question is yes, at least, for most of the groups.
Islamist movements consider Barack Obama's victory to be a victory for them. It is as if the Democratic candidate had waged the battle on their behalf, or as if the fall of the slogan of the "New Middle East", which those movements fought to eliminate, was also the aim of the campaign led by the Senator from Illinois to reach the highest position in the United States, and even in the world.
This is why reactions to this victory by those who speak in the name of such movements were mostly positive. Indeed, they deemed that a new phase, characterized by realism, may begin with the new administration. Indeed in their view, realism means that the new administration learn from the mistakes of the Bush administration, and take into account the ability of those who are "defiant" to thwart any American plan in the region if it does not agree with their objectives and their interests.
It is true that a major part of Obama's campaign relied on criticizing the mistakes made under his predecessor, whether regarding Iraq or the war against Al-Qaeda, or even in dealing with Iran's nuclear issue. Yet the slogans of Obama's campaign were not those of Islamists, and its objective was not to undermine US influence in those regions. On the contrary, its objective was to reinterpret this network of issues objectively, and to improve the odds for a US "victory" in future confrontations. Any objective reading of Obama's view on the situation in Afghanistan, on the exit he seeks from involvement in Iraq, and also on handling the deadlock with Iran, would point to a strategic desire to take away the pretexts of exploitation, which Islamist movements currently use defensively in their (verbal) confrontation with US plans.
Unlike Bush, Obama does not consider that there is an open war waged by Islamists against the West, one that would necessitate a global full-scale war on terror. Rather, he looks at crisis zones individually and deals with them as such. Thus he makes a distinction between the war against the Taliban and the pursuit of Al-Qaeda leaders....
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# posted by Confidential Reporter @ 9:33 AM
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