EU ready to intensify pressure on Israel to lift Gaza blockade

 Guardian

Spain, France, Italy and UK lead calls for robust stance as Netanyahu hints at softer line on entry of civilian aid

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

The European Union is expected to intensify pressure on Israel to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip when its foreign ministers meet in Brussels tomorrow amid calls to adopt a robust position.

Spain, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, will press for a vigorous approach with support from France, Italy and the UK. José Luis Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, called at the weekend for a "strong joint EU position on the siege".

Zapatero said his foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, would argue at the meeting that the EU should "stand up for the end of the blockade on Gaza and that it extends all its political and diplomatic capacity to reach that goal".

Moratinos and his French and Italian counterparts, Bernard Kouchner and Franco Frattini, co-authored an article in the International Herald Tribune last week urging an easing of the blockade.

In the wake of Israel's attack on the flotilla carrying aid to Gaza William Hague, the foreign secretary, described the siege as unacceptable and counterproductive.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told cabinet colleagues today that discussions about Israel's policy towards Gaza, which have included three meetings with the Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair in the past eight days, were continuing.

Blair has been authorised by the Quartet - the US, UN, EU and Russia - to try to reach an agreement with Netanyahu on easing the blockade.

He is pressing for Israel to substitute the current "allowed" list of items permitted to enter Gaza - all items not on the list are forbidden - for a "banned" list (a limited number of prohibited items, with everything else permitted). The result would be greater transparency and accountability.

Netanyahu told the cabinet: "The principle guiding our policy is clear - to prevent war material from entering Gaza and to allow the entry of humanitarian aid and non-contraband goods."

Following today's Israeli cabinet meeting, Blair said: "I welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu's clear distinction between Israel's necessity to protect its security and otherwise to allow Gaza people to get the goods and material they require for ordinary life."

Despite the pressure to relax the siege, Israel is reluctant to make a dramatic move which would allow Hamas to claim a victory.

Aid agencies and the UN are also concerned that Israel will restrict any relaxation to essential humanitarian supplies which, although much needed, will not help Gaza's legitimate economy to recover and regain its authority over the black market economy which is based on goods smuggled in via tunnels from Egypt Phil Bloomer, Oxfam's policy director, said: "[Gaza's] conventional economy is in tatters, and without a full lifting of the blockade it will continue on a downward spiral, stopping Gazans rebuild their lives."

Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, arrived in Gaza today in the most high-profile visit by an Arab official since Hamas took control of the territory in June 2007 after winning elections six months earlier.

He was expected to meet the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, to discuss the prospects of reconciliation between Fatah, which dominates the West Bank and is the party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas.

He told a press conference in Rafah: "The Palestinians deserve that the world, and not just the Arab world, stand by them in the face of the siege and in the face of what is happening in the occupied territories and Jerusalem."

Two weeks after the lethal attack on the aid flotilla by Israeli commandos, there is still no firm announcement of an inquiry despite international pressure.

There has been speculation that the issue may have become linked to demands for a relaxation of the blockade in that pressure for an independent international inquiry may be eased if Israel agrees to allow more aid into Gaza.

Israel has proposed an internal investigation, headed by a former supreme court judge, Yaakov Tirkel, with up to three international observers. The US has yet to agree to this formula.

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, today called off a trip to a Paris arms show amid reports that pro-Palestinian groups in France would seek his arrest over the flotilla deaths.

Russia sends troops to Kyrgyzstan

Press TV 

A battalion of Russian paratroopers has arrived in southern Kyrgyzstan on the third day of deadly ethnic violence in the former Soviet Union republic.

Russian security officials said Sunday that the troops are only to help protect Russian military facilities in Kyrgyzstan and have no plans to intervene.

"The mission of the force that has landed is to reinforce the defense of Russian military facilities and ensure security of Russian military servicemen and their families," Interfax quoted a security source as saying.

Kyrgyzstan's interim government had already called on Russia to send troops to help contain the ethnic clashes in the country's south.

The violence between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnic groups has killed over one hundred people and injured over 1,200 more. Tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks have fled their homes.

The political situation in Kyrgyzstan has been shaky since the revolt that overthrew former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April.

Top UK commander to lose job over Afghan war

Press TV

 Britain will replace its most senior military officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, over failures in Afghanistan, a top British official has suggested.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Defense Secretary Liam Fox said his ministry will be replacing Sir Stirrup as well as Sir Bill Jeffrey, the department's top civil servant, by next autumn.

Fox said the move was meant to seek to "draw line" under Britain's failure in Afghanistan -- which has been blamed on the military's "incompetent" war equipment.

"The last regime allowed our men to go into Helmand improperly prepared, while huge sums of money were squandered on projects such as the refurbishment of the Ministry of Defense," said Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP and former soldier.

Stirrup was appointed head of the armed forces in 2006. Jeffrey, who presides over the MOD budget as the permanent under-secretary, has been blamed for the £36 billion "black hole" in military spending.

Fox says he is planning to put the "best people to be in the appropriate posts" following a strategic defense review (SDR) in autumn.

The new defense secretary, who floated the idea of immediately returning forces to the UK, now says the troops could begin coming home from Afghanistan as soon as next year.

There are currently more than 10,000 British troops stationed in Afghanistan, with British deaths reaching 295 since the invasion. The latest death of a British soldier was in an explosion in Helmand province yesterday.

Egypt prepares new law for non-Muslims

Reuters

 

* Under current law, Islamic rules prevail

* Church asking for unified law since the 1980s

* Minister of Justice says draft law ready in 30 days

By Yasmine Saleh

CAIRO, June 13 (Reuters) - Egypt will draft a law to govern marriage and divorce for non-Muslims, a state newspaper reported, a move analysts see as an attempt to contain anger after a court overruled the Coptic Orthodox Church last month.

Egypt's Coptic church has long called for changes to the country's personal status laws, which say Islamic rules on marriage and divorce prevail except in cases where both husband and wife are non-Muslims and from the same sect.

Under the current law, for instance, a Catholic husband with a Coptic wife could be subject to Islamic law.

"The Egyptian Minister of Justice Mamdouh Marie has decided to form a committee to prepare a personal draft law for Christians and non-Muslims, state-run al-Akhbar newspaper reported, adding it would take 30 days.

Analysts said the announcement was timed to calm anger after a court ruled that two Coptic men were allowed to remarry, challenging the church's efforts to hold sway over its flock in Muslim-majority Egypt. [ID:nLDE64T0I0]

The court's decision drew resistance from Pope Shenouda, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, who had appealed against the court's earlier ruling in March 2008. [ID:nLDE6570CW]

Divorce is an accepted practice in Egypt's Muslim community but is prohibited by the Coptic Orthodox Church except in cases of adultery.

"The latest crisis is behind this statement," said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies in Cairo. "The Egyptian state is trying to contain the current dispute."

Coptic lawyer and activist Mamdouh Ramzi said the church has proposed a unified personal law since the 1980s. "We don't need a new law, we need to put the old (proposed) one into practice," he said.

Relations between Muslims and Christians in Egypt are generally calm, but have occasionally turned violent over issues such as land and interfaith marriages.

Christians, mostly Orthodox Copts, make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 78 million people. Many Christians grumble about discrimination, although some have risen to ministerial rank or are top business executives.

Israel plans second dig in ancient Muslim graveyard

Ma'an News Agency 

By Jonathan Cook

Jerusalem - Israeli authorities pressed ahead with plans to build a courthouse complex on a large historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, an area already at the center of protest over plans to locate a Museum of Tolerance at the same site.

The proposed courthouse was expected to provoke stiff opposition, especially from Islamic groups, after it was revealed that an excavation last year for the near by museum, unearthed as many as 1,500 Muslim graves.

President of Israel's Supreme Court Dorit Beinisch,who in 2009 expressed reservations about the location of the new courthouse, was recently reported to have lifted her objections. Jerusalem city councilor Meir Margalit confirmed the report, saying municipal officials had assured the judge that no graves were discovered at the new site during excavations.

However, a spokeswoman for the Israeli antiquities authority said in an interview, that ancient graves were found at the proposed courthouse site when a trial excavation was conducted two years ago, and that the discovery was reported to the government.

Archaeologists and Islamic groups point out that the courts were similarly misled when they approved the museum project in 2008, after they had been promised that only "a few dozen graves" would be found at the site, not many hundreds.

"The municipality and government simply can't be trusted on this issue as has been amply demonstrated over the Museum of Tolerance plans," Margalit said. "They have a history of not acting in good faith."

The courthouse plan was certain to revive a long-running controversy over what Muslim organizations have called Israel's "desecration" of the Mamilla cemetery, which lies just outside Jerusalem's Old City walls. The graveyard dates back 1,000 years and, according to Islamic tradition, includes the resting places of the Prophet Mohammad's companions and tens of thousands of Salah Ad-Din's warriors.

Plans for a Museum of Tolerance, unveiled in 2004 by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre - a US Jewish group that has built a similar museum in Los Angeles - provoked a row that has yet to abate.

Palestinian families whose relatives were buried in Mamilla, alongside the main group representing religious Muslims in Israel; the Islamic Movement, lost their legal battle against the museum in the Supreme Court in October 2008.

But they are to revive their legal action after an investigation by the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, May revealed major irregularities in a dig to prepare the site for the museum's construction. The groups also believe the investigation provides them with ammunition against the courthouse plan.

According to Haaretz, the antiquities authority oversaw a five-month excavation last year at the museum site that was carried out in record time as three teams did shifts around the clock amid great secrecy to excavate graves and rebury the remains nearby.

No Palestinians were employed, and all workers had to sign a confidentiality agreement. They were searched for any electronic devices, including phones, before entering the site, were not allowed to leave during their shift, and were watched at all times by security cameras.

The measures, the Haaretz report suggested, were designed to ensure that no word leaked out about the large number of graves found there or that promises to the courts about treating the graves with the utmost respect were being violated.

Workers told the paper that, faced with a large number of graves exposed in five layers down to the bedrock, Israeli officials cut corners and hurriedly dug out ancient skulls and bones, some of which disintegrated in the process.

The paper published photographs appearing to show that remains had been stuffed into cardboard boxes rather than removed using advanced techniques the antiquities authority had proposed, including one that was supposed to freeze the earth around the bones before their removal.

Gideon Sulimani, a senior archaeologist with the antiquities authority who carried out initial excavations, told Haaretz: "They call this an archaeological excavation but it's really a clearing-out, an erasure of the Muslim past. It is actually Jews against Arabs."

Rafi Greenberg, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, was also critical. "In another country, they would devote years to such an excavation, and also build a special lab to analyze the results." He accused the antiquities authority of betraying its role as the guardian of the country's historical assets and instead promoting the "wellbeing of entrepreneurs."

Haaretz's investigation has worried observers that similar deceptions may be employed in the case of the courthouse.

Kais Nasser, a lawyer for seven Palestinian families and for an Islamic charity opposed to the museum project, said he would petition the courts to reverse the museum ruling and ask them to block the courthouse plans.

"The graves have already been removed, but we hope to persuade the courts to order that the remains be returned and this uniquely important site rehabilitated," he said.

"Be sure that, if the courthouse goes ahead, as many graves will need to be removed as the 1,500 that were unearthed for the museum."

A new courthouse in Jerusalem has been under consideration for at least a decade, Margalit said, but it had been difficult to find a large enough site in such a crowded city. A spokesman for the municipality termed the new court complex "a strategic project to strengthen the center of the city."

A school is currently on the site proposed for the courthouse, close to an area known as Independence Park. Margalit said the authorities may have found graves when they dug the school's foundations in the 1970s and kept the information secret.

Greenberg said claims that there were no graves under or close to the school were "ridiculous."

He added that at both sites there was a wealth of other important antiquities that were being ignored or destroyed by the current excavations. He said they included an Iron Age house, an aqueduct and a dam built across what was once a valley.

The antiquities authority, he said, should have announced the important finds and fought to preserve them. Instead, he said, in what he called "a pattern of submitting to outside pressure," the authority had spread "misinformation" about the site.

Despite the rushed excavations, work on the museum has yet to begin. It has been delayed by the departure of Frank Gehry, the project's world-famous architect, and financial troubles caused by the global economic downturn.

The museum has attracted growing opposition from within the Jewish community in both Israel and the US. Last year American Reform rabbis, representing the largest stream of Judaism in the US, called for the museum to be relocated, comparing the plans to the historic "desecration" of Jewish cemeteries.

Leading Israeli intellectuals have voiced opposition too, including Shimon Shamir, a Tel Aviv University professor and a former ambassador to Jordan, and Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, considered one of Israel's foremost experts on Jerusalem's history.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Wiesenthal Centre, has defended the museum on the grounds that part of the site was used as a municipal car park from the 1960s, following the site's de-consecration by a Jerusalem qadi, or Islamic judge.

However, Islamic groups have pointed out that the judge was appointed by the Israeli authorities and was later jailed for corruption. They have also noted that there was no chance to oppose his decision at the time because Israel's Muslim population was living under martial law.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. A version of this article appeared in The National published in Abu Dhabi.

Jews to send Gaza blockade-buster ship

Press TV

A group of Jewish activists in Germany are preparing to send an aid ship to the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli-imposed blockade for three years.

The group, which is the German branch of the European Jews for a Just Peace, plans to send the aid ship by the end of July.

"We want to break the Gaza occupation and end the occupation of the West Bank as well... we as Jews want to bring the Palestinians something other than bombs," Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer, a member of the executive committee of the group, said on Thursday.

The ship will be carrying school supplies, musical instruments, children's clothing and other children items that Israel has forbidden, such as sweets and chocolates, Spiegel Online reported.

About 16 people will be onboard the vessel. However, a lot of activists form around the world are sending requests to join the group, including some volunteers from Israel, Katzenstein-Leiterer said.

European Jews for a Just Peace has been collecting funds for the aid ship since 2008.

After Israel's bloody assault on the Freedom Flotilla on May 31, interest in the project has increased and donations have been flooding to the group, Katzenstein-Leiterer said.

Edith Lutz, another member the European Jews for a Just Peace, said that the group was in contact with Israeli officials.

"We are in contact with the Israeli government and the embassy in Berlin. We informed them a while ago," she was quoted by AFP as saying.

However, the group is concern over the possibility of an Israeli attack on the ship.

Israel has put Gaza Strip under all-out blockade, preventing international aid groups from entering the region.

On May 31, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which was carrying food and medical supplies to Gaza, came under fire early in the morning by Israeli navy forces in international waters.

Twenty international activists were killed in the deadly assault and 50 others were injured in the incident.

Indonesia: Islamic groups demand dissolution of anti-terror squad

Jakarta Post

Bagus BT Saragih

About 200 activists of Islamic groups rallied outside the National Police Headquarters in South Jakarta on Friday, demanding dissolution of the counterterrorism squad.

The protesters from the Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid and the Islamic Community Forum (FUI) said the anti-terror squad, better known as Densus 88, had often killed innocent people in their crackdown on terrorist suspects.

"For example, a dead body they call as a terrorist suspect has remained unidentified until today. This proves that the Densus 88 tends to shoot at anybody they don't like without sufficient evidence. They are more barbaric than infidels," a protester said.

He was referring to one of three terrorist suspects who were shot dead in Cawang by the anti-terror squad last month. So far the police have yet to unveil the dead man.

The activists said international aid that went to the squad constituted foreign intervention in the country.

In response to the rally, National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Zainuri Lubis said the police had never caught suspects without evidence. "All the raids were legitimate," he said.

The protesters dispersed peacefully at 4 p.m.