Hold on to your hats. (caps are mine)
U.S ALLOWS TERROR GROUP HAMAS TO ENTER PALESTINIAN ELECTIONS
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
JERUSALEM — The United States has failed to block Hamas
participation in Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for
January 2006, Israel has charged.
Israeli officials said the BUSH administration has URGED their
government to allow Hamas and other groups on the State Department
terrorism list to run in the Palestinian elections.
"We have to confess that we failed to block Hamas from running in
the elections," a senior Israeli official said. "The administration
did not honor its promise to us and allowed the Palestinian
Authority to include Hamas in the elections, even as it continues to
stage terrorist attacks."
Officials said the UNITED STATES has also FAILED TO HONOR ITS
COMMITMENT to ensure the dismantling of Palestinian insurgency
groups in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. They said the administration
has not linked U.S. aid to the PA to its crackdown against Hamas,
Islamic Jihad and other insurgency groups.
"THE UNITED STATES DID NOT HELP US," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan
Shalom told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on
Sept. 12.
In Congress, at least 22 House members have urged President George
Bush to ensure that Hamas does not participate in the PLC elections,
Middle East Newsline reported.
The members, nine of whom sit on the House International Relations
Committee, cited Hamas's charter that called for the destruction of
Israel.
"To do otherwise would send the wrong message that political
advancement can be secured through the use of terror and further
embolden the enemies of Israel," the congressional members said in a
letter to Bush.
"That is simply unacceptable allowing Hamas to operate as a
terrorist organization, while allowing it to participate in the
electoral process, undercuts any possibility of true democratic
reform within Palestinian society."
On Tuesday, representatives from the European Union, United Nations,
United States and Russia urged Palestinian groups that sought to run
in the January elections to end violence. The statement by the so-
called Quartet did not cite Hamas.
"Ultimately, those who want to be part of the political process
should not engage in armed group or militia activities, for there is
a fundamental contradiction between such activities and the building
of a democratic state," the statement, issued after a meeting in New
York, said.
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who attended the Quartet
session, stressed that the United States was not committed to
blocking Hamas participation in PA elections. Ms. Rice suggested
that the Bush administration would not interfere in Palestinian
elections.
"We understand that the Palestinian political system is in
transition, that it is in transition toward a democratic system and
that that has to be a Palestinian process," Ms. Rice said. "I think
we have to give the Palestinians some room for the evolution of
their political process."
[On Tuesday, Israel's military announced the completion of its
redeployment in the northern West Bank. The military said soldiers
were no longer deployed in the area of four Jewish communities
evacuated in August.]
Shalom said Hamas was influencing PA policy toward Israel and
ensuring continuing conflict in wake of its withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip. He pointed to assertions by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that
Israel has not fully withdrawn from the Gaza Strip.
"We won't allow Hamas to participate in elections," Shalom said on
Tuesday. "There won't be any aid."
_____________________________________________________________________
Bush asks Abdullah to mediate
(JTA) --President Bush asked Jordan's king to mediate between Israel
and the Palestinians.
"He's graciously agreed to go," Bush said Thursday after asking
Abdullah II to shuttle between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Turning to
Abdullah after their White House meeting, Bush said, "I want to
thank you, sir, for taking a leadership role; it will be very
helpful to have your voice of reason there to talk to both leaders."
Bush is seeking ways to accelerate a return to peace talks now that
Israel has withdrawn from the Gaza Strip.
_____________________________________________________________________
Israel suspends offensive as Gaza police clash with Hamas Sun Oct 2,
6:10 PM ET
Israel suspended an offensive against militants in the Gaza Strip,
including targeted killings, as clashes between Hamas gunmen and
Palestinian police trying to enforce an arms ban killed at least
three in Gaza City.
Medical sources said three Palestinians, including a police major,
had been killed and 50 wounded after Hamas militants fired rocket-
propelled grenades and automatic weapons at a police station in the
Shati refugee camp.
Fighting also erupted at the nearby Shifa hospital after two
Palestinians wounded in the earlier firefight were brought there for
treatment.
A security source said the clashes began when Mohammed Rantissi, the
son of a Hamas leader assassinated last year in an Israeli
airstrike, got into a dispute with another Palestinian who wanted to
use a bank ATM machine ahead of him.
The fight escalated when police attempted to arrest Rantissi as part
of ban on carrying weapons in public in the strife-torn Gaza Strip
which Palestinian security forces recently began enforcing.
"Hamas bears entire responsibility for what happened. It violated
the law and the national consensus," said an interior ministry
statement.
Armed factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have refused demands
by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to lay down their weapons since
Israel's pullout from Gaza last month but have agreed that their
activists should not carry their weapons in public.
Abbas has repeatedly pledged to tackle the spiralling lawlessness in
the Palestinian territories, particularly in Gaza, where gunmen
frequently operate beyond the law in the name of "resistance".
The fighting came after Israel ended a campaign of attacks that has
killed four hardline Islamists, with an aide to Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon saying the raids had taught the Palestinians the "new rules
of the game".
"We have decided to suspend the offensive operations that we
launched last week in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip
into southern Israel," the official in Sharon's office told AFP on
condition of anonymity.
Israel launched a series of air strikes on Gaza last weekend in the
aftermath of a barrage of rocket attacks by Hamas fired from Gaza
into Israel, but the militant group dismissed the announcement as a
ploy to split the Palestinian people.
"This statement is part of the propaganda campaign to blackmail our
people and to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to fight
against the factions and resistance groups," said spokesman Sami Abu
Zuhri.
But chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said "a cooldown
between the Palestinians and Israelis is in the interests of both
sides," as he revealed Abbas and Sharon had agreed in a phone call
to try and meet later this month.
The pair had been initially due to meet on Sunday but the flare-up
in Gaza had led to the summit being shelved.
"They talked about meeting, in principle this month, but there is no
date," Erakat told AFP.
Sharon's office confirmed that the leaders had agreed to meet soon
as they exchanged greetings for the Jewish new year and Ramadan.
Abbas is also set to hold a summit with US President George W. Bush
at the White House on October 20 where he is set to be pressed to
rein in militants.
Bush believes the pullout from Gaza can revive the ailing peace
process but knows such hopes will be stillborn if violence continues
to blight the region.
THE US STATE DEPARTMENT LAST WEEK URGED ISRAEL AT THE HEIGHT OF ITS
AIR STRIKE CAMPAIGN "TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE EFFECT OF THEIR
ACTIONS" UPON PEACE.
Israeli officials believe Abbas will come under pressure during his
trip to Washington to institute a proper crackdown on Hamas which is
planning to run in January's legislative elections.
Abbas has previously indicated that he wants to co-opt Hamas into
the political process and warned that a formal crackdown could spark
a civil war.
Sharon was quoted as telling the weekly cabinet meeting that he had
stressed to fellow world leaders at the recent UN General Assembly
in New York that "the participation of Hamas in elections is
dangerous and bad.
"Hamas will be able to participate only if they renounce their arms
and their covenant that calls for destruction of the state of
Israel," he said.
_____________________________________________________________________
Tropical Storm Tammy Forms Off Fla. Coast 8 minutes ago
Tropical Storm Tammy formed just off Florida's east coast Wednesday
and was expected to bring heavy rain to northern Florida and parts
of Georgia and the Carolinas later in the day.
Tammy, with winds of 40 mph, was centered about 20 miles east of
Cape Canaveral at 7:30 a.m. and was moving to the north-northwest at
16 mph. It was expected to continue moving in that direction while
gradually slowing its forward motion.
A tropical storm warning was issued from Cocoa Beach north to Santee
River, S.C., meaning tropical storm conditions are expected in those
areas within the next 24 hours.
Robbie Berg, a meterologist at the National Hurricane Center in
Miami, said because Tammy will spend so little time over water, it
is unlikely that it will reach hurricane strength of 74 mph.
He said it is hard to forecast where Tammy will make landfall
because it is moving parallel to the coast "and one slight variation
in its track could bring it onshore."
Rainfall is expected to be 3 to 5 inches in most areas with some
isolated spots getting from 8 to 10 inches. Tornadoes also are
possible.
Tammy is the 19th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season,
which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.
This season is tied for second-busiest on record since record-
keeping started in 1851. The record for tropical storms and
hurricanes in one year is 21, set in 1933.
(Something really bad is about to happen to the US, perhaps not
dealing with weather, but something catastrophic is imminent or as
the Bible says about something that could happen at any time; it is
at hand.)
