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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (238520)	8/1/2007 11:39:29 AM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

Rice seeks peace momentum in Middle East visit By Sue Pleming 1 hour, 18 minutes ago JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice won on Wednesday a Saudi pledge of support for a U.S.-backed Middle East peace conference and began a visit to Israel and the West Bank with a call to seize new opportunities. In talks in the region, Rice has been trying to inject new momentum into peacemaking between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's West Bank government after the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists in June. "Israel is not going to miss this opportunity, we are not going to miss the opportunity to promote a dialogue with Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian government," said Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, with Rice at her side. Livni said it was important to put "significant" issues on the table with the Palestinians but indicated the Israeli government was not yet ready to accept Abbas's proposal to negotiate so-called final-status matters. "Sometimes it is not wise to put the most sensitive issues first," she said when asked whether Israel was prepared to look at the most difficult issues such as future borders with a Palestinian state, Jerusalem and refugees. Riyad al-Malki, the Palestinian information minister, said in the West Bank city of Ramallah the Palestinian government would ask Rice "to put pressure on the Israeli side to respond to our security needs." Malki defined those needs as a withdrawal of Israeli forces from positions around major West Bank cities and an expanded Israeli amnesty for wanted Palestinians. Rice said she aimed in her visits to Jerusalem and to Ramallah on Thursday, where she will meet Abbas, to take advantage of "mutual opportunities" to advance a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians. "This is a time to seize opportunities and it is a time to proceed in a prepared and careful way as one does not want to miss opportunities because of a lack of preparation but it is nonetheless a time when we have to take advantage of what is before us," said Rice. SAUDI SUPPORT Rice flew to Israel from Saudi Arabia, where Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Riyadh welcomed U.S. President George W. Bush's initiative to hold a Middle East peace conference later this year. No date or venue has been set. "There is an international movement (for peace) ... Israel should respond to these pressures," Prince Saud said, without promising that Saudi Arabia would attend the conference. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said he hoped many Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, would come to the gathering. "This meeting can grant an umbrella for the bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians," a statement from his office said. Both Livni and Rice, who last visited Israel in March, said they were encouraged by the initial Saudi response but the top U.S. diplomat made clear she had not yet issued any invitations to the meeting. Prince Saud, in another nod to the United States, announced at a news conference with Rice and U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates that Saudi Arabia was exploring opening an embassy in Baghdad and would send a delegation there to pursue the matter. "This is something that we have encouraged ... It is an important step," Rice said in Jeddah. With Washington keen to show progress in the Middle East despite the crisis in Iraq, Rice may press Olmert to respond to Saudi support for an international conference by easing restrictions on Palestinians and taking more steps to revive statehood talks. Israeli officials said Olmert, who Rice is meeting for dinner on Wednesday, was prepared to discuss borders and other core issues in "general terms" that could lead to an "agreement of principles" for establishing a Palestinian state. But Olmert has not agreed to full-fledged negotiations over the main final-status issues. Israeli officials said any commitment now could raise expectations and lead to further violence if talks broke down. Olmert and Abbas are expected to meet next week in Jericho. news.yahoo.com

To: michael97123 who wrote (238520)	8/1/2007 11:51:18 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Yes there were jews who lived in arab countries and assimilated as the author states. Then they became unwelcome and either emigrated to israel or to the US or elsewhere. Wikepedia says few went to the US. Jews from Arab countries – mainly Mizrahi Jews and Yemenite Jews – are today usually not categorised as Arab. Sociologist Philip Mendes asserts that before the anti-Jewish actions of the 1930s and 1940s, overall Iraqi Jews "viewed themselves as Arabs of the Jewish faith, rather than as a separate race or nationality".[20] Prior to the emergence of the term Mizrahi, the term "Arab Jews" (Yehudim ‘Áravim, ?????? ?????) was sometimes used to describe Jews of the Arab world. The term is rarely used today. The few remaining Jews in the Arab countries reside mostly in Morocco and Tunisia. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, following the creation of the state of Israel, most of these Jews left or were expelled from their countries of birth and are now mostly concentrated in Israel. Some immigrated to France, where they form the largest Jewish community, outnumbering European Jews, but relatively few to the United States.

To: michael97123 who wrote (238520)	8/1/2007 11:57:56 AM
From: SARMAN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I will wait with much anticipation Nazine's spin. In the mean time some bedtime reading. irak.be Little something from the site. Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth. Certainly it has been easier for the world to accept the Zionist lie that Jews were evicted from Muslim lands because of anti-Semitism, and that Israelis, never the Arabs, were the pursuers of peace. The truth is far more discerning: bigger players on the world stage were pulling the strings. These players, I believe, should be held accountable for their crimes, particularly when they willfully terrorized, dispossessed and killed innocent people on the altar of some ideological imperative. I believe, too, that the descendants of these leaders have a moral responsibility to compensate the victims and their descendants, and to do so not just with reparations, but by setting the historical record straight. That is why I established a panel of inquiry in Israel to seek reparations for Iraqi Jews who had been forced to leave behind their property and possessions in Iraq. That is why I joined the Black Panthers in confronting the Israeli government with the grievances of the Jews in Israel who came from Islamic lands. And that is why I have written my book and this article: to set the historical record straight. We Jews from Islamic lands did not leave our ancestral homes because of any natural enmity between Jews and Muslims. And we Arabs-I say Arab because that is the language my wife and I still speak at home-we Arabs on numerous occasions have sought peace with the State of the Jews. And finally, as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, let me say that we Americans need to stop supporting racial discrimination in Israel and the cruel expropriation of lands in the West Bank, Gaza, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

To: michael97123 who wrote (238520)	8/1/2007 5:18:16 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What about the Arab Jews? There were originally 800,000 of them. They didn't get "blessed" the way the Arab refugees did, so they are citizens of Israel instead of being 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th generations "refugees" in "refugee camps" eating off the UN dole. By now the majority of Israel is of Mizrahi descent. There is still a class difference but growing less as the two sides become Israeli born and blend more. By now some of the highest Israeli officials are Mizrahi. BTW, the one thing you can count on for SURE about the Mizrahim in Israel is that, as they say, they know the Arab mind and they have NO TRUCK with wooly-headed leftists wanting to make nice in hope of getting concessions back. The Mizrahim are responsible for the rise of the Likud and the decline of Labor.