RAMALLAH, West Bank–Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has closed 92 charities linked to Hamas, officials say, part of an intensifying West Bank crackdown on the Islamic militants who seized the Gaza Strip and are challenging renewed peace talks with Israel.
Israel released 429 Palestinian prisoners yesterday, trying to bolster Abbas and build on momentum from last week's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md., where Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to try to reach a peace deal in 2008.
Joy mixed with tears as buses carrying the prisoners, most from Abbas's Fatah movement, rolled into his walled headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Many had been arrested at the height of the Palestinians uprising several years ago.
A search of the Toronto Star archives shows not one word has been printed to report that the murder of an Israeli civilian last week by three members of Abbas’ American trained and financed Palestinian Authority Security forces.
Palestinian policemen were behind the shooting attack last week which killed Ido Zoldan, a 29-year-old father of two from the settlement of Shavei Shomron, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Sunday night.
Zoldan was killed last Monday night - the day before the Annapolis summit began - when shots were fired at his car as he drove past the Palestinian village of al-Punduk.
The three members of the cell were Palestinian policemen and members of the Palestinian National Security Force, in which Israel and the United States have been investing as part of the international effort to strengthen Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah government. (Jerusalem Post)
Of course, during the big love that was Annapolis last week, the Toronto Star also neglected to report that the Bush Administration brought the Israeli delegation into the Conference area through the service entrance in order to avoid offending Arab sensibilities. This way the entrance way would remain “Jew Free” and be used safely by all arab delegations. Here’s an excerpt from Caroline Glick’s Apartheid, Not Peace column.
This week the Bush Administration legitimized Arab anti-Semitism. In an effort to please the Saudis and their Arab brothers, the Bush administration agreed to physically separate the Jews from the Arabs at the Annapolis conference in a manner that aligns with the apartheid policies of the Arab world which prohibit Israelis from setting foot on Arab soil.
Evident everywhere, the discrimination against Israel received its starkest expression at the main assembly of the Annapolis conference on Tuesday. There, in accordance with Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs.
At the meeting of foreign ministers on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called her Arab counterparts to task for their discriminatory treatment. "Why doesn't anyone want to shake my hand? Why doesn't anyone want to be seen speaking to me?" she asked pointedly.
Israel's humiliated foreign minister did not receive support from her American counterpart. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who spent her childhood years in the segregated American South, sided with the Arabs. Although polite enough to note that she doesn't support the slaughter of Israelis, she made no bones about the fact that her true sympathies lie with the racist Arabs.
As she put it, "I know what it is like to hear that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are a Palestinian. I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness."
Rice's remarks make clear that for the Secretary of State there is no difference between Israelis trying to defend themselves from a jihadist Palestinian society which supports the destruction of the Jewish state and bigoted white Southerners who oppressed African Americans because of the color of their skin. It is true that Israel has security concerns, but as far as Rice is concerned, the Palestinians are the innocent victims. They are the ones who are discriminated against and humiliated, not Livni, who was forced - by Rice - to enter the conference through the service entrance.
What I want to know is how Rice feels about being forced to use the service entrances? I gather the Bush Administration is just fine with that.
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