Ramallah - Palestinian reformists in the ruling Fatah movement said on Wednesday they would consider running on a rival ticket in December’s general elections if the so-called Old Guard tried to “steal” party primaries being held this week. Young Guard reformists made sweeping gains in West Bank primaries this week before voting was halted in Gaza when Fatah gunmen stormed polling stations and set fire to ballot boxes, claiming fraud. In Ramallah, the largest number of votes went to Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah militia leader serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail for murder. Mr Barghouti is considered the leader of the Young Guard. Some veteran Fatah officials associated with the era of the late Yasser Arafat picked up only a few hundred votes in the grassroots poll of thousands of party activists and supporters. Political analysts said the choice of reformists not tainted by the corruption that surrounded Arafat’s rule would boost Fatah’s chances in a parliamentary election where it faces a strong challenge from Hamas, the militant Islamic organisation. Members of the Young Guard, however, said they feared that officials who had dominated the party since they returned from exile with Arafat a decade ago would attempt to secure places on the Fatah list. “There is a group that believes it has the right to continue nominating itself for any jobs,” said Qadoura Fares, a Fatah parliamentarian who is close to Mr Barghouti. “After the primaries, they will have a chance to interfere by putting the list to the Fatah central committee,” he said. “It will be a tough discussion.” The final list will be determined by a committee of “wisemen” under the chairmanship of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president. It will have the authority to substitute names from among those who failed to secure a high place in the primaries, theoretically giving the Old Guard the final say on who will run inthe election. Some members of the Young Guard said they would run under an alternative name, such as the al-Aqsa or Jerusalem list, if they were squeezed out of the official Fatah list. Israeli officials have dismissed speculation of an early release for Mr Barghouti, who was jailed for his involvement in the shooting of four Israelis and a Greek priest during the Palestinian uprising. Associates of Mr Barghouti said he was closely watching developments in Israeli politics in the run-up to an election in March. He wanted to see an end to armed confrontation in Gaza and to all attacks on Israeli civilians in order not to help the Israeli right into power. Read More...
By: Amira Hass
Date: 27/05/2013
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Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them. In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B. The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians. Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories). In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long. The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.
By: Phoebe Greenwood
Date: 27/05/2013
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John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector. The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace. Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago. Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid. Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority". Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations. "Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."
By: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Date: 27/05/2013
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Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops. “All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive. Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him. “I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.” Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay. “It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.” He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?” Illegal annexation Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect. “After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote. Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation. Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. Extreme poverty Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower. While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line. “How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”. “Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked. “You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS. Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities. Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn. Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent. “Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found. Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population. To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones. It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services. “Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER). Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”
By the Same Author
Date: 31/07/2007
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Palestinians wary of interim statehood
The strategy behind resurgent diplomatic activity to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beginning to emerge, pointing to the goal of interim statehood for the Palestinians before President George W. Bush’s term in office runs out. Within a year, according to some analysts, a new political entity could come into being called the State of Palestine. However, they warned of many potential pitfalls and doubted it would fulfil the aspirations of the Palestinian people. “They want to change the name of the Palestinian Authority to the Palestinian state,” said Hani al-Masri, a West Bank political analyst. “But it wouldn’t change anything on the ground. It would be a state under occupation.” Many Palestinians are wary of a short-term solution they perceive as having more to do with Mr Bush’s legacy and the US’s problems elsewhere in the Middle East than with a lasting settlement of the conflict. The pace of diplomacy has accelerated since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza last month and Mahmoud Abbas’s consolidation of Fatah’s authority in the West Bank. The PA president’s dismissal of Hamas from government has converted him into a “partner for peace” in the eyes of Israel. Mr Bush was similarly supportive when he said this month: “By supporting the reforms of President Abbas and Prime Minister [Salam] Fayyad, we can help them show the world what a Palestinian state would look like – and act like.” Since then Tony Blair has been appointed envoy of the international Quartet to oversee reforms and the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan made a joint visit to Jerusalem. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, this week embarks on her latest shuttle to the region. An international conference, announced by Mr Bush in a speech on July 16, will take place in the autumn, probably in New York. If all goes well, a more substantive session will be held in December. In the meantime the leaders on both sides have been preparing their national constituencies for the consequences of the new strategy. Both Mr Abbas and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, spoke of the need to define the final outcome of renewed negotiations. Mr Abbas calls it an “end game”, Mr Olmert “an agreement of principles”. For Mr Abbas these principles would include a Palestinian state in pre-1967 borders, the solution of such core issues as the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, “and afterwards, only afterwards, the implementation”. Mr Olmert’s vision is of a state including some 90 per cent of West Bank land, with Israel retaining its big settlement blocks. He would prefer to sidestep the issues of Jerusalem and refugees for now. To sweeten the pill for the Palestinians, Ms Rice said last week that Israel must end its occupation of the West Bank and secure its future in regions such as Galilee and the Negev. The latter is a policy already embraced by the Olmert government and long sponsored by Shimon Peres, the new Israeli president. Haim Ramon, a close political ally of Mr Olmert, has said Israel should leave most of the West Bank because “the occupation of the territories threatens our very existence, our legitimacy and our international standing”. Mr Ramon was seen as flying a kite for the prime minister, a function Mr Olmert performed for Ariel Sharon, his predecessor, when the latter was planning the controversial 2005 Israeli exit from Gaza. The Olmert government might be tempted to secure a deal with Mr Abbas while he is relatively weak. The Palestinian president previously rejected any interim statehood that would leave borders undefined. A putative interim state would remain hemmed in by Israeli military controls and the army might even insist on retaining a right of hot pursuit. The concept of interim statehood – analysts have taken to calling it Oslo-2 in reference to the autonomy agreements that created the PA but failed to lead to Palestinian independence – faces considerable barriers. Success assumes that Hamas, isolated in the Gaza Strip, will continue with its policy of non-aggression towards Fatah in the West Bank. It also assumes that the Israeli public will buy the idea so soon after a Gaza withdrawal whose aftermath they blame on Palestinian intransigence. Israel and the PA leadership may be tempted to seize the moment because the focus of attention in the Middle East has shifted to Iraq and Iran. As James Wolfensohn, Mr Blair’s frustrated predecessor, said in a recent interview: “Israelis and Palestinians really should get over thinking that they're a show on Broadway. They are a show in the Village, off-off-off-off Broadway.” Date: 02/12/2005
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Palestinian Reformists Fight The Old Guard
Ramallah - Palestinian reformists in the ruling Fatah movement said on Wednesday they would consider running on a rival ticket in December’s general elections if the so-called Old Guard tried to “steal” party primaries being held this week. Young Guard reformists made sweeping gains in West Bank primaries this week before voting was halted in Gaza when Fatah gunmen stormed polling stations and set fire to ballot boxes, claiming fraud. In Ramallah, the largest number of votes went to Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah militia leader serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail for murder. Mr Barghouti is considered the leader of the Young Guard. Some veteran Fatah officials associated with the era of the late Yasser Arafat picked up only a few hundred votes in the grassroots poll of thousands of party activists and supporters. Political analysts said the choice of reformists not tainted by the corruption that surrounded Arafat’s rule would boost Fatah’s chances in a parliamentary election where it faces a strong challenge from Hamas, the militant Islamic organisation. Members of the Young Guard, however, said they feared that officials who had dominated the party since they returned from exile with Arafat a decade ago would attempt to secure places on the Fatah list. “There is a group that believes it has the right to continue nominating itself for any jobs,” said Qadoura Fares, a Fatah parliamentarian who is close to Mr Barghouti. “After the primaries, they will have a chance to interfere by putting the list to the Fatah central committee,” he said. “It will be a tough discussion.” The final list will be determined by a committee of “wisemen” under the chairmanship of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president. It will have the authority to substitute names from among those who failed to secure a high place in the primaries, theoretically giving the Old Guard the final say on who will run inthe election. Some members of the Young Guard said they would run under an alternative name, such as the al-Aqsa or Jerusalem list, if they were squeezed out of the official Fatah list. Israeli officials have dismissed speculation of an early release for Mr Barghouti, who was jailed for his involvement in the shooting of four Israelis and a Greek priest during the Palestinian uprising. Associates of Mr Barghouti said he was closely watching developments in Israeli politics in the run-up to an election in March. He wanted to see an end to armed confrontation in Gaza and to all attacks on Israeli civilians in order not to help the Israeli right into power. Date: 16/11/2005
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Rice Paves Way for $2 Billion in Aid With Gaza Border Deal
Jerusalem - In a welcome coup for US diplomacy in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, on Tuesday secured an Israeli-Palestinian agreement on border controls in the Gaza Strip. The deal puts the Palestinians in charge of a strategic border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and eases the flow of exports from the territory, opening the way for the international community to plough a promised $2bn (€1.7bn, £1.2bn) a year into regenerating the Palestinian economy. Ms Rice called the agreement “a major step forward for the Palestinian people in their own movement toward independence”. The new regime will start to go into place next week when an Italian carabinieri general takes command of a special European Union police unit that both sides have agreed will monitor the performance of Palestinian frontier officials. Weeks of negotiations mediated by James Wolfensohn, special envoy of the quartet – the US, European Union, United Nations and Russia – had stalled on the issue of Israel’s demand to maintain controls on people crossing between Gaza and Egypt. On Monday, however, Ms Rice said an agreement was near on an extended package of proposals put forward by Mr Wolfensohn’s team that also included the introduction of convoys for Palestinians travelling across Israeli territory between Gaza and the West Bank and the go-ahead for construction of a Gaza seaport. The Palestinian side accepted the package but the Israelis still had outstanding concerns about security. After a brief side trip to Jordan on Monday evening to pay her condolences after last week’s al-Qaeda bombings, Ms Rice returned to Jerusalem. Working until 4.30am, she averted a last-minute crisis after the Palestinians objected to attempts by Elliott Abrams, the White House’s Middle East adviser, to re-open detailed discussions on the package. Diplomats said the Palestinians had at one point been close to pulling out of the deal, a potential disaster for the secretary of state after she put her credibility on the line by extending her stay in the Middle East. Mr Wolfensohn said: “If you are an envoy of the quartet, you have a certain amount of possibilities in negotiations. If you are the secretary of state of the US, I would say there is a little more clout associated with that, and therefore to push it over the edge. I wanted to congratulate the secretary on having done that.” Under the terms of the agreement, EU monitors headed by Italy’s Brigadier-General Pietro Pistolese will ensure that Palestinian officials conform to correct procedures in checking Palestinians travelling between Egypt and Gaza. The unarmed force will not have any responsibility for arresting suspects. Israel, however, will be able to view live video of movements at the border at a joint Israeli-EU-Palestinian liaison office. The Palestinians will consider Israeli requests to bar specified individuals, although quartet officials stressed the Gaza side of the border crossing would be under full Palestinian control. Quartet diplomats said the significance of the deal was that it would help show the Palestinian people that there were benefits to be drawn from Israel’s historic withdrawal from Gaza. “But Gaza’s not the end of anything,” said Javier Solana, the EU’s visiting foreign policy chief. “It’s the start of a process.” Date: 17/12/2003
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Outline Emerges of Possible Sharon Peace Strategy
As Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, prepares to offer a glimpse of his peace strategy this week, the outlines are emerging of a potential deal with the Palestinians. If Ahmed Qurei, his Palestinian counterpart, takes the bait, the Palestinians might have a provisional state in a year's time that would encompass more than 95 per cent of the population but less than half the West Bank. Diplomats say the arrangement would involve Israel withdrawing from a small number of settlements and from areas the Palestinian Authority controlled before the start of the uprising in September 2000. The barriers to such a deal are enormous. Israel would demand a prior end to Palestinian violence. Most Palestinians would probably reject a package they saw as confining them to densely populated cantons. Diplomats close to the peace process are guarding their optimism. "Expectations are rising again," Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations representative in the region, said last week. "If this peace process collapses before it starts, it could lead to frustration, violence and further bloodshed." Mr Qurei has ruled out negotiations on a long-term interim agreement - a concept that has always been a central aim of Mr Sharon. He is demanding a final settlement now. "We have no more time," Mr Qurei told the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv last week. "We cannot have interim agreements." Some diplomats believe, however, that Mr Qurei might be tempted to renew negotiations with Mr Sharon on such a basis, as long as he could sell it as part of a seamless progression to a final settlement. The two leaders have yet to hold a long-promised summit and are unlikely to meet before Mr Sharon delivers a keynote speech to the annual Herzliya security conference on Thursday. There is much anticipation about its contents, not least among an Israeli public bemused by the prime minister's recent cryptic references to concessions and unilateral moves. During almost three years in office, Mr Sharon has proved a master at maintaining the status quo. As long as his main task was to react aggressively to Palestinian violence, there was little pressure on him to reveal an exit strategy. The public mood has changed in recent months, however, as the level of Palestinian violence inside Israel has subsided. Mr Sharon is under pressure from opinion polls expressing support for unofficial peace plans rejected by his government. He is also under international pressure to ease restrictions in the occupied territories and to end construction of the separation barrier. He has meanwhile lost support on the right for suggesting unilateral withdrawals from territory that his ruling Likud party still officially regards as part of greater Israel. It would be uncharacteristic of Mr Sharon to reveal much of his hand at Herzliya. He is expected to guard details of his broader plan for his first meeting with Mr Qurei. But if Mr Sharon is under pressure, so too is Mr Qurei. Failure to wring any concessions from the Israelis would doom his premiership, which is already regarded as a "last chance" administration for the PA. Faced with Mr Sharon's challenge that he will implement his plan whether the Palestinians agree to it or not, Mr Qurei may see no choice but to negotiate on Israeli terms. Mr Qurei, a consistent opponent of the armed conflict with Israel, knows that the Palestinians have effectively lost the military part of their struggle. Added pressure came from the refusal this month of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to heed his appeal to declare a ceasefire, although talks resumed in Cairo this week. Some diplomats believe the militants, particularly those based abroad, may overestimate the pressure on Mr Sharon to sue for peace just as they misjudged Israel's capacity for absorbing three years of violence. "They may think they won the war," said one diplomat, "but I don't see many Hamas helicopter gunships hovering over Tel Aviv." Source: Financial Times (UK) Contact us
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