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Hope springs eternal for veteran Israeli peacenik
by Staff Writers
Jerusalem (AFP) Aug 1, 2011

Netanyahu ready for talks on US peace plan: report
Jerusalem (AFP) Aug 1, 2011 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to negotiate a peace accord with the Palestinians on the basis of proposals from US President Barack Obama, Israeli public radio reported late Monday.

According to the radio, citing unnamed political officials, Netanyahu has agreed to resume talks to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but with some reservations.

The Israeli leader made this decision after consulting with the head of national security, Yaakov Amidror, the radio said.

The radio also reported that Netanyahu made the point of his willingness to negotiate in a document but on condition that Israel would not return to its borders before the 1967 war and that changes in demographics since then should be taken into account.

Last May, Obama had angered Israeli leaders when in a speech he voiced support for the idea of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders along with land swaps.

When questioned by AFP, a senior Israeli official, who requested anonymity, confirmed that "Israel is ready to be flexible regarding efforts to resume a direct dialogue with the Palestinians."

The official added that "Israel did not dismiss the American proposals aimed at establishing the future borders" of a Palestinian state.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday in New York that the Israeli government was looking to find "a formula" which would allow for the resumption of negotiations.

The Palestinians last September left the US-sponsored talks with Israel to protest against Israel's refuse to extend a freeze on new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority is expected to launch an initiative at the UN General Assembly in September to get international recognition for a Palestinian state.

For Uri Avnery, seen by some as the backbone of Israel's dwindling peace movement, hope for peace with the Palestinians springs eternal, despite stalled talks and the rising power of the Israeli right wing.

At 87, he can recount decades of experience pushing his fellow Israelis towards a lasting peace deal with the Palestinians, and has no time for those who say an accord is as far away now as ever.

"I remain optimistic because I believe in the ability of the (Israeli) people to change course," Avnery told AFP, pointing to a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks protesting Israel's high cost of living and wide income disparity.

"When protesters take to the streets chanting 'the people want social justice,' they are repeating the slogans of Tahrir Square in Cairo," he said, referring to the stronghold of demonstrators who overthrew former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

He acknowledges that the motley coalition of struggling parents, young couples, overworked doctors and other seeking economic reforms have made no effort to link their fight to the continuing stalemate in peace talks.

But he sees the current wave of protests as the "the birth of a new left, very different from that of yesteryear."

And he believes protesters will come to see the link between economic problems and Israel's construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

"In the end it will come because we squander huge sums maintaining the war machine and settlements," he said.

Avnery has been campaigning longer than almost anyone in Israel for a peace deal with Palestinians, pushing since the end of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

For years it was a lonely position to take and, more than six decades on, he has yet to see his goal realised, but for Avnery it has not been time spent preaching in the wilderness.

"There were no more than a hundred of us around the world promoting the idea in 1949," he said. "Today the whole world supports it, along with the majority of Israelis."

He is an ardent supporter of the Palestinian campaign seeking membership of the United Nations for a state on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War.

He sees support from France and the rest of Europe as essential, even if the initiative comes up against a US veto in the UN Security Council.

And he insists that Israel's settlements, which are now home to around 500,000 Israelis in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, are not irreversible, convinced that most Israelis would give them up in exchange for a "real peace."

Born in September 1923 in Beckum, Germany, Avnery immigrated to British-mandate Palestine with his family at the age of 10, fleeing Nazism.

In 1950, he founded an independent weekly magazine, Haolam Hazeh, which he edited for 40 years.

The anti-establishment journal, the only one at that time not run by a political party, had a considerable influence on the Israeli press.

In 1969, he was elected to the Israeli parliament as an independent and served there for eight years.

Throughout his career, he espoused the cause of peace with the Palestinians, and in July 1982, he caused a firestorm by meeting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Beirut, then under under siege by the Israeli army.

He is appalled by changes that have occurred in Israeli society, citing "the ultra-capitalists who rule, the power concentrated in 20 families," and the breakdown of health and education services.

And he reserves harsh criticism for the current government, accusing them of intransigence towards the Palestinians that is holding up peace talks.

Perhaps surprisingly, the veteran peace activist is not a pacifist and says that for many years he felt a genuine love for the Israel Defence Forces, the nation's military.

"That was when the IDF was a people's army that was not corrupted by occupation," he said. Today he is concerned about the growing power within the officer corps "of religious nationalists who take their orders from rabbis."

And as a youngster he belonged to the Irgun, a right-wing Zionist militia that fought both local Arabs and Palestine's British rulers prior to Israel's 1948 declaration of statehood.

He has no regrets about fighting with the group.

"I fought for the freedom of my people against the British occupiers," he said. "For the same reasons, I always thought that the Palestinians were entitled to their independence and freedom."




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Israeli, Lebanese troops exchange fire on border
Jerusalem (AFP) Aug 1, 2011 - Israeli and Lebanese troops exchanged fire on their often tense border on Monday morning, officials on both sides said, with the two armies trading accusations on why the shooting happened.

The Israeli military said its troops had been fired on as they worked on the Israeli side of the Blue Line, the UN-drawn border with Lebanon.

But a Lebanese army official said troops opened fire only when Israeli soldiers crossed the border line, which was established in 2000.

Both sides have challenged the accuracy of the Blue Line in several locations.

"Earlier this morning an IDF (Israeli military) force carrying out a routine patrol within Israeli territory near the Israel-Lebanon border was fired upon from the direction of Lebanon," an Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP.

"The force responded by firing towards the source of fire and UNIFIL was informed of the incident," she added, referring to the UN peacekeeping force stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

One Israeli military source said the incident occurred near the Dan kibbutz in the far north of Israel as troops carried out work on a border fence.

Another stressed that "Israel's interest at this time is to contain the situation and maintain the calm on the border."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking before the parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee, repeated that message, saying Israel "does not want an escalation on the Lebanese border," an official told AFP.

Speaking before the closed session, which the official described on condition of anonymity, Netanyahu defended the decision of Israeli troops to fire back.

"When fire is directed at our soldiers, it is normal that they respond," the official quoted the premier as saying.

A Lebanese army official, who declined to be identified, told AFP that the incident occurred early on Monday when "an Israeli patrol in the Wazzani area crossed the Blue Line and went beyond it about 30 metres (yards)."

"Lebanese troops stationed in the area fired warning shots," he said. "The Israeli patrol retreated and then fired at Lebanese army posts."

He said there were no injuries on the Lebanese side and that UNIFIL was informed of the incident and quickly moved to the area.

UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh confirmed that the incident had occurred, but gave no details on whether Israeli troops had crossed the Blue Line.

"We can confirm that at around 7:00 am this morning there was a brief exchange of fire between the Lebanese army and the Israeli army along the Blue Line in the general area of Wazzani," Singh said.

"UNIFIL peacekeepers immediately responded to the location in order to contain the situation and prevent any escalation. The firing has since ceased and the situation in the area is quiet. No casualties have been reported."

Singh said UNIFIL had opened an investigation into the shooting.

Monday's incident, as Lebanon marks Army Day, came almost exactly a year after Lebanese and Israeli troops traded fire along the tense border, leaving two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist killed along with a senior Israeli officer.

That flare-up was the worst clash between the two sides since Israel's devastating 2006 war in Lebanon against the Shiite Hezbollah militia.





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