Egypt admits bid for Israel-PA direct talks failing, Mubarak reported to be terminally ill
Monday, July 19, 2010
By: ICEJ News

News in brief...

Israeli and Palestinian leaders along with US envoy George Mitchell met separately with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his senior aides on Sunday to try to jump-start peace talks, but Cairo admitted that the prospects for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority remained faint. Mubarak, who was flanked by his foreign minister and top intelligence officer, focused on “efforts to create the conditions necessary to advance the peace process and achieve a two-state solution,” according to a statement from the Egyptian state news agency MENA. “We are still hopeful that we can bridge this gap… between the needs for security for Israel and the borders for the Palestinians,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters after the meetings, adding that Egypt was encouraging the US to keep pushing for face-to-face talks. “President Mubarak represents the aspiration for widening the cycle of peace and preserving the stability and security of the peoples of the region,” added Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In related news, The Washington Times reported on Monday that several Western Intelligence agencies believe that Mubarak is terminally ill, likely with cancer, and will probably die in less than a year, leaving no clear successor and possibly leading to an internal power struggle in the largest Arab state.

Lebanon's Hariri moves closer to Iran-Syria axis on Damascus visit
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was in Damascus on Sunday for talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad, signing a long list of 17 different cooperation accords covering justice, tourism, education and agriculture. "We will also continue to take action to control the borders so as to combat trafficking and all illegal acts," promised Hariri, adding that his relations with the Syrian leader were "in the interest of both countries... which face a common enemy." Hariri had formerly been the leader of the anti-Syrian and Iranian block in Lebanese politics after the assassination of his father in 2005, an event widely believed to have been ordered by the Syrian regime. His governing coalition, which includes Druze and Christian Arab parties and is backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, won a majority of seats in parliament in June 2009 elections, defeating a bloc led by Iranian proxy terror militia Hizbullah. Despite that victory and massive infusions of pro-Western money and weapons to political and military forces allied with Hariri in the aftermath of the elections, he and his coalition partners have since been intimidated into accepting Hizbullah into the latest coalition government and retaining its extensive weapons arsenal, as well as to cooperate with the Iranian-led anti-Israel/US forces in the region.

Iran insists Sunni bombing of mosque has 'outside' help
Iranian government officials have ratcheted up their rhetoric against “outside” forces they accuse of a massive suicide bombing last Thursday at a Shi’ite mosque in Zahedan, a mid-sized city in the southeastern part of the country which killed at least 27 people and wounded about 270 others. Several government officials told state TV that they blame agents from the US, Britain and Israel for the bombings while police reported detaining 40 people in connection to the attacks. Jundallah, the Sunni Muslim group which claimed responsibility for the bombings, says that it is defending the rights of Sunnis inside Shi'ite Iran. "[Jundallah] has been operating since 2004, and if you look back at the last six years, it's impossible to think of someone that the Iranians haven't accused to be behind Jundallah, right from al-Qaida, to Taliban, to [Pakistani Intelligence], to Arab Gulf states, to the US, Israel, or the UK,” said Iranian-born analyst Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington. Iran executed Jundallah's leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, last month. US leaders have been very vocal in condemning the suicide attack.

US aware Israel facing increased missile threat
A senior US State Department official has said Washington is committed to helping Israel face an increasingly menacing missile threat from regional foes who now look upon rocket arsenals as the main means of intimidating and destroying the Jewish state. “The ever-evolving technology of war is making it harder to guarantee Israel’s security,” said Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political military affairs, in an address at the Brookings Institution Friday. “Advances in rocket technology require new levels of US Israel cooperation.” The US significantly increased spending on development of the Iron Dome and Arrow systems it is developing jointly with Israel in the FY 2010 budget and current funding levels should allow Israel to deploy six more of the recently deployed Iron Dome’s by the end of 2011, giving Israel a deterrent which it is hoped will prevent future missile wars like the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Shapiro insisted that the funding and support for missile defense “is not only the right thing to do, but it is the type of strategic step that is good for Israel’s security and for the United States’ interests in the region” adding that “as surely as the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable, our commitment to Israel’s qualitative military edge has never been greater.”

Germany bans Turkish 'charity' IHH as terrorist entity
Germany has officially declared the Frankfurt-registered IHH organization illegal because of its terror ties. In 2008, Israel also declared IHH illegal after discovering the organization’s links to a coalition that funds terror groups, including Hamas. Since Hamas’ seizure of Gaza in 2007, IHH supported the terror group by bolstering its propaganda system and holding public conferences for Hamas in Turkey. IHH also became a main fund-raiser for Hamas abroad and provides money transfers for funding of Hamas institutions in Judea and Samaria. In recent foreign reports, the US is also contemplating declaring IHH illegal due to its terror ties.

EU's Ashton on Mideast visit
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton started her Middle East tour on Saturday in efforts to restart peace negotiations and pressure Israel to follow through with its vow to reopen the border crossings with the Gaza Strip; marking her second regional tour in the past four months. "The European Union has been calling for an urgent and fundamental change of policy regarding the closure of Gaza," said Ashton. "We have welcomed the announcements made by Israel following the flotilla incident and are now awaiting their implementation." During her three day visit to Israel, Ashton will meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders as well as Tony Blair, Middle East envoy for the international community, to assure the EU’s commitment to further the peace process is being implemented. Ashton also met with the parents of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit on Monday in Jerusalem, where she called for Schalit’s release and said she refers to him in all her Mideast meetings, while adding that “the suffering of the public in Gaza” must stop and an improvement in Gaza’s living conditions will improve Schalit’s condition as well. During a press conference after meeting with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Ashton called on Hamas to allow the Red Cross to visit Schalit. Earlier on Sunday, Ashton also visited Gaza as well as Sderot to see the damage from Hamas rockets.

Israel prepares as global heat wave rises
With record heat waves breaking across the planet this summer, Israel has not suffered such a severe drought since the 1920s, seeing its fresh water supply drop by almost 25 percent in the last five years. But Israel has responded to the crisis by encouraging water recycling for farming, and is a leader in desalination technology. About 50 percent of the water for agriculture is recycled. “There is no country that is even close to such an amount,” said a senior Israeli water official. Additionally, the Water Authority anticipates almost 600 million cu.m. of fresh water to be produced through desalination by 2013, bringing Israel’s water supply back to sustainable levels. However Israeli officials are worried that the precipitation that Israel has always counted on for its water supply might never recover, as the planet heats up and drought continues to plague much of the world.