The Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, whose less-than-desirable face certainly requires a Beverly Hills nose surgery, is facing yet another corruption accusation, this time by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss.
In a report released on Monday, Lindenstrauss had charged that Olmert used his influence when he was Minister of Labor, Industry and Trade to obtain NIS 7.67 million of government aid for an associate’s businesses between 2000 and 2005. Rahamim Ben-Shushan, an activist in the Likud party’s Central Committee, was given financial assistance from the ministry for four factories operated by his Marina Group.
Further investigation will be conducted and the circumstances surrounding the transactions will be investigated by the authorities concerned in order to discern as to whether Olmert had really abused his power during the time when he was in charge of the Ministry in question.
Tony Blair resigns and is made envoy to the Middle East. What makes you think he would succeed in Palestine when he had failed in Iraq?
Tony Blair, who stepped down today as the prime minister of Britain, has been appointed a new senior peace envoy for the Middle East, working on building the framework for a Palestinian state, officials said today.
The widely expected announcement was made at the United Nations in New York and at the State Department, on the same day that violence surged in the Gaza Strip with the killings of at least 13 Palestinians, 11 of them fighters, during Israeli military incursions.
Mr. Blair, who handed his office over to Gordon Brown in London, becomes a senior envoy for the “quartet,†diplomatic shorthand for the four leading outside forces working on peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
Haven’t we been saying this over and over again? Jeffrey Sachs blames the US for the Middle East conflict.
The leading American economist Jeffrey Sachs criticized the U.S. and Israel for the collapse of the Palestinian government and the current unrest in Gaza in an opinion article he published in The Jordan Times over the weekend.
U.S. and Israeli policies supporting one faction, Fatah, while deeply isolating the other, Hamas, have been in contradiction to the democratic process in the region that both nations ardently promote, said Sachs. While President Bush encouraged Palestinian democracy, he openly favored Fatah in the elections of January 2006. When Hamas won, the US and Israel immediately cut off funds to the newly elected government, including even Israel’s transfer of Palestine’s own customs revenues, which Israel collects as the occupying authority in control of the borders, said Sachs. Such policies set the course for a violent upset in the occupied territories.
Continue reading ‘Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. failed Palestine once again’
GAZA, Palestine, May 31, 2007 (IPC) - - The Director of Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Essam Younis said that the targeted killings practiced by the Israeli occupation forces could not be justified without a fair trial, pointing out that Israel is committing war crimes against the Palestinian People and put itself above the law.
Younis explained, in a special interview with the International Press Center (IPC) at the State Information Services (SIS), that killing of number of citizens perpetrated by IOF in each of Rafah, Jenin and Ramallah, was neither the first incident nor the last, because there was a long series of premeditated murder and cold-blooded murder,
“I want to recall an incident that formed a very important to show lies of the Israeli internal security service relating to the issue of bus No. 300 in the year 1984, when IOF arrested two Palestinian militants, the Israeli internal security service claimed that all members of the Palestinian group were killed during the clashes, but later found that two of the resistance fighters were liquidated after having been arrested,” Younis explained.
The director of the center affirmed that this type of murder is considered as war crimes in accordance with the rules of international law.
Continue reading ‘Essam Younis: Israel Commits War Crimes in Palestine’
Imagine doing this in your own backyard…having to crawl around like criminals when you actually own the land.
Two Palestinian men crawl through an opening not much larger than a shoe box and descend a shaky ladder, into a space filled with the rank smell of urine and cigarette smoke.
This underground, unfinished mall near the junction of two Tel Aviv highways is home for dozens of Palestinian laborers who can’t get scarce work permits. It’s where they disappear each night, living out of sight of Israeli authorities to fill jobs offered by Israeli businesses.
“When you want to work, you are not afraid of anything,†said 23-year-old Abdul Jalil Hamad, who lights a candle on a concrete wall to shed light on his bed, a mattress that he found in the garbage.
To avoid discovery by police, Hamad and his friends send only those with the best Hebrew and cleanest clothes to buy food at a minimarket on a back street. When the police catch him, he returns home to the West Bank with empty pockets, to face 14 family members who rely on his pay.