Mid East | UnFox News - Not a Propaganda Arm of the Republican Party

Lebanon PM: accusations against Syria were mistake (AP)

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 04:55:21 -0500

AP - Lebanon's prime minister says it was a mistake to accuse Syria of being behind the 2005 assassination of his father.

US artists support Israelis' settlement protest (AP)

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 04:39:00 -0500

AP - A dovish U.S. Jewish group says more than 150 film and theater artists have signed a letter of support for Israeli actors who refused to perform in a West Bank settlement.

Israeli FM doubts peace possibility

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:23:46 -0500

Lieberman quoted as saying deal with Palestinians unattainable in a year or 'during the next generation'.

Israeli FM: Settlement slowdown will end (AP)

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:33:01 -0500

AP - Israel's hard-line foreign minister says his party will block any extension of Israel's settlement slowdown, which could upend new Mideast peace talks.

Do Americans Know What Happened in Iraq?

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:00:27 -0500

A Fox News poll released last week indicates the majority of Americans feel the Iraq war was a success. It also suggests they want to get past it and focus on other things. This is good and bad. It is good that average Americans can put our invasion of Iraq in 2003 out of their [...]

Joe Biden and the False Iraq War Narrative

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:00:21 -0500

In an interview on the PBS NewsHour last Wednesday, Joe Biden was unwilling to contradict the official narrative of the Iraq War that Gen. David Petraeus and the Bush surge had turned Iraq into a good war after all. That interview serves as a reminder of just how completely the Democratic Party foreign policy elite [...]

Troops die in Iraq suicide blasts

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:48:52 -0500

Mini-bus packed with explosives targets former defence ministry building in Baghdad, where security has been high.

Amnesty urges rethink on counter-terrorism measures

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:02:14 -0500

Rights group says powers under Terrorism Act 2000 flout international law

Control orders imposed on suspects, secret proceedings leading to deportations and the "virtually unlimited discretion" given to the police to stop and search must be abandoned in the government's continuing review of counter-terrorism powers, Amnesty International says today.

Control orders are incompatible with Britain's human rights obligations under international law, it says, given that they limit individuals' movements and activities based on secret information not disclosed to the individual concerned nor their lawyers, Amnesty argues in a submission to the government.

It adds that diplomatic assurances under memorandums of understanding containing diplomatic assurances that deportees will not be tortured and abused when sent home are unenforceable. Britain has signed memorandums with Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Ethiopia.

Individuals are deported under decisions by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission which often meets in secret and makes rulings on the basis of secret material.

Amnesty also says it opposes as too long the 28-day limit under which people suspected of involvement in terrorism can be held without charge. "International treaties to which the UK is party require that people detained in connection with a criminal offence either be charged promptly and tried within a reasonable time ... or be released," it says.

It adds that Section 44 powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 gives the police sweeping authority to stop and search. While these powers may in theory be exercised "only for the purpose of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism", the law explicitly states they "may be exercised whether or not the constable has grounds for suspecting the presence of articles of that kind".

"Protecting the public from terrorism is a vital concern for any government but in the last 10 years there's been a serious over-reaction that's badly damaged human rights in this country," said Jeremy Croft, head of Amnesty International's UK police section.

The review of anti-terrorism powers was launched in July by the home secretary, Theresa May.

Richard Norton-Taylor

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Iran: Israeli attack would mean its own demise (AP)

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:27:35 -0500

AP - Iran's president said Sunday that any Israeli attack against his nation would mean the destruction of the Jewish state.

Despite formal combat end, US joins Baghdad battle (AP)

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 15:52:35 -0500

AP - Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

US troops repel attack on Baghdad military base

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 15:42:20 -0500

Five days after the US's operations in Iraq officially ended, American troops helped fight off an attack on a military base

US troops helped repel an attack by heavily armed militants on a military headquarters in Baghdad yesterday, five days after the US formally ended combat operations in Iraq. Twelve people were killed, none American. A US military spokesman said the Americans helped subdue the attack while Iraqi army soldiers located two militants who had entered the compound. Lt Col Eric Bloom also said the Iraqi military asked for support from helicopters, drones and explosives experts. The Iraqi military often asks for aerial support and explosives expertise, but not help from American troops.

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US troops repel attack on Baghdad military base

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 15:42:20 -0500

Five days after the US's operations in Iraq officially ended, American troops helped fight off an attack on a military base

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Israel: Now, More than Ever, Fascinated By Netanyahu (Time.com)

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:35:00 -0500

Time.com - No one really thinks much will come out of the direct talks with the Palestinians but, when the issue is Bibi, up come visions of Gorbachev -- and Nixon in China

Sunday: 20 Iraqis Killed, 58 Wounded

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:00:20 -0500

Updated at 10:22 p.m. EDT, Sept. 5, 2010 What might have been a relatively peaceful day was shattered when six gunmen struck at a military target in Baghdad. American troops were involved in repelling the attack. At least 20 Iraqis were killed there and in other violence, while another 58 were wounded. Meanwhile, the oil ministry has cut supplies of certain petrol products to Iraqi Kurdistan over allegations that the excess supplies are being illegally sold to Iran.

Former Saddam confidant says he'll die in prison (AP)

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 12:25:24 -0500

AP - The man who once served as the international face of Saddam Hussein's regime predicted Sunday that he will die in an Iraqi jail, citing his old age and lengthy prison sentence.

Israeli raids claim lives in Gaza

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:43:13 -0500

Rocket fired across the border draws heavy Israeli retaliation, just two days after relaunch of peace talks.

Israel unlikely to extend current settlement curbs (AP)

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:29:24 -0500

AP - Israel's defense minister says a slowdown in West Bank settlement construction is unlikely to continue in its current form after it expires at the end of this month.

Israel launches raids on Gaza

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:39:02 -0500

Cross-border rocket fire draws airborne response from Israeli military, which injures at least three Palestinians.

Sunni and Shiite Iraqi journalists talk about war (AP)

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:01:09 -0500

AP - As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, two Associated Press Television News cameramen, one Sunni and one Shiite, talk about what it has been like to live through and record the war. The accounts are translated and edited.

Saturday: 6 Iraqis Wounded

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 22:34:05 -0500

Iraq saw very little violence today. Only six Iraqis were wounded in new reports, and all of those were injured in Baghdad.

Labour's policy on Iraq was 'fatally flawed' says former army chief

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:07:25 -0500

General Sir Richard Dannatt attacks Tony Blair and Gordon Brown over split on spending levels

The former head of the army has accused Tony Blair of lacking "the moral courage" to stand up to Gordon Brown over defence spending in Iraq.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the army's chief of general staff from 2006-09, said in his new book that Labour's defence policy was "fatally flawed" by Brown's unwillingness to provide the level of spending required and by Blair's inability "to impose his will on his own chancellor". He added that evidence for Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction was "most uncompelling" and labelled postwar planning an "abject failure".

In the book, Leading From The Front, Dannatt launched a damning attack on Labour's defence policy under Blair and Brown.

"History will pass judgment on these two foreign adventurers in due course, but in my view Gordon Brown's malign intervention when chancellor, on the SDR [Strategic Defence Review] by refusing to fund what his own government had agreed, fatally flawed the entire process from the front," he wrote.

While Dannatt claimed that 1998's SDR provided a "good framework" for the government's defence policy, it was hamstrung by underspending. "The seeds were sown for some of the impossible operational pressures to come," he said.

The accusations come in the same week that Blair published his memoirs in which he offered a passionate defence of his foreign policy.

However, in an interview in the Sunday Telegraph, Dannatt claimed that the Labour leadership "did not fully understand or fully appreciate the pressures the army was under".

He said: "I felt it was pushing a rock up a steep hill pretty much all the way through. It was frustrating because from the land forces' point of view, we always do our job, but we knew we couldn't do it as well because we hadn't got the resources we needed."

Dannatt also accused Brown of being "not particularly interested in defence" and Blair of being unable to impose his will on his chancellor. "To me it seems extraordinary that the prime minister, the number one guy, cannot crack the whip sufficiently to his very close friend, the chancellor, and say: 'We're doing this in the national interest, Gordon, you fund it'."

Dannatt acted as an adviser to David Cameron in the run-up to the general election but quit the post earlier this year.

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Tony Blair's book signing in Dublin mixes Good Friday with bad Iraq

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:07:22 -0500

Protesters chanted 'Butcher Blair', but others noted his achievements for peace in Northern Ireland

Literature and politics have always laid claim to Dublin's O'Connell Street, bookended by statues of James Joyce and Catholic emancipator Daniel O'Connell. Tony Blair, in his modest way, was no doubt hoping connections would be made with both traditions by choosing to launch A Journey here yesterday morning.

Easons bookshop has been on this site since 1917, the year after the Easter Rising, which began on the steps of the GPO next door. By starting his brief book tour here, the former prime minister was italicising those chapters concerning the Good Friday agreement, of which he is most proud. Having read most of memoir overnight, I would have to say the Joycean association also holds true, however. Not for the deathless prose, but for the affinities with that other rambling self-obsessive, Leopold Bloom in Ulysses.

All first-time authors dream of stopping the traffic; with the assistance of a security operation costing tens of thousands of pounds, Blair managed to bring a large part of the Saturday morning city to a halt. By the time he arrived in a blacked-out motorcade, and was hustled in through the bookshop doors under an umbrella and past the three-for-two offers, O'Connell Street and Dublin's main tramline had been shut all morning. The store was hemmed in on two sides. Those waiting in line at the side entrance for a chance to buy a book outnumbered those arguing that he "shouldn't be writing books, he should be doing time", out at the front, by about three to one.

Literary criticism comes in many forms, but the Stop the War Coalition are not the most nuanced of deconstructionists. As any writer will testify, the most demoralising response to a book signing is to stay away, leaving the author grinning at the back of the shop, brandishing his pen in expectation.

Instead, 100 or so protesters kept up a chorus of "Butcher Blair" for nearly three hours outside the bookshop entrance (no doubt outraged about Tony's grasp of syntax and services to cliché). A smattering of stones and coins landed around the car as he drew up and three people were arrested after a scuffle.

Blair knows this audience, he confides in his memoir, though on this evidence he seems to have given up on his confidence that even he, the great communicator, can reach them. "We are like two people standing either side of a thick pane of glass trying to have a conversation," he observed of his public at one point. "I thought and still think they could be persuaded, but when I spoke they couldn't hear me and after a time they stopped trying to."

Some were determined in Dublin that these glass walls should be broken down; a few protesters even went to the trouble of queueing to make their judgments on his book in person. Kate O'Sullivan, a 24-year-old from Cork, and a member of the "Irish Palestinian Solidarity Movement", got past the concentric rings of security that involved Garda and Special Branch and Emergency Response Units, and while Blair scribbled his signature informed him: "Mr Blair I am here to make a citizen's arrest for the war crimes you have committed." She was dragged away, she said, by five security people.

Others didn't get that far. Niall Farrell, whose sister Mairead was, he says, "killed in Gibraltar by another British prime minister in 1988", had "wanted to give Blair a taste of Iraqi hospitality by hurling his shoe" at the author.

He had worn his slip-on Birkenstocks especially, but didn't make it past the scrutiny of the bookshop muscle. "The worst of it was," he said, "I had already bought a book by the time I was turned out." After some protest he managed to secure a refund.

However, at least as many had come to support Blair as to protest. A local man named John O'Connell expressed the sentiment of several others when, clutching his book under his arm, he explained: "I know Iraq is going to be written on his gravestone, but there should be a place there on it for what he has done for peace in Ireland also."

He was glad he came, though the experience was surreal. "You hand over your wallet, your phone and your address, then you get a ticket. You exchange that for a wristband, then you are brought up to the second floor by escalator, you are taken around and around the bookstacks past a cordon of Garda and special branch, in a loop, and your book is taken off you, and he signs it and says hello."

Personal greetings were apparently outlawed, along with anything in the way of authorial small talk.

Despite an apocalyptic thunderstorm, some had been here since two in the morning. At the front of the queue a Wimbledon-style bonhomie prevailed. Third in line Patrick Marshall said he had travelled down straight after Blair's appearance on RTE's Late, Late Show on Friday night because he felt he wanted to show support for a man who was getting "far too much stick. I mean he was asked whether his son Leo was planned or not..."

The television interview dwelt on Blair's conversion to Catholicism, a subject of much debate among those seeking an audience in Dublin. They are disappointed to discover that, despite the spiritual connotation of his title, his book strangely doesn't do God. Though he says towards the end that "religion always interested him more than politics" there is, I tell them, not a mention of a prayer or even a biblical reference. The solitary reference to the saviour is the messiah complex that Jonathan Powell attributes to him. The only index entry under "church" is Charlotte, who once sang at a rally.

The signing lasts for two hours, during which time the protesters are joined by the Hare Krishna proprietors of an Indian restaurant, who come out to drum up custom. Among the last to emerge are two who epitomise the contradictions that Blair's book, with its curious mix of wide eyed naivety and towering hubris, seems designed to excite.

Aidan Walsh, an IT manager from Tyrone, got up at 4am to drive down to Dublin. "Because I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, I've never been to a book signing before. I went to school when the hunger strikes were on; we all knew those who had been shot and killed, and if any single man put a stop to it, it was probably him. I wanted to acknowledge what he had done."

Brendan Pierce was less enamoured. "I felt I had to go and see the gobshite in person," he said. "It's surreal in there. I had to hand the book over. He looked at me. I said to meself, 'What's he got to smile about?' I was going to throw it at him, throw it back in his stupid smiling face, but they've thought of that. They take the book off you first." As he walked away he dropped the signed first edition in the nearest bin.

The author himself appears serenely unaware of both his devotees and his critics. For a man who claims to have had premonitions of John Smith's death in 1994, who suggests straight- faced that he discovered much of his philosophy for foreign policy while watching Schindler's List, who is prepared to write of his sense of destiny to become prime minister "this is mine. I know it and I'll take it", none of this probably seems too unusual.

He is removed from the building without seeing the light of day, driven at high speed to the next leg of A Journey that shows no sign of getting less surreal.

Tim Adams

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Iraq WMD dossier was 'reviewed' to match Labour spin, memo reveals

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:07:21 -0500

Foreign Office official wrote memo in 2002 about the need to 'avoid exposing differences' on Saddam's nuclear threat

A Foreign Office official involved in drafting the discredited dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction suggested that he might have to review an assessment of Saddam's nuclear capabilities so that it was in line with briefings from Labour spin doctors, an internal Whitehall memo shows.

The March 2002 memo, written by Tim Dowse, head of the Foreign Office non-proliferation department, and sent to a special adviser to the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has been obtained by the Observer under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the memo, Dowse complains his department had been given "no forewarning" of a paper the special adviser used to brief the Parliamentary Labour Party and later the cabinet, which effectively contradicted the official assessment of Iraq's nuclear capability.

Dowse's memo, which was copied to officials including Sir Michael (now Lord) Jay, then the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, complains that while the briefing claimed that "if Iraq's weapons programmes remain unchecked, Iraq could … develop a crude nuclear device in about five years", the government's official line was that "the Iraqi nuclear programme is not 'unchecked' ". This was an acknowledgement that sanctions against Saddam's regime had constrained his nuclear ambitions.

The briefing found its way into the press with newspapers claiming that "Saddam could develop a nuclear weapon within five years".

Dowse notes that the official line on Saddam's nuclear capability is used "in the draft public dossier on 'WMD programmes of concern' which the Cabinet Office are producing at No 10's request". He adds: "We clearly will now have to review that text, to avoid exposing differences with your paper."

That dossier was the controversial document alleged to have been "sexed up" under the influence of spin doctors.

Dr Brian Jones, the former head of the WMD section at the Defence Intelligence Staff, told the Observer: "At first glance the Dowse memo appears to be a shot across the bows of the political wing of the Foreign Office. However, looking closer, it suggests a willingness of officials to bend intelligence assessments to fit the political requirement."

In the Observer in July, Carne Ross, the UK's Iraq expert at the United Nations from 1997 to 2002, said the Foreign Office tried to dissuade him from referring to the memo in his written evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. Ross said: "It's safe to assume that they realised that this document is a clearly smoking gun, illustrating how the public exaggeration of the WMD threat proceeded."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are not going to comment on what witnesses might say, why the inquiry has called them, or what their lines of investigation should be."

Chris Ames

Jamie Doward

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Middle East peace talks: Cynicism and mistrust stalk make-or-break negotiations in America

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:05:04 -0500

The Barack Obama-backed summit is a long way from the bloody realities of the West Bank

The Israeli taxi driver shook his head and pointed to his kippah when asked to journey across town to an east Jerusalem neighbourhood on the day of the Washington talks: "I am a Jew. They will kill me. They are all Hamas."

Behind this vignette lies a view held by many Israelis that the Palestinians do not want peace, that the threat of violence is ever-present and Israel must not make further concessions in these talks which are, in any case, doomed to failure like so many before them.

In Ramallah, it's not so different, but there the talk is of settlements. Many Palestinians believe that the Israelis are using the negotiations as a cover for continuing to encroach on their land, to create facts on the ground that make a viable Palestinian state impossible.

Hundreds gathered in Manarah Square on the eve of the talks in a show of opposition to sitting down with the Israelis without a commitment by the latter to extend the current partial – and temporary – construction freeze. Many of those present were convinced the talks will fail and the consequences could be a return to armed resistance.

The mood on both sides is one of hostility, cynicism or indifference. Despite Barack Obama's encouraging though sober words on Thursday about the "moment of opportunity", it is hard to find people here ready to express any hopes or expectations of a successful outcome, even though opinion polls on both sides show a majority in favour of a two-state deal.

The backdrop to last week's talks was not auspicious. Hamas gunmen shot dead four Israeli settlers, later saying 13 militant groups had joined forces to launch a wave of attacks which could include suicide bombings. In response, settlers' groups declared the construction freeze to be over and that building would resume in around 80 locations in the West Bank. The arrest of scores of Hamas supporters across the West Bank by Palestinian security forces led to accusations that President Mahmoud Abbas was more interested in collaboration with the occupation than resistance.

The mood in Washington was cautiously upbeat, but the real work lies ahead and the settlement issue could well strangle the talks at birth. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, has categorically said that the Palestinian team will walk out unless the construction freeze is both extended indefinitely and applied to the currently exempt east Jerusalem. They want an explicit agreement, he said, not a tacit understanding.

Binyamin Netanyahu, mindful of his coalition's pro-settlement right wing, is unlikely to offer this. The current freeze expires in three weeks, at which point the Palestinians' robustness will be tested. Despite the agreement of direct talks without preconditions, Netanyahu has also publicly stated his terms, foremost of which is that the Palestinians recognise the Jewish nature of the Israeli state. Behind this lies the Palestinian demand that refugees have the right to return to homes they were forced out of or fled in 1948 and 1967. Although a compromise on the refugee issue is inevitable in any agreement, for the Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish state at the start of negotiations means conceding a prime goal at the kick-off.

The broader question, to which there is no definitive answer, is whether Netanyahu is really serious about trying to come to a deal with his Palestinian counterparts. The view that he has come to the table only under intense pressure from the Americans and that his strategy is to spin out talks for as long as possible while continuing with the "Judaisation" of the West Bank and east Jerusalem is persuasive.

But there is a counterview: that the rightwinger, who has opposed and obstructed peace moves so often, has decided that a deal should be his historic legacy. The Americans seem to buy this. Obama has hinted that Netanyahu has given him private assurances of his commitment. Netanyahu has said he did not embark on a second stint as prime minister for pleasure, adding that there was not much pleasure to be found in the job in any case. He cannot seriously contemplate the alternatives to a two-state deal: a return to sustained violence; a continuation of the occupation and moving further towards a quasi-apartheid regime; a single state between the Jordan river and the sea for both Palestinians and Israelis that would spell the end of the Jewish state. He is ready, he insists.

Most Palestinians – and quite a few Israelis – view the notion that the Netanyahu leopard has changed its spots with derision and scepticism. But if there is any substance to this narrative, the weakness and the division of the Palestinian people is likely to be part of the equation.

Having already conceded 78% of pre-1948 Palestine, it is hard to see how the Palestinian leadership could give up more territory beyond agreeing land swaps for the big settlement blocs around Jerusalem (even that is unacceptable to many). But if Netanyahu shows willingness to strike a deal, there will be enormous pressure for the Palestinians to make concessions. If they walk out at any point, the Israeli narrative – once again – will be that there is "no partner for peace" and that the Palestinians have balked at an agreement.

Both sides have much to gain and lose. The US is adamant we will know within a year - if, of course, these talks last that long.

Harriet Sherwood

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Middle East peace talks: Cynicism and mistrust stalk make-or-break negotiations in America

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:05:04 -0500

The Barack Obama-backed summit is a long way from the bloody realities of the West Bank

Both sides have much to gain and lose. The US is adamant we will know within a year - if, of course, these talks last that long.

Harriet Sherwood

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South African billionaire in bid to take control of Minerva group

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:05:03 -0500

Nathan Kirsh's move on the property group, which owns major developments in the City, is causing waves with West Bank campaigners as well as shareholders

An emergency shareholder meeting at property developer Minerva this week will pit its biggest shareholder Nathan Kirsh against the company's management. Kirsh may not be well known in the UK, but the South African billionaire could be about to take control of some of London's most prestigious buildings and a vast chunk of Croydon town centre.

The 78-year-old businessman is a 29.5% shareholder in Minerva through his investment vehicle KiFin, and at an extraordinary general meeting on Wednesday Kirsh will try to oust the company's management and unearth more details of a refinancing Minerva carried out last year.

KiFin's deputy chairman is Ron Sandler, the government-appointed non-executive chairman of Northern Rock and adviser to former prime minister Gordon Brown. Sandler, an old family friend of Kirsh, says he is a "sounding board" and adviser to the tycoon.

It will be Kirsh's third attempt to oust Minerva's chairman, Oliver Whitehead, and chief executive Salmaan Hasan, following a failed takeover bid last year. Kirsh made a 50p-a-share offer for Minerva last November, valuing the firm at £84.5m, but was rebuffed.

KiFin has proposed installing Philip Lewis, a chartered surveyor with 30 years' experience in the London property market, as an interim chief executive, and former Investec boss Bradley Fried as a non-executive director.

Kirsh, who has homes in South Africa, Swaziland, France, the UK and the US from which to oversee his extensive business interests, was recently embroiled in controversy over his stake in Magal Security Systems. Kirsh is the largest shareholder and a director of Magal, the main supplier of electronic fences for the wall separating Israelis from Palestinians in the West Bank.

Magal has been the target of a divestment campaign by America's United Methodist Church. Should Kirsh win control of Minerva, his role with Magal could bring similar attention to bear on the UK property company.

Betty Hunter, general secretary of the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign, says: "Shareholders have a right to know of his involvement in the company which makes millions in profit from Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. This company is engaged in constructing the security systems of the 'apartheid wall' — a wall that was declared illegal by the UN International Court in July 2004. All concerned and ethical investors will look carefully at Minerva if it becomes part of the financial empire of Kirsh, with a view to disinvestment."

In the mid-1980s, Kirsh, South Africa's richest entrepreneur, set up Jetro Cash & Carry, a $1bn food business with 85 warehouses across the US. Jetro was modelled on Metro Cash & Carry in South Africa, which Kirsh lost to financial services group Sanlam in 1986. He moved to New York, where he stayed for five years to rebuild his business empire through Jetro.

Kirsh's international investments range from an Indian pipe manufacturer to a chain of fitness clubs across Europe and Israel. They also include a 33% stake in Australia's Abacus Property Group, which recently bought the Birkenhead Point shopping centre in Sydney.

Kirsh's companies are registered in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands and Liberia, which is on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's tax-haven "grey list".

Minerva owns The Lancasters, a luxury apartment block overlooking Hyde Park, as well as the Walbrook and the recently completed St Botolph building, two of the largest office blocks in the City, where a shortage of office space is driving up rents. However, it has struggled to find a tenant for the Walbrook, which was completed in February. Minerva also owns the Ram Brewery site in Wandsworth, once the home of Young's brewery, for which it was recently refused planning permission, and a tranche of central Croydon.

KiFin is unimpressed with the way Minerva is managing its property assets while the company accuses Kirsh of trying to take over the company without paying for it.

Minerva's executives have been courting institutional shareholders, which include Morgan Stanley, Legal & General, Aviva, JP Morgan, UBS, Investec and Standard Life. Standard Life owns nearly 5% of Minerva, and is backing the company's management. It says it "does not believe KiFin's proposals are in our clients' best interests, nor do they represent an improvement in corporate governance".

KiFin, meanwhile, has written to Minerva shareholders saying it "quite simply is unhappy with the way [the company] is presently run", adding Minerva is in a "perilous state". It denies suggestions it is making a power-grab for the firm.

Kirsh has suggested splitting Minerva and turning one part into an income-producing real estate investment trust (Reit), which could contain the two prime City buildings, while its other assets could be placed into a joint venture development business run with a financial or development partner.

Minerva's response last night was: "As we have consistently said, if KiFin wants full control over strategy then they need to pay for it. We speak to all shareholders to gain their views and set a strategy that delivers value for all shareholders."

Under pressure from Kirsh for greater disclosure, Minerva recently revealed it pledged £37m of the future profits from The Lancasters as security on its loans when the company completed a £600m debt refinancing last September. The group is expecting profits of at least double that figure, but profits will be split equally with its joint venture partner Northacre if the development generates profits 20% above costs.

Whatever the outcome on Wednesday, KiFin is not going away. It describes itself as a long-term investor in Minerva and if it fails in its push for a boardroom shake-up, it has no intention of selling its stake.

Julia Kollewe

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Israel: Now, More than Ever, Fascinated By Netanyahu (Time.com)

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:30:00 -0500

Time.com - No one really thinks much will come out of the direct talks with the Palestinians but, when the issue is Bibi, up come visions of Gorbachev -- and Nixon in China

Hillary Clinton's Role in Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks (Time.com)

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:25:00 -0500

Time.com - After a notable absence, the Secretary of State has been a very visible presence at the current negotiations. Will it pay off?

Israel: Explosions occurred at Hezbollah depot (AP)

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:55:38 -0500

AP - Israel's military said Saturday that surveillance footage from drones shows that the explosions that rocked a village in southern Lebanon this week occurred at a residential building used by Hezbollah as a weapons depot.

Sunni and Shiite Iraqi journalists talk about war (AP)

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:31:32 -0500

AP - As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, two Associated Press Television News cameramen, one Sunni and the other Shiite, talk about what it has been like to live through and record the war. The accounts are translated and edited.

Rocket fired from Gaza hits Israel

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 06:54:43 -0500

Attack comes two days after the start of Israeli-Palestinian direct peace talks launched in Washington.

Walking in Palestine

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:04:00 -0500

Palestine is synonymous with violence, but politics takes a back seat on this extraordinary new walking route where the people are welcoming and the countryside stunning

There was a moment of silence. Then the Palestinian youngsters marched in front of us and I thought to myself, this is where they sing about being martyrs and dying glorious deaths. A gentle breeze swayed the mulberry tree. On the far ridges of the mountains around Nablus, the lights of the illegal Israeli settlements twinkled. This village, I knew, had seen 2,000 acres of olive groves taken by those settlers, plus several lives. An older girl called the group to order then, in English, they launched into their chant.

"I'm a red tomato, you're a green tomato. You're a little cucumber..."

Everyone started to laugh. A walking holiday in Palestine. You've got to laugh really. I laughed a lot on that walk. And this in a part of the world where something horrible is always happening, be it shootings in Hebron, attacks on aid flotillas, or separation walls and rocket attacks. In the middle of such madness, laughter is the most unexpected and valuable pleasure, one that people seize at every opportunity.

It was perhaps appropriate that I started my hike in the far north of the West Bank, within a few miles of a hill called Megiddo, where Pharoah Thutmose III overwhelmed the Canaanite king Durusha in about 1457BC, thus beginning the legend of Armageddon, the site of the Last Battle. With my guide Hejazi, I walked through peaceful fields of wheat past other ancient sites, exploring Roman tombs lost in undergrowth and watching storks circling overhead on their migration north. Our first major stopping point was Jenin, a town whose name is tied inextricably to violence and death. Despite its reputation, however, Jenin turned out to be a friendly market town of Palestinian farmers, a place to gorge on strawberries and almonds, washed down with carob juice sold from huge ornamental brass urns.

I walked around the souk in a bit of a daze. How could reality be so different from expectations? Certainly, the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes from the second intifada, but the martyrdom posters were all faded by the sunshine and people wanted to shake hands. The carob-juice seller adjusted his Ray-Bans and grinned: "Why not join me on Facebook?"

There are several long distance footpaths in Palestine, but the one I was following was the Masar Ibrahim al-Khalil – literally Path of Abraham the Friend of God, simply the Masar for short. This new route stretches across the Middle East, starting at Abraham's birthplace in Sanliurfa, south-east Turkey, and winds south through Syria, Jordan and Israel. Eventually, it could stretch all the way to Mecca, linking existing paths associated with Abraham, and new routes. Its purpose is to promote understanding between different faiths and cultures; it's also intended "as a catalyst for sustainable tourism and economic development". In places the path barely exists yet, in others it is well-worn, but everywhere it needs a guide. Hejazi was my man in Palestine, a person of unending cheerfulness and optimism.

For a Muslim, Hejazi tells me, the idea of a path named after Abraham is attractive since the great patriarch is revered as the "father of hospitality". To Jews and Christians, he is equally important – the starting point for monotheistic worship. The Masar, I discovered, is not some do-gooder peace initiative, but simply a great way to see the landscape and meet people.

The path makes no attempt to follow Abraham's original route, even if such a path could be discovered; rather it links sites that bear legends and folk tales about the man. Our first major site was south of Jenin at Jebel Gerazim, a mountain that stands above the ancient town of Nablus and affords astonishing views west to the Mediterranean and east to the hills of Jordan.

On the summit of the mountain is a tower built by Saladin and some fine, if neglected, Byzantine mosaics guarded by a group of Israeli teenage soldiers. Further down the hillside, we could see the houses of that renowned Jewish sect the Samaritans, a group that still has more than 700 followers.

"The reason the Samaritans revere this place," Hejazi explained, "is because they believe Abraham came here and built his first altar in Canaan."

It was a well-chosen spot to view what Abraham wanted: territory. "Unto thy seed," said his God, "will I give this land." And that was very generous of the Lord, all things considered. Except, of course, that all things had not been considered: previous inhabitants and the sheer fertility of Abraham's seed, which includes not only the 12 tribes of Israel but the prophet Muhammad via Ishmael, fruit of Abraham's union with the serving wench Hagar. And what about all those cousins from Noah's brothers? If Abe's God had spent a few moments considering, he might have foreseen problems.

That evening we stayed in Awata, a village near Nablus where the children sang about red tomatoes. There were tales of horror and violence too – there is no escaping the bloodied history in this land – but it never became overwhelming, as I'd expected. Hassan, our host, was keen to enthuse about the Masar: "It was like a light coming on here," he said. "We got connected to the outside world and that makes us feel hope. Everyone in the village is always asking about when the next walkers are coming."

Like most Palestinian villages, Awata has long since burst out of its ancient walled settlement and sprawled along the hill. But what is fascinating is that, amid the concrete and graffiti, there are sudden glimpses of an ancient world. When we chatted about water resources, Hassan jumped up and hauled open a trapdoor under our feet. Below us was a vast echoing cavern. "It's a Roman water tank," he explained. "We've got three of them."

After a huge feast of chicken, freshly made bread, pickles, salads and yoghurt, Hejazi and I bedded down on mattresses in the living room and slept.

Next morning we started out at 8am, meandering through olive groves and wheat fields. Scents of Persian thyme, wild sage and oregano drifted up from beneath our tramping feet. We stopped at a spring to drink delicious clear water, then pressed on, meeting other walkers as we climbed through meadows of scarlet poppies and butterflies to Jabal Aurma, a bronze age fortress. One of the shocks of doing this path is that the countryside is lovely. Travellers have been returning from the Holy Land with scornful appraisals of its beauty for many centuries. Herman Melville is typically bleak: "Bleached-leprosy-encrustations of curses-old cheese-bones of rocks," he wrote. The image of an ill-fated land has proven hard to budge.

On top of Jabal Aurma we discovered six vast underground storage rooms carved from solid rock, presumably to supply the fort during prolonged sieges. There is never any doubt in Palestine that this land has been a chaotic crossroads for civilisations, armies and tribes for a very long time – that is what makes it fascinating and worth exploring.

Later that day, we emerged on the edge of a grand escarpment looking down to the Jordan Valley, around 800ft below sea level. The wheat fields around us were tiny rocky terraces splashed with the yellow of wild dill. It's a difficult place to farm, and we came across Shakir Murshid with his wife and six children busily harvesting wheat by hand. On a sage bush nearby was the complete shed skin of a viper.

That night we stayed in Douma, a cluster of old stone dwellings long since overgrown by the straggling concrete of modernity. Rural life, however, was pretty much the same as ever: woodpeckers tapped at the trees, wheat fields surrounded the houses and men rode past on donkeys. We spent the evening by a campfire listening to locals sing and play homemade flutes. The patch of flat ground where we had built our fire turned out to be a Roman wine press, empty sadly. Once again we slept in someone's living room, under the eyes of family martyrs.

Our third day took us further south near the springs of Ain Samiya, now a water source for Jerusalem. We spotted chameleons in the bushes, whistling rock hyraxes and huge flightless crickets, then clambered up a delightful gorge, taking narrow shepherds' trails along the cliff face. By evening we approached the village of Kufer Malik, a place that was to hold perhaps the biggest surprises. The first came at a huge hacienda-style house, where the whole family came out to invite us in for coffee. "Do you speak Spanish?" asked the husband. "I learned it in Columbia."

Kufer Malik, bizarrely, is a little enclave of Latin America in Palestine. When we found our hosts for the night, the old man of the family, Hosni al-Qaq, explained: "In the 30s when times were hard here, my uncle decided to seek his fortune in America. He ended up selling shirts in Columbia, then got a shop and then a supermarket. He became very rich." Hosni smiled ruefully. "My father on the other hand stayed behind and was killed in the first intifada."

"And did other men go?"

"Oh yes, lots and lots, and then they spread out into other countries. There are now more than 800 descendants of this village in Brazil alone."

The effect of this exposure to the outside world on Kufer Malik has been electrifying. The men are hard-working and ambitious; the women assertive and independent-minded. Hiba, our hostess, had been to the Côte d'Azur to see what it was like. "We camped on the beach in Nice," she said proudly. "It was lovely."

So was her cooking: roast chicken, rice, vegetables and musahn, a flat bread cooked with sumac and onions.

"What would you do if a Jewish person came to stay?" I asked.

"No problem," they all said eagerly. "We've had one Jewish lady from America already and another from Brazil. Everyone is welcome here."

After dinner, the men sat out in the yard smoking shisha pipes. When they spoke Spanish, they looked like pure Columbians to me: all macho body language and grand gestures. When they spoke Arabic, they were Palestinian farmers again.

Our fourth day took us to Abu Taybah, home to the West Bank's only brewery – owned and run by a Palestinian Christian family (there are around 55,000 Palestinian Christians). After a glass of deliciously cold lager we moved on, walking down Wadi Qult to the marvellous fourth-century cliff-side monastery of St George, then on to Jericho.

The end of the Masar comes in Hebron, whose old city has been a dangerous flashpoint over the years. Zionist settlers have seized buildings in the market area – which has to be roofed with netting now to prevent rocks and rubbish raining down on shoppers. All of Abraham's progeny want a piece of the action here and the mosque has been forcibly divided to create a Muslim and a Jewish section. On one side, I found Indian Muslims praying and taking photos; on the other Jews from New York and Tel Aviv were doing the same. The Tomb of the Patriarchs, of course, looks pretty similar from either angle, though neither community, sadly, ever gets to see that fact.

Out in the street a shopkeeper invited me to have coffee. He was sitting with Micha, a former Israeli soldier turned peace activist, a young freckle-faced man with a friendly smile. What had convinced him to adopt what many Israelis see as a traitorous approach?

"Small things. It started when I was a soldier, talking at checkpoints to Palestinians, seeing what the settlers were doing, and what we were doing to protect them."

At that moment a Palestinian lady came over. They introduced themselves. "So now you work for peace?" she asked. "But I have to ask: did you kill any Palestinians?"

Around the shopfront where people were taking coffee and chatting, everyone froze. There was a long silence while Micha considered his reply. "I'd rather not say."

"I think you should," the woman said. "For any reconciliation, you have to."

A murmur of agreement passed through the small crowd. Micha thought again. "The truth is, I don't know. At Abu Sinaina we did shoot, but it was from far away."

"At Abu Sinaina? Then you killed at least five."

There was a pause and then Micha nodded. The Palestinian lady smiled. "You are welcome at my house. You must come for lunch."

They exchanged addresses and Micha promised that he would visit.

What is remarkable about the Masar walk is that religion and politics mostly take a back seat, allowing ordinary people to climb out of the foxholes of prejudice and suspicion. When that happens, Palestine becomes so much more than a brief and violent television news clip. I saw gazelles running on hillsides, tasted the local cuisine and enjoyed conversation on everyday topics. I climbed down inside bronze age burial chambers, tracked hyenas into their lairs inside Roman tombs and lay on the benches in Nablus's marvellous Turkish baths, discussing the best way to pickle olives. The problems of Israel's land-grabbing tactics remain: the wall is still standing and unsmiling teenage soldiers at checkpoints demand to see passports.

The Masar is not for those who want private rooms or special treatment. It is intense and sometimes emotionally draining. There were moments when I felt rage about the injuries and injustices. But, more than anything, this was a life-affirming and exhilarating experience that will stay with me like few others.

Kevin Rushby

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