Replies to post #124797 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Glossary: The Palestine Papers

We've compiled a list of the most frequently-used terms from The Palestine Papers.

Last Modified: 23 Jan 2011 15:32 GMT

http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/201112311458501594.html

[StephanieVanbryce]

Timeline: Palestine-Israel conflict

A chronology of key events in the Middle East conflict from 1999 onwards, the time span of The Palestine Papers.

23 Jan 2011 20:06 GMT

1999
May: Ehud Barak of the Labour Party is elected prime minister under the One Israel banner.

2000
July: The Camp David summit between Barak, and Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority, aimed at reaching a "final status" agreement, fails after Arafat refuses to accept a proposal drafted by the US and Israeli negotiators.

September: Second initifada begins after Ariel Sharon, the Israeli opposition leader, visits the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

2001
February 6: Sharon is elected the leader of the Likud party and refuses to continue negotiations with Arafat.

June 1: A Hamas suicide bomber attacks a nightclub, killing 21 Israelis, mainly teenagers, and injuring more than 100.

December: Sharon sends troops into Ramallah, shelling and surrounding the Palestinian Authority's West Bank headquarters; Arafat is unable to leave.

2002
March: Israeli army launches Operation Defensive Shield, the country's biggest military operation in the West Bank since the Six Day war in 1967. In the same year, Israel begins construction of separation barrier and annexes large areas of Palestinian land.

2004
March 22: Sheikh Yassin, the founder and leader of the Hamas movement, is assassinated by an Israeli helicopter gunship.

April 17: Abd al-Aziz al-Rantissi, the co-founder of Hamas and successor to Yassin, is killed by the Israeli army.

July 9: International Court of Justice rules that the Israeli separation barrier violates international law and must be removed.

November 11: Arafat dies.

2005
January 9: Mahmoud Abbas is elected president of the Palestinian Authority.

January 10: Sharon creates government of unity with Labour and United Torah Judaism parties.

August: Israel disengages from Gaza and four West Bank settlements.

November: Sharon leaves Likud to form the Kadima party.

2006
January: Sharon suffers a major stroke that leaves him in a coma.

January 25: Hamas wins a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislative elections. The US, Israel and several European countries cut off aid to the Palestinians as the Islamist movement rejects Israel's right to exist.

March 2006: Kadima, now led by Ehud Olmert, wins the parliamentary elections and installs Olmert as Sharon's successor.

June 25: Armed Palestinians carry out a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip and capture Corporal Gilad Shalit, besides killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding four others.

September: Violence erupts between rival Palestinian groups, Fatah and Hamas, in the Gaza Strip. Abbas attempts to prevent civil war. Abbas's Fatah movement supports a Palestinian state alongside Israel, while Hamas rejects Israel's right to exist.

October: A number of mediation conferences are held. Egypt and Qatar send their foreign ministers to meet with both sides. Other Palestinian groups like the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mediate between the two sides to stop the clashes.

November 13: Following talks between Hamas and Fatah, both sides agree to form a unity government.

December 16: Abbas calls for new elections as a solution to the ongoing crisis.

2007
January 30: Fatah and Hamas reach a ceasefire agreement mediated by Egypt after a series of clashes that led to the death of 32 Palestinians. Both sides welcome a Saudi initiative to meet in Mecca.

February 8: Hamas and Fatah agree on a deal in Mecca to end factional warfare and to form a coalition, hoping this would lead Western powers to lift crippling sanctions imposed on the Hamas-led government.

February 9: The Quartet welcomes the role of Saudi Arabia in reaching the agreement to form a Palestinian National Unity government but later reaffirms that it must obey international demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by previous peace agreements.

February 15: Ismail Haniya and his cabinet resign. Haniya is re-appointed by Abbas and begins the process of forming a new Palestinian unity government.

March 15: Palestinians reach agreement on the formation of the government.

March 17: The new Palestinian unity government holds its first cabinet meeting in Gaza City, with ministers in the West Bank participating from Ramallah via video link.

March: Israel refuses to talk to the coalition, saying it fails to meet international demands - renouncing violence, recognising Israel and honouring past peace deals.

April: Israel plans Gaza invasion, a day after Olmert calls for a regional peace conference with Arab states. The US gives Abbas $60m to boost his presidential guard and for other security expenses.

May: Israel presses ahead with air raids on Gaza. The strikes came after Olmert said that Israel would continue its crackdown on Hamas following the firing of rockets from the enclave.

June: Battle of Gaza begins, resulting in Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah. Abbas issues new government, and announces Salam Fayyad, an economist, as the emergency government head. Abbas swears in new emergency government, bypassing Hamas.

November: George Bush, the US president, hosts peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis at Annapolis, Maryland, while Hamas still holds control over Gaza.

2008
January: Israel steps up military actions on Gaza and Hamas, killing seven Palestinians. Olmert vows to respond to continuing rocket attacks from Gaza. Israel continues incursions into Gaza, leaving Palestinians in a humanitarian crisis without fuel, power, food and water.

January 23: Palestinians blow up part of the border at Rafah, going into Egypt and thousands of Gazans cross the border to buy food and other supplies.

February: Israel launches military campaign, codenamed Operation Hot Winter, in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of 112 Palestinians and three Israelis.

May: Tony Blair, former British prime minister, announces new peace initiative based on the ideas of the Peace Valley plan.

December: Israel launches Operation Cast Lead, a full scale invasion of the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks by Palestinian armed groups. Some 1400 Palestinians are killed, many of them civilians. After 22 days of fighting, Israel and Hamas each declare separate unilateral ceasefires.

2009
March: Binyamin Netanyahu assumes office as Israeli prime minister following parliamentary elections.

April 3: United Nations establishes a fact-finding mission on the Gaza war, headed by Richard Goldstone, an international jurist from South Africa.

June 4: Barack Obama, the US president, calls for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims" in a historic speech in Cairo.

September 15: Goldstone releases his report, accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the Gaza war.

November 3: The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passes a resolution denouncing the Goldstone report as "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy."

November: Netanyahu announces a 10-month so-called freeze on construction in illegal West Bank settlements. The freeze does not apply to East Jerusalem.

2010
January: Israel resumes air strikes against smuggling-tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border.

May 31: Israel violently intercepts a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, killing nine activists on board the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel .

September 22: United Nations Human Rights Council terms the Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla "disproportionate" and condemns its "unacceptable level of brutality."

September: Another round of direct negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership begins. The talks collapse in the same month after Israel refuses to extend the freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.

2011
January 23: Al Jazeera releases The Palestine Papers, revealing a trove of documents, e-mails and minutes of meetings, shedding light on 10 years of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011123105618579443.html

[fuagf]

Leaks Show Palestinians Giving Much Ground to Israel

The Palestinian Times .. Then, Now, Forever ..

Written by yours on Jan-24-11 4:32pm
From: apakistannews.com



JERUSALEM: Palestinian negotiators secretly told Israel it could keep swathes of occupied East Jerusalem, according to leaked documents that show Palestinians offering much bigger peace concessions than previously revealed.

The documents, obtained by the Al Jazeera television channel, could undermine the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose public declarations about Jerusalem are at odds with what his officials were promising in private.

Equally sobering for the Palestinian people, who want to create a state on land Israel seized in a 1967 war, is the fact that Israel offered nothing in return for the concessions and turned down their offer, saying it did not go far enough.

The leaked minutes of a 2008 meeting between Palestinian, U.S. and Israeli officials showed a senior Palestinian proposing that Israel annex all but one of its major Jerusalem settlements as part of a broad deal to end their decades-old conflict.

Al Jazeera said Sunday it had other documents that it would publish shortly showing the Palestinians were also ready to make other massive concessions on the hugely sensitive issue of the right to return for Palestinian refugees.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat went on the defensive, dismissing the documents as “a bunch of lies” during an appearance on Al Jazeera shortly after they were released.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
INSERT: Does Saeb Erekat, think we are all fool enough to believe that leaked "memos, e-mails, maps, minutes from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations" – dating from 1999 to 2010, are all lies!

Erekat lies yet again .. Wednesday, January 19, 2011

From YNet:

Hours after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev declared his country recognizes an independent Palestinian state, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat described the statement as "an historic move to make the Palestinians proud for a very long time to come."

Medvedev said Tuesday during a visit to Jericho that Moscow had effectively recognized Palestine back in 1988 and has no intention of changing its position now. He noted that all would benefit from the establishment of a Palestinian state, including the Israelis.

Talking to Ynet Erekat noted, "We appreciate the Russian recognition of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders whose capital is east Jerusalem."

Medvedev didn't say a word about "1967 borders." He simply said that Russia continues to recognize "Palestine" in the way that the Soviet Union did in 1988, which didn't mention borders at all and which was pretty much ignored by the world community at the time. But it is hardly the first time Erekat has been caught lying.

The YNet article does mention that Israel's Foreign Ministry strike is severely hampering Israel's efforts to fight this latest wave of PLO diplomatic victories. One result is that Medvedev didn't even visit Israel. This strike is really hurting Israel and it needs to be resolved quickly.
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/01/erekat-lies-yet-again.html
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In a heated exchange, Erekat was confronted by critics including Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al -Quds
al-Arabi newspaper, who asked him who had authorized him or the Palestinian leadership “to give up Islamic holy sites.”

One document quoted Erekat as telling an Israeli official: “It is no secret that …we are
offering you the biggest Yerushalayim in history.” He used the Hebrew word for Jerusalem.

Ahmed Qurie, the lead Palestinian negotiator in 2008, was quoted as proposing that Israel annex all Jewish settlements
in Jerusalem except Har Homa. He also said Israel could keep control of a part of the Old City of Jerusalem.

“This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition,” the document quoted Ahmed Qurie as saying.

He added that the Palestinians had refused to make such a concession
during negotiations led by the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in 2000.

Leaks Show Palestinians Giving Much Ground to Israel was first posted on January 23, 2011 at 9:32 pm.

Copyright @ A Pakistan News.Com

http://www.zimbio.com/The+Palestinian+Times/articles/e1BRbhbXmB2/Leaks+Show+Palestinians+Giving+Much+Ground