|
Nuggets from the Israeli Press
Abbas snubs Egypt on Sadat apologyPalestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has turned down a request to apologize to Egypt on behalf of the Palestinians for celebrating the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. The request was made by two members of the Egyptian parliament on the eve of Abbas's visit to Cairo over the weekend. They demanded that Abbas formally apologize to the Egyptian government and people as he did with Kuwait late last year, when he publicly expressed regret for supporting Saddam Hussein's invasion of the tiny Gulf state. However, Abbas left Cairo on Saturday following a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak without making an apology. When Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists, many Palestinians took to the streets to celebrate the killing by handing out candies and condemning the late president as a traitor for signing a separate peace agreement with Israel. Yasser Arafat's initial response back then to the assassination was: "Blessed are the hands that carried out the killing." UN ruling on Shaba farms undercuts Hizbullah claims The determination by the UN Security Council that the Shaba farms district is Syrian and not Lebanese land totally negates the pretext that Hizbullah has been using for continuing its terror attacks against Israel, senior security sources told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. The sources said that the declaration also reiterated that Israel had fully complied with UN Security Council Resolution 425 when it withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000. "Hizbullah has the full backing of Iran, which is its mentor, financier and military arms supplier, as well as the support of Syria that continues to control Lebanon through the Lebanese government, so it is unlikely to stop what it has been doing until now." Abbas meets with Russian officials Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas opened his visit to Moscow on Monday by expressing his high regard for Russia's role in the Mideast peace process. He told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that he had done everything to make Moscow his first foreign destination following his election earlier this month. "It shows the respect the Palestinian people feel toward the Russian people and it shows the important role that Russia plays on the world arena, above all in the Middle East, namely in the quartet, in which Russia is a most notable representative," Abbas said through a translator. Abbas is expected to meet later Monday with President Vladimir Putin and with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II. A Cold War-era supporter of the Palestinians, Moscow's relations with Israel have improved significantly since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Arab nations have expressed an interest in a stronger Russian role in the Middle East. Visiting Moscow last week, Syrian President Bashar Assad played up Russia's clout on the world stage and won a write-off of most of his country's multimillion-dollar debt to Moscow. Abbas has visited Jordan and Egypt and is also to travel to Turkey and Switzerland. He leaves Russia on Tuesday morning. Israel to bring all Falashmura (Not Quite Jews) from Ethiopia by 2007 The last 20,000 Falashmura who are eligible to immigrate to Israel will be brought here by the end of 2007, the government decided Monday. It instructs the Interior Ministry to finish determining within two months which of the Falashmura currently waiting in transit camps in Ethiopia are eligible to come here, and for this purpose, authorizes an increase in the ministry's staff in Ethiopia. It also instructs the relevant ministries to prepare a detailed plan for the Falashmura's immigration and absorption within three months. Sharon said that the Finance Ministry will allocate the necessary funds. The transit camps [are] located in Addis Ababa and Gondar. In February 2003, the cabinet decided that Israel would take in all Falashmura - Ethiopians who claim that they were forced to convert from Judaism - who are of Jewish descent on the mother's side. The vast majority of the Falashmura in the camps are thought to meet this criterion. The Interior Ministry has, however, been conducting the eligibility checks very slowly, and former interior minister Avraham Poraz decided that until the checks were completed, only 300 Falashmura per month would be permitted to immigrate. According to Jewish Agency spokesman Michael Jankelowitz, it costs [Israel] an average of about $100,000 to bring over and settle each Falashmura. Among other benefits, Ethiopian immigrants are entitled to housing grants that cover up to 90 percent of the purchase price of an apartment. Upon arrival in Israel, the Falashmura undergo conversion to Israel, after which they are entitled to all the benefits of new immigrants under the Law of Return. Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-01 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=55310 |