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WASHINGTON – The US sped up delivery of $150 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority Wednesday, citing the need to fill an urgent budget shortfall. “This figure underscores the strong determination of the American people and this administration to stand with our Palestinian friends even during difficult economic times,” declared US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in announcing the aid, which was taken from the $200 million the Obama administration plans to allocate to the PA in 2011. “We need to work with the Palestinian Authority to support their efforts to build toward a future Palestinian state that...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is playing with fire. And Israel is getting burned. Over the past week, it has been widely reported that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are conducting secret negotiations regarding future Israeli land surrenders to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem. According to the reports, the Obama administration has presented Netanyahu with a plan whereby Israel will cede its rights to eastern Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease the areas from the Palestinians for a limited period. The reports on the length of the lease vary. Some claim...

Palestinian mental patients get hysterectomies Muslim law permits parents to remove uteruses of mentally ill girls to protect family from shame Ali Waked A debate held by a Palestinian radio station has revisited the issue of female mutilation, with interviewed parents saying they prefer to perform hysterectomies on mentally ill girls in order to prevent them from becoming impregnated. But the procedure is known to be performed in order to allay fears of embarrassment by a similarly ill offspring, and has been sanctioned to this end by both Sharia and the Palestinian Authority. "We can't follow the girls around 24...

Senior Palestinian Authority negotiator Nabil Shaath has announced that the PA will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. In addition, he threatened war if the PA fails to obtain its demands through negotiations, saying, “A Palestinian state will arise, either through negotiations or through armed resistance.” The Arab League voted last week to support PA Chairman Abbas' refusal to recognize Israel as Jewish. The PA has demanded that no Jewish residents remain in the territory it claims as the location of a future Arab state, including any Israelis in Judea and Samaria who would be willing to become PA...

Israel’s New Clowns by Ari Bussel Larry King asked Prime Minister Netanyahu about a recent clip of Israeli soldiers dancing in Hebron. The Prime Minister, who had more pressing matters on his mind, had not yet seen the clip. Others, throughout Europe and elsewhere, have seen the clip. A group of Israeli soldiers break formation while patrolling in a deserted street in Hebron, start dancing “Tuk Tuk” (“Wake up in the Morning”) and then regroup into their former serious military assignment. The original segment was quickly removed. But once on the Internet, footprints persist. In one that remains, a caption...

On sidelines of EU meeting, FM cites insufficient evidence in Dubai case. Talkbacks (46) Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman met on Monday afternoon with Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin to discuss the implications of the reported Dubai spy case. Meeting with a number of his European colleagues on the sidelines of a conference of the EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Lieberman told his Irish colleague that there is no evidence indicating Israeli involvement in the assassination of Hamas terror chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last month. He added that were someone to present information beyond what is in the newspapers, Israel would relate...

The Fatah-supported opposition, with help from Al Qaida-aligned elements, continues to target Hamas security forces. Palestinian sources said Fatah and Al Qaida-aligned elements were collaborating in a campaign to destabilize the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. They said Fatah was engaging Islamist fighters to attack both Hamas security forces as well as businessmen close to the Hamas regime. "The attacks have been taking place about every week," a Palestinian source said.

UK denies report MI6 was told about use of UK passports before Mabhouh's death. The British MI6 intelligence agency was tipped off by Mossad that Israeli agents were going to carry out an 'overseas operation' using fake UK passports, the Daily Mail reported Friday morning. The report came several hours after a 20-minute meeting in London between Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor and a senior British diplomat on Thursday, over the fake British passports apparently used in the assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. According to the UK newspaper, a British security source quoted a Mossad agent as...

Dubai Ruler's Media Office The hit squad that killed a senior Hamas official in Dubai may have entered the country using diplomatic passports, senior officials in the Emirates said yesterday, calling on Britain and other European countries whose passports were forged to launch a full-scale inquiry. “There is still information that Dubai police will not make public for the moment, especially regarding diplomatic passports” used by some of the 11-strong hit team, who used British, Irish, German and French documents to enter the emirate last month, said Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s police chief. “The United Arab Emirates is...

I don’t know whether Israel did or did not assassinate the leader of the Hamas military wing, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. But assuming for argument’s sake that the Mossad made the hit, did it have the right to engage in this “extrajudicial assassination?” Not all extrajudicial killings are unlawful. Every soldier who kills an enemy combatant engages in an extrajudicial killing, as does every policeman who shoots a fleeing felon. There are several complex legal questions involved in assessing these situations. First, was the person who was killed a combatant, in relation to those killed him? If Israel killed Mabhouh, there can...

Was the Assassination of al-Mabhouh a Frame-Up? The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai poses a whole lot of riddles, as these things usually do. Al-Mabhouh was basically an arms' dealer, that is to say, in an unlovely profession. He was a senior Hamas member, that is to say, a terrorist in unlovely company. He seems to have been in Dubai on his way to conclude a deal with Iran for arms destined to be smuggled into Gaza on behalf of Hamas. That certainly gave Israel an inducement to take him out. In addition, he is accused of being responsible...

Israel's is the only government that can force the rest of the world to recognize that Abbas is not an ally. Fahmi Shabaneh is an odd candidate for dissident status. Shabaneh is a Jerusalemite who joined the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service in 1994. Working for PA head Mahmoud Abbas and GIS commander Tawfik Tirawi, Shabaneh was tasked with investigating Arab Jerusalemites suspected of selling land to Jews. Such sales are a capital offense in the PA. Since 1994 scores of Arabs have been the victims of extrajudicial executions after having been fingered by the likes of Shabaneh. A few...

Interpol has issued wanted notices for 11 suspects in the murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, but Dubai's police chief has asked that Interpol also call for the arrest of the head of Israel's spy agency. Dahi Khalfan Tamin told Dubai TV he had asked the international police agency to issue one of its "red notices" for the head of Mossad, "in case Mossad is believed to be behind the crime, which is likely now." A senior Israeli official who wished to remain anonymous told ABC News that if Dubai asks for the arrest of Mossad chief Meir Dagan, "They...

It’s fascinating to watch the world try to turn the Dubai assassination into a debacle for Israel — all because the team members were captured on CCTV and the British and Irish authorities are making a momentary stink about the use of forged British and Irish passports. You, the reader of this post, will be captured on CCTV a dozen times today simply going about your business. The people calling the operation “sloppy” and a “debacle” seem to actually believe that the Mossad is unaware that there are video cameras in airports and hotels today, or that the passport photos...

The brazen assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has thrown the spotlight on one of Israel’s most powerful but shadowy figures, Meir Dagan, the current Mossad chief, who yesterday faced calls for his resignation. There is a piece of folklore often repeated about him: when he was appointed in 2002, Ariel Sharon, then the Prime Minister, ordered him to run the Israeli spy agency “with a knife between its teeth”. Eight years on, Mr Dagan appears to have followed his orders to the letter. The killing in Dubai of one of the top men in Hamas is only the most recent in...

An international arrest warrant for the head of Mossad should be issued following the assassination of a Hamas militant in Dubai, the emirate's police chief has said. Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim directly accused Israel's Mossad intelligence agency of orchestrating the hit on Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. He said Interpol should now seek out those those responsible and called for "a red notice against the head of Mossad" to be issued. He said: "Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of (Mahmoud) al-Mabhouh. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent, that Mossad is standing behind the...

Britain will consider severing its intelligence-sharing agreement with Israel if Mossad agents are proved to have stolen the identities of British passport holders, The Daily Telegraph has learnt. Ministers are understood to be furious that an alleged hit squad which murdered a Hamas leader in Dubai last month cloned the passports of six unsuspecting Britons, who are now living in fear of reprisals. Israel, which has not denied involvement in the murder, had previously promised that Mossad, its secret intelligence service, would never use British passports to help its agents carry out covert operations.

PARIS (Reuters) - France demanded on Thursday that Israel explain how a forged French passport came to be used by assassins suspected of killing a Hamas commander in Dubai last month. The case has already caused diplomatic friction between Israel and European allies, with Britain urging Israel to cooperate with efforts to clear up the apparent use of faked British passports. "We are asking for explanations from Israel's embassy in France over the circumstances of the use of a fake French passport in the assassination of a Hamas member in Dubai," the Foreign Ministry said in an electronic news briefing....

Dubai has widened its search for the killers of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, it emerged today, with officials confirming that at least six of the Hamas commander’s assassins remain unaccounted for. Police in Dubai have issued international arrest warrants for 11 suspects in the case, but now believe the team behind the murder numbered at least 17. The six unknown killers include a second woman who was part of the final surveillance team in the lobby of al-Mabhouh’s Dubai hotel as the murder took place on the evening of January 19. The woman arrived at the hotel at 18.41 dressed as a...

Official "wanted" notices were released today for a suspected team of Israeli secret agents accused of participating in the assassination of a Palestinian militant. The faces of an 11-strong alleged hit squad appeared on the Interpol website this morning, 48 hours after authorities in the United Arab Emirates issued arrest warrants for the killing last month of the Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Their offences are listed as "crimes against life and health". The group stands accused of entering the emirate state using forged or stolen European identities, murdering the militant in his hotel and then fleeing the country on 19...