Free Republic

<p>Many organizations who say they struggle for peace and justice operate in areas being affected by the fighting between Israel and Islamic terrorists every day. These are entities which, among other things, hold dear to themselves the rights of women, children, journalists, minority, ethnic, religious groups and gays. The fact of the matter is that they fight for none of these people. Point of fact, they do not advocate peace but advocate war on the human rights of these mentioned groups of Palestinian Arabs – war continued not by Israel, but by the Palestinian Authority (PA).</p>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration plans to give $20 million in aid directly to the Palestinian Authority to help it pay Palestinian utility bills to Israeli companies, freeing up the authority's scarce resources for a January presidential election, officials said on Tuesday. The State Department had initially planned to give the money to the Palestinian Authority to support the election to elect a successor to the Yasser Arafat, who died Nov. 11, and to help pay Palestinian salaries. But key U.S. congressional leaders raised objections. They argued adequate safeguards had yet to be put in place to ensure the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is preparing with European allies to help the Palestinian Authority organize January elections and improve its security forces to crack down on terrorism, U.S. officials and diplomats said on Sunday. The immediate priority, they said, is getting funding, monitors and technical assistance to the Palestinians for the Jan. 9 presidential elections to choose a successor to Yasser Arafat, who died last week. President Bush is reconsidering redirecting millions of dollars in U.S. funding to nongovernmental organizations to help prepare for the elections and provide other support. As much as $75 million already is in...

European Union leaders on Friday expressed solidarity with the Palestinians and pledged to re-launch Mideast peace efforts, as Yasser Arafat clings to life in a Paris hospital. The 25 EU leaders, meeting in Brussels at the final session of a two-day summit, were to issue a statement encouraging Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to ensure a peaceful transfer of power while Arafat is gravely ill. French President Jacques Chirac said he visited Arafat at his bedside on Thursday before coming to Brussels, but declined to comment on his illness or his condition. "I went to greet...

The ailing father of a Palestinian teenager collapsed in shock Wednesday when reporters brought him the news that his daughter blew herself up in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed two. Ali Abu Salem, 48, who suffers from a heart condition, fell speechless to a couch in the comfortably furnished two-story family home, while his wife, Sahar, wailed at the news of what their 18-year-old daughter Zayneb had done. "Why, why is this happening to us," Sahar asked, her eyes full of tears. An ambulance later arrived to take the distraught father to a Nablus hospital. Relatives said he...

NEW YORK - The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday voted 140-6 to approve a resolution that says the Palestinians "have the right to self-determination and to sovereignty over their territory." The vote was supposed to take place earlier in the day, but it was postponed to allow changes demanded by European countries to an earlier draft proposed by the PLO. Israel, the United States and four Pacific islands were among the nations that voted against the resolution, while the 11 abstentions included Australia, Peru, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. According to the draft, "the status of the...

Thousands of people took part in dozens of demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend in support of the armed uprising of the Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq against the U.S. and coalition forces. The military wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah used the demonstrations as an opportunity to call for an escalation of the intifada. The largest demonstrations took place in the Gaza Strip. At one protest, senior Islamic Jihad member Mohammed al-Hindi called for participants to "learn the lesson of the Iraqi intifada and the determination of the groups in Iraq to expel...

The Palestinian Intifada is costing the Palestinian economy US $11 billion, according to PA figures published in Gaza Thursday, Globes reported. Unemployment in the Gaza Strip and West Bank stands at 50%. The figures quoted by Globes also indicate that 84% of the Palestinian population lives in poverty. The report's Palestinian authors call the present circumstances as the worst in history of the Palestinians in the territories. Average per capita income for Palestinians in the territories is now only $2 per day.

Using jeeps disguised to look like IDF vehicles and rigged with explosives, Palestinians launched an attack on Israeli positions around the Erez Crossing at Gaza on Saturday. No Israelis were injured, but six Palestinians were killed and at least 15 wounded. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it a joint "self-sacrifice operation" in a message posted on the Hamas Web site. At about 10 AM Saturday morning, a Palestinian taxi rigged with explosives blew up near an IDF post located at the edge of the entrance to the Erez industrial zone and...

<p>BOISE, Idaho — A graduate student from Saudi Arabia — already jailed on immigration charges — has been accused of helping to raise funds for a militant Palestinian organization.</p> <p>Sami Omar Al-Hussayen (search) was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism after federal prosecutors said he helped run Web sites that urge people to contribute money to Hamas (search).</p>

Princeton, New Jersey-AP -- Secretary of State Colin Powell is giving another prod to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Powell said in a speech at Princeton University that the Israeli leader should take steps to permit the Palestinians to live a better life. This is part of what Powell hopes would be an Israeli effort to move on the Bush administration's so-called "road map" for peace. Still, Powell reiterates what he's said before -- that he blames Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for sabotaging those U-S efforts. Powell doesn't believe Arafat has done enough to stop Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis....

Translation from Hebrew to English by me "Israel must stop causing suffering to the ordinary Palestinian citizen" - this is how the US President, George Bush, said in a first interview to the new Arab-American Television Station, "Al Hura." To the US President's Words, in the days of Abu Mazen there was progress in the roadmap, but he was taken away from what we expected. "There were those who lowered the weight of the peace process and gave Abu Mazen a hard time in accomplishing the dream," he said. "Abu Mazen was not one of Arafat's men." Bush explained what...

A five-week-old Palestinian baby boy from the Gaza Strip, treated for severe infection and malnutrition at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba, is doing well and will probably be discharged in two weeks, according to Dr. Tsipi Dolfin, head of the hospital's premature baby unit. The baby, a first child conceived by in-vitro fertilization 15 years after his parents married, was born in the 31st week of pregnancy to his mother, Marbed Ibrahim Abdel Azziz Zannen. His father is Prof. Abad Rabu Zannen, a lecturer in education and communications at Gaza University. The baby weighted 1.6 kilos, was breastfeeding and doing...

In the first official Palestinian response to the capture of Saddam Hussein, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said on Monday that the arrest was an internal Iraqi affair. "The arrest of Saddam Hussein is an internal Iraqi affair," Qurei told reporters in Ramallah. "We welcome and salute any choice of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people have their own authority and we hope that they will have an independent and sovereign state." Qurei's statement came as PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and other senior Palestinian officials remained tight-lipped about the capture of Saddam. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday delivered a message of support to the Palestinians, saying he felt the "deepest solidarity" with their "continued suffering." Just days after issuing a report denouncing the controversial security barrier Israel is building that cuts into the West Bank, Annan said Israeli actions have undercut hopes for peace in the Middle East. "They have undermined efforts to curb violence and fuelled hatred and anger towards Israel. They have pushed back the day when Israel will live without fear within secure and recognised borders," he said in a statement. "I wish...

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has asked Palestinian leaders to show support for a transitional Iraqi government that is to be installed by June, the Palestinian foreign minister said. Palestinian backing could boost the legitimacy of such a government in the eyes of the Arab world, at a time when U.S. policy in Iraq is under sharp attack. Palestinian-Iraqi ties have traditionally been close, and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had styled himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause. The request, made in a letter from Powell to Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, marks the first time the...

Gaza - Palestine won the top award in a Quran memorization competition held this year in Tunisia, the Palestinian Awkaf ministry announced yesterday. It noted that the Gazan student Abdullah Marwan Al-Sheikh had won the top award for memorizing the holy Quran. The ministry said that Palestine had won similar awards this year in contests organized in Egypt and Dubai. The ministry this year organized a ceremony to celebrate the graduation of 376 students after memorizing the Quran and had thus graduated more than 2,000 students memorizing the holy book over the past few years.