Free Republic

Palestinian security forces in Ramallah on Monday arrested a suspect in the murder of Samir Rantisi, a local journalist and spokesman for former PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. Rantisi, 42, had for years urged Palestinians to endorse non-violent methods in their confrontation with Israel and was strongly opposed to suicide bombings. He was murdered early Monday morning while he was sleeping in his bedroom in the Sateh Marhaba neighborhood. A lone gunman who broke into his apartment in the Shkukani Building shot him twice in the head in front of his wife. The wife managed to identify the suspect,...

14/03/2005 Palestine Media Center – PMC Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei reiterated his rejection of unilateral approaches to solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, urging peace camps on both sides to accelerate their efforts because “danger is greater than hope.” “The hope of our people is fading away because of the Israeli policies,” Qurei said. Qurei was speaking in a meeting held at the Palestine Media Center (PMC) on Sunday, chaired by Palestinian co-author of the Geneva Initiative Yaser Abed Rabbo and his Israeli counterpart Yossi Beilin and attended by representatives of the Palestinian and Israeli peace camps in the West Bank...

Geneva Initiative architects Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo met US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington Friday in spite of growing resistance to their plan. The meeting lasted 40 minutes, and before continuing to their meeting with UN Gen.-Sec. Kofi Annan, the two met with the President's adviser on Middle Eastern affairs Elliot Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and his assistant David Sutherfield. Powell told Beilin and Abed Rabbo that their initiative did not affect the Road Map timetable, which envisions a Palestinian State by 2005, and the two said after the meeting that Powell regarded...

"Don't worry, the Geneva document does not cede the Arabs' 'right of return.'" This was the gist of an article written by Jamal Zakot, a high-ranking PA official who took part in the negotiations for the agreement. Zakot wrote this on Sunday in the PA daily Al Hayat al Jadida, Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman reports. "Those who state that the document cedes our right of return [for the Arab 'refugees' of 1948 and their descendants] do not base themselves on knowledge and precise reading of the text," Zakot wrote. "It could even be that they have fallen into the trap of...

Fatah Central Committee to meet on Abu Mazen's cabinet list By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected on Sunday a reformist cabinet proposed by incoming Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), sources close to Arafat said. Arafat's opposition to the ministerial list was likely to disappoint Washington, which has said the release of a long-awaited peace "road map" leading to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 must await the installation of an Abbas-led cabinet. In a step that apparently angered Arafat, Abbas decided to name himself interior minister, taking over a...