PA President Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly considering firing a number of his top aides who advised him to withdraw the motion to the UN Human Rights Council regarding the Goldstone Report findings, a decision that has led to him being ripped a new one by his own people.
A senior PA official in Ramallah claimed that some of Abbas’s advisers had misled him into thinking that there wasn’t enough support among members of the UN Human Rights Council for the Palestinians’ request to endorse the findings of the Goldstone commission.
“Some advisers misled the president and lied to him,” the official said. “They did not tell him the truth.”
Abbas was now considering firing the advisers, “because of the huge damage they caused to the Palestinian Authority’s credibility,” the official said.
I don’t know what I find more amusing. The idea of a palestinian being surprised that some of his fellow palestinians lie, or the idea of the Palestinian Authority having credibility to begin with.
Meanwhile, methinks the senior PA official is lying, and is trying to blame the decision on these “advisers”, when Abbas himself made it based on US pressure.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
11:36PM: CAMERA has prepared this helpful and important summary of the many examples of factual errors and double standards in the Goldstone report.
10:08PM:Israeli police have arrested Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch, on suspicion he incited to violence and incited riots in light of remarks he made in recent days during the clashes at the Temple Mount.
Here is a photo from his first night in prison.
Meanwhile, even some of his fellow Arabs have condemned his behavior.
MK Ibrahim Sarsour (UAL-Ta’al), of the Islamic Movement’s more moderate southern branch, told Israel Radio on Tuesday that he could not understand why Salah and his supporters were heralding a tournament where “medals will be handed to all those who participate in the race for Al-Aksa.” Sarsour asserted that his northern counterpart’s incitement of aggression was counterproductive to the Arab cause.
7:42PM: The Western Wall Rabbi has called on religious leaders (read: Muslim clerics) in Jerusalem to restore calm.
Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz on Tuesday called on religious leaders in Jerusalem’s Old City to work towards restoring the calm shattered by clashes between police and Arab rioters in recent days.
“I call on religious leaders in the Old City to find a way to bring sanity back to the holy city, so that everyone can come to the holy sites without encountering fear and hostility,” the rabbi said in a special message released late Tuesday afternoon.
Speaking after a relatively quiet day in the capital, Rabinovitz said that forces outside of Jerusalem (read: Arab and palestinian leaders -ed.) were operating to stir up religious tensions in the Old City.
“Ludicrous claims about excavations under the Temple Mount are an absolute lie,” he said in the message. “To claim that the Jews are digging [under] the Temple Mount site is like claiming that day is night.”
5:45PM: Lebanese intelligence services have detained a woman suspected of committing the unforgivable crime of contacting an Israeli foundation seeking information on missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad.
10:52AM: Yes, yes, yes.
In the wake of the Arab riots in Jerusalem, Vice Premier Silvan Shalom and National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau on Tuesday called for the Islamic Movement, accused of inciting the violence, to be outlawed, while Interior Minister Eli Yishai stressed that Israel is the sovereign “in the eternal, united capital of the Jewish people.”
“[Islamic Movement northern branch leader] Sheikh Raed Salah should be behind bars, and so should [deputy head] Kamal Khatib,” Shalom told Israel Radio. “I intend to raise the issue in the next cabinet meeting.”
While Shalom praised the police for doing its job, he stressed that “it’s time for the State Prosecution to start acting….enough is enough.”
7:45AM:
A Palestinian youth suspected of stone throwing lies on the ground after being detained by Israeli police in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud October 5, 2009. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (JERUSALEM CONFLICT POLITICS)
Shirt around neck, stones all over the ground. What’s the bet he actually threw stones?
And what’s the bet the photographer/caption writer knew this, yet decided to describe him as being a mere suspect nonetheless?
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