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January 23, 2005
Israel Lauds New Palestinian Leader for Moves to Stop Attacks
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, Jan. 22 - Israel and the United States praised the effort by the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to halt rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians as more Palestinian policemen were sent on Saturday to patrol Gaza's borders.

Giora Eiland, the director of Israel's National Security Council, told Israel radio that the efforts were an improvement on the past. "Now it seems they are taking positive action," Mr. Eiland said. "Israel is not looking for a Palestinian civil war, but expects to see real change - real action to halt terrorist capabilities." Mr. Sharon is eager to discuss his Gaza withdrawal plan, which he hopes to begin this July and carry out in coordination with Mr. Abbas.

Mr. Abbas was also praised by the Bush administration, which announced that William J. Burns, the assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, would visit the region next week. "We have always stressed how important it is for the Palestinians to organize themselves to end the violence, and we welcome steps that are being taken in that direction," said Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman.

In Gaza, Mr. Abbas was reported to have taken another step to control his own Palestinian Authority, firing the commander of Palestinian security at the Karni checkpoint, who is accused of complicity in a militant attack there on Jan. 13.

Mr. Abbas is in Gaza holding talks on a cease-fire with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But talks with Hamas scheduled for Friday evening did not take place. Hamas and Islamic Jihad say any cease-fire must be matched by Israeli agreement to halt military activity in the Gaza Strip, stop assassinating militant leaders and release Palestinian prisoners. On Saturday, Mr. Eiland said: "I would say in simple language that we would respond to quiet. If there is no reason to carry out a certain operation, we wouldn't do so."

In Gaza on Saturday, a local group of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced that it would halt attacks if Israel also observed a truce and released Palestinian prisoners. Several dozen gunmen made the announcement at a news conference in the basement of a Gaza City building. But Al Aksa is not a unified organization; the Jenin branch has announced that it will no longer carry out attacks inside Israel's 1967 boundaries, while other branches have rejected any cease-fire.

Two small militant groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, also announced that they were ready to consider seeking a conditional cease-fire with Israel.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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January 25, 2005
U.N. Commemorates Death Camp Liberation
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:48 a.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United Nations broke with years of protocol and commemorated the 60-year anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, directly linking its own founding with the end of the Holocaust in some of the strongest language ever.

The U.N. General Assembly marked the anniversary with a special session Monday, the first such session in its history dedicated to the Holocaust, and a watershed event for a body that has been accused of an anti-Semitic agenda.

In comments to the body, Secretary-General Kofi Annan directly recognized Jews as the chief victims of the Holocaust, not just one group among many that suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

"An entire civilization, which had contributed far beyond its numbers to the cultural and intellectual riches of Europe and the world, was uprooted, destroyed, laid waste,'' Annan said.

One U.N. observer said the commemoration could be seen as being linked to Annan's new efforts to push for Israeli-Palestinian peace with the election of a new leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to replace the late Yasser Arafat.

"It's a transcendent moment,'' said Eve Epstein, vice president of National Committee on American Foreign Policy. "People have been optimistic about what's been happening in the Middle East and I think the secretary-general has been doing everything he can to build trust so that the peace process can move forward.''

Between 1 million and 1.5 million prisoners -- most of them Jews -- perished in gas chambers or died of starvation and disease at Auschwitz. Overall, 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

The United Nations was created in part because of world leaders' hope that it could help make sure the Holocaust was never repeated. That fact had largely been ignored for years, until Annan stated the fact starkly.

"The United Nations must never forget that it was created as a response to the evil of Nazism, or that the horror of the Holocaust helped to shape its mission,'' he said.

World leaders and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, a Nobel peace prize winner, also wrestled with the question that has haunted the United Nations: whether its member states have the will to stop future genocide. With mass atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region, the question took on new poignancy.

Wiesel, speaking of himself as the Jewish witness, said he knew it was too late for the victims of the Holocaust, but not for "today's children, ours and yours.''

"It is for their sake alone that we bear witness,'' he said. "It is for their sake that we are duty-bound to denounce anti-Semitism, racism and religious or ethnic hatred.''

In an institution where minor acts are sometimes laden with enormous symbolism, there were plenty of telling signs: Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was the first national official to speak before the General Assembly. He pointed to the strength of movements denying the Holocaust, asking if there was anything worse than the destruction of an entire race.

"There is something worse: to do all this and then deny, to do all this and then take from the victims and their children and grandchildren the legitimacy of their grief,'' he said.

Later Monday, a photography exhibit opened at U.N. headquarters featuring images from the death camps, the first time an exhibit about the Holocaust is being shown at the United Nations.

U.N. officials defied longtime protocol against allowing prayers at the United Nations. The ceremony began with the El Maleh Rachamim, the traditional memorial prayer, and ended with the Israeli national anthem.

The decision to do so was made by Mark Malloch Brown, the new chief of staff, under orders from Annan, according to an internal document obtained by The Associated Press.

Just one Arab Middle East country -- Jordan -- delivered a speech commemorating the liberation, but more crucially, Arab leaders did not try to block the commemoration. In 2003, Ireland withdrew a General Assembly resolution condemning anti-Semitism because of Muslim and Arab opposition.

Still, while 138 nations had said they supported the commemoration, few Arab nations attended.

Late last year, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth requested a commemorative session on Jan. 24, three days before a similar event in the former Auschwitz death camp in Poland to mark its liberation by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz appeared to make a veiled reference to Iraq during his speech, saying that though leaders had agreed to set aside politics for the commemoration, they must do so with ``a unanimous resolve to give real meaning to those words 'never forget.'''

"Last Thursday, as he began his second term in office, President George Bush expressed his belief that our nation's interests cannot be separated from the aspirations of others to be free from tyranny and oppression,'' Wolfowitz said.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press

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Редактирано от - kombat #5 на 25/1/2005 г/ 18:45:05