Shorts: Mideast

Peres comes out against gay parade

jerusalem (jta) | Shimon Peres sided with religious activists in opposing a gay parade planned for Jerusalem. Israel's vice premier said in a statement this week that Jerusalem WorldPride 2005, scheduled for August, "is inappropriate as Jerusalem is the center of three faiths, and such an event could offend the sensibilities of religious people the world over."

Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, who met Peres last week, said Peres told him he found the annual parade in the holy city repellant, something the elder statesman hastened to deny.

"He never said anything against homosexuals," Peres' office said. Leftist lawmakers accused Peres of siding with religious conservatives for political gain.




Settlers offered beachfront property

jerusalem (jta) | The Israeli government has agreed to relocate Gaza Strip settlers to a contested beachfront property.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said this week that the government would establish four new communities in Nitzanim, an area south of Ashkelon. Gaza settlers, who want to move there en masse, requested the move. Environmental groups opposed the bid, fearing that a major nature reserve in Nitzanim would be damaged.

"No one has any intention to house settlers on the dunes of the nature reserve," Livni told Army Radio. "The plan includes the declaration of dunes as a nature reserve with the aim of preserving them. The residential area is slated to be alongside the reserve."




Sen. Frist says no to settlement growth

jerusalem (jta) | Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip must lead to a viable Palestinian state, the top Senate Republican said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), in Israel this week on a fact-finding mission, said that Israel must make sure its withdrawal planned for this summer "does not prejudice the outcome of a two-state solution."

Palestinians say they believe Israel plans to expand its West Bank presence at the same time it pulls out of Gaza. President Bush has criticized settlement expansion plans that Palestinians say will impinge on plans for its contiguous sovereignty in the West Bank.

"Our policy is no expansion of the settlements," Frist said.




Israel freezes West Bank handover

jerusalem (jta) | Israel froze its handover of West Bank cities to the Palestinians.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Israeli Cabinet this week that Israel would not hand over any more cities to the Palestinians unless the Palestinian Authority disarms terrorists in cities placed under its control.

Earlier this year, Israel agreed to hand over five Palestinian cities, and so far has transferred two, Jericho and Tulkarm. Once they received control of those cities, however, the Palestinians said they would not implement their security pledges.




Palestinian plebiscite pledge

jerusalem (jta) | Mahmoud Abbas vowed to hold a Palestinian referendum on any final peace accord with Israel.

The official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA quoted Abbas on Wednesday, May 3, as telling visitors to his presidential office that he would not sign a peace accord with Israel unless endorsed by plebiscite, adding that Palestinians would settle for nothing less than statehood in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Polls show that most Palestinians support a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel, although many still insist on the "right of return" to Israel for Palestinian refugees — a deal-breaker for the Jewish state, and shared control of Jerusalem.




Iran lashes out on Israeli nukes

jerusalem (jta) | Iran said Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal endangers world peace.

Addressing a United Nations conference on the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Tuesday, May 2, that Israel "has endangered regional and global peace and security" because it has nonconventional weapons, believed to include atomic warheads.

Iran, which signed the treaty, has been censured by the United States for its pursuit of nuclear technology that can be used to make weapons. Israel, which has never confirmed having a nuclear arsenal, is not a signatory to the treaty and thus is not attending the U.N. conference.

"Israel has continually rejected calls by the international community to accede to the NPT," Kharrazi said in his speech.




Remembering Operation Moses

jerusalem (jta) | Israelis commemorated the 4,000 people who died on their way from Ethiopia to Israel.

The ceremony, held for the first time on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, marked the 20th anniversary of Operation Moses, during which 8,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel after trekking across the desert. A monument will be completed by 2006.

"It is my hope that this memorial site will become part of the education of all Israeli citizens so that they will know the cost of the journey to Israel," Immigration Absorption Minister Tzipi Livni said.

Israelis hurt

in Cairo blast

jerusalem (jta) | Two Israeli tourists were injured in a Cairo terrorist attack April 30.

Ben-Zion and Avital Smurzik were lightly wounded by an Islamist suicide bomber who struck outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Five others were hurt.

In a separate attack, the bomber's wife and another woman opened fire on a tourist bus, but caused no casualties. The attacks appeared to have targeted foreign tourists.




Cameraman's family files suit

jerusalem (jta) | The family of a British filmmaker slain in the Gaza Strip sued Israel for $3.8 million.

The civil-damages claim, filed in a Tel Aviv court this week, accuses the Israeli army of covering up for troops who shot James Miller in May 2003 as he was making a documentary in the Palestinian town of Rafah.

The army, which said troops believed they were firing at Palestinian gunmen during the incident, cleared the officer in charge of wrongdoing. Miller is survived by a wife and two small children.




An upgrade for West Bank college?

jerusalem (jta) | In a move seen as politically motivated, the Israeli government recommended turning a West Bank college into a university. This week's vote in the Cabinet split along ideological lines, with 13 Likud Party ministers backing the call to turn the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel into a university, and seven Labor ministers opposing it.

Though the ministers also decided to create a new university in the Galilee, the Labor ministers accused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of focusing on the West Bank college for political reasons.