Jerusalem – This week, diplomats from all over the world will arrive in Jerusalem for talks with the prime minister and his deputy, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, on the question of how to restart the diplomatic process in light of events on the Palestinian side.

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to Israel for meetings with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and with Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen. In conjunction, new U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon came for a first visit to Israel.

As part of the diplomatic blitz in the Middle East, the Swedish foreign minister and his Norwegian and Belgian counterparts will also arrive, as will the prime minister of Slovakia. Toward the end of the week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will arrive in the region for her second visit to the region. Merkel is the leader of the country closest to Israel in Europe, which is also the duty EU president. She will continue afterward to Ramallah, Amman, Cairo and Riyadh.

IDF Kills Terrorist In Nablus

Israeli paratroopers operating on Wednesday in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee camp in Nablus killed a Palestinian terrorist who was a member of Fatah’s military wing.

The Palestinians reported that the terrorist was Fadi Abu Kishk, 22, a member of Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen.

The terrorist was involved in shooting attacks in the area. Terrorists opened fire upon an Israeli bus near a-Sawiya on Wednesday, north of Ramallah. No one was injured, though the bus was damaged. IDF troops who arrived there combed the area for the terrorists.

IDF troops operated in Nablus on Wednesday night. During the activity, Palestinian terrorists fired at the troops and threw grenades at them. No one was injured and no damage was caused. The troops returned fire. At the time, the IDF troops spotted an armed terrorist who opened fire at them. The troops fired back, hitting him. Palestinian terrorists also opened fire at IDF troops operating in Jenin. No one was injured and no damage was caused.

IDF troops operated on Wednesday night in order to arrest terrorists and wanted men in Judea and Samaria. In all, 20 terrorists were arrested.

Palestinian Terrorists were arrested by the Israeli army in Akraba, southeast of Nablus, in Azoun, east of Kalkilya, in Nablus and in the village of Kalil, south of the city. Other troops operated in the area of Bethlehem, arresting terrorists in Beit Fajr and in Halhoul in Hebron Hills.

The House In Hebron: Backgrounder

The Israeli Peace Now movement, whose “settlement watch” project is funded by the governments of Finland, Germany, Great Britain and Norway, has been fighting the Jewish purchase of a large house in the biblical city of Hebron, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried, together with their wives.

Last Sunday, at night, Jewish residents of Hebron took possession of their new building that was bought recently, which is located on the main road between Hebron and Kiryat Arba. Col. Yehuda Fuchs, the commander of the Israeli army’s Judea Brigade, met with Jewish community leaders and received the purchase documents and determined that there was no problem securing the place because an army post has been on the roof for years. The purchase connects the Jewish community in Hebron to Kiryat Arba.

The documents showed that the building was bought from its previous owners via an office in Jordan for approximately $700,000. Jewish donors, mostly from the United States, funded the purchase. The previous owners transferred all their rights to the building to the Jewish community of Hebron. The purchase took a long time until finally the conditions were right to enter the house, after the purchase was completed and after all the papers were signed and the money paid.

The building, which received the name “Beit Hashalom,” the house of peace, is 3,500 square meters.

The building will absorb some of the dozens of families waiting to move to Hebron.

The relatives of the seller, who is now living in Jordan, claimed that no purchase took place, because selling land to a Jew is a capital offense in Jordan.

David Bedein can be reached at Media@actcom.co.il. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com.

©The Bulletin 2007

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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