We strongly support President Obama in his renewed effort towards Middle east peace process inspite of tremendous pressure from Israel and very strong Jewish lobby .If Israel sincerely believes in peace and understands in all seriousness that status quo is not sustainable, then Israel needs to cease decades of illegal occupation, annexation, blockade. Stop the continuous encouragement of Palestinian lands, put a stop to building of settlements, building of walls.
Israel refuses the 230 binding UN resolutions, it refuses One state solution, it refuses two state solution. Israel also refuses to sign the NPT treaty. Israel refuses the Palestinians’ right to come back home. It is high time that Israel realizes that more that 4 decades status quo is unsustainable and unacceptable in this age of political awakening around the world. World is watching, new generation is tired of all the excuses for maintaining status quo by denying Palestinians right of existence. It is high time Israel steps up. It is time…

Inside Story – Syria’s real power brokers

CrossTalk: Iran’s Backyard

Protests which rocked the Arab world in recent months are now hitting Syria – a country ruled with an iron grip on security.

Emergency laws, in place since 1963, ban all forms of demonstrations.

But the protesters are not backing down.

Bashar al Assad, whose family has ruled the country for 40 years, is facing challenges like never before.

So what sparked the protests in Syria and why did they start off in Daraa?

Inside Story presenter Laura Kyle is joined by guests: Ghias Al-jundi, a Syrian author and human rights activist, Samir Ai-ta, Chief Editor of the Arab edition of Le Monde Diplomatique and Jawad Al An-ani, a political analyst for the Jordanian based think-tank Al-baseera.

Stability in Syria has become a cause for concern for local authorities, as anti-government protests spread to the country’s second largest city Aleppo.

Meanwhile in the capital itself, several hundred students protested for a second day, against the government at Damascus University.

Inside Story, with presenter Ghida Fakhry, discusses with guests: Iyas Maleh from the Haitham Maleh Foundation for the defense of human rights defenders in Syria; Ousama Monajed, a Syrian political activist; and George Jabbour, a former member of the Syrian Parliament.

Syria

Arab states’ campaign to have the International Atomic Energy Agency call on Israel to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is likely to impair efforts to promote arms control in the Middle East, a senior Israeli official said yesterday.
Arab nations have drafted a nonbinding resolution that they are expected to push this week at a gathering of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency’s 151 member states in Vienna, Austria. The resolution calls on Jerusalem to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In 2009, Arab states saw a similar resolution narrowly approved by the IAEA General Assembly.
In remarks at the conference, Israeli Atomic Energy Organization Director General Shaul Chorev harshly criticized what he described as the “continuous ill-motivated efforts to single out and to condemn the state of Israel.”
He said the resolution was “incompatible with basic principles and norms of international law.”
Israel is widely believed to possess the only nuclear arms in the Middle East, though it has for decades maintained a policy of neither confirming nor denying its arsenal. The United States has lobbied Arab states to drop their IAEA campaign, arguing it would undermine a 2012 conference aimed at creating a WMD-free zone in the region.
“Any approach that … singles out the state of Israel not only weakens the ability of the international community to confront (nuclear) proliferators and violators but also defeats the prospect for advancement of arms control measures in the Middle East region,” Chorev said.
Israel has accused Arab states of trying to divert international attention away from concerns about the nuclear activities of Iran and Syria.
“Iran continues its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons in complete disregard of all relevant resolutions taken by the international community,” Chorev said (see related GSN story today; Fredrik Dahl, Reuters, Sept. 21).
The Israeli official said four Middle Eastern countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria — have at some point all “grossly violated” the terms of the nuclear treaty, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“These four cases make it absolutely clear, that the NPT is unable to adequately address the security challenges of the Middle East region, where the treaty has been mostly abused,” he said.
The real danger to the pact’s viability is “is posed from within, by those states that pursue nuclear weapons, under the cover of their NPT membership,” Chorev asserted.
Additionally, it is not within the International Atomic Energy Agency’s authority to call on Israel to sign the treaty, he said.
While other countries have not signed the pact, Israel is the “only state that has been singled out, and is called upon to take a decision which is against its best national interests,” Chorev said.
Nuclear-armed countries India and Pakistan are not NPT members (Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 22).
The resolution is anticipated to be debated tomorrow, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Sept. 21).
Meanwhile, Bahrain yesterday allowed heightened monitoring of its nuclear activities when it signed the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards deal, the Bahrain News Agency reported.
Protocol signatory states permit IAEA officials to collect additional data on their nuclear activities and to carry out atomic site inspections on short notice (see GSN, Sept. 21).
The agreement was inked at the IAEA conference by agency chief Yukiya Amano and Bahrain Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Abdulla Abdullatif Abdulla (Bahrain News Agency, Sept. 21).

Israel Objects to Arab Calls to Join NPT