Israel: Conflict over recognition, not territory

By ARON HELLER | Associated Press – 5 hrs ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister gave a cool reception Wednesday to a new Arab Mideast peace initiative, saying the conflict with the Palestinians isn't about territory, but rather the Palestinians' refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland.

The remarks signaled trouble for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's new push for Mideast peaceand risked reinforcing Benjamin Netanyahu's image as a hard-liner unwilling to make the tough concessions required for peace.

Netanyahu has not commented directly on the Arab League's latest initiative, but his words questioned its central tenet — the exchange of captured land for peace — and appeared to counter a modified peace proposal from the Arab world that Washington and Netanyahu's own chief negotiator have welcomed.

The original 2002 Arab initiative offered a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Muslim world in exchange for a withdrawal from all territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Sweetening the offer this week, the Arab sponsor said final borders could be drawn through mutually agreed land swaps.

Netanyahu questioned the premise that borders are the key.

"The root of the conflict isn't territorial. It began way before 1967," he told Israeli diplomats. "The Palestinians' failure to accept the state of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is the root of the conflict. If we reach a peace agreement, I want to know that the conflict won't continue — that the Palestinians won't come later with more demands."

The Palestinians have rejected Netanyahu's demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying that would undermine the rights of Israel's Arab minority as well as millions of refugees whose families lost properties during the war surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948. The fate of the refugees is a core issue that would need to be resolved in a final peace deal.

After meeting U.S. congressmen Wednesday, Netanyahu said he appreciated the efforts of President Barack Obama and Kerry to restart negotiations but said that for talks to succeed, the Palestinians must also guarantee solid security arrangements. "We're prepared to discuss many things, but I will never compromise on Israel's security," he said.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani tried to allay some of the Israeli concerns as he presented the offer on Monday.

Speaking on behalf of an Arab League delegation, he reiterated the need to base an agreement between Israel and a future Palestine on the 1967 lines, but for the first time, he cited the possibility of "comparable," mutually agreed and "minor" land swaps between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The sides were reportedly close to an agreement based on these guidelines during the last serious round of talks in 2008 but the talks failed. Swaps of territory were also a basis for a failed summit in the U.S. in 2000.

Negotiations have largely been frozen since 2008, and the new U.S. administration has been trying to get the peace talks back on track.

As part of his effort, Kerry has been pushing Arab leaders to embrace a modified version of the Arab peace plan. The changes are meant to win Israeli support by allowing it to keep parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem as part of an agreement.

Though Netanyahu's office has remained silent on the modified Arab proposal, his chief peace negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, has welcomed it, as have Israel's president and the main opposition parties. However, Netanyahu's own political base and one of his main government coalition partners are either opposed to giving up land or suspicious of the Arabs' motivations.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a rival of Netanyahu, said the initiative disproves the belief held by many in Israel that "there is no one to speak to."

"We cannot, under any circumstances, again be the ones that express doubts about a process that can lead to negotiations," Olmert told Israel's Channel 10 TV, urging Netanyahu to capitalize on "a historic opportunity."

Opposition Israeli lawmakers also urged Netanyahu to embrace the new Arab outreach.

"It was bad enough that we ignored it once. Ignoring it now ... after everything that is happening in the Arab world, I think it would be a very, very big mistake," said Merav Michaeli, a lawmaker from the centrist Labor Party. She said if Netanyahu does not respond, it would show that he does not want a peace accord.

Kerry called the new peace plan a "very big step forward," though Palestinian officials have been cool to the concept, insisting that negotiations still need start with the 1967 lines.

The original 2002 Arab peace initiative offered Israel peace with the entire Muslim world in exchange for a "complete withdrawal" from territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all seized by Israel in 1967, for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Though the latest proposal appears aimed at the Palestinians, the original formula refers to other territories as well. Israel also captured the Sinai from Egypt and Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war, withdrawing from Sinai in 1982. Peace talks between Israel and Syria over the fate of the Golan failed more than a decade ago.

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School shooting parents urge NJ to limit ammo

Parents of Connecticut school shootings urge 10-bullet limit for ammunition magazines in NJ

By Angela Delli Santi, Associated Press | Associated Press – 15 hrs ago

Associated Press -

Mark Barden, right, reacts while standing next to his wife, Jackie Barden, during a news conference at the New Jersey statehouse, Tuesday, April 30, 2013, in Trenton, N.J. The Bardens lost their 7-year-old son Daniel during the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., and urged the New Jersey Legislature to limit the number of bullets in ammunition magazines. Family members of the Newtown victims joined gun control advocates to discuss need for New Jersey state Senate and Gov. Chris Christie to support Assembly-approved measure to limit ammunition magazines to 10 bullets. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The parents of four of the 20 children killed in the Connecticut school shootings in December stood with the New Jersey Assembly on Tuesday to urge the Senate to limit the number of bullets in ammunition magazines.

Their plea came as a Senate committee considered several measures designed to strengthen state gun laws — but not a proposal to limit magazine capacity to 10 bullets, five less than state law now allows. The Assembly passed the bill in February.

Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose daughter, Ana, was among those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, reminded lawmakers that 11 children were able to escape as shooter Adam Lanza reloaded. Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald noted the 13th bullet in a magazine killed Christina-Taylor Green, the 9-year-old who died in the Tuscon, Ariz., shooting that wounded U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

"I support the 2nd Amendment and I have no interest in taking away anyone's gun rights, but I know that outside of a shooting range, the only use for large capacity magazines is to kill as many people as possible," Marques-Greene said at a Statehouse news conference. "Limiting the sale of high-capacity magazines does not affect a hunter's ability to enjoy their sport. While there are many unanswered questions about Dec. 14, we know that lives have been saved when a shooter has had to stop and reload."

Although New Jersey already has the second-strictest gun laws in the country, behind only New York, each branch of the Democrat-led Legislature and Republican Gov. Chris Christie have proposed separate packages of gun violence bills designed to close loopholes in current laws, to address mental illness and gun ownership, and to strengthen penalties for gun trafficking. One of Christie's bills requires parental consent for a minor to buy or rent some violent video games; the Senate version proposes parents be educated about violent videos because some legal scholars say Christie's proposal won't stand up in court.

Only the Assembly has moved to limit magazine capacity. It's part of a 22-bill package the chamber fast-tracked within two months of the Newtown massacre.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney on Tuesday indicated his unwillingness to go along.

"Twenty years ago New Jersey implemented a limit on the size of ammunition (magazines). For two decades that limit has been effective," he said in a statement. "What we must focus on now is preventing guns from getting into the hands of those who should not have them. That means addressing issues of mental health, background checks, illegal guns, and straw purchases."

Greenwald has said the Assembly should not consider the Senate bills without the magazine limit.

Two North Jersey Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg and Sen. Nia Gill, have introduced legislation that would limit ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. But their bill is not part of Sweeney's package and it's not known whether the Senate president will agree to give the bill a hearing.

Christie hasn't said what he'd do if a magazine limit reaches his desk, but it was not among the recommendations of an anti-violence task force on which he based his recommendations.

National Rifle Association lobbyist Darin Goens, meanwhile, said the Senate hearing was typical of those he's attended in other states.

"You don't see the criminals. You don't the drug dealers (at the hearing)," he said. "They don't care what you pass. They're going to continue to break the law, no matter what we do today in this building. It's only going to affect the law-abiding citizen and it's going to do nothing to impact crime."

He said the Legislature's reaction was also typical: pass some bills so lawmakers can say they did something — even if their action will have no impact on violence.

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France: jihadist convert arrested in Mali

By ELAINE GANLEY and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI | Associated Press – 13 hrs ago

Associated Press/ECPAD, Arnaud Roine - FILE - This March 8, 2013 photo provided by the French Army Communications Audiovisual Office (ECPAD) shows French soldiers patrolling the Mettatai region in northern Mali. The Security Council unanimously approved a new U.N. peacekeeping force for Mali on Thursday, April 25, 2013 to help restore democracy and stabilize the northern half of the country which was controlled by Islamist jihadists until a France-led military operation ousted them three months ago. (AP Photo/ECPAD, Arnaud Roine)

PARIS (AP) — French troops in Mali have arrested a French citizen who converted to Islam, took on the jihadist cause and threatened his native country in a video last fall, the military spokesman said Tuesday.

Col. Thierry Burkhard said Gilles Le Guen was arrested this week north of Timbuktu, the fabled city in Mali's northern desert that had been his base for some two years.

Le Guen, a former merchant marine from France's western Brittany region, was arrested overnight Sunday and was being interrogated by his French captors. He would be turned over shortly to Malian authorities, who can then decide whether to expel him to France, Burkhard said by telephone.

"We captured a French terrorist," Burkhard said.

Le Guen, thought to be in his 40s, is well known to the French. He appeared in an online video in October wearing a black turban with an assault rifle at his side, threatening France if it intervened in Mali to chase out religious radicals. He had flaunted his radicalism while living in Timbuktu, where residents said he had a wife and two children.

"I am following the road traced by Osama bin Laden," Le Guen said in a telephone interview with the French newsmagazine L'Express in January, days before the French intervention began.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, an Algeria-based al-Qaida offshoot, began moving into Mali's vast north a decade ago. Two other groups made up mainly of Malians joined the Algerian jihadist group, known as AQIM, and took over the north, controlling major cities and imposing strict Shariah law, like cutting the hands of thieves. AQIM is holding at least five French hostages. Other groups are holding hostages as well.

President Francois Hollande ordered a surprise French intervention in Mali in January to stop the west African country from becoming what he said was a sanctuary for terrorists that could threaten France and Europe. The first of some 4,000 troops arrived on Jan. 11. They quickly retook major cities like Timbuktu but are trying to clean out the region permanently, a task that some experts have said would be hard to achieve.

France has worried that Mali would become a magnet for Muslim radicals, particularly French citizens, or dual French-Mali nationals. It was a concern that grew with the intervention. However, only a handful of French are known to have joined the jihad in Mali. One French-Malian citizen suspected of being a scout to set up a jihadist network, Ibrahim Ouattara, was detained in Mali in November and sent to France in March. He remains in custody.

The French government also worries that French citizens hardened in battle or driven by jihad might continue their mission on home soil or spread their message to Malian immigrants in France.

The French Defense Ministry said last week that the military operation in Mali, which is now concentrated on combing the northern region to search for terrorists, has uncovered 200 tons of munitions and arms.

French forces in Mali are backed by Malian, Chadian and other African troops. France plans a staggered withdrawal with 1,000 French soldiers expected to still be in place by the year's end. U.N. peacekeepers are to join the troops to keep peace ahead of presidential elections that could take place as early as July.

Burkhard said that Le Guen was found "in the zone north of Timbuktu" in a desert area, but provided no further information on the location and would not say whether he was alone. He said he was being held at a French camp, but did not name the location.

Le Guen has been an unusual case among foreign jihadists, refusing to hide his presence in northern Mali.

Agaly Cisse, who runs the restaurant in Timbuktu's largest hotel, said recently that Le Guen lived mostly off of wire transfers from his family in Europe, and did odd jobs, especially technical and mechanical work, like fixing cars and broken water pumps.

One of the notables of Timbuktu, Diadie Hamadoun Maiga, who was appointed to the crisis committee that attempted to represent the city during the 10-month-long occupation, said that although the village of Danga, where Le Guen is said to have lived, is not far from Timbuktu, people in the city only started seeing him after the jihadists invaded in the spring of 2012. Maiga said he was assigned to patrol the town, and carried a weapon. He was convinced of the jihadist ideology, said Maiga, but he endeared himself to residents by taking a firm stance against the flogging of women.

"He openly took a position against Mohamed Mossa (the head of the Islamic police) especially in regards to the brutal treatment of women," said Maiga. "He was among those who went to see the big boss, Abou Zeid, to ask for Mossa to be removed," he said, naming one of the top commanders of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and the de facto ruler of Timbuktu during the occupation. Zeid was killed in February by troops.

"Gilles Le Guen won a lot of points with us because he took our side. He openly criticized Mossa, including in speeches that he gave at the market. One day he even burst into the prison and liberated the women that had been arrested by Mohamed Mossa," Maiga said by telephone.

The French press reported widely before the intervention that Le Guen had been arrested by other jihadists. Weeks later, he was shown on TV free again.

Some question how tight he really was with the jihadists. When French forces were closing in on Timbuktu, the jihadists fled en masse, but they reportedly left Le Guen behind. It's unclear if he stayed behind by choice, or was simply abandoned.

"The jihadists gave him a car. They had stolen lots of cars in the area. And they gave him a luxury, two-cabin, 4-by-4. They also gave him two barrels of gasoline, each of 200 liters," said Maiga.

He claimed that Le Guen was caught on the road to Taoudeni, around 40 kilometers (24 miles) north of the city.

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Callimachi reported from Dakar, Senegal.

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