From Financial Times, by Daniel Dombey in Washington and Tobias Buck in Jerusalem
President Barack Obama urged Israel on Thursday to open its borders with Gaza.
The plea came in a speech that signalled the new US administration’s shift from Bush-era policy on the Middle East and the world as a whole. In a high-profile address on his second day in office, just hours after he signed an executive order to close the centre at Guantánamo Bay, Mr Obama proclaimed that the US would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” in the wake of this month’s Gaza war.
“The outline for a durable ceasefire is clear: Hamas must end its rocket fire: Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza: the US and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot re-arm,” the US president said.
“As part of a lasting ceasefire, Gaza’s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating.”
A video released by an Israeli human rights group has sparked a military investigation into the abuse of a Palestinian protester by an Israeli soldier.
The video released by B’Tselem this weekend shows a soldier firing a rubber-coated bullet near the foot of a West Bank man whose hands were bound and whose eyes were blindfolded. The man, Ashraf Abu Rahmeh, said Monday he was lightly hurt by the riot control weapon and treated at the scene. Abu Rahmeh said he was arrested at a demonstration after troops imposed a curfew on the town of Naalin in an attempt to quell protests against the West Bank separation barrier Israel is building nearby. Soldiers took him to an army jeep and seized his ID card. Then, he said, “They shot me in the foot, in the toe.”
B’Tselem obtained the videotape from a Palestinian girl who said she filmed the incident from her home on July 7, spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli said. She demanded that the military take steps against the soldier and an officer who is seen holding Abu Rahmeh’s arm when the soldier fired. In a statement sent to the AP on Monday, the military called the incident a “stark violation” of its rules of conduct and safety, and said military police were investigating.
From IHT.com, by Scott Shane
In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda’s engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators called “knuckledraggers.”
Martinez came in after the rough stuff, the ultimate good cop with the classic skills: an unimposing presence, inexhaustible patience and a willingness to listen to the gripes and musings of a pitiless killer in rambling, imperfect English. He achieved a rapport with Mohammed that astonished his fellow CIA officers.
