RICE TAPS CARTER, CLINTON FOR PEACE ADVICE

Rice taps Clinton, Carter for Middle East advice (Reuters)
Anxious not to repeat mistakes of past Middle East peace-making, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has turned to former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for tips ahead of her own conference this year.

Rice invited Carter, a vocal critic of Bush administration policies, to the State Department on Wednesday where the two discussed his Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts in the 1970s, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday.

Their talks were "good and cordial," he said. They focused on the Middle East and not Carter's recent criticism of President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere.

A Soviet specialist, Rice also telephoned another former Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who tried, and ultimately failed, in his eight years in office to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together.

IN RELATED NEWS, TED TURNER AND KOFI ANNAN HAVE ARRIVED IN ISRAEL READY TO "HELP" WITH THE PEACE EFFORTS.

'We've come here to see if we can help' - Ted Turner - Ted Turner (JPOST)
Less than a week after announcing that Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, joined its board of directors, the United Nations Foundation has sent a high-level delegation to Israel and Jordan.

The delegation arrived in Israel at 6 a.m. on Sunday and held meetings with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other prominent figures.

Heading the delegation were its chairman, Ted Turner, the founder of the CNN Cable News Network, and Annan.

The UN Foundation tries to build public-private partnerships that address the world's most pressing problems.

"We've come here to see if we can help," said Turner.

"We are here to listen and to see what is going on in the region," Annan told Peres. "Peace is of great concern to all of us."

PEACE NOW LACKS CREDIBILITY

Credibility Still for Peace Now? (CAMERA)
Dror Etkes, one of Peace Now's "settlement experts," doesn't have a good track record when it comes to the facts. In February, he falsely claimed that illegal Palestinian construction "is undertaken by private individuals in all cases;" that illegal Palestinian building merely serves families in need and serves no political purpose; that "Most of the Palestinian illegal construction is undertaken on their own private land," and that the Arab population in eastern Jerusalem has no right to vote in municipal elections. (This last claim is contradicted by Peace Now's own documents.)

And in October 2006, Etkes' Peace Now falsely reported that 86.4 percent of Ma'aleh Adumim land is privately owned by Palestinians -- an error of 15,900 percent!

All of which makes us scratch our head in response to the New York Times latest report yesterday on Peace Now's "findings." Just how many lies to you have to tell in order for the Times to no longer consider you a credible source worthy of coverage? Saeb Erekat, care to take a shot at that one?

HERE'S YESTERDAY'S NYT ARTICLE:

Israeli Settlements Found to Grow Past Boundaries
JERUSALEM, July 6 — Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank use only 12 percent of the land allocated to them, but one-third of the territory they do use lies outside of their official jurisdictions, according to a new report released on Friday by Peace Now, an advocacy group.

According to the report, based on official data released by the Israeli government after a court order, 90 percent of the settlements sprawl beyond their official boundaries despite the large amount of unused land already allocated to them.

More than 10 percent of the land included within the official jurisdiction of the settlements is owned privately by Palestinians, as is 70 percent of the land the settlements control outside of their official boundaries, said the report, whose findings were published in Haaretz newspaper on Friday. Peace Now opposes the settlements and tracks them.

PALIS SET UP ILLEGAL SETTLEMENT...IN ISRAEL

Palestinian Arabs set up illegal settlement - in Israel (Elder of Zyion)
From Ma'an Arabic, quoting Ma'ariv: (autotranslated)

Maariv newspaper reported that a group of Palestinian workers who have managed to infiltrate into Israel during the past few weeks in order to set up workcamps inside ... near the town of Netviot in the Negev region.

The newspaper added that the 13 Palestinians from the town of Dahariya south of Hebron erected tents....

Will Peace Now issue a statement condemning this illegal activity?

AMERICANS FOR PEACE NOW OPPOSES NEW SANCTIONS ON IRAN

APN opposes Iran sanctions bills (JTA)
Americans for Peace Now opposes new legislation toughening Iran sanctions. "APN supports the imposition of targeted U.S. economic sanctions against Iran, but believes strongly that such sanctions should be part of a comprehensive strategy that includes both carrots and sticks," said a letter sent Friday to all Congress members. "Experience in the region demonstrates that sanctions alone are not likely to do the job; what is necessary for an effective policy is to combine sanctions with diplomacy."

Recently proposed legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate "would target not only Iran but all those members of the international community who do not share the U.S. sanctions-only approach," said the letter. "Not only would such a policy likely fail to sway Iran, but it would likely complicate and seriously strain relations with those very nations whose cooperation the U.S. needs in order to craft a comprehensive policy toward Iran policy that can deliver success (e.g., the Europeans, Russia, Japan)."

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee strongly backs both packages, and urged its activists this week to lobby their lawmakers to push through the sanctions. The international community is isolating Iran until it allows greater nuclear transparency.

MAYBE PEACE NOW WOULD LIKE TO OFFER AHMADINEJAD CZECHOSLOVAKIA?

PEACE NOW WAS WRONG ABOUT SETTLEMENT LANDS

Largest West Bank Settlement Not Built on Palestinian Land as Previously Charged
A military database released to an anti-settlement group under court pressure shows that very little private land was seized from Palestinians to build Israel's largest West Bank settlement. In November, Peace Now claimed that 86% of Maale Adumim, a Jerusalem suburb of more than 30,000 residents, was built on private Palestinian land. The group reported Wednesday that data show only 0.5% of the settlement is built on private land. (AP/International Herald Tribune)