Enemies Of Peace

Market time over, time for refresh & though, of the world we live in. The longest winding conflict & confrontation.
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DANNY DANON
Position: Member of the Knesset, Likud party
Biography: Danny Danon, chairman of World Likud, the party's global outreach branch, has aggressively positioned himself as a right-wing alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he challenged in Likud's last leadership election. To hear Danon tell it, Netanyahu's response to the Palestinians' diplomatic maneuvering at the United Nations has been insufficiently hawkish. In May, he penned an op-ed in the New York Times calling on the Israeli government to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank in retaliation for the Palestinian bid for U.N. member-state status. Arguing against those who feared that the Palestinians' U.N. bid could represent a diplomatic catastrophe for Israel, Danon said that it provided Israel with "an opportunity to rectify the mistake we made in 1967 by failing to annex all of the West Bank."

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MAHMOUD AL-ZAHAR
Position: Foreign minister in Palestinian Authority government of Ismail Haniyeh
Biography: Mahmoud al-Zahar was one of the founding members of the militant group Hamas in the late 1980s. Unlike many of his compatriots of that era, however, he has successfully avoided multiple Israeli attempts to bring about his death. The long struggle with Israel has only hardened Zahar's views: He has been a fierce critic of the Fatah-led peace process that began with the 1993 Oslo Accords and has preached about the Palestinians' need to sever their economic ties with Israel and re-engage with the Arab and Islamic worlds. Zahar has also been a staunch opponent of a unity deal with Fatah, suggesting that the reconciliation agreement between the two parties signed in Cairo was "defunct." As long as he remains in office, Hamas will likely continue to wage a two-front war against Israel and the group's Palestinian rivals in the West Bank.

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PALESTINIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD/SALAFISTS
Description: Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Islamist Palestinian militant organization, emerged from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1970s by members who thought that the Brotherhood was not sufficiently aggressive in advancing the Palestinian cause. Although an avowedly Sunni movement, it captured the revolutionary, theocratic spirit embodied by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in predominantly Shiite Iran. Like Hamas, it receives much of its funding from Iran and is dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine. Although Palestinian Islamic Jihad is implacably opposed to any peace process with Israel, it is a nationalist organization, framing its goals as the liberation of Palestine from occupation. Since Hamas's takeover of Gaza, however, a number of Salafist groups, which describe their cause in terms of a broader Islamic struggle, have risen to prominence. The most prominent attack committed by one of these groups was the kidnapping and murder of Italian journalist Vittorio Arrigoni this April. These groups -- which are thought to be sympathetic to al Qaeda but not directly affiliated with the terrorist organization -- have proved a headache for Hamas, which has struggled to control their radicalism.

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ELI YISHAI
Position: Head of the Shas party, deputy prime minister, and interior minister
Biography: Eli Yishai, the political face of the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, has been called "the rabbi's dutiful deputy PM" for his loyalty to the party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Along with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Yishai has been a fervent advocate for an amendment to Israel's citizenship law that would require non-Jews to pledge loyalty to Israel's existence as a democratic and Jewish state as a prerequisite for citizenship. He has also referred to homosexuality as "a disease" and has said that the existence of gays and lesbians should be treated "as a medical problem." In his capacity as interior minister, Yishai has also undermined U.S. attempts to revive the peace process in ways that often seem deliberately calculated. During Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to Israel in March 2010, for example, he provoked a diplomatic spat by approving the construction of 1,600 housing units in Jerusalem.

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TZIPI HOTOVELY
Position: Member of the Knesset, Likud party
Biography: Tzipi Hotovely became the youngest member of the Knesset when, at age 30, she was elected on the Likud party's list in the 2009 elections. The media-savvy attorney, who describes herself as a "religious right-winger," has argued that Israel can never abandon the West Bank settlements and even suggested doing away with the two-state solution entirely, presenting a plan for "one state for two peoples." Hotovely hasn't shied from the international arena, either. After Obama's May 19 speech calling for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal based on the pre-1967 war borders (with agreed swaps), she quickly released a letter "to correct a few inaccuracies" in the U.S. president's speech. She particularly took issue with any plans to divide Jerusalem, likening it to "rending the heart of Israel from our people."
Although still a junior member of Likud's Knesset lineup, Hotovely is emblematic of the conservative drift of Israel's next generation: Polls show that youth are increasingly attracted to right-wing parties and more inclined to insist on the Jewish identity of the state. As this demographic group rises to positions of authority, Israel's new leaders might be even less willing to compromise than their predecessors.

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MOHAMMED DEIF
Position: Head of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas
Biography: Mohammed Deif became the bête noire of the Israeli security establishment during the height of the Second Intifada, when he rose to the top of Hamas's most feared military apparatus following the assassination of his predecessor. Israel holds him responsible for several suicide bombings that helped derail the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, and the country has repeatedly targeted him for assassination -- so far without success. Although few images of him exist, he reportedly lost an eye in a September 2002 Israeli rocket attack on his car. Deif is also the sworn enemy of Abbas's Palestinian Authority. In 2007, he marshaled Hamas's forces to crush Palestinian security forces loyal to Abbas in the Gaza Strip, seizing the territory in a little over a week. He appears more than willing to take up the role of Hamas enforcer again in the Islamist movement's battles with both Israel and Abbas.


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MARWAN BARGHOUTI
Position: Palestinian political leader affiliated with the Fatah movement
Biography: Marwan Barghouti is by far the most popular personality of the "young guard" of Palestinian leaders, and is often mentioned as a potential successor for President Abbas. There's only one problem: He's serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli prison for orchestrating the murder of four Israelis and a Greek monk. He was a senior leader during the First and Second intifadas, rising to become the leader of Fatah's armed wing, the Tanzim, prior to his arrest. Unlike the other Palestinian figures on this list, however, Barghouti is a supporter of a two-state solution -- though he has criticized late Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat for conceding too much in the negotiations around the Oslo Accords and referred to talks in recent years as a "failure." This year, Barghouti has thrown his influence behind the Palestinian decision to appeal for membership status at the United Nations, calling for a "million-man march" in support of the statehood bid. He has also warned President Barack Obama that a U.S. veto of the Palestinians' diplomatic maneuver would amount to "a historic, deadly mistake." If Palestinians do take to the streets en masse, Barghouti could very well emerge as the unifying figure in a new popular uprising.

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"PRICE TAG" SETTLERS
Description: For most of the world, the Israeli government's consent to settlement construction in the West Bank is a dangerous threat to peace. For some settlers, however, Israel isn't moving fast enough to put down roots on land that they see as theirs by divine right -- and they're taking matters into their own hands. These right-wing groups have launched attacks on Palestinians and their property that are meant to exact a "price tag" for challenges to the settlement enterprise. Most of these attacks, which usually follow Israeli demolition of unauthorized settlements or clashes between Palestinians and settlers, have been carried out against Palestinians in the West Bank. On Oct. 3, however, a mosque in an Arab town in northern Israel was set on fire by the movement. The words "price tag" and "revenge" were scrawled in Hebrew on the mosque's outer wall. According to the United Nations, violent attacks by settlers against Palestinian property in the West Bank rose 57 percent in the first seven months of this year, compared with the same period last year.