Hundreds of bicyclists pour through Dutch museum

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Hundreds of bicycles are pedaling triumphantly through the Netherlands' national museum in Amsterdam, signaling the end of more than a decade of efforts by cyclists to ensure a passageway that runs under and through the Rijksmuseum would remain open to bike traffic.

Bikers began ringing their bells and then a cheer went up at 6 p.m. local time Monday, when guards removed metal fences that were the last remaining barrier.

The museum, which houses masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, among others, opened last month after a 10-year renovation. Architects and museum directors wanted the bike path space for the museum, and a local government tried to bar bicycles on safety grounds.

But in a city that has more bikes than people, the cyclist lobby prevailed.

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Obama heading to Texas for Bush museum dedication, fundraising

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is headed to Texas to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with former President George W. Bush in what could serve as a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggle against terrorism in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Obama is due to attend the dedication on Thursday of Bush's presidential library at Southern Methodist University, along with former presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter and hundreds of Bush administration alumni.

While Democrat Obama and Republican Bush have deep political differences, they share a common belief that the United States must defend itself against violent extremism.

The September 11 attacks defined Bush's eight years in the White House and last week's Boston Marathon bombing handed Obama another challenge to homeland security.

"They failed because, as Americans, we refused to be terrorized," Obama said last week, referring to those who set off bombs near the marathon finish line. "They failed because we will not waver from the character and the compassion and the values that define us as a country."

Bush used similar language to rally Americans.

Certain issues require a common response regardless of political party, said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Center at the University of Southern Illinois.

"They may get to the office as a conservative or a liberal but there are real forces that move them to the pragmatic center on a variety of issues and national security is one of them," Simon said.

Obama is expected to begin his trip by headlining a $10,000-a-plate fundraising dinner on Wednesday evening for the Democratic National Committee at the Dallas home of major Democratic donor Naomi Aberly.

Obama has hosted a number of such fundraisers to help raise money for his party in the hope that Democrats can wrestle control of the House of Representatives from Republicans and add to the Democrats' Senate majority in 2014 midterm elections.

Without adding Democratic seats, Obama may find it difficult to overcome Republican opposition to many of the priorities of his second term, such as closing tax loopholes enjoyed mostly by the wealthy and stricter gun control.

Thursday's dedication of Bush's library and museum has put the 43rd U.S. president back in the limelight he has largely avoided since leaving office in January 2009.

At the time, the United States was laboring under the burden of two wars and a collapsed economy. Bush's approval rating at the time was 33 percent. A Washington Post-ABC poll this week put his approval rating at 47 percent, basically equal to Obama's.

The museum exhibits cover major points of Bush's presidency and offer visitors an opportunity to decide how they would have responded to those challenges.

A central features of the museum concerns the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Obama has found himself pursuing some of the same policies that Bush began, such using drones on military targets and trying to overhaul U.S. immigration laws.

Obama is expected to speak at the dedication along with the former presidents.

"Regardless of the times when they served and their political and policy differences, there is a commonality of experience that the president believes binds them together," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

After visiting Bush in Dallas on Thursday, Obama is scheduled to attend a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for the 14 people killed when a fertilizer plant exploded last week in West, Texas.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Karey Van Hall, Toni Reinhold)

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Palestinians building museum to tell their story

BIRZEIT, West Bank (AP) — Palestinians on Thursday began construction of the West Bank's largest museum devoted to their history, planning to tell diverse stories of Palestinians in their land and of millions who live abroad.

The museum represents a step in the Palestinian quest for statehood by creating a repository for 200 years of history, alongside galleries and space for debates about the Palestinian cause, said director Jack Persekian.

"I am hoping that this museum would be able to give the opportunity for many Palestinians to tell their stories. We are looking at a museum that doesn't have one particular narrative line that it wants to consecrate through its exhibits," he said.

The privately funded museum, which has government support, is the biggest such project the Palestinians have undertaken in terms of scale, space and budgets.

Persekian hoped the museum would tell stories not just of Palestinian Muslims and Christians, but also of Jews who lived in what was Britain-administered Palestine before Israel was founded in 1948.

"We would like to think about (the museum) in an inclusive way," he said.

The museum draws attention to the conflicting narratives at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For Jews, the establishment of Israel reinforced the homecoming of an exiled people with ties to the Holy Land going back thousands of years. Palestinians refer to the establishment of Israel, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven from their homes, as their "nakba," or catastrophe.

Israel has dozens of museums with vast collections of biblical texts and artifacts connecting the Jewish people to the Holy Land. Palestinians have about 30 museums in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the areas where they hope to establish a state, but nothing on the scale of the new project.

The $15 million first phase is scheduled to take two years to build and cover 3,000 square meters, or 32,000 square feet, of space. The planned glass and stone building was designed by the Dublin-based architectural firm Heneghan Peng, which is also building the new Egyptian national museum.

Dozens of Palestinian officials attended the laying of the museum's foundation stone on Thursday on a grassy hill near the Palestinian university town of Birzeit, with views of rocky hills, pines and olive groves. The site can be reached only over a bumpy road, and few residents appeared aware of the project.

Phase one will include a gallery, cafeteria, classrooms, a gift shop and staff offices. The museum's board plans to have the second phase built within a decade, expanding it to 9,000 square meters, or nearly 100,000 square feet. It is being overseen by the Welfare Association, a Palestinian aid and development group supported by philanthropists that has close ties to the governing Palestinian Authority.

The museum will focus on the past 200 years, from the Turkish-based Ottoman Empire through the British mandate over Palestine. It will cover Israel's creation in 1948 and the subsequent displacement of Palestinians during the war surrounding Israel's founding.

It will continue with the history of Palestinians abroad as well as their living conditions in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east Jerusalem under Jordanian and Israeli control as well as the last 20 years of partial self-rule.

The organizers hope the museum will lead to partnerships in other territories where Palestinians live. There are refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, along with Palestinian communities in the West, particularly in Chile.

"We want to try to connect what is now a fragmented geography and a fragmented nation," Persekian said.

Although it's a private initiative, it fits into a series of institutions Palestinians are building in anticipation of statehood.

Palestinians have built other museums in the past few years, said Khaled Hourani, director of the International Academy of Art Palestine. He said the unrelated initiatives indicate a trend to establish spaces that could serve as interactive repositories for Palestinian art, artifacts and the stories of the aging generation of Palestinians who endured the 1948 displacement.

There's a museum dedicated to Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish and another under construction for the late leader Yasser Arafat. In Gaza, two museums display artifacts from the territory's thousands of years of history as a crossroad between Asia and Africa.

"A museum is like an airport or hospital. It is one of the things that is part of a state," Hourani said.

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