Pro-Israel News

Date:
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
06/24/2014 

Defense Minister Ya'alon: Any violation of our sovereignty will be met with harsh response.

 

An Israeli tank is seen on the Golan Heights. Photo: REUTERS

Syrian Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar reportedly vowed that the Assad regime would respond to IDF strikes on Syrian military targets.

Haidar told the Nazareth-based Sonara news website that the "ceasefire [with Israel] is broken, and we've entered a state of confrontation with Israel." He threatened a Syrian response "that will have a bigger influence than the Israeli operation, and it will come at the appropriate time and place."

The IDF struck nine Syrian military targets late Sunday, killing four soldiers and injuring nine, in response to a cross-borderanti-tank missile strike from Syria earlier that day, which killed a 13-year-old Israeli boy.

"There is no doubt" that Syrian soldiers fired the anti-tank missile into Israel," Defense Minister Ya'alon said Tuesday, during a visit to the IDF's Galilee Formation (91st Division), which secures part of the border with Lebanon.

"It's completely clear that the Syrian army is responsible for this.

Hence, the responsibility is on the regime of Basher Assad, and that's why we responded as we did. As we've said from the start, any violation of our sovereignty in the Golan Heights will be answered with a harsh response against Basher Al-Assad's forces. That's what happened, and that's what we will continue to do in the future," Ya'alon said.

The defense minister also visited Har Dov, near the Lebanese and Syrian borders.

He noted the quiet border with Lebanon, despite Hezbollah's massive rocket arsenal, adding that the Northern Command and its units are ready for "any situation." Ya'alon attributed the ongoing quiet on the Lebanese frontier to Israeli deterrence.

 

 
Date:
Monday, June 23, 2014
By TARINI PARTI | Politico
6/22/14 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United States on Sunday against working with Iran to help resolve the threat from Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

“When your enemies are fighting each other, don’t strengthen one of them,” Netanyahu said on NBC's "Meet the Press." “Weaken them both.”

“The ultimate and most important goal is that Iran doesn’t have nuclear capabilities… that should be prevented at all costs,” he said.

As Sunni militants advance in Iraq, the U.S. has said it is interested in communicating with Iran, a Shiite country.  Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies have been trying to negotiate a compromise on Iran’s nuclear program.

"I hope they don’t come up with a bad deal," Netanyahu said. "Iran could come out with nuclear weapons capability. It would make everything else pale in comparison."

“This would change history,” he concluded.

 
Date:
Monday, June 23, 2014

Marks first Israeli death on Syrian border since it heated up a year ago; not known if gov't forces or rebels fired fatal anti-tank missile, but IDF retaliates at Syrian army positions.

By and  | Jun. 22, 2014 
 
  

Muhammad Fahmi Krakara, right, and Israeli forces in the Golan Heights, June 22, 2014.Photo by Gil Eliyahu

A 14-year-old boy on Sunday became the first Israeli killed on the Syrian border since it heated up about a year ago as a result of the civil war. Three other men were wounded in the attack, one seriously.

The teen, Muhammad Fahmi Krakara, was accompanying his father, a contract worker for the Defense Ministry doing maintenance work on the border fence in the Golan Heights. They were in a truck with two other contract workers when the vehicle was hit by a projectile fired from Syria at around 11:30 A.M.

A senior Israel Defense Forces officer said the missile appeared to have been fired directly at the truck. Although the Syrian rebels control that portion of the border, it still isn’t clear who perpetrated the attack, he said.

The IDF responded with tank fire aimed at the Syrian regime forces’ positions across the border. Israel has said in the past that it holds Damascus responsible for any fire emanating from Syrian territory.

The Associated Press, quoting the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that the Syrian army had been shelling targets near the border at the time, so it’s also possible that a stray Syrian army shell could have hit the Israeli truck.

The teen’s father, who was moderately wounded, was evacuated to Rebecca Sieff Hospital in Safed along with the seriously wounded man. The third worker, who suffered light wounds, was evacuated to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

Shlomi Hazan, one of the wounded men, said he hadn’t noticed anything suspicious along the border before his truck was hit, nor had the crew received any warnings from the army of possible danger. After the explosion, he said, he was able to unbuckle his seat belt, get out of the truck and crawl to a ditch beside the road despite strong pains in his chest. There he flagged down another truck that took him to the nearest army outpost, and from there he was flown to the hospital by helicopter.

Eli Malka, head of the Golan Regional Council, noted Sunday afternoon that the incident had taken place near the border, far from the Golan’s towns and tourist attractions. “Our instructions to residents are to resume their normal routines,” Malka said.

Nevertheless, he admitted, “The situation has changed. This is the first time they’ve fired at a civilian truck.”

Saber Nasser, a relative of the Krakaras who also works along the border, told Haaretz that Muhammad had just finished eighth grade last week and decided to accompany his father to work for fun. His father works on a water truck that is used to dampen the path along the fence.

A defense official said the elder Krakara hadn’t told anyone in authority that he was taking his son to work with him. “This is the first time we’ve run into such a thing,” the official said.

“This is a dramatic incident,” he added. “We have firing on a civilian vehicle, and that has far-reaching consequences, including for work on the fence.”

The Syrian border has been relatively quiet since March, when a number of attacks took place there. In one, four Israeli soldiers were wounded when a bomb exploded, hitting their jeep near Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. In another, an IDF jeep was hit by an explosive device planted in the Har Dov sector, near the Lebanon border. And in a third, the IDF reported that soldiers opened fire at Hezbollah operatives attempting to plant an explosive device at the border fence in the northern Golan Heights.

Krakara was the first Israeli killed in the north since last December, when Master Sgt. Shlomi Cohen was fatally shot by a Lebanese soldier while driving along the Lebanon border near the coast.

Sunday’s incident also marks the third death of a Defense Ministry contract worker by enemy fire. Last December, Palestinians fired over the border fence from Gaza near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, killing Salah Abu Latif, who was doing infrastructure work together with a military unit. In June 2012, Defense Ministry employee Saeed Fashafshe was killed in an ambush on the Philadelphi Route near Moshav Be’er Milka on the Egyptian border.  

 
Date:
Thursday, June 19, 2014

June 19, 2014: Israeli soldiers search for three missing Israeli teens believed to have been abducted in the West Bank city of Jenin. Since the operation to locate the teens began a week ago, about 280 Palestinians have been arrested, the military said, including 200 members of Hamas.AP

JERUSALEM –  Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinians during an arrest raid early Thursday in the most violent confrontation so far in the weeklong search for three missing Israeli teens believed to have been abducted in the West Bank.

Israel has blamed the Islamic militant group Hamas for the apparent abductions, without providing evidence. Israel has since launched a widespread crackdown on the militant Islamic group, arresting scores of members while conducting a feverish manhunt for the missing youths.

Hamas has praised the abduction of the teenagers, but has not claimed responsibility for it.

The three — Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship — disappeared late Thursday while hitchhiking home from Jewish seminaries in the West Bank.

The military said about 300 Palestinians took to the streets when the soldiers entered Jenin at about 2 a.m. Some opened fire at the troops, others threw explosive devices or rocks at the soldiers. It said soldiers retaliated with live fire.

The military said 30 Palestinians were arrested in the overnight raid.

Nadir Irshaid, director of the Jenin hospital, said seven people are being treated for light injuries that he said were caused by rubber bullets and beatings.

According to several Jenin residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety, three Palestinians were arrested over the Jenin violence, including two members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Since the operation to locate the teens began a week ago, about 280 Palestinians have been arrested, the military said, including 200 members of Hamas.

The military also said that troops have searched about 100 locations and raided institutions it said are used by Hamas.

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said Hamas is "paying a heavy price for the abduction."

Israel and the West consider Hamas a terrorist group due to its long history of attacks aimed at civilians. Hamas has abducted Israelis before.

There has been no sign of life from the missing teens or any ransom or other demands from their purported kidnappers.

U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro met with the Fraenkel family on Thursday and expressed Washington's "strong support" for Israeli efforts to find the teenagers. The U.S. has "a special responsibility in the case of an American citizen," Shapiro said.

Prayer vigils and round-the-clock media coverage have followed the teens' disappearance.

 
Date:
Wednesday, June 18, 2014

New York Times

By  and 

JUNE 17, 2014

WASHINGTON — President Obama is considering a targeted, highly selective campaign of airstrikes against Sunni militants in Iraqsimilar to counterterrorism operations in Yemen, rather than the widespread bombardment of an air war, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.

Such a campaign, most likely using drones, could last for a prolonged period, the official said. But it is not likely to begin for days or longer, and would hinge on the United States’ gathering adequate intelligence about the location of the militants, who are intermingled with the civilian population in Mosul, Tikrit and other cities north of Baghdad.

Even if the president were to order strikes, they would be far more limited in scope than the air campaign conducted during the Iraq war, this official said, because of the relatively small number of militants involved, the degree to which they are dispersed throughout militant-controlled parts of Iraq and fears that using bigger bombs would kill Sunni civilians.

At a meeting with his national security advisers at the White House on Monday evening, the official said, Mr. Obama was presented with a “sliding scale” of military options, which range from supplying the beleaguered Iraqi Army with additional advisers, intelligence and equipment to conducting strikes targeting members of the militant group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Much of the emphasis at the meeting, the official said, was on how to gather useful intelligence about the militants. They are not wearing uniforms or sleeping in barracks; and while there may be periodic convoys to strike, there are no columns of troops or vehicles.

Given all the hurdles to effective military action, Mr. Obama is continuing to emphasize a political solution to the crisis, the official said. Administration officials are prodding the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to take tangible steps to heal sectarian rifts with the country’s Sunnis and Kurds.

“This is not primarily a military challenge,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said to reporters on Air Force One, even as he acknowledged that “Iraq needs significantly more help to break the momentum of extremist groups.”

The United States is also exploring diplomatic options with Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran, though a senior official played down the extent of the coordination with Iran, after the deputy secretary of state, William J. Burns, briefly broached the crisis with his Iranian counterpart at nuclear negotiations in Vienna.

The limited scale of any military action may make it easier for Mr. Obama to sell to Congress and the public. The United States already targets suspected terrorists with drones and warplanes, either alone or with the local governments, in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and Afghanistan. It provides intelligence and airlift support for strikes in Mali.

Mr. Obama has invited the leaders of the House and Senate for a 3 p.m. meeting in the Oval Office. Taking part will be the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada; the minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky; the House speaker, John A. Boehner, and the House minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi.

The administration’s deliberations come amid signs that the sweeping militant advances of last week are slowing down, as the fighters reach the more heavily guarded gates of Baghdad.

“We’re seeing indications, certainly, that Iraqi security forces in and around Baghdad are stiffening themselves,” said Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary. “They’re being assisted by Shia militia members. And it certainly appears as if they have the will to defend the capital.”id signs that the sweeping militant advances of last week are slowing down, as the fighters reach the more heavily guarded gates of Baghdad.

“We’re seeing indications, certainly, that Iraqi security forces in and around Baghdad are stiffening themselves,” said Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary. “They’re being assisted by Shia militia members. And it certainly appears as if they have the will to defend the capital.”

 
Date:
Tuesday, June 17, 2014

BY DAN WILLIAMS

JERUSALEM Mon Jun 16, 2014

(Reuters) - Israel voiced concern on Monday at the prospect of its closest ally, Washington, cooperating with its what it considers its deadliest foe, Iran, to stave off a sectarian break-up of Iraq.

But, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz told Reuters, the United States and other major powers have pledged that any such cooperation would not set back their drive to curb Tehran's nuclear program.

The Obama administration said on Sunday it was considering talks with Iran about the Iraqi crisis. Iranian officials have voiced openness to working with the Americans in helping Baghdad repel a Sunni Muslim insurgency.

While deploring the "ungodly horror" of the bloodshed in Iraq, Steinitz said Iran should not be helped to extend its sway in Iran where fellow Shi'ite Muslims form the majority.

That, he said would give Tehran an arc of control running through Syria, where the Iranians back embattled President Bashar al-Assad, and on to Lebanon, where they have powerful allies in the Hezbollah militia.

"And we would especially not want for a situation to be created where, because both the United States and Iran support the government of (Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri) al-Maliki, it softens the American positions on the issue which is most critical for the peace of the world, which is the Iranian nuclear issue," Steinitz said in an interview.

Even before the Iraq crisis, Israel was concerned about Iran's nuclear talks with Washington and five other powers, aimed at ensuring Iran is not developing atomic weapons capability.

Israel fears Tehran would be able to shake off international sanctions built up over the last decade.

Steinitz was cautiously optimistic that the negotiations would be unaffected by any international involvement in Iraq.

"We are troubled, but we have been made to understand by everyone - the Americans and the British and the French and the Germans - that a total separation will be enforced," he said.

Steinitz said such a separation of policies would be similar to Russia's participation alongside Western powers in the Iranian nuclear talks even as it spars with them over Ukraine.

Neither Washington nor Tehran, old adversaries with often contrary interests in the Middle East, have articulated how they might cooperate in Iraq.

Washington has no appetite to send troops back to the country it occupied for almost a decade, but the Obama administration has suggested it could carry out air strikes against insurgents.

Steinitz, who regularly confers with the United States about the Iranian nuclear negotiations and other regional issues, said he did not know what actions the Americans might take in Iraq.

Western diplomats suspect Iran has in the past sent some of its Revolutionary Guards, an elite force separate from the regular army, to train and advise the Iraqi army or allied militia. During its occupation of Iraq, the United States said some attacks on its forces had Iranian help.

Iran says it has never sent forces to Iraq but might now assist the Maliki government with advisers and weaponry.

Another Israeli security official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said deeper Iranian commitment in Iraq could make Tehran more accommodating in the nuclear talks as it might feel over-extended and reluctant to spark further crises.

"They would have to redirect resources, perhaps even pull their forces out of Syria to send to Iraq instead," the second Israeli official said. "Let them sink into that new quagmire."

Steinitz rejected this view, however, saying: "I would never look to solve one travesty with another travesty."
Date:
Monday, June 16, 2014

Operation 'Return Our Sons' Largest West Bank Incursion In More Than a Decade

 
Jun. 15, 2014 - 05:58PM   |  

By BARBARA OPALL-ROME   |  

 
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — Israel is beefing up boots on the ground in a West Bank incursion of paratroopers, infantry and special forces dubbed “Return Our Sons,” an operation aimed at recovering three teens abducted while hitchhiking on June 12.
As of late June 15, more than three Israel Defense Forces (IDF) brigades, Shin Bet security teams and elite units were operating primarily in the area south of Hebron, where officials suspect Hamas operatives associated with Hamas may be holding the captives.
With select reserve forces taking up positions elsewhere in so-called Area C where Israel maintains full control of the disputed territory, the operation marks the largest West Bank incursion since Israel’s 2002 Defensive Shield campaign, sources here say.
“It’s a substantial operation,” an IDF officer told Defense News of the more than three brigades of paratroopers, Nahal and Kfir infantry and elite units already deployed.
He declined to speculate on how long the operation would last if forces were unable to locate the missing Israelis, one of whom holds US citizenship.
The operational assumption is that the captives are still in the West Bank, but officials are not ruling out other scenarios.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said June 15 that Israel knew “for a fact” that Hamas operatives abducted the three teens. Nevertheless, he vowed to hold Palestine Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas accountable for terror emanating from the territory now administered by his new consensus government backed by Hamas.
“Instead of abiding by his international obligation to disarm Hamas, President Abbas has chosen to make Hamas his partner. Israel holds the PA and President Abbas responsible for any attacks against Israel that emanate from Palestinian controlled territory,” Netanyahu warned.
Netanyahu rejected as “patently absurd” PA claims that it could not be expected to enforce security in an area under full Israeli control.
“When an attack takes place in Tel Aviv or in London or in New York ... the question is not where the attack takes place. The question is where it originated,” Netanyahu said.
“The kidnappers in this case set out from territory controlled by the PA, and the PA cannot absolve itself of its responsibility,” he insisted.
But contrary to Netanyahu’s threatened action against Abbas and the new consensus government in Ramallah, US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Israel to cooperate with PA authorities in the West Bank.
In a June 15 statement, Kerry said Washington was still “seeking details on the parties responsible for this despicable terrorist act, although many indications point to Hamas’ involvement.”
Kerry called for “full cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian security services” in locating and returning the youths.
And while coordination between Israeli and Palestinian security forces was continuing as of late June 15, defense sources here warned against escalating confrontation with Abbas and his Fatah-led forces.
An IDF officer noted that the PA security forces were the first to locate and report a burned out vehicle near Hebron thought to transport the Israeli teens.
“They’re doing what they can for their own interests. They realize the significance of their role in all this; the more supportive they are, the sooner we can declare an end to this operation,” a top Israeli officer told Defense News. 

 

 
Date:
Friday, June 13, 2014

Published 6/12/2014 on the DailyCaller.com

By: Brendan Bordelon

Troops from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are already operating in Iraq, fighting alongside Iraqi forces against a lightning military offensive driven by ultra-violent Sunni Islamists.

The Wall Street Journal reports that two battalions of Quds Forces, Iran’s foreign-deployed special forces who are already battling Islamist rebels across Syria, have been redeployed to the central Iraqi town of Tikrit — the birthplace of Saddam Hussein just 100 miles from the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Representatives from the two Shi’ite Muslim governments confirmed that joint Iraqi-Iranian forces recaptured around 85 percent of Tikrit from Sunni fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which had rolled into town just a few hours previously.

The news of collaboration between a nominal American ally and a longtime archenemy comes as the Iraqi state unravels. On Tuesday, the northern city of Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest — fell to ISIS, sparking a massive humanitarian crisis as up to 500,000 people fled the bloodthirsty terror group.

Reports indicate that the Iraqi military abandoned their posts without firing a shot, leaving behind large caches of military equipment paid for with U.S. taxpayer dollars. ISIS has since repurposed this equipment for their ongoing sweep south to Baghdad.

The terror group is already alleged to have carried out mass beheadings of Shi’a “infidels” and has promised to march on the Shi’ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala — likely prompting Iran to rush to the aid of their co-religionists.

In addition to deploying special forces to buttress a collapsing Iraqi military, Iran has fortified its western border and warned ISIS they will bomb any forces coming within 62 miles of its frontier.

Iraq has also requested U.S. assistance in the face of the implacable ISIS advance, reportedly requesting American airstrikes against armored terrorist columns.

President Obama says he “[doesn't] rule out anything” in terms of assistance to the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. And on Thursday morning Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Maliki, promising to “intensify and accelerate” U.S. support for Iraq’s security forces.

Neither the Iranian or American governments appear to have yet reacted to the fact that they are both supporting the Iraqi government — an odd turn for two nations locked in a cold war for the last 35 years.

 
Date:
Thursday, June 12, 2014
06/12/2014 17:08

88 US lawmakers send letter of "grave concern" to White House, warning that the new PA unity effort might "jeopardize direct negotiations with Israel to achieve a two-state solution."

 

Palestinian President Abbas meets with ministers of the unity government in Ramallah Photo: REUTERS

WASHINGTON -- The US Senate sent a united message of "grave concern" to US President Barack Obama on Thursday regarding the formation of a reconciliation government between Fatah and Hamas, and what the move might require of Congress in determining future US aid to the Palestinians.

88 senators from across party lines signed the letter sent to the White House, written by Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Susan Collins (R-ME), which warns the new PA unity effort might "jeopardize direct negotiations with Israel to achieve a two-state solution."

"The recent formation of a Palestinian Authority unity government supported by Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization that has never publicly accepted the Quartet principles, represents a serious setback to efforts to achieve peace," the senators wrote.

Citing recent appropriations law, which calls for an end to assistance to the PA should Hamas share power in the government or exert "undue influence" over its government, the Senate said the law is clear and warned the president that the chamber would reconsider future aid.

"Any assistance should only be provided when we have confidence that this new government is in full compliance with the restrictions contained in current law," the letter reads.

The State Department considers the current government an interim body, occupied by technocrats unaffiliated with either Palestinian party. Given those circumstances, the Obama administration plans on monitoring the political developments while continuing aid, officials say.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which helped circulate the letter through the halls of the Senate, "commended" the bipartisan group in a statement. They have publicly called for a debate on Capitol Hill on the continuation of aid to the PA.

 
Date:
Wednesday, June 11, 2014



JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's parliament has chosen Reuven Rivlin, a stalwart in the ruling Likud Party, as the country's next president.

It chose Rivlin, a former parliament speaker and Cabinet minister, in a secret runoff ballot Tuesday, over longtime legislator Meir Sheetrit, by 63 to 53.

Rivlin now faces the difficult task of succeeding Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate who brought the position international prestige.

The job of the presidency is largely ceremonial. But Rivlin's political views could be a liability.

He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, putting him at odds with the international community and even his own prime minister.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

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