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Pro-Israel News

Wednesday, May 14, 2014
May 12, 2014 6:47 p.m. ET

John Kerry began the year trying to bring representatives of the Assad regime together with rebel leaders in Geneva to end the civil war in Syria.

It was bound to fail. It failed. Strike one.

Next, the secretary of state worked tirelessly to create a framework agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, with a view to settling their differences once and for all.

It was bound to fail. It failed. Strike two.

This week, U.S. negotiators and their counterparts from the P5+1—the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany—will meet in Vienna with Iranian negotiators to work out the details of a final nuclear agreement.

You know where this is going.

There's been a buzz about these negotiations, with Western diplomats extolling the unfussy way their Iranian counterparts have approached the talks. Positions are said to be converging; technical solutions on subjects like the plutonium reactor in Arak are being discussed. Last month Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif said there was "50 to 60 percent agreement."

All this is supposed to bode well for a deal to be concluded by the July deadline. If the Iranians are wise, they'll take whatever is on the table and give Mr. Kerry the diplomatic win he so desperately wants. Time is on Tehran's side. It can sweeten the terms of the agreement later on—including the further lifting of sanctions—through the usual two-step of provocation and negotiation.

The only thing Iran has to fear is an Israeli military strike. For that to happen, Jerusalem needs (or believes it needs) conditions that are both militarily and diplomatically permissive. By agreeing to a deal, the Iranians further restrict Israel's options without permanently restricting their own.

But Iran is not wise. It is merely cunning. And fanatical. Also greedy, thanks to a long history of being deceitful and obstreperous and still getting its way without having to pay a serious price. So it will allow this round of negotiations to fail and bargain instead for an extension of the current interim agreement. It will get the extension and then play for time again. There will never be a final deal.

Why am I so confident? Listen to the man with the last word first: "They expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly threaten Iran with military action," Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Sunday. "So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation. The Revolutionary Guards should definitely carry out their program and not be satisfied with the present level. They should mass produce."

Ballistic missiles are lousy weapons for anything except the rapid delivery of chemical or nuclear warheads. (The 39 Iraqi Scuds that hit Israel in 1991 killed two people.) But limiting the number and range of ballistic missiles is central to any agreement that aims to prevent Iran from having a rapid nuclear-breakout capability. Mr. Khamenei's public call to mass produce missiles is not exactly an indication of seriousness about a final deal.

Also a sign of non-seriousness was last month's call by Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, to add an additional 30,000 centrifuges to Iran's existing 19,000. "So far we have produced seven to eight tons of enriched uranium," he said. But he wants Iran to produce 30 tons, ostensibly to fuel the civilian nuclear plant at Bushehr. And that's 30 tons a year. A single ton of civilian-grade uranium suffices, with further enrichment, for a single atomic bomb.

Still not getting the drift? "Iran will not retreat one step in the field of nuclear technology," said one prominent Iranian over the weekend. "We have nothing to put on the table and offer to them but transparency. That's it. Our nuclear technology is not up for negotiation."

That's Iranian President Hasan Rouhani speaking. For good measure, he added that Iran would go back to producing 20% enriched uranium—which is close to weapon-grade—"whenever necessary." And he's the moderate. Even the Obama administration cannot accept a deal that allows Iran to expand its centrifuge capabilities or enrich uranium to 20%.

The hardening of Tehran's negotiating position is another reminder of the blunder the administration made when it agreed to the interim deal and then turned on Congress to prevent automatic sanctions in the event Iran failed to make a final deal. "Show that you are strong, and you will see results"—such was the advice Mr. Rouhani confidentially offered an Israeli agent posing as a U.S. official in 1986 on how to deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini. The advice is still sound.

In the meantime, the administration needs to think about what it will do when Mr. Kerry strikes out. Is there a Plan B, other than the president's now trademark mix of hollow threats and soliloquies on the limits of presidential power? I doubt it. Goethe wrote that nothing is worse than aggressive stupidity, which is true. But pompous impotence surely comes in second place, and this administration combines aspects of both.

The Israelis may sit still through all this. But Mr. Kerry shouldn't count on it.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

TEL AVIV, Israel –  Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison for his role in wide-ranging bribery case, capping a stunning fall from grace for one of the most powerful men in the country.

The Tel Aviv district court handed down the punishment in the Jerusalem real estate scandal case related to Olmert's activities before becoming prime minister in 2006. Tuesday's sentencing followed a guilty verdict that was handed down by the same court in March.

The 68-year-old Olmert, who stood stoically in the courtroom in a navy blue shirt, has insisted he is innocent and that he never took a bribe.

Olmert's spokesman Amir Dan said he would appeal both the verdict and the sentence to Israel's Supreme Court.

"This is a sad day where a serious and unjust verdict is expected to be delivered against an innocent man," Dan said, shortly before sentencing.

According to the verdict, millions of dollars illegally changed hands to promote a series of real estate projects, including a controversial housing development in Jerusalem that required a radical change in zoning laws and earned developers tax breaks and other benefits.

At the time, Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and was accused of taking bribes to push the project forward.

Olmert was forced to resign as prime minister in 2009 amid a flurry of corruption allegations.

At the center of the case was the Holyland housing development, a hulking hilltop project that Jerusalem residents long suspected was tainted by corruption.

The case broke in 2010 on the strength of a businessman, Shmuel Dechner, who was involved in the project and turned state's witness. Dechner died last year from an illness.

The indictment against Olmert laid out one of the largest corruption scandals ever exposed in Israel.

It accused Olmert of seeking money, through a middleman, from Holyland developers to help out his brother, Yossi, who fled Israel because of financial problems. According to the indictment, Yossi Olmert received about $100,000.

Ehud Olmert was also accused of asking the middleman to help out city engineer Uri Sheetrit, who also had money woes. Sheetrit later dropped his opposition to the broad expansion of the Holyland complex, which burgeoned from a small development into a massive, high-rise project that sticks out from its low-rise neighbors. According to the indictment, Sheetrit received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.

Among those also sentenced on Tuesday was Sheetrit, who was sent to prison for seven years. A series of other former government officials, developers and businesspeople were sentenced to terms of between three to five years.

Judge David Rozen ordered all those sentenced to appear before the prison service on Sept. 1.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Elliott Abrams

May 9, 2014 10:08 AM

Last night Martin Indyk, now the chief assistant to Secretary of State Kerry in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, spoke at length to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. One account of his speech appears here at the Times of Israel's web site.

In the speech Indyk cast blame on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian, for the breakdown of the talks. There are a couple of things to say about his remarks, beginning with his failure to cast any blame on the third side of the triangle: the United States, or more precisely Kerry and Indyk himself. Blaming his boss, and his boss's boss, President Obama, was more than could legitimately have been expected from Indyk, but a wee bit of introspection was not. Historians will not have to be consulted decades from now to analyze the manifold errors in Obama administration handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the errors have been obvious from day one. Or day two, to be more accurate, when the president selected former senator George Mitchell as his special envoy.

It was down hill from there, as Mitchell began by insisting on a 100 percent Israeli construction freeze in the major blocks and Jerusalem as a prerequisite for negotiations. This was a condition on which Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas had never insisted. The result was four years, Mr. Obama's entire first term, without any negotiations.

That story is worth noting because Indyk has continued the obsession over settlements—and the supply of misinformation about them. He spoke last night of "rampant" settlement expansion. In his "background" interview with the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea last week, he spoke of "large scale land confiscation" for settlement expansion. Here he is following the president, who recently spoke of "aggressive construction."

Last night Indyk said this, according to the transcripts I have seen:

Just during the past nine months of negotiations, tenders for building 4,800 units were announced and planning was advanced for another 8,000 units. It’s true that most of the tendered units are slated to be built in areas that even Palestinian maps in the past have indicated would be part of Israel. Yet the planning units were largely outside that area in the West Bank. And from the Palestinian experience, there is no distinction between planning and building. Indeed, according to the Israeli Bureau of Census and Statistics, from 2012 to 2013 construction starts in West Bank settlements more than doubled.

These numbers are meaningless and misleading. There is no "rampant" expansion or "large scale land confiscation" for settlements. First, there is certainly a difference between what is announced and what is built. Under the Israeli system, all construction in the West Bank requires several levels of approval, and not every project that gets initial approval gets built. Second, every level of approval is announced triumphantly by the settlement movement, so one reads press stories of approvals for the same project over and over as months pass. This makes it seems as if there are constant approvals, when in fact there are constant repetitions. Indyk surely knows this.

Third, the numbers are simply wrong. Uri Sadot and I wrote about this in the Washington Post, after a careful look at the statistics. Here is part of what we said:

Israel built 2,534 housing units last year in the West Bank. Of these, about a quarter (694) were in two major blocs near Jerusalem, Giv’at Ze’ev and Betar Illit, and 537 were in two other major blocs, Modiin Illit and Ma’ale Adumim, also near Jerusalem. These four, which will remain part of Israel, account for half of last year’s construction....only 908 units were built last year in Israeli townships of 10,000 residents or fewer. And most of those units were built in settlement towns that are part of the major blocs. Units built in areas that would become part of Palestine number in the hundreds — and likely in the low hundreds. Given that about 90,000 Israelis live in the West Bank outside the blocs, that is approximately the rate of natural growth.

Indyk may be suggesting that this pace (slower than that of Ehud Barak, the last Labor prime minister) may be about to explode--8,000 units to be built in small settlements, not in the major blocks, and beyond the fence line, in territory that is not obviously going to remain part of Israel. I'd like to see the evidence. So far the numbers are evidence of efforts by Netanyahu to constrain construction in the small settlements and of a continuing obsession on this subject by Indyk, and by Obama. I would also like to see the evidence of "large scale land confiscation," to which Indyk referred in his background interview. Where exactly, and how much land, exactly? Until Indyk tells us, this can only be treated as a damaging and baseless charge.

It is worth repeating why the details matter. If Israel builds now inside settlement borders of major blocks it will certainly keep in any final peace agreement, it is not disadvantaging Palestinians today nor is it making a final peace  harder to achieve. In the years between Barak's peace offer at Camp David in 2000 and Olmert's offer in 2008, Israel built thousands of units--yet Olmert made an even more generous offer than Barak eight years later, offering the Palestinians an even larger percentage of West Bank land. He was able to do so because the construction had been confined mostly to those major blocks.

I believe Israeli construction in small settlements beyond the fence line, in territory that it is assumed will be Palestine some day, is foolish: a waste of resources at the very least. But construction in the major blocks is not, nor was it an obstacle to peace talks before the Obama administration foolishly made it so.

Finally, it's worth noting that Indyk also said last night that “the parties...do not feel the pressing need to make the gut-wrenching compromises necessary to achieve peace.” Those compromises and taking the risks they entail require a firm belief in fully reliable, dependable American support. Sharon, for example, believed he had it when he decided to leave Gaza. The parties do not believe they have it today, and who can be surprised? On the Israeli side, the Obama administration has repeatedly used leaks and backgrounders to disparage the prime minister. And Israelis (and Palestinians) who watched the president flip his position on Syria's chemical weapons—from an air strike one day, to a deal with the Russians the next, without consultation with anyone—can hardly credit the administration's solidity. Moreover, Israelis must recall what happened to the assurances Bush gave Israel in his famous April 14, 2004 letter to Sharon: the Obama administration has treated them as without force, as if this had been a private letter rather than a presidential commitment soon approved by both houses of Congress in huge majorities. Similarly, the administration said the agreement Bush and Sharon reached on settlements simply did not exist, when in fact that agreement had been referred to publicly on a dozen occasions. This is no way to persuade Israeli leaders to take "gut wrenching" risks because they are sure they can rely on American support.

But of all that Indyk had nothing whatsoever to say, choosing instead to tell a tale of brilliant American diplomacy and of Israeli and Palestinian failures. As was famously said in the neighborhood a long time ago (Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, Luke 4:23), "Physician, heal thyself."

 

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem on March 31, 2014. (Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office/FLASH90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Now that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have screeched to a halt, U.S. officials are apportioning blame, and a big share is going to Israel.

In an interview with Nahum Barnea, a veteran diplomatic affairs writer for the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, anonymous members of the U.S. negotiating team said Israel’s settlement activity was a principal cause of the breakdown in talks last month.

“There are a lot of reasons for the peace effort’s failure, but people in Israel shouldn’t ignore the bitter truth — the primary sabotage came from the settlements,” one of the officials said. “The Palestinians don’t believe that Israel really intends to let them found a state when, at the same time, it is building settlements on the territory meant for that state.”

It seemed clear that a U.S. pullback from the process was in the works now, said Aaron David Miller, a U.S. Middle East peace negotiator under Democratic and Republican presidents, who said he had read through the Barnea interview four times over the weekend.

“The traction required to sustain this process, to weather all of the bad behaviors on each side, isn’t there,” said Miller, who is now a vice president at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank.

There had appeared for the last few weeks to be internal debate within the Obama administration over whether to keep trying to get the sides back to the table despite increasingly acrimonious exchanges between Israel and the Palestinians, or whether to take a break.

President Obama in an April 25 press conference seemed ready to take a break. “There may come a point at which there just needs to be a pause and both sides need to look at the alternatives,” he said.

Marie Harf, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, on Monday for the first time confirmed to reporters that the talks were “suspended” when she was asked about the Barnea article. Israel had formally suspended the talks on April 24, but Secretary of State John Kerry had kept his team in the region in hopes of getting the sides back together.

Martin Indyk, the top U.S. negotiator, has “returned to the United States for consultations with the secretary and the White House,” Harf said. “As we assess the next steps in the U.S. efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace — it is premature, quite frankly, to speculate on what those steps will be or what will happen.”

She denied reports that Kerry was disbanding his negotiations team and that Indyk was returning to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, which he led before rejoining government last year.

Natan Sachs, a fellow at the Saban Center, said Kerry and Obama had nowhere to go but to “pause.”

“The perception that Kerry owns it more than the parties themselves has reached its limit,” he said. “Now they have to push it back to the sides and let them make their own decisions. I don’t think the United States has fundamentally lost its interest in finding a solution.”

Blaming Israel would be counterproductive, Miller said.

“The notion that the peace process collapsed because of settlement activity is a willful distortion of reality,” he said. “It’s not to say that settlements are not harmful, that building tenders don’t exacerbate tensions — but that is not why Kerry’s 9-10 month effort collapsed.”

The sides, Miller said, were simply too far apart on the core issues, including borders, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and the recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jews.

“The maximum that Netanyahu can offer on all core issues doesn’t come close to the minimum that anyone on the Palestinian side can accept,” he said. “This maximum-minimum problem is in essence the fundamental cause and has been for years. We can whine and complain about it, but you need to acknowledge it.”

Einat Wilf, a former Knesset member who was in the Labor Party and then the breakaway Independence faction, said the Americans were recognizing the reality that they could not force the process.

“If the Israelis and Palestinians are not reaching an agreement, it is not because they need an enthusiastic mediator,” said Wilf, who was visiting with Washington. “They are not incapable children. If they are not making decisions, it is because they are assessing their alternatives.”

The officials quoted in Barnea’s article had high praise for Tzipi Livni, the justice minister and top negotiator. Livni has spoken out loudly about the urgency of achieving a two-state solution and sharply criticized her right-wing partners in Israel’s governing coalition.

Wilf said the Barnea interview was emblematic of a phenomenon whereby American negotiators internalize the dissent they hear from Israelis.

Citing another example, Kerry’s recent use of “apartheid” to describe the dangers to Israel of not achieving a peace agreement, Wilf said, “He listens to what Israelis say about themselves, and then says it.”

Wilf, who emphasized that she did not believe Kerry was intentionally endangering Israel, said repeating words like “apartheid” in international arenas played into the hands of those who would delegitimize Israel.

Sachs, who also had read the Barnea interview, said that the U.S. officials’ critiques were a boon to Israel’s enemies.

“Those who are prone to blame Israel for everything will have an easier time blaming Israel,” he said.

Harf, the State Department spokeswoman, was careful to blame both sides in her briefing Monday for reporters, noting the Palestinians’ application to join international conventions and their unity talks with Hamas.

“On the Palestinian side, the appeal to 15 different treaties while we’re actively working to secure a prisoner release, as well as the announcement of the Fatah/Hamas reconciliation agreement at the moment we were working for a formula to extend the negotiations, really combined to make it impossible to extend the negotiations,” she said.

On Israel’s side, she cited the failure by Netanyahu’s government to meet a March 29 deadline to release the final 26 of 104 prisoners Israel had agreed to let go to resume talks last July, as well as the announcement of settlement starts in eastern Jerusalem.

“On the Israeli side, large-scale settlement announcements, a failure to release the fourth tranche of prisoners on time, and then the announcement of 700 settlement tenders at a very sensitive moment, really combined to undermine the efforts to extend the negotiations,” she said. “So I would very much take notion with the fact that this was just one side. Both sides did things here that were very unhelpful.”

 

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Two weeks after the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal, the PA agrees to transfer 3,000 security forces to Gaza.

It’s a homecoming of sorts. Almost seven years after the terrorist organization Hamas violently ousted Fatah, the political party that rules the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian media reported on Sunday that 3,000 Palestinian Authority police officers will join the Gaza government’s security forces.

Two weeks ago, the two rival Palestinian groups agreed to form a unity government within five weeks and hold a national election after six months.

However, the Hamas Fatah reconciliation already looks tenuous given the political factions’ long history of enmity, as well as very different ideologies vis-à-vis Israel.

Can a Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation Survive?

Despite the recent unity deal, Hamas recently stated that it will not disarm its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. A Hamas official also negated any possibility that the Qassam Brigades would merge with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.

“Dissolving the Qassam Brigades is out of the question, and those asking for that are dreaming. The Hamas Fatah reconciliation will not be at the expense of the military wings of the resistance, which represent the national army of the state of Palestine. Handing over Qassam weapons is impossible and nonnegotiable,” a Hamas official told theAl-Monitor news website.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas (left) and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (right) announce a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement.

Another sticking point in the Hamas Fatah reconciliation is the Hamas group’s continuedrefusal to recognize Israel. Last week, a number of Hamas officials rushed to clarify their movement’s rejection of Israel following indications by PA leaders that Hamas would abide by previously signed agreements.

The fundamentalist Hamas organization refuses to renounce using force against Israel and is classified as a terrorist organization by, among others, the United States and the European Union, due to its many attacks against Israeli civilians.

In contrast, the secular Western-backed Fatah seeks to iron out a deal with the Israeli government that will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

Since Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, numerous Hamas Fatah reconciliation attempts have been made. Despite a number of agreements, those attempts have not been successful.

On April 23, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh announced they had agreed to a Hamas Fatah reconciliation. As a result, the peace talks between Israel and the PA collapsed, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that the talks are “essentially buried” if Abbas follows through with his commitment to reconcile with Hamas.

Written by Gidon Ben-Zvi
Staff Writer, United with Israel

Monday, May 5, 2014

 05.01.2014 

The day after J Street failed in its bid for admission to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the backlash about the vote is growing. The group that represents the largest denomination of American Jewry, the Union of Reform Judaism, is demanding that the Conference change its one group, one vote policy while also openly threatening to leave the umbrella group. An official of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly is also demanding changes. Meanwhile liberal commentators are blasting the Conference for its 22-17 vote to deny entry the left-wing lobby and making extravagant claims about this vote symbolizing the growing alienation of the Jewish establishment from the wishes of most of those it purports to represent.

Which means that, all things considered, it was a very good day for J Street. As I predicted yesterday before the vote was held, a defeat at the Conference was the best possible outcome for the left-wing organization that came into existence not to fit in and cooperate with existing Jewish groups and coalitions but to blow them up. The negative vote enables J Street and its various left-wing sympathizers to play the victim and boosts their agenda to first delegitimize groups like the Conference and AIPAC and then to replace them.

But while it is understandable that the Reform and Conservative movements would join the lament about J Street’s defeat in order to assuage some of their liberal constituents who support the left-wing lobby, they should be careful about advancing any agenda that could undermine umbrella groups like the Conference. While such organizations can seem at times to be irrelevant to the day-to-day business of American Jewry, they still serve a vital purpose. If the non-Orthodox denominations help J Street destroy them, they will soon learn that not only will it be difficult to replace them but also they and their constituents will not be well served by the politicized chaos that follows.

Only hours after their defeat J Street was already attempting to make hay from the vote with a fundraising email sent out to their list. It read, in part:

“Thank you, Malcolm Hoenlein and the Conference of Presidents.”

Yesterday’s rejection of our bid to join the Conference validates the reason for J Street: those claiming to speak for the entire Jewish community don’t in fact represent the full diversity of pro-Israel views in our community—or even its prevailing views.

Thus despite J Street leader Jeremy Ben-Ami’s public expression of disappointment about the vote, the group was clearly prepared all along to exploit a rejection to further their campaign to brand both AIPAC and the Conference as out of touch. J Street came into existence hoping to do just that, but over the course of the last five years failed miserably to do so. Though J Street’s raison d’être was to serve as a Jewish cheerleader for Obama administration pressure on Israel, it has little influence on Capitol Hill and has even, to its dismay, sometimes been repudiated by a president it supports unconditionally. Thus it hopes to use this incident to gain more traction against mainstream groups.

But those, like Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev, who are using this vote to bash pro-Israel groups should be asking themselves why so many members of the Conference which already includes left-wing organizations like Americans for Peace Now and Ameinu would vote against adding one more to their ranks. The reason is that many centrist groups clearly resented J Street’s unwarranted pretensions to speak for American Jewry and to undermine the broad-based AIPAC.

The Conference was created to provide a way for a diverse and cantankerous Jewish community a single structure with which it could deal with the U.S. government. The point was, though its members have often disagreed and true consensus between left and right is often impossible, the Conference still provides Congress and the executive branch an address through which they can reach a broad and diverse coalition of Jewish organizations. Adding one more on the left wouldn’t have changed that but unlike other left-leaning groups, J Street has never had any interest in playing ball with rivals or allies. Its purpose is not to enrich and broaden that consensus but to destroy it. And that was something that groups that had no real ideological fight with J Street rightly feared.

Moreover, the arguments that only groups like J Street can speak to Jewish youth are also easily debunked. Rather than seek to bolster the efforts of pro-Israel groups on American campuses, J Street’s cohorts seem more interested in making common cause with anti-Zionist and pro-BDS groups than in standing together with the courageous Jews who are resisting the boycotters.

But if the Reform and Conservative movements aid J Street in this effort what follows won’t aid their cause. If the formal structures of American Jewry split between those backed by the centrist establishment and the J Street-led left, this won’t advance the cause of Israel or the interests of American Jews. Dividing the Jews in this manner will only serve the cause of those who wish to wage war on Israel’s democratically elected government and to widen the splits between Jerusalem and Washington. That isn’t something that any group that calls itself “pro-Israel” should want. Non-Orthodox Jews who wish to bolster the position of their members in the Jewish state should also be especially wary of anything that will make it harder to make their voices heard in Jerusalem.

Whatever one may think of the Conference or of its decision to play into J Street’s hands with this rejection, the notion that including the left-wing group would strengthen Jewish unity or the community’s outreach to youth is a myth. J Street may have failed miserably in its effort to defeat AIPAC in Washington, but its campaign to trash the pro-Israel consensus and replace it with one that seeks to undermine the Jewish state is still very much alive.

Friday, May 2, 2014

Israel is set to pay tribute to 23,169 casualties of war and terrorism who have fallen since 1860.

On Sunday evening, events marking the Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism will be held around the country.

The Defense Ministry said 57 newly fallen had been added to the casualty count since the last Day of Remembrance in 2013, and that an additional 50 disabled IDF veterans died due to their disability.

The number of bereaved family members stands at 17,038, of which 2,141 are orphans, and 4,966are IDF widows.

The Defense Ministry is preparing for the arrival of over a million and a half people at military cemeteries across the country.

A minute-long siren will ring out on Sunday at 8 p.m., marking the start of the Day of Remembrance. A two-minute siren will be heard on Monday, at 11 a.m, marking the start of official memorial ceremonies that will be held at 52 military cemeteries.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon lit a virtual candle on Thursday, using a Facebook application to mark Memorial Day, and said, "Remembering the fallen is a moral debt we all have, since through their deaths, they promised us life," Ya'alon said.

On Wednesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz placed a flag on the gravestone of a fallen soldier at the military cemetery in Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.

"The gravestones of the fallen look similar, and the earth that covers them is the same earth – the soil of Israel which they loved – but each and every one of the soldiers buried here is a unique shade of Israeli society," he said. "They united for one common goal, safeguarding the security of the state of Israel."

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
02/05/2014
 

 

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

BY CRISPIAN BALMER AND NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

GAZA Tue Apr 29, 2014

HRead of Hamas security services Salah Abu Sharekh (L) speaks with senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar (R) during a graduation ceremony for members of Hamas security forces in Gaza City January 2, 2013.

(Reuters) - A Palestinian unity deal will not lead Islamist group Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist and will not result in any Gaza militants coming under President Mahmoud Abbas's control, a senior Hamas official said on Tuesday.

Veteran Hamas strategist Mahmoud Al-Zahar told Reuters the group, which runs the Gaza Strip, was waiting for Abbas to form a unity government, but said the Palestinian leader was taking his time in an effort to overcome U.S. and Israeli opposition.

Hamas, which is viewed as a terrorist group by many Western capitals, unexpectedly agreed with Abbas last week to lay aside old animosities and create a transitional cabinet paving the way to long-overdue elections across the Palestinian Territories.

The reconciliation accord angered Israel, which promptly suspended floundering peace talks with the Western-backed Abbas, saying it would not negotiate with any administration backed by Hamas.

Zahar, who is one of Hamas's most influential voices, said Abbas only decided to seek unity because the U.S.-driven negotiations were leading nowhere, but predicted he would take his time trying to assemble a government of technocrats.

"He is trying to overcome a great wave of pressure. We are waiting," said Zahar, adding that Hamas had already handed across lists of names of possible ministers.

Hamas's elder statesman, who has had spiky relations with the group's leadership, said Abbas was using the unity deal to put heat on Israel, but that he was also worried by a U.S. threat to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in vital aid.

"He is seeking a guarantee that U.S. financial support will continue," Zahar said, speaking from his well-guarded house.

Looking to reassure Western allies, Abbas said the new government would recognize Israel and honor previous treaties. Zahar dismissed this as a hollow gesture, saying the ministers would be academics with no political authority.

"Abbas is not telling them the truth. He says 'this is my government'. But it is not his government. It is a government of

national unity. He is marketing it in this way to minimize the pressure," said Zahar, who took part in the unity negotiations.

Hamas leaders have said in the past that the movement could live peacefully alongside Israel if it wins a state on all Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967, although the Islamist group's 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and for recovering all mandate Palestine. But it continues to say it will not recognize Israel officially.

ARMED WING

The unity pact follows a trail of previous, failed efforts to overcome the deep schism that has traumatized Palestinian politics. Agreed in just a few hours, it sidestepped one of the most sensitive issues - who would be in charge of security.

Hamas's armed wing has some 20,000 men in its ranks. Abbas has his own, Western-trained forces, that often cooperate with Israeli troops and police in the nearby West Bank - a practice that Zahar called "shameful".

Zahar said Hamas would remain in charge of its own troops regardless of the latest deal and irrespective of who won national elections, that are slated for later this year.

"Nobody will touch the security sections in Gaza. No one will be able to touch one person from the military group. Nobody asked for that," he said, sitting next to a photograph of one of two sons who were killed in Israeli attacks.

Hamas won the last legislative elections held in the Palestinian Territories in 2006 and then seized control of Gaza after ousting forces loyal to Abbas a year later.

It appeared to be on the ascendance when fellow-Islamists were elected to office in neighboring Egypt, but its fortunes crumpled following last year's military coup in Cairo, with the new army-backed rulers launching a fierce crackdown on Hamas.

Hundreds of smuggling tunnels connecting Gaza to Egypt were destroyed, compounding an Israeli blockade on the Palestinian enclave, that restricts movement of goods and people.

Zahar said divisions in Egypt were a "catastrophe" for the region. He also acknowledged that once deep ties with Iran had not fully recovered after Hamas had refused to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his on-going civil war.

"We have a good relation (with Iran), but you know the impact of the Syrian problem is still a factor. ... The communication is not as it was," he said, declining to give details of Iranian funding for Hamas.

Some political analysts said Hamas's international problems had spurred it towards reviving the reconciliation pact. But Zahar said Abbas, whose mandate expired five years ago, had made the overture because peace talks with Israel were at a dead end.

"He is very weak," said Zahar.

Hamas has regularly clashed with Israel, fighting two major conflicts in 2008/09 and again in 2012. The last confrontation ended in a truce that resulted in months of relative quiet.

Sporadic rocket fire out of Gaza and into Israel picked up at the start of the year, amid mutual recriminations over who was to blame for the truce deal fraying.

However, Zahar said not all the missile attacks were sanctioned by Hamas, accusing some small groups of actively seeking to destabilize Gaza - including last week at the time the unity deal with Abbas was being concluded.

"Why when we signed the agreement did 20 dancing rockets go to Israel? It was not Hamas.... It was not done for Palestinian reasons. It was against Palestinian interests. Palestinian interests are to have this unity agreement," he said.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

By JPOST.COM STAFF
29/04/2014

Turkish PM says agreement on Turkish aide to Palestinians only delay to assigning ambassadors, resuming diplomatic relations.

In an exclusive interview with American journalist Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that an agreement on compensation between Turkey and Israel had been reached and that normalization between the two countries was, "a matter of days, weeks" away. However, he also stated that discussions about Turkish humanitarian aide to Palestinians was holding up a finalization of the agreement. 

Israeli diplomatic officials disputed assertions by the Turkish media on Monday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was delaying approval of a compensation agreement with Turkey that would bring to an end theMavi Marmara saga. At that time the Hurriyet Daily News quoted diplomatic sources as saying that the agreement was finalized and submitted to Netanyahu and Erdogan, and that Netanyahu had been “avoiding ratifying the deal for at least two months.”

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to respond to either report.

Israeli sources have stated that despite reaching an agreement on compensation, government approval in Ankara would be needed for new legislation, since the deal would require ending current and future legal proceedings against IDF commanders and officers.

Just before last month’s municipal elections in Turkey, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc was quoted as saying a compensation deal would be signed just after the elections, and diplomatic relations would be fully restored.

Israeli and Turkish diplomats met four times in the last year, working up to an agreement that would conclude the process of normalization of relations. A process that began with Netanyahu’s apology last year for any mistakes that led to the death of nine Turkish activists on the Turkish ship trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Herb Keinon contributed to this report

 

Monday, April 28, 2014
04/28/2014 14:21
 

Kharkiv has been site of clashes between supporters of new gov't in Kiev and those in favor of federalization.

 

Ukrainian Mayor Gennady Kernes Photo: COURTESY WWW.CITY.KHARKOV.UA

Gennady Kernes, the Jewish mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine, was shot and wounded on Monday, Interfax-Ukraine has reported. Kernes was a strong supporter of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych. The Interior Ministry announced that local police are investigating. The motives for the shooting are still unclear.

Kernes was shot in the back earlier today, his press secretary told Interfax. “He is currently in intensive care. Doctors are fighting for his life. Surgery is under way,” she said.

Kharkiv is one of the most pro-Russian cities in the country’s Russian speaking east and was one of the only locations in which government forces have been able to dislodge separatists occupying government buildings. Kernes initially exhibited separatist leanings but later recanted, supporting the new administration in Kiev.

The city has been the site of ongoing clashes between supporters of the new administration in Kiev and those in favor of federalization. Fourteen people were injured in a flight between the two factions on Sunday.

After Yanukovych’s ouster in February, Kernes temporarily fled Ukraine. He has been accused by critics of sending gangs to attack anti-government protesters in Kiev.

US President Barack Obama announced new sanctions against some Russians on Monday to stop President Vladimir Putin from fomenting the rebellion in eastern Ukraine, but said he was holding broader measures against Russia's economy "in reserve".

Reuters contributed to this report