(JTA) — Israel will not object to a planned 5 percent cut in the annual military aid package from the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said.

 

Under the sequester, the across-the-board cuts mandated by 2011 legislation, Washington is set to cut more than $150 million from the annual $3.1 billion package to Israel.

 

According to the Maariv daily, Netanyahu instructed Israeli officials in Washington not to ask the U.S. government for an exception from cuts.

“Israel did not seek an exception,” Maariv quoted Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, as saying. “We are willing to share in the burden.”

 

The planned cuts will likely affect Israel’s ability to purchase advanced F-35 stealth fighters, according to the report, 19 of which were supposed to be delivered in 2016.

 

Because of budgetary cuts in Washington, the Pentagon has slashed production of the F-35s, from 2,500 to 1,200 planes, thereby making each fighter more expensive.

 

The cuts are also expected to affect future joint military exercises between the two countries, Maariv reported.

 

Apparently unaffected is some $220 million President Obama has budgeted for the short-range Iron Dome missile defense system, which Israel claims successfully repelled more than 90 percent of rockets launched by Hamas in last November’s Gaza Strip war.

 

Appropriators in the U.S. House of Representatives have approved that sum, as well as an increase to $270 million of Obama’s $173 million request for missile defense cooperation programs separate from Iron Dome.

 

Less than a month after he was sworn in, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Thursday abruptly submitted his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas.

PA officials in Ramallah said Abbas would decide in the coming hours whether to accept the resignation.

Hamdallah, who until recently was president of An- Najah University in Nablus, offered his resignation even though Palestinians were still publishing advertisements in the media congratulating him and his new ministers.

A source close to Hamdallah said he submitted his letter of resignation to Hussein al- A’raj, director of the PA president’s bureau.

The source attributed the move to a power struggle between Hamdallah and his two deputies – Muhammad Mustafa and Ziad Abu Amr – who were appointed by Abbas.

“The prime minister feels that his deputies have been encroaching on his powers,” the source said.

After submitting his resignation Hamdallah left his office in Ramallah alone and drove in his private car to his home in the village of Anabta, east of Tulkarm.

A senior PA official told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency that Hamdallah had not clashed with Abbas. The real dispute was between Hamdallah and his two deputies, the official said.

On Thursday evening, senior PA officials headed from Ramallah to Hamdallah’s home to persuade him to withdraw his resignation.

Another PA source said that Hamdallah, whom Abbas appointed on June 2, quickly found himself in the same situation as his predecessor Salam Fayyad.

“Hamdallah discovered that the Palestinian Authority president wants him to serve as a yes-man with no powers,” the source explained. “Abbas wanted a prime minister who would play no role and only carry out orders from the president’s office.”

Abbas’s decision to appoint two deputy prime ministers with expanded powers to the new government was the first sign of the PA president’s intention to curtail the powers of Hamdallah.

Some Palestinians pointed out that the real prime minister was Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Muhammad Mustafa, who also serves as the director of the PLO’s Palestine Investment Fund.

Mustafa was initially reported to be Abbas’s favored candidate to replace Fayyad. It remains unclear why Abbas finally preferred Hamdallah over Mustafa.

“Hamdallah quit because he was lacking any authority,” said Palestinian political analyst Hani al-Masri. “He discovered that he was just another employee with the rank of prime minister. He had two deputies who were in charge of the political and economic portfolios.”

Masri said the swift resignation was an indication of the deep crisis plaguing the PA’s political system.

Muhammad Dahlan, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a former PA security commander, said he was not surprised by Hamdallah’s decision to resign.

Dahlan, often described as an arch-enemy of Abbas, said the resignation showed that the PA leadership in Ramallah was determined to “reproduce the same mistakes.”

Dahlan predicted that any new prime minister would also fail as long as Abbas refused to share powers with anyone.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian president and his Fatah movement on Wednesday signaled a tough line on talks with Israel, casting new doubt on U.S. efforts to revive long-stalled negotiations.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is returning to the region next week, his fifth attempt this year to bridge wide gaps between the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the ground rules for talks.

Abbas has said he won't negotiate unless Israel stops building in settlements on war-won lands or accepts its 1967 lines — before the capture of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in a Mideast war that year — as a starting point for border talks. The Palestinians claim all three areas for their future state.

Netanyahu has rejected the Palestinian demands, saying there should be no pre-conditions — though his predecessor conducted talks on the basis of the pre-1967 lines, and the international community views the settlements as illegal or illegitimate.

Abbas briefed Fatah leaders on Wednesday. In a statement after the meeting, Abbas adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Fatah supports Abbas in his positions and "affirmed its rejection of the pressures on Abbas and the leadership," an apparent reference to the Kerry mission.

Both Abbas and Netanyahu are waiting for Kerry to present the proposed U.S. terms for renewing talks. It's not clear what they are and if Kerry will present them during his upcoming visit.

Abu Rdeneh's statement suggested that Kerry failed to persuade Netanyahu to relent on a settlement freeze or accept the pre-1967 frontier as a baseline, saying that Abbas is being pressured to return to talks on Israeli terms. The statement also suggested there was no agreement on the release of veteran Palestinian prisoners by Israel — floated in the past as a possible goodwill gesture to bring Abbas to the table.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor called on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table immediately.

"It seems that the Palestinians still insist on reaching the last stage without bothering to go through chapter one, two and the rest," he said. "There are no shortcuts, and the only way to start negotiating is at the beginning, which means just start negotiating. It's as simple as that."

The U.S. State Department said Kerry would be in the Jordanian capital of Amman and Jerusalem from June 27-29 for talks on renewing negotiations.

Earlier Wednesday, international Mideast envoy Tony Blair said Kerry's mission may be the last chance for an Israeli-Palestinian deal.

He said that the "window of opportunity will be open for only a short period of time."

"We must go through it together," he said in a speech in Jerusalem. "If not, the window will close and could close forever. Time is not our friend. This is urgent. This is now. This is the time for statesmen, not politicians."

Later Wednesday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met Abbas, the latest of several foreign diplomats trying to persuade Abbas to resume negotiations.

Abbas aide Nabil Shaath said before that meeting that Abbas has told visitors, including the foreign ministers of New Zealand and Canada, that they should instead appeal to Israel to change its position.

Palestinian officials have said they nonetheless fear being blamed by the international community for a possible failure of Kerry's mission. In Wednesday's meeting, Fatah asked four leading members to devise a plan "to face the Israeli campaign to put the blame on us," Shaath said.

___

Associated Press writer Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, contributed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel will not accept Iranian uranium enrichment at any level.

"We cannot accept anything less than the total cessation of all enrichment of nuclear materials at all levels, removal from Iran of all enriched nuclear material, closure of Iran's illicit nuclear facilities," Netanyahu said during a meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird.

"Until Iran meets these demands, pressure must be stepped up and Iranian nuclear program must be stopped. Period."

Netanyahu warned against the new Iranian President Hasan Rowhani, saying that his strategy is to calm the international community while quietly advancing the nuclear program.

"He is the author of a document – you could call it talk and enrich - that is, talk and continue to enrich uranium. For nuclear weapons. He wrote this in the book. He said that by calming international community, Iran is able to steadily move forward in its nuclear weapons program. We cannot allow Iran to play this game. We cannot let Iran ride out the clock."

Netanyahu made the comments after several statements by the U.S. government and the European Union wishing to continue talks with Iran on its nuclear program. The talks between Iran and the six world powers stopped in April

Earlier Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Iran is willing to halt its 20 percent enrichment of uranium, which has been a key concession sought ininternational negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

That is the highest level of enrichment acknowledged by Iran and one that experts say could be turned into warhead grade in a matter of months.

In an interview with the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA that was released by the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, Lavrov said that "for the first time in many years" there are encouraging signs in international efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear dispute.

He said Iran has confirmed that it is ready to halt production of uranium-enriched to 20 percent. He did not give details, but said the sextet of international negotiators should make "substantial reciprocal steps."

Meanwhile, on Monday the UN nuclear agency chief said Iran is making "steady progress" in expanding its nuclear program and international sanctions do not seem to be slowing it down.

Yukiya Amano's comments underlined the difficult challenges facing world powers in seeking to persuade the Islamic state to scale back nuclear activities they suspect could be used to make atomic bombs, a charge Tehran denies.

The surprise victory of moderate cleric Hasan Rowhani in Iran's presidential election last Friday has raised hopes for an easing of tension in the decade-old nuclear dispute.

Rowhani pledged on Monday to be more transparent about Tehran's atomic work in order to see sanctions lifted but he also said Iran was not ready to suspend its enrichment of uranium. "

Syrian rebel group that twice abducted United Nations peacekeepers near the Israeli border in the past three months stole several UN vehicles, a UN Peacekeeping spokesperson acknowledged to The Times of Israel — including at least two sophisticated armored personnel carriers.

An Israeli expert warned that the sophisticated UN-marked vehicles could be used in surprise border attacks on IDF targets.UNDOF reported in itsquarterly report to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that on March 6, a supply convoy carrying 21 UN personnel was waylaid by Syrian rebels near the village of Jamlah, near the Israeli border. After several days in captivity the Filipino peacekeepers were released unharmed, but, as of the writing of the March report, their four vehicles were “yet to be recovered.”

Video footage uploaded by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, the Syrian rebel group that claimed responsibility for the March 6 hijacking, showed the hijacked vehicles, which included a UN-marked Renault water tanker and two RG-31 Nyala armored personnel carriers.

The RG-31 Nyala is a South African-made, mine- and IED-resistant eight-metric-ton behemoth capable of carrying up to 10 men, and has a price tag of approximately $670,000, according to analyst estimates. According to a Canadian news report from 2005, the Nyala is “virtually indestructible” and is “designed to be able to resist twosimultaneous blasts from anti-tank mines.”

UN Peacekeeping spokesperson Josephine Guerrero confirmed to The Times of Israel, however, that not only were the four vehicles missing from March’s kidnapping, but that “a number of vehicles were taken during the March and May incidents involving the detention of UNDOF peacekeepers [emphasis added].”

She didn’t specify how many vehicles were stolen during the May 7 incident, during which four more Filipino peacekeepers were taken hostage by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade. (Evidently, in the latest May 15 kidnapping of UNTSO peacekeepers on the Israel-Syria border, only the soldiers’ personal effects were “looted,” according to the UN, and no military hardware was stolen.)

Guerrero also refused to verify the types of vehicles stolen by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, or confirm the authenticity of the rebel videos, which clearly showed the rebels taking control of two RG-31 Nyalas.

“This is of concern to UNDOF and the Mission is working to recover them,” Guerrero added. Neither she nor Secretary General Ban’s spokesman Farhan Haq specified how the UN planned to retrieve the vehicles. The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade ignored Times of Israel queries about the vehicles believed to be in their possession.

Professor Efraim Inbar, director of Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Stategic Studies, said that while the vehicles didn’t confer a game-changing strategic advantage to the Syrian rebels, they were a platform by which the Yarmouk Brigade could launch potentially deadly surprise attacks against IDF positions along the border.

Such a maneuver would hark back to tactics employed last August, when Sinai-based terrorists launched a sneak attack on an Egyptian army base located near the Gaza Strip and the Israeli border. The attackers killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, hijacked an armored vehicle and careened the juggernaut through the Israeli border crossing. Speeding nearly a kilometer into Israeli territory, the stolen vehicle almost reached a nearby kibbutz, but was stopped in its tracks by a last-ditch airstrike.

In response to inquiries about the possible threat the trucks may pose to soldiers on the Israeli border and nearby communities, an army spokesperson stated that “the IDF is fully confident in its ability to defend Israel’s borders.”

According to a military source, the IDF has strict procedures regulating the entry of UN vehicles from Syria into Israeli territory. The source said that the IDF coordinates with UNDOF, “who inform us in cases when UN vehicles are stolen or go missing in Syria, and we use the details they give us” to deny red-flagged vehicles entry via the Quneitra border crossing.

The IDF source wouldn’t absolutely confirm or deny such coordination with UNDOF regarding the vehicles snatched this spring by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade.

Syrian civil war analyst Eliot Higgins of the Brown Moses blog said that the RG-31s would provide the rebels with a secure platform for smuggling arms, fuel or other contraband near the area where the Israeli, Syrian and Jordanian borders converge.

Though the trucks wouldn’t be a major offensive weapon, Inbar, the Begin-Sadat Center expert, suggested that their loss may have dealt yet another blow to the increasingly fragile morale of international peacekeepers on the Golan Heights.

Amid frequent raids on United Nations personnel and near-constant violence between rebel forces and those loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, UNDOF peacekeeping soldiers are said to be growing increasingly concerned about their personal safety and the effectiveness of their mandate. The UNDOF peacekeepers, drawn from the Indian, Austrian and Philippine militaries, are licensed by the UN Security Council to observe the ceasefire lines separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights. They are lightly armed, carrying sidearms and occasionally M-16s, but are not allowed to intervene in the event of third-party violence.

Both Manila and Vienna have expressed concern over the deteriorating security situation on the Israel-Syria border, and officials from both countries have suggested that morale among the peacekeeping forces is understandably low.

Philippine Ambassador to Israel Generoso D. G. Calonge, who has seen 25 countrymen abducted and liberated by Syrian rebels in the past few months, recently said that Philippine soldiers stationed on the Syrian border are likewise “disappointed” by the devolving situation.

A journalist who recently visited UNDOF’s headquarters told The Times of Israel that Austrian soldiers may be eager to sign up for the mission, but they are growing disheartened by their inability to do anything except defend themselves from direct assault. (Despite this, only a handful have returned to Austria out of concern over  the growing violence, according to the Austrian newspaper Kurier.)

With the intensification of hostilities along the Israel-Syria border, the Austrian force’s “main task changed from reporting to stay safe themselves,” the reporter said. Deputy UNDOF commander Brig. Gen. Stefan Thaller was said to tell Austrian Defense Minister Gerald Klug during the latter’s recent visit to Camp Faouar that UNDOF’s mission “is only to report to New York [the UN secretary-general's office], and that’s it.” 

An UNDOF spokesperson refused to comment on the status of morale among UNDOF troops, and rejected repeated requests to interview force commander Maj. Gen. Iqbal Singh Singha about the sit

May 22, 2013

The U.S. Senate has unanimously approved a resolution affirming America's firm opposition to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and pledging full support for Israel in the event of an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

The chance to slam Iran’s government and speak up for Israel brought a rare moment of complete bipartisan unity to the Senate. Republican Lindsey Graham was a lead sponsor of the resolution.

“If that day ever comes where Israel has to take military action, to our friends in Israel: we will be there with you every step of the way diplomatically, economically, and, yes, militarily. And to the Iranian people: we would love to have a better relationship with you. To the Iranian regime: you are one of the biggest evils on the planet. And we will stand up to you. We will stand by our friends,” Graham said.

The resolution is an expression of the collective will of the Senate. It neither authorizes the use of U.S. military force, nor constitutes a declaration of war.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez noted a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency saying that Iran has boosted its ability to enrich uranium with hundreds of new centrifuges.

“We seek full implementation of U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, and urge the president [Barack Obama] to continue to strengthen enforcement of those sanctions. I cannot emphasize enough my strong concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, and the extraordinary threat it poses - yes, to Israel, but very importantly to the United States of America,” Menendez said.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, arguing that Israel is the true threat to regional peace.