Israel Matzav

When 'Palestinians' die and no one cares

According to the statement, Liberman protested that the UN is ignoring a number of killings and executions that have happened in recent days among the Palestinians in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon, as well as in Gaza.

“The international community’s ignoring dozens of dead and wounded shows again the hypocrisy and the double standard that the world employs by ignoring these grave incidents, while on the other hand condemning Israel’s justified actions against terrorism,” he said.

Liberman, according to the statement, expects that the issue of intra-Palestinian killings will be raised at the next meeting of the UN Security Council.

Mladenov’s office issued a “no comment” when asked about the phone call.

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On Saturday, Mladenov issued a statement saying that he was “deeply concerned” by growing tensions in Gaza.

He said that over the past decade the Palestinians in Gaza “have lived through four conflicts, with no freedom, unprecedented Israeli restrictions, a dire humanitarian crisis, high unemployment, an ongoing electricity crisis and the lack of political perspective.”

Mladenov called on all Palestinian factions to allow the Palestinian Government to assume its responsibility in Gaza. “Gaza is an integral part of the future Palestinian state and no efforts should be spared to bring about real national reconciliation that ends the division. Leaders have a responsibility to avoid escalation and bridge the growing divide between Gaza and the West Bank that further fragments the Palestinian people.”

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Fatah, Gaza, Gaza blockade, Gaza plenty, Hamas, hypocrisy, Russia

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:00 PM 4 comments

Lieberman: 'Abbas must go'

The defense minister views Abbas as a bitter enemy of Israel and says that Abbas’s policies have eliminated any possibility of advancing the peace process.

In the past two weeks, Lieberman has said several times that defense officials meet frequently with West Bank Palestinians, without the involvement or approval of Abbas and his people.

“We’ve met dozens of economists and businessmen from the Palestinian Authority, and when you ask what’s most important for the Palestinian economy, they all reply that the most important thing is to get rid of Abu Mazen,” he said on one such occasion, referring to Abbas by his nickname. “He has imposed a reign of corruption that encompasses everything. He has people in every economic sector — in real estate, the fuel market, the communications market. Abbas’ people take a tithe from every deal, and aside from the people in the inner circle, the PA leadership doesn’t allow anyone there to develop economically.

“That’s why it’s so important for him to go,” Lieberman continued. “As long as Abbas is there, nothing will happen.”

Lieberman said he didn’t think Israel should actively work to end Abbas’ rule, but at the same time, he said, it shouldn’t blame itself for the situation in the West Bank.

“Not everything depends on us,” he said. “As long as the PA’s corrupt and ineffective management continues, the economic situation there won’t improve.”

The defense minister also charged that Abbas rarely visits Nablus and Jenin, the major cities of the northern West Bank, as he prefers to take diplomatic trips abroad. “He doesn’t want to deal with problems of economics and employment,” Lieberman said. “The entire system of management there has failed.”

Last week, Arab media outlets reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to arrange a diplomatic summit between Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this year. Netanyahu doesn’t use Lieberman’s blunt language, but he apparently shares the defense minister’s skepticism about the prospects for real diplomatic progress as long as Abbas remains in power. And, like Lieberman, he blames the impasse entirely on the Palestinians.

Russia supports the Palestinian-Israeli settlement process, but there are no specific agreements on holding a meeting of the sides’ leaders in Moscow, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

"There are no specifics on this matter yet," he said, commenting on related reports issued by the Israeli media.

"Moscow maintains rather trust-based and active relations with both the Israelis and Palestinians, but there are no specifics yet," he added.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Avigdor Lieberman, Middle East peace process, Palestinian Authority corruption, two-state solution, Vladimir Putin, Yasser Arafat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:38 PM 0 comments

Surprise: Ehud Barak tells biographers Israel canceled plans to attack Iran in 2010, 2011 and 2012

Liberman told Army Radio that he was “more than surprised” at Barak, and said statements such as those given by the former minister would ultimately strengthen Iran.

“I think that when moves and discussions that should have been closely guarded state secrets are discussed by the press, it relays that you are a talker, that you aren’t serious, that you’re unreliable,” he said.

“That is why, among other reasons, Iran is being coddled by the international community, and we have been backed into a corner… These things should only have been discussed in closed forums.”

Asked whether he believed Barak was guilty of revealing state secrets, Liberman responded that he had “no doubt” that was the case.

Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi (Likud) said on Sunday he intends to investigate whether information divulged by former Defense Minister Ehud Barak regarding a possible Iran strike was properly cleared for publication, and if so, why.

...

Speaking to Israel Radio on Sunday, Hanegbi said such publications do not serve Israel's security interests. When asked if Barak harmed Israel's security, Hanegbi refuse to answer, but said that as the head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee he plans to summon officials from the censor's office and hear their explanation.

Barak spoke of the plans in conversations with his biographers, Dani Dor and Ilan Kfir. Excerpts from the recordings were aired on Israel Channel 2’s weekly news magazine on Friday.

Channel 2 said Barak did not want the material released, but the IDF military censor approved the publication.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, censorship, Channel 2, Ehud Barak, Gabi Ashkenazi, IDF, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Moshe Yaalon, Tzachi Hanegbi, Yuval Steinitz

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:35 PM 3 comments

Barack Obama must be wondering what hit him

In Foreign Policy, Oren took Obama to task for not joining the solidarity march in France after the attack on Charlie Hebdo or the kosher supermarket earlier this year, nor for sending two senior officials who were in Paris at the time to the march. He also took the president to task for not admitting that the attack on the kosher market was directed a Jews, but rather an act perpetrated by “vicious zealots who... randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli.”

“Obama’s boycotting of the memorial in Paris, like his refusal to acknowledge the identity of the perpetrators, the victims, or even the location of the market massacre, provides a broad window into his thinking on Islam and the Middle East. Simply put: The president could not participate in a protest against Muslim radicals whose motivations he sees as a distortion, rather than a radical interpretation, of Islam,” he wrote. “And if there are no terrorists spurred by Islam, there can be no purposely selected Jewish shop or intended Jewish victims, only a deli and randomly present folks."

During his first year in office, Obama, Oren argued, offered in essence “a new deal in which the United States would respect popularly chosen Muslim leaders who were authentically rooted in their traditions and willing to engage with the West.”

...

Oren attributed this orientation to the intellectual milieu in which Obama grew up, as well as his personal history. “I could imagine how a child raised by a Christian mother might see himself as a natural bridge between her two Muslim husbands. I could also speculate how that child’s abandonment by those men could lead him, many years later, to seek acceptance by their co-religionists.”

The tragedy, he said, was that Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world was rejected.

“Historians will likely look back at Obama’s policy toward Islam with a combination of curiosity and incredulousness,” he wrote. “While some may credit the president for his good intentions, others might fault him for being naïve and detached from a complex and increasingly lethal reality.”

In the LA Times piece, headlined “Why Obama is wrong about Iran being 'rational' on nukes,” Oren quoted Obama’s comment in a recent interview that being anti-Semitic, or racist, doesn't preclude one from from being interested in survival, and that just because Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei is anti-Semitic “doesn't mean that this overrides all of his other considerations.”

Oren wrote that the dispute whether Iran was a rational or irrational actor was “ever-present” in the discussions between the US and Israel when he was ambassador. While the American view the Iranians as logical actors, Israel could not rule out the idea that “the Iranians would be willing to sacrifice half of their people as martyrs in a war intended to ‘wipe Israel off the map.’”

“Obama would never say that anti-black racists are rational,” Oren argued. “And he would certainly not trust them with the means – however monitored – to reach their racist goals. That was the message Israeli officials and I conveyed in our discreet talks with the administration. The response was not, to our mind, reasonable."

Oren, while he served in Washington, was considered very cautious and diplomatic, and rarely caught flack for comments deemed “undiplomatic.”

Whether Obama is an honorary Jew or not, the evidence suggests that he keenly understands certain peculiarities of the Jewish communal psyche—survival strategies that distinguish the Jews from other American minority groups. The president’s use of Jewish aides and organizations to advance his policies with the Jewish community shows that Obama is correct in believing that Jewish politics are often motivated by fear, which can range from the existential fear of mass extermination to the more prosaic fear of looking shabby in front of the goyim. And Obama isn’t using his energy and inspiring leadership skills to help these people rise above their fear; he is instead capitalizing on it—masterfully, ruthlessly—by manipulating American Jews in ways that other minority groups would find unbelievably insulting.

Consider recent statements from Jewish aides to the president. Netanyahu is the kind of politician, said David Axelrod, “who run[s] for public office because they want to be somebody.” Israel doesn’t know what’s best for it, Obama’s former envoy to the Palestinian-Israeli peace process Martin Indyk told Israeli media last week. “You are an emotional nation, not a rational nation,” he sniffed. “You work from your gut and not your mind.”

It’s very hard to imagine Catholic policymakers helping a U.S. president undermine and insult the Vatican and then defending the president when he says that he understands what the church stands for better than the pope does. During the darkest moments of the AIDS crisis, there were no gay organizations that encouraged U.S. policymakers to cut funding for a cure. There are no transgender activists who argue that the real threat to the community comes not from people who fear and hate transgendered people, but from within the transgender community itself. Eric Holder doesn’t scold people of color that they’re an emotional, not a rational, people, or imply that black officeholders get into politics because they “want to be somebody.”

The issue in America today is clearly not that pro-Obama people or organizations are leading the American Jewish community to destruction. Yet at the same time, it is also clear that two millennia of diasporic dependence and insecurity have left a deep and probably permanent imprint on the Jewish communal psyche. Even in America, a free country in which Jews have never been subject to European-style mass oppression or persecutions, the role performed by “court Jews’ still makes structural and emotional sense to people who like to think of themselves as independent thinkers. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why Obama still has the support of the majority of the Jewish community for policies that from any rational perspective—the perspective of any other minority group—cannot be seen as anything other than detrimental to the Jewish state.

But what about the Jews who speak for the administration? None of several former high-ranking Jewish officials was willing to speak on the record on this subject, but every single one of them agreed that this moment was an extraordinary one. “No administration will always do what the Jewish community wants or what Jews think best for Israel, just as none will ever always do what Catholics want or Greek Americans or farmers,” said a former Jewish American policymaker who served in high-level positions in several administrations. “When you are in an administration you know this is coming. If the variance is in the particular area you cover, it can be painful. If it gets repeated, you need to change jobs or leave the government. That’s normal.”

But: “The Obama situation is not normal,” he continued, “due to the length and depth of the confrontation with Israel and the harm that’s being done. It should give rise to soul searching by Jewish appointees. In my view they’ve become enablers, in the worst sense of that word. That not one single Jew has left in protest is remarkable considering that relations have not been worse in a long, long time.”

By not resigning in protest, Obama’s Jewish aides have arguably not only harmed their community; they weakened their own position—which was, in a sense, ultimately far more detrimental. In a town where the appearance of power is power, Obama’s Jewish defenders had no idea which way the president was actually going. They got played, and now everyone knows it. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wasn’t in the room when Obama was making Iran policy with Ben Rhodes and Valerie Jarrett. Martin Indyk didn’t know that a central part of Obama’s Middle East policy—without which the Iran deal would be impossible—was to weaken AIPAC, the cornerstone of the pro-Israel community. AIPAC, in turn, didn’t see itself as a target of the Obama Administration. Instead, it kept telling itself that bipartisan support for Israel was the very premise of its power. Had these actors actually participated in helping the president pull a fast one on the Jewish community, at least they’d have showed they had connections to power. The biggest problem with the Jews around Obama is not that they spoke up on behalf of policies that may very well turn out to be harmful to the Jewish state; it’s that they were so clearly out of the loop—a status quo they will now bequeath to future administrations.

In this regard, even AIPAC’s ostensible rival J Street got played. As one senior official in the pro-Israel community told me, he believes that “their standing has diminished a lot. The administration used J Street and included them, and went to their conferences, because they believed they would be a useful tool.” But J Street is weakened not, as the pro-Israel official believes, because it plowed its own field recklessly. If you describe yourself as a pro-Israel organization then your power is directly proportional to how important a role Israel plays in American foreign policy. If your actions, like J Street’s, contribute to making Israel about as important to American foreign policy as Malaysia is, then you aren’t very important either.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, court Jew, Jack Lew, Martin Indyk, Michael Oren, Moshe Kahlon, poritz syndrome, Tzipi Livni, Yair Lapid

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:24 PM 2 comments

The beginning of the end of Leftist domination of Israel's Foreign Ministry?

First, she’s a novice who has never held any executive branch position before, yet will now exercise de facto control over one of the cabinet’s most important ministries. Technically, she serves under Netanyahu, who retained the foreign affairs portfolio for himself. But since Netanyahu already has a full-time job as prime minister, she will largely run the ministry.

Second, she’s one of the most hawkish members of Netanyahu’s coalition and an outspoken opponent of Palestinian statehood. As The Jerusalem Post’s diplomatic correspondent, Herb Keinon, put it, “Hotovely represents the opposite of everything much of the world...wants to see in Israel.”

Third, in contrast to appointees like Miri Regev or Haim Katz, whose power bases within Likud were simply too strong for Netanyahu to ignore, Hotovely’s support inside the party is tenuous; in the last primary, she barely scraped into the 20th slot. Nor is she known as one of the premier’s own loyalists. Thus he was under no political compulsion to reward her with such a lofty post.

Finally, there were plenty of other candidates who would seemingly have been more suitable, including the one many American Jews undoubtedly hoped to see there: former ambassador to Washington and current Kulanu MK Michael Oren.

Indeed, Hotovely’s main qualification for the post – aside from being pretty, personable and reportedly speaking excellent English – would seem to be that she constitutes no threat to Netanyahu, who notoriously squelches anyone he does consider a potential political threat.

That’s why so many ambitious Likudniks eventually quit the party to run their own parties (see Moshe Kahlon, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman).

 

Gold, a former ambassador to the United Nations and currently head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, will be working under Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who was told about the appointment just prior to it being made public. He replaces Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, a veteran ministry employee who started out in its administrative track and then moved to the diplomatic side. 

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[Former Foreign Minister Avigdor] Liberman commented on the appointment, saying that while it was Netanyahu’s prerogative to appoint his own man to this post, appointments at the ministry are not ways to give out favors or settle scores. He also said that “it needs to be clear that new appointments or changes are not a replacement for clear policy.”

In that regard, one government source said, Gold was the perfect candidate because he had a direct line to Netanyahu, and his interlocutors would know that when he speaks, he is speaking for Netanyahu and with authority.

“This will give him power and make him relevant,” the official said, noting that Ben-Sheetrit never enjoyed that status.

The American-born Gold is considered one of Netanyahu’s top foreign policy advisers. He served as one of his foreign policy advisers starting in 1996, during the prime minister’s first term in office, being appointed the following year as ambassador to the UN, where he served until 1999. In 2014, he became an “outside” consultant in the Prime Minister’s Office.

In recent years, Gold has accompanied Netanyahu on many of his trips to Washington and the UN, and over the years has been one of Israel’s foremost unofficial spokesmen, speaking in the media and at conferences around the world on Israeli policy. He is often sought out by journalists and diplomats because of his knowledge of the issues, and because he is considered to be close to Netanyahu, thus reflecting his thinking.

He has also been very active in lobbying policy-makers on behalf of “defensible borders” for Israel.

Hotovely spoke with Gold after the appointment and issued a statement, saying that with his rich experience in the international arena, the former UN ambassador could contribute to furthering Israel’s position in the world.

Dore Gold has done the State of Israel a great service by forcing us to focus on concrete things that we want out of the 'peace process.' Dore is fond of pointing out that when you ask a 'Palestinian' what he wants from the 'peace process,' he will tell you that he wants a 'Palestinian state' in the areas that are outside Israel's '1967 borders' (for now), whose capital is Jerusalem. If you ask an Israeli Jew what he wants from the 'peace process,' he will tell you 'peace.'

Dore is changing that paradigm. One of the things he believes that Israeli Jews can and should be demanding from the 'peace process' is defensible borders. His organization, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has put together a collection of essays that sets out in concrete terms what defensible borders mean. The collection is called Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace. It's reviewed by Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine.

The book Israel’s Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace is a collection published this year under the auspices of the JCPA with essays about security and diplomacy by leading figures in Israel’s security establishment, like Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, former head of IDF intelligence, and Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan, former IDF deputy chief of staff and a former national security adviser to Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. The volume’s findings represent a broad consensus across the Israeli political spectrum, and the fact that Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon—former IDF chief of staff and currently the vice prime minister—wrote the introduction is evidence that the ideas have won approval at the highest political levels.

The book pushes three common ideas, some likely to add to the friction between Washington and Jerusalem: First, Israel, must not withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines; second, Israel needs defensible borders; third, Israel must rely on itself to defend itself and not on foreign forces as proposed by U.S. national security adviser Gen. James Jones, who has talked openly about replacing the IDF with international forces in the West Bank.

The insistence that Israel must retain the ability to defend its own borders—a basic attribute of national sovereignty—is the least controversial element of Gold’s blueprint. The issue is not merely the inglorious record of U.N. peacekeeping forces—from Sinai to Bosnia and Lebanon—but also the fact that the international community rarely sends its blue helmets into the middle of a real shooting war, which is what the West Bank would become if an IDF withdrawal left Hamas and Fatah at each other’s throats and eager to gain credit for launching terror attacks on Israel.

The concept of defensible borders is closely tied to the drawing of 1949 armistice lines, commonly and incorrectly known as the 1967 borders. As Gold explains in his contribution to the volume, successive U.S. administrations since Lyndon Johnson’s have all recognized the danger in Israel withdrawing to those borders. George Shultz, one of President Ronald Reagan’s secretaries of State, explained that “Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders,” and the Clinton Administration reaffirmed the Reagan White House’s concept of defensible borders. However, it was during Clinton’s Camp David negotiations that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak abandoned the idea of defensible borders in the hope of a radical breakthrough with Yasser Arafat. With the outbreak of the Second Intifada and peace nowhere in the offing, the George W. Bush Administration pledged not to hold the Israelis to the Clinton parameters and returned to the traditional U.S. position. “It is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949,” reads an April 14, 2004 letter from Bush to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The UJA-Federation’s top brass have been twisting the arms of Israel’s diplomatic corps to provide cover for supporting the New Israel Fund marching in the Israel Day Parade, according to emails obtained by JCCWatch.

The strategy to use the Foreign Ministry as their beard came to an uncomfortable public end last week, when the Spokesman for the Israeli Consulate in New York had to make a statement to deny what UJA-Federation CEO Eric Goldstein had told Talkline Communications radio host Zev Brenner on March 30. In an appearance on the show, Goldstein said, twice actually, that “the government of Israel, the Consul General’s office, very much, emphatically, want us to allow these groups to continue to march.”

The consulate spokesman told Arutz Sheva last week that at “no point did any of the parade’s organizers consult with the Consulate or with someone acting on its behalf regarding the New Israel Fund’s participation.” The newspaper quoted the spokesman directly as saying, “never, ever, did the Consul-General, or someone on his behalf, or any of the Consulate’s employees, say anything favoring the NIF’s participation, either explicitly or implicitly, in a hinted manner or in public, in secret or openly.”

The oddly worded distancing of the Consul-General’s office from the UJA-Federation comes as emails obtained by JCCWatch show Goldstein and former UJA-Federation president Jerry Levin, indeed, reaching out to Israeli ambassadors for exactly that kind of cover.

The email trail leading up to Goldstein’s foot-in-mouth routine, and reproduced below, casts a dark shadow on UJA-Federation leadership who were able to co-opt important Israel diplomats to publicly boost their cause of defending the New Israel Fund.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, defensible borders, Dore Gold, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Israeli Left, New Israel Fund, New York Jewish Federation, Salute to Israel Day Parade, Tzipi Hotovely

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:46 PM 0 comments

Here we go again: 12 Israelis wounded in terror attack on Tel Aviv bus

The assailant, a 23-year-old male from the West Bank city of Tulkarem who entered Israel illegally, was shot in the leg by an Israel Prison Service officer on Hamasger Street, near the scene of the incident, and taken into custody. 

The attack took place on Bus number 40 on Menachem Begin Road, a major thoroughfare in Tel Aviv, near the Ma'ariv Bridge. Three other people were moderately wounded, and five of the casualties were in light condition, according to Magen David Adom emergency services. A further five were suffering from shock. 

The stabbing is being treated as a "terror attack," Israel Police foreign press spokesman Micky Rosenfeld wrote on Twitter.

Hamzeh Matrouk is the name of the stabber in Tel Aviv. From Tulkarem but lived in Ramallah.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) January 21, 2015

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, Tel Aviv, Tzipi Livni, Yitzchak Herzog

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:59 AM 0 comments

ICC launches 'war crimes' probe against Israel

"A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process of examining the information available in order to reach a fully informed determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with a (full) investigation," Bensouda was quoted as having said.

Depending on her findings, Bensouda will decide at a later stage whether to launch or quash the investigation, based on the initial probe, the report added.

Israel condemned the decision as "scandalous", as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement that since “Palestine” is not a state, the ICC had no jurisdiction over it, according to the court's own rules.

The probe is "absurd" since "the Palestinian Authority cooperates with Hamas, a terror group that commits war crimes, in contrast to Israel that fights terror while maintaining international law, and has an independent justice system," Netanyahu pointed out.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman added that the sole purpose of the preliminary examination was to "try to harm Israel's right to defend itself from terror."

In a statement he said the decision was "solely motivated by political anti-Israel considerations," adding that he would recommend against cooperating with the probe.

"It is a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now being scrutinized by the ICC," US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement.

Rights group Amnesty International welcomed the ICC's announcement saying it "could pave the way for thousands of victims of crimes under international law to gain access to justice."

But the initial probe could lead to an investigation into crimes "committed by all sides", Amnesty stressed in a statement, with many noting that every missile fired on Israel by the PA's unity partner Hamas, and indeed by PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, constitutes a war crime.

Labels: Amnesty International, Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, International Criminal Court, Palestine, war crimes

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:23 PM 1 comments

Our neighborhood bully

Europe’s silence in the face of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vitriolic attacks against Israel is one of the reasons for the surge of anti-Semitism in Europe, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Wednesday.

In some of the toughest public comments in memory against Erdogan and Turkey, Liberman told a gathering of Israel’s ambassadors to Euro-Asia that Europe’s ignoring the hate and incitement Erdogan cultivates toward Israel has ramifications.

“The silence of the lambs of cultured Europe, politically correct Europe, toward a neighborhood and anti-Semitic bully like Erdogan and his friends brings us back to the reality of the 1930s,” he said.

Labels: anti-Semitism, Avigdor Lieberman, European anti-Semitism, Islamic anti-Semitism, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish anti-Semitism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:17 PM 0 comments

Hollande asked both Netanyahu and Abu Mazen not to come

After the French government began to send invitations to world leaders to participate in the rally against terror, Hollande’s national security adviser, Jacques Audibert, contacted his Israeli counterpart, Yossi Cohen, and said that Hollande would prefer that Netanyahu not attend, the source said.

Audibert explained that Hollande wanted the event to focus on demonstrating solidarity with France, and to avoid anything liable to divert attention to other controversial issues, like Jewish-Muslim relations or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Audibert said that Hollande hoped that Netanyahu would understand the difficulties his arrival might pose and would announce that he would not be attending.

The source noted that one of the French concerns - not conveyed to representatives of the Israeli government - was that Netanyahu would take advantage of the event for campaign purposes and make speeches, especially about the Jews of France. Such statements, the Elysee Palace feared, would hurt the demonstration of solidarity the French government was trying to promote as part of dealing with the terror attacks.

According to the source, Netanyahu at first acquiesced to the French request. In any case, the Shin Bet security service unit that protects public figures considered the arrangements for the prime minister’s security to be complex. And so, on Saturday evening, Netanyahu’s people announced that he would not be flying to Paris because of security concerns. Netanyahu told the French he would come to France on Tuesday for a Jewish community event. 

The French apparently sent the same message to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Like Netanyahu, Abbas acceded to the French request and released a strange statement about the same time Netanyahu released his, that he would not be attending the event because of the bad weather.

However, on Saturday night, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett announced their intention to go to Paris and take part in the march and meet with the Jewish community. When Netanyahu heard they were going, he informed the French he would be attending the march after all.

According to the source, when Cohen informed Audibert that Netanyahu would be attending the event after all, Audibert angrily told Cohen that the prime minister’s conduct would have an adverse effect on ties between the two countries as long as Hollande was president of France and Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel.

Audibert made it clear that in light of Netanyahu's intention to arrive, an invitation would also be extended to Abbas. And indeed, several hours after Abbas announced that he would not be traveling to Paris, his office issued a statement stating that he would in fact be at the march.

Hollande's anger at Netanyahu was evident during the ceremony held Sunday evening following the march at the Grand Synagogue in Paris, an event attended by hundreds of members of the local Jewish community.

Hollande sat through most of the ceremony, but when Netanyahu's turn at the podium arrived, the French president got up from his seat and made an early exit.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, feckless French, Francois Hollande, Islamic terrorism, Naftali Bennett, Paris

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:52 PM 0 comments

Security forces foil plot to assassinate Lieberman, weapons shipment into Jerusalem

According to the indictment, the three were planning to buy RPG missiles and then launch them at the foreign minister's car, in hopes that the attack would stop Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The terrorist cell was headed by Ibrahim Salim Mahmoud Zir, 37, a senior member of Hamas who resides near Bethlehem and who served several prison terms in Israel on charges of terrorism.

Zir enlisted his brother, Ziad Salim Mahmoud Zir, 35, and another Hamas terrorist by the name Adnan Amin Mahmoud Tzabih, 31. They admitted to being recruited to help carry out an attack against a senior Israeli figure.

In addition, Zir turned to senior Hamas terrorist Ibrahim Yusuf al-Sheikh, 50, a resident of Bethlehem who is known for his past involvement in Hamas terrorist activities, and asked him to help him in obtaining RPG missiles.

The three terrorists were caught while conducting surveillance on Liberman's security guards near his home in Gush Etzion community of Nokdim.

They were arrested in mid-August by security forces after one member of the squad was caught trying to buy the missiles.

Two containers intercepted by authorities at the southern port were packed with 18,000 fireworks, 5,200 commando knives, 5,500 tasers, 4,300 tasers concealed in flashlights, 1,000 swords and several thousand other "cold" weapons.

The lethal cargo was hidden under a layer of Christmas decorations, and had been shipped in all the way from China.

Labels: Ashdod port, Avigdor Lieberman, China, Jerusalem, Palestinian terrorism, Purim, weapons shipment

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:27 AM 1 comments

We need less regulation, not more

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli economy, Moshe Feiglin

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:31 PM 1 comments

New Zealand lied?

According to archive.org, it does seem to be new.

May 26 and July 2, 2014: "Jordan, Israel and occupied Palestinian territory"

Feb 13, 2014 the website design changed, but it does not list PA, either on the main page or when you click on Israel:
    "Living in Turkey
    Living in Israel
    Living in Jordan"

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nzembassy.com/turkey

Oh so this must be more recent, sometime b/w August 8 and today.

- August 8 archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20140808171125/http://www.nzembassy.com/turkey/about-the-embassy/what-the-embassy-does

"Occupied Palestinian territory" is how most define the area, and I should instead be looking for "Palestinian Authority".

According to google, it is only mentioned once, on main page: https://www.google.com/search?q="Palestinian+Authority"+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.nzembassy.com%2Fturkey (when searching the site directly, it is also in "What the Embassy does", as you pointed out)

For main page: 

Today, as you mentioned, it says "Authority": "Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Georgia and Azerbaijan" 

While at least up to Aug 8, it said "territory": "Jordan, Israel and occupied Palestinian territory".

Same thing Under What the Embassy does: 

Today, "The New Zealand Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey is also accredited to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the State of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Georgia and Azerbaijan." 

While at least up to Aug 8, is said "The New Zealand Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey is also accredited to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the State of Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territory."

There may be other archiving websites besides archive.org (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Web_archiving_initiatives), if you want  a more recent date than Aug 8. In any event, it seems recent enough. It used to be "Palestinian territory", which is how the area is categorized by I assume most countries, while they now deal with PA as if it is a country on its own.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, diplomatic relations, New Zealand, Palestinian Authority

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

Israel rejects New Zealand's new ambassador

New Zealand does not maintain an embassy in Israel; its relations with Israel are handled by its embassy in Ankara, which is responsible for several countries in the region. Its ambassador to Turkey serves as nonresident ambassador to Israel and comes to Jerusalem every month or two for meetings.

New Zealand’s new ambassador to Turkey, Jonathan Curr, was meant to come to Israel this week to present his credentials. A packed schedule for his visit was almost set, when last Thursday he told Foreign Ministry personnel that since he is also responsible for New Zealand’s relations with the PA, he also planned to visit Ramallah for an official ceremony with PA president Mahmoud Abbas as well.

This was not to be a full presentation of credentials, since New Zealand does not recognize a state called Palestine. Curr was to present instead a letter of introduction, a document which merely informs Abbas that he is the New Zealand diplomat who handles ties with the PA.

When the Foreign Ministry heard this, officials informed Curr that this violated diplomatic protocol. They noted that since the Oslo Accords, Israel had firm rules that forbade a foreign ambassador to be credentialed to both Israel and the PA, and that unless his “dual credentials” were canceled, he could not serve as ambassador to Israel.

Curr was shocked, because his two predecessors were credentialed to both Israel and the PA and Jerusalem had never protested. Senior ministry officials explained to Curr that, even if this was the case, his two predecessors had presented credentials to Abbas without informing Israel.

Claims by Foreign Ministry officials that such accreditation had taken place without Israel’s knowledge seem rather strange, since the website of New Zealand’s embassy in Turkey states clearly that its ambassador is also accredited to Israel, the PA and Jordan.

To try to resolve the issue, the Foreign Ministry suggested that a lower-level diplomat from the embassy in Turkey present the letter of introduction and be responsible for ties with the PA. This further insulted Curr, who retorted that Israel was not going to tell his country how to handle its diplomacy.

The embassy is located in Ankara, Turkey's capital city. New Zealand has maintained a resident ambassador in Turkey since 1993. The Ambassador to Turkey is concurrently accredited to Israel and Jordan.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, diplomatic relations, New Zealand, Palestinian Authority

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:25 PM 0 comments

His popularity dropped from 82% to 38% in seven weeks

A new poll released by the Hebrew-language Channel 2 news site on Monday reveals that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's approval rating has fallen as a "casualty" in the faltering Operation Protective Edge.

The poll, conducted by Shiluv Millward Brown and iPanel for the news source, found in the last four days Netanyahu's support has taken a sharp nose-dive.

A mere 38% of Israelis responded that they are satisfied with Netanyahu, as opposed to 50% who are dissatisfied. Just four days earlier, Netanyahu's support stood at 55%.

The sudden dive corresponds to a period during which four-year-old Daniel Tragerman hy''d was murdered by mortar fire in his Kibbutz Nahal Oz home last Friday, possibly contributing to a feeling of government neglect in providing security to its citizens.

The poll adds that three weeks ago Netanyahu's support was at 63%; towards the beginning of the operation early last month when the IDF began its ground entry to Gaza that it later withdrew, that support was at a whopping 82%.

A University of Haifa poll late last month likewise found that Netanyahu's support had spiked at the start of the operation, showing that 65% were "very satisfied" with Netanyahu's handling of the operation, 20% were "satisfied" and only 10% "not satisfied."

However, that support has dipped as Netanyahu continues to be unable to take decisive action against Hamas in an operation that started July 8, while making numerous ceasefire agreements that Hamas repeatedly breaks, and "softening" ministers to Israeli concessions.

Ironically, US President Barack Obama told the New York Times earlier this month in an interview that Netanyahu had too much public support, and that he needed internal pressure - not to defend Israel, but rather to make land concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Regarding whether to start the school year if rocket fire continues, 18% said to open schools all over the country, 63% said school should begin everywhere except the South, and 15% said all schools in the country should remain closed.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Gaza, Gaza envelope, Hamas, IDF, Israeli polls, Naftali Bennett, Operation Protective Edge

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:09 AM 4 comments

After all, that worked out so well the last time...

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, EUBAM Rafah, Gaza, Hamas, Hamas rockets, Hezbullah rockets, Lebanon, Operation Protective Edge, terror tunnels, UN Security Council Resolution 1701, UNIFIL rules of engagement

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:09 PM 0 comments