Labels: hasbara, Israel is a Jewish state, Israel is my home, Israel's Foreign Ministry
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:56 PM
3 comments
For the record, the Muslim Brotherhood was in charge in Egypt at the time.Oh my... Netanyahu tells Foreign Min workers: During '12 takeover of Cairo embassy threatened to send IDF to rescue https://t.co/89vs9aq1PZ— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) May 10, 2016
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Cairo, Egyptian regime change, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Israeli embassy
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:23 PM
0 comments
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.
Gordon goes on to make a case for Hotovely being the one to shift the Foreign Ministry's focus away from the West and toward Africa and Latin America. And while I agree with Gordon that there's little hope of Europe ever taking our side again in the diplomatic courts of the world for the foreseeable future, I believe that there's a lot more that Hotovely can accomplish than just keeping countries like Rwanda and Nigeria on our side.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.
...
[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.
Read the whole thing - especially my last comment.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 exposure of Federation efforts to force parade organizers to accept the New Israel Fund, and the disavowal of interference on behalf of the NIF's behalf by the Consulate may have come on a direct order from Hotovely. And if it did, it's long overdue. In the past, I doubt that the Consulate would have issued such a clarification.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
The report, a copy of which reached Haaretz, was written by Sarit Young, a veteran researcher on Iran in the Foreign Ministry’s Center for Political Research. It was distributed last week to a number of Israel’s embassies worldwide following Khamenei’s speech to Iranian Air Force commanders on February 8.
Khamenei told the officers that he opposed a two-phase agreement with the world powers, the first at the end of March including general principles only, and the second, a comprehensive agreement by July 1. Khamenei said past experience showed that the powers used the time between the two phases to raise new demands against the Iranian nuclear program.
According to the report, this is the first time Khamenei has come out against the outline of the agreement reached in talks in Vienna in late November between the foreign ministers of Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.
“Khamenei’s position will make it difficult in our view for the parties to reach an agreement. The remarks conform to the hard and uncompromising line of Iran’s supreme leader,” the report states.
The report also states that Khamenei’s opposition to a framework agreement was, among other things, “a clear response” to pressures on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to reach a comprehensive agreement as part of an extension of the talks.
According to the report, Khamenei’s speech contains other indications that Iran was hardening its line toward proposals by the six world powers. As opposed to past speeches, Khamenei did not use terms like “heroic flexibility.” That phrase is one Khamenei coined more than 40 years ago, when he was a young cleric, to describe the elements that led the second Shi’ite imam, Hasan ibn Ali, to sign a peace treaty with his enemies in 661 C.E.
Khamenei also made use of this term before the signing of the interim agreement with the powers in Geneva in November 2013. According to the Foreign Ministry report, the fact that Khamenei did not use the term last week, “is an indication of a lack of willingness to be flexible or to wait for a better offer” from the powers.
According to a senior official in Jerusalem who is intimately involved in the issue of negotiations between Iran and the world powers: “At the moment the Iranian side is saying no to everything.” The senior official, who asked to remain anonymous due to the political sensitivity of the issue, said: “Our concern is that precisely because of this, there will be some sort of compromise with the powers as part of the desire to reach an agreement.”If you read the whole thing, you will find out that just about everyone outside of Israel disagrees with the foreign ministry's assessment. And for those of you wondering why Netanyahu's own foreign ministry would issue a report (and conveniently leak it to his political enemies) that contradicts Netanyahu's own assessment, the foreign ministry is still inundated with Leftists.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, joint session of Congress, P 5+1
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:33 PM
2 comments
The strike is the latest development in the nearly two-year old work dispute declared by the workers for improved salaries and work conditions. Seven months of mediation efforts exploded on March 4 when the workers rejected a Finance Ministry proposal.
Once the mediation blew-up, the workers resumed crippling sanctions that were put on hold during the mediation period. A number of high-profile visits to Israel were cancelled as a result of the sanctions, as well as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's planned trip to Mexico, Colombia and Panama next month. In addition, Pope Francis' planned visit in May is in doubt because of the work sanctions.
A statement put out by the workers' committee said that the workers declared an "open ended" strike "in protest of the employment conditions for Israeli diplomats and because of the draconian decision by the Treasury to cut the workers' salaries."
"Today, for the first time in Israel's history, the foreign Ministry will be closed and no work will be done in any sphere under the ministry's authority," the statement read.
The decision to strike was slammed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who called it a "miserable" decision that shows the worker's committee has "lost its head."
"This move has no benefit, and will only cause more damage to the ministry's workers," he said. "I am sorry that these irresponsible steps will come at the expense of the country's citizens, and as contacts are underway with the Treasury and in the middle of mediation."
Liberman said "we will do everything possible to limit the damage caused to the state and its citizens."
As a result of the strike, no consular services will be available, Israel will not be represented in any international gathering or forum, its ambassadors abroad will not work, and services needed for everybody from new immigrants to employers bringing in foreign workers will be brought to a halt.
According to the statement, the ministry's doors will be locked from Sunday afternoon to everyone, including the ministry's management and political leadership.I think we're actually better off without anyone at the UN - who needs them? As to the rest of it, this is the only country in the world where the diplomatic corps could go on strike. I have no idea how much money these people make or what kind of perks they have, but I suspect they are far better than yours or mine.
Labels: foreign ministry strike, Israel's Foreign Ministry
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:01 PM
1 comments
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Shimon Peres
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:10 PM
1 comments
Israel is the only non-European full partner in the project, and is supposed to invest 600 million Euro (785 million US dollars) in the project over 7 years.
Besides the financial hit the EU project would take as a result, the move would be a serious blow to the project’s prestige and success. Israel is a central partner in the projects that Horizon 2020 undertakes, and part of these project’s successes are dependent on Israeli human resources and research.I saw a report about this on Wednesday, but that report made it sound like we were going to get 600 million Euros of inbound investments from Horizon 2020 which we would now lose. Neither report is completely accurate. The original Hebrew report is here and according to that report, Israel is scheduled to invest 600 million of the 80 billion Euros in the project (about three quarters of 1%, but that's obviously not the only thing Israel is scheduled to contribute), but expected to get back about 900 million Euro in inbound investments. The government is apparently willing to pay that price, but the still Leftist-dominated foreign ministry is calling it a major blow to Israeli high tech.
Labels: BDS, European anti-Semitism, European Union, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Israeli high tech
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:40 PM
0 comments
Israeli MFA issues a travel warning for Israelis planning to fly to Egypt urging them not to go due to the mass demonstrations next week
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) June 28, 2013
Labels: Egypt, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Travel warnings
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:38 PM
0 comments
According to Jewish Agency director of aliya Yehuda Sharf, potentially “hundreds” of prospective immigrants worldwide have been told that they must put their travel plans on hold, as Israeli consulates are no longer issuing aliya visas necessary for obtaining citizenship.
Sharf told the Post that the Jewish Agency is “saddened by the distress to the new immigrants caused by the strike, and intends to do everything in its power to alleviate their problems.”
“We are very concerned that olim may suffer financial damages, as many of them have already made plans and sold their property,” Sharf said. “There are others who have arranged to start new jobs or registered for educational courses. There are even those who have been assigned a call-up date to the Israel Defense Forces.”
Prospective immigrants are among the thousands of people – including Israelis abroad, foreign statesmen and diplomats – caught in the crossfire created by the Foreign Ministry workers’ five-month-old labor dispute.
The ministry’s workers’ committee has steadily ratcheted up its sanctions, issuing directives last week to end all consular services abroad – a move that would include measures impacting prospective immigrants. This week, the workers announced that they would end all support given to foreign diplomats in Israel.
As a result of the sanctions, the Foreign Ministry has stopped providing logistical support for any ministerial trips abroad, ceased all cooperation with the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and refused to give assistance to visiting foreign dignitaries. On Sunday, Hungarian Human Resources Minister Zoltan Balog canceled his planned trip because of the sanctions.
In a statement to the Post, Foreign Ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson said that, as part of the work dispute, “consular services are being provided only in the following cases at present: anything to do with saving lives, personal medical requirements, the transfer of bodies for burial and anything to do with adoption and surrogacy.”
Therefore, as of Wednesday, all aliya was put on hold.I'm thinking of where we were at this time in 1991 - the year we made aliya in August. There was no Nefesh b'Nefesh back then, and there were no Nefesh b'Nefesh flights. But by this time, our house was under contract and we may have had our plane tickets. In those days, you did all the visa paperwork at the airport. I would guess that the worst nightmare is for people who have sold their homes and given up their children's places in school for next year. I wouldn't worry too much about what people's plans are at this end - they're so used to this sort of thing that it will all sort out in the end. But given a five-month strike which seems to have little prospect of being resolved anytime soon, I'd be really nervous if I'd sold my house (and perhaps already had most of my worldly belongings on a ship to Israel), given up my children's places in school and suddenly discovered that I cannot get the visas to come to Israel. If you're in that position, my amateur advice would be to come as a tourist and make aliya once you're here.
Speaking with the Post on Thursday, union chief Yair Frommer said that he was fighting for the very survival of Israel’s diplomatic corps.
“Today we are in the situation that one out of three diplomats that have been recruited to the cadet program leave after 10 years, and that is what I’m talking about,” he said. “People don’t see a future in the foreign service because of the working conditions.”
While he agrees with critics of the strike that “aliya is crucial for the State of Israel” and that immigration is “one of the most important elements in Israeli policy toward the Diaspora and Israeli identity,” Frommer said that it “is also one reason why we should have an acting professional foreign service; this is what we are fighting for.”
“Unfortunately,” he lamented, “this labor dispute is affecting many people, but I think that’s the only way to get the attention of policy-makers so they will understand how important it is to attend to the problems of the foreign service.”And what are the problems? While I'm not 100% sure, I believe that we're talking about the age old problem about Foreign Ministers appointing cronies to key ambassadorial posts rather than longtime members of the foreign service corps. Honestly, this cuts both ways. While I would not have wanted to see Dalia Itzik as the ambassador to King James' court, the diplomatic corps has also produced more than its share of incompetents and embarrassments, not to mention people not capable of representing the country's policies. And there's also an element of Right v. Left here....
Labels: aliya, foreign ministry strike, Israel's Foreign Ministry
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:02 AM
1 comments
Originally, the IDF actually accepted responsibility for the boy's death. After an internal inquiry, it claimed instead that father and son had probably been hit by Palestinian gunfire. But anyone looking at the broadcast footage could see that neither father nor son was wounded in any way. Did no one in the IDF or foreign ministry ask why there was no visible wound on a boy who had allegedly just been killed by snipers, no blood anywhere?
The fact is that at no stage did Israel want to get to the truth. After its gross incompetence in taking responsibility for a killing that never happened, it looked the other way as the facts emerged. The result is that this tale has been suppurating poison for 13 years. France 2 has never been called to account. Untold numbers of Israelis have been murdered as a result of this footage. And Israel has been libelled as a nation of child-killers.
So why did it stay silent until now? The foreign ministry seemed to believe it was all just water under the bridge and no good would come of stirring it up again. This "heads down" attitude is sometimes called "ghetto mentality". What the scandal surely tells is that you can take the people out of the ghetto, but you cannot always take the ghetto out of the people.
And now, 13 years too late, Israel has published the results of a government inquiry, which the rest of the world won't believe. Why now? Why produce this without the all-important independent element to guarantee its credibility? Why do so without even putting on the web for all to see the critical unbroadcast footage showing the child moving?
Why is the Israel government so monumentally incompetent?It's not that the government is incompetent. It's that the Leftist-dominated (for most of the last 20 years) Foreign Ministry has a kind of death wish - a Samson complex. Quite simply, Israel's Left would rather self-destruct and take the Jewish state with it than see the Jewish state be 'too Jewish.'
Labels: Israel's Foreign Ministry, Israel's suicidal Left, Mohamed al-Dura
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:43 AM
0 comments
The title of international affairs minister that the Likud’s Yuval Steinitz received could be a stepping stone to the Foreign Ministry, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reassured Steinitz this week, Likud sources revealed exclusively to The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.
The sources said that at a marathon meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday, in which Steinitz let Silvan Shalom have the Energy and Water Ministry, Steinitz raised the issue of what would happen if Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman is convicted.As to Lieberman, between his interests and the country's interests, guess whose interests he has chosen to protect.
...
If Liberman is convicted, multiple Likud ministers will seek the Foreign Ministry, including Steinitz, Gideon Sa’ar, Gilad Erdan, and Shalom, who held the post under former prime minister Ariel Sharon. But Likud sources said Netanyahu’s mind was made up, and he made clear to Steinitz that the job would be his.
Liberman did not permit Netanyahu to appoint another minister in the Foreign Ministry during his absence and insisted that MK Ze’ev Elkin be appointed deputy foreign minister, even though he does not speak English.Where have we heard something like that before?
A poll sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and Tel Aviv University found that a majority of Jewish Israelis (56%) believe that Yair Lapid is not suited to be finance minister, while 33% think he is. Even among Yesh Atid voters, 50% believe he is not suited while 42% think he is.
Jewish Israelis are closely divided on Tzipi Livni’s suitability to coordinate negotiations with the Palestinians, with 46% seeing her as suitable and 50% seeing her as not. Nearly all Hatnua voters (95%) see her as suitable for this role.
More than two-thirds (69%) of Jewish Israelis supported a coalition with Yesh Atid and Bayit Yehudi, while the ultra-Orthodox parties remain outside; a minority (28%) opposed this.What could go wrong?
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Israeli Knesset, Yuval Steinitz
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:53 AM
1 comments
The students decided to make their voices heard in light of the Foreign Ministry's announcement to use the supermodel as the star of a campaign aimed at showing the world that Israel is not just a war-ridden country.
They drafted a letter in cooperation with the "The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel," which has thus far been sent to Foreign Ministry Director-General Rafi Barak, until a minister is officially appointed.The IDF has even stronger objections.
"We know that Refaeli had a publicized relationship with a gentile actor," said Eyal Cohen, a law student at the Ono Academic College's haredi campus. "And in this way, she certainly doesn't represent the Israeli public."
Cohen's friend, Gilad Israeli, a student at Bar Ilan University, said "Refaeli did not serve in the army and even takes pride in that. Before we offer ourselves up to the world, we need to decide who we are. We have much more to offer than girls playing matkot (Israeli paddleball) on the beach.
"We have a glorious Israeli heritage – in which we must take pride. Trying to be Hollywood 2 won't work."
The Foreign Ministry asked Refaeli to participate in an internet campaign to improve Israel's image abroad, prompting a letter of complaint from the IDF, due to the supermodel's not having performed mandatory military service, Channel 2 reported on Sunday.
The IDF Spokesman's Office wrote a letter to the Foreign Ministry complaining that "it would send a negative message to Israeli society if you were to use Bar Refaeli, who did not serve in the IDF, as a representative of the IDF in a public diplomacy campaign abroad."
The letter added that famous people such as Refaeli serve as role models for the youth of Israel.
"Choosing Refaeli for such a campaign sends a message of "forgiveness and ignores the failure to enlist in the IDF and even encourages young people to do so by showing them how those who did not enlist have succeeded."
The Israeli media has reported that Refaeli, 27, evaded military service by marrying a 37-year-old and divorcing him immediately thereafter.And you thought the Haredim and the IDF couldn't agree on anything, didn't you?
Labels: Bar Refaeli, Brand Israel, draft, Haredim, IDF, Israel's Foreign Ministry
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:06 PM
0 comments
Israel’s term as member of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Board begins on 1 January 2013. This is the third time that Israel has served on the Executive Board of this prestigious and important organization, after a break of over 40 years.The announcement goes on to describe the history of Israel's relations with UNICEF, all of which predates 1965 except for this:
UNICEF, which operates in approximately 200 countries, is a humanitarian rescue organization that is concerned with children’s health around the world, and supplies them with clean water, proper nutrition, education, humanitarian relief in disaster zones and more.
Israel has an excellent network of connections with the organization. The Israeli Fund for UNICEF, operating from Tel Aviv, has raised millions of shekels for the organization’s activities for the benefit of children around the world. Israel also cooperates with the organization in various areas of assistance projects in Third World countries.Given UNICEF's record over the past several years, one has to wonder why the pride at the Foreign Ministry. Here are some examples:
UNICEF sponsors of 'Palestinian' summer camps to educate children in terrorism.Are those enough reasons for Israel not to be involved with UNICEF?
Yes, the same camps that are named after terrorists.
UNICEF refused to accept donations from Lev Leviev because he controls a corporation that builds Jewish homes beyond the 1949 armistice lines.
UNICEF sponsored an advertisement that called for boycotting Israel (pictured above).
UNICEF routes donations through Iran's Bank Melli, which is subject to sanctions.
UNICEF accepts donations from a charity that's connected to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Labels: Israel's Foreign Ministry, UNICEF
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:37 AM
0 comments
The Tzipi Livni Party called Menashe’s report “political spin” and said experience proved Netanyahu preferred his natural partners on the Right. MK Majallie Whbee, who was Livni’s deputy foreign minister, said that if Israelis wanted Livni, they would have to vote for her.
However, Livni herself did not rule out the possibility of cooperating with Netanyahu in a Jerusalem Post interview two weeks ago.
...
In an effort to distance herself from Netanyahu, Livni slammed a speech he made at a Likud rally in Jerusalem on Tuesday night, mocking his statements over the weekend that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were watching the election to see whether he would be strengthened.
“Mashaal watched Netanyahu and saw the man who allowed Hamas to celebrate at our expense in Gaza [after last month’s Operation Pillar of Defense],” Livni said. “Ahmadinejad watched and saw the man who allowed Israel’s international image to deteriorate due to his policies.”The comment about Hamas is especially hypocritical. Livni was part of a government four years ago that had a chance to finish Hamas off four years ago and didn't have the junk to do it. Netanyahu was nowhere near as close.
Likud ministers publicly expressed optimism that Liberman would once again be foreign minister and they would not have to cooperate with Livni.
They ruled out the possibility that Netanyahu would trust Livni to negotiate with the Palestinians.
“Livni has gotten desperate because her party has not taken off in the polls,” Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat said. “Of course she wants to be foreign minister, but Netanyahu will not let it happen.”
Netanyahu made statements at the Jerusalem rally that would seem to indicate he was not moving in Livni’s direction.
“We did a lot to strengthen the settlements [in the past four years], and in the next four years we’ll continue to do a lot to strengthen the settlements,” he said at the event.Big deal. Netanyahu is the one who is desperate. All of his allies to his left - Begin, Meridor and Eitan - lost in the primaries. In fact, had Netanyahu himself stood for reelection in the primaries (he did not), I doubt he would have finished number 1 and he might not have even finished with a realistic slot. That's why he's spending his time fighting with (and hemorrhaging votes to) Naftali Bennett and Jewish Home. He's genuinely afraid that he will have no choice but to make a coalition with Jewish Home.
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Jewish Home party, Knesset elections 2013, Likud party, Tzipi Livni
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:42 AM
0 comments
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Monday proposed that Israel’s five principle embassies in Europe publish full-page advertisements in major European newspapers denigrating Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but senior Foreign Ministry officials reportedly shot down his proposal, calling it “an idea divorced from reality.”
After the Foreign Ministry and Israeli embassies in question refused to foot the bill for the ads — which is estimated to run into the hundreds of thousands of euros — the World Jewish Congress agreed to pay for the campaign and sign its name on them, Maariv reported.
However, a WJC spokesperson Monday night was not aware of the initiative, and it was not immediately clear when the ads might run.
Walla news reported that the ads will depict Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal as a terrorist, and Abbas as peace rejectionist because of his recent silence in the face of Mashaal’s calls for Israel’s violent destruction....According to Liberman’s office, Jewish organizations inquired as to what they could do to counter “the world’s silence regarding Mashaal’s demonizing and inciting statements against Israel and Abbas’s complicity with them.”
At Liberman’s suggestion, ads to be run in British, French, Spanish, German and Italian newspapers will be directed at convincing Europeans of Abbas’s alleged connection to Hamas’s terrorism, and highlighting the fact he did not criticize Mashaal for saying he would “not give up an inch of Palestine,” and that “Jihad and armed resistance is the only way.”
“We don’t remember any time that we operated this way, through ads rather than forwarding personal messages or interviews with the media,” a Foreign Ministry source told Maariv. “An ad of this kind doesn’t transmit trustworthiness.”
“Europe regards Abbas as a ‘good guy’ who they need to help and strengthen. When Israel attacks him with advertisements, we come across poorly,” it said.
“We are marked as the ‘bad guys’ because of the decision to advance construction plans in the West Bank. The ads simply don’t obtain our objectives, and only increase the absurdity of Israel’s stance in the eyes of European public opinion.”
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, hasbara, Israel's Foreign Ministry
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:47 PM
1 comments
I have pointed out many times that much of the Foreign Ministry bureaucracy is left over from the days when the Ministry was under Leftist control. Unfortunately, Foreign Minister Lieberman seems more interested in trying to destroy yeshivoth by drafting every last yeshiva student than he is in cleaning house in his own ministry, and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is tone deaf to what's going on out in the field (see below). Or perhaps, the Foreign Minister shares at least one goal with J Street, as we will see below.J Street’s Philadelphia-based affiliate announced today that Daniel Kutner, the Consul General of Israel to the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States, would participate in a “Future of Pro Israel” rally in Philadelphia intended to foster support for J Street’s political agenda.Now, you might be wondering why an Israeli diplomat is attending an American political rally that clearly supports one party's agenda. The response from Israel's Foreign Ministry is the usual: Yihye b'seder (it'll be okay).
“This election year, we’re not going to sit on the sidelines while those who claim to be pro-Israel advocate for policies that harm it. We’re not going to watch as the window for a two-state solution closes,” states the email announcing Kutner’s participation. “As one J Street leader in Chicago put it, we’re going to go from ‘house to house, from synagogue to synagogue, from congressional district to congressional district and we’re going to make our voices heard.’”
The event is scheduled to take place this evening at Philadelphia’s Jewish Community Services Building, though J Street noted that the city’s organized Jewish community did not explicitly endorse, sponsor, or support the event.
J Street chastises conservative pro-Israel advocates, including Irving Moskowitz and William Kristol, in promotions for the event. The group accuses such individuals of “turning Israel into a partisan wedge issue with no regard for the actual impact on the future peace and security of the country and its neighbors.”
“We should all be deeply concerned that a handful of far-right funders and groups like Bill Kristol’s Emergency Campaign for Israel [sic] are turning Israel into a partisan wedge issue with no regard for the actual impact on the future peace and security of the country and its neighbors,” states another J Street email blast touting similar events to the one scheduled to take place in Philadelphia.
J Street’s Philadelphia affiliate bills itself as an explicitly political organization, raising questions about Kutner’s stance on the American elections. The event is billed under the guise of J Street’s “Future of Pro-Israel” movement, which is operated by the organization’s lobbying arm, which is registered as a 501(c)(4).I wonder why all those Jewish organizations who objected to Sarah Palin speaking a rally against Iranian nuclear weapons four years ago aren't shouting about this. Is it not political enough? Oh wait - it was J Street that decided that Palin couldn't speak, wasn't it?
A spokesperson for the Embassy of Israel did not immediately return a request seeking clarification on Kutner’s participation.
However, an email obtained by the Free Beacon indicates that Kutner’s office sees nothing wrong with the event.
“After looking into this issue, the Consul General was invited to an advocacy event and not a political one,” a spokesperson for Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon wrote to Lori Lowenthal Marcus, a pro-Israel advocate, when asked about the event. “There for [sic] he has received all the relevant approvals.”
Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Danny Ayalon, Israel's Foreign Ministry, J Street
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:49 PM
4 comments
An anonymous (is there any other kind?) source in the Foreign Ministry has told Haaretz that 470 of the 1,200 or so blacklisted flytilla 'activists' had 'no connection' to the flytilla. "We put people on the list who are as far removed from anti-Israel political activity as east is from west," one Foreign Ministry official said. "We have insulted hundreds of foreign citizens because of suspicions, and have given the other side a victory on a silver platter."Did anyone actually notice the flytilla outside of Israel and the blogs which discuss it? I searched in vain on Sunday for online video of flytilla-connected protests. For most of the day, all that was up was one al-Jazeera report. Did your local media cover it? Or were you looking to me and other pro-Israeli bloggers for coverage?
"Direct damage has been done to tourism and to Israel's good name," the official said.
Organizers said on Sunday that their "Welcome to Palestine" protest, in which hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists were planning to participate in demonstrations in the West Bank, was a success that still advanced the Palestinian narrative even though many of the protesters were forced to stay home.
"It doesn't matter if eight people came or 800," said Lubna Masarwa, one of the organizers of the event. "What's clear is that there is a popular struggle that is gaining momentum and has the international support of thousands of activists. The Palestinians are not alone in their struggle."
The list of banned passengers was inflated over the weekend in what one Foreign Ministry official called "overexertion."Obviously, there was a way to get off the blacklist if you weren't supposed to be on it. And obviously, people who felt that they had valid grounds to explain their actions, were able to explain them and were able to travel.
"The net was spread too wide, bringing down innocent people," he said.
That net did not spare holders of diplomatic passports, like a French diplomat and his wife who are due to begin working at the French consulate in Jerusalem this summer. The couple was planning to look for an apartment in Jerusalem, but the night before their flight they received an e-mail from their airline, Lufthansa, saying their tickets were canceled because they had been banned from entering Israel.
"The Population Registry people told us their flight route was suspicious because they were coming in on a connecting flight from Munich, not direct from Paris," said a Foreign Ministry official. "Only after we explained that the ticket from Munich was bought because it was cheaper did they take them off the list."
...
Other passengers who appeared on the blacklist despite having no connection to the protest include an employee of Italy's Communications Ministry who was supposed to meet with her Israeli counterparts here, and a Dutch member of the board of directors of German pharmaceutical giant Merck, who was part of a company delegation taking part in the dedication of a biotechnology hothouse at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in which Merck is investing 10 million euros.
Both were eventually allowed into the country.
Labels: flytilla, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Tzipi Livni
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:49 PM
1 comments
Evelyn Gordon has a spot-on comment about Israel's diplomatic corps. Matthew’s critique of Israel’s latest PR fad is spot-on: No campaign can succeed without addressing the fundamental issue of the Jews’ “right to self-determination in their homeland.” But there’s one simple thing both Israel and Jewish organizations could do to improve the situation: stop appointing official representatives who actively promote the anti-Israel case. Consider two examples: former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev, and Zoe Jick, New York regional director for the World Zionist Organization’s Department of Diaspora Activities.Read the whole thing.
Labels: Israel's Foreign Ministry
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:45 AM
0 comments
If you're trying to figure out why 'the World is against us,' one place you might want to start is Midwest Consul General Orli Gil. We were therefore not surprised with the delivery of the diplomat who addressed us. She was Orli Gil, Israel Consul General for the Midwest based in Chicago. Ms. Gil was well spoken and had a list of diplomatic credentials attained over the years. She also had a history of appearing at gatherings sponsored by such organizations as listed above.I have written many times before about how Israel's Foreign Ministry is teeming with Leftists who support the 'Palestinian' narrative who are left over from the days of Shlomo Ben Ami, Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni. I just wanted to let you know that the Lieberman - Ayalon Foreign Ministry has had little success in getting rid of them. Aren't you glad that union rules (yes, really) prohibit firing them?
She assumed her post as Israeli Consul General to the Midwest region in July 2008 and is a career diplomat who has served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 22 years. Ms. Gil holds a BA in English and Hebrew Literature from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem – hardly an education, by the way, directed toward political expertise.
Ms. Gil spoke well enough. Unfortunately, the Israeli Government message that she presented was disappointing, to say the least. It was sometimes difficult to determine whose view was being presented – the Israeli or the Arab.
The terminology used by Ms. Gil was shocking. She had somehow learned to use the pro-Arab version. She spoke of Israel having “conquered” much Arab territory in 1967 and was “occupying” it to this day. She spoke of Israel “giving back” land that Israel had “conquered” and was fully prepared to “give back” more for peace.
Never did she seem to understand and certainly did not verbalize the fact that Israel had simply regained territory that should have been the Jewish Homeland in the first place. Never did she remind the audience that the Jewish claim to the land goes back over 3000 years. Never did she state that there is no genuine legitimate Arab claim to the land and that at no time was there an Arab nation on that land. In fact, the term “Palestinian” always referred to the Jews living there.
Arabs were simply designated as Arabs who had migrated into the area when the Jews began to drain the swamps, make the land habitable, utilized Jewish genius to bolster the entire economy and thus create jobs for these Arab immigrants. They streamed in from Iraq, Egypt, Syria and surrounding areas only because in Palestine and then Israel, they finally had a chance to make a decent living and to obtain the huge benefits of a democratic nation that they do not have in their own Arab countries to this very day.
If Consul General Gil and the entire Israeli diplomatic corps had read, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine published in 1984 book by Joan Peters and describing, in great detail, the origins of the Arab population of Palestine, they would learn these basic facts. These facts have been studiously ignored by an Israel government too obtuse to understand their public relations significance.
Labels: hasbara, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Orli Gil
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:51 PM
8 comments
Haaretz claims an 'exclusive' story derived from 'secret cables' that show the Foreign Ministry's plan to defeat the 'Palestinian' drive for the universal declaration of a reichlet at the United Nations in September. I won't bore you with the details - they're really nothing unexpected or inappropriate.Labels: Israel's Foreign Ministry, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, unilateral declaration of statehood, United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Security Council
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:34 PM
2 comments
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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