Date: Friday, May 23, 2014
By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Islamic Jihad affiliated man entered home in northern Israel with knife in attempt to kidnap Israeli, hurled firebombs at vehicles.
The Shin Bet and the Israel Police arrested a Palestinian man who was in Israel illegally, on suspicion of planning to kidnap an Israeli in the Western Galilee.
The suspect – whom the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) named as 25-year-old Murad Hassan Ali-Hassin of Kabatiya, near Jenin – confessed to plotting to kidnap an Israeli in Avtalion, in the Misgav region.
Affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, Ali-Hassin had been jailed in 2008 and 2009 after being convicted of plotting to stab a soldier at a West Bank checkpoint.
“He confessed during questioning by the Shin Bet to carrying out a number of attempted terrorist attacks in the Misgav Regional Council in April 2014, including an attempted kidnapping,” the agency said.
“On April 19, 2014, he attempted to enter a house in Avtalion, near Karmiel, armed with a knife, to kidnap one of the home’s residents for the purpose of negotiating the release of Palestinian [sec urity] prisoners. The plot failed after he was chased away from the area by the home’s residents,” the Shin Bet added.
The suspect also confessed to hurling fire bombs in April at Israeli vehicles traveling along Route 7955 – which connects Avtalion to the Maslahit junction – and at a vehicle near Kibbutz Eshbol. There were no injuries in those attacks.
Ali-Hassin tried to set fire to a forest in the area with a firebomb as well, the Shin Bet said.
He acted alone, but confessed to trying to get other Palestinians who were in the country illegally to join him in carrying out terrorist attacks. Several Palestinians were arrested along with him on suspicion of being involved in the attacks or knowing about them.
Haifa District prosecutors charged Ali-Hassin in district court on Thursday with attempted kidnapping for murder or blackmail, breaking and entering, aggravated assault, armed offenses, and deliberately endangering human life on a transportation route.
Shin Bet sources said the case was the latest indication of the “big risk inherent in the illegal entry of Palestinians into Israel,” and stressed the need to close gaps in the West Bank security barrier that enable infiltrators to pass.
“Recently we’ve seen growing involvement of Palestinians who are in Israel illegally in terrorist attacks, including the Tel Aviv bus bombing of December 2012, the abduction and murder of soldier Tomer Hazan in September 2013, and the murder of soldier Eden Atias in Afula in November 2013,” the sources said. |
Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2014
05/19/2014 23:19
Head of political-military affairs at Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, warns of storm clouds "on the horizon," says Israel has not been able to stop build up of Hezbollah's rocket arsenal.
Iran can break out to nuclear weapons "very quickly," and Israel must maintain operational readiness for any threat that may arise, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, director of political-military affairs at the Defense Ministry, warned on Monday.
Speaking in Tel Aviv at a security conference organized by the Israel Defense publication and the Israel Artillery Association, Gilad said the security forecast was not sunny. "Today is a pleasant day. But there are clouds, and a storm, on the horizon," he said. "People don't believe it until it comes," he added.
Iran's nuclear weapons program remains the top threat to Israeli security, he said, describing the Islamic Republic as a "horrible regime" that threatens to exterminate Israel. He referred to a past statement by former Iranian president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who said that one atomic bomb would be enough to destroy Israel.
"They're determined to reach nuclear weapons. They want to get to a situation where [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah] Khamenei asks [Ali Akbar] Salehi, [head of the Atomic Energy Association of Iran], can we develop nuclear weapons? And the answer must be yes we can. Not in English, in Persian," Gilad continued.
Iran's strategy is based on the twin goals of getting rid of choking international sanctions, and keeping the option of breaking out to nuclear weapons within "a few months," he said.
"President Obama keeps saying, and I think he means it, we won't tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons. Iran says, okay... we will build the infrastructure to get to nuclear weapons, including missile capabilities, scientists, etc. It's like a runner who can't jump two meters, so he builds a 1.95 meter ramp, and later he can jump from it and get to two meters. This is the greatest danger. There is a possibility Iran will achieve this. It's a potential existential threat," Gilad said.
He noted that Iran has overseen the construction of Hezbollah's arsenal of 100,000 rockets, and spent billions of dollars to build up Hezbollah's firepower, which threatens all of Israel's territory.
"This is a military threat, not a terrorist one," he said, adding, Israel has "not been successful in preventing a buildup [of rockets] in Lebanon." Alleged Israeli action to prevent Hezbollah's armament program, as mentioned by foreign press reports, is the exception, Gilad said.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps has global command centers for terrorism that are located "everywhere," and planned to "slaughter dozen of Israelis over Passover in Thailand," the senior defense official said. These efforts are "mostly failing," he added.
"Can you imagine nuclear bombs in Iran's possession, and how this will destabilize the region?" If the July 20 deadline for nuclear talks between the international community and Iran is delayed, this would be "excellent for the Iranians, as they want to stop the momentum of sanctions," he added.
Israel must maintain operational readiness, and never knows "when some threat will come," Gilad stated. He praised the country's defense industries for building up a shield against ballistic missile threats, and paid tribute to "unbelievable" intelligence achievements vis-a-vis Iran.
Turning his attention to the Palestinians, Gilad said that should Palestinian Authority security forces take exclusive control of West Bank, there would be a "very high feasibility" of rockets and shelling raining down on greater Tel Aviv.
Gilad expressed skepticism over the chances of Hamas and Fatah achieving real unity, rather than an "image of unity," adding, "I cannot imagine them reconciling. Hamas is determined to take over the PLO. Their strategic plan has never changed, to take over whole of the Middle East, and they don't mind starting in Ramallah."
Addressing the situation in Syria, Gilad said that two al-Qieda organizations, terror groups "without limits," are operating over the northern border, and include 1500 European or foreign passport holders fighting in Syria. "Sooner or later, they will carry out a spectacular terrorist attack in Europe or Israel." Israel has beefed up defenses along the northern border, but the Syrian crisis is also "putting pressure on Jordan," he warned.
"Al-Qaida is new in our neighborhood. It is [now] in Lebanon, Syria, and it is trying but failing to attack Jordan and Israel. In Sinai, it is extending capabilities to Cairo to be able to murder [the Egyptian] president. Either it defeats you or you defeat it."
Israel today "can defeat any combination of enemies," Gilad said, but the moment Iran goes nuclear and triggers an Arab nuclear arms race, the region will become "hell," he said.
|
Date: Monday, May 19, 2014
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, made the following remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting:
"Last week, the Anti-Defamation League issued a global report in which it compared levels of anti-Semitism among adults in various places around the world .
It seems that the place with the highest level of anti-Semitism is the Palestinian Authority, where 93% of adults hold anti-Semitic views. This is the result of the Palestinian Authority's unceasing incitement, which distorts the image of the State of Israel and the Jewish People, as we have known in other places in our past. This finds expression in the fact that they hold parades to commemorate what they call the Nakba. They define the existence and establishment of the State of Israel as a disaster that must be corrected. This also finds expression in the increased activity that the Palestinians are allowing in Judea and Samaria for Hamas, which directly and openly calls for our destruction. Whoever sees the establishment of the State of Israel and its continued existence as a disaster does not want peace.
Last week, I returned from my visit to Japan .
The growth of the Israeli economy depends, first and foremost, on expanding our marketing activity abroad and creating new markets. Last year, I visited China As a result of this visit, we now see economic development and increased economic activity between the two countries. In Japan last week, there was a clear decision to deepen ties and develop economic, technological, scientific and other links between us and Japan.
On Friday, I spoke with the prime Minister-Elect of India There too there is a clear expression of the desire to deepen and develop economic ties with the State of Israel.
Today, we will approve a decision – which has been submitted by the Foreign Minister and which I think is very important – to strengthen economic ties and develop links with the Pacific Alliance .
The Pacific Alliance is a pact between five Latin American countries with a combined GDP of over $3 trillion.
We are making a very concentrated and focused effort to vary our markets, from our previous dependence on the European market, to the growing Asian and Latin American markets, in which Israel needs to take a small market share and bring about growth, employment and social welfare in the State of Israel. This is a strategic and – I think – a very promising effort. It has already begun to show results and will continue to do so. I would like all ministers, each in his or her own field, to join this important effort.
We are also making an effort to lower the cost of living in the State of Israel and today we will approve a joint decision – by myself, the Finance Minister, the Health Minister and the Economy Minister – to lower food prices in various fields. We will simplify the bureaucracy in order to allow for the import of food that does not have sensitive health issues. This will certainly increase competitiveness and lower prices. This is part of the same continuing effort we are making to lower the cost of living in the State of Israel."
|
|
|
Date: Friday, May 16, 2014
May 7, 2014|3:35 pm
Crowd outside Virgin Mary Church in Cairo, Egypt, following an attack on Oct. 20, 2013.
WASHINGTON – A group of about 150 Christian clergy, leaders, and Congressmen have signed a pledge to support persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
Meant as a stance of solidarity with Christians in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, the pledge was entered into the congressional record by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.).
"Now facing an existential threat to their presence in the lands where Christianity has its roots, the Churches in the Middle East fear they have been largely ignored by their coreligionists in the West," reads the pledge in part.
"American religious leaders need to pray and speak with greater urgency about this human rights crisis."
Many of the signatories gathered at the Cannon House Office Building on Wednesday morning to speak about the ongoing persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
Congressman Wolf, who co-chairs the bipartisan Religious Minorities in the Middle East Caucus with Rep. Eshoo, gave the opening remarks.
"I regularly meet with beleaguered Christians from this part of the world … In the face of this violence, Christians are leaving in droves," stated Wolf.
"The resounding theme that emerges is quite simply a plea for solidarity, and an appeal for help. Where is the West they wonder?"
U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 18, 2011.
In an interview with The Christian Post, Wolf called the pledge "the beginning" of "all the different denominations" coming together to tackle this issue.
Wolf has sponsored legislation to create a Special Envoy on Middle East Religious Minorities, which has passed the U.S. House of Representatives, only to stall in the US Senate.
"Hopefully it will break away the hold that is in the Senate so that we can pass the bill in the Senate," said Wolf to CP.
"Every person running for office, Republican or Democrat, really ought to be able to say what are they going to do to help out with regard to the persecuted church."
Slated to retire from Congress this year, Wolf also told CP that he believes "there'll be many" to fill his shoes on this issue in Congress and that he will continue to pursue the issue after retirement.
In recent years, political and social upheavals in the Middle East have led to a surge in the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim nations.
Various human rights groups have pointed to the increasing number of Christian refugees leaving the Middle East, many from communities that have existed since the days of the Roman Empire.
Nations like Egypt, Iraq, and Syria have seen their Christian populations plummet amid the outbreak of violence from Islamic extremists.
Nuns pray during mass in the Catholic Patriarchate in Damascus, September 7, 2013.
The signers and speakers included representatives from the Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, and assorted Protestant churches. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, gave remarks on the need to not be silent.
"I often ask how is it that things like this can happen? Who is it that there can be concentrated continuous, persistent acts of violence directed against groups of people?" said Wuerl.
"The answer keeps coming up. It happens because of the silence around it. It takes place because so many others are simply silent."
In addition to Wolf, Eshoo, and Wuerl providing comments, other speakers at the Cannon building included Dr. Jerry Johnson, president and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters; His Eminence Metropolitan Methodios of Boston, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; Nina Shea, director and senior scholar at the Hudson Institute Center for Religious Freedom; Rev. Canon Dr. Andrew White, chaplain at St. George Anglican Church in Baghdad; and Dr. Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Anderson told CP that his organization was involved because "religious liberty has always been a priority for the National Association of Evangelicals."
"The first step is raising awareness and in a competitive world where there is so many things going on its such a challenge to get people's attention," said Anderson.
"I think if we can do that, then that can lead to other steps, like a special envoy, like encouraging other governments. If evangelicals raise the issue, then the government will also raise the issue."
|
Date: Thursday, May 15, 2014
Bennett says Israel should not tolerate Israeli Arabs holding pro-Palestinian Nakba Day events.
Israel's two-fold answer to the Palestinians commemoration of Nakba Day is to continue building and developing the country, including Jerusalem, and to pass a Basic Law defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jews, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday.
Netanyahu's comments came soon after returning from a four-day visit to Japan, as he was touring a new sports complex under construction in Jerusalem.
"Not far from here, in the Palestinian Authority, they are commemorating what they call the Nakba Day," Netanyahu said. "They are standing silent to mark the tragedy of the establishment of Israel, the state of the Jewish people."
Netanyahu said that Palestinians were educating their children with "endless propaganda" calling for the disappearance of Israel.
"We have many answers to that," he said. "The first is that we continue to build our country, and our united capital of Jerusalem," he said.
"And we will also give an additional answer to 'The Nakba' – we will pass the nationality law that makes absolutely clear to the world that Israel is the state of the Jewish people."
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett spoke out on Thursdayagainst expressions of Palestinian nationalism within Israel, saying, "We need not tolerate Israeli Arabs who promote Nakba Day."
Bennett was quoted by Army Radio as saying, "I do not support any event or organization which promotes the establishment of a national Palestinian agenda in Israel."
"This will not be tolerated," said Bennett.
Bennett stressed that the government believes all of Israel's Arab citizens are entitled to full equality under Israeli law. However, he stated, those who promote Palestinian nationalism within the state will not be tolerated.
Hundreds of east Jerusalem residents held a Nakba Day rally at the capital's Damascus Gate on Thursday, lamenting the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe or "nakba" in Arabic.
On Wednesday night Palestinians marched with torches and held a candle light vigil in Ramallah, as well as preparing for further Nakba Day events on Thursday.
In Gaza the Palestinians organized a day to showcase their heritage in order to teach children about the traditional way of how their ancestors used to live in their land which they hope to return to someday.
"They (the Israelis) say that the old people die and the young will forget, on the contrary we teach our children even the unborn babies we teach them that their land was stolen by the Zionists," said Mnawar Abu Mousa refugee living in a refugee camp in Gaza.
"We do not forget our land and it does not matter how long it will take, we will return to our lands. We will return to our lands all the refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, all the Arab countries and everywhere they should have the right to return," said another refugee.
|
Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2014
May 12, 2014 6:47 p.m. ET
John Kerry began the year trying to bring representatives of the Assad regime together with rebel leaders in Geneva to end the civil war in Syria.
It was bound to fail. It failed. Strike one.
Next, the secretary of state worked tirelessly to create a framework agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, with a view to settling their differences once and for all.
It was bound to fail. It failed. Strike two.
This week, U.S. negotiators and their counterparts from the P5+1—the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany—will meet in Vienna with Iranian negotiators to work out the details of a final nuclear agreement.
You know where this is going.
There's been a buzz about these negotiations, with Western diplomats extolling the unfussy way their Iranian counterparts have approached the talks. Positions are said to be converging; technical solutions on subjects like the plutonium reactor in Arak are being discussed. Last month Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif said there was "50 to 60 percent agreement."
All this is supposed to bode well for a deal to be concluded by the July deadline. If the Iranians are wise, they'll take whatever is on the table and give Mr. Kerry the diplomatic win he so desperately wants. Time is on Tehran's side. It can sweeten the terms of the agreement later on—including the further lifting of sanctions—through the usual two-step of provocation and negotiation.
The only thing Iran has to fear is an Israeli military strike. For that to happen, Jerusalem needs (or believes it needs) conditions that are both militarily and diplomatically permissive. By agreeing to a deal, the Iranians further restrict Israel's options without permanently restricting their own.
But Iran is not wise. It is merely cunning. And fanatical. Also greedy, thanks to a long history of being deceitful and obstreperous and still getting its way without having to pay a serious price. So it will allow this round of negotiations to fail and bargain instead for an extension of the current interim agreement. It will get the extension and then play for time again. There will never be a final deal.
Why am I so confident? Listen to the man with the last word first: "They expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly threaten Iran with military action," Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Sunday. "So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation. The Revolutionary Guards should definitely carry out their program and not be satisfied with the present level. They should mass produce."
Ballistic missiles are lousy weapons for anything except the rapid delivery of chemical or nuclear warheads. (The 39 Iraqi Scuds that hit Israel in 1991 killed two people.) But limiting the number and range of ballistic missiles is central to any agreement that aims to prevent Iran from having a rapid nuclear-breakout capability. Mr. Khamenei's public call to mass produce missiles is not exactly an indication of seriousness about a final deal.
Also a sign of non-seriousness was last month's call by Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, to add an additional 30,000 centrifuges to Iran's existing 19,000. "So far we have produced seven to eight tons of enriched uranium," he said. But he wants Iran to produce 30 tons, ostensibly to fuel the civilian nuclear plant at Bushehr. And that's 30 tons a year. A single ton of civilian-grade uranium suffices, with further enrichment, for a single atomic bomb.
Still not getting the drift? "Iran will not retreat one step in the field of nuclear technology," said one prominent Iranian over the weekend. "We have nothing to put on the table and offer to them but transparency. That's it. Our nuclear technology is not up for negotiation."
That's Iranian President Hasan Rouhani speaking. For good measure, he added that Iran would go back to producing 20% enriched uranium—which is close to weapon-grade—"whenever necessary." And he's the moderate. Even the Obama administration cannot accept a deal that allows Iran to expand its centrifuge capabilities or enrich uranium to 20%.
The hardening of Tehran's negotiating position is another reminder of the blunder the administration made when it agreed to the interim deal and then turned on Congress to prevent automatic sanctions in the event Iran failed to make a final deal. "Show that you are strong, and you will see results"—such was the advice Mr. Rouhani confidentially offered an Israeli agent posing as a U.S. official in 1986 on how to deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini. The advice is still sound.
In the meantime, the administration needs to think about what it will do when Mr. Kerry strikes out. Is there a Plan B, other than the president's now trademark mix of hollow threats and soliloquies on the limits of presidential power? I doubt it. Goethe wrote that nothing is worse than aggressive stupidity, which is true. But pompous impotence surely comes in second place, and this administration combines aspects of both.
The Israelis may sit still through all this. But Mr. Kerry shouldn't count on it.
|
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2014
TEL AVIV, Israel – Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison for his role in wide-ranging bribery case, capping a stunning fall from grace for one of the most powerful men in the country.
The Tel Aviv district court handed down the punishment in the Jerusalem real estate scandal case related to Olmert's activities before becoming prime minister in 2006. Tuesday's sentencing followed a guilty verdict that was handed down by the same court in March.
The 68-year-old Olmert, who stood stoically in the courtroom in a navy blue shirt, has insisted he is innocent and that he never took a bribe.
Olmert's spokesman Amir Dan said he would appeal both the verdict and the sentence to Israel's Supreme Court.
"This is a sad day where a serious and unjust verdict is expected to be delivered against an innocent man," Dan said, shortly before sentencing.
According to the verdict, millions of dollars illegally changed hands to promote a series of real estate projects, including a controversial housing development in Jerusalem that required a radical change in zoning laws and earned developers tax breaks and other benefits.
At the time, Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and was accused of taking bribes to push the project forward.
Olmert was forced to resign as prime minister in 2009 amid a flurry of corruption allegations.
At the center of the case was the Holyland housing development, a hulking hilltop project that Jerusalem residents long suspected was tainted by corruption.
The case broke in 2010 on the strength of a businessman, Shmuel Dechner, who was involved in the project and turned state's witness. Dechner died last year from an illness.
The indictment against Olmert laid out one of the largest corruption scandals ever exposed in Israel.
It accused Olmert of seeking money, through a middleman, from Holyland developers to help out his brother, Yossi, who fled Israel because of financial problems. According to the indictment, Yossi Olmert received about $100,000.
Ehud Olmert was also accused of asking the middleman to help out city engineer Uri Sheetrit, who also had money woes. Sheetrit later dropped his opposition to the broad expansion of the Holyland complex, which burgeoned from a small development into a massive, high-rise project that sticks out from its low-rise neighbors. According to the indictment, Sheetrit received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
Among those also sentenced on Tuesday was Sheetrit, who was sent to prison for seven years. A series of other former government officials, developers and businesspeople were sentenced to terms of between three to five years.
Judge David Rozen ordered all those sentenced to appear before the prison service on Sept. 1.
|
Date: Monday, May 12, 2014
Elliott Abrams
May 9, 2014 10:08 AM
Last night Martin Indyk, now the chief assistant to Secretary of State Kerry in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, spoke at length to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. One account of his speech appears here at the Times of Israel's web site.
In the speech Indyk cast blame on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian, for the breakdown of the talks. There are a couple of things to say about his remarks, beginning with his failure to cast any blame on the third side of the triangle: the United States, or more precisely Kerry and Indyk himself. Blaming his boss, and his boss's boss, President Obama, was more than could legitimately have been expected from Indyk, but a wee bit of introspection was not. Historians will not have to be consulted decades from now to analyze the manifold errors in Obama administration handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the errors have been obvious from day one. Or day two, to be more accurate, when the president selected former senator George Mitchell as his special envoy.
It was down hill from there, as Mitchell began by insisting on a 100 percent Israeli construction freeze in the major blocks and Jerusalem as a prerequisite for negotiations. This was a condition on which Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas had never insisted. The result was four years, Mr. Obama's entire first term, without any negotiations.
That story is worth noting because Indyk has continued the obsession over settlements—and the supply of misinformation about them. He spoke last night of "rampant" settlement expansion. In his "background" interview with the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea last week, he spoke of "large scale land confiscation" for settlement expansion. Here he is following the president, who recently spoke of "aggressive construction."
Last night Indyk said this, according to the transcripts I have seen:
Just during the past nine months of negotiations, tenders for building 4,800 units were announced and planning was advanced for another 8,000 units. It’s true that most of the tendered units are slated to be built in areas that even Palestinian maps in the past have indicated would be part of Israel. Yet the planning units were largely outside that area in the West Bank. And from the Palestinian experience, there is no distinction between planning and building. Indeed, according to the Israeli Bureau of Census and Statistics, from 2012 to 2013 construction starts in West Bank settlements more than doubled.
These numbers are meaningless and misleading. There is no "rampant" expansion or "large scale land confiscation" for settlements. First, there is certainly a difference between what is announced and what is built. Under the Israeli system, all construction in the West Bank requires several levels of approval, and not every project that gets initial approval gets built. Second, every level of approval is announced triumphantly by the settlement movement, so one reads press stories of approvals for the same project over and over as months pass. This makes it seems as if there are constant approvals, when in fact there are constant repetitions. Indyk surely knows this.
Third, the numbers are simply wrong. Uri Sadot and I wrote about this in the Washington Post, after a careful look at the statistics. Here is part of what we said:
Israel built 2,534 housing units last year in the West Bank. Of these, about a quarter (694) were in two major blocs near Jerusalem, Giv’at Ze’ev and Betar Illit, and 537 were in two other major blocs, Modiin Illit and Ma’ale Adumim, also near Jerusalem. These four, which will remain part of Israel, account for half of last year’s construction....only 908 units were built last year in Israeli townships of 10,000 residents or fewer. And most of those units were built in settlement towns that are part of the major blocs. Units built in areas that would become part of Palestine number in the hundreds — and likely in the low hundreds. Given that about 90,000 Israelis live in the West Bank outside the blocs, that is approximately the rate of natural growth.
Indyk may be suggesting that this pace (slower than that of Ehud Barak, the last Labor prime minister) may be about to explode--8,000 units to be built in small settlements, not in the major blocks, and beyond the fence line, in territory that is not obviously going to remain part of Israel. I'd like to see the evidence. So far the numbers are evidence of efforts by Netanyahu to constrain construction in the small settlements and of a continuing obsession on this subject by Indyk, and by Obama. I would also like to see the evidence of "large scale land confiscation," to which Indyk referred in his background interview. Where exactly, and how much land, exactly? Until Indyk tells us, this can only be treated as a damaging and baseless charge.
It is worth repeating why the details matter. If Israel builds now inside settlement borders of major blocks it will certainly keep in any final peace agreement, it is not disadvantaging Palestinians today nor is it making a final peace harder to achieve. In the years between Barak's peace offer at Camp David in 2000 and Olmert's offer in 2008, Israel built thousands of units--yet Olmert made an even more generous offer than Barak eight years later, offering the Palestinians an even larger percentage of West Bank land. He was able to do so because the construction had been confined mostly to those major blocks.
I believe Israeli construction in small settlements beyond the fence line, in territory that it is assumed will be Palestine some day, is foolish: a waste of resources at the very least. But construction in the major blocks is not, nor was it an obstacle to peace talks before the Obama administration foolishly made it so.
Finally, it's worth noting that Indyk also said last night that “the parties...do not feel the pressing need to make the gut-wrenching compromises necessary to achieve peace.” Those compromises and taking the risks they entail require a firm belief in fully reliable, dependable American support. Sharon, for example, believed he had it when he decided to leave Gaza. The parties do not believe they have it today, and who can be surprised? On the Israeli side, the Obama administration has repeatedly used leaks and backgrounders to disparage the prime minister. And Israelis (and Palestinians) who watched the president flip his position on Syria's chemical weapons—from an air strike one day, to a deal with the Russians the next, without consultation with anyone—can hardly credit the administration's solidity. Moreover, Israelis must recall what happened to the assurances Bush gave Israel in his famous April 14, 2004 letter to Sharon: the Obama administration has treated them as without force, as if this had been a private letter rather than a presidential commitment soon approved by both houses of Congress in huge majorities. Similarly, the administration said the agreement Bush and Sharon reached on settlements simply did not exist, when in fact that agreement had been referred to publicly on a dozen occasions. This is no way to persuade Israeli leaders to take "gut wrenching" risks because they are sure they can rely on American support.
But of all that Indyk had nothing whatsoever to say, choosing instead to tell a tale of brilliant American diplomacy and of Israeli and Palestinian failures. As was famously said in the neighborhood a long time ago (Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, Luke 4:23), "Physician, heal thyself."
|
Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem on March 31, 2014. (Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office/FLASH90)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Now that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have screeched to a halt, U.S. officials are apportioning blame, and a big share is going to Israel.
In an interview with Nahum Barnea, a veteran diplomatic affairs writer for the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, anonymous members of the U.S. negotiating team said Israel’s settlement activity was a principal cause of the breakdown in talks last month.
“There are a lot of reasons for the peace effort’s failure, but people in Israel shouldn’t ignore the bitter truth — the primary sabotage came from the settlements,” one of the officials said. “The Palestinians don’t believe that Israel really intends to let them found a state when, at the same time, it is building settlements on the territory meant for that state.”
It seemed clear that a U.S. pullback from the process was in the works now, said Aaron David Miller, a U.S. Middle East peace negotiator under Democratic and Republican presidents, who said he had read through the Barnea interview four times over the weekend.
“The traction required to sustain this process, to weather all of the bad behaviors on each side, isn’t there,” said Miller, who is now a vice president at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank.
There had appeared for the last few weeks to be internal debate within the Obama administration over whether to keep trying to get the sides back to the table despite increasingly acrimonious exchanges between Israel and the Palestinians, or whether to take a break.
President Obama in an April 25 press conference seemed ready to take a break. “There may come a point at which there just needs to be a pause and both sides need to look at the alternatives,” he said.
Marie Harf, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, on Monday for the first time confirmed to reporters that the talks were “suspended” when she was asked about the Barnea article. Israel had formally suspended the talks on April 24, but Secretary of State John Kerry had kept his team in the region in hopes of getting the sides back together.
Martin Indyk, the top U.S. negotiator, has “returned to the United States for consultations with the secretary and the White House,” Harf said. “As we assess the next steps in the U.S. efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace — it is premature, quite frankly, to speculate on what those steps will be or what will happen.”
She denied reports that Kerry was disbanding his negotiations team and that Indyk was returning to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, which he led before rejoining government last year.
Natan Sachs, a fellow at the Saban Center, said Kerry and Obama had nowhere to go but to “pause.”
“The perception that Kerry owns it more than the parties themselves has reached its limit,” he said. “Now they have to push it back to the sides and let them make their own decisions. I don’t think the United States has fundamentally lost its interest in finding a solution.”
Blaming Israel would be counterproductive, Miller said.
“The notion that the peace process collapsed because of settlement activity is a willful distortion of reality,” he said. “It’s not to say that settlements are not harmful, that building tenders don’t exacerbate tensions — but that is not why Kerry’s 9-10 month effort collapsed.”
The sides, Miller said, were simply too far apart on the core issues, including borders, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and the recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jews.
“The maximum that Netanyahu can offer on all core issues doesn’t come close to the minimum that anyone on the Palestinian side can accept,” he said. “This maximum-minimum problem is in essence the fundamental cause and has been for years. We can whine and complain about it, but you need to acknowledge it.”
Einat Wilf, a former Knesset member who was in the Labor Party and then the breakaway Independence faction, said the Americans were recognizing the reality that they could not force the process.
“If the Israelis and Palestinians are not reaching an agreement, it is not because they need an enthusiastic mediator,” said Wilf, who was visiting with Washington. “They are not incapable children. If they are not making decisions, it is because they are assessing their alternatives.”
The officials quoted in Barnea’s article had high praise for Tzipi Livni, the justice minister and top negotiator. Livni has spoken out loudly about the urgency of achieving a two-state solution and sharply criticized her right-wing partners in Israel’s governing coalition.
Wilf said the Barnea interview was emblematic of a phenomenon whereby American negotiators internalize the dissent they hear from Israelis.
Citing another example, Kerry’s recent use of “apartheid” to describe the dangers to Israel of not achieving a peace agreement, Wilf said, “He listens to what Israelis say about themselves, and then says it.”
Wilf, who emphasized that she did not believe Kerry was intentionally endangering Israel, said repeating words like “apartheid” in international arenas played into the hands of those who would delegitimize Israel.
Sachs, who also had read the Barnea interview, said that the U.S. officials’ critiques were a boon to Israel’s enemies.
“Those who are prone to blame Israel for everything will have an easier time blaming Israel,” he said.
Harf, the State Department spokeswoman, was careful to blame both sides in her briefing Monday for reporters, noting the Palestinians’ application to join international conventions and their unity talks with Hamas.
“On the Palestinian side, the appeal to 15 different treaties while we’re actively working to secure a prisoner release, as well as the announcement of the Fatah/Hamas reconciliation agreement at the moment we were working for a formula to extend the negotiations, really combined to make it impossible to extend the negotiations,” she said.
On Israel’s side, she cited the failure by Netanyahu’s government to meet a March 29 deadline to release the final 26 of 104 prisoners Israel had agreed to let go to resume talks last July, as well as the announcement of settlement starts in eastern Jerusalem.
“On the Israeli side, large-scale settlement announcements, a failure to release the fourth tranche of prisoners on time, and then the announcement of 700 settlement tenders at a very sensitive moment, really combined to undermine the efforts to extend the negotiations,” she said. “So I would very much take notion with the fact that this was just one side. Both sides did things here that were very unhelpful.”
|
Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Two weeks after the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal, the PA agrees to transfer 3,000 security forces to Gaza.
It’s a homecoming of sorts. Almost seven years after the terrorist organization Hamas violently ousted Fatah, the political party that rules the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian media reported on Sunday that 3,000 Palestinian Authority police officers will join the Gaza government’s security forces.
Two weeks ago, the two rival Palestinian groups agreed to form a unity government within five weeks and hold a national election after six months.
However, the Hamas Fatah reconciliation already looks tenuous given the political factions’ long history of enmity, as well as very different ideologies vis-à-vis Israel.
Can a Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation Survive?
Despite the recent unity deal, Hamas recently stated that it will not disarm its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. A Hamas official also negated any possibility that the Qassam Brigades would merge with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.
“Dissolving the Qassam Brigades is out of the question, and those asking for that are dreaming. The Hamas Fatah reconciliation will not be at the expense of the military wings of the resistance, which represent the national army of the state of Palestine. Handing over Qassam weapons is impossible and nonnegotiable,” a Hamas official told theAl-Monitor news website.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas (left) and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (right) announce a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement.
Another sticking point in the Hamas Fatah reconciliation is the Hamas group’s continuedrefusal to recognize Israel. Last week, a number of Hamas officials rushed to clarify their movement’s rejection of Israel following indications by PA leaders that Hamas would abide by previously signed agreements.
The fundamentalist Hamas organization refuses to renounce using force against Israel and is classified as a terrorist organization by, among others, the United States and the European Union, due to its many attacks against Israeli civilians.
In contrast, the secular Western-backed Fatah seeks to iron out a deal with the Israeli government that will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.
Since Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, numerous Hamas Fatah reconciliation attempts have been made. Despite a number of agreements, those attempts have not been successful.
On April 23, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh announced they had agreed to a Hamas Fatah reconciliation. As a result, the peace talks between Israel and the PA collapsed, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that the talks are “essentially buried” if Abbas follows through with his commitment to reconcile with Hamas.
Written by Gidon Ben-Zvi
Staff Writer, United with Israel
|
