Friday, May 16, 2014
Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs: We Want Democracy - Like Israel
The Tel Aviv District Court's decision to send former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to six years in prison for corruption has prompted calls in the Arab world for endorsing Israel's standards of accountability, transparency and justice.Erdogan shouts anti-Israeli slur at protester: report
Reacting to the sentencing of Olmert, many Arabs expressed hope that the day would come when their countries would learn from Israel that no one is above the law, even if he or she is a president or prime minister.
Sufian Abu Zayda, a leading Fatah official and former Palestinian Authority minister, praised the court verdict; he said it shows that in Israel, no one is above the law.
"This verdict provides further evidence that the judicial system in Israel is fully independent in the wake of the separation between the legislative, executive and judicial authorities, as well as total freedom of the media," said Abu Zayda, who is considered an expert on Israeli affairs.
Turkey’s prime minister shouted an anti-Israel slur as he was mobbed by angry protesters at the site of a deadly mine blast this week, local media reported Friday.Gazan, West Bank farmers learn post-harvest storage techniques in Beit Dagan
“Why are you running away, Israeli spawn?” Recep Tayyip Erdogan is heard yelling at a protester in video footage circulated by the opposition Sozcu newspaper, using an expression considered a curse in Turkish.
In the footage that could not be authenticated, Erdogan is seen surrounded by angry protesters shouting and whistling at him as he visited the tragedy-hit town of Soma on Wednesday a day after the blast.
The Palestinian farmers were participating in the final workshop of a five-day course in post-harvest techniques held at the Volcani Institute, within the Agriculture Ministry complex in Beit Dagan. Receiving funding from the Netherlands government, the course took place through a partnership among the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the Israeli Agriculture Ministry, Palestinian Authority growers’ associations and the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s MASHAV and CINADCO international cooperative development programs.
Their course is also part of a larger project already extended into its fourth year – Cash Crop Gaza and West Bank – funded by the Netherlands and implemented by the FAO, according to Hillel Adiri, senior technical marketing adviser at the FAO.
Sarah Honig: Agent in the vent
The most intriguing question in the furor generated by Newsweek’s supposed exposés of “gone-too-far” Israeli espionage is where the stories originate.Hagel dismisses allegations of Israeli espionage
The answer might put the online magazine’s ongoing focus on this issue into context. It would be enlightening to learn whether a genuine senior American intelligence source actually exists, and, if so, whether that source acted on a personal initiative.
If this is more than a private peeve, it would be pertinent from our perspective to discover whether the source was directed by Obama Administration or State Department higher-ups to sling mud at Israel and sully it.
If so, this reaction would certainly constitute overkill opposition to freeing prospective Israeli tourists from US visa requirements. Pesky as the visas may be, they definitely shouldn’t be portrayed as a central Israeli interest for which it’s worth this country’s while to make a fuss and much less to make concessions. If fewer Israelis are attracted to the lures of America, so be it.
US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in Tel Aviv as part of a regional tour, appeared to dismiss on Thursday a series of high-profile media reports regarding Israeli espionage in the United States.Sarah Honig: What’s up with WhatsApp?
“I have heard of that report,” Hagel said of the two-part Newsweek article, which claimed that Israel conducts “aggressive espionage” against US targets. “I’m not aware of the facts that would substantiate the report,” he added, according to Reuters.
Iran’s interlocutors prefer to believe that by a miraculous happenstance the country has transformed itself overnight from a ruthless theocracy – whose agenda inter alia includes wiping Israel off the map – to a an agreeable member of the international community.Nakba Day and Plausible Peace Plans
Had self-bamboozlement not played a key role in the international attitude vis-à-vis Iran, there would have been no difficulty is seeing through the ruse and sweet talk. Thus, while International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors visited a uranium mine and a uranium-thickening facility in central Iranian towns of Ardakan and Yazd, Iran had banned access to the WhatsApp messaging site. It explained, without embarrassment or hesitation, that the move arose from the fact that WhatsApp is owned by a “Jewish American Zionist.”
This was a reference to the acquisition of WhatsApp two months ago by Facebook, whose founder is Mark Zuckerberg. According to Abdolsamad Khorramabadi, head of the regime’s Committee on Internet Crimes, the fact that Zuckerberg is Jewish legitimizes cracking down on a particularly popular social media site.
The astounding fact isn’t so much that Teheran’s Shiite rulers fear social networks and incite against Jews, but that the world’s democracies are so silent on any hate propaganda so long as its targets are Jews.
Anyone who cares about Israel or the Palestinians should hope it someday becomes a reality. But the problem with what Shavit calls “Fayyadism”—named for the reform-minded former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad—was amply illustrated by his failure. Despite the praise showered on him by Americans, Europeans, and Israelis and the aid they sought to give him, Fayyad and other like-minded Palestinians have no discernible constituency among their own people. The corrupt kleptocrats of Fatah and the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad may have nothing to offer Palestinians but more of the same blood, privation, and failure they’ve been giving them throughout the century-old conflict over the land with the Jews, but they remain the only viable factions.Invest in and secure the Jordan Valley
Shavit’s reference to his opportunity zones as a “greenhouse” is telling. It should be remembered that when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, wealthy American Jews bought the greenhouses built by Jewish settlers in order to give them to local Arabs who could then build their economy. But the greenhouses were destroyed in a paroxysm of Palestinian rage against anything connected to the Jews hours after the Israelis left. Much as Shavit might hope that Israeli withdrawals in the West Bank will produce a different result, there is no reason to think that any land abandoned to the Palestinians will not be converted to terrorist hotbeds, much as the independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza soon became.
In his final speech to the Knesset in October 1995, just two weeks before he was assassinated, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin presented to the Knesset his vision for a Palestinian "entity" that would be "less than a state." Rabin made it clear that Israel would "not return to the June 4, 1967 lines" and he pledged that Israel would retain control over the Jordan Valley "in the broadest meaning of that term." He also explicitly stated that Israel would not freeze building over the Green Line.In wake of talks' collapse, Bennett to present PM with proposal to annex Area C
By contrast, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today advocates the establishment of a Palestinian state; has largely frozen settlement building; and insists only upon "maintaining Israeli military forces along the Jordan River." Netanyahu's cautious formulation -- Israeli forces along the Jordan River -- means something other than full sovereignty, and clearly less than what Rabin intended.
The Bayit Yehudi chairman recently met with a number of cabinet ministers and senior officials of various parties to discuss the plan, trying to create a “united front” behind it.Free Will Is Only For White People By Martin Indyk (satire)
During one meeting he said the recent breakdown in the negotiations with the PLO meant this was the time for Israel to put its own initiative on the table, and start to “move forward after 20 years of trying one track, which has met with no success.”
Likud Ministers Israel Katz and Gilad Erdan, as well as Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, have spoken recently about applying Israel law to Area C of the West Bank.
Since Arabs, as nonwhites, lack free will, the only ethical method of achieving change is to demand concessions from Israel. A society or individual with genuine volition and sense of right and wrong could be held accountable for translating political grievances into the bombings of cafes and buses, but that is not how we, or our European allies, view the Palestinians. They have no choice but to resort to brutality, since that is their nature.What ‘Nakba Day’ Really Means – And Why Israel And The World Should Prohibit it
The principle that only those of European ancestry have culpability lies behind a good number of foreign policy decisions. It can’t really be Iran’s fault that they want nuclear weapons, since, as non-Europeans, they ipso facto lack the capacity to realize that the consequent destabilization of the region would be a bad thing. So the best we can do is let them develop what they want, since it would be unethical to restrict them when we’re the ones who invented that technology in the first place. It’s only fair.
Today much is being made of the deaths of two Arabs whom were killed while engaged in the violent riots that traditionally occur on Nakba Day. As a consequence, The Palestinian Authority is threatening to halt all ‘security coordination’ , not that the ‘coordination ‘ really means that much. After all,the PA has yet to put a single person in jail for murdering a Jew…in fact it pays them a salary as an incentive for doing so, Mahmoud Abbas considers these murderers heroes and constantly foments violence against Israel’s civilians in spite of the tailored rhetoric he gives the Obama Administration and the EU.Arch-Terrorist Barghouti: No Peace Without 'Right of Return'
The Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians have a number of curious holidays. There’s ‘Prisoner’s Day’, observed on April 17th when the Palestinians celebrate the convicted murderers in Israeli prisons for their murder of Jews.
There’s ‘Land Day’ observed on March 30th, which commemorates violent riots by the Palestinians against Israeli Authorities that led to the first intifada.
And then there’s Nakba Day, celebrated May 15th, the day after Israeli Independence day on the Gregorian calendar.
Arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in planning suicide terror attacks, has welcomed the Hamas-Fatah unity pact and stressed that there can never be a peace agreement with Israel unless the “Palestinian refugees” are allowed to return to their homes.A quieter Al-Nakba…but the message stays the same.
Barghouti’s remarks were made in a statement he released Thursday on the occasion of “Nakba Day”, on which Arabs mark what they see as the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment.
In his statement, Barghouti praised the work of the “martyrs”, stressing that the so-called “right of return” is a sacred right that cannot be negotiated. He added that any solution to the “Palestinian problem” which does not include the right of return is an illegitimate solution.
Around 200 people attended this year’s Al-Nakba protest in Sydney last night. Numbers were down on previous years and the crowd seemed tamer. The Hezbollah flags and neo-Nazis, conspicuously present in the previous two years, were gone.Irony of the anti-Livni demonstration in London (including interesting revelation about Neturai Karta)
But the rhetoric has changed little. Israel was defamed, misrepresented and demonised. Speaker after speaker asserted that the Palestinians, but not the Jews, are a distinct people entitled to national self-determination. The double standard did not phase one speaker. No antisemitism here, she insisted, irrelevantly citing her own Jewish background as “proof”.
The ignorant Israel haters demonstrating tonight outside a Knightsbridge hotel against Tzipi Livni (who was guest speaker at a JNF event there) calling her a ‘war criminal’ presumably do not understand the irony of their protests. Her behaviour in seeking to undermine Netanyahu’s government inher role as ‘chief negotiator’ in the peace talks (where she has acted more as Obama’s chosen representative than Israel’s) means that she is doing more to damage the long-term security of the State of Israel than the Israel haters would dare dream of.The US denies President Obama had any role in the German decision to cancel the promised discount.
The obligatory ‘stars’ for the bigots were, as usual, the Neturai Karta goons who were out in force. I have blogged before about my belief that they are not even Jews because I have seen them demonstrating – and carrying banners – on Shabbat. So I went up to their leader and questioned him about this (referring specially to the last time this happened at Trafalgar Square). He gave a truly remarkable response. He said they were allowed to carry banners in ‘that special place’ on Shabbat. It really is amazing what a barrel load of Iranian cash can buy these days.
Germany has decided to cancel a promised 30% discount on the price of the three or four gunboats Israel is expected to buy, according to a report in Ha’aretz.Hezbollah Threatens Maronite Cleric Over Israel Visit
The discount is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Chancellor Angela Merkel made the offer to Prime Minister Netanyahu in February, at a meeting between the German and Israeli cabinets in Jerusalem.
Merkel’s national security advisor Christoph Huesgen told Israel this week that the discount on the boats won’t be approved by the German parliament because of the breakdown in the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Huesgen even denied the promise was even made in February.
Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful terrorist organization, stated Friday it had warned the Maronite patriarch of the "negative repercussions" of his plan to accompany Pope Francis to Jerusalem this month.Pope Plans to Drive Unprotected in PA Areas
"We presented our perspective and point of view and laid out what we see as the negative repercussions of this visit," Ibrahim Amin al-Sayed, head of the terror group's "political council," said after meeting Patriarch Beshara Rai.
Sayed said Hezbollah hoped "that this perspective is taken into account".
Pope Francis apparently feels very at ease over his visit to Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled areas during his May 24-26 visit to Israel. The Vatican reported on Thursday that he will ride in open-top non-bulletproof cars in Bethlehem.Muslim Brotherhood Leader Espouses Anti-Israel, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric
The pope's predecessor, Benedict XVI, rode in a bulletproof "popemobile," an armored car introduced after the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981. The current pope has in the past shown his preference for non-bulletproof cars.
"It's a program that he (the pope) himself has approved," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood, has notoriously made anti-American and anti-Semitic statements during his sermons and speeches. Earlier this week, his official Arabic website published notes from a speech Qaradawi gave at a conference in Doha entitled “Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa between the conspiracy and confrontation.”Hezbollah Forced to Cut Budget Over Iran Aid Shortage, Faces New U.S. Sanctions
It called for the Arab and Muslim world to prioritize liberating Jerusalem over other issues.
A source close to the central command of Hezbollah said the terror group is feeling the effects of Iran’s tough economic situation and will be forced to slash its budget.JPost: Dealing with Iran
According to the source, Iran is feeling the strain of international sanctions related to its nuclear program as well as expenses related to the Syrian civil war, and as a result has cut its aid to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s The Daily Star reported.
Additionally, Hezbollah is feeling the effects of growing international scrutiny of its terror finance network, especially from the U.S. and European countries.
‘No deal is better than a bad deal.” That should be the mantra in the hearts and minds of P5+1 negotiators as they sit down in Vienna with their Iranian counterparts next week.PM to Hagel: Iran is fooling int’l community on nukes
This is not just the opinion of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Likely US Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton voiced agreement with this assertion this week during a speech before the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum.
US and its allies “have to be tough, clear-eyed and ready to walk away and increase the pressure if need,” Clinton emphasized, stressing, “No deal is better than a bad deal.”
Meeting with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Friday morning in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran was continuing to develop its nuclear weapons capability and intercontinental ballistic missiles.Report Co-Authored by Ex-Admin Official Blasts U.S. Handling of Iran Talks
“We’ve been saying all along that Iran is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the international community,” Netanyahu said, “so I wasn’t surprised and I’m sure you weren’t surprised by the recent UN report on Iran’s ongoing efforts to deceive the international community, to continue to develop its ICBMs and to continually violate its commitments of Security Council stipulations on forbidding it to develop certain parts of its nuclear program.
Ambassador Dennis Ross, who served as President Obama’s special adviser on Iran during his first term, co-chaired a task force whose report, published Monday, offers a stark and pointed assessment of last year’s P5+1 interim agreement over the Iranian nuclear program, also known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPA). The report,written by the Iran Task Force of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), notes that though the JPA “set back Iran’s breakout timing by nearly one month,” it nonetheless has allowed “Iran to enrich uranium more rapidly than before the deal; steadily reduce the pressure on Tehran from sanctions; and fail to resolve international concerns about Iran’s weaponization activities.”USA Today: Nuclear Deal in Works Would Let Iran Keep Ability to Make Bomb
It also noted that top U.S. lawmakers from both parties – and from both chambers – have been unequivocal that leaving Tehran with such capabilities would be unacceptable. The dynamic may become problematic for the Obama administration, which will likely need congressional legislation to unwind sanctions against the Islamic republic.
There have been leaks suggesting that the White House could unilaterally suspend financial restrictions, but even Iranian lobbies have conceded that those scenarios are unlikely to prove diplomatically robust.
Meanwhile, Washington Institute Managing Director Michael Singh on Wednesday published a piece worrying that Western negotiators have implicitly shifted to a position where “a ‘good deal’ these days is often framed more in terms of Rouhani’s capacity to deliver than our own requirements.”
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