JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T
MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE
MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.
JOEL 3:2 (WW3 OCCURS WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED)
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people (ISRAEL) and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(JERUSALEM)(WW3 STARTS BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AND ISRAELIS UPROOTED FROM THEIR GOD GIVIN LAND BRINGS 3 DEAD BILLION IN WW3)
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
JOEL 3:2 (WW3 OCCURS WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED)
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people (ISRAEL) and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(JERUSALEM)(WW3 STARTS BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AND ISRAELIS UPROOTED FROM THEIR GOD GIVIN LAND BRINGS 3 DEAD BILLION IN WW3)
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
It Feels Like We're Back to the Disengagement Days"-INN JAN 29,14
Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir threw his hat into the ring in expressing suspicions that the new state prosecutor (state attorney) Shai Nitzan is prejudiced against residents of Judea and Samaria and their allies. Ben-Gvir told Arutz Sheva news "what we warned would happen is now happening today. There is a feeling we're back to the days of [the Disengagement from] Gush Katif."
Ben-Gvir complained that "resources and energies are directed" toward minor issues such as "three girls caught with stickers in the Old City." Critics say Nitzan played an active role in the Prosecution's decision to carry out mass arrests of demonstrators against the government's removal of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria in the 2005 Disengagement, and to close investigations against police officers who used violence against the demonstrators.
Ben-Gvir complained that "resources and energies are directed" toward minor issues such as "three girls caught with stickers in the Old City." Critics say Nitzan played an active role in the Prosecution's decision to carry out mass arrests of demonstrators against the government's removal of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria in the 2005 Disengagement, and to close investigations against police officers who used violence against the demonstrators.
170,000 rockets are aimed at Israel’s cities, says IDF intel head
Aviv Kochavi lists missile threat ahead of Iran nuke program; says in time, though, cyberwarfare will prove most dramatic change on battlefield
January 29, 2014, 4:44 pm
0-The Times of Israel
The head of Israel’s most
powerful intelligence agency depicted Wednesday a changing battlefield
in which offensive cyber capabilities will, in the near future,
represent the greatest shift in combat doctrine in over 1,000 years. For
now, though, he said, the 170,000 rockets and missiles pointed by enemy
states at Israel represented the most pressing threat, a danger he
placed even above Iran’s rogue nuclear program.“Cyber,
in my humble opinion, and you don’t have to agree with me, will be
revealed in a not very long time as a revolution greater than the
creation of gunpowder or the usage of the aerial space at the start of
the past century,” said Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the head of the IDF’s
Military Intelligence Directorate. Kochavi,
a former infantry officer, called the possibilities inherent in cyber
warfare “nearly limitless, and that is not a metaphor.”He revealed that the IDF’s Military
Intelligence Directorate, already the largest of the army’s corps, has
recently expanded further and shifted both its methodology and, more
significantly, its approach. Where once, he said, a state’s intelligence
service was expected to describe reality, today it must also “take
part” and alter it.Like his predecessor Amos Yadlin,
Kochavi, speaking at the INSS think tank’s annual conference in Tel
Aviv, described a Middle East in a historic flux, producing an array of
challenges and opportunities.He listed four central challenges. The first,
notably listed ahead of Iran’s nuclear program, are rockets, he said.
Kochavi asserted that Israel faces 170,000 rockets and missiles, and
that, “for the first time in many decades, the enemy has the ability to
drop considerable amounts of munitions on the cities of Israel.” In the
past the threat was countered by the IAF, he said; today it is Israel’s
enemies’ primary weapon and it represents an enormous intelligence
challenge to counter.Kochavi, who has reportedly voiced opinions
that did not dovetail with the political leadership’s interpretation of
the changes in Iran, for instance highlighting the potential
significance of Hassan Rouhani’s election to the presidency, steered
clear of that topic in this address. He said only that the Iranian
military nuclear program continues in a manner that enables Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, should he decide to give the order, to
sprint ahead “to one bomb or more.”
He revealed that the cyber threats facing
Israel are growing “exponentially” and said that during the past year
the state has faced hundreds of attacks and the intelligence community
has faced dozens of attacks, “the vast majority of which were thankfully
unsuccessful.”And finally, he noted the “near 360 degree”
presence of Jihadist elements along Israel’s borders. A slide depicting
areas under the control of militant, Salafist elements covered what
looked like half of Syria and had a presence in nearly every country in
the region, including Turkey, he noted. Aside from creating friction
along the border regions and melting the traditional state lines, he
said that the rise of sub-state groups also mean that today “90 percent
of Israel’s future battlefields are in urban areas.”In the sort of wide-ranging presentation that
the head of military intelligence typically gives once a year, Kochavi
also focused on positive developments. The decline in the popularity and
legitimacy of the radical axis of Hezbollah and Bashar Assad, alongside
“the erosion” in the Muslim Brotherhood’s popularity in the Middle
East, was a positive development. Additionally, he said, “the moderate
Sunni states, represent a significant opportunity.”Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf
states, “when you look in depth,” all share priorities that “are in
confluence” with Israel’s most pressing interests.This new reality in the Middle East, he said
several times, has dictated significant changes in the way Israel’s
intelligence community operates. Without being overly specific, he said
that intelligence had to move faster and farther out into the
battlefield, so that what is known in HQ in Tel Aviv also “appears on
the computers of the company commanders” in the field and at sea, and
the collection of the material has to increase and grow more diverse.He repeatedly stressed the role of cyber war,
both offensive and defensive, but concluded with the soldiers. “All of
the good intelligence we have is because of them,” he said, showing a
slide of several soldiers’ backs, hunched over computers. “They work a
lot, work hard, and have extraordinary achievements.”Netanyahu: Israel is leading West’s cyber-security fight
Hackers are killing the Internet, the prime minister says — and Israel is one of the few players that can save it
January 29, 2014, 3:54 pm
0-The Times of Israel
For Israel, cyber-security isn’t
just about protecting information systems, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said in several speeches Tuesday and Wednesday, during the
course of Israel’s first-ever cyber-technology show. Cybertech 2014, the
prime minister said, is also a way to build an international coalition
of countries that will work together to defend “the great blessings” of
Internet connectivity, and enable Israel to further develop its
periphery, especially in the south. “Beersheva will not only be the
cyber capital of Israel but one of the most important places in the
cyber security field in the world,” Netanyahu declared at the opening of
the conference Tuesday.Cybertech
2014 is the brainchild of Amir Rapoport, editor of Israel Defense
magazine. According to event chairman Rami Efrati, some 5,500 people
from Israel and abroad visited the show to see the latest in Israeli
cyber-tech. “There are so many important things going on in
cyber-security here, we wanted to gather as much of it in one place and
show it off to Israelis, and to the world,” Efrati told The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the conference.Among the visitors are over 450 heads of
industry and cyber-security agencies from around the world, said Efrati.
Among the larger delegations was the U.S. delegation, including 50
people from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, and
delegations from South Korea, Mexico, NASA. Representatives of the
armies of Brazil, Mexico, Italy and the Netherlands, IT companies from
Colombia, Ghana, and Nigeria, and a cyber-security team from Canada were
also in attendance.In his speech opening the event, Netanyahu
laid out his government’s approach to cyber-security and digital
literacy. Among the facets of the policy is creation of a “digital
Israel,” which entails laying out fiber optic cables throughout the
country and “perhaps one of the ways of reducing social gaps, closing
social gaps, canceling the whole idea of the periphery. Ultimately,”
said the prime minister, “it’s the fast route of knowledge that can come
to every home and give everyone an equal opportunity to partake in this
future.”In addition, Netanyahu said, the government is
working “to create the environment that allows our entrepreneurs and
allows our technologists, our young men and women, to create the
devices, the products, the systems, for this new world.” He added,
Israel is “exploding with creativity. We’re like a country that would
have about half a billion people in terms of our cyber capabilities.”
Israel’s precarious security situation made
the country’s population very security-conscious, while the country’s
“extraordinary research institutions and universities, like the
Technion, the Weizmann Institute,” and especially Ben Gurion University —
which will be the most actively involved in cyber-security, because of
its proximity to several of the new cyber-security projects being
launched — gave students in Israel the tools they needed to utilize
those concepts of security in the cyber world, said Netanyahu. In
addition, Israel was unique in that it had a small, tight ecosystem of
entrepreneurs, many of whom knew each other from school and the army.All this, Netanyahu said, prepared Israel to
take a leadership role in the world on cyber-security issues. The
concept of privacy, the prime minister said, was antiquated – or at
least different than it used to be. “The networks are exposed. The fact
that we have networks, increasing complexity of networks,
interconnectivity on networks means that anything and everything can be
exposed. The Internet of everything means that everything can be
violated,” said Netanyahu. “The whole idea of intellectual property –
that is being fundamentally challenged. The privacy of individuals –
fundamentally challenged. The sanctity of our bank accounts –
fundamentally challenged. And this goes obviously into public systems:
power grids, traffic nets, water systems – you name it. Everything can
be violated. Everything can be opened up. Everything can be also
sabotaged.”The opportunities – and the need – for
leadership in cyber-security is great, and Israel could supply that
leadership. “We have decided to put these resources together in a
coherent way and we have structured a National Cyber Bureau,” he said.
“We have created a special organization to try to mesh together these
elements, obviously to afford cyber defense to our critical systems, to
the country; but also to see how we can share with others our experience
and our talent.”In essence, Netanyahu sees Israel as leading a
coalition of countries to fight the forces that sought to ruin the
“blessing of connectivity” that the Internet has brought. “The top
policy makers, state and non-state, have to get together. I wouldn’t try
to do this in an inclusive way so it’s the new UN of the Internet;
that’s not going to work because some unprincipled elements would be in
that room and they would distort this effort. I think you need a
coalition of the willing, of the leading states that have prowess in
this area and the leading companies, to sit down and discuss. In this I
think Israel is unquestionably a leading power, disproportionate to our
size for the reasons I mentioned, with great talents and great
resources,” Netanyahu said.Netanyahu did not mention which countries
would be included in that coalition, but in a separate discussion, Dr.
Eviatar Matania, director of the National Cyber Bureau, said that
Israel, the U.S., Europe, Australia, and other Western countries were
fighting the same enemies, whether small groups of hackers or entire
nation states. When asked about China, Matania said that all countries
were welcome if they were serious about working together on
cyber-security. “The enemies here are well-known, they are the enemies
all of us in the West are fighting,” said Matania.
In order for international efforts to work,
Israel needed to – and was willing – to part with some of its “trade
secrets,” sharing them with the “coalition of the willing” to advance
cyber-security for all. “This requires a decision, which I have made, to
relax or reduce some of the constraints that we have traditionally put
on such business. The government usually puts constraints on things that
have implications for national security, but we have consciously made
the decision to lower these restraints because we’re taking a gamble, if
you will, on the growth of these partnerships, entailing some risks.”
This risk-taking, he said, is required to get us to be able to control
this cyber-security jungle, to cut it down to size.”Taking those risks would eventually benefit
not only the members of this coalition by enhancing cyber-security, and
it will benefit Israel as well. “Everything that I’ve just described is
driving the growth of hundreds of cyber companies – hundreds of them –
in Israel. About half of them didn’t exist three or four years ago, and
the number is growing rapidly with major investments taking place.” In a
sense, cyber-insecurity was a “growth industry” for Israel, one he
wishes did not exist at all, said Netanyahu, but one he fully plans to
take advantage of to advance Israel’s economy. The start-ups, as well as
the large multi-nationals like IBM, Lockheed-Martin, EMC, and others,
saw Israel as the best place to develop cyber-security technologies,
Netanyahu said.And the greatest beneficiary would be the
long-ignored Negev, which the prime minister foresees as becoming
Israel’s high-tech center. Israel’s first prime minister, David
Ben-Gurion, had tried in vain to interest Israeli industry in developing
the south. Ben Gurion “didn’t quite get the job done, but the dream was
still there. What we’re doing now is something else. What we’re doing
is turning Beersheba and the whole Negev into the cyber region of Israel
and I think of the eastern hemisphere.“We have moved significant units of the
Israeli Defense Forces to the south; we’re putting our national cyber
command smack in the University of Beersheba,” stressed Netanyahu. “We
have a railway line leading from Tel Aviv with a train station that
literally you disembark on that point in the campus. So you have our
security outfits, our university and an industrial park all within
walking distance of 100 yards. That’s called a cyber-hub. It’s a big
thing.”For Israel, taking on this leadership role is
not a luxury if it wants to survive in the cyber-jungle, the prime
minister said. Cyber-experts were fending off thousands of attacks an
hour against government, military, and business systems. To survive
these attacks, and to thrive as a nation, “We really don’t have a
choice. I mean, we have to be good. To be here, we have to be very good,
and in some cases we have to be the best.”Netanyahu’s aides threaten to fire Naftali Bennett
PM demands apology from top minister who castigated idea of settlers staying in a Palestinian state and warned against ‘giving up our country’
January 29, 2014, 2:02 pm
4-The times of Israel
In what appears to be the worst
crisis yet for the governing coalition, sources close to Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday threatened to fire Economy and Trade
Minister Naftali Bennett over his criticism of Netanyahu a day earlier.“Bennett
was given a message that he has to apologize clearly and unequivocally
or there will be a price to pay,” a source in the Prime Minister’s
Office told The Times of Israel.On Tuesday, Bennett delivered a speech lambasting the prime minister in the wake of a Times of Israel report according
to which Netanyahu wants Jewish settlers to be given the choice of
living under future Palestinian rule in the West Bank if a peace treaty
is sealed.“No one will teach Netanyahu what it means to
love Israel or to defend it. With all Bennett’s complaints, it’s not
clear why he’s clinging to his seat in the cabinet,” the official said
in an unusually sharp rebuke. “Bennett’s brazen and irresponsible
behavior won’t be ignored. It does damage to the interests of [Jewish]
settlement [in the West Bank].”The official then added the most direct threat
Netanyahu has given a coalition partner since the current government
was formed last March. “If Bennett won’t apologize, he will endanger the
composition of the current government. Netanyahu has enough
alternatives. Even a government without Bennett will know how to secure
Israel’s citizens – just like the last government, which was headed by
Netanyahu, managed to do.”A senior PMO official told The Times of Israel
on Sunday that the prime minister was insisting that Jewish West Bank
settlers be given the choice to remain in place and live under
Palestinian rule, or relocate to areas under Israeli sovereign rule. The
official was explaining and elaborating on comments made Friday by
Netanyahu during a press conference in Davos, Switzerland. “I have said
in the past, and I repeat today: I do not intend to remove a single
settlement. I do not intend to displace a single Israeli,” Netanyahu
said at the conference.“His consistent position has been that those
settlements that will be on the Palestinian side of the border should
not be uprooted,” the well-placed official said. “Just as Israel has an
Arab minority, the prime minister doesn’t see why Palestine can’t have a
Jewish minority. The Jews living on their side should have a choice
whether they want to stay or not.”Netanyahu first hinted at this position in his May 2011 speech to the US Congress
in Washington, the official noted. “The status of the settlements will
be decided only in negotiations,” Netanyahu said at the time. “In any
peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up
beyond Israel’s borders.”During that speech, he did not explicitly
state that settlers located east of the border must be given the option
to stay, but he has said so in several meetings in recent weeks, the
official said.Bennett has issued several denunciations of the idea since Sunday.In a speech Tuesday at the Institute for
National Security Studies security conference in Tel Aviv, Bennett, who
heads the Orthodox-nationalist Jewish Home party and is opposed to an
Israeli withdrawal from territory in the West Bank, blasted Netanyahu’s
handling of the ongoing US-brokered negotiations.The Palestinians “understand we’re not going
to evaporate, and we understand they’re not going to evaporate. There is
a quiet acceptance. So to take this situation and overturn it with
another Oslo-like idea… the heart breaks,” Bennett said.“Our forefathers and our descendants will not
forgive an Israeli leader who gives up our country and divides our
capital,” Bennett declared in what could be construed as a warning to
Netanyahu. He also suggested that the government’s growing fear of
boycotts “is what will bring on the boycott. This is no way to handle
negotiations, running frightened between the capitals of the world.”On Sunday, Bennett posted a Facebook statement
that said the idea of settlers saying on in “Palestine,” “reflects the
loss of a moral compass. We didn’t experience 2,000 years of yearning
for the Land of Israel so that we could live under the government of Abu
Mazen (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas). Anyone thinking
of placing the lives of Jews in the Land of Israel under Palestinian
rule is pulling the rug out from under our presence in Tel Aviv.“I call on the prime minister to immediately reject this terrible idea,” he concluded.In his speech on Tuesday, Bennett offered a more immediate concern with leaving Jews under Palestinian rule.“Do you know why, why Jews cannot live under
Palestinian rule, why Palestinians can’t rule over Jews? Because they
will kill them,” Bennett said at a conference in Tel Aviv. “And do you know how I know this? Because it has already happened.”Bennett went on to recount in gory detail some
of the events of the 1929 massacre in Hebron, in which 67 Jews were
killed during Arab riots, and of the lynching of two off-duty IDF
soldiers in Ramallah in 2000 who had sought refuge in a Palestinian
police station.Bennett’s closest confidante, MK Ayelet Shaked
(Jewish Home), attempted to calm the escalating row between the two
leaders on Wednesday.“Minister Bennett spoke about his moral stance
regarding the idea of leaving Jews under Palestinian rule,” she told
Israel Radio. “Minister Bennett never said anything personal against the
prime minister. Not one word attacks the prime minister personally. But
[Bennett] sees it as his duty to attack this trial balloon. Morally and
practically, we feel this idea of transferring Jewish towns to
Palestinian rule is a dangerous, un-Zionist act. We were not elected to
stand silent,” he said.Some MKs expressed support for Bennett, while others called on him to apologize.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz,
considered a member of the hawkish flank in Netanyahu’s Likud party,
called Bennett “my friend,” but urged him, “specifically because of our
similar views, to apologize to the prime minister. The argument over
where Jews will live under a future agreement is a pointless one. Only
yesterday, [Abbas] reiterated his demands for a ‘just solution’ to five
million Palestinian refugees, and [said] that Jerusalem, including the
Old City, will be the Palestinian capital. With such stances [on the
other side], there is no chance of an agreement in any case. So why
divide our forces?” Katz said.But others on the right were distinctly more
disposed toward Bennett. MK Yoni Chetboun, of Bennett’s Jewish Home
party, said “it is a great privilege to be reprimanded for insisting
that Jews live under Israeli sovereignty. It’s time to lead with clear
values in the face of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and
the rest of the world,” he said.Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely explained why it was important to challenge Netanyahu.“When all the tactical moves like this week’s trial balloon are taken together,” she wrote in a statement posted to Facebook
on Tuesday, “they create a loss of direction. [Abbas’s] real face is
clear to all, in light of his words and deeds. There is no need for
political acrobatics to show the world which side is rejecting peace.”Those, like Hotovely, who are resisting the
prime minister’s moves, she wrote, “are creating a foundation for
Netanyahu to be able to say to the Americans that he doesn’t have the
political base to establish a Palestinian state. We’re not planning to
replace Netanyahu, but to set political boundaries.”Raphael Ahren and Spencer Ho contributed to this report.
Obama promises security for ‘Israel – a Jewish state’
State of the Union address includes gesture to key negotiating point; Kerry works to enlist interfaith support for talks
January 29, 2014, 6:26 am
4-The times of Israel
WASHINGTON – President Barack
Obama delivered a brief but ringing recognition of Israel as a Jewish
state during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, reinforcing a
key Israeli negotiating point in the ongoing talks with the Palestinian
Authority.“As
we speak, American diplomacy is supporting Israelis and Palestinians as
they engage in difficult but necessary talks to end the conflict there;
to achieve dignity and an independent state for Palestinians, and
lasting peace and security for the State of Israel – a Jewish state that
knows America will always be at their side,” Obama told both houses of
Congress, gathered for the annual report.The president’s affirmation of support garnered a standing ovation from both Democrats and Republicans.Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish
state has been a red-line demand for Israeli negotiators throughout the
past six months of the nine-month period during which both sides have
agreed to hold talks.Speaking earlier Tuesday, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at the Institute for National
Security Studies that the first of Israel’s two demands in negotiations
is “recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people.”Netanyahu said that the refusal of
Palestinians and their supporters to recognize Israel as the Jewish
homeland “is the root of the conflict.”“When we talk about an agreement, we’re
talking about an agreement where we will be asked to recognize a
Palestinian national state. Shouldn’t we demand that the Jewish national
state be recognized as well?” Netanyahu added.Obama’s administration – and first and
foremost Secretary of State John Kerry – have devoted intense effort in
recent weeks toward bridging the gaps between the Palestinian and
Israeli negotiating positions.On Tuesday, Kerry met with a group of some 30
clergy members and scholars representing Jewish, Muslim and Christian
communities in America in order to call upon them to help the
administration advance the peace process.The gathering, held at Georgetown University
and hosted by the university’s president, was designed to further
interfaith engagement around the peace process, and participants said
that there was a clear emphasis on encouraging dialogue within and among
faith communities in the United States.In his remarks, Kerry offered enthusiasm and
hope for the process and outlined what might be gained from a final
status agreement. Some of the opportunities he identified included
Israel being able to make peace and expand its relationships with the
entire Arab and Muslim community, trade with foreign nations and Israeli
GDP increasing overall.The State Department has recently boosted its
efforts to support the peace process through community outreach,
bringing aboard non-pulpit clergy and other faith leaders to engage
communities.“The premise of the discussion seemed to be
about the secretary’s and State Department’s desire to bring faith
leaders into the dialogue to build the community level so that its not
just political leaders but a public discourse,” said Rabbi Julie
Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly.
Hamas to allow 120 Fatah leaders back into Gaza
Diplomatically isolated by Egypt, Hamas tries to break the ice with Fatah and forge ‘reconciliation’ government
January 29, 2014, 6:06 pm
0-The Times of Israel
Hamas will allow more than 120
Fatah officials banished from the Gaza Strip during the Islamist group’s
violent takeover in 2007 to return to the Palestinian enclave in a bid
to advance reconciliation efforts with its Ramallah-based rival.Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh told satellite news channel Al-Kitab Monday
evening that Hamas would soon let some Fatah leaders return to the
Strip, and release a number of Fatah political prisoners from Hamas
prisons, in a bid to push forward the reconciliation process.The two Palestinian movements have been unable
to implement the terms of two reconciliation agreements signed in 2012;
the first in Doha, Qatar, in February and the second in Cairo in May,
paving the way for the establishment of a unity government headed by PA
President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of national elections.Nearly all of Fatah’s security and political
officials were forced to flee Gaza following Hamas’s takeover of the
Gaza Strip in June 2007. Both Palestinian governments suppress the
activities of their rivals in the territory they control.Breaking a long freeze in talks, Fatah’s chief
negotiator with Hamas Azzam Al-Ahmad secretly resumed talks with
Hamas’s political No. 2, Moussa Abu Marzouk, earlier this month.On January 8, Qatari news channel Al Jazeera, a
station close to Hamas, reported that the secretary general of one of
Gaza’s smaller factions has been engaged in mediation efforts between
the two movements. Haniyeh called Abbas in early January, updating the
Ramallah leader on the “goodwill gestures” Hamas has undertaken in Gaza,
Hamas leader Salah Bardawil told Al Jazeera.Under increasingly growing political pressure
from Egypt, Hamas’s interest in realizing reconciliation is higher than
than that of Fatah, which enjoys the diplomatic support of both Egypt
and Jordan.A diplomatic source speaking to The Times of
Israel on condition of anonymity said that Abbas had little will to cut a
deal with Hamas, preferring “to see the Islamic movement sweat.”
Netanyahu: Israel not obligated by US peace plan
Prime minister refrains from directly responding to Naftali Bennett on the prospect of settlers remaining in future Palestine
January 28, 2014, 10:19 pm
7-The Times of Israel
Israel is not bound to agree to
all points of an imminent US proposal for a peace agreement with the
Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech Tuesday
night.“The
Americans are working to solidify American positions,” he said at the
Institute for National Security Studies conference. “Israel does not
have to accept every American position.” He said the American proposal
would be presented soon.Netanyahu also reiterated his position that he
does not “want a bi-national state and… this reflects the desires of
most Israelis.” However, he qualified, neither does he want another
“state sponsored by Iran” next door to Israel — a reference to the
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and Lebanon — so “the Palestinian state must be
demilitarized, and therefore some symbols of [its] sovereignty must be
limited.”
Netanyahu also expressed some doubt as to
“whether the Palestinians are really ready to grapple with the
concessions they will have to make” in order to reach a peace agreement.
He did give some grudging praise to the Palestinian Authority, however,
saying it does not use terrorism in pursuit of its goals, unlike Hamas.
“We stand on two basic principles [that we
require of the Palestinians],” he said. “The first is recognition of the
State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. This is the
root of the conflict. The conflict is not about the settlements, its
not about the settlers, and it’s not about a Palestinian state. The
Zionist movement agreed to recognize a Palestinian state.“The conflict is over the Jewish state… We are
asked to recognize a national Palestinian state, so can we not also
demand [that they] recognize a national Jewish state?” he said.
The second principle, Netanyahu said, was
demilitarization. Elaborating, he said, constant incitement against
Israel among the Palestinians had created a climate in which Israel
required a substantial “security presence” in order to protect itself.
That included a “long-term” presence in the Jordan Valley and other
areas. (In a filmed address to the conference broadcast earlier Tuesday,
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said all Israeli troops
would have to leave Palestinian territory within years after a permanent
accord was signed.) The best formulation to summarize Israel’s
vision for a viable two-state solution, said the prime minister, was
that the Palestinians establish “a demilitarized Palestinian state that
recognizes the Jewish state.”
Despite speaking about two states for two
peoples, the prime minister refrained from directly broaching the hot
topic of allowing West Bank settlers to choose whether they want to
relocate to sovereign Israeli territory or remain under Palestinian rule
under a future peace agreement. Economy and Trade Minister Naftali
Bennett had continued his campaign against the proposal in an earlier
speech he made at the same conference.“Do you know why? Why Jews cannot live under
Palestinian rule? Do you know why? Why Palestinians can’t rule over
Jews?” Bennett said, reiterating a point he’d made on Facebook earlier
in the day. “Because they will kill them. And do you know how I know
this? Because it has already happened.”
Netanyahu did say that Israel did not want to
make the Palestinians citizens of Israel — as Bennett suggests for
70,000 Palestinians in West Bank areas he would annex — and that Israel
does not want “to rule over” the Palestinians.Bennett has been caught up in a war of words
with the Prime Minister’s Office since a PMO official, elaborating on a
statement Netanyahu made in Switzerland Friday, told The Times of Israel
on Sunday that the prime minister does not intend to uproot Jewish
settlements anywhere in the West Bank as part of a permanent peace deal
with the Palestinians, and wants to allow settlers the choice of
remaining under Palestinian rule.That comment elicited a flurry of criticism
from right-wing politicians, including Bennett and many members of the
prime minister’s own Likud party.An unnamed PMO official told Israel Radio on
Monday that Likud MKs who spoke out against Netanyahu’s proposal were
welcome to relinquish their posts. Another official took Bennett to task
for behaving in a “nationally irresponsible” manner for the sake of
making headlines, and hindering the prime minister’s effort “to reveal
the true face of the Palestinian Authority” as an unwilling peace
partner.The proposal was roundly dismissed by the Palestinian Authority, prompting a sharp condemnation from the PMO.“Nothing shows the Palestinian Authority’s
unwillingness to reach an accord with Israel more than their extreme and
reckless reaction to an unofficial report,” Netanyahu’s office said
late Sunday. “An accord will only be reached when the Palestinians
recognize the Jewish state and when the essential interests to the
security of Israeli citizens are guaranteed.”In the wake of that exchange, Israel’s chief
negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, implied that, rather than
pursue a peace agreement in earnest, some Israeli officials have been
baiting the Palestinians so as to elicit responses that could be
construed as rejectionist.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
