Iran’s new president Rouhani calls Israel ‘old wound’ that must be removed
Millions of Iranians mark anti-Israel ‘Quds Day’; Khamenei predicts an ‘Islamic Middle East’; rallies planned in 80 countries; Neturei Karta to join demo in London
August 2, 2013, 12:02 pm
5-the times of israel
Iran’s
semi-official ISNA news agency said Rouhani spoke after taking part in
an annual pro-Palestine rally — International Quds Day — in Tehran on
Friday.The report quoted Rouhani as saying: “The
Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world for
years and the wound should be removed.”
Rouhani won a landslide victory in Iran’s June
14 presidential election. He replaces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday and
has been described by some observers as more moderate than his
predecessor. He was believed to have garnered the votes of Iran’s more
reform-minded voters, even though he is a veteran of the ruling clerical
establishment and his candidacy was authorized by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In his own Quds Day remarks, Khamenei vowed
that “Palestine will be free” and predicted the emergence of a new
“Islamic Middle East.”Last year, Ahmadinejad used a Quds Day event to
call for the elimination of the “insult to all humanity” that is
Israel, and said that confronting it constitutes an effort to “protect
the dignity of all human beings.” He too expressed confidence in the
emergence of “a new Middle East” with no trace of Americans or of
Zionists.Rouhani has pledged since his election to
follow a “path of moderation” and promised greater openness over Iran’s
nuclear program, which has placed it at odds with the West.
Iranian
demonstrators burn an Israeli and British flag during a rally marking
Quds Day, on the last Friday of Ramadan, in Tehran last year. (photo
credit: AP/Vahid Salemi)
Millions of Iranians took to the streets
Friday to mark the day of solidarity with the Palestinian people, held
annually on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan. Millions of Muslims
across the world were expected to attend similar rallies.Protesters in
Tehran shouted the familiar slogans “Death to America” and “Death to
Israel” during demonstrations Friday morning.Rallies were also planned
in the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and across the Muslim world.The day of anti-Zionist expression was
conceived by Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Khomeini established the annual event in order to bring international
attention to the Palestinian cause, according to Will Fulton, an Iran
analyst at the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project,
and to strengthen movements like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.It is marked in Iran by huge rallies, the
burning of Israeli and American flags, and with predictions of the
Zionist regime’s imminent demise. Iran’s allies, including the
Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah and President Bashar Assad’s
regime in Syria, also organize mass rallies for Quds Day.
In the past, Sunni extremists have used the
day as an opportunity to attack Shiites. During a 2010 Shiite Quds Day
rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta, a Taliban suicide bomber blew
himself up, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. A spokesman for the
Taliban said the attack was in response to the killing of Sunni clerics
by Shiites.“Palestine will be free: there should be no doubt of this,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in remarks issued in honor of Quds Day.
“Palestine will certainly become free and will be returned to the
people, and in that place a Palestinian state will be formed; of these
things there is no question.“A new Middle East will come into being,” he
added. “This Middle East will be an Islamic Middle East.”
Khamenei also tweeted extensively about the upcoming Quds Day: Rouhani: Israel an 'Old Wound' to be Removed
Iran's new president shows his true colors. Outgoing Ahmadinejad: 'regional storm' will uproot Israel.
Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani-AFP file
Hasan Rouhani's remarks about Israel show he is just as full of hatred toward Israel as was his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and no less unbridled in expressing it.Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said Rouhani spoke after taking part in an annual “Al Quds Day” rally in Tehran on Friday.It quoted Rouhani as saying: "The Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world for years and the wound should be removed."Rouhani won Iran's June 14 presidential election, and will replace Ahmadinejad on Sunday. He has enjoyed the image of a “moderate,” compared to his predecessor, but Israel has warned that he is “a wolf in sheep's clothing.”Meanwhile, outgoing President Ahmadinejad on Friday warned Israel that a regional storm was on the way to "uproot" the Jewish state."I will inform you with God as my witness, a devastating storm is on the way that will uproot the basis of Zionism," Ahmadinejad told crowds at annual Quds Day rallies.Israel "has no place in this region", he added.
OBAMA BETTER START NUKING IRANS SITES.HES TRYING TO BRIBE NETANYAHU PEACE FOR NUKING IRANS SITES.WELL THERES ANOTHER LIE BY OBAMA.HE WON'T DO ANYTHING TO IRAN.AND OBAMA WILL BRIBE ISRAEL INTO GIVING UP HALF OF JERUSALEM.WAIT AND SEE.
Obama: Action on Iran in Return for Peace Talks
U.S. President promised Netanyahu to take action “within months,” but did not go into details.
Obama and Netanyahu-Flash 90
The source said, however, that Obama did not reach a specific agreement with Netanyahu, but gave only a general commitment. The source added that it was not clear if the commitment was given in exchange for the very fact that Israel-PA negotiations are being held, or if it is conditional on their success.Netanyahu's agreement to release terrorist murderers from Israeli jails appears to derive from the same agreement. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon appears to have been hinting at this when he said Monday that “Perhaps, one day, the strategic considerations that stood behind the decision to free the Palestinian prisoners will be revealed.”In recent months, Obama has been dragging out the process of reaching a decision on a strike in Iran that would damage its nuclear weapons program. This indecision has affected Israel, too, since even a unilateral Israeli strike requires full cooperation from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. The White House released a statement Friday in which it said: "President Obama called Prime Minister Netanyahu today to commend his leadership and courage in resuming final status negotiations with the Palestinians. The President underscored that while the parties have much work to do in the days and months ahead, the United States will support them fully in their efforts to achieve peace. The two leaders agreed to continue the close coordination between the United States and Israel on this and other regional issues."
Israeli diplomats say top EU official deliberately misled them over settlement ban’
In documents quoted by Maariv, envoy to EU David Walzer denies he was ‘asleep on the job,’ says he twice warned the government ahead of new directives
August 2, 2013, 9:24 am
1-the times of israel
Israel’s envoy to the EU warned
the Israeli government in March and again in May about the European
Union’s plans to implement an unprecedented directive banning all EU cooperation with, and funding of, Israeli entities with
any links to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights,
Maariv reported Friday.But
the Israeli envoy and his colleagues were misled by EU officials over
two critical aspects of the new directive, according to the report in
Maariv. Specifically, EU staffers, led by the European Commission’s
Director of the Middle East Department Christian Berger, did not tell
either Israeli diplomats or even the EU’s own commissioners that the
directive would ban EU dealings even with Israeli entities that have
only minor connections over the pre-67 lines, and that Israeli entities
would have to state that they have no dealings over the pre-67 lines as a
condition for receiving any EU funds.The new EU policy directive,
bitterly
criticized by the Israeli government, is due to go into effect at the
start of 2014. President Shimon Peres, who has urged the EU to at least
delay implementation, said last week that EU foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton would soon raise Israel’s complaints over the directive
with the EU’s foreign ministers.Maariv quoted from a cable sent
recently to
ministry staff by Israel’s Ambassador to the European Union David
Walzer, in which he broke his silence over the harsh criticisms he has
faced in recent weeks from the Israeli government for allegedly not
anticipating the move, which was described as an “earthquake” by senior
Israeli officials when the news broke last month.In March, documents
quoted by Maariv indicate,
Walzer wrote a classified briefing to Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev
Elkin and ministry Director-General Rafael Barak, warning that EU
officials were working on a draft of the new guidelines.He sent another
missive in May after he and his staff received a briefing from Berger
about the general sense of the guidelines.
President
of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and David Walzer,
Israel’s ambassador to the European Union (photo credit: European Union,
2013)
The Israeli diplomats were assured by Berger
that they would be able to take a look at the draft before the
guidelines were adopted, Maariv reported, but Walzer’s office only
received the document on July 5 whereas EU members had the document
since June 28 and adopted it on June 30.The envoy insisted that his office was not
asleep on the job, adding in his recent cable that he hoped “the
injustice done to the diplomats [in this embassy] is corrected” and that
the “stain on our reputation is removed as quickly as it was applied.”
Elkin directed Barak to hold an inquiry into
the possible failings of the Brussels embassy on the matter; that
inquiry is still ongoing. As part of the investigation, Walzer submitted
a written document detailing events and correspondence.Walzer’s office was aware of most of the clauses in the EU document but
was blindsided by the formulation of some, Maariv reported. “The
foreign ministries of other European Union members didn’t know about
them either,” Maariv reported, “and nor did the EU’s representatives in
Israel.” Berger “hid from everybody” the true extent of the directives
“because he knew he was going much further than the original intention,”
Maariv reported. The European officials “hid the most serious clauses,”
it quoted an Israeli staffer as saying.Maariv said Elkin has not been convinced by
the explanations of Walzer and his Brussels team, because the deputy
minister believes it is the diplomats’ job “to uncover what EU officials
are trying to hide.”
In response, Maariv quoted bitter Foreign
Ministry officials as saying, “Most of the information was passed on to
Jerusalem. What they [the EU] tried to hide, even its offices in Ramat
Gan did not know about. [The Israeli government] can’t have expected us
[to obtain information we didn't know about]. Even the Shin Bet was not
able to find out where Gilad Shalit was being held, despite its vast
intelligence resources in Gaza.”
In Walzer’s cable, he wrote that he was “convinced that we acted correctly and credibly.” Generation Hate: The Indoctrination of Palestinian Children
August 2, 2013, 1:40 am
1-The Times of Israel
Israel has been much criticised for the detainment and treatment of Palestinian children. Since 2000, more than 8,000 Palestinian youths have been arrested, some of them as young as 12. As of June 2013, over 230 Palestinian children remain in Israeli custody. 44 of them are under the age of 16.The
initial and natural reaction is to reject (or at best, question) such
procedures, as they contradict our romantic idea of the innocence and
purity of children. However, the sharp and often simplistic criticism
directed at Israel ignores the underlying problem.The question we must ask is: why is Israel
confronted with a generation of Palestinian children which exhibits the
behaviour of politically radicalised adults and, as a result, poses a
potential threat to the security of Israel and the safety of its
citizens? This phenomenon originates in Palestinian
society and has become deeply entrenched over time. Children, from the
earliest age, are being taught by their families, communities and
political establishment to hate Jews and Israel.An illuminating example is the annual summer camps
run by Islamic terrorist organisation Hamas, in which hundreds of
thousands of children take part each year. These are not summer camps in
any traditional sense but semi-military recruitment centres, where
children learn to shoot with Kalashnikov rifles, handle hand grenades,
and simulate kidnapping of IDF soldiers. They are being groomed for
martyrdom, the accomplishment of which is celebrated in the name of the
infinite plight of the Palestinian people.These brainwashing routines are not restricted
to Hamas-ruled Gaza but are practised throughout the Palestinian
territories. On Fatah PA TV, cute girls in colourful dresses, with
bright smiles, some of them not older than 4 or 5, sing songs in which Jews are demonised as “the most evil among creations” and “wretched pigs”. Others read anti-Semitic poems in which Jews are defamed as sub-humans who mutilate and rape their victims.Regular visitors of Fatah’s Facebook Page will also be familiar with pictures glorifying violence for children and a recent study of the educational system concluded that 84% of references to Israelis in Palestinian textbooks are negative.It should thus come as no surprise that the
product of this institutionalised hate-mongering is an entire generation
of Palestinian children that has been robbed of their childhood,
innocence and naiveté. Instead of love, hope and tolerance, their little
hearts have been filled with hatred, despair and ignorance and they
find themselves violently pushed into the adult world of sordid
realities.Children brought up in normal environments do
not judge or discriminate against others based on religion or ethnicity.
They are, by nature, curious and want to explore the world around them
without prejudices. Children do not typically attach stereotypes to what
they see or to whom they meet. They do not feel threatened by
differences. They are fascinated and attracted by them.Radicalism has to be planted in the minds of
children, as children are not born as politicised beings. But once
affected, they pose a potential threat to “the enemy” just as much as
those who corrupted their thinking. In 2012, over 4,370 stones were hurled at Israeli citizens and 1,195 already in 2013 – many by Palestinian children.Israel’s treatment of young Palestinian
detainees is certainly not beyond criticism, and some of it is entirely
fair. However, the ultimate responsibility for the violent generation of
Palestinian children lies with the irresponsible adults – family
members, community and religious leaders and politicians – who put their
political goals and ideological imperatives above the well-being of
their children.
Obama tells Netanyahu, Abbas to ‘move fast’ toward peace deal
US president calls both leaders to affirm his support for the resumption of final status negotiations
August 2, 2013, 1:47 am
4-The Times of Israsel
Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.
Op-Ed: The Five Flaws of Kerry's Peace Process
Published: Thursday, August 01, 2013 4:00 PM-israelnationalnews
The flaws listed are an inherent part of the process, making peace impossible to achieve.
Noah Beck
Whatever the explanation for Israel's good-faith opening, there were plenty of ways for the Palestinians to reciprocate: removing anti-Israel incitement from their textbooks and/or official media, recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, promising to "freeze" their anti-Israel diplomatic offensives, etc.But Secretary of State John Kerry preferred to establish that Palestinian reciprocity is optional: if Israel isn't volunteering what the Palestinians demand, they need only threaten to leave the talks and Kerry will compel the Israelis to comply.
2) No Palestinian good faith. The Palestinians will be represented by Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh. Shtayyeh’s Facebook page displays a map of Israel's internationally recognized borders, plus the West Bank and Gaza – all emblazoned with the Arabic letters for “Palestine." So the person entrusted with negotiating a "two-state solution" openly admits that his Mideast map has room for only a Palestinian state.
Just as alarming, during a recent sermon attended by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and broadcast on Palestinian television, Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud al-Habbash compared the PA's decision to negotiate with Israel to the Prophet Muhammad's Treaty of Hudaibiya (in the year 628 CE): “in less than two years, based on this treaty, the Prophet returned and conquered Mecca. This is the example. It is the model.”
3) No religious freedom in a future Palestinian state. Palestinians insist (ironically) that "peaceful coexistence" means no Jewish settlers in their state. But, on principle, why should Jews be banned from living in a future Palestinian state -- particularly when Muslims constitute over 17% of Israel's population? Will the future Palestinian state be as hostile to religious minorities as other Muslim majority states are?
Unfortunately, recent history gives little reason to hope otherwise. Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning, Arab journalist reported the following about a year ago:According to the Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip, at least five Christians have been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam in recent weeks...Church leaders...accused a prominent Hamas man of being behind the kidnapping and forced conversion of a Christian woman, Huda Abu Daoud, and her three daughters. Radical Islam, and not checkpoints or a security fence, remains the main threat to defenseless Christians not only in the Palestinians territories, but in the entire Middle East as well.While Gaza is ruled by Islamists, the PA has also shown its hostility to Christians. On March 12, 2012, Algemeiner reported that
"A week after Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told an [international] audience of Evangelical Protestants. ..that his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities, [PA] officials...informed Bethlehem pastor Rev. Naim Khoury that his church lacked the authority to function as a religious institution under the PA...[T]here is a sense among Christians in Bethlehem that anti-Christian animus has gotten worse in the city...Khoury said.”A few weeks ago, Palestinians vandalized the Cave of the Patriarchs, Judaism's second holiest site. How safe will non-Muslim holy sites be if there is no more Israeli presence in the 'West Bank'? Will a future peace agreement specifically guarantee protection of and Israeli access to Jewish holy sites? If Israel's presence in the 'West Bank' has helped to moderate Muslim rule there, will Israel's complete departure mean that 'West Bank' Christians can expect their persecution to worsen to Gazan levels (with abductions and forced conversions)? Palestinian insistence that their future 'West Bank' state be "Judenrein" doesn't bode well for the indigenous Christians there (or for religious freedom).
4) No Palestinian mandate to negotiate peace. There are about 2.1 million Palestinian Arabs in the 'West Bank' and 1.7 million in Gaza. But Hamas-ruled Gaza vehemently opposes peace negotiations and denies Israel's right to exist.Islamic Jihad and Hamas recently lambasted PA leaders for meeting with Israelis to talk peace. The last time that the PA announced direct talks with Israel, Hamas announced plans to launch terrorist attacks at Israel, in coordination with 12 other Gaza terrorist organizations.And it's not even clear that 'West Bank' Palestinians favor these talks. Last Sunday, they rallied against peace until PA police violently suppressed the protest. Human Rights Watch has urged the Palestinian government to investigate the police beatings. At best, the PA can deliver only half of any peace that it promises, which lets Palestinians have their cake and eat it too: the PA can extract painful territorial concessions from Israel at the negotiating table, while Hamas can continue terrorist attacks to achieve the one-state solution embraced on Facebook by PA "peace negotiator" Mohammad Shtayyeh.
5) Transferring the 'West Bank' could be Israel's geostrategic undoing. Jordan could collapse any day from a flood of about 500,000 Syrian refugees (and growing daily); severe poverty; popular discontent over corruption, inequality, and lack of freedom; acute water shortages; and/or Muslim Brotherhood action to overthrow King Abdullah's monarchy.These factors make the Abdullah regime's survival increasingly uncertain. After Israel militarily withdraws from the 'West Bank', will Hamas topple the PA there as it did in Gaza (two years after Israel's 2005 Gaza withdrawal)? What if the Hamas-allied Muslim Brotherhood then takes over Jordan? If Jordanian-Palestinians -- the largest ethnic group in Jordan -- create a Palestinian state there (as advocated by this Jordanian-Palestinian writer), would Palestinians effectively have two states?
The
range and severity of threats to Israel from the combination of a
post-Abdullah Jordan and a Palestinian 'West Bank' state are
considerable. Is it even possible to address these Israeli security
concerns in a way that leaves Palestinian negotiators satisfied enough
to sign a peace treaty? With so many inherent defects in the
current peace talks, why would the U.S. push its most reliable Mideast
ally (and the only Middle East democracy) into such perilous waters or
inevitable blame? One explanation is the increasingly fashionable idea (promoted by Arab governments)
that settlements are blocking a peace deal that would produce Mideast
stability. But inconvenient facts completely contradict this idea:
Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen (etc.) would remain the
same conflict-torn mess as they are now after any Israeli-Palestinian
peace.Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
Resettlement plan cements Bedouin distrust of gov’t
Some 40,000 Bedouins face relocation as Prawer Plan makes its way through the Knesset
August 2, 2013, 3:53 am
0-the times of israel
A commission under former Supreme Court
justice Eliezer Goldberg delivered that plan in 2011 but the Israeli
right complained it gave the Bedouin too much land. That led to a new
committee and two more rounds of revisions.In June the new plan finally passed the first
of three parliament votes necessary to become law. It is expected to
receive final approval after parliament returns from its summer recess.
But the contours of the debate have barely
changed over the past two years. The Bedouin agree that the status quo
is untenable. But where the government sees investment, Bedouin and
human rights activists see a land grab tinged with anti-Arab racism.“I think the Israeli government is very
right-wing and they are insisting on confiscating as much Arab land as
possible,” said Salah Mohsen, the media coordinator for Adalah, an
advocacy group for Israel’s 1.7 million Arab citizens. He and other
Bedouin advocates believe that the government is hoping to shunt them
aside as Jews move to the Negev and the military builds new bases there.Israeli Arabs have long contended that,
despite their citizenship, they are victims of official discrimination,
with their communities receiving fewer resources than Jewish towns.
While some Arabs have made strides in recent years in entering the
Israeli mainstream, they are on average poorer and less educated than
their Jewish counterparts, and many complain that Israeli security
services view them as a threat.
Bedouins make up a subgroup in the Arab
minority, with strong nomadic traditions. Traditionally, Bedouins have
identified more closely with Israel than their Arab brethren, but their
complaints against the resettlement program, known as the Prawer Plan,
echo broader sentiments among other Arab Israelis.Regev, the government spokesman, argued that
much of the criticism against the plan is driven by that narrative
rather than the government’s proposal itself.“I think some of the criticism is automatic,”
said Regev. “I don’t understand how anybody can seriously say that this
program is not going to move the ball forward in a positive direction.”Around 200,000 Bedouins live in the Negev, most concentrated in an area around the city of Beersheba.They lived under military rule until the
1960s, and have since resisted government efforts to move them into
seven larger, recognized communities. Bedouins say those towns are rife
with crime, poverty and the same lack of basic services they currently
face.The urban setting also makes their traditional
occupation, raising livestock, much more difficult. To the Bedouin,
resettlement is simply an attack on their culture.While the Prawer Plan allows for the
“overwhelming majority” of Bedouin to receive recognition for their
villages and houses, Bedouin advocates say that there are no obstacles
to recognizing all of the current villages in place.Against claims that services are too expensive
to provide to scattered settlements, they charge that isolated Jewish
towns and farms in the Negev have been given such services while Bedouin
requests have been ignored, an accusation the government denies.Bedouins and the government have frequently
clashed over land claims. Many Bedouin have lived in their unrecognized
homes and towns for decades, but few have any documentation.Even when they can produce deeds — Khalil
Alamour keeps a fragile, detailed piece of paper from 1921 recording the
purchase of his family’s home — the documents usually predate Israel’s
founding and hold little weight in the country’s legal system.Thabet Abu Ras, the head of Adalah’s office in
the Negev, claimed that one sign of growing Bedouin mistrust in the
government is a drop in the number of Bedouins serving in the Israeli
military in response to the resettlement plan.Though Bedouins are not drafted by the Israeli
military, some traditionally volunteered to serve as scouts and
trackers. Military spokesmen said that most Bedouin enlistees come from
the north of Israel, though recruitment from the south have ticked up in
recent years.As the bill gathers steam, Bedouins have ramped up their opposition.Arab groups held protests across the country
in July and organized two more demonstrations on Thursday. Their efforts
also prompted a statement from Navi Pillay,
the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who said the government’s
plan would “legitimize forcible displacement and dispossession.”The statement got an angry Israeli response. The Foreign Ministry said the statement “displays ignorance and lack of acquaintance with the subject matter.”Abu Ras believes that the conflict is just
starting to heat up. He predicted that once the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan ends and the school year starts, more protests will come. “I
believe a real upheaval is coming in late August, early September,” he
said.
Bennett: Releasing Terrorists is Contrary to All Values
Economy Minister attends a memorial service marking seven years since the death of IDF hero Lt. Col. Emanuel Moreno.-By Elad Benari-First Publish: 8/2/2013, 4:16 AM-israelnationalnews
Bennett at memorial for Emanuel Moreno-Courtesy
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi) attended on Thursday a memorial service marking seven years since the death of IDF hero Lt. Col. Emanuel Moreno.
Moreno, a close friend of Bennett’s, was killed in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. He served in such a sensitive position that his picture has not been released to the public to this day.In his remarks at the memorial ceremony on Mount Herzl, Bennett referred to this week’s decision by the Cabinet
to release 104 terrorist murderers as a gesture to Palestinian
Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Bennett, who voted against the
release, said that releasing terrorists was contrary to all the values
that he - and Moreno - had been taught through their service in the IDF."Your image
is with me in every step I take, and you remind me every day that we can
fight for our home while remaining loyal to the Torah,” said Bennett.
“The decision to release terrorist killers is contrary to all the values
we were taught in the IDF - values which say that there are no
compromises in the fight against murderous terrorism.”He added,
"These days we must find strong mental strength against the crises and
stand firm against foreign officials who want us to deny Jewish history
and values and tear down communities.""Your light
and your values, Emanuel, accompany me and live within me,” said
Bennett. “The feelings over the loss of leadership and your death were
what caused me to enter public life. You taught us about love for the
Land of Israel and its people, and what insistence on the truth, even when it’s not popular, is all about."On Sunday, the Israeli government voted in favor
of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyhau's plan to release 104 terrorist
prisoners from jail, as a gesture that will accompany the reopening of
peace talks.The identities of the prisoners will be determined
by a committee of ministers that will be headed by Netanyahu, and will
include Justice Minister Livni, Minister of Public Security Yitzhak
Aharonovich and Minister of Science Yaakov Perry, a former Shin Bet
head.The decision was passed with a majority of 13 ministers in favor, seven opponents and two who abstained.Hours before the vote, Bennett said,
“Terrorists should be killed, not released. All my life I fought
towards fulfilling the two parts of this sentence. Tomorrow I will vote
against.”He said, "I am the last one who needs to be
convinced not to release murderers. I’ve instructed the Bayit Yehudi
ministers to vote against.”
IDF, USEUCOM Conclude Two Joint Exercises-israelnationalnews
The Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. European Command on Thursday concluded two concurrent, unrelated military exercises that took place over the past two weeks in Israel, the IDF said in a statement.
Juniper Stallion 13 and Noble Melinda 13 were bilateral exercises held between the U.S. and Israeli Air Forces and Navies respectively. The exercises took place as part of regularly scheduled training between the two nations, according to the statement.
