Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Britain

Activists file arrest warrant for Sa’ar during his London visit

2025-04-17

[IsraelTimes] Two NGOs seek warrant against FM over military action at Gaza Strip hospital in 2024 and detention of its director; Jerusalem says top diplomat will not cut short trip

Two legal NGOs in the United Kingdom sought arrest warrants Wednesday against Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar during his visit to London, accusing Israel’s top diplomat of committing crimes in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip during the ongoing war with Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
"Sa’ar cannot walk freely in London while innocent Paleostinian civilians are buried under rubble. His role in the killing of Gaza’s civilians demands accountability," said Dyab Abou Jahjah, founder of the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation, which filed the arrest warrant alongside the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN).

The foreign minister "has no intention to shorten his trip or to change his plans in any manner," the Foreign Ministry told The Times of Israel in response to the warrant, which was filed with the UK’s Attorney General and Director of Public Prosecutions, according to a joint statement from the two NGOs.

"The charges focus on [Sa’ar’s] role in the siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza," GLAN wrote on X, which it said led to "the abduction and torture" of hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyeh.

Israel detained Abu Safiya along with nearly 240 others during a raid on the hospital in northern Gaza in December 2024, alleging that Hamas was using it as a command center.

The IDF said it suspects Abu Safiya of being a Hamas member. In February, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Paleostinian rights group representing Abu Safiya, claimed he was subject to repeated physical abuse during his ongoing detention in Israel.

Launched in September 2024, the Hind Rajab Foundation has used social media posts by Israeli soldiers, officers and reservists in an attempt to have them arrested for alleged war crimes when they travel abroad.

During what was termed a "private visit" to London on Tuesday, Sa’ar met with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy for discussions that addressed Iran’s nuclear program, as well as negotiations to free hostages from Gaza, according to an Israeli readout.

The nature of the visit could impact the success of the arrest warrant requests, as under British law, Israelis are protected against such action if they are on an official trip.

There have been previous attempts to see Israeli officials arrested during trips to the UK, notably against then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni in 2009 when, ahead of a planned visit, a British court issued a warrant for her over alleged war crimes committed by the IDF during a three-week conflict in Gaza. In the end, Livni did not go through with the trip, and the threat of an arrest kept her out of the UK until authorities in 2011 granted automatic immunity to all Israelis on official visits to the country.

Britannia changed the law to make it more difficult to obtain arrest warrants against Israeli figures by requiring the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The amended law helps those visiting Britannia in an official capacity. Those making trips of a personal nature are left vulnerable.

In 2015, Livni, by then an opposition member of Knesset, again visited the UK to attend a women’s summit. Anti-Israeli activists applied to have an arrest warrant issued, as the visit could be considered personal. To preempt the problem, Livni arranged to meet with senior UK government officials, enabling the Knesset speaker to approve her travel as an official visit, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported at the time.

The following year, Livni was back in the UK to attend a conference and British police summoned her for a "voluntary interview" over her involvement in Israel’s 2008 war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The request was reportedly dropped after an exchange between Israeli and British diplomats that granted her diplomatic immunity.

In 2015, former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz was nearly arrested when he visited London. At the time, Mofaz was greeted at the airport by two Israeli diplomats. His arrest was avoided after swift action by the Israeli Embassy in London and the British Embassy in Israel.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Thousands in Tel Aviv as overhaul demos show no sign of fatigue after 1st bill passed

2023-08-03

[IsraelTimes] Protesters rally outside local court building in show of support for judiciary before demonstrating on Kaplan Street, the site of the main weekly rallies against the shakeup

Thousands of protesters waving Israeli flags rallied against the judicial overhaul in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with the protest movement offering no indication that it plans to fold after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government passed the first piece of legislation from its judicial overhaul last week.

"You have ruined the country and we will fix it. Democracy! Democracy!" chanted demonstrators in the coastal city, which has become the epicenter of anti-government demonstrations since the overhaul was unveiled in January.

The proposals have split the nation and triggered the biggest protest movement in Israel’s history.

Last Monday, Netanyahu and his hardline coalition allies approved the reasonableness law, a key part of the package that critics fear will weaken Israel’s liberal democratic character. The legislation bars judges from striking down government decisions they deem unreasonable.

Petitions against the law have been filed to the High Court, with an unprecedented 15-judge panel to hear them next month.

Wednesday’s demonstration followed even larger ones that took place across the country on Saturday night, kicking off the 30th week of protests and amassing over 200,000 Israelis.

Protesters Wednesday first gathered on Rothschild Boulevard before marching to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court, in a show of support for the judiciary. From there, they continued to Kaplan Street, the site of the main weekly rallies.

Leading the march were former justice ministers Tzipi Livni and Avi Nissenkorn along with former Supreme Court justice Yoram Danziger and several other former judges.

"I’m against the government. What it’s doing is moving all the power to one authority," protester Roei Ben Haim, 40, told AFP. "Once they ruin the system, it becomes important to me to take to the streets to tell them it won’t pass."

He said the reasonableness law in itself was not that important, but because "it’s the first act the government wants to cancel" people "must show the government we’re determined in the face of any action it takes."

The next proposal from the overhaul that Netanyahu intends to pass is one allowing the government a greater say in the appointment of judges.

Critics accuse Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, of trying to use the reforms to quash possible judgments against him. He rejects the accusation as well as the legitimacy of the charges against him.

Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, argues that the proposed changes to the judiciary are needed to ensure a better balance of power between elected officials and judges.

"There’s no such thing as democracy without the Supreme Court," chanted the protesters on Wednesday evening.

Demonstrations have drawn support from across the political spectrum and among secular and religious groups, blue-collar and tech sector workers, peace activists and military reservists.

The proposed changes have also drawn criticism from Israel’s ally the United States.

US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
Joe <q>The Big Guy</q> Biden

...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences...
himself has repeatedly aired concerns, urging Israeli leaders not to rush the increasingly "divisive
...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled...
" reforms.

Link

-Obits-

Ahmed Qurei, Oslo Accords architect and former Palestinian PM, dies at 85

2023-02-24

[IsraelTimes] PA President Abbas announces death of Abu Alaa, one of the chief negotiators of the 1990s deals with Israel that created the Paleostinian Authority

Ahmed Qurei, a former Paleostinian Authority prime minister and one of the architects of interim peace deals with Israel, has died at age 85.

A key player in the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Qurei witnessed the rise of the dream of Paleostinian statehood that surged during the negotiations. But he also saw those hopes recede, with the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict drifting further than ever. Domestically, Qurei was riddled with corruption charges that tainted his reputation.

Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas

...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
confirmed Qurei’s death on Wednesday. The cause of death was not immediately made public, but Qurei had been ill for some time with a heart condition.

"Abu Alaa stood in the lead defending the causes of his home and people," Abbas said in a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency, using Qurei’s nickname.

Israel’s former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who in 2013-2014 was also minister in charge of negotiations with the Paleostinians, tweeted her condolences to Qurei’s family.

"I was sad to hear about the passing away of Ahmed Qurei," she wrote. "Together we’ve tried to bring peace to our peoples in an understanding that it’s our responsibility to make a better future for our children."

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei died in hospital in Ramallah yesterday. He was 85 years old. pic.twitter.com/2yAN9UD9km
— Al-Estiklal English (@alestiklalen) February 23, 2023

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Cyber

Iranian cyber espionage group 'APT42' targets Iranian opposition - report

2022-09-08

[Jpost] APT42 impersonated journalists and researchers in order to lure victims in and access their accounts.

An Iran-backed cyber espionage group known as APT42 is believed to be behind a series of cyberattacks on organizations and individuals opposed to the Iranian government going as far back as 2015, according to a new report by the Mandiant cyber security company published on Wednesday.

According to Mandiant, the group uses phishing and social engineering in order to build trust and rapport with victims in order to collect intelligence on them and those close to them.

While many Iran-backed hacker groups focus on targeting the defense industries of foreign nations or collecting personal information, APT42 largely focuses on targeting organizations or individuals opposed to the Iranian regime.

Think tanks, researchers, journalists, government officials, healthcare facilities, and the Iranian diaspora have been targeted in at least 14 countries, including Israel and the UAE, as part of APT42's activity.

The group's activity seems to evolve as Iranian priorities change, according to Mandiant. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the group targeted the pharmaceutical sector in 2020. Ahead of an Iranian presidential election, the group targeted domestic and foreign-based opposition groups.

APT42'S WAYS OF ATTACK
In multiple attacks, the group presented victims with a fake Gmail login page in order to harvest the targets' credentials.

APT42 often attempts to lure in its victims by impersonating journalists or researchers and conducting extended conversations with the targets before sending the malicious link.

In one attack, the group used a compromised email account belonging to a US-based think tank employee to target Middle East researchers at other organizations, US government officials, a former Iranian government official and members of an Iranian opposition group.

In another attack, the group impersonated a legitimate British news organization to target political science professors.

APT42 also uses mobile malware to surveil and monitor individuals of interest to the Iranian government, including members of Iranian opposition groups. Some of the attacks targeted people in Iran, including individuals with ties to universities, reformist political groups and human rights activists.

The group was able to record phone calls, activate the phone's microphone and record audio, extract images and take pictures on command and track the targets' location.

According to Mandiant, it is fairly certain that APT42 is operating on behalf of the Iranian government and there are strong indicators that the group is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

APT42 in general seems to line up with activity other cyber security bodies have referred to as TA453, Yellow Garuda and ITG18, as well as some of the activity attributed to groups referred to as Phosphorus and Charming Kitten.

PAST ATTACKS LINKED TO AND SIMILAR TO APT42
In June, the Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point reported that it was likely that Phosphorus was behind attempts to hack the emails of senior Israeli and American officials and executives, including former foreign minister Tzipi Livni and a former US ambassador to Israel.

That attack used emails impersonating a well-known former major general in the IDF and an American diplomat to lure in its targets.

In May, the Shin Bet revealed that Iranian hackers were attempting to lure Israeli businessmen and academics abroad in order to kidnap or harm them and to gather intelligence.

In that attack, the hackers also impersonated foreign and Israeli academics, journalists, reserve officers, businessmen and philanthropists and used the stolen identities and relevant cover stories in order to gather intelligence about Israelis and to lure them to locations abroad in order to kidnap or harm them.

The Shin Bet did not name the group behind that cyber operation.

Last year, the cybersecurity company Proofpoint reported that Phosphorus targeted senior medical professionals specializing in genetic, neurology and oncology research in the US and Israel in 2020.

In that attack, hackers used a Gmail account that was presented as belonging to prominent Israeli physicist and former president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Daniel Zajfman.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

As Israeli elections loom, center-left must contend with its loyalty problem

2020-12-09

[IsraelTimes] Right-wing voters are famously faithful to their camp’s leader, giving Netanyahu room to maneuver, compromise, and live to fight another day

The center-left has a loyalty problem. Not, as the right likes to claim around election time, regarding Jewish values or the nation’s interests. It is disloyal to itself.

Consider the phenomenal loyalty Netanyahu commands from his voters. He is no stickler for right-wing policies or ideologies. In the seven months since the swearing-in of the 35th Government, relatively few major right-wing policy demands have been realized. Netanyahu’s supporters claim that’s because of the deadlocked "unity" government and the de facto veto Blue and White has over, for example, judicial reform or the legalization of wildcat West Bank outposts. But that doesn’t explain why relatively few major right-wing policy demands have advanced at any point in the 11 consecutive years that Netanyahu has now been prime minister. Indeed, he is often excoriated on the right for failing to reform the judicial appointments process, for holding back settlement construction and for seeming to consistently prefer left-leaning coalition partners to right-leaning ones — Labor’s Ehud Barak in 2009, Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni in 2013, and so on.

Link

Arabia

Israel had a secret embassy in Bahrain for 11 years

2020-10-22

[Jpost] This secret diplomatic office's existence was classified and has only recently come to light.

While the signing of the Abraham Accords signifies the first official diplomatic ties between Israel and Bahrain, the Jewish state has, in fact, been operating a secret embassy in the Bahraini capital of Manama for over a decade, according to a report by Axios.

For 11 years, Israel has worked to conduct diplomacy with Bahrain in secret, through the use of a front company. However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
this secret diplomatic office's existence was classified and has only recently come to light following a short report by KAN last week.

According to this investigative look at over a decade's worth of clandestine diplomatic ties between Israel and Bahrain, the idea of a secret diplomatic mission was brought up in 2007-2008 during a series of meetings with Bahraini Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmad Al Khalifa and his then-Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni. The decision to open the mission in Manama was preceded by the closing of an Israeli mission in Qatar
Qatar

...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
, according to Israeli security officials.

According to the report, the mission was registered on July 13, 2009, under the name of the front company known as The Center for International Development, though it has since changed its name and its current name remains classified. Bahraini records registered the firm as a company providing marketing, promotion and investment services, and its website explained it was a consultant to Western companies interested in non-oil investments in the region. Furthermore, the website boasted a strong network of Bahraini and regional contacts to help.

Like all companies, The Center for International Development had employees. However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
the employment criteria was extremely narrow: Israeli diplomats possessing dual nationality. This can be seen in some of its shareholders and board-members. One of its shareholders detailed in public records, Brett Jonathan Miller, is South African, but he would later be appointed Israeli consul general to Mumbai. Another shareholder was Belgian citizen Ido Moed, who currently serves as cyber coordinator in the Foreign Ministry. Even its CEO was a diplomatic officer, though his identity remains classified save for the fact that he was an American national. He was only appointed in 2018, and has recently been replaced.

To keep up the charade, all diplomats involved possessed cover stories backed by profiles on the popular business and networking social media platform LinkedIn.

And though this mission was small and clandestine, officials told Axios that it was incredibly profitable, with hundreds of business deals struck by Israeli companies in Bahrain due to the mission's activities. Most importantly, however, is what the existence of this mission means for Israeli-Bahraini relations going forward. Immediately after relations were officially established on Sunday, Israel sent a formal request to open an embassy in Manama. However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
this undertaking has been made incredibly simple by the existence of the mission, as all the groundwork and infrastructure is quite literally already in place.

Link

Europe

Israel's Livni skips Belgium trip amid threat of arrest

2017-01-24

[Al Jazeera] Israel's former foreign minister cancelled a trip to Brussels after Belgian prosecutors confirmed they wanted to question her over war crimes allegations. Tzipi Livni was expected to meet Jewish leaders in the city on Monday, but cancelled ahead of time.

A front man for the event said Livni cancelled for "personal reasons" but local newspaper Le Soir said prosecutors had been hoping to question her over allegations of war crimes in the 2008-9 Israeli war in Gazoo, when she was foreign minister.

"We wanted to take advantage of her visit to try to advance the investigation," a front man for Belgium's federal prosecutor Thierry Werts told the AFP news agency.

Livni is named along with other political and military leaders in a complaint filed in June 2010 over alleged crimes committed during the Gazoo war.

More than 1,400 Paleostinians, mostly civilians, died during the Israeli offensive between December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009.

Thirteen Israelis, including ten soldiers, also died.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel Teetered On the Cusp Of Security Suicide

2015-03-18

[IsraelNationalNews] Economic issues had been identified as the top issue in the Israeli elections held on 17 March - with security issues trailing far behind.

The polls were confidently predicting a four seat difference in favour of the Zionist Camp over the current Likud-led Government and the possibility of a new Zionist Camp Government being formed.
But, how Zionist is the "Zionist Camp"?
"In Israel's proportional representation system, in which parties are awarded seats in parliament based on the proportion of the vote that they receive, the ranking of the candidates on the slate becomes all-important as seats are filled from the top of the list. Top spots on the Labor list went to MKs with a social-justice and economic agenda, including former journalist Shelly Yacimovich, and Stav Shaffir and Itzik Shmuli, who were both prominent in the 2011 social justice protest movement.

Yacimovich finished first in the party vote, which will place her in the third spot on the slate, behind Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, the leader of Hatnuah, which is running on a joint ticket with Labor. Shaffir finished just behind Yacimovich, granting her the fourth slot...

Two of these top four Zionist Camp candidates have expressed viewpoints that are distinctly anti-Zionist.
The Patrician
Prime Minister--in-waiting - Isaac Herzog --
aka Obama's bum boy
according to respected analyst Sarah Honig -- has voiced opposition to the term "Jewish State":

"The Jewish state expression is entirely mistaken," he says recurrently (and we have a recording to prove it: "because it creates the impression of a nationality that enjoys excessive privileges."

...Stav Shaffir, for example, refused to share a podium with the Likud's Yoav Kish because he is a reserve fighter pilot. She also thinks that "Hatikva is a racist national anthem."

...With 14% of the voters still undecided before election day - they could and did re-elect Netanyahu again - figuring out that improvements in economic and social justice conditions aren't worth a shekel if you are not alive to enjoy their undeniable benefits.
Of course, there aren't actually benefits---the left's program is the same "bread & circuses" which bankrupted EU and the USA

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF wounds Palestinian hurling Molotov cocktail in West Bank

2015-03-14

[Ynet] Security forces open fire after Paleostinian rioters hurl stones at them near Ramallah; 17-year-old maimed in ankle.

A Paleostinian in the al-Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah was maimed on Friday by IDF fire after he threw a Molotov cocktail towards the security forces. Some 200 Paleostinians protesting in the area hurled stones at the soldiers at the entrance of the camp, prompting them to fire live rounds at them.

The 17-year-old boy was shot through the ankle, and was immediately evacuated to hospital as festivities continued.

The festivities came amid tensions as Israel prepares for a general election Tuesday. Paleostinians have watched the upcoming snap vote with interest, keen for a change from rightwing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party.

Likud was lagging in the polls on Friday behind the Zionist Union - a joint list headed by Labor's Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni of the centrist HaTnuah, who was Israel's chief negotiator with the Paleostinians during talks that broke down nearly a year ago

If I understand Israel's parliamentary system correctly, what matters is not which party has the most votes, but which coalition of parties together have the most votes.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Netanyahu's true electoral rival

2015-02-21

h/t Gates of Vienna
by Caroline Glick

Officially, the election on March 17 is among Israelis. Depending on how we vote, either Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will remain in office and form the next government led by his Likud party, or Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni will form a government.

But unofficially, a far greater electoral drama is unfolding. The choice is not between Netanyahu and Herzog/Livni. It is between Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.

As the White House sees it, if Herzog/Livni form the next government, then Jerusalem will dance to Obama's tune. If Netanyahu is reelected, then the entire edifice of Obama's Middle East policy may topple and fall.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Western embassies pushing Arabs to vote, says Joint List’s counsel

2015-02-15

[IsraelTimes] 'If Herzog supports Zoabi disqualification, he can forget about being prime minister,' warns Hassan Jabareen

Officials in the American and European embassies in Israel are advising Arab leaders to encourage their community to participate more significantly in the upcoming national elections in order to hinder racist legislation

That should be "racist" in scare quotes...

in the next Knesset, a senior Arab human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
activist told The Times of Israel on Monday.

Hassan Jabareen, founder and head of Arab civil rights group Adalah and legal counsel to controversial MK Hanin Zoabi and her party the Joint Arab List, said that Western diplomats serving in Israel are concerned about the future status of Israel's Arab minority -- 20 percent of the country -- if a right-wing Knesset is elected on March 17.

How kind of them, to be sure.

"When [diplomats] in embassies in Israel speak to Arab public officials they always say that a higher voter turnout will increase our representation [in the Knesset], which could help block racist laws against us," Jabareen told The Times of Israel. "You hear these things from any of the EU embassies, from the US [embassy], and from people you sit with from the Paleostinian Authority."

Oooooooh, kind and concerned!

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has warned of an increase in anti-democratic legislation

...in which warnings the definition of democratic is curiously undefined...

over the past four years, with many laws targeting the Arab minority in particular. Jabareen told journalists in Jerusalem last week that the recent wave of anti-democratic legislation

See above

is the highest it's been since the 1950s; pushing even the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel to break its longstanding call for an election boycott ahead of the March vote.

Jabareen has personally been told by Western diplomats that the newly formed Joint List -- uniting the Arab parties of Balad, Hadash and Ra'am-Ta'al -- should win more than the combined number of seats its constituent parties hold in the current Knesset.

Why?

"We used to hear this in the past too, but more now," he said.

The US embassy in Israel denied that it was urging Arabs to vote: "These reports are untrue. The United States is firmly committed to the principle of non-intervention in Israeli elections."

The US embassy in Israel denied that it was urging Arabs to vote: "These reports are untrue. The United States is firmly committed to the principle of non-intervention in Israeli elections."

David Kriss, a front man for the EU delegation to Israel, also said the EU's unequivocal policy was not to intervene in Israeli politics ahead of elections.

"EU policy is to remain neutral in these elections and not intervene in them in any way, shape or form," he told The Times of Israel.

"EU policy is to remain neutral in these elections and not intervene in them in any way, shape or form,"

As for the Paleostine Liberation Organization, its official position is also to stay out of Israel's domestic politics, Jabareen said. But on an individual level, PLO members are also increasingly urging Arab Israelis to vote.

"It's wishful thinking," he said. "They're happy that there's a Joint [Arab] List and that it has [good] chances The longstanding understanding between the PLO and Arabs in Israel is that neither side intervenes in the politics of the other."

'If Herzog supports disqualifying Zoabi, he can kiss the premiership goodbye'
The announcement last week by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni's Zionist Camp that it supports the disqualification of MK Hanin Zoabi over inflammatory public statements has greatly angered the Joint Arab List.

Even as Israel's Army Radio reported Monday that the Zionist Camp would defer its decision until hearing the position of the attorney general on Thursday, the Joint List issued a statement Monday calling Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "two sides of the same coin." Zoabi posted a video to the website of Channel 2 news insisting that there was no real difference between Herzog, Livni and Netanyahu with regards to the Arab population in Israel and the future of the grinding of the peace processor.

"The Zionist Camp is proving yet again that there is no Zionism that isn't racist," she said. They miss no opportunity to prove to us that there's no difference between the extreme right and the center."

Jabareen, too, was unequivocal about the Arab List's response to a decision by the Zionist Camp to go ahead with the disqualification bid.

"If Herzog votes for the disqualification of Hanin Zoabi, he will be voting for his own disqualification as a candidate for prime minister," Jabareen said. "He can sit home or try to maintain his number of seats, but he won't be prime minister. This is a red line; for Arabs he would be joining the extreme right. In politics, national minority groups must also be respected."

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Netanyahu defends planned Congress speech as anti-Iran strategy

2015-01-26

[Ynet] Prime Minister says he has moral obligation to 'go wherever invited to make Israel's position heard and to protect its future and its existence'.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended on Sunday a planned speech to the US Congress about Iran, saying he had a moral obligation to take every opportunity to speak out on an issue that poses a mortal threat to his country.

His visit to Washington in March has opened up a political rift in the United States and has drawn accusations in Israel that Netanyahu is undermining a strategic alliance to win an election due to take place shortly after the planned speech.

In his first public remarks about the speech to be made on March 3 to a joint session of Congress, Netanyahu said his priority was to urge the United States and other powers not to negotiate an Iranian nuclear deal that might endanger Israel.

"In coming weeks, the powers are liable to reach a framework agreement with Iran, an agreement liable to leave Iran as a nuclear threshold state, something that would chiefly imperil the existence of the State of Israel," he told his cabinet.

"As prime minister of Israel, I am obligated to make every effort to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weaponry that will be aimed at the State of Israel. This effort is global and I will go anywhere I am invited to make the State of Israel's case and defend its future and existence."

Netanyahu's rightist Likud party is running neck-and-neck in opinion polls with the centre-left list of Labor leader Isaac Herzog and former justice minister Tzipi Livni.

The prime minister's rivals say his acceptance of a partisan invitation to Congress showed he was willing to meddle in US politics for his own campaigning.

"Netanyahu is directly harming the president of the United States.

Such a frail and fragile creature an American president is, to be sure, that his fate rests on the words of distant politicians.

What Netanyahu is doing with this thuggish behaviour is to harm Israel's security interests," Herzog told Army Radio.

How could American's president possibly loathe him more than he did when he witheld bullets in the middle of a shooting war?

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