JNS news briefs: October 15, 2014

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Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon looking to ‘manage’ Israeli-Palestinian conflict

(JNS.org) Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in an interview with Israel Hayom published Wednesday that he is “not looking for a solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but instead “looking for a way to manage the conflict.”

Asked if Israel can consider Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a partner for peace, Ya’alon said, “Abbas has never said that he recognizes us as the nation state of the Jewish people. He also never said that if a compromise is reached, even one that adheres to his vision of 1967 borders, it would end the conflict and the [Palestinian] demands. He never said that he has given up on demanding refugee rights. So where can we go with him?”

“[Abbas] is a partner for discussion; a partner for managing the conflict,” said Ya’alon. “I am not looking for a solution, I am looking for a way to manage the conflict and to maintain relations in a way that works for our interests. We need to free ourselves of the notion that everything boils down to only one option called a [Palestinian] state. As far as I am concerned let them call it the ‘Palestinian Empire.’ I don’t care. It is an autonomy if it is ultimately a demilitarized territory. That is not a status quo, it is the establishment of a modus vivendi that is tolerable and serves our interests.”

In a follow-up question, Ya’alon was asked if he rejects the idea of a two-state solution.

“Call it whatever you want,” he said. “The political separation has already happened, and it is a good thing that it has. We are not controlling the lives of the residents of Gaza or Judea and Samaria. This separation is important. I would encourage and reinforce governability, the economy and the residents’ ability to live in dignity and economic comfort. But to derive something so black and white from that? State or no state? Let’s put the terminology aside.”

U.N.’s Ban Ki-moon ‘shocked and alarmed’ by Hamas terror tunnels
(JNS.org) In a visit to southern Israel on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon got a taste of Hamas’s network of terror tunnels running under the Israel-Gaza border. Israeli officials showed Ban the opening of a tunnel near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha.

“I was shocked and alarmed by the underground tunnels,” Ban said. “It is not acceptable. No one should live under constant threat or fear of these rockets or the penetrating underground tunnels.”

Israel said it destroyed more than 30 terror tunnels during Operation Protective Edge.

Ban told southern Israel residents that the $5.4 billion dollars pledged to Gaza reconstruction at an international donors conference in Cairo on Sunday would not be used by Hamas to fund terrorism. Additionally, he met with the family of Daniel Tragerman, the 4-year-old boy killed in Nahal Oz by a mortal shell during the Israel-Hamas war.

“[Daniel died] even without knowing anything, even without being able to grow up. This is very sad,” Ban said.

The U.N. leader also visited Gaza on Tuesday.

“I am here with a very heavy heart,” Ban said. “The destruction which I have seen coming here is beyond description. This is much more serious destruction than what I saw in 2009 immediately after the violence at that time.”
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Israeli police chief gets leadership award from U.S. police organization
(JNS.org) The U.S.-based Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) nonprofit will award Israel Police Commissioner Insp. Gen. Yohanan Danino for his leadership in creating strong ties and cooperation with other police commissioners around the world.

Danino, who will receive the award in a special ceremony next week, has been chosen for the annual honor for his contribution to law enforcement and for serving as an example of upholding the highest standards in policing on an international level. Previous recipients of the award have been Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, New York Police Commissioner William Bratton, and Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.

In recent years, the Israel Police has put significant effort into improving ties with other law enforcement agencies. This includes sharing intelligence, joint exercises, and overall cooperation. “These combined operations [with other police forces] make Israel Police one of the finest and most professional law enforcement agencies in the world,” Danino said, according to Israel Hayom.

One of the largest Israel Police projects in recent years has been improving cooperation with Jordanian and Palestinian Authority law enforcement. At first, meetings between Israel and their Palestinian and Jordanian counterparts were a PERF initiative, intended to improve thwarting cross-border felonies. “We work with them all the time, and the cooperation is only getting better, but if we want a breakthrough, it would have to happen alongside a diplomatic action,” said Danino.
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Jerusalem institute gets $2.2 million to teach religious texts to Christians
(JNS.org) The Herzl Institute in Jerusalem has received a $2.2 million grant from the U.S.-based Templeton Foundation for the purpose of teaching Jewish religious texts to both Christians and Jews.

“We’re not just talking about Christians wanting to help Jews out of solidarity or charity,” said Herzl Institute President Yoram Hazony, theReligion News Service reported. “We are talking about the dominant faith of Western civilization saying: ‘The Jews have something to give us, something that we need.’ This is not something that appears in the old playbook for Jewish-Christian dialogue.”

Another partnership that is underway between the Herzl Institute and King’s College in Manhattan will send Christian students to Jerusalem to study in a “Hebraic Heritage” course over the summer.

“This is completely new dialogue, where we look at Old Testament text and rabbinic texts and Christians are willing to look at Judaism and the Jewish text through Jewish eyes with Jewish lecturers,” Hazony said.

Diplomats concerned over U.K. parliament’s Palestinian state recognition
(JNS.org) The British ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, expressed concern over Monday’s symbolic vote in the British Parliament to recognize a Palestinian state. The House of Commons ruled in favor of the recognition in a 274-12 non-binding vote, but British Prime Minister David Cameron abstained from the vote.

“I think it is right to be concerned about what it signifies in terms of the direction of public opinion,” Gould told Israel’s Army Radio.

Prior to the British vote, the new prime minister of Sweden indicated that the country would similarly recognize “Palestine” as a state, but the Swedish government partially backtracked that stance after the criticism it garnered.

The former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, told Yedioth Ahronoth that “support expressed by Britain for the establishment of the Palestinian state is much more important than the Swedish one, and is being underestimated.”

“Britain is a member of the U.N. Security Council. The Palestinians are going to the UN in November and they want at least nine votes in the Security Council (to force Israel to commit to a timeline for withdrawing from the West Bank.) There is a chance America will abstain, but a lot of it is up to us,” Oren said.
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Hezbollah: attack on IDF at Lebanon-Israel border a ‘message’
(JNS.org) The leader of the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said that last week’s attack on IDF soldiers in northern Israel was a “message” in retaliation for the killing of an operative of the group in September by the Israeli army.

Nasrallah claimed that the operative had been examining an Israeli spy device planted in Lebanon. Two IDF soldiers were wounded in the retaliation attack.

Hezbollah fighters “detonated an explosive device on the Shebaa hills against a motorized Israeli patrol causing a number of injuries among the occupation’s soldiers,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

“Hezbollah is still strong and present, and has not weakened, despite the changes in the region and the media’s coverage of the global coalition…Israel wanted to test Hezbollah, and our response to that was the explosive device in Mount Dov,” Nasrallah said, according to the Times of Israel.

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