Ofek-11 satellite makes first contact after 9 days in orbit
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel’s Ofek-11 surveillance satellite transmitted its first images Thursday, nine days after it was launched into orbit, dispelling concerns that it might have been lost in space, the Defense Ministry and Israel Aerospace Industries said in a joint statement.
Ofek-11, carrying state of the art technology, was successfully launched into space on Sept. 13, but communications were lost shortly afterward. With the launch so soon after the destruction of the Amos-6 communication satellite, the loss of communications raised concerns that the advanced spy satellite had also been lost. A second satellite loss in the span of one month would have dealt a crippling blow to the Israeli aerospace industry.
Ofek-11 has flown over Israel every few hours since its launch. According to the Defense Ministry, it finally made contact at 5:10 p.m. Thursday, sending its first images from space.
A defense official said that while the satellite was clearly online and “producing excellent images,” it is too early to tell whether the malfunctions have been overcome.
“We were able to stabilize the satellite. Despite a few anomalies at the beginning, they were successful in getting the satellite to send images. The satellite systems’ are still undergoing diagnostics, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. Running diagnostics could take months,” the official said.
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Former Israeli official: $38 billion arms deal good for Israel’s long-term planning
The agreement, known as the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), has been criticized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition and from the political right in the U.S., in part due to the removal of an arrangement included in the previous MOU allowing Israel to spend up to 25 percent of the aid money on its own defense industry. Instead, Israel will have to spend all the money on American arms manufacturers.
The agreement allows Israel “to make plans and to implement them based on a known amount of money,” to “defend itself by itself” in a volatile Middle East, and to prepare to destroy any attempt by Iran to get nuclear capabilities, said Amidror, a distinguished fellow at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy. He is also a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a former national security advisor to Netanyahu.
The agreement covers fiscal year 2019 to 2028 and stands at $38 billion or $3.8 billion per year. Beyond the numbers, however, “the political significance of this agreement” is that it shows that the U.S. supports Israel in spite of strained relations between Netanyahu and Obama in recent years, Amidror explained.
“It’s ok for democracies” to have criticism, Amidror said, “it should be that way.” Despite the new condition, he believes it was best Israel and the U.S. agreed on the new MOU before the November presidential election, instead of Israel waiting for a new administration to familiarize itself with all the issues in 2017.
More importantly, the new MOU shows that U.S. “separates the issues,” and doesn’t allow disagreements to stand in the way of defense collaboration with the Jewish state, Amidror said.
Regarding the Iran nuclear deal, while the Israeli government does not “like the situation,” it understands the “American logic” behind the deal. The MOU allows Israel enough time and money to prepare itself for a future during and after the deal.
This is “a huge achievement for both the White House and the Prime Minister’s office,” Amidror said.
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At UN, Netanyahu invites Abbas to Knesset, Abbas blames Israel for peace impasse
The Israeli leader blamed the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians on their refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state, not settlements.
“This conflict is not about the settlements, it never was,” he said. “If the Palestinians had said yes to a Jewish state in 1947 there would have been no war… and when they do finally say yes to a Jewish state we will be able to end this conflict once and for all.”
On the current deadlock in negotiations with the Palestinians, Netanyahu told Abbas he wants him to address the Israeli Knesset and that he’s prepared to “speak peace with the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah.”
Netanyahu also spoke about regional developments, including the warming relations between Israel and the Arab world, which sees Israel as an ally against threats like Iran and the Islamic State.
“The biggest change is taking place in Arab world. For first time in my lifetime many other states recognize us not as the enemy but as an ally,” he said.
On Iran, Netanyahu said that the threat a nuclear Iran poses “is not behind us, it’s before us. Israel will not allow the terror state of Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Not now. Not in a decade. Not ever.”
Meanwhile, in his address earlier Thursday to the U.N. General Assembly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas blamed most of the failure towards reaching a two-state solution and the stalemate in negotiations on Israel.
Abbas called on Israel to cease expanding settlements, “collective punishment and its demolition of Palestinian homes,” as well as “extrajudicial executions” and “aggression and provocations against the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque” on the Temple Mount.
“I am compelled to again warn that what the Israeli government is doing in pursuit of its expansionist settlement plans will destroy whatever possibility and hopes are left for the two-state solution on the 1967 borders,” Abbas said.
He also said he’d seek a U.N. Security Council resolution that would denounce Israeli settlements and “the terror of the settlers against the Palestinian people.”
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Senate committee holds hearing on Obama’s $1.7 billion cash to Iran
Several experts testified on international banking and terrorism, including former Undersecretary of Defense for policy Eric Edelman, former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, and Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution.
“In far too many respects, this incident embodies the deeper failures of the Administration’s Iran policy. … Indeed, years of unenforced redlines by the Obama Administration – including the one on ransoms – have created a disturbing asymmetry in U.S.-Iran relations, where both countries behave as though the United States is too invested in the JCPOA to risk angering Iran,” Edelman said in his testimony.
In early August, it was revealed the Obama administration had secretly flown $400 million in pallets of cash to Iran just as four American hostages were released from Tehran in January 2016. The payment also coincided with the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran nuclear deal, which saw a number of international sanctions being lifted against the Islamic Republic. An additional $1.3 billion in interest was paid in cash over the following weeks.
The total $1.7 billion was part of a settlement deal with Iran over a failed arms deal in 1979. The Obama administration, while acknowledging the payment, has continued to deny the money transfer amounts to ransom. Obama has insisted they had to pay with cash, converted to foreign currency, since there is no ability to wire transfer money to Iran, which was not true, according to an expert from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Critics of the payment contend that the cash payment is untraceable and that Iran is using it to strengthen its military and to fund terrorism.
“The reason why a cash payment raises serious questions should be obvious,” Mukasey said in his testimony. “Iran is a designated state sponsor of international terrorism…The only reason to insist that cash in the form of Euros and Swiss francs be provided to Iran– in Iran — is to permit that money to be distributed outside its borders in a way that cannot be traced. The activity that Iran pursues outside its borders that requires untraceable funds is terrorism.”
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