Kerry to skip Israel on first Middle East trip
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will bypass Israel on his first official trip to the Middle East, U.S. officials said Tuesday as they announced a jam-packed itinerary through nine nations, including several in Europe.
Kerry’s maiden voyage begins Sunday. He will visit close U.S. allies and partners in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Kerry’s trip will focus on the conflicts in Mali, Syria and Afghanistan, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
Nuland said the U.S. was waiting for Israeli political parties to form a new government after the recent Knesset election.
“The Israelis are still working on their coalition,” she told reporters, adding that Kerry won’t travel to Israel or the Palestinian territories until next month—when he will accompany President Barack Obama to the region.
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Jewish Democratic women join NJDC Women’s initiative
(JNS.org) All of the Jewish women representing the Democratic party in the U.S. Senate and Congress have chosen to become Honorary Co-Chairs of the National Jewish Democratic Council’s (NJDC) new Women’s Leadership Network (WLN). Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011 and later left her post to recover from her injury, has also signed on for the role.
The initiative is “an opportunity for us to stand up as women, as Jews, and as Democrats for the priorities we share… From safeguarding our civil and reproductive freedoms, to strengthening our health and social safety net, to ending preventable gun violence, and bolstering support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, NJDC’s WLN will serve as a valuable resource and powerful voice on the issues that matter to our community,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said in a statement.
“NJDC’s Women’s Leadership Network will mobilize Jewish American women to support strong Democratic candidates and will ensure that all female Jewish Democrats have a voice at the table,” said U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).
“We look forward to working with our Honorary Co-Chairs as we fight to maintain and expand women’s rights and protect the future for our children, grandchildren, and future generations,” added Women’s Leadership Network Co-Founders Ann Lewis and Barbara Goldberg Goldman.
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Reports: Egyptian security delegation to visit Israel
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) A delegation of high-level Egyptian security officials is expected to visit Israel in the coming days, according to Egyptian media reports. It is believed that discussions during the visit will focus on the Palestinian issue and the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula.
It was also reported that a delegation of Israeli security officials had visited Cairo a day earlier for the second time in a week.
An Egyptian official told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency that the Egyptian delegation that would visit Israel would demand that Israel permit commercial goods to enter the Gaza Strip via the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
“Israel has agreed to allow entry of construction material from Qatar, which the Israelis refused before,” the Egyptian official was quoted as saying by Ma’an. “This reflects that both sides have been holding talks behind the scenes to avoid alerting the public opinion in Egypt which refuses cooperation with Israel and the United States.”
Israel has reportedly been holding secret Egyptian-mediated talks with Hamas since the end of Operation Pillar of Defense in November, as part of the implementation of the cease-fire deal that halted the eight-day military confrontation between Israel and terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
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Livni to join Netanyahu’s coalition
(JNS.org) In the shifting world of Israeli coalition politics, Tzipi Livni, a longtime foe of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will become the first party leader to join Netanyahu’s coalition, Ynet reported.
Livni, a former foreign minister and opposition leader in the centrist Kadima Party, is now the head of the center-left Hatnua Party, which won only six seats in last month’s election. As part of the coalition deal, she will serve as justice minister and will also head any future negotiations with the Palestinians. Livni will also serve in Netanyahu’s inner cabinet.
The deal with Hatnua comes amid a breakdown in negotiations with Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid Party, which gained the second most seats at 18, and Naftali Bennet’s far-right HaBayit HaYehudi Party, which won 13 seats. Lapid and Bennet have reportedly formed a political pact to only join Netanyahu’s coalition together if the prime minister agrees to concessions on drafting ultra-Orthodox into the IDF. Netanyahu has relied on the support of the ultra-Orthodox parties for his two previous terms as prime minister.
Netanyahu has less than two weeks left to form a government.
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Netanyahu thanks Pope Benedict for boosting Jewish-Christian ties
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Pope Benedict XVI for his boosting Jewish-Christian ties during his tenure as pontiff.
“I want to thank you for all you have done as Pope to strengthen relations between Christians and Jews and between the Vatican and the Jewish State,” Netanyahu said in a letter he wrote to the Pope, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Pope Benedict XVI largely continued his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, outreach to both the Jewish community and the state of Israel. He became the first pontiff to declare a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ in his book Jesus of Nazareth-Part II.
Pope Benedict XVI’s tenure also included a celebrated 2009 trip to Israel where he visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and the Western Wall.
“Your historic visit to Israel in 2009 offered a rare opportunity to give expression to the new relations between our faiths,” said Netanyahu.
Recently, Israel and the Vatican finalized a historic agreement that formalized relations between the two nations. It included agreements on the status of the Catholic Church in Israel, sovereignty over Catholic sites, taxation and expropriation.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org