Report: Hamas refused missiles with tracking devices
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Hamas refused to receive a shipment of missiles that were smuggled into the Gaza Strip from Libya across the Sinai desert, after it was discovered that they contained espionage and surveillance devices which would enable Israel to track the missiles, an Egyptian news website reported Monday.
The site, Youm7.com [Seven Days] quoted “informed sources” close to the people smuggling the weapons shipment across Sinai, saying that 28 long-range missiles were moved during the past few days from Libya via desert routes until it got to the mountainous areas in central Sinai.
According to the sources, a missile expert from the Qassam Brigades the military wing of Hamas arrived at the site in central Sinai to inspect the shipment and decide whether or not to smuggle it into the Gaza Strip through tunnels.
While examining the missiles, the Hamas expert detected espionage and surveillance components attached to the missiles, and so refused to receive the shipment.
Youm7 quoted sources confirming that Hamas has “ended its dealings with a large number of arms smugglers in Sinai” after it was discovered that weapons transferred from Libya to Gaza may be discovered.
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Interviewer for Hagel’s ‘Jewish lobby’ comment didn’t expect ensuing controversy
(JNS.org) WASHINGTON, DC—Defense secretary Chuck Hagel’s 2008 comment that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” in Washington, DC did not seem like “some sort of extraordinary hot scoop” at the time, the man he spoke those words to told JNS.org.
Hagel made his “Jewish lobby” reference, for which he came under fire in the pro-Israel community and from legislators on both sides of the political spectrum before being confirmed as defense secretary, in an interview with former Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller in a quote that appeared in Miller’s book, The Much Too Promised Land.
Miller, an advisor to six Secretaries of State who now works for the Woodrow Wilson Center, told JNS.org at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference that he did not see the “Jewish lobby” comment garnering the buzz that it has “because I knew Chuck Hagel was one of the more honest, outspoken members of Congress.” Hagel has said, “If I wanted a safe, secure job I would have been a shoe salesman,” Miller noted.
“And that kind of clarity and honesty—and I interviewed many members of Congress for that book—you just don’t find,” Miller said. “So what struck me about that, it was Hagel’s honesty. And he regrets now using the word ‘Jewish lobby.’ I don’t use it because it’s inexact, and it shuts people down, and since my job is about addition rather than subtraction, I’m not interested in not having people listen to me.”
“But no, I didn’t think, ‘Whoa, this is some sort of extraordinary hot scoop [when Hagel made his comment],’” Miller added.
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Barak: Israel should take ‘unilateral steps’ in absence of interim peace agreement
(JNS.org) WASHINGTON, DC—Outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday suggested that in the absence of “a reasonable and fair interim [peace] agreement,” Israel should consider “unilateral steps” to halt the Palestinians’ “slippery slope” towards a binational state (one-state solution).
Barak, echoing much of the recent pessimistic sentiments about the peace process amid unilateral Palestinian statehood bids in consecutive years at the United Nations, said at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference that “a fully fledged [peace] agreement is probably not feasible today.” Yet he maintained that a “daring peace initiative” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is needed.
“A two-state solution is the only viable solution,” Barak said, because that is how Israel will preserve its identity as a democratic Jewish state.
“It is not a favor for the Palestinians,” Barak said of the two-state solution. The former prime minister praised current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “courageous steps” such as an “unprecedented” freeze of construction in West Bank Jewish communities.
Barak said the belief “that the root cause for all of the problems in the Middle East is our inability to solve the conflict with the Palestinians” is “not true.” Recent developments in the region are “far beyond our control,” he said, explaining that with Israeli-Palestinian peace in place, Egypt would still ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood party, Syria would be still be engulfed in a civil war, and Iran would still be on its quest for regional domination and nuclear weapons.
Although “diplomatic efforts are unprecedented and sanctions are both unprecedented and hurting” Iran, Barak said he does not believe those strategies “will lead to a moment of truth when the ayatollahs will give up their nuclear aspirations.” He said “all options must remain on the table,” adding “We expect all those who say it to mean it.”
Barak, thanked U.S. President Barack Obama and outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for “their resolute backing of Israel.” He proceeded to wish former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel, Panetta’s successor who has often come under fire for his record on Israel, “all the best in his new role.”
“As Secretary of Defense, [Hagel] will no doubt serve his country with the same pride and honor with which he served both on the battlefield [in Vietnam] and in Congress,” Barak said.
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Netanyahu granted two-week extension to assemble coalition
(JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres granted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a two-week extension on Saturday after the latter failed to assemble a coalition in the initially allotted four-week time frame, Israel Hayom reported. Netanyahu blamed political “boycotts” for his failure to complete the task.
By law, the Israeli president cannot allow the prime minister any additional time, beyond these two weeks, to assemble the coalition. If the coalition is not complete within the next two weeks, new elections will likely be called.
During the meeting between Peres and Netanyahu at the president’s office in Jerusalem on Saturday, the prime minister briefed the president on the latest developments in the ongoing coalition talks.
“The main reason I have been unable to complete putting a coalition together until now is because of boycotts,” the prime minister told the president, referring to the alliance between Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid and Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett. Lapid’s 19-seat party will not join the coalition unless the prime minister forgoes his traditional partnership with the ultra-Orthodox parties, and Bennett’s 12-seat party will not join the coalition without Lapid, exerting enormous pressure on the prime minister to exclude the haredim (ultra-Orthodox).
“A certain population within the State of Israel is being boycotted, and that goes against my principles,” Netanyahu told the president. “I am doing everything in my power to unite the people [of Israel]. I think that as Jews we have suffered enough boycotts. We know that Israel is often boycotted in international forums, and in such cases we justifiably object.”
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At AIPAC conference, Senate Minority Whip praises Israeli democracy
(JNS.org) WASHINGTON, DC—Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) recalls a time when Ariel Sharon in 2001 was heckled by Arab legislators in the Knesset upon being elected prime minister of Israel, then heckled at the same venue a year later after a Palestinian suicide bombing killed 30 Israelis on Passover.
Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference on Sunday, Cornyn asked the audience whether they could imagine Israeli legislators being able to heckle a Palestinian prime minister.
“Me neither,” Cornyn said, answering his own question.
The fact that Israel, as a democracy unlike its Arab neighbors, “remains a country where Arabs can serve in parliament” and heckle the prime minister is at the heart of why an “overwhelming bipartisan consensus” is maintained in Congress in favor of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, in contrast to the “political football” played with other issues, according to Cornyn. Americans feel a “special kinship” with Israel because of shared values such as liberty and human rights, he said.
Cornyn met with Sharon on his first trip to Israel in 2002, and three years later the prime minister was behind Israel’s decision to unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, offering the Palestinians what Cornyn called a “test” to build political, cultural and civic institutions without Israeli interference.
Instead, Gaza has become a “terrorist haven run by Hamas” where children are “indoctrinated in a culture of death,” Cornyn said. Hamas will “never be reformed by dialogue or concessions,” he said.
The biggest obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace is not Israeli construction in the West Bank, Cornyn said.
“In reality, the biggest obstacle is the lack of a credible negotiating partner on the Palestinian side,” he said, saying Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “continues to posture as a moderate, but is he really?” Cornyn noted that Abbas wrote a doctoral dissertation denying the Holocaust.
Regarding the Iranian nuclear threat, Cornyn said the U.S. needs to combine “debilitating sanctions with the credible threat of military action.”
“I find it deeply disturbing that the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism is so close to acquiring a nuclear weapon,” he said.
“In short, stopping the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons is not optional,” Cornyn added. “To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, there is no alternative.”
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Defense secretary Hagel to host Israeli counterpart as first guest
(JNS.org) Fresh off his historically tight battle for Senate approval, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will host the Israeli Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, as his first foreign guest.
“The secretary is honored that Minister Barak will be the first foreign counterpart that he will host at the Pentagon,” a Pentagon official told Reuters.
Hagel, who has come under fire for his record and statements on Israel, was confirmed 58-41 by the Senate last week. No previous defense secretary was confirmed with more than 11 opposing votes.
Among the topics to be discussed by Hagel and Barak will be the Iranian nuclear program. Negotiations over that nuclear program ended last week in Kazakhstan without an agreement, and more talks are forthcoming.
Barak will also meet with Vice President Joe Biden and other high-level U.S. officials, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Barak’s visit to the Pentagon also coincides with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference scheduled from Sunday until Tuesday, where he is the highest-level Israeli official in attendance.
The U.S. visit could be Barak’s last trip as defense minister. He announced last year that he is quitting politics and did not run in Israel’s recent election.
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New Holocaust study reveals more ghettos and death camps than previously thought
(JNS.org) A comprehensive new study released by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shows that as many as 42,500 ghettos and concentration camps were operated by Nazi Germany throughout Europe from 1933 to 1945.
Even seasoned Holocaust scholars were surprised by the results of the 13-year study.
“The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the German Historical Institute, said after learning of the new data, the New York Times reported.
“We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.”
The data from the report indicates that there were more than “30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, ‘Germanizing’ prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers,” according to the New York Times.
Researchers said they only initially expected to find around 7,000 sites, but the number kept rising.
The revelation of additional camps may also help Holocaust victims in their legal claims against European insurance companies such as Allianz.
In 2006, as part of a settlement by the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, Allianz and other insurance companies paid out more than $306 million to 48,000 claimants. But Holocaust survivors and their supporters claim that Allianz still owes them nearly $2 billion.
“How many claims have been rejected because the victims were in a camp that we didn’t even know about?” asked Sam Dubbin, a Florida lawyer who represents a group of survivors seeking to bring claims against European insurance companies, according to the New York Times.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org