Shimon Peres: Recognition of Israel as Jewish state ‘unnecessary’
(JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres has called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state “unnecessary” and a possible impediment to Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations, Israel Hayom reported.
In conversations with diplomatic and political officials in recent weeks, Peres said it was possible to reach an agreement with the Palestinians now, with American assistance. Despite the relationship between Netanyahu and Peres being described as “strained” of late, Peres publicly aims to maintain a unified front and does not contradict Netanyahu’s stance that Israel must be recognized as a Jewish state. In public, Peres states that Israel is a Jewish country, although he says its security will be assured only with the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Peres’s office has declined comment on the matter. His stance is similar to that of Yesh Atid party chairman and Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who last month called the demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state “nonsense.”
Netanyahu addressed the issue on Tuesday at a joint press conference in Jerusalem with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“Here’s the core of the conflict and here is the key to its solution: The core of the conflict is not settlements; the core of the conflict is not the territories; the core of the conflict is not the absence of a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said. “The core of the conflict is the persistent refusal to reconcile to an independent nation-state of the Jewish people.”
“If the Palestinians expect me and my people to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, surely we can expect them to recognize a nation-state for the Jewish people. After all, we’ve only been here four millennia. That’s it; that’s what this is about,” Netanyahu added.
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Canada’s Stephen Harper cancels Dome of the Rock visit after Jewish bodyguards barred
(JNS.org) Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper called off a visit to the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount on Tuesday after he was told that his Jewish bodyguards could not enter the area, B’nai B’rith Canada revealed.
“It is a shame that the Prime Minister’s visit to the Kotel was marred after he learned that his security detail would not be allowed in to the Dome of the Rock because they are Jewish,” said Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada. “B’nai Brith delegations have also faced moments of discrimination and harassment on previous missions. We have raised this issue with Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom. Equal access must be given to Jewish worshipers wishing to ascend the Temple Mount. This incident serves as a stark reminder of the religious discrimination going on at the hands of the Islamic Waqf responsible for administering the site.”
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Canadian PM Stephen Harper says he will not single out Israel for criticism
(JNS.org) Asked about Israeli construction beyond the Green Line in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he would not single out Israel for criticism.
“The one lesson I think we have learned is that when somebody is a minority, particularly a small minority in the world, one goes out of one’s way to embrace them, not to single them out for criticism,” Harper said.
“Leaders on both sides know what Canada’s view is on [Israeli settlement construction], which is, as I say, publicly available. … I find it, you know, interesting—let me just make it as an observation—that, you know, yesterday in the Palestinian Authority, no one asked me there, no one asked me there to single out the Palestinian Authority for any criticism in terms of governance or human rights or anything else. I’m asked to single out Israel. When I’m in Israel, I’m asked to single out Israel; when I’m in the Palestinian Authority, I’m asked to single out Israel; and in half the other places around the world you ask me to single out Israel,” he said.
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Israel exploring possibility of sending astronaut to International Space Station
(JNS.org) The Israel Space Agency (ISA) is in preliminary talks with U.S., European, Russian, and Chinese space agencies to explore sending an Israeli astronaut to the International Space Station.
“All the flights to the space station are fully booked for at least two years,” Dr. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, head of the ISA, told the Jerusalem Post. “But if we want a second Israeli astronaut, we have to start talking now.”
The news that Israel is seeking to send another astronaut comes eleven years after the tragic death of Colonel Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli in space, in the Columbia shuttle disaster. Despite Ramon’s death, Ben-Yisrael believes that there will be many candidates interested in going to space, including air force pilots like Ramon or teachers, scientists, and other professions.
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White House exploring ways to bypass Congress and ease Iran sanctions
(JNS.org) The White House may be exploring ways to circumvent Congress and unilaterally lift sanctions on Iran, according to reports.
The Washington Free Beacon, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the White House and Congress, said the Obama administration is looking for legal ways to bypass Congress and ease the sanctions themselves.
“The American people must get a say in any final nuclear agreement with Iran to ensure the mullahs never get the bomb,” U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) said. “The administration cannot just ignore U.S. law and lift sanctions unilaterally.”
The White House said it would begin to ease Iran sanctions after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran has shut down higher-level uranium enrichment at a facility in central Iran.
“These actions represent the first time in nearly a decade that Iran has verifiably enacted measures to halt progress on its nuclear program, and roll it back in key respects,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.
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Obama trusted on Iran by one in five Israeli voters, poll says
(JNS.org) A new survey conducted by pollster Stephan Miller of (202) Strategies for the Times of Israel revealed that just one in five Israeli voters believes that President Barack Obama will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Only 22 percent of respondents said they agree with the statement, “I trust U.S. President Barack Obama to ensure that Iran does not achieve a nuclear weapon.”
Fifty-percent of Israeli voters said they do not have a favorable view of the U.S. president. Among the 33 percent of Israeli voters who expressed general trust in Obama, 43 percent said they trust his ability to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and an equal 43 percent of respondents do not trust Obama on that issue.
Israeli female voters tend to trust Obama on Iran more than male voters. The most skeptical groups of voters were males 55 years and older and former Soviet Union Immigrants who made aliyah after 1989. Only 12 percent of the latter group expressed trust in Obama.
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Temple Mount restrictions shock former Canadian minister on Harper trip
(JNS.org) Former Canadian minister Stockwell Day, who visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Sunday, said he was shocked to learn that Israeli police forces prevent Jews from visiting the holy site.
Since Israel captured eastern Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, the Israeli government policy on the Temple Mount has been to cede religious control of the site to the Muslim Waqf, and Israeli police restrict Jewish access there. While that Israeli government policy stems from security concerns, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate also opposes Jewish visitation to the Temple Mount, for halachic reasons.
Day, who served as Canada’s Minister of Public Safety between 2006 and 2008 and is currently in Israel as part of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s delegation to the country, “was shocked over how Jewish police can do these things to Jews” and “did not understand how one can talk about the reunification of Jerusalem while at the same time Jews are not allowed to open their mouths on the Temple Mount,” Jerusalem resident Josef Rabin, who accompanied Day on his visit to the Temple Mount, told Israel National News.
Rabin and Day also noticed that the Israeli police is now forbidding Israelis to speak with tourists about the compound out of fear of angering the Muslim Waqf.
Day is expected to raise the Temple Mount issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an upcoming meeting.
In another development on Harper’s visit to Israel, Harper and Netanyahu on Tuesday signed an expanded Israel-Canada free trade pact.
“An expanded and modernized trade agreement with Israel will generate more jobs and economic growth at home and in Israel, while strengthening the close friendship that both countries enjoy,” Harper said in a statement.
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Jonathan Pollard’s attorneys slam NY Times ‘Don’t Trust This Spy’ op-ed
(JNS.org) Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, who have served as pro bono attorneys for jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard since 2000, slammed a recent New York Times op-ed on Pollard titled “Don’t Trust This Spy.”
The op-ed penned by M.E. Bowman—former deputy general counsel for national security law at the FBI and former deputy of the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive—claims that Pollard “sold the daily report from the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet Ocean Surveillance Facility in Rota, Spain.”
That allegation “is nowhere to be found in the public court record,” Lauer and Semmelman wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed that responded to Bowman’s article.
“Bowman makes a series of false and inflammatory allegations that are contradicted by the public court record,” they wrote. “Since Bowman would be committing a crime were he to reveal anything contained in the non-public, classified portion of the court record, it is fair to presume that he is not doing so. Since his assertions are nowhere to be found in (and indeed, are contradicted by) the public court record, the only possible conclusion is that his allegations are false.”
Pollard, who is in his 29th year in U.S. prison, is the only person to receive a life sentence for passing information to a U.S. ally (Israel) without intent to harm America. Declassified CIA documents published in 2012 by the National Security Archive at George Washington University revealed that the intelligence Pollard conveyed to his handlers was limited to information on Pakistan, Arab states, and the Soviet Union. The handlers “did not request or receive from Pollard intelligence concerning some of the most sensitive U.S. national security resources,” the documents said.
Bowman’s op-ed contrasts with the positions taken by a number of officials in the intelligence community and elsewhere who have called for Pollard’s release, including former Secretary of State George Shultz; William Webster, head of the FBI at the time of Pollard’s arrest; former U.S. Sen. David Durenberger, who served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time of Pollard’s conviction; former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, who served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time of Pollard’s sentencing; former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb; and former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, who served under President Ronald Reagan when Pollard was investigated.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org