Netanyahu responds to criticism, says ‘security cannot be founded on delusions’
(JNS.org) As Israel’s March 17 election approaches, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the recent wave of criticism directed at him by Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad spy agency. In an interview with Israel Hayom published Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel’s security “cannot be founded on delusions.”
Dagan, in a recent interview with Israel’s Channel 2 television network, called it “bullshit” that Netanyahu told Congress on March 3 that Iran’s breakout time for a nuclear weapon is less than a year. Dagan also disagreed with Netanyahu on the global threat posed by Iranian missiles, saying those missiles “will never be able to hit the United States.” In a subsequent anti-Netanyahu rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, Dagan said of the prime minister, “We have a leader who fights only one campaign—the campaign for his own political survival.”
Netanyahu told Israel Hayom, “I don’t understand how Dagan, who cursed me and insulted me, asked twice to serve as Mossad director under me. I approved his first request, and rejected his second, and perhaps as a result of that he is coming after me for personal reasons. Of course I don’t agree with his left-wing agenda. He was wrong when he forecast that the Muslim Brotherhood would not seek the leadership of Egypt. In the end, not only did they seek it, they succeeded in achieving it. My job as prime minister is to lead the country in a sober manner. People who supported [the] Oslo [Accords] haven’t sobered up yet and still believe their own delusions. Security cannot be founded on delusions.”
The prime minister said his famous address at Bar-Ilan University in 2009, which marked his first call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was no longer relevant.
“The reality has shifted,” Netanyahu said. “Today, every territory that we evacuate will be taken over by radical Islamists under the auspices of Iran. That is what happened when we pulled out of Lebanon and it is what happened when we evacuated Gaza, and we must not allow it to happen in Judea and Samaria as well. That is why there will not be any evacuations.”
Netanyahu said his next government would neither release Palestinian prisoners nor freeze construction in Jewish communities beyond the 1949 armistice line (Green Line).
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Hamas rejects proposal for five-year truce with Israel
(JNS.org) The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has rejected a proposal for a five-year truce with Israel that would have included the lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip, according to senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk.
Marzouk said that the proposal—put forth by Israeli, Palestinian, and international parties—also included clauses about the establishment of an airport and a seaport in Hamas-ruled Gaza, Haaretz reported.
“We’re paying a steep price for our stance by the continued blockade and economic pressure over the Strip, but we reject any idea that would lead to the separation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, despite the fact that Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and his government are actively doing so with their policies,” Marzouk said in a Facebook post.
Robert Serry, the outgoing United Nations special coordinator for Middle East peace, had apparently proposed a three-to-five year truce with Israel to Hamas officials in order to aid the reconstruction of Gaza following last summer’s war there. A different report, by Walla News, indicated that Hamas sent a series of messages to Israel through U.N. and Western diplomats that it was willing to strike a five-year truce.
Several such truces—known as “hudna” in Arabic—have been offered by Hamas in the past.
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On Facebook, Palestinian Fatah party glorifies attack that killed 37 Israelis
(JNS.org) The official Facebook page of the Palestinian Fatah political party—which is led by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas—on March 10 celebrated the anniversary of a terrorist attack that killed 37 Israelis, Palestinian Media Watch reported.
In the Coastal Road massacre of 1978, Fatah terrorists from Lebanon hijacked an Israeli bus. When confronted by Israeli soldiers, the terrorists murdered 37 passengers, including 12 children. Seventy additional passengers were wounded.
On Tuesday, Fatah’s Facebook page both glorified and exaggerated that attack, more than doubling the actual number of deaths.
“A huge self-sacrificing operation in Herzliya, Tel Aviv. 80 Israelis killed and over 100 wounded,” Fatah posted.
Female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, the orchestrator of the Coastal Road massacre, has been frequently glorified by Fatah and the PA, according to Palestinian Media Watch. In 2010, the PA named a square in Ramallah after Mughrabi. The same square was chosen this year by Fatah for the hosting of a public event to mark the 1978 attack.
“We will mark the anniversary of the heroic coastal operation (i.e., the Coastal Road massacre), which was led by Martyr (Shahida) Dalal Mughrabi, and the deaths as Martyrs of Dalal and her heroic friends, at 3:30 p.m. across from Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Square in Ramallah,” Fatah said in its Facebook post on Tuesday.
At the same time, an Israeli defense official said this week that forces ordered by the PA’s Abbas have arrested more than 100 members of the Hamas terrorist group in the West Bank. This apparent Palestinian crackdown on terrorism comes despite the Palestine Liberation Organization’s recent adoption of a resolution calling for an end to security cooperation with Israel.
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Woman sues Yad Vashem Holocaust museum over Oskar Schindler documents
(JNS.org) The Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem has been sued by a woman who claims ownership of a collection of documents that belonged to Holocaust rescuer Oskar Schindler and are now housed at Yad Vashem.
Schindler was a Catholic businessman from Germany who saved more than 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust, and his story was dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List. Prof. Erika Rosenberg claims that the documents, which include copies of lists of the Jews who Schindler saved, were snuck out of Germany without permission after being discovered in a suitcase in an apartment.
Rosenberg, who is the legal heir of Schindler’s wife Emilie, claims the documents belong to her, while the museum claims they were gifted by the couple who lived in that apartment.
“Emilie never asked for these materials. Only after her death did her friend Erica Rosenberg demand them,” a spokeswoman for Yad Vashem told the Jerusalem Post.
“We believe that Schindler’s List is a document of historical importance and its place [is] in the public domain,” the museum said. The case will be heard by a Jerusalem court in April.
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South African Jewish group raises concern over growing BDS-linked anti-Semitism
(JNS.org) The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) released a statement expressing concern that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is creating a climate of increased anti-Semitism in South Africa.
“The SAJBD has repeatedly expressed concern that the BDS, by importing the Middle East conflict into South Africa, is creating a climate that encourages anti-Semitism while shutting down any possible and rational debate on Israeli—Palestinian issues,” the group said on its website.
On Sunday, BDS supporters threatened to slaughter Jews at a rally outside of the South African Zionist Federation near Johannesburg, which was holding a South Africa-Israeli expo at the time.
“You think this is Israel, we are going to kill you,” one of the BDS protesters said. Other protestors shouted, “You Jews do not belong in South Africa” and “no Zionist conference be held on our soil.”
“The BDS is fueling the flames of a fire that it cannot control,” said the SAJBD. “They base their hatred on the fact that the South African Jewish community and lovers of Israel generally, do not share the BDS’s narrow and skewed view on Israel.”
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UCLA student government passes resolution condemning anti-Semitism
(JNS.org) The Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism.
The resolution, which was drafted by members of Hillel and the USAC president Avinoam Baral, calls on the student government to fight anti-Semitism and for members of the USAC to attend diversity training and learn about the history of anti-Semitism, the Daily Bruin reported.
Passed in a 12-0 vote, the measure also condemned recent anti-Semitic incidents at University of California (UC) campuses, including the spray painting of swastikas on the building of the Jewish fraternity AEPi at UC Davis and the questioning of a Jewish applicant for UCLA’s student government on the basis of her religion.
The resolution approved at UCLA follows a similar bill passed in late February at UC Berkeley, whose student government also unanimously voted to condemn anti-Semitism.
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Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.
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