Security barrier separating Shuafat from Pisgat Ze’ev.
Israel’s leading security think tank has published a plan to redraw the map of the West Bank in a bid to consolidate major settlements and prevent the spread of others.
The plan, presented Monday to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin as part of the Institute for National Security Studies’ yearly strategic survey, calls for the government to allow construction in West Bank settlement blocs and Jerusalem. At the same time, it recommends a halt to construction in the 90 percent of the territory outside the major settlements.
Three US senators have introduced legislation that would commit the United States to moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move US presidents have opposed for decades but which President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled he is willing to do.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and Nevada Sen. Dean Heller (R) proposed the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act on Tuesday, the first day the new Congress convened on Capitol Hill as Republicans prepare to control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives for the first time since 2007. The measure is similar to a 1995 resolution, led by former House speaker and current Trump confidant Newt Gingrich, that called to move the embassy. It was immediately dismissed by then-president Bill Clinton, who wanted the future status of Jerusalem settled in final negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
A military court convicted an Israeli soldier of manslaughter on Wednesday over his fatal shooting of a wounded and incapacitated Palestinian assailant in the occupied West Bank last March.
Sentencing of 20-year-old Sergeant Elor Azaria will be handed down at a later date. Hundreds of far-right protesters demonstrated in support of Azaria outside a military base in central Tel Aviv where the verdict was handed down.
By Armin Rosen: At first blush, at least, a Trump presidency promises everything that AIPAC, America’s largest pro-Israel lobbying group, could ever wish for. After eight years of rocky relations between Jerusalem and Washington, Donald Trump promises that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will receive a much friendlier reception in the White House during his administration. The inclusion of Iran hawks such as CIA director Mike Pompeo, Trump’s nominee for CIA director, and defense secretary nominee James Mattis could even spell the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, especially in light of Tehran’s repeated flirtations with violating the deal.
In reality, Trump poses a string of new problems for AIPAC. “There’s definitely no question that it was better and easier for [AIPAC] if Hillary won,” said one Democratic strategist recently. “Policy is only part of it. It would’ve been an opportunity or their best chance at hitting reset for Democrats.” Instead, after losing its fight against the Iran Deal, the lobbying group must try to stake out an unstable middle ground during an even more polarizing presidency than Obama’s while fending off challenges from its left and right. “In this new world where J Street really is a pro-Israel validator for segments of the Democrats and the Zionist Organization of America is a validator for segments of the Republicans, what’s AIPAC role?” the strategist wondered.
Israel appreciates the “changes” in India’s recent voting pattern at UN institutions, the Jewish state’s New Delhi envoy told The Hindu in an interview published this past weekend.
“In the last couple of years, we have seen a shift in various votes (by India) which reflects the present improvement in relations,” Israeli Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon said. “I would not over exaggerate this as a trend, each side has their declared positions and it is not a zero-sum game. India says they are committed to the Palestinian cause, to the Arab cause, and they have good relations with Israel that they intend to pursue. We appreciate this stand, and at the UN, we can see it too.”
As reported by The Algemeiner, Israel and India currently enjoy a burgeoning relationship, particularly in the defense field.
Members of Israel’s governing coalition said they would propose legislation after Donald Trump’s inauguration to annex a West Bank Jewish settlement for the first time, defying the United Nations and the international community. If approved, such a law would mark a stark departure from decades of Israeli policy tolerating and even promoting settlements but not considering them part of the country proper.
Naftali Bennett, leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, said Monday that after the new U.S. president takes office on Jan. 20, he would put to an initial vote in parliament a bill to make the settlement Ma’ale Adumim part of Israel. Mr. Trump has indicated he will ease U.S. pressure on Israel to curtail settlements when he is in the White House. “The conclusion is to stop the march of folly toward a Palestinian state and to implement Israeli law in Ma’ale Adumim,” Mr. Bennett said in a statement issued from the settlement. Jewish settlers in the West Bank are subject to military law, but if the territory they occupy is annexed they come under civilian Israeli law.
By Griff Witte: Through eight years of escalating criticism from the world’s most powerful leader, Israeli construction in these sacred, militarily occupied hills never stopped. Thousands of homes were built. Miles of roadway. Restaurants. Shopping malls. A university. Here in Shiloh, a tourist center went up, with a welcome video in which the biblical figure Joshua commands the Jewish people to settle the land promised to them by God.
Israeli settlements may be illegal in the eyes of the U.N. Security Council and a major obstacle to Middle East peace in the view of the Obama administration. But every day they become a more entrenched reality on land that Palestinians say should rightfully belong to them. As the parched beige hilltops fill with red-tiled homes, decades of international efforts to achieve a two-state solution are unraveling. And global condemnations notwithstanding, the trend is poised to accelerate.
US Security Council voting 12/23/16 to Condemn Israel
The U.S. decision to allow a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements to pass was met with bipartisan condemnation, including from leading players in efforts to achieve a two-state solution, such as Democrats Dennis Ross and George Mitchell. Of course, the goal of the Obama administration was to box in President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy. The most direct way to reject the Security Council Resolution 2334 is to reject the opinions it expresses and act against its recommendations. Trump will likely seek to reverse the measure, not only because of substantial policy disagreements, but to reject the notion that a president can bind his successors more tightly through U.N. action than through statutes or executive orders.
Trump cannot directly reverse the resolution, but he and Congress can take action to negate its ideas, and to create a different reality from the one Resolution 2334 seeks to promote. Here are some ideas — most of which require no legislative action.
Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott (Left, 1/23/2014)
Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott called on his country to cut millions of dollars of annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, accusing Ramallah of funneling the money to “terrorists and their families.” He also called on Canberra to join any move by the incoming Trump administration in the US to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem.
In an article penned by Abbott and published in The Spectator Australia weekly on Monday, the former PM said Canberra should offer “unswerving support for Israel as the region’s only liberal, pluralist democracy,” and “join any move by the Trump administration to move its embassy to Jerusalem.”
Reisy Abramof in Tel Aviv after immigrating to Israel from Venezuela.
When Daniel Oritz moved to Israel from Venezuela , his first meal was a bowl of chicken soup. He took one spoonful and began to cry. For him, the soup signified an escape from the poverty and deprivation he has experienced for more than two years. “We were very hungry,” said Oritz, who moved in November. “There was no meat, no sugar, no pasta.”
Venezuela’s economic crisis is so severe that citizens must wait in lines for hours at grocery stores to buy basic staples, or pay exorbitant prices on the black market. Some have even died of basic illnesses because of a shortage of medical supplies. Tens of thousands have left the country, including a growing number of Venezuelan Jews who have relocated to Israel.
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