Israel is working to keep chemical weapons out of Hezbollah’s hands, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said Thursday, clarifying comments a day earlier that hinted the terror group was attempting to obtain mass-casualty arms.
In a conversation with the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Liberman again seemed to confirm that Israeli forces had been behind two recent strikes inside Syria that had been blamed on the Jewish State.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday it was in the interest of the United States to remain committed to a multilateral nuclear treaty.
The U.S. Senate voted last week to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, and Iran vowed to retaliate, saying it violated last year’s agreement with six major powers to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions.
A diplomatic thaw between the United States and Iran over the past two years appears in jeopardy with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump taking office next month.
President Barack Obama in his final speech on national security said diplomatic engagement is “required” to resolve Middle Eastern conflicts, including between Israel and the Palestinians.
The remarks came as top officials in the outgoing administration hope to influence President-elect Donald Trump to maintain its diplomatic initiatives, particularly regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iran nuclear deal.
“Just think about what we’ve done these last eight years without firing a shot,” Obama said Tuesday, addressing troops at an Air Force base in Tampa. “We’ve rolled back Iran’s nuclear program. That’s not just my assessment, that’s the assessment of Israeli intelligence, even though they were opposed to the deal.”
Obama said diplomacy helps keep Americans safe. “Sustained diplomatic efforts, no matter how frustrating or difficult they sometimes appear, are going to be required to resolve the conflicts roiling in the Middle East, from Yemen, to Syria, to Israel and Palestine,” he said. “And if we don’t have strong efforts there, the more you will be called upon to clean up after the failure of diplomacy.”
By Cary Nelson and David Greenberg: Since 2014, there has been a disturbing surge in the number of invited campus speakers being repeatedly interrupted or actually prevented from delivering a public lecture. A startling share of these silencing efforts have been directed at Israelis or other speakers sympathetic to Israel who have run afoul of the growing anti-Israel movement on campuses.
Behind this spike is an idea called “anti-normalization.” This concept, which anti-Israel organizations began vigorously promoting two years ago, holds that any activities that might “normalize” relations between Israelis and Palestinians — from children’s soccer leagues to collaborative environmental projects to university panel discussions with both sides represented — should be summarily rejected because they treat both parties as having legitimate grievances and aspirations. Joint projects are to be shunned unless they begin with the premise that Israel is the guilty party.
By Yigal Carmon and A. Savyon and U. Kafash: Since its beginning, the regime of Iran’s Islamic Revolution has championed the idea of exporting its Revolution to the entire Muslim world. This doctrine is rooted in the thinking of the Revolution’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, particularly in his book Al-Hukuma Al-Islamiyya (“The Islamic Government,” Beirut, 1979). In the book, he presented his perception negating the existence of peoples and states in Islam, and aspiring to actualize Islamic unity. Khomeini defined himself as a Muslim, not as an Iranian or a Shi’ite, and the Revolution as Islamic, not Iranian or Shi’ite. In his view, nationalism is an imperialistic plot to weaken and divide the Islamic world, and Islamic unity is the way to restore Islam to its greatness. The regime in Iran is the jumping-off point for a “comprehensive Islamic Revolution,” and exporting the Revolution is the tool for attaining Islamic unity.
The U.S. State Department said it was “profoundly concerned” about a controversial bill that would help legalize West Bank outposts built on Palestinian land.
Asked about the measure, known as the Regulation Bill, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday that the enactment of such a law is “profoundly damaging to the prospects for a two-state solution.”
“And we’ve also been troubled by comments that we’ve heard by some political figures in Israel that this would be the first step in annexing parts of the West Bank,” Toner said.
Toner added that passage of the bill “would be a dramatic advancement of the settlement enterprise, which is already, as we’ve said, greatly endangering the prospects for a two-state solution. But I also – as you note, it’s changing the reality on the ground, and we’re deeply concerned about it. We’re conveying those concerns. The legislation’s not yet passed into law. We hope that it does not become law, but we certainly hope that changes or modifications can be made to it.”
By Lee Smith: Though some Americans may not want to hear it, the election of Donald Trump has changed Israel’s strategic situation dramatically for the better. Prepared to deal with what was presumably a somewhat friendlier version of the Obama administration run by Hillary Clinton, Jerusalem is now looking at what may be the most pro-Israel White House in the history of the bilateral relationship. The Israelis have been relatively quiet about their enthusiasm for the Trump administration—partly because the American public is still so dramatically split on the election, and partly because it was accused of siding with the 2012 Republican nominee for president. But the government of Benjamin Netanyahu had a favorite in the November race—and he won.
By Cal Thomas: The consensus in Israel is that the relationship between the Jewish state and the United States is going to improve in a Trump administration, says former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Zalman Shoval.
On a recent visit to Washington, D.C., Mr. Shoval told me that he believes Donald Trump and his Cabinet picks so far have a more “realistic” view of the Middle East than President Obama, who from his first days in office, “perhaps before, believed it was his calling to fix once and for all, all matters between the U.S. and the Arab and Muslim worlds, as expressed in his Cairo speech. This gives Trump in the hearts and minds of more than a few Israelis a head start.”
Leaders of the Skver Hasidim have an unusual message to their devoted followers: We may have backed the losing ticket for president, but it was all part of our plan.
“We gave our endorsement to [Hillary] Clinton … only after we spoke it over with the Trump campaign,” Sholom Moshe Spitzer said on a recorded message that was distributed to to Hasidic Jews in the insular community of New Square, according to a translation on the website ThinkingYid.com.
In the message, Spitzer appears to be speaking on behalf of spiritual leaders who want to bolster their authority after Trump’s win cast doubt on their ability to pick a winning candidate.
In the days before November’s election, Hasidic leaders of the Skver Hasidim, based in Rockland County, New York, urged followers to cast their votes for Clinton. Though ultra-Orthodox Jews regularly vote Republican in national elections, Clinton has long enjoyed the support of the Skver Hasidim since her time as a senator in New York. As president, Bill Clinton pardoned four men from the community who had been convicted of fraud.
By Raphael Ahren: In less than 45 days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can finally rest assured that he won what might have been the riskiest political poker match of his career.
On January 20 — Inauguration Day — President Barack Obama will exit the world stage, and with him the specter of some vindictive action against the Israeli government. When Donald Trump ascends to the presidency, Netanyahu will no longer have to worry about a backlash from Washington for vociferously opposing the Iran nuclear deal or unabated settlement expansion.
Author hzPosted on Categories News