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US Intended to Allow Passage of UN Draft Critical of Israel: Officials

hzDecember 22, 2016News

Reuters

The United States intended to allow the U.N. Security Council to approve a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, two Western officials said on Thursday, a major reversal of U.S. practice of protecting Israel from such criticism.

Egypt, which had proposed the draft resolution, abruptly put off a vote that had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon and diplomats said Cairo had acted under pressure from Israel and to avoid alienating U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

hzDecember 22, 2016December 22, 2016News

Times of Israel

Arab lawmaker MK Basel Ghattas was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of smuggling cell phones, SIM cards, and coded messages to convicted terrorists serving time in Israel’s prisons.

The arrest came immediately after a second round of police questioning under caution in as many days, and just hours after Ghattas, of the Arab Joint List in the Knesset, waived his parliamentary immunity.

hzDecember 22, 2016News

Times of Israel

The first round of dramatic news broke overnight Wednesday-Thursday, Israel time. Egypt had introduced an anti-settlement resolution, and it was scheduled to be voted on at the UN Security Council within hours, on Thursday evening. Though a resolution was anticipated by year’s end, the announcement came as a surprise to everyone, including the Israeli and American missions to the UN.

The second round of dramatic news followed on Thursday late afternoon. Egypt had reconsidered, and did not want its resolution voted on after all — not on Thursday, and perhaps not any time after Thursday, either.

hzDecember 22, 2016December 22, 2016News

Times of Israel

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday postponed a vote on an Egyptian-drafted resolution demanding that Israel immediately halt its settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, diplomats said. The vote had been set to take place later in the day.

Egypt requested the delay to allow time for consultations on the measure, but no new time or date was scheduled. One unnamed Western diplomatic source told Reuters that the vote was postponed “potentially indefinitely.”

hzDecember 21, 2016December 21, 2016News

Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the United States to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement activities in a vote scheduled for Thursday.

Netanyahu said in a message on Twitter that the United States “should veto the anti-Israel resolution.” The Security is due to vote on a draft that would demand that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

hzDecember 21, 2016December 22, 2016News

Bloomberg

A senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is urging him to take advantage of an upcoming meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to seek formal recognition of Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights.

“It’s very important for the U.S. to back a formal recognition of Israel’s control of the Golan,” Michael Oren, a deputy minister for diplomacy at the prime minister’s office, said in an interview in Jerusalem. “If it weren’t for Israel’s presence, the Syria war would be spilling over to Jordan. So Israel’s presence in the Golan is indispensable for Mideast stability.”

hzDecember 21, 2016December 22, 2016News

Algemeiner

Moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem “won’t hurt the chances for peace,” the Wall Street Journal said in an editorial published on Tuesday.

Regarding the media backlash to President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of attorney David Friedman to serve as the next American ambassador to Israel, the Wall Street Journal noted that the 57-year-old litigation and bankruptcy expert’s “main offense seems to be that he is unapologetically pro-Israel — a novelty after eight years of an Obama administration that has mistreated traditional US allies in the Middle East and Europe.”

hzDecember 21, 2016December 21, 2016News

Jewish Press

HonestReporting, a media watchdog group whose stated mission is “Defending Israel from Media Bias,” on Wednesday released the list of winners of its annual Dishonest Reporting Awards. And so, without further ado, here is a taste of their choices (for the complete thing, kindly click here).

1. Most Distrusted Reporter: Luke Baker, Reuters’ Jerusalem bureau chief, who twitted that Israeli security is “idiocy” (they strip-searched him leaving Gaza), called rightwing Jewish groups “Jewish nutjobs,” and dismissed veteran Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh’s criticism of the media was “a joke.” He also has a reputation for a thin skin when it comes to others criticizing him.

hzDecember 21, 2016December 21, 2016News

Times of Israel

A powerful Knesset committee will convene on Wednesday afternoon to vote on whether to strip Joint (Arab) List MK Basel Ghattas of his parliamentary immunity, after he came under suspicion of passing contraband to Palestinian inmates in Israeli prison.

Ghattas was questioned by the national serious crimes unit of the Israel Police on Tuesday over allegations he handed miniature cellphones and secret notes to two imprisoned Palestinians, one of whom is serving a 37-year sentence for murder, during a visit at Ketziot Prison south of Beersheba on Sunday.

hzDecember 20, 2016December 21, 2016News

JTA

In remarks dovetailing with policies embraced by president-elect Donald Trump, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer delivered a forceful plea for the United States to move the embassy to Jerusalem.

“Israel hopes that next year when the new American ambassador to Israel lights the menorah in his embassy he will light it in the same city where the Maccabees lit it 2,200 years ago,” Dermer said at the annual embassy Hanukkah party on Tuesday evening.

US Intended to Allow Passage of UN Draft Critical of Israel: Officials

Arab MK Arrested on Suspicion of Smuggling Phones to Terrorists

The Curious Case of Egypt’s Anti-settlement UN Resolution

Egypt’s Security Council Anti-Settlement Vote Postponed, Possibly ‘Indefinitely’

Israel’s Netanyahu: U.S. Should Veto U.N. Resolution on Settlements

Netanyahu Adviser Says Trump Should Recognize Golan Control

Wall Street Journal Backs Trump on Friedman Pick, Says Moving US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Won’t Hurt Chances for Peace’

Hail Six Most Dishonest Reporters of 2016

Lawmakers to Vote on Lifting Immunity of MK in Phone Smuggling Case

Israeli Envoy Dermer, Echoing Trump, Calls for U.S. to Move Embassy to Jerusalem