5 may 2018
Israel withdrew on Friday from a race against Germany and Belgium for two seats of the UN Security Council in 2019-2020.
The 193-member UN General Assembly is due to vote in June on five new members for a two-year term starting on 1st January 2019. Israel, Germany and Belgium were competing for two seats allocated to the Western European and Others group.
Germany and Belgium are now running uncontested, but they still need to win more than two-thirds of the overall General Assembly vote to be elected.
"It was decided that we will continue to act with our allies to allow for Israel to realize its right for full participation and inclusion in decision-making processes at the UN," Israel's mission to the UN said in a statement.
A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Israel had withdrawn because of its low chances of winning.
Israel withdraws from race for UN Security Council seat
Israel withdraws from a race against Germany and Belgium for two seats on the United Nations Security Council in 2019/2020 due to its low chances of winning in next month's vote.
Israel withdrew on Friday from a race against Germany and Belgium for two seats on the United Nations Security Council in 2019-20.
The 193-member UN General Assembly is due to vote next month on five new members for a two-year term starting on January 1, 2019. Israel, Germany and Belgium were competing for two seats allocated to the Western European and Others Group.
Germany and Belgium are now running uncontested, but they still need to win more than two-thirds of the overall General Assembly vote to be elected.
“It was decided that we will continue to act with our allies to allow for Israel to realize its right for full participation and inclusion in decision-making processes at the UN,” Israel’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement.
A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel had withdrawn because of its low chances of winning.
Regional groups generally agree upon the candidates to put forward and competitive races for seats are increasingly rare. Each year the General Assembly elects five new members.
Richard Grenell, who was sworn in as the US ambassador to Germany on Thursday, said in March that the United States had brokered a deal in the 1990s with countries in the UN’s Western European and Others Group to allow Israel to run uncontested for a seat.
Grenell, who was the US spokesman at the UN from 2001 to 2009, tweeted about the issue on March 14. “Israel has waited 19 years! The US must demand that Europe keep its word,” he said.
German diplomats denied any such agreement was made. The Israeli mission to the UN declined to comment at the time on Grenell’s tweet.
The council, on which the five permanent members—the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia—hold veto powers, is the only UN body that can make legally binding decisions, as well as imposing sanctions and authorizing the use of force.
To ensure geographical representation on the council, there are five seats for African and Asian states; one for Eastern European states; two for the Latin American and Caribbean states; and two for Western European and other states.
Indonesia and the Maldives are competing for one Asia-Pacific seat in 2019-20, while South Africa and the Dominican Republic are running uncontested for the African and Latin American and Caribbean group seats.
The 193-member UN General Assembly is due to vote in June on five new members for a two-year term starting on 1st January 2019. Israel, Germany and Belgium were competing for two seats allocated to the Western European and Others group.
Germany and Belgium are now running uncontested, but they still need to win more than two-thirds of the overall General Assembly vote to be elected.
"It was decided that we will continue to act with our allies to allow for Israel to realize its right for full participation and inclusion in decision-making processes at the UN," Israel's mission to the UN said in a statement.
A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Israel had withdrawn because of its low chances of winning.
Israel withdraws from race for UN Security Council seat
Israel withdraws from a race against Germany and Belgium for two seats on the United Nations Security Council in 2019/2020 due to its low chances of winning in next month's vote.
Israel withdrew on Friday from a race against Germany and Belgium for two seats on the United Nations Security Council in 2019-20.
The 193-member UN General Assembly is due to vote next month on five new members for a two-year term starting on January 1, 2019. Israel, Germany and Belgium were competing for two seats allocated to the Western European and Others Group.
Germany and Belgium are now running uncontested, but they still need to win more than two-thirds of the overall General Assembly vote to be elected.
“It was decided that we will continue to act with our allies to allow for Israel to realize its right for full participation and inclusion in decision-making processes at the UN,” Israel’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement.
A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel had withdrawn because of its low chances of winning.
Regional groups generally agree upon the candidates to put forward and competitive races for seats are increasingly rare. Each year the General Assembly elects five new members.
Richard Grenell, who was sworn in as the US ambassador to Germany on Thursday, said in March that the United States had brokered a deal in the 1990s with countries in the UN’s Western European and Others Group to allow Israel to run uncontested for a seat.
Grenell, who was the US spokesman at the UN from 2001 to 2009, tweeted about the issue on March 14. “Israel has waited 19 years! The US must demand that Europe keep its word,” he said.
German diplomats denied any such agreement was made. The Israeli mission to the UN declined to comment at the time on Grenell’s tweet.
The council, on which the five permanent members—the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia—hold veto powers, is the only UN body that can make legally binding decisions, as well as imposing sanctions and authorizing the use of force.
To ensure geographical representation on the council, there are five seats for African and Asian states; one for Eastern European states; two for the Latin American and Caribbean states; and two for Western European and other states.
Indonesia and the Maldives are competing for one Asia-Pacific seat in 2019-20, while South Africa and the Dominican Republic are running uncontested for the African and Latin American and Caribbean group seats.
3 may 2018
PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi condemned Israel’s passing of the first reading, of a draft law, that defines Israel ‘as the Jewish and democratic nation state of the Jewish people’ and affirms ‘the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their historic homeland,’ said a press release issued on Wednesday.
“Once again, Israel has reaffirmed its intent of institutionalizing discrimination, racism and xenophobia against all aspects of Palestinian life, transforming the military occupation into a deliberate sectarian confrontation and establishing ideological beliefs as official policy.”
Ashrawi said, according to WAFA, that the proposed legislation is illegal by all measures of international law, and violates the most basic fundamental principles of human rights and democracy that staunchly oppose racism.
“Undoubtedly, Israel is working to achieve ethnic purity and prolong the occupation and its ongoing system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, ridding itself of any responsibility towards the Palestinians and eradicating the right of return for Palestinian refugees,” said Ashrawi.
If passed, this bill would deprive the Palestinian citizens of Israel of their economic, political and social rights, turning them into second-class and third-class citizens, she added.
“In light of the serious escalation of Israeli efforts to superimpose all of ‘Greater Israel’ on all of historic Palestine, it is incumbent upon all members of the international community to intervene immediately, not just to prevent further deterioration but to also undo the damage and rectify the situation as soon as possible,” concluded the statement.
“Once again, Israel has reaffirmed its intent of institutionalizing discrimination, racism and xenophobia against all aspects of Palestinian life, transforming the military occupation into a deliberate sectarian confrontation and establishing ideological beliefs as official policy.”
Ashrawi said, according to WAFA, that the proposed legislation is illegal by all measures of international law, and violates the most basic fundamental principles of human rights and democracy that staunchly oppose racism.
“Undoubtedly, Israel is working to achieve ethnic purity and prolong the occupation and its ongoing system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, ridding itself of any responsibility towards the Palestinians and eradicating the right of return for Palestinian refugees,” said Ashrawi.
If passed, this bill would deprive the Palestinian citizens of Israel of their economic, political and social rights, turning them into second-class and third-class citizens, she added.
“In light of the serious escalation of Israeli efforts to superimpose all of ‘Greater Israel’ on all of historic Palestine, it is incumbent upon all members of the international community to intervene immediately, not just to prevent further deterioration but to also undo the damage and rectify the situation as soon as possible,” concluded the statement.
2 may 2018
Shooting practice at an Israeli school: targets set up by police depicted figures wearing the Palestinian kuffiyeh headdress.
Israeli police planned to teach children how to shoot at Palestinians as part of a training exercise in a school.
The incident in the Menashe Regional Council, near Haifa in northern present-day Israel, was brought to light in recent days when Palestinian citizens of Israel took photos of what was happening.
Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament from the Joint Arab List, is demanding an investigation into the training sponsored by the Israeli police and the education ministry, which he said “prepares students psychologically to kill Arabs.”
One photo shows a person – most of their body blurred with a black marker – using a paintball gun to fire at cutouts of men and women wearing checkered kuffiyeh headscarves that are associated with Palestinians.
Zahalka made his demand in a letter to public security minister Gilad Erdan, according to the publication Arab48.
The activity in Menashe Regional Council is part of widespread training of children by police in Israeli schools, according to Arab48.
In 2011, the newspaper Haaretz reported on how a group of Israeli high school students from Herzliya took part in a simulated shooting attack at a military base “in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab kuffiyeh headdress.”
One source told Haaretz that the exercise, which was also supported by the education ministry, was tantamount to “educating toward hatred of Arabs.”
The training in the Menashe Regional Council school is also reminiscent of an incident last year in which Israeli police put on a demonstration for a group of fifth-graders for how to “confirm a kill” – in other words how to perpetrate an extrajudicial execution.
Early this year, American comedian Jerry Seinfeld visited a training center in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank where tourists are given demonstrations on how to kill Arabs.
And in a disturbing parallel in 2015, police in North Miami Beach, Florida, were found to be using photos of African American men for target practice at a shooting range.
Separate and unequal
Zahalka noted that the incident occurred in Menashe Regional Council, which bills itself as a paragon of coexistence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
There are approximately 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. They are the survivors and their descendants of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Unlike Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, they hold Israeli citizenship and a right to vote, but nonetheless live under dozens of laws that discriminate against them because they are not Jewish.
Israel operates a separate and unequal school system for Jewish and Arab students.
Anti-Arab incitement and indoctrination is endemic in schools for Jewish children from the earliest grades.
Proud to kill
The Israeli police said that the targets in the Menashe Regional Council school had been set up as part of an activity day to teach children “about good citizenship” and that to “engender interest among participants, a paint gun station was erected.”
“Before the activity began, the activity’s commanders and the school staff noticed the matter and hid the images, and no children saw them during the activity itself,” the police claimed.
The education ministry also called the use of the targets, according to the publication Ynet, a “serious mishap.”
Zahalka also wrote to Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett calling for those responsible for organizing the shooting training to be punished.
He stated that it was unacceptable for the ministry to merely cancel the activity without seeking accountability, and to try to shift the blame to the police alone.
Zahalka quipped that had a similar activity taken place in a school run by the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “would have demanded a meeting of the UN Security Council.”
Nadav Perez-Vaisvidovsky, an Israeli college lecturer, expressed shock at the training, tweeting, “This is the type of thing you see in history books and wonder how it could be allowed to go on.”
Yet this is only a small part of what the so-called international community is allowing Israel to do with impunity.
The European Union, for instance, which never ceases to issue reminders of the importance of learning “lessons from the past,” is currently pretending not to see how Israel is deliberately massacring unarmed civilians besieged in the Gaza Strip.
And there is little chance of accountability, since the incitement comes from the top, with Israeli ministers regularly calling for or applauding extrajudicial executions.
Naftali Bennett, the education minister, himself notoriously declared in 2013, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”
Ending complicity
Last December, Belgium’s KU Leuven university announced that it would end its role in an EU-funded “research” project carried out in partnership with Israeli police.
“The participation of the Israeli public security ministry indeed poses an ethical problem taking into account the role which the strong arm of the Israeli government plays in enforcing an unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territories and the associated repression of the Palestinian population,” university rector Luc Sels explained.
In light of Israel’s ongoing premeditated killing and maiming of unarmed protesters in Gaza, Palestinian activists recently renewed their calls for an international arms embargo on Israel, including a ban on cooperation and joint training with Israel’s police and military.
In a major victory for this campaign, Durham, North Carolina, recently became the first city in the US to pass such a ban.
“What the Israeli police did is not that unusual, especially in the current atmosphere of racism against Arabs,” Zahalka wrote.
“In any case, the Israeli police do not require such an atmosphere as their record is full of disregard for the lives of Arab citizens, whom they continue to treat as enemies and not as citizens.”
Zahalka concluded that firing on cutouts of Arab citizens “falls within the racist policies of Netanyahu and his government, and therefore everyone is called upon to confront this racism until it is defeated.”
Israeli police planned to teach children how to shoot at Palestinians as part of a training exercise in a school.
The incident in the Menashe Regional Council, near Haifa in northern present-day Israel, was brought to light in recent days when Palestinian citizens of Israel took photos of what was happening.
Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament from the Joint Arab List, is demanding an investigation into the training sponsored by the Israeli police and the education ministry, which he said “prepares students psychologically to kill Arabs.”
One photo shows a person – most of their body blurred with a black marker – using a paintball gun to fire at cutouts of men and women wearing checkered kuffiyeh headscarves that are associated with Palestinians.
Zahalka made his demand in a letter to public security minister Gilad Erdan, according to the publication Arab48.
The activity in Menashe Regional Council is part of widespread training of children by police in Israeli schools, according to Arab48.
In 2011, the newspaper Haaretz reported on how a group of Israeli high school students from Herzliya took part in a simulated shooting attack at a military base “in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab kuffiyeh headdress.”
One source told Haaretz that the exercise, which was also supported by the education ministry, was tantamount to “educating toward hatred of Arabs.”
The training in the Menashe Regional Council school is also reminiscent of an incident last year in which Israeli police put on a demonstration for a group of fifth-graders for how to “confirm a kill” – in other words how to perpetrate an extrajudicial execution.
Early this year, American comedian Jerry Seinfeld visited a training center in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank where tourists are given demonstrations on how to kill Arabs.
And in a disturbing parallel in 2015, police in North Miami Beach, Florida, were found to be using photos of African American men for target practice at a shooting range.
Separate and unequal
Zahalka noted that the incident occurred in Menashe Regional Council, which bills itself as a paragon of coexistence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
There are approximately 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. They are the survivors and their descendants of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Unlike Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, they hold Israeli citizenship and a right to vote, but nonetheless live under dozens of laws that discriminate against them because they are not Jewish.
Israel operates a separate and unequal school system for Jewish and Arab students.
Anti-Arab incitement and indoctrination is endemic in schools for Jewish children from the earliest grades.
Proud to kill
The Israeli police said that the targets in the Menashe Regional Council school had been set up as part of an activity day to teach children “about good citizenship” and that to “engender interest among participants, a paint gun station was erected.”
“Before the activity began, the activity’s commanders and the school staff noticed the matter and hid the images, and no children saw them during the activity itself,” the police claimed.
The education ministry also called the use of the targets, according to the publication Ynet, a “serious mishap.”
Zahalka also wrote to Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett calling for those responsible for organizing the shooting training to be punished.
He stated that it was unacceptable for the ministry to merely cancel the activity without seeking accountability, and to try to shift the blame to the police alone.
Zahalka quipped that had a similar activity taken place in a school run by the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “would have demanded a meeting of the UN Security Council.”
Nadav Perez-Vaisvidovsky, an Israeli college lecturer, expressed shock at the training, tweeting, “This is the type of thing you see in history books and wonder how it could be allowed to go on.”
Yet this is only a small part of what the so-called international community is allowing Israel to do with impunity.
The European Union, for instance, which never ceases to issue reminders of the importance of learning “lessons from the past,” is currently pretending not to see how Israel is deliberately massacring unarmed civilians besieged in the Gaza Strip.
And there is little chance of accountability, since the incitement comes from the top, with Israeli ministers regularly calling for or applauding extrajudicial executions.
Naftali Bennett, the education minister, himself notoriously declared in 2013, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”
Ending complicity
Last December, Belgium’s KU Leuven university announced that it would end its role in an EU-funded “research” project carried out in partnership with Israeli police.
“The participation of the Israeli public security ministry indeed poses an ethical problem taking into account the role which the strong arm of the Israeli government plays in enforcing an unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territories and the associated repression of the Palestinian population,” university rector Luc Sels explained.
In light of Israel’s ongoing premeditated killing and maiming of unarmed protesters in Gaza, Palestinian activists recently renewed their calls for an international arms embargo on Israel, including a ban on cooperation and joint training with Israel’s police and military.
In a major victory for this campaign, Durham, North Carolina, recently became the first city in the US to pass such a ban.
“What the Israeli police did is not that unusual, especially in the current atmosphere of racism against Arabs,” Zahalka wrote.
“In any case, the Israeli police do not require such an atmosphere as their record is full of disregard for the lives of Arab citizens, whom they continue to treat as enemies and not as citizens.”
Zahalka concluded that firing on cutouts of Arab citizens “falls within the racist policies of Netanyahu and his government, and therefore everyone is called upon to confront this racism until it is defeated.”
1 may 2018
The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, has voted in favor of granting premier Benjamin Netanyahu the power to declare war solely with the approval of his army minister Avigdor Lieberman.
The vote on Monday amended a law which previously required the whole cabinet to vote on such a move, transferring that authority to Netanyahu and Lieberman.
The Knesset approved the amendment 62 to 41, allowing the two Israeli leaders to declare war in "extreme situations.”
The change was introduced by Netanyahu shortly before he gave a speech on Monday in which he claimed to have proof of Iran having secretly pursued a nuclear program.
The vote on Monday amended a law which previously required the whole cabinet to vote on such a move, transferring that authority to Netanyahu and Lieberman.
The Knesset approved the amendment 62 to 41, allowing the two Israeli leaders to declare war in "extreme situations.”
The change was introduced by Netanyahu shortly before he gave a speech on Monday in which he claimed to have proof of Iran having secretly pursued a nuclear program.
18 apr 2018
Polish nationalists asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate the comments of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin about the Holocaust, which he said during commemorations at Auschwitz last week, Vice President of the National Movement Krzysztof Bosak said.
The nationalist group informed the prosecutor's office about the Israeli president’s possible violation of Holocaust speech legislation, which makes it illegal to blame the Polish nation for Nazi crimes committed on its soil.
Last week Rivlin and Polish President Andrzej Duda participated in the March of the Living in Auschwitz. After that, the Times of Israel newspaper reported that Rivlin told his Polish counterpart that Poland allowed Germany's genocide to take place.
In February, Duda enacted a bill which outlaws the propaganda of the Ukrainian nationalist ideology and any accusations of Polish people’s participation in war crimes during World War II, as well as any denials of the killings of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
The bill imposes fines or a maximum three-year prison sentence for anyone who ascribes "responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich."
The bill has already provoked diplomatic tensions with Israel, Ukraine, and the United States. Tel Aviv, in particular, is concerned that the law could trigger the prosecution of Holocaust survivors if they testify against individual Poles who allegedly killed or gave up Jews to the Nazis.
The nationalist group informed the prosecutor's office about the Israeli president’s possible violation of Holocaust speech legislation, which makes it illegal to blame the Polish nation for Nazi crimes committed on its soil.
Last week Rivlin and Polish President Andrzej Duda participated in the March of the Living in Auschwitz. After that, the Times of Israel newspaper reported that Rivlin told his Polish counterpart that Poland allowed Germany's genocide to take place.
In February, Duda enacted a bill which outlaws the propaganda of the Ukrainian nationalist ideology and any accusations of Polish people’s participation in war crimes during World War II, as well as any denials of the killings of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
The bill imposes fines or a maximum three-year prison sentence for anyone who ascribes "responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich."
The bill has already provoked diplomatic tensions with Israel, Ukraine, and the United States. Tel Aviv, in particular, is concerned that the law could trigger the prosecution of Holocaust survivors if they testify against individual Poles who allegedly killed or gave up Jews to the Nazis.
7 apr 2018
Israeli officials hosted by families across the country as hundreds of thousands of Israelis celebrate the Mimouna, marking the end of Passover; 'Let us open our hearts in times of disagreements too. We will argue, but know we are brothers and sisters,' Rivlin says.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis celebrated the Mimouna—festivities marking the end of Passover—on Saturday night.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara were guests of the Swissa family in Gan Yavne.
"I salute the IDF soldiers who protect us all the time, and keep us safe from those imposters who allegedly speak for human rights while waving the Nazi flag," Netanyahu said at the event, referring to Palestinian protesters in Gaza who waved the swastika banner during border clashes on Friday. "They're talking about human rights, but they actually want to trample the Jewish state."
The prime minister thanked his hosts and praised his supporters. "You show great support to me, Sara, our way, our movement, and our country," he said.
"This country is a wonder, everyone can see that. Israel is sought-after by world powers and continents, and not just because of the mufletas," he quipped, referring to the Moroccan pastry which is a staple of Mimouna celebrations.
Netanyahu noted that the great success Israel enjoys "doesn't mean we don't have challenges ahead," and vowed "we will protect our country. We will build it up with all of the tribes of Israel, who are gathered around this table and many such tables."
President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein were guests at a Mimouna celebration in Ashkelon.
"Today, more than ever, I want to praise our brothers and sisters who gave us—as a society and a people—this wonderful tradition of the Mimouna, in which we are starting to understand... that opening one's door is opening one's heart," Rivlin said.
"Why do we open our hearts only once a year?" he wondered. "Let us open our hearts in times of disagreements too. We will argue, but know we are brothers and sisters."
Edelstein added, "May our days pass without disagreements, with true unity."
Finance Minister Kahlon celebrated with the Pinto family in Gedera. "Thanks to the IDF soldiers who protect us, we can celebrate tonight. They're not far from here on the Gaza border, dealing with a cynical, evil and cruel enemy. These are not innocent people who want to help an old lady cross the road," he stressed.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis celebrated the Mimouna—festivities marking the end of Passover—on Saturday night.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara were guests of the Swissa family in Gan Yavne.
"I salute the IDF soldiers who protect us all the time, and keep us safe from those imposters who allegedly speak for human rights while waving the Nazi flag," Netanyahu said at the event, referring to Palestinian protesters in Gaza who waved the swastika banner during border clashes on Friday. "They're talking about human rights, but they actually want to trample the Jewish state."
The prime minister thanked his hosts and praised his supporters. "You show great support to me, Sara, our way, our movement, and our country," he said.
"This country is a wonder, everyone can see that. Israel is sought-after by world powers and continents, and not just because of the mufletas," he quipped, referring to the Moroccan pastry which is a staple of Mimouna celebrations.
Netanyahu noted that the great success Israel enjoys "doesn't mean we don't have challenges ahead," and vowed "we will protect our country. We will build it up with all of the tribes of Israel, who are gathered around this table and many such tables."
President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein were guests at a Mimouna celebration in Ashkelon.
"Today, more than ever, I want to praise our brothers and sisters who gave us—as a society and a people—this wonderful tradition of the Mimouna, in which we are starting to understand... that opening one's door is opening one's heart," Rivlin said.
"Why do we open our hearts only once a year?" he wondered. "Let us open our hearts in times of disagreements too. We will argue, but know we are brothers and sisters."
Edelstein added, "May our days pass without disagreements, with true unity."
Finance Minister Kahlon celebrated with the Pinto family in Gedera. "Thanks to the IDF soldiers who protect us, we can celebrate tonight. They're not far from here on the Gaza border, dealing with a cynical, evil and cruel enemy. These are not innocent people who want to help an old lady cross the road," he stressed.
