There are two ways one could see the issue of foreign workers in Israel: as a dire threat to the Jewish character of the state, or as an inevitable phenomenon of the worldwide movement of economic migrants that needs to be regulated. The two concepts can’t coexist, because the former negates the latter.
Worldwide, there are millions of economic migrants on the move away from their countries, mostly to Europe and America. Tens of millions are leaving Africa for the developed world in search of better conditions. They travel by boat and by land. Sometimes they succeed in smuggling themselves through, and sometimes they are stopped, incarcerated and sent back. Many of them arrive legally, outstay their welcome, and become illegal aliens. Spain, Italy, America, which have absorbed millions of migrant workers, all have policies in place for economic migrants. Israel still doesn’t. Continue Reading »
Call it the new game in town. Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, have begun openly talking about amending international laws of war – written when uniformed armies were still facing each other on open battlefields – to make them fit better with the current reality of asymmetric warfare.
Those days are long gone, the proponents of such a change argue, pointing out that modern warfare bears little or no resemblance to when clearly-marked columns of mechanized armor formations maneuvered and fought each other away from civilian population centers. Continue Reading »
Hearts in Jerusalem skipped a beat Friday as it seemed the world had done a deal that gave legitimacy to Iran’s nuclear program, thus tying Israel’s hands.
The proposed deal, reports of which referenced only a draft accord not yet approved by all parties, would allow Iran to export some of its uranium to Russia, where it would be enriched, then sent on to France, which would turn the uranium into rods that would then be shipped back to Teheran’s nuclear research center for medical purposes. Continue Reading »
So is there a deal or isn’t there a deal? So far it looks as if Iran has rejected the deal to export the lion’s share of its enriched uranium to Russia and France. This should elicit a sigh of relief in Jerusalem. As evidenced by remarks yesterday and today, Israeli officials were really worried Iran would actually agree to the deal offered by the P5+1, which in the end, will see Iran become a nuclear threshold state like Japan, with all the ingredients it needs to produce nuclear weapons and just waiting for a political decision to do so. Continue Reading »
Very interesting comments by Martin Indyk on the peace process, casting light on the Israeli narrative that President Mahmoud Abbas refused Ehud Olmert’s very generous peace offer before he stepped down from office.
1. While it is considered cool these days to wear a Kaffiyeh or Kaffiye-style scarves all across the world [especially in Europe], the government of Israel advises Israeli travelers not to wear any outwardly Israeli or Jewish clothing when traveling pretty much anywhere in the world. So, not only is it safe to dress in Arab clothes, it’s also cool, while wearing a shirt with a Star of David on it is not cool man.
This morning, Wednesday the 14th October, 25 activists of Greenpeace and the World March staged a “die-in” at Armageddon (Mount Megiddo, North of Israel), the site of the future final battle between good and evil according to Christian tradition. Continue Reading »
Israel and Hizbullah have both posted videos on YouTube relating to an incident that took place on Monday in Tyre, where an explosion occurred at the home of a known Hizbullah operative.
This video was released by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and taken by UAV:
Here is the IDF statement:
Pictures taken by an UAV of the Israeli Air Force after the explosion of a Hezbollah weaponry warehouse on Monday (Oct. 12) in Tyre in the southern Lebanon, show Hezbollah operatives smuggling Katyusha rockets and other weaponry out of the destroyed warehouse into another one in the southern Lebanon.
The video filmed by the UAV that was directed to the location of the incident after the explosion, clearly shows a large number of people arriving at the scene and loading Katyusha rockets and other weaponry onto trucks. Afterwards they cover the weaponry in order to hide it and drive with hit to another weaponry storage in the village of Dir Kanun A-Nahar, were they unload the weaponry. Later Lebanese army and UNIFIL forces are seen arriving at the site of the explosion.
The possession of weaponry by Hezbollah in the southern Lebanon, in the area south of the Litani River, is a severe violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
This is not the first evidence of such violations by Hezbollah lately. Last July another weaponry warehouse of the terror organization also exploded in the southern Lebanon.
Hizbullah then released it’s own video, showing what it says is a steel door being loaded onto a truck, and not a rocket.
“Fury, outrage, disappointment, betrayal” were the words bandied about, the tone of voice noticeably harsh. In telephone interviews I conducted with community leaders in Johannesburg this week, there was no escaping the fact that South Africa’s Jewish community was incensed.
This Yom Kippur, had Judge Richard Goldstone asked for forgiveness, which he didn’t, he would have found that even the most virtuous members of his old community could not bring themselves to grant it. From their golden boy, he has gone to being the wicked son.
There is palpable anger at Goldstone within the mainstream South African Jewish community; a feeling that one of their own has betrayed them, sold them out. Not simply one of their own, but one of their most respected representatives, someone they held in high esteem, a champion of the new South Africa. Here, the much-respected judge has fallen a long way since publishing his scathing report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza; his once formidable stature shattered, his golden aura blackened. The once-brave judge who opened up apartheid’s can of worms and took on Yugoslav and Rwandan war criminals, did not do the brave thing this time – he did not defend Israel against the Human Rights Council onslaught. He did the opposite – he lent his standing, his Jewishness, to the attack on his people. Continue Reading »
Let’s start with a few things the video doesn’t have:
No Hamas or Islamic flags
There is no over, traditional terror in this video [as in the Nachshon Wachsman video from 1994 - which also has the same date on it 14/9]
No Hamas fighters standing over Schalit holding guns or knives – like they do in Iraq
No overt propaganda, Israel bashing, or praising of Hamas
No demands for prisoner release were read out, only hope that Netanyahu would not miss an opportunity to complete the deal
No Islamic music like they have in video made by terrorists in Iraq Continue Reading »
In the decades following the Cold War, of which 1973’s Yom Kippur War was a seminal moment, the Arab Middle East has coalesced into two opposing camps: the “radical” and the “pragmatic.”
Iran leads the radical camp, with Hizbullah, Hamas and Syria as its satellites. Egypt has been thrust, albeit unwillingly, into leading the pragmatic camp, while Saudi Arabia operates behind the scenes.
For Cairo and Riyadh, the Iranian threat is not just one of nuclear weapons; it is over the leadership of the Islamic world, over the direction Islam is taking, over radicalization and extremism versus moderation. Continue Reading »
Israel’s push for tough sanctions on Iran took two steps forward and one step back Thursday.
The long-awaited signal that Moscow was starting to cooperate with Washington’s push for sanctions on Iran came from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who said the world should offer incentives to help Iran make the “right decision” on nuclear weapons. That was the first step forward. “Our task is to maintain a system of incentives allowing Iran to use peaceful nuclear energy but (we) will not allow the creation of nuclear weapons,” Medvedev said. Second step forward. What does Russia want to go that extra step?
Russia wants America to repeal Bush-era policies. They want an end to Cold War terms of missile shields and NATO expansion. The missile shield nuisance they already got rid of. Moscow really hates the idea of NATO expansion, and they want it reversed. Russia also wants progress on reduction of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS). In compensation for cooperating on Iran sanctions, Russia wants alternate markets for its nuclear and gas energy products, as well as its military industries. This is a tall order, but there are opportunities for the West to tempt Moscow with. According to AP, the worldwide economic downturn has hit Russia’s oil and gas exports; the Kremlin is looking at foreign investors to help with its huge untapped resources. Continue Reading »
The story has really been making the rounds, and I wonder why.
FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:
“Everybody is saying no to the American president these days”… that’s the start of a pretty scathing piece in the Jerusalem Post about where President Obama stands on the international stage — just as he addresses the UN and meets with world leaders.
Amir Mizroch has plenty of examples… like the Saudis twice saying no to the president’s request for normalizing relations with Israel; or the North Koreans saying no to repeated attempts at talks by firing off test long-range missiles; to Russia and China continuing to say no to tougher sanctions against Iran; to Iran itself saying no — by agreeing to talks about everything except stopping its uranium enrichment.
Mizroch suggests the reason all these nations are saying no to President Obama is because the U.S. economy has made him a weak president. If the president manages to turn around the economy in the next two years — and then manages to get re-elected — at that point he might be able to focus on international trouble spots with more success. That’s if Iran hasn’t managed to blow up half the world by then.
Along the same lines, a piece in the British newspaper The Guardian titled “Obama the impotent” says many in the U.S. and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under this president.
It points out Mr. Obama hasn’t even been able to get health care reform passed in his own country and questions his ability to lead internationally on issues like climate change and regulating international financial systems:
“It appears that the wheels may be coming off the world’s post-war leader, and not even Barack Obama can stop it happening.”
Everybody is saying no to the American President these days. And it’s not just that they’re saying no, it’s the way they’re saying no, too. The Saudis twice said no to his request for normalization gestures towards Israel [Obama's meeting with the Saudi King in Saudi Arabia, and in Washington DC at meetings with Hilary Clinton]. Who says no to the American President twice? What must they think of Obama in the desert Kingdom?
The North Koreans said no to repeated attempts at talks by test-launching long-range missiles in April; Russia and China keep on saying no to tougher sanctions on Iran; the Iranians keep saying no to offers of talks by saying they’re willing to talk about everything except a halt to uranium enrichment; Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority is saying no by refusing to meet with Netanyahu until Israel freezes all settlement construction; the Israelis said no by refusing to agree to a settlement freeze, or even a settlement moratorium until and unless the Arabs ante up their normalization gestures. Which brings us back to the original Saudi no.
The only thing Obama did manage to get Bibi and Abbas to say yes to is a photo op at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NY. Mazeltov.
During his investigations into possible war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during Operation Cast Lead, Judge Richard Goldstone asked a group of prominent South African expatriates living in Israel to persuade government officials here to cooperate with his commission.
Goldstone told them the commission’s findings and recommendations would be more balanced if Israel made its case.
The expats traveled to Jerusalem with the message, but after a relatively short briefing with Israeli experts, the delegation did a complete about-face and supported Israel’s position of having nothing to do with the UN fact-finding mission.
The trick: Israeli officials briefed the visitors on what Goldstone’s commission was already doing in Gaza, on the makeup of the UN Human Rights Council and on the rancid history of the HRC’s deliberate targeting of Israel. Continue Reading »
The day after space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on reentry over a blue Texas sky in 2003, editorial cartoonist Mike Keefe from The Denver Post drew six stars and one Star of David on a black canvas, representing the seven astronauts lost in the disaster.
Today we add an eighth star, another Star of David, to that cartoon, in honor of Assaf Ramon. In our national narrative, Assaf was always going to be our second astronaut. And so we don’t just mourn the death of a young, promising pilot cadet, we mourn the sudden death of a national dream rekindled, of a promise unfulfilled. Continue Reading »
This is a Channel Ten video of Assaf Ramon, who died Sunday in a training mission crash, getting his pilot’s wings after completing the grueling IAF pilot’s training course.
Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, is confident the US administration will stick to its September deadline for tougher sanctions on Iran if Teheran refuses to substantively engage the international community on its nuclear program. He thinks there is no other choice, since Iran is rapidly moving towards nuclear weapons capability.
The evidence of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is “overwhelming,” says Rogers, whose committee oversees the work of some 16 US intelligence agencies and organizations.
Rogers, a former FBI agent, spoke with The Jerusalem Post this week, on the sidelines of the 9th Annual International Institute of Counter-Terrorism (ICT) Conference at IDC Herzliya.
The Jerusalem Post: Can America live with a nuclear Iran?
Mike Rogers: “I think it is dangerous for people to find it acceptable that Iran will have a nuclear bomb. Continue Reading »
Peres at #Gvahim new olim are like extra territory for #Israel that's how valuable they are 4 weeks ago
President Peres at # Gvahim event thank God we didn't get Saudi Arabia for country with oil we would have been laziest people in the world 4 weeks ago
#Israel's Netanyahu: Iran weapons ship to Hizbullah a war crime; never heard a more ridiculous statement; its an act of war, not a war crime 4 weeks ago
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