The cabinet is scheduled to hold its weekly meeting on the Golan Heights on Sunday, to send a message to the international community that Israel has no intention of relinquishing the area.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to underline this point in a statement to the press at the outset of the meeting.
Netanyahu relayed to US Secretary of State John Kerry in a recent phone conversation Israel’s concerns about a draft agreement intended to end the Syrian civil war that includes a clause calling for Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria, Channel 10 reported on Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to underline this point in a statement to the press at the outset of the meeting.
Netanyahu relayed to US Secretary of State John Kerry in a recent phone conversation Israel’s concerns about a draft agreement intended to end the Syrian civil war that includes a clause calling for Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria, Channel 10 reported on Monday.
Israel took control of the Golan Heights during the Six Day War, and extended Israeli law to it in 1981, de facto annexing it.
According to the report, Netanyahu made clear that such language would be unacceptable to Israel. He is expected to discuss this issue – as well as Israel’s interest in any future Syrian agreement – when he flies to Moscow on Thursday for one day for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
According to the report, Netanyahu made clear that such language would be unacceptable to Israel. He is expected to discuss this issue – as well as Israel’s interest in any future Syrian agreement – when he flies to Moscow on Thursday for one day for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
Among the other issues he is expected to raise with Putin are continued military coordination between the two countries to ensure there is no accidental engagement of Israeli and Russian forces in Syria; the sale of Russian weapons, such as the S-300 anti-missile system, to Iran; and concern in Jerusalem that Syria and Iran are transferring advance weaponry to Hezbollah.
This will be Netanyahu’s third meeting with Putin since September, when he paid another lightening visit to the Moscow, to set up a mechanism to prevent the accidental confrontation of Russian and Israeli fighter planes over Syria.
This will be Netanyahu’s third meeting with Putin since September, when he paid another lightening visit to the Moscow, to set up a mechanism to prevent the accidental confrontation of Russian and Israeli fighter planes over Syria.
Two months later, he met the Russian president on the sidelines of the Paris climate conference. The two leaders also speak regularly on the phone.
The cabinet meeting on the Golan will be the second time in a week that Netanyahu has gone to the area, having observed a large military training exercise there on Monday. During that visit Netanyahu surprised many observers by acknowledging that Israel has acted dozens of times beyond the northern border to prevent Hezbollah from attaining “game-changing weaponry.”
The cabinet meeting on the Golan will be the second time in a week that Netanyahu has gone to the area, having observed a large military training exercise there on Monday. During that visit Netanyahu surprised many observers by acknowledging that Israel has acted dozens of times beyond the northern border to prevent Hezbollah from attaining “game-changing weaponry.”
World unconvinced by Netanyahu's claim Golan will remain part of Israel
Washington issued a simple response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statement that the Golan Heights are an integral part of Israel and will remain so forever: “No, they are not.”
A day after the Israeli cabinet held its first-ever meeting Sunday on the Golan Heights and Netanyahu said the world needs to get used to the idea that the region would remain in Israel’s hands forever, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the US position on the Golan Heights is “longstanding and is unchanged. Every administration on both sides of the aisle since 1967 has maintained that those territories are not part of Israel.”
Kirby was asked about the issue by Al Quds‘s Washington correspondent, Said Arikat, who on a regular basis uses the daily State Department press briefing as a platform to ask provocative questions about Israel.
The State Department spokesman said, “The conditions under which those territories are ultimately returned should be decided through negotiations between the respective parties. And obviously, Said, the current situation in Syria makes it difficult to continue those efforts at this time.”
A few hours before Kirby’s response, Netanyahu told Israeli diplomatic reporters in a briefing on Monday that when he went to the Golan on Sunday he asked himself to whom Israel was expected to return the strategic plateau.
“To Islamic State?” he asked. “When the Syrians were there it was a platform for attacks against Israel. The time has come for the international community to internalize that the whole Golan will remain in Israeli hands.”
But it seems the international community will need a lot of convincing, because Netanyahu’s comments also elicited negative responses from other key actors on the world scene, such as the German Foreign Ministry and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Asked about the issue at the German Foreign Ministry briefing, spokesman Martin Schaefer said it is “a basic principle of international law and the UN charter that no state can claim the right to annex another state’s territory just like that.”
Washington issued a simple response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statement that the Golan Heights are an integral part of Israel and will remain so forever: “No, they are not.”
A day after the Israeli cabinet held its first-ever meeting Sunday on the Golan Heights and Netanyahu said the world needs to get used to the idea that the region would remain in Israel’s hands forever, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the US position on the Golan Heights is “longstanding and is unchanged. Every administration on both sides of the aisle since 1967 has maintained that those territories are not part of Israel.”
Kirby was asked about the issue by Al Quds‘s Washington correspondent, Said Arikat, who on a regular basis uses the daily State Department press briefing as a platform to ask provocative questions about Israel.
The State Department spokesman said, “The conditions under which those territories are ultimately returned should be decided through negotiations between the respective parties. And obviously, Said, the current situation in Syria makes it difficult to continue those efforts at this time.”
A few hours before Kirby’s response, Netanyahu told Israeli diplomatic reporters in a briefing on Monday that when he went to the Golan on Sunday he asked himself to whom Israel was expected to return the strategic plateau.
“To Islamic State?” he asked. “When the Syrians were there it was a platform for attacks against Israel. The time has come for the international community to internalize that the whole Golan will remain in Israeli hands.”
But it seems the international community will need a lot of convincing, because Netanyahu’s comments also elicited negative responses from other key actors on the world scene, such as the German Foreign Ministry and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Asked about the issue at the German Foreign Ministry briefing, spokesman Martin Schaefer said it is “a basic principle of international law and the UN charter that no state can claim the right to annex another state’s territory just like that.”
Ban, in a briefing at the UN Security Council on the Mideast, said he noted the statements made by Netanyahu.
“This is a longstanding issue that all parties have a responsibility to help resolve,” he said. “I remind Israel of its obligation to implement Security Council Resolutions 242 and 497 in all of their parts.”
“This is a longstanding issue that all parties have a responsibility to help resolve,” he said. “I remind Israel of its obligation to implement Security Council Resolutions 242 and 497 in all of their parts.”
UN Security Council Resolution 242, which was passed some six months after the Six Day War in 1967, called for a “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”
And Security Council Resolution 497, adopted after Israel extended Israeli law to the Golan Height in 1981, declared that Jerusalem’s de facto annexation of the region “is null and void and without international legal effect.”
And Security Council Resolution 497, adopted after Israel extended Israeli law to the Golan Height in 1981, declared that Jerusalem’s de facto annexation of the region “is null and void and without international legal effect.”
Obama's Revenge Against Netanyahu
The misnamed “State” of Palestine is preparing another assault on Israel at the Palestinians’ favorite “international” venue, the United Nations. The Palestinian Authority circulated a completely one-sided draft Security Council resolution to UN diplomats earlier this month.
The Palestinian draft resolution demanded that Israel “cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.” While condemning “all acts of terror” and expressing “serious concern over continuing violence against civilians,” the draft resolution blames specifically only Israeli settlers for “acts of terror, violence, destruction, harassment and provocation.” There is not a single word about the constant violence committed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians.
The draft reportedly has the support of enough members of the Security Council to be adopted, absent a veto by the United States. In an effort to forestall such a veto, the Palestinian drafters focused the resolution on Israeli settlements, which the Obama administration has routinely condemned.
In addition, the Palestinian drafters incorporated some sweeteners in their proposed resolution, no doubt intended to persuade the Obama administration to at least abstain.
For example, the draft refers positively to the Middle East Quartet, of which the United States is a member. It calls on “all parties to exert collective efforts to launch credible negotiations on all final status issues in the Middle East peace process” according to terms endorsed by the Quartet. The draft calls upon both parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “to act on the basis of international law, including international humanitarian law,” and to “refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric.”
The draft encourages “a genuine commitment to the two-State solution,” referencing in particular the Arab Peace Initiative.
The Arab Peace Initiative, which President Obama has praised, offered Israel normalization of relations with its neighbors in return for Israel’s complete withdrawal from the “occupied territories” (“including East Jerusalem”) to essentially the pre-1967 lines and a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Resolution 194 stated that any refugees "wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.”
In lieu of the Palestinian draft that focuses currently on the settlements issue, the Obama administration may back another course, reportedly being developed by France. The French are said to favor putting the Security Council on record as endorsing parameters of a two-state solution along the lines of what the Palestinians have been seeking with the support of the Arab states, to be accomplished within a set timeframe.
Alternatively, in a pique of frustration that he did not get his way in pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make significant concessions for “peace,” Obama may decide that the United States should sponsor its own resolution. Such a resolution may lay out Obama’s proposal for a two state solution that is largely the same as the Palestinian approach, freezing all settlements and pushing Israel virtually all the way back to the insecure pre-1967 lines.
If President Obama takes any of these courses of action, he would in essence be endorsing the position of the Palestinian Authority, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Its leaders have been responsible for inciting acts of violence by Palestinians against Israeli civilians. It rebrands murderers as martyrs. Its schools have taught Palestinian children to hate Jews. Its idea of “a genuine commitment to the two-State solution” would establish the pre-1967 lines, with minor adjustments, as the new Palestinian state’s permanent border with Israel, but Israel would not be left alone to remain a Jewish state even then.
The Palestinians want to allow potentially millions of Palestinian “refugees” to exercise their so-called “right of return” into the land of Israel as it existed before 1967. The two state solution, as the Palestinian leadership defines it, is one state ethnically cleansed of Jews that is controlled entirely by the Palestinians, and a second state in which Palestinians can become the majority over time and destroy the Jewish character of the state of Israel.
A senior member of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party central committee, Tawfik Tirawi, revealed the Palestinian leadership's true intentions when he declared last January during an interview, “Palestine stretches from the river to the sea… a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, is just a phase, as far as I am concerned.”
Hamas, over whom Abbas has no control, remains committed to ridding Israel of all Jews – by genocide, if that becomes the most expedient method. Indeed, Hamas’s founding charter is a call to kill as many Jews as possible, citing Prophet Muhammad:
“The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The day of judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Biden slams Netanyahu at Soros-funded J Street event
Vice President Joe Biden slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently at a gala event.
He blamed Netanyahu for taking Israel in “the wrong direction”, according to AP. The speech was given just hours after a terrorist bus bombing in Jerusalem where 21 people were wounded.
Biden blamed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for not condemning terror, but most of his outburst was aimed at Netanyahu, and claimed he is not sure how Israel can stay both Jewish and democratic.
“I firmly believe that the actions that Israel’s government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures — they’re moving us and more importantly they’re moving Israel in the wrong direction,” Biden said, according to Fox News.
He said there will soon be a single state for Palestinians and Israelis where Jews will not be the majority.
The event where Biden gave his speech was put on by J Street, which is funded by George Soros. They claim to be a pro-Israel advocacy group, but they are accused by Rabbi Jonathan Greenberg of “being in bed with some real shady characters”, according to The Hill. He is the former Midwest political director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
J Street has supported som
e questionable people and groups, including Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) who has defended Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and Justice in Palestine, a group involved in the Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
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