podesta_email_00209.txt

podesta-emails 3,220 words email

P17 D6 V11 V16 D3

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http://www.centerpeace.org ** Israel and the Middle East News Update ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Friday, June 26 ------------------------------------------------------------ Click here for a printer-friendly version. (http://www.centerpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/June-261.pdf) Headlines: * Netanyahu Sends Implicit Threat to Iran Ahead of Deadline * PA Presents Claims of Israeli Crimes to ICC * US Slams Palestinians’ Israel War Crimes Suit * US Congress Passes Anti-BDS Legislation, Key Trade Bill * Israel Supporters to Rally in Geneva against UNHRC Report * Jordanian Press Slam 'enemy' Israel for Protesting Terror Praise * Economy Minister Dery Refuses to Use Authority on Gas Deal * Hapoel Jerusalem won Israel's basketball championship Commentary: * Ha'aretz: “Why are Israelis so Afraid of a Culture War?” " - By Amos Oz * Yedioth Ahronoth: “Being Right about Gaza War Report isn't enough” - By Giora Eiland ** Ha'aretz ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Netanyahu Sends Implicit Threat to Iran (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.663060) ------------------------------------------------------------ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted Thursday that Israel may attack Iran's nuclear facilities, even if Tehran and the powers nail down a historic deal to curtail Iran's nuclear program next week. "Whatever happens, Israel will always defend itself, and the Air Force plays a major role in this," Netanyahu said at a pilots' course graduation ceremony. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will head for Vienna on Friday to take part in a final phase of the talks aimed at sealing a comprehensive international agreement on Iran's nuclear program. See also, “Nearly half of Israelis see Iran deal as existential threat” (Jerusalem Post) (http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Nearly-half-of-Israelis-see-Iran-deal-as-existential-threat-407218) ** Ynet News ------------------------------------------------------------ ** PA Presents Claims of Israeli Crimes to ICC (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4672910,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ The Palestinian Authority presented the International Criminal Court on Thursday with its first documents claiming Israeli crimes under international law in regards to settlement construction, Israel's policy in the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. While the information presented by PA representatives does not constitute an official complaint against Israel, the Palestinians hope that the documents will convince ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to open an investigation against Israel. Foreign Minister Spokesperson responded to the step by the Palestinians saying, "This step is nothing more than provocation. We hope that the attorney won't fall for this trap." ** Times of Israel ------------------------------------------------------------ ** US Slams Palestinians’ Israel War Crimes Suit (http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-slams-palestinians-israel-war-crimes-suit/) ------------------------------------------------------------ The White House on Thursday said efforts to have Israel charged with war crimes at the International Criminal Court were “counterproductive” and would be opposed by Washington. The United States has “made clear that we oppose actions against Israel at the ICC as counterproductive,” National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey said after the Palestinians submitted their evidence in The Hague. The move comes just days after a separate investigation by the UN Human Rights Council accused both sides of committing possible war crimes in last summer’s Gaza War. The council’s report is also being studied by investigators at the ICC. ** Ynet News ------------------------------------------------------------ ** US Congress Passes Anti-BDS Legislation, Key Trade Bill (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4672851,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ After weeks of political wrangling, President Barack Obama scored a key victory Wednesday with Congress passing legislation that allows him to swiftly negotiate a Pacific trade accord. Two amendments in the bill had also opposed the BDS campaign against Israel, particularly by European countries. The anti-BDS provisions require US negotiators to make the rejection of the BDS campaign a principal trade objective in negotiations with the European Union, making the incentive of free trade with the US a leverage against cooperation with the BDS campaign. It is the first legislation by the US Congress in four decades which pushed back against efforts to boycott Israel. ** Jerusalem Post ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Israel Supporters to Rally against UNHRC Report (http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israel-supporters-to-rally-in-Geneva-against-UNHRC-Gaza-report-407201) ------------------------------------------------------------ Pro-Israel activists and human rights groups plan to rally in Geneva on Monday against the presentation of a UN Human Rights Council report that day, which charges that both Israel and armed Palestinian groups may have committed war crimes in Gaza last summer. The report was published earlier this week, but this coming Monday its coauthors, former New York Supreme Court judge Mary McGowan Davis and legal expert Doudou Diène of Senegal, plan to present the document to the UNHRC that is holding its 29th session in Geneva this month. Opponents of the report, including the State of Israel, are upset that it appears to equate the IDF with the Hamas terrorist group. They see it as one more biased report by the UNHRC against Israel. ** Jerusalem Post ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Jordanian Press Slam Israel for Protesting Terror (http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israel-supporters-to-rally-in-Geneva-against-UNHRC-Gaza-report-407201) ------------------------------------------------------------ Jordanian journalists angrily rebuked Israel’s “enemy embassy” in Amman on Thursday after the Israeli mission in the Hashemite kingdom protested the media’s praise of Palestinian terrorist attacks. The row was triggered by a June 24 article in the daily newspaper Al-Dustur glorifying the Palestinian attacks which left one Israeli dead in the West Bank and another Border Police officer wounded by stabbing in Jerusalem’s Old City. The Israeli embassy protested the article, deeming it “ugly and shameful...incitement to kill Israelis.” Al-Dustur rejected the embassy’s protestations, calling the Palestinian actions “martyrdom operations...[in] heroic defense of their land and rights.” “Just as [Israel] rejects these operations, we reject the killing of unarmed innocents...in Palestine and their displacement from their land and the desecration of their holy places,” the newspaper wrote. ** Ha'aretz ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Economy Minister Dery Refuses to Use Authority on Gas Deal (http://www.haaretz.com/business/.premium-1.662883) ------------------------------------------------------------ The security cabinet meeting on the government's pending deal with Israel's natural gas monopoly fell apart on Thursday after Economy Minister Arye Dery declared that he refuses to use his authority to bypass the Antitrust Authority on the matter. The ministers voted on approving the security and diplomatic justifications for the plan - and voted unanimously in favor. The next stage was supposed to have been a vote by the members of the security cabinet to authorize Economy Minister Arye Dery to sign off on invoking Section 52a of the Restrictive Trade Practices Law, which would allow the government to sidestep the Antitrust Authority. But Dery them shocked those present - and especially Netanyahu - and announced that he was not willing to sign and give up his authority. See also, " (http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.663097) Adelson encouraged Netanyahu to streamline Israel's gas regulations" (Ha'aretz) (http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.663097) ** Channel 2 News ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Hapoel Jlm' won Israel's basketball championship (http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/in-israel/sports/hapoel-jerusalem-won-israels-basketball-championship-14225) ------------------------------------------------------------ More than 70 years Jerusalem waited for this moment and now it finally happened: Yesterday, for the first time in its history, Hapoel Jerusalem won Israel's basketball championship. In order to win this championship, it had to defeat Hapoel Eilat twice. Jerusalem's Mayor Nir Barkat said in this regard that "This is a historic night, memorable for years to come."Hapoel Eilat caused a sensation last week after it defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv in the semi-finals 79-76, in the fifth match between the two. Following that game Maccabi Tel Aviv did not participate in the finals for the first time in 22 years. ** Ha’aretz – June 26, 2015 ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Why are Israelis so Afraid of a Culture War? (http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.662998) ------------------------------------------------------------ A culture war creates a wonderful climate for the blossoming of culture, of creativity, of free thought. Societies in which there is no inkling of a culture war look more or less like North Korea. By Amos Oz If every creative work that can be used as a weapon by Jew haters deserves to be censored – or at least not be supported by public funds – the place to start is the Hebrew Bible. For example, that whole story about the prophet Nathan and King David has to go. Thousands of years ago, foreign media were already exploiting that narrative against us: “Look what those Jews say about themselves.” And not just about themselves: about King David – David from whom the messiah is destined to spring; the prophet said of him that he committed a sin punishable by death. No less. That has to be yanked from the Bible. We can’t raise our children on that. It deals a mortal blow to our legitimacy. This week, I heard that a member of the Jerusalem Municipality is demanding that a play called “Ezekiel” be banned because it mentions the intifada and the Holocaust in the same breath. I haven’t seen the play, I don’t have an opinion on it. But if we deprive the play “Ezekiel” of public funding, we have to stop teaching the Book of Ezekiel in our schools. The prophet Ezekiel says terrible things about the people of Israel, verging almost on pornography. He calls the people of Israel a “harlot” that spread its legs for “every one that passed by” – and even more disgusting things. Utterances like that cause tremendous damage to our image internationally. Every anti-Semite will delight in quoting them. If it’s necessary to ban every work of art that portrays a murderer – and even portrays him with a measure of sympathy – then Euripides must be banned because of “Medea”; Shakespeare has to be dumped because of “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and “Julius Caesar,” all plays that revolve around regicide; Dostoyevsky is out because of “Crime and Punishment,” and so forth. Is it permitted to stage a play about a Palestinian murderer in the Israeli theater? Or to screen a film about a Jewish assassin? Of course it is. What is not permitted? If a court determines that a work incites to violence, it must not be staged. If a court determines that a work is libelous, it must not be staged. A court of law – not ministers and not deputy ministers. I haven’t seen the documentary [“Beyond the Fear”] about the person who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin. If the film incites to murder or encourages murder, it must not be screened. But if it tries to penetrate to the depths of the assassin’s mind, it’s in the company of Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky. Possibly it’s not superb like Shakespeare, but why disqualify it if it does not incite to violence? Another question: Should such works be supported by public budgets and taxpayers’ funds? That is definitely a legitimate question. In an ideal world, every work of value would merit the support of taxpayers’ funds. But not even the most enlightened and most culture-loving government in the world is capable of supporting every deserving work. Public funds should not necessarily be used to support a play about the murderer of [IDF soldier] Moshe Tamam or the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin. But the criterion should not be whether the work is infuriating or outrageous. The criterion needs to be whether the work possesses artistic value or not. That decision must be taken by a public, professional committee, which will undoubtedly err many times and will certainly be controversial. If what the committee decides is unreasonable in the extreme, it is always possible to go to court and appeal its decision. If that, too, does not help, if public committees are going to be appointed here whose members are one-sided or extremist censors, then a far-reaching step must be considered: to shut down the life of art in Israel. That will generate huge international resonance. It will not be a problem of the minister; it will be a problem of the State of Israel, whose image in the enlightened world is not so wonderful even without a general strike by most of its creative artists. Some say: “But certain works offend the public’s sensibilities.” The truth is, almost every artistic work of value offends the public’s sensibilities in one way or another. One of the things a good book does is to jolt the reader’s sensibilities. In what way? That differs from book to book and from reader to reader. Marvelous wine songs are liable to offend the sensibilities of some Muslims. Charming songs of passion are liable to offend the sensibilities of some Jews and Christians. The prophet Amos seriously offends the sensibilities of the rich, the sensibilities of the rulers and also a few neighboring peoples. It is perhaps extremely desirable to jolt public sensibilities as well as individual sensibilities from time to time. Are we on the brink of a culture war? I say: if only. There is nothing wrong with a culture war, as long as it is not violent. On the contrary: a culture war gets the creative juices flowing. The great civilizations in history sprang from internal strife and internal tensions. In fact, we have been caught up in a culture war since the onset of Zionism, and long before that: Since the days of the prophets, since the period of the Houses of Shammai and Hillel, Hasidim and Mitnagdim, Zionists and Bundists, Hebrew and Yiddish and Ladino. All of those were welcome culture wars. A culture war is still underway between Zionists and the ultra-Orthodox. What’s bad about that? Indeed, it’s better for culture wars to be fought with exchanges of candor and not of slander. As long as people are not being beaten in the streets, stabbed with knives or shot at – and if possible also not being slandered – why should we be afraid of a culture war? A culture war creates a wonderful climate for the blossoming of culture, of creativity, of free thought. Societies in which there is no inkling of a culture war look more or less like North Korea. The whole culture of Israel since the great argument at Sodom – when Abraham assails God with the shocking words, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justly?” – the whole of our culture, at least in good times, has been a culture of dispute and a fierce clash between different interpretations, different values and different worldviews. Shelo yigamer le’olam – may it never end. ** Yedioth Ahronoth – June 26, 2015 ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Being Right about Gaza War Report isn't enough (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4672308,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ Instead of reiterating UN report is biased and political and anti-Semitic, Israel should attack its fundamental weaknesses; it's a shallow and unprofessional report, and that's not hard to prove. By Giora Eiland Israel is rightfully slamming the conclusions of the United Nations commission of inquiry into Operation Protective Edge, but being right is not enough. We must also act more wisely. Our resentment over the fact that the UN is treating us, a civilized country, with the same standards that it treats a terror organization like Hamas is understandable. But getting insulted in this case is the wrong approach. The right thing to do is to actually demand equal standards. Gaza has been a de facto state for a long time now. It has all the characteristics of a state: A defined area, a central government, an independent foreign policy, and of course an army. The world understands that terror organizations like al-Qaeda, the Islamic States and others have poor norms. If they treat Hamas as a terror organization, they will not expect it to talk and will not put any pressure on it. It would be better if they treat Gaza as a state and demand the responsibility of a state from it. The analogy between Israel and Hamas is a desirable thing which will actually emphasize our standards as a law-abiding state compared to the state of Gaza, where the government executes dozens of people on the streets without a trial. The counter report prepared and published by the State of Israel does not contribute a thing and only creates damage. Naturally, it is filled with praise for ourselves, and is therefore not seen as credible by the world, even if the facts contained it in are true. We should have (and we should still) wait for the official report expected to be published by senior generals from European countries, the United States and Australia, who visited Israel recently and investigated Protective Edge themselves. As opposed to the rumors, they have yet to publish anything official. It's always better to "let another person praise you, and not your own mouth." Instead of reiterating that the UN report is political and biased and anti-Semitic, we should attack its fundamental weaknesses. It is a shallow and unprofessional report, and that is not hard to prove. It says, for example, that Israel used excessive force, or that many civilians were killed. The necessary question is: "Exaggerated" or "many" compared to what? The report's authors, like the authors of the Goldstone Report before them, did not bother checking operations conducted by other countries in population-saturated areas. The average ratio between civilian casualties and fighters in the allies' operations in Iraq was about 1:5 (five times more civilians). In Protective Edge the ratio was about 1:1. Any professional and objective source should have praised Israel. The report's authors settled for describing the results (casualties, building destruction, etc) and completely ignored a number of parameters which can explain the results). The first parameter is the circumstances and conditions (including the population size, density, etc). The second is the enemy's power. Clearly, the stronger the enemy – more fighters, more anti-tank weapons and more rockets, alongside a network of offensive and terror tunnels – the stronger the force that has to be used in order to achieve the desirable result. In such a case, there will necessarily be more casualties and destruction. Any professional comparison aimed at examining whether excessive or proportional force was used must therefore consider the enemy's strength in order to receive normalized results (in other words, "comparing apples to apples"). That wasn't done. The third parameter is the enemy's code of conduct. When the enemy intentionally operates out of schools and hospitals, when it uses its citizens as a human shield and prevents them from abandoning threatened places, the result is more dead civilians. The report's authors ignored any professional military standard which allows a comparison between Operation Protective Edge to other events, and wrote conclusions which are based on nothing. We prefer to use explanations which mainly convince ourselves, that the UN Human Rights Council is an anti-Israel body. While that is true, it has to be the necessary conclusion following a professional refutation of the report's content, rather than the claim itself. This requires us to work vis-à-vis relatively objective elements, like the security establishment in Western countries or the American Congress. It's harder work, but it's necessary. Major-General (res.) Giora Eiland is a former head of Israel's National Security Council. ============================================================ S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 ** www.centerpeace.org (http://www.centerpeace.org) 2015 S. 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