SWI NEWS: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 7 Iyar, 5770
Netanyahu: Less Time to Act on Iran with Each Passing Day
by Gil Ronen
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sounded an urgent note regarding the Iranian threat in a Monday interview on America's ABC network, saying that “we have a lot less time with each day that passes.”
“And the crucial thing,” he said, “is to use the time available for forceful international action led by the United States. If you can, go through the Security Council. If you can't, go outside the Security Council.”
“I spoke with President Obama when he was Senator Obama,” he said on the morning news show, Good Morning America. “He visited Israel. And I was the leader of the Opposition at… that time. And I said… if he gets elected President... all the issues that will flood his desk will one day be pushed aside by one overriding issue. And that is if Iran attempts to develop atomic bombs. Because they could very well either use it or threaten to use it or threaten to give it to terrorists or even give them a crude device with fissionable material that can be put in a container ship. And this could come to Manhattan or to any port in the United States or in Europe or, for that matter, in Israel.”
'A minimal requirement'
The international community can deliver “crippling sanctions” against Iran, he said. “If you stop … Iran from importing refined petroleum, that's a fancy word for gasoline,” Netanyahu explained, “then Iran simply doesn't have refining capacity and this regime comes to a halt. I think that's crippling sanctions. Now if the UN Security Council doesn't pass it because they'll dilute the resolution to get acquiescence of their members, then certainly the United States and other willing partners in the international community can... enforce these sanctions outside the Security Council. There is a way to deliver these crippling sanctions. This should be done now.”
“I think this is a minimal requirement right now,” he added. The point was “not really to send messages," he said, “but to actually make this regime begin to make choices. Because right now they feel they don't have to make choices. They understand that the spotlight is on them but they're not doing anything. And the critical thing is I think there's an understanding in Washington, certainly in Jerusalem and quite a few other capitals in the world, that very forceful action has to be taken to make Iran stop. I think the future of peace in the world and of stability and security is at stake.”
Asked if he was worried that war could break out this summer, the prime minister said: “If it's up to us, there won't be any war." Iran, he added, is trying to create tensions through Hizbullah, “probably to deflect the world's attention from Iran's advancement and its plan to develop nuclear weapons.” (IsraelNationalNews.com)
Israel Exports Up 11,250 Times Since First Independence Day
by Malkah Fleisher
In the short 62 years since Israel declared independence, the Jewish state's exports have multiplied 11,250 times, according to a report by the Israel Export and Cooperation Institute.
Released ahead of Independence Day, the report stated that while exports totaled $6 million in 1948, they stood at $67.5 billion in 2009. The current export value has more than doubled since 1998, and is $6.5 billion less than the expected figure for 2010.
The report also shows that while Europe consumed about 70% of Israeli exports in the early years of the state, it now purchases just 32%. In 2009, North America bought 37% of the exports, and Asia 20%.
While Israel is still an exporter of diamonds and agricultural products such as the country's popular oranges and other citrus, it now exports a tremendous amount of knowledge-based goods and services, with an emphasis on hi-tech. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
Hamas: 'We'll Kidnap More IDF Soldiers'
by Hana Levi Julian
Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal vowed Monday at a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria that the terrorist group would kidnap more IDF soldiers in order to free operatives jailed in Israel.
The Damascus-based terror leader complained to reporters on the eve of Israel's 62nd Independence Day celebrations that the Jewish State is dragging its heels on a deal to trade terrorist prisoners for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Shalit was abducted on June 25, 2006 in a cross-border raid carried out by operatives from three Hamas-linked terror groups on an IDF base near the Kerem Shalom Crossing. At least one of the groups, the Army of Islam, also has ties to the international al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Shalit's condition and whereabouts remain unknown, although it is believed that he is alive and being hostage held somewhere in Gaza.
For several years following his abduction, Egyptian officials and others had tried to broker a prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel. Each time a deal appeared imminent, Hamas backed away. The most recent attempt, in November 2009, was brokered by Egypt and Germany and would have involved the release of more than a thousand jailed terrorists, hundreds of whom were convicted of murdering Israelis.
Israel agreed to release nearly all of them, but drew the line at releasing a handful who were serving multiple life sentences for masterminding terror attacks and especially brutal murders.
Mashaal also blamed the United States for the most recent failure of Palestinian Authority reconciliation talks between Hamas and the rival Fatah faction which rules the PA-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, which has since been governed separately by the terrorist faction. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
IDF drafts pull- back to 2000 lines
By YAAKOV KATZ AND TOVAH LAZAROFF 21/04/2010 03:50The army has drawn up plans to withdraw to pre-intifada lines in the West Bank, if ordered to do so by the government, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Such a withdrawal was one of the demands that US President Barack Obama made to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during their meeting at the White House last month.
The demand refers to the positions the IDF held when the second intifada erupted in late 2000, before the army swept into all the Arab towns and cities in the West Bank. It maintains a presence on the outskirts of many of them today.
“The IDF has plans for this possibility and is prepared for a scenario that Israel will approve the American demand and decide to pull back to pre-intifada lines,” a top defense official told the Post recently.
The Post has learned that the IDF brass, particularly the Central Command, have recommended not carrying out such a withdrawal.
“The IDF’s freedom to operate everywhere is extremely important in keeping terrorism down to a minimum,” the senior defense official said.
As proof, the official referred to a recent IDF operation in Jenin, during which troops arrested two top Islamic Jihad operatives. Operations in Jenin are still carried out, the official said, despite the “Jenin Model” program that saw the deployment of US-trained PA forces in the city and Israel’s decision to scale back its operations.
“We still operate there whenever we believe there is a threat,” the official said.
In addition to the IDF withdrawal, Obama has asked Netanyahu to extend the 10-month moratorium on new settlement construction which the cabinet approved and which is set to expire in late September.
He also asked Netanyahu to stop Jewish construction in east Jerusalem and to release Fatah prisoners in a goodwill gesture to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Netanyahu has yet to respond to the list, which is often reported in the media but has never been formally publicized by the White House or the Prime Minister’s Office.
Last week, however, Netanyahu met several times with his inner cabinet of seven ministers.
Completion of the withdrawal plans comes in advance of a much-anticipated visit by US special envoy George Mitchell. As of press time, however, neither the State Department nor the Prime Minister’s Office had a date for that visit.
On Monday, in a lengthy interview with ABC, Netanyahu set down his “red lines” when it came to US or Palestinian demands.
“To stop all construction – Jewish construction in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem – is totally, totally a nonstarter,” said Netanyahu.
In Jerusalem Tuesday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman rejected any attempt to divide the capital city by giving control of east Jerusalem to the Palestinians. He said Jerusalem must remain in Israel’s hands.
“It cannot be divided directly or indirectly. It is our eternal city,” Lieberman declared.
Still, Netanyahu told ABC that “the issue of Jerusalem... will be discussed in the final settlement and negotiations.”
It would be a mistake, he said, to halt construction in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem prior to talks. Such a demand prevents peace, Netanyahu said.
“Suppose as a precondition to Palestinian negotiations Israel asked them to dismantle refugee camps to prove that they understood that there could be no right of return in a two-state solution,” he said.
“You would rightly say, ‘Ah, Israel is trying now to stack the deck. It’s trying not to enter into negotiations.’ And, in fact, that’s exactly what the Palestinians are doing – to us” with their refusal to negotiate until Israel stops construction in West Bank settlements and in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, Netanyahu said.
He was careful during the ABC interview not to state that Obama had asked Israel to halt east Jerusalem construction, and instead mentioned it as a Palestinian demand.
During speeches he gave in the last two days, as well as during his ABC interview, Netanyahu called for direct negotiations with the Palestinians. It’s a call he has repeatedly made since he entered office in March 2009.
“I want peace. I want to negotiate peace. I say, let’s remove all preconditions, including those on Jerusalem. Let’s get into the room and negotiate peace without preconditions. That’s the simplest way to get to peace,” said Netanyahu.
In the past, Netanyahu said, Israel and the Palestinians held direct talks in spite of construction in West Bank settlements and east Jerusalem. He added that previous peace plans had placed Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem under Israeli control.
“The real question is why are we arguing about something that’s not a real argument? I don’t think that makes any sense,” he said.
During the interview, Netanyahu listed steps he had taken, including improvements on movement and access for the Palestinians as well as the 10-month moratorium on new housing starts in the settlements.
Netanyahu said that despite the impasse with the US, the relationship between the two countries was still very strong.
“I think with any family, with any relationship – the relationship of allies, even your relatives – you have ups and downs. You have disagreements. But I think this relationship between the United States of America and the people of Israel is rock-solid,” the prime minister said.
Netanyahu rejected the idea that the US would try to impose a peace deal on both sides.
“I… don’t believe anyone will seriously think that you can impose peace. Peace has to come from the parties sitting down with each other, resolving their differences. And this is what we want to achieve. This is what I want to achieve,” he said.
On Monday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that the time was not ripe for a US-promoted Middle East peace plan.
“A number of people have advocated that,” Emanuel said on The Charlie Rose Show on Bloomberg Television.
“That time is not now,” Emanuel said. The “time now is to get back to the proximity talks, have those conversations that eventually will lead to direct negotiations, start to make the hard decisions to bring a balance between the aspirations of the Israelis for security, and make that blend with the aspirations of the Palestinian people for their sovereignty.”
A number of Obama administration officials have, in recent weeks, suggested via leaks to the media that the president is considering such a plan by the fall.
Obama himself, along with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now Emanuel, have rebuffed those reports, saying it would be best to leave a plan to the parties concerned.
JTA contributed to this report.
62, under a US cloud
By JPOST EDITORIAL 18/04/2010 23:36Israel turns 62 on a high in many areas. Prudent fiscal policies spared our economy many of the ravages of the global crisis. Time, that ultimate healer, seems to be mitigating some societal rifts, whether they be religious-secular, Sephardi-Ashkenazi, or newcomer-veteran. An IDF bolstered by the successful tenure of chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has improved day-to-day security as well as military preparedness.
Less encouragingly, a succession of demoralizing corruption scandals is rocking our nation, undermining faith in our public servants. Looking ahead, our internal cohesiveness is by no means assured. Arabs and haredim largely resist full integration, do not subscribe to the state’s Zionist ideals, and do not contribute sufficiently to the economy. Our dysfunctional electoral system, granting inordinate power to tiny parties, still goes unreformed.
As we today make the abrupt annual shift from mourning our fallen soldiers to celebrating the independence for which they gave their lives, however, internal challenges are complicated by a new and largely unexpected diplomatic danger: our blighted relations with the US.
Israel at 62, aware of the demographic threat to our democracy of retaining the entire West Bank, is consensually supportive of a Palestinian state, provided this historically unprecedented entity does not threaten us militarily, or require our withdrawal to the vulnerable pre-1967 borders, or flood us with refugees. To advance these vital terms, we need the US at our side.
Israel at 62 lives in the shadow of an Iranian regime that seeks our demise; that arms, trains, funds and inspires Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon; and that is speeding serenely ahead toward nuclear weapons. Here, too, we look to America to marshal sufficient economic – and if all else fails, military – pressure to deter the mullahs from this path or force them from power.
And Israel at 62 suffers growing pariah status, singled out for demonization in diplomatic forums, in legal arenas and in the media – its historic legitimacy undermined, its defensive measures assailed, its very right to survive questioned. Iran is central to this assault, bolstered by the bizarre partnership of the radical Left and the fascist Right in much of Western Europe and beyond. Here, once more, we depend on the US’s upright moral compass and the fundamental ethics of its citizens to counterbalance the United Nations and other skewed forums.
BUT AFTER a year in office, the Obama administration has placed our strategic partnership under a shadow. By coldly escalating the Ramat Shlomo-housing dispute into an ongoing, full-scale crisis, Washington has diverged from the tone of previous administrations on the status of Jerusalem, and it has damagingly publicly questioned fundamental aspects of our alliance.
When conflicts break out in our region, President Obama noted last week, America tends to get pulled in, and that costs “American blood and treasure.”
Thus, the US had to constantly make plain “to both sides” that reducing these conflicts was not only in their interests, but was “a vital national security interest of the United States.”
Those sounded like the words of a president who has taken insufficient account of Israel’s history of peace-making overtures to the Palestinians, and of the history of Palestinian rejection.
On the Iranian front, meanwhile, time is running out. The president seeks the widest possible international support for sanctions, but that means delay and less biting measures. The US military option is barely on the table. Concern grows that Washington is seeking to deny Israel the capacity to protect itself, even if all else fails.
In terms of battling delegitimization, the US has stood by Israel at the key diplomatic moments of the past year. Nonetheless, Obama’s failure, in his Muslim-outreach speech in Cairo last June, to highlight the historic Jewish connection to our land was a troubling omission.
Healing the relationship with the US is a vital priority in our 63rd year. It requires improving dialogue and enhancing mutual sensitivity to policy differences.
From Israel, it requires a proper ordering of priorities, and wider unity and cohesion behind them; hence our longstanding plea to Kadima to join the coalition.
From the US, it requires a more profound appreciation of Israel’s numerous sincere attempts to resolve the conflict: At 62, thriving, modern Israel is still resented and rejected by most of the Arab world, not because of this or that policy, or this or that territorial presence, but because of the very fact of our existence here.
