The Times of Israel live-blogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
Prominent Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg of Safed is indicted on 13 counts of serious sexual assault of women who came seeking his blessing, Israel Radio reported.
Sheinberg, 47, the former head of the Orot HaAri yeshiva in Safed, is also charged with obstructing the judicial proceedings against him.
The state is asking for him to be detained until the end of his trial. On July 1, he was caught at Ben-Gurion International Airport as he was attempting to leave the country.
ADDIS ABABA — The United States and Turkey are finalizing plans for a military campaign to push Islamic State out of a strip of land along the Syrian border, deepening efforts to halt the extremists’ advances.
A US official says the creation of an “Islamic State-free zone” would ensure greater security and stability in the Turkish-Syrian border region. But the official also says any joint military efforts with Turkey would not include the imposition of a no-fly zone, a step Washington has long resisted despite Turkish requests.
The discussions come amid a major tactical shift in Turkey’s approach to the Islamic State. After months of reluctance, Turkish warplanes started striking militant targets in Syria last week, following a long-awaited agreement allowing the US to launch its own strikes from the strategically located Incirlik Air Base.
— AP
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office received an envelope containing an unidentified substance, Israel’s Ynet website reports.
As a security measure, the PMO calls in specialist forces trained in dealing with such incidents. The substance is undergoing lab tests.
The US envoy on the North Korean nuclear issue says Washington’s recent deal with Tehran amply demonstrates its openness in denuclearization negotiations.
The Iran agreement is “an excellent example of US flexibility and willingness to engage with countries with whom we have had longstanding differences,” Sydney Seiler tells reporters after meeting his South Korean counterpart in Seoul.
It also shows that the “door is open” to North Korea should it choose to break away from its diplomatic and economic isolation, Seiler adds.
— AFP
US President Barack Obama criticizes a comment by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee that the Iranian nuclear deal is akin to “marching the Israelis to the door of the oven.”
Obama, who is in Addis Ababa, says the remark is part of a pattern of attacks by GOP presidential candidates that would be “considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad.” Such issues as the Iran nuclear deal deserve serious debate, not outlandish statements, he says. “It doesn’t help inform the American people,” Obama says.
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz calls Huckabee’s statement “grossly irresponsible” and demands that he apologize.
— AP
The Jewish American judge dispatched to Israel by the US government over the Jonathan Pollard affair says the convicted spy is “no hero,” and that he had received “bad advice” that led to his prolonged incarceration.
“I think that the amount of time Pollard had to spend in prison is more the consequence of very bad advice he received from supporters,” Abraham Sofaer tells Army Radio. “He [pleaded] guilty, he should have stood by that plea instead of claiming to have the right to lie to his own country and steal secrets, and after that Israel should have taken responsibility for his conduct immediately, instead of encouraging excuses as they did.”
Pollard’s actions were a betrayal of his country and caused problems for American Jews, he says.
“First of all he was not the hero that everybody portrays him to be, but a person who sold secrets to Israel for money and would have sold secrets to other states as well. He violated his oath and created a terrible situation for American Jews who then obviously [were] all the more suspected.”
Police in southern Israel arrest 20 people for dealing in synthetic marijuana known as “Nice Guy” after a months-long undercover police operation, Israel Radio reports.
The detainees will be charged in the coming days, the radio says.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi says the contents of a road map signed by Iran and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will not be made public, according to the Tasnim News Agency, which has links to the Tehran government.
The road map is part of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program
reached between the Islamic Republic and world powers earlier this month. Araqchi says the document will facilitate cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, but its details will not be released.
“Our path [in cooperation with IAEA] is in line with the previous agreements, with a new road map and some related annexes, which are documents between Iran and the agency; that’s why they have not been released, as no [other] country releases its documents [signed] with the agency,” he says.
Jerusalem Police say they have stopped a cocaine deal involving half a kilo of the drug worth NIS 2 million, and arrested two Israelis and a Colombian, according to Israel Radio.
Police say the 70-year-old Colombian who was arrested upon arrival in Israel had swallowed with a bag filled with cocaine prior to leaving Colombia.
The Colombian led police to the two Israelis, both residents of Haifa, and all three are in custody at least until the end of the week.
Donald Trump’s special counsel Michael Cohen says he doesn’t think that Trump is offended by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s comments that President Barack Obama is marching Israelis to “the door of the oven,” with the Iran deal.
Cohen tells CNN that “I think what [Huckabee is] really trying to say is we’re in a bad place.” He says that “what Trump is trying to say is a nuclear Iran is the destruction of this world.”
Police are warning that the construction of Tel Aviv’s light rail will cause massive traffic jams “from Netanya to Ashdod,” Ynet says. The work gets underway at the start of August.
Ynet says that the entire Tel Aviv area will be gridlocked due to the work, which is expected to last for years.
The deputy commander of the Tel Aviv District, Yoram Ohayon, identifies three major difficulties caused by the work: traffic congestion in the Tel Aviv area, adverse effects on intercity roads and damage to the fabric of life in the Gush Dan area, Channel 2 reports.
Ohayon says: “We are preparing for the project as though we were preparing for a visit from the pope or the president of the United States.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t commit to implementing drastic IDF reforms recommended by the Locker Commission.
The IDF is up in arms over the commission findings, which call for massive budget cuts in the military. The army has produced its own reorganization plan, which it suggests as an alternative to the Locker findings.
“[Commission chief] Yohanan Locker did excellent work, but the IDF also did important work,” Netanyahu says. “I will study both reports and then make a decision.”
The Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institute says the wave of jellyfish that plagues Israel’s shores every year is finally receding for the summer.
Jellyfish have entirely vanished from beaches south of Haifa, and in the Achziv area there are now isolated appearances, the institute says. But it warns that there are still high concentrations of the stinging marine animals in the Haifa area.
Turkey’s Criminal Court of Peace in Ankara gives the go-ahead to the country’s state-run internet watchdog, the Telecommunications Directorate, to block 96 Kurdish and left-wing websites on the grounds that they are promulgating terrorist propaganda.
The Directorate’s list includes websites which it says promote organizations such as the Islamic State, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), the Turkish news website Hurriyet Daily reports.
An elementary school in the recognized Bedouin village of al-Sayyid is now connected to the national electricity grid, after more than four decades and multiple High Court petitions, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.
The school has been using an unreliable generator that led to many power cuts and missed school days, Haaretz says.
Four more schools are due to be connected to the grid in the coming weeks.
Mike Huckabee fires back at Barack Obama for criticizing the Republican presidential hopeful’s comparison between the Iran nuclear agreement and the Holocaust.
“What’s ‘ridiculous and sad’ is that President Obama does not take Iran’s repeated threats seriously. For decades, Iranian leaders have pledged to ‘destroy,’ annihilate,’ and ‘wipe Israel off the map’ with a ‘big Holocaust,’” says Huckabee.
“‘Never again’ will be the policy of my administration and I will stand with our ally Israel to prevent the terrorists in Tehran from achieving their own stated goal of another Holocaust,” he adds.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat says that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has no plans to resign in the coming months, according to Israel Radio.
The Israeli media attacks the PA on a regular basis, says Erekat, and the PA is used to this.
Channel 1 said Sunday that Abbas was planning to quit by September, attributing the decision to “fatigue.”
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warns that a military campaign by Ankara could “change the balance” in the region, as Turkish tanks shell Kurdish-held villages in northern Syria.
Ankara has called an extraordinary NATO meeting for tomorrow over its cross-border “anti-terror” offensive against Kurdish separatists and Islamic State jihadists.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg defends Turkey’s right to defend itself but tells the BBC “of course self-defense has to be proportionate.”
— AFP
Barack Obama might be fighting other heads of state for the headline spot at the UN General Assembly in September, as the presidents of China, Russia and Iran also announce they will be speaking.
According to the United Nations’ first draft list of speakers, this year’s GA could be the largest ever gathering of world leaders.
Pope Francis is addressing the General Assembly a few days before Obama, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping of China, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
The Iranian nuclear deal is expected to be a key topic in speeches this year.
Arab League foreign ministers are planning to meet in Cairo early next month to discuss clashes involving Israel Police at the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem, senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat says.
Erekat tells reporters in Bethlehem that representatives from 15 Arab states will meet on August 5, at the request of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, to discuss what he calls the “dangerous development” in Jerusalem.
— AFP
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is reportedly appealing a request by three judges to launch a new war crimes investigation into the 2010 IDF raid on the Mavi Marmara boat bound for Gaza, in which 10 people on board were killed.
Amichai Stein, the deputy editor of Israel’s Channel 1 television, posts an image on Twitter apparently showing Bensouda’s request to reverse the judges’ decision.
#BREAKING: #ICC #Bensouda appeals decision "requesting" she reconsider new #MaviMarmara investigation.RT @kaufman_law pic.twitter.com/tMY98AZ4Ro
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) July 27, 2015
The Palestinian presidency slams what it calls recent violations by Israel, warning that settlement construction and several recent killings could force the Palestinian Authority to take “serious decisions,” the official news agency Wafa reports.
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah says that raids on the al-Aqsa Mosque, daily killings of Palestinian civilians and continued settlement construction will force the Palestinian leadership to act.
Former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld comes out against the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
“Releasing Pollard was a bad idea in 1998 & 2001. It is not a better idea today,” writes Rumsfeld on Twitter.
He links the release to the Iran deal, which the Obama administration denies, writing: “Releasing spy Jonathan Pollard doesn’t make the #IranDeal any less of a disaster for Israel & the free world.”
Jerusalem hails a decision by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, to appeal an order for her to reconsider her decision to close her probe into the 2010 Mavi Marmara affair.
“The ICC never had any business to deal with this event to begin with,” an Israeli official says. “Israel acted out of self-defense according to international law.”
Ten activists on board the Gaza-bound boat died in clashes with Israel Defense Forces troops after the Israeli soldiers were attacked during an operation to divert the boat. The incident was probed by an Israeli committee with the participation of international observers, the official notes.
— Raphael Ahren
The teenage cancer patient who fled the hospital in Haifa agrees to return tomorrow for chemotherapy, following mediation between his family and the medical center, Channel 2 reports.
The 16-year-old, who is ultra-Orthodox, had released a video expressing his opposition to the treatment and asking to die “with dignity.”
Benjamin Netanyahu will be attending and speaking at the UN General Assembly in September, sources in the Prime Minister’s Office tell The Times of Israel.
He will be joining other world leaders, among them Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis, who are also giving speeches at the annual gathering.
— Raphael Ahren
Former US senator Joe Lieberman is pressuring top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer to block the Iran nuclear deal.
Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew who was a vice-presidential candidate in 2000, tells a New York radio station that “Chuck is the key” to blocking the deal. Schumer also is Jewish.
“I just can’t believe Chuck Schumer will support this,” says Lieberman on New York radio show “The Cats Roundtable,” according to The Hill website. “How can you make a deal with somebody who says they want to kill you?”
— JTA
Seven former US diplomats and State Department officials send a letter to leaders in Congress urging them to support the nuclear deal with Iran.
Former ambassadors to Israel — James Cunningham, William Harrop, Daniel Kurtzer, Thomas Pickering and Edward Walker Jr. — are signatories, as is R. Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state for political affairs and ambassador to NATO, and Frank Wisner, former undersecretary of state for international security affairs and undersecretary of defense for policy.
“No agreement between multiple parties can be perfect or without risks,” the letter states. “We believe that without this agreement, however, the risks will be much higher for the United States and Israel. We see no fatal flaws that should call for the rejection of this agreement and have not heard any viable alternatives from those who oppose the implementation” of the deal.
— AP
The United States ranks Israel in the top tier of countries in the fight against human trafficking in its annual report.
There are some 30 nations in Tier 1, including the US, UK, Denmark, France, Germany and Ireland. These nations, the report states, “fully comply with the TVPA’s [Trafficking Victims Protection Act] minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”
Among Israel’s neighbors, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon are placed in Tier 2 and Syria is in Tier 3.
A delegation of 115 businessmen from the West Bank is heading to the Gaza Strip next week, says Ma’an, quoting the Palestinian Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (PFCCIA).
Spokesman Khalil Rizq says that the delegation comprises senior officials from the West Bank private sector, who aim to enhance “economic and commercial cooperation” between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Fourteen Palestinians are hurt following clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank, after the funeral for a youth killed earlier today by IDF fire, Israel Radio reports.
Palestinian sources say six of the wounded in the clashes at the Qalandiya refugee camp have been hit by live fire and the others by rubber bullets.
The sources also say that dozens of people are suffering from the effects of tear gas used by the IDF.
Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee takes aim at Hillary Clinton, slamming her for criticizing his earlier comments comparing the Iran deal to the Holocaust.
“You finally come out of hiding to attack me for defending Israel? What’s ‘unacceptable’ is a mushroom cloud over Israel,” writes Huckabee on Twitter, in a message that includes Clinton’s Twitter handle.
.@HillaryClinton: You finally come out of hiding to attack me for defending Israel? What's "unacceptable" is a mushroom cloud over Israel.
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 27, 2015
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