Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared he will try to defeat an expected US-Iran nuclear agreement, even as top American envoy John Kerry and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held another meeting in Munich. Zarif sounded hopeful about progress in the talks, but said negotiations shouldn’t extend beyond the March deadline.
But Netanyahu continued to take fire from American Jewish groups for his plans to address Congress on March 3, with the president of the Union for Reform Judaism urging the prime minister to call off the speech. The Prime Minister said he would go anywhere to make the case against Iran’s nuclear program. The Times of Israel live-blogged events as they develop.
The US State Department characterizes Sunday’s nuclear talks between Mohammad Javad Zarif and John Kerry as “constructive.”
Iranian officials signal a willingness to come to an agreement, with Foreign Minister Zarif telling a gathering of the world’s top diplomats and defense officials that “this is the opportunity.”
A screen capture of US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif walking through Geneva, Switzerland, during P5+1 talks on January 14, 2015. (screen capture: YouTube)
— AP
Brig. Gen. Moni Katz, commander of IDF’s Division 91, will present his investigation into the deadly Hezbollah strike on the northern border in late January, the Walla news site reports.
Katz will submit his findings to Gen. Aviv Kochavi, commander of the Northern Command.
Two Israeli military vehicles seen burning after being hit in a strike claimed by Hezbollah along the Lebanese border on January 28, 2015. (Screen capture: Channel 2)
The report is expected to say that the fact the soldiers were traveling in an unarmored vehicle actually saved lives, because the Hezbollah Kornet missile passed through the vehicle instead of detonating inside. An officer and another soldier were killed in the attack, but the three soldiers in the back, who were lightly injured, would also have been killed if they were in an armored vehicle, the investigation finds.
Soldiers in other vehicles in the convoy were also able to jump out of their vehicles quickly because they were not armored, according to the report.
French police detain six people suspected of recruiting potential jihadists, just days after another operation saw five charged on similar grounds, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says.
Cazeneuve says in a statement that anti-terrorism magistrates in Paris had ordered Sunday’s raid following a probe opened in January last year into “conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and financing of terrorism.”
A source close to the probe says five people are held in the southern city of Albi and another in the southwest of France.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve at the European Council in Brussels, on December 5, 2014. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO/Emmanuel Dunand)
All in their 30s, they are suspected of handling questionable money transfers and having recruited candidates to wage jihad.
Investigators are also looking to see if some of the suspects went to Syria, said the source, who wished to remain anonymous.
“This new raid takes place five days after the detention for similar motives of eight people in the Paris and Lyon (southeast) regions, of whom five were charged on Saturday, and four remanded in custody,” Cazeneuve says in his statement.
— AFP
Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi condemns the takeover of the Yemeni government by a Shiite militia as a “coup” that would trigger more violence in the troubled member state.
On Friday, the Houthi militia, which has controlled the capital Sanaa since last September, dissolved the government and parliament, and installed a presidential council, throwing the divided country into further disarray.
Houthi Shiite Yemenis hold their weapons during a rally to show support for their comrades in Sanaa, Yemen, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015 (photo credit: AP/Hani Mohammed)
The Houthis’ decree establishing transitional bodies outside the framework of a UN-brokered dialogue, was a “coup against constitutional legitimacy to impose that group’s will at gunpoint,” Arabi says in a statement.
The move by the Shiite militia, which has caused alarm among Yemen’s mostly Sunni Gulf Arab neighbours, would lead to “an increase in divisions and violence,” he adds.
Yemen’s Western-backed president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi had been under virtual house arrest since the Huthis seized the presidential palace and key government buildings last month, prompting him to tender his resignation to parliament.
— AFP
A speech by Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett causes dozens of Arab students to walk out in protest.
Bennett was speaking at an Education Ministry conference on empowering the citizen. The students walk out after Bennett says that he will demand that a member of his party helm the Public Security Ministry in the next government, and that Jews in the Negev are afraid of having their property stolen by Arabs.
Bennett remains defiant after the incident, saying to applause, “I think you learned a lesson today in free speech. Nothing will silence me.”
Envoys from the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia are pressing for a resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians “as soon as possible.”
The so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators met today at an international security conference in Germany. The group was long sidelined in peacemaking efforts, even as US-mediated peace talks aimed at a two-state solution collapsed last year.
A statement from the group calls on both sides “to refrain from actions that undermine trust or prejudge final status issues.” It says it’s important to address the “acute fiscal challenges” faced by the Palestinians and that the pace of reconstruction in Gaza needs to be stepped up.
The commander of Jordan’s air force, General Mansour al-Jabbar, tells reporters in Amman that coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State have destroyed 20% of the terrorist groups operational ability, and have killed 7,000 fighters.
He also says that Jordan has carried out 56 airstrikes in the last three days against IS, and has carried out 946 sorties in total.
A Jordanian Air Force fighter jet flies over the village of Ai as Jordanian King Abdullah II visits to offer his condolences to the tribe of the slain Jordanian pilot, Lt. Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh at their home village near Karak, Jordan, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. (photo credit: AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox men demonstrate in Jerusalem against attempts to draft them into the IDF.
Police make four arrests.
Police dealing with disturbances in the center of Haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem. 4 people arrested until now. Police units at the scene.
— Micky Rosenfeld (@MickyRosenfeld) February 8, 2015
The US ambassador to Lebanon says that $25 million worth of weapons and ammunition have arrived in Beirut, the latest American assistance to Lebanon’s army as it fights Islamic extremists along the border with Syria.
Ambassador David Hale says the equipment includes more than 70 M198 howitzers and over 26 million rounds of ammunition and artillery “of all shapes and sizes, including heavy artillery.”
Lebanese and American officials attend a handover ceremony at Beirut’s port.
US Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale, center, speaks to journalists during a handover ceremony of US weapons to the Lebanese army at Beirut’s port in Lebanon on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015. (photo credit: AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
“We are very proud of this and this is top-of-the-line equipment. This is the best that there is in the marketplace. It’s what our soldiers use,” Hale says. “I know that in a matter of days it’s going to be what your brave soldiers are using in the battle to defeat terrorism and extremism that is pouring across the border from Syria.”
— AP
An IDF officer is lightly to moderately injured by a rock hurled at him on the Trans-Samaria Highway, Route 465. The incident took place near the Palestinian village of Dir Nizam.
The officer is treated on the scene and evacuated to the Hadassah-Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem.
A Beirut-based cleric is surprising the public by spreading messages of peace and nonviolence in Hebrew on social media.
“We call on rabbis, priests and Muslim clerics — both Sunni and Shia — to underplay religious traditions and texts that call for violence, since they are more dangerous than nuclear weapons,” writes Sayyed Muhammad Ali Husseini, secretary general of the Shiite group the Arabic Islamic Council, in Hebrew on his Facebook page Sunday.
This was not the first time that Husseini directly addressed an Israeli audience. On January 19, he posted a video on Facebook directed at “our cousins, the children of Isaac son of Abraham.”
“We believe that not all Jews are bad [just as] not all Muslims are terrorists. Let us cousins put our conflicts aside and stay away from evil and hatred. Let us unite in peace and love,” he said in broken Hebrew.
Elhanan Miller brings us the full story.
US Secretary of State John Kerry rules out extending a March 31 deadline for Iran nuclear talks unless the basic framework of an agreement is hammered out, speaking in an interview aired Sunday.
“The only chance I can see of an extension at this point in time would be that you really have the outlines of the agreement,” Kerry says in the interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” taped Saturday in Munich.
US Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks during a panel discussion during the third day of the 51st Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, southern Germany, on February 8, 2015. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO / POOL / JIM WATSON)
— AFP
Warning sirens sound in the West Bank settlement Eli after a possible infiltration, Israel National News reports.
IDF forces are sweeping the area. More details to come.
Zionist Camp head Isaac Herzog releases a video attacking Netanyahu over Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip last summer.
“For years Hamas digs tunnels under our communities around Gaza, and what did you do? You waited, wavered, hesitated…You had to hit them hard, on time,” Herzog charges.
“Our sons showed great bravery, but you failed,” he says.
Labor leader Isaac Herzog in a screen capture from the clip in which he challenges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a pre-election debate. (photo credit: Screen capture, Zionist Camp Facebook page)
A US Marine who vanished from a base in Iraq and later wound up in Lebanon is set to face trial more than a decade after the puzzling case began.
Cpl. Wassef Hassoun’s court martial on desertion and other charges starts Monday at Camp Lejeune. Defense attorneys maintain that he was kidnapped in 2004 by insurgents and that later, after briefly returning to the US, he became tangled up in Lebanese courts for years.
Prosecutors say Hassoun fled his post in Iraq because he was unhappy with his deployment and didn’t like how US troops treated Iraqis. However, a September report from the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing acknowledges that prosecutors could have a hard time proving their largely circumstantial case because of the difficulty in tracking down witnesses.
This June 27, 2004, file image from a video broadcast by the Al-Jazeera network, shows a man identified as US Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. (photo credit: AP Photo/ Al-Jazeera via APTN)
The case began when Hassoun went missing from a base in Fallujah in June 2004. Days later, he appeared blindfolded and with a sword poised above his head in a photo purportedly taken by insurgents. An extremist group claimed to be holding him captive.
Not long after that, Hassoun turned up unharmed at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, saying he’d been kidnapped. But officials were suspicious, and he was brought back to Camp Lejeune while the military considered charging him with desertion and counts related to a pistol and Humvee he’s accused of taking.
Hassoun’s case occupies some of the same murky territory as that of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier who left his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years. The Army is considering what, if any charges or punishment Bergdahl should face.
— AP
Iran’s supreme leader says he would rather see talks with world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program fail than reach a “bad deal,” as both sides speak out against extending the negotiations.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments come US Secretary of State John Kerry met Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Germany to ratchet up efforts for a lasting nuclear accord.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivering a speech on the 25th anniversary of the death of the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, at his mausoleum in a suburb of Tehran on June 4, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/HO/Iranian Supreme Leader’s website)
“I agree with a deal that can take place but I do not agree with a bad deal,” the Iranian leader says, according to the Khamenei.ir website.
“The Americans keep reiterating that it’s better to have no deal than a bad one. I fully agree with that,” he says.
“It’s better to have no agreement than one that goes against our national interests.”
— AFP
A Palestinian throws a Molotov cocktail at the tomb of Simeon the Just in East Jerusalem. The firebomb strikes the stairs of the site, and causes no damage or injuries, Israel National News reports.
Simeon the Just was a High Priest during the Second Temple period.
The High Court of Justice rules that the state must demolish nine homes in Ofra in the West Bank, as they are built on private Palestinian land, news site Ynet reports.
The three justices, led by Asher Grunis, give the state two years to carry out the orders.
A man waves a Palestinian flag waves near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, near Ramallah (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)
A jar mailed to the Prime Minister’s Office has been found by firefighters and hazardous materials teams to contain no dangerous chemicals.
The jar was sent in a package with radioactive markings, the Ynet news site reports.
Police are investigating the case.
A squadron of warplanes from the United Arab Emirates arrives in Jordan to help the kingdom in its fight against the Islamic State group, state media reports.
The F-16 fighter jets are deployed at a Jordanian air base along with UAE pilots and technicians, says the kingdom’s official Petra news agency.
In this image made from undated video provided by Jordanian military via Jordan TV, explosions go off as the military carried out airstrikes at an undisclosed location in Syria against the Islamic State. (photo credit: AP/Jordanian military via Jordan TV)
Jordan and the UAE are part of the US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against IS since last year.
Squadron chief Saeed Hassan telss Petra the newly arrived UAE team “stands ready to carry out any mission in coordination with the Jordanian armed forces.”
C-17 transporters and refueling planes are part of the squadron sent to Jordan on the orders of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan as a show of solidarity.
“The initiative… reaffirms the UAE’s unwavering and constant solidarity with Jordan and its leading role and immense sacrifices for the security and stability of the region as embodied by martyr and hero Moaz al-Kasasbeh,” the UAE state news agency WAM says.
— AFP
Israel’s ambassador to the US Ron Dermer is arriving in Israel tonight to discuss with Netanyahu the Prime Minister’s controversial upcoming address to a joint session of the US Congress. Democrats may stay away from the speech, which would represent a major blow to the PM, and would give ample ammunition to rivals weeks before the elections.
Shas party leader Aryeh Deri will recommend after elections to President Rivlin that Netanyahu be prime minister again, Channel 2 reports.
Shas leader Aryeh Deri arrives at the party’s Jerusalem headquarters, January 12, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
“Everyone knows” Benjamin Netanyahu will be the next prime minister, Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett tells Channel 2.
Israel’s attempts to build a security zone on the Golan Heights will fail because “of popular resistance in the area, just as it failed in Lebanon thanks to Hezbollah,” says Syria Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, the Ynet news site reports.
Muallem makes his comments to the Arabic-language Iranian channel Al-Alam.
“Hezbollah’s cooperation in the fight against terrorism in Syria is one of the organization’s smartest decisions,” adds Muallem.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem (photo credit: CC-BY Foreign and Commonwealth office/Flickr)
After last week’s meeting with Arab heads of regional councils, President Reuven Rivlin launches a new project with the Collective Impact initiative to further the level of employment in Israel’s Arab communities.
CEOs from leading Israeli companies, including Amdocs, Deloitte, and Strauss participate in the meeting, according to a statement released by the President’s office.
President Reuven Rivlin meets with Israeli business leaders on the issue of Arab employment (photo credit: Mark Neyman/GPO)
The President is presented with a comprehensive study, which includes interviews with CEOs, senior managers, and human resource professionals from around fifty of Israel’s leading companies, including; The Strauss Group; Amdocs; Fattal; Check Point; Herzog Fox Neeman; Shikun & Binui; Teva; HP; Migdal; and Matrix.
Among the findings:
The UN envoy to Yemen has returned to Sanaa and resumed contacts with major political players to find a way out of a deepening crisis caused by a Shiite rebel takeover, participants in the talks say.
Jamal Benomar had left suddenly for Saudi Arabia last week, where he is believed to have held consultations with visiting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He returned to Sanaa late Saturday and held meetings with all the main political factions, including leaders of the ruling Revolutionary Committee set up by the rebels, known as Houthis.
Supporters of Houthi Shiite stand for the national anthem during a rally in support of the Houthis at a sports stadium in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015. (photo credit: AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
The Houthis are under mounting pressure following their decision on Friday to dissolve parliament, which cemented their takeover less than five months after they seized the capital, Sanaa. Late Saturday, the party of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh — the Houthis’ main ally — added its voice to the growing opposition to the takeover and called for a return to the dialogue moderated by Benomar.
On Sunday, provincial leaders in Maarib east of Sanaa decide that they would resist any attempt by the Houthis to seize the energy-rich province east of Sanaa. The Houthis have been preparing a campaign to capture the province, but the emergence of a strong tribal alliance there as well as a heavy presence by al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen have dissuaded them from pressing ahead.
A statement by the province’s so-called security commission, on which the governor and the local police and military chiefs sit, says it views Sanaa as an “occupied” city and that the province will resist the “coup’s policies.”
— AP
A senior aide to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas takes the stand in the trial of exiled Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, who is being tried in absentia on corruption charges.
The trial of Dahlan, once a leading figure in Abbas’s Fatah movement who headed Gaza’s powerful security forces, began in December.
The former security chief, who was expelled from Fatah in 2011 and now lives in the United Arab Emirates, has not been in court for any of the hearings in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Mohammad Dahlan (left), leave a news conference in Egypt, in February 2007. (photo credit: AP/Amr Nabil)
According to his legal team, the 53-year-old is on trial in connection with the alleged misuse of $17 million (15 million euros) in expenses.
In an appearance before the court, the head of Abbas’s office, Hussein al-Araj, says he had not seen any documentation justifying how the money had been used by Dahlan.
Asked if he had asked Dahlan for paperwork to justify the expenses, he says: “No, and I don’t know if anyone else asked this either.”
Araj’s testimony was dismissed as “empty” by Sevag Torossian of Dahlan’s defense team, who said it would now be necessary for Abbas himself to testify.
“In calling Araj to testify, the court has used up its last fall guy and now it must face the consequences,” he tells AFP, suggesting that Araj had testified in a bid to avoid Abbas being called to the stand.
“In his testimony, Araj said he didn’t see or hear anything (relating to Dahlan’s use of funds) so now I want to hear Abbas’s testimony because apparently he is the only one who would know what happened,” Torossian says.
— AFP
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira says he will not involve himself in the controversy over V15, the grassroots outreach organization seeking “change in the government.”
Shapira says there is not enough evidence at this point justifying his involvement, Channel 10 reports.
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira attends a a State Control committee meeting at the Knesset on June 02, 2014. (photo credit: Flash90)
The joint Herzog-Livni ticket came under fire by the Likud last week after party officials alleged the Zionist Camp party had ties to the grassroots movement funded by foreign backers, a potential violation of election laws.
V15, short for “Victory 2015,” describes itself on its website as “a supra-party movement that was established by a group of young Israelis along with the announcement of elections” in December of last year. Its aim is to “change the dispiriting reality” in Israel and “take Israel to a new path.
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