Joshua Davidovich is The Times of Israel's Deputy Editor
The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they unfolded.
Jewish extremist Meir Ettinger can’t leave prison for his newborn son’s ritual circumcision later today, the Supreme Court rules, upholding a decision Sunday by the Beersheba District Court.
However, the court rules he can hold the brit milah behind prison walls with the participation of 15 family members. An earlier offer by the Prisons Service to have the rite performed there was rejected by the family.
The court says Ettinger poses a threat and therefore cannot be granted furlough, according to Channel 10 news.
Ettinger, the grandson of extremist rabbi Meir Kahane and thought to have been the head of a loose-knit group of Jewish terrorists, has been held since August under administrative detention but not charged.
French President Francois Hollande is promising that a massive leak of documents exposing the offshore dealings of wealthy individuals will lead to legal proceedings in France.
“All the information revealed will lead to investigations brought by the tax authorities and to legal proceedings,” Hollande says.
He thanks “the whistleblowers” for bringing the so-called Panama Papers to light.
“It’s good news that we are aware of these revelations because it will bring in tax revenue from those who have defrauded,” Hollande says.
The president said that in 2015, French individuals were found to have hidden 20 billion euros ($22.7 billion) from French tax authorities and the state “has already clawed back 12 billion euros,” although those cases were not linked to the Panama Papers.
Some 600 Israeli companies and 850 Israeli shareholders are also listed in the 11.5 million documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, according to Haaretz. There has not been any word yet on Israeli legal proceedings.
— with AFP
Iraqi officials say a suicide attack south of Baghdad has killed at least 14 people.
A police officer says the suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday inside a restaurant in Dhi Qar province that is frequented by Shiite paramilitary militia fighters.
He adds that at least 27 others were wounded in the attack that targeted a famous restaurant on the main highway that links Baghdad with the southern provinces.
A medical official confirms the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.
The attack comes hours after two separate suicide bombings outside Baghdad killed at least 10 troops.
— AP
President Reuven Rivlin says he is willing to meet Palestinian Authority counterpart Mahmoud Abbas, days after Abbas tells Israeli TV he is against knife attacks and is willing to reengage in peace efforts.
Rivlin, speaking at a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek, says he was somewhat heartened by Abbas’s interview to Channel 2 news magazine “Uvda.”
He says however that Abbas needs to back up his words by distancing himself from fundamentalists who would prefer to see a temporary agreement that allows for the future destruction of Israel, like Hamas.
“We need to find a way to build trust between us,” he says. “I am ready to meet with [Abbas] with whatever coordination with the Israeli government of course.”
Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek meeting with Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem on April 4, 2016. Mark Neyman/GPO)
In an interview aired Thursday, Abbas said Netanyahu is “the partner” for peace, and called on the prime minister to meet with him “at any time.”
“I want to see peace in my lifetime,” he said.
“I still extend a hand to Mr. Netanyahu because I believe in peace. I believe that the people of Israel want peace and that the Palestinian people want peace,” he said. “Either we, the politicians, will do it, or we can leave it to the people. They’ll do it within a week.”
The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin says the strongman is the “main target” of the media investigation into offshore accounts, but that he was not implicated in any wrongdoing.
The documents published by more than 100 media outlets allege that Putin’s friends, including a leading cellist, were engaged in an offshore scheme.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov says “it’s obvious that the main target of such attacks is our president,” and claimed that the publication was aimed at influencing Russia’s stability and parliamentary elections scheduled for September.
Peskov says international media had wrongly focused on Putin instead of other world politicians, even though he was not implicated in any wrongdoing, and suggests the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a key player in the publication, has ties to the US government.
— AP
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will travel to Iran next week for a two-day trip that will make him the first major international figure to visit since the lifting of sanctions against Tehran.
Renzi’s office says in a statement Monday that the center-left leader would visit the Islamic Republic on April 12-13, without giving further details of his itinerary.
Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy, arrives for a working dinner at the White House March 31, 2016 in Washington, DC. (AFP / Olivier Douliery)
Italy has led the way among European countries in re-establishing economic ties to Iran following the lifting of international sanctions imposed over concerns the country was seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capacity.
An accord to lift the sanctions was agreed last year and came into force in January.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, right, gestures next to Italy’s Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni as they attend an Iran-Italy business forum in Rome on January 26, 2016. (AFP / ANDREAS SOLARO)
Renzi’s trip follows Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Italy and France at the end of January — a trip which resulted in a string of major trade and investment deals being signed between Tehran and the two European countries.
— AFP
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wrapped up a meeting with a delegation of US congresspeople, including House Speaker Paul Ryan.
In a terse statement, the PMO says the bipartisan delegation “expressed strong support for Israel.”
Speaking to The Times of Israel on Sunday, Ryan said he chose to visit Israel now “to reinforce our alliance” and to underline his conviction that the US-Israel partnership should and will grow stronger in the future.
He also rebuffed rumors he could be a compromise Republican nominee for president.
On Sunday, Netanyahu’s office denied he had told a Democratic senator he was concerned by anti-Muslim rhetoric in the US Republican presidential nomination campaign, saying Jerusalem took pains to stay out of US politics.
Police say two people are being treated for moderate injuries after a fire sweeps through the crowded Jerusalem neighborhood of Me’a Shearim.
The two victims are both in their 70s and suffering from smoke inhalation, according to Ynet.
A statement says several homes are damaged by the fire and one roof has collapsed, with the possibility of people trapped inside.
Police have closed off Avodat Yisrael street, according to reports.
Greek authorities say the 202 migrants and refugees who had not applied for asylum in Greece and were returned to Turkey Monday from Greek islands included people from several countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Congo.
Migrants get on a ferry for Turkey at the port of Mytilini in the Greek island of Lesbos, Monday, April 4, 2016, during the first day of the implementation of a deal between EU and Turkey.(AP/Petros Giannakouris)
The Greek civil protection ministry said 136 people — 135 men and one woman — were returned from the island of Lesbos. They included 124 people from Pakistan, three from Bangladesh, one from Iraq, two from India, four from Sri Lanka and two Syrians. The Syrians had asked to be sent back themselves, the ministry said.
Another 66 — 56 men and 10 women — were returned from the nearby island of Chios, including 42 Afghans, 10 Iranians, six Pakistanis, five people from Congo and one person each from India, Somalia and Ivory Coast.
— AP
An investigative report published by CNN shows the extent of the European terror network set up by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, thought to be the mastermind behind the November 13, 2015, Paris attacks that left 130 dead.
People pay their respects in front of a makeshift memorial at the entrance of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, on May 25, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/GEORGES GOBET)
According to the report, In January 2014, just before Abaaoud left his Brussels home for Syria, he spoke over the phone with Mehdi Nemmouche, at the time an Islamic State jailer in Syria who would months later kill four people in a shooting attack in Belgium.
The contents of the call are not known.
The report, citing documents obtained by the cable news outlet, details that German intelligence tipped off France about Nemmouche entering Frankfurt in March, but he still managed to steal into Belgium to carry out the attack.
An Israeli couple, a French woman and a Belgian man were killed in the May 24, 2014, shooting attack. Nemmouche was captured in France days later and is awaiting trial.
Rebuffing the prison’s offer to have a circumcision behind bars, the son of jailed Jewish extremist Meir Ettinger has his tip snipped at a synagogue in Jerusalem instead.
Ettinger had appealed to the Supreme Court to be allowed furlough to attend the rite, but was rejected.
Hundreds attend the ceremony.
The circumcision of Netzach Binyamin Ettinger in Jerusalem on April 4, 2016. (Ari Abramowitz/courtesy)
His son is named Netzach Binyamin.
Binyamin Zeev Kahane, Ettinger’s uncle, was killed by Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank in 2000.
Unions for Air France cabin crew hold talks with management after several female crew members opposed an order to wear a headscarf in Iran, when flights to Tehran resume on April 17.
Flore Arrighi of the Unac union says before the meeting that she was expecting the airline’s head of human resources, Gilles Gateau, to come up with proposals to end the row.
The unions say company chiefs sent staff an internal memo saying that female cabin crew will be required to wear trousers during the flight with a loose fitting jacket and that they must put on a scarf covering their hair when they leave the plane.
The headscarf rule is already in place when flying to certain destinations, such as Saudi Arabia.
But the union says it wants the Tehran flights to be staffed on a voluntary basis and that any staff who refuse to fly to Iran due to the headscarf rule will not have pay deducted and the refusal will not be noted on their professional record.
Caroline Rolland of the CGT union says if Air France refused the unions’ proposals, cabin crew members will bend the rules by taking the day off claiming they have a sick child, or that they themselves are ill. In that case they would lose a day’s salary.
“That’s the price to pay for refusing,” she says.
— AFP
Benjamin Netanyahu reiterates his willingness to meet PA President Mahmoud Abbas, responding to a television interview the Palestinian leader gave last week.
“I’m inviting him, again. I’ll clear my schedule this week, any day he can come, I will be here,” Netanyahu says at a meeting with Czech FM Lubomír Zaorálek.
We have a lot to discuss, Netanyahu adds, first and foremost ways to end Palestinian incitement against Israelis.
“My door is always open for those who want to pursue peace with Israel,” he says.
Earlier in the day, President Reuven Rivlin also said he was willing to meet with Abbas.
“We must find a way to build confidence between us,” Rivlin said in a meeting with Zaorálek. “I will meet him with the understanding of the Israeli government of course.”
In an interview aired last week, Abbas told Israeli television he was willing to meet Netanyahu to reach a peace agreement.
“I still extend a hand to Mr. Netanyahu because I believe in peace. I believe that the people of Israel want peace and that the Palestinian people want peace,” he said.
— with Raphael Ahren
Police say they have arrested a Palestinian man who admitted to planning to run over Israeli soldiers in a suicide attack.
The man, identified by police only as a 23-year-old Ramallah resident, was arrested in the central West Bank Sunday after being stopped with a stolen car at a pop-up checkpoint.
During interrogation, the man said he had planned to use the car to run over soldiers and become a martyr “because of the occupation of Palestinian land,” but was caught off guard by police at the checkpoint, according to a police statement.
He has been transferred to Ofer Prison outside Ramallah, police say. It is not clear if he has been arraigned.
The Foreign Ministry says it has secured the release of the body of an Israeli tourist who died last week while hiking in Peru, after authorities in Lima apparently dropped their demand for an autopsy.
Shira Roth, 21, from Ma’ale Adumim, was traveling in the South American country with a friend and and the friend’s mother when she reportedly fell ill after taking part in a trek to a mountain almost five kilometers high.
Shira Roth of Jerusalem, who died in Peru after suffering altitude sickness (Facebook)
“Following work by Israeli envoy to Peru Ehud Eitam and the consular division of the foreign ministry, the body of Shira Roth will be released and fly tonight from Lima,” a statement from the Foreign Ministry reads.
Roth died while on a bus on a way to a hospital after apparently suffering altitude sickness during a three-day trek in the Huaraz region.
Local authorities had demanded an autopsy, which Israel and her family refused, according to Israeli reports.
“We see the current handling of the situation by the Peruvians as unacceptable, even outrageous. There is a limit to how much a grieving family can wait,” a Foreign Ministry official told Ynet on Sunday.
An Emirati court has sentenced three Lebanese, including a Canadian dual national, to six months in prison for forming a local affiliate of Iran-backed Hezbollah, local media says.
The supreme federal court convicted the trio of “forming a group for the terrorist Hezbollah (movement) in the country,” Ittihad daily reports, adding that they will be deported after serving their sentences.
They “were found guilty of setting up an office of the militant group in the UAE and carrying out commercial, economic and political activities without licenses,” the daily Gulf News reports.
It names the men as Canadian-Lebanese Suhail Naif Gareeb, 62, and Lebanese nationals Asaad Ameen Qansouh, 66, and Ahmed Ebrahim Qansouh, 30.
— AFP
Palestinian officials claim that Israelis gave them no prior warning of a power cut to Bethlehem Monday, saying they were only told about pending power cuts to Ramallah and al-Bireh, according to the Ma’an news agency.
Israel cut some power to Bethlehem earlier in the day. It’s scheduled to come back online at 6, as part of a measure meant to pressure the PA and Palestinian power provider to pay a massive debt to the Israel Electric Corporation.
Bethlehem Mayor Issam Juha tells Ma’an that the municipality was not warned that the cut would take place.
The IEC says that the Palestinian authorities have racked up a debt of 1.74 billion shekels ($460 million). Israel has thus far continued to provide electricity out of concern for the Palestinian population. But the company said it could no longer absorb the debt and was taking measures to stop it from growing further.
It says it will continue to cut power in other places over the next two weeks.
— with AP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at the West for giving Turkey “lessons in democracy” amid mounting US and EU criticism over an alleged clampdown on press freedoms under his rule.
“Those who attempt to give us lessons in democracy and human rights must first contemplate their own shame,” Erdogan tells a meeting of the Turkish Red Crescent in Ankara.
His comments come after US President Barack Obama said Turkey’s approach towards the media was taking it “down a path that would be very troubling.”
Erdogan’s government has been accused of increasing authoritarianism and muzzling critical media as well as lawmakers, academics, lawyers and NGOs.
— AFP
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is taking flak for comments she made earlier in the day bashing the High Court for all but striking down the government’s deal with an international consortium seeking to extract natural gas from offshore fields.
Former justice minister and current Zionist Union number 2 Tzipi Livni accuses Shaked of severely harming the justice system with her statement.
“Shaked drew a sword and plunged it into the court,” Livni says at a legal conference. “The sword was not drawn because of the decision on the gas, but because the High Court continues to protect its values and its independence.”
On Facebook, Shaked says that those who claim to want to defend democracy want to shut her up, which itself is undemocratic.
Earlier, former Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich called for Netanyahu to fire Shaked over the comments.
Air France has decided to allow female flight attendants to refuse to work the company’s new route to Iran, for which they must wear a headscarf.
The French national carrier’s management met with unions worried that female cabin crew could be disciplined if they declined to work the flight.
Air France cabin crew (Courtesy)
The company will introduce an exception so that employees who don’t want to work on the Paris-Tehran route will be reassigned on other destinations with no sanctions.
Air France plans to start three flights weekly between Paris and Tehran beginning April 17.
A note sent to female cabin crew employees requires them to wear a headscarf on their arrival in Tehran. They must also wear the uniform’s long-sleeved jacket and trousers, rather than a knee-length dress.
— AP
Israeli and Turkish officials will meet later this week in Europe to work toward a detente agreement, Israel’s Channel 10 reports.
The meeting is scheduled for Thursday between Israeli special envoy Joseph Ciechanover and senior Turkish diplomat Feridun Sinirlioğlu, according to the report, which does not name a location.
Officials in Jerusalem and Ankara have recently ramped up efforts to reconcile after several years of chilly ties. A bombing in Istanbul last month, which killed three Israelis and wounded several more, also deepened cooperation between the two former allies.
Talks over detente were held earlier this year in Switzerland. The sides are reportedly stuck over demands for Israel to ease its blockade on Gaza and for Turkey to stop acting as a safe haven for Hamas.
Israel has halted the import of cement and other building materials after realizing they were being diverted to the Hamas terrorist organization, the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories says.
An undisclosed amount of cement, which was intended for the rebuilding effort of the beleaguered Gaza Strip, was “taken by Amad al-Baz, deputy director of Hamas’s Economic Ministry,” according to COGAT.
This was in direct contradiction to reconstruction agreements between Israel and the Palestinians and, as a result, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai “froze the import of the inventory intended for the private sector,” according to the statement, which was first announced on COGAT’s Arabic-language Facebook page on Friday.
The United Nations, in a statement, condemns the “deviation of materials,” but refrains from naming Hamas as responsible for the action.
“Those who seek to gain through the deviation of materials are stealing from their own people and adding to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza,” says Nickolay Mladenov, the UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.
This freeze is not intended to be long-lasting and will only be in place until the issue can be more thoroughly sussed out, a COGAT spokesperson tells The Times of Israel.
“We are investigating, and will soon decide how to proceed,” she says.
In the meantime, other goods and materials are being brought into the Gaza Strip as usual, the spokesperson says.
— Judah Ari Gross
A Palestinian electricity official says power is back on in Bethlehem, but some areas are continuing to be affected by today’s cut by the IEC.
Hisham Omari, director of the Jerusalem District Electricity Co., says Bethlehem lost power for four hours, and nearby villages were expected to be affected in the next two days.
“We tried as much as possible not to reach this situation, but clearly this is a political decision,” he says. “Today everybody in Bethlehem suffered,” including hotels and the main hospital, he says.
— AP
In Gaza local fishermen say they returned from their first expedition in an expanded fishing zone with a paltry catch.
The head of the Gaza fishermen’s union, Zakareya Bakr, says some 280 boats snatched up an average of just eight kilograms (17 Ibs.) of fish. He says the catch includes red mullet, sea bream, grouper and some small rays.
Palestinian fishermen prepare fish for sale after a night-long fishing trip, in Gaza seaport, April 4, 2016. (AP/ Khalil Hamra)
Israel set a three-mile limit in 2007 after the Hamas militant group seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. It expanded it to six miles after an eight-day war with Hamas in 2012. The new maritime perimeter expands the fishing zone an additional three miles off parts of Gaza.
“Fishing in six miles is like fishing in a swimming pool,” says fisherman Shaker Salah. “Expanding it provides an open space, which is better.”
— AP
France, Spain and Australia have all opened legal probes following media revelations from a vast trove of leaked documents about offshore financial dealings known as the Panama Papers.
The tax evasion revealed in the documents “is likely to concern French taxpayers,” the French financial prosecutors’ office says as it announces it is opening a preliminary investigation into money laundering and tax fraud.
Australian tax investigators say they are probing more than 800 Australian clients of Mossack Fonseca, which says it has operated beyond reproach for four decades and has never been charged with a criminal offense.
Spanish state prosecutors also open a money laundering probe, a judicial source said.
There is no word from Israel on opening any probes against the some 650 firms and 800 shareholders named in the papers.
— AFP
Four days after the death of former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Israel has issued a statement offering condolences over the loss of a “dear friend.
“His friendship toward Israel was expressed not only in his statements, but also in his deeds to forge ties between Germany and Israel and his work to strengthen Israel’s security,” the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem says in a statement.
The statement also credits Genscher, whose death was announced Friday, with “filling a central role” in recreating Europe after World War II.
Genscher’s marathon 1974-92 tenure as Germany’s chief diplomat broke longevity records in Europe and spanned some of the continent’s most dramatic moments, including the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
Having fled communist East Germany as a young man, the trained lawyer and liberal politician became a leading advocate for East-West dialogue, and a champion of European unity.
— with AFP
Spanish tax authorities say they are investigating allegations of tax irregularities involving soccer player Lionel Messi after documents released by an international probe of offshore accounts.
Messi’s family releases a statement denying wrongdoing and threatening to sue media outlets that released the information linking the Argentine player to accounts in Panama.
The Barcelona star was among those named in reports by international media who received a vast trove of data and documents leaked from a law firm based in Panama.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi (L) vies for the ball with Bolivia’s Fernando Saucedo during their Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup South American Qualifiers’ football match in Cordoba, Argentina, on March 29, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / EITAN ABRAMOVICH / AFP / EITAN ABRAMOVICH)
Meanwhile, Argentine opposition leaders are demanding that President Mauricio Macri more fully explain his role in a Bahamas-based offshore company that lists him in documents leaked in Panama.
Macri has confirmed that a business group owned by his family had set up Fleg Trading Ltd. in the Bahamas to do business in Brazil. According to a statement, however, Macri himself had no shares in Fleg and never received income from it so he did not declare it in financial statements.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the business did. Calls to Macri’s office were not immediately returned.
Graciela Camano, president of the Renewal Front opposition bloc in the lower House of Deputies, says Macri should “use a national broadcast to explain to Argentines his situation.”
Macri, the former mayor of Buenos Aires who assumed power in December, is the son of tycoon Francisco Macri, an Italian-born businessman who is one of the richest people in Argentina.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri addressing delegates of the World Jewish Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 15, 2016. (World Jewish Congress)
He has been praised by the Jewish community for his decision to probe the death of special prosecutor Daniel Nisman and allegations Nisman had made about an Argentinian cover-up of Iran’s links to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center.
Daniel Munoz, private secretary to late Argentine president Nestor Kirchner and former president Cristina Fernandez, is also named.
Munoz and his wife were named in documents of Gold Black Limited, a company incorporated in the British Islands in 2010 to invest in US real estate, according to the leaked documents. The origin of the company’s funds were listed as “personal savings.”
Munoz’s whereabouts Monday was not immediately clear.
— Agencies
The US Justice Department says it’s reviewing a massive tax evasion leak for evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing that might have a link to the United States or to its financial system.
Spokesman Peter Carr says the department is aware of the Panama Papers data leak containing information on the offshore financial dealings of wealthy, famous and powerful people around the world. He says the department is reviewing the reports but can’t comment on specific documents.
“The US Department of Justice takes very seriously all credible allegations of high level, foreign corruption that might have a link to the United States or the U.S. financial system,” he says
It’s not clear how many Americans have been named in the documents but thousands of Europeans have been named, according to local journalists.
— AP
Republican front-runner Donald Trump turns down an invitation from the Republican Jewish Coalition to their conference this weekend.
The annual spring conference is set to take place at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, a resort owned by RJC board member and prominent Republican patron Sheldon Adelson.
Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during the 2016 Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington, DC, December 3, 2015 (AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB)
Adelson and his family spent more than $90 million in the 2012 race, but have not made large contributions so far this time.
The RJC has also invited the other two GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Cruz has accepted the invitation while Kasich has yet to reply.
Donald Trump’s campaign denies a report he reprimanded his Jewish son-in-law after a planned visit to Israel fell through because of the candidate’s controversial comments on Muslims.
New York magazine, in a profile of the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nod, reported Sunday that Trump was upset with Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, for suggesting the visit.
“‘This was all your idea!’ Trump scolded his son-in-law, according to a source,” the magazine reported.
In an email to JTA, however, campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks writes: “This is totally and unequivocally false. The story was not fact checked.”
Trump canceled the visit, planned for late December, after Netanyahu said on December 9 that he “rejected” the real estate magnate’s remarks about Muslims, saying Israel “respects all religions.”
Trump had called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. He later said Netanyahu’s statement was “inappropriate.”
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