Washington Post reporter could soon get verdict in Iran case

US envoy: PM won’t talk about boosting Israel’s security

Dan Shapiro, the US ambassador to Israel, says Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been ignoring appeals to begin talks on ramped up security cooperation with the US based on the assumption that Congress will approve the nuclear deal with Iran.

Shapiro proposes (https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-envoy-netanyahu-wont-talk-about-day-after-deal/) that current disagreements on the nuclear deal, which Israel strongly opposes, should not get in the way of planning for a future in the Middle East shaped by the agreement.

“So far, the prime minister is not prepared to hold talks,” he told Army Radio. “I think that the time has come. Why wait? I think he will decide to do it.”

Shapiro said he had informed Netanyahu that Israel can begin professional talks with the US to look at ways of improving the security cooperation between the countries, particularly vis-a-vis threats from Iran.

— Stuart Winer

Foreign Ministry being ‘annihilated,’ charges diplomat

A Foreign Ministry representative tells the Knesset Monday that the ministry is being “annihilated” by the current government.

In a tense, sometimes loud meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Foreign Ministry representative Amir Elon, deputy director for human resources, says, “Someone decided to annihilate us. Iran has 67 more embassies around the world than us. This is a ridiculous situation.”

The ministry has protested for months the de facto removal of many of its responsibilities to other ministries. Interior Minister Silvan Shalom is in charge of the peace talks with the Palestinians in the new government, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan of battling boycotts of Israel, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz of the cabinet’s Iran policymaking, and more.

The ministry does not now have its own minister, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept the post for himself on a part-time basis and appointed his confidant Dore Gold as its new director general.

Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman, a political competitor to Netanyahu, calls these developments dangerous.

“If we fail at this, it’s a blow to national security,” he says in an interview with Army Radio Monday. “If the Foreign Ministry [must] tell key people [abroad] that they’re not part of a policy, why do we need the Foreign Ministry? Netanyahu has done everything to undermine the ministry.”

Israeli businesses set up anti-BDS hotline

A network representing Israeli businesses launches a hotline meant to serve business owners and exporters facing issues related to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.

The hotline, established by the Presidium of Israel Business Organizations, will handle the complaints and concerns of those facing boycotts or threats of boycotts.

“The new line will enable us to provide individual and discreet solutions for Israeli businesses exposed to boycotts and attempted boycotts,” Dan Catarivas, Director of the Division of Foreign Trade and International Relations at the Manufacturers’ Association of Israel, tells the Israeli business daily Globes.

In the framework of the new line, a team of lawyers and economic consultants specializing in international trade will be on hand to advise business owners facing boycotts.

Hunger striking terror suspect moved to new hospital

A Palestinian prisoner allegedly affiliated with Islamic Jihad, who is on a 52-day hunger strike, is moved under heavy guard to a hospital in Ashkelon Monday, after doctors at the Beersheba hospital where he was kept refused to force-feed him.

Mohammed Allaan is accompanied on the trip by a slew of top officials from Magen David Adom emergency health services and the Health Ministry, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to have personally briefed the escort.

The incident prompts the Israel Prison Service to set up a special emergency room at its medical center to start treating hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners internally.

The activist, held without charge since November, was placed in intensive care when he became unable to absorb drinking water. He, along with some 120 additional prisoners, are protesting the terms of their incarceration as well as their treatment from prison authorities.

Doctors are instructed to force-feed Allaan only if his life was in immediate danger. If carried out, the force-feeding would be the first instance of the practice in Israel since the Knesset’s adoption on July 30 of a new law legalizing it — a move decried by UN and Israeli medical officials.

Jewish terror suspects arrested Sunday released

Israel releases all suspects detained in raids that were part of a probe into the firebombing of a Palestinian home that killed an 18-month-old child and his father, authorities say Monday.

They do not provide the number of those detained in the raids early Sunday in Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank near the Palestinian village of Duma, where the July 31 firebombing occurred at the home of the Dawabsha family.

Wildcat outposts in the West Bank are notorious for housing young Jewish hardliners, referred to as hilltop youth.

“All those arrested yesterday for interrogation have been released,” a spokeswoman for the Shin Bet domestic security agency tells AFP, without providing further details.

— AFP and Times of Israel staff

Israel not tackling anti-Christian violence, says Vatican official

A Vatican official in Israel urges the government to take more stringent measures against Jewish extremists Monday, following a spate of verbal and physical attacks on Christian targets in recent months.

Wadiya Abu Nasser, a top adviser to the Catholic Church in Israel, urges Israeli authorities to clamp down on anti-Christian action and prevent further attacks.

“A red line has been crossed. Not only is property damaged, but now people too. Christian men of faith are spat on in Jerusalem,” Nasser tells Army Radio.

“I hope that the government and relevant authorities deal with these phenomena in a meaningful way. They may be just a handful of [attackers], but we aren’t seeing any effective [measures against] them,” he says.

— Avi Lewis

Assad pledges to punish cousin for murder

DAMASCUS — Syria’s President Bashar Assad vows to punish a cousin who is accused of killing a military officer, the family of the victim told the Syrian daily Al-Watan on Monday.

Suleiman al-Assad, a first cousin once removed of the president, is accused of shooting dead Colonel Hassan al-Sheikh in an apparent road rage incident on Thursday evening.

Sheikh’s wife Mayssa Ghanem tells Al-Watan, which is close to the government, that she had “received a promise from President Assad to punish the perpetrator, whoever he is.”

Suleiman al-Assad killed Sheikh after the colonel reportedly overtook him at a crossroads in Latakia, the coastal province that is the heartland of the minority Alawite community to which the president belongs.

— AFP

Trial wraps up for Washington Post reporter held in Iran

TEHRAN, Iran — The final hearing for a Washington Post reporter detained in Iran more than a year ago and charged with espionage ends on Monday, with a verdict expected in the coming days in a trial that has been condemned by the newspaper and press freedom groups.

The fourth closed-door hearing in the trial of Jason Rezaian ends after a few hours devoted to his defense. Rezaian was tried by a Revolutionary Court, which hears sensitive cases, including those related to national security.

The 39-year-old journalist was born and spent most of his life in the United States, and holds both American and Iranian citizenship. Iran does not recognize dual nationalities for its citizens.

His lawyer, Leila Ahsan, tells The Associated Press after the hearing that she expects a verdict “in a week.” The trial began in May.

Rezaian, Salehi, and two photojournalists were detained on July 22, 2014, in Tehran. All were later released except Rezaian, who according to the Post faces up to 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges that include espionage and distributing propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

The Post, the US government and press freedom organizations have criticized the charges and his long detention in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.

— AP

Prisons Service officer suspected of attempting to extort sex

The police Investigations and Intelligence Branch, a unit known as Lahav 433, says it arrested yesterday a Prisons Service officer on suspicion of repeatedly threatening a fellow officer in an effort to convince her to have sex with him.

A police statement following the joint police-Prisons Service investigation characterizes the threats made by the suspect as “severe.”

Police are preparing to charge the suspect with extortion, threats and harassment. His first court appearance is today at the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court.

Assailants fire shots at US Consulate in Istanbul

ISTANBUL — Two assailants open fire at the heavily protected US Consulate building in Istanbul on Monday, touching off a gunfight with police before fleeing the scene, Turkish media reports say.

One of the assailants, a woman, is later captured at a nearby building and hospitalized. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed police sources, says she has been identified as a member of a banned leftist group. No one else was injured in the onslaught.

Anadolu names the captured assailant as 42-year-old Hatice Asik and says she is a member of the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front, or DHKP-C. The group claimed responsibility for a 2013 suicide attack on the US Embassy in Ankara, which killed a Turkish security guard.

Hours earlier an overnight bomb attack at a police station in Istanbul injures three policemen and seven civilians and causes a fire that collapses part of the three-story building. Police say the assailants exploded a car bomb near the station. Unknown assailants later fire on police inspecting the scene of the explosion, sparking another gunfight with police that kills a member of the police inspection team and two assailants.

— AP

Nusra Front withdraws from Turkish border area

BEIRUT — Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria says it is withdrawing from areas along the border with Turkey where Ankara and Washington hope to drive out the Islamic State group.

The move by the Nusra Front comes two weeks after Turkey began carrying out airstrikes against IS targets in Syria. Turkey also agreed to allow US warplanes to use the strategic Incirlik Air Base for operations against IS in Syria. The two countries have agreed on the outlines of a plan to create an IS-free zone along the border.

On Sunday, six US F-16 fighter jets arrived at Incirlik to join the coalition fight against Islamic State militants, the US military says, days after Turkey’s foreign minister said an “extensive” fight against the extremists would soon begin.

The Nusra Front and the IS group are both committed to bringing about Islamic rule in Syria, but are bitterly divided and have battled each other across the country.

— AP

Germany drops treason probe against journalists

BERLIN — German federal prosecutors on Monday drop a much-criticized treason investigation of two journalists who had reported on secret plans to expand online surveillance in Germany.

Prosecutors notified website Netzpolitik.org in July that its founder, Markus Beckedahl, and fellow journalist Andre Meister were under investigation — prompting widespread criticism from free-speech advocates. The website specializes in covering online privacy and digital culture.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas questioned the decision to open a treason probe, which is a rare move in Germany. Last week, he fired chief federal prosecutor Harald Range after the two clashed over public allegations by Range of political interference, which the minister denied.

The federal prosecutor’s office says Monday it is closing the case because it believes the leaked documents the website’s reports are based on were not a “state secret” and other conditions for treason charges also aren’t fulfilled.

— AP

Construction worker falls from Jerusalem building

A construction worker falls several stories and sustains severe head injuries on Ibn Danan Street in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood.

He is evacuated in moderate condition to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital.

Child lightly hurt in Eilat pool drowning

August is vacation season in Israel, and as Israelis go swimming, a spate of drownings is sweeping the country.

A seven-year-old boy is pulled from the pool by lifeguards at Eilat’s Lev Patael Hotel Monday. The boy is unconscious, but paramedics got him to Yoseftal Hospital in time, say reports. He is only lightly injured.

According to the Nana 10 news site, the incident is the third such drowning in two days. Another seven-year-old boy is in serious condition at Yoseftal Hospital after drowning in the Dan Hotel pool in the city. A two-year-old girl is also in serious condition in Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Rishon Lezion after drowning in the family’s pool.

Prominent Syrian rights activist released from prison

BEIRUT — Activists say Syrian authorities have released a prominent journalist and human rights activist after more than three years’ imprisonment.

Mazen Darwish was the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression when he was arrested in February 2012 along with two of his colleagues. The organization confirms his release on Monday.

He was an outspoken critic of the government’s crackdown on protesters that erupted in the country against President Bashar Assad’s rule in March 2011. He has been standing trial on charges of “publicizing terrorist acts.”

— AP

‘Palestinian witnesses alerted IDF to terror attack’

The IDF was alerted to a Sunday night terror attack at a gas station on Road 443 by Palestinians working at the station, says a cafe worker who witnessed the attack.

In a Facebook post, army spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner says that Tami Boreda Mizrachi, who works at the cafe adjacent to the gas station where the stabbing attack took place, told him “how the Palestinian workers at the gas station alerted the army to come and catch the assailant.”

Yehuda Ben Moyal, the stabbing victim in the attack, had told Army Radio earlier Monday that onlookers, most of them Palestinian workers, had watched the attack without intervening to help him.

443 stabber’s mother blames Abbas for son’s death

The mother of a Palestinian terrorist killed Sunday in the midst of an attack accuses Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of responsibility for her son’s death.

Anas Taah stabbed Israeli Yehuda Ben Moyal Sunday night at a gas station on Road 443. Ben Moyal is hospitalized in moderate condition.

Taah was killed by army troops who arrived on the scene. One eyewitness said they were summoned by Palestinian workers at the station.

In an interview with Israeli news site NRG, Taah’s mother Hagar says: “Abu Mazen [Abbas] is guilty of my son’s death. The security coordination took our son and destroyed our home.”

Technion is 8th in list of Nobel-winning institutions

Israel’s top technical school, the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, comes in at eighth place in a list of the institutions with the most Nobel prizewinners in the 21st century.

American institutions make up eight of the top ten spots in the list, drawn up by Times Higher Education magazine. The two non-American institutions are Germany’s famed Max Planck Society at tenth place and Israel’s Technion at eighth.

Three of the world’s top universities, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, did not make the top-ten list. Harvard is 11th.

The list covers Nobels awarded from 2000 to 2014, and does not include prizes for peace or literature. Israel won five Nobels since 2000, mostly in chemistry, putting it in fifth-place overall by nationality of Nobel winners, behind Germany (seven Nobels), UK (12), Japan (13) and the US (71).

3 Haredi protesters arrested for throwing rocks at police

Three Haredi men are arrested by police in Jerusalem’s Kikar Hashabbat square for throwing rocks at officers.

They are suspected of disorderly conduct, assaulting police officers and endangering lives in a traffic lane.

Police also closed Mea Shearim Street, which runs into the square.

The protest comes after the IDF forcibly drafted an ultra-Orthodox woman from Elad who had failed to submit her exemption paperwork.

The woman got her exemption Monday after finally submitting the necessary documents, but the resolution of her case did not deter dozens of demonstrators from continuing their protest into the afternoon.

PM visits exhibit of fallen Gaza soldier’s art

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits an exhibition of the art of Lt. Hadar Goldin, who was killed in last year’s fighting in Gaza and whose body has not been recovered.

Goldin’s work, together with photos of him painting, is on display at the Ein Hod artists’ village in northern Israel, alongside paintings by his older brother Chemi and twin Tzur.

Rabbis establish independent conversion courts

Several dozen prominent Orthodox rabbis, including former chief rabbi candidate David Stav, announce Monday the establishment of an independent conversion court system outside the framework of the Chief Rabbinate.

“We want to carry on a tradition of centuries, of rabbis who convert. And we won’t let politicians who took control of some jobs to be the gatekeepers of the Jewish tradition,” Stav tells Channel 2.

The announcement comes as six converts are formally converted in the new system on Monday. According to Stav, the converts are told the state rabbinate does not recognize them as Jewish.

The group, based loosely around the membership of the Tzohar organization, includes some of the most prominent leaders of Israeli nationalist-religious Orthodox Judaism, including Stav, Maaleh Adumim Yeshiva head Nahum Rabinovich, Har Etzion Hesder Yeshiva head Yaakov Medan, Efrat Chief Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and others.

“Dozens of rabbis who are great students of Torah and utterly committed to halacha [Jewish law], but who are not politicians, will do as they see right,” Stav says.

The move follows the cancellation last month of a 2014 reform that extended the power to convert to Judaism from a handful of Chief Rabbinate courts to dozens of local rabbis.

Obama defends nuclear deal to youth in Iran, Israel

CHILMARK, Massachusetts — President Barack Obama says there was no way to secure a nuclear deal with Iran without first inflicting severe sanctions that made life harder for people in Iran.

Obama is defending the nuclear deal to young people in Iran, Israel and the US in an interview with the online news site Mic. It’s part of his ongoing effort to build support for the deal ahead of an effort in Congress to derail it.

Obama tells a 22-year-old woman in Iran that he reached out to Iran’s supreme leader after becoming president to say he was willing to negotiate. He says there was no response but that the US discovered a covert Iranian enrichment facility and had no choice but to enact tougher sanctions to bring Iran to the negotiating table.

— AP

Underfunding Arab towns could bring ‘rebellion,’ Herzog warns

Opposition leader and Zionist Union head MK Isaac Herzog charges on Monday that the government is cutting NIS 500 million in funding for developing Arab towns, and calls the move “racist neglect of the just demands for equality and social justice.”

On a tour of Arab villages in the Galilee, Herzog speaks with reporters in the village of Tamra. The budget cuts “sustain the fracture that was created during the elections, and will take us in directions we don’t want to, and must not, go — all the way to civil rebellion,” the lawmaker warns, according to the NRG news site.

Sharansky welcomes independent conversion courts

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky welcomes the establishment of independent rabbinical courts Monday by a group of Orthodox Israeli rabbis.

In a statement, Sharansky says: “We all wish to continue the process of ingathering the exiles from throughout the world in an era of lost identities and growing assimilation. In order to keep the gates of Israel open to all who wish to join our people in accordance with halachah (Jewish law), it is important that rabbis who have been authorized by the Chief Rabbinate to conduct conversions participate in this process, and this new initiative will enable them to do so.”

Noble Energy VP in Israel to discuss natural gas

The VP of Noble Energy, the US company operating Israel’s Tamar natural gas field, arrives Monday for talks with senior officials on the developing natural-gas reform being pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to the business journal Globes, Keith Elliot will discuss with Israeli officials, among other issues, the price controls Israel will impose on the gas and the development of the larger Leviathan field.

“Marathon meetings between Delek Group and Noble Energy representatives and the [government’s] regulatory team were held on Sunday and continued the following day,” Globes reports. “No date has yet been set for a government hearing on the agreement and, despite earlier estimates which believed the discussions would end this week, it now appears that the talks will continue into next week.”

US man tries to form army for Islamic State

NEWARK, New Jersey — A man who traveled to the Middle East last year wanted to form a small army to fight with the Islamic State group, federal authorities say Monday, weeks after the man’s brother was arrested in the same alleged plot.

Nader Saadeh, 20, is charged with attempting to provide material support to the terror group and is scheduled to appear Monday in US District Court in Newark.

The former Rutherford resident’s arrest comes after authorities arrested his 23-year-old brother, Alaa, and 21-year-old Samuel Rahamin Topaz of New Jersey on similar charges.

He could face several decades in prison if convicted on all counts.

— AP

Obama says opposition to Iran deal over politics, not merits

CHILMARK, Massachusetts — President Barack Obama says Republicans are reflexively opposing a nuclear deal with Iran because his name is attached to it, brushing off criticism from a majority in Congress as he continues his campaign to build support for the deal.

Ahead of a looming congressional vote to try to derail the agreement, Obama argues in a pair of interviews released Monday that it should surprise nobody that Republicans are opposed to the deal en masse. He points to their resistance to his health care law and budget proposals as evidence that their recent hostility has nothing to do with the content of the nuclear deal.

“Unfortunately, a large portion of the Republican Party, if not a near unanimous portion of Republican representatives, are going to be opposed to anything that I do,” Obama tells NPR News, adding that the judgments have often been based not on the merits, but “on their politics.”

— AP

PA seeks warmer relations with Iran

The Palestinian Authority is attempting to strengthen its diplomatic relations with Iran, as ties between the Islamic Republic and its main Palestinian rival, Hamas, grow increasingly chilly.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas sends Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, to Iran, where he meets with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Majdalani tells Palestinian radio on Monday that he signed a cooperation agreement between Iran and “Palestine,” with the two sides forming a “high committee” to discuss political, economic and social exchange.

“We discussed the Palestinian situation with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. He stressed Iran’s support for the attempts of the Palestinian leadership to end the Palestinian divide and form a unity government,” Majdalani tells Mawtini radio station on Monday, noting that he carried a letter from Abbas to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Iran’s relations with the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement have been traditionally frosty since the Palestinian leader has renounced the armed resistance against Israel, which Iran supports both financially and ideologically.

— Elhanan Miller

High Court to rule on new African asylum-seeker law

The High Court of Justice is set to publish its third major ruling on African asylum seekers tomorrow morning, the Court Secretariat says Monday.

The Infiltration Prevention Law has already been ruled unconstitutional twice by the High Court. Previous versions allowed migrants fleeing African conflicts to be incarcerated indefinitely while the state declined to examine their refugee applications.

The new law, passed in December 2014, is softened, allowing migrants more freedom of movement in Israel and limiting incarceration to two years. Those stipulations still fail to meet Israeli and international standards for refugee protection, say the NGOs who appealed against it to the High Court.

Some 45,000 African asylum seekers currently reside in Israel.

Gay parade stabber placed in psychiatric ward

Yishai Schlissel, who killed Shira Banki and wounded five others in a stabbing attack at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade last month, is hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, the news site Nana 10 reports.

The Israel Prison Service reportedly sets up a special psychiatric team to determine if Schlissel, who attacked the parade just weeks after his release from 10 years in prison following an identical attack on the 2005 Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, is psychologically fit to stand trial.

Meretz leader slams independent Orthodox conversion courts

Meretz leader MK Zahava Gal-on criticizes the announcement Monday of a new independent conversion system established by prominent Israeli Orthodox rabbis.

While the new courts fly in the face of the ultra-Orthodox-dominated Chief Rabbinate, Gal-on insists it only continues the Orthodox monopoly of Israeli religious life.

“An alternative conversion body will depend on Orthodox coercion,” she says. “The entry ticket to Judaism will still be dependent on Orthodox conversion, whether it is done by Haredi rabbis or nationalist-religious ones.”

The Orthodox standards in both cases will “force them to lie to the people converting them.”

Palestinian held for rock-throwing in Jerusalem’s Old City

A Palestinian youth is arrested Monday on suspicion of throwing rocks at tourists in Jerusalem’s Old City, along the Via Dolorosa street.

There are no reports of injuries or damage. The youth is taken for questioning by police.

The Via Dolorosa is a major pilgrimage site for Christians, and is believed in Christian tradition to be the path trod by Jesus on his way to be crucified.

17-year-old Palestinian held for planning to stab prison guard

A 17-year-old Palestinian girl from Bethlehem is caught Monday trying to smuggle a knife past a West Bank checkpoint.

The knife is reportedly found in her backpack as she attempts to pass the Meitar checkpoint south of Hebron.

After initially insisting she had forgotten it was there, she tells investigators she planned to use it to attack a guard at Eshel Prison, where her brother is imprisoned.

Police place the girl under arrest.

Over 40 dead in bombings in Iraq’s Diyala province

BAGHDAD — Two bombs striking neighborhoods in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province kill at least 42 people Monday night, officials said, less than a month after it was the scene of one of the deadliest attacks to hit the country in recent years.

The deadlier of Monday’s two attacks happens near the provincial capital, Baquba, located 35 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. Police say a suicide car bomb tore through a marketplace, killing at least 35 people and wounding 72.

The second takes place in the village of Kanaan, where officials say a suicide bomber blew himself up in a residential area, killing seven people and wounding 15.

— AP

Washington Post reporter could soon get verdict in Iran case

TEHRAN, Iran — The Iranian-American reporter for the Washington Post detained in Tehran for more than a year on charges including espionage speaks in his own defense Monday during a final closed-door hearing in a trial that has been criticized by the paper and press freedom advocates.

A verdict in journalist Jason Rezaian’s case could come as early as next week, says his lawyer, Leila Ahsan. She tells The Associated Press she submitted a 20-page defense brief at the start of Monday’s session, gave an oral defense during the hearing, and provided the court with a separate written statement at the end following remarks from the prosecutor.

Ahsan confirms that Rezaian also addressed the court during the hearing, which she says was the last in the case. She declines to provide details, citing confidentiality rules surrounding the trial.

Rezaian’s mother, Mary, appears at the courthouse with her son’s wife and fellow journalist, Yeganeh Salehi, though they are not allowed inside the courtroom as in past hearings. She repeats her family’s and the Post’s position that Rezaian is innocent, telling reporters he is a victim of the hostility between Iran and the United States that dates back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

— AP