Rivlin pans France’s ‘troubling’ silence on Orange pullout

Iran hails ‘important progress’ toward deal

Iran and world powers have made “important progress” toward a final deal aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for eased economic sanctions, a senior Iranian negotiator says.

“We have made important progress on the final text, but less so on the annexes, so work continues,” deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi is quoted as saying by state media as he arrived in Vienna for the latest round of nuclear talks.

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls for unity in the Muslim world in order to counter “oppression” from the West, on the anniversary of his predecessor’s death.

In a speech marking 26 years since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei also ruled out any warming of ties with the United States, one of several world powers negotiating a nuclear deal with Tehran.

“We must pay attention to conspiracies seeking to divide on the basis of religion, between Shiites and Sunnis, or on an ethnic basis,” he says.

Khamenei praises Khomeini for having coined the term “the Great Satan” to refer to the United States, with which diplomatic ties have been severed since 1980.

“In recent events, we have seen that we cannot have confidence in the promises of the oppressors and their declarations during private meetings,” he says.

— AFP

More details emerge on teens’ killings

The killers of the three Israeli teenagers last June in the West Bank had intended to abduct one or two Israelis and hide them in the backroom of a barbershop, the Walla news website reports.

Israeli security sources tell the website that the two kidnappers were likely taken aback when the three teenagers — Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaer, and Naftali Fraenkel — got into their car, and panicked. The graves were hastily and clumsily dug, the sources say, belying initial assessments that the two had carefully planned the abduction.

Egypt to retry Mubarak

An Egyptian appeals court will retry former president Hosni Mubarak over the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising, after annulling a decision to drop murder charges against the former strongman.

The Court of Cassation on Thursday accepts the prosecution’s appeal against the dismissal of the murder charge leveled at Mubarak, who had initially been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The court “accepts the prosecution’s appeal and has set a session for November 5 to review it,” Judge Anwar El-Gabry announces.

It was not immediately clear if the court would issue a new verdict then, or if that would be the start date for any retrial, according to Mubarak’s defense team.

— AFP

Stabbing suspect a Christian resident of Old City

The suspect in the stabbing of two yeshiva students in Jerusalem on May 23 is a 19-year-old Christian resident of the Old City who has been arrested in the past for attacks against Jews, the Shin Bet security service says.

John Kakish confessed to the attack, which took place on the Shavuot holiday, the security agency says.

“His claim is that he carried out the attack for several motives, including being exposed to racist slogans in the city, and after he was a victim of violent incidents,” the Shin Bet says.

The stabbing — in which the two students were lightly to moderately injured — was premeditated, it says.

Israel demands France comment on Orange spat

Israel is demanding that the French government address comments by Orange CEO Stephane Richard who said the cellular company is seeking to boycott Israel, Haaretz reports.

Israeli ambassador to Paris Yossi Gal was working to convey “the seriousness with with Israel views the remarks by the Orange CEO in Cairo, and the expectation for immediate clarifications,” a statement from the embassy says.

France Telcom, a government-owned company, owns 25% of the Orange company shares.

Earlier, the head of Israel’s Partner mobile service provider fired back at the French mobile giant Orange — whose CEO Wednesday said that his company would like to drop its association with Partner, which pays to use the Orange name — and threatened legal action.

Regev tells French president to ax Orange CEO

An Israeli cabinet minister calls on the French president to fire the chief executive of French telecom giant Orange.

Culture Minister Miri Regev issues her appeal on Thursday, a day after Orange’s CEO announced in Cairo that he would like to sever his company’s ties to Israel as soon as possible. He cited the country’s sensitivity to Arab countries.

French human rights groups have been pushing their government and the company itself to end the relationship over Partner Communications Ltd.’s activities in Israeli settlements.

Regev says French President Francois Hollande should show “zero tolerance” for what she calls anti-Semitism. She also urged Jewish customers of Orange around the world to change carriers.

The French government, which has good relations with Israel, holds a 13.45 percent stake in Orange.

— AP

Holocaust survivor to bike from Auschwitz to Krakow

Marcel Zielinski, 80, a Holocaust survivor living in Montreal, will take part in the second edition of Ride For The Living from Auschwitz to Krakow in Poland, after first making the journey in 1945.

Zielinski was a 10-year old Auschwitz prisoner liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945. Together with a group of children, he walked 55 miles from the camp to Krakow, his hometown, to search for his parents. On Friday, he will ride on a bicycle along the same route with his son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.

— JTA

IS reduces water flow to Anbar province

The Islamic State group has reduced the amount of water flowing to government-held areas in Iraq’s western Anbar province, an official says.

The reduced flow through an insurgent-held dam on the Euphrates River will threaten irrigation systems and water treatment plants in nearby areas controlled by troops and tribes opposed to the extremist group, provincial council member Taha Abdul-Ghani tells The Associated Press.

Abdul-Ghani said there would be no immediate effect on Shiite areas in central and southern Iraq, saying water is being diverted to those areas from the Tigris River.

On Wednesday, the United Nations said it was looking into reports that the IS group had reduced the flow of water through the al-Warar dam.

“The use of water as a tool of war is to be condemned in no uncertain terms,” the spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, tells reporters. “These kinds of reports are disturbing, to say the least.”

— AP

Rick Perry launches White House bid

Former Texas governor Rick Perry announces he will run for the White House, throwing his hat into a very crowded Republican presidential field following his failed run in 2012.

The conservative ex-governor kicks off his campaign with a sleek campaign website featuring a high-tempo video promising to “do right and risk the consequences.”

The website touts the number of jobs created and times taxes were cut during Perry’s time in office in Texas. He plans a speech later Thursday at a small airport as part of his campaign rollout, local media reports.

Perry, 65, who was the longest serving governor in Texas history, had a failed, gaffe-ridden presidential bid in 2012.

He now goes up against a long list of Republican hopefuls, none of whom are a clear front runner, polls show.

— AFP

Heavy Saudi-led airstrikes near Aden

Yemeni officials and witnesses say Saudi-led airstrikes targeted Shiite rebels and their allies on the outskirts of the southern city of Aden, the scene of weeks of intense fighting.

The warplanes heavily pound rural areas northwest of Aden on Thursday, where the rebels, known as Houthis, and allied forces have been deployed.

Mohammed Ali, a resident, says he saw many bloodied bodies scattered across a kilometer- (mile-) wide area. It was not immediately clear how many people were killed or wounded in the strikes.

Airstrikes also targeted rebel positions in the provinces of Saada, Hajjah, Taiz and Ibb.

— AP

Iraqi Jewish pilgrimage site endangered by IS

The Iraqi site believed to be the burial place of the biblical prophet Nahum is in danger of being destroyed by the Islamic State.

Nahum’s Tomb in Alqosh, an annual pilgrimage spot for generations of Iraqi Jews, is 10 miles from territory controlled by IS, the Israeli daily Haaretz reports.

Until the early 1950s, thousands of Jews gathered at the site during the Shavuot holiday, some staying for as long as two weeks.

The tomb, inside an abandoned synagogue, is cared for by Asir Salaam Shajaa, an Assyrian Christian whose father and grandfather also cared for the site at the request of Jewish community leaders who fled, along with the majority of Iraq’s Jews, after the Iraqi government vowed following the establishment of the State of Israel to expel them.

— JTA

Amid fierce fighting, IS advances to Hasakeh

Islamic State group jihadists, emboldened by a string of battlefield victories, advance to the gates of the Syrian city of Hasakeh after intense fighting with regime troops.

Despite nine months of US-led airstrikes, the militants have made new territorial gains in recent weeks, seizing areas including the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and the capital of Iraq’s vast Anbar province.

Now “IS is 500 meters (550 yards) away from the entrance of Hasakeh, after fierce clashes against regime forces south of the city,” says Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.

He says IS had seized all military posts in that area of northeastern Syria, including an unfinished prison building and a power plant, after at least six suicide bombers struck on Wednesday.

— AFP

Ex-jihadist bride arrested in Turkey

Turkish police detained a young Frenchwoman who crossed back into Turkey after joining Islamic State (IS) jihadists in neighboring Syria, a security official says.

During a three-month stay in Syria, the woman married and then split up from a jihadist and was put in a jail operated by the IS group before being released, the official says.

The woman, named as Sonia Belayati, 22, was detained at a bus terminal in the southeastern Sanliurfa province early Tuesday after France provided Turkish authorities with intelligence, the official tells AFP on condition of anonymity.

The woman had flown into Istanbul in March and then crossed into Syria and joined the IS extremists.

— AFP

Libyans arrest 545 Europe-bound migrants

More than 500 illegal migrants who had hoped to set off at dawn on Thursday for a new life in Europe were arrested in the Libyan capital, officials say.

Acting on a tip-off, authorities stormed a hideout where the migrants were waiting for people smugglers to take them to boats, migration officials say.

Mohammed Abdelsalam al-Kuwiri, from a migration squad linked to the Tripoli-based government that is not recognized internationally, says 545 migrants were rounded up.

“They are from Africa, and most of them are men. They were taken to a detention center in the capital,” says Mohammed Baker, another migration unit official.

— AFP

Orange announces it will cut ties with Israeli mobile company

The Orange cellular service announces it is seeking to cut ties with Israel’s Partner mobile service.

In a statement, the company confirms that it is seeking to sever its business agreement with the Israeli company, but says it’s not interested in entering a political debate.

The Orange CEO said Wednesday that his company would like to drop its association with Partner in protest over Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. In response, the Israeli envoy in Paris lodged a formal complaint with the French government, which owns shares of the company.

Orange says it will keep existing agreements

In its statement, the Orange Group stresses that it does not operate directly in Israel, but only through the Partner Communications company.

“In line with its brand development strategy, Orange does not wish to maintain the presence of the brand in countries in which it is not, or is no longer, an operator. In this context, and while strictly adhering to existing agreements, the Group ultimately wishes to end this agreement,” it says.

Ben-Dahan opposes free pass for pork-eating soldier

Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan (Jewish Home) opposes the cancellation of penalties against an IDF soldier who ate a pork sandwich, in violation of the army’s kashrut regulations.

“The IDF’s orders are clear and maintain that in the army of the Jewish people, secular, religious, traditional and Haredi soldiers eat kosher food,” he writes on Twitter. “Violating the IDF’s orders, in this as in any other issue, carries a punishment… It’s a slippery slope. Today, some IDF orders are rejected, and tomorrow others are. We cannot agree to any sort of belittling of [army] orders.”

Over 3,300 Syrians flee to Turkey in 2 days

A Turkish government official says more than 3,300 Syrians have crossed into Turkey in the past two days fleeing fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish forces in northern Syria’s Tel Abyad region.

The official says the refugees entered Turkey at the Akcakale border crossing.

— AP

HRW asks UN to put Israel, Hamas on ‘List of Shame’ for child deaths

Human Rights Watch urges UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to add Israel to an annual “List of Shame” of children’s rights violators, after more than 500 children were killed in the war in Gaza last year.

The US-based rights group calls on Ban to resist pressure from Israel and the United States to keep the Israeli Defense Forces off the list due to be released next week.

“Secretary-General Ban can strengthen child protection in war by compiling his list based on facts, not political pressure,” says Philippe Bolopion, crisis advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch is also calling for Hamas to be included as well as armed groups in Pakistan, Thailand and India for serious violations including attacks on schools and the recruitment of child soldiers.

The current list has 51 groups including Boko Haram and Islamic State as well as the armed forces from eight countries such as Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

— AFP

Partner says Orange hasn’t notified them of changes

Orange’s Israeli subsidiary Partner warns that if the cellular giant wants to terminate its existing agreements, it will be forced to pay huge fines.

“The Orange Group cannot get out of this model, unless it pays big. We didn’t receive anything official. Meanwhile, we are still demanding an apology and clarifications on what the CEO said,” outgoing Partner head Haim Romano says, according to the Ynet news website.

Netanyahu urges France to condemn Orange

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urges the French government and international community to publicly condemn the Orange cellular company for severing ties with its Israeli subsidiary.

“I call on the French government to publicly denounce the despicable statement and actions of a company that is under partial French government ownership,” he says.

“At the same time, I urge our best friends to loudly proclaim that they are opposed to any sort of boycott against the state of the Jews,” Netanyahu says.

Rivlin ‘troubled’ by lack of French condemnation

President Reuven Rivlin says it is “troubling” that “I haven’t yet heard condemnations by the French leadership of the comments by the Orange CEO, as I’ve heard from Britain.”

“I expect that their voices will be heard here in Israel, in Cairo, and in the entire world.”

Sarkozy party’s ‘Islam meeting’ sparks criticism

Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing opposition party holds an internal meeting Thursday on the “question of Islam” in France, which draws criticism from Muslim groups and some members of the party for “stigmatizing” the religion.

The former French president’s party, recently rebranded “The Republicans,” debates “the place of religion” in secular France and more specifically “Islam in France.”

One month after the January attacks in Paris that killed 17, Sarkozy said: “The question is not to know what the Republic can do for Islam, but what Islam can do to become the Islam of France.”

France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim community and also the continent’s biggest Jewish community but is officially secular.

Sarkozy insists on the eve of the closed-door meeting that “one shouldn’t run away from debates.”

“A country is like a family. You have to talk, you have to work things through,” he says.

But Muslim groups said they would not be present at the meeting.

“We can’t participate in an initiative like this that stigmatizes Muslims,” says Abdallah Zekri from the French Muslim Council (CFCM).

The organization had “come under pressure to attend but will not be going,” Zekri tells AFP.

It later emerged that four members of the group did in fact attend, sparking an angry response from Zekri.

— AFP

Herzog slams PM for abandoning Israeli companies

Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog says “FIFA was the first blow, and Orange is a continuation of the attack.”

“Bibi [Netanyahu] continues to watch from the sidelines, leaving Israeli citizens and companies alone in the field without a plan,” he says.

Shin Bet gets deadline in case of Canadian-Jordanian

An Israeli court on Thursday told the Shin Bet internal security agency it had six days to charge a wealthy Canadian-Jordanian businessman or release him from custody, his lawyer says.

Ibrahim Siyyam was detained by the Shin Bet upon trying to return to Jordan from the West Bank with a group of businessmen last month.

Avi Baram, who is representing Siyyam, tells AFP he is being held over alleged ties to Hamas — claims his client denies.

“The Israeli security services are accusing him of donating money to Hamas in Yarmouk refugee camp but he denies it,” Baram says, referring to a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus.

The camp has been rocked by deadly fighting between Islamic State group jihadists and Palestinian militants, including Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis group which is said to be backed by Hamas.

According to Baram, Siyyam — who is of Palestinian origin but left the West Bank decades ago, taking up citizenship in Canada and Jordan — had arrived in West Bank city Ramallah on May 1 for a conference.

— AFP

Ex-World Jewish Congress head dies

Avi Beker, the former secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress and longtime head of its Israel office, has died.

Becker died Wednesday of cancer. He was 64.

He was a member of Israel’s UN mission from 1977 to 1982.

He was hired by the World Jewish Congress in 1985 and served as executive director of the group’s Israel office until 2001, as well as WJC international relations director from 1998 to 2001. In November 2001, he was appointed secretary-general, the most senior staff position in the organization. Beker also headed the Institute of the WJC in Jerusalem from 1994 to 2003. He is a founder of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, a WJC foreign policy think tank, and served as its first executive director.

Beker “was instrumental in implementing the WJC’s efforts for the restitution of property looted from Jews by the Nazis during World War II and he was a key figure in promoting dialogue and understanding between America and Israel,” WJC President Ronald Lauder says in a statement. “He was also a distinguished scholar whose practical advice on matters of international diplomacy was sought by statesmen. Avi’s voice will be sorely missed.”

Upon leaving the WJC in 2003, Beker went on to head the Jewish Public Policy Project and the UN-Israel Institute at the Hartog School of Government and Policy in Tel Aviv. He was also the Goldman Visiting Professor at the Department of Government at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and lectured on diplomacy and international law at Tel Aviv University.

Beker served on the board of directors of the Jewish Diaspora museum Beit Hatfutsot in his native Tel Aviv and of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial institute in Jerusalem.

— JTA

Partner owner urges ‘unity’ in face of boycott

Businessman Haim Saban, owner of Partner Communications Ltd., tells Channel 2 Orange’s decision is “completely inappropriate, in all aspects.”

Saban says the statement has no practical significance. “The French have no claim, they signed a contract with us not long ago,” he says.

Saban urges Israeli customers to continue using the network service, saying Partner is “an Israeli company in every way.”

“We need to be very unified against this boycott,” he says.

Saban says he hasn’t spoken to senior officials at Orange since the announcement, and maintains the company is weighing all its options. He says he was somewhat taken by surprise by the announcement, and charges that Orange gave into “anti-Semitic” pressure by the BDS movement.

The businessman also says the Israeli government “needs to do what it needs to do” to combat boycotts. While Sheldon Adelson and Saban are joining forces to fight the movement “the Israeli government can do much more,” he says.

“The government is not acting. It needs to act.”

Saudis view Iran, not Israel, as greatest enemy — poll

A rare Israeli survey shows that Saudis consider Iran to be their greatest enemy, not the Jewish State.

The survey, conducted by the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, finds 53 percent of Saudis name Iran as their main adversary, 22 percent say the Islamic State group and only 18 percent say Israel.

The poll, published Thursday and conducted in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, surveyed 506 Saudis over the phone and had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

Alex Mintz, who heads the IDC’s Institute for Policy and Strategy and oversaw the survey, says none of those polled questioned the source of the survey. Israel and Saudi Arabia are longtime foes with no diplomatic relations.

Last year, the institute carried out a similar survey of Iranians.

— AP

Hotovely urges French condemnation

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely says she expects France and other European countries to denounce Orange’s announcement that it will cut its ties with Partner, its Israeli subsidiary.

Paris has not yet responded.

Kuwait shutters TV channel critical of government

Kuwait closes the privately-run Al-Watan satellite television channel, which has been critical of the government, citing financial reasons.

The commerce and industry ministry says it has revoked the commercial license of the company that owns the channel after it lost most of its capital.

The information ministry followed the measure by withdrawing Al-Watan’s media licence.

The station went off the air after police ordered staff out of the building.

The move comes almost five months after authorities revoked the commercial and media licences of Al-Watan newspaper for the same reasons.

The decision to close the daily has since been upheld by the lower and appeals courts. The case is currently before the supreme court.

— AFP

Hamas official says Israel broke truce with Gaza strike

Hamas official Ismail Radwan says the Israeli airstrike overnight Thursday in retaliation for rocket fire “violates the terms of the truce, and the occupation is responsible for this,” the Ynet news website reports.

He urges Egypt and the international community to force Israel to keep to the agreements reached last August.

Egypt adjourns trial of Al-Jazeera journalists to June 11

An Egyptian court adjourns the retrial of three Al-Jazeera English journalists on terrorism-related charges to June 11.

The three were detained in December 2013 and later sentenced to up to 10 years in prison each, before Egypt’s highest court ordered the retrial.

Judge Hassan Farid on Thursday orders the postponement so defense lawyers would have a chance to deliver their closing arguments.

— AP