Marissa Newman is The Times of Israel political correspondent.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Sunday’s developments as they unfolded.
After the government approves an increase to the number of ministers, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid slams the “shameful” move, and vows to lead a protracted legal battle against it.
“The government of Israel made a decision today which I can only describe as shameful; to increase the size of the government and to bring back the Ministers without Portfolio,” he says in a statement.
“Every unnecessary minister creates hundreds of millions of shekels of activity around them — it’s easy to check in the previous budgets. We’ll fight it in the Knesset, we’ll fight it in the courts and we’ll fight it in the streets because it is a violation of the principles of democracy in which the government works for the people, not the people who create jobs for the government.
“We’ll create a parliamentary struggle which will go on for hours and days with every possible objection because it isn’t right, it isn’t just and it isn’t moral.”
Leader of the Yesh Atid party MK Yair Lapid at the swearing-in ceremony for the 20th Knesset in Jerusalem, on March 31, 2015. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
In the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu sums up the activity of the last government.
“In the over two years of this government’s existence, since its first meeting, the region around us has been roiling and stormy. And despite the many attempts to challenge us on our borders, we rebuffed all of these attempts bar none: From Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, through Iran’s attempts to develop a new front against us on the Golan Heights, to the unceasing efforts to bring advanced weaponry from Syria to Lebanon, and including Hamas’s efforts to perpetrate strategic attacks against us in the south. In Operation Protective Edge, we hit Hamas as hard as it has ever been struck since its founding,” he says.
“Above all, we have acted unceasingly against Iran’s attempts to arm itself with nuclear weapons. This effort is at its peak. We will not relent. We will continue to maintain Israel’s right to defend itself under any conditions and in any situation.”
The prime minister also addresses the last round of peace talks, and Israel’s legislation against illegal migration.
“In the diplomatic sphere, we made another effort to move forward on an agreement with the Palestinians, but once again when there was a need to make tough decisions; Abu Mazen [PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas] decided to abandon the negotiations. He appealed unilaterally, and in contravention of all the agreements, to the international arena. He abandoned the negotiations and entered into an alliance with Hamas.”
“We completely blocked illegal migration across our borders, something that no other country in the western world has succeeded in doing,” he continues. “The fence that we built has completely proven itself. We added to this legislative and enforcement measures, as well as others, and in this context I note the opposite trend that is now taking place in Western Europe. As Europe notes an increase of hundreds of percent in the influx of illegal migrants, thousands of illegal migrants are leaving Israel per annum. This is a very important achievement for assuring Israel’s image and character as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Russian-Israeli World War II veterans march in Jerusalem, marking the 70th anniversary of the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany.
Immigration Minister Sofa Landver walks with Russian-Israeli World War II veterans as they take part in the Veterans Day parade in honor of 70 years since the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, in the center of Jerusalem. May 10, 2015. (photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash 90)
Russian-Israeli World War II veterans take part in the parade in honor of 70 years since the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, in the center of Jerusalem. May 10, 2015. (photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash 90)
Russian-Israeli World War II veterans take part in the parade in honor of 70 years since the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, in the center of Jerusalem. May 10, 2015. (photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash 90)
Iconic Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman’s body is lying in state in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Ynet news website reports. Kadishman, who died on Friday, will be buried at 3 p.m. at the Kiryat Shaul cemetery.
Portrait of Israeli painter and sculptor Menashe Kadishman in his studio in Tel Aviv. December 15, 2011. (photo credit: Deborah Sinai/FLASH90)
מאות מגיעים בשעה זו להיפרד ממנשה קדישמן שהלך לעולמו בשישי, ולחלוף על פני ארונו במוזיאון תל אביב. @GLZRadio pic.twitter.com/i3FCDIlY89
— nov reuveny (@Nov_reuveny) May 10, 2015
A truck driver involved in a deadly collision with a bus in southern Israel in February, in which eight Bedouin women were killed, is indicted for negligent homicide.
The driver’s employers at Oz Masa Ltd. are also slapped with charges for violating weight regulations.
Emergency workers on site of a traffic accident that killed 8 and injured 20 in the south of Israel (photo credit: Shalom Ben Tzur/Zaka Spokesperson)
The Tel Aviv District Court drops criminal charges against former MK Muhammad Barakeh, who was accused of punching an activist at a rally a decade ago.
The court decision explains that the judges’ ruling was reached, in part, because ten years have passed since the incident, and because Barakeh, formerly of Hadash, is no longer a Knesset member.
Muhammad Barakeh, March 23, 2014, (photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog criticizes the coalition deal between Likud and the Jewish Home as the “the first decision, and a bad one, of the failed national government.”
“20 million shekel. That’s the present Netanyahu gave to each and every Knesset member in the Jewish Home at your expense, to waste on their confidants and political needs,” he writes on Facebook. “This decision, together with the decision to expand the number of ministers, which passed this morning in the government, remind us that his survival in the residence on Balfour Street is more important to Netanyahu than the public’s funds or needs.”
“This the first decision, and a bad one, by the failed national government,” he continues. “We will work to combat this in every way, in the Knesset or using legal measures, and of course we will coordinate with other parties in the opposition to stop this lawlessness,” he writes, likely referencing Lapid, who has already promised to file a complaint with the Supreme Court.
Head of the Zionist Union Isaac Herzog at a party meeting at the Knesset, Jerusalem, on May 4, 2015 (photo credit Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely candidate for the GOP nomination for president, left for what he bills as an “educational trip” to Israel.
Walker reportedly left late Saturday from Greenville, South Carolina, where he had participated in the South Carolina Freedom Summit.
The trip is scheduled to last five days. It is reportedly being paid for by Our American Revival, Walkers political organization; and the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Walker says that he is planning on meeting with Netanyahu.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on April 18, 2015 (Photo credit: Darren McCollester/Getty Images/AFP)
He also is scheduled to meet with members of Israel’s Knesset and leaders in the Israel Defense Forces, as well as US ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, according to the New York Times.
The governor also is scheduled to tour Jerusalem, including visiting the Western Wall, the Via Dolorosa and Yad Vashem, where he will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony, according to the Times. He also is scheduled to tour the site of the future Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem.
Walker’s political organization said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that he would take a helicopter tour of “various historical and strategically significant sites,” visit religious sites, meet with a “wide range of leaders at the highest levels of government,” and discuss economic development with Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs.
— JTA
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu traveled into Syria on Sunday to visit a relocated historic tomb inside the country, his office says.
The trip, which was not announced in advance, is the first such visit by a Turkish political leader to the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the Ottoman empire’s founder Osman I, just 200 meters (650 feet) from the Turkish border inside Syrian territory.
— AFP
An Etihad Airways flight from Cairo to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, was diverted to a military air base in Dubai on Sunday for “security reasons,” the airline says.
The Abu Dhabi-based airline, the UAE’s national carrier, says 128 passengers and seven crew members on Etihad flight 650 disembarked after being diverted to Dubai’s al-Minhad air base. They were transferred by bus to Abu Dhabi after they and their luggage underwent additional security screenings.
Security officials searched the Airbus A321 and found nothing suspicious, Etihad says. The plane later returned to Abu Dhabi.
The airline gives no details on the nature of the threat.
Twitter accounts associated with sympathizers of the Islamic State group tweeted out messages overnight threatening airplanes, with one mentioning the Etihad flight specifically.
— AP
Suspected militants set off three small bombs on Sunday outside the home of an Egyptian judge who sentenced Islamists to death, wounding four people and damaging the building, police say.
Judge Mutaz Khafagi, who had also sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to life in prison, was in his first-floor apartment in the suburban Cairo building but was not injured in the explosions, a police official says.
Khafagi had sentenced 12 men to death in August 2014 after convicting them of murdering a police general in the town of Kerdasa near Cairo during a police crackdown targeting supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president ousted in 2013.
— AFP
A Torah scroll, valued at NIS 150,000 ($38,000), is stolen from the synagogue in Safed’s Ziv Hospital, according to the Walla news website.
Police launch an investigation.
Miss Syria, Sarah Nakhleh, tells Egyptian TV channel that Syrian President Bashar Assad is not “a butcher.”
“No ophthalmologist in the world is capable of harming an ant,” she says.
“I support the Syrian regime. I support Dr. Bashar Al-Assad. Some people believe that he is a butcher or a murderer. Opinions on this are based on one’s background. As for me, I support him. At the end of the day, he is a doctor, and no doctor can possiblט be a butcher,” she says, according to a translation by MEMRI.
Miss Syria Sarah Nakhleh (screen capture: MEMRI TV)
Hundreds of people attend the funeral of Israeli painter Menashe Kadishman, including former president Shimon Peres.
“He didn’t imitate anyone,” Peres says at the funeral, according to Army Radio. “He knew how to bring out the lofty, artistic side of everything he touched, out of the goodness of his heart.”
The Internet and the proliferation of satellite technology mean Iran can no longer control foreign news and television broadcasts, the country’s culture minister says, urging a new approach.
In remarks that signal the government’s intention to open Iran up to the world, Ali Jannati tells police commanders that new delivery systems ignore borders, making censorship measures redundant.
“In the past, through pressuring the media or guiding the information, we could direct public news and take control of it,” state media quote him as saying.
“But today the scene has changed dramatically. Controlling the media is no longer possible technically or geographically.”
— AFP
Meretz leader Zahava Gal-on lashes out at Yedioth Ahronoth for publishing an article on incoming justice minister Ayelet Shaked’s trip to the pool that included the note, “to the disappointment of the other vacationers, [Shaked] kept her clothes on.”
In response, Gal-on writes: “Whoever approved that sickening paragraph that appeared this morning in Yedioth Ahronoth should be ashamed.”
“It’s not merely bad taste. Whoever writes in a newspaper that the ‘vacationers were disappointed that she kept her clothes on,’ whoever says that it’s better to use her beauty to improve foreign ties or that she could be on a calendar, sends women and girls the message that it doesn’t matter how much they succeed — even if they are appointed senior ministers in the government, they will first and foremost be judged by their external appearance,” she writes.
The left-wing Gal-on writes that Shaked, a right-wing politician, is “smart and diligent with anti-democratic and nationalistic positions.”
“I plan to oppose Ayelet Shaked on every initiative she’ll advance to weaken the Supreme Court and harm Israeli democracy. With regard to everything she receives as a woman, or related to the belittling comments she is forced to absorb, I stand by her.”
Knesset Member Ayelet Shaked of the Jewish Home party, on February 3, 2013 (photo credit: Flash90)
FIFA president Sepp Blatter hosts the presidents of the Israeli and Palestinian soccer associations in Zurich for talks aimed at mending relations between the two parties.
The world game’s governing body said the main purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Palestinian FA’s request to suspend their Israeli counterparts at the upcoming FIFA congress.
FIFA adds that “both member associations agreed to pursue the dialogue” after the talks involving PFA head Jibril Rajoub and his IFA counterpart Ofer Eini.
Blatter had previously spoken out against suspending the Israeli FA, saying at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) general assembly in Cairo last week: “Such a situation should not come up at the FIFA congress because the suspension of a federation, whatever the reason may be, is always damaging to the organisation as a whole.”
— AFP
Sara Netanyahu testifies in court in response to abuse claims by former caretaker Menny Naftali.
“For over a year, my name has been dragged through the mud,” she says, according to the Walla news website. “Up to this moment, my voice was not heard. Today justice will be served.”
She says that she was afraid to fire Naftali, because it would generate negative news coverage.
“We were persecuted by the media. From my perspective, firing a caretaker is a headline, and I didn’t want to do that. I waited for him to quit.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara attend the annual Bible Quiz held at the Jerusalem Theater on Israel’s Independence Day, April 23, 2015. (photo credit: Haim Zach / GPO)
Iranian airlines have obtained 15 used planes since February as part of efforts to renovate the country’s aging fleet which remains subject to US sanctions, the transportation minister says.
An embargo dating from 1995 prevents Western manufacturers from selling equipment and spare parts to Iranian companies.
The restrictions, which have been blamed for crippling the industry, were partially lifted by an interim agreement on Iran’s nuclear program that came into force in January 2014.
This allowed for the sales of spare parts, though direct sales of planes remained banned.
But, without providing details of how the planes had been obtained, Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi says nine planes, mostly built after 2003, had entered the country on Saturday.
Eight other planes had been obtained since February 20, he is quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency, though two of them are “too old to fly” and will be used for spare parts.
“With the entry of these 15 planes in the fleet, the average age of (Iran’s) airliners dropped from 20 to 19 years,” the minister says.
— AFP
The global terrorist threat has entered a “new phase,” where media-savvy Islamist extremists are successfully drawing lone wolf attackers to their cause, the US secretary of Homeland Security warns.
In an interview with ABC News, Jeh Johnson says the Islamic State group’s influence was spreading far beyond the battlegrounds of the Middle East.
“We’re very definitely in a new environment, because of ISIL’s (IS’s) effective use of social media, the Internet, which has the ability to reach into the homeland and possibly inspire others,” Johnson says.
“We’re very definitely in a new phase in the global terrorist threat, where the so-called lone wolf could strike at any moment.”
— AFP
Sara Netanyahu says an unnamed media mogul is behind Naftali’s accusations in an attempt to oust Netanyahu.
“There’s a very strong media figure behind Menny Naftali,” she says, according to Channel 10. She says Naftali “has ties to a certain paper” which spotlights his claims, in a likely reference to Yedioth Ahronoth.
When asked later about Yedioth Ahronoth owner Noni Moses, she says: “He’s like the [character in] Harry Potter, he cannot be named.”
More than 22,000 people including around 50 survivors on Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen in Austria, one of the Nazis’ biggest concentration camps, organizers say.
“In a time where intolerance and discrimination are still issues both in Austria and abroad it is all the more important to remain aware of what this behavior led to 70 years ago,” says Willi Mernyi, chairman of the Austrian Mauthausen Committee.
The ceremony at the former camp near Linz was attended by people from all over Europe and beyond as well as Austria’s president and chancellor, the Czech premier and the speakers of the Greek and Belgian parliaments.
— AFP
President Reuven Rivlin leaves to Germany for a ceremony marking 50 years of diplomatic ties between Germany and Israel, a relationship he says “was not always something that was obvious.”
“Fifty years ago I was among a group of students who protested near the President’s Residence at the arrival of the first German ambassador to Israel, and now five decades later, I am as President of Israel, embarking on an official visit to Germany to mark the jubilee of that relationship,” Rivlin says.
“The friendship between Israel and Germany was not always something that was obvious, but was built steadily over the years. Our friendship is one based on shared values of democracy and today our good relations is not just between our governments, but between our two peoples. These things require strengthening on both our behalves, and with both emotion, and filled with hope for the future, I depart for Germany to mark fifty years of a very close friendship.”
Since Wednesday’s swearing-in to the Knesset is set to take place in his absence, the president also wishes Netanyahu luck with the new government.
“I would also take the opportunity, in the knowledge that the new government of Israel is due to be established, to stress that we face many challenges. I send my good wishes for success to the new government in whatever form it takes. The people in Israel need a government able to deal with the challenges we face with insight and understanding.”
A Nepalese minister thanks the Israeli rescue team in Kathmandu, as the army field hospital closes up shop.
“Let me express our sincere gratitude to the government of Israel and to the people of Israel for helping us in times of very critical hours for Nepal,” the country’s urban development minister, Narayan Khadka, says at the ceremony.
— JTA contributed
The Saudi-led air war on Yemen was launched to foil a plot by a “sectarian group” to undermine security in the region, King Salman says.
The operation has prevented Yemen from “becoming a theater for terrorism, discord, and internal fighting, similar to some countries,” says Salman, in remarks published by the official SPA news agency.
Saudi Arabia wanted to “support Yemen and confront the attempt to transform it into a base for launching a plot to undermine regional security and stability,” he adds.
The kingdom and members of the coalition began the campaign to “save Yemen and its brotherly people from a group entrenched with the spirit of sectarianism,” continues Salman, referring to the Shiite Houthi rebels.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman attends a ceremony at the Diwan royal palace in Riyadh, January 24, 2015. (photo credit: AP/Yoan Valat, Pool)
He says the rebels had “threatened neighboring countries, especially Saudi Arabia, with backing from foreign parties seeking to spread their influence across the region and sow sedition,” implying Iran.
This is an example of “using sectarianism to achieve political” goals, he claims.
The Houthis were also “backed by internal Yemeni groups that broke their agreements,” he says of Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose loyalists have been fighting alongside the Houthis.
— AFP
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, defends the infamous pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that agreed to divide up eastern Europe.
Putin had, in the past condemned, the pact as unethical.
On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to carve up eastern Europe between them in a secret clause of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on non-aggression.
“When the USSR realized that it was left facing Hitler’s Germany alone, it took steps so as to not permit a direct collision and this Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed,” Putin says at a news conference in response to a question from a journalist.
He was asked to respond to comments by Russia’s outspoken culture minister Vladimir Medinsky praising the pact as a triumph of Joseph Stalin’s diplomacy.
“In this sense, I share the opinion of our culture minister that this pact had significance for ensuring the security of the USSR,” adds Putin.
He stresses that the Soviet Union had been pushed to sign the pact after the earlier 1938 Munich agreement signed by Britain, France and Italy with Adolf Hitler ended hope of a united front against the Nazis.
The pact came after the USSR made “numerous efforts to create an anti-Fascist bloc in Europe” that ended in failure, he continues.
— AFP
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) shows the way to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they prepare to leave the joint press conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, May 10, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)
Upon leaving the courtroom, the Netanyahus’ ex-custodian maintains Sara Netanyahu is “lying” in her testimony, and insists that no one is paying him to come forward.
“She’s lying big time, they taught her how to lie,” he says, according to Channel 2.
Menny Naftali, a former custodian at Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence, attends Sara Netanyahu’s court hearing in Jerusalem to testify in a 1-million-shekel ($258,500) damages suit, on May 10, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/Gali Tibbon)
“She talks about a difficult period, I’m going through a terrible period. No one is funding me, no one wants to hire me. My children are suffering in school,” he reports.
“I believe I’m being made an example of,” he adds. “Today, a weight has been lifted off my chest.”
The ex-caretaker also says that despite the litigation, he continues to support the Likud party.
“I vote for Likud, my parents vote for Likud,” he states.
Defense sources claim Hamas is ready for a new round of fighting with Israel, according to Channel 2.
“Hamas is prepared for an immediate round of fighting against Israel,” the sources are quoted as saying. “They learned lessons from Operation Protective Edge, and from their perspective, they are ready to fight against Israel.”
The officials report that Hamas recently managed to smuggle electronics, as well as sophisticated, water-resistant, communication devices into the Strip, in addition to scuba-diving gear and backhoes. Hamas also has infrared cameras and has set them up across the coastal enclave, they add.
“The goal of that system is to track IDF troops on the border, and of course for a warning in real time of an Israeli invasion into the Strip,” the report warns.
“They have managed to rebuild a large number of their units and are prepared for an immediate fight. They largely have nothing to lose. They want to achieve certain things they didn’t manage to do during Operation Protective Edge,” the sources go on. “The economic situation in Gaza is bad and Hamas will try to channel the residents’ rage into a war against Israel, which would seemingly improve their situation.”
Yesh Atid files a petition in the High Court against a plan to increase the number of ministers in the next government, according to Hebrew media reports.
Netanyahu has until Monday morning to respond.
The United States is giving Jordan about $25 million worth of wheat for resale, with the money to be used for improving agricultural productivity.
The US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, and Jordan’s planning minister, Imad Fakhoury, sign the agreement involving 100,000 metric tons (100 million kg) of wheat.
Vilsack says in a statement the food assistance is meant to help ease the economic burden Jordan faces as it hosts more than 600,000 Syrian civil war refugees, out of nearly 4 million who fled to neighboring countries in the past four years.
— AP
Two hundred Iranian MPs sign a letter condemning the recent US Senate passage of a bill mandating congressional oversight of the emerging nuclear deal.
“The recent Senate bill is indicative of a new case of wild ambition in the guise of democratic gestures which we have experienced frequently for the last four decades in US foreign policy,” the MPs say in a statement, according to the Mehrs News Agency.
Addressing the negotiators, the MPs urge: “If you find them [world powers] using the language of threat, give them the response they deserve.”
The news report says “the MPs advised Iran’s nuclear negotiators to be watchful of such cunning turns by Americans.”
Syria’s official news agency SANA on Sunday denounces Turkey’s prime minister for making a cross-border trip to a historic tomb inside Syrian territory, calling the visit a “clear aggression.”
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made the surprise visit to the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the Ottoman empire’s founder Osman I.
“Davutoglu’s infiltration into Syrian territory without the permission of the Syrian government constitutes a clear aggression against a sovereign UN member state and a violation of international law,” SANA says.
The tomb of Suleyman Shah, said to have died in 1236, is considered Turkish territory under the 1921 Treaty of Ankara between Turkey and France, which then controlled French-mandated Syria. It was relocated from its previous site in February, in an unprecedented operation in which Turkish soldiers penetrated deep into Syria, also sparking a protest from Damascus.
— AFP
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency is reporting authorities have arrested multiple suspects after several days of unrest in the Kurdish city of Mahabad over the death of a local woman.
The Sunday report quotes Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s General Prosecutor, as saying the arrests came following a “crisis” instigated by foreign-based media “over the death of an individual in a hotel.”
Last week foreign-based opposition websites claimed the suspect in the suspicious death of a hotel maid in Mahabad was linked to the government.
Raisi did not elaborate on the specifics of the case.
The official IRNA news agency says protesters last week damaged the hotel over the suspicious death.
Mahabad is home to more than 200,000 citizens and has a record of public unrest.
— AP
IDF Spokesman Peter Lerner writes on Twitter that the army rescue team in Nepal will head back to Israel on Monday, after dismantling the field hospital on Sunday.
He says 1,600 earthquake victims were treated in the field hospital, and Israeli doctors performed 85 life-saving surgeries at the site. Eight babies were born in the makeshift medical center.
#IDF mission to #NepalQuake completed will be making their way home tomorrow. #IsraelInNepal pic.twitter.com/zoTnWqyTcC
— Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) May 10, 2015
#IDF hospital operated for 11 days, treated 1600, conducted 85 life-saving surgeries and delivered 8 babies. pic.twitter.com/BKXPIJf1qQ
— Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) May 10, 2015
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