Palestinians ‘happy’ to see Tony Blair go

Palestinian indicted in Polish tourist’s death

A Palestinian man is indicted for murdering 24-year-old Polish national Daria Magdalena Rozmarek in Nazareth last month.

Qutiba Atyan, 21, had tried to kiss Rozmarek and when she fled, he chased after her and strangled her to death, according to the indictment.

Rozmarek was on vacation in April, and on the day she was killed, was not feeling well and decided to stay in the hotel while her tour group went on a trip, according to the Ynet news website. She later went out to smoke, and ventured into a construction site where Atyan was working. The suspect then proceeded to kiss her, and when she ran away, choked her to death with her scarf and left her remains in a nearby grove.

Atyan says he was afraid that Rozmarek would report to police that he was working illegally in Israel.

He told his father and uncle that he had spotted a body in the area, and his relatives reported it to the police, according to Ynet.

Iran warns against ‘excessive demands’ in talks

Iran on Thursday warns global powers against making “excessive demands” in talks aimed at sealing a ground-breaking nuclear deal, after France demanded access to its military installations.

“I would expect my negotiating partners to refrain from making excessive demands,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says during a visit to Athens, adding: “People need to have their foot in reality, not in illusions.”

Zarif on Saturday is to meet US Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva.

— AFP

Palestinian soccer chief lays out terms to stop vote

The head of the Palestinian Football Association, Jibril Rajoub, tells the Times of Israel that the vote to expel Israel from FIFA will take place on Friday, as planned, and lays out his terms.

Rajoub says he expects a large majority to back the bid, and says of the 209 votes, only a minority will oppose the vote to oust Israel from the soccer organization. He says that on Wednesday, during a meeting between several soccer representatives from Africa and the Israeli envoy in Switzerland, most of the African soccer chiefs walked out.

“We’re talking about the most basic rights. We demand that they allow us to play soccer, and let us act freely with regard to sports, and ask that FIFA supervise that,” he says.

“Moreover, we want FIFA to investigate the Israeli violations against Palestinian athletes and that Israel stop operating sports clubs on occupied Palestinian lands. If Israel does not agree to all this, then the vote on expelling the Israeli team will take place tomorrow. We’re not against the sport, but we are against racist policies that discriminates. The Israeli soccer association must stop acting like the executor of Likud policy.”

— Avi Issacharoff

Dutch ministry says it’s not responsible for ‘anti-Israel’ textbook

The Dutch education ministry distances itself from a textbook that contained statements deemed anti-Israeli.

The ministry’s statement on the book follows complaints by Jewish students and parents over the description in the book of Israel’s establishment as the result of widespread murder of Palestinian villagers. It also questioned Israeli former prime minister Menachem Begin’s credentials as a peacemaker, noting he was “known as a terrorist and extremist.”

The ministry “does not approve textbooks, they are selected by individual schools,” a ministry spokesperson tells JTA Wednesday. He declines to comment on the assertions in the book.

Israel’s embassy in the Netherlands last week said the assertions in the “Geschiedeniswerkplaats,” or “History Workplace” textbook by the Noordhoff Uitgevers were “outrageous.”

— JTA

Jerusalem man indicted for rape of teen

A 27-year-old resident of Jerusalem is indicted for raping a 16-year-old girl in the capital’s Sacher Park after telling her she was “his future wife.”

Rafael Goldberg, who is married, approached the girl at the park on May 6, the eve of the holiday of Lag B’Omer, and told her he was 18, the indictment says.

The girl, who was with her friends, asked him to leave her alone. The defendant then told her she was “cute” and “his future wife,” and was again asked to stay away. A while later, Goldberg turned to the girl and asked her to come with him to help his friend, who he said was in the bathroom vomiting. He then took her to a secluded area of the park and raped her, according to the indictment.

African soccer league opposes postponing FIFA vote

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Wednesday opposes the postponing of Friday’s FIFA presidential election after soccer’s governing body was rocked by a corruption scandal.

“The Confederation of African Football opposes any postponement of the 65th FIFA Congress and the presidency election scheduled on May 29, 2015 in Zurich,” the CAF says in a statement issued on its website.

“During a meeting of the federation held on May 27, 2015 in Zurich, CAF reiterated its support for Sepp Blatter’s candidacy,” it says referring to FIFA’s president who is seeking a re-election.

— AFP

Germany says Nazi officer, 93, unfit for trial

German prosecutors say they had dropped their probe into a 93-year-old former Nazi SS officer over a World War II massacre in Italy because he suffers from dementia.

Gerhard Sommer, a former company commander of a mechanized infantry division, had been accused over the Nazis’ mass murder of 560 civilians in the Tuscan mountain village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema in 1944.

The prosecutors in the northern German city of Hamburg said that — had the man been deemed fit to stand trial — he would “with high probability have been charged with 342 cases of murder, committed cruelly and on base motives”.

On 12 August 1944, Nazi soldiers using machine guns and flamethrowers massacred almost all residents and refugees in Sant’Anna di Stazzema, including 107 children under 14 years. After decades of judicial inertia in Germany and Italy, the case resurfaced in the 1990s based on research by several historians.

In 2005, an Italian military court found that 10 members of the 16th SS “Reichsfuehrer” division, including Sommer, were personally responsible for the massacre and sentenced them to life in absentia.

— AFP

Responding to suicide, MKs eye anti-shaming laws

Israeli lawmakers are looking to take steps to prevent online defamation after an Israeli public servant killed himself over an accusatory Facebook post.

An African-American immigrant to Israel wrote a Facebook post last week accusing an Interior Ministry official of racism. Her post was shared more than 6,000 times.

Before committing suicide, the official wrote a Facebook post rejecting the claim and saying he could not bear the public shame.

At a discussion on the incident Wednesday, Israeli lawmakers called for Internet anti-defamation laws.

— AP

Steinitz, Elkin to share security cabinet slot

The Likud party’s Yuval Steinitz and Ze’ev Elkin will share one security cabinet seat on rotation, with Steinitz first, the Ynet news website reports. MK Benny Begin will not be a member of the security cabinet.

Europe won’t boycott FIFA vote

UEFA will not boycott FIFA’s congress and presidential election in Zurich on Friday, Dutch federation president Michael van Praag says following a meeting of the European governing body.

“There will be no UEFA boycott because there are also (apart from the presidential election) important issues to be decided like the Israel/Palestine question,” says van Praag on Thursday.

UEFA member Israel needs the European body’s backing to avoid a Palestinian bid to have it expelled from FIFA which could be voted on during the congress.

— AFP

Ehud Barak urges Israel to weigh unilateral withdrawal

Former prime minister Ehud Barak urges the government to restart peace talks with the Palestinians or “seriously” weigh unilateral withdrawals to make way for a Palestinian state.

“I know Abu Mazen [Abbas] and I know his heirs, and I say we have to try and resolve this with them, and if not — to seriously consider the unilateral steps needed to create a situation of no return of disengagement from the Palestinians,” Barak tells Army Radio.

He says Israel should draw borders that “include, of course, the settlement blocs and all neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and the army presence on the Jordan.”

“And alongside it [Israel], an independent Palestinian state will rise,” he says.

The former premier says his negotiations with Arafat failed because “he was not a partner” but says that “the Palestinians will need a magnifying glass to see the differences between what was on the table in 2000 to what will ultimately be agreed.”

Hotovely says FIFA vote would be hypocritical

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely urges FIFA to cancel the vote on Israel’s suspension, saying it would be “hypocritical” for an organization rocked by a corruption scandal to hold the vote.

“I call on the FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, to immediately reject the Palestinian request to suspend Israel,” she says. “The discussion of the request is deeply hypocritical for an organization suspected of corruption, and particularly when it comes during the election of a president, which is likely to greatly influence the Palestinian request.”

“The mixture of sports and politics is fundamentally flawed,” she says.

University cancels suspension over swastika

George Washington University in Washington, DC, has canceled the suspension of a student who displayed a swastika on the bulletin board of a campus dormitory.

The student, a member of the predominantly Jewish fraternity Zeta Beta Tau, said he had hung the swastika in order to educate his fellow students about the symbol’s meaning of auspiciousness and good fortune, which he learned about during a trip to India. The Metropolitan Police Department and University Police Department launched and later closed a hate crimes investigation into the incident, which occurred on March 16.

The suspension was recently overturned after Hindu, interfaith, and Jewish groups wrote to University President Steven Knapp, to educate him about the significance of the swastika for Hindus, the Times of India reported Wednesday.

— JTA

‘90% of world’s chemical weapons destroyed’

The world’s chemical watchdog says that 90 percent of the global chemical weapons stockpile has been destroyed, calling it a “major milestone.”

The stockpiles include caches containing chemicals needed to make deadly nerve agents like sarin, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says.

“This is a major milestone that shows we are well on the way to ridding the world of chemical weapons,” OPCW director Ahmet Uzumcu says in a statement, issued from the OPCW’s Hague-based headquarters.

Around 65,000 metric tons of declared chemical weapons, mostly from US and Russian arsenals, have now been destroyed OPCW acting spokesman Peter Sawczak tells AFP.

— AFP

Ancient remains torched at Midburn

The Israeli Antiquities Authority says revelers at a Burning Man festival famous for its pyrotechnic spectacles have accidentally torched some remnants of prehistoric man.

Archaeologist Yoram Haimi says organizers of Midburn, an Israeli affiliate of the Nevada carnival, burned a wooden temple Saturday on a hilltop scattered with flint tools from the Paleolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods.

The site was discovered 30 years ago by an Israeli archaeologist. The area is not marked with signs and it is hard to see the ancient remains. He says the extent of the damage is unclear.

Eyal Marcus, Midburn spokesman, says antiquities officials only approached organizers in the middle of the festival.

“We are sorry,” Marcus says. “One of our principles is ‘leave no trace.’ We are not for destroying.”

— AP

Iran against Syria no-fly zone

A senior Iranian official rejects the idea of ​​a Syria no-fly zone, which Turkey wants, saying it would be “a mistake” and would not restore security to the region.

“Talk of the establishment of a buffer and no-fly zone is the repetition of previous mistakes and will not help with security and stability in the region,” deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says.

— AFP

Teva settles US antitrust case for $1.2b

Teva Pharmaceutical will pay $1.2 billion to settle US antitrust charges in a long-running “pay for delay” case involving Cephalon, which Teva acquired in 2012, the Federal Trade Commission says.

Israel-based Teva, the world’s largest generic drug manufacturer, agrees to make the money available to compensate buyers, including drug wholesalers, pharmacies and insurers, who overpaid for Cephalon’s blockbuster sleep-disorder drug Provigil because of that company’s illegal conduct.

Under the settlement, Teva also agrees to a prohibition in all of its US operations on the type of anticompetitive patent settlements that Cephalon used to artificially inflate the price of Provigil, according to the FTC.

The settlement stems from a 2008 FTC lawsuit against Cephalon alleging that the company unlawfully protected its monopoly on prescription drug Provigil from competition through so called “reverse-payment” deals with four generic drugmakers in 2005-2006.

— AFP

Kuwait soccer chief hopes Israel spat is resolved

Kuwait’s Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, president of the Association of National Olympic Committees since 2012, who is hoping to be voted onto FIFA’s executive committee this weekend, says he hopes things between the Israelis and Palestinians will be resolved.

“I hope they will find the solution, because we like to see some fairness,” he told AFP.

“For this Mr Blatter will have a meeting with them and we are waiting for the results.

“I don’t think there will be a vote on Friday, but when we have more information we will discuss it.”

— AFP

Two days later, rocket located

The Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday has been located in the Be’er Tuvia Regional Council, the Ynet news website reports.

Arab-Jewish ties not just for left — Rivlin

President Reuven Rivlin urges improved Arab-Jewish ties in Israel, saying that the politicization of this task and its association exclusively with Israel’s left is “nothing short of tragic.”

He calls for “the forging of a ‘shared Israeli identity: not just for a boy in Tel Aviv, or a girl in Kafr Qasem; but for them both, together with the boy in Bnei Brak, and the girl in Beit El. This is a vision, and an Israeli hope, of which we are in need.”

After quoting Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Rivlin addresses Israel’s Arab public, saying: “My independence is your catastrophe. You build your identity which negates mine, and I build my identity which negates yours. This basic and formative experience stands at the very core of the Israel-Palestinian conflict – which has long since turned into a tragedy.”

The president appeals to both sides to recognize each others’ narrative, and says the “greatest mission before us is establishing trust between the sides.”

“Both sides must understand and accept that a positive identity, historical roots, a connection to a people, to a culture, to a heritage – are not a threat. On the contrary. Despite the tension and the challenge, these constitute the basic and most vital infrastructure in our ability to accept and understand the other’s identity,” Rivlin says.

“Any attempt to achieve change by way of demands or expectations by one side of the other to relinquish their identity is destined to fail. Not just because it is immoral, but because it is also ineffective. We see today how the European system of disconnecting the youth from their identity throws them like a boomerang into the arms of radical terror groups, in a desperate search for a meaningful identity.”

The president maintains that a strong identity breeds tolerance, saying “only people with a clear idea of where they come from will find inside themselves the room to include others.”

“The Jewish public needs to acknowledge that the Arab public is part and parcel of this land – a public shaped by a collective cultural identity. To the same extent, and regardless of threats or fear, the Palestinian consciousness and history must never be defined as an opposition or resistance to Zionism or the Jewish people.”

The president details two measures to bridge the cultural gaps. First, the establishment of a new Arab city. “By 2020, I would hope and like to believe that the city will be on the ground and not just on paper,” he says. Second, the president says Israelis must study Arabic.

As for Israel’s Arabs, the president says, while they cannot be expected to sing the national anthem “with tears glistening,” they must condemn terror and have “a sense of solidarity and mutual responsibility” with the State of Israel.

The president laments that Arab-Jewish trust-building has been politicized and co-opted by Israel’s left.

“Friends, the mission of building confidence between the Jewish and Arab communities is not solely the task of the left or any particular political camp. It is the mission of all for whom this land is dear,” he says. “No single political camp can be allowed to take ownership, or dictate the language of this task. Just as no single camp can shirk its responsibility toward this task. The fact that the subject has become associated with a particular camp, both on the Jewish and Arab sides, is nothing short of tragic.”

Meanwhile, he notes, both Israel’s Arabs and Jews continue to believe the other side will disappear.

“There are two peoples here focused too much on the past, and insufficiently on the future, too much on their own sense of justice, and not enough on understanding the other side’s story. Too much on a false sense of hope that the other side will simply disappear, and too little on internalizing the reality that both sides are here to stay. Two peoples, focused too much on pain, grief and memorializing, and too little on hope, and the joy of mutual discovery. The wailing, the self-flagellation, the international appeals, will not open up the hearts of the majority on either side.”

Blatter says FIFA faces ‘more bad news’

FIFA president Sepp Blatter says that the scandal-tainted football body faces “more bad news” and that officials accused of corruption had brought shame and humiliation on the organization.

But the 79-year-old Swiss official tells the opening of FIFA’s annual congress he could not be blamed for the latest controversy to hit the body saying he could not “monitor” every official.

“The next few months will not be easy for FIFA. I am sure more bad news will follow but it is necessary to begin to restore trust,” he says.

Blatter calls the scandals “unprecedented” and that the “actions of individuals bring shame and humiliation on football and demand action and change from us all.”

— AFP

Indian ice cream named for Adolf Hitler

Indian ice cream lovers are putting their favorite treat in a cone named after Adolf Hitler.

The boxes of Hitler ice cream cones bear the unsmiling image of the Nazi leader dressed in a military uniform. The cones are available throughout India, the Daily Mail reports.

The newspaper says the name of the cones is not shocking to Indians because of the lack of Holocaust education in the country.

— JTA

PM backs Arab Peace Initiative, with caveats

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Arab Peace Initiative suits Israel’s interests in principle, though the proposal’s details require tweaking.

Speaking to Israeli diplomatic reporters in Tel Aviv, the prime minister says the framework is outdated and contains many issues that every Israeli would object to, such as an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and right of return for Palestinian refugees.

However, as a general outline for a future peace accord, it is not objectionable to Israel, he says.

The prime minister reiterates that he does not want a binational state and supports the two-state solution. He says that before the election, in the interview where he said no Palestinian state would be established on his watch, he was asked about the likelihood of the event, not his position on it.

Addressing domestic issues, Netanyahu says he is not seeking to control or silence the media, as charged. He says that as acting communications minister he wants to create greater competition and maintains it’s his prerogative as prime minister to focus personally on certain issues.

He also vows he won’t harm the justice system, and says criticism in this regard — primarily centered around the appointment of the Jewish Home party’s Ayelet Shaked as justice minister — is unfounded. During his six-year term, the Supreme Court’s power hasn’t been compromised, he says, and so it will remain.

— Raphael Ahren contributed.

Palestinians ‘happy’ to see Tony Blair go

As Tony Blair resigns, Palestinians accuse the peace envoy of siding with Israel at their expense, and unleash a torrent of criticism against him.

“He did nothing for the Palestinian cause but was used by Israel to justify its occupation and settlement policy,” Palestinian negotiator Mohammad Shtayyeh says.

“We are happy that Tony Blair is going. He should have resigned a long time ago.”

Blair tendered his resignation to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday, and sources close to him said he would step down officially next month from his unpaid position.

“He was not the Quartet’s envoy, he was Israel’s envoy and the envoy of the United States. He was totally biased,” says Samir Awad, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank.

Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Fatah, says Blair did “nothing for the Palestinians during eight years.”

— AFP, Times of Israel staff

Obama meets Steven Sotloff’s parents

US President Barack Obama meets with the family of Israeli-American journalist Steven Sotloff, who was abducted in Syria and beheaded by the Islamic State group in September.

“Today in Miami, President Obama had the opportunity to meet with Art and Shirley Sotloff, the parents of Steven Sotloff, and Steven’s sister Lauren,” says National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.

“The president expressed his and the first lady’s condolences for Steven’s death,” says Meehan, adding that Obama learned more about Sotloff’s life and the “2Lives” memorial foundation set up in his name.

— AFP

Yeshiva student drowns in reservoir

An 18-year-old yeshiva student’s body is retrieved by rescue workers from a reservoir in Beit Zayit, outside Jerusalem.

The student’s friend had contacted emergency services after the deceased entered the reservoir and disappeared, according to Ynet.

After a two hour search, the teenager’s body was located.

His name has not been released.

As Israel Festival opens, Regev booed

Israeli rocker Shalom Hanoch opens the 2015 Israel Festival Thursday night in the open-air Sultan’s Pool theater overlooking the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

But the 68-year-old singer made headlines prior to his Thursday performance by objecting to Likud member Miri Regev’s announcement that she would be giving a speech before the singer took the stage, joining Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and longtime Israel Festival head Yossi Tal-Gan. Regev, a colorful right-wing personality, was recently appointed Minister of Culture and Sport, and as such received the festival organizer’s standard invitation.

Prior to the performance, Barkat introduces Regev to a largely booing and whistling crowd. Regev, reading from a prepared speech, calls the festival a “Zionist” enterprise and said there is no better place than the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem to hold the festival in that the city’s essentially reflects pluralism and multiculturalism.

“I love Shalom Hanoch,” and all the artists involved in the festival, says Regev, who continues that there is place for everyone here — Jews, Arabs, Christians — and that she is the minister of culture for all.

After a smattering of applause for Regev, Hanoch begins the show with his classic hit, “Adon btoch etsmo hu gar” or “A man lives within himself.”

—Amanda Borschel-Dan