Xtra News Community 2
March 29, 2024, 11:00:40 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Welcome to Xtra News Community 2 — please also join our XNC2-BACKUP-GROUP.
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links BITEBACK! XNC2-BACKUP-GROUP Staff List Login Register  

Benjamin Netanyahu is pissed off … good bloody job!!

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Benjamin Netanyahu is pissed off … good bloody job!!  (Read 239 times)
0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« on: December 28, 2016, 10:17:15 am »


from The Washington Post....

Netanyahu summons U.S. envoy over anti-settlement resolution adopted by U.N.

Ambassador Dan Shapiro was requested at a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
over the U.S. failure to prevent a Security Council resolution that harshly criticizes
Israeli settlements, a senior official in Jerusalem said.


By RUTH EGLASH | 12:52PM EST - Sunday, December 25, 2016

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem. Netanyahu lashed out at President Barack Obama on Saturday, December 24th, accusing him of a “shameful ambush” at the United Nations over West Bank settlements and saying he is looking forward to working with his “friend” President-elect Donald Trump. Netanyahu's comments came a day after the United States broke with past practice and allowed the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation” of international law. — Photograph: Abir Sultan/Associated Press.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem. Netanyahu lashed out at
President Barack Obama on Saturday, December 24th, accusing him of a “shameful ambush” at the United Nations over West Bank
settlements and saying he is looking forward to working with his “friend” President-elect Donald Trump. Netanyahu's comments
came a day after the United States broke with past practice and allowed the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli
settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation” of international law.
 — Photograph: Abir Sultan/Associated Press.


JERUSALEM The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, was requested on Sunday to attend a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the United States' failure to block a U.N. Security Council resolution that harshly criticized Israeli settlements, a senior official in the prime minister's office said.

The meeting follows a series of summons on Sunday, Christmas Day, of envoys from countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel and that voted in favor of the resolution.

Passing by a vote of 14 to 0, the resolution declares that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have “no legal validity” and constitute a “flagrant violation under international law.” It also calls the settlements a major obstacle to achieving a two-state solution and peace with the Palestinians.

Breaking with a long-standing policy of blocking resolutions dealing with Israel, the United States did not use its veto powers to stop its passage, opting to abstain instead.

The summons were part of a series of diplomatic measures announced by Netanyahu, who is also Israel’s foreign minister, since the resolution was adopted Friday.

Israeli media reported on Sunday that Netanyahu had instructed members of his cabinet to refrain from traveling to countries that voted for the resolution.

Following the U.N. vote, Netanyahu recalled Israel's ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal and canceled scheduled trips to Israel by the Senegalese foreign minister and Ukraine's prime minister. He also said that Israeli aid to Senegal will be canceled and that contributions Israel makes to five U.N. agencies will be halted.

“I share my ministers' feelings of anger and frustration vis-a-vis the unbalanced resolution,” Netanyahu said at his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

He laid blame for the resolution squarely on the shoulders of President Obama.

“From the information we have, we have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated on the wording and demanded that it be passed,” Netanyahu said.

He said the move contradicted traditional American policy not to dictate terms of a permanent peace agreement on Israel.

“Over decades, American administrations and Israeli governments had disagreed about settlements, but we agreed that the Security Council was not the place to resolve this issue,” he said. “As I told [U.S. Secretary of State] John Kerry on Thursday, friends don't take friends to the Security Council.”

Netanyahu's anger was matched by more-militant voices in his right-wing coalition.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the ultranationalist Jewish Home party, held a news conference at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, one of Judaism's holiest sites, saying the city has been the capital of Jews for 3,000 years.

He said that in response to the resolution, Israel should evaluate its approach to the 1994 Oslo Accords, which set out a plan for two states, one for Israelis and one for Palestinians. He said that Israel should instead impose sovereignty on land it captured after the 1967 war. He also urged the government to ramp up construction in Israeli settlements, built on land the Palestinians hope to use for a state.

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem estimates that there are close to 600,000 Israelis living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The figures are based on data from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics and the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Palestinians say the figure is probably higher.

Over the past six months, Israel has announced plans to add hundreds of units to existing settlements, each time drawing a rebuke from the White House. More recently, right-wing voices in Netanyahu's government have been pushing legislation to legalize settlements built on privately owned Palestinian land.

The U.S. abstention Friday was a rare rebuke to Israel, reflecting mounting frustration in the Obama administration over settlement growth. With his time in office due to end in less than a month, Obama's decision not to veto was a last-minute symbolic statement of that displeasure and a sense of exasperation that the time has come for two states to be carved out of the contested land.

Responding with a strongly worded statement, Netanyahu said the Obama administration had “not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the U.N., it has colluded with it behind the scenes.”

He said he looked forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump “to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.” Media reports on Sunday said Netanyahu had instructed Foreign Ministry officials to look into ways to overturn the resolution.

Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and until recently the director general of the Foreign Ministry, said it was possible to bring another resolution to supersede the previous one.

This happened, he said, with a 1975 U.N. decision stating that Zionism is racism. It took nearly 20 years and a unique set of political circumstances, including the support of former U.S. president George H.W. Bush, to change that decision, Gold said.

“I can't speculate about the Trump administration, but I think his instincts about how this resolution damages peacemaking and negotiations are absolutely correct,” said Gold, who served as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 to 1999.

“Netanyahu's self-righteousness that this resolution is going to be changed or reversed by Trump is totally unfounded,” said Alon Pinkas, a former diplomat and adviser to Israeli prime ministers. “If he really thinks this can happen, then either he is panicking or plainly misleading.”

Pinkas said that while the resolution was unlikely to have any immediate consequences, in the long term it could set an international precedent on Israel and its settlements.


• Ruth Eglash is a reporter for The Washington Post based in Jerusalem. She was formerly a reporter and senior editor at the Jerusalem Post and freelanced for international media.

__________________________________________________________________________

More on this topic:

 • VIDEO: Netanyahu reprimands Obama administration over U.N. vote

 • VIDEO: Netanyahu — Israel will reassess U.N. ties after Security Council vote

 • VIDEO: U.N. Security Council passes resolution on Israeli settlements

 • Israel: humbled Netanyahu places hopes in Trump

 • Netanyahu blasts U.N., Obama over West Bank settlements resolution

 • U.S. declines to veto U.N. Security Council resolution for Israel to stop Jewish settlement activity


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/netanyahu-reprimands-nations-that-supported-un-settlement-resolution/2016/12/25/0519946f-3cdc-4e0c-96b3-a9926750dae0_story.html
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2016, 10:18:17 am »


from The New Zealand Herald....

Israel bars New Zealand ambassador from the country in further Security Council fallout



Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2016, 11:05:30 am »


from The Washington Post....

After U.N. resolution on settlements, Israelis say the worst is yet to come

Officials fear that the recent security council measure condemning Israeli settlements as illegal and
a barrier to peace could be the start of a wave of international declarations against the country.


By RUTH EGLASH | 1:47PM EST - Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Earth-moving equipment stands in the disputed Israeli settlement of Ramat Shlomo on December 23rd after reports emerged that an additional 300 housing units are planned for this neighborhood just north of Jerusalem. — Photograph: Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency.
Earth-moving equipment stands in the disputed Israeli settlement of Ramat Shlomo on December 23rd after reports emerged
that an additional 300 housing units are planned for this neighborhood just north of Jerusalem.
 — Photograph: Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency.


JERUSALEM — Israeli officials fear that a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal and a barrier to peace could be the start of a wave of international declarations against the country.

Days after the measure was approved, Israel’s foreign ministry is bracing for what it believes could be another U.N. resolution that would impose parameters on negotiations with the Palestinians.

Such a resolution could come out of a meeting in Paris of some 70 international leaders, scheduled for January 15th, an Israeli official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli officials are also concerned that a speech being planned by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, which he could present in Paris or before, will outline the Obama administration's position on a final peace agreement and add fuel to a second resolution.

Israel has long said that any future peace deal with creation of a Palestinian state alongside it could come only from direct peace negotiations, with no preconditions. However, since early 2014, there has been little progress in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table to end the decades-old conflict.

As the stalemate stretched on, the Palestinians have pressed to hold Israel accountable in international forums for its actions in the West Bank, including expanding existing Jewish settlements and laying the groundwork for new communities.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Tuesday that in recent days senior government ministers had been presented with information suggesting the French conference will outline a plan for peace that will immediately be brought to the U.N. Security Council for a vote before January 20th, when President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned ministers that Friday's resolution on the settlements might not be the last measure taken by the international community regarding Israel and that there will probably be additional steps, Haaretz reported, quoting an unnamed official.

The resolution, which was approved late on Friday by a vote of 14 to 0, declares that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have “no legal validity” and constitute a “flagrant violation under international law.” It also calls the settlements a major obstacle to achieving a two-state solution and peace with the Palestinians.

The United States abstained instead of using its veto, breaking with a long-standing policy of blocking resolutions dealing with Israel.

Since Friday, Netanyahu has announced a series of diplomatic measures, including summoning the envoys of countries that voted for the resolution, recalling Israel's ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal, two of the four countries that brought the resolution, and canceling some diplomatic meetings with officials from countries that allowed the resolution to pass.

In addition, right-wing voices in Netanyahu's coalition have called on him to ramp up Israeli construction in the settlements, and some have even said it was time for Israel to annex parts of the West Bank.

News media reports indicated that Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was set to finalize plans to build 600 units in East Jerusalem in a meeting of Jerusalem's Planning and Construction Committee on Wednesday. Although the agenda for the committee was in place before the Security Council vote, the plan to approve permits to build the apartments in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem was viewed by some as a rebuke to the U.N. declaration.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Jerusalem Municipality said, “The Jerusalem Municipality has not changed its stance that building in Jerusalem is necessary for the development of the city and will continue to develop the capital according to zoning and building codes without prejudice, for the benefit of all residents.”

Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem estimates that, combined, about 600,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The figures are based on official data provided by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics and the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Palestinians say the figure is higher.

Sophie Lagoutte, a spokeswoman for the French Embassy in Tel Aviv, said the Paris initiative was not aimed at creating a new U.N. resolution but was intended to “reaffirm the importance of a two-state solution, with Palestinians and Israelis living side by side in security.”

The French hope the decisions made at the meeting will help reignite the peace process, Lagoutte said.

Palestinian officials praised the U.N. resolution and the French initiative.

The Israelis have repeatedly stated that they will not go to Paris, and Netanyahu said on Friday that Israel would not abide by the U.N. resolution.

“Such steps are counterproductive to the situation,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told The Washington Post in an interview. “People are in love with an easy formula and ignore the complexity on the ground.”

Israel does not intend to be part of the Paris conference, she said, or of “any international idea to force a final resolution on Israel” without it first sitting down and negotiating a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Hotovely said she believed the Obama administration “had failed in so many arenas” and that President Obama was on his way out and “did not care if he left behind a bad legacy in the region.”

Hotovely's comments came after Israel's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, said in a CNN interview on Monday that Israel had proof that Obama himself was behind Friday's U.N. resolution. Dermer said Israel would give Trump evidence that Obama had colluded with the Palestinians in hopes that the new administration would work with Israel to override the resolution by submitting an alternative one on the issue.

“It's an old story that the United Nations gangs up against Israel. What is new is that the United States did not stand up and oppose that gang-up,” Dermer said on CNN. “And what is outrageous is that the United States was actually behind that gang-up. I think it was a very sad day and really a shameful chapter in U.S.-Israel relations.”

In an interview on Israel's Channel 2 News, also on Monday, Obama adviser Ben Rhodes said that “the true face of this president's support for Israel can be seen in his entire record.”

“A few weeks ago we completed a 10-year, $38 billion [memorandum of understanding] for security assistance, the largest such package for any country in American history,” Rhodes said. “Obama has been outspoken about his support for a two-state solution and concern about settlements throughout his entire administration. This is not a new position.”

Israelis are involved in a significant diplomatic push to gain the support of other countries heading to the Paris conference. It is also cementing ties with Ethiopia and Kazakhstan, two countries set to become nonpermanent members of the Security Council on Sunday. Netanyahu visited both countries this year.

Oded Eran, a former Israeli diplomat and a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said, however, that gaining the support of two nonpermanent members was unlikely to prevent a resolution from passing. Only nine affirmative votes are needed from the 15-member council to approve a resolution, but the five permanent members hold veto power.

If a second resolution is brought before the Security Council in coming weeks, it would probably “enshrine the U.S. position on the major issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, set out the borders between the two states and refer to East Jerusalem as being the site of a future Palestinian capital,” Eran said. “If that happens, it will be interesting how the U.S. will react to it this time.”


• Ruth Eglash is a reporter for The Washington Post based in Jerusalem. She was formerly a reporter and senior editor at The Jerusalem Post and freelanced for international media.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Netanyahu blasts U.N., Obama over West Bank settlements resolution

 • VIDEO: U.N. Security Council passes resolution on Israeli settlements

 • Stormy alliance between Obama and Netanyahu reaches its end in New York

 • U.S. and Israel reach agreement on unprecedented amount of military aid


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/after-un-resolution-on-settlements-israelis-say-the-worst-is-yet-to-come/2016/12/27/93db827e-cc3a-11e6-85cd-e66532e35a44_story.html
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2016, 03:32:05 pm »


TOY TOSSING
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2016, 04:00:06 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Kerry harshly condemns Israeli settler activity as an obstacle to peace

Secretary of State John F. Kerry offered a harsh and detailed assessment of Israeli settlements
on the West Bank and said the U.S. allowed passage of a United Nations resolution condemning
that activity to preserve the possibility of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.


By CAROL MORELLO and RUTH EGLASH | 4:56PM EST - Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Secretary of State John F. Kerry speaks about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the U.S. decision to allow passage of a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settler activity in the West Bank. — Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry speaks about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the U.S. decision to allow passage of
a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settler activity in the West Bank. — Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press.


SECRETARY OF STATE John F. Kerry on Wednesday harshly criticized Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying their growth threatens to destroy the viability of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that the United States was obliged to allow passage of a U.N. resolution condemning the activity in order to preserve the possibility of peace.

Kerry noted that the number of Israelis living in settlements has grown significantly and that their outposts are extending farther into the West Bank — “in the middle of what, by any reasonable definition, would be the future Palestinian state.”

“No one thinking seriously about peace can ignore the reality of what the settlements pose to that peace,” he said.

Kerry, in the hour-long speech delivered at the State Department, also condemned Palestinian incitement to violence as a barrier to direct negotiations. But his focus was on defending the Obama administration's policies and highlighting Israel's actions at a moment of high tension between the two governments, following the passage of the U.N. resolution.

“Regrettably, some seem to believe that the U.S. friendship means the U.S. must accept any policy, regardless of our own interests, our own positions, our own words, our own principles — even after urging again and again that the policy must change,” he said. “Friends need to tell each other the hard truths, and friendships require mutual respect.”

He said the vote at the United Nations was about “Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state, living side by side in peace and security with its neighbors. That's what we are trying to preserve, for our sake and for theirs.”

Saying the two-state solution was in “serious jeopardy,” Kerry said Israel would never improve its relations with Arab countries if it precludes the possibility of a separate state for Palestinians.

“If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or Democratic,” he said. “It cannot be both.”

Some Israeli politicians applauded Kerry's speech. Former prime minister Ehud Barak tweeted that it was a “Powerful, lucid speech. World & majority in Israel think the same.”

But most Israeli leaders and the political right immediately took umbrage, accusing Kerry of trying to dictate policy to an elected government.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the speech “a big disappointment.”

“He deals obsessively with the settlements, he fails to deal with the Palestinian failure to recognize a Jewish state,” Netanyahu said, adding, “If he put the same emphasis on Palestinian incitement and terror that he did on settlements then maybe we will be on the way to peace.”

Kerry acknowledged that his vision is not shared by President-elect Donald Trump.

“President Obama and I know that the incoming administration has signaled that they may take a different path, and even suggested breaking from the long-standing U.S. policies on settlements, Jerusalem — and possibly the two-state solution,” Kerry said. “That is for them to decide — that's how we work. But we cannot, in good conscience, do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away. This is a time to stand up for what is right.”

Trump has said that he will move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, a move freighted with political significance in advance of any settlement, and his nominee to be ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, has said Jewish settlements in the West Bank are legal.

About two hours before Kerry started speaking, Trump tweeted his criticism of the Obama administration:

“We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but … not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!”

Netanyahu, in turn, promptly tweeted his gratitude: “President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel!”

Although he did not mention Netanyahu by name, Kerry addressed head-on the Israeli leader's assertions that the United States had “colluded” in and “orchestrated” last week's U.N. resolution affirming that settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution.”

Kerry denied that the United States drafted or promoted the resolution. But he acknowledged that the United States took part in preliminary discussions, as is routine. Kerry said the diplomats told other Security Council members they would oppose a resolution that did not condemn Palestinian incitement to violence. They also said if the text were more “balanced,” it was “possible” the United States would not block it.

Kerry called the current Israeli governing coalition the most right-wing in country's history and said it is driven by an extremist settler agenda inimical to a two-state agreement.

“The result is that policies of this government, which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’, are leading in the opposite direction,” Kerry said. “They're leading towards one state.”

“The vote in the United Nations was about preserving the two-state solution,” he added. “That's what we were standing up for.”

Kerry offered six principles that he said would satisfy Israeli security needs and Palestinian aspirations for a homeland. Most have been proven sticking points in previous negotiations — among them, Jerusalem as a mutual capital for two states; normalized relations with Arab states in the region; and financial compensation for Palestinian refugees, along with acknowledgment of their suffering.

Kerry returned from vacation to give his speech, which was being worked on until a few minutes before he walked on stage in the Dean Acheson Auditorium. It was a sign that the administration was still struggling to deal with the political firestorm ignited by the resolution vote. The outrage in the Israeli government has been matched among some members of Congress.

Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Kerry's speech “at best a pointless tirade in the waning days of an outgoing administration.”

The U.S. abstention has been condemned by several Democrats as well, including Senator Charles E. Schumer (New York), who is the party's incoming leader.

But for Kerry it was a speech that captured the pent-up frustration that has grown in the two years since his nine-month effort to broker a peace agreement collapsed, and his attempts to tamp down Palestinian violence came to nothing.

And Kerry, famous for always sounding a hopeful note, was clearly pessimistic about whether his words would make any difference.

“We can only encourage them to take this path,” he said. “We cannot walk down it for them.”


Ruth Eglash reported from Jerusalem. Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.

• Carol Morello is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, covering the State Department.

• Ruth Eglash is a reporter for The Washington Post based in Jerusalem. She was formerly a reporter and senior editor at The Jerusalem Post and freelanced for international media.

__________________________________________________________________________

More on this topic:

 • Read the transcript of Kerry's speech

 • Trump re-ups criticism of United Nations, saying it's causing problems, not solving them

 • VIDEO: Kerry says U.N. vote on Israeli settlements was about pressuring a two-state solution

 • VIDEO: Israel's Netanyahu slams John Kerry's speech

 • VIDEO: Israel postpones settlements vote ahead of Kerry speech

 • Trump picks a supporter of West Bank settlements for ambassador to Israel


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kerry-address-middle-east-peace-process-amid-deep-us-israel-strains/2016/12/28/d656e5fa-cd0a-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2016, 04:00:18 pm »


from The Washington Post....

How the U.S. came to abstain on a U.N. resolution
condemning Israeli settlements


Israel had been a third rail of U.S. politics for decades, but President Obama had nothing
to lose because he wasn’t running for office again. For the moment, according to senior
U.S. officials, the administration is satisfied that West Bank settlements and their
effect on the peace process are back on the international agenda.


By KAREN DeYOUNG | 8:11PM EST - Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, votes to abstain from voting on a resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. — Photograph: Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency.
Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, votes to abstain from voting on a resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction
in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. — Photograph: Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency.


ON December 21st, amid his morning workout, an afternoon round of golf and a family dinner with friends, President Obama interrupted his Hawaii vacation to consult by phone with his top national security team in Washington. Egypt had introduced a resolution at the U.N. Security Council condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, and a vote was scheduled for the next day.

The idea had been circulating at the council for months, but the abrupt timing was a surprise. Obama was open to abstaining, he said on the call, provided the measure was “balanced” in its censure of terrorism and Palestinian violence and there were no last-minute changes in the text.

Skeptics, including Vice President Biden, warned of fierce backlash in Congress and in Israel itself. But most agreed that the time had come to take a stand. The rapid increase of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, despite escalating U.S. criticism, could very well close the door to any hope of negotiating side-by-side Israeli and Palestinian states. Pending Israeli legislation would retroactively legalize settlements already constructed on Palestinian land.

The resolution's sponsors, four countries in addition to Egypt, were determined to call a vote before Obama left office. A U.S. veto would not only imply approval of Israeli actions but also likely take Israel off the hook for at least the next four years during President-elect Donald Trump's administration.

“People debated whether the backlash to the vote, if we abstained, would do more harm than good, that it would reverberate into our politics, into Israeli politics, and would accelerate trends,” a senior administration official said. But “every potential argument about making things worse is already happening.”

Israel had been a third rail of U.S. political debate for decades, but Obama, aides noted, never had to run for office again. He had nothing to lose.

When the vote finally came two days later, all but one of the Security Council's 15 members, including Russia, China and the United States' closest European allies, approved it. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power, who had just received the go-ahead from Obama, via a call from White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice, raised her hand high in abstention. The resolution was approved.

Reaction was as predicted. Members of Congress charged that Obama had undercut one of the United States' closest allies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the measure “absurd,” and his government said the United States had secretly “colluded” with the Palestinians on the resolution — a charge Obama aides heatedly denied.

Trump, who had publicly urged a veto, tweeted for Israel to “stay strong” until his inauguration. Trump clearly plans a sharp change of course in U.S. policy. Chief Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon and others close to the president-elect have grown increasingly unhappy with administration comments in recent weeks, especially on Israel. Bannon and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are leading the president-elect's efforts on the Israel debate during the transition, fielding calls from Israeli officials and allies, and arranging meetings, according to several people familiar with the internal setup.

Asked by reporters on Wednesday whether he thinks the United States should leave the United Nations, Trump said that as long as the international body is “solving problems” rather than causing them, “if it lives up to its potential, it's a great thing. If it doesn't, it's a waste of time.”

But for the moment, at least, according to senior Obama administration officials who discussed the road to the president's decision on the condition of anonymity, the administration takes some satisfaction in that the issue of settlements and the perceived risk they pose to an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is back on the international agenda.

The first public hint of the move came in the heat of the U.S. presidential campaign in September, just after nominees Trump and Hillary Clinton held meetings with Netanyahu in New York. In an Israeli television interview, Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Obama was “asking himself” about the best way to promote a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This could be a statement we make or a resolution or an initiative at the U.N. … which contributes to an effort to be continued by the next administration,” he said.

Shapiro clearly anticipated a Clinton victory, reflecting thinking within the administration that if Obama took the heat for a critical statement or resolution, she would be in a better position to play the “good cop” and move Israel toward substantive negotiations. For her part, Clinton had expressed no interest in a resolution.

The United States had long declined to join much of the rest of the world in defining as “illegal” the building of Israeli housing in the West Bank and majority-Palestinian East Jerusalem. The final decision on who had the rights to what land was to be negotiated, according to decades of international agreements by Israelis and Palestinians.

During his eight years in office, Obama had tried to kick-start direct Israeli-Palestinian talks over a “final status” accord, including with nearly two years of intensive negotiations by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. Throughout that time, the administration had avoided Security Council action on the issue, persuading sponsors to withdraw potential resolutions before a vote.

The Palestinians were always lobbying for a vote, although the administration considered most of the proposed resolutions too one-sided. At the same time, the administration's thinking was that there was no point in pre-empting talks if there were still a realistic chance of getting the parties back to the table.

But with settlements rapidly expanding, and senior officials in Netanyahu's right-wing coalition saying the two-state solution was effectively dead, other Security Council members were agitating for a new resolution, and the administration was listening.

So was Netanyahu's government, which picked up immediately on Shapiro's comments.

Trump's November 8th victory increased Israeli concern of a pre-emptive move by Obama, along with determination by other U.N. members to table a resolution before the new U.S. administration took office.

The Palestinians and Egypt — which currently holds the rotating Arab seat on the Security Council — had been talking up a new resolution on settlements since the summer. At the same time, New Zealand, which had withheld a previous measure at the United States' request, had written a new draft.

Both versions began to circulate in early December. The United States, in discussions with New Zealand and indirectly with Egypt, insisted it would not even consider the matter unless the resolutions were more balanced to reflect criticism of Palestinian violence along with condemnation of Israeli settlements, according to U.S. officials.

The officials categorically denied Israeli allegations this week that the United States secretly pushed the resolutions. An Egyptian newspaper report alleging that Rice and Kerry met in early December with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and the head of Palestinian intelligence to plot the resolution was false, officials said. While Kerry and Rice met separately with Erekat during a visit here, they said, there was no intelligence official and no discussion of a resolution.

The officials also denied that Biden, in two mid-December calls to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, had urged a “yes” vote in the council. Biden, who handles the Ukraine account for the White House, calls Poroshenko several times a month, and those times were supporting the proposed nationalization of a corrupt bank.

The Egyptian draft, tweaked with help from Britain, was submitted to the council on December 21st. As often happens when competing and overlapping resolutions circulate, New Zealand and co-sponsors Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela decided to drop their version and support the nearly identical Egyptian resolution in order to cut short prolonged negotiations and push for a vote.

“The United States did not draft or originate this resolution. Nor did we put it forward,” Kerry said in a speech on Wednesday. “It was drafted by Egypt … which is one of Israel's closest friends in the region, in coordination with the Palestinians and others.”

The final text was carefully drawn to use identical, or near-identical, language to resolutions dating to the 1970s on Israel and the Palestinians that the United States had previously approved.

“We wanted to see Security Council action,” said a diplomat from one of the sponsors. “We wanted the international community to reaffirm the two-state solution.”

“We wanted to do it; it's a very important issue for us,” said another diplomat, who said there had been “no conversation” with the United States about the subject. “I didn't see the U.S. play any role at all.”

In the meantime, however, Egypt came under sharp pressure from Israel — which frequently supports U.S. military aid to Cairo — and from Trump, who called Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Arab foreign ministers convened a Thursday meeting in Cairo, and by midday, Egypt had withdrawn its resolution. A scheduled 3 p.m. vote was canceled.

Under Security Council rules, co-sponsors can still put the resolution forward, which is what New Zealand and the others did on Friday, when the council reconvened for a vote.

At the time, according to several diplomats, few — if any — knew how the United States would vote.


Carol Morello and Robert Costa contributed to this report.

• Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national security correspondent for The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-us-came-to-abstain-on-a-un-resolution-condemning-israeli-settlements/2016/12/28/fed102ee-cd38-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
hdrider
Getting The Hang Of It
*
Posts: 48



« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2016, 04:17:23 pm »

Thought it was strange the way Key suddenly shot through and went through the usual marriage problems/ secret ill health ideas in my head.Just maybe he got word of this bullshit on the horizon and being a jew himself did not want a conflict of interests ! No one else could get away with what they are doing and if anyone speaks out against them the tired old holocaust war horse is dragged out !
Report Spam   Logged
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2017, 09:55:49 am »


from The Washington Post....

Israeli police question Netanyahu over corruption allegation

By IAN DEITCH | 5:33PM EST - Monday, January 02, 2017

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, January 1st, 2017. — Photograph: Gali Tibbon/Associated Press.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, January 1st, 2017.
 — Photograph: Gali Tibbon/Associated Press.


JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was grilled by police investigators for over three hours at his official residence on Monday night, opening what could be a politically damaging criminal investigation into suspicions that he improperly accepted gifts from wealthy supporters.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, but the involvement of the national fraud squad indicated questions raised about him are considered serious enough to merit an investigation. Police said Netanyahu was questioned “under caution,” a term signaling that anything he said could be used as evidence against him.

Israel's Justice Ministry later issued a statement saying Netanyahu was questioned “on suspicion of receiving benefits from business people.”

The ministry said investigators also had looked into suspicions of campaign finance irregularities and double billing for travel expenses, but determined there was not enough evidence to merit criminal charges.

Netanyahu has denied what he calls “baseless” reports about the investigation.

“We've been paying attention to reports in the media, we are hearing the celebratory mood and the atmosphere in the television studios and the corridors of the opposition, and I would like to tell them, stop with the celebrations, don't rush,” he told a meeting of lawmakers from his Likud Party earlier on Monday. “There won't be anything because there is nothing.”

Israel's Channel 2 TV has said that Netanyahu accepted “favors” from businessmen in Israel and abroad and that he is the central suspect in a second investigation that also involves family members.

The newspaper Haaretz said billionaire Ronald Lauder, a longtime friend of Netanyahu's, was linked to the affair. Channel 10 TV has reported that Netanyahu's oldest son, Yair, accepted free trips and other gifts from Australian billionaire James Packer.

In late September, Lauder was summoned by police for questioning “related to a certain investigation conducted by them and in which Mr. Lauder is not its subject matter,” said Helena Beilin, Lauder's Israeli attorney. “After a short meeting, he was told that his presence is no longer required and that there shall be no further need for additional meetings.”

Netanyahu, who took office in 2009, has long had an image as a cigar-smoking, cognac-drinking socialite, while his wife, Sara, has been accused of abusive behavior toward staff. Opponents have portrayed both as being out of touch with the struggles of average Israelis.

Over the years, reports have been released about the high cost of the Netanyahus' housekeeping expenses.

In one case, he was chided for spending $127,000 in public funds for a special sleeping cabin on a flight to London. Even their costly purchases of scented candles and pistachio-flavored ice cream have been derided.

But he has never been charged with a crime. However, a mounting investigation could put pressure on him to step down, as his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, did in 2008 just months before he was formally indicted on corruption related charges. Olmert is now serving a prison sentence after being convicted of accepting bribes.

A campaign is underway by Erel Margalit, an opposition lawmaker of the Zionist Union party, seeking for Netanyahu to be formally investigated over suspicions of prominent donors improperly transferring money for the prime minister's personal use as well as reports that Netanyahu's personal attorney represented a German firm involved in a $1.5 billion sale of submarines to Israel.

The Netanyahus have denied any wrongdoing, and say they are the target of a witch hunt by the Israeli media.


Associated Press news story.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-media-police-to-question-netanyahu-for-corruption/2017/01/02/cf1a34c8-d0bf-11e6-9651-54a0154cf5b3_story.html
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2017, 08:07:36 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Israeli settlements grew on Obama's watch.
They may be poised for a boom on Trump's.


Israeli settlements may be illegal in the eyes of the U.N. Security Council, but every day
they become a more entrenched reality on land that Palestinians say should rightfully
belong to them. As the hilltops fill with homes, decades of international efforts to
achieve a two-state solution are unraveling. And global condemnations
notwithstanding, the trend is poised to accelerate.


By GRIFF WITTE | 4:32PM EST - Monday, January 02, 2016

A view of the West Bank settlement of Eli as seen from the Ancient Shiloh archaeological park, south of Nablus. — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.
A view of the West Bank settlement of Eli as seen from the Ancient Shiloh archaeological park, south of Nablus.
 — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.


SHILOH, WEST BANK — Through eight years of escalating criticism from the world's most powerful leader, Israeli construction in these sacred, militarily occupied hills never stopped.

Thousands of homes were built. Miles of roadway. Restaurants. Shopping malls. A university.

Here in Shiloh, a tourist center went up, with a welcome video in which the biblical figure Joshua commands the Jewish people to settle the land promised to them by God.

Israeli settlements may be illegal in the eyes of the U.N. Security Council and a major obstacle to Middle East peace in the view of the Obama administration.

But every day they become a more entrenched reality on land that Palestinians say should rightfully belong to them. As the parched beige hilltops fill with red-tiled homes, decades of international efforts to achieve a two-state solution are unraveling.

And global condemnations notwithstanding, the trend is poised to accelerate.

Already, Israel has a right-wing government that boasts it is more supportive of settlement construction than any in the country's short history. Within weeks, it will also have as an ally a U.S. president, Donald Trump, who has signaled he could make an extraordinary break with decades of U.S. policy and end American objections to the settlements.

The combination has delighted settlers here and across the West Bank who express hope for an unparalleled building boom that would kill off notions of a Palestinian state once and for all.

“If America interferes less, everything will be much easier,” said Shivi Drori, 43, who runs a winery in a Jewish outpost deep in the West Bank that the Israeli government considers officially off-limits to building but has tacitly backed. “I'd like to see bigger settlements. Major cities.”

Trump, Drori predicts, will help make that a reality simply by looking the other way.

“Obama was very confrontational,” Drori said. “The Trump administration seems much more sympathetic.”


Houses in Efrat are seen through a partially empty billboard reading, in Hebrew, “Like new, only stronger”. — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.
Houses in Efrat are seen through a partially empty billboard reading, in Hebrew, “Like new, only stronger”.
 — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.


Israel's military conquered the West Bank in a matter of days 50 years ago this June in a war against neighboring Arab states. But settling the land has been the work of generations, accomplished hilltop by hilltop as temporary encampments and caravans have given way to suburban-style homes rooted firmly in the bedrock.

All the while, much of the world has opposed the settlements as an illegal infringement on occupied land. U.S. governments — Democrat and Republican alike — have urged Israel to halt the project and allow negotiations to dictate control of land that Palestinians say is vital to the viability of a future state.

Today, some 400,000 Israelis live in roughly 150 settlements scattered across the West Bank. That's up from fewer than 300,000 when Barack Obama was elected. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as their future capital.

Unable to halt settlement growth, a frustrated Obama administration lashed out late last month with a twin-barreled diplomatic assault.

First, Washington abstained in a U.N. Security Council vote that demanded Israel end all settlement activity — enabling the resolution's passage. Days later, Secretary of State John F. Kerry delivered an impassioned speech accusing Israel of putting the two-state solution “in serious jeopardy” by building “in the middle of what, by any reasonable definition, would be the future Palestinian state.”

Rather than be chastened by the criticism from the nation that has long been its closest ally, Israel's government was furious. Settlers, meanwhile, brush it off as an irrelevance.

“There's no implication,” said Oded Revivi, chief foreign envoy for the Yesha Council, which represents settlers.

Kerry, Revivi said, is fixated on an idea that, because of decades of Palestinian violence and intransigence, can never become reality — two states for two peoples between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.


A Jewish mother and her daughter talk with an Israeli soldier in Eli. — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.
A Jewish mother and her daughter talk with an Israeli soldier in Eli. — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.

Revivi instead has his eyes fixed on the incoming Trump administration, which has signaled it will abandon U.S. attempts at evenhandedness in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and throw its weight squarely behind Israel.

“Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” Trump tweeted before the Kerry speech.

Trump and his advisers “have learned from President Obama's experience,” Revivi said. “They're not going to go into a swamp just for the sake of saying they're in it.”

Revivi, who is also mayor of Efrat, a settlement that is poised to grow from 10,000 to 16,000, has good reason to think so.

Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel, New York bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, has expressed positions on the settlements that are further to the right even than those of Israel's hard-line prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Friedman, for instance, has argued in favor of Israeli annexation of the West Bank, long a fringe position in Israeli politics but one now gaining currency as the political stars align against the two-state solution.

“Everyone who talks about a Palestinian state today knows it will not happen,” said Naftali Bennett, Israel's education minister and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party.

Instead, Bennett argues for unilateral Israeli annexation of “Area C” — the 60 percent of West Bank land where Israeli settlements are concentrated. The vast majority of the West Bank's 2.5 million Palestinians live in Areas A and B, where Bennett says they should be able to have autonomy but not a state.

“We have to say, ‘This is what we want, and this is what we are going to do’,” he said. “You can't go on saying how the world is wrong, this is ours, and then at the end you forget to kick the ball into the net.”




It's not clear whether Netanyahu will be willing to go as far as his education minister, an ally at times but a fierce rival at others. Netanyahu is still on record supporting a two-state solution, albeit grudgingly.

But the fact that annexation is being discussed at all shows how far Israeli public sentiment has shifted in the settlers' direction.

On the fast-shrinking left of Israeli politics, such ideas are regarded as a dangerous overreach that threatens Israel's core democratic and Jewish identities as the Palestinian population grows.

“As a patriotic Israeli, I think it's in the crucial interest of the state of Israel to get out of the West Bank,” said Talia Sasson, president of the New Israel Fund. “Otherwise we can't maintain our basic principles.”

Human rights advocates insist those principles have already been trampled by a decades-long policy designed to maximize land for Jewish settlement and make life as difficult as possible for Palestinians.

Adam Aloni, a researcher for the advocacy group B'Tselem, said Israel had already carried out “de facto annexation” in the West Bank by building a network of roads and other barriers that isolate Palestinians in an archipelago of disconnected towns and cities.

“Israel is creating Palestinian ghettos, islands of land that are doomed to failure without basic resources,” he said.


A young Jewish man walks in a park in Eli. — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.
A young Jewish man walks in a park in Eli. — Photograph: David Vaaknin/The Washington Post.

One such island is the poor, litter-strewn village of Salem, where residents say their water supplies have been choked off by adjacent settlements and their access to farmland severely restricted.

“The settlers tell me, ‘You're not allowed to be here’,” said Shareef Shtyah, a 33-year-old shepherd who's had to cull his herd of sheep from 400 to 15 because the Israelis bar his access to traditional grazing areas. “I tell them, ‘You're the ones who aren't allowed to be here’.”

The Obama administration may have been sympathetic to Shtyah's plight. But Palestinians express disappointment that Obama wasn’t able to help them secure many tangible achievements. And they have few illusions that they will get any support from Trump.

“He has the mentality of blindly supporting Israel,” said Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority's point person on settlements in the northern West Bank. “It's not been a promising start.”

As with so many things, it looks just the opposite to the settlers.

In Shiloh, a settler community of 3,200 a few miles down the road from Salem, residents mark the site of what they believe to be an ancient Jewish capital with a newly constructed archaeology museum and visitors center. Tens of thousands of people visit annually, including tourists from the United States.

Freshly built homes and restaurants dot thriving new neighborhoods catering to Israelis seeking to connect with the biblical lands of their ancestors — or maybe to just get a better quality of life at a cut-rate price.

Even the developments that are not entirely legal by Israeli standards, much less international ones, boast finely paved roads, soaring electricity pylons and reliable water supplies — all courtesy of the Israeli government. And at all times, of course, Israeli soldiers stand guard.

Life here is good, residents say, but it will be even better when Trump takes charge.

“It could have been two or three times as much” development had it not been for pressure from the Obama administration, said Eliana Passentin, who raises her eight children atop a ridge with sweeping views from the river to the sea. “People want to come here and build homes and build companies and build schools. We've been restricted in expanding our community. Now we'll have more freedom.”


Ruth Eglash in Shiloh and Sufian Taha in Salem contributed to this report.

• Griff Witte is The Washington Post's London bureau chief. He previously served as the paper's deputy foreign editor and as the bureau chief in Kabul, Islamabad and Jerusalem.

__________________________________________________________________________

More on this topic:

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: See Jewish settlements in the West Bank

 • VIDEO: Israeli settlements in the West Bank could get a boost under Trump's presidency

 • Q&A with Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett

 • If there's no two-state solution, what will Israel become?

 • How the U.S. came to abstain on a U.N. resolution condemning settlements

 • Trump once donated $10,000 to a West Bank Israeli settlement

 • Even Israel says this Jewish settlement is illegal. Now comes the showdown.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-settlements-grew-on-obamas-watch-they-may-be-poised-for-a-boom-on-trumps/2017/01/02/24feeae6-cd23-11e6-85cd-e66532e35a44_story.html
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 
Kiwithrottlejockey
Admin Staff
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 32233


Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2017, 08:11:40 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Israeli police question PM over corruption allegations

Although no charges have been filed, the questioning at the prime minister’s official residence
marked an escalation in a long-running graft investigation. He has denied wrongdoing.


By GRIFF WITTE | 6:13PM EST - Monday, January 02, 2016

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Likud party meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem on January 2nd. — Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Likud party meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem
on January 2nd. — Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters.


JERUSALEM — Israeli police investigators questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for three hours on Monday night as part of a criminal probe into whether he received bribes from wealthy businessmen.

Although no charges have been filed, the questioning at the prime minister's official residence marked an escalation in a long-running graft investigation. Afterward, the Israeli police released a short statement confirming that they had questioned Netanyahu over the allegations, but they provided no further details.

The Israeli media, however, reported that the investigation centered on evidence that the prime minister had been given valuable gifts with the apparent expectation of political favors in return.

Netanyahu has vehemently denied wrongdoing, and did so again on Monday.

“I have told you and I repeat: There will be nothing because there is nothing,” the prime minister told his ruling, right-wing Likud party.

Addressing the opposition, he said, “You will continue to inflate hot air balloons, and we will continue to lead the state of Israel.”

Opposition leaders said they were not celebrating the prime minister's legal struggles. “This isn't a happy day. This is a hard day for the state of Israel,” center-left leader Isaac Herzog said, according to Israeli media accounts.

Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, stepped down in 2009 over corruption allegations. He is serving a 19-month prison sentence for bribery and obstruction of justice.

Allegations have long swirled around Netanyahu, who has been in office for eight years during his second stint as prime minister. But nothing has ever stuck.

Police recommended in 2000 that charges be filed against Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, based on evidence that they had kept official gifts that should have been returned to the Israeli state. But the case was dropped because of insufficient evidence.

Large black screens were mounted around the prime minister's residence in an upscale area of Jerusalem on Monday night in an apparent bid to shield from view the arrival and departure of investigators.

Several Israeli media outlets reported that Netanyahu is the subject of two police investigations. The questioning on Monday night was apparently related to the less serious of the two, which concerns gifts from businessmen, according to the media reports. Little is known about the other inquiry.

Police have reportedly interviewed dozens of witnesses, including a prominent American backer of Netanyahu's, businessman Ronald Lauder.

Netanyahu has had a stormy relationship with President Obama, culminating in recent weeks with angry exchanges over a U.N. resolution condemning Israel's settlement expansion. But the prime minister appears to be on much better terms with President-elect Donald Trump, with the two men sharing warm words for one another on Twitter.


Ruth Eglash contributed to this report.

• Griff Witte is The Post’s London bureau chief. He previously served as the paper’s deputy foreign editor and as the bureau chief in Kabul, Islamabad and Jerusalem.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-questioned-in-corruption-probe/2017/01/02/53558cee-d122-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html
Report Spam   Logged

If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 

Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Open XNC2 Smileys
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum


Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy
Page created in 0.047 seconds with 15 queries.