Trump skips annual AIPAC conference
Press TV – March 28, 2017
US President Donald Trump has skipped the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, DC, amid reports of some differences between Washington and Tel Aviv on policy matters, a report says.
Trump dispatched US Vice President Mike Pence and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley to speak to the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group in his place, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The Trump administration, the newspaper reported, is pressing the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a so-called peace deal with Palestinians that would halt the construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, but Netanyahu is refusing to stop the settlement activity.
In addition, Netanyahu also wants to discuss with Trump ways and means of dealing with Iran, but the new US administration is still formulating its policy on the Islamic Republic, according to the report.
Netanyahu meanwhile spoke via satellite on Monday to the crowd gathered by AIPAC. He avoided any reference to the issue of illegal settlements, which Trump raised before their first meeting last month. The US president then said the rapid growth of settlements was an obstacle in reaching an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.
Netanyahu also thanked Trump over a recent US budget request that “leaves military aid to Israel fully funded.”
‘Days of Israel bashing are over’
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley arrives to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, DC, on March 27, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
In her address to AIPAC, Ambassador Haley promised that she would not allow a repeat of a resolution like the one passed by the UN Security Council in December last year when the Obama administration chose not to exercise the US veto power.
“The days of Israel bashing are over,” Haley vowed. “We have a lot of things to talk about, there are a lot of threats to peace and security, but you’re not going to take our number one democratic friend in the Middle East and beat up on them.”
“And I think what you’re seeing is, they’re all backing up a little bit. The Israel-bashing is not as loud,” she claimed.
The Security Council voted 14-0 in December to pass Resolution 2334, which demanded an immediate end to Israel’s “illegal” settlement activities in occupied Palestinian territories.
The unanimous vote was made possible after the US broke away from its tradition of vetoing anti-Israeli measures and allowed the resolution to pass by abstaining from the vote.
About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.
The continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle to the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
The Palestinian Authority wants the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.
Syria Will Fire Scuds at Israel in Response to Airstrikes
Sputnik – 26.03.2017
The Syrian government has announced that it will retaliate should Israel continue to conduct airstrikes on Syrian territory.
Any further airstrikes on Syrian territory will be met with deadly force and retaliation strikes deep within Israeli soil, they said.
According to the message, delivered via Russian mediators, attacks on Syrian military objects will be met with Scud missiles launched at Israeli military bases. If Israel attacks civilian infrastructure, Syrian missiles will be fired at Israel’s Haifa port and petrochemical plant. The missiles will be launched without any prior notice, the statement said.
The notice follows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s March 20 statement that protecting its borders is the right and obligation of every nation.
“Syria’s forceful response to the Israeli attacks changed the rules of the game,” said Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari. He added that the threatened response is “appropriate and in line with Israel’s terrorist operation,” and that Israel “will now think a million times [before striking again].”
On March 17, Israeli military reported several airstrikes on Syrian territory; they were followed by several anti-aircraft missiles launched at Israeli warplanes flying over Syrian territory. One of the missiles was reportedly intercepted by Israel’s Arrow missile defense system. However, Syrian authorities claim they successfully downed an Israeli plane not far from Damascus.
Following the incidents, Israel threatened to conduct strikes specifically to destroy Syrian anti-air batteries.
According to Israeli leadership, the airstrikes are aimed at fighting advanced weapons smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon across Syrian territory.
“Our politics is very consistent,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in the wake of the airstrikes. “When we know about an attempt to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah, we do whatever we can to prevent this from happening, provided we have sufficient information and capabilities to react.”
According to media reports, during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu vowed to continue fighting attempts to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah through Syria. Netanyahu denied reports that he was told to cease military operations in Syria.
Israel and Syria have not engaged in any kind of serious military confrontation since civil war broke out in Syria six years ago. The sporadic, over-the-border fire is dismissed by Israeli authorities. There are about 800 Soviet-made Scud missiles, capable of delivering half a ton of explosives, located in Syria.
Israel bans annual Nakba march
Ma’an – March 25, 2017
BETHLEHEM – Israeli police have refused to grant a permit for the annual March of Return this year organized by Palestinians to commemorate the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” alongside Israeli independence day, Israeli media reported on Thursday.
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli police claimed that the event was refused due to their inability to provide police presence necessary for a march expected to be attended by 25,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel and their supporters, saying that “it’s unfortunate that the organizers decided to conduct the march exactly on the day of Independence Day, when there are hundreds of approved events throughout the country.”
The march, which has been held for 18 consecutive years, is aimed at highlighting the internationally-recognized right of Palestinians who remain refugees or internally displaced to return to their homes and villages in Israel, a right which is upheld in United Nations Resolution 194.
Each year, the march is launched from a site of a Palestinian village destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948.
Muhammad Bassam, an attorney from the Israeli rights group Adalah, reportedly said that if the permit for the march was not granted by Israeli police, the group would appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court. “The police decision is very strange and raises concerns that the refusal to approve the event is politically motivated,” he said.
Others pointed out to Haaretz that the organizers had already discussed the march with local police in the Israeli coastal city of Nahariya in order to launch the march from the destroyed Palestinian village of al-Kabri.
The Nahariya police had toured the planned route of the march two weeks prior, Haaretz reported, with the police already setting the police requirements for the march, leading some to suspect that the permit rejection was politically motivated.
The March of Return is usually held on Israel’s independence day to commemorate the Nakba, referring to the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and villages during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that established the state of Israel.
The official commemoration of the Nakba is held on May 15 and is observed by millions of Palestinians and rights activists around the world.
Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands in 1948 and were scattered across refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Today, there are over five million Palestinian refugees who remain displaced from their original homes and villages following the mass expulsion that occurred almost 70 years ago.
Palestinian former prisoner Mazen Fuquha assassinated in Gaza
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – March 25, 2017
Former Palestinian prisoner, released in the 2011 Wafa al-Ahrar prsoner exchange, Mazen Fuquha, was assassinated with four shots to the head with a silenced gun yesterday evening, 24 March, outside his home in Tal al-Hawa, south of Gaza City in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. Fuquha, 38, is from Tubas in the West Bank, and was forcibly displaced to Gaza after the prisoner exchange.
Fuquha was well-known as a leader in Hamas, and was sentenced to nine life sentences before his release, accused of participation in the armed Palestinian resistance. His father spoke with Asra Voice radio station, and said that the Israeli occupation army had broken into the family home in Tubas on multiple occasions and threatened his son, demanding the father tell his son to stop his activity.
Palestinian political parties and resistance factions condemned the killing of Fuquha and placed responsibility for the crime with the Israeli occupation forces. Internal security police in Gaza are investigating the killing and seeking evidence as to how the assassination was carried out.
Khalil al-Hayya of Hamas said that “the only beneficiary of this assassination is the occupation; the martyr Fuquha had no quarrels with anyone.” The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine denounced the killing as a “cowardly crime” of the occupation that attempts to target Palestinian resistance, emphasizing the importance of protecting Palestinian fighters. The Islamic Jihad movement said in a statement that the assassination is a “treacherous crime on the agenda of the occupation and carrying the fingerprints of its terror.”
Fuquha grew up in Tubas before attending An-Najah National University in Nablus, where he became involved with the Islamic Bloc and later the Hamas movement. He was arrested three times by Palestinian Authority security and by the Israeli occupation army on 5 August 2002 after a siege that lasted six hours. He was accused of organizing Palestinian armed actions and was sentenced to nine life sentences, and was one of the high-profile prisoners released in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange. Nearly 60 prisoners released in the exchange, including the longest-serving prisoner Nael Barghouthi, have been targeted for re-arrest and the reimposition of their former sentences by Israeli occupation forces.
Jordanian protesters urge government to scrap gas deals with Israel
Press TV – March 25, 2017
Hundreds of Jordanians have staged a protest rally to voice their outrage at Amman’s gas agreements with the Israeli regime, calling on the government to scrap the ‘deals of shame.’
The protesters took to the streets of the capital, Amman, on Friday, carrying national flags and holding signs to decry Israel-Jordan gas deals, the latest of which was inked in September last year.
During the march, the Jordanian demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Our dignity is dropping from deals of shame,” with some holding posters that read, “USA stop commissioning on our blood.”
The Jordanian National Campaign also joined voices with the protesters, calling on the government to drop the 2016 deal as it represents an obstacle to the country’s independence and economic development.
Besides the dependency aspect, activists argue that the money, which will be paid to Israel by Amman under such accords, will be used to finance Tel Aviv’s military and its occupation of Palestinian lands.
In September 2016, a deal was struck between an Israeli gas consortium and the Jordan Electric Power Company, valued at $10 billion (€9.25 billion).
Under the deal, the US-based Noble Energy company and other investors in Israel’s largest gas field will supply Jordan’s national electric company with 8.5 million cubic meters of gas over 15 years.
The agreement was quickly met with widespread popular opposition in Jordan, promoting thousands of people to fill the streets and slam the government over “gas imports from the Zionist enemy.”
The new turnout on Friday came weeks after Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the regime in Tel Aviv has been quietly exporting natural gas to Jordan through an American intermediary firm.
According to the report, gas deliveries to two Jordanian companies, the state-owned Arab Potash and Jordan Bromine, started in January. The firms had signed a 500-million-dollar, 15-year deal three years ago to purchase gas from Israel’s Tamar partners. The US State Department had acted as a mediator to forge the deal.
Over the past months, Jordan has been rocked by separate rallies held in protest at high living expenses and unemployment.
The Jordanian government is one of the only two Arab regimes that have open, diplomatic relations with Israel — the other being Egypt.
Tel Aviv and Amman signed a peace agreement in 1994, but many Jordanians are firmly opposed to normalization of ties with the occupying regime of Israel.
US-Israel settlement negotiations stall
MEMO | March 24, 2017
The Americans and Israelis said yesterday that Donald Trump’s administration has reiterated its concerns regarding Israel’s settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The comment came after a series of talks which failed to agree on a settlement freeze in the territories within which the Palestinians want to establish an independent state.
The meetings were held at the highest level for four days in Washington and are the most recent step by Trump’s advisors to open the way to diplomatic efforts to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine. They went ahead despite deep doubts on the part of the US and Middle East states regarding the chances of success.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, who returned recently from a visit to the region, led the US delegation in the talks that were described as “intensive discussions”. The Israeli team was led by Yoav Horowitz, the Israeli prime minister’s chief of staff, and foreign policy adviser Jonathan Schachter.
Despite his more positive attitude towards Israel than his predecessor Barack Obama, President Trump urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements for a little bit” during his visit to the White House last month. The two leaders agreed to allow their aides to agree on the limits of how much Israel can build and where.
“The Israeli delegation made clear that Israel’s intent going forward is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes [US] concerns into consideration,” said a joint statement issued by the White House at the end of the latest meetings. “The talks were serious and constructive, and they are ongoing.”
Two UK universities cancel speeches by author of UN anti-Israel report
Press TV – March 24, 2017
Two British universities have cancelled lectures by international law professor Richard Falk after he co-authored a UN report which concludes that Israel is an “apartheid” regime.
Falk said Middlesex University called off his speech, citing “health and safety” concerns, while University of East London cancelled his lecture, claiming that the approval for the speech had not followed proper procedures.
“As far as I can tell, there is a growing kind of feeling that the educational establishment in Britain, specifically in England, has been kind of intimidated in dealing with those who are seen as critics of Israel,” Falk told the Middle East Eye news portal.
Falk denounced the cancellations as the “intensification” of a trend of restricting academic freedom on university campuses, warning that depriving students of delving into controversial issues restricts their experience for becoming engaged citizens.
Falk said he has experienced similar assaults on his character after serving as UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights from 2008 to 2014.
Since the UN report was published, the Princeton University professor has faced attacks and accusations of bias and anti-Semitism.
He dismissed such criticism as being far from reality and said that Zionist NGOs are trying to “shoot the messenger, rather than address the issues raised in the message.”
“It has been used against a variety of other people – playing the anti-Semitic card rather than dealing with the substance of Palestinian grievances or Israeli violations of international law,” Falk said.
The prominent law professor noted that supporters of Israel will be on weak grounds to discuss the realities in the occupied Palestinian territories, as Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has fallen below the level of acceptable moral behavior and international legal standards.
Falk’s co-authored report, which was reviewed by three “internationally renowned” jurists before it was published, was withdrawn from the UN website after prompting international uproar.
It documents “apartheid” patterns of discrimination that fragment Palestinian society through “distinct laws, policies and practices.”
“It appears to be an instance where the new UN Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres] gave way to pressure coming particularly from Washington, but also from Israel,” Falk said.
Last week, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary for UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Rima Khalaf resigned in protest after Guterres ordered the study to be removed from the UN website.
Falk said the controversy over the report gave it an international visibility that it may not have enjoyed had it been just “one more UN report.”
Trump Envoy Asks Israel to Halt Construction Outside Settlement Blocs
IMEMC News & Agencies – March 23, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East reportedly asked, during last week’s meeting, for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction in Jerusalem and outside the large settlement blocs. According to Al Ray, Netanyahu expressed reservations at an official freeze.
Channel 2 News reported, on Wednesday, that Jason Greenblatt, who visited Israel last week, asked Netanyahu to freeze construction in isolated settlements and restrict it to East Jerusalem and outside the large settlement blocs.
In addition, Washington also reportedly asked to set a fixed number of houses that can be built each year.
The Israeli security cabinet has rejected these requests, demanding that Israel has the right to build in any part of the West Bank.




