Netanyahu forms coalition, Palestinians already condemn new Israeli government

Lauren Calin, World Israel News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition has yet to prove itself, but the Palestinians have already condemned it for being “against peace.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eked out a government coalition less than two hours before the extended deadline set by President Reuven Rivlin. The premier hopes to expand the coalition in the coming days.

The new coalition has the bare minimum of 61 seats out of the Knesset’s 120 necessary to form a majority. In a last-minute coalition agreement, Netanyahu appointed Jewish Home party head Naftali Bennett as education minister; MK (Member of Knesset – Israel’s parliament) Ayelet Shaked will serve as justice minister and MK Uri Ariel will receive the Agriculture portfolio.

Netanyahu expressed a desire to expand his coalition beyond 61 seats in order to give his government more stability. Under the current situation, unanimity will be required to pass laws, and the defection of just two MKs would cause the collapse of the entire government. “Sixty-one is a good number,” he said. “Sixty-one-plus is an even better number. It begins with 61. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

This statement, combined with the fact that Netanyahu has yet to announce a foreign minister to replace Avigdor Lieberman, led to speculation that Netanyahu hoped to convince opposition leader and Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog to join the new government. However, Herzog decried the new government as “the weakest, narrowest and most prone to extortion coalition in the history of Israel.” He particularly criticized the appointment of Shaked, who has limited political experience, to the justice portfolio and accused Netanyahu of putting coalition-building ahead of the interests of the State of Israel. A Likud spokesman also denied that Herzog would be approached.

While coalition negotiations were still underway, US officials also weighed in on their opinion of the matter. “If the new Israeli government is seen as stepping back from its commitment to a two-state solution…that makes our job in the international arena a lot tougher,” said Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman.

The Obama administration has made no secret of its disdain for Netanyahu. Obama said after the election that the US “needs to rethink our approach” towards Israel and the peace process. US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power confirmed that this could include advancing anti-Israel resolutions at the UN. The US Senate is even investigating the possibility that the State Department directly funded the Victory 15 campaign to unseat Netanyahu.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the new government, saying that it “will be one of war which will be against peace and stability in our region.”

“This government will set its sights on killing and reinforcing settlement activities,” Erekat stated.

Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations ended in April 2014, when the Palestinian Authority formed a unity government with Hamas, a terrorist organization that does not recognize Israel or any Palestinian agreements with Israel, in violation of the Oslo Accords.

US President Barack Obama congratulated Netanyahu on Thursday after he forged a new coalition government.

“President Obama looks forward to working with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” the White House said,

Major secret meeting of Holocaust deniers convenes in heart of London

Event held under a veil of secrecy at London’s Grosvenor Hotel.

Holocaust survivors at Auschwitz. Photo By: REUTERS

A large international conference of Holocaust deniers recently took place in the heart of London, Britain’s Daily Mail reported on Saturday.

“This is the biggest and most significant meeting of Holocaust deniers that Britain has ever seen. It is a very worrying development,” the paper quoted Gerry Gable, an expert on the extreme Right who aided the news outlet’s undercover investigation of the event, as saying.

The event was held under a veil of secrecy at London’s Grosvenor Hotel in a room draped with the Union Flag.

A spokesman for the hotel said the room booking was made online and hotel staff were unaware of the nature of the meeting, according to the Daily Mail.

Nazi Pedro Varela, 57, was described by the paper as the star speaker of the event. According to the report, Varela was arrested in Austria in 1992 for praising Hitler, and on the dictator’s centenary he declared to a supportive crowd in Madrid that, “There were never any gas chambers in Auschwitz.”

“National Socialism offered a lot of solutions that were beneficial then and could be beneficial to modern-day society,” the Mail quoted him as saying at the conference.

The paper also quoted him as referring to mixed-race children as “blackos” and describing gay parents as “making a monster family.”

On Jews, Varela said: “They say Jews have the gold in the world and the power in the press and they are going to rule the world… So, do we have to be realistic, be similar to the officer of the general staff of an army… What are the enemy’s faults? We should also be smart and clever, as are the children of darkness… Sometimes we are not that smart.”

The paper reported that Varela appeared to call for a boycott of Jewish shops and businesses, saying: “In the Middle Ages, the Jews had all the gold in the world but they were living in the ghettos. They still have the gold of the world and are the masters of it…But now the gold is important for us. It is like a sword. If we say, OK fine, I have no more interest in your gold and your money and your shops and your consuming, the wax sword is going to melt.”

The investigation of the event also quoted extensively from Mark Weber’s speech, who the paper described as “America’s leading peddler of Holocaust denial and revisionist theories.” The report included the following statement that Weber wrote in 1989: “The Holocaust is a religion. Its underpinnings in the realm of historical fact are non-existent – no Hitler order, no plan, no budget, no gas chambers, no autopsies of gassed victims, no bones, no ashes, no skulls, no nothing.”

His speech at the London conference under the title ‘The Challenge of Jewish-Zionist Power’ included the following statements, the Mail reported:

“The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles.”

“In reality, the Jewish hold on American life is far more dangerous. Why? Jews in America have a strong loyalty to a foreign country – Israel.”

“Secondly, because of the distrustful and sometimes adversarial way in which Jews view the rest of us. This “chosen people” mindset, this “Us vs Them” attitude, is anchored in centuries of Jewish history and heritage.”

Weber quoted from a rabbi’s essay about European anti-Semitism with the line, “Hatred lingers in the air into which the ashes rose from the crematoria’, which garnered applause “along with sneering laughs,” according to the report.

With his audience “clapping appreciatively”, Weber said: “As long as the power of the very powerful Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of history and current affairs… No task is more important or pressing than to identify, counter and break this power.”

“Today, we are engaged in a great global struggle which pits a self-assured and diabolical power which feels ordained to rule over others on the one side, and all other nations, indeed humanity itself, on the other,” he added.

On Saturday the Mail said there were calls from Jewish community leaders for police to investigate the group for race hate crimes.

‘The material from this white supremacist group makes ugly reading,’ said barrister Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

‘On the face of it, their proceedings should be investigated to ascertain whether criminal offenses have been committed, including incitement to racial hatred.

Israel: The Birth of a Nation ( ישראל לידתה של אומה )

Israel: Birth of a Nation documentary shows true history of Israel’s legitimate establishment

Israel: Birth of a Nation is a History Channel documentary presented by acclaimed British historian, Sir Martin Gilbert. The documentary chronicles the events of the Israeli War of Independence (1948-1949) using archive film, photographs, and interviews with participants.
On May 15, one day after the creation of the State of Israel, the Arab armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon invaded the new Jewish state. The Arab forces were significantly larger than Israel’s and were better equipped. Yet, coordination and organization were lacking and the Arab armies were often at odds with each other, seeking to incorporate territory from Palestine into their own states.

Despite their small numbers, the Jews were well-organized, well-disciplined and well-trained. The war was marked by long periods of fighting and temporary cease-fires. Finally, fighting officially ended in January 1949, at which time Israel held the 5,600 square miles allotted to it by the UN partition plan plus an addition 2,500 square miles. Trans-Jordan held the eastern sector of Jerusalem and the West Bank and Egypt held the Gaza Strip. From January to July 1949, armistice agreements were signed with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria based on the frontlines as they were at the end of the fighting. These lines created the borders of the new state and as a result, Israel gained control of the areas which would have been part of the Arab state envisioned by the UN had the Arab world not gone to war with Israel.
At the time, Israel hoped that the armistice agreements would lead to official Arab-Israeli peace treaties. The Arab states, however, refused to recognize Israel’s existence and negotiate peace and remained in a state of war with the Jewish state. They continued their economic, political, social and cultural boycott of the Jewish state which was instituted by the Arab League in 1945. The Arab economic boycott of Israel prohibited Arab peoples, companies and states from conducting business both with Israel and with other companies who do business with Israel. They also embarked on a campaign to isolate the Jewish state in the international community.
Some Arab leaders attempted secret negotiations with Israel. Tragically, some of them were murdered, including King Abdullah of Jordan who was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1951. The Arab states provided little help to Palestinians who became refugees after the war. Only Jordan offered Palestinian Arabs citizenship. Refugee camps were set up and maintained primarily by the United Nations and other international relief organizations.

Premier Izraela: Świat jest ślepy jak przed II wojną światową

Podczas konferencji w Jad Waszem (Instytucie Pamięci Męczenników i Bohaterów Holocaustu – red.), premier Izraela, Benjamin Netanyahu powiedział, że umowa jądrowa USA z Iranem jest przykładem na to, iż “świat jest ślepy jak przed II wojną światową”.

Izraelski premier ocenił, że światowe mocarstwa są w “stanie gorączki i urojenia” w obliczu współczesnych Niemców, czyli Iranu. Netanyahu potępił umowę między USA a Iranem, która zezwala Teheranowi na utrzymanie kluczowych elementów programu nuklearnego w tym państwie. Premier Izraela stwierdził, że decyzja USA w tej sprawie to “kapitulacja”.

– Najważniejsza lekcja dla demokracji, jaka płynie z wydarzeń II wojny światowej, to taka, że nie można przymykać oczu na tyranię prowadzoną przez reżimy – mówił w Jad Waszem Netanyahu. – Ustępstwa wobec tych systemów tylko zwiększa ich agresywność – dodał i ocenił, że jeśli taka agresja nie zostanie ograniczona, to “ludzkość może zostać uwikłana w jeszcze większe wojny” niż ta, która wybuchła w 1939 r.

– Przed II wojną światową, świat próbował uspokoić nazistów. Próbowano uzyskać pokój za wszelką cenę i w końcu ta straszliwa cena przyszła. Zamordowano sześć milionów Żydów, podobnie miliony innych – powiedział premier Izraela. Według Netanyahu, “tylko zajmując mocne stanowisko przeciwko tyrańskim reżimom”, można zapewnić przyszłość ludzkości. – Ale ta lekcja została najwyraźniej zapomniana. Świat jest ślepy jak przed II wojną światową – zaznaczył.

timesofisrael.com

9 months later: Images from IDF’s Operation Protective Edge are exposed

Ateret Horowitz

An image of the bombarded armored carrier

On the 15th day of operation “Protective Edge”, an anti-tank missile that hit their Armored Personal Carrier in the Gazan neighborhood Sajaiya, killed 7 soldiers from the ‘Golani’ infantry brigade of the Israeli Defense Forces. 9 Months later, the images from the horror scene are exposed.

Nine months after one of the biggest tragedies that had occurred during IDF’s operation Protective edge in Gaza, Channel 2 News has revealed images of the Armored Personal Carrier (APC) that was bombarded in the Gazan neighborhood of Sajaiya.

The two images that were revealed do not shed full light on exactly what had occurred during the APC incident. At a first glance of the images it is already clear that the photos were not taken at the place that the vehicle was hit, rather elsewhere, after being dragged away from the horror scene.

However, one of the rare images is consistent with the testimony given shortly after the APC incident, by one of the Golani fighters, who said that the armored vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile that was launched from the second or third floor of a nearby building.

Meanwhile, the IDF spokesman has issued an unusual statement, denying the fact that the Hannibal directive (a secret directive of the IDF with the purpose of preventing Israeli soldiers being captured by enemy forces in the course of combat) was announced immediately after the APC incident. The IDF claims that the army did not announce such a directive, because no one knew at that stage, that a soldier was kidnapped.

Read more 9 months later…