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Paul Merrell

Tzipi Livni cancels Brussels trip amid threat of arrest | Israel News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...at-arrest-170123161050811.html

war & peace Livni war-crimes Belgium

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Israel's former foreign minister cancelled a trip to Brussels after Belgian prosecutors confirmed they wanted to question her over war crimes allegations. Tzipi Livni was expected to meet Jewish leaders in the city on Monday, but cancelled ahead of time. A spokesman for the event said Livni cancelled for "personal reasons" but local newspaper Le Soir said prosecutors had been hoping to question her over allegations of war crimes in the 2008-9 Israeli war in Gaza, when she was foreign minister. "We wanted to take advantage of her visit to try to advance the investigation," a spokesman for Belgium's federal prosecutor Thierry Werts told the AFP news agency. Livni is named along with other political and military leaders in a complaint filed in June 2010 over alleged crimes committed during the Gaza war. More than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died during the Israeli offensive between December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009. 
  • Belgian authorities have the right to detain a suspect in its territory on crimes related to international law, as one of the victims had Belgian citizenship. The Belgian federal prosecutor's office believes Livni, now a member of parliament and opposition leader, is not protected by immunity.
  • The Belgian-Palestinian Association supporting the complaint said in a statement it wanted to hold Livni responsible for her role in the war, as well as Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, then prime minister and minister of defence. In December 2009, Livni cancelled a visit to London after being informed that she was the subject of an arrest warrant issued by a UK court over her role in the same war. An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the planned interrogation was "a cheap publicity stunt with no legal basis".
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Jan 17
     
    High Israeli officials are not safe from arrest for war crimes outside Israel.
Paul Merrell

Growing boycott will "hit each of us in the pocket" warns Israel finance minister | The... - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...-warns-israel-finance-minister

war & peace Israel Palestine negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Israeli finance minister Yair Lapid has become the latest senior official to warn about the serious impact of growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting Israel. “The world seems to be losing patience with us,” Lapid told the Hebrew edition of Ynet on 10 January.
  • Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid faction, is the senior coalition partner of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Lapid added: “We have formulated complete scenarios as to what will happen if the boycott continues and exports are hurt. In all scenarios, things do not look good. The status quo will hit each of us in the pocket, will hurt every Israeli. We are export-oriented, and this [export trade] depends on our global standing.” Lapid was particularly concerned about further announcements by Israel of new tenders for houses in illegal Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank. Lapid’s frank comments come just days after Dutch pensions giant PGGM took the unprecedented decision to divest from all Israeli banks because of their role in the colonization program.
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  • Lapid, an alleged “centrist” who has habitually made anti-Arab comments, joins other senior politicians who have warned about the looming threat of boycott. Recently, the chair of the governing coalition’s Habayit Hayehudi party said that boycott was the “greatest threat” Israel faced. Justice minister and war crimes suspect Tzipi Livni also warned that “The boycott is moving and advancing uniformly and exponentially … Those who don’t want to see it, will end up feeling it.”
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Jan 14
     
    This is the largest part of the real back story on John Kerry's feverish effort to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine apartheid problem. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement against Israel is growing rapidly, nearly doubling the rate of growth of the former BDS movement that successfully ended apartheid government of South Africa.   Israel has become a pariah state diplomatically because of its war crimes against Palestinians and because of BDS, is increasingly becoming a pariah state economically. At the same time, Israel has illegally colonized Palestine to the extent that a 2-state solution is all but impossible, meaning that the most likely outcome is that Israel will cease being the "Jewish State" and be forced to grant equality to Palestinians as well in a new secular government. The situation became all the more dire for Israel as the "Jewish State" when the U.N. General Assembly granted Palestine observer state status, opening the way for Palestine to, e.g., pursue criminal prosecution of Israeli leaders for war crimes before the International Criminal Court.  That has dramatically increased the Palestinian Authority's leverage in negotiations. Kerry is on a rescue mission to see if he can coerce the Palestinian Authority to cede sufficient land and powers to Israel to make a 2-state solution credible. Kerry's leverage is that the U.S. has been underwriting the Palestinian Authority's expenses and can threaten to withdraw the financial support.  All of which brings it down to the question of Palestinian Authority leadership corruption. If the PA stands tall and refuses to accept Kerry's ridiculous demands, there will almost certainly be no 2-state solution, ever, because Israel continues to colonize Palestine and has locked up most of Palestine's water resources. Further colonization means still less water for an "independent" Palestine state. The Palestine Authority, on the other hand, suffered f
Paul Merrell

Israeli Elections To Be Held March 17 | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...-elections-to-be-held-march-17

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • The Israeli daily Haaretz has reported that the bill to dissolve the Knesset passed the first reading, Wednesday, in a 22 to 0 vote, preparing to head for new elections on March 17, 2015. The developments came less than a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and Finance Minister Yair Lapid.
  • Haaretz said the vote came just a few hours after the bill to dissolve the Knesset passed a preliminary reading with a 84 to 0 vote, with one abstention. It added that the umbrella proposal grants the Knesset a period of three to five months to prepare for new election after the Knesset has been dissolved. There will be two more readings at the Knesset next week, and after the approval, the Knesset moves to elections recess.
  • On Tuesday, Netanyahu fired both Livni and Lapid after accusing them of trying to out throw him, and for defying his own polices, including his insistence that the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish State, and his policies regarding the “Iranian Nuclear File.”
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14
     
    Netanyahu's approval rating is down around 20 per cent. The only problem there is that the next higher rating of another politico is 7 per cent. The pundits seem to agree that Netanyahu's Likud Party will likely be charged with forming a new ruling coalition, which keeps Netanyahu and Israel's right wing in power. 
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu To Dissolve Israeli Parliament | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...hu-dissolve-israeli-parliament

Israel Netanyahu Knesset-dissolution

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his current government became incapable of running the country’s affairs, and that he intends to dissolve the Israeli parliament (Knesset), to arrange new general elections as soon as possible. His statements came in a press conference he held, on Tuesday evening, hours after he fired Finance Minister Yair Lapid, and Justice Minister, Tizipi Livni.
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu Promises Talmud Will Be Israeli Law - Inside Israel - News - Israel National ... - 0 views

www.israelnationalnews.com/...180440

Israel Jewish-State Netanyahu

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 May 14 - No Cached
  • Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly revealed at a Likud conference on Wednesday some remarkable facets of the Basic Law he submitted last Thursday, which would enshrine Israel's status as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Netanyahu told the head of Likud's hareidi division Yaakov Vider at the conference that he intends to make the Hebrew calendar, which is based on Jewish law, the official calendar of Israel, reports Kikar Hashabat. The new law also would establish the Talmud, the core work of Jewish law, as an official basis for Israeli state law. "I'm going to personally be involved in the law defining the state of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people," Netanyahu reportedly told Vider. "It's a very important law that will influence how Israel will look in the future."
  • "I want to anchor in this law, that it will be a Basic Law that the state of Israel arose and exists on the basis of the Torah and the Jewish tradition," Netanyahu explained, promising to define the Hebrew calendar as the official state calendar. Netanyahu also promised that "we will define in the law the Gemara as a basis for the Israeli legal system," referencing the Jewish legal text analyzing the Mishnah, a legal work of the Jewish sages, which together form the Talmud. Discussing the new Basic Law on Sunday in a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu stated "the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state does not actualize itself enough in our Basic Laws, which is what the proposed law aims to fix." Netanyahu stressed the law would not restrict the rights of non-Jewish citizens of Israel. He further dismissed opposition to the law by leftist MKs, foremost among them Justice Minister Tzipi Livni who pledged to block the law.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 May 14
     
    Bibi pours more gasoline on the fire. Twenty per cent of the Israeli population is native Palestinian Muslims and more than a million ejected Palestinians have a right of return to their homes in Israel recognized in international law. It's been a very long ride, but the nation of Israel is finally on suicide watch while Bibi inflicts more wounds on his nation.   
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu's Coalition of the Unwilling « LobeLog - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/hus-coalition-of-the-unwilling

Israel coalition Netanyahu Obama Palestine U.S.-foreign-policy EU

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 May 15 - No Cached
  • After Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprising victory in Israel’s national elections in March, he took until the last possible minute to complete the process of forming the government for his fourth term as Israel’s prime minister. For all the time he invested, despite making it just under the wire, Netanyahu ended up with a fragile, ultra-right-wing coalition and more work ahead of him to bring in at least one more party. The government Netanyahu presented to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was a bare majority of 61 seats out of the 120-seat Knesset. There are no fig leafs in this coalition, no Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak for Netanyahu to send to talk fruitlessly with the Palestinians. One might think this would make the coalition more stable, since it consists entirely of the right wing. In this, one would be wrong.
  • Netanyahu is, in fact, desperate to add another party to the coalition because there is so much tension in the current majority, most visibly between Netanyahu’s Likud party and Naftali Bennett’s HaBayit HaYehudi. Likud leaders, including Netanyahu, feel that Bennett essentially held the coalition hostage to his demands. They are quite right about that, but the gambit paid off handsomely for Bennett. HaBayit HaYehudi holds a mere eight seats in the Knesset. Yet Bennett and his party will get four ministries, the deputy defense minister post, as well as the chairs of two key Knesset committees dealing with Israel’s legal system. That is what you get when you play hardball with Netanyahu, a man who likes to talk tough but who is a political creature first and foremost and quickly backs off from a high-stakes fight he is not sure he can win. As things stand, this coalition might not last the year. That is why, after Avigdor Lieberman quit his post as foreign minister and took his greatly diminished party into the opposition, Netanyahu left the post open by keeping that portfolio for himself. In reality, Netanyahu has been the foreign minister all along, so it is not an added burden for him.
  • On the day that Netanyahu was supposed to present his government, he was still eight seats short of a majority. Luckily for Bennett, that was the exact number of seats he controlled and he let Netanyahu know just how lucky he was. Bennett played a game of chicken with Netanyahu, pushing for more and more power within the government and knowing that Bibi was going to have a hard time saying no to anything. Bennett won, and the spoils were vast. The far-right HaBayit HaYehudi party now controls the ministries of education, agriculture, justice, and diaspora affairs. The position of deputy defense minister will also be theirs. It is even worse than it sounds. With the ministry of agriculture comes control over the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division, which funds the expansion of settlements. Uri Ariel, perhaps the most extreme pro-settler member of the Knesset, will have that portfolio.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Shaked is certain to work hard to undermine Israel’s fragile legal system. She will also be heading the powerful Ministerial Committee for Legislation and the Judicial Appointments Committee, giving her even more leverage to eliminate a legal system that she sees as a bastion of the left. Moreover, she is very likely to be minister of justice when the next attorney general is appointed. Uri Ariel can be equally certain to press hard for as much settlement expansion—all over the West Bank and, especially, in East Jerusalem—as the available shekels and the defense minister, who will still be Moshe Ya’alon, will allow. I would rather not even think about what Bennett, the new minister of education, is going to do to the minds of Israeli students. Academia is also thought of as a bastion of the left in Israel, and the climate for free thought in Israeli institutions is certainly threatened now.
  • A Question of Longevity The real question about all of this is how long it will last. An ultra-right government like this one is not going to get along well with the Obama administration or most of Europe, although the Republican-led Congress is likely to fall in love with it. Some may hope that this will be a case of things getting so bad that political pressure for improvement must come. Sadly, such is not the history of Israel or of this conflict. Netanyahu will be spending the next few months trying to woo Isaac Herzog into the government, and this is what the whole game comes down to. If Herzog joins and creates a national unity government of 85 seats, this government will survive. The Labor Party, which makes up most of the Zionist Union, is unlikely to provide much of a counter to the right-wing majority. Much more likely is that, as has happened in the past, many of Labor’s Knesset members and other leaders will bolt the party rather than serve as a fig leaf for such a far-right government.
  • If Herzog does not join the government, this fourth Netanyahu government will not outlast Barack Obama’s presidency, and might not even come close. The right wing does not play well together, and it will take nothing more than a few well-timed votes of no-confidence to take down this government even if none of the parties bolts. Even that scenario, however, offers little hope. The last elections were hailed as a comeback for Labor, but the center and left still cannot form a coalition without the Joint List (a coalition of mostly Arab parties), and that remains anathema in Israeli politics. In fact, little changed in the left-right balance in the last elections, and that is showing no signs of turning around. It has never been clearer that positive change in Israel is going to require some sort of meaningful action by the United States and/or Europe. If that does not come, and it does not seem to be on the horizon, disaster looms.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 May 15
     
    The dust settles quickly in Israel. Already -- -- A bill is moving through the Knesset and is expected to pass, permanently annexing the entire Jordan Valley and the Syrian Golan Heights.   --  The Israeli military is conducting large-scale maneuvers in the West Bank. Palestinians are seeing it as prelude to a mass eviction of Palestinians from the Jordan Valley.   -- A large section of East Jerusalem has been walled off with an iron gate, prelude to annexation and expulsion of its Palestinian residents. -- Netanyahu is so desperate for posts to offer another party in the national government that he has introduced legislation in the Knesset which would suspend, until the next government is formed, the limit on the number of cabinet ministers and deputy ministers and to allow ministers without portfolio. The centrist Yesh Atid party has served notice of intent to sue to block the legislation.  
Paul Merrell

Poll: Zionist Union leads Likud by 3 seats - Israel News, Ynetnews - 0 views

www.ynetnews.com/...0,7340,L-4635574,00.html

Israel election-2015 polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • A new poll commissioned by the Knesset television channel has found Zionist Union leading over Netanyahu's Likud by three seats.
  • Tuesday's Panel Politics poll, conducted a week ahead of the March 17 election, showed the center-left camp led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni earning 24 out of parliament's 120 seats. Likud trailed slightly with 21 projected seats.
  • The poll also had Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid as the third-largest party with 13 seats. The united Arab list would receive 13 seats, according to the poll.   Meanwhile, as in previous surveys, Naftali Bennett's Bayit Yehudi party polled at 12 seats. The poll also found a rise in support for the non-aligned centrist Kulanu party, polling at 9 seats. The party, headed by former Likud minister Moshe Kahlon, is running on a socio-economic platform, and is considered a swing vote in the election, as Kahlon could throw his support behind either the Likud or the Zionist Union.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party Shas polled at 6. Both the left-wing Meretz party and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu party stood at 5, followed by the Yahad (Together) party – a Shas offshoot led by former Shas leader Eli Yishai – which polled at 4, similar to previous polls.   Without a clear winner, Israel's largely ceremonial president may ask the two biggest parties to join forces after the vote.
  • The poll also found that 79 percent of Yesh Atid voters want their party to recommend Isaac Herzog for prime minister, while only 14 percent supported Netanyahu for the role. Forty seven percent of Kulanu voters also want their party to recommend Isaac Herzog for prime minister, while 33 percent preferred Netanyahu.   The poll surveyed more than 1,000 Israelis and had a margin of error of three percentage points. 
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Mar 15
     
    The end of Netanyahu's political career?
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