Netanyahu: We will never divide J'lem
By JPOST.COM STAFF
12/05/2010 20:11
PM emphasizes Jews' connection to capital on Jerusalem Day.
Israel's capital will never be divided, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated during a speech at Ammunition Hill in honor of Jerusalem Day on Wednesday evening.
"We cannot divide or freeze a city as vibrant and creative as Jerusalem - we will continue to build and be built by it," Netanyahu stressed.
"Jerusalem Day is the day on which Jerusalem was finally liberated, and was able to take all of its residents, Jewish and Arab, under its wings," Netanyahu said. "Never again shall it be suffocated, gloomy or divided."
"We are the generation which was lucky enough to see our holy sites liberated and returned to our hands, and it is upon us to transfer this right to our children," the prime minister continued.
During his speech, Netanyahu also touched upon the peace process and the significant role Jerusalem seems to be playing in its advancement. "I believe that we will achieve peace, but whoever suggests that the problems with the peace process are really based on a problem with Jerusalem, we will remind them that was once divided, but war raged there," he said.
Netanyahu continued, "Each side will bring their requests to the negotiations, but in the end, the idea that the Jewish nation should live in its land and build its capital will not be a deterrent to achieving peace."
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Tuesday evening at the capital's prestigious Mercaz Harav Yeshiva Netanyahu stated that "the fight for Jerusalem is the fight for truth."
Speaking Tuesday, on the eve of Jerusalem Day, the prime minister highlighted the interaction between truth and justice, stressing that any distortion of justice concerning the Jewish people and Jerusalem was also a distortion of truth.
"The truth is that Jerusalem is our lifeblood," he said. "We have an indissoluble connection to it. Thousands of years, three thousands years. We have never relinquished this connection. We didn't relinquish it when the temple was destroyed the first time, we didn't relinquish it when the temple was destroyed a second time."
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Israel insists there is no building freeze in Jerusalem
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Monday rejected reports that there is a Jewish building freeze in parts of Jerusalem as a result of American pressure.
"The municipality will continue to promote construction throughout all parts of the city, for Jews and Arabs alike," Barkat said in a statement.
Barkat released the statement after weekend reports suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to officially freeze the controversial construction project in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, which the Palestinians claim as part of their future capital.
"We trust that the prime minister will not allow a freeze to take hold in Jerusalem. Not in words and not in deeds," said Barkat.
Netanyahu later clarified that he had not offered the Americans a building freeze, but had rather explained to them that the Ramat Shlomo project was not scheduled to enter the construction phase for another two years, so should not hinder efforts to restart peace negotiations now.
"When the Americans asked us to estimate when construction will begin, I said that I don't believe it will begin before the two-year period ends," Netanyahu told members of his Likud faction. He said he did not know why that information was interpreted by the Americans as a commitment to halt Jewish construction.
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Israel slams Russia's Hamas stance
By JPOST.COM STAFF
12/05/2010 20:09
Govm't issues an unusually sharp response to Medvedev's suggestions
The Foreign Ministry issued an uncharacteristically sharp response on Wednesday to a Russian and Turkish call to include Hamas in the diplomatic process, drawing parallels between Hamas and Chechen terrorists and saying it was wrong to distinguish between "good" and "bad" terrorists.
The statement, released at the directive of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is currently in Tokyo, said Hamas was a terrorist organization that set as its goal the destruction of Israel.
"Hamas people are responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians, including those who came from the former Soviet Union, and also Russian citizens," the statement said. "It is forbidden for enlightened countries to divide terrorists into good and bad ones on the basis of geography."
It stressed that "a terrorist is a terrorist" and that Israel saw no difference whatsoever between the terrorism that Hamas deployed against Israel, and the terrorism that the Chechens used against Russia.
"There is no difference between Khaled Mashaal and Shamil Basayev [a Chechen leader who was killed in 2006]," it read.
"Israel always stood behind Russia in its fight against Chechen terrorism, and would have expected similar treatment regarding Hamas terrorism against Israel,"the Foreign Ministry statement said.
What raised Israel's ire was a comment Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made in Ankara on Wednesday, during a visit with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying - in a clear reference to Hamas - that no one should be excluded from the Mideast peace process.
Medvedev met Mashaal in Damascus on Tuesday, following a meeting he held with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Although Russia is a member of the Middle East Quartet, which also includes the US, EU and UN, it has never accepted the Quartet principles that there should be no engagement with Hamas until it forswears terrorism, recognizes Israel and accepts previous agreements. Russia is one of three European countries that continue to maintain contact with Hamas, the others being Turkey and Norway.
While this is not the first time the Russian leadership has met with Mashaal, this is the harshest response that Israel has ever released regarding the matter, and one diplomatic official said it reflected deep frustration in Jerusalem.
At the same time, the official said there was little concern that just because Russia and Turkey wanted to see engagement with Hamas, other Western countries would follow suit.
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Jordan Launches Campaign: 'No Zionist Enemy Products'
by Hillel Fende
It's not only the Palestinian Authority, and it's not only against the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Jordan, too, has quasi-officially announced a boycott on all Israeli-made products.
Doron Paskin, head of research at Info-Prod Research, reports for Calcalist that the campaign is headed by Jordan's trade unions, whose leaders held a press conference on Monday to announce the boycott. Dr. Ahmed Armouti, chairman of the Trade Unions Organization, said that the campaign was conceived to mark 62 years since what Arabs call the Naqba , otherwise known as Israel's independence.
In addition to the dissemination of lists of Israeli-made products so that simple Jordanians can know what not to buy, a mass burning will be held this Saturday. Fruits and vegetables from Israel will be collected from the market in Jordan's capital Amman and will be publicly burnt. The event is being organized by a body called the Committee to Make War on Normalization .
Two of the largest traders in the Amman market have already announced their intention to stop buying from Israel, Paskin reports.
It was explained at the press conference that the boycott violates no Jordanian laws.
Jordan and Israel have officially been at peace since they signed a peace treaty in 1994. Prior to that, Jordan warred with Israel in 1948, launched many fedayeen (terrorist) attacks in the following years, and then attacked Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967 - when it lost Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to Israel.
Jordan sat out the Yom Kippur War, and friendly ties ultimately developed between its leader King Hussein and Israeli governments. Hussein died five years after signing the peace treaty with Yitzchak Rabin in 1994. His son and successor, Abdullah is not enthusiastic about the peace with Israel; he told The Wall Street Journal last month that Jordan was better off economically before it made peace with Israel.
PA Continues its Boycott Efforts
At the same time, the Palestinian Authority is continuing its campaign to boycott Israeli-made goods from Judea and Samaria - in violation of the Oslo Agreement. In addition, it has added all Israeli-made goods to its list of "products to be avoided." A gathering was held in a Ramallah suburb this past week honoring volunteers who raise awareness in the PA public regarding the "importance" of spurning the Israeli-made goods. High school and college students are being trained throughout the PA-controlled areas to engage in such activities. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
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Moscow to build nuke plant in Turkey.
By HERB KEINON
13/05/2010 02:03
Russia considering Syria as well; Foreign Ministry "not overjoyed,"
While Jerusalem lashed out against Moscow on Wednesday for wanting to include Hamas in the diplomatic process, it took a much more low-key approach to news that Russia would build a nuclear reactor in Turkey, and was considering doing the same in Syria.
"This is obviously not something people here are overjoyed about," one official said of the developments, but there is a feeling - at least regarding Turkey - that if the plant is under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, there is much less to worry about.
The problem is Syria, the official added, because although it is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and under IAEA supervision, it still managed to set up a clandestine plutonium-producing facility that was reportedly taken out by the IAF in September 2007.
"The Syrians have never apologized and have not been cooperative with the IAEA," the official said.
Turkey and Russia signed 17 cooperation agreements on Wednesday, including one for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant near the Mediterranean coastal town of Akkuyu. The construction was expected to take seven years, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Russia plans to build four reactors at the plant at a cost of about $20 billion.
On Tuesday, Russia's energy minister, who visited Damascus along with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, said Moscow was studying the possibility of building a nuclear plant in Syria as well.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said during Medvedev's visit that he and the Russian president "talked about oil and gas cooperation, as well as constructing conventional or nuclear-powered electricity stations."
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, when asked whether his country would build an atomic power plant in Syria, told Reuters, "We are studying this question."
Israeli diplomatic officials said Russia was following France and the US in trying to ink lucrative deals in Mideast countries for nuclear plants. The US signed civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2009, and France pledged in 2007 to help Morocco develop its nuclear program for civilian use
Over the past three years, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the UAE, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Jordan and Egypt have all indicated an interest in developing some kind of nuclear facilities.
Israel, one official acknowledged, has little leverage to try to stop Russia from building a nuclear reactor in either Turkey or - if it desired - in Syria, just as it had little power to keep Moscow from building the Iranian reactor in Bushehr.
AP contributed to this report.
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John Bolton to Speak at NYC Dinner for Jerusalem Reclamation
by Gil Ronen
Friends of Ateret Cohanim in the United States will celebrate Yom Yerushalyim (Jerusalem Day) Thursday evening at a dinner marking the 31st anniversary of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project. Ateret Cohanim is behind Jewish development at the Yemenite Village (Shiloach) - an ancient Jewish village just outside the Old City of Jerusalem walls that is now overwhelmingly Arab.
Ateret Cohanim is constantly defending the parts of Jerusalem it reclaims. It announced Tuesday that it intends to take action on its own against Arab squatters who took over the Yemenite Synagogue in the neighborhood several decades ago, if no police help is forthcoming.
Also Tuesday, Ateret Cohanim hosted Knesset members from the Likud on a tour of Shiloach and Beit Yehonatan. The residents of Beit Yehonatan are under threat of eviction and the building is supposed to be sealed up, according to a court order. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has been trying to avoid evicting the Jews from the building, because evicting Jews while not taking action against Arabs in the illegally built houses surrounding them would constitute discrimination.
Ateret Cohanim also supports projects in Abu Dis, Maaleh HaZeitim and the heart of the Old City. These include playgrounds, student dormitories, renovation of synagogues and more.
The dinner offers friends of Jerusalem in America a way to help Israel hold on to its ancient capital in the face of an increasingly hostile world.
The dinner will be addressed by former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. The guests of honor will be Dr. Joseph Frager and Mel Wadler. Jerusalem Chai awardees will be Joseph and Helen Mermelstein; Bonei Yerushalayim honorees will be Mark and Galina Moerdler and Mr. Moe Tawil. Dinner chairpersons will be Dr. Paul and Drora Brody, Elly and Brochie Kleinman, Robert and Laurie Koppel, Rubin and Cecelia Margules and Herry Wartski. Shoshana Hikind is one of the moving spirits behind Friends of Ateret Kohanim.
It will be held at Terrace on the Park, 52-11 111th Street, Flushing Meadow Park, Corona, New York. Reservations can be made by calling the NYC-JRP office at 212-216-9270 or by email: ateret@juno.com . (IsraelNationalNews.com)
