Netanyahu phones Putin to talk Middle East peace - http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-phones-putin-to-talk-middle-east-peace/
Israeli and Russian leaders agree to continue 'intensive' contacts, Kremlin says
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday night and discussed regional issues and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
According to the Kremlin presidential website, "the two leaders exchanged opinions on issues surrounding the settlement in the Middle East and current aspects of the general situation in the region."
"It was agreed to continue intensive Russian-Israeli contacts at various levels," the Kremlin said.
No further details concerning the conversation were released, and the Prime Minister's Office made no immediate statement about it.
Netanyahu and Putin had a similar phone conversation on July 23 during which they arranged to maintain the dialogue and contact at various government levels.
The phone call came after earlier this week Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said that Putin was willing to host Israeli and Palestinian leaders for direct talks.
"It was agreed to continue intensive Russian-Israeli contacts at various levels," the Kremlin said.
No further details concerning the conversation were released, and the Prime Minister's Office made no immediate statement about it.
Netanyahu and Putin had a similar phone conversation on July 23 during which they arranged to maintain the dialogue and contact at various government levels.
The phone call came after earlier this week Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said that Putin was willing to host Israeli and Palestinian leaders for direct talks.
Putin said willing to host Israeli-Palestinian peace talks - http://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-said-willing-to-host-israeli-palestinian-peace-talks
Comments by Egypt's president el-Sissi made to newspaper editors after Israeli delegation arrives in Cairo to discuss peace push
Amid speculation over a developing Egyptian bid to revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said late Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to host Israeli and Palestinian leaders for direct talks.
In a briefing with newspaper editors in Cairo, Sissi said Israel is increasingly convinced of the need for achieving peace with the Palestinians, according to media reports in Israel and Egypt.
No peace process could be successful, he told the journalists, without reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.
He also said Israeli-Palestinian peace, which could enable further burgeoning of Israeli-Arab alliances generally, is the key to regional stability, a sentiment that echoed comments heard in recent months from Jordan's King Abdullah and other Sunni Arab leaders.
Sissi's comments follow meetings earlier Sunday between an Israeli delegation in Cairo and Egyptian officials on the Egyptian president's proposal to revive the peace process.
Israeli officials were scheduled to meet their Egyptian counterparts on Palestinian peace talks, as well as other matters related to the two countries, the Germany news agency DPA reported.
The talks were said to last several hours, according to the report by the Germany agency.
Last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly informed Egypt he is no longer opposed to participating in a regional or international peace summit in Cairo.
According to a report on Israel Radio on Friday, the Palestinian leader told an Egyptian delegation in Ramallah that he was willing to attend such a conference, but stressed that the Egyptian peace push would not replace the French initiative to revive talks, which the Palestinians have favored but Israel has strongly opposes.
The PA president also reportedly asked that France, Russia and Switzerland attend the summit.
Abbas urged Egypt to press Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction and release Palestinian prisoners ahead of a meeting between the two leaders in Egypt, the report said, but Cairo's position on the proposed preconditions was not immediately clear.
In July, Palestinian leaders presented several preconditions for participating in a trilateral Israeli-Egyptian-Palestinian peace summit in Cairo, including a freeze on Israeli settlement construction, a Palestinian official told The Times of Israel. Abbas also demanded that Israel acquiesce to negotiations based on the pre-1967 lines and pledge ahead of time to implement any agreements reached in the talks.
Netanyahu in July reportedly told Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry - on a rare visit to Jerusalem - he would be willing to meet with Abbas in Cairo for talks hosted by Sissi. The Prime Minister's Office did not deny the report by the Saudi-owned, pan-Arab news outlet Al-Arabiya. It said in a statement that "whether the issue was discussed or not, Israel has always said it is prepared to conduct direct bilateral negotiations with no preconditions."
Sissi reportedly offered to host direct talks between the sides as part of Cairo's initiative to kick-start the moribund peace process.
Shoukry's visit to Israel was the first by an Egyptian foreign minister since 2007. The visit came amid speculation over the renewal of an Arab peace initiative and as Israel's military recently saluted "unprecedented" intelligence cooperation with Egypt to combat the Islamic State group.
According to Israel's Channel 2 television, Shoukry's surprise visit was also aimed at arranging a first meeting between Netanyahu and Sissi in Egypt in the coming months.
The TV report said Shoukry's first visit to Israel was coordinated between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose Arab Peace Initiative is backed by Sissi and much of the Arab world as the basis of any regional peace effort. Netanyahu has rejected the initiative in its current form, but said in late May that it "contains positive elements that could help revive constructive negotiations with the Palestinians."
Turkey Uses Bilateral Ties with Israel as Alibi - http://www.debka.com/article/25627/Turkey-Uses-Bilateral-Ties-with-Israel-as-Alibi-
Turkey - in full momentum since the Erdogan-Putin summit on Aug. 9 - is setting a rapid pace for its rapprochement with Israel. Saturday, Aug. 20, the Turkish parliament ratified the reconciliation agreement Ankara signed with Jerusalem and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that ambassadors would be exchanged soon.
There is even mention of Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan visiting Israel in September.
Both Ankara and Jerusalem are quickly moving on from their sharp exchange of recriminations this week, over the massive IDF military retaliation against Hamas Sunday and Monday for a missile fired from the Gaza Strip.
Israel harshly reproved Turkey for its condemnation, as hardly in a position to interfere in another government's response to terrorism.
Erdogan uncharacteristically held silent and let Israel have the last word..
Erdogan and Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are clearly of one mind that nothing should be allowed to hinder their burying of the hatchet.
In today's Middle East's crazy slalom of events, whereby every few hours, new conflicts spring up and new deals are forged - only to end in tatters a couple of days later (e.g. Tehran's abrupt reversal of its permission to allow the Russia an air base in Western Iran), bilateral realpolitik is bound to be the order of the day.
Yesterday's enemy might be today's friend, and today's friend might become tomorrow's enemy.
The mercurial Turkish president initiated a series of earthshaking moves in the past two weeks:
He rid the strategic southern Turkish Incirlik base of the US nuclear arsenal, and is keeping the future of US warplanes there for operations in Syria up in the air, amid talk of opening the base for the use of the Russian air force.
Joined Russia and Iran to establish a new Middle East alliance.
Opened a direct line of communication from Ankara to Syria's Bashar Assad. Turkish MIT Secret Service director Hakan Fidan paid a visit to Damascus.
Working with Israel therefore did not stop the Turkish leader from going after a deal with the Syrian ruler at the same time.
Erdogan plans a visit to Tehran for a grand friendship photo op with Iranian leaders with the same fanfare as his summit with Vladimir Putin.
That summit which ended in an accord to prevent the Kurds from gaining independence in Syria and Iraq let Ankara off the leash for an all out offensive against the YPG Syrian Kurdish army in northern Syria.
Wednesday, Aug. 24, the Turkish army crossed the border to attack ISIS strongholds in the border town of Jarablus, so intervening in the Syrian conflict to block the Kurdish assault on the jihadists.
Ankara has also stepped up its interference with Egyptian and Saudi policies in the Middle East.
How does the Turkish leader reconcile his contradictory polices?
On the one hand he initiates open friendship with Israel while, at the same time, forging alliances with its enemies in Tehran, Damascus and Gaza. How does Israel perceive Ankara's hostile steps against its friends and allies, the Americans, Egyptians, Saudi and Kurds?
The wily Erdogan appears to believe that he can use his friendship with Israel as a fig leaf. Whenever the US or others chastise him for his negative actions, he can point out that even Israel goes along with his policies.
As for Netanyahu, he appears to have taken a leaf out of President Barack Obama's Middle East book.
In the face of all Erdogan's provocations and betrayals, Obama goes overboard to hold Washington's line to Ankara in place and hold Turkey back from irrevocably quitting NATO.
To do just that, he even sent Vice President Joe Biden to Ankara Wednesday, Aug. 24.
As a global power, the US can afford to look the other way when Erdogan goes over the top, even though it is hard to see where he is going.
Israel, on the other hand, can't afford to let itself be used as Erdogan's alibi, without damaging its precious ties with Washington and risk impairing the understandings Netanyahu has been able to develop with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It would be a mistake to try and isolate the relationship with Ankara as a purely bilateral issue without expecting a backlash on Israel's other ties.
Striking 50 Hamas Targets in Gaza, IDF Retaliates Fiercely After Rocket Hits Sderot - http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/74332/israel-retaliates-hard-following-gaza-rocket-sderot/?utm_source=Breaking+Israel+News&utm_campaign=2b7a81930f-BIN_morning_8_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b6d3627f72-2b7a81930f-86588445&mc_cid=2b7a81930f&mc_eid=88140f4506#T7FTf6coc5El60xi.97
"And Hashem said unto him: 'Therefore whosoever slayeth Kayin, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.'" Genesis 4:15 (The Israel Bible�)
On Sunday afternoon, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the city of Sderot in Israel, no injuries have been reported. In response to the attack, Israel Air Force (IAF) aircraft immediately targeted Hamas positions in the northern Gaza Strip. This was the 14th rocket fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel since the beginning of 2016. But this time, the Israeli response was swift and refreshingly "disproportionate."
IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said in a statement: "The IDF remains committed to the stability of the region and operated in order to bring quiet to the people of southern Israel. When terrorists in Hamas' Gaza Strip, driven by a radical agenda based on hatred, attack people in the middle of the summer vacation, their intentions are clear - to inflict pain, cause fear and to terrorize.
According to Ma'an, the IDF fired missiles into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun on Sunday afternoon and evening, injuring at least five Arabs. Reports of an air raid over Beit Hanoun emerged at around 10:30 PM, with IAF shelling. Earlier in the day, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that a young Arab man in his twenties was injured as a result of an Israeli artillery shelling targeting a military training ground in Beit Hanoun near the Erez crossing. Local sources later told Ma'an that two other Arabs were also injured, though the details remained unclear
An Israel Air Force plane was used to strike the first target, while an Israeli army tank was used to attack the second.
Eyewitnesses told Ma'an that a rocket fired by an Israeli drone hit a water reservoir and another shell landed in an open area in Beit Hanoun. The Hamas "Palestinian Information Center" reported that a "Palestinian citizen was injured in the face" by shrapnel of an artillery shell. The report quoted local sources as saying that Israeli tanks fired three shells at an agricultural land in the al-Masriyyin neighborhood in Beit Hanoun. Furthermore, the report said Israeli artillery shells landed in the Filistin training ground which Hamas fighters use for military training.
All of the above were signals from Israel's new Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) that the old "proportionate" retaliation policy whereby a volley of rockets from Gaza that fall mostly in empty fields in Israel is met with a lazy IAF attack, several hours later, against terrorist facilities that had been cleared of their inhabitants well in advance - all that is over.
Liberman is changing the rules in Gaza, and it appears that from now on, a provocation, no matter how small, will be met with a fierce and destructive reaction-last night's attacks hit some 50 targets-that might change the calculus on the other side as well.
One side benefit of the IAF and tank attacks Sunday was that Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas' military wing who was supposed to give a watershed announcement on his group's policy, canceled his planned speech for security reasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.