Israel's diplomatic spring

[A_Poster]

Hope India supports you (behind the scenes mostly I would assume).

Is this the first time Israel is trying for a seat?

Israel is in European group at security council. The biggest determiner of whether Israel would go through or not is whether there is European challenger to Israel's claim or not.

 

[dani958]

its good to have lot allys its important

 

[Solomon2]

Ayoob Kara (Photo courtesy of author)

MIDDLE EAST
Exclusive: The Druze Minister in Charge of Bibi’s Secret Outreach to Arab States Speaks
Ayoob Kara advocates for a combination of Israeli military deterrence and economic fortitude to sway Arab neighbors

By Elhanan Miller
August 8, 2016 • 10:00 PM

On the wall of his Knesset office, behind a large Israeli flag, Ayoob Kara has placed a framed Prayer for the State of Israel, given to him by the emergency response organization Zaka. “Wishing for quiet days,” reads the inscription on the backdrop of the Western Wall and a cheesy graphic of a white peace dove. If you ask Kara, Israel’s most senior Druze politician, those quiet days are already here.

“Israel receives more international legitimacy today than it has since independence,” Kara said recently. “Our relations with our neighbors are the best they’ve ever been.”

That assertion may sound like typical political hyperbole, but Kara, deputy minister for regional cooperation, has the proof. Last November, Israel quietly opened its first diplomatic office in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, inside the headquarters of the United Nations’ International Renewable Energy Agency. In July, Israeli diplomats had hardly caught their breath from the visit of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the first in nine years, before receiving a high-ranking Saudi delegation headed by retired general Anwar Ishqi. Having now signed a reconciliation deal with Turkey, Israel is experiencing a diplomatic renaissance with almost all of its regional neighbors.

And that is just what is happening above ground. “Once, [Arab politicians] used to run away from me when they heard I’m Israeli,” Kara said. “Today, we are praised by ministers and parliament members from places like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco.” They do so quietly, however, he added, due to “a culture of hypocrisy.”

For Kara, 61, who oversees covert and overt Israeli projects in the Arab world on behalf of his boss, Benjamin Netanyahu (who doubles as regional cooperation minister), improved relations with surrounding countries serve a dual purpose: assuring Israeli safety in an increasingly volatile environment, and diverting world attention from the Palestinians.

“By eyeing the Saudi coalition, I am bypassing the Palestinian issue, which I have no interest in dealing with all the time,” Kara candidly admitted. “The Oslo Accords have caused us more grief than benefit. Had Abu Mazen [Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas] and his friends never been brought back from Tunisia, our situation may have been better.”

According to Kara, it is the Obama administration that remains insistent on keeping the Palestinian track alive despite all odds. “We have no partner, and there is no chance of progress on that. [The Palestinians] are even talking about canceling the Balfour Declaration [sic], so who exactly am I waiting for?”

Were it not for the negative vibes emanating from Washington, Kara asserted, Israel’s relations with the Arab world would truly bloom. “Our problem is we’re going it alone, with no assistance,” he said. “With the Americans of earlier days, Netanyahu would have already visited a number of Gulf states. They [the Arab leaders] admire him and like him so much. I’ve heard this from at least six or seven leaders in the Arab world.”

Like Netanyahu, Kara is deeply mistrustful of mainstream Israeli media. Leftist journalism has systematically been blocking reports of his ministry’s activities in a bid to delegitimize the Netanyahu government, he argued. “They want to show that Israel is disconnected from the world, that nobody talks to us in Arab countries,” he said. “If someone from the Labor Party or Meretz were to hold such meetings, they’d get front-page headlines.” A case in point was Kara’s rare meeting last month with Jordanian Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki, reported exclusively by the Netanyahu-friendly daily Israel Hayom.

Fiercely loyal to the prime minister, Kara nevertheless lost his cool when a cabinet reshuffle failed to promote him to the rank of minister. His previous government titles always seemed to be preceded by the word “deputy”: deputy speaker of the Knesset, deputy minister for the development of the Negev and the Galilee.

“I will not become the Madhat Yusuf of politics,” he told a gathering in Beersheba last May, following the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as defense minister. He was referring to the 19-year-old Druze border policeman left to die of his wounds in Joseph’s Tomb following an armed clash with Palestinian militants in Nablus during the Second Intifada.

“The prime minister had promised me a job as minister or the equivalent, but treacherous ministers were appointed instead. I am not treacherous but loyal to the people of Israel forever.”

The notion of personal sacrifice for the Zionist cause is not foreign to the Kara family of Daliyat al-Karmel, a large Druze community southeast of Haifa. His grandfather Salman, a functionary with Keren Hayesod who oversaw Jewish land acquisition in northern Israel, relocated to Caesarea around Israel’s creation at the behest of the presidential Weizmann family. Two of Salman Kara’s sons were killed by Arab nationalists in 1939 and 1947 for cooperating with Jews, and he himself was injured as an IDF volunteer during the 1948 War of Independence. Years later, Ayoob Kara would similarly lose two brothers to war on the Lebanese border and sustain serious wounds as a young officer in the First Lebanon War.

It was Yitzhak Shamir, an old acquaintance of his grandfather soon to become prime minister, who persuaded Ayoob to join Likud upon his discharge from the army following the war. “My family was in a state of trauma. Chief of Staff Moshe Levi asked me to retire and take care of my parents, saying I could return to the army whenever I wanted.”

Today a trained lawyer and the sole non-Jewish member of a hawkish Jewish cabinet, Kara’s Hebrew is impeccable. During his high school years in a Jewish agricultural school near Haifa, Kara was taken in by a pair of Holocaust survivors, Rosa and Ernest Gold. “They were like family to me,” he recalled. “I recite their names every year on Holocaust memorial day [at the Knesset].”

Kara said he finds it distasteful to identify as Druze in domestic political debates. “I am Israeli, period,” he declares. Yet he deliberately flaunts his minority status in conversations with Arab counterparts abroad. “What better example can they have for the equality between Jews and non-Jews in Israel?” he asks.

***

As Arab states crumble while others shudder in the face of Iranian boldness, Kara identifies a rare opportunity for Israel. Never before have the Arabs been in greater need of Israel’s edge, be it technological or military.

Kara shares Netanyahu’s belief that peace lies not in signed documents with neighboring states but in the combination of military deterrence and economic fortitude. Factories and employment in the Arab world guarantee Israel’s safety much better than a negotiation process that leads nowhere, he asserted.

To that end, Kara is working hard on cementing Israel’s economic ties with Jordan. A planned canal connecting the Red and Dead seas will be used for water desalination in southern Jordan, while an artificial waterfall at its center will generate hydroelectric power. Water-independent due to its pioneering desalination breakthrough, Israel has recently given Jordan 100 million cubic meters of water from the Sea of Galilee as a goodwill measure.

Israel has also been helping Jordan with employment, allowing 1,500 Jordanian day laborers to work in Eilat for an Israeli minimum wage, four times their salary back home. Kara would like to see the employment of Jordanians in Israel expand at the expense of illegal foreign migrants from Africa and East Asia. A new border crossing to be opened south of the Dead Sea will soon allow Jordanians to take jobs at Dead Sea mineral factories and resorts.

“There are currently 4,000 jobs in Dead Sea hotels and Arava agriculture taken by foreign workers,” Kara said. “Why shouldn’t Jordanians come in? It strengthens their economy and thereby their security. It stops fanaticism.”

Kara would like to see the Jordanian model of cooperation extended to Saudi Arabia, which he identifies as a key ally in the struggle against Iranian expansionism. Not only could Israel provide Saudi Arabia with much-needed water and natural gas, it could even sign a regional defense pact that would include the entire Gulf Cooperation Council .

“Iran should know that if it attacks, it will face a unified coalition and may be wiped out,” Kara said. “Such a coalition is entirely possible. If the Americans lend us a hand it will work for sure, but even if they don’t—reality will bring it about.”

While Kara advocates an aggressively proactive Israeli stance in the Gulf, he is wary of intervention in Syria. The threat of force has so far kept ISIS, as well as Hezbollah, away from the Golan border, but Israel may be forced to respond to future attacks on the Druze of Syria.

“If, God forbid, the Druze are harmed, it would be an irreversible situation,” he said. “It would be a red line.”

***

 

[Solomon2]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-media-battles-anti-semitism-warms-up-to-israel/

A media campaign in Saudi Arabia is seeking to combat anti-Semitism in the kingdom, apparently in an effort to prepare public opinion for deepened relations with decades-old enemy Israel.

Ehud Yaari, a senior analyst on Israel’s Channel 2 TV, on Friday read out examples of key sentences in recent articles by Saudi columnists and reporters demonstrating a shift in attitude towards the Jewish state and Jews in general.

Saham al-Kahtani, a famous Saudi columnist, recently wrote that describing Jews as the sons of apes and pigs, and other derogatory descriptions of Jews from the Quran, relates to the period in which Islam’s holiest book was written, and should not be seen to refer to all Jews today, the Israeli TV report said.

This interpretation of the Quran is not in line with previous interpretations, which take the phrase comparing Jews to animals quite literally.


Israel’s Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold and former Saudi government adviser Anwar Eshki shake hands in Washington DC, June 4, 2015 (Debby Communications Group)

Similarly, Yasser Hijazi, columnist in the influential paper Riyadh (published in the country’s capital), said that Arabs must “leave behind their hostility and hatred of Jews,” according to a translation of his comments published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Another columnist, Ibrahim el Matroudi, was quoted by Channel 2 as complaining that Saudis — and Arabs in general — have been “swearing at the Jews instead of drawing benefits from studying their success.”

And Ahmed Adnan, writing in the influential Saudi-owned pan-Arab website Al Arabiya, argued that the Saudis should speak to Israel in line with their own national interests, and without mediators.

The change in tone in Saudi rhetoric towards Israel comes a year after the signing of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers — a deal that leaves Riyadh concerned over its position in the Middle East — and as Tehran’s proxies in Syria and Lebanon are holding their ground in the Syrian civil war.

In late July, a retired Saudi general visited Israel, heading a delegation of academics and businessmen seeking to encourage discussion of the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative.

The delegation led by Dr. Anwar Eshki reportedly met in Jerusalem with Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, and held a meeting north of Jerusalem near Ramallah with several Knesset members from the opposition.


Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud (center) and former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Amos Yadlin (left) share stage in Brussels on May 26, 2014, with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on the right (photo credit: JTA)

Such a visit by former general Eshki, who was once a top adviser to the Saudi government, is an extremely rare occurrence. Eshki said later the trip had not been coordinated with the royal household, but it was seen as highly unlikely that he would have come without the Saudi leadership’s tacit consent. Eshki had met with Gold several times previously.

The meetings with Gold and Mordechai reportedly did not take place at official Israeli government facilities, but rather at the King David Hotel in the heart of the Israeli capital.

The visitors also toured the West Bank city of Ramallah and met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as well as other Palestinian officials.

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal share da platform at the Washington Institute with Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former national security adviser.


Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal and Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, share a platform at the Washington Institute, May 5, 2016 (Washington Institute screenshot)

 

[Solomon2]

Egypt's Crucial Role in the Middle East
by Bassam Tawil
August 15, 2016 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8596/egyptian-israel-relations

• At the level of regional strategy, Egypt has a central role in the anti-Iran coalition of Sunni Arab states, which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. The violence of the Arab Spring brought to the fore the inevitable confrontation between a revisionist, aggressive Shi'ite Iran and the Arab countries deploying to defend themselves against Iranian aggression, mainly in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Africa.
  
• There might, however, be a confrontation -- unfortunately with the United States. Even as the Iranians proceed with developing nuclear weapons and using proxies to destabilize the Arab and Muslim states, the American shoulder grows colder towards both Israel and the el-Sisi government in Egypt. The current U.S. administration is known throughout the Middle East for empowering its enemies and being treacherous to its friends.
  
• The traditional Arab stance, used by autocratic leaders to bamboozle their dissatisfied populace by pointing them at an external villain instead of at our own leaders, has clearly begun to change. Israel as the greatest enemy, is, correctly, being replaced by Iran.
  

The presence of the Egyptian foreign minister in Israel last month came as a surprise to many. Critical Egyptian public opinion and the Egyptian media indicate that, in the years since the Israeli-Egyptian peace was signed, the formal agreement has yet to trickle into public consciousness and that there is still considerable suspicion on both sides of the border. The same is true of the peace between Israel and Jordan.

Under the reign of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, relations had reached a new low, with Egypt covertly aiding Iran's proxy, Hamas, against Israel.

The visit of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to Israel in early July 2016 could be an indication that the frozen peace between Israel and Egyptians, signed by Begin and Sadat in 1979, might be thawing.[1]

At the level of regional strategy, Egypt has a central role in the anti-Iran coalition of Sunni Arab states, which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. The violence of the Arab Spring brought to the fore the inevitable confrontation between a revisionist, aggressive Shi'ite Iran and the Arab countries deploying to defend themselves against Iranian aggression, mainly in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Africa.

Under such circumstances, even publicizing any kind of cooperation between Egypt and Israel indicates a thaw and could, for the benefit of the Arab and Muslim world, be the beginning of legitimizing bilateral relations. Shoukry's visit to Israel might even have been intended to pave the way for a broadening of relations with Israel and an avowal of the hitherto covert cooperation between many Arab and Muslim states and Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in Jerusalem, on July 10, 2016. (Image source: Israel Government Press Office)

However, given the current situation of Egypt's rapprochement with Israel and Russia, there might be a confrontation -- unfortunately with the United States. Even as the Iranians proceed with developing nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to carry them, and as they use incitement, weapons, money, and proxies to destabilize the Arab and Muslim states, the American shoulder grows colder towards both Israel and the el-Sisi government in Egypt.

The current administration is known throughout the Middle East for empowering its enemies and being treacherous to its friends. We joke that is far better for a country to be America's enemy than its ally: it will then spend unlimited amounts of wealth and effort and wealth to woo you. It seems never to have met an enemy it did not like.

Both Israel and Egypt regard Hamas as a terrorist organization because it collaborates with ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula and because it is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose sole avowed purpose is globally to spread Islam.

According to sources in Egypt, Israel deliberately leaked information about firepower and intelligence aid from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to the Egyptian forces operating in the Sinai Peninsula to use this "collaboration with the 'enemy'" to strengthen relations between the two countries.

It is, however, in the interest of Arab and Muslim states to find a solution as soon as possible to get the Palestinian problem off the agenda, to be able to form a united front against Iran. It might even help to win if such a "strong horse" were included.

The visit of Egypt's foreign minister to Jerusalem seemed a signal to the Palestinian Authority to lower its expectations. The traditional Arab stance, used by autocratic leaders to bamboozle their dissatisfied populace by pointing them at an external villain instead of at our own leaders, has clearly begun to change. Israel as the greatest enemy, is, intelligently for most of us in the Arab and Muslim world, being replaced by Iran.

The visit to Israel also indicates that Hamas has weakened the Palestinian Authority's legitimacy and ability to maneuver, as it continues to present itself as an obstacle to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and keeps Western countries busy with its marginal problems, preventing them from dealing with the genuinely critical regional issues.

Like it or not -- and they could do worse -- at some point the Sunni Arab states would be wise to allow Israel into their trenches as they fight to the death against Iran.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.​

 

[Solomon2]

The New Normal: Today’s Arab Debate Over Ties with Israel

August 25, 2016
David Pollock

A recent spate of reports in major Arab media about official and other contacts with Israelis -- including very widely publicized Saudi and Egyptian visits to Israel in the past month – is generating renewed regional debate over the pros and cons of this phenomenon. Much of this debate, however, obscures one key point: Arab contacts with Israel, far from being brand new, actually have a very long history, with many ups and downs along the way.

In fact, official Arab-Israeli meetings and signed agreements date almost all the way back to Israel’s creation, with the Rhodes Armistice accords of 1949. For nearly two decades thereafter, there were periodic if generally low-level official meetings about security incidents, water, refugees, and other issues – along with many private, higher level meetings. The 1967 war produced the famous “three no’s” of the Arab summit conference in Khartoum: no peace, no recognition, and no negotiations with Israel. But just a few years later, after the 1973 war, contacts resumed, culminating in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979. Ever since, through all the turbulent decades until today, Egypt and Israel have maintained diplomatic, security, and economic relations.

It is true that most Arab governments, spearheaded by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, attempted to isolate Egypt in response. Yet within about a decade, after the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam’s occupation, the Madrid peace conference of 1991 brought many Israeli and Arab officials – including Syrians, Saudis, Palestinians, and others – publicly together again.

Exactly two years later, in September 1993, one of the most historic moments of dialogue and came with the first Oslo accord, with the Rabin-Arafat handshake and formal mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. This was followed in short order by a whole series of Arab-Israeli meetings, from the regional economic conferences in Casablanca, Amman, and Doha, to the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty of 1994, to the Sharm al-Sheikh foreign ministers meeting of 1996. At the latter event, Arafat, Shimon Peres, Saud al-Faisal, Amr Moussa, and other leaders all appeared publicly with each other, and pledged to fight terrorism and work for peace together.

Ever since that time, despite some interruptions during the second intifadah or other crises, many other high-level Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab summits, meetings, handshakes, and other contacts have occurred. The Annapolis peace conference of 2007, the Netanyahu-Abbas meeting of 2010, and the various bilateral and multilateral meetings during Secretary Kerry’s peacemaking effort in 2013-14 all come to mind. Meanwhile, at the security and intelligence levels, direct contacts between Israeli and Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian, and other Arab officials have become so frequent and mutually useful as to be routine.

So some degree of practical dialogue with Israel is nothing new, notwithstanding continual controversy about it. What is noteworthy today is that the issue is being actively and openly debated in major Arab media, with both proponents and opponents each having their say. And that not just Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians, but other major Arab outlets including Saudi ones, are participating in this discussion.

Particularly noteworthy in this respect is a long article in the current issue of the popular and influential pan-Arab weekly al-Majallah, based in London but widely circulated and read in both print and online editions in the region. This article not only reviews the long history of Arab-Israeli relations, but also cites statements about that by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer at great length.

Responses by Saudi writers are mixed, but some are very vocally in favor of dealing with Israel. For example, Ahmed Adnan, writing in the alarab.co.uk website, even argues that Arabs should follow Turkey’s model: “Ankara has ties with Israel, but no one can accuse Turkey of being biased against the Palestinians.” His article was reprinted in the leading al-Arabiya website on August 8.

Among Egyptian writers, the idea of regular dealings with Israel still excites fierce debate, even after nearly four decades of official peace. The owner of the prominent independent daily al-Masry al-Yawm outspokenly advocates pragmatic close bilateral ties, in Egypt’s own interest. But leading al-Ahram columnist Hassan Nafaa, in sharp contrast, argues strenuously against “free gifts” to Israel.

It is intriguing, however, that today even some Egyptian writers and academics most critical of ties to Israel acknowledge that the younger generation, turned against Iran, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood both by their own experience and by their government’s changing positions, is losing some of its animosity toward their Israeli neighbors. Examples of this discourse can be found in articles penned this year by Egyptian authors Muhammad Laithi in al-Watan and by Ahmed Hidji in al-Monitor, who cites three different Cairo professors lamenting their students’ growing openness to Israel.

All of this raises a delicate question: Is this revived movement toward some kind of dialogue leading toward peace with Israel just a policy of certain Arab governments, or perhaps of an elite fringe? In other words, does it enjoy any grassroots support? Here the evidence is surprisingly clear, and also surprisingly positive. While Arab publics overwhelmingly dislike Israel (and Jews), solid majorities in most recent surveys, on the order of 60 percent, nevertheless voice support for a “two-state solution,” which implies peace with the Jewish state. And they do so even when the question is worded to call explicitly for peace with Israel, or for abandoning the struggle to liberate all of Palestine. The exception that proves this rule, ironically, is the Palestinian public in the West Bank and Gaza, where support for a two-state solution has lately fallen to just below the halfway mark.

The combination of data points suggests that the majority support for eventual peace with Israel reflects not affinity but the converse: common enemies, and therefore common interests. Those include common concerns – as measured in the same surveys – about jihadi terrorism; about Iranian aggression, subversion, and nuclear weapons; and about perceived flaws in American policies toward all those issues.

As far back as 2010, even before the Saudi-Iran proxy wars in Syrian, Yemen and elsewhere, a reliable private poll showed that one-fourth of the Saudi urban public supported quiet military cooperation with Israel against the Iranian nuclear threat. And in the past two years, polls not only in Saudi Arabia but also in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and the UAE show that “the Arab street” is much more concerned about the conflicts with Iran, with Assad, and with Daesh than about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The conclusion is clear: today a broader regional approach to Arab-Israeli peacemaking, rather than a strictly bilateral Israeli-Palestinian one, offers somewhat better prospects of success – whether at the official, elite, media, or even popular levels. Normalization with Israel remains controversial in Arab circles, but it is no longer taboo. For an increasing number of Arabs, the Israeli “enemy of my enemy” may not be a friend, but could become a partner. The next U.S. Administration would do well to ponder this unaccustomed situation, and to adjust its policies accordingly.

David Pollock is the Kaufman fellow at The Washington Institute and the director of Fikra Forum.

 

[Solomon2]

Israel: You Get What You Pay For

August 31, 2016: The Israeli economy continues to thrive while the economies in neighboring Moslem nations stagnate or decline. Israeli unemployment is under 5 percent which is the lowest rate in the region. Arabs, especially Palestinians, blame Israel for their poorly performing economies. The real cause of the economic woes is corruption and bad government in general. But few Moslem governments are willing to admit that.

The most dangerous Islamic threat to Israel is not even Arab. In Iran supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently reminded everyone that the official Iranian position is that any Moslem nation (especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey) that improves relations with Israel is betraying Islam. Along those lines Khamenei also repeats his belief that the United States cannot be trusted and he makes a big deal about how the economic sanctions the July 2015 treaty lifted are not the main economic problem Iran has to deal with. The main problem for Iran is the two years of very low oil prices, which is Saudi Arabia’s way (along with some other local Sunni oil states) to put the hurt on Iran. One reason for seeking nuclear weapons is to give Iran the ability to persuade the Saudis to ship less oil and let the price go up. After that there will be the demand to let Iran run the Moslem holy places in Mecca and Medina. The Saudis are not willing to make deals that involve Iranian domination of the region and remain firm on their oil policy. Khamenei regularly lets the Iranian people know that their continued poverty is the fault of the Gulf Arabs and their allies (especially Israel and the United States). What Arabs and Iranians both downplay is that the American fracking technology is changing the oil market. Even with record low prices the fracking industry survives and as the price of oil goes up more fracking operations resume production. Add to that recent natural gas deposits discovered and rapidly developed in Israel coastal waters and you can see why political relationships are shifting in the Middle East.

Seen from the other side of the Gulf Arab nations have been getting closer to Israel for years and are now quite open about it. Arab states (especially Saudi Arabia) created and sustained the Islamic terrorism but can’t admit that. Israel is the most successful local power when it comes to dealing with Islamic terrorism and is willing to work with Arab states and not make a big deal about where all the Islamic terrorism comes from in the first place. That’s a problem the Arabs in particular and Moslems in general have to deal with.

Meanwhile Israel has become a tourist attraction for Russians who can still afford to travel to the Middle East but want to go somewhere that is not threatened by Islamic terror attacks and is hospitable to Russians. Then there is the fact that nearly 20 percent of Israelis have Russian ancestors. Russia is still a major source of Jews emigrating to Israel. Russians in general admire Israel for being resourceful and able to defend themselves in a rough neighborhood. Thus while Russia is currently an active ally of Iran, Russia and Israel continue to have good diplomatic and trade relations. Since 2015, when most Russians stopped going to inexpensive Egyptian resorts because of the terror threat a growing number have trying out the more expensive Israeli resorts. Most of these Russians go home and report that the higher cost of vacationing in Israel is worth it because so many Israelis speak Russian and are nostalgic for Russian culture. You get what you pay for...

August 25, 2016: In the south, off Gaza, an Israeli patrol boat came under fire from the shore. The happened as the Israelis were arresting two Palestinian fishermen who tried to take their boat into restricted areas and refused to turn back.

August 24, 2016: Israeli warplanes bombed three Hezbollah bases in Lebanon. These three targets, near the Syrian border, were known to be involved with supporting Hezbollah operations in Syria. This was the second such attack this month. The other one was on the 3rd when Arab media reported that Israeli warplanes destroyed four trucks (carrying Hezbollah weapons) north of Damascus. Israel rarely acknowledges air strikes like this but in April the Israeli government did reveal that it had carried out dozens of air raids in Syria and Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah weapons. In Lebanon Israeli aircraft also use smart bombs and missiles to attack Hezbollah weapons storage facilities that are found to contain new (usually Iranian or Russian) missiles. In addition to the air strikes since 2011 there have been a smaller number of ground (command0) operations. There have been several Israeli air strike in Syria since 2015 that were apparently part of an effort to destroy ballistic missiles being moved, or already moved from Syria to Lebanon. Israel also believes that Iran backed Hezbollah now has 150,000 other rockets, most of them short range (20 kilometers or less) installed along the Israel border, often in or close to homes and government buildings. Because of its commitments in Syria Hezbollah is not interested in another war with Israel just now but that attitude is expected to change depending on how the war in Syria ends. At the moment the Syrian government (backed by Iran and Russia) is winning but that war isn’t over yet.

August 22, 2016: In the north (Golan Heights) fire from the Syrian side of the border landed in Israel but did no damage and appeared to be unintentional. In response Israeli aircraft attacked a Syrian Army artillery position. When the fire from Syria is deliberate the Israelis always fire back, but if it appears to have been the result of fighting between government and rebels forces inside Syria, which is the cause of most bullets, rockets and shells crossing the border, there is sometimes just a verbal protest but no artillery or air strikes in response. When it is unclear, the Israelis fire back.

The United States advised American citizens in Gaza to leave because of the growing tensions between Hamas and Israel. The fear is that this could lead to some of the more radical Islamic terror groups (or factions of Hamas) attacking or kidnapping Americans in Gaza, even if the victims were there as aid workers. Islamic radicals in Gaza have done that sort of thing before.

August 21, 2016: In the south a rocket from Gaza exploded between two homes outside the Israeli border town of Sderot. No one was hurt but the Israeli response was the largest seen in Gaza since 2014. Over 40 Hamas military targets were hit with air strikes and artillery fire. There were no fatalities but Hamas lost a lot of weapons, equipment and buildings.

August 20, 2016: In Turkey the parliament approved the June agreement with Israel that restores the close diplomatic and economic relations the two countries had until the formal break in 2011. Even before Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador in 2011 relations between the two countries had been going downhill since 2007, when the AKP (Islamic Justice and Development Party) won reelection and party leader (and Turkish president) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided to turn on Israel in order to increase influence in Arab countries. It soon became clear that this was not working out so well but the AKP leaders were not willing to back down. By 2011 Turkey had cut most of its extensive diplomatic, economic and military ties with Israel. It took four more years of Islamic terrorist violence inside Turley and isolation from Israeli economic and military cooperation, to change enough minds in the AKP (which is still Islamic). The new agreement does not eliminate all the anti-Israel attitudes AKP has created and encouraged inside Turkey but does make it easier for Israel and Turkey to cooperate in dealing with Islamic terrorism, especially the threat from ISIL...

 

[Solomon2]

By MICHAEL WILNER, HERB KEINON \
08/30/2016 21:30

In Saudi Arabia, signs of an effort to break the Israel taboo

Saudi state-run media appears to be softening its reporting on Israel, running unprecedented columns floating the prospect of direct relations, quoting Israeli officials and filling its newsholes with fewer negative stories on Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians.

The public shift – from outlets such as al-Arabiya and Riyadh newspaper, among other local or state-owned outlets – reflects secret, undert he-table contact between the Arab kingdom and the Jewish state that has been a work in progress for years.

But media movement marks a new phase in t hat diplomatic process, according to some experts on the kingdom, who see signs of a monarchy effort to prepare Saudi society for debate that had previously been off limits.

“The key here is that everybody understands this is not going to turn around overnight, and its probably not going to convince a lot of people. But that’s not really the point,” said David Pollock, an expert on the region at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The point is to establish this as a debatable proposition, and to break the taboo of even debating about it – about the prospect of normalizing relations.”

“Once you’ve done that, you’ve made it legitimate,” Pollock added. “There are suddenly two sides.”

One column called for Saudis to “leave behind” their “hatred of Jews,” and another said that talks between the two nations should be direct, without intermediaries, based on Saudi national interests.

Those national interests appear to align with Israel’s, primarily on the issue of Iran, which has dominated the Saudi news cycle in recent months– from Islamic Republic activities in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
Saudi conservative Islamists view Iran, the Shi’ite and Hezbollah as “much worse than the Jews,” Pollock commented. “So that kind of takes the edge off – and actually pushes them in the same direction.”

An official in the Foreign Ministry said there have been some positive signals from Riyadh – such as an interview that ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer gave recently to the Saudi media, and one that Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold had last year with a Saudi website – but that there is no sense this is part of an organized campaign to prepare the ground for better ties.

“These are positive signs, but I would not say they are game changers,” the official said. “Good things are happening.

But rather than seeing this as trying to prepare the ground for something, I’d say it is a sign that there is less enmity.”

A source in the Prime Minister’s Office concurred. He acknowledged a few articles of late from “some pretty big journalists” against hating Jews, but said that he knows nothing about it coming from the top as part of an organized campaign.

Quiet talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia began leaking into public view in June, when a handshake between Gold and former Saudi government adviser Anwar Eshki raised eyebrows. Putting to rest any doubt that the handshake was an isolated affair, Eshki led a Saudi delegation to Jerusalem the following month that was publicly acknowledged.

Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud also shared a stage with Israel’s former military intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, in 2014.

A similar effort is under way in Egypt, Pollock said.

“I gather from talking to some of the people who are directly involved with it that there are different camps – different schools of thought in these countries,” said Pollock. “There is definitely internal opposition, and it’s very delicate, and fragile. But in both countries, the government and the establishment media – and their spin-offs and allies – are pursuing a deliberate strategy to do this.”

 

[Solomon2]

• Tuesday, September 13, 2016
• 
  Elder of Ziyon

Sudanese writer calls for Israeli flag to fly in Khartoum

​

A Sudanese writer has posted on his Facebook page that he wants his government to normalize relations with Israel.​

Sudanese paper Al Nilin reported that Abdel Azim Mohamed al-Jaafari wrote that he has been advocating normalization with Israel for years, saying that he has challenged religious scholars worldwide to explain why such relations with Israel would be forbidden.

Jaafari extols the economic and political benefits of relations with Israel as well as how consistent it would be with creating an atmosphere of peace in the region.

He says that he has floated the idea to a number of Sudanese as well as Israelis on the Internet. He wants nothing less than to see the Israeli flag proudly fly in the streets of Khartoum.

Interestingly, his Facebook page says that he is working at the Saudi Ministry of Agriculture, which makes one wonder if perhaps the Saudis are floating some trial balloons for is own potential opening up of relations with Israel.

 

[Solomon2]

Israel’s first ambassador to NATO presents his credentials
Jewish state gets permanent office at alliance’s HQ, led by diplomat Aharon Leshno-Yaar
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF September 16, 2016, 12:46 pm

Illustrative: NATO foreign and defense ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Oct. 14, 2010. (US Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison/DOD/Public Domain/Wikimedia)

Israel’s first ambassador to the 28-member NATO military alliance on Friday presented his credentials to its secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg as the Jewish state opened a permanent mission at the organization’s Brussels headquarters.

Israel is not a member of the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization, known by its acronym NATO, but has enjoyed military cooperation with the body in a number of fields and is currently a partner of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven friendly nations bordering on the waterway.

In a significant upgrading of ties, NATO announced in May it will recognize an official Israeli representative and the intergovernmental military alliance will grant Israel a permanent office at its headquarters in Brussels.

“The State of Israel attaches great importance to its relations with NATO and the opening of a permanent Israeli office at the Brussels headquarters is further proof of Israel’s international standing and its contributions to promoting regional peace and stability,” said the new ambassador, Aharon “Ronny” Leshno-Yaar on Friday.


Aharon “Ronny” Leshno-Yaar (Courtesy / Foreign Ministry)

Leshno-Yaar is also Israel’s ambassador to the European Union, responsible for relations between the Jewish state and the 28-member bloc. Before moving to Brussels, he served as Deputy Director General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, heading the UN and International Organizations Division. Prior, he was Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

Stoltenberg welcomed Israel’s upgraded role in NATO and he and Leshno-Yaar discussed plans to increase cooperation, according to a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

NATO currently has about 40 partner nations, including Australia, India, Japan, Pakistan and Russia. Its partnerships include ones with European non-NATO countries, the Mediterranean basin and Persian Gulf states.

NATO’s treaty requires the alliance to militarily defend members nations, of which there are 28, but not partner ones. Still, partner states regularly contribute to NATO operations such as those in Afghanistan and naval missions off Somalia and in the Mediterranean Sea.

The last expansion of the organization took place in December 2015 when NATO member states formally invited the tiny Adriatic nation of Montenegro to join the alliance in the face of Russian opposition.

The invitation set in motion the process to accept the first new member state since fellow Balkan countries Albania and Croatia were admitted in 2009.

In June, an Israeli expert told AFP that the invitation was a result of pressure by other NATO members on Turkey, which joined in 1952, to drop its veto on closer alliance ties with its former ally.

“It’s a Turkish confidence-building measure vis-a-vis Israel,” said Tommy Steiner, an expert on NATO-Israel ties at the Institute for Policy and Strategy near Tel Aviv.

At the time, Steiner said that the geographically and politically diverse NATO alliance would not invite Israel into a full-fledged mutual-defense pact.

“Israel is not going to be a full member, it’s not on the cards,” he said. “Israel will be officially accredited to NATO, it will have a permanent mission at NATO headquarters as a partner.”

Israel already participates in military exercises with NATO members other than Turkey, notably the United States.

AFP, Raoul Wootliff contributed to this report.

 

[DavidSling]

Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו
1 hr ·

I met today with Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the National People's Congress in China, who passed on an invitation from the President and the Premier of China for me to make an official visit in the coming months. I spoke with the Chairman about the strengthening of relations between our two countries and did not forget to remind him about our export of an Israeli athlete: soccer player Eran Zahavi, who was well-known to the members of the Chinese delegation.

This November a senior delegation from China will arrive to Israel to discuss the advancing of a free trade agreement between our countries. We deeply appreciate our friendship with China and welcome the expanding cooperation in a variety of fields, including economics, trade, and technology.

צילום: עמוס בן גרשום, לע״מ

 

[PeaceGen]

​

Israel’s diplomatic spring
It is springtime for Israeli diplomacy as governments around the world seek out closer ties with the Jewish state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin. (photo credit:GPO)

We are living at a time when preconceived notions are crashing down one on top of the other.

We thought that nothing would ever change in the Arab world. But the Arab world hasn’t merely changed, large portions of it have collapsed. And regimes that have so far survived are beating a path to Israel’s door.

We thought that American dominance in the Middle East would last forever. And today the US is withdrawing. Its withdrawal may be short-lived, or it may stay out for the foreseeable future. Whatever the case, Russia is already picking up the pieces.

That would be shocking enough. But even worse, as it has withdrawn, the US has turned a cold shoulder to Israel and its Sunni allies in a bid to build an alliance with Iran.

We thought that the European Union was the rising world power. We thought the euro was the currency of tomorrow.

Instead, Britain decided to bolt the EU and the euro zone is a disaster zone. European economic growth is sclerotic. European societies are coming apart at the seams under the crushing weight of failed monetary policies, over-regulation and mass emigration from the ruins of the Arab world.
Now we are witnessing the collapse of yet another preconceived notion.

For more than 20 years – indeed, since the initiation of the phony peace process with the PLO in 1993 – the who’s who of Israel’s chattering classes have told us that our growing diplomatic isolation is the result of our failure to make peace with the PLO. Everything will change for the better, immediately, they tell us, the minute we give up Jerusalem, expel hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes in Judea and Samaria, and hand security control of the Jordan Valley over to someone else.

But amazingly, despite the fact that there is no peace process, rather than suffering from diplomatic collapse, it is springtime for Israeli diplomacy as governments around the world seek out closer ties with the Jewish state.

And they aren’t coming to us, despite our supposed moral failings. They are coming to us because they admire us.

Exhibit A: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Last week Putin delivered an address before the All Russian Historical Assembly about the importance of teaching Russian history to Russia’s citizens.

Putin used Israel as a model for how historical knowledge empowers a nation.

Putin said, “Israel... relies and develops its identity and brings up its citizens with reliance on historical examples.”

Putin’s use of Israel as a positive role model showed that Putin’s sudden courtship of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not solely the product of strategic and economic interests.

He happens to admire Israel.

Next week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will embark on a five-day visit to Africa. During the trip he will visit Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.

He may meet with additional heads of state during one of his stops. Netanyahu’s visit marks the first prime ministerial trip to Africa since Yitzhak Rabin visited in the early 1990s.

Africa isn’t Russia. But it is an important arena.

For nearly a century and a half, Africa has been the playing ground of world powers. In the 19th century, the European powers divided it up among themselves. In the Cold War, the newly independent states of Africa were sucked into the superpower competition as the US and the Soviet Union competed for turf through their African proxies.

Since the end of the Cold War, both world powers and regional ones have been drawn to Africa who view it as a convenient economic and strategic stomping ground.

Over the past decade and a half, China has emerged as the dominant economic player in Africa.

The Chinese move from state to state, building infrastructure in exchange for mining and petroleum contracts.

The US has opted not to challenge China’s economic dominance in Africa. The US’s nonchalance is either a function of indifference or of ignorance of the toll that China’s economic behavior will eventually take on US companies in Africa.

Case in point is Gabon. The West African nation is an oil power. According to business sources in Gabon, President Ali Bongo Ondimba is a pro-Western Muslim. He is interested in expanded trade ties to the US.

Ondimba’s electoral opponent, Jean Ping, a former senior UN official and former foreign minister, is oriented toward China. Yet, the US is allegedly supporting Ping over Ondimba due to dissatisfaction with the latter’s human rights record. If Ping is elected in August, US oil companies in Gabon are liable to see their contracts challenged.

Human rights and democracy promotion are major themes of US policy in Africa. Since the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, counterterrorism has also been a major concern. During his presidency, George W. Bush established the US military’s Africa Command to run US operations in the continent.

However, as part of Obama’s policy of winding down the US’s war against terrorism, and following the US’s contribution to the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the US has constrained its operations. Its minimalistic approach to fighting Boko Haram in West Africa and al-Qaida offshoots in East Africa makes clear that the US’s strategic disarray, after seven-and-a-half years of the Obama presidency, has not left Africa unaffected.

World powers are not the only players in Africa.

Regional powers are also on the scene. Iran, for instance, views Africa as a theater for expanding its influence over the Middle East. Last month The Wall Street Journal reported on Iran’s growing missionary presence in West Africa.

Iran and Hezbollah are running Islamic centers in Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Cameroon, and they’re getting results. Whereas in 1980, a Pew Survey showed no adherents to Shi’ite Islam in Africa, today, 12 percent of Nigeria’s 90 million Muslims are Shi’ites. So are 21% of Muslims in Chad, 20% in Tanzania, and 8% in Ghana.

Much of the missionary work is being handled by Lebanese expatriates in West Africa. Many of these former Lebanese are suspected of having close ties to Hezbollah. Indeed, earlier this year, the US Treasury Department named three Lebanese nationals living in Nigeria as Hezbollah operatives.

During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure as Iranian president, Tehran expended enormous resources expanding and deepening its presence in Africa.

Among the fruits of his efforts was the Eritrean regime’s agreement to allow Iran to operate a naval base in the Horn of Africa. Iran’s cooperation with Sudan, and its use of Sudanese territory to ship advanced weapons to Gaza, reached new heights.

Iran’s Africa strategy took a major hit earlier this year, however. Owing to massive Saudi pressure, and, in all likelihood, massive payoffs, Sudan, Comoros, Somalia and Djibouti cut diplomatic ties with Iran in January. Sudan even joined Saudi Arabia in its campaign against Iran in Yemen. Eritrea reportedly permitted the Saudis to launch operations in Yemen from its territory.

This then brings us back to Israel, and Netanyahu’s visit to Africa.

In recent years, Israel has also been expanding its relations with African nations. Even South Africa, Israel’s greatest antagonist in Africa, indicated earlier this year that its hostility isn’t all-consuming.

In March, Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold paid a prolonged visit to South Africa where he was the guest of his South African counterpart.

South Africa aside, African nations from all over the continent view Israel as a rich source of technology and security expertise they are keen to tap.

They also view Israel as a rising economic power.

With an average economic growth rate of 6%, Africa is also an attractive market for Israeli companies across a swath of industries.

The most practical lesson from power politics in Africa is that for Africans, nothing is a done deal.

African states can cooperate simultaneously with competing outside powers and everyone benefits.

For instance, according to reports, Eritrea allows Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia to operate on its territory simultaneously. In other words, there is no reason to ever consider anyone in anyone’s pocket, and no reason not to ask for what we want. We may get it.

In recent years, Israel has done this to our advantage in the diplomatic realm, long thought to be a lost cause.

Last September, a draft resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency calling for Israel to open its nuclear sites to UN inspectors came up for a vote. It was defeated due to opposition from African states.

So, too, in late 2000, a draft UN Security Council resolution recognizing “Palestine” was defeated because Nigeria and Rwanda chose to abstain from voting. The African representatives’ action caught supporters of the resolution by surprise.

The Israeli leader most responsible for those successes was then-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman.

During his tenure at the Foreign Ministry, Liberman conducted two prolonged visits to Africa during which he visited seven countries, including Nigeria and Rwanda.

There is every reason to expect that during Netanyahu’s visit to Africa, Israel will expand and deepen its ties with Africa still further. And at some point, those deepened ties will result in further African support for Israel at the UN.

This returns us to our shattered accepted wisdom about Israel’s diplomatic isolation.

The view that Israel’s diplomatic fate is directly tied to its willingness to give up Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem is based on the Eurocentric view that the EU is the most important player in the diplomatic arena and that Israel cannot be successful unless Brussels supports us. For Israel’s elites, the fact that the EU is hostile to Israel is taken as proof that we are morally compromised and don’t deserve its support.

But as Israel’s diplomatic rise in Africa, Asia, Russia and beyond makes clear, the Eurocentric view is wrong. Israel needn’t waste its time and energy trying to appease the Europeans. Not only is it an exercise in futility, given Europe’s boundless and unhinged hostility. It is also unnecessary, given Europe’s economic weakness and political decay.

Due to our elite’s continued allegiance to the Eurocentric view, scant media attention has been paid to Israel’s diplomatic blossoming. Much of the public is unaware that far from being isolated, Israel is enjoying a diplomatic rise unseen since the end of the Cold War.

I will pray for a quick end to 'hostilities', especially 'hostilities that threaten, harm, injure or kill, innocent bystanders'..
That's about all i can do.

And i'm glad that African states and diplomats are now able to play a role on the global stage..

Israel’s first ambassador to NATO presents his credentials
Jewish state gets permanent office at alliance’s HQ, led by diplomat Aharon Leshno-Yaar
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF September 16, 2016, 12:46 pm

Illustrative: NATO foreign and defense ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Oct. 14, 2010. (US Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison/DOD/Public Domain/Wikimedia)

Israel’s first ambassador to the 28-member NATO military alliance on Friday presented his credentials to its secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg as the Jewish state opened a permanent mission at the organization’s Brussels headquarters.

Israel is not a member of the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization, known by its acronym NATO, but has enjoyed military cooperation with the body in a number of fields and is currently a partner of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven friendly nations bordering on the waterway.

In a significant upgrading of ties, NATO announced in May it will recognize an official Israeli representative and the intergovernmental military alliance will grant Israel a permanent office at its headquarters in Brussels.

“The State of Israel attaches great importance to its relations with NATO and the opening of a permanent Israeli office at the Brussels headquarters is further proof of Israel’s international standing and its contributions to promoting regional peace and stability,” said the new ambassador, Aharon “Ronny” Leshno-Yaar on Friday.


Aharon “Ronny” Leshno-Yaar (Courtesy / Foreign Ministry)

Leshno-Yaar is also Israel’s ambassador to the European Union, responsible for relations between the Jewish state and the 28-member bloc. Before moving to Brussels, he served as Deputy Director General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, heading the UN and International Organizations Division. Prior, he was Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

Stoltenberg welcomed Israel’s upgraded role in NATO and he and Leshno-Yaar discussed plans to increase cooperation, according to a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

NATO currently has about 40 partner nations, including Australia, India, Japan, Pakistan and Russia. Its partnerships include ones with European non-NATO countries, the Mediterranean basin and Persian Gulf states.

NATO’s treaty requires the alliance to militarily defend members nations, of which there are 28, but not partner ones. Still, partner states regularly contribute to NATO operations such as those in Afghanistan and naval missions off Somalia and in the Mediterranean Sea.

The last expansion of the organization took place in December 2015 when NATO member states formally invited the tiny Adriatic nation of Montenegro to join the alliance in the face of Russian opposition.

The invitation set in motion the process to accept the first new member state since fellow Balkan countries Albania and Croatia were admitted in 2009.

In June, an Israeli expert told AFP that the invitation was a result of pressure by other NATO members on Turkey, which joined in 1952, to drop its veto on closer alliance ties with its former ally.

“It’s a Turkish confidence-building measure vis-a-vis Israel,” said Tommy Steiner, an expert on NATO-Israel ties at the Institute for Policy and Strategy near Tel Aviv.

At the time, Steiner said that the geographically and politically diverse NATO alliance would not invite Israel into a full-fledged mutual-defense pact.

“Israel is not going to be a full member, it’s not on the cards,” he said. “Israel will be officially accredited to NATO, it will have a permanent mission at NATO headquarters as a partner.”

Israel already participates in military exercises with NATO members other than Turkey, notably the United States.

AFP, Raoul Wootliff contributed to this report.

That's actually a good way to expand NATO's member-state list.. The partner_country-to-NATO protocol leading to one day getting offered the protection of being an actual NATO state. 'one day' could mean years, decades or even a century or two..

Of course, i'm not a fan of the plan to keep the war on terror (war of terror i call it) going for centuries to come..

 

[Solomon2]

​

"...The UN, begun as a moral force, has become a moral farce. So when it comes to Israel at the UN, you'd probably think nothing will ever change, right? Well think again. You see, everything will change and a lot sooner than you think. The change will happen in this hall, because back home, your governments are rapidly changing their attitudes towards Israel. And sooner or later, that's going to change the way you vote on Israel at the UN..."

_________________________________________________

Arab states shelve push against Israel at U.N. nuclear watchdog

“We need to seek other means and policies; we are now in a process of revision -"

 

[Solomon2]

• Friday, September 23, 2016
• 
  Elder of Ziyon

Kuwaiti delegation stays for Bibi's speech

Binyamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN was optimistic about the future. Among the many sunny things he said was:

But now I'm going to surprise you even more. You see, the biggest change in attitudes towards Israel is taking place elsewhere. It's taking place in the Arab world. Our peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan continue to be anchors of stability in the volatile Middle East. But I have to tell you this: For the first time in my lifetime, many other states in the region recognize that Israel is not their enemy. They recognize that Israel is their ally. Our common enemies are Iran and ISIS. Our common goals are security, prosperity and peace. I believe that in the years ahead we will work together to achieve these goals, work together openly.​

This was in one small way a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Kuwaiti delegation, for the first time, stayed to listen to Bibi's speech.



(photo and story from Ariel Kahana, Makor Rishon.)

The Kuwaiti speech to the UN General Assembly included some lukewarm boilerplate against Israel. The summary by the UN says:

The conflict between Israel and Palestine was having a destabilizing effect on the region as a whole. It was incumbent upon the Security Council to compel Israel to implement the relevant resolutions so that the Palestinian people could attain their legitimate political rights.​

But Kuwait also said that it looks forward to cooperating with Iran, with caveats:

In regards to Kuwait’s relations with Iran, [Kuwaiti PM al-Sabah] said that he looked forward to cooperating with the country. Their constructive dialogue should be based on mutual respect for the sovereignty of States and the principle of non-interference, he emphasized. In light of that, Iran should end the occupation of the three Emirati islands and aim to resolve the lingering issue either through direct negotiations or resorting to the International Court of Justice.​

The impression I get is that that Kuwait desires to become a broker of sorts for the different intra-Muslim conflicts and therefore wants to keep relationships with all the major players in the region.

(h/t Elchanan)

 

[Solomon2]

WATCH: Netanyahu Meets with 15 African Heads of State, Ambassadors
by TheTower.org Staff | 09.23.16 12:23 pm

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with more than 15 African heads of state and representatives at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.

Netanyahu told the leaders that he thought Israel could be an “amazing” partner for their nations. He specifically pointed to Israeli technology, which he said could improve their countries’ medical, communications, agricultural, and education systems.


In all his years in public service, “I never had a foreign trip as stirring, as moving as the one I had to Africa” in July, Netanyahu said. “It was a personal odyssey as my brother died at the rescue at Entebbe. That was a very moving ceremony organized by the president of Uganda. But I also had the opportunity there, beyond the personal, to meet with the leaders from seven African countries, I visited four of them. One of them, President Kagame [of Rwanda], gave us, as did the others, a tremendous reception.”

He noted that he will visit West Africa later this year, having gone to the eastern end of the continent a few months ago. “But I don’t intent to limit myself to East Africa or West Africa, Israel is looking at all of Africa,” he added. “And I hope that all of Africa looks at Israel.”

Following the meeting, Netanyahu hosted the African leaders and representatives to a showcase called “Israeli Technology and Innovation for Africa.” Israeli companies offered innovative products and services to “over 15 presidents, prime ministers and ministers from Africa and developing countries, and to dozens of ambassadors, senior UN officials and private sector representatives from around the world,” his office said in a statement.


The meeting was a culmination of Israel’s growing African diplomatic outreach this week. Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold met on Wednesday with South African foreign minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who said three years ago that her nation would not deal with Israel. “We consider the very fact that this meeting was held an extraordinary achievement,” a senior Foreign Ministry official told the Times of Israel.

https://twitter.com/x/status/778908904302514176

Netanyahu also met on Wednesday with Mackey Sall, the president of the Muslim-majority country of Senegal. The two leaders exchanged invitations to visit each other’s countries.

Weeks after Netanyahu’s visit to Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia in July, the Republic of Guinea, which is also largely Muslim, restored diplomatic ties with Israel after a 49-year break. Netanyahu has made it a priority to strengthen Israel’s commercial, diplomatic, and security relations with African countries. Israel has a long history of sharing its expertise on the continent, and Jerusalem hopes that increased ties with African nations will lead to a shift in their voting trends at the UN and other global fora, thus improving Israel’s diplomatic standing and reversing what Netanyahu called “the automatic majority against Israel.”

In a bid to counter Israeli diplomatic successes in Africa, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last month met with and embraced Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The two “discussed developing a strategy for the African continent and coordinating to restrain Israeli attempts to make a breakthrough in Africa,” the PA’s foreign minister told reporters in Khartoum.

[Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO ]