Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu Sidesteps Talk of Possible US Aid Cut to Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin chose his words carefully on Sunday as he discussed a proposed funding halt for Palestinian refugees by U.S. President Donald Trump although he once again called for the U.N. agency that is supposed to help Palestinian refugees to be dismantled.

Netanyahu’s comments were guarded because although he wants to support Trump and the U.S., his closest ally, he also knows that cutting off of funds will further drive the Palestinian people into hardship which would no doubt push the militants into more conflict with Israel

With Palestinians seething over U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition last month of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, he threatened on Tuesday to withhold aid money, accusing them of being “no longer willing to talk peace”.
On Friday, in a report denied by a State Department official, the Axios news site said Washington had frozen $125 million in funding for UNRWA. The U.N. agency, founded in 1949 to aid Palestinian refugees, is a main provider of educational and health services in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu said UNRWA was “an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian problem.”
“It also enshrines the narrative of the so-called ‘right of return’. Therefore, UNRWA should pass from the world,” he told a weekly cabinet meeting.
Praising Trump’s “critical approach” on the aid issue, Netanyahu steered clear of advocating a suspension of funding for the Palestinians. He said U.N. money for them should be transferred gradually to its global refugee agency UNHCR “with clear criteria for supporting genuine refugees and not fictitious ones, as is happening today under UNRWA.”

Despite Arab and Palestinian protests over where the U.S. chooses for its embassy, the United States is the U.N.’s largest donor to UNRWA, pledging more than $370 million dollars as of 2016. UNRWA called this latest development a “failure of the parties to deal with the issue…”

To read the entire article from Reuters, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Syria Ceasefire Iran – Israel War “Inevitable” Former Netanyahu Adviser

Former Netanyahu security adviser Yaakov Amidror feels that the Syrian cease fire will result in an “inevitable war” between Israel and Iran. On a conference call with the media, he painted a gloomy picture which echoed what Netanyahu said earlier.

The Israeli leader doesn’t trust the Russians as they’ve supported embattled President Assad who is allied with Iran, and Israel’s hated enemy Hezbollah.

Iran is trying to build “an air base in Syria” and provide additional weaponry to terrorists in Lebanon in an apparent effort to threaten Israel from two directions, according to the Netanyahu ally. This fear has been brewing in U.S. and Israeli circles for years, but the Israelis think the terms of a nascent Syria ceasefire negotiated by the Trump administration, Russia and Jordan exacerbates the danger.
“Israel should take care for its strategic goal and this is to prevent the Iranians and Hezbollah from building launching pads in Syria,” Yaakov Amidror, who counseled Netanyahu from 2011 to 2013, told reporters on a conference call hosted by The Israel Project. “If [the Iranians] begin to build infrastructure which might be used against Israel in Syria and will connect this land corridor into Iraq and begin to move materials from this area into Syria, that will make the war inevitable.”
U.S. officials in both parties have raised the same concerns. “A permanent Iranian military base in Syria, potentially near the border with Israel or Jordan, would increase Iran’s operational capacity to inflict serious damage against two of our closest allies in the region,” Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., and Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., wrote in a May letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Netanyahu lobbied throughout the talks for Russia and the United States to keep Iran away from Israel’s border and said Russian forces ought not to be trusted to police the southern Syria safe zone. But Israeli officials say their position was ignored in the final agreement.
“The agreement as it is now is very bad,” an official told Haaretz. “It doesn’t take almost any of Israel’s security interests and it creates a disturbing reality in southern Syria. The agreement doesn’t include a single explicit word about Iran, Hezbollah or the Shi’ite militias in Syria.”
Russia and Iran have fought to protect Syrian President Bashar Assad for years, particularly after then-President Barack Obama declined to attack the Syrian regime in 2013 in response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Tillerson’s ceasefire negotiations may have been influenced by the Trump administration’s overall determination to limit U.S. military deployments to Syria.

With the Islamic State’s defeat in Syria, the civil war against Assad will continue. And many in the US and Israeli governments feel the only ones who will benefit from this cease fire is the Iranians.

Then the only questions remain whether Israel will stand by and let Iran build an airbase on their border. And what the results will be if they decide to take action.

To read the entire article from The Washington Examiner, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Israel Hits Syrian Targets After Assad Troops Hit Israel With Artillery Fire

The Israeli’s wasted little time striking the military troops of embattled Syrian President Assad after the spillover from the civil war had the Syrians shelling Israeli territory. Israeli forces destroyed two tanks after the shelling hit on the Israel side of the Golan Heights.

“With the IDF action today, we are making our policy clear again,” Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We are not willing to accept any ‘drizzle’ [of fire] or ‘spillover’ on any front. We will react with force to any firing on our territory.”

“We react with force, determination, and discretion to every such incident, as the IDF did [today] on the Golan Heights. As far as we are concerned, the Assad regime is responsible for what is happening in its territory, and it will continue to bear the consequences if such events repeat themselves,” he said.
The IDF said spillover from the Syrian civil war is treated with the utmost severity and noted that it “will not tolerate any attempt to harm the sovereignty of the State of Israel and the security of its residents.”
It noted as much in a protest letter sent swiftly to UN Disengagement Observer Force following the incident.
Spillover fire from Syria on Saturday was reported by Israeli authorities less than an hour before Israel responded, the IDF confirmed.
Although no casualties or damage to property were reported in the incident, the IDF issued instructions to farmers and civilians near the Quneitra border crossing into Syria to avoid open fields.
Backpackers and hikers – who flock to the Golan at this time of year – were also evacuated from the area.

Besides the two tanks destroyed, the Israelis also hit the area where the shelling came from. In April, the Israelis shot down a Syrian drone that had also crossed the border.

To read the entire article from the Jerusalem Post click here:

Photos/Video Courtesy IDF