IsraNews – 17 Sivan 5771 – 19 June 2011
IsraNews - 17 Sivan 5771 - 19 June 2011
Parashat Korach - Numbers 16:1 - 18:32
"Some Things Don't Add Up"
by Jerry Waxman
Why is Gilad Schalit still in the hands of Hamas while half the world is pressuring Israel to bend over backwards for a "peace" deal with the Palestinians?
Why is Jonathan Pollard still in prison? And why can't he even get a few hours to go to his Dad's funeral? And why don't people in high places do anything about it?
Gilad Schalit; every soldier's issue. Every Israeli soldier and their mother should be outraged. Israeli officials have time and again given more than lip service to Hamas demands to free Palestinian prisoners. There should not even be any negotiations. Here is Hamas joining with Fatah to go to the U.N.to ask for recognition as a state. And they're holding a kidnap victim, not even letting the Red Cross see him.
Has any nation in the U.N. - any nation at all that has ever cried out for human rights - ever questioned the motives of the Palestinian leaders? Has anyone ever suggested that to be taken seriously they should observe international law, if not common sense morals. Has any organization - the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Peace Now, or B'tzelem ever demanded that the Palestinians release their hostage on humanitarian grounds? Has any head of state in the free world - including Israel - ever put their foot down and said, "No talks until Gilad Schalit is home?"
What's the real story with Jonathan Pollard? Why can't Israel's president, Perez, touch it? What has caused three U.S. presidents, at least, to just ignore Pollard, after hinting that they wanted him free. And now at the time of his bereavement, Jonathan Pollard cannot even go to the funeral. Why? What harm will he do?
. . .Week of 10-16 Sivan / 12-18 June 2011 . . .
. . .Headlines . . .
Cottage Cheese Ain't Selling Well While Israeli Consumers Protest The Price Rise . . .
'Ilan Grapel Spoke Arabic, Prayed, Supported Egypt Uprising' . . .
Negotiations For Schalit Hit Proverbial Brick Wall . . .
. . .World History Timeline . . .
On June 16, 1974, US President Richard Nixon made the first visit to Israel by a sitting US president. The visit, coming just over six months after the Yom Kippur War, was part of a wider trip to Middle Eastern countries meant to consolidate US influence in the region, solidify the ceasefire and separation of forces agreements brokered at the end of the Yom Kippur War, and do damage control in the aftermath of the painful 1973 Oil Crisis. The visit to Israel was the first of eight such trips made by five US presidents, and helped set a precedent in the relationship between the two countries.
Nixon’s 24-hour visit to Israel came on the heels of stops in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Less than a year after the end of the Yom Kippur War, the United States had been intensely engaged in attempts to broker a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Then-US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who accompanied Nixon on his trip, had for months been conducting “shuttle diplomacy” between Israel and the Arab states in still failed attempts at strengthening the ceasefire and separation of forces agreements that ended the war.
The United States had played a decisive role in Israel’s ultimate victory during the Yom Kippur War. As Israel ran dangerously low on ammunition and military hardware, Nixon had ordered a massive airlift of matériel. Over 500 cargo flights brought more than 20,000 tons of military hardware and ammunition from the United States and its military bases overseas. As a result, Nixon is often remembered in Israel for this life-saving aid when the country needed it most.
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that in the coming days a diplomatic request will be submitted to the US for the release of imprisoned Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard so that he can attend his father's funeral.
Netanyahu made the comments at a meeting with Likud ministers after Pollard's father, Morris, died Saturday morning at age 95 at Memorial Hospital and Health System in South Bend, Indiana.
The imprisoned agent's family, American Jewish leaders and Knesset members had been lobbying for Jonathan to be granted what is called "compassionate leave" for 24 hours to allow him to see his father before he died.
Earlier Sunday, MKs expressed split attitudes toward calls for Pollard's release.
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The consumers' revolt over the price of cottage cheese is showing mixed results, with steep declines on Friday in sales of the curds being reported by two major supermarket chains - and an even steeper rise in a third that took advantage of or joined in the protest - depending on your perspective - to slash its price for the staple.
Peer pressure is having an effect. At a Mega store in Shoham on Friday afternoon a shopper reaching for a container of cottage cheese is roundly rebuked by another, who tells her, "You're hurting the protest." The would-be scab meekly withdraws her hand. A similar incident was witnessed in a Tel Aviv branch of Mega.
Mega operator Blue Square admitted that the chain's cottage cheese sales on Friday were 25% below average. Blue Square did not join its rivals in slashing the prices of cottage cheese and other dairy products in recent days.
. . . . . See the rest of this story| |
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Egyptian witnesses told investigators that alleged Mossad spy Ilan Grapel raised their suspicions because he spoke fluent Arabic, participated in prayers and discussed "Jihad" with them, while urging them to continue in the revolt to "overthrow the oppressors," Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported Sunday.
According to the report, a lawyer from the Egyptian Bar Association was currently representing Grapel.
The investigation is expected to continue on Sunday.
The three witnesses reportedly told investigators that Grapel had distributed leaflets calling on youths to demonstrate against and sabotage government authorities. The witnesses said Grapel had claimed to be a Romanian journalist sent by a Romanian agency.
A high-ranking official in the Egyptian Prosecutor's Office told the newspaper that the US and Israeli embassies had not yet appointed Grapel an attorney.
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Deputy Health Minister Ya'acov Litzman on Sunday expressed his support and understanding in the current nurses' strike as it joined the ongoing doctors' strike and applied sanctions simultaneously.
As a result of the strikes, all elective surgery except emergency and oncological surgery were shut down.
Litzman said that agreements should be respected and that the state has already approved 48 out of 84 job slots in government hospitals.
The remaining 36 slots which still need funding were being negotiated in discussions between the Finance and Health Ministries.
"I will do everything so that the agreements with the nurses will be respected," Litzman said.
Regarding doctors, Litzman said, "No one wants to be treated by a doctor who has worked 26 hours straight. I will not let negotiations between the doctors and the Treasury proceed without reducing the [shifts] to 18-20 [hours]." The number of monthly residents is also crucial to the Health Ministry and it will work in their favor as well, Litzman added.
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The fifth anniversary this Saturday of the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has seen a burst of activity on all sides to negotiate his release.
Egyptian security officials involved in the talks told Haaretz over the weekend that the approach by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new envoy to the talks, David Meidan, could scuttle the negotiations and lead to Shalit's "disappearance."
The Egyptians said Meidan told Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo last week that if Hamas did not agree to the latest deal proposed by Israel, there would be no deal at all.
The Egyptians said the Hamas negotiators, headed by the group's military chief, Ahmed Jabari, had responded to the Israeli approach with a clear threat that the talks would end and a deal for Shalit would be off the table.
Hamas said Israel's unwillingness to go further than its last offer would lead to Shalit's disappearance, the Egyptians added.
The Egyptians said that after Meidan arrived in Cairo, it was obvious that Israel had no intention of compromising. In contrast, the officials said, Hamas and Jabari were willing to change their positions.
The officials said they had told Meidan he does not know Hamas and its leadership well enough to understand that an uncompromising position that contains an implicit threat would achieve the opposite result.
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Actress Natalie Portman has given birth to a baby boy fathered by a choreographer she met while she filmed her Oscar-winning role in "Black Swan," People magazine reported on Tuesday.
The report did not say where or when the birth took place, and there was no immediate comment from Portman's publicist.
Portman, who turned 30 last Thursday, announced in December that she was pregnant and planned to marry her boyfriend, French ballet dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied.
The two worked together on "Black Swan," in which Portman played a self-mutilating ballerina. She won the Academy Award for her performance in February.
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The Friendly Universe - Law of Attraction in Action
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