organization:foreign ministry in jerusalem

Reports of ‘attempted security breach,’ 1 killed at Israeli embassy in Jordan
uly 23, 2017 9:38 P.M. (Updated: July 23, 2017 9:47 P.M.)
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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Jordanian media reported on Sunday that the area surrounding the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman, had been shut down on Sunday evening following an ’attempted security breach’ which allegedly left one person dead and another injured.

According to media outlet Ammon News reported that security forces had cordoned off the area, adding that one Jordanian was believed to be dead, while an Israeli was reportedly wounded.

Meanwhile, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said that the incident was “under full censorship” — preventing Israeli media and foreign journalists with Israeli press cards from reporting on the event.

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Israeli embassy security guard shoots, kills 2 Jordanians in Amman
July 23, 2017 9:38 P.M. (Updated: July 24, 2017 11:50 A.M.)

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli embassy security guard shot and killed two Jordanians in Amman under unclear circumstances Sunday night, with Jordanian media describing the incident as a personal dispute and the Israeli foreign ministry saying the Israeli guard was defending himself from a politically-motivated attack.

According to reports, two Jordanian carpenter workers had arrived to an apartment in the residential complex used by the Israeli embassy to replace furniture.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement that one of the workers crept up behind the guard and began stabbing him with a screwdriver. The guard then opened fire, killing the alleged attacker, and also inadvertently shot the Jordanian owner of the building who was present at the scene, who later succumbed to his wounds as well.

A third Jordanian worker was present at the scene, according to the statement, which was released Monday morning after the incident was put under a media ban by Israeli authorities overnight.

The ministry’s statement said the Israeli guard was lightly injured in the incident, without elaborating on the nature of his injuries. Israeli news outlet Haaretz said he was injured when jumping back away from the Jordanian as he his cocked his weapon.

The slain alleged assailant was identified as 17-year-old Muhammad Zakariya al-Jawawdeh, reportedly of Palestinian origin, who died after being shot twice. He had previously done maintenance work in the Israeli embassy and its residential compound.

The Jordanian General Security Administration issued a statement, reportedly saying the circumstances surrounding the incident were still being investigated, and did not say that a Jordanian carpenter had attacked an Israeli.

Later Sunday night, dozens of al-Jawawdeh’s family members gathered in Asharq Al-Awsat square in Amman to protest his death, demanding that the Jordanian government release all details of the investigation and punish the shooter.

One relative told news cameras from private Jordanian outlet Ammon that the boy had went to the apartment to collect money in return for a bedroom set purchased by the Israeli guard, claiming that al-Jawawdeh did not realize the customer was armed or a Jewish Israeli.

“He was a student on summer holiday. The boy went with the young guys to collect the money, and a heated argument broke out between him another young man there. We didn’t know they were armed, nor did we know they were Jews. If we knew they were Jews, we would have considered it dishonor that they visit our stores,” the man said.

“What has happened is that our son had heated argument with the man. Regardless of whether he slapped you or you boxed him, how dare you in cold-blood cock your handgun and shoot the boy as if he was a cockroach?”

The father also said in an interview with Jordanian television station Roya TV that his son did not know the nationality of the man who killed him and that he was a regular customer who bought furniture from them.

However, Israeli authorities have been treating the incident as a possible attack in retaliation to rising tensions in occupied East Jerusalem.

#Ambassade_israélienne #Amman #Jordanie #Ziv

Hungarian premier praises Hitler ally, Israel accepts clarification to avoid marring Netanyahu visit

Viktor Orban’s remarks placed Israel in an embarrassing position in light of Netanyahu’s slated visit. After protesting remarks, Israel decided to consider matter resolved even though Hungary didn’t apologize

Barak Ravid and Amir Tibon Jul 02, 2017
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Two weeks before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to join a diplomatic summit in Budapest, tension erupted between Israel and Hungary over a speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in which he praised the leader of Hungary during the Holocaust, Miklos Horthy, who collaborated with the Nazis. Israel protested the remarks, but according to a senior Israeli official, Jerusalem agreed to accept a weak clarification by the Hungarian foreign minister in order to avoid damaging the upcoming summit.

The affair began on June 21, when at a political rally of Fidesz, the party Orban heads, the prime minister said of Horthy, who was regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1920 to 1944: “The fact that history did not bury us after World War I was thanks to a number of extraordinary statesmen like the regent, Miklos Horthy. This fact cannot be contradicted by mentioning the unfortunate role of Hungary during World War II.”

According to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Horthy led anti-Semitic policies, passed laws against the Jews over the years, was an ally of Adolf Hitler and collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. From 1942 to 1943, Horthy resisted German pressure to place the Jews in ghettos and deport them to extermination camps. But after Germany conquered Hungary in 1944, Horthy appointed a puppet government obedient to the Nazis and gave it full authority to act against the Jews. As a result, half a million Hungarian Jews were sent to extermination camps; most were murdered in Auschwitz.

Orban’s remarks were made as part of an extremist nationalist and racist campaign he is conducting ahead of elections in 2018 and to prevent his party’s voters from leaving it for the extreme right-wing party Jobbik. One of Orban’s close advisers is the American political consultant Arthur Finkelstein. The latter served as campaign director for Benjamin Netanyahu’s and Likud’s campaigns in 1996 and 1999, and for Yisrael Beiteinu and its chairman, Avigdor Lieberman, in 2006. He was also deeply involved in the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu’s joint campaign in 2013.

Orban’s statements drew criticism from the Hungarian Jewish community and the World Jewish Congress. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., the leading institution in Holocaust research in the United States, released an unusually harsh statement in response to Orban’s remarks: “The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum condemns any attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of Hungary’s wartime leader, Miklos Horthy, who was a vocal anti-Semite and complicit in the murder of the country’s Jewish population during the Holocaust.”

The U.S. museum also wrote that Orban’s praise for Horthy as a statesman was “a gross distortion of historical fact and is the latest in a long series of propagandistic attempts of the Fidesz political party and the Hungarian government that Mr. Orban leads to rewrite Hungarian history.”
Orban’s remarks placed Israel in an embarrassing position considering that Netanyahu is to meet his Hungarian counterpart at a summit in Budapest on July 18, and the next day he and Orban are to meet with the leaders of Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. This is Netanyahu’s first visit to Hungary since he returned to the prime minister’s office in 2009.
Still, Orban’s remarks required a response by the government in Jerusalem and four days after the speech, Israel’s ambassador in Budapest, Yossi Amrani, issued a statement noting that Orban’s words were very disturbing and the collaboration of the Horthy regime with the Nazis must not be forgotten, as well as the race laws enacted during his time and the destruction of Hungary’s Jewish community. “Whatever the reason and national goal might be, there is no justification for such statements,” Amrani said in a public statement.
A senior Israeli official said that Amrani also communicated through quiet channels with senior officials in the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry in Budapest, demanding clarifications and saying Israel hoped Orban’s statements would not cast a pall over the upcoming summit. A few days later, when the Hungarian government had still not issued a clarification, Amrani gave an interview on a major Hungarian television station and reiterated Israel’s demand for clarification and a warning that the tension could hurt the summit.
Quiet diplomatic contacts had been underway since Wednesday in an attempt to resolve the crisis, and on Saturday Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto spoke by phone to Amrani to put an end to the affair. In a statement to the press released after the phone call, Szijjarto said he had made clear to the Israeli ambassador that the Hungarian government had zero tolerance for any kind of anti-Semitism.
Szijjarto also said that he told Amrani that “the regime of Miklos Horthy had its positive times but also very negative times and we must respect the historical facts that clearly indicate this.” The foreign minister added that the positive part of Horthy’s legacy was his work to stabilize Hungary after World War I, but the very negative part was “his historical sin,” when contrary to his promises he did not protect the Jewish community, passed laws against it and that hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust. “All of these are historical sins whose seriousness cannot be diminished,” Szijjarto said.
Although Szijjarto did not clarify Orban’s remarks, apologize or express regret for them, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, with an eye on the upcoming summit, decided to act with restraint and end the affair. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in response: “Israel believes that the statements by the Hungarian foreign minister to the Israeli ambassador in Budapest constitute an important clarification with regard to recognition of Horthy’s crime against the Jews of Hungary. We will always remember the 564,500 of our brothers and sisters of the Jewish community of Hungary who were murdered in the Holocaust.”
Zionist Union Ksenia Svetlova turned to Netanyahu on the issue. “As you dared to cancel your meeting with the German foreign minister after he met with Breaking the Silence, I demand that you cancel your visit to Hungary and your meeting with Viktor Orban, who has expressed sympathy for his country’s dark past from the time of the Holocaust, and not for the first time.”
"I expect the person who turned the ’whole world is against us’ [mantra] into a career to have the same standards against people from the extreme right in the world," she added.
“These says I am working on an amendment to the proposed entry into Israeli law so that it prohibits the entry into Israel of declared anti-Semites, people who oddly enough have become his party’s partners, and are even invited by them to visits to Israel,” Svetlova said.

#Israel #genocide #Hungary #Hongrie

European Parliament Expresses Support for Labeling Settlement Goods
This is first time the European Parliament expresses support for differentiating between Israel and settlements; Netanyahu says motion is unjustified and harms peace.

Barak Ravid Sep 10, 2015 Haaretz
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The European Parliament expressed its support Thursday for putting special labels on consumer goods produced in West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights settlements, as well as for “differentiating” between the EU’s attitude toward Israel and to the settlements. Five hundred and twenty-five EU parliamentarians voted for the motion, which dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, 70 voted against and 31 abstained.
The motion stated that the European Parliament: “Welcomes the EU’s commitment – in the spirit of differentiation between Israel and its activities in the occupied Palestinian Territory – to ensuring that all agreements between the EU and Israel must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, takes note of the letter sent to the VP/HR by 16 EU Foreign Ministers on 13 April 2015, encouraging her to take the lead within the Commission with a view to completing the work on EU-wide guidelines on the labelling of Israeli settlement produce.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the expression of support. “The European Parliament decision is unjustified, it is just a perversion of justice and a distortion of reason, and I think that it also harms peace, it doesn’t advance it,” he said. “The roots of the conflict are not territories and the roots of the conflict are not the settlements. We already have a historical memory as to what happened when Europe marked products of Jews.” 
The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem responded angrily to the motion, especially the parts dealing with the settlements. The reason, according to senior officials in the ministry, is that this is the first time the EU supported a “differentiation” between Israel and the settlements and mentions the need to label products from the settlements. “The problem with this clause is the erosion and the change in the rhetoric in Europe with regard to the settlements,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said that the EU motion was “discriminatory with a sharp smell of boycott,” and added that “under the guise of a technical step, this is an attempt to force a diplomatic solution instead of encouraging the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. Europe is acting with hypocritical sanctimoniousness toward Israel when it does not consider proposing similar solutions to northern Cyprus or Western Sahara.”
The EU decision comes at a time in which discussions in the European Commission – the EU’s executive body – on the matter of labeling products from West Bank settlements are in the home stretch. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said herself at a press conference on Saturday that work on this matter was very close to completion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron in London.AP
A senior Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem said that various European diplomats have conveyed messages to Israel over the past few weeks that the publication of directives for marking products from settlements would be renewed in October. The EU decision is expected to give significant political backing to Mogherini on labeling the products and increase pressure by the 16 countries who believe the matter should be advanced.
Earlier this week the secretary general of the European External Action Service, Helga Schmid, visited Jerusalem and discussed the labeling directives with her Israeli counterparts. A senior official in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said discussion turned into a pointed argument.
Foreign Ministry officials said that the labeling directives are the first step on a slippery slope that could lead to a boycott of products from the settlements and on all Israeli products in general. The European representatives said that these were not sanctions or a boycott on Israel but only a technical step to apply EU legislation with regard to consumer protection.
“When we told then this was a boycott they blew up and really lost their minds,” a senior Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem said. “We told them that labeling products from the settlements is like a door, that once opened, cannot be closed. We made clear to them that we did not see this as a technical step, but as a political step against Israel in every sense.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Foreign Ministry officials are making major efforts to delay the publication of the directives. Netanyahu raised the subject in meetings with EU President Donald Tusk, with the Lithuanian prime minister and with the prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, who visited Jerusalem over the past week.
The issue also came up in a meeting between Netanyahu and British Prime Minister David Cameron Thursday in London. At the beginning of the meeting Netanyahu reiterated the message that he stated frequently in recent weeks as part of his attempts to block moves against the settlements. “I want to say here in 10 Downing Street, and reaffirm again that I am ready to resume direct negotiations with the Palestinians with no conditions whatsoever to enter negotiations, and I’m willing to do so immediately," Netanyahu said.
Mattia Toaldo, a Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Haaretz that “this is the first time in my memory that one of the 3 top EU institutions uses the word ’differentiation’ for this policy. This clarifies the distinction with boycotts and makes it more acceptable for a number of European governments. On the one hand, this is gradually becoming an automatic policy that is implemented to bring bureaucracy in line with EU laws and international law. On the other hand, some politicians still see it as an alternative to the peace process, and this could block it in the future given that Mogherini now has the imperative to restart talks.”

Barak Ravid
Haaretz Correspondent

Petraeus: Use Al Qaeda Fighters to Beat ISIS
▻http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/31/petraeus-use-al-qaeda-fighters-to-beat-isis.html

Members of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria have a surprising advocate in the corridors of American power: Retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria, four sources familiar with the conversations, including one person who spoke to Petraeus directly, told The Daily Beast.

Is Erdogan changing his tune on Israel? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/israel-turkey-erdogan-silent-netanyahu-election-campaign.html#

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem noted that Turkey, like so many other countries, had been disappointed by the Israeli election results. It attributes the change in tone in Turkey to the internal issues Erdogan currently faces. In the upcoming parliamentary elections, Erdogan needs to win an absolute majority to amend the constitution to adopt a presidential system of government, but his chances seem slim. The reasons for this include the obstacles he is imposing on continued peace negotiations with the Kurds, various corruption scandals associated with him that he cannot shake off, devaluation of the Turkish lira and a failed foreign policy.

Namik Tan, who served as Turkish ambassador to both Israel and the United States, attended the ceremony in Edirne. He told Al-Monitor that regardless of whether the relationship between Turkey and Israel was flourishing or at a low point, “The two countries are carbon copies of each other, and we cannot escape our common destiny here in the region.” Thus, once it became clear that the government of Israel had not been replaced, and that there are no indications of an impending dramatic shift in power among the Turkish leadership, it also became obvious the two governments would be forced to compromise and coexist, all the more so now, given the regional challenges they face.

Read more: ▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/israel-turkey-erdogan-silent-netanyahu-election-campaign.html##ixzz3Vugg

France to Israel: We backed Palestinians in Security Council to prevent ICC bid
Israeli diplomat meets French ambassador, conveys Israel’s deep disappointment with France’s vote in Security Council; French envoy says Paris wanted to encourage sides to return to negotiating table.
By Barak Ravid | Jan. 2, 2015 | 1:45 PM Haaretz
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French ambassador to Israel Patrick Maisonnave reported to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Friday after being summoned over his country’s vote in favor of the Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN Security Council earlier this week. French officials told Haaretz that Maisonnave clarified in the meeting that France voted for the resolution in order to try and prevent the Palestinians from pursuing other unilateral steps such as joining the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said that the ministry’s deputy director-general for Western Europe, Aviv Shir-On, told the French ambassador that Israel was deeply disappointed by France’s stance and its vote in the UNSC. “The only way to reach progress with the Palestinians is through direct negotiations, not through unilateral announcements or a unilateral policy,” Shir-On said at the meeting.

During the meeting, the French ambassador said that the international community is of one mind over the need to break the diplomatic stalemate and the dangerous status quo. According to him, France voted as it did in order to encourage the sides back to the negotiating table.

Maisonnave also said that France disagreed with several parts in the Palestinian resolution and therefore tried to formulate its own draft.

He noted that the vote was not aimed against Israel, but an effort to prevent further unilateral steps that would strengthen extremists on both sides. “That’s exactly what happened after the Security Council rejected the proposal, and the Palestinians went to The Hague,” the French ambassador said.

He added that France would keep trying to promote its own version of the resolution in the Security Council, presenting principles for the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on all the core issues of the conflict.

“The latest escalation is all the more reason to keep acting,” he emphasized.

The Palestinian proposal calling for peace with Israel within a year and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by late 2017 failed to pass the UNSC vote on Tuesday, after only eight member states voted in its favor, one vote short of the requirement.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has been closely following the deteriorating relations with France, and even held a special meeting on the matter about two weeks ago. A source who took part in the meeting said participants conveyed a sense that France is less attuned to Israel’s positions on the Palestinian matter.

Moreover, over the past three months the Foreign Ministry has identified several incidents in which events, delegations, and planned collaborations with French bodies were canceled in the last minute. Among these were a Paris conference of Israeli and French high-tech companies and a visit by a delegation of French lawyers in Israel.

A senior official said that in each of these cases a different reason was given, and that on the face of it they were unconnected. It is also unclear if the French government was behind the cancellations. However, the overall impression is that of deteriorating relations. “There is a sense that the French are trying to link the progress in the peace process to the promotion of bilateral ties with Israel,” the official said.

In addition to these incidents, there is also the recent vote in the French parliament calling on the government to recognize the Palestinian state.

UN names Gaza probe panel, headed by harsh Israel critic
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Senior officials in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said that for the two weeks following UNHRC’s decision to establish the commission, Israel has attempted to influence its composition. Israel asked the United States, Australia, Germany, Britain and other allies to help make the commission more balanced. According to senior ministry officials, Israel made clear that if the commission is balanced, Israel would not completely boycott it, and would be prepared to hold a dialogue with it and convey information relevant to the probe.

However, the Israeli efforts failed and the composition of the commission leans significantly toward the Palestinians.

Senior officials in the Foreign Ministry said that Israel could use the commission’s lack of balance to delegitimize it internationally, as was previously tried with the Goldstone Commission in 2009.

Israel started its delegitimization attempts less than an hour after the current appointments were announced.