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1. Arabs Adds Conditions to Talks, But ‘Show Will Go On’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Hours after the Arab League supported U.S.-mediated talks with Israel, it began adding conditions, but no one apparently wants to be accused of saying ”no,” and the discussions are scheduled to resume, possibly this week.
Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat reiterated that the talks must end with a fulfillment of PA demands within four months, but Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad al-Thani said Saturday night that the limit should be two months unless there are clear signs of progress.
An Israeli temporary freeze on building new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria ends in appropximately four months. and the U.S. State Department has stated that it will be nearly impossible to reach an agreement by then.
Although Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed the Arab League's support of talks and said, "This time the talks will take place without pre-conditions, unlike in the previous 16 years,” chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat, immediately placed a pre-condition. "If Israel builds one house” in parts of Jerusalem it considers to be part of a future PA state or in Judea and Samaria, the PA “will immediately stop the negotiations.” he warned.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has denied reports of a de facto building freeze in united Jerusalem, which includes all of the areas restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, but virtually all parties involved in the bureaucratic process agree that approvals for new housing have been stalled.
Both the PA and Israel have submitted to U.S. President Barack Obama’s demands for a return to mediated discussions with neither side wanting to be blamed for denying the American administration an opportunity to claim a diplomatic success.
Resuming talks fits the PA's announced strategy of biding time while building international support for a unilateral proclamation of the Palestinian Authority as an independent country based in Jerusalem.
Indirect talks, which were held only once several weeks ago, actually is a step backwards to 16 years ago, when the PA and Israel would not sit down in the same room for direct negotiations. The PA broke off direct negotiations nearly two years ago.
The distrust between the two sides is openly admitted. “We don’t trust the Israeli side and we have said this before. We found positive indicators from the U.S. mediator and we are now talking to the U.S. mediator," Qatari’s al-Thani said.
The PA speaks of “negotiations” on pre-conditions for a PA state to include areas of Jerusalem where 300,000 Jews now live, including the Old City and the Western Wall. It also demands the regions of Judea and Samaria, where another 300,000 Jews reside.
Years of concessions to PA and international demands have left Israel holding Jerusalem and the status of foreign Arabs claiming ancestry in Israel as the only remaining “red lines.”
The Obama administration has repeated labeled as ”illegitimate” a Jewish presence in the areas claimed by the PA. However, wide support for Netanyahu within his government and from most polls have strengthened Israel’s hand against surrendering “united Jerusalem” as well as towns in Judea and Samaria that are heavily populated with Jews and which are considered strategically important.
The immediate issue is the timing of the American-mediated talks, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying they will begin this week. U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell is expected to return to the region early this week to begin making arrangements for discussions.
2. Arab League to PA: Go Ahead With US-Brokered Talks With Israel
by Malkah Fleisher
Arab countries are renewing attempts to push Israel back into negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, telling the PA to conduct indirect negotiations with Israel for four-months. The announcement came following a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo.
The United States will serve as broker between the two, as per a previous decision by the Arab League.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas has consented to the agreement, according to a report in the Associated Press. President Barack Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, announced that her office, via envoy George Mitchell, will begin to mediate talks this week.
In March, an announcement by the Housing Ministry that new apartments would be built in a Jewish neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem put the brakes on America's rush to the negotiating table, coinciding with a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. Biden was in Jerusalem to stress America's desire for talks to Israeli upper eschelons, with a diplomatic drama ensuing.
Hillary Clinton called the ill-timed announcement "insulting" to the United States, and proceeded to verbally berate Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a phone conversation between the two.
The Palestinian Authority has refused to meet with Israeli representatives for direct talks until Israel agrees to terminate all construction for Jews in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem.
3. Failed Car Bomb Forces Times Square Evacuation
by Tzv Ben Gedalyahu
A catastrophe was avoided at Times Square late Saturday night when an apparent car bomb failed to blow up after a small mini-explosion that occurred when the device failed to detonate as planned. Police evacuated the crowded square on what usually is the busiest night on Broadway.
A man who fled the scene is at-large and is suspected of having driven a dark-colored sport utility vehicle (SUV) to Times Square where it began to smoke and emit a flash.
Firemen found explosives, propane and burned wires in the vehicle, and police cordoned off the area while combing Manhattan for other car bombs. Fireman and a bomb squad extinguished the small fire in the car after using a robot to investigate the SUV.
"There were explosive elements, including powder, gasoline, propane and some kind of electrical wires attached to a clock," police spokesman Paul Browne said early Sunday." Bomb squads operated a robot to remove the explosives, and six blocks remain blocked off as of midnight EDT.
Thousands of peoples were forced to leave hotel rooms and theatres during the crisis, which began around 6:30 p.m. (1:30 a.m. Israeli time).
"The SUV was smoking. There was a flash and we put two and two together,” a firefighter told Reuters.
In the middle of the police and counterterrorist squad operation, bystanders panicked when hearing explosions, which actually were the sound of water cannons that were trying to break the glass of the vehicle.
4. Last Heroic Act: Jewish US Navy Pilot Saves 3 but Dies in Crash
by Hana Levi Julian
The heroic last act of a Jewish pilot with the U.S. Navy was to save the lives of his three crew members as his plane plunged towards to its doom over the Arabian Sea.
Lt. Miroslav “Steven” Zilberman, 31, was the lead pilot in the E-2C Hawkeye, a turbo-prop aircraft fully equipped with radar instruments on March 31, returning from a mission in Afghanistan.
The plane was a few miles out from the Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier when the starboard propeller suddenly shut down. The Hawkeye immediately became unstable, and went into a nosedive. As Zilberman fought to hold the aircraft steady, the husband and father of two small children ordered his co-pilot and the other two crew mates to bail out.
It was his last act.
Zilberman's body was lost at sea, and three days later, he was declared dead. A memorial service was held in Norfolk on April 8, and there for the first time, his parents learned how highly regarded their son was among his military peers.
Navy Rear Admiral Philip S. Davidson told Zilberman's parents in the letter he sent that their son was a hero. “He held the plane steady for them to [bail out], despite nearly uncontrollable forces,” he wrote. “His three crewmen are alive today because of his actions.” The crash is under investigation, said a Navy spokesman for the Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, Virginia, who added that recovery operations will soon begin to try to pull the wreckage from the sea.
The medal that Zilberman earned for his heroism – the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the Navy's highest honors – was presented to his wife Katrina Yurchak Zilberman. She and their children Daniel, 4, and Sarah, 2, live in Norfolk. The concept of “pikuach nefesh” – saving the life of another – was one that came naturally to the family. Zilberman had met his wife while she was a student at Torah Academy.
A copy of the medal was also presented to his parents, Boris Zilberman and Anna Sokolov, who live in the Eastmoor area of Columbus, Ohio. Their only son's death was a tragic loss for his parents, who moved to the U.S. to get away from the leaking Chernobyl nuclear reactor that was only 90 miles away from their home in Kiev, Ukraine.
More ironic, Zilberman's parents worried their son would one day be forced to serve in the Soviet army – a fear that drove them to emigrate with a wave of other Jews in 1991. “We were afraid of the military service because it was awful for Jewish people” in the Soviet Union, his mother told the Columbus Dispatch. But upon graduating high school, Zilberman, who already had been accepted into Ohio State University, wanted to pay his own way through college and knew the American military would make that possible. He also wanted to follow in the footsteps of a grandfather who had been a World War II military pilot for the Soviet Union.
At the end, the Jewish military pilot fulfilled both dreams; “Abrek” (his flight name) earned a four-year bachelor's degree in computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in only three years. He studied organic chemistry books in his spare time to prepare for the day he could go to medical school.
5. Lag BaOmer at the Tomb of Shimon HaTzaddik
by Hana Levi Julian
Thousands were on hand Saturday night to join the celebration of Lag BaOmer as Rabbi Yaakov Yosef lit the traditional bonfire at the Tomb of Shimon HaTzaddik (Simon the Just) in the northeastern Jerusalem neighborhood named for the sage. (All Israel news photos: courtesy of Yossi Fuchs / News 24)
Jewish families returned to live full-time in the neighborhood about a year ago, after many years of coming in and out of the neighborhood to pray at the grave site of the sage for whom the area is named.
The neighborhood, known to Arabs as Sheikh Jarrah, is closer to the center of capital than Ramot or Har Homa, is close to a government complex on one side and not far from the Regency Hotel on the other. Despite numerous struggles with Arab squatters over the years, Jewish groups have worked hard to restore its Jewish nature; at least one property has been owned by a Sephardic Jewish organization for more than 120 years.
Shimon HaTzaddik is mentioned in Pikei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers, 1:2) as “among the last of the Great Assembly.” He is also known as the author of the famous dictum, “The world stands on three pillars: the study of Torah, the service of G-d, and on the performance of kind deeds.”
One famous story about the sage, who was the “Kohen Gadol” – the High Priest – in the Second Temple period for 40 years, involves an encounter he had with the world-conquering Macedonian Emperor, Alexander the Great. Alexander came to Jerusalem with the intention of destroying it. But when he met Shimon HaTzaddik, he suddenly realized that this was the same individual he had encountered in his dreams each night, and who had advised him on the tactics to be used in the next day's battle. The advice never had never failed him. Instead, the High Priest took Alexander on a tour of the Temple, and though he refused the great conquerer's request to place a marble image of himself within the Temple courtyard, he offered to name each male child that year after Alexander. The emperor accepted Shimon HaTzaddik's offer, and that is how “Alexander” became a Jewish name.
6. Egypt on High Gaza Alert
by Hillel Fendel
Egypt has placed its forces on the Gaza border on high alert, suspecting that Gaza Arabs will once again overrun the border. More than 2,000 Arabs in Hamas-run Gaza held May Day demonstrations on Saturday, protesting both Israel’s and Egypt’s tight border crossings. The protests were held near the Erez crossing with Israel and the Rafiah border with Egypt.
In January 2008, hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Gaza – between 200,000 and 700,000, according to various reports – overran the Rafiah border with Egypt, after having destroying the border fence.
Resentment at Egypt
Though Israel has received much of the blame in the international media for Gaza’s partially-closed borders, local Arabs are very resentful and angry at Egypt for the lockdown and for its use of poison gas against tunnel smugglers.
Four Gaza Arab smugglers were killed last week when Egypt gassed a tunnel under the Rafiah border. Adham Abu Salaimeh, spokesman for the Gaza military health services, said that Egypt continually violates international law by using lethal gas among citizens. “This is murder in every sense,” he told the PA’s Maan news agency. Nearly 40 smugglers have been killed in this manner, he said. More than 100 have died in the tunnels from other causes, mainly tunnel collapses.
Hamas, which conquered Gaza from Fatah in 2007, issued a statement urging Arab and Islamic nations to pressure Egypt to reopen the Rafiah crossing.
Demonstrators waved red, green and black Palestinian Authority flags near Erez, in northern Gaza, in response to a call from the DFLP and other leftist factions, while a smaller-scale sit-in was held at Rafiah. "We call on the world to stop the siege of Gaza," said Ramzi Rabah, a protest organizer with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Rocket Industry and Employment
A careful reading of international media reports concentrating on poverty in Gaza indicates that the dependence on the rocket-making industry is a strong factor in this issue. A Shanghai site, for instance, reports on an unemployed man named “Abu Nahel” who worked in a workshop until “Israeli warplane missiles targeted these workshops, claiming that they helped militants in making homemade rockets that they fired at southern Israel.” Some 23 people have been killed by such rockets.
During the year between June 2007 and June 2008, Hamas constantly fired rockets at Israel; more than 30 were fired on some days, and 18 Israelis were killed. A total of some 8,000 rockets fell on Israel between Israel’s retreat from Gaza in the summer of 2005 and December 2008. Israel left Gaza in 2006, expelling some 8000 Jews from their homes to do so. |The subsequent Gazan elections which led to Hamas' government and the increased rocket fire led to closing of the crossings to Israel. Israel does allow massive amounts of humanitarian aid through the crossings.
7. Syria Accuses US of ‘Scud Slander;’ Peres: We Know for a Fact
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
President Shimon Peres Sunday rejected Syria’s vehement denial of reports that it is arming the terrorist army with long-range Scud missiles and said, “We know it for certain.”
Hizbullah was non-committal, and Syria and Egypt issued strong denials after several leaks, possibly from the American government, that Syria is arming Hizbullah with Scuds, similar to these that Iraq fired on Tel Aviv in the 1991 Gulf War.
President Peres (pictured below) told visiting Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen Sunday, “Israel is certain that long-range, accurate Scud missiles are being smuggled from Syria into Lebanon. Syria must stop acting one way and speaking another way. Their support for terror can no longer be hidden.”
The United States has designated Syria as a country supporting terror but has tried to “engage” Damascus. But it harshly criticized Syria after the Scud report surfaced. After several leaks, possibly from the American government, that Syria is arming Hizbullah with Scuds, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a joint press conference with visiting Defense Minister Ehud Barak last week that Hizbullah has "far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world." He stopped short of publicly stating that Scuds are part of its arsenal.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told the country’s official news agency, "We warn the United States not to adopt false Israeli allegations and we say what destabilizes the security of the region is in fact beefing up Israel with all the latest U.S. weaponry and abetting Israeli allegations at our expense."
Muallem compared the accusation to what allegedly was American slander against Iraq before the war there. The United States claimed that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction but had not been able to prove the allegations. Several reports have stated that Iraq sent the WMDs to Syria before the American invasion.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit, who met Lebanese officials last week and supports the Lebanese-Syrian axis, called the reports “laughable lies.”
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah did not confirm or deny the reports but maintained that his terrorist army has a “legal, moral and humanitarian right” to own weapons “to defend honorable people oppressed and threatened by the cancerous existence of the State of Israel.”
The Arab Media Watch group has charged the British media with biased coverage of the Scud smuggling claim. It said that Israeli and American statements “have been given more prominence than Syrian and Lebanese government denials.”
It also complained that 55 percent of the reports stated that Hizbullah is a threat to Israel while only 45 percent reported that Israel is a threat to Lebanon and Hizbullah.
