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Posts Tagged ‘Tovah Lazaroff’

Israel and Turkey agree to end poltical rift

by Mojambo ( 127 Comments › )
Filed under Israel, Turkey at May 8th, 2013 - 3:00 pm

There was no more of a  rift  between Turkey and Israel then there was between Germany and Poland in 1939. Germany wanted Poland destroyed and Poland wanted to live, so the concept of a “rift” was misleading. The same is true between Turkey and Israel. Erdogan wanted a confrontation with Israel, Israel wanted to maintain friendly relations with Turkey so Turkey manufactured the Mavi Marmara incident. Watch Turkey look for another “conflict” to pick with Israel in the future.

by Tovah Lazaroff and Herb Keinon

Israeli and Turkish officials reached a draft agreement to mend the three-year diplomatic crisis between the two countries, after a productive day-long meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Monday night.

“The two sides expect to come to an agreement in the near future,” said a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office.

“The meeting was conducted in a good and positive manner. The delegations reached an agreed draft, but further clarifications are required on certain subjects,” the PMO said.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in China when the meeting occurred.

National Security Council head Yaakov Amidror along with Joseph Ciechanover from the Prime Minister’s Office led the Israeli delegation.

[…….]

Turkish Foreign Ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, a former Turkish ambassador to Israel, led his country’s delegation.

It was the highest-level Turkish delegation to visit Israel in the last three years.

[……]

It following an initial day-long meeting between the two delegations in Ankara in April.

That Turkish delegation was led by Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc.

[……]

In light of the growing threats from Syria and Iran, Israel and Turkey are looking to repair their severed relationship and normalize ties.

Ankara broke off relations with Jerusalem in May 2010, after the IDF raided the ship Mavi Marmara as it attempted to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, killing nine Turkish activists on board.

A March gesture by Netanyahu, in which he apologized to Turkey for the deaths, came at the tail end of a visit to Israel by US President Barack Obama.

Netanyahu promised to conclude an “agreement on compensation/non-liability” with the families of the nine Turkish activists.

In April a compensation mechanism was agreed upon with Turkey, but no sums have been publicized. It is understood that full reconciliation and the restoration of diplomatic ties will not be possible until compensation is agreed upon.

This reconciliation will include an exchange of ambassadors, as had existed in the past.

Read the rest – Israel and Turkey reach agreement to end rift

 

Sarkozy to visit Israel to mend ties with Netanyahu

by Mojambo ( 4 Comments › )
Filed under France, Headlines, Israel at November 11th, 2011 - 2:21 pm

The only thing Sarko regrets is that he and his girlfriend  Obama got caught. I do not expect Obama to apologize or try to make amends.

by Gil Shefler and Tovah Lazaroff

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will visit Jerusalem to assuage the diplomatic damage caused by a gaffe he recently made at the G-20 gathering, a Jewish French diplomat said on Thursday.

France’s former special envoy to the Middle East Valerie Valerie Hoffenberg said her ex-boss would visit “soon” to try to clear up the “misunderstanding of the Israeli [government] concerning France’s position.”

Sarkozy was quoted as calling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “a liar” in a conversation with US President Barack Obama at the G-20 summmit in Cannes earlier in the week.

The remark, which was made in private but overheard by the press, has created a full-scale diplomatic crisis involving the governments of three countries.

[……..]
Sarkozy told the Jewish leadership he felt that Israel had lost the media war and had failed to make its case to the international community that it wanted peace, according to the sources.

Read the rest – Sarkozy to visit Israel to mend ties with Netanyahu

Pro-Palestinian dupes plan on mass ‘fly-in’ to Tel Aviv airport

by Mojambo ( 5 Comments › )
Filed under Gaza, Headlines, Israel, Palestinians at July 3rd, 2011 - 7:57 pm

I have an idea – hold them hostage for Gilad Shalit. Let us see them try to pull the same stunt at the Damascus Airport.

by Tovah Lazaroff

New York activist Laura Durkay plans to name Palestine as her destination when she lands at Ben-Gurion Airport this Friday, even though such a response is likely to ensure her deportation.

As pro-Palestinian activists are struggling to set sail to Gaza from Greece, a separate informal group is targeting Ben-Gurion airport.

Durkay is one of 700 activists, mostly from Europe, who plan to land in Ben Gurion on the same day, in an event titled, “Welcome Palestine.” They hope to support Palestinian statehood and the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank.

They also want to make a statement about the importance of freedom of movement and access into the Palestinian territories.

The Foreign Ministry has already said that it plans to prevent the group’s entry into Israel. Israel has in the past denied entry to international activists it believes plan to create disturbances while they are here.

As a result many international activists tend to misrepresent the purpose of their visit when quizzed by border control officials at the airport.

“Instead of lying about their destination, they will say that they are coming for a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Israeli activist Sergio Yahini said.

If they are allowed to enter, they will participate In a week of solidarity activities, he said. If they are denied entry, there will be a demonstration at the airport and Israel will have to deal with the deportation of 700 activists, he said.

On a video posted on Youtube, Palestinian activist Lubna Marsawa said, “What we are planning for the 8th of July, could be the beginning of the marches to Palestine.”

She added, “We are fed up with words and we need to take action.”

[…..]

 

Read the rest – 700 pro-Palestinian activists to land at Ben-Gurion Airport

Goldstone Report has been disavowed by its own author, where does Israel now go to get its good name back?

by Mojambo ( 171 Comments › )
Filed under Gaza, IDF, Israel, Palestinians, United Nations at April 3rd, 2011 - 4:30 pm

Let’s face it, as Weasel Zippers says, Israel and the Jews are  always guilty until proven innocent, and even then that is not good enough for most of her detractors. The Goldstone Report was an”Alice in Wonderland” type of fiasco with its “sentence first, trial later” attitude towards Israel. To all those Western nations whose default position is to “blame Israel first”, I say today it is Israel, tomorrow it will be you. Thanks a lot Judge Goldstone – now do the honorable thing and go off your self.  As Scott Johnson  from Powerline blog writes  “The South African jurist Richard Goldstone is a fool and a knave. He lent his name to a lengthy report issued under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The report accused Israel of massive war crimes in the war Israel waged against Hamas in 2008-2009, commenced by Israel after Hamas and friends had fired more than 12,000 rockets at Israel (every one of which was criminal).

by Tovah Lazaroff and Yaakov Katz

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on the United Nations Saturday night to disavow the Goldstone Report alleging war crimes by the IDF in Gaza two years ago after its author said he had erroneously accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians.

“The fact that [South African jurist Richard] Goldstone backtracked must lead to the shelving of this report once and for all,” Netanyahu said in a statement to the press.

Israel had refused to cooperate with Goldstone’s fact-finding mission into its military operation in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead, and rejected the September 2009 report, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity and suggested that the matter be referred to the International Court of Justice if Israel did not hold follow-up investigations into the matter.

Israel charged that the report, which focused largely on its actions in Gaza, was biased and flawed. But it has held investigations into Operation Cast Lead.

“Everything we said has proven true,” Netanyahu said on Saturday night.

“Israel did not intentionally harm civilians. Its institutions and investigative bodies are worthy, while Hamas intentionally fired upon innocent civilians and did not examine anything,” he said.

The absurdity here, Netanyahu added, was that the UN Human Rights Council, the body that called for the report, had Libya as a member.

“It’s time to throw this report into the dustbin of history,” he said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who held that post during Operation Cast Lead, said that Goldstone should send his new conclusions to the same international forums “in which he published his twisted and nonfactual report.”

“Only that way can there be a partial correction of the damage that was caused,” he explained.

Both Netanyahu and Barak spoke after Goldstone published an opinion piece in Friday’s The Washington Post in which he said: “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”

Goldstone said the fact-finding mission’s allegations that Israel took actions which intentionally led to the death and injury of civilians, were based on the information available to him at the time.

Investigations conducted by the Israeli military into those incidents, which have been recognized by the UN, “indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.” Goldstone noted in particular the work of the UN Human Rights Council’s panel, which monitors compliance with the report and delivered its own assessment of the matter to the council in its March session.

[…]

Benayahu said that the IDF made some mistakes during the operation and has investigated all of them.

He warned, however, that Hamas and Hezbollah were already establishing their military infrastructure inside population centers and that the world needed to be prepared for the consequences in the event of a future war with Israel.

“We knew how to locate the mistakes even before we heard the name Richard Goldstone.

We did this for Israel and the Jewish people, and not for the world,” he said.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Channel 2’s Meet the Press that he was not surprised by Goldstone’s statements.

“We had no doubt that the truth would come out eventually,” said Lieberman.

Goldstone actually came to the same conclusions that the two follow-up committees to the Goldstone committee came to, he said, namely that Israel’s court system acted objectively and professionally in investigating allegations of war crimes.

In addition, both Goldstone and the follow-up committees agreed that Hamas had done nothing to address allegations of war crimes or human rights violations that the Goldstone report accused them of during Operation Cast Lead.

[…]

Read the rest: Netanyahu: Throw Goldstone Report on the dust bin of history