Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com
------------------------------------------------
Delivered Daily via Email, Sunday thru Friday
Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/
Wednesday, May. 04 '16, Nissan 26, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. GAZA: THREE MORTAR ATTACKS IN ONE DAY ON IDF TROOPS
2. NETANYAHU CONFIRMS UNITY GOVERNMENT TALKS WITH HERZOG
3. SHAKED: ANTI-SEMITIC COMMENTS NOT LEGITIMATE POLITICAL DEBATE
4. REVEALED: WHEN CLINTON TRIED TO QUASH 'RIGHT-WING ISRAEL'
5. VETERAN ANCHOR RESIGNS DUE TO BBC'S MIDDLE EAST BIAS
6. ISIS KILLS US NAVY SEAL IN IRAQ
7. 4 ISRAELI YOUTHS ACCIDENTALLY WANDER INTO HOSTILE ARAB TOWN
8. WATCH: THE HAUNTING MELODY OF BABI YAR
1. GAZA: THREE MORTAR ATTACKS IN ONE DAY ON IDF TROOPS
by Ari Soffer
Terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a two mortar shells at IDF engineers operating on the Israeli side of the border Wednesday, as tensions in the south continue to rise.
The mortar strikes - which came hours after a similar attack this morning - bring the total number of similar breaches of the ceasefire by Gazan terrorists in two days to four. IDF forces returned fire at a Hamas military post in response to the second attack.
No soldiers were injured in the first attack on Wednesday, which IDF forces responded to with tank fire.
Early Tuesday evening, terrorists opened fire on IDF forces just hours after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made an impromptu visit to troops stationed at the border with Hamas-ruled Gaza.
It is not yet known which of the many terrorist factions operating in Gaza is responsible for the latest attacks. Previous attacks have either been claimed by or attributed to jihadist terror cells linked to ISIS, or Hamas's chief Islamist rivals Islamic Jihad, as part of efforts to challenge Hamas's rule and provoke another round of fighting with Israel.
2. NETANYAHU CONFIRMS UNITY GOVERNMENT TALKS WITH HERZOG
by Ari Soffer
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has for the first time officially confirmed rumors of intensive talks with the left-wing Zionist Union to join the coalition government.
Speaking at a political forum, Netanyahu confirmed such talks did indeed take place, but said they broke off with the opening of a criminal investigation into Zionist Union chief Yitzhak Herzog.
According to Channel 2, Netanyahu further detailed the reasons why he believed talks to expand the wafer-thin coalition majority government faltered.
"There's one who doesn't want, and one who isn't able," to join the government, the PM said, referring to Yisrael Beytenu party head Avigdor Liberman and Herzog respectively.
Herzog - who has repeatedly denied any unity government talks - would face staunch opposition from the hard-left of his party to joining a Likud-led government.
Liberman, on the other hand, appears intent on remaining in the opposition come what may, hoping to capitalize on a wave of disgruntled right-wing voters unhappy about the current government's record to make a political comeback.
Netanyahu's confirmation of the talks will anger both right-wingers inside the Likud party, as well as his nationalist Jewish Home party coalition partners.
Notably, the prime minister did not rule out the prospect of further talks, now that corruption charges against Herzog appear unlikely.
3. SHAKED: ANTI-SEMITIC COMMENTS NOT LEGITIMATE POLITICAL DEBATE
by Arutz Sheva staff
Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked challenged British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to crack down hard on Wednesday after fresh allegations of anti-Semitism in its ranks.
"Mr. Corbyn must clarify that anti-Semitic comments are not within legitimate political debate, and that anti-Semitic views should end a politician's career and disqualify them from any future public office," she said in remarks broadcast from a ceremony in Krakow, Poland, on the eve of Israel's Holocaust memorial day.
Shaked was the highest-ranking Israeli official so far to comment publicly on the furor over comments, seen as anti-Semitic, by Labour officials.
"Make no mistake, the Israeli government cherishes our strong and warm relationships with friendly nations," Shaked said. "But we will not compromise our sovereignty. We will maintain our might, defend our borders and secure our citizens," she added.
"This is an era of Jewish power. Some of our detractors find that notion offensive. But like other nations, Jews now exercise power."
More than 50 British Labour party members have been suspended in the past two months over comments deemed racist or anti-Semitic, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, including former mayor of London Ken Livingstone.
A spokesman for the Israeli Labour party said on Tuesday that breaking off ties with the British Labour movement was "one of the options that is being considered."
He told AFP that the Israeli party was looking for assurances from Corbyn that he was treating the allegations with the necessary gravity.
In the most high-profile case, Livingstone was sanctioned on Thursday after saying that Adolf Hitler "was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."
Livingstone's comments were in defense of Labour MP Naz Shah, who was suspended last Wednesday for sharing posts on social media two years ago suggesting that the solution to the Palestinian conflict was to move Israel to the United States.
Corbyn has announced an independent review into the allegations, saying there was no place for "anti-Semitism or any form of racism in the Labour Party."
The left-winger has been criticized in the past for referring to Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah as "friends" and urging dialogue with Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas, as well as meeting representatives of both organizations.
AFP contributed to this report.
4. REVEALED: WHEN CLINTON TRIED TO QUASH 'RIGHT-WING ISRAEL'
by Ari Yashar
A new book reveals that back in 2009, during Hillary Clinton's first visit to Israel as US Secretary of State which came around a month after Israeli general elections, she tried unsuccessfully to press then Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni into a unity government so as to avoid a right-wing coalition.
The revelation comes from the book "Alter Egos" by Mark Landler, a New York Times political correspondent, reports Haaretz on Wednesday. Landler covered Clinton, who currently is the Democratic presidential frontrunner, before covering the White House and US President Barack Obama.
Livni's Kadima party got 29 seats in the 2009 election, but despite only getting 28 mandates Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud was given first crack at forming a coalition government given his better likelihood of putting together a majority coalition.
Netanyahu proposed a national unity government to Livni, but despite that and despite Clinton's pressure, Livni at the time refused to join - even though she later did so in the 2013 elections with her new Hatnua party, before staging a "putsch" with Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid that led Netanyahu to disband the government.
The new book focuses on Clinton and Obama's relationship from 2009 to 2013, and also addresses the growing tensions with Israel under Obama's watch as well as failed attempts to force ahead the peace process.
Clinton's opposition to an Israeli right-wing government
Clinton visited in March 2009, at a time when Livni was still in her post as Foreign Minister and was holding coalition talks with Netanyahu.
According to Landler, Clinton wanted Livni to join a unity government so as to prevent a right-wing government in Israel that might not get along with Obama's new administration.
In a private meeting between the two, Livni refused Clinton's pressure, saying Likud would never accept her demands for being part of the government, according to the new book.
Another revelation in the book exposes that Clinton refused a request by the White House to fly to Israel for "damage control" after Obama's infamous Cairo speech on June 4, 2009, in which he criticized Israel at an event attended by Muslim Brotherhood members.
Mere days before the speech White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel said to Clinton that Obama's decision not to visit Israel after his Cairo speech may insult Jerusalem, and therefore he asked Clinton who was in Cairo with Obama to go on to Israel "to do damage control."
But Landler quoted a former senior administration official who said "she couldn't, wouldn't and didn't."
Obama's senior advisers were furious at her refusal, according to the book, accusing her of trying to avoid harming her image as a friend of Israel.
Landler writes that the refusal was a clear example of her desire to distance herself from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out of fear it would hurt her chances in a future presidential bid.
Clinton's push for a "settlement freeze"
Tensions rose in 2009 between Clinton and Obama over her unwillingness to get involved in his efforts to force peace talks on Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Those tensions spilled over on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in 2009, shortly after Obama, Netanyahu and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas met.
Obama "chided her, telling her that she needed to travel to the Middle East more often and that she needed to become more personally involved in steering the process" instead of leaving the matter to special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, reveals Landler.
The gap between the two continued as Clinton held doubts over Obama's demand in 2009 that Netanyahu freeze construction in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem completely, reasoning that doing so would not be an effective way to force more concessions from Netanyahu.
But nevertheless she tried to press Netanyahu to agree to the freeze as Secretary of State.
In Netanyahu's first visit after forming a government in May 2009, during a State Department dinner in Washington, Clinton told Netanyahu that the construction freeze was very important to Obama, reports Landler.
He noted that a witness said Netanyahu replied, "I can't do that."
Then a week later, Clinton condemned the "settlements," and said Obama demanded a total freeze, even as talks were ongoing between Mitchell and the Israeli government for a deal allowing construction in the large blocs of Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria, accommodating natural growth only.
According to Landler, Clinton's statements derailed the talks on a deal, angering the Israelis even as Obama's advisers were annoyed that she "plussed up" his position to encompass a complete freeze.
Netanyahu soon afterwards folded and implemented a construction freeze in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, and later on implemented a covert freeze during the 2013-2014 peace talks even though he publicly chose to release Arab terrorists as a "gesture" instead of the freeze.
A full 78 terrorists went free during the talks that were eventually torpedoed by the PA as it signed a unity deal with Hamas, and the near-total construction freeze remains ongoing.
"F***ing Bibi"
According to Landler's book, Clinton and Netanyahu generally got along during her stint as Secretary of State, although there was plenty of tension.
While she called him by his nickname Bibi, "often it was attached to the f-word," he wrote.
During one of their conversations amid talks on the construction freezes, Clinton silently started knocking her cellphone against her head in a sign of frustration.
Landler reveals that a peak tension point in the relationship between the two came in an eight-hour meeting in November 2010 at New York's Regency Hotel, in which they worked on a formula to extend the construction freeze for another three months.
Clinton raised a number of suggestions, even including the early release of Jonathan Pollard, but Netanyahu contested every detail and made a hard bargain according to the book.
The US also proposed providing 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets worth $3 billion to Israel in order to extend the freeze, although Clinton was afraid that even if the deal went through it would not lead the PA to direct negotiations.
According to Landler, she told then special Middle East envoy of the Quartet Tony Blair that "she found the whole exercise a nasty business."
Several weeks later the deal collapsed as Israel's cabinet rejected the construction freeze extension, and "with it went any chance for a breakthrough during Clinton's years as secretary of state," according to Landler.
5. VETERAN ANCHOR RESIGNS DUE TO BBC'S MIDDLE EAST BIAS
by Ari Yashar
A senior journalist for BBC has announced she will no longer be working as a new anchor for the leading UK news company due to its biased coverage - but she was not referring to its well-documented bias regarding Israel.
Instead, Dima Izzedin of Syria accused her employer of bias in favor of Bashar al-Assad's regime in its reporting on the bloody war in her home country. After eight years at BBC she announced she will no longer continue, reports The New Arab on Tuesday.
"Today I was supposed to go back to the BBC screen after an absence of a year but I will no longer go back," she wrote in Arabic on Facebook.
While saying she was thankful for her experiences at the company, she said "the standards adopted by this great institution are supposed to make it first class in media, but this not the case."
"Unfortunately, these standards are no longer applied as it should be. ...Today I leave it (the BBC) as it is no longer like me nor am I like it. The news on my wounded homeland departed us."
Izzedin's accusations of bias come even as BBC has repeatedly come under fire for biased coverage against Israel.
Even a former chairman of the BBC, Lord Michael Grade, last October accused the news site of having a blatant anti-Israel bias, and for failing to document the rampant terror incitement of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
His criticism came shortly after the BBC posted a headline reading, "Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two" regarding a terror attack. The paper later admitted that the headline was wrong, but refused to apologize for using it. The channel later changed its headline to the more accurate "Jerusalem: Palestinian kills two Israelis in Old City."
Izzedin's decision to quit BBC came following its reporting of week-long airstrikes by Assad's regime and his Russian backers on rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Reportedly two hospitals were destroyed by the strikes and 250 people were killed.
In one attack, the BBC caused anger by claiming rebel forces bombed a regime-held part of Aleppo and killed 44 civilians. However, the deaths were in fact from an opposition-held area, and the regime was responsible for the attack, reports The New Arab.
Likewise the high death toll reported by the news site had not been given by Syrian state news or the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The BBC apologized for the mistake, but Syrian activists called the apology half-hearted and said it did not fix the damage caused by the report.
6. ISIS KILLS US NAVY SEAL IN IRAQ
by Arutz Sheva Staff
The killing of a Navy SEAL by Islamic State (ISIS) fighters highlights the increasing risks US troops face in Iraq and Syria as they inch ever closer toward the jihadists' frontlines.
ISIS fighters on Tuesday used suicide bombers and firepower to blast their way past Kurdish peshmerga forces that US troops were supporting north of Mosul in northern Iraq.
The fallen SEAL had been visiting a peshmerga encampment near Tal Asquf about three miles (five kilometers) from the front. Officials simply said he was killed by "direct fire."
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey identified the SEAL as Charlie Keating IV, who attended high school in Phoenix.
It is only the third time a US serviceman has been killed in combat since the United States launched an international coalition to fight the ISIS group in August 2014. Another 14 have been wounded.
Since the start of the campaign, the US military and its coalition partners have launched more than 12,000 air strikes against the self-proclaimed Islamic State group, and the Pentagon has deployed around 5,000 troops in Iraq.
The effort is primarily being conducted by plane and drone strikes, but America's intensifying role for troops on the ground means additional US casualties are likely.
"Although the US has pursued a light-footprint policy to try to minimize the number of combat troops it has on the ground, at the end of the day these soldiers are serving in a conflict zone and there will be casualties," Nick Heras of the Center for a New American Security told AFP.
Last month, the Pentagon said US military advisers will start working with Iraqi forces at the battalion level, meaning greater numbers will be physically closer to the fight in Iraq than before.
And the United States has increased sixfold - from 50 to 300 - the number of special operations forces and support personnel working in northern Syria, where they are training Kurdish and Syrian Arab fighters to tackle the ISIS group and call in air strikes.
"It's certainly inevitable that the more US forces become involved in supporting ground operations, the more risk they are going to have to take," said Jacob Shapiro, an associate professor at Princeton University.
Officially, more than 4,000 US forces are in Iraq, but when temporary assignments are factored in, the number stretches beyond 5,500.
Rocket fire killed a US Marine in northern Iraq in March, while a special forces soldier died of wounds received during a raid in October.
"Crazy somersaults"
The casualty numbers are tiny compared to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than 5,300 US troops were killed in combat.
US President Barack Obama, elected partly on a promise of getting America out of Iraq, has faced a backlash at home for saying there will be no US combat "boots on the ground" in the Middle East - even as US troops die in combat. In particular he promised not to deploy in Syria, before later breaking that promise.
"Our men and women on the ground in Iraq do not have a combat mission, but they do have a dangerous mission to operate in a dangerous country," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Obama's policy is to use US troops to train, advise and equip Iraqi and Syrian forces to fight the ISIS group.
The immediate goal is for them to retake the key ISIS cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqa in Syria, but it is unclear if local forces have the capabilities to hold the towns.
"We have learned important lessons in the last decade. We know that the United States will not be successful if it is US troops acting, essentially, as a substitute for local forces fighting for the security situation in Iraq," Earnest added.
Critics have called Obama disingenuous for deploying US troops without describing their role as a combat mission.
"Why does the administration go through these crazy somersaults, that the entire country knows is not correct, to say our troops are not in combat when they're in combat?" Senator Dan Sullivan asked Defense Secretary Ashton Carter at a hearing last week.
"These people are in combat, senator, and I think that we need to say that clearly," Carter responded.
Obama's term finishes at the end of the year. His potential successors have indicated a willingness to deploy more US forces to the region, but the US public would appear to have little appetite for such an engagement.
"There is no chance of large-scale combat," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at The Brookings Institution.
"I could imagine American troops in the thousands or, in an extreme case, the very low tens of thousands but not main combat operations, even under a new president. We already tried that."
AFP contributed to this report.
7. 4 ISRAELI YOUTHS ACCIDENTALLY WANDER INTO HOSTILE ARAB TOWN
by Ari Yashar
Four Israeli youths were safely rescued by IDF forces on Wednesday after accidentally entering a Palestinian town in Judea, in an event that easily could have ended tragically.
The four were on a hike when they wandered into Khirbet Umm Asfir, a Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled town adjacent to Bethlehem. After being rescued by security forces, the four were taken in for an investigation to clarify the circumstances of the incident.
The youths were on a hike from Ashdod on the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Dead Sea, and on Wednesday morning they set out from Efrat in the Gush Etzion region of Judea heading towards Nahal Tekoa, a ravine leading to the Dead Sea.
Part of their path took them adjacent to areas controlled by the PA, and the IDF received reports of hikers walking adjacent to Areas A and B - regions under full or partial PA control according to the designations of the 1994 Oslo Accords.
The four realized their mistake, and managed to get out of the Arab town on their own and head to the Jewish town of Tekoa. They were met by IDF forces.
An IDF and police force confirmed no Israelis were still in the PA controlled regions and began investigating the youths, after which they continued on their journey to the Dead Sea.
Just last Tuesday two IDF soldiers came under attack by Arab assailants hurling rocks and firebombs at their car, after accidentally straying into the PA village of Beit Fajjar near Gush Etzion while using the Waze GPS app.
The incident recalls a previous, far more serious one in late February in which two soldiers narrowly escaped being lynched after following Waze instructions near Bet El in Samaria.
8. WATCH: THE HAUNTING MELODY OF BABI YAR
by Arutz Sheva Staff
[youtube:2014960]
In time for Holocaust Memorial Day on Thursday, a haunting new music video was released on Tuesday putting a soulful tune to the backdrop of Babi Yar, the site of one of the most horrific Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust.
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev where the Nazis conducted massacres, the most notorious of which took place on September 29-30, 1941, when 33,771 Jews were murdered.
The massacre of Kiev's Jewish community was the largest mass killing by the genocidal Nazi regime during its campaign against the Soviet Union, and is considered to be the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust.
A total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar throughout the course of the German occupation.
The new music video, produced by Daniel Finkelman, features a haunting melody composed by Cecelia Margules that poignantly captures the tragic site.
------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/
