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Mofaz: Talk to Hamas, Palestinian state in a year
Kadima MK Shaul Mofaz on Sunday presented a plan to negotiate with Hamas and establish a Palestinian state on 60 percent of the West Bank within one year.
"Assuming that Hamas is elected and will want to sit down at the negotiating table, at that moment it accepts the Quartet's conditions and is no longer a terrorist organization," Mofaz said at a press conference on Sunday.
"The state of Israel must sit down with any element that changes its priorities," Mofaz said.
"I believe that responsible leaders sit down with such elements," he continued. "I know that Hamas continues to fire and amass long-range missiles and prepare for conflict with Israel, and I want to tell Hamas leaders that if they continue on this path, their fate will be decided."
Mofaz developed his proposal following consultations with figures in the defense establishment, the heads of think tanks and politicians. He contends that the stalemate in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is dangerous from a demographic standpoint and with respect to Israel's legitimacy in the world.
Israeli army strikes Gaza weapons workshop
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Israeli army says it carried out airstrikes on a weapons workshop east of Gaza City and two weapons smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
Palestinian health officials reported no injuries. The army says Saturday's strikes were in response to a mortar shell and a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza the day before.
A small extremist group, Ansar al-Sunna, said on Friday it fired two rockets at Israel. Exchanges of fire between Israel and Gaza militants have increased in recent months after a period of relative quiet following Israel's Gaza offensive, which ended Jan. 18.
The Israeli army said about 60 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired at Israel in the last three months. Airstrikes followed some of those attacks.
Wiesel, Dershowitz: Human Rights Watch reform needed
Leading academics, journalists, legal and security experts, including Elie Wiesel, Professor Alan Dershowitz, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and Professor Judea Pearl, called last week for an independent review and reform of Human Rights Watch (HRW). This follows NGO Monitor's recent in-depth study of HRW's Middle East activities over the past several years.
According to NGO Monitor, an open letter signed by members of its International Advisory Board highlights the finding that "On Middle East issues, HRW has degenerated into a political lobby aimed primarily at Israel." The recent Goldstone report on the Gaza war, which includes 30 unverified references to HRW claims, underscored this bias, said NGO Monitor, adding that Richard Goldstone himself was until recently an HRW board member.
This public letter, said NGO Monitor, cites HRW's attempts "consistently and disproportionately single-out Israel for condemnation,"...
Medvedev: Israel says will not strike Iran
Israel told Russia it would not launch an attack on Iran, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a CNN interview released on Sunday, in which he described such an attack as "the worst thing that can be imagined."
Medvedev said Israeli President Shimon Peres made the pledge at a meeting in August. After the meeting Shimon Peres said Medvedev had promised to reconsider the sale to Iran of S-300 anti-aircraft systems that would complicate an Israeli attack.
Israel has hinted it could forcibly deny Iran the means to make an atomic bomb if Tehran continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment it claims is for peaceful purposes.
"When he visited me in Sochi, Israeli President Shimon Peres said something important for us all: 'Israel does not plan to launch any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country and we will not do this'," Medvedev said in the interview, which was recorded on Tuesday, according to a Kremlin transcript.
Son of late Israeli astronaut dies in plane crash
JERUSALEM - The son of an Israeli astronaut who died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster six years ago was killed Sunday when his F-16 warplane crashed on a routine training flight, the Israeli military said.
The military identified the dead pilot as Lt. Asaf Ramon, son of Ilan Ramon, Israel's first and only astronaut. Ilan Ramon was one of the seven crew members killed when the Columbia exploded as it re-entered the atmosphere after a mission in space.
A former fighter pilot who took part in Israel's bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Ilan Ramon had been the payload specialist on the 2003 space flight. He is seen in Israel as a national hero, and Israeli radio and TV stations broke into their broadcasts Sunday to report the news of his son's death.
The military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, arrived at the family's home along with the air force commander shortly after the news was made public.
Ilan Ramon's fighter jet crashed south of the West Bank city of Hebron. A Palestinian eyewitness told Channel 2 TV that the plane flew over the southern West Bank at low altitude before crashing.
Rare medieval Hebrew prayer book to go on display
JERUSALEM - A rare Hebrew manuscript written in 14th century Germany is going on display for the first time, just before the Jewish New Year, Israel Museum officials said Wednesday.
The text, called the Nuremberg Mahzor, is one of the largest surviving medieval texts in the world. Written in 1331 in Germany, the prayer book remains mostly intact - only seven of its original 528 leaves are missing. Officials said the 1,042-page manuscript will be on display at the Israel Museum starting next Tuesday, days before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year holiday, which begins Sept. 18.
The book has 22 illuminations inlaid with gold and silver. The text includes one of the largest collections of handwritten Ashkenazi, or northern European, prayers and liturgical poems. About 100 have never before been published. Also, rabbinical commentary is printed in the margins.
The manuscript is one of the heaviest surviving texts from the period, weighing more than 57 pounds (26 kilograms). It probably took about one year to complete, said Michael Maggen, the head of the paper conservation laboratory at the Israel Museum.
Israeli archaeologists find ancient fortification
JERUSALEM - Israel said Friday it will construct hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements before any slowdown in building, an announcement that drew harsh criticism from Washington, which demands a complete settlement freeze as a prelude to renewing Mideast peace talks.
Israeli officials painted the move as a concession to the U.S. demand because it might bring a temporary halt to other construction. But since it would also mean building the new units and finishing some 2,500 others now under construction, it looked more like defiance than acquiescence.
Israel's proposal also does not include any freeze in building in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital. The Obama administration's response did not mince words.
"We regret the reports of Israel's plans to approve additional settlement construction," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement Friday.
Israeli archaeologists find ancient fortification
JERUSALEM - Archaeologists digging in Jerusalem have uncovered a 3,700-year-old wall that is the oldest example of massive fortifications ever found in the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.
The 26-foot-high wall is believed to have been part of a protected passage built by ancient Canaanites from a hilltop fortress to a nearby spring that was the city's only water source and vulnerable to marauders.
The discovery marks the first time archaeologists have found such massive construction from before the time of Herod, the ruler behind numerous monumental projects in the city 2,000 years ago, and shows that Jerusalem of the Middle Bronze Age had a powerful population capable of complex building projects, said Ronny Reich, director of the excavation and an archaeology professor at the University of Haifa.
The wall dates to the 17th century B.C., when Jerusalem was a small, fortified enclave controlled by the Canaanites, one of the peoples the Bible says lived in the Holy Land before the Hebrew conquest. The kingdom thought to have been ruled from Jerusalem by the biblical King David is usually dated to at least seven centuries later.
Hamas leader denies Nazi genocide of Jews
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A Hamas spiritual leader on Monday called teaching Palestinian children about the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews a "war crime," rejecting a reported U.N. proposal to include the Holocaust in Gaza's school curriculum.
A senior Israeli official said such statements should make the West think twice about ending its boycott of Hamas, in place since the group seized Gaza by force in 2007.
Hamas spiritual leader Younis al-Astal lashed out after hearing that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the main U.N. body aiding Palestinian refugees, planned to introduce lessons about the Holocaust to Gaza students.
Adding the Holocaust to the curriculum would amount to "marketing a lie and spreading it," al-Astal wrote in a statement. "I do not exaggerate when I say this issue is a war crime, because of how it serves the Zionist colonizers and deals with their hypocrisy and lies," he wrote.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri also objected to including what he referred to as the "so-called Holocaust" in the lesson plan. "We think it's more important to teach Palestinians the crimes of the Israeli occupation," he said.
Peres urges youth to protest against discrimination
President Shimon Peres on Thursday called on young leaders to protest against the failure to integrate 102 students of Ethiopian descent in religious schools in Petah Tikva, on the backdrop of threats made by parents' committees in the city not to open the school year.
Speaking at a conference of the Lead project in the Kfar Maccabiah Hotel, the president told 400 10th graders, "If I were you, I would get on a bus and travel to Petah Tikva immediately, to demonstrate against those opposing the integration of Ethiopian students in three of the city's schools."
Asked by one of the teenagers about ways to influence social procedures in the country, Peres said, "Let me give you a concrete example - the refusal to admit Ethiopian students into schools is a disgrace no person in Israel can accept.
"As the president of this state, I strongly condemn it and hope the school year will open as planned in Petah Tikva and that no discrimination against any student will be allowed in the State of Israel. The youth has a huge amount of power in pushing processes forward, so don't hesitate - make your voices heard." Readmore