Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups in Canada don’t agree about much, but the coalition government now being formed by Benjamin Netanyahu has both sides worried about the future.
The arrival of Israel’s most right-wing government ever will also challenge the Trudeau government — which has pursued the same pro-Israel course as Stephen Harper, albeit with less fanfare.
Turkey’s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, appears to be on yet another hoax charm offensive: he is faking the restoration of diplomatic relations with Israel and Egypt, and even signalling peace with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria — in addition to his earlier reconciliation efforts with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He needs to look pretty to his Middle East nemeses to A) avoid further Western sanctions, B) wink at Washington, and C) raise some international cash flows into the badly ailing Turkish economy that threatens to end his reign after two decades of uninterrupted rule.
The media network and the family of the victim claim Israeli forces deliberately targeted the veteran reporter, and are calling for a formal investigation through the International Criminal Court.
Media network Al Jazeera took the killing of its journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Tuesday, following an investigation by its lawyers that allegedly showed the veteran reporter was deliberately shot by Israeli forces.
According to the network, its legal team had conducted “a full and detailed investigation into the case and unearthed new evidence based on several eyewitness accounts, the examination of multiple items of video footage, and forensic evidence pertaining to the case.”
Germany, like the rest of Europe, needs gas, but cannot get enough of it without violating its own “moral standards”
Sportswise, things didn’t go very well for Germany, but the Germans have already secured the title of world champions in moral and double standards. The political establishment in Berlin went crazy after FIFA banned the pro-LGBT ‘One Love’ headband from the World Cup in Qatar. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party told the German national team that they had to wear the armband anyway. Various government officials protested, including Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who wore the “One Love” armband at the opening match in Doha.
But immediately after the “scandal”, Germany proudly announced a new mega deal on gas with none other than Qatar, an agreement that Minister Habeck described as “super”. Bayern Munich loves Qatar’s money, and German soccer stars Thomas Müller and Manuel Neuer have never publicly made a speech against sponsoring Qatar Airways.
Related … Israel’s natural gas windfall in Europe is bad news for Palestinians
It’s taking a page out of Joe Biden’s book, placating progressives at the expense of diplomacy.
On May 11, Al Jazeera Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a dual Palestinian-American citizen, was killed in Israel while standing alongside terrorists during a gunfight between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters in Jenin. In July, at the behest of the Biden administration, a U.S. State Department-led investigation determined that the bullet which hit Abu Akleh was badly damaged, thus preventing a “clear conclusion.” The findings further affirmed that the gunfire likely originated from “IDF positions.” The statement, issued by State Department spokesman Ned Price, found no reason to believe that Abu Akleh’s killing was intentional but rather the “result of tragic circumstances.” An examination and forensic analysis of the bullet conducted by Israel’s Defense Forces similarly revealed a “high probability” that Abu Akleh was killed by accidental Israeli gunfire.
A new Right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu may cause problems
Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to office should come with few surprises to those in Washington. The Prime Minister is a known quantity, and he has maintained close political ties with President Biden since the time had served as a Senator and later as a Vice-President.
“The border in Israel is everywhere,” Aaron, our bus driver, a Jew of Uzbek origin, father of four, who speaks little but conveys an aura of security, tells me. His parents came to Israel in 1972, a year before the Yom Kippur War, from a country that many of us know only from hearing about Samarkand and the Silk Road.
They built a neighborhood of poor and very religious Jews in Jerusalem, giving it the name of the “Bukhara neighborhood”, after the sacred Uzbek city. “My parents were repeating ‘next year in Jerusalem’ and so they came here from the Soviet Union,” says Aaron. “I served in Gaza in the 1990s. One day we stopped a woman. She carried a kitchen knife half a meter long. Today is the era of Islam, the Turkish empire, the Chinese empire and the Russian empire. The West no longer exists”.
Deep changes in American society are a security risk for Israel.
Can Israel break its dependency on the United States?
The question has always been widely dismissed as unthinkable. But recent events are prompting it to be raised with increasing urgency.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been far from friendly towards Israel. Despite continuing to fund its defense needs and support it against the relentless malice of the U.N., the Bidenites’ reckless appeasement of the Iranian regime has increased the Islamic republic’s capacity to attack Israel. At the same time, the U.S. has repeatedly pressured Jerusalem to make dangerous concessions to the Palestinian Arabs.
There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Judiciary Committees, responded to news that the Biden administration seeks to open an FBI investigation into the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh.
Sen. Cruz said: “Joe Biden and his administration view Israel and Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu as political enemies, and so they are responding to them the way they respond to all their political enemies: by unleashing the FBI. Our Israeli allies have, since the very beginning, cooperated closely with the United States in investigating this incident, and the State Department and Defense Departments had already drawn their conclusions.”
Defeating Israel is part of a process to defeating the United States of America, the European Union and Canada, the leader of a Palestinian protest in Brussels declared in new footage released on Thursday by the NGO Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
Thursday’s CBS Mornings lived up to the liberal media’s deep-seated disdain for longtime Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu as election returns from Israel’s fifth election in four years appeared to put Netanyahu on a path to return to his post as prime minister after nearly a year and a half out of power.
Over the course of the nearly two-minute hit, CBS bemoaned his “right-wing coalition” would be revived thanks to the “extreme right” and take the turn on a “sharp shift rightward.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on the brink of a dramatic comeback, after partial results showed he was on course to win a majority in parliament with the far right’s help.
With 86% of votes from the general election counted, Mr Netanyahu’s bloc is set to win 65 out of 120 seats.
“We are close to a big victory,” he told jubilant supporters in Jerusalem.
However, he will be dependent on the support of the ultra-nationalist Religious Zionism party.
The United Nations has decided that Israel needs to get rid of its nuclear weapons — if indeed it has any. But the organization has nothing to say about Iran.
In a 152-5 vote on Friday, the UN’s General Assembly voted to have Israel dispose of its nuclear weapons and place any nuclear sites within its borders under the watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The dissenting votes were from the United States, Canada, Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Twenty-three nations and the European Union abstained.
Jason Sherman searched for the tree he planted -long distance for his bar mitzva and found a way to blast Israel – long distance.
Horrors! A Jewish filmmaker from Toronto thinks he has “discovered” evidence of Israeli misbehavior in 1948. Well, I’ve done a little research, and I’ve discovered some uncomfortable information about the filmmaker’s own home town.
At the center of this manufactured controversy is Jason Sherman, whose interest in Israel seems to have been minimal for most of his life until he was 50 years old, in 2012. According to his film, what triggered Sherman’s belated interest was his desire to locate the exact tree which the Jewish National Fund planted with the bar mitzvah money he contributed.
H/T MP
The Embassy of Israel in Ottawa says it feels at risk of violence after nearly three years of pushing Global Affairs Canada to increase its security.
It is exceptionally rare for embassies and consulates to go public with concerns about their security, but the Israeli Embassy provided two senior officials for an interview on the subject.
