Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Current issues

The press in Israel are focussing on several matters, most notably publication of the internal IDF Report of Gen. Giora Eiland to the IDF Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. This has found severe deficiences in the "botched" attack on the Mavi Marmara by Navy commandos, but has levelled no personal blame. The chief criticisms were the lack of pre-boarding intelligence on the passengers, the lack of intelligence about Turkey and how the relationship with the Turkish Government had changed rapidly, and the lack of coordination between the intelligence and Naval operations branch. Specifically, the Navy knew nothing about the 50 or so members of IHH who boarded separately and had received military training. They also ignored the fact that the Turkish Government was involved with the ship, including a Turkish naval vesel escorting it from Turkish waters. Finally, although this information became available, the plan for the operation was not changed at all, showing lack of coordination and flexibility. This Report will now be available to the official Government Turkel Commission into the incident, that will include political matters.

Another major issue is the fact that the agreement between the Orthodox and Conservative and Reform movements over official conversion to Judaism in Israel and abroad was suddenly altered unilaterally by the Orthodox Chair of the Knesset Panel, Israel Beitanu MK David Rotem. There were strong reactions from the US bodies that feared a double-cross. They appealed to Natan Sharansky, Head of the Jewish Agency, who was appointed by PM Netanyhau to help guide the Panel. Sharansky met with Netanyahu and briefed him, and as a result the Likud have removed their support from the proposed bill and so it will not be submitted to the Knesset for approval. What will happen now is unclear.

Finally, The Jerusalem Post reports that PA officials have intimated that the PA will not rule out direct talks, as they seemed to until a few days ago. Maybe the call from Pres. Obama to Pres Abbas was persuasive. It is about time that there was some pressure put in that direction. We should remember that from the Oslo Accords 15 years ago until a mere two years ago under PM Olmert, there were direct talks between the Israeli Govt. and the PA leadership. It was only Pres. Obama's pro-Palestinian slant that persuaded them that they need not continue in that way. Instead they have put pre-conditions on any direct talks of items that should in fact be the subject of those talks. The Palestinians have good reasons to delay, because they are the weaker party and have the most to lose. No Palestinian leader wants to go down in history as the one who gives up land (namely Israel) and does a deal that as well as including a Palestinian State also must include recognition of Israel as the Jewish State and accepting an "end of the conflict." But, the mere re-start of direct talks, if they actually occur, does not imply their successful conclusion.

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