A United Airlines flight on the runway at Ben Gurion International Airport. (FLASH90/Moshe Shai)
United Airlines cancels three flights but headlines shout that it “cancels all flights to Israel” amid coronavirus travel rule chaos.
By: Paul Shindman
United Airlines announced Monday it had canceled three flights to Israel, but in the fog of flip flop announcements of restrictions on air travel to Israel, the message got badly distorted, causing some agencies to report the airline had canceled all of its flights to the country.
With national elections to be held in two weeks, the government had little choice other than to allow tens of thousands of Israelis to return home from abroad in order to vote on March 23.
As of Sunday, the government allowed daily flights from New York, Frankfurt, London and Paris, but starting with only 1,000 passengers a day and expanding to 3,000 per day later in the week.
Those restrictions forced United to cut back three flights, as the airline received permission to operate only 20 flights a month to Israel, including a daily round-trip flight with passengers, Globes reported. To meet the restrictions, United had to cancel three weekly flights planned beyond the approved schedule, despite the large demand from passengers to depart and enter the country.
“United operates in accordance with the outline and guidelines set by the authorities in the State of Israel and in full cooperation with them,” the company said in a statement reported by Globes.
However, the canceled three flights were misread and resulted in one website using the headline “United Airlines cancels all flights to Israel due to country’s travel rules,” which quickly spread on social media.
“No, United Isn’t Cancelling All Of Their Flights To And From Israel Through March 20th, Despite News To The Contrary,” tweeted the discount ticket seller DansDeals.
The cancellations did leave hundreds of Israeli passengers on those three flights temporarily in limbo.
“I thought I was in the clear when Israel opened the skies, turns out United cancelled my flight that I booked in December WITHOUT telling me (I only found out when I called),” tweeted passenger Marissa Posner. “The agent then proceeded to lie to me for 2 hours & is refusing to transfer me to someone else who can help.”
“If anyone gives the opportunity to annex the Jordan Valley, do not turn a blind eye,” Gold said.
By: Paul Shindman
Israel’s former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold said Tuesday that the rejection by settlement leaders of the Trump peace plan was a mistake that Israelis will one day regret.
Several key leaders of the settlement movement objected strenuously to the Trump peace deal over fears it would both uproot Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria and lead to a Palestinian state that would threaten Israel.
Despite those fears, Gold said the goal of the Israeli negotiators was “to guarantee that all of the settlements would remain under Israeli sovereignty.”
“I think it was forbidden to object to it,” Gold said in an interview at the two-day “Quiet War” conference hosted online by the Makor Rishon newspaper and the Regavim pro-Zionist movement.
Gold said the failure to accept the plan would leave Israelis “crying for generations.”
Under the Trump plan Gold claimed, “We could get a great map for future generations and defend the country. If anyone gives the opportunity to annex the Jordan Valley, do not turn a blind eye.”
“In the history of Israel we knew when to say yes and when to say no, “Gold explained. “Did we love the [1947 United Nations] partition plan? No. We said yes. What happened in the end? [We received] much better lines.”
Gold retired from Israel’s foreign service several years ago and heads the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank, but said the Americans approached him for his opinions on the Trump peace deal.
“I told them I would gladly do so, as long as I could update the prime minister, even though I came as a private person,” Gold noted.
One of the outcomes of recent diplomatic developments is the progress from Israel and Saudi Arabia having Iran as a common threat to unite them.
“If Trump had continued, we would have already had diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia,” Gold postulated, adding that two decades ago the Saudis had provided more than half the Hamas terror group’s funding, but that had shrunk to nothing today.
“The one who provides the money for the missiles that Hamas fires is Iran,” Gold said. “In other words, it is our common enemy that has made the difference for the better in terms of the possible relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
In comparing the Trump and Biden administrations, Gold noted that the two are different, but Biden cares for Israel.
“President Trump was most friendly to issues that are important to us – settlement, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, as well as the scenario of the annexation of the Jordan Valley,” Gold said. “Biden came from a different atmosphere, even though he was a Democratic hawk when he was a senator, and was also a man with a fondness for Israel.”
Gold called the Biden administration’s conduct on backing Israel against criminal investigations by the International Criminal Court issue “excellent. “
The implementation of the first milestone in the deployment of the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) smart payment framework in Israel set out by the Governor of the Bank of Israel has recently been concluded, the Bank of Israel announced Tuesday. Photo Credit: Photo by Adele Lipkin/TPS on 25 July, 2019
By: TPS Staff
The implementation of the first milestone in the deployment of the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) smart payment framework in Israel set out by the Governor of the Bank of Israel has recently been concluded, the Bank of Israel announced Tuesday.
Based on data from Automated Banking Services, as of the end of January 2021, smart terminals make up 54% of all terminals in Israel, and the number of smart transactions is about 23% of all transactions.
About 67% of the smart transactions are contactless transactions, whether by credit card or by smartphone.
The number of smart terminals and the number of smart transactions is expected to continue to increase in the coming months, with the recent end of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown and the renewal of commercial activity, and in accordance with the next stages of the framework for adopting the standard in 2021, the Bank of Israel estimates.
The Bank of Israel is urging merchants who have not yet completed the switch to EMV to contact their merchant acquirer or hardware supplier and to complete the switch and join the payment revolution in Israel, benefiting from secure and more advanced transactions.
By July 2021, many additional businesses will have joined the advanced payment method, ahead of the next significant milestone on July 31, 2021, when the acquiring of transactions at all businesses, other than exceptional cases, will only be possible via the EMV standard.
At businesses that switched to full EMV, the terminal can be turned to face the customers who can carry out the payment on their own, conveniently, rapidly, and with a range of payment opportunities. Among the payment possibilities are contactless payment for transactions up to NIS 300, payment by entering a secret code for transactions that exceed NIS 300, payment via digital wallets, payment via wearable means of payment such as smart-watches, or payment via a payment application from domestic and international entities.
Within the framework of the economic plan to deal with the Coronavirus crisis, a plan was launched by the Small and Medium Business Administration at the Ministry of the Economy and Industry and by the Ministry of Finance, to help in the integration of purchasing via the EMV standard. The plan makes it possible to get back up to 80% of the cost of implementation.
Bank of Israel Payment and Settlement Systems Department Director Oded Salomy said that “the framework that the Bank of Israel is leading to shift payment card activity in Israel to EMV, is in line with advanced economies worldwide and makes new and innovative value proposals in Israel possible.”
Supervisor of Banks Yair Avidan said that “in recent years, the Bank of Israel has been leading many steps to promote innovation and competition in the financial market, including in the payments market. The market’s switch to the EMV standard is an additional infrastructure step, which will enable the various payment service providers in the economy to develop advanced and innovative payment services for the Israeli consumer.”
Former President Barack Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, delivers a statement on the Iran nuclear agreement in the East Room of the White House on July 14, 2015. Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.
“Attempting to abide by the JCPOA would result in more for less: Iran more capable and the U.S. with less leverage,” said Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of JINSA.
By: JNS.org
A new report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) details how it would nearly impossible both politically and technically for the Biden administration to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
According to “No going back now: The case against returning to the JCPOA,” Iran has violated the original agreement to such an extent that “simply abiding by the letter of the JCPOA would leave Iran with too advanced a nuclear program for the United States to accept, and too many economic constraints for Tehran to abide.”
“This creates the possibility of an untenable ‘more for less’ interim outcome in which the United States tries to get back to the original nuclear agreement by giving up too many sanctions in exchange for too few nuclear concessions from Tehran,” it said.
The report listed several technical, political and strategic hurdles that would likely make it impossible to return to the deal. Among them is the fact that it would take Iran several months to reverse its violations of the JCPOA, including uninstalling centrifuges, and diluting and cutting its enriched uranium stockpile. Iran has also taken several actions to expand its nuclear infrastructure beyond what was considered in the agreement, such as experimenting with advanced centrifuges and building new underground facilities.
“Since the JCPOA’s implementation in 2015, the world has learned more about the existence and scope of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, primarily due to Israel’s covert seizure of secret Iranian nuclear archives in 2018. Returning to the JCPOA would do nothing to resolve the growing list of inspectors’ concerns about the full extent of Iran’s weaponization work, nor the fact that Iran has been acting in bad faith since 2015 toward the other JCPOA participants,” said the report.
Politically, the Biden administration would also face an uphill battle with Congress, which would have to remove or waive certain sanctions. The Biden administration will also have to weigh contending viewpoints that are highly skeptical of any return to the deal.
Meanwhile, in Iran, hardliners within the regime are also highly wary of the JCPOA and engagement with the United States, according to the report, leaving little flexibility for ostensibly more “moderate” leaders like President Hassan Rouhani to ensure Iran’s return to compliance.
The Biden administration has urged Iran to go back to the parameters of the original deal in order to restart negotiations and lift heavy sanctions imposed under the Trump administration. So far, the Islamic regime has rejected any return to strict compliance with the original deal.
Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of JINSA, said “the Biden administration has demanded that Tehran come back into strict compliance with the JCPOA before the U.S. re-enters the agreement, but it should recognize that it is impossible to go back to the original deal and dangerous to try. Iran’s nuclear program is far more advanced than in 2015, while U.S. sanctions are far more extensive.
“Attempting to abide by the JCPOA would result in more for less: Iran more capable and the U.S. with less leverage,” he continued. “The Biden administration must hold strong to the position that a bad deal is worse than no deal.”
Hershel Shanks founded the Biblical Archaeology Society in 1974 and researched and wrote a book named “The City of David: A Guide to Biblical Jerusalem” in 1975. Photo Credit: biblicalarchaeology.org/obituary/
By Ilana Siyance
Hershel Shanks had been a real estate lawyer in Washington, with no training as an archaeologist nor as a biblical scholar. Notwithstanding, he ended up founding and editing a popular magazine which uncovered biblical ancient Israel, making it accessible to scores of readers.
Mr. Shanks, the prolific editor, author and attorney, passed away on Feb. 5 at his home in Washington, at the age of 90. He had been born in 1930 in Western Pennsylvania. In his youth, he had been editor of his high school newspaper. He received his law degree from Harvard, and worked for a few years at the Department of Justice, moving onto private practice, specializing in real estate law, and being named partner. In 1972 he took a yearlong break and traveled to Israel with his wife and two daughters, where somehow a strong passion for biblical archeological digs enveloped him.
In 1974, he founded the Biblical Archaeology Society. He researched and wrote a book named “The City of David: A Guide to Biblical Jerusalem” in 1975. Doing so, he made lasting associations with leading archaeologists. That year, even as he returned to Washington, he was determination to continue in this new quest, and to publish a magazine about intriguing discoveries and scholarly controversies which would even end up substantiating the Bible’s authenticity.
As reported by the NY Times, he started Biblical Archaeology Review in his mid-40s, writing all the articles himself for the first issue. The magazine, which Mr. Shanks headed for more than 40 years until his retirement in 2017, successfully transformed technical and obscure information into digestible and interesting material for tens of thousands of readers. “He had a wonderful knack for turning dry academic content into something that was accessible,” said Glenn K. Corbett, the magazine’s current editor. The magazine boasted 230,000 paid subscribers in the early 2000s, with a pass-along readership of 600,000, although those numbers are much lower now, in the digital age.
In 1987, Mr. Shanks gave up his law practice and purchased a second magazine. Moment, a Jewish affairs bimonthly, had been started 12 years earlier by renowned author Elie Wiesel and Leonard Fein. Mr. Shank served as publisher and editor until 2004.
Mr. Shank’s daughter Elizabeth Alexander, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, said the cause of his death was complications from Covid-19. Mr. Shank is survived by his wife, Judith Shanks; his daughters, Elizabeth, Julia and Leah Gordon; and two grandchildren.
The figurine, 7 cm high and 6 cm wide, was made in a mold. It shows a woman with a scarf covering her head and neck, schematic facial features and a prominent nose. Photo by IAA on 9 March, 2021
By: TPS
A few weeks ago, 11-year-old Zvi Ben-David from Be’er Sheva was on a family trip to Nahal HaBesor in the south when he saw an unusual object. Picking it up, he saw it was a pottery figurine of a woman. His mother, Miriam Ben-David, a professional tour guide, realized it was an important archeological find and contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
The figurine, depicting a bare-breasted woman wearing a scarf, is an amulet that was believed to protect children or increase fertility. Only one similar sample, also from the northern Negev, is preserved in Israel’s National Treasures collection.
Oren Shmueli, district archaeologist for the IAA in the western Negev, and Debbie Ben Ami, curator of the Iron Age and Persian periods in the IAA, said the rare figurine was probably used in the sixth–fifth centuries BCE, at the end of the Iron Age or in the Persian period, the late First Temple period, or the return to Zion, some 2,500 years ago.
The figurine, 7 cm high and 6 cm wide, was made in a mold. It shows a woman with a scarf covering her head and neck, schematic facial features and a prominent nose. The woman is bare-breasted and her hands are folded under her chest.
Shmueli and Ben-Ami explained that the “pottery figurines of bare-breasted women are known from various periods in Israel, including the First Temple era. They were common in the home and in everyday life, like the hamsa [palm-shaped amulet] today, and apparently served as amulets to ensure protection, good luck and prosperity.”
“We must bear in mind that in antiquity, medical understanding was rudimentary. Infant mortality was very high and about a third of those born did not survive. There was little understanding of hygiene, and fertility treatment was naturally non-existent. In the absence of advanced medicine, amulets provided hope and an important way of appealing for aid,” they said.
The figurine was delivered to the National Treasures collection and is being studied by Shmueli and Ben-Ami, in collaboration with Raz Kletter from the University of Helsinki in Finland.
The archaeologists said that “the exemplary citizenship of young Zvi Ben-David will enable us to improve our understanding of cultic practices in biblical times, and man’s inherent need for material human personifications.”
Zvi was awarded a certificate of appreciation for good citizenship by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The IDF has launched a Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination campaign for workers coming from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to work in Israel on Monday, the IDF’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced. Photo by Eitan Elhadez-Barak/TPS on 22 December, 2020
By: Aryeh Savir
The IDF has launched a Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination campaign for workers coming from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to work in Israel on Monday, the IDF’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced.
Some 120,000 PA Arabs will be vaccinated by Israeli medical teams with Moderna vaccines, which have been allocated by the state, at eight different locations throughout Judea and Samaria.
A pilot conducted on Thursday at the vaccination compound that opened at Shaar Ephraim ended successfully and the first 700 workers were vaccinated.
Hundreds of workers arrived at the eight locations on Monday to receive the first of their two shots.
“As part of the fight against the spread of the Coronavirus” and in accordance with the COGAT’s recommendation and Israel’s Ministry of Health, Israel’s leadership approved last week the vaccination campaign for Palestinian workers with employment licenses in Israel, “in order to maintain public health and the functioning of the economy.”
The operation, led by the IDF’s Central Command, COGAT, the Ministry of Health, and the Crossings Authority, included the establishment of dedicated vaccination complexes at several crossings in Judea and Samaria and in industrial areas throughout Judea and Samaria.
COGAT commander Major General Kamil Abu Rukun stated that the vaccination operation serves a “common health and economic interest as we live in one epidemiological space, and we must all take part in the effort to eradicate the spread of the Coronavirus in the area while maintaining public health and the functioning of the economy. Only in this way can we defeat the corona, and restore the routine of life.”
The pandemic is raging in the PA and the pace of vaccinations by its health ministry is slow.
Kamal Shakhra, head of the Coronavirus section at the Ministry of Health, told the Voice of Palestine Radio on Sunday that the health system is “working at its maximum capacity around the clock” and warned of its collapse due to the overwhelming number of COVID-19 cases.
Hezbollah’s War Media Center issued a statement in which it said that an Israeli drone flying over the outskirts of the town of Blida in southern Lebanon was “targeted with the suitable weapons.”
By: Aryeh Savir
The Hezbollah terror organization fired at an IDF drone flying over Lebanon on Monday night, the Hezbollah-link Al Manar news reported.
Hezbollah’s War Media Center issued a statement in which it said that an Israeli drone flying over the outskirts of the town of Blida in southern Lebanon was “targeted with the suitable weapons.”
The statement added that Hezbollah had targeted earlier in the day another drone that flew over Lebanon in the same area, allegedly forcing it to fly back to Israel
The Lebanese army also said it fired at an Israeli drone flying over the border town of Mays Al-Jabal on Monday.
The IDF has remained silent on the reports.
Hezbollah recently fired at IDF drones flying missions over Lebanon.
On February 3, The IDF stated that anti-aircraft fire was launched at a remotely manned aircraft during a routine operation over Lebanese territory. The drone was not damaged and continued its mission.
A few days before that incident, Hezbollah announced that it had downed an IDF drone flying over southern Lebanon. The IDF said that it had crashed and that there was no fear of an intelligence leakage.
In October 2019, an SA8 surface-to-air missile was fired at an Israeli drone over Lebanon but missed its mark.
The drones are primarily used for reconnaissance, data collection, and target marking.
The IDF Intelligence Division’s annual forecast for 2021 estimates that the Lebanon-based Hezbollah is deterred from a war with Israel and is not interested in a full-scale war with it.
However, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is ready to carry out an attack on the border fence, even at the cost of an unusual Israeli response that will lead to a day or days of fighting, and is also ready to down an Air Force drone to reach a balance in the kill equation, it estimates.
Israeli F-15s escort the American B-52, March 7, 2021. (Courtesy Israel Defense Forces)
The attempt at reassurance comes at a time of growing concern among U.S. partners and allies in the region over President Biden’s reversal of many Trump administration policies.
By: Josh Plank
Israeli F-15 fighter jets escorted two American B-52H Stratofortress bombers through Israeli airspace on Sunday as the bombers flew across the Middle East in an effort to “reassure partners and allies of the U.S. military’s commitment to security in the region.”
“This flight is part of the joint strategic cooperation with U.S. forces, which is pivotal in maintaining the security of Israeli and Middle Eastern skies,” tweeted the Israel Defense Forces along with photographs, one of which appeared to show the aircraft over the city of Shiloh in Samaria.
In a press release on Sunday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said that the purpose of the multinational patrol mission, the fourth bomber deployment into the Middle East this year, was to “deter aggression and reassure partners and allies of the U.S. military’s commitment to security in the region.”
While the statement did not specify which nation’s “aggression” the U.S. meant to deter, the move is widely seen as a signal to Iran.
The U.S. was less cryptic about which nations it meant to “reassure,” saying, “Multiple partner nations and U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft accompanied the U.S. bombers at different points during the flight, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”
“The U.S. Air Force routinely moves aircraft and personnel into, out of, and around the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to meet mission requirements, and to train with regional partners, underscoring the importance of strategic partnerships,” the statement said.
The attempt to calm allies’ fears comes at a time of growing concern among U.S. partners in the region over President Biden’s reversal of many Trump administration policies.
Chief among these is the Biden administration’s intention to reenter the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, which Prime Minister Netanyahu called “disastrous.”
Biden has also aimed to “recalibrate” relations with Saudi Arabia and has ended U.S. support for the Saudi military offensive against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki last month struggled to answer whether Saudi Arabia and Israel were even still “important allies,” finally backtracking to admit several days later that at least in Israel’s case, the alliance still stood.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Health Yuli Edelstein arrived at a Tel Aviv clinic on Monday to meet Janet Lavi-Azulai, the five millionth Israeli to receive the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine. Photo by GPO on 8 March, 2021
By: Aryeh Savir
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Health Yuli Edelstein arrived at a Tel Aviv clinic on Monday to meet Janet Lavi-Azulai, the five millionth Israeli to receive the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.
Janet Lavi-Azulai, 34, is pregnant and requested to be vaccinated.
During the event, Netanyahu estimated that by the end of April the entire adult population in Israel will be vaccinated.
“We are working to bring in tens of millions more vaccines that will prevent further closures. By the end of April, the entire adult population will be vaccinated – a global achievement,” Netanyahu stated.
“We are ahead of the entire world population. Later, the children will also be vaccinated. Pfizer estimates that children under the age of 16 will soon also [be vaccinated]. [Vaccine] factories are also being built here. Factories that will stay here forever,” he added.
Netanyahu said last month that he has been in contact with the heads of Pfizer and Moderna “with the aim of establishing a vaccine plant in Israel.”
“A blue-and-white vaccine plant will provide a livelihood for thousands of families and make Israel a global center for the production, development and distribution of vaccines to the countries of the region,” he said.
Edelstein shared at the event that “it’s very pleasant sometimes to make a mistake. A few weeks ago, when someone said in the office: ‘We will do this when we reach five million vaccinated,’ I said: I’m not sure we’ll get five million vaccinated. And here, this is an opportunity to say well-done to the citizens of Israel who came to get vaccinated.”
“Thanks to these vaccines we can open almost anything: the economy, culture, sports, leisure, tourism,” he said while calling on all citizens to continue adhering to the social distancing guidelines.
The University of Oxford’s Our World in Data tracker, a global, aggregated database on COVID-19, showed Israel was the fastest country in vaccinating its population.
On a scale of the number of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people within a given population, Israel came in first with 1.04, ahead of Chile with 0.94, and the US with 0.65.
Over 53% of Israelis have received the first dose of the Pfizer-developed COVID-19 vaccine, and over 3.8 million Israelis – about 40% – have received the second dose.
The bomb that went off outside the Israeli embassy in Delhi in late January was plotted and guided by Iran, Indian media outlets reported Monday.
The blast on January 29 caused no casualties and no harm was caused to the embassy’s building. The explosive charge caused damage to several cars on the street.
India’s central counterterrorism agencies’ investigations have led them to the conclusion that the Quds force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) foreign operations unit, was behind the terror attack.
Investigators have found that the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), initially thought to be a crude device, was planted by a local Shia terror cell using a remote and using the Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) or ammonium nitrate (AFNO) explosive materials.
India’s security agencies exposed what they described as deliberate false-flag cyber markers left by the bombers pointing to the Islamic State’s (ISIS) alleged involvement, but the counterterror agencies are certain that the blast was part of “the asymmetric warfare campaign” being carried out by the IRGC against Israel.
The bomb was not powerful and was not intended to cause human losses, “perhaps because the Iranians did not want to run afoul of a friendly nation like India. But the message was clear and the threat is real,” a counterterror expert is quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.
The Mossad is in the loop.
A security camera near the embassy recorded two people getting out of a taxi near the place where the explosive was planted. The taxi driver was located and testified and was able to provide the police with a sketch of the two suspects.
An Israeli intelligence source is quoted as saying that the attack “was intended for us for sure, there is probably a connection and direction from Iran.”
Israel Foreign Minister Gazbi Ashkenazi stated Sunday that “in recent days, we have witnessed an increase in Iranian efforts to undermine regional security and stability. Iran’s fingerprints are clearly identifiable in recent attempts on Israeli targets around the world.”
Iran has previously targeted Israel’s diplomatic mission in India. On February 13, 2012, three members of the Qods forces targeted Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of the Israeli Defense Attaché, with a magnetic bomb attached to her car while she was on her way to pick up her children from school.
Yehoshua Koren sustained moderate injuries that required surgery to remove shrapnel while her Indian driver and two bystanders suffered minor injuries.
The underwater cable will be laid in the Mediterranean Sea at the length of about 1,500 km and at a maximum depth of about 2,700 meters and will connect the electricity networks of the three countries to Europe. Photo by Kobi Richter/TPS on 18 December, 2019
By: Aryeh Savir
Israeli Minister of Energy Dr. Yuval Steinitz, Minister Natasa Pilides of Cyprus, and Minister Kostas Skrekas of Greece gathered in Nicosia on Monday and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the laying of the EuroAsia Interconnector that will connect Israel’s power grid to the European one.
The underwater cable will be laid in the Mediterranean Sea at the length of about 1,500 km and at a maximum depth of about 2,700 meters and will connect the electricity networks of the three countries to Europe.
The EuroAsia Interconnector will enable Israel to receive electricity from the European power grids in times of emergency, and more importantly, will also support Israel’s endeavor to significantly increase its reliance on solar power.
This electric line is the longest and deepest cable in the world and will be able to carry a capacity of 1,000-2,000 megawatts.
The Euro-Asian underwater power cable will be laid over three sections in the Mediterranean. The first segment is about 310 km long between Israel and Cyprus, the second is about 900 km between Cyprus and Crete, and another 310 km will run between Crete and Attica in Greece.
The cable is expected to be completed by 2024. The cost of the project is estimated at NIS 3 billion and the European Union, which has recognized the project as a Project of Common Interest (PCI) as an energy highway bridging Asia and Europe, will fund parts of it.
In the MOU, the three countries agreed to cooperate in advancing the project while cooperating in coordinating, developing, and implementing it in the field.
The ministers also agreed to cooperate on environmental protection and the promotion of renewable energies in accordance with the Paris Agreement, to promote cooperation and the transfer of professional information in the field of energy.
The project will also end Cyprus and Crete’s energy isolation and connect them to the European network.
Steinitz lauded the MOU as “great news for the citizens of Israel” that will support the government’s plan to generate a third of Israel’s electricity from solar power by 2030.
Just what is it about Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, that has the entire Progressive/Democrat/Socialist crowd and their media lemmings frothing at the mouth and scrambling around looking for skeletons in his closet? Photo Credit: AP
Just what is it about Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, that has the entire Progressive/Democrat/Socialist crowd and their media lemmings frothing at the mouth and scrambling around looking for skeletons in his closet? It’s no secret. Any unbiased observer, scrutinizing his leadership, concern for his citizens and his professionalism in successfully dealing with the Chinese Virus crisis, during his term in office, will tell you: “He’s a straight shooter. He doesn’t play political games and many Floridians, both young and old, are alive today because of the decisions he’s made as their governor.” DeSantis’s experience while serving with a Navy Seal Team in Iraq and earning a Bronze Star for heroism and his tenure as a Congressman has served him well as a fearless leader and has him now as a major contender for the Republican nomination for President in 2014. This scares the you-know-what out of the Left. And rightly so.
He had the chutzpah to go against the wavering “professional” advice from the medical maven, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been all over the place with his calls first against, and later for face-masks, keeping kids out of school for over a year and with his dictates to keep businesses closed until he sees fit to raise the checkered flag for them to re-open. Thoughtfully, DeSantis has pushed for schools in the state to reopen quicker than most other states, leading teacher unions in the state to sue him. And although the mainstream media and opposing politicians were furious at his joining Trump’s skepticism of the efficacy of mask wearing, Florida now ranks 29th among the states in cases per 100,000 residents and 26th in deaths per 100,000 residents according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And may we add that the Sunshine State outranks New York in the numbers of vulnerable seniors living in the state. If you or your loved ones were residents in a nursing facility, where would you rather be? Your answer?
There are not many Floridians packing up to relocate to NY, NJ, Pennsylvania or Illinois. Rather, the numbers of those living in states run by Progressives are flocking out to more efficiently and safely run states that offer lower taxes, better schooling for their kids and warmer climes. It’s time that people start looking, not at the political affiliations of politicians at election time, but the performance and outlook of those running for office. What have they done? Not what they promise to do. Who are their backers? If guys like George Soros are shelling out their dough to put their favorites in office, watch out! Be wary of the political Royal Families such as the Bush’s, Clinton’s and Cuomo’s who tend to act as if leadership is their birthright, not something one learns through experience and insight. We believe that Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis is such an individual and we wish him well in the future. If we were in the baseball business, and he were a free agent, we’d be offering him a home in the Big Apple. He’s a rising star in the sport of politics and we’re working to get an exclusive interview from him.
Teachers around the country who are avoiding going back into the classrooms have to be taught a lesson. No work….no pay…no job to return to. But, by wielding their political clout, teacher unions around the country are using the Chinese Virus epidemic as an excuse to basically “go on strike” and refuse to report to their schools and teach, while, of course, getting paid for their absences. The reports we get that teaching is going on with the new found technique of “virtual learning” is hogwash. Lower income kids, mainly those kids of color, who normally have difficulty enough, according to educational reports, of learning while in traditional classroom settings, are not at all being subjected to learning situations while supposedly sitting at their kitchen tables, staring at laptops.
While sitting in their assigned seats during normal K-12 classes, teachers could quietly and efficiently take attendance, physically oversee their classes while monitoring the physical and emotional health of their students individually by simple eye contact. Not possible at all through the computer method. Visual learning may be appropriate and worthwhile in a college setting with mature and focused students, but with 5-17 year olds, a total failure. However, for teachers who “work from home,” this is heaven. No travel to work, no handling discipline problems, no way of being observed for efficiency by their supervisors and no way to focus on slow learners and give individual assistance to those who need help. A total bust.
Do these stay at home, away from work teachers feel any angst or guilt while doing real-live shopping in shops, being catered to by on the job, low paid employees who physically, in person, lay out and prepare merchandise for all their customers? No way. These pampered “educators” have the clout that many others do not. They whine that they are fearful of catching the virus from their students. Not so. Researchers at Brown University found 0.076 % of students had confirmed cases of the virus and 0.15% for teachers. Not too risky at all and less so if masks are worn, temperatures are taken and social distancing is maintained. Cashiers, retail clerks, doctors, waiters and plumbers, to name just a few occupations were at far greater risk in the workplace than teachers. And they’re on the job.
In NYC, the cost to educate a student runs about $24,000 per year. In normal times without the fear of this pandemic, the efficiency of the school system is less than acceptable. In the 2019 figures for those high school seniors taking the SAT exams, only 42% met college reading scores and a dismal 30% did so in math. And these figures were for those who actually took the test in preparations for college entrance. No telling the dismal results coming up later this year for “graduating seniors.” Our teachers, fakingly fearful of returning to do their jobs while earning their salaries are criminally negligent and are deserving of a failing grade. They must be taught a lesson. No work, no pay and no job to return to.
Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts, in partnership with Southampton African American Museum, is pleased to announce the special online presentation of Martin Luther King Jr: A Personal Portrait on Thursday, March 25, at 8 p.m. via Zoom. Following the screening, Emmy Award-winning cinematographer George Silano, who filmed the footage over the course of a week in December 1965, will join Brenda Simmons of SAAM for a question-and-answer session. Tickets are free at baystreet.org; email registration is required. For additional information, contact Marketing Coordinator, Michael Pintauro, at [email protected]
Martin Luther King Jr: A Personal Portrait is an intimate and candid glimpse at the life of America’s great Civil Rights leader, at a high point in his work and the Civil Rights Movement. Filmed in his Atlanta home over the course of a week in December 1965, the documentary introduces Dr. King shortly following his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize and the passage of the The Civil Rights Act. Dr. King speaks openly with the film’s producer, journalist Arnold Michaelis, about his position within the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and the notion of sacrificing one’s own life in the fight for a higher cause. The film includes rare footage of a discussion with King’s wife, Coretta, who provides her own unique perspective of their home life and his activism.
Arnold Michaelis is a renowned television producer and journalist, who over the course of his career interviewed such important cultural figures as John Wayne and Leonard Bernstein to Eleanor Roosevelt and Indira Gandhi. To help create the film, Michaelis hired freelance cinematographer, George Silano, who would later rediscover the footage in 2012 in the archives of the University of Georgia, where the film had been kept following Michaelis’ death in 1997.
George Silano is an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer and photographer whose career has spanned fifty years. In addition to his work on Martin Luther King Jr.: A Personal Portrait, Silano worked on a number of feature length documentaries, including The City of Ships, Changing World, The Hippie Temptation, and What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? He directed the film The Stoolie, and was director of photography on films Recess and The Last American Hero. He lives in North Haven.
Born and raised in Southampton, Brenda Simmons earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Community Human Services with a Concentration in Advocacy from SUNY Empire State University. From 2005 to 2015, she served as the Assistant to the Mayor and Recording Secretary in the Village of Southampton. She is Founder and Executive Director of the Southampton African American Museum (SAAM), located in a former restaurant and barbershop dating to the late 1940s, a place well known as “The Gathering Place” for Blacks at that time. She is Founder of the Pyrrhus Concer Action Committee (PCAC), which was formed to preserve the homestead of Pyrrhus Concer, a former indentured servant, legendary whaler, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who was born in Southampton Village in 1814.
Bay Street Theater is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center, which endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. It serves as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.
Sincerely Michael Pintauro
The Moshavim Movement Turns 100
Dear Editor:
The Moshavim Movement celebrated 100 years since the establishment of the first moshav at Beit HaNasi with the participation of President of Israel Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin on Monday March 8th/ 24 Adar. The Moshavim Movement represents 254 villages across the country, from Kfar Yuval in the north to Faran in the southern Arava.
Secretary General of the Moshavim Movement Amit Yifrah and representatives of moshavim from around the country, including Elad Betzer, a third-generation descendant of the founders of Nahalal; Menashe Malmud, a founder of Kfar Mallal; Shaike Shaked of Nativ Ha’asarah close to the Gaza border; and Shimon Bitton from Avivim, on the Lebanese border, also participated in the event. Shimon was rescued from the terrorist attack on the bus in Avivim in 1970 in which he lost his father and cousins.
Liora Hasson from Moshav Na’ama in the Jordan Valley told the president about the farm she has run from the establishment of the moshav. Liora asked to emphasize today, International Women’s Day, the work of Israel’s women farmers who have worked the land from the establishment of the moshavim until today.
“As many of you know, my late wife Nechama ז”ל was from Moshav Herut, part of the Moshavim Movement,” said the president. “She was a child of nature, a moshavnikit, a woman of the soil. Her mother, Drora-Kayla, ran the farm alone, together with her daughters,” said the president, noting the importance of the national and personal undertaking the moshavnikim fulfilled in the history of Israel.
“This past year has taught us how important and non-trivial it is to be able to enjoy and celebrate the nature with which the State of Israel is blessed. For those of us who aren’t fortunate enough, like you, to live in the green, rural areas of Israel, we have understood the importance and advantages they bring us all even more clearly – for leisure and holidays, but for so much more – for maintaining or borders and for established and sustainable Israeli agriculture,” said the president at the end of his remarks, wishing the next generation continue in the path forged by the pioneers of the Moshavim Movement a century ago, and that they grow in Israel from a deep connection to the history, nature and agriculture of the place, and to the bounty of its produce.
U.S. President Joe Biden talks on the phone with Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 22, 2021. Credit: Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz.
Lip service aside, the administration’s moves make clear that for Biden and his advisers, Arab-Israel peace is an impediment to their ideologically motivated efforts to empower the PLO and Iran.
By: Caroline Glick
The Trump administration was on the verge of securing a peace agreement between Israel and Indonesia in its final weeks in office, according to a former senior Trump administration official involved in the efforts. The official divulged that the negotiations between Israel and the world’s most populous Muslim state were run by then-President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and Adam Boehler, then-head of the International Development Finance Corporation.
Israel was represented by then-Ambassador Ron Dermer and Indonesia by Minister Mohamed Lutfi. To secure peace, Boehler told Bloomberg News last December, the United States would be willing to provide Indonesia with an additional “one or two billion dollars” in aid. Indonesia was interested in Israeli technology and even wanted the Technion to open a campus in Jakarta. It wanted visa-free travel to the Jewish state and Arab and U.S. investment in its sovereign wealth fund. Israel wanted Indonesia to end its economic boycott of the Jewish state. Direct flights from Tel Aviv to Bali were on the table.
The advantages of peace between Israel and Indonesia for both sides are self-evident. But such a peace would also pay a huge dividend to the United States in its burgeoning cold war with China. An expanded strategic and economic partnership with the archipelago and ASEAN member would be a setback for China’s efforts to dominate the South China Sea, particularly with Indonesia playing a role in an Islamic-Israeli alliance led by the United States.
“We got the ball on Indonesia and Israel to the first-yard line,” the official explained. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has dropped the ball on the ground and walked off the field.
On the surface, the Biden administration is interested in promoting peace. President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have praised the Abraham Accords, as well they should.
For 26 years, the Arab conflict with Israel was ignored and left to fester. Then suddenly, in Trump’s last year in office, the situation was reversed as four Arab states rapidly normalized their ties with Israel. Expanding the accords to Indonesia, with its massive population and strategic location outside the Middle East, would have transformed a strategic regional shift into a game-changer throughout Asia.
But despite the strategic logic of expanding the Abraham Accords and the praise Biden and Blinken have given them, starting in its first week in office, the new administration’s actions have served to undermine the accords by removing their American foundations.
A week into the Biden administration, the State Department announced it was “placing a hold” on the $23 billion sale of F-35s to the United Arab Emirates. The move was presented as “a routine administrative action typical to most any transition.”
But suspending the sale was a strategic move, not an “administrative action.” The normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates was a three-sided agreement. The Americans were full participants. The F-35 sale was America’s way to solidify the UAE’s membership in an American-led regional alliance of which the Abraham Accords were an expression. Suspending the deal indicated that unlike its predecessor, the Biden administration will not work to strengthen its alliance with the Sunni Arabs and Israel, and will not fulfill the commitments that the Trump administration took on to develop and maintain that alliance through Arab-Israeli peace.
Biden’s abandonment of the Abraham Accords can be understood in the context of U.S. politics. In keeping with the expectations of Democrat voters, Biden and his team are making efforts in domestic and foreign policy to erase the entirety of Trump’s record in office. Although remaining a party to the Abraham Accords and expanding them to Indonesia and beyond would probably win Biden the Nobel Peace Prize, it would put him in the partisan doghouse for the crime of failing to kill something Trump created.
But while political logic exists, not everything is political. For Biden and his administration, ideology trumps politics.
The Biden administration is the most ideologically rigid and radical administration in U.S. history. Hyper-partisan politics are a function of the administration’s ideological radicalism. As far as the Middle East is concerned, its ideological commitments drive it to empower the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority and Iran.
From their first days in office, senior Biden administration officials have pledged to restore U.S. funding of the P.A. There are significant legal roadblocks to implementing that pledge because so long as the P.A. continues to pay the salaries of terrorists and advances war crimes allegations against Israel before the International Criminal Court, the United States is barred from funding it or reopening the PLO representative office in Washington. But all the same, the administration is intent on moving forward.
The administration’s intense desire to empower the P.A. despite the legal roadblocks indicates one aspect of its opposition to the Abraham Accords. The accords weaken the P.A. by removing its power to block Arab and Islamic states from making peace with Israel.
For decades, as Israel’s Palestinian “peace partner” spurned peace and waged terror and political war against Israel, the Arab states accepted that peace between themselves and Israel had to wait. By ignoring the U.S. obligations to Abraham Accords partners and pushing to restore U.S. support to the P.A. despite its illegality, the administration signals its desire to restore the Palestinian veto.
The Abraham Accords represent an even greater problem for the administration’s efforts to empower Iran. In a speech on Monday, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo said, “The Abraham Accords would not have happened … without the United States changing its policy with respect to Iran 180 degrees from how the previous administration had addressed the issue.”
Now that the Biden administration wishes to move U.S. policy 180 degrees back to reinstate the Obama administration’s policies, the Abraham Accords are a nuisance.
Hours before Biden and his advisers accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of approving Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, i24News reported that Israel, Saudi Arabia the UAE and Bahrain were forming a military alliance against Iran. Photo Credit: Britannica.com
Hours before Biden and his advisers accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of approving Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, i24News reported that Israel, Saudi Arabia the UAE and Bahrain were forming a military alliance against Iran. While the events may or may not be related, both make clear why the Biden administration doesn’t want Arab-Israeli or Muslim-Israeli peace deals. Such deals impede the administration’s efforts to empower Iran.
Biden’s declared goal vis-à-vis Iran is to restore Iranian compliance and U.S. participation in the 2015 nuclear deal forged by the Obama administration. The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action places temporary limitations on Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for a massive inflow of capital. To convince Iranian leader Ali Khamenei to get on board, the new administration has provided a near-continuous stream of concessions to Iran and its Yemeni proxy, the Houthis.
It removed the Houthis from the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations and suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The administration’s campaign against MBS is an obvious effort to unseat him and replace him with a less stridently anti-Iran leader. This week the administration’s green-lighted South Korea’s agreement to pay Iran some $7 billion in exchange for the release of a South Korean ship and its crew that Iran unlawfully seized and has held captive since early January.
Not only has Iran rejected America’s gestures, but it is also expanding its regional aggression and sprinting to the nuclear finish line. In recent weeks the Iranians attacked the Israeli embassy in New Delhi. They damaged an Israeli-owned ship in the Persian Gulf. And there is growing suspicion that the massive oil spill off Israel’s coast last month which caused massive ecological damage to marine life and to Israel’s coastline was an act of environmental terrorism carried out by a Libyan ship smuggling crude oil from Iran to Syria.
Iran’s Houthi proxies have expanded their missile strikes against Saudi Arabia since coming off the U.S. terror list. And while the U.S. uses MBS’s alleged role in killing Khashoggi to justify downgrading its relations with Saudi Arabia, the Iranians are killing scores of democracy protesters in its Baluchistan province. Whereas Khashoggi was a former Saudi intelligence officer and ally of Osama bin Laden who was working with Qatar to undermine the Saudi regime at the time he was killed; the Baluchis are innocent civilians whose sole crime is opposing the repressive regime.
As far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned, in recent days, the Iranians canceled snap inspections of their nuclear sites by U.N. nuclear inspectors. The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report accusing Iran of carrying out prohibited nuclear work at multiple undeclared nuclear sites. Khamenei has threatened to escalate Iran’s uranium enrichment levels to 60 percent. And rather than respond by escalating sanctions against Iran, the European Union—presumably with U.S. approval—scrapped plans to condemn Iran for its illegal behavior at the IAEA’s Board of Governors’ meeting last week.
In a press briefing Monday, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said, “We seek to accomplish a great deal with the Saudis: To end the war in Yemen and ease Yemen’s humanitarian crisis; to use our leadership to forge ties across the region’s most bitter divide, whether that’s finding the way back from the brink of war with Iran into a meaningful regional dialogue or forging a historic peace with Israel.”
In other words, the administration holds the Saudis solely responsible for the war in Yemen. It also blames Saudi Arabia (and presumably, Israel, the UAE and Bahrain) for being at “the brink of war with Iran,” rather than blaming Iran for bringing the region to the “brink of war” through its terrorist aggression and illicit nuclear activities.
The order of Price’s “to-do” list made clear that reaching “a historic peace” between Israel and Saudi Arabia is the administration’s lowest priority.
Price served as National Security Council spokesman during the Obama administration. There he played a key role in marketing the JCPOA and developing what his colleague, then deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, referred to as the information “echo chamber” for selling the deal to ignorant reporters in Washington. Last year, in a speech before the National Iranian-American Council (a group widely viewed as the Iranian regime’s unofficial lobby in Washington), Price said that a Biden administration would remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from the State Department list of foreign terror groups.
Taken together, the administration’s moves make clear that beyond paying occasional lip service to the Abraham Accords, ending the Arab and Islamic world’s conflict with Israel and forging a wider peace between them is not a goal it wishes to pursue. Indeed, for Biden and his advisers, Arab-Israel peace is an impediment to their ideologically motivated efforts to empower the PLO and Iran.
