Tag Archives: Israel

Israel eyes law to remove online content inciting terrorism

Israeli Police search for suspects

By Tova Cohen

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel’s Justice Ministry is drafting legislation that would enable it to order Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media to remove online postings it deems to be inciting terrorism. “We are working on draft legislation, similar to what is being done in other countries; one law that would allow for a judicial injunction to order the removal of certain content, such as websites that incite to terrorism,” Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said.

“There should be some measure of accountability for Internet companies regarding the illegal activities and content that is published through their services,” Shaked told a cybersecurity conference in Tel Aviv this week.

Israel blames a wave of Palestinian attacks which erupted in October last year on incitement to violence by the Palestinian leadership and on social media. Palestinian leaders say many attackers have acted out of desperation in the absence of movement towards creating an independent Palestinian state.

A spokeswoman for Shaked said it was too early to say what measures or sanctions might be included in the law, which would need parliamentary approval, but that it was likely to be similar to those introduced in France.

France has made far-reaching changes to surveillance laws since the attacks on Charlie Hebdo last year. It has taken steps to blacklist jihadi sites that “apologize for terrorism”, but stopped short of using such laws to censor major Internet services. “The legislation … will focus on removing prohibited content, with an emphasis on terrorist content, or blocking access to prohibited content,” Shaked’s spokeswoman said.

Governments around the world have been grappling with how to block online incitement to criminal activity, while major Internet services have stepped up campaigns to identify and remove Web postings that incite violence. Facebook, Google and Twitter are working more aggressively to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants while trying to avoid the perception they are helping the authorities police the Web. Turkey has regularly censored YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in domestic political disputes. In 2015, more than 90 percent of all court orders for Twitter to remove illegal content worldwide came from Turkey, the company has reported.

Russia has used anti-terrorist laws to censor independent web sites, media organizations and global Internet sites, while China’s tightly controlled Internet blocks what it considers terrorist propaganda under general laws against incitement to criminal activity.

Shaked said governments and Internet services need to find ways to cooperate so that companies can quickly take down content deemed criminal that has been published on their platform. “We are promoting cooperation with content providers, sensitizing them as to content that violates Israeli law or the provider’s terms of service,” Shaked said. A spokesman for Facebook in Israel declined to comment. Google’s YouTube subsidiary has clear policies that prohibit content like gratuitous violence, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts, a company spokesman said. “We remove videos violating these policies when flagged by our users. We also terminate any account registered by a member of a designated ‘foreign terrorist organization’,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in Frankfurt; Editing by Dominic Evans)

In Jerusalem’s cramped Old City, Christians feel the squeeze

Christian man sitting in Jerusalem's Old City

By Sleiman Jad

JERUSALEM, June 21 (Reuters) – – When hundreds of Jewish nationalists marched through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City this month, waving banners and chanting songs in what has become an annual ritual, it wasn’t only Muslims watching warily. Christians were, too.

Religious tension is nothing new in a city that has been the home of three faiths for centuries. But the outlook for the Christian minority, squeezed inside the ancient walls of the Old City and caught in the midst of a months-long wave of violence involving Muslims targeting Jews, has seldom looked tougher.

While the Muslim population rises steadily, now making up 75 percent of the 38,000 residents in the city’s alleys, and the Jews increasingly make their presence felt via the annual march and their settlements beyond the Jewish Quarter, the number of Christians has not risen in 50 years, hovering around 7,000.

“If a thousand Muslims leave Jerusalem, that’s one thing,” said Jamal Khader, head of the Latin Patriarchate Seminary near Bethlehem. “But if a thousand Christians leave, you threaten the identity of Jerusalem as a city of multiple faiths.”

That concern is clear to Basil Saed, 28, the owner of a gym in the Christian Quarter. After an attempted stabbing by a Muslim in the Old City several weeks ago, Saed came face-to-face with an Israeli military policeman hunting for the suspect.

“He was trembling he was so terrified,” said Saed, a prize-winning weightlifter who wears a large gold cross around his neck. “In an instant he could have shot and killed me.”

To Saed, both Israel’s tight security and the Muslim unrest make him uneasy, and raise questions for his community.

“If we weren’t strong, we’d all be gone by now,” he said.

SQUEEZED OUT

In the narrow, cobbled streets of their quarter, Christian families have been running arts and souvenir shops for generations, earning money from the steady flow of religious and other tourists who flock to sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Jesus is believed to have been buried.

With the surge in violence that Jerusalem and surrounding areas have experienced since last October, tourism has become more erratic. Anecdotally, locals and tour guides say visitor numbers have dropped off sharply, hurting trade.

Residents like Youseph Shbeita, 35, the third generation owner of a religious icon shop near the Holy Sepulchre, are determined to hang on, seeing no option. But they can understand why younger Christians would want to leave.

“When you’re in the minority, you have to go with the flow,” he said, expressing a sense of responsibility for trying to preserve a Christian presence in the city where Jesus preached. “We just hope for calm, always for calm.”

Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and activist who closely follows the community, said he feared it was being squeezed out by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with its tendency to focus on the Jewish and Muslim narratives.

“Since much of the epicenter of this round of violence has been in and around the Old City, it has increased their vulnerability,” he said, pointing to the lack of political and social institutions for Christians to depend on.

“I think it’s safe to say there are more Christian Palestinians in Chicago today than there are in Jerusalem.”

Most of the Christians in Jerusalem are Palestinians. Historically, the community has played a prominent role in the opposition to Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, putting it at odds with Israel.

Inside the walls of the Old City, however, there is still a degree of mutual dependence – Muslim merchants run stores on land owned by the Christian church, and Israeli Jews stop to buy fruit or a felafel from Muslim and Christian stallkeepers.

Even so, Saed, the weightlifter, doesn’t feel confident.

“For now, the Muslims and Jews are fighting each other,” he said. “But when they stop they’ll both look at us.”

(Reporting by Jad Sleiman; Editing by Luke Baker/Mark Heinrich)

After Deadly Tel Aviv attack, Israel suspends Palestinian permits

An injured man is taken into emergency room following a shooting attack that took place in the center of Tel Aviv

By Luke Baker and Jad Sleiman

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military on Thursday revoked permits for 83,000 Palestinians to visit Israel and said it would send hundreds more troops to the occupied West Bank after a Palestinian gun attack that killed four Israelis in Tel Aviv.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the assault by two gunmen on Wednesday in a trendy shopping and dining market near Israel’s Defence Ministry, but Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups were quick to praise it.

The assailants came from near Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. They dressed in suits and ties and posed as customers at a restaurant, ordering a drink and a chocolate brownie before pulling out automatic weapons and opening fire, sending diners fleeing in panic.

Two women and two men were killed and six others were wounded. The attack followed a lull in recent weeks after what had been near-daily stabbings and shootings on Israeli streets. It was the deadliest single incident since an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue in November 2014 that killed five.

The Tel Aviv gunmen, cousins in their 20s who security experts said appeared to have entered Israel without permits, were quickly apprehended. One of them was shot and wounded.

“It is clear that they spent time planning and training and choosing their target,” Barak Ben-Zur, former head of research at Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency, told reporters.

“They got some support, although we don’t know for sure who their supporters are,” he said, adding that they appeared to have used improvised automatic weapons smuggled into Israel.

The attack, as families were enjoying a warm evening out at the tree-lined Sarona market, took place a few hundred yards from the imposing Defence Ministry in the center of Tel Aviv, a city that has seen far less violence than Jerusalem.

After consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the military said it was rescinding some 83,000 permits issued to Palestinians from the West Bank to visit relatives in Israel during the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

At an emergency meeting, Israel’s security cabinet discussed punitive measures against attackers, including destroying their homes more quickly, and efforts to bolster the number of security guards in public places, an official said.

The army announced that two battalions would be deployed in the West Bank to reinforce troops stationed in the area, where the military maintains a network of checkpoints and often carries out raids to arrest suspected militants. Israeli battalions are comprised of around 300 troops.

Such measures, including restrictions on access to Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque compound, the holy site in the heart of the Old City that Jews refer to as Temple Mount, have in the past lead to increased tension with the Palestinians.

After the attack, fireworks were set off in parts of the West Bank and in some refugee camps people sang, chanted and waved flags in celebration, locals said.

Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran called it “the first prophecy of Ramadan” and said the location of the attack, close to the Defence Ministry, “indicated the failure of all measures by the occupation” to end the uprising.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement saying he rejected “all operations that target civilians regardless of the source and their justification”.

During the past eight months of violence, Israel’s government has repeatedly criticized Palestinian factions for inciting attacks or not doing enough to quell them.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the largest group in the Palestine Liberation Organization after Abbas’s Fatah, described the killings as “a natural response to field executions conducted by the Zionist occupation”.

The group called it a challenge to Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new defense minister, who must decide how to respond to the violence, possibly with tighter security across the West Bank. Lieberman said he would act, but didn’t say how.

The United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, condemned the shootings and expressed alarm at the failure of Palestinian groups to speak out against the violence. The European Union did the same.

Netanyahu visited the scene minutes after arriving back from a two-day visit to Moscow. He described the attacks as “cold-blooded murder” and vowed retaliation.

“We will locate anyone who cooperated with this attack and we will act firmly and intelligently to fight terrorism,” Netanyahu said.

(Writing by Luke Baker, additional reporting by Dan Williams and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; editing by Dominic Evans)

Netanyahu frequents Russia as U.S. influence in mideast recedes

Israeli PM Netanyahu inspects honour guard during welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at Moscow's Vnukovo airport

By Dan Williams and Denis Dyomkin

JERUSALEM/MOSCOW (Reuters) – With the Obama administration in its final months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a more frequent and feted visitor to Moscow than Washington, his eye on shifting big-power influence in the Middle East.

No one expects Netanyahu, who was hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday for the third time in the last year, to break up Israel’s bedrock alliance with the United States. But he is mindful of Putin’s sway in the Syrian civil war and other Middle East crises as the U.S. footprint in the region wanes.

“Netanyahu’s not defecting, but what we see here is a bid to maneuver independently to promote Israel’s interests,” said Zvi Magen, a former Israeli ambassador to Russia now with Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.

With Russian forces fighting alongside Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power, Putin is the closest thing to a guarantor that Israel’s three most potent enemies will not attack it from the north.

He is also the first port of call for Netanyahu’s argument that Assad’s loss of central control vindicates Israel’s de facto annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981, a move never recognized internationally. Israel took the area in a 1967 war.

Netanyahu can offer Putin reciprocal Israeli restraint in Syria, where Russia maintains a strategic Mediterranean base, and a chance to play a greater role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking that has long been dominated by the United States.

With the Obama administration and France hinting they might back a future U.N. Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, Netanyahu also has an interest in sounding out the views of veto-wielding Russia.

Moscow’s guest-list suggests mediation may be under way.

When Netanyahu last came, in April, it was three days after a visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. On Wednesday, when Netanyahu departs, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to host Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki.

FRIENDLY FIRE

Yaakov Amidror, one of Netanyahu’s former national security advisers, played down the scope of Israeli-Russian relations. He said they focused on preventing the sides accidentally trading fire over Syria and were underpinned by Netanyahu’s personal rapport with Putin – hence their meetings every few months.

By contrast, while Netanyahu and Obama have feuded on Iran and the Palestinians and are wrangling over a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) for future U.S. defense aid to Israel, their countries’ partnership ticks over thanks to a network of military, diplomatic and parliamentary channels, Amidror said.

“In Syria, there is liable to be a clash tomorrow morning that neither we nor the Russians want,” said Amidror, now with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and the U.S. think-tank JINSA, alluding to the risk of a friendly-fire incident.

“It’s not like the MOU, which we can spend months discussing with the Americans and be assured a resolution will be found.”

Russia has been closed-lipped about any wider statecraft initiatives it may have in store for Israel. The two countries “each express their positions in a pretty constructive manner, and all of this contributes to this rather frequent and intensive communication”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“But of course, there cannot be any talk of the intensity of these contacts reflecting any kind of rivalry with anyone,” he added, alluding to Washington, where Netanyahu was last hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama in November. A trip expected in March was canceled given the difficult MOU talks.

That’s different from the dignified optics Netanyahu can be assured of in Russia. This time, he will leave with state gifts likely to buoy Israeli public opinion: an Israeli army tank captured by Syrian forces during battles in Lebanon in 1982 and recovered by Russia, and Moscow’s agreement to pay pensions to tens of thousands of Russian immigrants to Israel.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

France launches ‘urgent’ conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace

French President Francois Hollande delivers a speech during an international and interministerial conference in a bid to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in Paris

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s president said on Friday that spiraling Middle East upheaval since the collapse of the round of Israel-Palestinian peace talks has complicated the process and makes it even more urgent bring the two sides back to the table.

With U.S. efforts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace in deep freeze for two years and Washington focused on its November presidential election, France lobbied for an international conference that began on Friday with the aim of breaking the apathy over the impasse and stir new diplomatic momentum.

While Palestinians have supported the French initiative, Israeli officials have said it is doomed to fail and that only direct negotiations can lead to a solution to the generations-old conflict.

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have been invited to the conference, though the objective is to get them to negotiate after the U.S. elections.

“The discussion on the conditions for peace between Israelis and Palestinians must take into account the entire region,” Francois Hollande told delegates at the opening of the conference in Paris.

“The threats and priorities have changed,” he said, alluding to escalating Middle East conflict that has engulfed Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast and the spread of Islamic State insurgents through wide swathes of the region.

“The changes make it even more urgent to find a solution to the conflict, and this regional upheaval creates new obligations for peace,” Hollande said.

“TWO-STATE SOLUTION” FADING -MOGHERINI

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, seconded Hollande’s call and said it was the duty of

international and regional players to find a breakthrough since the two sides appeared incapable of doing so alone.

“The policy of settlement expansion and demolitions, violence, and incitement tells us very clearly that the perspective that Oslo opened up is seriously at risk of fading away,” Mogherini told reporters.

The interim 1993 Oslo peace accords forged by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat were meant to yield a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territory within five years – the so-called “two state solution”.

She said the Middle East Quartet of the EU, Russia, the United States and United Nations was finalizing recommendations on what should be done to create incentives and guarantees for Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate in good faith.

“The policy of settlement expansion and demolitions, violence, and incitement tells us very clearly that the perspective that Oslo opened up is seriously at risk of fading away,” Mogherini added.

Previous attempts to coax the foes into a deal have been fruitless. The Palestinians say Israeli settlement expansion in occupied territory is dimming any prospect for the viable state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with a capital in Arab East Jerusalem.

Israel has demanded tighter security measures from the Palestinians and a crackdown on militants who have attacked Israeli civilians or threaten their safety. It also says Jerusalem is Israel’s indivisible capital.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, whose exhaustive mediation of the last peace talks stumbled on the two sides’ intransigence, appeared lukewarm to the French initiative when asked if it could lead to fresh face-to-face talks.

“We’ll see, we’ll have that conversation, we have to know where it’s going, what’s happening. We’re just starting, let’s get into the conversations,” he told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Archaeologists vs robbers, Israel’s race to find ancient scrolls

The Wider Image: Searching for remains of the Dead Sea Scrolls

By Ari Rabinovitch

TZEELIM VALLEY, Israel (Reuters) – The disposable paper face masks offer little protection from the clouds of dust that fill the cliffside cave where Israeli archaeologists are wrapping up the largest excavation in the Judean desert of the past half-century.

Clipped into safety harnesses, volunteers stand at the cave opening, 250 meters (820 feet) above a dry river bed that leads to the lowest spot on earth, the Dead Sea.

They sift through an endless supply of dirt-filled buckets, and the dust they throw in the air reaches the far corners of the cave where a dozen workers crawling on hands and knees can’t help but cough.

The three-week excavation was the first part of a national campaign to recover as many artefacts as possible, particularly scrolls, left behind by Jewish rebels who hid in the desert some 2,000 years ago, before they are snatched up by antiquity robbers.

“These looters that operate in the area are experts at finding scrolls. We go after them, look for what they are looking for and try to catch them,” said Guy Fitoussi, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority robbery prevention unit in southern Israel. “This is the game. Like cat and mouse.”

The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient texts written on papyrus and parchment, have already been rescued by scholars. They are among the earliest texts written in the Hebrew language and are on display in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem as a national treasure.

Now Israel wants to uncover whatever may remain in the desert hideouts before it is destroyed or ends up on the black market.

For a Wider Image photo essay on the excavation click: http://reut.rs/25zc4ZK

PISTOL-PACKING ARCHAEOLOGIST

According to Israeli law, all relics found on land or at sea belong to the state. Fitoussi, a pistol-packing archaeologist with authority to arrest looters, and his team catch about 100 of them each year. Most are fined; some are sent to jail.

In 2014, they arrested six people who were plundering this particular cavern, known as the Cave of Skulls, where seven skulls had been found from Jews of the Bar Kokhba rebellion against Rome in the 2nd century.

That raid, Fitoussi said, helped spur the multi-year government-backed excavation program and focused their initial efforts at this site, about a two-hour drive southeast from Jerusalem.

To access the cave, diggers don climbing gear and descend 20 minutes from their campsite along a steep path that hugs the rocky cliff. Inside, the grotto expands 160 square meters (1,720 square feet), including a number of cramped tunnels that extend deep into the mountain.

The limestone walls of the dry desert cave are perfect for preservation, said Uri Davidovich, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University who was one of the dig’s directors.

One 19-year-old volunteer, working flat on her belly in a dark crawl space, dirt mixed with sweat covering her face and digging with her fingers, unearthed a thin, 25 centimeter (10 inch)-long rope that most likely was used by the Bar Kokhba rebels. A rope this length was a rare discovery, Davidovich said.

They haven’t found any scrolls yet, he said, but the artefacts found in this cave, and countless others nearby, will provide historians rare insight into how people lived 2,000 to 8,000 years ago.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller/Jeremy Gaunt)

Israel has homegrown Islamic State threat in hand

An Israeli soldier is silhouetted as he takes part in an open-fire scenario training in which soldiers respond with laser-firing rifles to a simulated Palestinian attack

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s crackdown on Arab citizens trying to join Islamic State in Syria or Iraq or to set up cells at home have prevented the threat reaching the scale seen in the West, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a magazine interview.

About 18 percent of Israel’s population are Muslim Arabs, many of whom identify with the Palestinian struggle, although they seldom take up arms against the majority Jewish country.

However, a rash of defections to Islamic State-held areas of Syria and Iraq and trials of Israeli citizens for identifying with the militant group prompted President Reuven Rivlin to warn in January that “considerable radicalization” was taking root among Israel’s Arab minority.

Eitan Ben-David, head of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in Netanyahu’s office, told the bi-monthly journal ‘Israel Defense’that “more than a few dozen, but not more than 100” Israeli Arabs had joined Islamic State’s ranks – and some might return.

“These foreign fighters can certainly pose a grave danger internally, so the Shin Bet (security service) and all the state system is doing very good work in foiling this threat, which could be a kind of spreading cancer,” Ben-David said.

“To our satisfaction, the situation is reasonable. It is not like any European country, nor even America, or places like China or Russia which have had a great number of homegrown ISIS fighters,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Israel formally outlawed Islamic State in 2014 and negotiated the repatriation for trial of several Arab citizens who had joined or tried to join the insurgents via Turkey or Jordan.

But government policy hardened last year after one Israeli Arab used a paraglider to fly into an Islamic State-controlled part of southern Syria and after another who had served as a volunteer in Israel’s army defected to the insurgents.

Further raising alarm, two video clips surfaced in October in which Islamic State gunmen vowed in Arabic-accented Hebrew to strike Israel. The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, echoed the threat in an audiotape released in December.

But Ben-David sounded circumspect about that prospect, citing potentially more pressing dangers from Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas or Palestinian militants.

In an incident on Thursday, a Palestinian woman tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank and was shot dead, the military said.

In the last half year, Palestinian attacks have killed 28 Israelis and two visiting U.S. citizens. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 196 Palestinians, 134 of whom Israel has said were assailants. Others were killed in clashes and protests.

“When it comes to Islamic State, we worry about terrorist attacks against Israeli or Jewish targets, including abroad, but we are not a main target right now,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Gareth Jones)

Netanyahu says willing to discuss Arab initiative for peace

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu enters to a media conference together with Israel's new Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of far-right Yisrael Beitenu party, following Lieberman's swearing-in ceremony at the Knesset, the Israeli parlia

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held out the prospect on Monday of reviving a 2002 Arab peace initiative that offers Israel diplomatic recognition from Arab countries in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s comments were a formal response to a speech last week by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who promised Israel warmer ties if it accepted efforts to resume peace talks.

“The Arab peace initiative includes positive elements that can help revive constructive negotiations with the Palestinians,” Netanyahu said, echoing comments he made a year ago to Israeli reporters.

“We are willing to negotiate with the Arab states revisions to that initiative so that it reflects the dramatic changes in the region since 2002 but maintains the agreed goal of two states for two peoples,” he added.

His comments were made also in English in a speech that was mostly in Hebrew – a device Netanyahu often uses when he wants to make a statement to the international community.

Netanyahu spoke moments after ultra nationalist Avigdor Lieberman was sworn in as Israel’s new defense minister and Israel’s fragile right-wing coalition gained vital support in parliament.

Lieberman concurred and Netanyahu appeared to indicate that the new far-right defense minister’s inclusion in the government did not spell an end to peace efforts with the Palestinians.

The original Arab plan offered full recognition of Israel but only if it gave up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and agreed to a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees.

But in 2013, after the initiative’s terms were softened to include possible land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians, Netanyahu signaled a readiness to consider it.

Previous attempts to engage the adversaries have come to nought. The Palestinians say Israeli settlement expansion denies them a viable state they seek in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and a capital in Arab East Jerusalem.

Israel has demanded tighter security measures from the Palestinians and a crackdown on militants who have attacked or threaten the safety of Israeli citizens.

In the last half year, Palestinian attacks have killed 28 Israelis and two visiting U.S. citizens. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 195 Palestinians, 134 of whom Israel has said were assailants. Others were killed in clashes and protests.

France is set to host a peace conference of to revive peace efforts on June 3 with the participation of ministers from the Middle East Quartet – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – the Arab League, the U.N. Security Council and about 20 countries.

Neither Israel, which has opposed the gathering, nor the Palestinians, who have welcomed it, have been invited.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller, writing by Ori Lewis)

Shake up in Israeli politics prompts ‘seeds of fascism’ warning

Former Israel Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ehud Barak and his wife Nili Priel arrive on the red carpet during the 2nd annual Breakthrough Prize

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A military affairs commentator interrupts his broadcast to deliver a monologue: I’m alarmed by what’s happening in Israel, he says, I think my children should leave.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak warns of “the seeds of fascism”. Moshe Arens, who served as defense minister three times, sees it as a turning point in Israeli politics and expects it to cause a “political earthquake”.

The past five days have produced tumult in Israeli politics, since conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unexpectedly turned his back on a deal to bring the center-left into his coalition and instead joined hands with far-right nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, one of his most virulent critics.

Lieberman, a West Bank settler, wants to be defense minister. So on Friday, Netanyahu’s former ally and confidant, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, resigned and quit Netanyahu’s Likud party in disgust.

After a weekend to digest the developments, which are expected to be finalised in an agreement between Netanyahu and Lieberman on Monday to form the most right-wing government in Israel’s 68-year-old history, commentators have tried to put it in perspective and found themselves alarmed.

Arens, who has served as defense minister, foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, and is one of Netanyahu’s early political mentors, said the machinations would have far-reaching repercussions.

“Yaalon’s ouster is likely to be a turning point in Israel’s political history,” he wrote in the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper. “A political earthquake is in the offing. It may take a little time, but it is coming. The law of unforeseen consequences is at work.”

The decision to jettison Yaalon in favor of Lieberman was all too much for Roni Daniel, a veteran military affairs commentator on Channel 2.

“I cannot urge my children to stay here, because it is a place that is not nice to be in,” he said in his monologue, going on to name a number of far-right politicians.

“HOSTILE TAKEOVER”

By bringing the Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) party into the fold, Netanyahu strengthens his coalition from 61 to 67 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Lieberman’s brand of politics — pro-settlement, wary of peace negotiations, tough on the Palestinians — sits far more comfortably with Netanyahu and his right-wing partners than the center-left does.

But it means there is no countervailing voice in the government, and the person in charge of defense — the most important portfolio in Israel after the prime minister — is a civilian with little military experience.

At a time when the command of the Israel Defense Forces is already at odds with the government over policies it feels are too hard-line, Lieberman’s appointment risks creating more tension between the political leadership and the military. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are on edge too.

“What has happened is a hostile takeover of the Israeli government by dangerous elements,” Ehud Barak, Israel’s most decorated soldier and a former defense minister following his spell as head of government, told Channel 10 TV.

Israel has been “infected by the seeds of fascism”, he said, adding that it should be “a red light for all of us regarding what’s going on in the government.”

Netanyahu sought to quell the rising criticism at a new conference on Sunday, describing himself as in charge and as having the nation’s interests at heart.

“I’m looking out for the country’s future. I have proved that as prime minister. I hear a lot of voices; many things are said in politics,” he said.

“Ultimately, it’s the prime minister who directs everything together with the defense minister, with the chief of staff, and apparently I haven’t done such a bad job during my years as prime minister — that’s the way it is going to be now.”

Some allies leapt to Netanyahu’s defense, saying the appointment of Lieberman was a sound decision and that he would offer “fresh thinking” as defense minister, but the focus of commentary was on the broader direction that Israel is taking.

A DECADE IN POWER

Netanyahu has held power for more than 10 years, spread over four terms. In that time, politics has moved steadily to the right, with his coalition now hinging on support from Orthodox religious and ultra-nationalist parties.

There has been no progress in efforts to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, with Netanyahu saying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not the right partner because he rejects Israel’s demand to recognize it as a Jewish state.

At the same time, the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek for their own state together with Gaza, continues apace.

Ties between Israel and the United States, its closest ally, have become strained, with Vice President Joe Biden saying last month that the U.S. administration felt “overwhelming frustration” with the Israeli government.

For Daniel, who is regarded as a stalwart of the right, something has changed fundamentally.

“It’s over. I will not persuade my children. They will decide where they want to live. But if that once looked like a terrible tragedy to me, today it doesn’t,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller,; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

The past five days have produced tumult in Israeli politics, since conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unexpectedly turned his back on a deal to bring the center-left into his coalition and instead joined hands with far-right nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, one of his most virulent critics.

Lieberman, a West Bank settler, wants to be defense minister. So on Friday, Netanyahu’s former ally and confidant, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, resigned and quit Netanyahu’s Likud party in disgust.

After a weekend to digest the developments, which are expected to be finalised in an agreement between Netanyahu and Lieberman on Monday to form the most right-wing government in Israel’s 68-year-old history, commentators have tried to put it in perspective and found themselves alarmed.

Arens, who has served as defense minister, foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, and is one of Netanyahu’s early political mentors, said the machinations would have far-reaching repercussions.

“Yaalon’s ouster is likely to be a turning point in Israel’s political history,” he wrote in the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper. “A political earthquake is in the offing. It may take a little time, but it is coming. The law of unforeseen consequences is at work.”

The decision to jettison Yaalon in favor of Lieberman was all too much for Roni Daniel, a veteran military affairs commentator on Channel 2.

“I cannot urge my children to stay here, because it is a place that is not nice to be in,” he said in his monologue, going on to name a number of far-right politicians.

“HOSTILE TAKEOVER”

By bringing the Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) party into the fold, Netanyahu strengthens his coalition from 61 to 67 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Lieberman’s brand of politics — pro-settlement, wary of peace negotiations, tough on the Palestinians — sits far more comfortably with Netanyahu and his right-wing partners than the center-left does.

But it means there is no countervailing voice in the government, and the person in charge of defense — the most important portfolio in Israel after the prime minister — is a civilian with little military experience.

At a time when the command of the Israel Defense Forces is already at odds with the government over policies it feels are too hard-line, Lieberman’s appointment risks creating more tension between the political leadership and the military. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are on edge too.

“What has happened is a hostile takeover of the Israeli government by dangerous elements,” Ehud Barak, Israel’s most decorated soldier and a former defense minister following his spell as head of government, told Channel 10 TV.

Israel has been “infected by the seeds of fascism”, he said, adding that it should be “a red light for all of us regarding what’s going on in the government.”

Netanyahu sought to quell the rising criticism at a new conference on Sunday, describing himself as in charge and as having the nation’s interests at heart.

“I’m looking out for the country’s future. I have proved that as prime minister. I hear a lot of voices; many things are said in politics,” he said.

“Ultimately, it’s the prime minister who directs everything together with the defense minister, with the chief of staff, and apparently I haven’t done such a bad job during my years as prime minister — that’s the way it is going to be now.”

Some allies leapt to Netanyahu’s defense, saying the appointment of Lieberman was a sound decision and that he would offer “fresh thinking” as defense minister, but the focus of commentary was on the broader direction that Israel is taking.

A DECADE IN POWER

Netanyahu has held power for more than 10 years, spread over four terms. In that time, politics has moved steadily to the right, with his coalition now hinging on support from Orthodox religious and ultra-nationalist parties.

There has been no progress in efforts to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, with Netanyahu saying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not the right partner because he rejects Israel’s demand to recognize it as a Jewish state.

At the same time, the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek for their own state together with Gaza, continues apace.

Ties between Israel and the United States, its closest ally, have become strained, with Vice President Joe Biden saying last month that the U.S. administration felt “overwhelming frustration” with the Israeli government.

For Daniel, who is regarded as a stalwart of the right, something has changed fundamentally.

“It’s over. I will not persuade my children. They will decide where they want to live. But if that once looked like a terrible tragedy to me, today it doesn’t,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller,; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Netanyahu tells France’s Ayrault he opposes peace conference

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told France’s foreign minister on Sunday that Israel remained opposed to a French initiative for an international conference to try to revive peace talks.

Palestinians welcomed the proposal but Israel is concerned that the conference that France seeks to hold in the autumn would try to dictate terms for a peace deal.

In public remarks to his cabinet after meeting France’s Jean-Marc Ayrault, Netanyahu said: “I told him the only way to advance genuine peace between us and the Palestinians is through direct negotiations between us and them, without preconditions.”

Israel made the same argument in the formal response it gave last month. France hopes an international conference would set out a framework for peace negotiations, after U.S. efforts to broker a two-state deal collapsed in April 2014.

“I know that Netanyahu does not agree (to the French proposal),” Ayrault told reporters after his talks with the Israeli leader in Jerusalem and a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank.

Ayrault said France would continue to pursue the initiative and that its ultimate goal was for both sides to return to direct talks, with international intervention laying the groundwork.

“It is very clear to us, and I said this today to both the prime minister and to President Abbas, that we cannot take the place of the two parties,” he said at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport at the end of a one-day visit to promote the plan.

“Only they can conduct direct negotiations to achieve a solution,” Ayrault said. “But because things are currently stuck … external intervention is necessary to provide renewed momentum.”

An international gathering of ministers, tentatively planned for May 30 in Paris, is set to include the Middle East Quartet (the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations), the Arab League, the U.N. Security Council and about 20 countries, without Israeli or Palestinian participation.

Diplomats say that meeting will package all economic incentives and other guarantees that various countries have offered in previous years to create an agenda for an autumn peace conference.

While objecting to the French initiative, Netanyahu, a right-winger, has stopped short of saying Israel would boycott it.

Keeping his options open could help Netanyahu in preliminary contacts with the main opposition Zionist Union party – a centre-left group likely to favour participating – on expanding his ruling coalition that has a mere one-seat parliamentary majority.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)