Tag: Benjamin Netanyahu

US closes Jerusalem consulate, demoting Palestinian mission

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The United States has officially shuttered its consulate in Jerusalem, downgrading the status of its main diplomatic mission to the Palestinians by folding it into the US Embassy to Israel.

For decades, the consulate functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians. Now, that outreach will be handled by a Palestinian affairs unit, under the command of the embassy.

The symbolic shift hands authority over US diplomatic channels with the West Bank and Gaza to ambassador David Friedman, a longtime supporter and fundraiser for the West Bank settler movement and fierce critic of the Palestinian leadership.

The announcement from the State Department came early Monday in Jerusalem, the merger effective that day.

“This decision was driven by our global efforts to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our diplomatic engagements and operations,” State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement. “It does not signal a change of US policy on Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip.”

When first announced by US Secretary Mike Pompeo in October, the move infuriated Palestinians, fuelling their suspicions that the US was recognising Israeli control over east Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories that Palestinians seek for a future state.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat called the move “the final nail in the coffin” for the US role in peacemaking.

The downgrade is just the latest in a string of divisive decisions by the Trump administration that have backed Israel and alienated the Palestinians, who say they have lost faith in the US administration’s role as a neutral arbiter in the peace process.

Last year, the US recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocated its embassy there, upending US policy toward one of the most explosive issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians, in turn, cut off most ties with the administration.

The administration also has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, including assistance to hospitals and peace-building programmes. It has cut funding to the UN agency that provides aid to Palestinians classified as refugees. Last fall, it shut down the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington.

The Trump administration has cited the reluctance of Palestinian leaders to enter peace negotiations with Israel as the reason for such punitive measures, although the US has yet to present its much-anticipated but still mysterious “Deal of the Century” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, announced last month that the US would unveil the deal after Israeli elections in April. The Palestinian Authority has preemptively rejected the plan, accusing the US of bias toward Israel.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Netanyahu makes deal with far-right party ahead of Israeli election

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forged an election alliance with a far–right party on Wednesday that could give followers of the late anti-Arab rabbi, Meir Kahane, a stronger voice in Israeli politics.

The deal, announced by Netanyahu‘s Likud and the ultranationalist Jewish Home party, was aimed at solidifying a potential right-wing coalition after the April 9 parliamentary election.

Opinion polls predict Netanyahu‘s Likud will win the most parliamentary seats and will be in a position to form a governing coalition of rightist and religious parties similar to the one he now heads.

But the surveys also show that a possible alliance between two of his strongest centrist opponents, former armed forces chief Benny Gantz, who leads the Resilience Party, and ex-finance minister Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid faction, could spark an upset.

Gantz and Lapid met on Wednesday, with speculation high they could strike a deal.

Moving to counter that prospective partnership, Netanyahu agreed to set aside two cabinet posts for Jewish Home on condition it agreed to a merger with the Jewish Power party, whose leaders have portrayed themselves as Kahane’s successors.

Jewish Home’s chairman said in a statement he accepted the deal after talks with Netanyahu. Its central committee then met and ratified the pact, party officials said.

Jewish Power has already agreed to the merger, saying it would “prevent the establishment of a leftist government, God forbid”.

Such an alliance could be crucial to the two parties’ survival: opinion polls have shown that Jewish Home and Jewish Power might not garner enough votes on their own to win even a single seat in the Knesset.

Kahane, a U.S.-born rabbi, served one term in the Knesset in the 1980s as head of the Kach party, which advocated the “transfer” of Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries and also called for a ban on intermarriage between Israeli Jews and Arabs.

Kahane’s movement was subsequently banned from Israeli politics as racist. He was assassinated in 1990 in New York by an Egyptian-born American.

Netanyahu‘s political future has also been clouded by three corruption cases. The attorney-general is weighing whether to accept police recommendations to indict him over allegations he wrongfully accepted gifts from wealthy businessmen and dispensed favours to try to win favourable coverage in an Israeli newspaper and a website.

In office since 2009, after an earlier term as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing. He says he is a victim of a left-wing witchhunt to topple him.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Days after Netanyahu visit, Putin hosts Abbas in Moscow

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was in Moscow today to meet Vladimir Putin, just days after the Russian leader hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I’m glad of the opportunity to tell you about the contact we have had with your neighbours, and leaders of various countries,” Putin told him as they met at the Kremlin, in quotes carried by Russian agencies.

“I know that the situation in the region is difficult and we are grateful that you have used the World Cup as a reason to come to Moscow,” Putin said, adding that he was glad of the opportunity to discuss the problems facing the Palestinians. Abbas told the Russian leader of his concerns over US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the country’s embassy to Jerusalem, as well as Israeli settlement activity.

“We are resisting attempts by the Americans to impose their decisions on the most sensitive problems of Palestine,” Russian news agencies quoted him as saying in translated remarks.

Netanyahu was in Moscow on Wednesday where the situation in Syria and Palestinian relations were on the agenda of his meeting with Putin.

Israel’s military renewed airstrikes targeting Hamas in the Gaza Strip today afternoon a day after fierce clashes along the border in which two Palestinians were killed, one of them a teenager.

More than 220 others were injured according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Strip.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

The US is opening an embassy in Jerusalem. Why is there a furore?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The United States opens its embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, a move that has delighted Israel and infuriated Palestinians.

The opening ceremony is at a US consular building in the Arnona neighbourhood. It will house an interim embassy for the ambassador and a small staff until a larger site is found.

The compound cuts across the 1949 Armistice Line that separated West Jerusalem from No Man’s Land, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War and has held under occupation ever since.

The embassy move follows US President Donald Trump’s decision last December to break with decades of US policy and recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the decision, saying it reflected that “the Jewish people have had a capital for 3,000 years, and that it is called Jerusalem.”

But the move upset the Arab world and Western allies. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called it a “slap in the face” and said the United States can no longer be regarded as an honest broker in any peace talks with Israel.

Trump said his administration has a peace proposal in the works and that by recognising Jerusalem as the capital of America’s closest ally he had “taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table.”

WHY DID TRUMP RECOGNIZE JERUSALEM AS ISRAEL’S CAPITAL AND ANNOUNCE THE EMBASSY WILL BE MOVED THERE?

There has long been pressure from pro-Israel politicians in Washington to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and Trump made it a promise of his 2016 election campaign.

Vice-President Mike Pence and David Friedman, the ambassador to Israel appointed by Trump, are thought to have pushed hard for both recognition and embassy relocation.

The decision was popular with many conservative and evangelical Christians who voted for Trump and Pence.

Trump acted under a 1995 law that requires the United States to move its embassy to Jerusalem. But Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama consistently signed waivers.

Announcing his decision on Dec. 6, Trump cited the Jerusalem Embassy Act and suggested his predecessors had “lacked courage.” He said: “They failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”

WHY DOES JERUSALEM PLAY SUCH AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT?

Religion, politics and history.

Jerusalem is a city sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and each religion has sites of great significance there. Jerusalem has been fought over for millennia by its inhabitants, and by regional powers and invaders including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, early Muslim rulers, Crusaders, Ottomans, the British Empire and by the modern states of Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Israel’s government regards Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of the country, although that is not recognized internationally. Palestinians say East Jerusalem must be the capital of a future Palestinian state. Jews call the city Jerusalem, or Yerushalayim, and Arabs call it Al-Quds (“The Holy”).

At the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City is the hill known to Jews as Har ha-Bayit, or Temple Mount, and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or The Noble Sanctuary. It was home to the Jewish temples of antiquity but all that remains above ground is a restraining wall for the foundations built by Herod the Great. Known as the Western Wall, this is a sacred place of prayer for Jews.

Within yards of the wall are two Muslim holy places, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was built in the 8th century. Muslims regard the site as the third holiest in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. The city is also a pilgrimage site for Christians, who revere it as the place where they believe Jesus Christ preached, died and was resurrected.

WHAT IS THE CITY’S MODERN HISTORY AND STATUS?

In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly decided the then British-ruled Palestine should be partitioned into an Arab state and a Jewish state. But it recognized that Jerusalem had special status and proposed international rule for the city, along with nearby Bethlehem, as a ‘corpus separatum’ to be administered by the United Nations.

That never happened. When British rule ended in 1948, Jordanian forces occupied the Old City and Arab East Jerusalem. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.

In 1980 the Israeli parliament passed a law declaring the “complete and united” city of Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. But the United Nations regards East Jerusalem as occupied, and the city’s status as disputed until resolved by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The king of Jordan retains a role in ensuring the upkeep of the Muslim holy places.

DOES ANY OTHER COUNTRY HAVE AN EMBASSY IN JERUSALEM?

Guatemala will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 16 and Paraguay later this month.

Netanyahu said in April “at least half a dozen” countries were now “seriously discussing” following the US lead. He did not identify them.

In December, 128 countries voted in a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution calling on the United States to drop its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Nine voted against, 35 abstained and 21 did not cast a vote.

WHAT IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN NEXT? HAS JERUSALEM BEEN A FLASHPOINT BEFORE?

Since the announcement there has been tension, with Palestinian protests in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. More than 40 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops in Gaza during a six-week border protest.

That protest culminates on May 15, a day Palestinians traditionally lament homes and land lost as Israel was created in 1948, given extra significance this year because it falls on the day after the US Embassy move.

Although clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces have not been on the scale of the first and second Palestinian intifadas in 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, violence has erupted before over matters of sovereignty and religion.

In 1969 an Australian Messianic Christian tried to burn down the Al-Aqsa Mosque, causing damage. So charged was the Middle East’s political climate – just two years after the Six Day War – there was fury across the Arab world.

In 2000, Israeli politician Ariel Sharon, then opposition leader, led a group of Israeli lawmakers onto the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif complex. Palestinians protested and there were clashes that quickly escalated into the second Palestinian uprising, known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

Deadly confrontations took place last July after Israel installed metal detectors at the entrance to the complex after the killing of two Israeli policemen by Arab-Israeli gunmen.

Arab leaders across the Middle East have warned that a unilateral American move could lead to turmoil and hamper US efforts to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Oil prices are looking ‘frothy’ and could lead to a correction, says BP finance chief

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Oil prices look to have climbed to unsustainable levels and could soon start to fall away from multi-year highs, BP’s chief financial officer (CFO) told CNBC Tuesday.

Crude futures stood within $1 of highs not seen in more than three years on Tuesday morning, amid a broad price recovery which has helped the resurgence of some of the world’s largest oil and gas groups in recent quarters, said a report in CNBC.

“Sometimes people forget that actually, it was not that long ago we were down at $28 a barrel…I think oil prices today feel a bit frothy,” Brian Gilvary, CFO at BP, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe”.

Yesterday, oil prices rose after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had proof that “Iran lied” about its nuclear capabilities, and that he was sure US President Donald Trump would do “the right thing” in reviewing the country’s nuclear deal with western powers.

Prices of the Brent June contract, which expires Monday, gained 53 cents to settle at $75.17 a barrel. Prices for the more actively traded Brent July contact gained 90 cents to settle at $74.69.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were up 47 cents on the day to settle at $68.57 a barrel.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow