A7News: US Zionists urge Trump to withdraw controversial legal opinion

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Sunday, Mar. 10 '19, ג' באדר ב תשע"ט





HEADLINES:
1. US ZIONISTS URGE TRUMP TO WITHDRAW CONTROVERSIAL LEGAL OPINION
2. POLL: BLUE AND WHITE LOSING POWER, RIGHT-WING BLOC GROWING
3. BODY OF HIKER LOCATED IN EILAT MOUNTAINS
4. ETHIOPIA: PLANE CRASHES EN ROUTE TO KENYA, NO SURVIVORS
5. GERMANY: ANTI-SEMITIC TWEET AGAINST ISRAELI FOOTBALLER
6. PM RESPONDS TO MODEL: ISRAEL NOT 'STATE OF ALL ITS CITIZENS'
7. ESCALATION IN ISRAEL'S SOUTH
8. PM AYELET SHAKED? MAYBE AFTER BENNETT


1. US ZIONISTS URGE TRUMP TO WITHDRAW CONTROVERSIAL LEGAL OPINION
by Orli Harari

With Trump's Deal of the Century in the offing, an anti-Israel legal opinion in the State Department has surfaced, which outlaws all Israeli communities over the Green Line. CUFI, which speaks for 4 million Christians, as well as the RCA and ZOA, are urging the Administration to rescind the controversial document. The fear is that Israel will be in a disadvantageous position if the "Deal of the Century" is published and an official pro-Arab legal opinion, negating all settlements, remains intact. Pro-Israel organizations call for the opinion, also known as the Hansell memorandum, to be rescinded, while BDS organizations are relying on it. The controversial legal opinion is even starring in a Palestinian-American lawsuit filed against Sheldon Adelson and other prominent pro-Israel Americans. Since the opinion, authored by the late Attorney Herbert Hansell at the request of his superiors in the Carter Administration, has not been revoked or updated, it is still valid.
Distinguished legal experts in the West, as well as the State of Israel, are adamant that Israel's settlements (communities in Judea-Samaria) are legal. But the Hansell memorandum, penned by the legal adviser to the State Department under President Carter, unilaterally adopts Arab legal arguments, bolstering an anti-Israel position according to which all Israel's settlements in Judea and Samaria are actually illegal.
Arutz Sheva has learned that both Jewish and Christian groups in the United States are calling for the opinion to be rescinded, given that leading legal experts support Israel's legal position. In addition, the chairman of the Israeli Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Nissan Slomiansky, appealed to the Trump administration several months ago, also requesting that the opinion be revoked. The author of the opinion himself admitted the opinion was "controversial", wrote Slomiansky in his appeal to American Ambassador David Friedman. However, contrary to the accepted practice, Slomiansky's letter is still waiting for an American reply.
Zalman Shoval, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, recently revealed that a second American legal opinion was penned by a government legal adviser, which differs from the negative opinion of the State Department. The second opinion was written by a legal adviser to the White House National Security Council and does not yield a conclusion of settlement illegality, Shoval explains in his recent book. However, the adviser to the National Security Council, who has since resigned and returned to academic life, opposes the US confirming legality of settlements for political rather than legal reasons: not to help Israel too much in her negotiations with the Arabs. In addition, this second opinion is not available to the public, in contrast to the negative opinion against the settlements, which is available to the public and appears on the website of a leading Palestinian-American group.
Assessments are that if the Trump plan is published (reportedly immediately after the elections in Israel) before the damaging opinion is canceled, this could give a deliberate advantage to the Arab side, regarding the entire issue of the settlements. The negative opinion does not claim that the IDF presence in Judea and Samaria is illegal but it does attack the legality of all of the hundreds of thousands of civilian residences in the Judea-Samaria region, relying on legal argumentation characteristic of the Arab side, but denied by the legal experts Israel relies on.
The pressure to cancel the opinion comes from a number of American organizations. Rabbi Mark Dratch, Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of America, which represents North America Orthodox Jewry in its relations with American government officials, said that the RCA "joins others in urging the United States administration to withdraw the Hansell memorandum". The RCA's Executive Vice President explained that the RCA "views settlements as legal according to international law". Rabbi Dratch emphasized that the RCA "appreciates the support for Israel of the Administration" and also stressed "the strong bipartisan support for Israel in Congress."
A statement from Christians United for Israel (CUFI), an American Christian organization that supports Israel, similarly clarified that "CUFI does not agree with the opinion offered by the Hansell memorandum and supports its revocation." As of May 2018, CUFI's membership is said to include 4.1 million Christian Americans.
Dan Pollak, Director of Government Relations at the ZOA warned that "the legal reasoning in the Hansell memorandum... has been used inside the State Department to actively sabotage the policies of several US presidents. With the new thinking of President Trump on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the negative impact of the memorandum have finally become too great to ignore.... The memorandum should be rescinded."
The Orthodox Union has referred press inquiries regarding the Hansell opinion to a longstanding OU statement according to which "Assertions that Israeli 'settlement activity' is illegal under international law are incorrect."
The cancellation of a legal opinion is a simple administrative action that can be implemented immediately. On the other hand, rewriting an opinion to include missing considerations that were not reflected in the first opinion is a much more complicated process. Therefore, the organizations chose to recommend that the opinion be revoked, instead of demanding that it be amended so as to reflect a reasoned position of legality.
In addition to the statements made by the organizations, a number of American public figures known as President Trump's supporters have personally approached government officials and expressed their opinion that the opinion should be revoked.
As of today, none of these efforts have borne fruit.
In the meantime, BDS activists in the United States and abroad rely on the alleged illegality of the settlements as justification for boycott actions against Israel. In addition, 18 American-Palestinian activists have, for the past 3 years, been promoting a billion dollar lawsuit against American philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and others. Adelson is accused by the American-Arab plaintiffs of supporting Israeli "settlements." This support, the Palestinian claimants allege, citing the Hansell memorandum and various international law documents, is illegal.
Sheldon Adelson did indeed donate a medical school to Ariel University. The entire city of Ariel is deemed illegal by the Hansell memorandum.


2. POLL: BLUE AND WHITE LOSING POWER, RIGHT-WING BLOC GROWING
by Arutz Sheva Staff

A new poll published Saturday night on Haaretz showed that if elections were to be held today, the right-wing bloc would be able to form a coalition - even though the left-wing Blue and White party would be the party with the most votes.

The poll, conducted by the Dialogue Institute and supervised by Professor Camil Fuchs, gave the Blue and White party would receive 31 Knesset seats, with the Likud following close behind with 28.

The Labor party would grow to 10 seats, with the United Right and the Arab Hadash-Ta'al each receiving eight Knesset seats. Both the New Right and the Ashkenazic-haredi UTJ party would receive 7 Knesset seats, while the Sephardic-haredi Shas party would drop to five.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu party, the left-wing Meretz party, Moshe Feiglin's Zehut party, and the Arab Ra'am-Balad, would receive four seats each.

MK Orly Levi-Abekasis' Gesher party and former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu party do not pass the electoral threshold.


3. BODY OF HIKER LOCATED IN EILAT MOUNTAINS
by Rafael Levi

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260131

Israel Police on Saturday morning received a report of a US citizen in his 20s who had gone for a walk during the morning in the Eilat Mountains region and who had since gone missing.

Army and police forces, including members of the Eilat-Eilot police rescue unit, a drone unit, and a police helicopter, alongside IDF trackers, searched for hours for the young man.

In the afternoon, the body of a young man was located in a ravine at Har Shlomo, at a height of hundreds of meters. The members of the police rescue unit managed to reach the young man by foot and found that he was not breathing and had no pulse, apparently because of a fall, and was no longer alive.

Due to the nature of the terrain and location where the body was found, the rescuers could not remove it from the area, and therefore police requested the assistance of an IDF helicopter and rescue unit.

On Sunday morning, the elite 669 unit arrived and spent hours recovering the body.

Israel Police opened an investigation into the cause of death; Initial investigations raise no suspicions of criminal activity. The young man's body will be sent to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for identification and further investigation into the cause of death.

Israel Police handed over all the details of the case to the competent authorities, who contacted the young man's family in the United States and informed them of the incident.

Recovering the body at Har Shlomo (Credit: Police Spokesperson)


4. ETHIOPIA: PLANE CRASHES EN ROUTE TO KENYA, NO SURVIVORS
by Arutz Sheva Staff

A Boeing 737 Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed Sunday morning as it made its way from Ethiopia to Kenya.

The plane had 149 passengers and eight crew members. Ethiopian Airlines said that all passengers and crew members, citizens of 33 countries, were killed in the crash. In recent hours there has been concern that some of the passengers were Israelis.

The reason for the plane crash is probably a malfunction that took place at takeoff. The plane, which disappeared from radars two minutes after takeoff, went into use only 4 months ago.

The airline said that the plane crashed in the town of Debre-Zeit, about 50 km south of the capital, Addis Ababa, shortly after take-off at 8:38 am local time.

Search and rescue forces were sent to the area of the crash.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister's Office said, "On behalf of the Ethiopian government and people, we extend our deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives this morning."

Israel's Foreign Ministry said the consuls at the Israeli embassies in Addis Ababa and Nairobi are now checking whether Israeli citizens were on the flight.

The Foreign Ministry's Situation Room was opened for emergency readiness, but the ministry clarified that at this stage there is no concrete information and that it is waiting for the list of passengers on the plane.


5. GERMANY: ANTI-SEMITIC TWEET AGAINST ISRAELI FOOTBALLER
by AFP

German police were on Sunday investigating an anti-Semitic tweet sent to an Israeli soccer player during a second division game in Berlin, in an incident that has provoked widespread outrage.


In a profanity-laced insult, an apparent fan of FC Union Berlin tweeted that Almog Cohen, captain of opposing team Ingolstadt, should disappear into "the chamber," a reference to the gas chambers used by the Nazis to murder Jews during the Holocaust.


The tweet was posted after Cohen received a red card during Friday's match in the German capital, which Union Berlin won 2-0.


Both soccer clubs immediately condemned the abuse, with Union Berlin swiftly filing a complaint with police for incitement to hatred.


"I'm ashamed of such Union fans," club president Dirk Zingler said in a statement. "FC Union stands for humanistic and democratic values. Anyone who doesn't share these values has no place in our club or our stadium."


A Berlin police spokeswoman told DPA news agency that the state security service, which deals with politically motivated crimes, had opened an investigation.


The rant unleashed an outpouring of support for 30-year-old Cohen, who also plays for the Israeli national team.


"Almog, you will never be alone!", tweeted the Israeli ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, condemning the "despicable" anti-Jewish insult.


Christoph Heubner, vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee, said the hate-filled tweet underscored a worrying rise in anti-Semitism in Germany.


Such "outbursts of hatred" are "disgusting and alarming, and not just to Holocaust survivors, because of their direct reference to the gas chambers of Auschwitz," he said.


Cohen, who has lived in Germany for nine years, tweeted a message of thanks to his supporters.


"As a Jewish professional football player in Germany I just want to say: I am very proud of my heritage and of representing my country in the second division and being captain of Ingolstadt 04," he wrote.


"A big thank you to my club which gives me the support and therefore the strength to master any situation."


6. PM RESPONDS TO MODEL: ISRAEL NOT 'STATE OF ALL ITS CITIZENS'
by Arutz Sheva Staff

The Knesset election campaign period leads to all sorts of strange situations, such as the one that took place this morning, Sunday, when Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to an Instagram post written by model and actress Rotem Sela.

Sela had responded to an interview journalist Rina Matzliah held with Culture Minister Miri Regev, during which Regev asserted that Gantz would form a coalition with the Arab parties.

"I see Miri Regev sitting and explaining to Rina Matzliah that the public needs to be careful because Gantz will form a coalition with the Arabs if he is elected," she wrote.

"Rina is silent. I ask myself, why doesn't Rina ask in bewilderment - And what's the problem with the Arabs??? Master of the Universe, there are also Arab citizens in this country. Israel is a state of its citizens, and all people were born equal and Arabs, Heaven forbid, are people too, and so are Druze, and so are gays, by the way, and so are lesbians and so are…*shock*...leftists."

Sela's words garnered support from some users, but elicited a storm of opposition from many others. Sela responded to those who attacked her words, writing, "To everyone who wrote really disgusting things after the last story, I love you all. Your repellent statements will never prevent me from stating my opinion. A whole generation of children grew up in our country without hope for peace, and that is sad and depressing. If only politicians, whose voices are heard strongest, were those who give true hope for peace, equality and love, instead of incitement and division."

This morning, as noted, Prime Minister Netanyahu also joined the respondents to Sela's post, writing on his Instagram account: "Dear Rotem, important amendment: Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the Basic Law on Nationality we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and of it only," he wrote. "As you wrote, there is no problem with the Arab citizens of Israel - they have equal rights to us all and the Likud government invested more in the Arab sector than any other government. The Likud only wanted to sharpen the central question in these elections: A strong right-wing government headed by me or a left-wing government headed by Lapid and Gantz with the support of the Arab parties? Lapid and Gantz have no other way of forming a government and such a government will undermine the security of the state and its citizens. The decision - in another month at the ballot box. Good day."



7. ESCALATION IN ISRAEL'S SOUTH
by Arutz Sheva Staff

An RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) round was found on Saturday in an Israeli town belonging to the Sdot Negev Regional Council.

The round was attached to a balloon sent into Israel from Gaza.

Sappers arriving at the area neutralized the explosive safely, avoiding injuries.

On Saturday night, IDF fighter jets and aircraft struck several military targets in a Hamas compound in the southern Gaza Strip and underground structures in the northern Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the IDF said, "The strike was conducted in response to the projectile that was launched from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory earlier this evening, in addition to the continued violence emanating from the Gaza Strip, which has included the launching of balloons carrying explosive devices and attempts to damage security infrastructure over the last days."

"The IDF views any attempt to harm Israeli civilians with great severity, and will continue to operate with determination against these acts of terror.

"The Hamas terror organization is accountable for all events transpiring in the Gaza Strip and emanating from it."

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260104

On Friday night, the Israeli Air Force struck Hamas terror targets in Gaza in retaliation for a rocket fired into Israeli territory earlier that evening.

The rocket exploded in an open field between two kibbutzim in the Eshkol Regional Council.

Earlier on Friday, security officials found three bunches of suspicious balloons. Attached to one of the bunches was a scarecrow depicting Ziad Al-Nakhaleh, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.



8. PM AYELET SHAKED? MAYBE AFTER BENNETT
by Arutz Sheva Staff

Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, heads of the New Right party, gave a joint interview to the Yediot Aharonot newspaper and spoke about their partnership that was formed in Binyamin Netanyahu's office in 2005 and continues to this day.

The two were asked if there were any disagreements in this partnership, to which Bennett replied, "There are countless disagreements as often happens between two people, but because I very much value Ayelet and her opinion and she values me and my opinion, then we solve everything."

Asked how long this partnership will survive, Bennett replied, "It has no expiration date", while Shaked said, "How can you know what will happen in life? We are in many ways putting our ego aside in order to maintain this partnership."

There are ego fights between the two, but according to Bennett, "I think most of the public thinks we are the two best ministers in the government." Bennett and Shaked said "no" when asked if they had ever been upset with one another and made it clear that there has never been a situation in which they did not talk to each other.

Bennett was asked whether he would agree to give up first place for Shaked if her name was "stronger" and replied, "The day after Netanyahu I will run for prime minister and I intend to be prime minister."

Shaked responded, "Bennett should be prime minister after Netanyahu, after Bennett, everything is open."

When asked whether Shaked is suitable to be prime minister, Bennett replied, "Ayelet has the skills to achieve every position in the State of Israel. Everything includes everything. She has an extraordinary set of traits and common sense."

Shaked added, "We respect one another, value each other and know that our partnership has many advantages. In politics, they are all lonely wolves, and when we are in a partnership, the power is more significant."

Bennett continued, "For example, in the ultimatum we set for the prime minister, it was Ayelet's initiative. We discussed it and we decided to go for it, and then we decided to pull back together. Ayelet is a great asset to the party and the government. When I achieved two ministerial roles during the formation the government, it is customary for the party leader to take the more senior portfolio, the justice portfolio. But I gave her the portfolio even though I could have taken it for myself. I just thought she was more suited for it."

He is also not sorry that he gave the justice portfolio to Shaked, saying, "Your assumption is that everything is political, but in the end Ayelet and I came to politics for the benefit of state, and what I did in the education system and she in the justice system would not have happened if it was the opposite. We truly brought greater value and I am proud of everything she does. This is a true shared leadership. Not a game."