PM Denies Talks on Basis of 1949 Lines, But Not Freeze
Binyamin
Netanyahu's office denied that he accepted pre-'67 lines as the basis
for talks with the PA. But what about the building freeze?-By David Lev and Chana Ya'ar-First Publish: 7/18/2013, 3:26 PM-INN
Kerry and Abbas-AFP photo
Building freeze
While denying the part about the 1949 armistice lines, Netanyahu's office did not issue a denial of the building freeze claim.Officials in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria said that even if Netanyahu's office did issue a denial, it would be meaningless, as the government could in any case impose a “soft” building freeze, in which it just drags its feet on approving building plans and the like, as opposed to an official freeze.In a Facebook post Thursday, former MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) said that Israelis should be very suspicious of the entire process.“Everyone knows that if Abbas suddenly agrees to talks, it is because he was promised what he has demanded all along,” he wrote. “In the same way that the negotiations conducted by Bayit Yehudi under the leadership of Naftali Bennett have led to a 50% cut in the budget for Hesder yeshivas and National Religious educational institutions, so he is leading to the negotiations Netanyahu wants to conduct that will result in the establishment of a PA state,” he added.
Road blocks removed
Army Radio also reported Thursday that Israel is considering removing at least two strategic road blocks – one in Samaria, north of Ramallah, and one in the southern Hevron Hills, in Judea, close to the Jewish community of Beit Haggai – as a good will gesture to the Palestinian Authority for the holy Islamic month of
Abbas is scheduled to meet with top Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials Thursday (today) to discuss the outcome of his two meetings with Kerry this week and to vote on whether to accept or reject Kerry’s proposal. A 2002 Arab League plan that originally called for Israel to be held to the 1949 Armistice Lines – which military experts have plainly said are indefensible – recently was modified by Qatar, which has raised the option of including land swaps to settle future borders.The Arab League delegation that met with Kerry “expressed hope that this will lead to a launch of serious negotiations to address all final status issues to end the conflict and achieve a just and comprehensive peace between the Palestinians and Israelis which will bless the region with security, stability and prosperity... based on a two state solution through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the lines of the fourth of June 1967 with a limited exchange of territory of the same value and size.”
Netanyahu reportedly agrees to talks based on 1967 lines
Development denied by prime minister’s spokesman; report indicates Abbas ready to acknowledge Israel is a Jewish state
July 18, 2013, 2:59 pm
7-the times of israel
Abbas was to present Kerry’s outline for the
talks to the PLO leadership in Ramallah on Thursday. Palestinian
officials said there was a very good chance the plan would be approved.
Kerry has been spearheading an intensive American effort to revive peace
talks, which last broke down in 2010.Thus far, Abbas has refused to negotiate
unless Israel halts all construction in West Bank settlements, which it
last did in 2009. Recently, Israel has rejected Palestinian demands for a
blanket freeze, saying negotiations should resume without the
imposition of Palestinian preconditions. Kerry has offered the
Palestinians a package of economic incentives worth $4 billion to
restart the talks.
Israel moves to quit flagship EU project over restrictions
Pulling out of major economic initiative could strike a blow at Europe due to Israel’s status strength as a research center
July 18, 2013, 6:00 am
21-the times of israel
The EU’s new directive, made public Tuesday,
contains two main elements: denial of European funding to, and
cooperation with, Israeli institutions based or operating over the Green
Line, and a requirement that all future agreements between Israel and
the EU include a clause in which Israel accepts the European Union’s
position that all territory over the Green Line does not belong to
Israel.The restrictions are ostensibly meant to help
Israel, by ensuring that it remains a recipient of EU funds, provided
that the money doesn’t cross the Green Line, the EU has said. But they
also serve to alienate Israel, which sees the restrictions as a
back-handed way of predetermining its future borders.“This is important
in view of the new
opportunities that will be offered to Israel (as an ENP [European
Neighborhood Policy] partner) for participation in EU programmes and
other funding instruments in the 2014-2020 financial framework,” read an
EU statement issued to The Times of Israel.“The Europeans have a right
to do whatever
they like with their money. However, their directives also influence
what Israeli institutions do with funds that do not come from the EU,
and that is unacceptable,” a senior Jerusalem official told
Maariv.Israel is poised to play a central role in the
Horizon 2020 project and though it also stands to benefit from it,
pulling out of the joint venture will strike a blow to the EU because of
Israel’s standing as a research center. Israel’s special status is
evident in the fact that it is the only non-EU member state to be
granted full partnership in the project.According to the official, the
Israeli
government has decided that the financial losses caused by pulling out
of the project cannot justify giving in to the EU’s sanctions. “The EU
must determine whether it is worth it to lose out on Israel’s human
resources,” he said.Meanwhile Foreign Ministry sources cautioned that
quitting Horizon 2020 would deliver a costly blow to Israel’s hi-tech
sector.“For every Euro we put into the project, we
will receive a Euro and a half back in investment in research. We should
think long and hard about whether this move isn’t too far-reaching,”
said one diplomat.On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu spoke with a series of European leaders, outlining his strong
objections to the new directives. Netanyahu discussed the measure with
the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, as well as
the leaders of France, Greece, Malta, and Austria, in an effort to
delay the ban’s enforcement. Netanyahu also reportedly spoke about the
measures with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in the region to
promote Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.Israel’s chief peace negotiator,
Justice
Minister Tzipi Livni, met Wednesday with the European Union envoy for
Mideast peace, Andreas Reinicke, and told him that postponing the ban’s
enforcement would help relaunch peace talks, which stalled nearly five
years ago.
Polish PM to investigate kosher slaughter issue
Committee formed to see if ban violates Polish constitution, which stipulates freedom of religion
July 18, 2013, 4:18 pm
0-the times of israel
A bill that would re-instate shehita,
or kosher slaughter, which has been illegal since the beginning of the
year, was voted down by the lower house of the Polish parliament, the
Sejm, on Friday.The 1997 Act on the Relation of the State to
the Jewish Communities in Poland protects religious slaughter for the
local Jewish community, but it is currently unclear whether the law
still applies.Tusk’s commission will be headed by the
minister of Administration and Digitization, MichaĆ Jan Boni, who is
also in charge of religious matters. Minister Boni has already
instructed legal counsel to examine whether the legislation outlawing
shehita for the purposes of export contradicts the Polish constitution,
which guarantees freedom of religion.Ambassador Prawda made the announcement
following a meeting with the general director of the European Jewish
Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, on Tuesday. He has invited Rabbi
Margolin to join the committee.
There have also been meetings between rabbis
from the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE) and Polish ambassadors across
the continent.Rabbi Margolin said that the Polish
Parliament’s decision to reject the shehita bill last week stemmed from
its desire to protect animal rights, but that “once the Polish
government understood that this is seen as an action against the Jews,”
it decided to find an immediate solution. Archaeologists say one of King David’s palaces found
Two large structures found at Khirbet Qeiyafa site dated to the time of monarch’s reign, one of which is said to be palace
July 18, 2013, 3:58 pm
0-the times of israel
Professor
Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel
Antiquities Authority have announced that they found a palace and royal
storehouse that belonged to King David. The two buildings are the
largest structures standing during the tenth century BCE that have been
found in the territory of the Kingdom of Judah.The
discovery was made at Khirbet Qeiyafa near Beit Shemesh. For the past
year, the researchers uncovered the two buildings at the site, which is
believed by some to be the fortified Judean city of Shaarayim. According
to the biblical record, after David smote Goliath, the Philistines were
slaughtered on the road to Shaarayim as they fled. Shaarayim means “two
gates,” and Khirbet Qeiyafa has two gates in its walls.The two archaeologists identified one building
as David’s palace and the other as a massive royal storeroom. The
excavation of the site as whole has stretched on for seven years.When David would visit this important regional
center, “he definitely didn’t live in a simple home,” Ganor told The
Times of Israel.
“Khirbet Qeiyafa is the best example exposed
to date of a fortified city from the time of King David,” read a
statement released by the researchers. “The southern part of a large
palace that extended across an area of c. 1,000 sq m was revealed at the
top of the city. The wall enclosing the palace is c. 30 m long and an
impressive entrance is fixed it through which one descended to the
southern gate of the city, opposite the Valley of Elah. Around the
palace’s perimeter were rooms in which various installations were found –
evidence of a metal industry, special pottery vessels and fragments of
alabaster vessels that were imported from Egypt.”“This is the only site in which organic
material was found — including olive seeds — that can be carbon-14
dated” to the period of King David’s reign, Israel Antiquities Authority
spokeswoman Yoli Schwartz told The Times of Israel.
In addition, the location of the buildings fit
the requirements of an Iron Age palace. “The palace is located in the
center of the site and controls all of the houses lower than it in the
city. From here one has an excellent vantage looking out into the
distance, from as far as the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Hebron
Mountains and Jerusalem in the east. This is an ideal location from
which to send messages by means of fire signals.”Garfinkel and Ganor believe that the pillared
building, 15 meters (49 feet) long by 6 meters wide in the north of the
city, was used as a royal storeroom. “It was in this building the
kingdom stored taxes it received in the form of agricultural produce
collected from the residents of the different villages in the Judean
Shephelah,” they said. “Hundreds of large store jars were found at the
site whose handles were stamped with an official seal as was customary
in the Kingdom of Judah for centuries.”They see the finds as evidence of centralized
construction and royal administrative organization during King David’s
rule. “This is unequivocal evidence of a kingdom’s existence, which knew
to establish administrative centers at strategic points,” they argued.
“To date no palaces have been found that can clearly be ascribed to the
early tenth century BCE as we can do now. Khirbet Qeiyafa was probably
destroyed in one of the battles that were fought against the Philistines
circa 980 BCE. The palace that is now being revealed and the fortified
city that was uncovered in recent years are another tier in
understanding the beginning of the Kingdom of Judah.”
In light of the find, the Israel Antiquities
Authority and the Nature and Parks Authority are working with local
planning bodies to cancel the impending construction of a neighborhood
nearby, and hope to reserve the area around the site as a national park.In 2008, a pottery sherd with five lines of
text was discovered at the site. Many scholars believe it to be early
Hebrew writing, possibly referring to the ascent of King Saul to the
throne. Others argue it features Israelite social rules, while some
dispute the idea that it is written in Hebrew at all. The sherd
currently sits in Jerusalem’s Israel Museum.Garfinkel and Ganor believe that what remained
of the palace was further damaged during the Byzantine period when a
fortified farmhouse was built on the site.Another prominent Israeli archaeologist
believes she uncovered David’s Jerusalem palace, mentioned in II Samuel:
“Now Hiram king of Tyre sent envoys to David, along with cedar logs and
carpenters and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David.” In
2005, Eilat Mazar, granddaughter of the “dean” of biblical archaeology,
Benjamin Mazar, began digging in the oldest portion of Jerusalem, the
City of David. She focused on Area H, above the Stepped Stone Structure,
a massive Jebusite Iron Age fortified building.
She believed that the spot on the northern
edge of the City of David was a prime candidate for the site of David’s
palace. II Samuel states that after David heard that the Philistines
were gathering to make war against him, he “went down to the stronghold”
from his palace. She decided to dig in Area H, the only part of the
city higher than the fortress, from which King David would have gone
down.Her hypothesis was also supported by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon’s discovery of elegant masonry in the same area.
“When I told my grandfather of my idea about
the possible location of David’s palace,” Mazar wrote in Biblical
Archaeology Review, “he was enthusiastic about it. ‘Where, exactly,’ he
asked me, ‘did Kenyon find the piles of ashlars [nicely hewn rectangular
stones] together with the proto-Aeolic (sometimes called proto-Ionic)
capital? Wasn’t it right next to the place you’re talking about?’
Indeed, it was. When I ran to check Kenyon’s reports, I confirmed that
ashlar stones and an elegant proto-Aeolic capital had been found
literally at the foot of the scarp at the southeastern edge of the
structure in Area H. And this was just the kind of impressive remains
that one would expect to come from a tenth-century B.C.E. king’s
palace.”
Mazar found a massive public building there
that she called the Large Stone Structure. In addition to Kenyon’s
earlier discoveries there, Mazar uncovered pottery sherds from the very
end of the Iron Age I period, about 1000 BCE, when David is believed to
have captured Jerusalem.However, Mazar’s conclusion is controversial.
Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University contend that her overly literal
reading of the biblical text skews her analysis of the archaeological
record.