A cross-border exchange of fire in the Golan Heights between the Israeli and Syrian armies early on Tuesday triggered a claim by the Damascus regime that a jeep manned by Israeli troops had entered Syrian territory and was destroyed.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) denied the claim, saying shots were deliberately fired at a patrol inside the Israeli-controlled the Golan Heights, causing minor damage and no injuries. “In response, IDF forces returned precise fire at the source and reported a direct hit,” it said.
It was the latest in a string of cross-border incidents in recent months, which have raised concerns that the two-year-old civil war in Syria could spill over into the neighbouring Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied for more than 40 years.
Israel has launched three air strikes against targets inside Syria in recent weeks, all of which the country claimed were targeting weapons/supplies intended for Hezbollah. It remains to be seen what sort of impact today’s exchange of fire will have on ongoing attempts to jump-start peace talks between the Syrian government and rebel fighters.
We’re changing the name ‘Palestinian Territories’ to ‘Palestine’ across our products. We consult a number of sources and authorities when naming countries. In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organisation for Standardisation] and other international organizations.Google spokesman Nathan Tyler • Discussing the web giant’s decision to change the name of the Palestinian edition of its search engine to “Google Palestine,” from “Google Palestinian Territories.” While the Palestinian Authority praised the move, which matched the UN’s decision to designate the contested region as a non-member observer state late last year, Israel was less happy about it. “This change raises questions about the reasons behind this surprising involvement of what is basically a private internet company in international politics, and on the controversial side,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
To the best of our professional understanding, the regime used lethal chemical weapons against gunmen in a series of incidents in recent months.Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, research division chief for Israeli army intelligence • Claiming that Syria’s Assad government has used chemical weapons against it’s people (though offering no corroborating evidence), in remarks at the Institute for National Security Studies. of Tel Aviv University. Secretary of State John Kerry says he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning, and that the leader “was not in a position to confirm” his military’s assessment. This isn’t a new concern for the United States, which has been under some international pressure to address claims to the UN by France and Britain, both allies, also suggesting that pro-Assad forces have used chemical weaponry. This has major political and diplomatic implications for America, as the administration has engaged in “red line” rhetoric on the matter of chemical weapons. source
Secretary of State John Kerry is making an emergency surprise trip to the Middle East this weekend amid worries that the Obama administration’s newly brokered friendship between Turkey and Israel risks unraveling, U.S. and Israeli media report.
The administration is concerned about Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s plans to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip, a move certain to raise tensions in the volatile region. Erdoğan’s announcement risks undermining the major diplomatic coup the White House claimed last month when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Erdoğan to apologize for a 2010 Israeli raid that killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
Erdoğan’s plans were met with disapproval by the State Department, which reiterated its opposition to negotiating with Hamas. The United States considers Hamas a terrorist group. The department declined to confirm or deny the reports of Kerry’s travel plans.
Secretary Kerry is expected to fly to Turkey on Saturday, and will also visit Israel and the West Bank this weekend before kicking off a string of previously planned trips to London, South Korea, China, and Japan next week.
Obama’s Trip To Israel Summed Up As An Episode Of Arrested Development
So how many more episodes of this series are we gonna get, anyway? (Side note: This is awesome.)
Put yourself in their shoes — look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents, every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their homes. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.President Barack Obama • Urging Israeli citizens to pressure their own government to work harder on attaining the two-state solution which so many world leaders claim to want to see. President Obama told the crowd that “as a politician” he could assure them that their leaders would never do what wasn’t demanded of them. According to the NY Times, President Obama’s remarks were met with raucous applause, despite the generally skeptic view many Israelis have of the President. source
Obama, Netanyahu address Iran, Syria threats
(Photo: Larry Downing / Reuters)
During a wide-ranging press conference in Jerusalem, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed Middle East conflicts and a potential two-state solution.
“Whatever time is left, there’s not a lot of time.” — Netanyahu on figuring out a solution to the nuclear-enrichment issue in Iran, in direct response to Obama’s comment that “there is still time” to find a diplomatic solution.
On Iconic Imagery: A new report from the United Nations claims that the above photo of BBC reporter Jihad al-Masharawi holding his slain child was actually the result of a wayward Palestinian rocket, and not a bombing by the Israeli Air Force as previously reported. While we suspect the news doesn’t make the loss of child any easier/harder for the young father, it certainly changes the narrative around an image that has become symbolic for last year’s 8-day conflict in Gaza which claimed the lives of 160 Palestinians and six Israelis. (Photo via Associated Press/Majed Hamdan) source
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Syria warned on Thursday of a possible “surprise” response to Israel’s attack on its territory and Russia condemned the air strike as an unprovoked violation of international law.
Damascus could take “a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes”, Syrian ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali said a day after Israel struck against Syria.
“Syria is engaged in defending its sovereignty and its land,” Ali told a website of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syria and Israel have fought several wars and in 2007 Israeli jets bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site, without a military response from Damascus.
Russia and Iran have strongly condemned the airstrike, though many of the most Western nations publicly opposed to the Assad regime have remained largely silent on the matter. It’s unclear what exactly Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is/isn’t planning in response to the attack, though the involvement of Hezbollah certainly increases fears that the “surprise” in question could be a bombing.
We’re fighting terrorism, which comes under very specific geopolitical and military circumstances. This is not something that compares with the situation in the U.S.Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor • Disputing claims, made by the National Rifle Association last week, that they were an example for the U.S. to follow in adding police officers to schools. But they dispute this, first off, because those officers are dealing with terrorism, not school shootings. Secondly, the rate of school shootings and civilian gun ownership is actually very low in Israel. Third, the officers were added in a period where there were no recent attacks at schools. And finally, there have only been two school shootings in Israel in the past four decades. As it is, the guards Israel does have are lightly armed and have a support system in case something does happen.
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