U.N. Chief Slams Israel Over Settlement Plans In Wake Of Quartet Report

[Purveyor]

Source: Reuters

Tue Jul 5, 2016 3:39pm EDT

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon sharply criticized a decision by Israel to advance plans to build hundreds of units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem just days after world powers called on Israel to stop its settlement policy, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

"This raises legitimate questions about Israel's long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank," Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Ban was "deeply disappointed" that Israel's announcement followed the release of a report on Friday by the "Quartet" sponsoring the stalled Middle East peace process - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

The long-awaited report said Israel should stop building settlements, denying Palestinian development and designating land for exclusive Israeli use that Palestinians seek for a future state.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-un-idUSKCN0ZL27B

[elleng]

1. "This raises legitimate questions about Israel's long-term intentions,'

in case there anyone wondered.

[Night Watchman]

2. Ehud Barak Makes it Personal

From Politico, July 03, 2016...

Ehud Barak hadn’t given a speech in months, and speculation was rife about what he was going to say when he took the stage at a prestigious policy conference in Herzliya, an affluent suburb of Tel Aviv, two weeks ago. Barak was one of Israel’s leading political figures for two decades, having served as the country's prime minister in the late 1990s and later as defense minister under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2009 to 2012. Was he about to announce a political comeback?

It turned out that Barak, a former special ops commando officer, had one last mission in mind: To take out his former boss and partner.

In his speech, Barak accused Netanyahu of cowardice, opportunism and fear-mongering. He warned that Israel's current government, arguably the most right wing in its history, was showing “signs of fascism,” and that if Netanyahu wasn’t stopped, Israel was on course to become an apartheid state. “The entire Zionist project is in grave danger,” he proclaimed. And the main source of that danger wasn't Israel’s external enemies, but rather its own democratically elected leader.

Barak hasn’t let up since. “Netanyahu,” he said in a televised interview broadcast a day after his angry speech, “has gone off the rails. He needs to go.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/netanyahu-prime-minister-obama-president-foreign-policy-us-israel-israeli-relations-middle-east-iran-defense-forces-idf-214004

[Night Watchman]

3. Kick for Exposure