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Knesset report raps armyover second Lebanon War |
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Written by News Editor
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Wednesday, 02 January 2008 |
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Israel's armed forces have been faulted by a parliamentary panel for their conduct during the Second Lebanon War.
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee released a long-awaited report Monday that focused on the failings of the military during the 2006 summer offensive against Hezbollah.
Although the panel commended the air force for destroying many of the Iranian-backed militia's medium-range rockets, it said ground troops were too slow to go in against short-range rockets and mortars. Tanks were deployed against the guerrillas with faulty tactics and reservists were poorly trained and equipped, the report found.
The report drew fire for not criticizing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other senior government figures, whom may Israelis blame for the muddled planning of the war. An Israeli commission of inquiry is expected to hand in its second and final report on the war next month, potentially with a recommendation that Olmert resign.
Israel eyes al Qaeda threat
Israel is taking seriously a renewed threat by Osama bin Laden to attack it. After the Qaeda chief issued a recorded message last weekend vowing to "liberate Palestine," Israel stepped up its scrutiny of Palestinian terrorist groups.
"Al Qaeda has many admirers within Israel's borders, mainly in Judea and Samaria and Gaza," Tzahi Hanegbi, who chairs the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Israel Radio on Monday. "Thus the chances of active al Qaeda cells being set up here, with strong motivation to carry out major attacks, is something we should prepare for and thwart."
Hanegbi noted that Bin Laden's recent message differed from previous ones by appearing to threaten attacks on targets in Israel. "There is a chance that his operatives will view this as an order to operate, even if up until now they did not think this was important," he said.
Ha'aretz editor urges U.S. to commit 'rape' of Israel
The editor of Ha'aretz acknowledges that he pressed U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to impose a Mideast peace settlement, saying Israel wanted to be "raped" by the Americans.
David Landau made the comments during a Sept. 10 meeting with Rice at the private residence of America's ambassador to Israel, Richard Jones. "I did say that in general, Israel wants to be raped ‹ I did use that word ‹ by the U.S., and I myself have long felt Israel needed more vigorous U.S. intervention in the affairs of the Middle East," Landau last week told The Jewish Week of New York.
Landau, a British-born Orthodox Jew with dovish political views, also said he told Rice that "it had always been my wet dream to address the secretary of state" on these vital matters. According to The Jewish Week, attendees said Rice told the assembled guests that the United States had no intention of imposing a settlement.
Jerusalem square to be named after Pollard
A Jerusalem square will soon be dedicated to convicted spy Jonathan Pollard prior to President George W. Bush's visit to Israel.
Mina Fenton, a Jerusalem city council member, announced this week that the capital's Paris Square will be symbolically ‹ and temporarily ‹ renamed "Pollard Square" in a ceremony on Monday, two days before Bush begins his first visit as U.S. president to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The move is meant to help lobby Bush to pardon Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst who is serving a life prison sentence for spying for Israel.
Was Sharon punished
for Gaza disengagement?
A poll taken shortly before tomorrow's two-year anniversary of the stroke that ended former prime minister Ariel Sharon's career found that 26.8 percent of Israelis believe Sharon was punished for the disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
The numbers were more than twice as large among haredim, or fervently Orthodox, where 56.6 percent agreed that it was right to "connect Sharon's health conditions to his part in the expulsion and view it as a punishment."
Israeli Arabs don't want
to relocate to Palestine
The vast majority of Israeli Arabs would not want to live in a future Palestinian state, a poll has found. According to a survey published over the weekend in the Israeli-Arab A-Sinara newspaper, 78 percent of Israeli Arabs do not want to be part of a future Palestine, while 18 percent do. The rest were undecided.
The number of respondents and margin of error were not immediately available. A-Sinara commissioned the poll in light of growing calls within the Jewish state for Arab population centers to be ceded to the Palestinians in exchange for West Bank settlement blocs.
Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel's population and some of the community's leaders have stirred Jewish ire by coming out against Zionism and in favor of Palestinian groups, including Hamas. Many Israeli Jews believe their Arab compatriots want to stay in Israel because of economics, but this was denied by Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli-Arab lawmaker. "We have two identities, the national identity, as Arabs and Palestinians, and the other identity, as Israeli citizens," he told Army Radio. "Both are important."
Terrorists kill two Israelis
Two Israeli men were killed by Palestinian terrorists in a shooting attack in the South Hebron Hills on Friday. David Ruben and Ahikam Amihai had been hiking with a woman in the area of the Talam and Adura settlements when four terrorists opened fire on them from a jeep, according to media reports.
The hikers returned fire, killing one of the terrorists. The female hiker escaped and was taken to a hospital for treatment of shock.
‹ compiled from reports filed by JTA News and Features, The Jerusalem Post and other sources |
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