Jerusalem News (20 January, 2014, Shevet 19, 5774)
Contents:
1. US Routinely Spies on Israel
2. Israel's 'working assumption' is that the U.S. eavesdrops on their communications
3. Sexually transmitted diseases Syphilis and gonorrhea on the rise in the U.S. - especially among gay men and young people
4. The Enemies of Israel from Within the Country Funded by the EU and the Ford Foundation
5. Arab Commentators Makes favorable Mention of French and Israeli Occupation
Al Jazeera Host Asks Why Can't Arab Armies Be More Humane, Like Israel?
6. Syrian energy deal puts Russia in gas-rich Mediterranean
7. PM Netanyahu at tree planting: Israel remained desolate during our absence
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1. US Routinely Spies on Israel
From: Lloyd <lloydmillerus@yahoo.com>
[prj] Re: NSA spied on Israel
To: a-albionic@yahoogroups.com
Lloyd sez:
I knew a guy in the State Dept. who said they routinely listened to
Netanyahoo in his plane on the way to the White House when Bush was
President via undisclosed tech.
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2. Israel's 'working assumption' is that the U.S. eavesdrops on their communications
By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, December 22, 2013 10:08 EST
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/22/israels-working-assumption-is-that-the-u-s-eavesdrops-on-their-communications/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+(The+Raw+Story)
Israel's intelligence minister called reported US wiretapping of an Israeli premier 'unacceptable' as the story on Sunday rekindled calls for the release of jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
'We have of late exceptional intelligence relations with the United States and the British, it's almost one intelligence community,' Yuval Steinitz told private television Channel 2 s 'Meet the Press' late Saturday.
'Under such conditions I think it is unacceptable,' Steinitz said.
'We do not spy on the president of the United States or the White House. The rules have been made clear. We have made certain commitments on the matter and we honour them.'
The New York Times reported on Friday that in monitoring more than 1,000 targets in upwards of 60 countries between 2008 to 2011, US and British intelligence agencies tapped the communications of then Israeli premier Ehud Olmert, among other foreign leaders, according to secret documents revealed by intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
MP Nachman Shai, a diplomat in Israel's Washington embassy in the early 1980s, said Sunday that he had called a debate on the affair in an influential parliamentary committee.
'Our working assumption was that we are being listened to, including by the Americans, but that doesn't make it permissible or, ethical, and at the end of the day, when it is discovered, it cannot be ignored,' he told public radio.
Shai said Israel and its close strategic ally had agreed not to spy upon one another in the wake of the 1985 arrest in Washington of Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy analyst, who gave Israel thousands of secret documents about US espionage in the Arab world.
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3. Sexually transmitted diseases Syphilis and gonorrhea on the rise in the U.S. - especially among gay men and young people
The CDC [centers of Disease Control and Prevention] reports that syphilis cases rose 11.1 per cent between 2011 and 2012
The rise was only among men who have sex with men who account for 75 per cent off all cases of primary and secondary syphilis
Reported cases of gonorrhea rose 4.1 per cent, mostly among young men and women aged 15 to 24
The CDC says there are likely to be much higher numbers of unreported and undiagnosed STDs
Untreated STDs cause 24,000 women in America to become infertile each year
STDs cost the U.S. $16 billion annually
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4. The Enemies of Israel from Within the Country Funded by the EU and the Ford Foundation
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[Background: More than 50,000 illegal immigrants infiltrated Israel from Eritrea and the Sudan. They have taken over certain neighborhoods in the poorer areas of Tel Aviv and Eilat and are prominent elsewhere. Serious crimes including frequent attacks on women have resulted. Â The original inhabitants of these areas are afraid to go outside. The Israeli Government has taken belated efforts to control this phenomenon and possibly return the infiltrators (who are nearly all male) to Africa. In response left-wing activists have organized the inflitrators and taught them how to conduct much publicized public protests.]
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Self-Hating Left Organizing Immigrant Strike
Yoram Sheftel, who is also a regular columnist on Arutz Sheva and a radio host, wrote Thursday that the migrant workers' [illegal male infiltrators from Africa] recent strike and rallies are being organized by "the red enemy from within, the ones who are funded by external elements from the European Union, and the New Israel Fund, which is almost completely funded by the anti-Semitic Ford Foundation." "These are protests by the internal red enemy, which has raised the banner of eradicating the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people," he said. "There is nothing like the infiltration of over 50,000 people, who would have reached hundreds of thousands, to realize this goal."
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5. Arab Commentators Makes favorable Mention of French and Israeli Occupation
Al Jazeera Host Asks Why Can't Arab Armies Be More Humane, Like Israel? (
January 17, 2014 2:08 pm 11 comments
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/01/17/al-jazeera-host-asks-why-cant-arab-armies-be-more-humane-like-israel-video/
Al Jazeera Arabic asks why the Arab world's armies can't learn to respect civilians, like the Israeli Army does? Photo: Screenshot / Al Jazeera.
An Al Jazeera Arabic anchor recently asked his audience why Arab armies, and, in particular, the regime of Bashar al-Assad, in Syria, can't behave more humanely towards civilians, like the Israeli and French armies do?
In a clip uploaded to YouTube this week and flagged by Mideast Media Analyst Tom Gross, the anchor asks, 'Why don't they learn from the Israeli army which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine? Didn't Hezbollah take shelter in areas populated by civilians because it knows that Israeli Air Force doesn't bomb those areas? Why doesn't the Syrian army respect premises of universities, schools or inhabited neighborhoods? Why does it shell even the areas of its supporters?'
'I will also give you the example of France. All Syrians remember that the French forces, when they occupied Syria tried to avoid, when rebels entered mosques or schools, they stopped. The people would prefer that France come back! For God's sake, if a referendum were to be held, if people were to be asked, who would you prefer the current regime or the French, I swear by God they would have preferred the French.
'The Israeli army, if it wanted to break up a demonstration, would have used water cannons or rubber bullets, not rockets or explosive barrels as happens in Aleppo today.
'You mustn't compare the Syrian army with French or Israeli' The Israeli army didn't shell Aleppo University and students there. They didn't shell the university with rockets killing dozens of students' The Israelis or the French didn't kill their people. Please tell me how many of their people did the French army kill?'
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6. Syrian energy deal puts Russia in gas-rich Mediterranean
Jan. 16, 2014 at 3:56 PM
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2014/01/16/Syrian-energy-deal-puts-Russia-in-gas-rich-Med/UPI-32731389905770/
Extracts:
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- Syria's new 25-year energy deal with
Russia, a key ally of embattled President Bashar Assad, could open the way
for Moscow's eventual move into the gas-rich eastern Mediterranean -- if the
Damascus regime survives the civil war that's raged since March 2011.
The Dec. 25 agreement gives Russia's state-controlled Soyuzneftegas
exclusive exploration, development and production rights over 850 square
miles of Syria's Exclusive Economic Zone in an area known as Block 2 roughly
between the coastal cities of Banias and Tartous.
The deal gives the Russians, one of the world's leading energy producers,
their first real foothold in the Levant Basin, considered to be rich in
natural gas.
Israel, which hit major gas fields in 2009-10, containing an estimated 30
tcf, is the more advanced in terms of developing its gas reserves, which are
likely much higher.
Its Tamar field began producing in March 2013 and the much larger Leviathan
field is scheduled to go onstream in 2015. Cyprus is still in the early
stages of exploratory drilling off its south coast.
There's an undeveloped field off Gaza, which has fallen victim to the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Some analysts believe Russia could even be the catalyst for exporting and
marketing the region's energy riches.
Securing gas reserves in the east Mediterranean, however substantial they
may turn out to be, will also help Moscow safeguard its dominant position as
a natural gas supplier to Western Europe that could challenged by new
competitors in the region.
The east Mediterranean's gas industry is still in its infancy and the key
players at this stage, Israel and Cyprus, still have not been able to
coordinate plans for future exports.
The Financial Times says the Soyuzneftegaz deal could influence strategic
calculations regarding the civil war in Syria by bolstering Assad's
beleaguered regime in advance of a highly anticipated peace conference
scheduled to be held in Switzerland later this month.
Meantime, Russia's deal with Syria could be a regional game-changer, even if
it will take several years to start producing gas or oil in commercial
quantities.
"The investment gives Russia the potential to lead the development of the
whole region and to manage the use of the gas and the pace and destination
of any exports," energy analyst Nick Butler observed.
"To many in the region, Russia will seem a more secure, consistent ally than
the retreating Americans and Europeans. By moving into the region, President
Vladimir Putin is doing no more than filling a vacuum...
"The move into Syria is not just entirely rational -- economically and
politically -- it is also a mark of the changing balance of global power."
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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
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7. PM Netanyahu at tree planting: Israel remained desolate during our absence
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Extracts:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Wednesday, 15 January
2014), attended a tree-planting ceremony at the JNF Grove of Nations in the
Jerusalem Forest. Also in attendance were Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, JNF
World Chairman Efie Stenzler, Chinese People's Association for Friendship
with Foreign Countries President Li Xiaolin, members of a Chinese
delegation, members of JNF Argentina, Masa Israel Journey participants, JNF
employees and children from the Henrietta Szold School in Jerusalem, where
the Prime Minister studied as a boy.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said:
Tu B'ShvatShvat and this planting are a deep expression of hope and faith.
Here you are not planting a tree for the next two days or even two years,
but for decades. The faith is in the future and the hope is for its
realization, and we, of course, have realized that hope here in these hills.
I call your attention to the aerial photographs from the 1920's. If you look
at them, you will see that everything is desolate. You hardly see any trees
and you hardly see any bushes on these hills, which are now covered with
forests. It was not always like this. If you walk from here through the
trees, through the ravines and valleys, you will see terraces, remnants of
ancient agriculture that our ancestors managed here on these hills in
Biblical times and after them in the Mishnaic period, when Jews lived on
this soil, cultivated it and grew plants and trees. When we left the
country, everything was uprooted, and when we returned to it over 100 years
ago, during the 19th century, we brought the land back to life and restored
life to the ground. We started to plant and to build and the difference is
truly amazing.
We believe in the future of our country. We are a link in the chain of
generations. We returned to our country in order to stay here and strike
root in the land, and this we are doing not just in planting trees, but in
building the country - in Jerusalem, and in the south, north and center.
There is a very great revolution going on in the Negev and the Galilee. We
are building expressways and railways. We are moving the IDF to the south
and building a medical school in the Galilee. We are bringing investors to
these places from all over the world because they, like us, also believe in
the future of the State of Israel and in the future of the state of the
Jewish People. The future is ours and the young shoots'.
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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il