Tag Archives: Benjamin Netanyhau

Israeli police resume interview of Netanyahu in corruption probe

Israeli police resume interview of Netanyahu in corruption probe

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli police officers on Sunday questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the sixth time in a corruption probe, a police spokeswoman said.

Investigators arrived by car in late afternoon to Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem where past interrogations have taken place, and disappeared behind security gates.

Police said Netanyahu was questioned for several hours at his residence in an ongoing fraud investigation under the oversight of the state attorney, the country’s chief prosecutor, and with the authorisation of the attorney-general.

No charges have been brought against Netanyahu, who has been in power since 2009 and has denied wrongdoing.

He is a suspect in two cases, one involving the receipt of gifts from businessmen and the other related to alleged conversations he held with an Israeli newspaper publisher about limiting competition in the news sector in exchange for more positive coverage.

Police said earlier this month that a top Netanyahu confidant had been questioned as part of a different investigation into a $2 billion submarine deal with Germany.

(Reporting by Dedi Hayoun; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Mark Potter and David Evans)

Egypt’s Sisi, Israel’s Netanyahu meet for first time in public

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) during their meeting as part of an effort to revive the Middle East peace process ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 19, 2017 in this handout picture courtesy of the Egyptian Presidency. The Egyptian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have met for the first time in public in what Egypt said was part of an effort to revive the Middle East peace process.

Egyptian authorities said in a statement the two had met on Monday ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Sisi separately met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his residency, where they agreed to continue working toward a two-state solution.

The meeting came just days after Egypt helped broker an agreement with the Palestinian Hamas group to dissolve the administration that runs Gaza and hold talks with Abbas’ Fatah movement, its Palestinian rivals .

For much of the last decade, Egypt has joined Israel in enforcing a land, sea and air blockade of the Gaza Strip, a move to punish Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007.

Netanyahu has said in recent weeks that ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors have been improving and that cooperation exists “in various ways and (at) different levels”.

Egypt was the first of a handful of Arab countries to recognize Israel under the U.S.-sponsored peace accord in 1979. But Egyptian attitudes to its neighbor remain icy due to what many Arabs see as the continued Israeli occupation of land that is meant to form a Palestinian state.

In recent weeks, Egypt has hosted delegations from Fatah and Hamas to help reach an agreement between the two sides and talk about the Gaza border. But reunification a decade after their battle for control may hinge on whether complex power-sharing issues can be resolved.

Under pressure from the blockade, Hamas has sought to mend ties with Egypt, which controls their one border crossing. Egypt under Sisi has been wary of ties between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Sisi ousted from power after mass protests.

(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous words in paragraph 2.)

(Reporting by Nadine Awadalla; editing by Patrick Markey/Jeremy Gaunt)

Trump to visit Jewish, Christian holy sites in Jerusalem

President Donald Trump speaks at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

(This May 16 story has been refiled to fix description of Western Wall, paragraph 3, Netanyahu’s title, paragraph four.)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, the White House said on Monday amid controversy in Israel over reported comments by a U.S. diplomat that the wall was in the occupied West Bank.

Trump will say a prayer at the Western Wall, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said, as well as pay a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, considered by Christians to be the site of Jesus’ tomb.

The wall, part of the perimeter of the Jewish Second Temple, sits on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and has been a flashpoint of violence in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israel will be the second stop on Trump’s first foreign trip, following Saudi Arabia. The Republican president will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The announcement of Trump’s visit to the Jewish holy site came amid the controversy in Israel over a report that a U.S. diplomat preparing Trump’s visit referred to the Western Wall as being part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel’s Channel 2 reported that during a planning meeting between U.S. and Israeli officials, the Israelis were told that Trump’s visit to the wall was private, Israel did not have jurisdiction in the area and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not welcome to accompany Trump there.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its indivisible capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.

An official in Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that Israel has contacted Washington about the matter.

Asked about the matter, a White House official told Reuters on Tuesday: “These comments were not authorized by the White House. They do not reflect the U.S. position and certainly not the president’s position.”

McMaster sidestepped questions on Tuesday about whether the Trump administration considers the Western Wall part of Israel.

“That sounds like a policy decision,” he said during a daily briefing.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Israeli PM seeks ‘no gaps’ with Trump ahead of White House talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

By Luke Baker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, preparing for his first meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, will work with advisers on Tuesday to align Israeli and U.S. thinking on the Middle East and ensure “no gaps” remain.

Staff have cleared most of Tuesday for discussions with Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, and other senior advisers ahead of Wednesday’s Oval Office meeting. The only event of the day is an evening meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“There isn’t going to be any daylight, no gaps,” one adviser said as the prime minister left for Washington, the first time Netanyahu, the head of a right-wing coalition, has overlapped with a Republican in the White House in four terms in office.

Those reassurances came as Netanyahu took a cautious line on whether he would support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the bedrock of U.S. diplomacy for two decades, when he sits down with Trump.

During the presidential campaign, Trump was often unabashedly pro-Israel, promising to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, backing David Friedman, a supporter of settlements, as his envoy to Israel, and saying that he wouldn’t apply pressure for talks with the Palestinians.

But in the three-and-a-half weeks since taking office, positions have shifted. The embassy transfer has been put on hold as the fallout from such a move, not least the potential for unrest across the Middle East, has been explained, including by Jordan’s King Abdullah during an impromptu visit.

When it comes to settlements, Trump has laid out a more nuanced position, saying that while he does not see them as an obstacle to peace, building new ones or expanding existing ones beyond their current boundaries is “not good”.

And rather than no pressure for peace talks, Trump has said he wants to have a go at the “ultimate deal”. In an interview with newspaper Israel Hayom last week, he urged Israel to act “reasonably” in the Middle East peace process.

LEADERS IN LOCKSTEP

For Netanyahu, under investigation at home in two criminal cases involving allegations of abuse of office, ensuring he and Trump are in lockstep is critical to putting the friction of the Obama administration behind him and laying the ground for a more fruitful relationship with the United States.

At a time when the Middle East is in turmoil and Palestinian politics is fractured by long-standing divisions between the Western-backed Fatah party and the Islamist group Hamas, Israeli officials argue that the time is not ripe for peace.

But while Netanyahu has announced plans for 6,000 more settlement homes, he is also uneasy about pressure from the far-right in his coalition for more dramatic steps, such as the annexation of parts of the West Bank, which the Palestinians want for their own state together with Gaza and East Jerusalem, or the rejection of a Palestinian state altogether.

Netanyahu’s task during the scheduled two-hour meeting with Trump will be to find common ground on both the settlements issue and the prospects for a two-state solution to the conflict: Israel and a Palestine side by side and at peace.

The prime minister committed to the two-state goal in 2009 and has reiterated the position since. But on Monday, a senior minister in his cabinet said no ministers, foremost Netanyahu, truly believed in the emergence of a Palestinian state.

Officials with Netanyahu declined to comment on the remark. But Netanyahu has spoken of a “state minus”, something short of full sovereignty for the Palestinians. It was unclear if the contours of that idea would be discussed with Trump.

As well as Palestinian issues, the two leaders will discuss regional stability and the threat from Iran, with both intent on re-examining and strengthening the nuclear deal with Tehran.

“The alliance between Israel and America has always been extremely strong and it’s about to get even stronger,” Netanyahu said as he prepared to leave Israel on Monday.

“Donald Trump and I see eye-to-eye on the dangers emanating from the region but also on the opportunities. We’ll talk about both as well as upgrading the relations between Israel and the United States in many, many fields.”

Aside from Trump and Tillerson, Netanyahu will meet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Mike Pence during the Feb. 13-16 visit.

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Mary Milliken)