¿Qué está ocurriendo en Israel?

Una nueva oleada de ataques terroristas con tintes suicidas está sacudiendo Israel y está copando desafortunados titulares en la prensa internacional.

¿Qué significa la oleada de ataques terroristas que está sufriendo Israel? ¿Cómo se inició lo que los medios –y algunos irresponsables políticos- califican de "espiral de violencia"? ¿Qué es lo que realmente está ocurriendo en Israel? Es difícil decirlo ante un fenómeno que está sorprendiendo a muchos y que rompe la relativa calma en la que el país judío llevaba algún tiempo.

La UE anuncia otros 30 millones para apoyar a los refugiados palestinos

La Unión Europea destinará otros 30 millones de euros a la Agencia de la ONU de Apoyo a los Refugiados palestinos (UNRWA), que experimenta un déficit de recursos financieros para sus operaciones y eleva así su apoyo total para la agencia hasta los 125 millones de euros en 2015.

La ONU contabiliza 112 asaltos de colonos contra palestinos en 2015

Vía El País

Una ONG culpa al Gobierno israelí por su pasividad ante las agresiones.

El Vaticano reconocerá al Estado de Palestina

Vía El País

El Vaticano se suma a los países que reconocen al Estado de Palestina. La Santa Sede ha anunciado la próxima firma de un tratado bilateral que define a Palestina como Estado. Es un gesto político que plasma de forma oficial algo que el Vaticano ya tenía asumido: durante su visita del pasado mes de mayo a Tierra Santa, el papa Francisco siempre se refirió al “Estado palestino”, aun a sabiendas de que la expresión supone un desaire diplomático a Israel.

Netanyahu says no Palestinian state if he wins

By The Washington Post

JERUSALEM — On the final day of his reelection campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu said that as long as he serves as prime minister of Israel, there will not be an independent Palestinian nation.

His assertion, made on camera to an Israeli media site, appeared to reverse Netanyahu’s previous declarations of support, with reservations and only after negotiations, of the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

“I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel,” he said in a video interview published Monday on the NRG Web site, which is owned by American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

“Anyone who ignores this is sticking his head in the sand. The left does this time and time again,” Netanyahu said. “We are realistic and understand.”

Asked specially if he meant a Palestinian state would not be established if he were reelected prime minister, he answered, “Indeed.”

In a speech at Bar Ilan University in 2009, Netanyahu famously said he supported a two-state solution to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. That speech and two rounds of U.S.-brokered peace talks since then led many to assume that the prime minister was prepared to see a Palestinian state arise on the West Bank and Gaza.

The NRG interview hit the Internet soon after Netanyahu came to a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem on Monday and warned that if it were not for him and his right-wing Likud party, residents here would be next-door neighbors with the Islamist militant movement Hamas.

At a news conference at which journalists were not allowed to ask questions, Netanyahu stood at a lectern on the terrace of Yaron and Sigal Hakoshrein’s new condominium apartment, framed by building cranes over his shoulder, towering above units under construction.

Netanyahu called his host to stand beside him and asked on camera, “Do you want to see Hamastan over there on that mountaintop?” He then pointed in the general direction of Bethlehem, the Palestinian city in the West Bank where the Bible says Jesus was born.

Yaron Hakoshrein, a Likud activist, shook his head and said no.

“Then there is only one answer, then you have to put the voting slip for Likud in the ballot box,” Netanyahu said.

The message was not subtle — but it sure was direct.

Israelis who fear that Hamas will take over the West Bank, as it did the Gaza Strip in 2007, have adopted the shorthand “Hamastan” to express that concern. Hamas is branded a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. Israel and Hamas fought a 50-day war in the summer.

On Sunday night, Netanyahu warned supporters at a rally in Tel Aviv that he may not win Tuesday’s election, a potentially dramatic fall for a consummate political survivor whose nine years in office transformed him into the public face of contemporary Israel.

The final round of opinion polls Friday showed Netanyahu and his Likud party facing a surprisingly strong challenge by Isaac Herzog, leader of the center-left Labor Party, and his running mate, former peace negotiator ­Tzipi Livni, who hold a small but steady lead.

For the past five days, Netanyahu has been working to bulk up supportamong his nationalist right-wing base, warning Israelis that his challengers would “give away land for peace” to the Palestinians, would divide the “eternal capital of Israel” and would turn over the eastern sections to the Palestinians for a future state.

Netanyahu has vowed “no concessions” and “no withdrawals” from the West Bank, suggesting that he is now opposed to resuming talks and to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Over the past quarter-century, Israel and the Palestinians have engaged in many talks that failed to bear fruit. The last one, brokered by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, collapsed in April 2014, with both sides blaming the other.

In a Likud party statement issued a week ago, Netanyahu was quoted as saying that his past support for an independent Palestinian state is now irrelevant.

“In the Mideast today, any evacuated territory will be overtaken by radical Islam and terror groups backed by Iran. Therefore, there will be no withdrawals and no concessions. It’s just not relevant,” read the statement, which attributed the remark to Netanyahu.

Hours later, the prime minister’s office denied that Netanyahu had said any such thing, causing more confusion.

Afterward, Netanyahu’s spokesman attempted to clarify matters by stating that the prime minister meant to say that “under current conditions in the Middle East, any land that is handed over would be grabbed by Islamist extremists.”

The Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas, who oversees part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has vowed to pursue a path of nonviolence and has coordinated its security responsibilities with Israeli forces.

Netanyahu’s campaign staged its Monday news event at the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in East Jerusalem for a reason. During his first term as prime minister, Netanyahu approved construction there.

Netanyahu said that settlement construction at Har Homa was not only to provide housing for residents but to deny Palestinians territory and contiguity.

Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal under international law. U.S. diplomats prefer to call the settlements “illegitimate.” The Israelis dispute this.

“It’s a neighborhood that I initiated in 1997 in my first stint as prime minister,” Netanyahu said. “I did it after I saw the potential of this area. It was a way of stopping Bethlehem from moving toward Jerusalem.”

The prime minister said: “This neighborhood, exactly because it stops the continued advancement of the Palestinians . . . I saw the potential was really great. Now I see how much it has paid off.”

El Tribunal Penal de la Haya analizará si se cometieron crímenes de guerra en Palestina

Vía Público.es

La Fiscalía del Tribunal Penal Internacional (TPI) ha anunciado este viernes la apertura de un examen preliminar de "la situación en Palestina", referida a la posibilidad de que se hubieran cometido crímenes de guerra en los territorios palestinos, como paso previo al hipotético inicio, propiamente dicho, de una investigación formal.

La decisión de la fiscal Fatou Bensouda sigue a la adhesión de la Autoridad Palestina al Estatuto de Roma el pasado 2 de enero, según un comunicado de la institución internacional.

El llamado examen preliminar, recalca el TPI, no se trata de una investigación sino más bien de un proceso para examinar la información disponible con vistas a alcanzar una opinión plenamente informada sobre si existe o no una base razonable para iniciar una pesquisa.

Por ello, y a pesar de la intención de la Autoridad Palestina de exigir responsabilidades a Israel ante un tribunal internacional por sus supuestos crímenes de guerra durante sus operaciones en Gaza o por cualquier otro delito resultado de su ocupación territorial, el examen del TPI también examinará la acción de las milicias palestinas en sus ataques sobre suelo israelí.

En la nota, el TPI puntualiza el aspecto de la atemporalidad: "no existe una fecha límite, marca el Estatuto, para adoptar una decisión ya que dependen de los hechos y circunstancias de cada situación".

Una vez tenida en cuenta la particularidad del caso, "la oficina del fiscal decidirá si continúa recabando información para establecer una base legal que de pie a una determinación, o bien iniciará una investigación sujeta a la correspondiente revisión legal, o bien declinará iniciar una pesquisa".

En cualquier caso, la oficina del Fiscal se compromete a llevar su análisis "con completa independencia e imparcialidad".