by tyler | Mar 26, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Already facing one of the world’s worst economic crises, the Lebanese people have a fresh challenge after waking up in two different timezones.
Lebanon’s government has postponed winter clock changes, with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati announcing Daylight Saving will be introduced from midnight on April 20 rather than from midnight on March 25.
But institutions from churches to media organizations have refused to follow suit, causing confusion among the population.
No official explanation was given for the move although local media suggested it was introduced to coincide with Ramadan.
In some cases the debate took on a sectarian nature. Politics in Lebanon is sharply sectarian, with seats in parliament allocated by religion.
The decision is facing widespread revolt, with two TV channels going ahead with the clock changes in protest.
MTV Lebanon and LBCI Lebanon refused to cooperate with the adjustment, instead switching to Daylight Saving Time on Saturday.
Following the announcement Middle East Airlines said it would change the timings of all of its flights for one month, advancing the timings by one hour.
Adding to the sense of chaos, the government is yet to say whether it has informed officials responsible for synchronizing times on mobile phones, laptops and other electronic devices of the change.
Some Lebanese have found the funny side.
A clip circulating on social media shows a digital clock at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport displaying two different times; on one side the clock flashes with the Dalylight Saving time of 10:05, the other side shows 9:05.
At a cafe in Beirut on Saturday evening, a Reuters journalist reported overhearing one customer ask: “Will you follow the Christian or Muslim clock starting tomorrow?”
by tyler | Mar 26, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has dramatically broken ranks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for a pause in the government’s drive to overhaul Israel’s court system as a matter of national security.
The minister’s Saturday night speech – when Netanyahu was out of the country on an official visit to the United Kingdom – made him the first government minister to call for the controversial legislation to be put on hold.
Gallant is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party. His comments open a rift in Israel’s already delicately balanced coalition government that could mean the plans are unable to advance.
He said the pause was needed “for the security of Israel.”
“Any manifestation of refusal that eats away at the strength of the IDF and harms the security system should be stopped immediately,” Gallant said, a reference to the refusal of some Israel Defense Forces reservists to train in protest at the government plans.
As he was delivering his speech, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators were out across the country protesting against the plans for the 12th week in a row.
Under the proposals, the government would have control over the appointment of judges, and parliament would gain the power to override Supreme Court decisions.
The government argues the changes are essential to rein in the Supreme Court, which they see as insular, elitist, and no longer representative of the Israeli people. Opponents say the plans threaten the foundations of Israeli democracy.
The military reservists’ protest is seen as a particular worry for Israel’s government, as they are regularly called up to train and serve, even in peacetime.
Soon after the defense minister’s comments, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called on Netanyahu to fire Gallant.
“Gallant gave in tonight to blackmail and threats from all those anarchists who call for resistance and use the [Israel Defense Forces] as a bargaining tool,” Gvir tweeted.
“Gallant was elected by the votes of right-wing voters and in practice promotes a left-wing agenda. At the moment of truth he collapsed under the pressure of the media and the protesters. I call on the Prime Minister to fire him immediately.”
Piling further pressure on Netanyahu, Israel’s High Court on Sunday gave him a week to a respond to a petition calling for him to be held in contempt of court.
The legal move by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel comes after the attorney general told Netanyahu he acted illegally and violated a court-imposed conflict of interest order by saying he would personally involve himself in the judicial overhaul.
Part of the bill – which effectively strips the courts of the power to declare a prime minister unfit for office – has already been pushed through.
Critics say Netanyahu is pushing through the changes because of his own ongoing corruption trial; Netanyahu denies this.
Netanyahu himself has given no indication he will back down. In a speech on Thursday he said he would address the concerns of “both sides,” but pledged to continue with the reform plans.
Likud lawmaker Danny Danon said it was too soon to know if there were enough rebels in the party to stop the legislation, telling CNN, “We will only know Monday,” when members of the party meet in the Knesset, or parliament.
Netanyahu and his allies control 64 seats in the 120-seat legislature, so in theory five Likud rebels could deprive the coalition of an absolute majority. But lawmakers can abstain or be absent, bringing down the number of votes a law needs in order to pass.
Or, as Danon put it to CNN: “You don’t really need 61.”
by tyler | Mar 25, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
For months, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been taking to the streets across the country to protest far-reaching changes to Israel’s legal system some say threaten the country’s democratic foundations.
At its core, the judicial overhaul would give the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and therefore the parties in power, more control over Israel’s judiciary.
From how judges are selected, to what laws the Supreme Court can rule on, to even giving parliament power to overturn Supreme Court decisions, the changes would be the most significant shakeups to Israel’s judiciary since its founding in 1948.
The proposed reforms do not come out of nowhere.
Figures from across the political spectrum have in the past called for changes to Israel’s judiciary.
Israel has no written constitution, only a set of quasi-constitutional basic laws, making the Supreme Court even more powerful. But Israel also has no check on the power of the Knesset other than the Supreme Court.
Here’s what you need to know.
The judicial overhaul is a package of bills, all of which need to pass three votes in the Knesset before they become law.
One of the most important elements for the Netanyahu government is the bill that changes the makeup of the nine-member committee that selects judges, in order to give the government a majority of the seats on the committee.
Netanyahu and his supporters argue that the Supreme Court has become an insular, elitist group that does not represent the Israeli people. They argue the Supreme Court has overstepped its role, getting into issues it should not rule on.
Defending his plans, the prime minister has pointed to countries like the United States, where politicians control which federal judges are appointed and approved.
Another significant element of the changes is known as the override clause, which would give the Israeli parliament the power to pass laws previously ruled invalid by the court, essentially overriding Supreme Court decisions.
Supporters say the Supreme Court should not interfere in the will of the people, who vote the politicians into power.
“We go to the polls, vote, and time after time, people we did not elect decide for us,” Justice Minister Yariv Levin said while unveiling the reforms at the beginning of January.
Another bill, now voted through, makes it more difficult for a sitting Prime Minister to be declared unfit for office, restricting the reasons to physical or mental incapacity and requiring either the prime minister themselves, or two-thirds of the cabinet, to vote for such a declaration.
Although several bills could affect Netanyahu it is the one about declaring a prime minister “unfit for office” that has the biggest implication for the Israeli prime minister.
Critics say Netanyahu is pushing the overhaul forward because of his own ongoing corruption trial, where he faces charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing.
That bill is largely seen by opposition leaders as a way to protect Netanyahu from being declared unfit for office as a result of the trial.
As part of a deal with the court to serve as a prime minister despite being on trial, Netanyahu accepted a conflict of interest declaration. The Attorney General determined that the declaration meant Netanyahu could not be involved in the policy-making of the judicial overhaul. A petition is currently in front of the Israeli Supreme Court to declare Netanyahu unfit for office on the grounds he has violated that conflict of interest declaration and the attorney general has written an open letter to Netanyahu saying he is in breach of the deal and the law.
Critics also argue that if the government has a greater say in which judges are appointed, Netanyahu’s allies will appoint judges they know will rule in Netanyahu’s favor.
Netanyahu, it should be said, has completely denied this and has claimed his trial is “unraveling” on its own.
In the past, Netanyahu has publicly expressed strong support for an independent judiciary. Asked why he’s supporting such an overhaul despite those public proclamations, Netanyahu told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “I haven’t changed my view. I think we need a strong, independent judiciary. But an independent judiciary doesn’t mean an unbridled judiciary, which is what has happened here, I mean, over the last 25 years.”
Weakening the judicial branch could limit both Israelis and Palestinians in seeking the court’s defense of their rights if they believe they are compromised by the government.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank could be affected, and of course Palestinian citizens of Israel or those who hold residency cards would be directly affected. Israel’s Supreme Court has no influence on what happens in Gaza, which is ruled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Critics of the changes worry that if the politicians have more control, the rights of minorities in Israel, especially Palestinians living in Israel, would be impacted.
Last year, for example, the court halted the evictions of Palestinian families in the flashpoint neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, where Jewish groups have claimed ownership of land the families have lived on for decades.
At the same time, Palestinian activists have argued that the high court has further entrenched Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, having never considered the legality of Israeli settlements there, even though they’re considered illegal by most of the international community.
The high court has also been the subject of complaints from Israel’s far right and settlers, who say it is biased against settlers; they have condemned the court’s involvement in approving the eviction of settlers from Gaza and the Northern West Bank in 2005.
The overhaul has caused concern across Israel’s financial, business, security and academic sectors.
Critics say the overhaul goes too far, and will completely destroy the only avenue available to provide checks and balances to the Israeli legislative branch.
They warn it will harm the independence of the Israeli judiciary, and will hurt rights not enshrined in Israel’s quasi-constitutional basic laws, like minority rights and freedom of expression.
According to polling released in February by the Israel Democracy Institute, only a minority of Israelis support the reforms. The vast majority – 72% – want a compromise to be reached and, even then, 66% think the Supreme Court should have the power to strike down lawa and 63% of Israelis think the current method of appointing judges should stay as it is.
Members of the typically apolitical high-tech sector have also spoken out against the reforms. Assaf Rappaport, CEO of cybersecurity firm Wiz, has said the firm won’t be moving any of the $300 million capital it recently raised to Israel because of the unrest over the overhaul.
Israel’s Central Bank Governor Amir Yaron told CNN’s Richard Quest that the reforms are too “hasty” and risk harming the economy.
Several former Mossad chiefs have also spoken out against the reforms, warning division over the issue is harming Israeli security. Hundreds of reservists in Israel’s army have warned they will not answer the call to serve if the reforms pass, saying they believe Israel will no longer be a full democracy under the changes.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the government’s legislation was “misguided, brutal and undermines our democratic foundations,” and warned Israel was potentially on the brink of a “civil war.” Although the Israeli presidency is largely a ceremonial role, Herzog has been actively speaking with all parties calling for negotiations.
And on the international front, Israel’s allies, including the United States, have also expressed concern about the overhaul.
According to the White House, US President Joe Biden told Netanyahu in a mid-March phone call “democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances, and that fundamental changes should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support.”
Protest organizers say they plan to intensify their demonstrations until the legislation is halted. But the government says it received a mandate from voters to pass the reform when it was elected last November.
But in mid-March, the coalition government softened its plans for the first time, announcing that it had amended the bill that would reform the committee that selects judges. Instead of having the vast majority of the appointed seats on the committee, the government-appointed members would have a one-seat majority.
On March 23, even after his own defense minister nearly gave a speech calling for the legislation to be halted out of concern for how it would affect Israeli national security, Netanyahu vowed to keep advancing the reforms.
He called for opposition politicians to meet with him to negotiate, something they have said they will only do if the legislative process is halted.
Complicating matters further, should the bills pass parliament the Supreme Court must then potentially decide on laws curbing its own power. This raises the possibility of a constitutional standoff. Would the Supreme Court strike down the laws, and if so, how would the government respond?
by tyler | Mar 25, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Already facing one of the world’s worst economic crises, the Lebanese people could soon face a new challenge – two different timezones.
Lebanon’s government has decided to postpone winter clock changes.
Daylight Saving will be introduced from midnight on April 20 rather than from midnight on March 25.
No official explanation has been given for the move although local media suggested it was introduced to coincide with Ramadan.
But the decision is facing widespread revolt, with two TV channels going ahead with the clock changes in protest.
MTV Lebanon and LBCI Lebanon say they will refuse to cooperate with the adjustment, announcing they will go ahead with switching to Daylight Saving Time on Saturday.
Following the announcement Middle East Airlines said it would change the timings of all of its flights for one month, advancing the timings by one hour.
Adding to the confusion, the government is yet to say whether it has informed officials responsible for synchronizing times on mobile phones, laptops and other electronic devices of the change.
by tyler | Mar 24, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
This month, 145 American Jewish leaders publicly distanced themselves from a member of the Israeli government, saying Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was not welcome in the United States.
It was a rare public rebuke of a sitting Israeli minister that brought together individuals from across the Jewish-American political spectrum. Smotrich “has long expressed views that are abhorrent to the vast majority of American Jews, from anti-Arab racism, to virulent homophobia, to a full-throated embrace of Jewish supremacy,” they said in a statement.
The comments came after the minister called for a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank to be “erased” after two Israeli brothers were shot and killed there, prompting a rampage through the area by Israeli Jewish settlers.
The episode is a symptom of the widening gap of values between many American Jews and Israel as the Jewish state shifts to the right. In December, Israel swore in the most right-wing government in its history, bringing in extremists known for controversial views. The cabinet has also pushed forward a plan to weaken the judiciary that has brought hundreds of thousands of Israeli protesters to the streets as well as criticism from Israel’s closest allies.
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has become the target of near-regular criticism by the Biden administration. In its latest move, the US State Department on Tuesday summoned Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog after Israel’s parliament passed legislation that allows Jewish settlements to be rebuilt in parts of the occupied West Bank. It was the first summoning of an Israeli ambassador in the US in over a decade.
“The reality… is that the interests of American Jews and Israel have been diverging for many years, but it’s been papered over,” Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times (NYT) this month. He called on the community to shun Netanyahu, citing the prime minister’s deployment of the “Trumpist playbook” by courting ultranationalist and ultrareligious parties.
American Jews recognize that the current Israeli government represents “a deeper struggle” between competing visions of whether the country wants to be a liberal democracy that is willing to make peace with the Palestinians or an “authoritarian, illiberal and ultra-nationalist” nation, said Logan Bayroff, vice president of communications at J Street, a left-leaning pro-Israel lobby group.
“That dynamic is something that American Jews are becoming increasingly familiar with from our own country,” he told CNN. “We’ve seen that play out in American politics as well, and more and more Jewish Americans have become politically engaged in pushing back against Trump.”
Despite the growing outrage against Israeli actions, however, American Jews aren’t united on the Israeli government. The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential Jewish group in the country, didn’t meet Smotrich during his visit to the US but it also didn’t put its name on the petition to deny him entry, and has been largely silent on his extremist rhetoric.
AIPAC didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, US-based British historian Dominic Green argued that boycotting Smotrich risked hastening “the splitting of the Jewish people.”
“The major Jewish organizations could have followed the American tradition of ‘salute the uniform, not the man’,” he wrote. “Instead, (they) have publicly aligned against Israel’s democratically elected government.”
Polling of American Jews from 2020 suggests that younger Jews had less attachment to Israel and were likely to be more critical of it than earlier generations. A survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute in 2021 found that a quarter of American Jews considered Israel to be an apartheid state. For those under the age of 40, the number climbed to 38%. It also showed that 34% believed Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is similar to racism in the US (43% for under 40s).
Growing apathy for Israel among American Jews is new, says Jodi Rudoren, editor in chief of the Forward, a Jewish news outlet, and former NYT Jerusalem bureau chief. “I don’t think our parents’ generation felt the freedom to not care about Israel more than other countries.”
Netanyahu is likely unfazed by the outrage against his government among American Jews, analysts say, having recognized that most of them have a liberal worldview that is at odds with Israel’s rightwing trajectory.
The six-time prime minister has instead sought the support of evangelical Christians for years, having declared that “Israel has no better friend in America” than them.
“Netanyahu and his allies have mostly given up on the majority of America Jews,” said Bayroff. “They see that the majority of American Jews are liberal, they’re Democrats, they want a two-state solution.”
Rudoren says it’s short sighted of Netanyahu to ignore the community. While the US-Israel alliance isn’t rooted in American Jewish attitudes, she says, “the vast philanthropy, tech investment and tourism supported by American Jews is pretty important to Israel’s economic and civic health.”
Israel is the largest recipient of cumulative US foreign aid, to the tune of $3.8 billion in the current fiscal year.
The growing voices of American Jewish opposition to Israeli policies could help embolden policymakers to take a tougher stand on Israel, says Bayroff, particularly among those who refrained from rebuking Israel for fear of a backlash from their Jewish electorate.
American rebukes of Israel could also become more common among Democratic administrations as their constituencies’ views on Israel shift. Support for Israel had long been a bipartisan matter, but a Gallup poll released last week found that Democrats’ sympathies have shifted to the Palestinians for the first time in the period the question has been tracked, starting in 2001.
The poll found that 49% of Democrats sympathized more with Palestinians versus 38% who say they sympathize more with Israelis, an 11-point rise in the percentage of those with net sympathy for the Palestinians compared to last year. Republicans with net sympathy for Israelis grew by only one percentage point, with 78% supporting Israelis more.
Overall, it found that 54% of Americans sympathize with Israelis more than the Palestinians, but the trend shifts with younger generations. Forty-two percent of millennials sympathize with the Palestinians, while 40% sympathize with Israelis.
Gallup also noted that the recent percentages of Americans sympathizing with Israelis are the lowest since 2005.
Rudoren, of the Forward, says that while American Jews have “at least temporarily united” on opposing Israel’s judicial overhaul, they will remain divided on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the ultra-Orthodox dominance of religious questions in the country, “assuming Israel survives this crisis as a Jewish and democratic state – and that’s a serious if.”
Netanyahu acted illegally by getting involved in judicial overhaul – Israel Attorney General
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu acted illegally by announcing Thursday that he would involve himself directly in his government’s moves to change the country’s judicial system, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told him in an open letter Friday. “Last night you publicly announced that you intend to violate the ruling of the Supreme Court and act contrary to the opinion of the legal advisor to the government,” she wrote. That statement, she said, “is illegal and contaminated by a conflict of interest.”
Saudi Arabia, Syria may resume consular services – Saudi State TV
Saudi Arabia and Syria are in talks to resume consular services between the two countries, Saudi state TV said on Thursday.
Suspected Iranian-affiliated drone kills US contractor in northeast Syria
A US contractor was killed Thursday after a suspected Iranian-affiliated drone struck a facility housing US personnel in northeast Syria, the Pentagon said in a statement. The contractor was an American citizen, a spokesman for US Central Command said. Five US service members and an additional US contractor were also wounded in the strike. “The intelligence community assess the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to be of Iranian origin,” the Pentagon said. In response to the strike, President Biden authorized a precision airstrike “in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in the statement.
For centuries, a setting sun has signaled the end of fasting rituals during Ramadan, a cue to tuck into a delicious meal after a full day of abstaining from food and drink. But what if the sun’s clockwork were to suddenly change, as it does for astronauts riding aboard the International Space Station? The orbiting laboratory whips around the Earth at about 17,000 miles per hour (27,600 kilometers per hour), giving passengers 16 sunrises and sunsets each day.
It’s a question astronaut Sultan Alneyadi has been contending with since his arrival at the space station on March 3.
He’s one of fewer than a dozen Muslim astronauts who have traveled to space, and at the end of his mission in about five months, he will have been the first astronaut from the United Arab Emirates to complete a long-duration stay on the station.
Alneyadi told reporters during a news conference in Dubai in February that he could fast according to Greenwich Mean Time, or Coordinated Universal Time, which is used as the official time zone on the space station.
Alneyadi explained that as an astronaut he fits the definition of a “traveler,” excusing him from attempting to observe Ramadan at the same time as Earth-bound Muslims. “We can actually break fast,” he said. “It’s not compulsory.”
Read the full story here.
By Jackie Wattles
