NEWS

Kushner to Make Israel Trip

Jared Kushner is slated to make a surprise trip to Israel in the first week of September accompanied by White House envoy to the peace process, Avi Berkowitz.

President Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and Iran envoy Brian Hooke are also expected to join the delegation. According to reports, Kushner and Berkowitz want to congratulate leaders in Israel and the United Arab Emirates on their recent normalization agreement and get updated on how negotiations are progressing.

Apart from visiting Jerusalem, the senior Trump administration officials will head to the United Arab Emirates. While in Israel, Kushner is expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz. In Abu Dhabi, the U.S. delegation will huddle with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed.

In addition, the White House is currently trying to coordinate meetings in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman. President Donald Trump recently said that he hoped Saudi Arabia would join Abu Dhabi in normalizing its ties with the Jewish state while rumors swirl that Bahrain and Oman will announce their own agreement with Israel shortly.

Trump is reportedly seeking to mark the newfound peace agreement between Israel and the UAE by hosting a celebratory signing ceremony in September at the White House’s Rose Garden. Even if no additional Arab countries establish diplomatic relations with Israel by then, the White House wants representatives from a slew of Arab states to attend the event.

However, Israeli and Arab officials say that hammering out the final agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is expected to take longer than expected. Both countries have tapped special negotiations task forces with bringing the deal to completion since the historic breakthrough was announced in early Au

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Erdogan’s Staunch AntiIsrael Stance

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Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan has vowed to lead a united front against normalization with Israel following the recent diplomatic breakthrough between the Jewish state and the UAE.

In a phone conversation with PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, Erdogan reiterated his full and unrelenting support for the Palestinian cause. Blasting the UAE for normalizing its relations with Israel, Erdogan called on other Arab countries to battle the Jewish State “and not accept any step of normalization before the Palestinians achieve their independence with East Jerusalem is its capital.”

The Turkish leader added that he will call an urgent meeting of the foreign ministers of the member states of the Islamic Cooperation Organization to express their support for the PA. Abbas responded by thanking Erdogan for his efforts to unite the various Palestinian factions in order to thwart Israel’s diplomatic moves.

Erdogan has emerged as a vocal opponent of Abu Dhabi’s decision to normalize its relations with Israel. Soon after the breakthrough was announced, he threatened to suspend Turkey’s diplomatic ties with the UAE and recall its envoy.

Later, Erdogan said that “history will never forgive” any Arab country that agrees to official ties with Jerusalem.

“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached. Now, Palestine is either closing or withdrawing its embassy,” said Erdogan. “The same thing is valid for us now.

“I told him [the foreign minister] we may also take a step in the direction of suspending diplomatic ties with the Abu Dhabi leadership or pulling back our ambassador.”

While Israel and Turkey are officially allies, the bilateral ties between Ankara and Jerusalem have deteriorated over the last decade. Israel’s embassy in Turkey has remained empty ever since its diplomats were expelled in 2016, and the IDF’s annual intelligence report recently listed Turkey as a threat for the first time.

Erdogan, who leads an Islamist movement, is also a strong supporter of the Hamas terror group and allows its leadership to operate out of his country’s capital. Hamas’ activities in Turkey include planning attacks against Israel, raising money, and recruiting new members.

Israel to Bar Flights to Uman

Israel’s coronavirus czar confirmed that he will ban flights to Ukraine in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana in order to prevent people from embarking on pilgrimages to Uman.

In an interview on Saturday evening, Professor Roni Gamzu warned that the thousands of chassidim seeking to visit Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s burial site in Uman were liable to become “a coronavirus terror attack.” Noting that the gravesite visits to Uman are characterized by thousands of people who stay in cramped and crowded conditions, Gamzu said that Israel had no choice other than to prohibit its citizens from traveling there.

“Uman is not a holiday in Tishrei, and it is not a sacred thing. It is merely a party and should not be done. It can bring us closer to another full lockdown,” said Gamzu. “The entire government should be determined to win the trust of the public and tell the chassidim not to travel to Uman at this time.”

He added, “This is pikuach nefesh. I hereby announce – there will be no flights to Uman. Period.”

UTJ head and Construction Minister Yaakov Litzman promised to fight the ban, which he called “a slap in the face to all Breslov chassidim.

“Prof. Roni Gamzu’s letter to the President of Ukraine against the departure of the followers of Breslov oversteps his authority and bypasses the political route which is the purview of the prime minister, the health minister, and the Coronavirus Cabinet,” Litzman told Israel’s Channel 12.

Gamzu, a senior medical execu

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INFO@TEHILLIMKOLLEL.ORG | tive tasked with heading Israel’s battle against COVID-19, has been publicly pressing the government to prevent its citizens from traveling to Uman. Last Thursday, Gamzu demanded that the “Coronavirus Cabinet” order the Israeli Airports Authority to completely cancel all current scheduled flights to Ukraine and airports with connecting flights to Kiev.

Later, he tweeted that the popular holiday pilgrimage would result “in a mass contagion event not only among thousands of passengers but also among locals in Ukraine.” Gamzu also sent an official letter to Ukraine’s prime minister requesting that he ban Israeli citizens from entering.

The letter came after the Ukrainian government reversed an earlier decision to refuse entry to people traveling to Uman. Instead, anyone who could prove that they tested negative for the virus would be allowed into the country but would need to follow social distancing guidelines.

In the meantime, Israel’s Health Ministry is pressuring Breslov leaders to order their followers to forgo traveling to Uman this Rosh Hashana.

Dodging Shin Bet Tracking

Israelis are using innovative methods to dodge the Shin Bet’s phone tracking system.

Ever since the initial coronavirus outbreak in March, Israel has been using the Shin Bet security service for its contact tracing efforts. While the intelligence agency usually utilizes its substantial phone tracking capabilities to fight terrorism, it was put into service to detect who had been near known disease carriers.

The signals intelligence apparatus pinpoints a person’s location by triangulating its data with nearby cell phone towers. While effective in uncovering terror cells in the West Bank, the system is notoriously faulty when used to fight the coronavirus outbreak and has mistakenly sent as much as 50,000 Israelis into mandatory quarantine.

Among other things, the Shin Bet is incapable of knowing if a disease carrier and a nearby person are in different rooms, if they came within six feet of each other, or if they were even on the same floor. In recent weeks, more and more Israelis have been complaining that they received a text message informing them that they had been in contact with a coronavirus carrier at a time they were sleeping or alone at home. With no way to appeal the Shin Bet’s decision, Israelis are beginning to use methods commonly practiced by terrorists to evade surveillance.

According to media reports, the most common practice is leaving home without one’s smartphone or leaving it on airplane mode. Another method is switching to a “dumb phone” that is not connected to the internet. Sales of such devices have jumped 200% since the tracking program began as Israelis turn to them to avoid “false positives” that would force them to quarantine for no reason.

The adoption of such tactics has the Shin Bet worried that its expensive technological means will be ineffective in fighting terrorism as militants will discover new ways to thwart its surveillance system. Last month, Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman pleaded with the security cabinet not to extend his agency’s mandate, telling ministers that it was doing “catastrophic damage” to its intelligence gathering abilities.

In addition, Israeli lawmakers are concerned that the growing tendency to evade the Shin Bet’s tracking will hamper the effort to curb the pandemic’s spread. This challenge is compounded by the fact that, as a democratic state, Israel has no way to ban its citizens from utilizing such tactics.

“This is a problem,” admitted Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel. “Ultimately, we are not a police state. We will not manage to compel the citizens of the State of Israel to keep to the health regulations.”

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