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Comments (0)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly is opposed to the acting Israeli ambassador to the United Nations appointed by his foreign minister.
Avigdor Lieberman announced the appointment of Meiron Reuven, currently the ambassador to Colombia, last Friday to succeed Gabriela Shalev, who will leave her post on Sept. 1 to become head of Ono Academic College’s academic board.
Netanyahu reportedly heard about the appointment through news reports. As the appointment is temporary, no Cabinet approval was necessary.
Six months ago Netanyahu prevented Lieberman from bringing his preference for the position, former New York consul general Alon Pinkas, to the Cabinet for consideration, and some have speculated that this is Lieberman’s payback.
Reuven, a South Africa native, moved to London at the age of 10; English is his native language. He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1988 and has served as envoy to Paraguay and Bolivia.
Netanyahu and Lieberman have been feuding for the past several weeks over several issues, starting with Netanyahu’s decision to send Minister of Trade, Industry and Labor Benjamin Ben-Eliezer to Turkey for a meeting with its foreign minister, and continuing with the state budget and a prospective conversion measure.
At a farewell dinner on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice praised Shalev for her service, calling her one of Israel’s best U.N. ambassadors. Shalev, appointed by Tzipi Livni in 2008, was the first woman to serve in the job.
Netanyahu Warns of Rotem Conversion Bill’s Perils
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he opposes a proposed conversion bill, which “could tear apart the Jewish people.”
Netanyahu made the comments Sunday at the regular Cabinet meeting.
The bill, which has been roundly condemned by the Reform and Conservative movements in the United States, Israel and in other countries in the Diaspora because it centralizes conversion in the hands of the Orthodox Rabbinate, could come up for a first reading this week.
Netanyahu has said he is working to make sure that the bill does not reach the Knesset floor. On Sunday he said that he will instruct his Likud Party lawmakers to vote against the bill if it comes to a vote.
The bill’s sponsor, David Rotem of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, told Israel Radio on Sunday afternoon that “This law has nothing to do with American Jewry. It does not deal with conversion abroad at all.
Rotem added, “The law will pass, in the end the prime minister will support it and even vote for it.”
The measure comes amid a growing rift between Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, and Netanyahu.
Over the weekend Lieberman decried the state budget, which his lawmakers voted against, for taking away funds from portfolios held by his ministers, and last Friday, Lieberman appointed an acting United Nations ambassador without Netanyahu’s approval.
Israel Accuses 8 of Weapons Charges, ‘Jihad’
Israeli authorities alleged that eight Israeli Arabs charged with weapons offenses had ambitions of joining a global jihad, or holy war.
According to media accounts of the eight Nazareth men charged Thursday with illegal weapons trading, the group tracked speeches and writings by al-Qaida leaders and spoke of Jews and Christians as “infidels.”
“The defendants, on their own and together, visited radical Islamic websites dealing with jihad and weapons, terror and arms, and spoke about jihad while examining possibilities for implementing it,” Ynet quoted the indictment as saying.
Media quoted defense lawyers as saying that there was little evidence that the alleged crimes were “ideological” in nature.
Prosecutors said the men were part of the same cell that murdered a Jewish taxi driver last November.
The men were arrested last month, but a gag order was in place until Thursday.
It’s not clear if the gag order is the related to the one imposed on the imprisonment of “Mr. X,” a prisoner whose incommunicado incarceration has been tracked by U.S. blogger Richard Silverstein.