Again, one of the reasons I’m not really happy with the Likud in the helm of our precarious ship the State of Israel…
Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has agreed to give the PA (Palestinian Authority) money not only without deducting all that they owe to us, but without demanding the return of the soldiers from the Gazan Arab terrorists.
Following international pressure, Israel agreed last month to resume the transfers and said it would pay $400 million, having deducted money it said the Palestinians owed for utilities and medical treatment. However, Abbas said he would not accept this sum since Israel had made its deductions unilaterally. The current agreement appears to have resolved this issue. “An agreement was reached to send three months’ worth of funds in full and a joint (Palestinian-Israeli) committee will discuss all the amounts that belong to us and what we owe,” Abbas said. (Reuters)
Our enemies are holding Jewish bodies, the bodies of IDF soldiers brutally murdered in last summer’s war, and they refuse to hand them over to Israel for proper Jewish burial.
Last October, there was talk in Hamas of a swap of Arab terrorists in exchange for the bodies of Givati Brigade officer Hadar Goldin and Golani Brigade combat soldier Oron Shaul, although the deal never materialized. Now, in an interview with Tayaf radio in Gaza, Mashaal said Hamas would not sign any agreement to release terrorists in exchange for thebodies, “before Israel fulfills its earlier commitments regarding the release of prisoners” – a reference to the fourth tranche of terrorist releases Israel halted in 2014 after the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas declared a unity government. Mashaal also demanded that all terrorists rearrested after being released during the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal be re-released. (Arutz 7)
Considering that Israeli policy is to connect Gaza and the area administered by the PA as a future “Palestine” sic, and the PA gives payments to Gazan terrorists who are held prisoners by Israel, I see a direct connection between the two.
To repeat what I’ve been saying for a long time:
PM Binyamin Netanyahu gives a great speech, especially when talking to foreigners, but when it comes to policy, he’s very weak.