Former president Shimon Peres is expected to undergo surgery to implant a pace maker Monday. Peres, 93, who suffered a mild heart attack three months ago, which was followed with catheterization, will undergo the procedure at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, with partial anesthesia.

Peres continued his full schedule prior to Monday’s procedure and over the weekend participated in an economic conference on Lake Como, Italy, where he shared a panel with Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal and Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary-General of the UN. They discussed for two and a half days global risks and their impact on business, as well as the future of the Euro. Prince Al-Faisal, a member of the Saudi royal family, talked about political risks in the Arab region.

A few years ago, Prince Al Faisal told the Daily Mail that Saudi Arabia may have to arm itself with nuclear weapons to counter threats from Iran and Israel. In 1956, Shimon Peres, in his role as Director-General of the Ministry of Defense, was responsible for acquiring a French nuclear reactor that launched Israel’s atomic program.

Small world.

Incidentally, last January, when the former president was rushed to Sheba Medical Center after complaining of chest pains, he had to cancel one of the items on his busy schedule: a visit to the Soreq Nuclear Research Center.

By Michael Zeff/TPS

Jerusalem (TPS) – Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday for a three-day state visit to Israel. In her first round of meetings with Israel’s prime minister, president, and defense minister, Bishop stressed Australia’s continued commitment to the State of Israel.

“I want to take this opportunity to reaffirm our absolute enduring commitment to the State of Israel and our friendship,” Foreign Minister Bishop told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In addition, Bishop extended an official invitation to Netanyahu to visit Australia. “The Australian public would warmly embrace you, welcome you, and we would look forward to the first visit of an Israeli prime minister ever to Australia,” she told the Israeli prime minister.

The current Australian government under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was inaugurated in July, 2016 and is considered very friendly to Israel. Foreign Minister Bishop publicly stated two years ago that the international community has no place to decide which Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are legal and which ones are not.

“The Australian government is one of the most pro-Israel governments there has been and continues to be,” Isi Leibler, a former leader of the Australian Jewish community and a Jerusalem Post columnist told Tazpit Press Service (TPS). “There will be no threat to Israeli-Australian relations as a whole as long as this government stays is power.”

In a joint press conference with President Reuven Rivlin, Bishop said the trip is an opportunity for her to ensure that the relationship between Australia and Israel is not taken for granted. “It will continue to be nurtured by both sides and it will continue to flourish based on common values,” she said.

Following Bishop’s meeting with Netanyahu and Rivlin, she continued to hold a private meeting with Defense Minister Liberman. According to an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson, the two ministers discussed further bilateral cooperation in various fields behind closed doors.

“Foreign Minister Liberman thanked Foreign Minister Bishop for the part Australian soldiers play in the United Nations’ observer forces in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The two ministers met several times in the past during Liberman’s tenure as foreign minister and they have a good existing relationship, which continues today,” said Tzachi Moshe, a spokesman for Liberman.

In the next two days, Bishop will visit Tel Aviv to inspect several high-tech innovation hubs including “Landing Pad,” which is helping Australian entrepreneurs tap into Israel’s science and research industry. She is also scheduled to visit Ramallah and meet with the leaders of the Palestinian Authority.

“I hope she will tell the Palestinians that Australia will remain behind Israel and also that they should endeavor to get their act together for any potential negotiating future,” Isi Leibler told TPS.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Thursday sat with schoolchildren in the Jewish community of Susiya in south Mt. Hebron, next door to which a squatter Arab community has emerged recently, in an obvious attempt to challenge Israeli sovereignty over Area C of Judea and Samaria. Liberman told the children the encroachment by the residents of Yata Village to the lands near Susiya was not an accident, but a planned effort to physically separate the new community of Susiya and the historic synagogue on the nearby archeological site.

Susiya is a legitimate archaeological site in the southern Judean Mountains that bears the archaeological remains of a 5th century CE enormous synagogue, one of the largest and most magnificent ever discovered, which was turned into a mosque by the Arab invaders in the 8th century.

“Are you familiar with the archeological site of Susiya?” Liberman asked, and continued, “One day all kinds of illegal buildings started popping there, supported by foreign countries. And why did they pop there? On purpose, to divide between the community of Susiya and the historic Susiya.”

Liberman revealed that he had been under “pressure from all over the world” not to apply the demolition order handed out more than once by the Supreme Court. “The European Union, the US — they all discovered Susiya. Suddenly the United Nations Security Council is also interested in Susiya.” He promised the children he would obey the law and carry out the demolitions. “The free world is preaching especially for this to be a country of laws, and we must honor our judiciary system,” he said, with a hint of sarcasm.

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov told the Security Council that the demolitions of illegal Arab construction in Area C, which is under full Israeli control, violate the recommendations of the so-called Middle East Quartet, comprising the US, Russia, the EU and the UN, on the way forward in the peace process.

Liberman attacked the Europeans and the Americans who demand that Israel ignore the Supreme Court ruling to demolish Susiya, but to enforce the same court’s ruling on demolishing the Jewish Amona community in northern Samaria. “We are a country of laws,” he said, and we will honor ourselves and our laws, regarding Amona, E1 (the area connecting Jerusalema nd Ma’ale Adumim), and Susiya,” he clarified.

Liberman called on the residents of Amona to embrace the compromise being offered by the government, and moved to the promised homes to be built near their community. “I say to the residents of Amona, there’s a ruling of the high court and we will obey it. If anyone is delusing themselves that we won’t, it’s not going to happen. Whatever the court permits we will do. That’s why we offered many alternatives, and I hope we’ll find one the Amona residents will also accept.”

David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, and his co-author, senior policy analyst Andrea Stricker, issued a report on Thursday saying the US and other world powers have secretly allowed Iran to exceed the nuclear deal’s limits on stockpiles of enriched uranium and other dangerous materials. Albright cited key secret exemptions which were made in secret meetings of the Joint Commission that was composed of Iran, the US, the UK, France, China, Russia, and the European Union.

Albright is a physicist who took part in UN weapons inspections in Iraq, and has been a self-appointed watchdog over the Iran nuclear deal. He has repeatedly raised doubts that the deal is being implemented honestly.

Albright’s report claims Iran would not have been able to meet its compliance requirements by January 16, 2016—the deal’s Implementation Day: “The exemptions and in one case, a loophole, involved the low enriched uranium (LEU) cap of 300 kilograms, some of the near 20 percent LEU, the heavy water cap, and the number of large hot cells allowed to remain in Iran,” the report reveals, citing a senior knowledgeable official who stated that “if the Joint Commission had not acted to create these exemptions, some of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the JCPOA by Implementation Day.”

The report also suggests “the Joint Commission allowed Iran to store large amounts of heavy water in Oman that remained under Iran’s control, effectively allowing Iran to exceed its cap of 130 tons of heavy water as it continues to produce heavy water at its Arak facility.”

“Any rationale for keeping these exemptions secret appears unjustified,” the report said, noting that “these decisions, which are written down, amount to additional secret or confidential documents linked to the JCPOA.” The report also claims that “the Joint Commission’s secretive decision-making process risks advantaging Iran by allowing it to try to systematically weaken the JCPOA. It appears to be succeeding in several key areas.”

“Given the technical complexity and public importance of the various JCPOA exemptions and loopholes, the administration’s policy to maintain secrecy interferes in the process of establishing adequate Congressional and public oversight of the JCPOA,” the report said, stressing that “this is particularly true concerning potentially agreement-weakening decisions by the Joint Commission. As a matter of policy, the United States should agree to any exemptions or loopholes in the JCPOA only if the decisions are simultaneously made public.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday that “the Joint Commission has not and will not loosen any of the commitments and has not provided any exceptions that would allow Iran to retain or process material In excess of its (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) limits that it could use in a breakout scenario,” adding his assurance that “there’s been no cutting of slack.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest expressed the administration’s “significant objections” to the Albright report, assuring reporters that “Iran is in compliance with the agreement. That’s not my opinion. That’s not rhetoric. That is not a conjecture. That is a fact that is verified by independent international experts who, because of the agreement, now have the kind of access that is required to verify it.”

The Trump campaigned quickly took advantage of the report, with a statement by retired Army General Michael Flynn, a top Trump adviser, who said, “The deeply flawed nuclear deal Hillary Clinton secretly spearheaded with Iran looks worse and worse by the day. It’s now clear President Obama gave away the store to secure a weak agreement that is full of loopholes.”

Matt Brooks, Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition released a statement saying,
“This latest report further confirms that the Obama Administration has consistently misled the American people on the Iran nuclear deal. First we learned about a secret side deal that allows Iran to upgrade its centrifuges, then it was the secret $400 million ransom payment, and now these secret exemptions that allow Iran to evade restrictions on their nuclear capabilities. Simply put, President Obama and his fellow Democrats have never been straightforward with the American people about Iran. It’s clear this is a dangerous and reckless deal with the largest state sponsor of terrorism, and no one who is serious about our national security could support it.”

Human Rights Voices, an organization monitoring the United Nations, on Wednesday published a report titled, “UN Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): Inciting Hatred, Antisemitism and Violence from the World Stage,” reporting that an examination of the 6,150 non-governmental organizations which have been “invited to participate on a year-round basis in UN activities, and have thus been handed a coveted global megaphone,” it appears that, “both by design and gross negligence on the part of UN member states, the NGOs’ ranks include bigots, anti-Semites, and terrorist advocates who are now spreading hatred and inciting violence from the world stage.”

According to the report, “accredited non-governmental organizations have been allowed to flaunt the core of the UN mission by advocating terror and intolerance. At the same time, they have been permitted to draw closer to the world of international diplomacy and gain access to the international media platforms associated with it.”

“Most striking for an organization founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, the UN enables its accredited NGOs to play a central role in promoting modern anti-Semitism,” charges Human Rights Voices, noting that “although the preamble of the UN Charter promises the equal rights of nations large and small, UN-accredited NGOs foster the destruction of the UN member state of Israel.”

The report says there are numerous examples of UN-accredited NGOs engaging in antisemitism, promoting violence and terror, demonizing the UN member state of Israel, and advocating its destruction. The report provides a range of examples of these activities. It notes that “regardless of when the materials were first disseminated, they continued to be distributed and made publicly accessible in 2016.” The report provides screenshots of the sources for every entry, with the examples drawn from a variety of sources: websites and other online presence of UN-accredited NGOs, statements made by UN-accredited NGOs at UN events, materials distributed by UN-accredited NGOs on UN premises, and material that is not only found on UN-accredited NGO websites but that is trumpeted via direct links located on UN websites.

Excerpt from “The Paradox of Using the Law of the Oppressor,” BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 15, 2016.

Here are a few examples from UN-accredited NGOs cited by the report:

“‘[T]errorism’ is a political term used by the colonizer to discredit those who resist as the Afrikaaners and Nazis named the Black and French freedom fighters, respectively…Armed resistance was used in the American Revolution, the Afghan resistance against Russia (which the U.S. supported), the French resistance against the Nazis, and even in the Nazi concentration camps, or, more famously, in the Warsaw Ghetto. Palestinian resistance arises out of a similarly oppressive situation…” (Excerpt from “The Palestinian Resistance; Its Legitimate Right and the Moral Duty,” If Americans Knew, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 28, 2016)

“The main obstacle to the advancement of Zionism is the heroic daily resistance of the Palestinians, manifested in the recent “youth intifada”…Zionism instrumentalizes the memory of the Holocaust as a tool to legitimize war crimes…We must expose the fallacy of partition and the two-state solution…” (Excerpt from – “BDS: exposing the contradications of Zionism,” Alternatives, Action and Communication Network for International Development, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“Never forget or forgive! We will fight until total liberation of #Palestine from the River to the Sea! #Nakba67” (Excerpt from Facebook Page Entry: “Al-Awda, May 15, 2015,” Al-Awda, The Palestine Right To Return Coalition, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“I have walked through the killing fields of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sri Lanka and seen death close up…I have never before witnessed one group of people deriving so much pleasure and joy from inflicting so much pain and suffering on another group of people including their babies and infants. The injustice that is Palestine is there for all to see if only you will look…” (Excerpt from “The Palestinian Nakba, 1948-2008: 60 Years of Catastrophe,” Friends of Al-Aqsa, Accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 28, 2016)

Excerpt from “Gaza – One Year On,” Islamic Human Rights Commission, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016.

“[T]oday the Gaza Strip cannot anymore [sic] considered just as an open air prison. It has become a concentration camp…” (Excerpt from “Oral statement by the American Association of Jurists to the UN Human Rights Council, Agenda Item 7, March 23, 2015,” American Association of Jurists, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“The most important feeling is when you feel your soul and the souls of the people you love are so cheap, and your suffering and your blood so cheap, and there is only one blood and soul that is holy, which is Israeli Jews, you just lose your mind.” (Excerpt from “NGO Action News, July 18, 2014,” Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“This year uncovered, for the first time, the practice of extracting human organs from killed Palestinians whose bodies were in the hands of Israeli forces and the sale of these organs.” (Excerpt from “2011 — Palestine: Hopes, Frustrations and Hypocrisy,” International Organization for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD), Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed August 25, 2016)

“The deliberate targeting of Palestinian children has become a notable feature of the Israeli occupation in the OPT [“Occupied Palestinian Territories”]…[T]he Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have long killed, beaten, tortured, arrested and arbitrarily detained Palestinian children.” (Excerpt from “Special Focus on Palestinian Children: Targeting Palestine Through Its Future,” Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“Zionist ideology is the driving force behind the ongoing Palestinian reality of apartheid.” (Excerpt from “Zionist apartheid: a crime against humanity,” BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

“To boost Israeli arms sales, Palestinian families have suffered three onslaughts of ‘systematic genocide’ wars in six years.” (Excerpt from “Saving Palestine’s Children Under The Arms Trade Treaty,” Third World Network, Accredited with Roster Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP, last accessed on August 25, 2016)

Click here to read and download the full report.

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov told the Security Council in his regular briefing Monday that recommendations offered by the so-called Middle East Quartet, comprising the US, Russia, the EU and the UN, on the way forward in the peace process have been ignored by Israel, pointing to a surge in Israeli settlement-related announcements and continuing demolitions of illegal Arab construction in Area C, which is under full israeli control. The Quartet’s recommendations include an end to Israel’s settlement policy and a halt to the PA’s incitement to violence.

Mladenov reported that a major threat to peace is the fact that since the beginning of July Israel has advanced plans for more than 1,000 housing units in eastern Jerusalem, which has been part of Israel proper for almost 50 years. He pointed to promised new apartments in Pisgat Ze’ev, Ramot, Har Homa, and Gilo, as well as to 735 units in Ma’ale Adumim and other Judea and Samaria communities as the culprits.

Mladenov also noted that Israel has published tenders, some new, for 323 units in eastern Jerusalem and reissued tenders for 42 units in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, for which it also allocated more than $13 million in new funding.

The envoy had nothing to report on efforts to reduce anti-Semitic PA and Hamas incitement, so all must be well on that front. He did report violent incidents over the past month that included the extrajudicial execution by the Palestinian Security Forces of a man in custody; the firing of two rockets from Gaza, to which Israel responded by directing some 60 missiles and shells at 30 suspected military installations in Gaza; and the killing by the Israeli Security Forces of an Arab man who was reportedly under psychiatric care.

Turning to Gaza, Mladenov said that while progress has been made on reconstructing the physical damage since the ceasefire agreement two years ago, repairing the psychological damage of the conflict is “miles away” from being over. “We need a radical overhaul of how we deal with the problems of Gaza,” he said. He failed to mention the arrests and indictments by Israel of an international charity administrator and a UNDP employee, both of whom confessed to directing millions of dollars in international funds to the terrorist activities of Hamas — which may have had something to do with the fact that all those ruined buildings are yet to be rebuilt.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a statement in response to the envoy’s report, saying, “The UN envoy to the Middle East’s remarks to the Security Council distort history and international law and push peace farther away. Jews have been in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria for thousands of years and their presence there is not an obstacle to peace. The obstacle to peace is the unending attempt to deny the Jewish People’s connection to parts of their historic land and the obdurate refusal to recognize that they are not foreigners there. The claim that Jewish construction in Jerusalem is illegal is as absurd as the claim that American construction in Washington or French construction in Paris is illegal. The Palestinian demand that a future Palestinian state be ethnically cleansed of Jews is outrageous and the UN must condemn it instead of adopting it.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon revealed that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), whose employee Wahid Abdullah Borsch, 38, has confessed to working for Hamas, using the international agency’s budget to promote terrorism against Israel, on Wednesday sought Borsch’s release on the grounds that he had diplomatic immunity. Nachshon said the claim had been examined by jurists who determined it is “unsubstantiated.”

Borsch, a resident of Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip, was arrested in July on suspicion of using his employment by the UNDP to carry out missions for Hamas. UNDP is engaged in housing and development projects for the Gaza population, including renovating homes damaged in the military conflicts with Israel. In his interrogation Borsch revealed that he diverted UNDP resources to building a clandestine marina in the northern Gaza Strip in 2015, to be used by the Hamas military arm. Borsch also confessed to influencing his superiors at UNDP to prioritize the rehabilitation in areas where Hamas seniors lived — following instructions he had received from Hamas.

Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon was contacted by the UN legal office which claimed that UN employees are entitled to diplomatic immunity from prosecution by local authorities and that Borsch should receive UNDP visitors until he is released.

Danon, for his part, contacted the international aid organizations in Gaza with the message that “any dollar spent, and any local hire by an international organization, must be monitored [to] ensure they fulfill the purpose of aiding the residents of Gaza and not funding terror activities.”

The 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, and 1947 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies, contain privileges and immunities for three categories of persons crucial for the work of the Organization: 1) representatives of Member States; 2) United Nations officials; and 3) experts on missions for the United Nations.

While Member State representatives enjoy modified diplomatic privileges and immunities, United Nations officials, i.e. permanently employed staff members, enjoy “functional” immunity which is defined as immunity “from legal process in respect of words spoken or written and all acts performed by them in their official capacity.”Article V, section 20, stresses that “…privileges and immunities are granted to officials in the interests of the United Nations and not for the personal benefit of the individuals themselves” and that the Secretary-General has to waive the immunity of United Nations officials where it would “impede the course of justice and can be waived without prejudice to the interests of the United Nations.”

The UNDP demand in Borsch’s behalf might be a case of providing immunity post facinus, literally: after the crime has been committed, because, as opposed to United Nations officials, experts on missions for the United Nations, or members of United Nations peacekeeping operations, serve under a temporary and specific mandate and enjoy only certain functionally limited privileges and immunities pursuant to article VI of the General Convention. They are most likely not immune from criminal prosecution.