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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on an official visit to Bahrain that Israel and its regional neighbors should work together to face off the Iranian threat.
Bennett arrived in the capital Manama on Monday in what is the first-ever visit to the Gulf state by an Israeli leader. He first held talks with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Alzayani and US Fifth Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, before meeting with the country’s Jewish community on Tuesday morning.
When asked if Bennett’s trip had been timed to coincide with the ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna, Alzayani responded: “We are always looking forward to meeting with our friends to discuss various issues.”
He added: “We are really happy to see this visit taking place – we look forward [to] fruitful discussions and good outcomes.”
The prime minister himself has said the main focus of his visit is to address the issue of Iran, warning that the Islamic Republic’s terror proxies could threaten the stability of the region: “Israel and Bahrain are dealing with major security challenges that stem from the same source, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“Iran destabilizes the entire region – we will not allow that,” he continued. “We are fighting Iran and its henchmen in the region day and night and we will help our friends in promoting peace, security and stability, whenever we are asked.”
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United States Senator Lindsey Graham met with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday to discuss the Iranian nuclear threat before the latter made an official visit to Bahrain.
Graham, who also held separate meetings with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Mossad chiefs and former prime minister and current opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that the possibility of the Islamic Republic acquiring “nuclear capability” is the greatest global threat at present.
Speaking to the Jewish News Syndicate, the Republican senator poured water on the ongoing nuclear negotiations in Vienna, saying any potential new deal “is not going to be any better than the first one.”
Graham also suggested that Israel and the US could formalize “a mutual defense agreement in very limited circumstances that would involve existential threats to the Jewish state.”
Insisting that any such agreement should not give America the power of a veto over any unilateral military action, Graham added: “Israel is very jealous, and rightly so, in its ability to conduct operations independent from a foreign power. And I would never suggest that any defense agreement would restrict Israel’s ability to act on their own, based on what they see the threats.”
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An NGO has filed a complaint against a United Nations official who was appointed in July 2021 to lead an investigation into “all underlying root causes” of the Israel-Hamas conflict last May.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog that monitors UN activities, said on Monday that Navi Pillay, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had shown a “demonstrable bias against Israel, including on issues specifically related to the case and controversy that is the object of this inquiry.”
According to UN Watch, South African Pillay has previously accused the Jewish state of “domination and oppression of the Palestinian people.”
“Many of the utterances in question occurred mere weeks before she was appointed by the UN… leaving little room to imagine how Pillay could envisage the issues any differently so soon afterward,” UN Watch chief Hillel Neuer commented.
BREAKING: The head of a new UN inquiry into last spring’s Hamas-Israel war was accused today of making prejudicial statements on the issues under investigation, compromising her impartiality, and was asked to resign in a legal brief filed today by UN Watch.https://t.co/xuxEhKn3B4
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 14, 2022
The group is also calling on Pillay to recuse herself from the so-called Commission of Inquiry (COI), which was formed during a session in May 2021 to discuss the Israel-Hamas war that month, or for the president of the UN Human Rights Council to remove her if she refuses.
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi made a special effort to cross a large conference hall to warmly greet and speak with Israel’s Energy Minister Karine Elharrar in a move that prompted a flurry of comments.
El-Sisi reportedly told Elharrar that he was happy she had attended the conference and that he hoped she would visit Egypt again.
His effort to personally greet the Israeli minister indicates how much relations between the two countries have warmed.
مقطع مدهش: الرئيس المصري السيسي يصل إلى مؤتمر الطاقة الدولي في القاهرة.
يسير من جانب القاعة إلى الجانب الآخر من أجل الترحيب بوزيرة الطاقة الإسرائيلية كارين الهرار 🇪🇬🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/P1LNX5AKSv— Lorena Khateeb | لورينا خطيب (@kh_lorena) February 14, 2022
The conference is being attended by representatives from countries across the Middle East and North Africa, including the UAE, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, and others, for discussions on gas, oil, and other energy issues.
While she is there, Elharrar is scheduled to sit on a panel consisting of government ministers and meet with her various counterparts.
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The number of serious coronavirus cases in Israel dropped below 1,000 on Monday amid signs the Omicron wave of the virus is receding.
Health Ministry figures show there were 2,274 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including 971 cases that are classed as serious. Of those, 264 were patients on ventilators.
A total of 31,190 new infections were recorded on Monday from the day before, while another 11,998 were tallied since midnight, bringing the number of active cases to 214,459.
Israel’s total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic now stands at 9,624.
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