International News

It has been called “terror television” and a “mouthpiece for al-Qaeda,” and critics say its anti-Israel bias only serves to further demonize Israel worldwide.

As the Palestinians prepare to unveil Thursday a draft of their resolution requesting United Nations’ recognition next month of an independent Palestinian state, many analysts believe such UN action is not inevitable.

With the September target for Palestinian statehood action at the United Nations looming ever larger and new border clashes hinting of a change in Palestinian tactics, the pace of diplomacy aimed at restarting stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations picked up this week.

On Monday Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were in Washington for separate talks with U.S. officials in a last-ditch effort to find a formula for resuming direct negotiations before a UN vote officials here fear will further isolate Israel and undermine U.S. interests.

Washington — In the corridors of the Washington Convention Center, the buzz among more than 10,000 charged-up pro-Israel activists at this week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference was all about new U.S.-Israel tensions in the wake of President Barack Obama’s call for Israel-Palestinian negotiations based on the 1967 borders — with land swaps — and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s angry response.

In their quest to form a unity government, the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have apparently shoved aside Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a move that analysts believe may doom their planned new enterprise.

“It would be very difficult without him,” said Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center. “I think [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas will have to take some steps back from this.”

Poznan, Poland — The eyes of Poland’s Jewish history are upon me when I come here for Passover.

Three years ago I led the seders, as a volunteer, in the Lublin yeshiva that that been renovated and returned to the Jewish community, in the eastern part of the country. It was established about 100 years ago by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the scholar better known as founder of the Daf Yomi Talmud study project. As I moved around the meeting hall where the seders took place, a framed portrait of Rabbi Shapiro hung on the front wall, his eyes, I imagined, watching me.

Wednesday’s Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement, the result of secret negotiations in Cairo over a period of weeks, is yet another complication for an Obama administration facing a tidal wave of political change in the Middle East and new international pressure to resume active Israeli-Palestinian mediation.

According to press reports, the deal includes the creation of an interim government and elections to be called within a year.

Details reportedly will be made public next week.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A bipartisan delegation of U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers is in Israel this week.

The delegation, including Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.), John Barrow (D-Ga.), Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), Ben Chandler (D-Ky.), and Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) had meetings planned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

They also planned to tour areas in Israel subject to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Iran has discovered a second computer virus designed to damage government computer systems.

The discovery of the virus, called Stars, was announced Monday by a senior Iranian official, Gholam-Reza Jalali, head of an Iranian cyberdefense agency, according to reports.

Jalali said in a statement that the damage from the virus, which looks like a regular government computer file, has been minimal and that Iranian scientists are currently studying the virus.

(JTA) -- A former supervisor of the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa was arrested in Israel.

Hosam Amara, 46, was indicted in 2009 on federal charges of fraud and immigration abuses. He is accused of some of the worst worker abuses at the now defunct plant in Postville, according to the Des Moines Register. In 2008, the plant was the site of what at the time was the largest immigration enforcement action in American history.

Extradition proceedings against Amara will begin in Israel on May 2, according to the newspaper.