The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they happen.
Diaspora minister: Palestinian Authority a ‘neo-Nazi entity’ that should be replaced
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli says that the Palestinian Authority is a “neo-Nazi entity” and that alternatives to it should be examined.
“I see the Palestinian Authority as a neo-Nazi entity in its essence and outlook,” Chikli tells the Ynet news site.
“I think that the Palestinian Authority, as of today, is the enemy of the State of Israel. We still do not have any peace agreement with it. It is an enemy entity, an entity that is antisemitic to its core, and we need to examine alternatives to the Palestinian Authority,” he says.
“The most anti-Semitic political entity on earth is the Palestinian Authority, in which 93% of the population advocates anti-Semitic positions,” Chikli says, referring to a 2014 report by the Anti-Defamation League.
“The address for this is the Palestinian Authority itself and its leader, an avowed Holocaust denier, who accused Israel of committing 50 holocausts while standing on German soil,” he adds, referring to the fiercely criticized speech last year by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
“The PA has pay-to-slay — the more Jews you kill, the more money you get. [The PA] is the source of the problems and terror,” he says.
Lamenting ‘death spiral,’ pope urges Israelis and Palestinians to ‘search for peace’
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis condemns a resurgence of violence in the Middle East, urging Israelis and Palestinians to engage in a “sincere search for peace.”
“The death spiral that increases day by day only closes the few glimmers of trust that exist between the two peoples,” says the pope following his traditional Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
His comments come after a pair of terror shootings in Jerusalem over the weekend, including one that left seven civilians dead, and a rise in deadly clashes in the West Bank that has left 32 Palestinians dead, many of them gunmen but also several uninvolved civilians.
Blinken lands in Cairo, kicking off trip that includes stops in Jerusalem, Ramallah
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Cairo, kicking off a Middle East trip that will also take him to Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Blinken’s trip follows two terror shootings in Jerusalem this weekend, including a deadly attack on Friday night in which seven people were killed.
It also comes amid surging violence in the West Bank, with 32 Palestinians killed in fighting this month. The IDF says the majority of them were killed while carrying out attacks during clashes with security forces. Some were uninvolved civilians.
In Egypt, Blinken was to speak with students at the American University in the city before holding talks with Egyptian officials, including President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, with the Jerusalem attacks and West Bank violence likely to figure in their talks.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Cairo #Egypt pic.twitter.com/Ru7D7AFX34
— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) January 29, 2023
Tomorrow, he is scheduled to travel to Israel for the most critical leg of the visit, for talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials.