Saturday, April 25, 2015
3 cops struck by car on Mt. of Olives in suspected attack
Three Israeli police officers were injured Saturday evening when struck by a car on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem in what authorities suspect may have been a deliberate attack.Palestinian stabs Israeli soldier in Hebron, is shot dead
Magen David Adom paramedics said they treated a 20-year-old woman for moderate injuries, and a man and woman for minor injuries sustained after being struck by the vehicle. The three were taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment.
Police fired on the vehicle as it sped away. It was later found abandoned, and security forces were searching for the driver.
Emergency responders were forced to flee the scene after rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at them.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s car was also reportedly pelted by stones as he drove to the scene.
A Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli Border Police officer in the West Bank city of Hebron Saturday, inflicting moderate injuries. The alleged attacker, aged 20, was shot and wounded, and died of his injuries on the way to a hospital in Jerusalem.Israel reportedly hits Hezbollah, Assad targets in Syria
Police said the officer, 19, was stabbed multiple times in the head, neck and chest at an army checkpoint near Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs. A second soldier shot the attacker.
Palestinian media named the suspected attacker as Assad al-Salayma. An AFP correspondent said Israeli soldiers were preventing Palestinians gaining access to the area where the Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, is located.
Magen David Adom paramedics treated the injured soldier and evacuated him to Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek Hospital in stable but moderate condition, Ynet reported.
Saturday afternoon’s incident was the second of its kind within less than 24 hours in which Palestinian men attacked Israeli security personnel in the West Bank and were killed.
Israel reportedly hit several targets belonging to Hezbollah and the Syrian army in a series of air attacks Saturday morning in the Kalamun area on the border between Syria and Lebanon.Young Arabs Agree: Israel Isn’t Arab World’s Major Problem
According to a report in the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya, a first Israeli Air Force strike took place Wednesday, allegedly targeting two sites believed to have been Syrian army missile depots.
On Saturday, according to a report in al-Jazeera, the Syrian targets were divisions 155 and 65 of the Assad army, in charge of “strategic weapons.” Al-Arabiya reported that the targets were Scud missile depots housed in the military bases.
Several explosions were heard in the areas of Kteife, Yabrud and a village in Kalamun, according to al-Jazeera on Saturday.
The area is known as a Syrian military site housing weapons depots and installations.
There was no official word from Hezbollah or the Syrian government on the alleged attacks.
One of the most positive strategic developments for Israel of the past few years has been its marked improvement in relations with significant parts of the Arab world. Three years ago, for instance, the most cockeyed optimist wouldn’t have predicted a letter like Israel received this week from a senior official of the Free Syrian Army, who congratulated it on its 67th anniversary and voiced hope that next year, Israel’s Independence Day would be celebrated at an Israeli embassy in Damascus.
Yet many analysts have cautioned that even if Arab leaders were quietly cooperating with Israel for reasons of realpolitik, anti-Israel hostility in the “Arab street” hadn’t abated. So a new poll showing that this, too, is changing came as a lovely Independence Day gift.
The ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey, which has been conducted annually for the last seven years, polls 3,500 Arabs aged 18 to 24 from 16 Arab countries in face-to-face interviews. One of the standard questions is “What do you believe is the biggest obstacle facing the Middle East?”
This year, defying a long tradition of blaming all the Arab world’s problems on Israel, only 23 percent of respondents cited the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the region’s main obstacle. In fact, the conflict came in fourth, trailing ISIS (37 percent), terrorism (32 percent) and unemployment (29 percent). Given that respondents were evidently allowed to choose more than one of the 15 options (the total adds up to 235 percent rather than 100), it’s even more noteworthy that only 23 percent thought the conflict worth mentioning.
US court chucks case against charities supporting settlements
The US Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s dismissal of an appeal from a group of 13 Palestinians that sought damages for alleged “terrorist attacks” by Jews in the West Bank.US Congress marks Israel's birthday with action against EU boycott efforts
The complaint was filed against five US-based charities that financially support settlement activity: Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, the Hebron Fund, Central Fund of Israel, One Israel Fund and American Friends of Ateret Cohanim. The plaintiffs alleged that financial support of these charities violated antiterrorism laws.
“American federal judges recognize the difference between the financing of murder and violence… and legitimate bona fide financial support of the daily needs of peaceful Israeli settlements over the Green Line,” attorney Nathan Lewin, who represented the charities in the trial and appellate courts, said in a news release sent Friday.
The Palestinian plaintiffs argued that the settlements “in and of themselves…are a violation of the law of nations,” Lewin said.
Both chambers of Congress marked Israel's 67th birthday with action against efforts to boycott, divest and sanction the state.Disputing the False Charge of ‘Arab Cleansing’ in Jerusalem
One day before the anniversary, the Senate Finance Committee unanimously agreed to attach an amendment to a bill that would "fast track" US President Barack Obama's trade negotiations with Europe, which suggests any new trade deal should discourage the EU from promoting BDS.
"Fast-track" authority allows the US president to negotiate trade agreements that still require the approval of Congress, but that Congress cannot amend.
Another Senate amendment passed last week also requires the executive to report the participation of foreign companies in BDS activities.
"We may not agree with every Israeli policy, but we cannot allow our potential trading partners in the EU to fall prey to efforts that threaten Israel’s existence," said Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), a member of the finance committee and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Economic tools and trade agreements have been used throughout world history to move governments and change policy, but when these actions seek to de-legitimize a country’s right to exist, we need to draw a line."
First, it’s important to note that Jews were the ones ethnically cleansed from east Jerusalem following the Jordanian occupation of that section of the city in the aftermath the 1948 war. That’s the only reason why east Jerusalem was – for the first time in the city’s history – Jew-free between 1949 and 1967, thus giving rise to the media misnomer of a “historically Arab east Jerusalem.”J’Accuse: Globe and Mail Delegitimizes Israel’s Claim to Jerusalem
Second, all residents – be they Jewish Israeli, Arab Israeli, or Palestinian residents – are free to live anywhere in Jerusalem.
Third, to suggest that a dynamic in which some Palestinians are legally evicted from their Jerusalem homes and Jewish families move into those same homes – in neighborhoods that were once free of Jews – represents an act of ethnic cleansing is a gross abuse of the term.
Finally, the charge that Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed from east Jerusalem is easily contradicted by population statistics. Whereas in 2007 there were 208,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem, today there are roughly 293,000. So, over the course of merely seven years, the Palestinian population of east Jerusalem has increased by more than 40%.
Israel’s Basic Law of July 30, 1980, declares “Jerusalem, complete and unified, is the capital of Israel. Jerusalem is the seat of the President of the State, the Knesset, the Government, and the Supreme Court.” On December 5, 1949, the Israeli government declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Even though some countries, including Canada, don’t recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, and insist on the “corpus separatum” status of Jerusalem, most accept the validity of Israeli law.New Report Documents Extensive Foreign Funding Behind Left-Wing Israeli NGOs
Considering the importance of the status of Jerusalem, our media must report accurately and with necessary context. Regrettably, the Globe and Mail, a national newspaper regarded as Canada’s “paper of record”, produced coverage that maligns Israel’s claim to Jerusalem.
In a commentary published by the Globe on March 7, international affairs columnist Doug Saunders erroneously stated the following: “In 1993, the Palestinians recognized Israel as a legitimate state for the first time. In turn, Israel was to recognize the Palestinians’ national ambitions and negotiate a border based on the 1967 lines, beyond which Israeli populations would not extend. Both parties would share Jerusalem and renounce violence. It was a solution based on mutual compromise, ratified in the Oslo accords of 1993 and 1995.”
In making this statement, Saunders erroneously claimed there was agreement via Oslo that Israelis and Palestinians would “share Jerusalem”. Instead, the final status of Jerusalem is to be determined by negotiations between the parties. Oslo didn’t prejudice the outcome of Jerusalem and Israel never agreed to this.
Israeli news outlet NRG released a report on Friday documenting how foreign governments use their funding of local nongovernmental organizations to influence Israeli policy.Obama's Failure to Recognize Armenian Genocide Abandons Modern Middle East Christians
According to the report, which was published in honor of Israel’s 67th Independence Day, reporter Yoav Yitzhak began in 2001 documenting how European nations were attempting to interfere in and influence internal Israeli affairs by granting millions of dollars to various organizations.
Yitzhak revealed how an NGO called The Institute for Democracy and Leadership for New Immigrants, headed by former MK Roman Bronfman, received 400 million euros ($435 million) from the EU for programs that would shift immigrants from the former Soviet Union away from right-wing parties toward the Left.
On April 24, 1915 the Ottoman Turkish leaders ordered the arrest of hundreds of notable Armenians in Istanbul and launched the systematic annihilation of Armenian as well as Assyrian Christians within the empire’s borders and throughout the Middle East. This day would become known as “Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day,” and a century later is the center of a persistent geopolitical controversy.Armenian Groups Are Increasingly Focused on Reparations for Genocide
In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama penned a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging her to recognize the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the early-twentieth century as a “genocide.”
Citing a number of studies, scholars, and eye-witnesses of the massacre in Armenia, Obama wrote, “The occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 is not an ‘allegation,’ a ‘personal opinion,’ or a ‘point of view.’ Supported by an overwhelming amount of historical evidence, it is a widely document fact.”
Though Obama was insistent that the George W. Bush administration use the word “genocide” when referring to this incident, he has failed to keep his word from a pledge he made during his 2008 run for president. Many expected Obama to use the 100th anniversary of the genocide to keep his promise, but the president has decided to refrain from mentioning genocide in his Remembrance Day comments.
Behind the Turkish government’s denials of the century-old Armenian genocide lurks the possibility that survivors and their descendants could be deemed legally entitled someday to financial reparations, perhaps worth tens of billions of dollars or more.
The Turkish authorities take the position that there is nothing that needs to be repaid. Moreover, no judicial mechanism exists in which claims of such magnitude, from events 100 years ago, could be litigated. But Armenian activists have nonetheless increasingly focused on the issue of compensation in recent years.
The activists have pressed smaller-scale lawsuits against Turkish and other defendants, in Turkey and elsewhere.
They have followed precedents set by victims of other atrocities of modern history, most notably Holocaust-era claims against Germany. They have drawn parallels between their struggle for reparations and those of Native Americans and African-Americans. They have commissioned studies to evaluate plundered and seized assets, including land that is now part of Turkey.
If Congress Votes Against a Final Iran Nuke Deal, Could it Override Obama Veto?
According to reports, President Barack Obama is unlikely to veto the bill if it passes in its current form. But the ability of Congress to review a final deal with Iran does not necessarily mean that the deal will be derailed.Report: Persian Jews in Israel Say Iranians Are Negotiating to ‘Dupe’ the US
If a majority of members of Congress votes against a final agreement with Iran, Obama can veto that vote. If the president is able to hold on to the support of just 34 senators or 146 House of Representatives members, Congress would not be able to override his veto.
Under this scenario, those Democrats who were on the fence about the Congressional review bill prior the Foreign Relations Committee vote may be the ones who would ultimately decide the final fate of the Iran deal.
Among the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) had not indicated a specific position on the review bill or on the recently reached framework deal with Iran. US Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, “Keep in mind that the War Powers Resolution was passed over the veto of [former] president [Richard] Nixon. There comes a moment when the Congress asserts itself.” When asked whether Democrats could help override Obama’s veto of a Congressional resolution against a final Iran deal, Durbin said, “I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Despite some on-the-fence Democrats, some analysts say that members of that party are not likely to want to antagonize the president by overriding his veto.
“My guess is that the [Obama] administration will have a strong chance of putting together a block of at least 34 senators,” said Robert Einhorn, a former US negotiator with Iran who is now with the Brookings Institution think tank, according to Reuters.
US Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who struck the bipartisan deal with Corker to modify the Congressional review bill, illustrated that point when he recently said, “Congress does have a right to review the agreement… I want it to strengthen the president, not weaken the president, I don’t want it to undermine negotiations.”
“We are the Persians, we know how to negotiate,” warned a Persian-Jewish Israeli man in an article published by the Washington Post on Friday.Iran Claims it Will Soon Test Locally-Produced S-300 Missile System
“They sent their best negotiators to negotiate with the States and Europe,” said Avi Hanassab, a cook in Tel Aviv’s lively Levinsky Street market, where many Persian Jews set up shop selling spices, dried fruit, fish, cheeses and other items decades ago, after moving to Israel following the Iranian revolution of 1979. “The Persians are very smart.”
He said he feared the Iranians were trying to “dupe” the Americans in the ongoing negotiations over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, according to the report.
Some 140,000 Iranian Jews live in Israel today according to the official estimate by Israel’s Central Bureau for Statistics, but other reports have put the number as high as 200,000. In either case, the numbers far outdo Iran’s Jewish population, which some estimates have as low as 8,000 people today.
The chief concern among Persians Israelis in the Washington Post article was how the political and military fallout from a nuclear agreement with Iran would affect Israel.
Iranian Defense Minister Brig.-Gen. Hossein Dehqan claimed on Friday that Iran will be testing its locally-produced version of the S-300 missile-defense system before March 19, 2016, the end of the current Iranian calendar year.The new Jewish exodus: Canada seen as safe haven for French Jews in wake of anti-Semitic attacks
“We expect to be able to test the production model of the S-300 by the end of the current year,” said Dehqan.
Last Saturday, Iran placed the system, which the Iranians call Bavar 373, on display during military parades held in southern Tehran. The Bavar 373 was developed by the Iranians after the Russians reneged on their promise to deliver their advanced S-300 missile defense system because U.N. Security Council sanctions prevented them from doing so, semi-official Iranian news agency Fars reported.
The Bavar 373 operates essentially like its Russian counterpart, tracking and intercepting high-altitude targets. However, the Iranians claim their locally-made version has “superior features over the original Russian model” because of the fact that it has increased “mobility, agility, and reduced launch-preparation time.”
But despite claiming Bavar 373′s superiority over Russia’s S-300, Iran welcomed the recent announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he was lifting the ban on delivering the advanced missile defense system to the Islamic Republic.
When a gunman stormed into a kosher supermarket in Paris, seizing hostages and killing four people, Julien Catan felt tremors all the way to Montreal. A Paris native, he had walked the streets around the Hyper-Cacher market thousands of times. His fiancée’s mother had been shopping there 20 minutes before it was attacked.American Jews Must Stop Funding Israel Boycotts Via New Israel Fund
“What happened in January was a real shock, like never before,” Catan said in an interview. “I think the impact it had is very profound, and I think the Jewish community has taken a real hit.”
The murderous targeting of shoppers buying groceries before the Sabbath, two days after an attack on the journalists of Charlie Hebdo, came amid a surge in anti-Semitism that has Jews questioning how long they can remain in France. More than ever, Canada is seen as a safe haven, and leaders of Montreal’s Jewish community are only too happy to extend a welcoming hand.
It was love that brought Catan, 28, to Montreal last year when he joined his fiancée, who had moved from France five years ago to pursue her studies. But the rise of anti-Semitic hatred back home makes the Jewish couple reluctant to return as they contemplate raising a family. Among their circle of Jewish friends in France, many are planning to leave. “It was perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Catan said of the January attacks. “It will lead people who were thinking of leaving to take action.”
As the Israeli public, courts, government, and military stand against the New Israel Fund, their web site and annual report still proclaim that NIF will “not exclude support for organizations that discourage the purchase of goods or use of services from [West Bank] settlements.”No BBC report on latest missile attack from Gaza Strip
The Scarlett Johansson-SodaStream debacle centered on this exact issue – and the Jewish world at the time applauded Johansson for supporting Israel.
Against this backdrop it is heinous and unacceptable that Jewish organizations fund the New Israel Fund. It must stop.
The heads of UJA-Federation of New York, The Jewish Communal Fund, The Jim Joseph Foundation, The Leichtag Foundation, and others must stop funding this organization. The JCRC must not allow the New Israel Fund to march in the upcoming Israel Day Parade.
There is no other way to say it then to say it again and again and again – Supporting The New Israel Fund is standing against the State of Israel.
Despite the fact that the BBC has a permanent office in the Gaza Strip, internal Palestinian affairs continue to be severely under-reported. That fact obviously not only detracts from audience understanding of Palestinian politics and society but also hampers their ability to comprehend Israeli responses to the attacks on its civilian population by assorted factions operating in the Gaza Strip.Rooftop restaurant is rare Gaza bright spot
That scenario is of course all too familiar. Between June 14th and July 8th 2014 (the beginning of Operation Protective Edge), two hundred and eighty-eight missiles hit Israeli territory. Not only did the BBC fail to adequately report on those attacks (which were mostly carried out by groups other than Hamas) at the time, but it has subsequently also managed to erase them from its accounts of the causes of last summer’s conflict.
The story of Level Up is in many ways the story of Gaza. It’s located in a high-rise complex that symbolized the short-lived hopes for prosperity in the crowded seaside territory two decades ago. It has been impacted by the rule of the Hamas terrorist group, experienced the horrors of war, yet somehow manages to plod along in difficult circumstances.Hezbollah Blames Saudi Arabia for Spread of Extremism
The restaurant opened just days before last year’s war with Israel broke out on July 8. At first, it suffered only minor damage. But about three weeks into the fighting, owner Mohammed Abu Mathkour says he received a phone call from the Israeli army.
An Israeli intelligence officer told him that Hamas maintained a communications antenna on the roof of the building and that he had several hours to take it down.
“I told them I cannot take it down without permission from the Hamas Interior Ministry,” he explained. Knowing what lay ahead, he rushed home to avoid the likely Israeli attack. The next day, Israeli tank shells hit the upper floors of the building. Level Up’s kitchen was severely damaged.
The Israeli officer called him back, and Abu Mathkour says they had the same argument about the antenna. The 56-year-old, who worked as a construction worker in Israel as a youth, vowed to rebuild the damage.
The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group launched his harshest criticism yet of Saudi Arabia on Friday, blaming the kingdom for the spread of extremist ideology in the Muslim world and the killing of civilians in Yemen.Fashion Designer Who Said ‘I Love Hitler’ to Help Launch British Jewish Learning Initiative
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told hundreds of supporters at a rally in southern Beirut organized in support of Yemen's Shiite rebels that Saudi-led airstrikes targeting them have not led to victory.
Since March 26, the Saudi-led coalition has been pounding the rebels known as Houthis and allied fighters loyal to Yemen's ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Nasrallah said that the kingdom will soon realize that "the only choice left" is a ground operation in Yemen — a "ground invasion will be costly and will end with a defeat."
Both the Houthis and Hezbollah are backed by Iran.
Nasrallah called on the Muslim world to pressure the Saudis to end the airstrikes and work for a political solution in Yemen.
Fashion designer John Galliano will be launching the inaugural session of a London Jewish learning center sponsored by the U.K. Chief Rabbinate later this month.Renowned Soviet refusenik Vladimir Slepak dies at 87
Galliano — who was fired from Christian Dior over an antisemitic rant — has been working to mend fences with the Jewish community, the British Jewish Chronicle reported on Friday, and the event at a synagogue in the West End is meant to be a continuation of that process.
Galliano will be featured guest at the initiative’s opening session of a new program called CONNECT, organized by three West End synagogues and designed to bring “Jews and Jewish learning back into the West End.”
The fashion designer lost his job at Christian Dior in 2011 following an antisemitic rant he made at a Paris bar in which he declared, “I love Hitler” and told two women that their mothers and “forefathers would all be … gassed.”
Vladimir Slepak, a renowned refusenik who battled Soviet authorities for the right to emigrate to Israel, died Thursday at the age of 87.114 US, Canadian cities sign on to rehabilitating the Jordan River
Slepak, a preeminent human rights advocate, was an influential figure within Moscow’s Jewish community and was considered a founding father of the refusenik movement that advocated for the right for Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel.
Slepak’s fight against the Kremlin culminated in 1987, when he was finally awarded the right to move to Israel after a 17-year struggle.
Slepak and his wife Masha — a famed refusenik in her own right — were successful in helping their two sons emigrate to Israel in the 1970s, but in 1978 the two hung a protest banner from the balcony of their apartment reading “Let us go to our son in Israel!” which landed him in hot water. Vladimir and fellow refusenik activist Ida Nudel were exiled to Siberia for five and four years, respectively.
During his advocacy campaign, Slepak became one of the Soviet Union’s preeminent political dissidents and human rights advocates, earning him fame with Jewish rights groups abroad.
Granting the Jordan River's rehabilitation wide-scale international recognition, the mayors of 114 American and Canadian Great Lakes cities signed a memorandum of understanding to partake in restoration efforts at a Chicago ceremony in the presence of Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian officials on Friday.Israel set to send emergency aid to Nepal after quake kills 1,200-plus
Led by EcoPeac, Middle East (formerly Friends of the Earth Middle East) and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, the mayors signed the preliminary partnership agreement at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Water after Borders summit. Among the 114 participating cities are the major metropolises of Detroit, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal, according to EcoPeace.
The endeavor, which will involve professional knowledge exchange, fundraising and official visits, will also be receiving support from the Sister Cities International and the Citizen Diplomacy Initiatives organizations.
"The importance of the Jordan River in our region is especially great for the all the residents of the area – Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians, both on an environmental and economic level," said Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director for the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian EcoPeace organization.
Israel prepared Saturday to dispatch search and rescue teams and humanitarian aid to Nepal following a massive earthquake which has killed over 1,200 people.
A source in the Prime Minister’s Office said that Israel was to send emergency responders Nepal to help with disaster relief, and the director general of the Foreign Ministry said it was readying humanitarian aid for the disaster stricken country.
The IDF said it would send a rescue team to Nepal Saturday night to assess the scope of aid required.
There were no known Israeli fatalities in the quake in the hours immediately after the disaster, Director-General Nissim Ben-Sheetrit told reporters at a press conference, but the Foreign Ministry was working to get in touch with Israelis in Nepal who were out of communication. One Israeli was reported by his father to have been injured in his legs, and he was being treated at the local Chabad House.
“We are trying to locate Israelis who are disconnected from their families,” he said. According to Ynet, 200 Israelis were out of contact in Nepal after the 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit near the capital of Kathmandu. Some 2,000 Israelis altogether were said to be in Nepal.
