Israel shuts down for Yom Kippur
Israel shut shut down on Friday for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
All flights in and out of Ben Gurion airport ceased at 1:35 p.m., while public transport gradually halted with buses and trains stopping their routes until after the fast day.
As sundown approached all local radio and television broadcasts gradually fell silent.
Yom Kippur begins Friday at sundown and ends Saturday night.
It is marked with a 25-hour fast and intense prayer by religious Jews, while more secular Israelis often use the day to ride bicycles on the country’s deserted highways.
Security and rescue services, however, remain on high alert.
For the Magen David Adom Rescue service, Yom Kippur is one of the busiest days of the year with hundreds of extra medics, paramedics, ambulances and volunteers deployed across the country.
Most injuries over Yom Kippur come from accidents on the roads as tens of thousands of children and teens take advantage of the deserted streets to ride their bicycles. Other common Yom Kippur injuries are caused by parents leaving children unattended outside synagogues and, of course, dehydration and complications from fasting.
Paramedics treat over 1,500 people over Yom Kippur
Paramedics from the Magen David Adom ambulance service treated over 1,500 people over Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, which began Friday at sundown and ended Saturday evening.In Timely Move, Bereaved Families Launch New Group to Combat Terror in Israel
Like every year, secular Israelis took advantage of the deserted roads and highways, filling the streets in droves over the holiday, which is marked by a 25-hour fast and intense prayer by religious Jews. But, like every year, injuries were not far behind, with MDA treating 1,659 people over 25-hour period, it said in a statement, among them 265 injured while biking, skateboarding and rollerblading.
Another 228 people were treated for dehydration and fainting spells due to the fast, which includes a ban on drinking water; 21 required resuscitation, according to a statement released by the service.
MDA said paramedics were called to treat 134 women in labor and helped seven women deliver at their homes or in ambulances.
For paramedics, Yom Kippur is one of the busiest days of the year with hundreds of extra medics, paramedics, ambulances and volunteers deployed across the country.
This past Tuesday, dozens of bereaved families unveiled a new organization to fight and deter terrorism in the Jewish state. Sadly, on the same day, a Palestinian terrorist killed three Israelis in the community of Har Adar near Jerusalem.
This new nonprofit organization, Choosing Life, brings together more than 40 families who have lost relatives in the ongoing Palestinian terror wave, which began in 2015; since that time, 58 people have been killed and nearly 1,000 have been wounded in hundreds of stabbings, shootings and vehicular attacks throughout Israel.
Choosing Life is headed by Dvorah Gonen, whose 25-year-old son Danny was murdered in June 2015 while hiking near the village of Dolev.
“Unfortunately, the voices of the bereaved families are not heard strongly enough,” Gonen said in a statement. “Since Danny was murdered two years and four month ago, there is no light in my life. I am dedicating my life to ensure that this does not happen to any more Israeli citizens.”
Gonen stressed that most Israeli citizens are unaware of the vast array of benefits that terrorists and their families receive from the Palestinian Authority, which provides the perpetrators and their relatives with salaries that rise proportionally due to the number of Israelis that they murder.
“It pays to be a terrorist today. It is absurd, we[‘ve] completely lost our deterrence,” said Gonen.
Mort Klein – There Is No Israeli 'Occupation': It’s Not Arab Land and 98 Percent of Palestinian-Arabs Live Under Arab Rule
The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, recently made headlines for using the term “alleged occupation” during an interview with the Jerusalem Post. Palestinian Authority (“PA”) dictator and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas condemned the term “alleged occupation” and then falsely proclaimed that there is an Israeli “occupation of the territory of the state of Palestine” and variations of the same line some 27 times during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week. However, an honest examination of the facts and actual international law reveal that Ambassador Friedman’s words were correct: In fact, the presence of Israel and Israeli Jews in Judea/Samaria (“West Bank”) and the old city of Jerusalem is not an “Israeli occupation.”US Jewish Leaders Express Support, Empathy for Kurds in Wake of Independence Vote
Occupation means possessing/exercising actual authority over another country’s sovereign territory. A nation who has the sovereign rights to land cannot be an “occupier” of that land. Israel has the lawful sovereign right – as well as the strongest historical, religious, and legal connection — to Israel, including Judea/Samaria and all of Jerusalem.
The Jews are indigenous people of Israel, including Judea/Samaria and Jerusalem. The word “Jew” comes from “Judea” – because this is where the Jewish people lived. (Jordan renamed Judea/Samaria “the West Bank” during Jordan’s 19-year (1948-67) illegal occupation of the area, as explained below). Jewish kings and kingdoms reigned in Jerusalem and Judea/Samaria for hundreds of years (c.920 BCE – 597 BCE). For over 3,000 years, there was always a Jewish presence in Israel, even after conquests and dispersions of the Jewish people.
Moreover, Jerusalem was never the capital of any country except Israel. Jews were also the largest religious group in Jerusalem since at least the first census in the 1840s. Jerusalem is mentioned almost 700 times in Judaism’s holy books. Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran. For millennia, Jews pray for Jerusalem and pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray facing Mecca, and have no prayers for Jerusalem. No Arab leader except Jordan’s King Hussein ever visited Jerusalem.
Several American Jewish leaders and organizations have expressed their affinity with Kurdish aspirations following Monday’s independence referendum in the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq, in which 93 percent of ballots were cast in favor of an independent state of Kurdistan.Erdogan claims Mossad played a role in Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence vote
“Obviously, we have great sympathy for the Kurds,” Malcolm Hoenlein — the executive vice chairman and CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP) — told The Algemeiner on Thursday.
The close ties between Israel and the Kurdish national movement, and the role played by many Kurds in assisting Iraqi Jews escaping from the former Ba’athist regime, were all highlighted in the Jewish responses to this week’s vote.
“Israel, over the years, has helped the Kurds in various ways, and so have Jews from America and Europe,” Hoenlein remarked. “And the Kurds openly proclaim their pro-Israel position. You see Israeli flags at their demonstrations, which is great.”
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, compared the Kurdish struggle for independence with that of Israel during its critical early years, noting that like the builders of the Jewish state, the predominantly Muslim Kurds – a nation of more than 25 million currently split between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria – have been frequently left in the lurch by the international community.
“We know what a great struggle Israel endured, so we empathize with the Kurds,” Rabbi Hier told The Algemeiner. “We had the same game played on us that’s now being played on them.”
Morton Klein — president of the Zionist Organization of America — noted, “The Kurds have been one of the very few positive and rational forces in the Mideast, who have suffered greatly at the hands of radical Muslims.”
“The ZOA supports independence for this deserving and embattled people,” Klein told The Algemeiner.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency played a role in Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence vote, proved by the waving of Israeli flags during celebrations of the overwhelming “yes’ vote.Foreigners leave Iraqi Kurdistan before flight ban
Ankara fiercely opposed the referendum and has threatened sanctions against the region, reflecting its worries about its own sizeable Kurdish minority.
During a televised speech, Erdogan claimed that Turkey had been saddened to see some Iraqi Kurds acclaiming the independence referendum with Israeli flags.
“This shows one thing, that this administration (in northern Iraq) has a history with Mossad, they are hand-in-hand together,” Erdogan said in Erzurum, in eastern Turkey.
Iran and Iraq’s central government in Baghdad have also have expressed alarm over the referendum last Monday, and have refused to recognise its validity.
Israel has been the only country to openly support an independent Kurdish state, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backing “the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own.”
Erdogan has derided the Israeli support.
“Are you aware of what you are doing?” Erdogan said in an appeal to Iraqi Kurdish leaders. “Only Israel supports you.”
Foreigners scrambled to leave Iraqi Kurdistan Friday hours before the start of a flight ban imposed by Baghdad in retaliation for an independence referendum that has sent regional tensions soaring.Crowder Infiltrates Antifa At Shapiro Event, Antifa Offers Weapons
Iraq’s central government has ordered a halt to all international flights to and from the autonomous region from 6:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) Friday after Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly voted for independence.
Washington has said it would be willing to facilitate talks between the Iraqi Kurdish authorities and Baghdad to calm escalating tensions over the 92-percent “yes” vote, as a top Shiite cleric called for solving the crisis in an Iraqi court.
Neighboring Turkey and Iran also strongly opposed the vote, fearing it would inflame the separatist aspirations of their own sizable Kurdish population.
Iraqi Kurds fly Kurdish flags during an event to urge people to vote in the upcoming independence referendum in Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on September 16, 2017. (AFP/Safin Hamed)
Ankara has threatened a series of measures including blocking crucial oil exports from the region via Turkey.
The Kurds have condemned the flight suspension as “collective punishment.”
On Thursday, conservative commentator Steven Crowder released an undercover video (below) exposing the violence-embracing leftist movement Antifa. In the video, two undercover reporters are embedded with the "anti-fascist" group for a few weeks and capture on video Antifa members discussing the violent tactics they plan to use as well as weapons they plan to carry — at one point even handing a reporter weapons — in order to disrupt an event featuring Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro.UNDERCOVER IN ANTIFA: Their Tactics and Media Support Exposed!
Crowder begins the exposé by explaining that his team of reporters has been "infiltrating this organization for a long time, hard." The result is evidence that is so damning that the authorities ended up thanking Crowder and his team for their work.
"Are they really an inconsequential group of rabble rousers?" asks Crowder of the group that has been championed by so many on the Left. As the video shows, and as so many around the country have learned over the last year, the answer is a resounding no.
One of the reasons they are so influential, Crowder explains, is their broad support base on the Left. "Antifa is in a PR battle, so what they claim and what they do is very different," says Crowder. But behind the scenes, they are organizing and planning — as his undercover operatives found out firsthand — to enact violence.
Despite some politicians and celebrities on the left publicly distancing themselves after Antifa's egregious acts of violence became too politically toxic to openly endorse, Crowder notes, "Antifa has never operated alone. They've been actively supported by professors and other leftists and student organizations." Crowder provides the example of current Utah State faculty members who "encouraged and emboldened students to disrupt the Ben Shapiro event and create chaos."
One of the self-described "anti-fascists," going by the pseudonym "Clark," explains in an audio recording that his Utah-based group specifically asked the violent Antifa activists to show up in their masks and black clothing to supposedly provide "safety." Antifa is not "one static organization," he says, but more of an "ideology, a movement, a stance." Asked what the difference between Antifa and other leftist organizations is, Clark replies matter-of-factly, "The difference between them and other activists groups is the willingness to respond with violence."
One of Crowder's undercover journalists finds himself in the middle of a discussion with Antifa "activists" on Utah State campus prior to Shapiro's speaking event. The discussion with the militant Antifa goes so far in its threat-level — including the members handing the reporter weapons — that the reporter wisely chooses to get out of there.
#UndercoverANTIFA Fallout: Ben Shapiro Interview (Exclusive)
Israel Attempts to Block Convicted Palestinian Terrorist Hijacker from Speaking in Spain
Leila Khaled, a convicted Palestinian hijacker who has continued to advocate violence against Israelis, is reportedly slated to give two talks in Spain in the next few days despite attempts by Israeli officials to block her.Dina Powell Spoke at Gala that Honored Palestinian Extremist, Conspiracy Theorist
Khaled, who was invited to Brussels to speak at the European Parliament on Tuesday by lawmakers representing the far-left Izquierda Unida party from Spain, is next scheduled to speak at Madrid University on Saturday and at another venue at the beginning of the week, Channel 2 reported on Thursday.
In her Brussels address, Khaled attacked Israel and said Zionists were worse than Nazis.
“You can’t compare the actions of the Nazis to the actions of the Zionists in Gaza,” she said. “The Nazis were judged in Nuremberg but not a single one of the Zionists has yet been brought to justice,” she added.
Khaled was arrested by Israeli sky marshals in 1970. She was carrying two grenades while attempting to hijack an El Al flight from Amsterdam with a partner, whom the security officers killed. British authorities released her in exchange for hostages from another hijacking a month after her arrest.
She had already hijacked an American passenger plane in 1969, landing it in Damascus, where the two Israeli passengers aboard were held for three months before they were traded for Syrian prisoners of war in Israeli jails.
She is also a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is blacklisted as a terrorist entity by the European Union.
MK Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, sent a letter on Thursday to Ildefonso Castro López, Spanish State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, asking that the state block the two events.
Dina Habib Powell, the Trump administration’s Deputy National Security Advisor, was a featured speaker at a gala dinner given by a George Soros-financed group that honored a notoriously anti-Israel Palestinian legislator.Women’s March Organizers Accused of Anti-Semitism to Visit College Campuses Next Month
At the dinner, just prior to Powell’s speech, Palestinian extremist Hanan Ashrawi received an award and delivered a 12-minute anti-Israel diatribe in which she blasted U.S.-Israel relations and accused Israel of “apartheid” and stealing “Palestinian land.”
Ashrawi, a political leader of the violent First Palestinian Intifada and longtime member of the PLO Executive Committee, served as deputy to late PLO leader and arch terrorist Yasser Arafat. She is known for espousing anti-Israel conspiracy theories and for attempting to justify Palestinian “resistance” against the Jewish state.
Powell was one of seven personalities featured at the Middle East Institute’s 66th Annual Banquet, which took place November 13, 2012 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington DC. Ashrawi, who received the Institute’s Issam M. Fares Award for Excellence, was another speaker and honoree.
Powell spoke for about six minutes and presented an award for distinction in civic leadership to Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian billionaire businessman and philanthropist.
At the time, Powell was president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, the nonprofit subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. In that capacity, she was running the Foundation’s 10,000 Women program, which describes itself as “a global initiative that fosters economic growth by providing women entrepreneurs around the world with a business and management education, mentoring and networking, and access to capital.”
Women's March co-organizers who have been accused of anti-Semitism are scheduled to appear at two college campuses next month.University of North Carolina: Whitewashing Anti-Israel Terrorism
Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland will be heading first to Johns Hopkins University, to open the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, a 50-year-old celebrated student organization.
The Oct. 2 panel discussion at Johns Hopkins will be followed up by an Oct. 11 appearance, sans Bland, at the University of South Florida.
The topic at USF will be "intersectionality and divestment," according to the announcement from USF Divest, an anti-Israel coalition of students and faculty.
The leaders of the Jewish Student Association at Johns Hopkins, Aaron Pultman and Serena Frechter, co-wrote an open letter expressing their respect for free speech, but noting that "these women hold some views that we … find deeply disturbing."
"[They] have a history of anti-Zionist comments and celebration of self-proclaimed anti-Semites. Some of them deride Zionism as inherently oppressive and declare that one cannot be a Zionist while supporting equality in the U.S., directly excluding many members of our community from their fight for equality," wrote Pultman and Frechter. "Their claims transcend what is considered acceptable discourse. Furthermore, as Jews we are especially troubled by their embrace of leaders such as Louis Farrakhan, an avowed anti-Semite. We believe that praising Hitler and peddling in conspiracy should disqualify someone from being touted as an inspiration."
As revealed in recent congressional testimony, Students for Justice in Palestine is a campus front for Hamas terrorists. SJP’s propaganda activities are orchestrated and funded by a Hamas front group, American Muslims for Palestine, whose chairman is Hatem Bazian and whose principals are former officers of the Holy Land Foundation and other Islamic “charities” previously convicted of funneling money to Hamas. The report and posters are part of a larger Freedom Center campaign titled Stop University Support for Terrorists. Images of the posters that appeared at UNC and other campuses may be viewed at www.stopuniversitysupportforterrorists.org.Report: More than 100 Extremist Speakers Invited to British Universities
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill:
UNC-Chapel Hill has supported the Hamas inspired and funded BDS movement on its campus in multiple ways, promoting apps that help consumers boycott Israeli products and inviting BDS proponents such as disgraced former University of Illinois Professor Stephen Salaita to campus. During his address, Salaita accused Zionists of making phony claims of anti-Semitism to hide Israel’s purported war crimes. UNC’s SJP chapter has also invited Laila Al-Arian, daughter of infamous University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, to campus. Sami Al-Arian is the number two leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, responsible for over 99 murders in the Middle East, who pled guilty to charges of terrorism. At a campus event, his daughter promoted the idea that her father was forced into a guilty plea. UNC SJP has celebrated “Israeli Apartheid Week” and has held numerous events to promote Hamas propaganda on campus including a “Vigil for Palestine” which claims to commemorate victims of the “Israeli Occupation” and screenings of films that vilify Israel such as “Occupation 101.”
British universities hosted 110 events featuring extremist speakers in the last academic year, 2016/17, with the highest proportion taking place in London institutions, a report has found.Hundreds of anti-Semites march in Sweden on Yom Kippur; 50 arrested
The extremist events listed were overwhelmingly organised by Islamic societies and groups and speakers included former Guantanamo Bay detainees and Islamists. Former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson, who was the only “far right” speaker on the list, spoke at two universities.
The report’s authors at The Henry Jackson Society think tank says the findings suggest that despite Prime Minister Theresa May’s claim that “enough is enough”, universities continue to be a vulnerable target for extremists promoting their messages.
The extremists were invited to speak to students at elite institutions including Oxford, Bath, Warwick, and Manchester. In most cases, no effort was made to challenge or balance their views.
London was the region with the highest number of events, where 43 were hosted, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) was the single institution to host most events at 14.
However, the authors also found that the majority of universities complied with the requirements of the government’s counter-extremism Prevent agenda, including reporting students at risk of radicalisation.
Police said at least 50 people were detained Saturday during a right-wing demonstration in Sweden’s second-largest city that left one police officer and several others injured.Terror trial for Toulouse killer’s brother reopens wounds for French Jews
The rally by the Nordic Resistance Movement in Gothenburg, 400 kilometers (248 miles) southwest of Stockholm, featured an estimated 600 people marching in formation in all-black outfits. Some wore helmets and held shields, while others hoisted the movement’s green-and-white flags.
Police had posted flyers before the event warning people not to act in a way reminiscent of German Nazis demonstrations in the 1930s and 1940s.
NMR, which promotes an openly anti-Semitic doctrine, originally sought to pass near a downtown synagogue during the march, which coincided with Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day of the year. But Swedish courts intervened and shortened the route to less than one kilometer (0.6 mile.) The rally’s ending time also was shortened to avoid clashing with a nearby soccer game.
Counter-demonstrators threw fireworks and attempted several times to break police lines, allegedly to confront NMR members, who also tried to get past riot police. Several were detained on suspicion of rioting, police said.
“Stones, bottles and sticks were also thrown at us,” police spokesman Hans Lippens said.
Police offered to shuttle NMR members away in buses after they were circled by riot police on a Gothenburg square, preventing them from completing their march. Police said the move was meant to keep both sides apart.
When Abdelkader Merah goes on trial Monday over an Islamist attack in southern France in 2012, the hearings will bring back haunting memories of the bloodshed for the country’s Jews.
Merah’s trial — for allegedly helping his brother prepare for a nine-day shooting spree — is the first arising from the wave of Islamist attacks that have hit France in recent years.
Abdelkader’s brother Mohammed killed three soldiers before targeting a Jewish school in Toulouse, gunning down a teacher and three children aged three, five and eight.
The self-proclaimed Al-Qaeda militant was shot dead in a police raid two days later.
“The terrible shock of 19 March, 2012 — we still go through it every day, every time we bring the children to school or come to pick them up,” France’s chief rabbi, Haim Korsia, told AFP.
This file photo taken on March 19, 2012 in Toulouse, southwestern France shows policemen marking out the area in front of the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school where jihadist Mohammed Merah killed three children and a teacher. (AFP/ERIC CABANIS)
Some 300 Jewish families have since left Toulouse for Israel or other countries, according to Jewish federation CRIF — adding to the estimated 20,000 who emigrated from 2014-2015, spurred by fears over anti-Semitism.