Archive for July 5, 2012

| July 5, 2012
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Yesha Security Barrier Construction to Resume

IDF sources say construction of Israel’s security barrier in Judea and Samaria will resume in the coming days.

By Gabe Kahn

 

An IDF source on Thursday said Israel will resume construction of its incomplete security barrier in Judea and Samaria (Shomron) in the coming weeks.

Security barrier near Jerusalem

Security barrier near Jerusalem
Shimon Cohen

Restarting construction of the barrier – slammed by Jewish and Arab leaders in the region alike – comes after a five-year delay due to “budget problems.”

A series of lawsuits over the route of the security barrier, which currently snakes through the western reaches of Judea and Samaria had also stalled construction.

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| July 5, 2012
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Obama Approves Anti-Israel ‘Briefing’ at UN

The Obama administration approved a move by the UN to invite Navi Pillay, the Human Rights Commissioner, to brief Security Council on Israel

By Rachel Hirshfeld

The Obama administration approved a move by the United Nations to invite Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to brief the Security Council on Israel.

“Though the U.S. is a veto-holding power, the extraordinary move has full American approval” and “was a trade-off for having the high commissioner brief the Council on the subject of Syria,” according to National Review.

Pillay, known for her anti-Israel sentiments, has compared “violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers” with “summary executions, rape and torture” in Cote d’Ivoire, “brutal violence” affecting “tens of thousands” in Syria, and “systematic torture” in Afghanistan.

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| July 5, 2012
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UN Watch Exclusive Report: Syria Running for the U.N. Human Rights Council, Says U.S.

U.S.-Sponsored Resolution Slams Syrian Candidacy

By Hillel Neuer

GENEVA – In the past decade, the U.N. Human Rights Council elected Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya as chair, hailed Sri Lanka’s “promotion and protection of all human rights” after its army had killed thousands of civilians, and convened an emergency session to lament the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Hamas terrorist organization.

Even so, historians will now have to decide whether the U.N.’s flagship human rights body is about to sink to a new low.

According to a U.S.-sponsored and EU-backed draft resolution that was debated today during informal meetings at the council in Geneva, the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad is a declared candidate for a seat on the 47-nation U.N. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: ,
| July 5, 2012
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As London’s Jews prepare for Olympics, Munich 11 on their minds

Jewish communities are preparing memorials remembering 40 years since the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Games

By Miriam Shaviv

 

LONDON (JTA) — For the British Jewish community, the most memorable moment of the London Olympics may be a somber one.

On Aug. 6, several hundred people are expected to attend a commemoration for the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

The Tower Bridge in London, decorated with the five Olympic rings in preparation for the 2012 Summer Games, June 2012. (Iain Farrell via CC))

“From conversations across the community, the key thing people are engaged in around the Olympics is that they want to see a commemoration of Munich,” said Peter Mason, director of the London Jewish Forum. Continue Reading »

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| July 5, 2012
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Israelis rejoice over discovery of ‘God particle’

Scientists revel with colleagues around world over discovery in Geneva of new sub-atomic particle.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

 

Theoretical and experimental physicists see the groundbreaking discovery of a new subatomic particle – announced Wednesday in Geneva – as even more of a technological and scientific achievement than America’s first landing on the moon. But unlike the astronauts’ romp over the dusty lunar rocks in 1969, the new breakthrough is so intangible that it leaves the general public clueless.

Scientists explain search for Higgs boson particle

Scientists explain search for Higgs boson particle – Photo: REUTERS

Scientists at Geneva’s European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) – where scores of Israelis have worked for decades to bring the discovery nearer – confirmed that they had discovered a particle fitting the description of the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle” seen as key to understanding how the universe is built. Continue Reading »

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| July 5, 2012
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Report: Iran oil tankers ‘floating aimlessly’

Due to global embargo, fleet of 65 Iranian tankers floating in Persian Gulf waters under false identity in hopes of selling oil ‘no one wants to buy,’ New York Times reports

By Ynet

 

Iran has been forced to store some 40 million barrels of oil that “that no one is willing to buy” because of a crippling embargo on a fleet of about 65 tankers “floating aimlessly” in the Persian Gulf, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Super Tanker can hold 3 million barrels of oil - Photo: Flicker/Lance and Erin Willett

Super Tanker can hold 3 million barrels of oil – Photo: Flicker/Lance and Erin Willett

The newspaper quoted international oil experts as saying that Iranian exports have already been reduced by at least 25% since the beginning of the year, costing Iran roughly $10 billion so far in forgone revenues. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags:
| July 5, 2012
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Former CIA chief urges release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard

In letter to Wall Street Journal, R. James Woolsey writes: For those hung up on the fact that he’s an American Jew, pretend he’s a Greek- or Korean- or Filipino-American and free him.

 

Convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard must be released, former CIA chief R. James Woolsey wrote in a letter to the editor sent to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, arguing that one reason Pollard has remained in prison for as long as he has was that he was an American Jew.

Woolsey, who has voiced his support for the release of the convicted spy in the past, wrote in the letter that, while he had “recommended against clemency for Jonathan Pollard early in the first Clinton administration when I was director of Central Intelligence, but now, nearly two decades later, I support his release. Continue Reading »

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| July 5, 2012
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El Al Plane’s Engine Breaks Apart in Mid-Air

An El Al plane flying from London to Tel Aviv was forced to turn back after one of its engines failed and began falling apart

By David Lev

 

An El Al plane flying from London to Tel Aviv was forced to turn back to Heathrow Airport Wednesday night, after one of its engines failed. All 390 passengers on board Fight 318 were safe, and they were transferred to another plane. Passengers were forced to remain on the ground while arrangements were made for an alternative flight, and many of the passengers will not be arriving until mid-afternoon Thursday.

The plane’s crew declared an emergency shortly after takeoff when one of the Boeing 747-400’s engines failed. Continue Reading »

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| July 4, 2012
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Kenya Arrests Iranian Terrorists who Targeted Israeli

Two Iranian terrorists who were arrested in Kenya were planning to attack Israeli, American, British and Saudi targets in the country.

By Elad Benari

 

Officials in Nairobi reported on Monday that two Iranian terrorists who were arrested in Kenya last week were planning to attack Israeli, American, British and Saudi targets in the country.

According to the officials, 15 kg of RDX-type explosives, designed to carry out powerful terrorist attacks, were found to be in the possession of the terrorists.

The suspects denied the charges against them, the officials said. One of them said, “We are asking the court to let us go because we are innocent.” Continue Reading »

Category: Israel News, Mid-East News | Tags: ,
| July 4, 2012
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Annexation Wins Hands Down over a Two-State solution

History, Demographics, and Law Favor Israel’s Annexation of Judea and Samaria, Not a Two-State Solution

By Matthew M. Hausman (reposted from Aug 2011)

 

It has become an article of political faith in the West that the creation of an independent Palestinian state will resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. But the two-state paradigm is based on fictional assumptions – that an ancient Palestinian people occupied the land for thousands of years until its displacement by Israel, that the conflict is driven by this displacement, and that Israel usurped ancestral Arab soil. These false premises are used to obscure the true nature of the conflict, which is not really a dispute between Israelis and Palestinians over real estate, but rather is a war of annihilation being waged by the entire Arab-Muslim world. Continue Reading »

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| July 4, 2012
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Israel’s Emergence As Energy Superpower Making Waves

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously lamented that Moses led the children of Israel for forty years of wandering in the desert until he found the only place in the Middle East where there wasn’t any oil.

By Walter Russell Mead

 

But could Moses have been smarter than believed? Apparently the Canadians and the Russians think so, as both countries are moving to step up energy relations with a tiny nation whose total energy reserves some experts now think could rival or even surpass the fabled oil wealth of Saudi Arabia.

Photo courtesy: Shutterstock.

Actual production is still miniscule, but evidence is accumulating that the Promised Land, from a natural resource point of view, could be an El Dorado: inch for inch the most valuable and energy rich country anywhere in the world. Continue Reading »

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| July 4, 2012
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‘Beirut banks funneling illicit funds for Hezbollah’

Report says Hezbollah using Lebanon’s banks in money-laundering scheme, calls on firms to dump Lebanese debt.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK

 

In a move that could destabilize Beirut’s financial position, a US pressure group urged international financial firms on Tuesday to ditch Lebanese debt and securities, saying that Hezbollah is using Lebanon’s banks in a large scale money-laundering scheme that is also helping Iran evade banking sanctions.

Lebanon’s Central Bank in Beirut – Photo: Mohamed Azakit/Reuters

New York based United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) made public the results of a three-month, confidential investigation into the influence of Iran and Hezbollah on Lebanon’s banking system and its sovereign bond market.

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| July 4, 2012
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K’, an Arab-Israeli from Haifa, “Proud to Serve, No Matter What They Say”

The unusual story of Corporal K’, an Arab-Israeli plane technician, who decided to enlist in the IDF despite all her fears. Today, she maintains combat planes at “The Valley” squadron

Lilach Gonen | Photography: Yonatan Zalk

 

K' with an F-16 Engine

K’ with an F-16 Engine

 

For Corporal K’, a front rank technician at Ramat David Airbase, enlisting in the IDF was not a given. As all her friends began receiving their first military warrants, it still wasn’t clear what awaited her along the way. But against all expectations, K’–an Arab-Israeli from Haifa–decided to enlist in the military. “I was very afraid of my parents’ response”, she shares.

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| July 4, 2012
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Israeli technology to secure France’s Louvre

France-based Synel technology to install comprehensive security system in world’s most visited art museum in effort to prevent burglary

By Sagi Cohen

 

 

With the help of Israeli technology, the Louvre Museum in Paris will stay secure. Synel, an Israeli subsidiary company based in France has just been awarded a large contract at the Louvre Museum.

Louvre Museum Photo: AP

Louvre Museum – Photo: AP

As part of the major project, Synel France was contracted to install a comprehensive system for security access control combined with electronic attendance. The deal is estimated to reach millions of shekels within several years.

The project, which is set to boost the museum’s security, will further entail the installation of Synel’s time and attendance management hardware, as well as the use of fingerprint verification, keypad entry, magnetic card, barcode card, proximity card, contactless smart card and facial recognition. Continue Reading »

Category: Innovations & Discoveries, Israel News | Tags:
| July 4, 2012
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U.S. Presbyterian Church committee votes in favor of Israel divestment resolution

Committee Vote at assembly in Pennsylvania could be a sign that discourse among U.S. Christians on Israel is about to change, final vote to be held in the coming days.

 

 

Following a lengthy and heated debate, committee 15 of the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States voted in favor of a motion calling for divestment from three companies that do business with Israel.

Whether or not the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel is gaining traction is one of the hottest questions being asked among the most politically active members of the Jewish community – as many people take the issue to heart. Continue Reading »

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