Archive for January 8, 2013

Poll: 53% Israelis believe Netanyahu best candidate for Israel’s security

According to the last Israel Democracy Institute Peace Index poll, Yacimovich has highest approval on economic issues as 60% support a 2-state solution, while 58% oppose splitting Jerusalem.

 

Most Israelis find Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be most suitable candidate to handle security issues, the Israel Democracy Institute Peace Index poll found on Tuesday.

Netanyahu meets Rimon unit on Egypt border fence

Netanyahu meets Rimon unit on Egypt border fence – Photo: GPO

Fifty-three percent of Israeli Jews chose Netanyahu as able to handle security matters, followed by Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman (28%), Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett (25%), former IDF chief of staff and Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz (22%), Tzipi Livni (19%), Labor leader Shelly Yacimovich (14%) and Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, who scored lowest with 8%.

Continue Reading »

State of Palestine not to be written on ID or Passports

Declaration of Palestinian ‘State’ is one thing, but Mahmoud Abbas refrains from issuing new passports or IDs fearing Israeli retaliation

Associated Press

 

With UN recognition of a Palestinian state in his pocket, President Mahmoud Abbas wants official documents to carry a new emblem: “State of Palestine.”

But scrapping the old “Palestinian Authority” logo is as far as Abbas is willing to go in provoking Israel. He is not rushing to change passports and ID cards Palestinians need to pass through Israeli crossings.

“At the end of the day, the Palestinian Authority won’t cause trouble for its people,” Nour Odeh, a spokeswoman for Abbas’ self-rule government, said of the need for caution. Continue Reading »

Go Daddy chose Bar Refaeli for its Super Bowl ad campaign

Sexy Super Bowl ads may emit a tad less sizzle this time a round – but 2 will feature knock-out supermodels. One is Israel’s Hottest.

By SDM

 

Go Daddy, historically the Super Bowl’s raciest advertiser, on Friday will name supermodel Bar Refaeli as its newest Super Bowl-bound Go Daddy girl.

Bar Refaeli – Photo: facebook profile

She was ranked No. 1 on Maxim’s Hot 100 for 2012. The move comes just weeks after Mercedes-Benz announced that supermodel Kate Upton will star in its game spot.

Both models are former Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover girls.

But neither of the hotter-than-hot models will appear in racy attire. Continue Reading »

Israeli 2012 Tech bought out for record total of $5.5 Billion

2012 had 50 deals with an average deal size of $111 million, compared with 63 deals with an average size of $81 million in 2011.

By Ben Rooney

 

Israeli tech startups were bought out for a record total of $5.5 billion in 2012, according to a report published Monday. The report also suggests a maturity in the Israeli sector with fewer, but larger, deals transacted.

Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers

The report by analysts PricewaterhouseCoopers showed 2012 had 50 deals with an average deal size of $111 million, compared with 63 deals with an average size of $81 million in 2011. The report didn’t cover IPOs. Continue Reading »

Report: Obama Listened to Israel which Avoided Chemical War within Syria

Israeli surveillance identified Syria’s army preparing chemical bombs. Israel alerted the White House, who gained Russian support to stop Assad.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

 

Israeli surveillance that spotted Syria preparing chemical bombs to load them on airplanes spurred President Barack Obama into action to win rare support from Russia to stop the plan, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The report follows bits of information published over the past several weeks, according to which Syrian soldiers were spotted mixing chemicals, but details of Israeli surveillance and American involvement were not previously disclosed.

IDF commanders informed Washington in November, according to the newspaper, after satellite imagery showed Syrian soldiers filling 500-pound bombs with a substance that may have been the deadly “sarin” nerve gas. Continue Reading »

Photo Essay : Heavy Rains in Israel

Arutz Sheva’s readers sent in photos. Israel is flooded with welcome rains, which are also causing traffic congestion and power outages.

 pictures from Haaretz:
 wn in both directio... Photo by Moti Milrod

Ayalon Highway shut down in both directions due to flooding. January 8, 2013
– Photo by Moti Milrod

Stormy weather

Railway station in Tel Aviv – Ofer Vaknin

 

Ayalon Highway shut down in both directions

Ayalon Highway shut down in both directions – Moti Milrod

Rainbow in the Hula Valley

Rainbow in the Hula Valley – Yaron Kaminsky

Stormy weather - AFP

Stormy weather – AFP

Stormy weather

Rainbow over Judean Desert – AFP

Stormy weather

Tel Aviv’s Ayalon River between train & highway – Moti Milrod

Stormy weather floods Mall in Modiin - Gil Coen-Mahar

Stormy weather floods Mall in Modiin – Gil Cohen-Mager

A car blocked by a fallen tree - Yair Etinger

A car blocked by a fallen tree – Yair Etinger

View original HAARETZ photographs at: http://www.haaretz.com/ Continue Reading »

Giving ‘Love hormone’ produces more engaged Dads

Oxytocin is a hormone that facilitates bonding between mothers & newborns and also between men & women in personal relationships.

Oxytocin, dubbed “the love hormone,” has for years been known by scientists to facilitate bonding between mothers and newborn babies and between men and women in relationships.
zzzx
But a new laboratory study led by Dr. Ruth Feldman from Bar-Ilan University and recently published in Biological Psychiatry has found that giving oxytocin to fathers increases their parental engagement, with similar effects observed in their infants.

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that plays an important role in the formation of attachment bonds.

Continue Reading »

Egyptian Security foiled car bombing on Gaza border

Egyptian intelligence report that they were able to thwart terror attack at Rafah border crossing.

Explosives, RPG, and grenades were found at scene

By Elior Levy, AP

 

A senior Egyptian intelligence official in northern Sinai said Monday the the military foiled an attempted car bombing near a church and a military camp along the Egypt-Gaza border.

Egyptian security forces in Sinai – Photo: AFP

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Egyptian intelligence received word that militants were preparing a car bomb attack meant to target a military base in a deserted part of Rafah, which borders Gaza. Continue Reading »

Senior Investigator Bumped from Bulgaria Bombing Probe

After sensitive information was revealed to the public, Bulgarian officials removed a senior detective from the investigation that killed five Israelis in Burgas.

By Rachel Hirshfeld

 

Bulgarian officials have removed a senior investigator from a probe into a tourist bus bomb attack that killed five Israelis, after she revealed sensitive information to the media.

The state-run news agency BTA reported Monday that Stanelia Karadzhova, head of the regional investigation unit in Burgas, the location where last July’s attack took place, had been taken off the case because “she spoke to the media without clearing her statement with the supervising prosecutor.” Continue Reading »

Bennett Supports Netanyahu, says Left unable to unite as alternative bloc

 

Naftali Bennett, Habayit Hayehudi chairman on the PM: “I worked for Netanyahu, and his heart is in the right place … He wants to do good, and he needs strong, ethical people by his side to guarantee that he remains steadfast.”

By Efrat Forsher

 

 

Israel’s left-wing parties are too weak to hinder incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances of winning a third term in the next Knesset, but Netanyahu will try to form a left-wing governing coalition with them, Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett said in speeches Sunday and Monday.

Speaking to students, Bennett says the prime minister’s heart is in the right place.

Continue Reading »

Bishop Fellay, head of Society of St. Pius X calls Jews ‘enemies’ of the Church

The society’s founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, in a 1985 letter to Pope John Paul II identified the enemies of the faith as “Jews, Communists & Freemasons.”

Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications imposed on the Society’s 4 bishops. One of the bishops Richard Williamson, denied the Nazis used gas chambers & asserted that no more than 200,000-300,000 Jews died during  World War II.

 

 

By JTA

 

TORONTO  — Jews are “enemies of the Church,” the head of a radical Catholic sect said in Canada.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, made the remark during a Dec. Continue Reading »

Sen. Rand Paul in Israel: US foreign aid “would be a sale, not a grant”

Republican Senator tells Jerusalem crowd it’ll be harder to be a friend to Israel if the US is “out of money.”

 

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a fierce opponent of US foreign aid who is being touted already as a likely 2016 presidential candidate, said in Jerusalem on Monday that the United States is and always will be a friend of Israel, but thinks “it will be harder and harder to be a friend if we are out of money.”
Sen. Rand Paul

Speaking to the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, Paul said it is one thing if you are giving foreign aid out of your savings, but it is something completely different if you are “borrowing from one country to give to another.

Continue Reading »

Israeli media banned from Gaza

The Hamas Terrorist group controlling Strip says Israeli media outlets are portraying Palestinians in the strip in negative way.

By jn1.tv

 

VIDEO – Hamas has announced a ban on Israeli media from working inside the Gaza Strip, claiming that media outlets portray Palestinians in a negative way.

Israeli media rely on local Palestinians or foreign media for reports from Gaza (archives) Photo: AFP

Israel tightened its blockade and banned Israeli journalists from entering Gaza in 2006 after Hamas, an Islamist group that refuses to recognize the Jewish state, took power of the enclave.

Israeli media rely on local Palestinians or foreign media outlets for reports from inside the battle-torn coastal strip. Continue Reading »

Taglit-Birthright: Visiting Israel, our start-up-nation

Not many remember that when the flagship program 13 years ago was launched, it had many detractors. But today, few initiatives enjoy this much support from the Jewish world.

 

Some critics see Taglit-Birthright as nationalist and right-wing, but the former leader of Israel’s left and architect of the Oslo peace process isn’t worried at all.

Birthright group meets up with area security director and visit IDF outpost on the Israel-Lebanon border – IsraelandStuff/PP

Birthright group meets up with area security director and visit IDF outpost on the Israel-Lebanon border – IsraelandStuff/PP

 

“People say Birthright is right-wing but they’re wrong,” says Yossi Beilin, a former head of Israel’s justice, economics and religious affairs ministries. “I’m all in favor of a debate on Israel’s policies and don’t think Jews in the Diaspora should blindly support it, but this has nothing to do with visiting Israel.” Continue Reading »

Iran Claims Turkey’s Request for Patriots Is Meant to Protect Israel

Tehran charges Turkey’s deployment of Patriot missiles in is strategically designed to protect Israel from Iranian threats.

By Elad Benari

 

The deployment of Patriot missiles in Turkey is designed to protect Israel from Iranian threats, Iran charged on Sunday, according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet.

Patriot missile

Patriot missile – AFP photo

Speaking to Lebanon’s Al-Manar TV station, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as having said the missiles were “placed by NATO and the West to protect Israel” against possible incoming Iranian missiles.

Iran believes Turkey would not permit its airspace to be used in an attack on the Islamic Republic, Mehmanparast said, but added that the control of the Patriots was not in the hands of Turkish authorities. Continue Reading »