Archive for January 5, 2013

Palestinian Authority now officially known as: ‘State of Palestine’

WAFA reports the PA has officially changed its name, with Abbas signing his 1st presidential decree after successful UN statehood bid.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

 

The Palestinian Authority officially changed its name to the State of Palestine, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

UN General Assembly

PA President Mahmoud Abbas officially signed his first decrees that bear the name of the State of Palestine on Friday, according to WAFA, in an apparent move to reflect the recent upgrade of the Palestinians’ status to non-member observer state at the United Nations.

Palestinian stamps, signs and letterheads will be changed to reflect his decision, WAFA reported.

Also on Friday, tens of thousands took to the streets in Gaza in a demonstration marking 48 years since Fatah’s founding.

Continue Reading »

Hamas Budget just short of $1 Billion for 2013

Hamas to spend nearly $900 million in 2013 as budget continues to rise. Gaza to get additional foreign aid from the EU, UN, Arab donations, Abbas’ PA and substantial aid trucked into Gaza daily from Israel.

By Maayana Miskin

 

Hamas will spend $897 million in Gaza in 2013 under a budget approved Monday. The Gaza parliament, dominated by Hamas, voted for the spending.

Gaza leaders estimate the income for the year at $243 million. The rest of the money is expected to come from international aid and donations.

Despite claims of a financial crisis, the Hamas budget has continued to grow from year to year. Continue Reading »

Ex-Security Chief Diskin: Netanyahu & Barak are too weak

Former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin paints disconcerting picture of how Israel’s most sensitive decisions are made in his 1st interview since leaving office.

Dror Moreh

 

Yuval Diskin was once privy to top secret government discussions. As former Shin Bet chief, he sat in on meetings dealing with the Iranian threat, the Palestinian issue and Israel’s most grave security concerns.

Yuval Diskin in 'The Gatekeepers' Photo: Avner Shahaf

Yuval Diskin in ‘The Gatekeepers’ – Photo: Avner Shahaf

By the nature of his office, Diskin witnessed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak‘s conduct up close and personal. And by his own admission – he was horrified. Continue Reading »

For America to succeed in War on Terror, it must align with true Muslims

The solution is the spreading of a Muslim model that adopts concepts required by the Qur’ans moral values, such as human rights, democracy, liberty, moral virtue, art, science and beauty, and that offers happiness and the joy of living to all mankind.

 

By Sinem Tezyapar

Following the attack on September 11th that caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people and the injury of many more, the United States of America initiated a wide ranging fight against terror. A large part of its resources were, and are, occupied with monitoring organizations that resort to terror and taking precautions against their activities. Continue Reading »

Obama’s grandmother treated in Israeli hospital in Equatorial Guinea

Israeli humanitarian aid groups and teams of doctors have for years been providing free and low-cost assistance to the poorer regions of Africa.

By Israel Today Staff

 

US President Barack Obama’s step-grandmother received emergency eye surgery from Israeli doctors in Equatorial Guinea last week, Israel’s Yediot Ahronot reported.

Sarah Onyango Obama is the third wife of President Obama’s Kenyan grandfather. She lives in a remote Kenyan village.

It was recently discovered that Sarah required surgery for an unspecified problem, and the nearest full-service hospital was the Israeli-operated Shalom Hospital in the Guinean capital of Malabo.

The elderly Obama was personally escorted by Guinean Health Minister Tomas Mecheba Fernandez, and after her treatment was quoted as saying, “All of Africa is talking about your [the Israeli] hospital and the fact that one doesn’t need to fly to Europe to get medical treatment.” Continue Reading »

European settlements & their double standards for Israel

 

Ironically, while the EU releases harsh statements against Israel for any construction activity in West Bank settlements, it has nothing to say about tens of thousands of Turkish settlers that have moved into Northern Cyprus.

By Dore Gold

Anyone flipping through cable television channels with his or her remote control has undoubtedly come across programs about British and other retirees from Northern Europe seeking to escape the harsh climate where they live by venturing to one of the well-known vacation spots along the Mediterranean coast. The difficult problem that these buyers face is the soaring prices of properties over the last decade in places like Marbella, Spain, the French Riviera, or Italy’s Amalfi Coast, which leads many to look for more economical alternatives.

Continue Reading »

‘Anti-Semitic’ Spiegel columnist caused uproar

The Wiesenthal Center’s inclusion of Jakob Augstein in its 2012 top-ten list of anti-Semites has sparked heated debate in Germany.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

 

BERLIN – The inclusion of a Spiegel online columnist in a 2012 top-ten list of anti-Semites has sparked a fierce debate in the German media since the beginning of the new year.zaz

The Simon Wiesenthal Center ranked Jakob Augstein ninth for his written attacks on Jews and the State of Israel. He is a columnist for Spiegel online, owns a large stake in the Hamburg-based Der Spiegel magazine, and is owner of the left-wing weekly Der Freitag.

Continue Reading »

Yemen charges Israeli with espionage

Yemeni official claims man arrested in December had made contact with Israeli security agencies and that such communications were found on his laptop.

By The Associated Press

 

Yemeni security officials said an Israeli who holds Yemeni citizenship will face trial on charges of espionage.

laptop illustrative: Photo: IsraelandStuff/PP

laptop illustrative: Photo: IsraelandStuff/PP

There were few details of the case. The officials said Thursday the man, in his 30s, was arrested in the southern city of Taiz in late December and accused of spying for Israel. He was transferred to a prison to the port city of Aden this week before his trial. Continue Reading »

Fatah supporters in Gaza rally for 1st time in years

Several of Abbas’ senior advisers attended parade marking 48 years since the secular Fatah’s founding as the leader of the Palestinians’ fight against Israel.

By Reuters

 

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians joined a rare rally staged by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah group in Gaza on Friday, as tensions ease with rival Hamas Islamists ruling the enclave since 2007.

Fatah supporters wave flags during a rally marking the 48th anniversary of the founding of the Fatah

Fatah supporters waving flags during a rally marking the 48th anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement in the West Bank town of Bethlehem December 31, 2012. Photo by Reuters

A long hiatus in peace talks between Abbas’s administration and Israel has narrowed ideological differences between the two main Palestinian factions. Continue Reading »

Defiant Morsi on TV: No Negotiations with ‘Descendants of Apes’

MEMRI reveals Egypt’s presidential candidate Morsi rejected negotiations between Israel and the PA.

By Elad Benari

 

Long before he was elected as Egypt’s president, Mohammed Morsi rejected negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and referred to Jews as “apes and pigs”.

Mohammed Morsi

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has translated and uploaded comments by Morsi, a member of Hamas’s parent movement the Muslim Brotherhood, which he made in 2010 and were posted to the internet. In the comments, Morsi also called to boycott products made in the United States because of its support for Israel.

“These futile [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations are a waste of time and opportunities,” Morsi is shown saying. Continue Reading »

Netanyahu to ambassadors: Iran hasn’t yet crossed nuclear red line

The Prime Minister meets envoys and warns Hamas could take control of the Palestinian Authority “any day.”

 

 

Iran has not yet crossed the red line that Israel set on its nuclear program, and Israel remains determined to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday.

NetanyahuNetanyahu was speaking at the last session of the annual year-end meeting in the foreign ministry for Israel’s ambassadors abroad.

During a speech at the UN in September, Netanyahu drew a red line on a picture of a bomb signifying when Tehran would be 90% on the way to development of a bomb, meaning before it had acquired enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear detonator if it so decided. Continue Reading »

Kocaman reports: Suicide Bombers Are Spreading False Islam

The problem is this : People who do not know their own religion are being diverted toward nonsense. And unless they learn their own religion and the true love in the Koran, there will continue to be suicide bombers and those who honor them.

By Aylin Kocaman

In October, the Palestine Committee of the Arab Lawyers Union honored a suicide bomber. A law student who entered a restaurant in Israel in 2003 and blew herself up, killing herself and 21 people, was honored by the lawyers’ union. The 21 people she killed included a pregnant woman and three children.

This honor is thought-provoking.

Continue Reading »

Israel & Germany to fund Jerusalem brain research center

Hebrew University of Jerusalem & the Max Planck Society agree to build a new brain research center to serve as top teaching and research facility in the field.

 

 

A brain research center costing 3 million euro during its first five years of existence will be established by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Max Planck Society, an independent non-governmental and nonprofit association of German research institutes publicly funded by Germany’s federal and state governments.

It will be established on the the university’s Givat Ram campus in the capital, where the signing ceremony will be held on January 9.

Continue Reading »

In August the I.D.F. is to Draft 3000 Haredim

IDF’s manpower unit finishes sorting haredi youths for their draft in 2013. ‘Army invested a lot in their enlistment,’ reports Major General Barbivai, the unit’s commander.

Yoav Zitun

 

Some 3000 haredi youths have been presented with draft notices and are set to be enlisted for military service in August 2013, said Major General Orna Barbivai, commander of the IDF Manpower Directorate, on Thursday.

Potential draftees (Illustration) – Photo: Tzvika Tishler

The IDF successfully finished sorting the 3000 youths, who were born on 1994 and 1995. Following the Tal Law‘s expiration, the IDF will draft for the first time thousands of haredim in accordance with the mandatory army service law. Continue Reading »

Nasrallah: Syrian Civil War Could Partition Lebanon

Hizbullah chief blames the West, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, & Turkey, for the influx of  thousands of Syrian refugees into Lebanon.

By Gil Ronen

 

Hizbullah head Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday against “schemes of division and partition along sectarian and ethnic lines” in-war torn Syria and the entire region.

A campsite in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley

A campsite in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley – AFP/File

A key ally of the embattled Syrian regime, Nasrallah made a televised appearance via video link and proclaimed: “We hereby underscore our rejection of any plan for partitioning or dividing any Arab or Islamic country in the entire Middle East region.

“We hereby confirm our commitment to the unity of Lebanon as a people, a nation and institutions,” he said, adding that “Lebanon is too small to be divided or partitioned.” Continue Reading »