Archive for January 29, 2013

Israel becomes first country to boycott UNHRC review

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says Jerusalem has no plans to change policy of withholding contact with the overtly biased UN body.

 

Israel is likely to become on Tuesday afternoon the first country to boycott a United Nations Human Rights Council periodic review that all 193 member states participate in.

UNHRCIt is the council which Israel objects to, not the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its human rights record, which it underwent in 2008.

Israel cut its ties with the UNHRC in March after the council approved a fact-finding mission to investigate Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.

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FBI: Jews are the Victims of Nearly 2/3 of all Religious Hate Crimes in U.S.

Jews & Jewish institutions continued to be principal targets, accounting for 63% of all religion-based hate crimes, attesting that anti-Semitism is still a serious & deeply entrenched problem in America.

By JNS.org

 

The release of the FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) report indicated a promising new trend in America, with overall hate crimes overall falling by 6 percent in 2011. However, despite the improvement, anti-Jewish hate crimes still remain disproportionately high, the report found.

According to the report, there were 6,222 hate crimes in the U.S. in 2011 with 1,480 religious hate crimes, down 3.4 percent from 2010. Continue Reading »

Murdoch personally apologizes for offensive Sunday Times’ Netanyahu cartoon

Murdoch said ‘grotesque and offensive’ cartoon portraying Palestinians bricked alive into wall being built by Israeli PM did not reflect his paper’s editorial line

By the Associated Press

 

Media baron Rupert Murdoch has apologized for a Sunday Times cartoon depicting Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall using blood-red mortar, an image Jewish leaders said was reminiscent of anti-Semitic propaganda.

Rupert Murdoch Photo by GettyimagesThe political cartoon, which was published on Holocaust Memorial Day, shows Netanyahu wielding a long, sharp trowel and depicts agonized Palestinians bricked into the wall’s structure. It was meant as a comment on recent elections in which Netanyahu’s ticket narrowly won the most seats in the Israeli parliament. Continue Reading »

Arabs Caught Red Handed Robbing Ancient Burial Cave

Three Arab suspects were caught inside the 1st century cave near Kibbutz Metzer, with digging tools in hand.

By Gil Ronen

 

A protracted surveillance operation led to the capture of three suspects who were caught red handed robbing an ancient grave near Kibbutz Metzer.

The arrest of the suspects

The arrest of the suspects – Antiquities Authority

Inspectors for the Unit for Prevention of Theft in the Antiquities Authority caught the suspects inside a burial cave dating from the 1st century CE.

The suspects are Arabs from the town of Baka el Gharbiya and the village of Zamer. They were in possession of numerous digging tools. Continue Reading »

IDF shoots 2 ‘would-be terrorists’ in attempted infiltration from Egypt

2 armed men shot after ignoring warning from IDF soldiers in attempted infiltration of Israel-Egypt border, IDF spokeswoman says.

 

Two men were shot and injured during an attempted infiltration of the Israel-Egypt border on Sunday night, the IDF said.

IDF On Southern BorderSeveral unidentified gunmen approached the Israeli border from the Sinai Peninsula, and attempted to cross the border fence, an army spokeswoman said. At the same time, a vehicle arrived from the Israeli side, and approached the border fence, driving towards the men, and entering a closed military zone.

Soldiers shouted out warnings to the suspects to stop, but were ignored, an army spokeswoman said.

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Op-Ed: Israel Without A Real Winner – Stepping Back To Square One

When the new governing coalition is formed, where will it start from & where can it go?

By Italian MP Fiamma Nirenstein

 

Sent by the writer in translation from Il Giornale

The entire punditry got it wrong, television, press, and politicians from all over the world who were warning against the incumbent victory of Benjamin Netanyahu, “King Bibi” as he had been dubbed by Time Magazine, featuring his “unsettling” image as its front cover. He will get a crushing majority, they said, flanked by a growing right.

Let it be clear, they insisted in countless columns (see for instance Jodi Rudoren’s article in the Herald Tribune the day before the elections) that Israel is lurching to the right, to the radical right, into the depths of black holes of the currents ethical mainstream, against Obama, against Europe, against the UN – so they maintained.

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Israel is at ‘Battle Stations’

The State of Israel will not tolerate Hezbollah or any of the global jihad movements taking possession of Syria’s chemical or biological weapons, but any premature military operation could give the embattled Syrian regime an excuse to turn their weapons on Israel.

By Yoav Limor

It is hard to overstate the severity of the Syrian threat, and the sharpness of the pounding headache created by it. Every possible scenario is dangerous, and any choice available to Israel goes from bad to worse.

Israel Air Force F-16 fighter planes. - Photo: AFP

Israel Air Force F-16 fighter planes. – Photo: AFP

Recent reports out of Syria indicate the immediacy of the issue.

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Bureaucracy delays construction of Italy’s 1st Holocaust Museum

Rome’s City Council approved final plans for the museum a year ago, but city funding was later blocked by government-imposed financial restrictions on municipal spending.

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

 

ROME (JTA) — If all goes according to plan, a starkly modern, $30 million Holocaust museum will soon rise on the site of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s Rome residence.

The design of Italy's Holocaust museum in RomeThe site, also the location of ancient Jewish catacombs and now a city park, will be home to a museum first proposed in 2005 but held up repeatedly by financial and bureaucratic problems.

“I hope construction begins this summer,” Leone Paserman, the president of the Museum of the Shoah Foundation, told JTA. Continue Reading »

Ex-CIA: Unconfirmed Iranian blast may be largest sabotage in decades

Former Revolutionary Guard turned CIA tells ‘Post’ that such an explosion to the Fordow nuclear facility would harm Iran drastically.

 

Iranian dissident-turned CIA operative Reza Kahlili told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that an alleged blast at the Fordow nuclear installation in Iran is “the largest case of sabotage in decades.”

Iran's Ahmadinejad at Natanz nuclear facility

Although it has not yet been verified, a report by  Kahlili, according to which a massive blast rocked Iran’s key Fordow nuclear installation last week, continued to spread on Monday.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization has dismissed reports of an explosion as “Western propaganda,” while The Sunday Times cited Israeli intelligence figures as confirming the claim.

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European Jewish Congress: Sunday Times cartoon ‘sickening’

European Jewish Congress president calls for apology from British newspaper for a particularly offensive caricature drawn of Israel’s PM Netanyahu published on Int’l Holocaust Day

Ynetnews

 

European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor has called for an apology from the Sunday Times, which published a cartoon on International Holocaust Remembrance Day of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall on the bodies of Palestinians, depicting their blood as cement.

Cartoon shows Netanyahu building wall on bodies of Palestinians – Photo: Emil Salman

The cartoon, drawn by Gerald Scarfe, includes a caption stating: “Israeli elections – will cementing peace continue?”

“This cartoon would be offensive at any time of the year, but to publish it on International Holocaust Remembrance Day is sickening and expresses a deeply troubling mindset,” Dr. Continue Reading »

Palestinians flee catastrophe in Syria to catastrophe in Lebanon

“We go from catastrophe to catastrophe, from refugee camp to refugee camp, but at least we are alive,” Umm Sami said in Ein el-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, near the southern port city of Sidon.

By

 

Then she told her sons they were leaving their home in the Yarmouk refugee camp in the Syrian capital for neighboring Lebanon, where they would wait out Syria’s civil war.

Palestinian children who fled their houses in the Yarmouk camp

“There will be no more martyrs for Palestine in my family,” the 45-year-old widow said. “This war is a Syrian problem.”

Now safe in Lebanon, Umm Sami and her family have joined thousands of other Palestinian refugees who have found shelter in the country since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad erupted nearly two years ago. Continue Reading »

Report: Hizbullah Bases Sets Up Close to Syria’s Chemical Depots

According to an Israeli media outlet, Hizbullah terrorists are setting up bases in Syria very close to known chemical weapons storage facilities.

By Chana Ya’ar

 

The Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist organization is setting up bases in Syria close to known chemical weapons storage facilities, according to a source quoted in a report published Monday by Israeli Hebrew-language news outlet Ynet.

Chemical war drill

Chemical war drill – IDF Spokesman’s Unit

Hizbullah, which is generously funded and equipped by Iran, has been working to shore up the government forces backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, together with Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

But even with that assistance, the loyalists are beginning to lose their grip on the country, and it appears likely that Assad’s regime may soon fall. Continue Reading »

Letter found on PA terrorists: ‘Al Aqsa Brigades claim responsibility’

IDF soldiers intercept 2 Palestinian terrorists with grenades, firebombs and a letter they carried read: ‘Martyrs’ Brigades claim full responsibility for bombing at Elon Moreh settlement’

By Yoav Zitun

 

Palestinian gunmanTwo Palestinians who were detained on Saturday in the Hawara area near Nablus were carrying three makeshift grenades and three Molotov cocktails. The terrorists managed to hurl two additional firebombs at an IDF post before being apprehended by soldiers from the Lavi Battalion.

There were no reports of injury, but the army post was damaged. The terrorists were transferred to the custody of the Shin Bet security service for further interrogation. Continue Reading »

Israel’s PM: Iran is preparing for another Holocaust

Netanyahu, ‘Israel must not make the mistake of underestimating the Iranian threat to destroy Israel’, adding that his gov’t’s 1st & foremost mission remained to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power.

By DPA

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday accused Iran of planning another “Holocaust,” as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Photo: Reuters

“Holocaust denial is continued energetically by a central state in the world,” he told his cabinet in Jerusalem.

“Not by groups. Not by single individuals. Not by marginal elements. But by Iran, whose leaders on a daily basis and at the United Nations and any other platform deny that the Holocaust occurred, while at the same time they prepare what they believe will be an additional Holocaust: The destruction of the Jewish state.” Continue Reading »

Arabs Stone Kindergarten, Arabs shoot into Bus

Sunday saw a number of incidents in which inciting Arabs rioted, threw rocks at kindergarten children and shot at Israelis traveling in a bus.

By David Lev

 

Arab terrorists fired on a bus traveling in the Binyamin region Sunday evening. There were no injuries reported.

The attacked bus

The attacked bus – Photo courtesy: Israel Police

The number 172 bus, traveling from Jerusalem to the town of Anatot, was fired at as it passed near the Arab town of Hizme, north of Jerusalem. The bus was damaged, with several of the bullets piercing the bullet-proof windows.

Police closed the road immediately after the shooting was reported, and began a search for the culprits. Continue Reading »