Israel’s Foreign Ministry’s Arabic Twitter poll found 57% of Arabs wanted to visit Israel

During the 24-hours the survey was posted on Israel’s Foreign Ministry’s Arabic Twitter page, hundreds responded with most showing interest in visiting Israel, while some expressed their disdain with Israel.
• Iraqi: ‘My dream to visit Israel’
• Riyadh resident: ‘Israel is better than all Arab states’
• Foreign Ministry says hundreds of messages are sent daily from Arab countries.

By Daniel Siryoti

 

An international survey in Arabic by Israel’s Foreign Ministry this week drew thousands of responses and found that a majority of respondents, 57%, expressed interest in visiting Israel.

“I am Iraqi, and I am interested in visiting Israel,” one Twitter user wrote in a post to the Foreign Ministry’s Arabic Twitter page. Continue Reading »

IDF announces Beduin enlistment on upswing after declining years

IDF believes the 40% increase in 2017 of Beduin 18 yr-olds volunteering to enlist is due to Defense Ministry benefits and occupational training offered to the recruits.

By TAL LEV RAM/MAARIV

 

After years of steady decline in the number of young Beduin volunteering to enlist in the IDF, the past year has seen a reversal of that trend manifesting in a 40% increase in 2017. Four hundred and twenty Beduin men joined the army in 2017, up from 300 in 2016, and the IDF aims to increase recruitment further, to 600, in the coming year.

Despite the fact that the number of members of the Beduin sector who choose to enlist is still objectively low, the army believes that the recruitment potential will increase significantly, even as the community experiences a processes of religious radicalization and deepening rupture with the state, especially among the southern tribes. Continue Reading »

Report: PM Modi to seek direct India-Israel flights over Saudi Arabia airspace

Having already inked an impressive series of bilateral agreements between PM Netanyahu and PM Narendra Modi, the Indian leader will now seek to enable Air India to fly over Saudi skies to Israel, thereby cutting flight time by 2 hours, lowering fuel costs and ticket prices that should boost the number of flights and increase tourism.

By Itamar Eichner

 

A major Indian airline may begin operating direct return flights to Israel which will include a navigation route above Saudi Arabia as part of the further consolidation of diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and New Delhi.

PM Netanyahu and PM Modi at India’s India-Israel Business Summit – Photo: אבי אוחיון, לע״מ/Facebook

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently in the midst of a six-day trip to India, extolled the 25 years of diplomatic relations between Israel and India, boasting that the two sides had already signed nine agreements covering cooperation in cyber security, space and oil and gas exploration. Continue Reading »

Finally! Gov’t bars privileged Hamas families from ‘humanitarian visits’ to Israel

The Israeli government announced on Monday that the IDF and border security are to ban all Hamas leaders &  family members from entering Israel for any kind of ‘humanitarian’ visit, including medical treatment in Israeli medical facilities.

By David Rosenberg

 

The Israeli government announced Monday that it would no longer permit members of the Hamas terrorist group or their immediate family members in Gaza to enter Israel with entry permits issued out of humanitarian concerns, including to seek medical treatment in Israeli hospitals, as opposed to medical facilities in the Gaza Strip.

The announcement was made Monday after the government acknowledged to the Supreme Court that it had hitherto not fully implemented a security cabinet decision which included sanctions targeting Hamas leadership. Continue Reading »

U.S. State Dept denies visa for Israeli singer who once wrote anti-Obama song

Invited to perform at the UN for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli singer Amir Benayoun was only singer denied entry visa to the U.S.

By Israel Today Staff

 

Popular Israeli singer Amir Benayoun has been denied a visa to travel to the United States where he was scheduled to perform at the United Nations on January 27 to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The US Embassy in Israel stated that it was unconvinced that Benayoun intended to return to the Jewish state following his performance.

But two other Israeli singers slated to perform at the somber event–Miri Mesika and David D’Or–obtained visas without incident. Continue Reading »

Syrian refugee baby born in Cyprus flown to Israel for successful heart surgery

Israeli surgeons successfully operate on a 3 days-old Syrian baby boy, suffering from a serious congenital heart defect.
• Baby and his Syrian refugee father were air-lifted in after Cypriot Health Ministry requested Israel’s help.

By Maytal Yasur Beit-Or

 

Doctors in central Israel performed a successful operation on Sunday on a Syrian baby who had been flown to Israel from Cyprus three weeks ago for urgent medical treatment.

The baby is recovering and is said to be in stable condition.

The baby in a special incubator on his flight to Israel in late December – Both Photos: Aviation Bridge (<— Visit website)

The baby was only three days old when he arrived in Israel to undergo a procedure to correct a serious congenital heart defect. Continue Reading »

Lebanon follows its Gal Gadot film ban by blacklisting Steven Spielberg

The Lebanese Daily Star reported Monday that Lebanon’s economy minister recommended the film, ‘The Post’ for blacklist because of its director Steven Spielberg, who has been blacklisted since his 1994 film ‘Schindler’s List.’

By AMY SPIRO

 

First Gal Gadot. Now Steven Spielberg. And even Daniel Radcliffe.

The Lebanese government is missing out on some quality cinema because of its efforts to boycott the State of Israel.

According to reports on Sunday and Monday, famed director Spielberg’s latest film, The Post, would be banned from screening in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Daily Star said on Monday that the economy minister recommended the film for blacklist because of Spielberg. Continue Reading »

$4.2m allocated to Israel’s ‘Peace Train’ to Jordan, then Iraq, Saudi Arabia

Israel allocates NIS 15 million for Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz’s ambitious ‘peace train’ to carry passengers & cargo from the Israeli Mediterranean coast to Jordan, or if there is a peace agreement between all the countries, on to Iraq & Saudi Arabia.

By Ofer Petersburg

 

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz’s ambitious plan to connect extend the railroad tracks from Beit She’an East to the Sheikh Hussein crossing at the Jordanian border was allocated NIS 15 million in the 2019 budget.

The funds will be invested in planning the extension of the tracks to the border crossing.

Israel’s Transportation Minister Israel Katz proposes rail link to Jordan, Saudi Arabia.

Continue Reading »

While visiting Lithuania, Japanese PM pays tribute to Chiune Sugihara, who saved Jews

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits memorial to WWII Japanese Ambassador, Chiune Sugihara, a ‘Japanese Schindler’ who saved 5,558 European Jews from the Holocaust by disregarding his superiors in Tokyo and issued them entry visas to Japan.

By Arutz Sheva Staff

 

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday visited a memorial to a Japanese diplomat who saved 5,558 European Jews from the Holocaust by issuing visas from war-torn Lithuania, in defiance of Tokyo.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited this former Japanese consulate in Kaunas to pay tribute Chiune Sugihara. – Photo: Bonio/Wikimedia

Abe visited the two-story building, now a museum, which housed the consulate where Chiune Sugihara worked in the Baltic state’s second city Kaunas. Continue Reading »

Palestinian leader: “Israel is a colonial project that has nothing to do with the Jews.”

During a speech at a meeting of the PLO’s Palestinian Central Council, Palestinian autocrat Mahmoud Abbas cursed the US president in Arabic, “May your house be destroyed.”

By i24NEWS – AFP

 

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas denounced US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace efforts as the “slap of the century”, declaring that Israel had “ended” the Oslo accords delivering a speech at the PLO Committee meeting on Sunday.

“Today is the day that the Oslo Accords end. Israel killed them,” he said referring to the 1990’s landmark agreements that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority and envisioned a final resolution to the conflict. Continue Reading »

UNRWA, a problem that sustains a Palestinian toll-road to nowhere

UNRWA was born of sin, and has metastasized into an abomination. The organization perpetuates the Palestinian refugee status to forthcoming generations, prevents any political settlement from being reached by its systematic anti-Israel indoctrination, teaches anti-Semitic incitement, and robs real refugees of potential financial aid.

The problem is UNRWA By Ron Prosor

 

A doctor trying to find a medicine to treat an illness must, first of all, determine its etiology. One of the main obstacles on the path to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the U.N. agency founded with the purpose of assisting only Palestinian refugees, and that perpetuates the fantasy of their return. Continue Reading »

Arabs points finger at Mossad for attempted assassination of Hamas official in Lebanon

Following detonation of car-bomb that exploded in the Lebanese city of Sidon that left Hamas official, Mohamed Hamdan “slightly wounded,” Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV station reported both Hamas & Fatah blame Israel.

By Reuters, AP

 

Mohamed Hamdan, a Palestinian Hamas member, survived an attempt on his life Sunday after a bomb planted in his car in southern Lebanon detonated, wounding him, the Lebanese military and the terror group said, with Hamas identifying Israel as the culprit without providing evidence. Hamdan’s leg reportedly had to be amputated.

Hamdan in the hospital – Arab media

Hamdan, also known as Abu Hamza, was “slightly wounded” in the attack, a Hamas official in Sidon, Ayman Shanaa, told a Palestinian television station, Paltoday.It Continue Reading »

About IDF’s demolishing Hamas terror-tunnel beneath humanitarian aid crossing

WATCH IDF Video: Last night, and again this morning, the IDF destroyed a Hamas terror-tunnel dug beneath the Kerem Shalom border crossing, that intruded almost 600 feet into Israel.

By Tal Polon

 

IDF planes finished this morning, Sunday, demolishing a terror tunnel that passed under the Kerem Shalom Crossing from Gaza into Israel.

The IDF says with certainty that the tunnel belonged to Hamas.

The tunnel started in the Rafiah area 900 meters (2,953 feet) into Gaza and extended 180 meters (591 feet) into Israel. It passed under the gas pipeline between Egypt and Gaza.

IDF Spokesperson Ronen Manelis says that the tunnel was located several days ago. Continue Reading »

India’s PM Modi surprises PM Netanyahu in unscheduled, personal welcome at New Delhi Airport

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is welcomed by his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi with hugs upon Netanyahu’s arrival in India, that will include visiting Ahmedabad, Mumbai & Agra, as well as meeting Indian President Ram Nath Kovind during Netanyahu’s first ever visit.

By HERB KEINON, HAGAY HACOHEN

 

NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi unexpectedly met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he landed at New Delhi’s airport on Sunday afternoon, a gesture of warmth that was not in the original schedule.

Modi, with whom Netanyahu has developed a close relationship, greeted Netanyahu with a warm hug, and then hoisted his arm into the air for the cameras. Continue Reading »

Israel Defense Minister synchronizes agencies to intercept funds for Palestinian terror

Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has formed a new financial warfare agency tasked with coordinating Israel’s assorted security and tax agencies to make the Palestinians feel the crunch by undermining transactions in their financing of terrorism.

By Yoav Limor

 

After a period of relative calm, terrorism has again reared its head and claimed Israeli lives. Tuesday’s murder of Raziel Shevach near Nablus underscores Israel’s dilemma in searching for effective ways to combat terrorism.

Let’s be honest: The various statements made by politicians in the wake of the attack are nothing more than empty words. The government can approve additional construction in Judea and Samaria, or give Shevach’s home settlement of Havat Gilad retroactive permits, but this will not stop terrorism. Continue Reading »