REPORT: Israeli Arab Population exchange to future Palestine legal under int’l law

According to Foreign Minister Lieberman’s legal study, moving Israel’s border would require agreement of the Palestinians, can not leave individuals without citizenship & would require a mechanism for compensation.

 

 

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman received a few weeks ago a classified legal opinion that paves the way for making Arab areas of Israel part of a future Palestinian state.

Avigdor Lieberman

The document’s authors concluded that the move would comply with international law on condition that it were done with the consent of the Palestinians, did not leave anyone without citizenship and included a mechanism for providing compensation, similar to the one used with Jewish settlers during Israel’s 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

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Tel Aviv Hosts ‘Largest Shabbat Dinner’ Attempt for New Guinness World Record

In an attempt to inspire world Jewry to connect to Shabbat in Israel’s largest city, a non-profit aims to host world record setting meal in Tel Aviv on June13th.

By Tova Dvorin

 

White City Shabbat, a non-profit organization dedicated to building Jewish life in Tel Aviv, has announced Monday that it will attempt to set the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Shabbat Dinner.

The dinner, which is scheduled for June 13, 2014, will be held at the Tel Aviv Port. The organization aims to host 1,000 people at the dinner, including Israelis, new immigrants, and public figures.

The guest list will reportedly include Mayor Ron Huldai, former Chief Rabbi of Israel Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, and Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs, Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan. Continue Reading »

Injured Syrians in Israel call on the IDF to bomb Syria

Ziv Medical Center in northern Israel is currently treating 16 Syrian patients who call Hezbollah ‘Satan’s organization’ and express their gratitude for the treatment they are given.

By Hassan Shaalan

 

“I’ve always thought of Israel as an enemy state that is not willing to help us. My case changed my thinking entirely. Israel is a good country that saves our lives, while the Syrian regime murders its citizens,” said one of the Syrian patients currently treated at the Ziv Medical Center in Safed.

Of the 16 Syrian patients in the Israeli hospital, three are in serious condition. Among them are children and rebels who fought against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army. Continue Reading »

Striking Israeli diplomats may be discipline by Finance Ministry

 

The Finance Ministry’s director of wages dept. said he would take harsh actions against all Foreign Ministry workers who locked gov’t ministry buildings or advanced pay to strikers.

 

The Finance Ministry is threatening to file disciplinary charges against striking Foreign Ministry employees and diplomats worldwide.

Foreign Ministry, closed on strike

Foreign ministry, closed on strike, March 24, 2014. – Photo: Olivier Fitoussi

In a letter sent to the Foreign Ministry union Monday, Kobi Amsalem, director of the treasury’s wages department, threatened disciplinary action against any worker involved in locking the gates of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem or embassies and consulates overseas or paying salary advances to the striking diplomats.

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Abbas’s PA Promises Millions of Dollars to ‘Martyrs’ Families

PA gov’t encourages Palestinians to trade their lives for their families’ financial security – $74 million allocated to ‘Martyrs’ families ….compliments of U.S. taxpayers.

By Dalit Halevi, Tova Dvori

 

The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to financially support terrorism, and families of terrorists were set to receive a great deal of that financial support, as PA official Rami Hamdallah pledged another $74 million from the PA budget to the families of ‘martyrs’ for the Palestinian Arab nationalist cause.

On Sunday, Hamdallah said that his government will continue to work to protect the rights of family members of the “martyrs” who were killed in the course of carrying out attacks on Israelis and their supporters abroad, and ensure that they “live dignified lives.” Continue Reading »

UK Minister for Universities & Science: No academic boycotts of Israel in Britain

During his visit to Jerusalem, David Willetts, the British Minister for Universities and Science says fewer Israelis have been coming to study in UK because of misperception of hostility.

 

 

Fewer Israeli students have been coming to England to study because of mistaken perceptions that Britain is “an unfriendly or hostile place” to Israel or Israelis. That mistaken perception needs addressing, said David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, in a visit to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Monday.

UK Universities Minister David Willetts (Wikimedia Commons)

UK Universities Minister David Willetts: Perception of hostility to Israelis is mistaken. – Photo by Wikimedia Commons

There has been no boycott of Israeli academia in the U.K., Continue Reading »

Israeli Arabic-speaking Christians to EU: Israel is Our Safe Haven

 

Israeli Christians demand that the world’s gov’ts stop wasting time demonizing Israel out of political agendas, and start focusing on the real problems by lifting “a finger against the ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East.”

By Ryan Jones

 

Some 150 Israeli Arabic-speaking Christians on Sunday demonstrated outside the European Union mission in Tel Aviv, demanding that the international community stop nitpicking against Israel and start combating the severe persecution of Christians everywhere else in the Middle East.

Christians to EU: Israel is Our Safe Haven

Young, proud Arabic-speaking Israeli Christians demonstrate in Tel Aviv – Photo source: Israel Today

“Nations, organizations and international missions are quick to raise an accusing finger against Israel at every opportunity,” said Father Gabriel Nadaf, spiritual father of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, which organized the rally. Continue Reading »

Israeli-German group to build new Haifa-Beit Shean & Acre-Carmiel rail lines

 

German & Israeli companies win 800 million shekel ($230 million) tender for construction work on Acre-Carmiel & Haifa-Beit Shean rail lines & terminals.

Also under construction will be a new line linking Kfar Saba with Herzliya.

By Shlomi Diaz

 

The National Transport Infrastructure Company announced on Sunday that an Israeli-German group has beaten a French-Spanish-Israeli group for the tender to construct almost 100 kilometers (60 miles) of railroad tracks in northern Israel.

A train in Acre [Archive] – Photo: Herzi Shapira

The winning bid was submitted by the German company DB BahnBau and a number of Israeli construction companies. Continue Reading »

WATCH LIVE as UN Human Rights Council condemns Israel on 5 resolutions

One resolution calls for boycott of Jewish West Bank communities and Jews in east Jerusalem.

Due to Foreign Ministry strike, Israel is not represented.

 

The United Nations Human Rights Council debated five anti-Israel resolutions — including one that calls for a business boycott of West Bank settlements and Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem — during its Monday meeting in Geneva.

 

OVERVIEW OF the Human Rights Council at the UNHRC – UN Photo/Pierre Albouy

During the UNHRC’s entire 25th session this month, it is voting on only one resolution on Syria even though over 120,000 people have been killed in its ongoing civil war. Continue Reading »

Jimmy Carter: Obama is the First President who Doesn’t Call Me

“I think the problem was that the Carter Center has taken a very strong and public position of equal treatment between the Palestinians & the Israelis,” said Carter. “And I think this was a sensitive area in which the president didn’t want to be involved.”

By Sandy Fitzgerald

 

President Barack Obama is the first president who has not solicited advice from former President Jimmy Carter since he left office, Carter told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Former President Jimmy Carter - Photo by AP

Former President Jimmy Carter – Photo by AP

“President Clinton did and President George W. Bush and H.W. Bush and even Ronald Reagan used to call on us to go into sensitive areas,” Carter told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Sunday.

Continue Reading »

‘Price Tag’ Attack: Tires of 34 cars punctured in East Jerusalem neighborhood

 

After 2 Israel Policemen were hospitalized from an unprovoked Arab rock-throwing mob at Rachel’s Tomb yesterday, a ‘price tag’ (pay-back) attack in Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina was discovered early this  morning.

By Noam (Dabul) Dvir

 

The tires of 34 vehicles in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina were punctured overnight Sunday, and the writing “Goyim in the country = enemies” was sprayed in Hebrew on a bus.

Graffiti that says 'Goyim in the country = enemies'

Graffiti that says ‘Goyim in the country = enemies’

Police opened an investigation into the alleged “price tag” incident.

This is not the first time a “price tag” attack strikes the neighborhood. Continue Reading »

For 1st time, IDF published data of pensions being paid

Revealing retirement benefits data for 1st time, IDF is paying out 6.8 billion shekels in 2014 to some 35,000 retirees, with ex-combat soldier, 82, leading pension payments at 63,000 shekels per month.

 

 

In response to a request from Haaretz, the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Office has published a list revealing the highest pensions being paid to former army personnel. Topping the list is an 82-year-old former combat soldier who receives some 63,000 shekels per month.

IDF Chief of Staff Gantz.

IDF Chief of Staff Gantz oversees a military drill. – Photo by IDF Spokesperson’s Unit

The army is expected to pay some 6.8 billion shekels to about 35,000 retirees (the army censor does not allow publication of the exact number) in 2014.

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A small Jewish community splits over conversion in rural Uganda

Even with support from the Diaspora, the community remains poor. All the members are farmers, including Sizomu, who despite his rabbinical degree, grows plantains to support himself.

 

Enosh Keki Maniah, the head of the breakaway Orthodox faction of Uganda's Abayudaya Jewish community, hopes to move to Israel. (Ben Sales)Enosh Keki Maniah, the head of the breakaway Orthodox faction of Uganda’s Abayudaya Jewish community, says, “We didn’t  have a grudge with anyone.” (Ben Sales)

 

The room is bare, the light is dim and the Conservative prayer books are worn.

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Terror victims protests against pending prisoner release

 

 A demonstrator at vigil in front of PM’s Residence remarks, “I feel like not only have we betrayed our own values, but we’ve betrayed our country.”

 

 

“We are here to send a very simple message: Those who have murdered shouldn’t see the light of day,” said Elichai Ben-Yishai, the brother of Ruth Fogel, who was brutally murdered in her home with her husband and three children in 2011’s so-called “Itamar massacre.”

'Stop the release of terrorists', activists's signs say at vigil outside PM's residence in Jerusalem, March 23 - Photo: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST

‘Stop the release of terrorists’, activists’s signs say at vigil outside PM’s residence in Jerusalem, March 23 – Photo: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST

“This should be acceptable and understandable logic to any reasonable person,” he added, with rage and sorrow inflaming his eyes.

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PA chief negotiator Erekat claims Netanyahu prioritized settlements over peace

 

Palestinian negotiator Erekat misdirects from Palestinian intransigence by blaming Israel for settlement construction and ‘systematic’ attacks on Al-Aqsa mosque, as deadline approaches.

By Ynetnews

 

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat claims Israel values settlement expansion over peace negotiations, in comments made after Israel announced additional settlement construction and a report said the US fears talks are failing.

Israeli negotiator Livni, Palestinian negotiator Erekat (Photo: EPA/Archive)

Israeli negotiator Livni, Palestinian negotiator Erekat – Photo: EPA/Archive

Erekat made his remarks during separate meetings with visiting Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn and with UN envoy Robert Serry and US peace envoy Martin Indyk, Ma’an reported.

Israel has progressed with plans for roughly 2,500 new homes in six West Bank settlements, an official confirmed Thursday, in a move many agree will likely further endanger peace talks. Continue Reading »