Female IDF defender at the Kotel, Jerusalem – Photo courtesy IDF Spokesperson’s Office
“We’re seeing growing numbers of women in combat roles compared to last year. There are more women interested in significant service in the IDF as combat soldiers,” said Brig.-Gen. Raheli Tavat-Vizel, who advises the chief of staff on women’s affairs in the military.
By Itamar Eichner
A pro-Israeli activist residing in Dublin, Ireland, was shocked this week when he discovered that a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) organization had taped yellow stickers on Israeli products reading “For justice in Palestine, Boycott Israel”.
Israeli dates in Ireland grocery store marked with yellow sticker
Among the many items found carrying the yellow boycott sticker was a pack of dates from the Jordan Valley. Continue Reading »
The Histadrut labor federation’s chairman announced on Tuesday he will leave the position he has filled since 2006 next year on February 1.
Ofer Eini. – Photo: Moti Milrod
Ofer Eini will step down in the middle of his third term, which be began in May 2012. He made his announcement to the heads of the various factions of the political coalition that runs the Histadrut. Continue Reading »
“I see no change in the Palestinian position since 1993,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Likud / Yisrael Beytenu Knesset faction Monday, according to Israel Hayom. In response to a question from MK Tzipi Hotovely, he said that he is not interested in an interim accord and that the negotiations are about a permanent agreement.
1993 is the year in which Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO, allowing the terror umbrella group to establish an armed presence in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and creating the Palestinian Authority. Continue Reading »
Hamas has introduced its own textbooks into schools in the Gaza Strip this fall, as part of an effort to spread its militant ideology among Palestinian youth, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
A Palestinian schoolgirl in the Gaza Strip – Photo: AP
According to the report, the books do not recognize modern Israel, or mention the Oslo Accords that Israel signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the early 1990s.
By Seth Rogovoy
Sir Paul McCartney recently released “New,” his first album of original rock songs since 2007’s “Memory Almost Full.” Given the 71-year-old McCartney’s love affair with all things Jewish for the past half-century — including collaborators, business associates, girlfriends and wives — the title could well be meant as a transliteration of the all-purpose Jewish word nu.
“Lovely Linda With the Lovely Flowers in Her Hair” Sir Paul McCartney’s first wife, born Linda Eastman, grew up in Scarsdale and came from a prominent Jewish family.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s threats of military action against Iranian nuclear sites, combined with the pressure of harsh Western sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy, might have helped bring the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday.
US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at a press conference.- Photo: REUTER/SYuri Gripas
“It’s true that sanctions – not just US sanctions but UN sanctions, multilateral sanctions – have done tremendous economic damage,” Hagel told Jeffrey Goldberg last week.
Ynet
During a stormy discussion in the Knesset’s Interior Committee regarding Jewish prayer in the Temple Mount, MK Miri Regev (Likud) verbally clashed with MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al).
A stormy discussion in the Knesset – screenshot
At the height of the argument, MK Tibi told Regev: “Because of your games in Al-Aqsa (Temple Mount), a third Intifada is about to break out. You’re dangerous to yourself, to your children and to everyone. Continue Reading »
One Hollywood film studio has commanded only A-list talent since its inception — Elizabeth Taylor, Morgan Freeman, Sandra Bullock, Michael Douglas, Nicole Kidman — and they all worked for free. What kind of studio head has such pull? It’s Rabbi Marvin Hier, the mini-mogul of Moriah Films, the movie division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Actress Sandra Bullock, Oct. 10, 2013.- Photo: Reuters
Founded by Hier in 1981, Moriah Films has won two Academy Awards for its historical documentaries. Continue Reading »
By Elad Benari
Nearly 1,500 priceless paintings, including works by Picasso and Matisse, that were stolen by the Nazis have been discovered in a flat in Munich, a news report said Sunday, according to AFP.
The German weekly Focus reported that police came upon the paintings during a 2011 search in an apartment belonging to the octogenarian son of art collector Hildebrand Gurlitt, who had bought them during the 1930s and 1940s.
The search was carried out because the son, Cornelius Gurlitt, was under suspicion for tax evasion, Focus said. Continue Reading »
Her son is the first baby from a mother fleeing Syria’s civil war to be born in Israel.
When the mother realized there was no one in Syria who could deliver her, she asked to be taken to the border, where she hoped Israeli soldiers would pick her up and send her to an Israeli medical center, she said.
“I was very afraid to go, but I was even more worried about giving birth at home by myself,” she added.
By Michal Margalit
The family of Jonathan Pollard is heavy hearted at the news that the US will not forgive and release him, even after the United States was caught spying on Israeli targets, the manager of the campaign to release Pollard said on Sunday in response to a New York Times article that claimed that the National Security Agency (NSA) was eavesdropping on Israeli military targets. Continue Reading »
U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who is also chief U.S. negotiator for Iran‘s nuclear program, assured Israel that the U.S. has not offered Iran any sanctions relief and that Israeli security is a priority.
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 3. – Photo: AP
“Israel’s security is bedrock. There is no closer security relationship than what we have with each other.”
In an interview with Channel 10’s Tamar Ish Shalom Sunday, Sherman said the Obama administration is committed to stopping Iran’s nuclear program from advancing as a first step, “while we negotiate and offer limited, temporary reversible sanctions relief, but keep in place the fundamental architecture of oil and banking sanctions.” Continue Reading »
Arabic-language website awraqq.com has published two documents that it says were sent by Palestinian Authority (PA) intelligence to Israel’s intelligence organizations, and which expose the location of two tunnels that Hamas dug from Gaza into Israel.
This information is what made it possible for Israel to prevent the tunnels from being used for terror attacks, according to the website.
According to the report, one tunnel was prepared by the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, and the other by the armed wing of Hamas – the Al-Qassam Brigades. Continue Reading »
Relations between Jerusalem and Pretoria appear to be on a further downswing after South African International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said over the weekend that her fellow cabinet members refrain from visiting Israel as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians.
South African Int’l Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane: “The last time I saw a map of Palestine, I couldn’t go to sleep” – Photo: Reuters
“Our Palestinian friends have never asked us to disengage with Israel.
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