Bennett: Negotiations won’t stop construction in Jerusalem, Judea & Samaria

Housing Minister: There will be no construction freeze, I’ll use my authority to supply needed housing.

By Gil Ronen

 

Bayit Yehudi Chairman and Economics Minister, Naftali Bennett, called Saturday for construction in Judea and Samaria to proceed even after negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) are launched.

“Our insistence on our principles paid off,” Bennett said in a statement following U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement that peace talks were about to resume. “It has been proven that when we insist on our position, negotiations can be carried out without preconditions, without a freeze, and certainly without the delusional demand to carry them out on the basis of [pre-] 67 lines. Continue Reading »

Nasrallah: The Galilee will be in danger before Lebanon

 

Hezbollah’s leader responds to European criticism, says ‘no one will force their plans on Lebanon,’ and goes on to threaten Israel saying they will pay the price for aggression.

Roi Kais

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah , currently the center of an international debate, slammed the United States and Israel in a speech on Friday evening.

נסראללה עם אסד ואחמדינג'אד ב-2005. ארכיון (צילום: AP)

Nasrallah with Assad, Ahmadinejad in 2005. Archives – Photo: AP

“The US abandoned all her allies in favor of its own interests and Israel’s,” Nassrallah declared in a live broadcast via the Hezbollah Al-Manar TV channel.

Despite recent losses suffered by the Shiite organization, Nassrallah insisted: The Galilee will be in danger before Beirut is. Continue Reading »

Hamas: What Peace Talks? There’s No Negotiating with the Occupation

Hamas quickly rejects U.S. Sec of St announcement of a return to peace talks between the Abu Mazan & Israel.

By Elad Benari, Canada

 

 

The Hamas terrorist group which controls Gaza was quick to pour cold water on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement that peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would resume.

“Hamas rejects Kerry’s announcement of a return to talks and considers the Palestinian Authority’s return to negotiations with the occupation to be at odds with the national consensus,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP on Friday, after Kerry announced at a press conference in Amman that negotiators from both sides will be meeting in Washington next week. Continue Reading »

Israel’s El Al Airlines Cancels Package for Roger Waters Concert

 

Israel’s national air carrier El Al Airlines drops promotional package for BDS activist Roger Waters that was advertized on its website.

 

 

El Al Israel Airlines said it promptly canceled a promotional package that appeared on its website for an August concert in Budapest by Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters—a vocal activist in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel—when it learned of the “sensitive issue” on Wednesday.

roger waters cancelled

 

“This matter was brought to my attention yesterday afternoon,” Sheryl Stein, an advertising/public relations/social media manager for El Al, wrote in an email to JNS.org Continue Reading »

NBA star Amare Stoudemire gets Presidential invitation to the Holy Land

Israel’s President Shimon Peres has always been a man with big ideas. But this is his biggest yet… Get Amar’e Stoudemire to play for the Israeli national team!

By

JERUSALEM (AP) — The president of Israel has invited New York Knicks star Amare Stoudemire to play for the country’s national basketball team because of his ties to Judaism.

Shimon Peres met with Stoudemire on Thursday to discuss the player’s charity efforts. Stoudemire, who says he has ”Hebrew roots,” has traveled to Israel before and Peres urged him to help the national team.

The six-time NBA All-Star already has significant ties to Israeli basketball.

Continue Reading »

Breakthrough? Kerry announces Abbas agrees to peace talks

Kerry’s hectic diplomacy appears to bear fruit as US Sec of St announces resumption of peace talks at Amman, Jordan press conference.

Negotiations scheduled to begin next week in Washington.

By Elior Levy

 

US State Secretary John Kerry announced an agreement has been reached on the resumption of peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians in a press conference in Jordan’s capital Amman, after a series of meetings in Jordan and Ramallah with Palestinian officials.

קרי בירדן, בדרך לרמאללה (צילום: AFP)

Kerry in Jordan – Photo: AFP

Tzipi Livni, the minister in charge of the negotiation on the Israeli side, the prime minister’s emissary Yitzhak Molcho and Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat are expected to meet in Washington as early as next week for the beginning of the talks. Continue Reading »

Lebanese official tells EU not to declare Hezbollah terrorist organization

Germany now leads European efforts to place Hezbollah’s military wing on EU terror blacklist following new evidence on the 2012 suicide bombing that killed 5 Israelis in Bulgaria.

The European Union is reassessing whether to declare Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organization, a move it has long avoided despite U.S. pressure.

Reenactment of the Burgas bus bombing.


Reenactment of the Burgas bus bombing.- Photo by AP

The move was bolstered by Germany’s policy change after long resisting calls to list Hezbollah for fear it could destabilize Lebanon.

Germany said it was pushed toward declaring Hezbollah a terror group by the 2012 attack in the Black Sea resort of Burgas in Bulgaria. Continue Reading »

Saudi Airlines Openly Defends its Discrimination Against Israelis

Saudi Arabian Airlines’ director general has defended the company’s decision not to fly Israelis on their carrier from U.S. airports.

By Elad Benari, Canada

 

 

The director general of Saudi Arabian Airlines on Friday defended his company’s decision to discriminate against Israeli citizens by refusing to fly them from U.S. airports even when passengers are simply looking to transfer in Saudi Arabia to another country, Al Arabiya reports.

File:Saudi Arbaian Airlines Boeing 747-300, HZ-AIT, SIN 3.jpg

Saudi Arabian Airlines – Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Earlier this week, the New York Post reported that the airline’s website asks for citizenship when booking a ticket but has no option on a drop-down menu for anyone holding an Israeli passport. Continue Reading »

500-year-old Jewish Skeleton Found in First Known Synagogue of the New World

Skeleton found during earthwork in Recife, Brazil where Portuguese Jews in 1636 built the 1st known synagogue in the New World.

By JTA

 

Brazilian archaeologists unearthed what they said are the 500-year-old remains of a Jewish man in Recife.

Recife, Brazil [file]

Recife, Brazil [file] – Photo: Wikimedia Common

A report Thursday in the online edition of the Rio de Janeiro-based O Globo described the discovery earlier this month as a perfectly-preserved skeleton of a male adult. The skeleton was found during earthwork in Recife in northern Brazil, where Portuguese Jews in 1636 built the first known synagogue in the New World.

Marcos Albuquerque of the Federal University of Pernambuco, who oversaw the dig around the skeleton, told O Globo he had no doubt the man was Jewish and that he was buried sometime in the 16th century.

Continue Reading »

Sinai heats up so IDF deployed Iron Dome battery in Eilat

 

 

Because Egyptian army is preparing to launch large-scale operation against terrorists in Sinai peninsula, IDF moves anti-missile battery to southern city fearing rocket attacks.

Yoav Zitun

The IDF has deployed an Iron Dome battery in the southern city of Eilat as the Egyptian army launches a large-scale operation to purify the Sinai Peninsula of al-Qaeda inspired terrorist cells.

(צילום: מאיר אוחיון)

Iron Dome in Eilat – Photo: MeirOhayon

The battery was deployed at the height of the tourist season for fear the city would become the target of rocket fire. The IDF has arranged that the city’s siren system be connected to the alert systems installed on the Israel-Egypt border. Continue Reading »

Kerry Goes Home After PLO says No

Mustafa Barghouti, a PA member of parliament, said “most factions” within the PLO had rejected Kerry’s proposal.

By Arutz Sheva

 

US Secretary of State John Kerry was preparing to leave the Middle East on Friday as Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders rejected his plan to resume the stalled peace talks.

The setback for the US plan came from the governing Revolutionary Council of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s own Fatah (PLO) movement, which demanded changes. This, despite reports that Israel had agreed to negotiate with the PA on the basis of tacit agreements that Israeli nationalists would find hard to swallow.

The broader Palestine Liberation Organisation, which also includes leftwing factions less sympathetic towards a compromise, said it was also drawing up a formal response to Kerry’s proposals. Continue Reading »

A message to the EU: ‘Thank You’

Boycotting Jews is not a new phenomena. It has ushered the brilliance of Europe, North Africa and the Muslim states to immigrate to Israel.
Israel today achieves more than all of its enemies combined.

By Erwin Blank

I have a message for the EU, a little bit of Israeli history that I believe is quite appropriate right now after their action to boycott all Israeli businesses, products and services that are located in Yehudah and Shomron.

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-14468, Berlin, NS-Boykott gegen jüdische Geschäfte.jpg

Stormtroopers outside a Berlin store posting signs with the words “Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews” (“Deutsche! Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!”).

Continue Reading »

EU’s New anti-Israel Sanctions Could be a €600 Million Boomerang

Israeli officials say the EU is not the only one that can impose sanctions. Israel may now have to pull out of a major EU project that will loose them 600 million.

By David Lev

 

The European Union is not the only one that can impose sanctions and boycotts, Israeli officials said Thursday. A report in Maariv said that if the EU insists on boycotting Israelis and Jews living and doing business in the lands liberated in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel could boycott some major European Union projects that features Israel as a central partner.

A diver in the Mediterranean sea – AFP file

Among them is an 80 billion euro project to clean up the Mediterranean by 2020. Continue Reading »

Report contradicts CNN: Israeli submarine strike hit Syria’s missile storage depot

UK daily contradicts a CNN report claiming that the Israeli air force bombed Syrian weapons depot, and they say attack was coordinated with the Pentagon.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

 

 

 

Israeli Dolphin-class submarines carried out a July 5 attack on an arms depot in the Syrian port city of Latakia, according to a report in the British Sunday Times, which contradicted a previous CNN report that the attack was the work of the Israel Air Force.

A Dolphin-class submarine docks in Haifa port.

A German built Dolphin-class submarine docks in Haifa port. – Photo: Reuters

The alleged Israeli naval strike was closely coordinated with the United States and targeted a contingent of 50 Russian-made Yakhont P-800 anti-ship missiles that had arrived earlier in the year for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, the Times cited Middle East intelligence sources as stating.

Continue Reading »

Samantha Power commits US to push for Israeli seat on UNSC

Obama’s nominee for UN ambassador, tells Senate hearing she will combat ‘unacceptable bias’ against Jewish state and push for a Security Council seat to secure greater integration of Israeli public servants in the UN.

By Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s decision to appoint Samantha Power as the American ambassador to the UN has raised concerns in Jerusalem due to her past statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but during her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday Power said “The United States has no greater friend in the world than the State of Israel” and pledged to combat the “unacceptable bias” against Israel at the global body. Continue Reading »