Judge: ‘Women shouldn’t have been arrested at Western Wall’

Judge Moshe Sobell ruled that the women were not a danger to the public & that their prayer did not disturb the public order.

 

JERUSALEM  — Women praying together out loud at the Western Wall in prayer shawls did not disturb the public order and should not have been arrested, an Israeli court found.

2010 IN PICTURES JULY

Anat Hoffman, leader of the Women of the Wall, is arrested for holding a Torah scroll at Judaism’s holiest site. – Photo: Michal Fattal

 

The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday ruled that five women from the Women of The Wall group should not have been arrested and rejected a police request for a restraining order against the women from the site. Continue Reading »

Mayor of Tehran: Holocaust denial hurt Iran

Possible upcoming presidential candidate says Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial became excuse for Israel, harmed Iran & the Palestinians.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

 

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust has harmed Iran’s foreign relations, and did nothing to benefit the Palestinians, Tehran mayor and a potential candidate for the Iranian presidential elections said in an interview with the Tasnim News Agency this week.

Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. – Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in excerpts translated from Farsi by Al-Monitor that Ahmadinejad’s statements denying the systematic extermination of six million Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II became an “excuse for our biggest enemies, which are the Zionists, and affected the goals of the Palestinians.”

Continue Reading »

Bennett & Lapid seek seaport reform

Economy and Trade Minister promises to break seaport monopoly. ‘It’ll hurt, but it’ll pass,’ Bennett says of expected union strikes.

By Moran Azulay

 

Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett is backing the seaport reform and has vowed to “break the seaport monopoly.”

נמל אשדוד. מו"מ עם הוועדים הוא הכרחי (צילום: אבי רוקח)

Ashdod port – Photo: Avi Rokach

“We’ll release the strangle-hold. We’re engaged in a historic process of opening up Israel‘s economy. The train has left the station,” he said.

Bennett’s statements follow that of Finance Minister Yair Lapid who on Tuesday announced his plans to privatize the state owned ports in Haifa and Ashdod and to support the construction of an additional port by a private entrepreneur. Continue Reading »

Amb. Rice: UN Official Falk ‘Spews Vitriol’, Has ‘No Place at UN’

American Ambassador to UN calls for dismissal of UN official who blamed Boston bombings on Israel.

By Arutz Sheva staff

 

United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, called on Wednesday for the dismissal of Richard Falk, a top official on the United Nations Human Rights Council, who attempted to explain the Boston Marathon bombings as a reaction to US policy in the Middle East.

Falk, whose official title is the “U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories,” implied that the Boston Marathon bombings were payback for America’s “geopolitical fantasy of global domination” and its continued affiliation with the international body only serves to undermine its credibility.  Continue Reading »

Egypt Reports: Mossad pays $1,000 per photo to ‘Israeli spy in Sinai’

Egyptian security source says Israeli ‘spy network’ discovered just days after Grad rockets fired from Sinai on Eilat

By Roi Kais

 

An Egyptian security source relayed on Wednesday to the Palestinian Maan news agency new details which he claims surfaced in the interrogation of the man arrested a few days ago in the Sinai Peninsula. The man allegedly stood at the head of a spy network, working in Israel’s favor there.

Egyptian SecurityThe source said that the accused is a 35-year-old Bedouin who admitted in his interrogation to passing along military, political and economic information to the Mossad.

The source told the Palestinian news agency that the information the man supplied revolved around protests that occurred in Egypt. Continue Reading »

MK Strock seeks law to also allow settlers to defend property with live fire

MK Orit Strock seeks equality under the law for settlers who “obey [the] rules of engagement, don’t shoot at burglars, & are forced to absorb heavy losses” whereas other Israelis don’t.

 

 

Settlers should have the same right to defend their property under the so-called Dromi Law as Israelis who live within the Green Line, MK Orit Strock (Habayit Hayehudi‏) said Tuesday.

Orit Strock

Orit Strock – Photo: Michal Fattal

Instead, she charged, their rights are restricted by the Israel Defense Forces’ rules of engagement.

She is therefore demanding that the rules be changed to allow settlers to confront “nationalist attacks” against Jewish property with live fire. Continue Reading »

A ‘Palestinian’ Museum: What 200 years of history?

Palestinians building a museum claiming their national history goes back at least 2 centuries, but will that actually convince all the Regional Arabs?

By Aviel Schneider

 

Last week, the laying of the cornerstone of the new “Palestinian Museum” made headlines worldwide. The museum is a private initiative that aims to tell a 200-year-old Palestinian history.

 

Established adjacent to Birzeit University near Ramallah, the museum will be build in two stages and eventually encompass an area of almost 100,000 square feet.

Palestinian sources said a museum is one of the things every proper state needs. “I hope that the museum gives the Palestinians the opportunity to present their story to the world,” said museum director Jack Persekian. Continue Reading »

Israel’s airport security may require ‘suspicious tourists’ to open email accounts

 

Israel’s Attorney-general: Increasing threat from foreign ‘tourists’ exploited for terrorism 

Shin Bet security agents have legal grounds to demand access to email in exceptional cases where incriminating evidence may connect the ‘tourist’ to activities that threaten Israel’s national security.

By Israel Hayom Staff

 

Foreign citizens visiting Israel may be asked to open their email accounts for airport security when they land at Ben-Gurion International Airport, the Attorney-General’s Office stated Wednesday in response to a petition by a leading Israeli civil rights group.

Continue Reading »

US Treasury Shuts Down Hezbollah Money Laundering

Lebanese exchange houses accused of money laundering from used car dealerships and illicit drug trade going to terror group are frozen.

By MICHAEL WILNER, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

 

NEW YORK – The US Treasury Department on Tuesday listed two Lebanese exchange houses as institutions of “primary money laundering concern” for their work with Hezbollah, invoking Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act to effectively shut them out of the American economy.

HEZBOLLAH SUPPORTERS march through the streets of Beirut last year.

HEZBOLLAH SUPPORTERS march through the streets of Beirut last year. Photo: Khalil Hassan/Reuters

In a declassified statement of their case, the US claims that the Rmeiti Exchange and Halawi Exchange have consistently complied in a scheme that comingles money from used car dealerships in the US and drugs from South America into significant funding for the Lebanese terrorist organization.

Continue Reading »

No bunker-busters in latest Israel-US weapons deal

NYT reports differences in policy between Washington & Israel regarding possible attack on Iran:  bunker-buster weapons system not included in current deal.

 

Netanyahu advisor: Differences in views are re-emerging

By Ynet

The paper said that the Israeli Air Force will not get bunker busting bombs which can pierce layers of cement at underground sites. These bombs are considered integral to a successful attack on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.

Defense Cheifs Ya'alon & Hagel - Photo Yaron Brener

Defense Cheifs Ya’alon & Hagel – Photo: Yaron Brener

The deal signed this week between the US and Israel includes advanced weapons systems, but the interesting note is in the item left out of the deal, the New York Times reported Tuesday. Continue Reading »

Boston Hospital Chief Credits Israel With Setting Up Disaster Team

The terrorist attack at last week’s Boston Marathon was unprecedented for the city’s doctors – but they were prepared, thanks to Israel.

By
 

 

Minutes after a terrorist attack killed three at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, doctors and nurses at the city’s hospitals faced a harrowing scene – severed limbs, burned bodies, shrapnel buried in skin.

Alastair Conn, Chief of Emergency Services at Massachusetts General Hospital. -  Photo Screenshot.

Alastair Conn, Chief of Emergency Services at Massachusetts General Hospital. – Photo Screenshot.

For Boston doctors, the challenge presented by last week’s bombing was unprecedented – but they were prepared.

Many of the city’s hospitals have doctors with actual battlefield experience. Continue Reading »

Jordan Reports: Israel to Allow UNESCO to ‘Investigate’ Old City

Jordan reports that Israel has agreed to allow the UN mission to “investigate & assess” heritage conservation site in Jerusalem’s Old City.

By Arutz Sheva Staff

 

 

Jordan said on Tuesday that Israel has agreed to allow a UN mission to “investigate and assess” heritage conservation in Jerusalem’s Old City for the first time since 2004.

The Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site for well over 3,000 years.

The Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site for well over 3,000 years.

 

“Jordan and Palestine, supported by Arab states, succeeded in pressuring Israel, for the first time since 2004, to accept and facilitate a UNESCO experts’ mission to investigate and assess the status of heritage and conservation of the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls,” a palace statement said, according to a report in the AFP news agency. Continue Reading »

Muslim exclusivity to pray on Temple Mount may be ending

Status quo threatened as MKs finally consider allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.

Rumor sparks Arab media outcry over Jewish ‘prayers in mosque.’

By Maayana Miskin

 

 

For years Jews have been allowed to visit the Temple Mount, the holiest place on earth according to the Jewish religion, but have not been allowed to pray there. In late 2012 police issued draconian instructions under which Jewish visitors could be arrested for merely appearing to pray.

All that may change with MK Miri Regev’s appointment to head the Knesset’s Internal Affairs Committee. Regev (Likud) is planning a trip to the Temple Mount in order to weigh the option of permitting Jewish prayer at the site. Continue Reading »

Ex-MI Chief: Iran has Passed PM’s Red Line

“Iran has crossed Israel’s new red line,” Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin said, “it (will be) very difficult to stop Iran, when it decides to have a bomb.”

By Gil Ronen

 

 

Former Military Intelligence head, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, said Tuesday that “Iran has already crossed Israel’s new ‘red line‘” regarding nuclear weapons development.

Iran's Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility - AFP file photo

Iran’s Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility – AFP file photo

Yadlin, who is the Head of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said that in the summer, Iran will reach a distance of one or two months between a decision and a bomb.” Continue Reading »

French Report: Israel & Jordan working to stop Syrian WMD transfers

Jordan has apparently given Israel permission to enter its airspace to access Syria in order to monitor & possibly act against the movement of chemical weapons

By Israel Today Staff

 

In a demonstration of regional cooperation against shared threats, Jordan this week gave the green light for Israeli drones to use its airspace to enter neighboring Syria in order to monitor the use and movement of chemical weapons.

Report: Israel, Jordan working together to stop Syrian WMDs

Israel Air Force Drone – Photo courtesy IDF Spokesperson’s Office

 

That according to French newspaper Le Figaro, which cited unnamed experts as saying the Jordanians had opened up two flight corridors to Israeli drones. Continue Reading »