Thousands of Israeli protesters block streets in Tel Aviv, clash with police

Police arrest 89 after protesters smash windows of banks at Rabin Square, block major highway.

By Gili Cohen , Yaniv Kubovich and Asaf Shtull-Trauring

 

 

Police arrested 89 demonstrators after more than 6,500 people converged in and around Tel Aviv’s Habima Square on Saturday night, protesting the arrest on Friday of Daphni Leef, a leader of last summer’s social protest movement.

Police arrest a demonstrator during a protest for social justice in Tel Aviv

Police arrest a demonstrator during a protest for social justice in Tel Aviv. - Photo by Tomer Appelbaum

 

The protesters blocked Ibn Gabirol Street north to Rabin Square, before moving and blocking Ayalon highway. Around 20 demonstrators were removed by police after breaking into branches of Hapoalim, Leumi and Discount banks. Continue Reading »

Report of Slain Gaza Child A Fake, IDF Says

Gaza’s Hamas leaders claim a young child was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Israel: There was no airstrike.

By Maayana Miskin

 

Hamas leaders in Gaza announced Saturday that a young child had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. The child was identified as Ali Muataz al-Shawaf, 4.

Pictures of the child’s bloody body were published in Palestinian Authority media outlets.

However, IDF officials later revealed the story as a lie. There was no Israeli airstrike in the region in which the child was killed, they asserted.

IDF officials confirmed that a Gaza terrorist was killed in an airstrike elsewhere in Gaza.

Continue Reading »

Arab World: Siege mentality

The Hamas leadership in Gaza has been energized by its expectations that the Muslim Brotherhood will soon be in control in Egypt and sees itself as the vanguard of an anti-Israeli front.

By JONATHAN SPYER

 

This week, the Hamas rulers of Gaza chose to abruptly shatter the fragile framework of assumptions which have governed relations between Israel and Gaza since the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead in early 2009. By taking responsibility for the launch of a barrage of Kassam rockets into the Negev, Hamas essentially announced the birth of a new phase in its long war of attrition with Israel. Continue Reading »

Hamas: Gaza truce as of Saturday night

Ceasefire between Gaza terror groups, Israel achieved via Egyptian mediation, senior Hamas man says; more than 20 rockets hit Israel Saturday, IDF hits terror cell

by Elior Levy

 

A ceasefire between Gaza Strip factions and Israel will go into effect Saturday night following Egyptian mediation efforts, senior Hamas man Ayman Taha said in an interview with a Palestinian televisions station Saturday evening.

Gaza rockets explode in Israel Photo: Eliad Levy

Gaza rockets explode in Israel - Photo: Eliad Levy

Earlier Saturday, Israeli defense officials said that quiet in Gaza will be met with quiet, but denied that ceasefire negotiations were underway or that a truce deal was achieved. Continue Reading »

U.S. blog Business Insider: U.S., Israel continue preparations for strike on Iran nuclear facilities

The website cites U.S. defense contracts and Israel’s new military preparations, suggesting that ‘all sides are getting ready for whatever may come.’

 

 

Israel and the U.S. are pushing forward with preparations to jointly strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, the U.S. blog Business Insider reported on Saturday.

“U.S. defense contracts, an… F-16 acquisition, and Israel’s new military preparations suggest that all sides are getting ready for whatever may come,” the report says.

An Iranian security directs media at the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

An Iranian security directs media at the Bushehr nuclear power plant - Photo by AP

According to the blog, the U.S navy has recently signed a $338 million contract with defense contractor Raytheon to “provide the Navy with 361 Tomahawk cruise missiles in their most recent configuration. Continue Reading »

Fayyad: Hamas losing support in Gaza, West Bank

PA PM says Gaza-based group avoiding elections because it is pessimistic about results; condemns Netanyahu over settlements.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

 

Hamas has been avoiding elections because it is pessimistic about their outcome, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in an interview with The Washington Post published Friday.

“It is a well-known fact borne out by various opinion polls that there has been a steady erosion in Hamas’s standing, both in the West Bank and Gaza,” Fayyad said. “I believe that is why they have been dodging elections.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad - Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

Fayyad said that it was unacceptable that elections have not been held recently in the Palestinian Authority, calling a vote “overdue” and saying that it is “something I believe is going to happen, and I hope sooner rather than later.”

Continue Reading »

Hebrew National hot dogs not kosher, lawsuit claims

Consumers say meat processing services provided to ConAgra Foods fell short of standards necessary to label company’s products as kosher. Lawyer: This is an invisible fraud

Reuters

ConAgra Foods Inc has been sued by consumers who contend that hot dogs and other products sold under its Hebrew National brand are not kosher.

The lawsuit alleges that meat processing services provided to ConAgra by privately held AER Services Inc fell short of the standards necessary to label Hebrew National products as kosher. As a result, they said, ConAgra misled consumers and was able to charge premium prices.

Illustration Photo: Visual Photos

Illustration Photo: Visual Photos

Eleven individual consumers filed their complaint in May in Minnesota state court. Continue Reading »

Palestinians push UNESCO to make Bethlehem’s Nativity church a World Heritage site

 The effort by the Palestinian Authority is drawing resistance; World Heritage Committee meeting starts on Sunday.

 

 

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is becoming the church of contention, with a bid by the Palestinians to use their position as the newest members of the UN’s cultural arm to obtain World Heritage status for the iconic Christian site – and perhaps boost their own campaign for legitimacy.

The effort by the Palestinian Authority, like its overall efforts for global recognition for an independent Palestinian state, is drawing resistance. And it may fail at the World Heritage Committee meeting that starts Sunday. Continue Reading »

The Gaza Strip – Will normality ever return?

The Islamists of Hamas are being squeezed towards pragmatism

from the print edition

 

 

OVERCOMING five years of punishing siege, bombardment and war should be a cause for celebration. But Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that rules the coastal enclave of Gaza, was not cheering the anniversary of its military takeover on June 14th. Its initial pride at imposing internal security, constructing an effective administration and rebuilding Gaza by burrowing tunnels into Egypt is turning to embarrassment. Hamas officials have grown fat on the proceeds. The movement seems increasingly confused and evasive about its political direction.

The Economist

In recent months Hamas has dithered and bickered about whether it should seek reconciliation with Fatah, the secular-minded party that runs the bigger bit of the would-be Palestinian state on the West Bank, or preserve its near-monopoly on power in the isolated Gaza Strip.

Continue Reading »

CAROLINE B. GLICK: The Brotherhood’s useful idiots

You have to hand it to the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. They know how to play power politics.

 

 

You have to hand it to the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. They know how to play power politics. They know how to acquire power. And they know how to use power.

Last Friday, the day before voters by most accounts elected the Brotherhood’s candidate Mohamed Morsy to serve as Egypt’s next president, The Wall Street Journal published a riveting account by Charles Levinson and Matt Bradley of how the Brotherhood outmaneuvered the secular revolutionaries to take control of the country’s political space. Continue Reading »

Why are only the Palestinians considered ‘refugees’?

Following Israeli urging, U.S. Congress asks the U.N. to clarify why Palestinians can transfer their “refugee” status to descendants  • The request could possibly change U.S. funding for UNRWA.

By Shlomo Cesana

 

 

The U.S. Congress has approached the U.N. looking for an explanation as to why only the Palestinians have been allowed to pass on the status of refugees from generation to generation.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in a recent video campaign about U.N. policy toward Palestinian refugees. | Photo credit: Foreign Ministry

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in a recent video campaign about U.N. policy toward Palestinian refugees. - Photo: Foreign Ministry

According to official U.N. treaties, a refugee is defined, in short, as someone who was forced to leave his or her home due to persecution.

Continue Reading »

Israel Air Force aircraft strikes Gaza terror cell attempting to fire rockets

Hamas medical officials say one Palestinian killed and another wounded in strike at al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza; IAF attack comes after two rockets fired into southern Israel from Gaza.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

 

Israel Air Force aircraft struck a terror cell preparing to launch rockets into Israel from theGaza Strip on Friday, according to the IDF Spokesman’s Office.

The strike came after two rockets were fired into Southern Israel from Gaza earlier in the day landing in the Eshkol Regional Council area. More than 130 rockets have been fired into the South from Gaza since Monday, but Thursday and Friday were relatively quiet after an Egyptian-brokered informal ceasfire seemed to be largely holding. Continue Reading »

Chevra Kadisha to compensate woman for funeral

Court rules in favor of woman who claimed rabbi sex-segregated her father’s funeral, barred her from saying goodbye

by Ynet

A Beersheba small claims court has ordered Chevra Kadisha to compensate a woman with NIS 31,900 (roughly $8,300) for the distress the group had caused her by barring her from walking alongside her father’s coffin during his funeral.

According to the plaintiff, the rabbi who led the burial ritual in January 2011 ordered the women to walk behind the men in the funeral procession. She and her five sisters were also forced to sit behind the men during the ceremony.

Moreover, the rabbi refused to allow the plaintiff to deliver the eulogy she had written on behalf of her family. Continue Reading »

Hundreds amass on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Blvd. in bid to revive social protests

 Demonstrators attempt to erect tents, but city inspectors prevent them from doing so; police arrest Daphni Leef and other protest leaders.

 

 

Protesters amassing in Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard, June 22, 2012. Photo by Social protest Facebook page

Daphni Leef, one of the leaders of Israel’s social justice protest movement, was arrested by police on Friday afternoon during a demonstration on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard.

Police arrest protest leader Daphni Leef in Tel Aviv, June 22, 2012.

Police arrest protest leader Daphni Leef in Tel Aviv. - Photo by Alon Ron

The demonstration, which began around noon, was meant to revive the social justice protests that swept Israel last summer. Continue Reading »

Norway Boycotts Israeli Construction Firm

Norway’s Ministry of Finance excludes Shikun & Binui Ltd. from the Government Pension Fund’s global investments.

By Gil Ronen 

 

 

Norway’s Ministry of Finance has decided to exclude Israeli construction firm Shikun & Binui Ltd.. from the Norwegian Government Pension Fund’s global investments.

Norway

Norway - Reuters

The company, which is one of the largest in the Israeli construction industry, is being boycotted because it is “involved in the construction of settlements in violation of international law in East Jerusalem,” Aftenposten reported Thursday.

The news outlet mentions a construction project called “Ramat Rachel Dreams,” which will be completed in January 2013. Continue Reading »