Israel demands NATO response to new Hamas headquarters in Turkey
(JNS.org) Israel has demanded that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) take action against one of its members, Turkey, after learning that the country allowed the Gaza-based Palestinian terror group Hamas to set up operational headquarters in Istanbul.
Senior political sources in Jerusalem said Hamas has chosen to relocate its diplomatic and military headquarters from Damascus to Istanbul due to the civil war that is raging in Syria. Official communiqués sent from Jerusalem to NATO’s office in Brussels said it was inconceivable that a member of the intergovernmental military alliance would maintain ties with a terrorist organization, Israel Hayom reported.
Hamas’s new Istanbul operation is said to be headed by Saleh al-Arouri, an infamous arch-terrorist believed to be responsible for dozens of terror attacks against Israelis. According to top Jerusalem sources, Arouri was also heavily involved in Hamas’s attempt to overthrow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s government in the West Bank over the summer. The plot, which included a network of 96 terrorists, was foiled by Israeli intelligence.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a staunch supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent group. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned of Turkey’s close ties with Hamas during a recent visit to the U.S.
“Turkey is playing a cynical game. Hamas is sponsored by Turkey and Qatar, and the former is a NATO member. It’s inconceivable that this terror group would be allowed to have two headquarters—one in the Gaza Strip and the other in Istanbul,” Ya’alon said.
Israeli interior minister revokes residency of synagogue terrorist’s wife
(JNS.org) Israeli Interior Minister Gilad Erdan on Wednesday decided to revoke the permit allowing Nadia Abu Jamil, the wife of one of the Palestinian terrorists who killed five Israelis at a Jerusalem synagogue on Nov. 18, to live in Israel.
Abu Jamil, whose husband was shot dead by police after he carried out the attack, was living in Israel as part of the family reunification process that allows non-Israeli spouses of Israelis to legally live in Israel. She will now need to leave Israel and will not be eligible for any social benefits accrued during her stay in the country.
“I have ordered the revocation of Nadia Abu Jamil’s permit,” Erdan said, according to Israel Hayom. “Anyone involved in terrorism should take into account that doing so could have negative implications for their families.”
“I have instructed the Interior Ministry employees to examine and recommend ways of expanding my authority as interior minister to revoke the permanent residency statuses and social benefits enjoyed by residents of east Jerusalem who encourage terrorism and incite to violence,” Erdan added.
Police: Israeli construction worker who fell from building was killed in terror attack
(JNS.org) Israeli police said Wednesday that Netanel Arami, the 26-year-old Jewish construction worker who was killed in September when he fell from the 11th floor of a Petach Tikva construction site, was the victim of a terror attack.
On Sept. 16, Arami was allegedly murdered by Arab co-workers who cut the rope holding him while he was rappelling on the side of the building. The police assessment, which was revealed after the Petach Tikva Magistrate’s Court partially lifted a gag order placed on the investigation, falls in line with prior statements by Arami family members and Israeli politicians.
“It’s important to us that this comes out, that people know that it was not just a case of Netanel going to work in the morning and not coming home. He was murdered because he was Jewish,” his mother, Miriam, told Israel’s Channel 2 on Wednesday.
Most of the details of the investigation remain under gag order.
“As part of the investigation, the police and Shin Bet security agency arrested three suspects involved in [Arami’s] murder, allegedly over nationalistic motives,” an Israel Police statement said. “The three ware released following an extensive interrogation, and only after the case was reviewed by the State Attorney’s Office, which determined that there was no legal justification to keep them in custody. The investigation is ongoing.”
Holocaust victims’ shoes stolen from Majdanek death camp museum
(JNS.org) Eight shoes that belonged to Holocaust victims of the Poland-based Nazi death camp Majdanek, which had been on display in the museum at the camp’s former site, have been stolen.
“An employee noticed shoes were missing during a routine check on Saturday. A hole was cut in the metal mesh on a display containing several hundred shoes in barrack 52,” museum spokeswoman Agnieszka Kowalczyk-Nowak told AFP.
“After counting the shoes, we found eight missing. … It’s in this barrack where all the shoes are on display so that visitors can begin to comprehend the sheer scale of Nazi crimes,” she said.
The Nazis killed more than 360,000 people at Majdanek during the Holocaust.
Denmark and France to join European nations voting on Palestinian state
(JNS.org) A vote by the European Parliament on the recognition of a Palestinian state has been postponed from this week to mid-December. The Danish government, meanwhile, announced that its parliament will vote on a similar resolution in early January. Next week, the French parliament will vote on unilateral Palestinian state recognition.
The European Parliament will debate the Palestine state issue on Wednesday, but the actual vote will not take place until Dec. 15-18. The resolution is supported by the Socialists and Democrats Group and the Unified European Left Party.
In Denmark, the Palestinian statehood motion has been introduced by the Socialist People’s Party, the Red-Green Alliance, and the Greenland-based Inuit Ataqatigiit party. The Danish parliament will first debate the resolution on Dec. 11.
“The [Danish] parliament directs the government to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state within pre-1967 borders and, by extension, provide the state of Palestine with full diplomatic rights,” the draft text of the resolution says, according to the EUobserver.
Another Nordic country, Sweden, officially recognized “Palestine” at the end of October, and other more symbolic votes on the issue took place in the parliaments of Britain, Ireland, and Spain.
“We all have the same goal of creating peace in the Middle East. In Denmark, we also support a two-state solution, but we have chosen another direction and we stand by that. But it is important to say that every country makes its own decisions on this question but we all agree on the same goal: creating peace in the Middle East,” said Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the upcoming vote in the French parliament, calling it a “grave mistake” and questioning the Palestinians’ commitment to compromise with the Jews in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The State of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, the only state that we have, and the Palestinians demanding a state do not want to recognize the right to have a state for the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Israeli company making fast-charging battery for phones and electric cars
(JNS.org) The Tel Aviv-based company StoreDot says it has technology that can charge a mobile phone in seconds, through a battery that can store a higher charge at a much faster rate.
Working like a sponge, the battery can soak up power using “nanodots,” which change the way a battery behaves, making it absorb power quicker and retain it. The battery can also be used to power electric cars in minutes.
“These are new materials; they have never been developed before,” said Doron Myersdorf, the founder and chief executive of StoreDot,Reuters reported.
Based on a prototype, StoreDot says the first battery will be available in 2016. The Israeli company is partly funded by Russian billionaire and Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich, and has also raised $48 million from two rounds of fundraising, including from an Asian mobile phone company.
“We live in a power-hungry world. … People are constantly chasing a power outlet. StoreDot has the potential to solve this real big problem,” said Zack Weisfeld, an evaluator of business ventures in the mobile phone market.
“They still have some way to go, to deal with size of battery and power cycle rounds, but if solvable, it’s a very big breakthrough,” he said.
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