Report: U.S. accuses Iran of violating nuclear sanctions
(JNS.org) The U.S. informed a United Nations committee last month that Iran has been illicitly seeking to acquire components for its heavy-water reactor at Arak, Foreign Policy magazine reported Monday.
According to the report, a U.S. delegation told the U.N. Security Council panel of experts monitoring sanctions on Iran that Iranian agents have in recent months been upping their efforts to obtain equipment for the IR-40 research reactor. The U.S. has not publicly commented on the allegation.
The U.S. and Israel suspect that the Arak heavy-water reactor is designed to develop a nuclear weapon via a plutonium path, parallel to Iran’s effort to develop a nuclear weapon via a uranium path.
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Potential Palestinian terror attack thwarted south of Jerusalem
(JNS.org) Two Palestinian men, one of them armed with a knife, were arrested by Israeli security forces on Tuesday near the Judean community of Tekoa, located south of Jerusalem.
During initial questioning, the men admitted they were planning to conduct a terrorist attack in Tekoa. Security forces had been searching for the men, both residents of the Hebron area, since Friday, after receiving information that they were seeking to carry out a terrorist attack.
One of the detained suspects is a relative of Amer Abu Aysha, who took part in the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teens in Gush Etzion in June. Abu Aysha was killed in a shootout with security forces in Hebron in September.
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Israeli Knesset officially disperses ahead of March elections
(JNS.org) On Monday night, the curtain closed on one of the shortest Knesset terms in Israel’s history. After only 20 months, members of the Israeli legislature voted to dissolve the 19th Knesset and hold new elections on March 17, 2015.
The legislation to dissolve the Knesset and hold early elections was approved by a 93-0 vote. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet all voted in favor. Last week, finance minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni were dismissed from Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
“In summing up [this] Knesset, there are more things I hope won’t repeat themselves than things we will miss,” Knesset House Committee Chairman Yariv Levin (Likud) said, according to Israel Hayom. “The huge challenges we faced and the complexity of dealing with them, as well as the responsibility, weren’t always expressed in [the Knesset’s] conduct.”
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Israeli yeshiva student stabbed at Chabad headquarters in New York
(JNS.org) Levi Yitzchak Rosenblat, a 22-year-old Israeli yeshiva student, was wounded early Tuesday morning in a stabbing at Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
Rosenblat, who is from the community of Beitar Illit in Judea and Samaria, was initially reported to be seriously wounded. It was later reported that he was conscious and in stable condition.
Police shot and apprehended the perpetrator of the stabbing, who, according to media reports, was a black male. The attacker was transported to a hospital, where he later died of his wounds. The motive for the stabbing is being investigated.
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Pope Francis expresses solidarity with persecuted Mideast Christians
(JNS.org) In a message to Iraqi Christians over the weekend, Pope Francis expressed solidarity with Christians who are being driven out of the Middle East by Islamic extremists.
“It would seem that there they (Muslim extremists) do not want there to be any Christians, but you bear witness to Christ,” Francis said in a video message shown by French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin during a visit to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
“I think of the wounds, of the pain of women with their children, the elderly and the displaced, the wounds of those who are victims of every type of violence,” Francis said, the Vatican News Service reported.
In particular, Francis said that Iraqi Christians and Yazidis are suffering “inhuman violence” due to their religious and ethnic identities.
“Christians and Yazidis have been forced out of their homes, they have had to abandon everything to save their lives, but they have not denied their faith,” he said.
The pontiff’s statements come on the heels of his three-day visit to Turkey, where he urged Muslim leaders, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to “clearly” condemn Islamic terrorism.
“It would be wonderful if all the Muslim leaders of the world—political, religious, and academic, spoke up clearly and condemned violence which damages Islam,” Francis told Erdogan.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians and Yazidis have fled their homes in northern Iraq following the onslaught of the Islamic State terror group last summer. Many of them have fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they have received protection from the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
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Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood smuggling weapons to Palestinians
(JNS.org) A Muslim Brotherhood cell in Jordan is smuggling weapons to Palestinians in the West Bank to be used to launch an intifada (uprising), Israeli intelligence officials have told their Jordanian counterparts.
Jordanian sources told London’s Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat that the information sharing led to the arrest of 31 people, mostly Palestinians from Hebron who were studying in Jordan.
The revelation comes as Jordanian forces have arrested and charged top Muslim Brotherhood leader Zaki Bani Rushaid, deputy leader of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, for “souring ties with a foreign country” after criticizing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for its recent designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
While the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood operates as an official opposition political party inside of Jordan, the group—which has been designated as a terrorist organization by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—has been increasingly scrutinized by Jordanian authorities in recent years.
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PA minister falsely claims Israel is taking over the Temple Mount
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s minister of religious affairs, Sheikh Yusuf Ida’is, recently said that Israel plans to “take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, destroy it and build the alleged Temple,” Palestinian Media Watch reported. In making that false claim, Ida’is directly contradicted remarks by other PA officials that Abbas opposes violence and wants to foster a peaceful atmosphere in Jerusalem.
“All that Israel wants is to Judaize the Holy City, take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, destroy it and build the alleged Temple. Under Jerusalem there is a city of tunnels belonging to Israel. Yesterday, I was told that Israel has an underground market beneath the Jaffa Gate, which draws many [Palestinian] residents who shop there,” Ida’is said on official PA television on Dec. 3.
Currently, the Israeli government prohibits only Jews from praying on the Temple Mount, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to maintain the “status quo” at the holy site. But frequent Palestinian riots and violence have recently taken place there. Palestinian Media Watch said Monday that polling data has “shown that Palestinians consider themselves religious, so the alleged threat against the holy sites comprises an effective tool for PA leaders who wish to incite Palestinians to take action against Israelis.” An April 2014 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion showed that 44 percent of Palestinians consider themselves “somewhat religious,” while 41 percent say they are “fairly religious.”
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Hillel International opens in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
(JNS.org) Hillel International is expanding to campuses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in a move that “is a natural partnership,” according to CEO Eric Fingerhut.
“The need to strengthen Jewish identity is apparent” in Europe and is important due to the growth of a new and unique Jewish generation in the countries Hillel is expanding to, Fingerhut told the Jerusalem Post from Berlin, where he was launching the new Hillel networks.
Germany in particular has a large community of Jewish college students who were born in the former Soviet Union or whose families immigrated from Russia to Germany. Given that Hillel has just celebrated 20 years of its presence in Moscow, Fingerhut said, it made sense to expand to Germany.
Hillel will have a presence in the German cities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Münster, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, and Potsdam, as well as in Basel, Switzerland, and Vienna, Austria. Partnering with the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Scholarship Fund, Hillel in Europe will bring Jewish programming to more than 1,000 students.
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