Hezbollah vows to avenge Israeli airstrike that killed members of terrorist group
(JNS.org) Hezbollah vowed to avenge an Israeli airstrike in Syria that reportedly killed six of the Lebanon-based terrorist group’s members, including Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh.
“Hezbollah’s leadership cannot accept the blow it received from the Israeli strike and the killing of [Hezbollah] officials,” a Hezbollah official said, according to Israel Hayom. “Hezbollah’s leadership will choose how and when to respond to this criminal Israeli attack.”
According to reports, an Israeli Air Force helicopter strike on Sunday in the Quneitra region of Syria, near the border with Israel in the Golan Heights, killed Mughniyeh as well as members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Some reports said that Iranian field commander Abu Ali Tabtabai was killed in the strike.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently said that his Shi’a Muslim terror group has more weapons that Israel can imagine.
“Hezbollah has weapons that the enemy can expect and we have ones that they aren’t expecting. Our resistance has not been damaged, and Israel is mistaken if it thinks it has,” Nasrallah told the Arabic TV station Al-Mayadeen.
After Sunday’s strike, the Hezbollah-run al-Manar news channel said that Israel “has gone crazy because of Hezbollah’s growing capabilities, and it could lead to a costly adventure [by Israel].”
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Hosting Japanese PM, Netanyahu links Iranian and North Korean nuclear threats
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Israel as an opportunity to link the Iranian and North Korean nuclear threats.
Netanyahu told Abe that Israel and Japan “are two peace-loving democracies that face formidable threats from nearby rogue states.”
“Both Iran and North Korea are governed by ruthless and extreme dictatorships, states that seek to bully and intimidate their neighbors, and in our case, to actually eradicate us from the face of the earth,” Netanyahu said. “Iran and North Korea have aggressive military nuclear programs, and they are both developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, ballistic missiles.”
Netanyahu also compared the current nuclear negotiations between Iran and Western powers to nuclear talks with North Korea two decades ago, urging the international community “not to repeat the mistake of the negotiations with North Korea.”
“That agreement with Pyongyyang in 1994 was widely celebrated as a historic breakthrough for nonproliferation, but in the end, that deal failed to prevent the dangerous proliferation that threatens all of East Asia today,” he said. “Iran cannot be allowed to travel the road taken by North Korea.”
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Israeli and Japanese prime ministers seek greater economic cooperation
(JNS.org) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both expressed the desire for their countries to have increased economic collaboration upon Abe’s visit to Israel this week.
“Taking this visit as another opportunity, we look forward to advancement in bilateral economic relationships, including expansion and reactivation of mutual exchanges between businesses,” Abe said.
Netanyahu said the room for cooperation between Israel and Japan “is vast.”
“The opportunities are immense, the enthusiasm is great, because there’s genius on the Japanese side, there’s genius on the Israeli side—a genius to forge a new future, to bring the heights of ingenuity to productive use or all societies, for better communications physically, literally, for the application of medicine and medical devices to better human life, for greater productivity in human effort,” said Netanyahu.
Israel’s trade relationship with Japan, the world’s third-largest economy behind the U.S. and China, has stagnated in recent years, with trade only amounting to around $720 million. But as Israel’s ties with the European Union, the Jewish state’s largest trading partner, grow more strained over increasing calls in Europe for Palestinian statehood and sanctions against Israel’s presence in the disputed territories, Israel is turning towards new markets for growth.
The Israeli government recently approved a plan to strengthen economic ties between the Jewish state and Japan over the next three years.
“The three-year plan of Israel to strengthen our economic relationships is highly appreciated as a contribution to the development of our bilateral relations,” Abe said.
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Poll: Netanyahu is top prime minister candidate by 11-point margin
(JNS.org) With about two months remaining before Israel’s March 17 elections, a new poll conducted by Israel Hayom and the New Wave Research Institute indicates that the frontrunners in the battle for the prime minister’s seat are current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Labor party leader Isaac Herzog. According to the poll, 32 percent of the public believes Netanyahu is the best candidate for prime minister, compared to 21 percent who prefer Herzog.
Netanyahu and Herzog were followed by Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid at 7 percent, while Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon, Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni, and Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman were each deemed the best candidate by 5 percent of the Israeli public. Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett was supported by 4 percent of respondents.
The poll was conducted on Jan. 14 among 500 Israeli Jews over the age of 18.
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Egypt destroys weapons-smuggling tunnel under Gaza border
(JNS.org) Egyptian security forces recently destroyed a 0.75-mile-long tunnel near Rafah under the border between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza that was used to smuggle weapons, fuel, food, and other consumer goods.
According to Palestinian news agency Maan, which cited a senior Egyptian security official, the tunnel opening was discovered in a bedroom in a house on the Egyptian side of Rafah. The house belonged to a smuggler known to Egyptian authorities in the Sinai Peninsula.
The tunnel reportedly had lighting and air ventilation systems as well as phone lines connected to central call centers, allowing Egyptian and Palestinian smugglers to communicate and coordinate their shipments. Witnesses said a large force of Egyptian military sappers destroyed the tunnel using various types of industrial equipment.
Egypt has blamed the Hamas terrorist group, which controls Gaza, for helping terrorists in the Sinai carry out attacks against Egyptian security forces.
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CNN anchor Jim Clancy resigns after Twitter insults of Israel and people with disabilities
(JNS.org) CNN anchor Jim Clancy has left the cable news network following a controversial exchange on Twitter over the Charlie Hebdo attack in which he both mocked pro-Israel advocates and used a disability slur.
Clancy had written on his Twitter account, “The (Charlie Hebdo) cartoons NEVER mocked the Prophet. They mocked how the COWARDS tried to distort his word. Pay attention.” He was then quickly challenged by Oren Kessler, the deputy director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who tweeted, “@clancycnn Absolutely untrue. The magazine was targeted in the past over an issue in which Muhammad was listed as a guest editor.”
Clancy went on to mock Kessler as a “pro-Israel voice” and later tweeted, “Get a grip junior. It’s my Friday night. You and the Hasbara (Hebrew for public diplomacy) team need to pick on some cripple on the edge of the herd.”
Jay Ruderman—president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities in the Jewish community—questioned how “in this day and age a senior anchor at CNN, a world leader in the media, would use a word such as ‘cripple,’ which is a derogatory term for people with disabilities.”
In a statement on his departure, Clancy thanked CNN for his nearly 34 years of employment there, but did not mention the controversy over his tweets.
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Swedish FM: Israel over-reacting to recognition of Palestinian statehood
(JNS.org) Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said that Israel has over-reacted to her government’s recognition of Palestinian statehood.
“It is unacceptable how they have been talking about us and everybody else,” Wallstrom told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “It has irritated not only us, but the Americans and everyone who has anything to do with them right now.”
Sweden, under newly elected socialist Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, recently became the first European Union country to recognize Palestinian statehood. Wallstrom said Sweden still supports Israel, but believes that Israel’s policies have been “extremely aggressive.”
“They have continued with their settlement policies, they have continued demolitions, they have continued with their occupation policies which entail a humiliation of Palestinians, which makes the [peace] process difficult,” she said.
Wallstrom was scheduled to visit Israel last week, but postponed her trip due to “scheduling reasons.”
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International Criminal Court opens ‘war crimes’ inquiry at Palestinians’ request
(JNS.org) The International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened a preliminary inquiry into possible Israeli “war crimes” in the disputed territories following a request by the Palestinians.
According to the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, the inquiry is not an investigation, but rather “a process of examining the information available in order to reach a fully informed determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation pursuant to the criteria established by the Rome Statute.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently signed the Rome Statute in order to join the ICC after failing to get a U.N. Security Council resolution passed that called for Israel’s withdrawal from the disputed territories.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Hamas war criminals fired thousands of rockets at Israeli citizens [during Operation Protective Edge]. Unfortunately, [this inquiry] renders [the ICC] part of the problem, and not part of the solution.”
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Palestinians burn French flag on Temple Mount to protest new Charlie Hebdo cover
(JNS.org) On Friday, several hundred Palestinians gathered on the Temple Mount to protest the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s decision to publish an image of the Prophet Mohammed on its latest cover.
The protesters burned the French flag and waved the Hamas flag while chanting “jihad, jihad, we will die in the name of God,” “Allahu Akbar,” and “Muhammad [is] our master and leader forever.”
On the cover of its Jan. 14 edition, Charlie Hebdo—whose Paris offices were recently stormed in an Islamist terror attack that killed 12 people—featured a cartoon of Mohammed holding a sign saying, “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie), with a headline above the cartoon reading, “Tout Est Pardonne” (All Is Forgiven).
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