Israeli-issued Passover travel warnings include Egypt and Turkey
(JNS.org) In its biannual report for Israeli tourists, the Counterterrorism Bureau at the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday warned that after Islamist terror attacks in Belgium, Canada, Australia, Denmark, and France over the past year, there is a possibility of further jihadist attacks against Israeli and Jewish sites in Western nations.
But despite mentioning the “global terror campaign of Iran and Hezbollah” against Jewish and Israeli targets, the Counterterrorism Bureau did not issue specific warnings against travel to any Western country during the upcoming Passover holiday. The report did warn against travel to 41 destinations that are either closed to or considered dangerous for Israelis—a list comprised of mostly Arab or Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
The Israeli bureau issued a warning at its highest alert level against travel to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, citing a range of security concerns and emphasizing the risk posed by the Islamic State terror group’s “Sinai Province” branch. Additionally, the bureau warned against non-essential travel to Turkey. In February, an Israeli businessman was arrested and spent three days in a Turkish prison after the Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines accused him of stealing a bag of dry soup mix on a flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul. Turkish leaders have recently accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of“crimes against humanity” and “state terrorism.”
*
Secret Nazi lair reportedly found in Argentina
(JNS.org) A team of archaeologists from the University of Buenos Aires believe they have found a secret Nazi hideout in the Teyu Cuare provincial park, in the Misiones region of northern Argentina, The Telegraph reported.
The hidden lair consists of several nearly inaccessible stone structures, in which the archaeologists found “German coins from the late 1930s, fragments of ‘Made in Germany’ porcelain, and Nazi symbols on the walls,” according to the report.
The archaeological team’s leader, Daniel Schavelzon, said there seems to be no other explanation for the unusual structures than a planned refuge for German leaders in the event of a defeat, part of a larger project to create Nazi safe havens in far corners around the world.
“This site also has the bonus of allowing the inhabitants to be in Paraguay in less than 10 minutes. It’s a protected, defendable site where they could live quietly,” Schavelzon said.
After World War II, Argentina would ultimately welcome Nazi leaders, including Adolf Eichmann (who was later trapped by Israeli agents before being put on trial and executed in Israel), rendering this particular Nazi lair unnecessary.
*
IDF to train soldiers in tunnel warfare
(JNS.org) The Israel Defense Forces will soon begin training soldiers serving in elite units in tunnel warfare, Army Radio reported Monday.
The decision followed mission reviews of last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, which led the IDF to conclude that tunnel warfare will likely be part of future conflicts on any front. According to the report, soldiers will be trained and given special equipment to improve their abilities to meet the complex challenges of fighting within the confined spaces of underground tunnels. Given the difficult nature of the terrain, the military’s most skilled units—including elite and reconnaissance units—will participate in the training program.
The Army Radio report stressed that the new training program will not necessarily become the IDF ground forces’ top priority, as tunnel warfare includes many innate disadvantages for fighters. But the report noted that the new training reflects an understanding within the military that Hamas-built terror tunnels have become a part of combat reality, and that the IDF must be able to address the issue.
*
Netanyahu endorsed by 67 Knesset members, setting coalition in motion
(JNS.org) Sixty-seven Knesset members endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remain the Israeli government’s leader, giving him enough support to form a governing coalition.
The Israeli president (Reuven Rivlin) must consult with the representatives of all of Israel’s political parties before choosing a party leader to build the government and serve as prime minister. With Netanyahu’s Likud party winning 30 Knesset seats to the Zionist Union’s 24 seats in the recent election, the consultations were not much more than a formality.
As expected, the right-wing and religious parties—Likud, Habayit Hayehudi, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Yisrael Beiteinu—recommended Netanyahu. The 10 Knesset seats of the centrist Kulanu party allowed Netanyahu to surpass the minimum 61 seats needed for a coalition.
“We accept the people’s decision,” Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon said. “The people want Netanyahu to assemble the government, and I recommend Netanyahu.”
*
Israel nabs Hamas terror cell that planned attacks in Judea and Samaria
(JNS.org) Israeli authorities arrested six Hamas terrorist operatives in Qalqilya who were suspected to have planned attacks in Judea and Samaria.
A gag order on the details of the recent counterterrorism operation, which was led by Shin Bet security agency, was lifted Sunday. The six-member cell had dozens of kilograms of sulfur and 25 grams of mercury fulminate. Both substances are commonly used in improvised explosive devices.
Several of the Hamas suspects said they were recruited by Hamas’s Jordanian headquarters when they visited the Hashemite kingdom. They later underwent military training in Gaza before being sent to Samaria to proceed with the attacks and recruit additional members. The cell apparently used an apartment in Nablus’s city center as an explosives lab.
The cell was told to perpetrate terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria during Operation Protective Edge last summer. Shin Bet officials said the cell’s activity shows how motivated Hamas’s foreign headquarters are when it comes to training terrorist cells and dispatching them to Judea and Samaria.
*
Obama takes aim at Netanyahu comments on Palestinian state and Arab voters
(JNS.org) President Barack Obama said in an interview published by The Huffington Post on Saturday that his administration would “evaluate” its “options” in the Middle East due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent comments on a two-state solution.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said he supports a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state—the same conditions he proposed in a 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University. But a day before the March 17 Israeli election, Netanyahu had said a Palestinian state would not be established under his watch.
“We take [Netanyahu] at his word when he said that [a Palestinian state] wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership, and so that’s why we’ve got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don’t see a chaotic situation in the region,” Obama said.
Obama called Netanyahu’s pre-election expression of concern about high Israeli Arab voter turnout “contrary to what is the best of Israel’s traditions.” He said that Israeli democracy “has been premised on everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly.”
“If that is lost, then I think that not only does it give ammunition to folks who don’t believe in a Jewish state, but it also I think starts to erode the meaning of democracy in the country,” Obama said.
While he vowed to continue working with Israel on military and intelligence operations, Obama declined to confirm if his administration would continue to block unilateral Palestinian efforts to secure statehood through the United Nations, according to The Huffington Post.
*
Seven Orthodox Jewish children killed in fire on Shabbat in Brooklyn
(JNS.org) A fire in the kitchen of an Orthodox Jewish home in the Midwood section of Brooklyn on Saturday killed seven children between the ages of 5 and 16. The mother, Gayle Sassoon, and one of her daughters, 15-year-old Siporah, were the only family members who were able to survive the blaze by jumping out of second-floor windows.
The New York Times reported that authorities attributed the fire to an unknown malfunction in an electric hot plate, which is used by observant families to keep food warm on Shabbat. The Sassoon family’s victims included Eliane, 16; Rivkah, 11; Sara, 6; David, 12; Yeshua, 10; Moshe, 8; and Yaakob, 5. Their father was away at a conference for Shabbat.
“This is an unbelievable tragedy,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Every New Yorker is feeling this pain right now.”
The seven children will be buried in Israel.
*
New York Magazine blasted for comparing Netanyahu to Arafat
(JNS.org) Jewish leaders condemned New York Magazine for an article that compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
In a March 19 article published before Netanyahu clarified that he supports a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state, Jonathan Chait wrote, “Netanyahu is expected to walk back his [March 16] denunciation of the two-state solution… Here Netanyahu is reprising tactics employed for years by Yasser Arafat, who would issue maximal demands in Arabic and follow them with conciliatory remarks to the foreign press. Netanyahu may be best understood as Israel’s Arafat—a master of nationalist politics, yet also disastrously lacking any strategic vision, and able to survive only at the deep and possibly fatal cost to his own people’s long-term aspirations.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner that the comparison is “way off the mark” because, “For starters, Arafat was a terrorist and Bibi Netanyahu spent his early adult life fighting, combating and literally, physically overcoming terrorists. Number two, obviously the author is very disappointed by the outcome of the democratic election process in the Jewish state.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said, “To compare a democratically re-elected prime minister of Israel to a terrorist, to a murderer, it’s outrageous.”
*
New EU report calls for tougher sanctions against Israel over construction
(JNS.org) A report that is being prepared by the European Union (EU) calls for tougher sanctions against Israel over continued Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, which the EU said threatens the “viability of the two-state solution.”
The yet-to-be-released report states that a “vicious cycle of violence” in Jerusalem last year “occurred against the background of the systematic increase in settlement activity, tensions over the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), and rising levels of tensions and acts of violence on both sides,” The Guardian reported.
The report recommends new restrictions against “known violent settlers,” steps to inform EU consumers about products from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and “efforts to raise awareness” among European businesses about the risks of working with those Jewish communities.
An Israeli government spokesman said the report “is so extremely one-sided a report that it distorts reality beyond comprehension.”
*
U.S. House Speaker Boehner to visit Israel by end of March
(JNS.org) U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will travel to Israel later this month to meet with newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The speaker will visit Israel during the next district work period,” Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said in a statement on Friday. “He looks forward to visiting the country, discussing our shared priorities for peace and security in the region, and further strengthening the bond between the United States and Israel.”
Boehner, who will reportedly lead a Congressional delegation of Republican lawmakers on the Israel visit, recently angered the Obama administration by arranging Netanyahu’s March 3 speech to Congress about Iran. The White House claimed Boehner breached protocol by not consulting with President Barack Obama about inviting Netanyahu. Boehner, along with many Congressional Republicans and some Democrats, have been strongly critical of Obama’s stance on the nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers.
*
Israel is only country criticized by U.N. for women’s rights violations
(JNS.org) In Friday’s annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Israel was the only country the commission criticized for alleged women’s rights violations.
A CSW report titled “Situation of and assistance to Palestinian women” criticizes Israel for what it calls “high levels of unemployment and poverty” among Palestinian women due to Israel’s control over territories including the West Bank, Gaza, and eastern Jerusalem. (Gaza is governed by the Hamas terrorist group.)
“Palestinian women and girls still face significant obstacles in accessing basic services, health care, psychosocial support, water and sanitation, justice institutions, and economic opportunities,” the report said.
Noting that Israel was the only U.N. member criticized by CSW, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it is “fighting the decision, which was yet another testimony to the hypocrisy of U.N. members,” Ynet reported.
The report ignores Hamas, which in recent years has banned women from participating in the Gaza marathon, barred women from riding motorbikes, and prohibited women from smoking water pipes in cafes. Meanwhile, human rights groups have demanded that Palestinian leaders pass new laws to protect women from honor killings amid their upsurge in Palestinian society.
*
AIPAC criticizes Obama administration’s rebuff of Netanyahu’s two-state support
(JNS.org) The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Thursday criticized the Obama administration for rebuffing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaffirmation of “his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Netanyahu, who before the Israeli election said that a Palestinian state would not be established under his watch, clarified his position on Thursday by telling NBC News that he supports a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state—the same conditions behind his support for a two-state solution in a 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that despite Netanyahu’s clarification, the pre-election comments showed he was “no longer committed to a two-state solution.” State Department spokeswomen Jen Psaki said Netanyahu “changed his position” and that the Obama administration “can’t forget about those [pre-election] comments.”
AIPAC said in a statement, “Unfortunately, administration spokespersons rebuffed the prime minister’s efforts to improve the understandings between Israel and the U.S. In contrast to their comments, we urge the administration to further strengthen ties with America’s most reliable and only truly democratic ally in the Middle East.”
*
Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the courtesy of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman
*
__________________________________________________________________
Care to comment? San Diego Jewish World is intended as a forum for the entire Jewish community, whatever your political leanings. Letters may be posted below provided they are responsive to the article that prompted them, and civil in their tone. Ad hominem attacks against any religion, country, gender, race, sexual orientation, or physical disability will not be considered for publication. Letters must be signed with your first and last name, and you must state your city and state of residence. There is a limit of one letter per writer on any given day.
__________________________________________________________________