Jewish news briefs: May 27, 2015

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Israeli police chief looking into legalizing medical marijuana

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel Police Chief Insp. Gen. Yohanan Danino said he has decided to establish a professional committee to investigate the cannabis policies of other western nations and look into the ramifications of making medical marijuana use legal in Israel.

“What will eventually happen here [in Israel] is that anyone with money will be able to get a permit [for medical marijuana], and anyone who doesn’t have money will be trying to get [cannabis] on the streets,” Danino told Israel Hayom. “Things are happening in the world, so we can’t stick our heads in the sand. We need to deal with this issue.”

Danino said that four years ago, some 400 Israelis had secured medical marijuana permits, “but in no time, there are 20,000 permits today.”

“Throughout the world, this has been a method of making [cannabis] legal,” he said. “In California you can walk around in plenty of places and see signs offering a fake permit for medical marijuana for $50. We in Israel don’t want that. Because if we really want to change the law and decriminalize [cannabis] use, or make some drugs legal, let’s do it properly.”
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IDF deploys mortar shell alert system along southern border

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Israel Defense Forces announced Tuesday the deployment of a tactical radar system in southern Israel, designed to warn residents of incoming mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip.

The system has so far been installed in several communities along the Israel-Gaza border, and the IDF believes the installation will be completed by September. The decision to deploy the system followed IDF assessments suggesting the next conflict with Gaza-based terrorist groups will see them targeting border-adjacent communities with short-range projectiles.

The IDF believes the terrorist groups operating in Gaza understand that while the Iron Dome missile defense system can intercept 90 percent of the projectiles fired at populated areas in Israel, it has struggled to neutralize mortar shells, which have a range of up to 1 kilometer (six-tenths of a mile).

The military’s assessments are based, among other things, on the last days of Operation Protective Edge last summer, which saw incessant mortar fire at the border and nearby communities. Some 2,580 mortar shells were fired at the border-vicinity communities during the 50-day military campaign, five of which killed Israelis.
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Student exposes Dutch textbook’s distortion of Israeli history

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) An official high school history book in Holland claims that during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, “Jewish militias committed murder in Arab villages. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled and arrived in refugee camps across the border.”

Barak Gorni, a 16-year-old Dutch Israeli attending the Maimonides Jewish high school in Amsterdam, was the first to notice and call attention to the false and distorted depiction of Israel’s history. In another instance, the book says that “[former prime minister] Menachem Begin entered the history books as a peacemaker, and this is surprising, because for much of his life he was known as a terrorist and a radical.”

According to the book, “After World War I Menachem Begin moved to Poland. Following the German occupation he fled to Palestine, where he became the leader of radical Zionists.”

Gorni complained to his teacher, who agreed that the passages in question were indeed “historically mistaken.” Gorni also told his father, Dror, who turned to the Israeli Embassy in Holland and provided photographs of the relevant pages of the textbook.

“What’s clear is that the person who wrote this book is a hater of Israel, and sadly there isn’t a lack of those here,” the father wrote to the embassy.

The Israeli Embassy in Holland said in a statement that it was checking the exact wording in the textbook “and whether it constitutes a distortion of facts or even incitement.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said, “The ministry attributes utmost importance to the fight against the falsification of history and the slandering of Israel in textbooks.”

Gaza rocket hits southern Israel after one-month lull

(JNS.org) At least one rocket fired from Gaza hit southern Israel on Tuesday evening after nearly a month of quiet.

According to reports, the rocket exploded near Gan Yavne, which is just east of the Israeli city of Ashdod. There were no injuries reported.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner confirmed that at least one rocket was launched from Gaza and struck southern Israel on Tuesday and that the IDF is looking into reports of additional sirens sounding.

According to the Times of Israel, the rocket fire was the result of an internal dispute between two commanders for the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.

Nevertheless, Lerner said in a statement that Israel holds Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that governs Gaza, “responsible for all attacks originating from the [Gaza] Strip.”

The rocket fire on Tuesday evening was the first such incident since April 24, when a rocket exploded in the Sderot area, ending nearly fourth months of quiet. The IDF responded to the incident by striking a terror targets in northern Gaza.

Netanyahu: nuclear Iran ‘thousand times’ more dangerous than Islamic State

(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (D-La.) that a nuclear-armed Iran is a “thousand times” more dangerous than the threats posed by the Islamic State terror group.

In his meeting with Cassidy, Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s position on the emerging nuclear deal with Iran as a “very bad” one and said that world powers should not “rush” into a deal for the sake of it.

“I see no reason to rush to a deal, and certainly not a bad deal that paves Iran’s path to the bomb, but also fills Iran’s coffers with tens of billions of dollars to pursue its aggression throughout the Middle East and around Israel’s borders,” Netanyahu said.

At the same time, Netanyahu said that the threat of Islamic State pales in comparison to a terrorist state with nuclear weapons.

“I will say this: ISIS (Islamic State) is in the news. Its murderous actions are horrific,” he said.

Netanyahu added that “as horrific as ISIS is, once Iran, the preeminent terrorist state of our time, acquires nuclear weapons, it will be a hundred times more dangerous, a thousand times more dangerous and more destructive than ISIS.”

Cassidy defeated Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu in a runoff election last year. Prior to being elected to the Senate, Cassidy served in the House of Representatives, where he supported a $2 million bill on American-Israeli cooperation in the energy sector.
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Russia: no date set for S-300 missile delivery to Iran

(JNS.org) Russia says there has been no date set yet for the delivery of the advanced S-300 missile defense system to Iran.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who has been heading up the delivery of the weapons system to Iran, said that he could not “say anything for now” about the missiles’ delivery date, according to Russia’s Interfax News Agency.

Initially signed in 2007, the $800 million deal between Iran and Russia for the S-300 system was suspended in 2010. But in April, Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the suspension after the nuclear framework deal between Iran and the P5+1 powers—the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany—was reached.

But the move by Moscow was strongly criticized by the United States and Israel, who fear that the missile defense system could make it more difficult to use the military option against Iran’s nuclear program.

Nevertheless, in an interview in April, President Barack Obama said that the U.S. could “penetrate” Iran’s air defense system, even with the S-300 in place.

“Even if they’ve got some air defense systems, if we had to, we could penetrate them,” Obama told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.

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