Burgas bombing victims, including 5 Israelis, remembered 3 years later
(JNS.org) A memorial ceremony was held Monday at Burgas Airport in Bulgaria to mark the three-year anniversary of the terrorist bombing there, in which five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed.
A still-unidentified perpetrator set off a bomb on a bus parked at the airport. Immediately following the attack, Israel accused the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah of being responsible for it. Bulgaria later said that evidence pointed toward Hezbollah’s culpability. A year after the bombing, the European Union put Hezbollah’s “armed wing”—but not the rest of the organization—on its terrorism blacklist.
Yaakov Preiss, whose son Elior was killed in the attack, spoke at Monday’s ceremony and called on Europeans to “stop being naive.”
“Terrorist organizations do not think like you,” Preiss said. “Agitators use democracy to incite. This freedom of speech will cause you to lose your children in terrorist attacks.”
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Majority of Israelis support rebuilding Jewish communities in Gaza, survey says
(JNS.org) A majority of Israelis believe the country’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005 was a mistake and that Israel should rebuild Jewish communities there, a new survey by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies think tank has found.
The survey’s findings—63 percent of respondents called disengagement a mistake, and 51 percent supported Jewish rebuilding—contradict opinion polls taken at the time of the disengagement in 2005, which showed strong backing for withdrawing from the coastal territory. Additionally, the survey found that 47 of Israelis oppose evacuating Jewish communities from Judea and Samaria.
Prof. Efraim Inbar, who heads the think tank, said the survey results are generally “surprising,” the Times of Israel reported. Nevertheless, Inbar is personally not surprised that many Israelis have reconsidered their opinion on the Gaza disengagement, especially because Hamas has seized power there and Israel has fought several wars with the Palestinian terror group.
“Since we know a majority of the public in 2005 supported the disengagement, it’s very clear that some of the respondents don’t feel comfortable with their past support for the disengagement and therefore testify today that they opposed it,” Inbar said.
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EU blasts Israel for policies towards Palestinians
(JNS.org) The leaders of the European Union slammed Israel for its policies towards the Palestinians, especially the “forced transfer” of Palestinians.
In a joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of the 28-nation bloc, the EU said it “reiterates its strong opposition to Israel’s settlement policy and actions taken in this context, such as building the separation barrier beyond the 1967 line, demolitions and confiscation—including of EU-funded projects—evictions, forced transfers including of Bedouins, illegal outposts, settler violence, and restrictions of movement and access.”
In particular, the EU called on Israeli authorities “to halt plans for forced transfer of population and demolition of Palestinian housing and infrastructure in the Susya and Abu Nwar communities.”
But the EU also criticized the Palestinian Authority for not taking stronger action in reasserting control over Gaza, which is ruled by the Hamas terrorist group.
“The EU calls on the Palestinian factions to make reconciliation and the return of the PA to Gaza a top priority,” the statement said.
“The PA must take greater responsibility in this regard and assume its government function in the Gaza Strip, including in the field of security, civil administration, and through its presence at the Gaza crossing points,” it added.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter visits Israel in wake of Iran deal
(JNS.org) U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter arrived in Israel on Sunday, less than a week after America and the other P5+1 nations reached a nuclear deal with Iran.
In a joint press conference with Carter, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Israel “greatly disagrees” with the nuclear deal, but maintained that “the scope and depth of the relationship between the defense establishments of the United States and Israel is unprecedented—between the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defense, between our armed forces, intelligence corps, and defense industries.”
Carter, who also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the U.S. is committed to help Israeli security by funding joint military training, missile defense, and advanced military equipment such as the F-35 jets, which Israel is scheduled to receive before any other U.S. allies next year.
During his flight to Tel Aviv, Carter told reporters that he was “not going to change anybody’s mind in Israel” about the Iran deal, according to the Associated Press.
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Tissue samples from Holocaust victims found in French lab
(JNS.org) A researcher has discovered the 70-year-old remains of Jewish victims of Holocaust-era gas chambers at a medical research facility in Strasbourg, France.
Along with tissue samples, Raphael Toledano found a 1952 letter by the director of the Strasbourg Medical Institute, Camille Simonin, that discussed the experiments conducted by Nazi anatomist August Hirt. The tissue samples themselves were found in test tubes and a jar that were stored in the institute’s closed collection.
“It was a shock to discover that these jars were still there, that we put in a museum display a part of these Jews who were murdered by the Nazis,” Toledano said, adding that the jar contained skin fragments and that the test tubes contained tissue samples from intestines and a stomach, the Associated Press reported.
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U.N. Security Council endorses Iran nuclear deal
(JNS.org) The United Nations Security Council officially endorsed the Iran nuclear deal in a 15-0 vote Monday in New York, paving the way for the removal of U.N. sanctions on Iran.
No sanctions relief will be implemented until the International Atomic Energy Agency submits a report to the Security Council verifying that Iran has taken the initial steps outlined in the deal. The Security Council is not required to take any additional action for 90 days.
The vote only approves the lifting of U.N. sanctions, which are separate from American and European Union sanctions. The U.S. Congress has 60 days to review the Iran deal and to vote on whether or not to lift sanctions.
The U.N.’s resolution maintains restrictions on Iranian ballistic missile technology for eight years and on heavy weapons for five years.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech at the Knesset that Iran has “systematically” violated prior U.N. resolutions and regularly “calls for the destruction of Israel.”
“The best way to fight this hypocrisy is to tell the truth in a strong and unified manner,” Netanyahu said.
At the same time, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammed Ali Jafari rejected the Security Council resolution as well.
“Some parts of the draft have clearly crossed the Islamic Republic’s red lines, especially in Iran’s military capabilities. We will never accept it,” Jafari said, the semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported.
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