Poll: 57% of Americans oppose Iran deal, 28% support it
(JNS.org) A new poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut found that 57 percent of American voters oppose the Iran nuclear deal, while 28 percent support it.
According to the poll, which was published Monday, 58 percent of respondents believe the nuclear pact will make the world less safe, while 30 percent think it will make the world safer. The poll results show that opinions about the deal are split along party lines. While 52 percent of Democrats support the deal and 32 percent oppose it, only 3 percent of Republicans support it and 86 percent oppose it. Among independent voters, 29 percent support and 55 percent oppose the deal.
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39 Palestinian terrorists released in Gilad Shalit exchange to be re-jailed
(JNS.org) A committee charged with reviewing the terms of release for the 1,027 Palestinian terrorists freed in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner swap has decided that 39 of those prisoners committed additional crimes that warrant their return to jail.
The committee has been examining the cases of prisoners released in the deal since last summer’s Operation Brother’s Keeper, when 50 such prisoners were rearrested in the efforts to locate the perpetrators of Hamas’s June 12 triple kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens in Gush Etzion.
Israel’s defense establishment filed 48 cases with the committee following the arrests. One of the remaining two prisoners was released and the other was sentenced to return to jail by a military court in Lod. In six of the cases reviewed, released prisoners were not found to have committed an additional crime, but were ordered to return to jail to serve part of their remaining sentences. Appeals have been filed for some of the decisions.
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Polish Jewish man indicted for holding pro-Israel rally in Warsaw
(JNS.org) Tadeusz Markiewicz, a Polish former University of Haifa student, has been indicted in Poland for organizing a pro-Israel rally in front of the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw during Operation Protective Edge last summer.
Polish authorities ruled that the demonstration, attended by several dozen people, was illegal. It was organized as a counter-protest to a pro-Palestinian rally taking place at the same time. A court hearing will be held within the next month, at which Piotr Kadlcik, the president of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, will testify. Kadlcik was among those who took part in the demonstration. If convicted, Markiewicz is expected to be fined about $800.
Markiewicz, an active member of the Jewish community in Poland, said, “The pro-Palestinian demonstration was violent and some of its participants made anti-Semitic remarks, such as, ‘We’ll make soap out of you.’ The problem is that our rally lasted longer than police had authorized and I, as the organizer, am being held responsible for this.”
He added, “The police clung to this trivial matter, but they did not address the anti-Semitic calls and support for Hamas [by the pro-Palestinian demonstrators], which are illegal in Poland. We are currently fighting for freedom of speech in our country. The court is wasting my time, my money and public funds.”
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Three Israelis wounded in Jerusalem firebomb attack
(JNS.org) A 27-year-old Israeli woman was moderately wounded on Monday when a firebomb was thrown at a car in which she was traveling near the Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina in northern Jerusalem.
The car caught fire and collided with two other vehicles, one of which also went up in flames. Firefighting crews quickly arrived at the scene and the fires were put out within minutes.
Two other Israelis were lightly injured in the collision. A Magen David Adom paramedic who was called to the scene said, “Outside the car, we saw a fully conscious woman lying on the sidewalk with burns on her upper and lower extremities. Her husband was able to extract himself from the car without being injured. We gave the woman medical treatment and then transported her to a hospital, with burn wounds on 15 percent of her body.”
Security forces immediately launched searches in the area in an effort to find the perpetrator.
“Every stone throwing and firebombing is a grave terrorist attack,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said, Israel Hayom reported.
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Israeli archaeologists find remnants of Gath, home of Goliath the giant
(JNS.org) Israeli archaeologists at Bar-Ilan University have discovered an entrance gate and other remnants of the Philistine city of Gath, which was mentioned in the bible as the home of the giant Goliath, who fought and lost against the man who later became King David.
Professor Aren Maeir and his colleagues conducted the excavations in the Tel Zafit national park, which is located between Ashkelon and Jerusalem. Gath was destroyed in 830 BCE by Hazael, the king of Damascus.
The gate is the largest of its kind to be discovered in Israel, according to Maeir, who said that fact substantiates the theory that Gath was once a very influential city.
Other items discovered in the same excavation included a temple, an iron production facility, and other buildings.
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Russia foreign minister meets with Hamas chief in Qatar
(JNS.org) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Khaled Mashaal, a leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, on Monday in Qatar.
According to a statement released by Hamas, Lavrov was briefed on the situation in Gaza as well as “Zionist terrorism in the West Bank and its assaults on Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem.”
“The [Russian] foreign minister extended an invitation to the leadership of (Hamas) to visit Moscow and the movement accepted the invitation and the date will be determined later,” Hamas said.
Hamas’s meeting with Russia comes amid reports of the terrorist organization’s shifting strategy. Last week, senior Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk said Iran has significantly decreased support for Hamas.
“The relations between Hamas and Iran are not advancing in a direction in which the organization (Hamas) is interested and aren’t improving to the degree the organization wants in order to help the Palestinian issue,” Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, in mid-July, Mashaal visited Saudi Arabia to meet with King Salman and other senior officials in Iran’s rival nation.*
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