Middle East Roundup: Otober 7, 2015

PBS map
PBS map

Massive amount of oil discovered in Israel’s Golan Heights

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) While the fates of Israel’s Tamar, Leviathan, and Tanin offshore natural gas reserves have yet to be decided, oil has been discovered in the Jewish state’s Golan Heights region, Channel 2 reported Tuesday.

According to the report, recent exploratory drilling on the Golan has located a reserve of enough oil to supply Israel’s needs for many years to come.

The Ofek company, which conducted the drilling on the southern Golan Heights, claims that the reserve contains nearly 1 billion barrels of black gold.

Ofek chief geologist Dr. Yuvel Bartov told Channel 2, “We’re talking about a 350-meter (1,100-foot) thick layer, and the deciding factor is the porous thickness. Layers average 20 to 30 meters (70-100 feet) deep. Here, there’s 10 times what other locations contain, which means a significant amount. What is important to know is that the shale contains oil, and we know it does.”

The question now is how worthwhile producing oil from the reserve would be and how much it would cost to do so. Global oil prices are plummeting, and the high cost of drilling for and extracting the oil could make the venture non-cost effective.
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‘Start-up nation’ Israel to host Forbes magazine young entrepreneurs summit

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Forbes magazine announced Tuesday that it will host its Under 30 EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Summit in Israel for the first time in April 2016.

The conference is expected to bring together some 600 young entrepreneurs, with 200 from Europe, 200 from the U.S., and 200 from Israel. The summit has been hosted in Philadelphia for the past two years. It will include presentations, speeches, a pitch competition, and cultural immersion opportunities in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Rafi Rosenfeld and Nir Barzilay, the publishers of Forbes Israel, said they are “happy and proud to be a part of the first international conference of its kind, which will bring 600 of the most influential young people in the world to Israel.” The choice to host the conference in Israel is a vote of confidence from the world’s leading financial magazine, they said.

Randall Lane, editor of Forbes magazine, said, “We look forward to bringing our successful Under 30 Summit to the EMEA region, and there is no better place than the ‘start-up nation,’ where innovation is at the core of everything that is going on.”
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PA pays fat salaries to Palestinian terrorists who killed hundreds of Israelis

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Official Palestinian Authority (PA) documents provide the latest proof that Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel who collectively murdered hundreds of Israeli Jews are earning salaries of hundreds of thousands of shekels, paid to them or to their beneficiaries via the PA’s Prisoners Affairs Ministry, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.

Moreover, the documents provide details about the salaries of members of the Palestinian security forces who carried out terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada and are currently in prison in Israel. Organizations such as Palestinian Media Watch have long documented the trend of PA salaries for terrorists prisoners.

The newly revealed documents show that Hamas bomb-maker Abdullah Barghouti, who was given 67 life sentences, received more than 250,000 shekels (about $65,000) from the PA in 2013. Ibrahim Hamed, the head of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, who was given 54 life sentences, received a salary of more than 200,000 shekels ($52,000) that year. Barghouti and Hamed were involved in the terrorist bombings at Cafe Moment, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, and a club in Rishon Lezion.

Another terrorist earning a salary while in prison for killing Israelis is Muhammad Arman, who functioned as a liaison between Hamas and the Silwan cell, which carried out some of the terrorist attacks. Arman, currently the top man in the Hamas leadership from inside Israeli prisons, is serving 36 life sentences. He received in excess of 250,000 shekels ($65,000) in 2013.

Female terrorists Kahara a-Saadi and Sunaa Sahada, who assisted in orchestrating the bombing on King George Street in Jerusalem 13 years ago and were released as part of the exchange deal for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, each received more than $50,000 from the PA.
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Palestinian terror wave continues as 2 more Israelis stabbed

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) An Israeli Jewish man was moderately wounded Wednesday morning in a stabbing attack carried out by a female Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem’s Old City. The wounded man was armed and was able to pull out his gun and shoot the terrorist, seriously wounding her.

The attack took place near Lions’ Gate in an area that was also the scene of last Saturday evening’s stabbing attack in which two Israelis were killed. The wounded man in the latest attack, 35, was stabbed in the upper body. He is being treated at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem.

The terrorist, a 20-year-old woman from the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher, was also transported to Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center for treatment. She was struck by bullets in her upper body.

Later on Wednesday, an Arab terrorist stabbed an Israel Defense Forces soldier in the southern town of Kiryat Gat. According to reports, the terrorist stole the soldier’s weapon and then holed up in a nearby building, before being shot dead by police. The soldier was lightly wounded.
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Israelis outraged by biased, anti-Israel reporting of terrorist attacks

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) BBC News, long accused of anti-Israel bias, came under fire again on Sunday after publishing a misleading headline on their website about a fatal stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

The article that accompanied the headline reported on an incident Saturday evening in which a Palestinian terrorist murdered two Jewish Israelis and opened fire at security forces before he was shot dead by police.

The BBC headline initially read, “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two,” sidelining the deadly attack, and ignoring the fact that the Palestinian who was killed was its perpetrator.

American Jewish journalist Jeffrey Goldberg referenced the headline on Twitter, commenting, “To be fair, it takes a great deal of creativity to come up with headlines like this one.”

The BBC amended the headline following an angry letter from Government Press Office head Nitzan Hen, but, according to reports, did not officially apologize to Israel for the error.

Hen’s letter to Richard Palmer, the head of the BBC bureau in Israel, explained why the headline was mistaken, adding that it broke the most basic rules of journalism with its inaccuracy and bias.

Qatari media outlet Al Jazeera was also sharply criticized for its initial reporting of the attack. A tweet it published on Saturday linking to an article about the incident read, “Palestinian shot dead after fatal stabbing in Jerusalem; 2 Israeli victims also killed.”

In an editor’s note after receiving complaints, Al Jazeera wrote, “Many people in our audience have pointed out that the tweet appears to minimize the killings of the Israeli victims and leaves out the context that the Palestinian man was their attacker.

“This criticism is valid and we regret the wording of a tweet written under the pressure of breaking news. The story on the site was briefly headlined with similar wording, which we amended in an update.”

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Israeli police officers hurt in Jaffa riots

(JNS.org) Six Israeli police officers were wounded on Tuesday by rocks thrown at them by Palestinians during violent clashes in Jaffa over recent unrest surrounding Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Two people have been arrested for rioting, and an additional four were arrested for vandalism.

Police authorities said that a protest in the port city near Tel Aviv was held without a proper license, but was allowed to continue “in order to allow the right to protest,” Haaretz reported.

The protest then escalated to violence, with veiled protesters throwing stones at cars, buses and Israeli police while calling for the freeing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and “Allahu Akbar,” according to the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Achronoth.

The unrest in Jaffa comes on the heals of a string of recent Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, and Jerusalem. On Monday thousands of Israelis had demonstrated outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem in a rally attended by members of the Knesset.

“Those who think that terrorism can dampen the spirit of the Israeli nation — or prevent it from exercising its historical right throughout the land of Israel — should come see us here today and understand that they cannot defeat us,” said Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud), Israel Hayom reported.
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Hamas terrorists suspected of murdering Israeli couple arrested

(JNS.org) Israel’s Shin Bet security agency on Monday announced the arrest of five members from a Hamas terrorist cell in Nablus who are suspected of murdering Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, despite earlier claims of responsibility for the attack by a terror unit within Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.

The Henkins were shot to death Oct. 1 as they drove near the village of Itamar in Judea and Samaria with their four children, who are now orphans. The Shin Bet said it arrested the terrorists through “joint intelligence and operational activity” with the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli police.

The investigation, said the Shin Bet, found that the terror cell “belonged to Hamas in Nablus, and was made up of five operatives, each of which had a set role. One operative ensured the road was open. Three operatives drove in a car—a driver and two shooters. The cell commander was not in the vehicle. Additional suspects are in custody on suspicion of assisting the cell.”

“After receiving confirmation that the road was ‘clean,’ the shooting cell set off in their car, identified a vehicle belonging to the Henkin family, and opened fire. After the [victims’] car stopped, two members of the cell got out of their car, and fired again, from very short range, on those in the vehicle,” the Shin Bet added.

At that point, one of the men was accidentally shot, which caused the terrorists to flee and spare the lives of the Henkins’ four children. The suspects are being interrogated and have admitted to participating in two other shooting attacks.

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Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.