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Diplomatic spat opens between Israel and Mexico after Netanyahu tweet on walls
(JNS.org)
The ongoing U.S.-Mexico tension over a border wall extended to Israel following a tweet by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that commented on Israel’s successful fence along its border with Egypt.
“President Trump is right,” Netanyahu tweeted Saturday night. “I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry released a statement expressing its “deepest dismay, rejection and disappointment” with Netanyahu’s tweet.
“Mexico is a friend of Israel and should be treated as such by its prime minister,” the ministry said. Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray issued further comments Monday, calling on the Israeli government for a clarification of Netanyahu’s tweet. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said that Netanyahu was referring to Israel’s “specific security experience” and that he was not weighing in on U.S.-Mexico relations.
Netanyahu said his tweet was misinterpreted and that critics “made mountains out of a molehill.”
“President Trump hailed the fence that was built under my guidance on our border with Egypt. He said that it almost entirely halted illegal infiltrations into Israel. And I said in response that he is right,” Netanyahu told members of his Likud party.
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UN chief Antonio Guterres: Temple Mount was home to Jewish temple
(JNS.org)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who assumed office Jan. 1, said it is “completely clear” that Jerusalem’s Temple Mount was home to the ancient Jewish Temple.
Guterres told Israel Radio last Friday that it is “completely clear the Temple that the Romans destroyed in Jerusalem was a Jewish temple,” referring to the second of the two Jewish Temples. He added that there is “no doubt” that Jerusalem is holy to all three Abrahamic religions.
Guterres’s comments comes amid ongoing Palestinian attempts to erase the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Last October, the U.N. cultural body UNESCO passed two Palestinian-backed resolutions ignoring Jewish and Christian claims to the holy sites in Jerusalem.
Palestinian officials quickly condemned Guterres’s remarks.
“[The statements] are a direct attack on the Palestinian people’s right in the holy city, biased in favor of the site of occupation, and akin to granting legitimacy to Israel’s illegal presence in Jerusalem,” said Fayez Abu Eitah, secretary-general of the Fatah Revolutionary Council.
Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, told China’s Xinhua News Agency that Guterres’s comments “ignored UNESCO’s decision that considered the Al-Aqsa mosque of pure Islamic heritage,” and “violated all legal, diplomatic and humanitarian customs and overstepped his role as secretary-general…and [he] must issue an apology to the Palestinian people.”
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Jewish Republicans, ZOA express concern over Trump’s Holocaust statement (JNS.org)
Jewish Republican leaders expressed concern that President Donald Trump did not mention Jews in his statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) said that while “as supporters of President Trump, we know that he holds in his heart the memory of the 6 million victims of the Holocaust,” the “lack of a direct statement about the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust was an unfortunate omission.”
“History unambiguously shows the purpose of the Nazi’s final solution was the extermination of the Jews of Europe,” the RJC said, adding that “we hope, going forward, [Trump] conveys those feelings when speaking about the Holocaust.”
Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said he hopes Trump administration officials “learn from this and not repeat this omission in any future statements they make.”
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)—which is not a partisan-affiliated group, but has generally issued statements supporting Trump and his Israel-related policies—urged the White House to “immediately rectify this painful omission.”
“Especially as a child of Holocaust survivors, I and ZOA are compelled to express our chagrin and deep pain at President Trump, in his Holocaust Remembrance Day message, omitting any mention of anti-Semitism and the 6 million Jews who were targeted and murdered by the German Nazi regime and others,” Klein said.||
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Israel Space Week takes off with focus on future Mars mission
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel Space Week kicked off Sunday with dozens of activities across the country, including this year’s focus on the planet Mars.
Space Week’s activities include simulated missions to Mars, exhibits on developments in the field of space exploration, observations, workshops for building model spaceships, planetarium viewings, astronaut encounters and more.
The initiative is held to commemorate the legacy of Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut, who was killed in the Columbia space shuttle explosion in February 2003.
In the main complex of the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, guests can attempt a series of challenging space missions that demonstrate what life would be like on Mars and the challenges future colonizers of the Red Planet will face. Activities include fixing a space rover that is about to be sent to Mars, farming fruits and vegetables on Mars, and a zero gravity simulation. The museum is also hosting an exhibit on Israeli developments in the field of space exploration.
Israeli Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Kunis called Space Week “an opportunity to make space accessible to the Israeli public as far as possible and close to home.”
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Jewish groups condemn, urge caution on Trump’s immigration and refugee order
(JNS.org)
Jewish groups reacted with a mix of condemnations and calls for caution on President Donald Trump’s executive order to temporarily bar the entrance of refugees as well as non-citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Trump signed an executive order Friday that banned the entry of non-citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 30 days, in addition to suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days, with Syrian refugees banned indefinitely.
The Jewish-run refugee agency HIAS called the move “a callous response to the plight of refugees worldwide. It confuses terror with the victims who flee it.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) expressed “profound” concern over Trump’s order, with AJC CEO David Harris saying that while Trump is “right” in seeking to “thoroughly” vet refugees, “blanket suspensions of visas and refugee admission would suggest guilt by association—targeted primarily at Muslims fleeing violence and oppression.”
The Orthodox Union (OU) stated that “we recognize that the complex issues that face us in ensuring the safety and security from terror of innocents and free societies throughout the world need to be addressed, but need to be done in sober and responsible ways.”
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Trump vows to help prevent future genocides in Holocaust Remembrance Day statement
(JNS.org)
President Donald Trump vowed to help prevent the forces of evil from triumphing over good in his statement marking Friday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, on the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
“I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good,” Trump said.
“Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world,” he added.
But Trump’s statement made no mention of Jews or anti-Semitism.
“It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust,” said Trump. “Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest. As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent.”
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Global credit ratings agency Moody’s lauds Israel’s economic policy
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org)
A new report by international credit ratings agency Moody’s praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon for the economic policies they have been leading in the Jewish state.
Moody’s had affirmed Israel’s A1 credit rating last September, assessing the country’s economic outlook as stable. In the new report, issued Thursday, Moody’s economists examined data on Israel’s debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, figures that were released last week by Kahlon and outgoing Finance Ministry Accountant General Michal Abadi-Boiangiu. The ratio reached an all-time low of 62.1 percent in 2016, an accumulated 9-percentage-point drop from Israel’s debt-to-GDP ratio in 2009, amounting to around 100 billion shekels (more than $26 billion).
According to the Moody’s report, Israel is one of the only countries in the world whose debt-to-GDP ratio has dropped since the 2009 global financial crisis.
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Netanyahu notes European anti-Semitism, Iranian threat for Holocaust Remembrance Day
(JNS.org)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted the uptick in anti-Semitism in Europe and the ongoing Iranian nuclear threat during an event marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
In his address to diplomats and officials from more than 60 countries, Netanyahu emphasized that the annual Jan. 27 international commemoration “is a very important day on which we fulfill our duty to never forget.”
“As we remember the victims and this crime, we must never forget the roots of our greatest disaster—the insatiable hatred for the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said, adding that today “anti-Semitism, which is the world’s oldest hatred, is experiencing a revival in the enlightened West.”
“You can see this in European capitals….The rise of anti-Semitism, the resurgence of anti-Semitism that is happening, and few would have imagined that this would be possible a few years ago,” said Netanyahu.
Netanyahu also said that “the greatest danger that we face, of hatred for the Jewish people and the Jewish state…comes from Iran.”
“It comes from the ayatollah regime that is fanning [the] flames and calling outright for the destruction of the Jewish state,” he said.
Israel, Greece and Cyprus sign regional cooperation agreement
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The leaders of the Greek, Israeli and Cypriot parliaments signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday to increase cooperation and enhance ties between the three Mediterranean allies.
The signing took place at the Israeli Knesset following a trilateral meeting between Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Cyprus House of Representatives President Demetris Syllouris and Hellenic Parliament President Nikolaos Voutsis.
During the meeting, the three lawmakers discussed ways to combat anti-Semitism and hate crimes, and possible ways to help young entrepreneurs.
“We have now begun a tradition of cooperation between the three allies on a variety of fields,” Edelstein said. “We will establish task forces to deal with innovation, water, agriculture, unemployment and tourism, and we will see that inter-parliamentary committees work together to advance education and science.”
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Israel set to decriminalize marijuana after public security minister’s approval>
(JNS.org)
Israel is expected to decriminalize marijuana following Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan’s approval of a plan that would treat marijuana usage more like a public health violation than a criminal act.
Erdan said Israel would likely adopt the so-called “Portugal Model.”
“This would mean moving to administrative fines, and criminal prosecution would only be a last resort,” he said, the Times of Israel reported.
While the new proposal still needs approval from the Israeli cabinet, many ministers within the government already support the move.
Under the proposal, home use of marijuana would not carry a punishment, and only those caught using the substance in public could be subject to fines or possible indictment. First-time offenders would be charged a $265 fine, with the sum doubling on the second offense. Those caught for a third or fourth time could face stiffer penalties such as suspension of a driver’s license, required participation in rehabilitation programs or even criminal charges.
Israel is a world leader in marijuana research and medical marijuana, with more than 21,000 Israelis possessing a medical license to use the drug legally.
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Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.