Nasrallah says Hezbollah capable of striking all of Israel
(JNS.org) Hezbollah has the capability to hit Israeli targets “from Kiryat Shmona—and let the Israelis listen carefully—from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat,” representing the Jewish state’s northernmost and southernmost points, the Iranian-funded group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday, Reuters reported.
Nasrallah’s statement came in the wake of Iranian-developed Fajr-5 rockets, with their range of 75 kilometers (45 miles), falling near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during the latest conflict with Gaza.
“Israel, which was shaken by a handful of Fajr-5 rockets during eight days—how would it cope with thousands of rockets which would fall on Tel Aviv and other (cities) … if it attacked Lebanon?” Nasrallah said.
“If the confrontation with the Gaza Strip… had a range of 40 to 70 kilometers, the battle with us will range over the whole of occupied Palestine—from the Lebanese border to the Jordanian border, to the Red Sea,” he said.
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Ehud Barak quits politics
(JNS.org) At a dramatic press conference on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced his resignation from politics after nearly 50 years in service of the country.
“I have decided to resign from politics and I will not be running in the [upcoming] elections,” Barak, the former prime minister, told reporters at his office in the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. “I enlisted to the IDF in 1959 and I served the people of Israel for 47 years as well as I could.”
The defense minister reassured reporters that he would remain in his post until the establishment of the next government, following the Jan. 22 elections, and then “will free up time to focus on my family.”
“I have exhausted my contribution to politics, which I was never entirely passionate about, and I feel that I must make way for others to man senior political positions. Turnover in positions of power is a good thing,” Barak said, explaining the decision that took most Israelis by surprise.
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Israel successfully tests new joint missile defense system with U.S.
(JNS.org) On the heels of the success of the Iron Dome system, Israel successfully tested a new missile defense system in the Negev.
Dubbed David’s Sling, after the weapon used in the Biblical story of David and Goliath, the system is being developed jointly between the Israeli and American defense firms Rafael and Raytheon. It is designed to intercept medium to long-range missile between 70 and 300 kilometers—likely to be primarily launched from Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
The technology “is designed to defeat a variety of short-range ballistic missiles, large caliber rockets and cruise missiles,” according to Raytheon.
The system is designed to complement the existing short-range Iron Dome and long-range Arrow 3 missile defense system, currently under development with Boeing.
“Once we finish David’s Sling and Iron Dome and the Arrow, then we’ll have the most advanced capability available to give a multilayer protection to Israeli citizens,” said an anonymous Israeli defense official quoted by the Associated Press.
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Devorah Krinsky, wife of prominent Chabad leader, dies at 74
(JNS.org) Devorah Krinsky, wife of Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky—the current public face of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hassidic movement and former secretary to the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson—passed away Nov. 23 after a brief illness. She was 74.
Born into a prominent founding family of the Chabad movement in the U.S., Krinsky was among the first women to study at Beth Rivkah, the Lubavitch girls’ school, in the 1940s.
Shortly after her marriage in 1957, when her husband worked in the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s office, she “shared in the day-to-day developments of the phenomenal growth of Chabad-Lubavitch under the Rebbe’s leadership,” according to a Chabad press release.
Many regarded Devorah as a warm intelligent family-oriented woman who opened her home to the thousands of international visitors and dignitaries who visited the Chabad headquarters over the years.
She is survived by her husband Yehuda—who remains chairman of Chabad’s educational and social services organizations—and her children. In 2010, Yehuda was voted the most influential rabbi in America by Newsweek.
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Jerusalem Arab suspected of spying for Hezbollah
(JNS.org) An Arab resident of eastern Jerusalem has been indicted by the district attorney’s office for allegedly spying for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, Israel Hayom reported.
Azam Mash’hara was arrested by the Shin Bet and the Israeli police on Oct. 24.
The indictment listed several offenses against Mash’hara related to illegally traveling to Lebanon to meet with Hezbollah operatives and providing them with intelligence information on sites in Israel including the Jerusalem government buildings, schools, hospitals and the residences of the prime minister and defense minister.
Mash’hara also was allegedly provided with money and advice by his Hezbollah handlers to be able to contact the terrorist group through email and social media.
The Shin Bet noted in its statement on the arrest that Mash’hara may be part of a troubling new trend by Hezbollah to use Israeli Arabs for intelligence information due to their superior access to Israel proper, instead of Palestinians from the West Bank.
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Poll: Half of Israelis say operation ended too soon because Palestinians violated ceasefire
(JNS.org) Israel ended Operation Pillar of Defense too soon, 49 percent of Israeli respondents said in a poll released by the Maagar Mohot research institute on Friday. Those respondents believed Israel should have continued the operation for as long as rockets were being fired into the Jewish state from Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Palestinian terrorists fired 20 rockets at Israel after the ceasefire took effect Wednesday night, Israel National News reported.
In the poll, 31 percent of Israelis supported Israel’s decision to halt the operation when it did; 20 percent had no opinion and 29 percent said Israel should have invaded Gaza with ground troops.
As Gaza celebrates ‘victory,’ Barak says ‘deceiving their own people’
(JNS.org) Defense Minister Ehud Barak dismissed the victory celebrations in the Gaza Strip last week. Speaking on Israeli television, he said that the Hamas government was deceiving their populace with fabricated achievements.
“They [Hamas] are deceiving their own people. They are celebrating the downing of an F-16 [which did not happen] and rockets that supposedly exploded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They know full well what has befallen them: The prime minister’s official residence is gone, their manufacturing infrastructure is gone, no heavy machinery, they now have less than 40 percent of the medium range rockets they once possessed, and a buried military chief,” Barak said, according to Israel Hayom.
With gunshots, sweets and cries of victory, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip poured into the streets to celebrate the cease-fire deal which ended eight days of deadly fighting between Israel and Islamist terrorists.
After being stuck at home for days for fear of Israeli airstrikes, tens of thousands of Palestinians crowded into cars and doubled up on motorcycles, waving flags and chanting for Hamas.
Firing a deafening burst from his Kalashnikov rifle, one Gaza resident boasted, “(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu will mourn tonight, while the people of Gaza are steadfast in their resistance and have triumphed. Israel won’t think of challenging us like this ever again. We paid a dear price in the blood of our people for their aggression, but we made great gains and showed our strength.”
Members of Hamas’s top political echelons, also forced to seek shelter during the raids because Israel had them in its sights, joined eagerly in the grandstanding.
“The resistance achieved a historic victory against the occupation and laid the foundation for the battle of liberation for all our land and sacred sites,” said senior Hamas official Ahmed Bahar.
Referring to Israel’s assassination of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari on Nov. 14, Hamas activists shouted through loudspeakers of Gaza mosques: “Jabari won, alive and dead.”
Gaza’s revelers seemed less concerned with the details of the truce and whether they thought Israel would keep its part of the bargain than with achieving what they saw as a symbolic victory.
“Imagine, the rockets of our resistance hitting Tel Aviv, hitting them and making them afraid everywhere they were. Nobody thought we could strike at them like this,” said Saleh Abu Khaled, sitting on the stoop of his apartment, his children frolicking around him in their pajamas.
Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, said: “We are satisfied and proud of this agreement and at the steadfastness of our people and their resistance.” Haniyeh said it was Egypt’s unwavering support and the Arab Spring that gave them the strength to emerge victorious. “Israel was defeated and now they know the rules have changed.”
Police say Israeli Arab planted bomb on Tel Aviv bus
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) An Israeli-Arab from Taybeh and several other Palestinians from the West Bank were arrested last week for their alleged role in the Tel Aviv bus bombing that wounded 28 people Nov. 21. After a manhunt lasting several hours that caused major disruptions across the country, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) apprehended the suspects Wednesday night in what was a joint operation with the Israel Police and the IDF. The arrests were subject to a media gag order until Thursday night.
Law enforcement officials say the Taybeh man and his handlers were part of a terrorist cell with links to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). In their preliminary interrogation, the suspects confessed, saying they chose the venue for the attack and prepared the cellphone-activated explosive device.
The Palestinians, who reside in the West Bank village of Beit Lakiya, apparently told the Taybeh man to use his employer’s car to drive to Tel Aviv, Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Thursday. The employer, an east Jerusalem Arab, was not aware of the plan to use his car to enable the attack, Rosenfeld said.
After boarding the bus and planting the bomb, the man, who police declined to identify, got off and called the Palestinians, who remotely detonated the explosive by calling the phone, Rosenfeld said. The suspected bomber, who is originally from the West Bank, received Israeli citizenship under the family reunification law. The cell leader apparently recruited the Taybeh man for the mission because his documentation allowed him unrestricted travel inside Israel. Shin Bet officials stressed Thursday that the investigation is ongoing and may result in additional arrests.
Bibi: Terror groups ‘assumed wrong’ that Israel would not retaliate
(JNS.org) Just before the cease-fire agreement that ended eight days of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas went into effect, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press conference, “The government decided to launch [Operation Pillar of Defense] in light of terror attacks from Gaza, which were escalating in intensity and frequency over recent months.”
“I warned that we would respond harshly to these attacks when we chose to. I warned that we would exact a heavy price. The terror organizations assumed that we would not retaliate. They assumed wrong,” Netanyahu said. “We enacted military force in keeping with diplomatic considerations. After a conversation with [U.S. President] Barack Obama I agreed that it would be wise to give a cease-fire a chance.”
Netanyahu was explaining his decision to refrain from launching a ground invasion in Gaza. Thousands of IDF reservists were called up in the last week in preparation for such an invasion, but if the cease-fire continues to hold, the reservists will be sent home without having entered the Strip.
The prime minister was speaking to the press at the Prime Minister’s Office, accompanied by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
“We hit the top commanders of the terror organizations. We annihilated thousands of rockets aimed at [Israel’s] south and most of the rockets aimed at the center. We destroyed Hamas command centers. All of this was carried out with the full support of leaders in the international community,” Netanyahu said.
California student board regrets resolution’s procedure, ‘marginalizing language’ on Israel
(JNS.org) The University of California Student Association (UCSA) board of directors on Nov. 20 expressed regret for several aspects of a resolution two months earlier that condemned HR35—a unanimously passed State Assembly resolution urging California schools to squelch nascent anti-Semitism and crack down on anti-Israel demonstrations.
UCSA’s board said in a statement that it was “unaware that the resolution would be presented by members of UC Berkeley’s Students for Justice in Palestine” and also unaware of “the confidential e-mail communication happening between members of SJP.” The board said it agreed that such procedure “undermines the democratic process.”
“This issue has prompted the board to re-evaluate its procedures and guidelines regarding the co-sponsoring of resolutions by third-party organizations,” the board said.
The board recognized the “negative impact that the resolution’s language had on the Jewish community and our campus climate” through the inclusion of phrases such as “illegal occupation” when referring to Israel. The UCSA resolution’s main focus was supposed to be the protection of freedom of speech, but its language went astray and “blurred the lines between advocating for free speech and taking a stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue,” according to the board.
Regarding the resolution’s discussion on Shabbat, the board said that move was not made “with the intention of excluding Jewish students from the conversation,” but rather, with scheduling considerations in mind. The board said it is willing “to take the necessary steps to be more considerate and inclusive of different students and their religious practices when determining the UCSA calendar for next year.”
India executes terrorist from 2008 Mumbai attack that killed Chabad emissaries
(JNS.org) The lone surviving terrorist from the 2008 Mumbai attack was hanged in the early hours of Nov 21. in an Indian prison, the Associated Press reported.
Mohammed Ajmal Kasab’s execution was carried out after India’s President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his plea for mercy.
“It was decided then that on Nov. 21 at 7:30 in the morning he would be hanged. That procedure has been completed today,” Union Home Sushil Kumar Shinde said.
Kasab was part of a 10 man Pakistani Islamic terrorist squad which killed 166 people at various targets over a three-day period in November 2008, including a local Chabad House that killed six including Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, who was five months pregnant. Their two-year-old son Moshe survived the attack after being rescued by his Indian nanny.
According radio transmissions picked up by Indian intelligence at the time, the terrorists were told by their organizers that “the lives of Jews were worth 50 times those of non-Jews.”
India blames Laskhar e-Taiba, a Pakistani terrorist organization, for carrying out the attacks.
International leaders strongly condemn Tel Aviv terrorist attack, back Israel
(JNS.org) Western allies are standing strongly behind Israel following the terrorist attack on a bus in Tel Aviv that injured several dozen people.
With President Obama traveling in Asia, the White House issued a statement condemning the bombing saying “attacks against innocent Israeli civilians are outrageous.”
“The United States reaffirms our unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security and our deep friendship and solidarity with the Israeli people,” the statement concluded.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon issued a statement saying he was “shocked” by the attack and condemns it “in the strongest possible terms,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
“There are no circumstances that justify the targeting of civilians,” he said.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also condemned the Tel Aviv attack “in the strongest terms” and said “targeting civilians at a time when everything must be done to reach a cease-fire.” Similar sentiments were echoed by the British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Meanwhile, separately the German embassy stated that it will give NIS 250,000 to Natal, Israel’s Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War.
Russia’s foreign ministry called the attack a “criminal terrorist act.”
The strong international support Israel is receiving, especially from European allies, is a far cry from the reaction during Operation Cast Lead in 2008. Analysts credit Israel’s strong emphasis on reducing civilian casualties in bombing, reluctance for a ground invasion and a massive public relations campaign for the international support it has garnered. The support may prove beneficial for the upcoming Palestinian UN membership vote on Nov. 29.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org