Israel warns Russia over shipment of advanced missiles to Syria
(JNS.org) Israel has sent a warning to Russia over the transfer of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, threatening to strike the shipments if necessary.
Israel fears that the weapons could be a regional game changer, especially if its falls into the hands of terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
Nevertheless, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabko defended Russia’s right to deliver the S-300s to Syria.
“We consider this delivery a factor of stabilization [in the Middle East],” Ryabko said, Russia Today reported.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, according to the Associated Press, told reporters when asked about the S-300s, “The shipments have not been sent on their way yet. And I hope that they will not be sent.” But if “God forbid [the S-300s] do reach Syria, [Israel] will know what to do,” Ya’alon said.
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IDF budget cuts may impact rocket defense, training, reserves
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Israel Defense Forces is considering trimming the amount of days its reserves must serve in the second half of 2013 to cope with the 3-billion-shekel ($800 million) budget cut agreed to earlier this month.
To deal with the shortfalls in reserves, the IDF would decrease or cut regular-unit training, allowing the army to redeploy regular soldiers to locations normally manned by reserves.
The IDF was also considering slowing its procurement for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems, according to Army Radio. Altogether, the cuts could save the IDF upward of NIS 1 billion ($270 million).
“There’s no doubt that cutting 3 billion shekels is painful and difficult, and it will be reflected in three ways: reserves, training or procurement. In my opinion, these cuts are going to hurt all three of these fields,” Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told Army Radio.
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Israeli tourism to focus on Chinese and evangelicals
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(JNS.org) Israeli Tourism Minister Uzi Landau told Israel Hayom on Monday that he intends to “focus first and foremost on strengthening domestic tourism, and to invest in incoming tourism focusing on Chinese and evangelical target audiences.”
“[Israel is] the cradle of Jewish and Christian civilization,” Landau said.
In Europe, 6 percent of the gross domestic product is generated by incoming tourism, compared with 2.3 percent in Israel, Landau noted.
“This is where the prophets roamed, this is where the Bible was written, this is where some of the extraordinary historical events occurred, and all we are managing to get across to the world is 2.3%? It’s not enough,” he said.
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Arab Knesset members seek to outlaw cartoons of Muhammad
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Arab Member of Knesset Ibrahim Sarsur (Ra’am-Ta’al party) has reintroduced legislation that would lower the threshold for what is considered a racist offense and would ban the publication of materials that disparage the Prophet Muhammad through a “cartoon, defamation and insult.” Sarsur is one of three sponsors of the bill, all of whom are from Arab parties.
Under Israeli law, a person whose actions are “crudely offensive” towards a religion and its believers is liable to one-year prison sentence. The new bill, which is an amendment to the Israeli penal code, would make the law less open to interpretation by omitting the word “crudely” and specifying some of the instances where the stipulated punishment would be applicable, such as the drawing of the Prophet Muhammad.
The language of the bill also makes it illegal to denigrate Moses, Jesus and various religious scriptures.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org