Saudi Arabia denies visa to Jerusalem Post reporter
(JNS.org) Saudi Arabia denied a visa to Jerusalem Post reporter Michael Wilner to cover President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia this week.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Wilner, who serves as newspaper’s the Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent, “was the only journalist denied access to the president’s trip,” after a lengthy visa process in which Saudi officials held Wilner’s passport for two weeks.
Obama Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Susan Rice and deputy adviser Tony Blinken, had made strongly worded requests to Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the U.S., Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, for Wilner’s approval.
“We are deeply disappointed that this credible journalist was denied a visa,” U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan stated. “We will continue to register our serious concerns about this unfortunate decision.”
A Saudi official told the Jerusalem Post that the decision to reject Wilner’s visa “has been made.” Wilner, an American Jew, works for the Israel-based newspaper but does not hold Israeli citizenship and has never lived in Israel.
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Pro-Israel students targeted by anti-Semitism at University of Michigan
(JNS.org) Pro-Palestinian students last week directed threats of violence and anti-Semitic slurs at pro-Israel students at the University of Michigan.
University police said they learned of the incident after two “Arab males” shouted “threats of violence” at a student who refused to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel during a sit-in by pro-Palestinian students at the university’s student union, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Other pro-Israel students had allegedly been called anti-Semitic slurs such as “kikes” and “dirty Jews.”
The sit-in was organized by the pro-Palestinian group “Students Allied for Freedom and Equality” in response to the recent decision by the school’s student government to indefinitely table an Israel divestment resolution, the Michigan Daily reported. In response, university officials brokered an apology by the student government president and ensured that the vote on the divestment bill will be conducted soon.
Jacob Baime, executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, called on University of Michigan officials to protect its students from “violent threats.”
“The hateful anti-Israel BDS movement is reaching new depths of depravity,” Baime told JNS.org. “This isn’t about Israel as much as it is about free speech. Students have the right to express their views without fear of physical harm.”
Kenneth Marcus, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and a former staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, told JNS.org that while he sees “lots of cases where it is hard to say whether anti-Israel activists are actually bigots or whether they are just misguided,” in the Michigan case—where anti-Semitic slurs were used—that is “not even a close question.”
“The University of Michigan needs to act quickly to make clear that this kind of abuse will not be tolerated,” Marcus said.
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17% of Hungarians are anti-Semitic, study says
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Anti-Semitism in Hungary is high but declining, according to a new survey whose findings were presented at a memorial ceremony in Budapest for the Hungarian Jews killed in Nazi death camps 70 years ago.
Some 17 percent of Hungary’s population was identified as being anti-Semitic, said the study conducted by TEV, an organization that combats anti-Semitism in Hungary. About 23 percent were identified as being “moderately” anti-Semitic.
Despite the relatively high incidence of anti-Semitic attitudes and the increasing strength of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party—whose leaders have often denigrated Jews and Israel in speeches—the level of anti-Semitism in the country has declined since 2010.
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Opposition MKs, bereaved families protest Palestinian terrorist prisoner release
(JNS.org) In advance of the potential fourth stage of Israel’s prisoner release, opposition Members of Knesset called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction instead of freeing 26 more Palestinian terrorists.
“Exchanging the prisoner release for a freeze of settlement construction at least during negotiations is the right thing for the government, for bereaved families, for our sense of justice and for Israel as a whole,” said MK Hilik Bar (Labor), who authored a letter to Netanyahu on Monday signed by MKs from the Labor and Shas parties. “A freeze can always be stopped and ‘thawed’ once again.”
Meanwhile, before the 12th anniversary of the Passover bombing of Netanya’s Park Hotel, in which 30 Israelis were killed, the group “My Israel” organized a march in Netanya by bereaved families protesting the prisoner release. After the march, a demonstration outside the Park Hotel drew more than 250 people.
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IDF and Shin Bet uncover two terrorist cells
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel military and Shin Bet security agency forces arrested a five-man terror cell in Nablus two months ago for shooting at Israeli vehicles near Kedumim in Samaria, and in a separate incident throwing an explosive device at another car, according to a Shin Bet press release cleared for publication Monday.
The Shin Bet also cited a separate operation in which security forces uncovered a three-member terrorist cell belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which attacked and threw a stun grenade at Israeli troops in February. During the arrest operation for the PFLP cell, a firefight broke out and one of the terror suspects was killed.
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Jews brought Holocaust on themselves, Russian TV host says
(JNS.org) A Russian TV presenter, in a conversation with a writer about the Ukrainian protests and Crimea, said that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves.
Writer Aleksandr Prokhanov, while being interviewed by anchor Evelina Zakamskaya on the state-funded Rossiya 24 TV channel, said that it is “strange that Jewish organizations, the European and our own Russian organizations, support the Maidan [protests]. What are they doing? Do they not understand that they are bringing about a second Holocaust with their own hands? This is monstrous.”
Zakamskaya replied that the Jews “brought about the first [Holocaust] similarly.”
“It is a blindness. It is an unbelievable blindness, that is clearly repeating itself, because even then in 1933 in Europe, many liberal organizations were feeding the Fuhrer,” Prokhanov then said, a statement Zakamskaya agreed with.
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U.N. Human Rights Council debates 5 anti-Israel resolutions, 1 Syria resolution
(JNS.org) The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) debated five anti-Israel resolutions on Monday. One of the resolutions calls to boycott Israeli business in Judea and Samaria and in eastern Jerusalem.
The resolution calls on member states “to take appropriate measures to ensure that businesses domiciled in their territory and/or under their jurisdiction, including those owned or controlled by them, that conduct activities in or related to the settlements, respect human rights throughout their operations, by taking all necessary steps—including by terminating their business interests in the settlements—to ensure that their activities do not have an adverse impact on the human rights of the Palestinian people,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Additionally, the UNHRC special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, on Monday asked the U.N. to call for the International Court of Justice at the Hague to issue an advisory on whether Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian territories can be classified as “colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”
At the same time, the UNHRC is voting on only one resolution this season regarding Syria, where more than 146,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the country’s civil war.
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Egyptian court sentences 529 Muslim Brotherhood members to death
(JNS.org) An Egyptian court has sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood members to death on charges of murdering Mostafa El-Attar, the deputy commander of the Minya police district, during riots in August 2013.
The Muslim Brotherhood members are accused of killing the police officer and attempting to murder two others, as well as attacking public property, burning down the police station, and seizing weapons, Al-Ahram reported.
The verdict highlights the scope of the military’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood since it took power in July 2013. Most of the former leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood has been jailed and the group was declared a terrorist organization last year.
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EU ambassador suggests payment for Palestinians to renounce ‘right of return’
(JNS.org) The European Union’s Ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, said that the EU would consider providing financial compensation for Palestinian refugees if they renounce their claim of “right of return” to Israel proper as part of a permanent peace agreement with the Jewish state.
“We would also be, of course, very ready to assist in the implementation of any final peace agreement, be it with compensation of refugees, be it on the security front,” Faaborg-Andersen said at a conference on EU-Israel relations in Jerusalem, the Times of Israel reported.
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