Nazi graffiti spray-painted on historic Tel Aviv synagogue
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli police launched an investigation after a Tel Aviv synagogue’s wall was spray-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti on Tuesday.
The Chelouche Synagogue, which is part of a historic landmark in Tel Aviv’s Neve Tzedek neighborhood, has served as a prayer facility since the time of the early Zionists who settled the area. It is named after Gavriel Chelouche, an engineer and member of a prominent Jewish family in pre-state Israel. Chelouche was killed by Arab terrorists in 1938.
The graffiti included the word “heilike,” an apparent combination of Facebook’s “like” feature and the German word “heil,” and the sentence “Frankly, Hitler was a Jew” in Hebrew. Hitler’s face was also drawn, as was a swastika inside a Star of David.
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Hillary Clinton was advised to foment Palestinian resistance, email reveals
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Former secretary of state and current Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton was advised in 2011 to force Israel to resume peace negotiations by secretly fomenting a Palestinian uprising, according to a newly revealed email.
The plan was uncovered as part of the ongoing investigation into Clinton’s private emails while she served as secretary of state. In an email on Dec. 18, 2011, former U.S. ambassador Thomas Pickering, who was serving as an adviser to Clinton at the time, suggested that the U.S. covertly generate Palestinian unrest in an effort to push Jerusalem to jump-start stalled peace talks.
“What will change the situation is a major effort to use nonviolent protests and demonstrations to put peace back in the center of people’s aspirations as well as their thoughts, and use that to influence the political leadership,” Pickering wrote.
Clinton requested that his email be printed.
Pickering was the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1985-88. In his email, he claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “cannot deliver anything the Palestinians can accept without our help. He is much more satisfied with the status quo than with the risks of change.” He also urged Israeli protests, writing, “On the Israeli side, it must be public demonstrations and show growth as well. Outside the Prime Minister’s Office and the major squares and parks in Jerusalem and elsewhere have been the traditional places for demonstrations like this for peace and change to begin and persevere. Rabin Square in Tel Aviv would be right.”
Pickering also recommended that any U.S. involvement in his plan be hidden.
“Most of all the United States, in my view, cannot be seen to have stimulated, encouraged, or be the power behind it for reasons you will understand better than anyone,” he wrote.
It is not clear how Clinton reacted, if at all, to Pickering’s idea.
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Swedish foreign minister calls for inquiry into Israeli ‘extrajudicial killings’
(JNS.org) Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom on Tuesday called for an investigation into whether or not Israel has been guilty of “extrajudicial killings” of Palestinians during the current wave of Palestinian terrorism and violence in the Jewish state.
“It is vital that there is a thorough, credible investigation into these deaths in order to clarify and bring about possible accountability,” Wallstrom said during a parliamentary debate on the terror wave, Sweden’s TT news agency reported.
In response, the Israeli Foreign Ministry called Wallstrom’s remarks “reckless and ludicrous comments” that serve to buoy terrorism and encourage violence.
In December, Wallstrom had also accused Israel of carrying out “extrajudicial killings” of Palestinians during a discussion in the Swedish parliament. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven had said he does not believe the recent Palestinian attacks against Israelis could be classified as terrorism, but then backtracked on those remarks.
In 2014, shortly after Lofven took office, Sweden became the first European Union country to officially recognize Palestinian statehood.
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Israeli leaders welcome arrival of newest Dolphin-class submarine
(JNS.org) Israeli leaders on Tuesday celebrated the arrival of the Jewish state’s newest Dolphin-class submarine, the INS Rahav, in a ceremony at a naval base in Haifa.
“Our submarine fleet serves as a deterrent to our enemies who seek our destruction,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “They need to know that Israel is capable of hitting with very great force anyone who tries to harm us.
The NIS 1.6 billion ($406 million) submarine, which was built and partially financed by Germany, is the fifth Dolphin-class submarine delivered to Israel, joining the Tanin, Tekuma, Leviathan, and Dolphin in Haifa.
Netanyahu thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck for their “great contribution to fortifying our naval force through supplying these submarines and through outer important means we are discussing.”
According to reports, the Dolphin class submarines are capable of carrying a nuclear weapon, giving Israel second-strike capability—a country’s assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker.
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Report: 660,000 Israelis cannot legally marry in Israel
(JNS.org) A new report by the Israeli NGO Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality says that 660,000 Israelis—among them 364,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union, 284,000 in the LGBT community, 13,000 non-Orthodox converts to Judaism, and others—cannot legally marry in Israel due to laws prohibiting civil and non-Orthodox religious weddings in the Jewish state.
The Hiddush report, released Monday, is based on findings from opinion polls and data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.
While marriage in Israel is administered by the country’s Orthodox-geared Chief Rabbinate, the Jewish state does recognize civil marriages conducted abroad, and as a result, 20 percent of weddings that are registered in Israel take place overseas. Seventy percent of secular Israelis express the desire to marry in a civil ceremony in Israel if the law would allow it, the report said.
“The [Israeli Chief] Rabbinate’s monopoly not only fails to contribute to preserving Judaism; it is a cause for the public’s hatred of Judaism, identifying [the religion] with dark zealotry,” said the head of Hiddush, Rabbi Uri Regev.
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Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.