20% of West’s donations to PA go to terrorists’ families, Israeli minister says
(JNS.org) The stipends paid by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to terrorists’ families amounts to some $75 million a year—about 20 percent of the donations funneled to the PA from Western nations and bodies, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said Sunday in a meeting with foreign dignitaries in Jerusalem.
Hotovely said that contrary to 2012 and 2013, when the PA exercised some transparency, in 2014 Ramallah changed its regulations, making the funds harder to track by transferring them under the guise of Palestine Liberation Organization benefits.
World Bank figures show that from 1993 to 2013, the PA received $21.7 billion in foreign aid. Hotovely said that per capita, the PA receives far more foreign aid than any other country in the world—roughly $800 million a year. Palestinians receive assistance to the tune of $170 per person, while Syrians, for example, receive an average of $106 per person.
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Shin Bet: Palestinian Authority TV inspired killer of Israeli mother of 6
(JNS.org) The Palestinian teenager suspected of murdering Israeli mother of six Dafna Meir at her home in Otniel last week was incited to carry out the attack by Palestinian Authority television broadcasts depicting Israel as “killing Palestinian youth,” the Shin Bet security agency said Sunday.
The Shin Bet believes that on the day before to the attack, the 15-year-old suspect was exposed to televised and online content that prompted him to “want to murder Jews.”
Authorities believe he chose Otniel because of its proximity to his village, Amra, and targeted Meir because her house was the first one he saw when he entered the community. The teen was arrested by IDF special forces two days after fatally stabbing Meir in front of her eldest daughter.
“This serious terrorist attack illustrates the threat posed by the Palestinian media’s incitement against Israel and Jews, which clearly inspires lone terrorists to carry out heinous attacks,” a Shin Bet official said.
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U.S. envoy Daniel Shapiro regrets timing of comments criticizing Israel
(JNS.org) U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro told Army Radio on Monday that he regrets the timing of controversial remarks he made last week that were critical of Israeli policies in Judea and Samaria.
Shapiro had said at a conference in Tel Aviv on Jan. 18, “Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities; too much vigilantism goes unchecked; and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.” Earlier on the same day, Israeli mother of six Dafna Meir was laid to rest in Jerusalem after being stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Otniel, while a pregnant Israeli woman, Michal Froman, was wounded in a stabbing in Tekoa.
In Monday’s Army Radio interview, Shapiro said, “I understand the timing [of the comments] was not the best. I started with a condemnation of the attacks in Otniel and Tekoa. There were just one or two lines that caused disagreement, but if this, God forbid, hurt the Meir family or anyone else mourning Dafna’s death, may her memory be a blessing, then of course I regret it.”
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David Blatt, former Maccabi Tel Aviv coach, fired as coach of NBA’s Cavaliers
(JNS.org) David Blatt, the Jewish head coach of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Cleveland Cavaliers and previously the coach of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv franchise, on Friday was fired by the Cavaliers after less than two seasons in the role.
Blatt, 56, played college basketball at Princeton University. He played professionally in Israel for more than a decade, then coached several teams in Europe before becoming Maccabi Tel Aviv’s coach in 2010. He led Maccabi to a European league championship in 2014 before guiding the Cavaliers to the 2015 NBA Finals, where they lost to the Golden State Warriors, 4 games to 2.
The Cavaliers entered this season with high expectations, given the quest by franchise cornerstone and Ohio native LeBron James to end the city of Cleveland’s 51-year championship drought in the major American professional sports leagues. The Cavaliers had the top record in the NBA’s Eastern Conference at the time of Blatt’s firing, but according to ESPN, Blatt had lost the support of the team’s locker room over the past month.
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Senior IDF official warns that Hamas is ready for next war
(JNS.org) A senior Israel Defense Forces Gaza Division official said that the Palestinian terror group Hamas has completely rearmed itself and is prepared for the next war with Israel.
The terror group “has rebuilt the tunnels, its rocket systems, intelligence collection, reconnaissance, and it is essentially prepared for war,” said the senior IDF official, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
The source, however, conceded that Hamas currently does not yet desire a conflict with Israel and is instead focused on defeating rival Salafi terror groups in Gaza, who seek to overthrow Hamas’s rule there.
Hamas is also believed to have completely rebuilt its network of terror tunnels running underneath the border between southern Israel and Gaza.
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Israeli Auschwitz survivor Yisrael Kristal is now world’s oldest man at 112
(JNS.org) Following the death of 112-year-old Japanese man Yasutaro Koide, the designation of being the world’s oldest man likely belongs to Israeli Holocaust survivor Yisrael Kristal, who is also 112. Kristal received the title from the U.S.-based Gerontology Research Group, pending the validation of its finding via official documentation.
In 1903, Kristal was born to a religiously observant Jewish family in a region that is today part of Poland. His lost his wife and two children during the Holocaust. After surviving the Auschwitz death camp and other concentration camps, he remarried, made aliyah, and had more children.
“The Holocaust did not affect his beliefs,” Kristal’s daughter, Shula Kuperstoch, told the Jerusalem Post. “He believes he was saved because that’s what God wanted. He is not an angry person…he believes everything has a reason in the world.”
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13-year-old Israeli girl develops idea for oxygen-creating satellite in space
(JNS.org) A 13-year-old Israeli girl has invented a system to produce oxygen in outer space, the Israeli youth magazine Ma’ariv L’Noar reported.
The magazine interviewed Roni Oron, who recently won an award from the Israel Space Agency in a competition for teenagers ages 12-15. The contest required the teens to build a model for a satellite that could change the face of research and humanity.
Oron developed a prototype of a satellite called “BioSat” in order to “solve a problem for astronauts trying to prove that life on Mars is possible.” She explained that her satellite is “built like a large bubble on one side of which there is a mirror and the other is transparent, enabling the penetration of sunlight. In the middle there is a capsule, which will be made of a membrane through which air can pass but water cannot. Inside of it there will be water and algae, and outside there will be carbon dioxide. Through a process of photosynthesis, the satellite will produce oxygen. There will be additional mirrors inside the satellite that will enable sunlight to reach the capsule, but not by direct radiation, which would harm the algae.”
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Zika virus found in Israeli toddler
(JNS.org) Days after the Zika virus—a mosquito-born disease spreading across Latin America—arrived on U.S. soil through three confirmed cases in Florida and two in Illinois, the virus was also discovered in Israel.
In the Israeli case, a toddler was reportedly infected with the virus while on a trip to Colombia. There is no vaccine or treatment for the virus, but the child was later released from the hospital.
On its own, the Zika virus rarely causes serious symptoms, but it is suspected to be causing a severe birth defect called microcephaly, which makes it particularly dangerous for pregnant women and their fetuses. Israel’s Health Ministry issued a recommendation to all pregnant women to avoid travel to countries affected by the virus, adding that pregnant women who cannot avoid such trips should consult with an infectious diseases expert or a travelers’ clinic, Israel Hayom reported.
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