Netanyahu to Biden: Israel’s ties with Arab states ‘solid base’ for peace, stability
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) In a joint press conference with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s failure to condemn Tuesday’s Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel.
Speaking of the largest of the attacks, in which 29-year-old American business school student Taylor Force was killed and 11 Israelis were wounded in Jaffa, Netanyahu noted that Abbas’s Fatah party “actually praised this murderer as a hero and a martyr. This is wrong, and this failure to condemn terrorism should be condemned itself by everybody in the international community.”
Netanyahu said that when he and Biden met privately, they discussed the security challenges Israel faces, including Palestinian incitement, the collapse of various regimes across the Middle East, the rise of the Islamic State terror group, and Iran’s growing regional and global aggression.
“But we also see the opportunities, and I think some of them stems from these great challenges,” Netanyahu said, noting that one of the opportunities is “to deepen ties between Israel and the modern Arab states, and this could help us build a solid base for peace and stability.”
America and Israel, said the prime minister, “are stronger when we work together, so I look forward to continue to work together with you and President [Barack] Obama, to strengthen the remarkable and unbreakable alliance between our two countries.”
Military and intelligence collaboration between Washington and Jerusalem has reached “unprecedented” levels, Biden said.
“It doesn’t mean we never disagree, but you never need to doubt that the U.S. has Israel’s back and we know Israel has our back as well. We’re committed to making sure that Israel can defend itself against all serious threats and maintain its qualitative edge….It’s critical because Israel lives in a very, very tough neighborhood,” he said.
Commenting on the American-brokered nuclear deal with Iran, an accord that Israeli officials vehemently oppose, Biden said, “We’re united in the belief that a nuclear-armed Iran is an absolutely unacceptable threat to Israel, to the region and to the U.S., and I want to reiterate—I know people still doubt this—if in fact they (the Iranians) break the deal, we will act….Together we are seeking ways to advance our shared security interests and address the new realities of the region.”
Regarding the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the vice president said, “The only way, in my view, to ensure the future of a Jewish, democratic state, is that the status quo has to break somewhere along the line here, in terms of a two-state solution. Even though it may be hard to see the way ahead, we continue to take steps to move back to the path of peace—it’s not easy—for the sake of Israel and for the sake of the Palestinians in the region.
Upon arriving in Israel on Tuesday, Biden swiftly condemned the Palestinian terror attack that killed a visiting American business school student and wounded 11 Israelis in the port city of Jaffa.
Biden, who is on a tour of Middle East countries, landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday evening. He was greeted by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israeli Ambassador to U.S. Ron Dermer, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro. Biden then headed to Jaffa to meet with former Israeli president Shimon Peres at the Peres Center for Peace.
Around the same time that Biden arrived at the Peres Center, the Palestinian terrorist carried out the Jaffa attack just down the road. Biden told reporters at the Peres Center, “We have absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to the security of Israel. I hope we can make some progress.”
Biden’s office later added that during his meeting with Peres, the vice president “condemned in the strongest possible terms the brutal attack” in Jaffa.
“He expressed his sorrow at the tragic loss of American life and offered his condolences to the family of the American citizen murdered in the attack, as well as his wishes for a full and quick recovery for the wounded,” Biden’s office said.
The American victim of the Jaffa attack was identified as Taylor Force, 29, a student at the Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management who was visiting Israel as part of a school trip.
According to Tel Aviv police, the terrorist began stabbing people near the entrance to the Jaffa port. The attacker then fled on foot on the road towards Tel Aviv and started to stab drivers stuck in traffic before he was eventually shot and killed by police. The terrorist was later identified as a 21-year-old man from the Palestinian town of Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem.
The Magen David Adom emergency response organization said it treated 11 victims, with the condition of their injuries including one critical, four severe, four moderate, and two mild.
Tel Aviv’s Wolfson Medical Center said that the one victim who was killed, Taylor Force, was brought to the hospital dead.
The attack in Jaffa was at least the third terror attack of the day in Israel. Earlier, one Israeli man was injured in a stabbing in Petah Tikva. In that incident, the victim was apparently able to use the knife and kill his attacker. Additionally, two Israeli Border Police officers were seriously injured in a drive-by shooting attack near the Old City of Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate; the shooter was eventually killed.
Tuesday’s slain tourist joins the list of American victims in the current wave of Palestinian terror. Israeli victims Eitam Henkin and Tuvia Yanai Weissman both held U.S. citizenship, while another Jewish victim, Ezra Schwartz, was an American student studying in Israel during his “gap year” between high school and college. Overall, more than 30 Israelis have been killed since the ongoing terror wave started last fall.
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Pew study: Israeli Jews united on land but divided on religion
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli Jews are united in the opinion that the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, but are divided on the matter of religion, according to a comprehensive survey on religion, state, and society in Israel that was conducted by America’s Pew Research Center.
The survey found that while more Israeli Jews are traditional or religious than secular, most still think halacha (Jewish law) should be separate from the laws of the state. The study also found that most of the Israeli Jewish population votes for the center-right, and most object to the lack of public transportation on Shabbat.
“Nearly 70 years after the establishment of the modern State of Israel, its Jewish population remains united behind the idea that Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people and a necessary refuge from rising anti-Semitism around the globe,” Pew researchers said.
According to the findings, 40 percent of Jews in Israel are secular, 23 percent are traditional, 10 percent are religious, and 8 percent are haredi. Most Israeli Jews (63 percent) said halacha should not be made into state law. The vast majority (94 percent) of secular Israeli Jews support public transportation on the Shabbat, most of the country’s Jews (72 percent) support conscripting haredi men to serve in the military. Almost half of Israeli Jews (45 percent) said they were in favor of letting women pray out loud at the Western Wall.
Meanwhile, the majority of secular Israeli Jews said they observe cultural aspects of religion. For example, 87 percent said they had participated in Passover seders and 53 percent said they light Shabbat candles at least occasionally. On the other hand, 62 percent said they drive vehicles on Shabbat.
Forty-eight percent of Jewish Israelis support the transfer or expulsion of Arabs from Israel, while 46 percent said they oppose such measures.
Pew conducted the survey through face-to-face interviews in Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian among 5,601 Israeli adults aged 18 and older from October 2014 through May 2015, before the current wave of terror.
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Lebanese PM urges Hezbollah to refrain from attacks on Saudi Arabia
(JNS.org) Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam has urged the Hezbollah terror group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to refrain from attacking Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
In an interview with the Saudi-based Al-Arabiya television network, Salam criticized Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, saying that it reflected negatively on Lebanon. Salam also noted Lebanon’s traditional warm relations with the Arab Gulf states.
Last week, the Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) declared Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Lebanon-based Hezbollah criticized Saudi Arabia for being responsible for the decision.
“The decision by the GCC is reckless and hostile and is condemned. The Saudi regime bears responsibility for its issuing and for the consequences,” Hezbollah said.
The six-nation GCC’s move came on the heels of a Saudi decision to freeze $3 billion in military aid to the Lebanese army. Saudi Arabia, which considers Iran its top regional threat and rival, has suggested that it might enact further sanctions against Hezbollah.
Foreign ministers from the GCC countries are scheduled to meet this week to discuss the terror threat posed by Hezbollah and its funder, Iran.
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Israeli death rate from heart disease drops 50 percent since 1998
(JNS.org) The death rate from heart disease in Israel has dropped by 50 percent since 1998, a new study published in the European Heart Journal revealed.
“Between 1998 and 2012, the mortality from cardiovascular disease in Israel has fallen from 162 to 80 per 100,000 residents,” wrote Dr. Mervyn Gotsman and his son, Dr. Israel Gotsman, from the Heart Institute at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.
“The number-one killer is being contained,” stated the study, due to several factors including preventative measures introduced and taught by the Israel Heart Society; educational programs and campaigns against smoking, obesity, diabetes, and hypertension; and lifestyle modification.
The study’s authors acknowledged that there are still “unsolved and unmet needs” such as improving “procedures for mitral insufficiency to control the new epidemic of heart failure.”
“Cardiovascular advances and developments are like peeling an onion. As one layer is removed, a new one appears and requires careful evaluation, management, and implementation,” they wrote.
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Israel to U.N.: revise report blaming Jewish state for Palestinian domestic abuse
(JNS.org) Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has demanded that the United Nations revise a report that blames Israel for domestic abuse against Palestinian women.
Against the backdrop of International Women’s Day, which is being marked on March 8, the U.N. Commission on the Status for Women issued the report for its March 14-24 session. The document states that “overcrowded living conditions and a lack of privacy” in Palestinian refugee camps causes “psychological distress among camp residents.” Combine this with “the unstable political and security situation and discriminatory gender stereotypes and norms,” and the end result is domestic violence, the report claims.
“This report is a distortion of the truth and it should be amended immediately,” Danon wrote in a letter to the U.N.
A similar resolution, in which Israel is the only U.N. member state singled out for its treatment of women, was approved last year by the U.N. Commission on the Status for Women.
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