Brussels rocked by terror blasts, about 30 believed dead
(JNS.org) Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in Brussels on Tuesday in the worst terror attack to hit Europe since the Islamic State-organized terror attacks in Paris last November.
Two suicide bombers detonated themselves at the Brussels Zaventem airport, and a third detonated his bomb at the Maelbeek subway station, killing—according to various reports—an estimated 30 people and injuring as many as 130.
No group such as the Islamic State has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Belgian Belga news agency reported that shouts in Arabic were heard before some of the explosions, according to the BBC. Supporters of the Islamic State have also been celebrating the attacks by tweeting Allahu Akbar after each attack, and with the hashtag #Brusselsisonfire.
At least one Israeli is reported to be among the wounded. Yisroel Yaakov Yeret, another Israeli and a volunteer for the Israeli emergency response service United Hatzalah, was at the Brussels airport at the time of the attack.
“At the time of the explosion I was praying at the Synagogue in the airport,” said Yeret. “We felt the explosion. We exited the synagogue in order to see what was happening and we joined the stream of the multitude of people who were being ushered by the police to exit the terminal.”
The latest terror attacks in Brussels occurred just four days after Belgian authorities had captured Salah Abdeslam, the only terrorist who survived the Paris attacks on Nov. 13, 2015. Some European officials had warned that further attacks in retaliation to his arrest could occur.
“This is yet another shocking, appalling, and deadly attack on innocent Europeans by terrorists,” said Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress. “These attacks on an airport, train system, and outside European Union institutions are shots at the heart of Europe.”
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Netanyahu urges anti-terror unity after Brussels attack, affirms 2-state solution support
(JNS.org) Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference through a live video address on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged “unity” in the fight to defeat global terrorism amid the unfolding news of that morning’s coordinated terror attacks that killed about 30 people in Brussels.
“This is one continuous assault on all of us,” Netanyahu said. “In all these cases, the terrorists have no resolvable grievances. It’s not as if we can offer them Brussels, or Istanbul, or even the West Bank…because what they seek is our utter destruction and their total domination. Their basic demand is that we should basically disappear. Well my friends, that’s not going to happen. The only way to defeat these terrorists is to join together and fight them together. That’s how we’ll defeat terrorism, with political unity and moral clarity. I think we have that in abundance.”
Calling Israel an “island of liberty” in a sea of instability, Netanyahu said the Jewish state should be “a great cause of liberty that unites Americans” rather than dividing them.
The prime minister said there are two “contradictory trends,” one negative and the other positive, developing with regard to Israel. On the one hand, he said, delegations from various nations are coming to Israel to learn about security, intelligence capabilities, and technology, while Israel has diplomatic relations with an all-time high 161 countries. On the other hand, Netanyahu lamented that Israel is “slandered like no other country on Earth” at the United Nations and is permanently scheduled for condemnation at the U.N. Human Rights Council, while nations like Iran, Syria, and North Korea are not subjected to the same treatment.
Only the U.N., Netanyahu said, would seek to impose an Israeli-Palestinian conflict settlement on Israel while the Palestinians “stab their way to a state.” Netanyahu said he hopes the U.S. maintains “its longstanding position to reject such a U.N. resolution” on Palestinian statehood.
Netanyahu affirmed his own commitment to “two states, for two peoples, in which a demilitarized Palestinian state finally recognizes the Jewish state.”
“I know there’s some skepticism about my views on this,” acknowledged the prime minister. He continued, “Here’s the acid test: I’m ready to begin such negotiations immediately, without preconditions. Anytime, anywhere. That’s a fact. But [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas is not ready to do so. That’s also a fact. There’s political will here, in Jerusalem, there’s no political will there, in Ramallah.” In recent years, added Netanyahu, Abbas “has refused to talk to me, even for a minute.”
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AIPAC president blasts Trump’s on-stage rhetoric about Obama, crowd’s reaction
(JNS.org) Lillian Pinkus, the new president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), on Tuesday morning slammed Republican presidential primary front-runner Donald Trump’s on-stage rhetoric about President Barack Obama the previous day as well as the AIPAC conference crowd’s reaction to Trump’s words.
Trump had earned a standing ovation on Monday for saying, “President [Barack] Obama in his final year. Yay.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, Pinkus said Tuesday that AIPAC takes “great offense” to verbal attacks that are levied against the president of the United States from the stage of the pro-Israel lobby’s annual policy conference.
“While we may have policy differences, we deeply respect the office of the president of the United States and our president, Barack Obama,” Pinkus, whose emotion was palpable, said.
“There are people in our AIPAC family who were deeply hurt last night,” she said, lamenting that “so many applauded a sentiment that we neither agree with or condone.”
“Let us close this conference in recognition that when we say, ‘Come ‘Together,’ we still have a lot to learn from each other, and we still have much work to do, because broadening the base of America’s pro-Israel movement and unity is our strength,” said Pinkus, mentioning this year’s AIPAC conference tagline.
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Trump says dismantling Iran deal will be top priority, humors AIPAC crowd
(JNS.org) In a much-anticipated speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference on Monday, Republican presidential primary front-runner Donald Trump said that dismantling the “disastrous” Iran nuclear deal would be his top priority as president.
“We’ve rewarded the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with $150 billion, and we’ve received actually nothing in return,” he said.
Trump was the subject of much pre-conference debate regarding whether or not AIPAC should have invited him, due to his controversial policy proposals such as banning Muslim immigration. But he seemed to earn more laughter than boos during his speech, resulting from his jokes, his stylistic choices such as the repeated use of the phrase “believe me,” and his well-known propensity to make sweeping declarations. For instance, Trump said he has studied the Iranian nuclear issue “greater than anybody else.” That statement earned significant laughter from the audience.
The businessman said he would adopt a three-pronged strategy on Iran as president: standing up to Iran’s aggressive push to destabilize and dominate the region, dismantling Iran’s global terror network, and vigorously enforcing the terms of the nuclear deal.
“We must enforce the terms of the previous deal to hold Iran totally accountable, and we will enforce it like you’ve never seen a contract enforced before folks, believe me,” he said.
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Cruz vows to ‘unapologetically’ back Israel, mocks Trump’s use of ‘Palestine’
(JNS.org) Speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) said he “will not be neutral” on Israel as president, taking a swipe at GOP opponent Donald Trump’s past statements about being a neutral broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“America will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel,” said Cruz, who also mocked Trump’s use of the term “Palestine” in the preceding speech at the same AIPAC session. “Palestine” has not existed since 1948, Cruz said upon arriving on stage.
Cruz said America needs a president “who will be a champion for Israel,” noting his actions in the Senate such as staunchly opposing the Federal Aviation Administration’s 36-hour ban on flights to Israel during the 2014 Gaza war. Cruz recalled that at the time, he raised the question, “Did this [Obama] administration just launch an economic boycott against the state of Israel?” Ukraine, noted Cruz, had just seen a passenger airline shot down by a Russian missile but experienced no flight ban, yet Israel received such a ban when one rocket fell a mile from “one of the safest airports in the world.”
Offering specifics on how he would stand with Israel as president, Cruz said he would rip the “catastrophic” Iran nuclear deal to shreds.
“Here are my words, [Iranian Supreme Leader] Ayatollah Khamenei: ‘If I am president, and Iran launches a missile test, we will shoot that missile down,” said Cruz, referring to the recent Iranian missile test that included a missile inscribed with a threat to wipe Israel off the map.
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John Kasich touts Jewish ties in AIPAC speech, pledges not to take ‘low road’
(JNS.org) Ohio Governor John Kasich, who labels himself as a moderate Republican presidential candidate with a “positive message,” held true to form on Monday at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference.
“I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land. I will not do it,” Kasich told the AIPAC crowd.
“We need to work together with Congress on an agenda that serves the nation as a whole. We are Americans more than we are Republicans and Democrats,” he said, echoing AIPAC’s organizational calling card of bipartisanship.
Kasich used a significant portion of his speech to tout his ties to the Jewish community, including his relationship with the late Gordon Zacks, an influential Ohio Jewish businessman and Republican activist; his advocacy for the release of famed refusenik Natan Sharansky from Soviet prison; and his work on establishing the state of Ohio’s official Holocaust memorial.
“They told me it could not be done and I told them, ‘You watch me, it will be done,’” Kasich said of the Holocaust memorial.
Kasich called his support for Israel “firm, and unwavering for more than 35 years of my professional life.” The governor, who formerly served on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee for 18 years, noted that during that time “we assured Israel’s qualitative military edge by offering the initial $10 million” for the Iron Dome missile defense system. He also said that if Iran violates its nuclear deal with world powers,“we must put the sanctions back on them.”
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Dubai security chief says Palestinians should give up statehood aspirations
(JNS.org) Dubai’s security chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said that the Palestinians should drop their aspirations for statehood.
In a series of posts on Twitter, Tamim suggested that any future Palestinian state would become yet another failed Arab state, and that the Palestinians should form a binational state with Israeli Jews instead.
“I suggest relinquishing the idea of a Palestinian state and being satisfied with an Israeli state that would include both Israelis and Palestinians and join the Arab League,” Tamim wrote, according to a translation by the Jerusalem Post.
“Today, the Jews are heading the world’s economy, without the Jews you Arabs would not have known how to deposit your money in the bank,” Tamim added.
Despite his high-ranking position in the United Arab Emirates, Tamim has a history of making outspoken remarks that go against the official position of his highly conservative government. In 2013, Tamim stated that the Muslim Brotherhood, and not Israel, was the Arab world’s greatest threat.
Though he called on the Palestinians to drop their goal of statehood, Tamim said that eventually Arabs would become the majority in the future binational state.
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Hezbollah’s Nasrallah threatens Israel’s nuclear facilities in future conflict
(JNS.org) Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to strike Israel’s nuclear facilities in any future conflict, in his latest war of words against the Jewish state.
“It is our natural right to strike any target in occupied Palestine can deter the enemy, including nuclear reactors,” Nasrallah said in an interview with the pro-Hezbollah, pan-Arab satellite TV station Al-Mayadeen.
Later, Nasrallah confirmed that his terror group has a complete list of targets against Israel, including “nuclear reactors and biological research centers.” Nasrallah insisted that he does not want to start a war with Israel, yet added that Hezbollah “does not grant Israel any security guarantees.”
In February, Nasrallah threatened to fire missiles at an ammonia plant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, claiming the attack would be similar to a nuclear bomb.
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Hillary Clinton tells AIPAC she is the ‘steady’ alternative to Donald Trump
(JNS.org) As Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican contender Donald Trump emerge as the clear front-runners for their respective parties’ nominations, Clinton on Monday told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference that she is a “steady” alternative to Trump when it comes to Israel and the Middle East.
“We need steady hands. Not a president who said he’s neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday, and who knows what on Wednesday…Israel’s security is non-negotiable,” Clinton said, referring to Trump’s recent comments that he would be a “neutral” peace broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump’s Republican rivals have also targeted those remarks.
Clinton also used her AIPAC speech to condemn Trump for encouraging violence and “playing coy” with white supremacists, as well as the businessman’s proposed policies such as banning Muslim immigration.
“Will we as Americans and as Israelis stay true to the shared democratic values that have always been at the heart of our relationship?” Clinton asked, adding that values such as a thriving immigrant culture, tolerance, and pluralism make both the U.S. and Israel a “light unto the nations.”
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19 Jews from Yemen smuggled to Israel
(JNS.org) The Jewish Agency for Israel undertook what it called a “complex, covert operation” to smuggle out 19 Yemenite Jews and bring them to Israel.
“Nineteen individuals arrived in Israel in recent days, including 14 from the town of Raydah and a family of five from Sanaa,” the Jewish Agency said in a statement, adding, “The group from Raydah included the community’s rabbi, who brought a Torah scroll believed to be between 500 and 600 years old.”
Yemenite Jews are considered to be part of the world’s oldest Jewish communities. According to the Jewish Agency, there are 50 more Jews who have chosen not to immigrate to Israel and remain in Yemen, despite the fact that Jews have become increasingly targets of harassment and violence by Muslims in the country.
In 2008, Jewish teacher Moshe Ya’ish al-Nahari was murdered in Raydeh because he was Jewish. His widow and children moved to Israel four years later. In 2012, another Jewish leader in Raydeh, Aaron Joseph Zindani, was also murdered. His coffin was later brought to Israel by the Jewish Agency.
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