Bennett: Drop two state solution
(JNS.org) Israel should discard the two-state solution when it comes to the conflict with the Palestinians and instead seek to “live with the problem,” Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) said on Monday in a conference sponsored by the Yesha Council in Jerusalem.
Bennett said Israel should annex—“as quickly as possible”—virtually all the areas that were not handed over the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo accords, including the Jewish communities and a handful of Palestinian towns. He said Israel should devise “aggressive” new plans to drastically improve the economic well-being of both the Jewish and Arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria.
“The notion of having a two-state solution established in the Land of Israel is now at a dead end; never in Jewish history have so many people talked so much and expended so much energy in something so futile,” Bennett said, according to Israel Hayom.
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Netanyahu: Israel not ‘deluding’ itself after victory by relative moderate in Iran election
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is not “deluding” itself following the victory of relative moderate Hassan Rohani, who had the backing of reformists, in the Iranian presidential election.
“We are not deluding ourselves when it comes to the results of the Iranian election,” Netanyahu said Sunday at his weekly cabinet meeting, Israel Hayom reported. “The international community must not get hung up on its own wishful thinking and become tempted to ease the pressure on Iran.”
“The more the pressure on Iran increases, the greater the likelihood that Iran’s nuclear program, which remains the biggest threat to world peace, will be stopped,” Netanyahu added. “Fifteen years ago, the election of another president considered moderate by the West did not change this aggressive policy. Over the last 20 years, the only thing that has brought about a temporary freeze of the Iranian nuclear program was Iran’s fear of an attack in 2003. Iran will be judged by its deeds. If it continues to insist on its nuclear program, the response should be obvious—stopping the nuclear program in any way possible.”
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U.S. and Israeli officials planning possible Syria action
(JNS.org) Israeli and American officials are working closely behind the scenes on possible strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s unconventional weapons arsenal, according to a report in Time magazine.
Last week, President Obama concluded Assad had used chemical weapons, notably sarin gas, against rebel forces over the past year, confirming previous statements from Israeli officials in April. Obama had noted last year that Assad’s use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” and trigger a stronger American response. As a result, Obama announced the U.S. would step up aid to Syrian rebels.
But according to Time, the U.S., Israel and regional allies, Turkey and Jordan, are working closely on a more intense engagement in Syria.
“Things are happening behind the scenes,” one Israeli official told Time. “Things are really happening.”
“Israeli and U.S. military officials are coordinating how to target and destroy Assad’s arsenal of unconventional weapons under assorted scenarios,” according to Time.
The scenarios include “operations on the estimated 18 depots and other sites where WMDs are stored” as well as another that would remove Assad, “be it by flight, death or if he simply disappears.”
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Ya’alon, in Washington, says Arab Peace Initiative is ‘spin’
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Arab Peace Initiative, promoted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in his efforts to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, is nothing but “spin” that is designed to have Israel commit to certain conditions even before negotiations commence, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Friday in a speech before the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Ya’alon said the Arab Peace Initiative was “not a decision of the Arab League,” and reiterated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Israeli is “ready to sit without preconditions with any initiative but without dictation.”
The initiative effectively says, “First you have to give up territory—and then we the Arabs will consider relations with you,” according to Ya’alon.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Kerry thinks the Arab Peace initiative is “significant” because it “shows a unity among several Arab nations, that they support an effort to move towards a peace plan and that they would support that if it were to be completed.”
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Israeli researchers suggest new predictor for heart disease
(JNS.org) Israeli researchers at the Rabin Medical Center Petach Tikva say that the thickness of a layer of fat around the heart can predict heart disease.
The researchers said that traditionally, doctors and scientists have relied on indicators such as body-mass index, cholesterol and other factors to predict heart disease. But this view has evolved recently to include the role fat cells play.
“Today our understanding is that the functioning of fat cells rather than your weight is a predictor of disease… In recent years we have learned that this tissue around the heart supports the functioning of the heart muscle and the arteries that supply it. At the same time, if this tissue grows too large, it undergoes changes that are detrimental to the health of the coronary arteries and the heart muscle,” said Dr. Dror Dicker, who heads the Clinic for Obesity and Hypertension at the Golda Hasharon campus of the Rabin Medical Center, Israel Hayom reported.
“In our paper we have found a correlation between the thickness of the layer of fat as seen in a CT scan and coronary artery disease, and thus this layer of fat can be seen as an predictor of disease,” Dicker added.
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World’s oldest Jew dies at 113
(JNS.org) Evelyn Kozak, the world’s oldest Jew, died at the age of 113 on June 11 after suffering a heart attack. Kozak’s family escaped from Russia due to anti-Semitism in the late 19th century.
According to the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, an organization of that validates the ages of supercentenarians, Kozak was the world’s oldest documented Jewish person and the seventh-oldest person in the world.
“As old as she was, we really expected her to live forever,” her granddaughter Brucha Weisberger told the Associated Press. Kozak had five children, 10 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandson.
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Moscow Jewish Museum gets Schneerson manuscripts
(JNS.org) The Russian government, which has refused to return a collection of more than 4,000 Jewish religious books and manuscripts dubbed the “Schneerson collection” to the New York-based Chabad-Lubavitch descendants of the collection’s last private owner, this week agreed to give part of the collection to the Moscow Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.
Although a U.S. judge in January ordered Russia to pay $50,000 a day until the manuscripts were turned over to Chabad, Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering the matter closed.
“I hope that moving the Schneerson library to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center… will put an end to this problem once and for all,” Putin said Thursday while visiting the museum to launch the new exhibition, according to Reuters.
The government of the former Soviet Union found and kept the collections after World War One. “We continue to work with all sides… on a resolution that will be acceptable to all sides, and irrespective of what happened today we continue to do that,” U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said.
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