Israeli police come under attack during anti-terror raid, three Palestinian rioters killed
(JNS.org) Israeli border police on a raid to apprehend a terror suspect in the Palestinian refugee camp Qalandia near Ramallah were attacked by more than 1,500 Palestinian rioters, resulting in deadly clashes that left three Palestinians dead.
The Israeli Border Police were in Qalandiya to arrest Omar Al-Khatib, a Palestinian terrorist freed in the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap, Israel Hayom reported.
According to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Israeli soldiers sent to assist the Border Police unit made the decision to fire on the rioters after they felt their lives were in danger. A video posted on Youtube by an onlooker shows an Israeli Humvee being pelted by stones, wood and other heavy debris from the surrounding rooftops.
As a result of the incident, the Palestinian Authority has called off negotiations with Israel scheduled to take place on Jericho on Monday due to alleged “Israeli crimes.”
After the funeral for the three Palestinians who were killed, clashes also broke out at a security checkpoint near Qalandia, with Palestinians youth throwing stones and glass bottles at Israeli forces, Ma’an News Agency reported.
*
EU ‘can consider revising’ 1967 lines boycott, French foreign minister says
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The new European Union (EU) directive which bars the bloc’s member nations from developing future financial cooperation with Israeli communities beyond the 1967 lines can be reviewed and revised, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is currently visiting Israel, said during a press conference held Sunday at the French Embassy in Tel Aviv.
The EU directive, passed in mid-July, calls on its principal institutions and 28-member nations to limit or suspend their economic, social and academic cooperation with Israeli institutions that operate beyond the pre-1967 lines, which include Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The new funding guidelines, which could cost Israel billions of dollars, go into effect in 2014.
According to Army Radio, while Fabius stressed that France and the EU’s position on the matter has not changed, he said that Brussels “can consider revising the boycott on settlements… and we must see whether [the decision] had any unpredictable implications.”
Earlier in August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Israel will not sign any new agreements with the EU while the directive regarding the 1967 borders remains in effect.”
*
Report: Efforts to normalize Turkey-Israel relations fail
(JNS.org) Government officials have signaled that Israel’s efforts to normalize its diplomatic relations with Turkey have failed, Israel Hayom reported.
Israel-Turkey relations soured in May 2010, when Israeli naval commandos boarded the ship Mavi Marmara to enforce Israel’s naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. Militants attacked the commandos on board, and the ensuing clash left nine Turkish nationals dead and several Israeli soldiers wounded.
During U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel in March, Obama arranged a phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during which Netanyahu apologized for the deaths of the Turkish citizens during the Marmara raid.
Israel and Turkey agreed to start negotiations with the stated goal of bring relations back to normal, including returning ambassadors to Ankara and Tel Aviv. The negotiations, however, failed to produce an agreement. According to government sources cited by Israel Hayom, the two issues that caused the talks to deadlock were the amount of compensation the Turkish victims’ families would be paid and the very definition of the restitution payment.
A compromise could have been reached over the sum to be paid, a source said, but the root of them problem was Turkey’s insistence on calling the payments “punitive damages” and not “compensation,” which carries different legal ramifications to which Israel could not agree.
*
Report: Israeli, U.S., Jordanian commandos operating in Syria
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) American, Israeli and Jordanian commandos are currently deployed on the ground in Syria, training and operating alongside the rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the French daily Le Figaro reported on Saturday. The report has not been corroborated by any official American, Israeli or Jordanian source.
The newspaper said that according to its sources, the joint operation, led by the CIA, began on Aug. 17, when the commandos joined some 300 Syrian rebels near the southwestern city of Deraa, just north of Syria’s border with Jordan. A second group of commandos reportedly crossed into Syria two days later, en route to training camps set up by the Free Syrian Army near the Jordanian-Syrian border.
According to military sources quoted by Le Figaro, the U.S. is very reluctant to send ground troops to Syria and is also hesitant about arming the rebels, as some groups are affiliated with radical Islamists, and would prefer to train opposition fighters to hold their own.
French experts quoted by the newspaper said that Washington was interested in created a buffer zone in Syria, free of Assad’s forces, while also enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria, which would give the Free Syrian Army an advantage in their efforts to remove Assad from power.
*
Anti-Israel British MP Galloway’s ‘theory’: Israel gave Al-Qaeda chemical weapons
(JNS.org) Anti-Israel British Member of Parliament (MP) George Galloway accused Israel of giving Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria chemical weapons in a recent interview with Iranian Press TV.
“If there has been use of chemical weapons, it was Al-Qaeda,” Galloway said. “Who gave al-Qaida chemical weapons? Here’s my theory: Israel gave them the chemical weapons.”
Galloway, the Respect Party MP for Bradford West, this February stormed out of a debate at Oxford University after learning that his opponent was an Israeli citizen. Consistently outspoken in his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in 2009 Galloway received a Palestinian passport from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
*
Newly released Nixon tapes reveal disparaging comments on Jews
(JNS.org) Newly released audio recordings of former President Richard Nixon by the Nixon Presidential Library reveal the president’s deep paranoia and dislike of American Jews, Atlantic Wire reported.
In the final set of Nixon’s famous audio tapes, the president who resigned due to the Watergate scandal appears concerned that Jews would derail his upcoming summit with the Soviet Union. In an April 19, 1973 phone call to then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, who is Jewish, Nixon expressed his paranoia.
“Let me say, Henry, it’s gonna be the worst thing that happened to Jews in American history,” Nixon said.
“If they torpedo this summit—and it might go down for other reasons—I’m gonna put the blame on them, and I’m going to do it publicly at 9 o’clock at night before 80 million people,” he vowed.
Kissinger is heard agreeing with Nixon, saying they “brought it on themselves.”
Nixon continued his anti-Semitic outbursts to Kissinger, saying, “I won’t mind one goddamn bit to have a little anti-Semitism if it’s on that issue.”
“They put the Jewish interest above America’s interest and it’s about goddamn time that the Jew in America realizes he’s an American first and a Jew second,” he said.
Nixon’s comments on Jews appear related to American Jewish protests to free Soviet Jewry.
In a call to Vice President Spiro Agnew on April 18, 1973, Nixon said Jews were holding American foreign policy “hostage to Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union.” He added, “Some of the Jews picket can raise hell, but the American people are not going to let them destroy our foreign policy—never!”
*
Baseball star Ryan Braun admits to using performance-enhancing drugs
(JNS.org) Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun—the former Most Valuable Player of Major League Baseball’s National League, who in July was suspended for the rest of the 2013 season over drug violations—on Thursday for the first time admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Braun’s father is an Israeli-born Jew, and his mother is Catholic.
Last year, Braun got a 50-game suspension for high levels of testosterone overturned after successfully disputing the drug-testing process. The latest suspension, which he did not appeal, encompasses 65 games and any possible postseason play. He acknowledged in July that he had “made some mistakes,” but did not explicitly admit to using PEDs.
That admission came in a statement he released on Thursday.
“During the latter part of the 2011 season, I was dealing with a nagging injury and I turned to products for a short period of time that I shouldn’t have used,” Braun said. “The products were a cream and a lozenge which I was told could help expedite my rehabilitation. It was a huge mistake for which I am deeply ashamed and I compounded the situation by not admitting my mistakes immediately.”
Braun had adamantly denied using PEDs at a press conference in February 2012, following an arbitrator’s decision to overturn his 50-game suspension that year. On Thursday he said he “deeply” regrets what he said at that press conference.
“At that time, I still didn’t want to believe that I had used a banned substance,” Braun said. “I think a combination of feeling self righteous and having a lot of unjustified anger led me to react the way I did. I felt wronged and attacked, but looking back now, I was the one who was wrong. I am beyond embarrassed that I said what I thought I needed to say to defend my clouded vision of reality. I am just starting the process of trying to understand why I responded the way I did, which I continue to regret. There is no excuse for any of this.”
Braun is a .312 career hitter, with 211 homeruns in seven seasons. In 2011, when he won the Most Valuable Player award, he batted .332 with 33 homeruns, 111 RBI, and 33 stolen bases.
*
Thai court convicts Iranians accused of targeting Israeli diplomats
(JNS.org) A court in Thailand has convicted two Iranians who were part of a botched bomb plot last year directed against Israeli diplomats.
Saied Moradi, 29, who lost both legs in the explosion, was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison, while Muhammad Khazaei, 43, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for causing explosions and damage to property.
Meanwhile, a third man, who escaped authorities after the bomb went off in a villa in Bangkok, escaped to Malaysia. Two other suspects are believed to still be on the run.
Israel has alleged that the group of men was part of a terrorist cell that was plotting to assassinate Israeli diplomats in Thailand.
Israeli officials and tourists abroad have been the target of Iranian and Hezbollah for years, including recent attacks and attempted attacks in Bulgaria and Cyprus. The Bangkok explosion came a day after Israeli diplomats were targeted by bombs in India and Georgia.
*
Preceding provided by JNS.org