Hamas terror tunnel detonated by IDF
(JNS.org) The Israel Defense Forces detonated part of a Hamas terror tunnel near the Gaza border in the Khan Yunis area overnight Thursday. During the operation, a Hamas explosion injured five Israeli soldiers, and one Hamas terrorist was killed in an exchange of fire.
An ensuing Israeli airstrike in response to the Hamas attack killed three Palestinian terrorist commanders, Maan News Agency reported. The incidents marked the worst Israeli-Palestinian clashes since the eight-day Gaza conflict of November 2012.
“With its actions, Hamas has violated the understandings reached after Operation Pillar of Defense,” the IDF said in a statement Friday. “They engaged in offensive operations within Israeli territory and built offensive tunnels. Hamas is the sovereign in the Gaza Strip and it is their responsibility to prevent terror of any kind. The IDF will continue to take action to remove all threats facing the citizens of the State of Israel and our defense forces.”
ADL poll: 12 percent of Americans hold anti-Semitic views, a 3% decline
(JNS.org) A new Anti-Defamation League (ADL) survey has found that 12 percent of Americans hold anti-Semitic views, a 3-percent decline since the organization’s previous poll in 2011.
Fourteen percent of the poll’s participants said Jews have too much power in the U.S. Thirty percent of Americans still believe that that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the U.S. About one-quarter of respondents agreed that Jews still talk too much about the Holocaust, and 26 percent still blame Jews for the death of Jesus Christ.
ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman said the poll, which comes during ADL’s centennial, “causes us to take a broader perspective, to appreciate how far we have come in 100 years.”
“In 1913 there were no surveys like this, but anti-Semitism was rife in public and private expressions, in universities, jobs and neighborhoods. In 1964, when we did our first survey, we found that 29 percent of Americans held anti-Semitic views,” he said.
White House asks pro-Israel groups to tone down talk on Iran sanctions
(JNS.org) The U.S. government is asking pro-Israel activists to reduce their public support for more sanctions on Iran just prior to another round of discussions on the issue between Iranian and world leaders. White House officials met with Jewish organizations including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, and the Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, a pro-Israel official who attended the briefing said that the Obama administration does not “want the new [sanctions] to come out now.”
Additionally, the lobby group J Street said Tuesday that “moving forward with new sanctions now could severely undermine prospects for a diplomatic solution.” The statement “could have been written by the White House itself,” a source familiar with the meeting told the Washington Free Beacon .
Democrats in Congress have also drafted a bill designed to establish a panel to “review, assess, and make recommendations” regarding the prospect of increasing sanctions on Iran.
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Mahmoud Abbas calls terrorists ‘heroes’ at prisoner release celebration
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a celebration in Ramallah in honor of the second set of 26 Palestinian terrorists released by Israel as part of Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations, calling the prisoners “heroes” despite their violent history.
According to the list published by the Israeli government, many of the prisoners have an extremely violent history. With several of them involved in murder of civilians, often at close range, including Palestinian Kassem Hzem Shabir, who murdered Holocaust survivor Yitzhak Rotenberg with an axe; Issa Abed Rabo, who murdered Israeli students Revital Seri and Ron Levy near a monastery south of Jerusalem in 1984; and Rahman Abdel Hajj, who stabbed to death Genia Friedman as she was walking with her father and friends in 1992, Haaretz reported.
At the Ramallah celebration, Abbas told the crowd, “We welcome our brothers the heroes coming from behind the bars to a world of freedom and liberty.”
“No permanent peace agreement would be signed as long as there is one single prisoner in Israeli jails,” Abbas said.
Every released prisoner will receive a special grant and monthly stipend from the PA, between $710-$1,280, Israel Hayom reported. Despite the celebration held by Abbas, Palestinians seemed largely apathetic about the prisoner release.
“Anyone walking in Ramallah wouldn’t feel that it’s a special day, that prisoners are being released and there are celebrations,” Ramallah resident Yusuf Jaber told Maariv.
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Methodist Church of Britain survey ‘presumes Israel’s guilt,’ CAMERA says
(JNS.org) The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) says a recent survey by the Methodist Church of Britain is biased against Israel.
The 14-question online survey asks respondents a series of questions on their view of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and whether or not the Methodist Church should be involved. CAMERA Christian Media Analyst Dexter Van Zile believes the survey is designed to produce a pro-BDS outcome.
“There is no acknowledgment that maybe the Palestinians have done anything wrong. Israel or Israeli is mentioned at least 10 times in the list of questions. It’s a kangaroo court that presumes Israel’s guilt,” Van Zile told JNS.org.
The Methodist Church of Britain has a history of involvement in the BDS movement. In 2010, it approved a boycott resolution targeting products produced by Israeli companies in the West Bank. But the church received significant pushback over the resolution, including a lawsuit by one of its preachers, David Hallam, who claimed the resolution was “discriminatory” and a “misuse of church funds,” The Telegraph reported.
As a result, the church said it is seeking to open a debate over its position on the BDS movement. According to the church’s website, the survey is a result of motion passed during the July 2013 Methodist Conference that “requests the production of a briefing on the arguments for and against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.”
CAMERA’s Van Zile told JNS.org that the Methodist Church of Britain “has been targeting Israel with a lot of criticism while remaining relatively silent about the misdeeds of its adversaries.”
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Preceding provided by JNS.org