Jobbik party’s commemoration of Hungarian Nazi collaborator sparks protest
(JNS.org) Nearly 1,000 protestors took to the streets in Budapest to decry the far-right Jobbik party’s unveiling of a statue of Hungarian wartime leader and Nazi collaborator Miklos Horthy, Reuters reported.
The third-largest party in Hungary, Jobbik’s leaders have stoked extremism anti-Semitism in Hungary, often denigrating Jews and Israel in speeches.
“It is a historical travesty to publicly honor a man who introduced anti-Jewish laws in 1938, who sided with Adolf Hitler before and during World War II and who did nothing to prevent the murder of Hungarian Jewry,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said in a statement.
Horthy, who ruled Hungary from 1920-1944, helped the Nazis to deport more than 437,000 Jews to death camps in less than two months in 1944, according to the Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Centre.
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Israeli-Palestinian conflict ‘intervention’ to be staged by U.S. if current talks fail
(JNS.org) After meeting with senior Palestinian and American officials, Meretz party chairwoman Member of Knesset Zehava Gal-On said Monday that the U.S. is “moving from a coordination phase between the two sides to an intervention phase” in Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations.
In anticipation of a deadlock in the talks, the U.S. is expected to present a plan in January 2014 that would follow the “Clinton parameters” and would be “based on the ’67 lines with agreed land swaps,” according to Gal-On, Israel Hayom reported.
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Hamas textbooks: Torah and Talmud ‘fabricated’
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Hamas has introduced new textbooks into schools in the Gaza Strip that characterize the Torah and Talmud as “fabricated,” The New York Times reported.
Gaza schools previously used a curriculum approved by the Palestinian Authority. The new Hamas textbooks describe Zionism as a racist movement whose goals include driving Arabs out of all of the area between the Nile River in Africa and the Euphrates River in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
“The Jews and the Zionist movement are not related to Israel, because the sons of Israel are a nation which had been annihilated,” the books say.
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Detroit Tigers name Brad Ausmus, Jewish former catcher, as new manager
(JNS.org) Former Major League Baseball (MLB) catcher Brad Ausmus, who is Jewish, was named the manager of the MLB’s Detroit Tigers.
Ausmus, 44, will be the league’s only Jewish manager. He played for the Tigers, Houston Astros, San Diego Padres, and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1993-2010.
“Jewish fans would come up to me and talk about how they were proud to have a Jewish major leaguer on their team, whether I was in San Diego, Detroit or Houston,” Ausmus told JNS.org in 2011 for a story on the Israeli national team he managed that was trying to qualify for the World Baseball Classic. “I would get letters from Jewish children. I quickly realized that American Jews identified with me because of my heritage. I’m very proud of that.”
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Iran sanctions push not delayed, say major pro-Israel groups AIPAC and CUFI
(JNS.org) American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) President Michael Kassen said Sunday that there will “absolutely be no pause, delay or moratorium” in AIPAC’s lobbying efforts for stronger sanctions on Iran.
The statement contrasts with recent reports that indicated major Jewish organizations would refrain from lobbying Congress for tougher sanctions for two to three months while negotiations with Iran persist, after the White House asked them to do so in a meeting last week.
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) National Director Abraham Foxman said Nov. 2 that Jewish groups would take a “time out” in their lobbying efforts following the White House meeting. But Kassen said, “AIPAC continues to support congressional action to adopt legislation to further strengthen sanctions and there will absolutely be no pause, delay or moratorium in our efforts.”
Christians United For Israel (CUFI), the largest pro-Israel organization in the U.S., will also continue its push for stronger Iran sanctions.
“We mustn’t give Iran a comfortable window within which to complete their nuclear work,” CUFI Executive Director David Brog told JNS.org. “So long as Iran continues to build its stockpiles of enriched uranium, we should—at the very least—be strengthening our sanctions.”
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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Israel ‘illegitimate and bastard regime’
(JNS.org) Ahead of more negotiations with the West on Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel “an illegitimate and bastard regime.”
“The Americans have the highest indulgence towards the Zionists and they have to. But we do not share such indulgence,” Khamenei said in comments on his website.
Regarding the nuclear talks, the Iranian leader said, “No one should see our negotiating team as compromisers.”
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NSA spies on ‘high priority Israeli military targets,’ report says
(JNS.org) The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has spied on “high priority Israeli military targets” including the Israel Defense Forces drone aircraft and the Black Sparrow missile system, the New York Times reported.
Citing documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the newspaper said Israel is the most prominent country that cooperates with the NSA on intelligence sharing, but it is simultaneously the target of spying by the American agency.
Asked about the reported NSA spying in an interview with Israel’s Channel 10 TV network, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman said, “I don’t think it is appropriate for me [to confirm or deny the report] in this setting.”
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Omri Casspi, Gal Mekel are first Israelis to face each other in NBA game
(JNS.org) Last Friday’s National Basketball Association (NBA) game between the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks marked the first time two Israeli players faced each other in an NBA game.
Omri Casspi, the forward for the Rockets who in 2009 became the first Israeli-born player in NBA history, scored 12 points in a 113-105 win. Rookie guard Gal Mekel, the second Israeli to play in the NBA, scored 11 points in the loss for Dallas.
“It’s a comment on the respect for Israeli basketball,” Casspi told the Houston Chronicle. “Two guys came a long way to get to this point.”
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Israel angered by White House leak of IAF strike on Hezbollah-bound weapons
(JNS.org) The Israel Air Force (IAF) last week struck “missiles and related equipment” slated to be transferred to Hezbollah at a Syrian military base near the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia, an unnamed White House official told CNN.
Israel’s Channel 10 TV network quoted Israeli officials who called the White House’s revelation of the strike near Latakia “scandalous,” the Times of Israel reported. It is “unthinkable” that an Israeli ally like America would leak such information, the officials said.
A report on Israel’s Channel 2 network confirmed that the leak on the Israeli airstrike “came directly from the White House.”
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Israel is first U.S. ally to receive advanced V-22 aircraft
(JNS.org) Israel will be the first U.S. ally to receive the advanced V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.
In an address on Thursday in New York, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that the delivery would be “expedited,” and that Israel “will get six V-22s out of the next order to go on the assembly line, and they will be compatible with other [Israeli defense] capabilities.”
A senior Pentagon official said that Israel would receive the aircraft quicker due to threats it is facing from Iran, Syria, and terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula. The V-22 is unique in that it has a vertical takeoff and landing similar to a helicopter, but flies like a jet, enabling the quick transport of soldiers.
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South African ministers ‘do not visit Israel,’ foreign minister says
(JNS.org) South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said that her government’s ministers do not visit Israel out of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
“Our Palestinian friends have never asked us to disengage with Israel [through cutting diplomatic relations]. They had asked us in formal meetings to not engage with the [Israeli] regime. We have agreed to slow down and curtail senior leadership contact with that regime until things begin to look better,” Nkoana-Mashabane said at a South African trade union meeting, South Africa’s The Times reported.
Israel-South Africa relations have become increasingly strained. Some prominent South African figures, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and powerful South African trade unions have been very critical of Israeli policies.
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General Motors using Israeli technology to develop self-driving cars
(JNS.org) Israel is home to a significant amount of the technology General Motors (GM) is using to create the cars of the future, which will include features such as self-driving capability.
“The technologies that will power autonomous vehicles include smart sensing, vision imaging, human machine interface, wifi and 4G/LTE communications, and much of that is being done at our Herzliya facility in conjunction with GM’s other R&D facility in Silicon Valley,” said Gil Golan, director of GM’s Advanced Technical Center in Israel, the Times of Israel reported.
GM started working in Israel nearly 20 years ago, according to Golan.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org