John Kerry reportedly tells U.S. senators to ignore Israel on Iran sanctions
(JNS.org) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly told U.S. senators to ignore Israeli thinking when it comes to Iran sanctions.
Describing Kerry’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, Kerry, a Senate aid told BuzzFeedthat “every time anybody would say anything about ‘what would the Israelis say,’ they’d get cut off and Kerry would say, ‘You have to ignore what they’re telling you, stop listening to the Israelis on this.’”
Kerry’s closed-door briefing was “fairly anti-Israeli,” U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) told reporters.
“I was supposed to disbelieve everything the Israelis had just told me, and I think the Israelis probably have a pretty good intelligence service,” Kirk said.
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) described Kerry’s testimony as “an emotional appeal.”
“I have to tell you, I was very disappointed in the presentation,” Corker said.
Speaking to reporters before the briefing, Kerry said, “We now are negotiating [with Iran]. And the risk is that if Congress were to unilaterally move to raise sanctions, it could break faith in those negotiations, and actually stop them and break them apart.”
Netanyahu, Ya’alon focus on Palestinian incitement in responses to soldier’s murder
(JNS.org) Responding to Wednesday’s fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Israel Defense Forces soldier Eden Atias by a Palestinian teenager, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We hope and look forward to achieving true peace, but incitement in the Palestinian Authority must stop.”
“The Authority incites to prejudice and violence against Israelis and Jews in schools, the official media, mosques and several other places in Palestinian society,” he said, Israel Hayom reported.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon said Israel “will respond aggressively toward organizations that aim to launch institutionalized terrorist attacks against us.”
“We must remember that the terror of individuals unaffiliated with an organization mostly derives from the hard incitement of the Palestinian Authority, which even now, as we sit alongside their representatives at the negotiating table, continues to educate the young generation to look up to terrorist murderers of Jews, preaching hatred, and unwilling to recognize our right to exist within any boundaries,” Ya’alon said.
Brandeis criticized for partnership with Palestinian university after Nazi-style rally
(JNS.org) Brandeis University is being criticized for its partnership with the Palestinian Al Quds University following a Nazi-style military rally at Al Quds.
In recently posted photos by Middle East analyst Tom Gross,students are shown wearing black military gear, carrying fake automatic weapons, and giving the Nazi salute during a march on the Al Quds campus. Additionally, several rally participants portrayed dead Israeli soldiers and trampled a banner painted with Jewish stars. Eve Herman, president of the Brandeis Zionist Alliance, told the Washington Free Beacon, “It bothers me very much that the school I am attending has a partnership with a school that inherently promotes death to Jews.”
Brandeis and Al Quds partnered in 2003, forming “a unique intercultural partnership, linking an Arab institution in Jerusalem and a Jewish-sponsored institution in the United States in an exchange designed to foster cultural understanding and provide educational opportunities for students, faculty and staff,” according to the Brandeis website.
An anonymous Brandeis faculty member told the Free Beacon that it is “appalling” that activities such as the Nazi-style rally occur at Al Quds.Imad Abu Kishek, executive vice president of Al Quds, said the event “horrified the whole student body, who is not used to such acts on campus.” He said Al Quds promotes “openness and toleration” and has a “policy of non-violence and pacifism,” but also condemned the Israel Defense Forces. Kishek cited “all kinds of difficulties that Al Quds University students, in specific, are facing on daily basis from Israeli soldiers, whom provokingly keep attacking them alongside university staff with hundreds of tear gas bombs.”
The Free Beacon said Brandeis declined multiple requests for comment.
JDC, Israel Defense Forces providing relief in Typhoon Haiyan-struck Philippines
(JNS.org) The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), teaming with the Afya Foundation and Catholic Relief Services, is sending medical supplies and food to the Philippines to assist victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the country earlier this week.
In a partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), JDC is providing “School in a Box” kits, to be used for teaching displaced children.
“While unprecedented challenges unfold on the ground in the Philippines, it’s imperative that the global Jewish community support efforts to aid the Filipino people in their time of need,” Alan H. Gill, JDC’s CEO, told JNS.org.
“JDC and the State of Israel are proudly at the forefront of that response, ever mindful of our moral obligation to save those in danger. Additionally, JDC is driven by the debt of gratitude we owe to the Philippines which heroically saved more than 1,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis during World War II,” he said.
JDC is also supplying equipment to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) field hospital in the Philippines. The 148-member IDF Medical and Rescue Response Team, which is being coordinated by Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, arrived in the Philippines on Wednesday.
“Our doctors and nurses constantly prepare for all types of disasters—both civilian and military—and it is encouraging that this training will enable us to assist the people of the Philippines in this tragic time of need,” Professor Jonathan Halevy—director general of Shaare Zedek, which sent four doctors to the Philippines—said in a statement.
U.S. terror designation for Boko Haram, Nigerian group that targeted Christians
(JNS.org) The American Jewish Committee (AJC) praised the U.S. State Department’s decision to label Nigeria’s Boko Haram, along with its splinter group Ansaru, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“Boko Haram’s murderous attacks in Nigeria, targeting Christians in particular, have been a deep concern for a long time,” AJC Executive Director David Harris said. “The U.S. designation both recognizes the reality of the threat Boko Haram presents, and gives a boost, we hope, to the Nigerian government’s efforts to defeat this terrorist scourge.”
The State Department said that this designation would help U.S. and other law enforcement partners “to investigate and prosecute terrorist suspects.”
Religious conflict between the mainly Christian south and Muslim north has raged in Nigeria for decades. Boko Haram, which has links to al-Qaeda, calls for the formation of a “pure Islamic state” governed by Sharia law. It has attacked Christian targets, government offices, and moderate Muslims repeatedly since its formation in 2001.
Scholastic stopping shipments on book erasing Israel from map
(JNS.org) The children’s publishing company Scholastic is stopping shipments on a book about journalists hunting for treasure in Egypt that erases Israel from a Middle East map.
“Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt,” about journalists hunting for treasure in Egypt, is part of the popular Geronimo Stilton children’s series translated from Italian. It was published by Scholastic in 2012. In a map at the beginning of the book that displays modern Egypt and its neighboring countries, Israel’s territory is included within Jordan and is painted red. A line denoting the Israeli border with the Sinai Peninsula does appear.
Scholastic aknowledged the error in a statement.
“The President of Trade Publishing, who was on a plane yesterday returning from Europe, has confirmed for me this morning that we are stopping shipments on this title, making the correction and going to reprint. We regret the error,” wrote Kyle Good, a senior vice president for corporate communications at Scholastic, the Times of Israel reported Wednesday.
Mahmoud Abbas: Palestinian negotiators resign from talks
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinian negotiators have resigned over the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian conflict talks.
Abbas said in an interview on Egypt’s CBC television that his negotiators were upset over continued plans for Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. But he said negotiations could still continue with a new delegation.
“Either we can convince [the current negotiators] to return, and we’re trying with them, or we form a new delegation,” Abbas said.
While chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations stopped “in light of the settlement announcements last week,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently canceled plans for the construction of 1,200 housing units in the E1 corridor that links Jerusalem with the Jewish community of Ma’ale Adumim.
“Israel has once more demonstrated concretely, even at domestic political cost, its steadfast commitment to the process,” American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris said of Netanyahu’s construction cancellation. “We await similar steps from the Palestinian side.”
Minister Danny Danon lauds Israeli-Christian interest in IDF service
(JNS.org) Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon is encouraging Arab-Israeli Christian youths to join the Israel Defense Forces and integrate into society.
“I salute your willingness to integrate into the society,” Danon told a gathering of draft-age Christians in the Golan Heights,Inter Press Service reported.
“The State of Israel is opening its doors to you. We want you ‘equal amongst equals,’” he added.
Danon’s remarks come as many Arab-Israeli Christians are expressing greater interest in IDF enlistment, breaking a decades-long taboo among Israel’s Arab community. Leading the charge is the Greek Orthodox Father Gabriel Nadaf and Bishara Shylan, a Christian shipbuilder from Nazareth who has formed a new Christian political party to promote their own identity and values.
“Jews call us ‘Arabs.’ For Muslims, we’re ‘Christians,’ not Arabs. We’re Israeli Christians, nothing short of that,” Shlayan told Inter Press Service.
According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, approximately 158,000 Christians live in Israel, 80 percent of whom are Israeli Arabs. Over the last year, Christian enlistment in the IDF has tripled from 35 to 100, with another 500 Christians performing national service, according to the IDF.
Palestinian terrorists are team names at soccer tournaments
(JNS.org) Four Palestinian soccer teams over the course of two recent tournaments were named after terrorists, Palestinian Media Watch reported.
For a tournament at Al-Quds University, teams were named after Yahya Ayyash, who is considered the first Palestinian suicide bomber; Dalal Mughrabi, who in 1978 led a bus attack in which 37 Israeli civilians were killed; and Ghassan Kanafani, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group. In another tournament, a team was named after Ziyad Da’as, who planned an attack on a January 2002 bat mitzvah party in Hadera in which six Israelis were fatally shot. Muhammad Tamouni, the brother of Da’as, said the tournament would “continue to take place annually in order to remember the heroes whom we will never forget,” according to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official Palestinian Authority newspaper.
“There is no worse incitement to murder than to say that a terrorist who has murdered is a hero,” Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS.org.
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