Hezbollah blames Israel for commander’s death despite jihadist group claiming responsibility
(JNS.org) Hezbollah on Wednesday blamed Israel for an attack in Beirut that killed one of its commanders, Hassan al-Laqqis, despite the fact that a jihadist group claimed responsibility for the assassination.
A group called “The Free Sunnis of Baalbek Battalion” posted on Twitter that it “officially claims the heroic jihadist operation of assassinating the leading member in the party of the devil Hassan Houlo al-Laqqis in [Hezbollah’s] home ground.” Yet a Hezbollah statement said, “The Israeli enemy tried to kill Laqqis many times… but its attempts have failed until this foul assassination overnight… The Israeli enemy is naturally directly to blame.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor noted that Hezbollah often reflexively blames Israel for such incidents.
“[The killing of Laqqis] has strictly nothing to do Israel. Hezbollah has made a fool of itself in the past with these automatic and groundless accusations against Israel… If they are looking for explanations as to what is happening to them, they should examine their own actions,” Palmor said.
Laqqis was believed to have been the head of Hezbollah’s weapons program.
Oslo Accords apology issued by Norwegian Christian Zionists in Israel
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) A delegation of some 40 Christian leaders from Norway visited the Israeli Knesset on Wednesday to apologize for Norway’s policies toward Israel.
The Norwegian delegation members, whose trip was organized by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, met with the Knesset’s Christian lobby and with MKs Gila Gamliel (Likud-Beiteinu) and Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid) to declare their support for Israel and their opposition to the Oslo Accords signed in their country’s capital, which they say “tears apart the land of Israel.”
Survey: Israeli-Americans more positive about Israel the longer they live in the U.S.
(JNS.org) A new study revealed that while 67 percent of Israeli-Americans who have lived in the U.S. for up to 10 years would “say positive things” about Israel when talking to a non-Jewish American, 78 percent of Israel-Americans who have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade would say positive things about their native country.
The study, released by the Israeli-American Council, surveyed nearly 1,660 Israelis living in 40 U.S. states.
“The purpose of the survey was to deepen our understanding of the landscape of today’s Israeli-American communities so that we can better provide services they need to fulfill our mission of strengthening the Jewish identity of the next generation and building bridges to the Jewish American community. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first survey of the Israeli-American community nationwide that has ever been conducted,” said Shawn Evenhaim, chairman of the Israeli-American Council.
Syrian civil war prompts Israel to send food across border, defense minister says
(JNS.org) Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that the Jewish state is sending food and water to civil war-besieged Syrians near the Israel-Syria border.
“The villages here are locked in have no access to anywhere else,” Ya’alon said, the Jerusalem Post reported. “We’re supplying humanitarian help to residents over the border here, and are evacuating them to our hospitals. We don’t see the situation stabilizing in the near future,” he said.
More than 250 Syrian civilians have been admitted to Israeli hospitals for treatment since February, according to the Times of Israel.
“A doctor who receives a wounded patient, he treats him [or] her as a person and not as an identity,” Yael Shavit, communications adviser to the Ziv Medical Center in Israel’s northern city of Safed, told JNS.org in June.
Record 2 million Christians to visit Bethlehem in 2013 as Holy Land Christmas approaches
(JNS.org) An estimated 2 million Christian tourists are expected to visit Bethlehem by the end of 2013, a record number that is up significantly from the 1.18 million recorded in 2012, according to the Israeli Tourism Ministry.
During the Christmas period, 75,000 tourists are expected to arrive in Israel, including an estimated 25,000 Christian pilgrims. Israel has invested NIS 86 million ($24 million) over the last two years to develop and maintain Christians holy sites in the country. Representatives in the Tourism Ministry plan to continue collaborating with the Catholic Church for the expected visit of Pope Francis to Israel in May 2014.
“Since its establishment, the State of Israel has attached great importance to the values of freedom of religion and worship and works tirelessly to facilitate religious practice for people of all religions in freedom and mutual respect,” Israeli Tourism Minister Dr. Uzi Landau said in a statement.
This year’s Christmas celebrations in Israel will include the lighting of the Christmas tree and opening of the Christmas market on Dec. 11, hosting traditional receptions for Church leaders and Christian communities Dec. 22-23, and holding the traditional Nazareth parade on Dec. 24. Christmas mass will be celebrated in the Basilica of the Annunciation.
Bob Dylan sued for comparing Croats to Nazis
(JNS.org) Legendary Jewish-American singer Bob Dylan has been charged with incitement to hatred in France for comparing Croats to Nazis in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
Dylan was visiting Paris to perform several concerts and accept the Legion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest honors, when he was questioned and charged in the wake of a complaint by the Council of Croats in France (CRICCF), AFP reported.
In the 2012 Rolling Stone interview, Dylan said that the U.S. “is just too fucked up about color. … If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.”
During the Second World War, the country’s Nazi-allied Ustasha regime killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, and Croatians who opposed the regime in their own death camps, especially Jasenovac, which has become known as Croatia’s Auschwitz.
“If he apologies we will withdraw the suit,” CRICCF’s lawyer, Ivan Jurasinovic, told The Telegraph.
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