Iraqi Christian Bishops: We are in the process of disappearing
(JNS.org) Despite finding temporary refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan in the wake of the invasion by jihadists from the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), Iraq’s top Christian leaders believe that the community is in the process of disappearing.
“We are in the process of disappearing, just as the Christians in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and North Africa have disappeared. And even in Lebanon they now constitute only a minority,” Archbishop Yousif Mirkis, head of the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Kirkuk, told the Catholic charity group Aid to the Church in Need.
Iraqi Christians, despite being a minority, have long been important to the country’s social fabric by operating many schools, hospitals, and charities, in addition to their disproportionate representation as engineers, doctors, writers, and journalists.
But as a result of the invasion by ISIS, many Iraqi Christians have fled to Iraq’s Kurdistan region, which has been Iraq’s most prosperous and stable region over the last decade.
“Not only is there security here, but the government is prepared to listen to our concerns. This became evident in the present refugee crisis,” said Archbishop Matti Ward, head of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil. “The Kurdish government has opened the borders to Christians.”
Before 2003, it was estimated that around 130,000 Christians lived in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, but only about 10,000 remained before the recent ISIS invasion. Overall, nearly two-thirds of Iraq Christians have fled the country since 2003.
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Lieberman: Israel should retake the Gaza strip
(JNS.org) After voting against the cease-fire with Hamas, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel should move to retake the Gaza Strip, which it evacuated in 2005.
“Israel must go all the way in Gaza. The world must give us its full backing to go all the way. An end result to the operation would see the IDF control Gaza,” Lieberman said at a Knesset news conference on Tuesday.
Former U.S. Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller told JNS.org that he believes Hamas is holding out for more substantial concessions from Egypt and Israel.
“Hamas needs several things and I don’t think they will give up without them,”Miller said. “They want their salaries paid; they want their prisoners released and some measure of openness on the borders crossings with Egypt and Israel.”
“Those demands were not made in the Egyptian proposal and some combination of them will need to be negotiated if we are going to see an end to this,”he added.
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Palestinians refuse Israeli humanitarian aid
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services organization on Monday offered to transfer blood units and donations to the Gaza Strip, but the humanitarian gesture was rejected by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
According to MDA Director Eli Bin, the organization then offered to assist the PA by facilitating blood drives involving Palestinian or Israeli Arab donors, but that offer was also rejected.
Bin described Israel’s attempt help Palestinian medical facilities as “a humanitarian gesture.”
“I believe in it—this brings us respect as human beings,”he said.
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Israel Electric Corp. workers brave rockets, restore power to Gaza
(JNS.org) After a day without power, electricity was restored to some 70,000 Gazans when the Israeli government gave the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) the green light to repair a high-power line that had been damaged by a rocket on Saturday, Israel Hayom reported.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that one of the rockets fired by Gaza terrorists Sunday night “hit an electricity infrastructure in Israel that supplied electricity to the Gaza Strip, causing a power outage to some 70,000 Gaza civilians.”
IEC employees dispatched to repair the damage were accompanied by IDF soldiers and outfitted with bulletproof vests. They wore special helmets to minimize the threat of shrapnel injuries.
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Iranian-Jewish MP compares Israel’s Gaza operation to Nazi actions
(JNS.org) Iranian-Jewish minority Member of Parliament Siamak Moreh Sedgh, who is the only Jew in Iran’s parliament, compared Israel’s bombing of the Gaza strip in response to the firing of rockets by Hamas to the actions of the Nazis.
“The Zionist regime’s crimes are reminiscent of the actions taken by the German Nazis during the first and second world wars,”Sedgh said, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency. He also compared Israel’s actions to Saddam Hussein’s persecution of Shi’ite Muslims.
Iran grants a parliament seat to the Jewish religious minority. The seat was previously held by Jewish MP Maurice Motamed, who had criticized former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial, reported Haaretz. Sedgh has not voiced similar criticism.
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Pro-Israel activists attacked with wooden sticks in Los Angeles
(JNS.org) Pro-Palestinian activists wielding wooden sticks attacked participants at a pro-Israel solidarity rally in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The rally, which was attended by more than 3,000 people, took place in front of the Federal Building in the neighborhood of Westwood. A pro-Palestinian protest draw roughly 200 people across the street.
A federal officer attempting to stop the altercation fired a single shot. He has since been placed on administrative leave while the incident is being investigated.
Four men—identified as Mostadafa Gamaleldin Hafez, Hassan Mustapha Kreidieh, Mohammed Said Elkhatib, and Fadi Ali Obeidallah—were reportedly arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. One protester called out “Free, Free Palestine”as he was placed in the police car, according to the Los Angeles-based Israel education organization StandWithUs.
The original altercation may have started after a pro-Israel rally participant grabbed a Palestinian flag from a truck in which the protesters were sitting and stepped on it, the Los Angeles Times reported. The eventually arrested men then got out of the vehicle and began hitting pro-Israel protesters with wooden sticks. One person was hit in the arm.
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Rocket lands in Golan, Egypt thwarts rocket attack from Sinai
(JNS.org) As rocket attacks from Gaza continue, Israel is also facing an increase in rockets fired from Lebanon and Syria.
According to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, a rocket fired from Syria on Monday exploded in an open area near an Israeli town in the Golan Heights. Also on Monday, more rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon, with the IDF responding with artillery fire. It was the third rocket attack from Lebanon since Friday. Both Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups operate in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian military thwarted an attempt to launch two rockets from the Sinai Peninsula at Israel on Sunday, Al-Arabiya reported.
Since the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the Sinai Peninsula has become increasingly lawless, with several terrorist groups operating in the region, including al-Qaeda-linked fighters. The Egyptian military, with Israel’s blessing, has launched an offensive against these groups.
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Anti-Israel protest in Germany turns violent
(JNS.org) A protest against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge turned violent in Frankfurt, Germany over the weekend, with protesters hurling stones at police and another protestor using a police megaphone to shout “child murderer Israel”and “Allahu Akhbar”to demonstrators.
According to the German daily Frankfurter Rundschau, nearly 2,000 people attended the pro-Gaza protest, with several Islamists and local neo-Nazi groups there.
Local German leaders have sharply criticized how the police handled a situation in which a protester was apparently given access to a German police car’s megaphone and began shouting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slogans.
“I’m shocked that a German police car was used to spread hatred and agitation,” the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, told The Associated Press. “It was a big mistake that the police let themselves abuse for this.”
Frankfurt police also confirmed that a local synagogue had been vandalized, with the anti-Semitic slogan “F*** the Jews”written on the synagogues walls.
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Delivery of new Iron Dome battery speeds up
(JNS.org) The manufacturers of Israel’s highly successful Iron Dome anti-missile system are working towards speeding up delivery of new batteries as rocket threats continue from Gaza.
Israeli defense companies Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) say they are speeding up the delivery of a ninth Iron Dome battery that was originally scheduled for a March 2015 delivery, Globes reported.
Over the weekend, an eighth Iron Dome battery was delivered to the Israeli Air Force four months ahead of schedule.
According to the IDF, the Iron Dome system has scored a 90-percent success at intercepting rockets from Gaza that threaten populated areas. Rafael and IAI engineers have said they are continually updating and improving the hardware and software systems of Iron Dome, extending their range and accuracy.
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