Hamas hints that it fired rockets from residential areas
(JNS.org) The Palestinian terror group Hamas hints that it fired rockets from residential areas amid mounting evidence from Israel that the terror group used civilian areas as cover during the recent Gaza operation.
“Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah in the south, is one uninterrupted urban chain that Israel has turned into a war zone,” said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, the Associated Press reported.
“The Israelis kept saying rockets were fired from schools or hospitals when in fact they were fired 200 or 300 meters away. Still, there were some mistakes made and they were quickly dealt with,” Hamad added, in the first acknowledgement by a Hamas official that rockets may have been fired from civilian areas.
The Israeli military has compiled dozens of videos throughout the Gaza operation that appear to show Hamas terrorists firing from residential neighborhoods, cemeteries, schools and mosques.
“Hamas’s excuses are outrageous, misleading and contrary to the evidence supplied by the IDF [the Israel Defense Forces] and the reality documented by international journalists on the ground in Gaza,” said Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.
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Report: Operation Protective Edge led to spike in anti-Semitic attacks
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Operation Protective Edge has led to a significant spike in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, according to an Anti-Defamation League report published on Thursday.
Britain experienced a 400 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents during July, with 302 incidents reported, compared to 59 incidents in the corresponding period last year. In nearly half the incidents, there was a direct link between the anti-Semitic act and events in the Gaza Strip.
Among the incidents cited in the report: In Holland, popular rapper Rachid El Ghazoui shouted “F–k the Zionists, F–k the Talmud”; in Belgium crowds chanted “Slaughter the Jews!”; and in Madrid, thousands marched with banners reading “Israel enough, you are not the chosen people.”
The ADL report found that the majority of anti-Semitic incidents occurred in South America, especially in Venezuela, where Israeli flags were placed next to swastikas. About 25 percent of the anti-Semitic acts reported took place on social media platforms.
“As Israel defends its citizens from Hamas’ rockets, Jews around the world have also come under attack,” the report said.
“Jews have been beaten on the street. Synagogues have been fire-bombed. ‘Jews to the gas’ has been chanted at anti-Israel demonstrations. Newspapers in the Arab world and in Latin America have published pieces making blatant comparisons between Israel and the Nazis’ perpetration of the Holocaust.”
Netanyahu: Israel fully supports U.S. action against Islamic State
(JNS.org) In a major foreign policy speech on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel fully supports the United States in its counter-terrorism campaign against the Islamic State, but stopped short of elaborating on what steps Israel would take.
Netanyahu said Islamic State has a similar ideology to other radical Islamic groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and al-Shabab.
“These groups must be fought. They must be rolled back and they must ultimately be defeated. That’s why Israel fully supports President [Barack] Obama’s call for united actions against ISIS,” he said.
Netanyahu cautioned that weakening Sunni terrorists should not result in strengthening Shi’a terrorists and Iran, which he called the “ultimate terror” if it acquires nuclear weapons.
The Israeli leader also said some Arab states have started to re-evaluate their view of Israel in light of the threat posed by Islamic State and other terror groups.
“They understand Israel is not their enemy but their ally in the fight against this common enemy,” said Netanyahu. “I believe that presents an opportunity for cooperation and perhaps an opportunity for peace.”
Meanwhile, 10 Arab countries have come out in support of the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign against Islamic State. These countries include Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, as well as six Persian Gulf states—including rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But Turkey, a U.S. ally and a NATO member, has said it will not allow the U.S. to launch airstrikes from its territory and will not take part in combat missions.
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Israeli security forces shut down Hamas-linked charity in Nazareth
(JNS.org) Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, along with police, shut down a Hamas-affiliated organization in Nazareth that promoted unrest on the Temple Mount.
According to the Shin Bet, the offices of Amara al-Aqsa wa al-Muqadasat, a group founded in 2009 by the Islamic Movement that was behind a series of Temple Mount riots, has ties with Hamas and has the goal of preventing “Jewish domination” of the Temple Mount.
“This activity led to an escalation of tensions on the Temple Mount, which promotes disturbances that frequently break out there, and undermines the security of visitors to the site, while harming Israeli sovereignty at the site,” the Shin Bet said.
Israel-bashing Illinois professor won’t be re-hired, trustees vote
(JNS.org) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) trustees voted on Thursday not to re-issue a position to Steven Salaita, a former Virginia Tech professor of English who had been offered a position at the Illinois school. His job offer was rescinded after he posted anti-Israel tweets that critics also deemed anti-Semitic.
Salaita tweeted Aug. 2, “When will the attack on #Gaza end? What is left for #Israel to prove? Who is left for Israel to kill? This is the logic of genocide.”
“#Israel is rounding up people and murdering them at point-blank range. The word ‘genocide’ is more germane the more news we hear,” he also tweeted.
Due to concern over the tweets, University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise informed Salaita that his appointment to teach in the university’s Native American Studies Program would not be submitted to the school’s board of directors for approval.
The decision not to re-issue the offer of employment was passed in an 8-1 vote by the trustees, the Associated Press reported.
The Israel education group StandWithUs applauded the decision by stating that “many scholars have noted that Salaita’s tweets about Israel and Jews are deranged, obsessive, sordid, incite violence against Israelis and are racist, characterizing all Israelis stereotypically as smug, greedy, and violent.”
“The tweets repeat gutter propaganda about Israel and the recent conflict with Hamas… Yet openness to other viewpoints is a prerequisite for a professor, especially one who would be teaching about the highly contentious Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs
“The Salaita issue is not about freedom of speech, academic freedom or the Arab-Israeli conflict,” she added. “It is about professional conduct, intellectual standards, and collegiality If faculty members described any other minority group with the vitriolic stereotypes deployed by Mr. Salaita, there would be a universal outcry of protest.”
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Egyptian researcher floats theory that Israel tries to prove Jews built pyramids
(JNS.org) An Egyptian researcher claimed that Israel is trying to falsify Egyptian history to show that Jews built the country’s famed pyramids.
Amir Gamal of the “Non-Stop Robberies” activist movement told Egypt’s Elaph newspaper that foreign archaeologists, particularly from the Czech Republic, are helping Israel in the “espionage and counterfeiting of Egyptian history.”
Israel sends missions to Egypt “under the guise of other nationalities,” said Gamal, who accused Czech Egyptologist Miroslav Barta of Charles University in Prague of trying to “establish that the Jews had a direct role in the construction of Egyptian civilization.”
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9/11 anniversary poll shows Americans’ safety concerns
(JNS.org) A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll marking the 13th 9/11 anniversary shows that about 37 percent of Americans feel that the U.S. is not as safe now as it was before the terrorist attacks of 2001. In the same poll last year, that figure was 28 percent..
The poll also showed that 61 percent of Americans believe that U.S. military action against the Islamic State terrorist group is necessary.
“A very war-weary country… seems to have woken up to the real threat that ISIS may present,” said Bill McInturff, one of the pollsters who conducted the survey, according to the Associated Press.
Only 32 percent of respondents approved of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, and 67 percent said they feel the U.S. is “on the wrong track.”
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