Avis refuses to rent car over businessman’s Israeli identity
(JNS.org) The Avis car rental agency refused to provide an Israeli businessman with a rental vehicle because of his Israeli identity, the New York Observer reported Sunday.
Dov Bergwerk, a senior executive at Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, said that on Friday he and his wife arrived at the Avis branch on West 76th Street and Broadway in New York City and were planning to join friends for dinner in Westchester.
Bergwerk told the Observer he has rented from Avis dozens of times before—but when he handed the agent his driver’s license, reservation number and Wizard loyalty card, the unforeseen trouble started.
According to the Observer, a reservation agent named Angelline said it was company policy not to recognize Israeli documents. Stunned, Bergwerk explained that he had rented from Avis on numerous occasions, including from that very office only two days earlier.
The branch manager, named Shamoura, sided with her reservation agent and refused to honor the reservation or recognize Bergwerk’s documents. Both the reservation agent and the branch manager refused to provide their last names, according to the Observer.
Bergwerk called the Avis main number, where a representative confirmed that the Israeli license was an acceptable form of ID and also mentioned that he could show his passport to ameliorate any ID concerns the onsite employees had.
Bergwerk told the Observer that “while no direct reference was made to being anti-Israel, that was my impression almost from the initial moment I presented my license and credit card as I have done over 15 years of business and leisure travel without ever being challenged. The agent stated that the Israeli license did not have the required info in English. I tried to demonstrate that the license had all the required info, but she and the manager had no interest.”
Avis said in a statement, “Visitors to the U.S. from other countries must provide both a valid driver’s license from their country of residence as well as either a valid International Driver’s License or passport in order to rent from Avis….So far, our ongoing investigation suggests that this customer is unfairly maligning us with unfounded allegations.”
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Hamas officials to be paid with formerly Jewish land
(JNS.org) The Hamas terrorist government in the Gaza Strip has reportedly started allotting plots of land Israel withdrew from in 2005 to officials whose wages have been delayed.
According to Palestinian sources, Hamas Finance Minister Ziad al-Zaza announced Sunday that officials who served in the Gazan parliament before the formation of the 2014 Fatah-Hamas unity government who are still waiting for wages or severance pay will be given land as compensation.
All the land included in Hamas’s remuneration plan was once part of Gush Katif, the bloc of 21 Jewish communities in southern Gaza that was home to 8,600 Israelis before August 2005, when the communities were evacuated and the homes razed in Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza.
Hamas’s decision to divvy up the land enraged Fatah officials in Ramallah, who said the move constitutes “unparalleled corruption,” and urged the Palestinian people “to come together and oppose the division of Gaza’s lands to [Hamas] cronies.”
Since the Fatah-Hamas unity government was formed in 2014, the Ramallah-based Fatah government has been paying Gaza-based Hamas officials’ wages, but Fatah has refused to dole out severance pay for some 40,000 Hamas government officials who were dismissed.
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Palestinian terrorists stab 2 Israeli men near Jerusalem market
(JNS.org) Two female Palestinian terrorists armed with scissors tried to stab Israelis outside a bustling Jerusalem market on Monday. Two men, ages 27 and 70, were injured in the attack.
One of the terrorists was killed and the other was moderately wounded as security personnel rushed to subdue them. According to Israel Police sources, the terrorists were aged 14 and 16.
The incident occurred around 11:30 a.m. at a security checkpoint outside the Mahane Yehuda market. The terrorists pulled out their scissors and pounced on the elderly man, who turned out to be a Palestinian from Bethlehem. They then tried to stab two more women, but security personnel opened fire at them, killing one and neutralizing the other.
The elderly man suffered stab wounds to the head and back. The 26-year-old man, who had taken part in efforts to subdue the terrorists, suffered light gunshot wounds after apparently being caught in crossfire. Both victims and the wounded terrorist received emergency care at the scene and were then transported to hospitals in Jerusalem.
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American Anthropological Association members back measure to boycott Israel
(JNS.org) Members of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) on Friday voted in favor of a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The measure—backed in a vote of 1,040 for and 136 against—will be submitted for a larger vote among the AAA’s entire membership in the spring season of 2016.
Jewish organizations panned the AAA resolution, including the Israel Action Network initiative of The Jewish Federations of North America, which said, “This measure, which greatly undermines the tenets of academic freedom, hinders vital discourse and open dialogue on issues of global concern, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and restricts relationships with Israel’s universities and scholars in a punitive fashion.”
“With this misguided vote, the Anthropological Association has aligned itself with the global BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, whose effect is the demonization of Israel. It places the entire onus of the conflict on one side: the Israelis. The BDS movement does not support a two-state solution and opposes the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League.
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As terrorist fatally stabs Israeli woman, Jewish deaths in terror wave reach 20
(JNS.org) A Palestinian terrorist killed 21-year-old Israeli woman Hadar Buchris in a stabbing attack in Gush Etzion on Sunday, bringing the number of Jews killed in the current wave of Palestinian terror to 20.
“We received a call from the ZAKA hotline about a woman seriously wounded from a stabbing attack,” said Israel Klatchkin, a volunteer for the Israeli emergency response organization ZAKA. “We arrived at the scene of the attack a few minutes later. The terrorist was killed by soldiers at the junction. The young woman died of her wounds at the hospital, after being evacuated by ambulance in a critical condition. ZAKA volunteers from the Shai region cleared the site of human remains.”
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Russia’s Putin to meet with Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran
(JNS.org) Russian President Vladimir Putin this week makes his first trip to Iran since 2007. He will meet with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.
The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Tehran, Putin’s presidential aide Yury Ushakov said. The talks will focus on “issues in bilateral relations, including atomic energy, oil and gas and military-technical cooperation,” Ushakov added.
Russia has sought to deepen economic ties with Iran following world powers’ nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic in July. Both Russia and Iran are supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, with Russia providing air support and Iran reportedly supplying thousands of troops on the ground.
Russia has sought a broader coalition of countries to help fight the Islamic State terror group after the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in October, an attack Islamic State said it committed.
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Amnesty International calls Palestinian terror attacks ‘reprehensible and unjustified’
(JNS.org) The human rights organization Amnesty International—which is known for its harsh criticism of Israel—strongly condemned the spate of Palestinian terror attacks on Israeli civilians over the past week, saying the attacks “displayed a clear contempt for human life.”
“Deliberately attacking civilians is contrary to one of the most fundamental principles of international law and can never be justified,” said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.
On Thursday, Palestinian terrorists killed five people—including three Israelis, an American yeshiva student, and a Palestinian—in attacks in Gush Etzion and Tel Aviv.
Amnesty, however, also condemned Israel for its “pattern of unlawful killings, including extrajudicial executions, by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians and a series of attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians and homes over the past two months.”
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Palestinian Fatah official praises toddler for wanting to shoot Israelis
(JNS.org) An official from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, Tawfiq Tirawi, expressed pride in his 2-year-old son for wanting to shoot Israelis.
“Listen, my son is 2 years and 10 months old. Yesterday, he sang to his mother, ‘Escort the martyr to his wedding.’ He doesn’t know the meaning of this song (i.e., the Islamic belief that martyrs marry 72 Virgins in Paradise),” Tirawi said on Palestinian Authority TV, Palestinian Media Watch reported.
“Today his mother told me that he sang, ‘Daddy, buy me a machine gun and a rifle, so that I will defeat Israel and the Zionists.’ A boy who is not yet three! A Palestinian grows up with a feeling of belonging to the land, the homeland, and the people,” added Tirawi, a Fatah Central Committee member.
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