Knesset speaker calls out Palestinian incitement amid protests of U.K. visit
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) During a visit to London on Wednesday, Israeli Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) addressed a group of 40 members of the British Parliament. Edelstein highlighted the dangers posed by anti-Israel incitement on Palestinian television channels, radio stations, and social media platforms.
Edelstein called for action to be taken to eliminate Palestinian incitement. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, anti-Israel activists projected messages on the outside walls of the British Parliament building and called for the arrest of Edelstein.
“Israel’s racist leader Edelstein not welcome,” one of the messages read.
Edelstein was undeterred by the protests against his U.K. visit, saying, “I will continue to tell the truth.”
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4 Israelis wounded in latest series of Palestinian terror attacks
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) A 43-year-old Israel Police officer was lightly wounded on Thursday morning when he was stabbed by a 14-year-old female Palestinian terrorist in the village of Al-Auja in the Jordan Valley, north of Jericho.
At the time of the stabbing, the police officer was directing traffic on Route 90 after a collapsed tree had blocked part of the road. After the stabbing, the wounded police officer chased the attacker and arrested her without firing a shot. The police officer, who suffered a shoulder wound, was later transported to Emek Medical Center in Afula for treatment.
Overnight Wednesday, shots were fired at an Israeli police vehicle near the community of Rehelim in Samaria. One police officer was lightly wounded and was treated at the scene. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops launched searches in the area in an effort to capture the perpetrators.
On Wednesday evening, two soldiers from the IDF’s Kfir Brigade were wounded—one moderately and one lightly—in a stabbing attack carried out by two Palestinian terrorists at an isolated military position near the community of Har Bracha in Samaria. The terrorists were able to flee the scene and IDF troops launched searches in the area in an effort to capture them.
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Netanyahu asks for legal opinion on deporting families of terrorists
(JNS.org) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Israeli Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit for his legal opinion on the possibility of “transferring families who assist terror” from Israel to Gaza, according to a formal letter released Wednesday.
“Many of the terrorist acts over the last few months were carried out by those who fit the profile of ‘lone attackers,’” Netanyahu wrote in the letter. “These attackers sometimes come from families who encourage and support their actions.”
Netanyahu argued that “the use of this tool will significantly decrease terrorist attacks against Israel and its residents.”
Mandelblit, however, recently said during multiple Israeli cabinet meetings that deportation of terrorists’ families would violate both Israeli and international law, the Jerusalem Post reported.
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Recent Mediterranean drought was region’s worst in 900 years, NASA says
(JNS.org) A newly published National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) study has concluded that a drought from 1998-2012 in the eastern Mediterranean was the region’s worst drought during the past 900 years.
The drought’s history in Cyprus, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey was reconstructed by studying tree rings in order to understand the region’s climate and determine what shifts water to or from the area. Dry years are indicated by thin tree rings, and relatively wet years are indicated by thick rings, according to NASA.
The research seeks to improve computer models that simulate climate in the present and the future. NASA’s team also discovered patterns in the geographic distribution of droughts that provide a “fingerprint” for identifying droughts induced by human-driven climate change.
“The magnitude and significance of human climate change requires us to really understand the full range of natural climate variability,” said Dr. Ben Cook, lead author and climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at New York’s Columbia University.
“If we look at recent events and we start to see anomalies that are outside this range of natural variability, then we can say with some confidence that it looks like this particular event or this series of events had some kind of human caused climate change contribution,” he said.
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Egyptian lawmaker ousted in aftermath of meeting with Israeli ambassador
(JNS.org) Egyptian Member of Parliament (MP) Tawfik Okasha was removed from office on Wednesday in the aftermath of his hosting of Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Haim Koren for dinner at his home.
Two-thirds of Egyptian MPs voted in favor of Okasha’s expulsion, claiming that he infringed on Egyptian policy—which opposes normalization with Israel—and that the meeting damaged relations with Egypt’s other neighbors.
Three days earlier, an Egyptian MP threw a shoe at Okasha during a parliament session, demanding that Okasha be dismissed from his position. Okasha had publicly announced the invitation of Koren on his TV show, saying that he and Koren planned to discuss Israeli mediation of Egypt’s Nile River dispute with Ethiopia as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Following the three-hour meeting, the two leaders agreed to continue meeting and collaborating in the future.
According to a recent survey by the Egyptian news website Barlamani, 90 percent of Egyptians opposed the meeting between Okasha and Koren. That sentiment comes despite the warming of Israel-Egypt relations on the government level in recent years, particularly the shared goal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to combat Islamist terrorism. Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979.
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Gulf states designate Hezbollah as terror group amid rift with Iran
(JNS.org) The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—this week formally declared Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in the wake of a growing standoff between the Sunni Muslim Gulf states and Hezbollah-funding Shi’a Muslim Iran.
The GCC’s secretary general, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, declared that the six countries “consider the actions of Hezbollah militias in GCC countries, and the terrorist actions and incitements it conducts throughout Syria, Yemen, and Iraq…incompatible with the moral values, humanitarian principles, and international law, and [the actions] pose a threat to Arab national security.”
The GCC declaration came in response to a televised speech on Tuesday by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in which he accused Saudi Arabia of fueling sectarian instability in the region.
“[Saudi Arabia’s] problem is with Hezbollah. They want the government, political powers, and Lebanese people inside and outside Lebanon to stand in the face of Hezbollah so that it abandons its stance from Saudi [Arabia], even if that requires incitements, civil war, or toppling the government,” Nasrallah said, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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Five Chinese women from ancient Kaifeng Jewish community make aliyah
(JNS.org) Five women who are among the few remaining traceable descendants of China’s ancient Kaifeng Jewish community made aliyah to Israel this week.
“Our ancestors are Jews…I have to be here,” said one of the new immigrants, Yue Ting, a 25-year-old primary school teacher.
The women plan to formally convert to Judaism and become Israeli citizens.
Kaifeng’s Jewish population was established by traveling Jewish merchants from the Middle East and Persia who settled in China in the 7th century. The community once had as many as 5,000 members, but today that number has dwindled to about 1,000. The community’s last synagogue was destroyed two centuries ago, and its members have since lost many of their connections to Jewish traditions. Yet the community never completely let go of its Jewish roots.
“As a child, my parents and people around me always called me ‘Jewish girl,'” Yue told NBC News. “I didn’t understand the meaning of Jewish at that time.”
“When I was a little girl, my father and my grandfather taught me we are Jews,” added Li Yuan, 26.
Michael Freund—founder of the Shavei Israel organization, which helps members of so-called “lost” Jewish communities from around the world make aliyah—has helped 19 Kaifeng Jews move to Israel since 2006.
“Judaism is not a recognized religion in China…in the eyes of the government they are Han Chinese just like anyone else,” Freund said.
“I know I am Jewish,” said Yue. “To be Jewish, I have to go back to Israel…I’ve been waiting for this time for a long time.”
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