Israeli police demolish eastern Jerusalem park that glorified Palestinian terror
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli police officers from the Jerusalem District and city officials on Tuesday demolished a memorial garden in the Arab neighborhood of Ras al-Amud in eastern Jerusalem, which was created to commemorate terrorists—or “shahids” (martyrs), as the garden’s founders described them—who have been killed during the current wave of violence in Israel.
The garden was created several weeks ago. Its founders planted saplings and placed images of terrorists alongside each one. They also spray-painted slogans on a nearby wall. The entire memorial was built on public property and, unsurprisingly, without a proper permit.
The opening of the garden was reported on Arab social media sites. As stated, upon learning of its existence, police and city officials removed the saplings and the photographs of the terrorists, and erased the graffiti. The Jerusalem District Police said it was aware of the identities of several suspects and would soon bring them in for questioning.
Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said, “The police will continue to act decisively against any display of incitement and support for terror against Israel.”
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Israel officially recognizes Istanbul bombing as attack targeting Israelis
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Israeli Defense Ministry has decided to officially recognize last month’s suicide bombing in Istanbul as an attack targeting Israelis, and the Israelis killed or wounded in the attack will be recognized as victims of terrorism.
This means that the Israeli survivors of the bombing will be eligible for benefits from Israel’s National Insurance Institute, in accordance under the Compensation for Victims of Terror Law. The Defense Ministry said in a statement that “the material presented to the decision-making authority in the ministry indicates that there is reasonable basis to assume that the attack targeted Israelis.”
After the bombing on March 19, Turkish media reported that the attacker, Mehmet Ozturk, had waited outside a restaurant where Israelis were dining and detonated himself shortly after they left the premises. The attack killed Israeli tourists Simha Dimri, Yonatan Suher, and Avraham Goldman, while wounding 10 other Israelis. An Iranian tourist was also killed in the bombing, and a total of 36 people were injured. Three of the wounded Israelis were flown back to the Jewish state in serious condition, and now face extensive medical treatment and rehabilitation. Two arrived back in Israel in moderate to serious condition.
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Kevin Costner, in Israel for ‘Criminal,’ says he doesn’t need ‘permission’ to visit
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Cinema City multiplex in Glilot, Israel, on Tuesday was the scene of the pre-premiere screening of the upcoming action film, “Criminal,” which stars Kevin Costner, Ryan Reynolds, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, and Israeli actress Gal Gadot.
“Criminal” tells the story of Jericho Stewart (Costner), a death-row inmate implanted with the memories and skills of deceased CIA agent Bill Pope (Reynolds), in hopes he could complete Pope’s last mission—preventing a diabolical plot that could cost many lives. Other behind-the-scenes figures involved in the film are Israeli director Ariel Vromen and Israeli producer Avi Lerner. The movie debuts on April 15. Costner, 61, arrived in Israel earlier this week as the guest of Moshe and Leon Edri, who head the film’s Israeli distribution company.
Costner told reporters, “This time I’m here [in Israel] to support Ariel [Vromen]….This is his country, his parents are here, and I’m very proud of him. He’s a young man who is truly doing well.” Speaking of Gadot, Coster said she was “lovely” to work with and “a wonderful partner.”
Asked whether he was pressured by anti-Israel activists not to visit the Jewish state, Costner said, “I don’t ask anyone’s permission to travel. I’ve received lots of love here. I wouldn’t have missed that.”
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Mahmoud Abbas says he is prepared to end ‘mutual incitement’ with Israel
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he is prepared to work with Israel to stop what he called “mutual incitement,” yet accused the Jewish state of “settler assaults” on holy sites in Jerusalem.
“We want to hear the Israeli government a clear statement that it believes in the two-state solution,” Abbas told Romanian journalists who visited Ramallah on Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post reported. “If it agrees to this, the beginning of the solution will be ready and we will negotiate about the other issues.”
Abbas’s remarks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is prepared to clear his schedule to meet with Abbas in Jerusalem this week. Abbas said last week that he would meet with Netanyahu “at any time.”
“President Abbas said on Israeli television a few days ago that if I invite him, he’ll come,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek on Monday. “I’m inviting him. I’ve cleared my schedule for the week. Any day he can come, I’ll be here.”
“The first order of business will be ending the Palestinian campaign of incitement to murder Israelis,” Netanyahu added. “My door is always open for those who want peace with Israel.”
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Bernie Sanders inflates 2014 Gaza war’s civilian death toll at least sevenfold
(JNS.org) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview with the New York Daily News editorial board that Israel launched “indiscriminate” attacks against the residents of Gaza in 2014, resulting in what Sanders suggested were more than 10,000 Palestinian civilian deaths during that summer’s war between Israel and the Hamas terror group.
“Anybody help me out here, because I don’t remember the figures, but my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right?” Sanders said. When told that the figure was “probably high,” Sanders replied, “I don’t have it in my number…but I think it’s over 10,000.”
“My understanding is that a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed,” he added. “So yeah, I do believe and I don’t think I’m alone in believing that Israel’s force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.”
According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, 2,251 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza war—including 1,462 civilians (65 percent). In its own report on the war, the Israeli government said that 2,125 Palestinians were killed, with at least 44 percent of them confirmed to have been armed members of Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Based on both the Israeli and U.N. estimates, Sanders inflated the Gaza conflict’s total Palestinian death toll about fivefold and its Palestinian civilian death toll at least sevenfold.
When asked what he would of done differently than Israel during the Gaza war, Sanders said he is not qualified to answer that question, but still called Israel’s attacks against Gaza “indiscriminate.”
“But I think it is fair to say that the level of attacks against civilian areas and I do know that the Palestinians, some of them, were using civilian areas to launch missiles. Makes it very difficult,” said Sanders. “But I think most international observers would say that the attacks against Gaza were indiscriminate and that a lot of innocent people were killed who should not have been killed.”
Sanders, who is Jewish, noted that he has spent time living in Israel, has family members in Israel, and believes “100 percent not only in Israel’s right to exist, a right to exist in peace and security without having to face terrorist attacks.”
Yet Sanders also said that Israel must end its expansion of settlements if it wants to achieve true peace and security.
“From the United States’s point of view, I think, long-term, we cannot ignore the reality that you have large numbers of Palestinians who are suffering now, poverty rate off the charts, unemployment off the charts, Gaza remaining a destroyed area….I think if the expansion was illegal, moving into territory that was not their territory, I think withdrawal from those territories is appropriate,” he said.
Sanders also controversially linked the prospect of “positive” U.S.-Israel relations to the status of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “To the degree that they want us to have a positive relationship, I think they’re going to have to improve their relationship with the Palestinians,” he said.
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Special bronze incense shovel uncovered at Second Temple-era site in Galilee
(JNS.org) A special bronze incense shovel—a tool that plays an important role in ancient Jewish rituals—has been uncovered by archaeologists at Magdala, a 2,000-year-old Jewish settlement on the Sea of Galilee.
“The incense shovel and jug found in our excavation were exposed lying next to each other on the floor in one of the rooms, at the storehouse that is located adjacent the dock of a large Jewish settlement, on the shore of Sea of Galilee, in the late Second Temple period,” said Dina Avshalom-Gorni, an archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
“These implements might have been saved in the storeroom as heirlooms by a Jewish family living at Magdala, or they may have been used for daily work as well,” she added.
Incense shovels, called “mahta” in Hebrew, are specifically mentioned in the Bible and play an important role in Jewish ritual.
“The mahta is thought to have been a sacred implement like the rest of the items that were utilized in the Temple where it was mainly used for transferring embers from place to place,” the IAA said.
The IAA has been conducting an archaeological dig at the Galilee site for several years. During this time, archaeologists have uncovered several significant features such as Jewish ritual baths, a marketplace and industrial facilities, and a synagogue dating to the 1st century CE (around the time of Jesus’s public ministry in the Galilee).
“The synagogue is one of the seven oldest synagogues from this period uncovered so far in Israel,” the IAA said.
Archaeologists consider Magdala as a crossroads of Jewish and Christian history, as the site is also the traditional birthplace of Mary Magdalene, an early follower of Jesus.
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Israel and unlikely Mideast partners collaborate on major light source project
(JNS.org) Scientists from Israel, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Cyprus, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are collaborating to bring SESAME—an accelerator machine that generates intense light beams for advanced scientific research—to the Middle East by 2017. Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and the PA are all unlikely partners for Israel because they are normally adversaries of the Jewish state, though Israel and Turkey have been negotiating a reconciliation deal.
The participating countries unanimously decided that operations for SESAME—an acronym for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East—will be located in Jordan.
“Israeli scientists in the field are quite good, but if it had been established here, many scientists originating in countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel would have not participated in the project,” said Prof. Eliezer Rabinovici of Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Racah Institute of Physics, the Jerusalem Postreported.
Rabinovici, who is also the vice president of the SESAME council, said that the collaboration began 20 years ago. Member countries typically pay $500,000 in fees to participate in the initiative. Iran is behind on paying its fees because of past international sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which were lifted as part of last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
The United States, United Kingdom, European Union (EU), Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and Kuwait all hold observer status in SESAME. The EU and Italy have contributed millions of euros to the project.
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Unholy cow? Archaeologist claims Romans influenced Jewish ritual slaughter
(JNS.org) An Israeli archaeologist is claiming to have discovered that Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita) was influenced not only by the kosher laws spelled out in the Torah, but also by the ancient Roman method of butchering.
“The Roman world influenced the Jews in the area of culture, but its penetration into religious and holy matters is something we have not seen before,” said Dr. Ram Buchnik, an archaeologist in the Land of Israel Studies department at northern Israel’s Kinneret College.
Buchnik based his conclusion on several archaeological sites from the late Second Temple period. At a site near the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, for example, he found that hatchets and cleavers, common slaughtering tools used by the Romans, became popular tools in Jewish kitchens over the next few hundred years. There were other Jewish sites, such as in the Lower Galilee from the same period, where Buchnik says he found evidence of “surgical” use of the same slaughtering tools for cutting meat, which allowed the meat to be preserved for longer-than-normal periods without refrigeration.
Yet near the City of David, Buchnik said he discovered that Jews began to copy the Roman way of preparing animal-based food, which was simply cutting the head off and cutting through the bones. Since Roman soldiers typically ate all of the food, the meat did not need to be kept long. At the same time, Jews of that era “did not decapitate” animals and “preserved the characteristics of Jewish slaughter,” said Buchnik, adding that close relations between Romans and Jews contributed to shared meat-preparation practices.
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