Israeli Jordan Valley farmers to EU leaders: we will not label products
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli Jordan Valley farmers told European parliamentarians on Wednesday that they would not label their products as coming from the occupied territories, despite European Union guidelines that may require them to do so.
A conference held Wednesday in the Jordan Valley was attended by a number of European representatives, including the leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache.
David Elhayani, the head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, said at the conference, “They are demanding that we label agricultural produce. I want to say to everyone who seeks to harm us: Your hope will not be realized! We have no intention of doing what you ask. We will not label our agricultural produce. We are determined to fight this phenomenon and to struggle against this unethical and discriminatory [demand] that has remnants of a dark time.”
Strache expressed his support for the Israeli farmers, saying, “We will do everything to ensure that the boycotts get taken off the agenda.”
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IDF officer: only 1 successful Hamas attack during 6 months of terror wave
(JNS.org) Israeli security forces have in recent months continuously thwarted large-scale terror attacks planned by Hamas, to the point that only one successful attack during the current wave of Palestinian terrorism was carried out by the Gaza-ruling group, a senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer said Wednesday.
“We have seen, in recent months, many attempts by organizations to carry out terror attacks..In the past six months, of all the attacks that occurred, only one was orchestrated by Hamas,” said the officer, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Israel’s Shin Bet security agency as well as the IDF’s Judea and Samaria Division have worked together to stop a number of terrorist plots, “some in their advanced stages that would have resulted in mass casualties.” The IDF officer added that “potential triggers for renewed escalation” include a large-scale attack during Passover and Palestinian violence involving Jerusalem’s Temple Mount holy site.
“At a certain stage, we saw where terror attacks were going,” the officer said. “There are around six locations in the Judea and Samaria Division’s area of coverage that we pay attention to. The Division covers 126 settlements and more than 450 Palestinian villages. We saw order emerging in the attacks; 40 percent of attackers were drawn to these six locations. That is where we focused our efforts.”
The Judea and Samaria Division will increase its security forces during Passover.
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Israel exports $48.5 million worth of wine and matzah in 2015
(JNS.org) Israel exported $48.5 million of wine and matzah in 2015, according to a report released ahead of the Passover holiday by the Israeli Finance and Industry Ministry.
The United States covered 57 percent of the $12 million worth of matzah imported from Israel worldwide ($6.84 million), while Europe imported $5 million worth of Israeli matzah, the ministry said Wednesday.
Israeli wine exports have steadily increased over the last five years “from $25 million in 2011 to $36.5 million in 2015,” partly due to financial investments in Israeli winemakers, the ministry said. One-third of last year’s global Israeli wine exports went to the U.S. and Canada. France imported the most Israeli wine of any European nation, $3 million, followed by the U.K. at $1.7 million. Other top Israeli wine importers from Europe included Germany, Belgium, and Italy.
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Palestinians campaign to nominate terrorist leader for Nobel Peace Prize
(JNS.org) Palestinians in Ramallah on Tuesday launched a global campaign to secure the nomination of jailed terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti for the Nobel Peace Prize. Barghouti is currently serving five life sentences in Israel for orchestrating the killing of Israelis in numerous attacks.
Barghouti’s name was initially submitted as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate in March by Adolf Perez Esquivel, an Argentine architect who won the prize in 1980. The Tunisian parliament also recently announced its support for nominating Barghouti.
The Palestinian Commission for Prisoners, the Palestinian Prisoners Club, and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are sponsoring the global campaign for Barghouti’s nomination, which will include rallies and marches throughout the disputed territories and Gaza, in addition to a massive media outreach initiative.
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Report: Libya’s Gaddafi asked Israel for help during uprising
(JNS.org) A new report suggests that former Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi sought help from Israel during the uprising in his country in 2011.
Gaddafi sent a request for diplomatic support to Israel via a third-party country, warning Israel that if rebels were to topple his regime, they could pose a broader threat, Israel’s Army Radio reported Wednesday. The request asked Israel to urge the U.S. and France to reign in military action in Libya, which consisted of airstrikes on the country at the time.
Israel, however, decided against taking any action. Gaddafi’s government was ultimately toppled in October 2011. Since 2014, two rival governments have been controlling Libya.
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Bernie Sanders hires outspoken critic of Israel for Jewish outreach position
(JNS.org) The presidential campaign of Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) has hired an outspoken critic of Israeli government policies as its Jewish outreach coordinator.
Simone Zimmerman is active in the self-described pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby J Street and the “Open Hillel” movement–”both of which have been criticized in the Jewish community for ignoring Israeli grievances in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and whitewashing Palestinian terrorism. Open Hillel rejects the Hillel campus umbrella organization’s guidelines on shunning partnerships with anti-Israel groups, while J Street has also been scrutinized for co-sponsoring events with anti-Israel organizations. Zimmerman has also been involved with IfNotNow, a new movement of young American Jews who oppose Israeli control in the disputed territories.
In a February op-ed for Haaretz, Zimmerman outlined her views on Israel, including her perceptions on what she called “grave injustices committed by the Jewish state”and the “disastrous reality of holding millions of Palestinians under military occupation.”
“Tell the UC Regents: anti-Zionism is not racism, it’s a political belief,” Zimmerman retweeted from the Twitter account of the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace in March, reacting to the University of California Board of Regents’ adoption of a report that condemned both anti-Semitism and forms of anti-Zionism that are anti-Semitic.
The decision to hire Zimmerman comes after Sanders recently inflated the number of Palestinian civilian deaths in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war at least sevenfold to 10,000 in an interview with the New York Daily News.
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Far-right Austrian political leader visits Israel
(JNS.org) The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Tuesday as part of a trip to Israel organized by the Knesset’s Likud party.
Strache, 46, laid a wreath under the engraved names of Austrian towns from which Jews were expelled during the Holocaust, and said that anti-Semitism has no place in his party. Strache also said that Israel and his party share a common battle against radical Islam.
Strache himself has been accused of anti-Semitism in the past, particularly when he posted a cartoon on Facebook in 2012 depicting a fat banker with a hooked nose and six-pointed star buttons on his sleeve, gorging himself at the expense of a thin man representing “the people.” At the time, Austrian President Heinz Fischer called the cartoon “the low point of political culture, which deserves to be universally and roundly condemned.”
But Strache has denied being anti-Semitic, and his party has been trying to distance itself from its anti-Semitic roots. Last year, the party expelled a member of its parliamentary group for anti-Semitic comments.
“For us, it’s important to act against anti-Semitism and also against Islamism and terrorism and to discuss the issues we have in common,” Strache told Reuters. “Anti-Semitism often emerges anew from Islamism and from the left.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Austrian embassy in Tel Aviv both said they were not involved in organizing Strache’s visit. Strache, whose party won 20 percent of the vote in the 2013 Austrian election, was invited to visit Israel in January by Likud’s head of information and external communications, Eli Hazan, and the president of the Likud’s internal court, former Knesset member Michael Kleiner.
Strache’s visit to Israel, however, was not entirely warmly received in the Jewish state. On an official level, Israel boycotts the Freedom Party and prohibits government officials from meeting with its representatives. Former Israeli president Shimon Peres reportedly declined to meet with Strache at the recommendation of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. The ministry conveyed that Strache “is unworthy of meeting Peres, and we informed [Strache’s office] of our refusal to meet,” said a source in Peres’s bureau, Haaretz reported.
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