Islamic State reportedly planning to attack Israel from Sinai
(JNS.org) The Israeli military is concerned that the Islamic State terror group is planning a large-scale attack against Israel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported on Sunday, citing an Israel Defense Forces officer.
The Sinai has become an Islamic State stronghold in recent years. According to the Bild report, there could be hundreds of Islamic State operatives currently training in the Sinai and awaiting an order to strike Israel. The IDF officer quoted by Bild said that while it is not clear what a future Islamic State attack against Israel would look like, it could include the use of tanks and artillery by the terrorist group.
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Israeli officials agree on two-year state budget
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon agreed Sunday to pass a two-year state budget for 2017 and 2018. As part of the agreement, Kahlon will have the authority to introduce budget cuts to make sure Israel meets its deficit target for that period.
Two-year state budgets have been the norm in Israel since 2009; in some cases, they were a consequence of election years that required special arrangements. Finance Ministry Accountant General Michal Abadi-Boiangiu, who supports the idea of a two-year budget, said, “Israel would be able to deal with the budget.”
The Bank of Israel—the Jewish state’s central bank—published a statement Sunday saying that “a two-year budget is liable to make it difficult for the government to respond to unexpected changes in conditions, but the risks can be reduced by allocation of a larger internal reserve, greater flexibility in the budget, and strict use of the numerator (a special mathematical formula to monitor expenditures). The most important thing in building the budget, certainly when it has a longer-term horizon, is that the budget focuses now on the long-term challenges.”
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China’s Hainan Airlines begins operating Beijing to Tel Aviv route
(JNS.org) China’s Hainan Airlines started operating a direct Beijing-Tel Aviv route this week, joining the Israeli airline El Al as one of the only two airlines operating an Israel-China route.
“We want to be ready with the best aircrews for our flights to Israel, said Li Liang, the general manager of the Hainan offices in Israel, Yedioth Ahronoth reported. “Today Israel is a very important destination for us.”
Currently, Hainan will only operate the route three times per week, but eventually the airline expects to include a flight route from Shanghai and Hong Kong through its sister airline Hong Kong Airlines.
During the ceremony celebrating the first flight, Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said his office will increase Israel’s annual marketing budget for China from 1 million to 15 million shekels.
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Israeli flag burned at Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial in Kiev
(JNS.org) The mayor of Kiev, Ukraine, asked authorities to identify a group of people who were filmed burning an Israeli flag at the Babi Yar Holocaust memorial. Babi Yar is a ravine near Kiev where between 100,000 and 150,000 of Jews were massacred by the Nazis throughout the Holocaust.
The flag-burning incident is the latest in a series of anti-Semitic incidents targeting the memorial and took place on Israel’s national remembrance day for the Holocaust, Yom HaShoah.
“It is intolerable to brutalize the memory of the victims. Especially at the place that which is globally known as one of the symbols of a terrible crime of fascism, at Babi Yar, where tens of thousands of people of different nationalities, the majority of them Jewish, were killed,” Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a statement.
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Donald Trump ‘disavows’ David Duke’s comment on ‘Jewish extremists’
(JNS.org) Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he “disavows” comments by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke about “Jewish extremists.”
“Jewish extremists have made a terribly crazy miscalculation because all they’re really going to be doing by doing the ‘Never Trump’ movement is exposing their alien, their anti-American-majority position to all the Republicans,” Duke said on his radio show last Thursday.
“They’re going to push people more into awareness that the neocons are the problem, that these Jewish supremacists who control our country are the real problem and the reason why America is not great,” he said.
Trump, who only a few months ago was widely condemned for refusing to explicitly disavow the white supremacist’s support of his candidacy, responded later on Thursday by saying he “totally disavows” Duke’s remarks.
“Anti-Semitism has no place our society, which needs to be united, not divided,” Trump said, the New York Times reported.
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Soldier who foiled terror attack to light Israeli Independence Day torch
(JNS.org) Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Infantry Sgt. Roberto Farah-Usa, 21, who foiled a terrorist attack in Gush Etzion in March, has been named one of the 14 individuals honored with lighting a torch at Israel’s annual Independence Day ceremony this week.
The ceremony’s theme this year is “civilian heroes,” honoring those who prevented terrorist attacks against Israelis.
Farah-Usa immigrated to Israel with his family from Colombia when he was 7, and the family made its home in the central Israeli town of Tel Mond. A solider with the Kfir Brigade, Farah-Usa and his unit were deployed to the volatile Gush Etzion area three months ago.
On March 18, he noticed a car with Israeli license plates from which smoke was billowing. “The driver was nervous. He started yelling at me in Arabic, took off his belt, pulled out a knife and tried to stab me. When he was just two meters away from me, I shot him. I had no time to fire in midair, as he would have managed to stab me,” Farah-Usa recalled.
Firing six or seven rounds, Farah-Usa killed the knife-yielding terrorist.
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