News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Palestinian Terrorists Attack Jerusalem Synagogue, Murder Four Jewish Worshippers - Ralph Ellis and Michael Schwarz
Two Palestinian men armed with a handgun, knives and axes attacked Jewish worshippers at a Jerusalem synagogue Tuesday morning and murdered four Israelis. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the men came from east Jerusalem. Eight others were wounded during the attack in the Har Nof neighborhood including two responding police officers. (CNN)
See also Four Rabbis Murdered in Jerusalem Synagogue Attack - Jeremy Sharon
The victims of the Jerusalem synagogue attack included Rabbi Moshe Twersky, 59, dean of the English-speaking Torat Moshe yeshiva;
U.S.-born Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky, 43; UK-born Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68; and Rabbi Kalman Levine, 50.
(Jerusalem Post)
See also Seven Minutes of Terror: Eyewitness Accounts - Omri Efraim (Ynet News)
See also Wounded in Jerusalem Attack Include Two in Critical Condition (Ynet News)
- Kerry Calls on Palestinian Leaders to Condemn Synagogue Murders
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned an attack by Palestinians on a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday. "This simply has no place in human behavior....People who had come to worship God in the sanctuary of the synagogue were hatcheted and hacked and murdered in their holy place in an act of pure terror and senseless brutality."
Kerry called for Palestinian leaders to condemn the attack.
"The Palestinian leadership...must begin to take steps to restrain any kind of incitement that comes from their language or from other people's language and exhibit the kind of leadership that is necessary to put this region on a peaceful path," he said.
(Reuters)
See also Abbas Condemns Deadly Jerusalem Synagogue Attack (AFP)
- Egypt to Deepen Buffer Zone with Gaza after Finding Longer Tunnels
Egypt will double to one km. the depth of a security buffer zone it is clearing on its border with Gaza. "The decision...came after the discovery of underground tunnels with a total length of 800 to 1,000 meters," the state MENA news agency said.
(Reuters)
- Islamic State Poaches International Aid for Syrians - Maria Abi-Habib
Islamic State militants have been seizing foreign aid destined for the neediest Syrians to redistribute under their own black flag.
Aid that has been stolen includes generators worth at least $300,000 donated by the German government's largest development agency and more than 600 baskets of food - each containing enough to support a family for about a month - donated by a large American relief group.
Moreover, since the U.S.-led coalition began airstrikes in August, local IS leaders have become wary that relief workers are spies and often detain them.
(Wall Street Journal)
- EU Says It Has No Plans for Sanctions on Israel
The EU has no intention of imposing sanctions on Israel, foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday. Ha'aretz reported on Monday it had obtained an internal EU document on sanctions that could be taken against Israel, but Mogherini said the EU had no plan of this kind. She said a discussion among EU foreign ministers on Monday was more about "how to start a positive process with the Israelis and Palestinians to relaunch a peace process....It was not at all a question of isolating or sanctioning anybody." "We will build on the possibility of having a regional framework, working not only with the US...but with some of the key Arab countries." (Reuters)
- UN Experts Recommend New Sanctions on Terrorists - Edith M. Lederer
A UN panel of experts monitoring al-Qaeda is recommending new sanctions that would authorize the seizure of tanker trucks carrying oil from areas in Syria and Iraq controlled by the Islamic State or the Nusra Front. In a report to the UN Security Council on Monday, the panel also recommended a worldwide moratorium on the trading of antiquities from Syria and Iraq - and ordering all countries to deny aircraft permission to land or take off if they are coming from or going to territory held by the two terrorist groups. (AP-ABC News)
- UN Removes Gazan from List of "Journalists Killed in Wars" after Hamas Membership Revealed - Shiryn Ghermezian
UNESCO on Friday removed Palestinian Abdullah Murtaja from their list of "journalists killed in wars" after bloggers revealed he was a Hamas terrorist. Murtaja, who was killed during the 2014 Gaza war, was featured in photos and video released by Hamas' Al Qassam Brigade bearing weapons and clad in the terrorists' insignia. (Algemeiner)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- IS-Allied Sinai Terrorists Vow to "Liberate Jerusalem"
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which now calls itself the Sinai branch of Islamic State, has vowed to liberate Jerusalem once it has ousted the government of Egyptian President el-Sissi. On Friday the group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack last month that killed 30 Egyptian soldiers. A video of the attack showed its gunmen shooting dead some of those injured.
(Times of Israel)
- Jordanian on Trial for "Attempt at Suicide Attack" in Israel
Jordan's security court on Monday started the trial of Anas Awamra, 21, who was caught in August trying to cross the border into Israel to blow himself up in a suicide attack, AFP reported. (Ma'an News-PA)
- Israel to Install Anti-Missile Lasers on German Air Force Planes - Yaakov Lappin
Israel's Elbit Systems will install its J-Music anti-missile laser protection system on German Air Force transport planes, the defense firm announced Monday. The J-Music system is "designed to protect large military and commercial aircraft against attacks by ground-to-air heat seeking man-portable missiles [MANPADS]," Elbit said. The system can detect incoming missiles with an infrared sensor, then fires a laser that disrupts the missile's navigation system, throwing it off course. A version of the system, C-Music, has been chosen to protect Israeli passenger aircraft. (Jerusalem Post)
- Israel Sees Sharp Rise in Tourists from Arab States - Itamar Eichner
Since 2009, more than 250,000 Muslim and Arab tourists have visited Israel for religious reasons, business and shopping. 124,000 tourists came from Indonesia, 81,000 from Jordan, 23,483 from Malaysia, 6,440 from Morocco, 38 from Saudi Arabia, 168 from the UAE, 73 from Qatar and 73 from Oman. 13,333 tourists arrived from Egypt, including 4,368 since the beginning of 2014. Kuwait announced last month that it would allow its citizens to visit Israel and the PA as part of a tour package with the government's approval. (Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
- After the U.S. Mid-Term Elections: The Congressional Role in U.S.-Iran Policy - Lenny Ben-David
The U.S. goal in the negotiations with Iran appears to be to "freeze" Iranian activities at today's level rather than any "dismantlement" or "rolling back."
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued bellicose tweets setting down "red lines" for his negotiating team and releasing his plans for "annihilating" Israel.
The new Senate taking office after January 3, 2015, will find new committee chairmen and ranking members who are firm in their opposition to giving Iran undeserved sanctions relief.
(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
- The Next President's Mideast Mess - Robert Satloff
What is remarkable is that Barack and Bibi had such a deep well of mistrust of each other from the very start. Here, the original sin was, in my view, the Obama administration's refusal to affirm what insiders call "the Bush-Sharon letters" of April 2004. This was a set of understandings worked out between George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon that injected realism into U.S. peace diplomacy by recognizing that there would be no return to the 1949 armistice lines but that a resolution to the conflict would be governed by "new realities on the ground." That was a euphemistic reference to the existence of a substantial Jewish presence in blocs of settlements just east of the 1967 Green Line. The writer is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
(Politico)
- Israel Air Force Hones Patriot Batteries for UAV Defense - Barbara Opall-Rome
Israel's air defense network includes newly war-tested batteries of drone-killing, U.S.-built Patriots. As traditional threats from fast-flying manned aircraft give way to a surging new spectrum of slow, potentially combat-equipped UAVs, the Patriot is proving a prime time option for frontline defense. Three times in the past four months, Patriot batteries made history by blasting UAVs out of the skies that had penetrated Israel's southern and northern borders - from Gaza on July 14 and 17, and from near the Syrian border on Aug. 31.
In October 2012, a Lebanon-launched UAV was downed
by F-16s just north of Israel's nuclear facility in the Negev desert. A senior IAF commander noted that just a decade ago, the threat from UAVs was rare. "Today, it's a huge problem. We bear the brunt of it today, but soon many others will face similar threats."
(Defense News)
Observations:
Blood Libel - Nadav Shragai (Israel Hayom)
- Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, can claim the mantle of the father of the modern blood libel, for it is he who has repeated the lie of "Al-Aqsa is in danger," a lie targeting the State of Israel. Salah's genie has unleashed demons who are now throwing rocks, hurling firebombs, shooting fireworks and firearms, stabbing with knives, and, now, using cars to ram into commuters.
- The "Al-Aqsa is in danger" lie is now buttressed by another lie - the accusation that the Israeli government plans to permit Jewish worship on the Temple Mount. Israel has informed Jordan's King Abdullah as well as the EU and the U.S. that it has no intention of permitting Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.
- The present-day reality on the Temple Mount bears no resemblance to the original status quo, which has been brazenly eroded in favor of the Muslim side and to the detriment of the Jewish side. The original status quo permitted Jews to visit the Temple Mount. Now Jewish visits are limited and are under strict limitations.
- Israel's problem is that these lies have burrowed into the hearts of the Muslim masses around the world. Many people believe wholeheartedly that Al-Aqsa is indeed in danger, and that the State of Israel is indeed acting to destroy the mosques. The conflict is once again taking on religious overtones, and the terror attacks and incitement of recent weeks are springing up from this poisoned well.
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