News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Car Carrying Explosives, Guns Rams into Police Van in Paris
A car loaded with gas canisters rammed into a police van on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on Monday in what Interior Minister Gerard Collomb called an "attempted attack." A Kalashnikov rifle and handguns were also found in the vehicle. Police identified the driver as a man from a Paris suburb who had previously been flagged for extremism.
(France 24)
- Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commanders: Our Main Aim Is Global Islamic Rule
In recent statements and speeches, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders have emphasized that the Islamic Revolution in Iran is only the first stage on the path to the spread of the rule of Shi'ite Islam in the Middle East and worldwide. They argue that the U.S. opposes Islam, and thus also Iran, the standard-bearer of the Revolution and its global vision. (MEMRI)
- Lawsuit Claims San Francisco State University Fostered Anti-Semitism on Campus - Susan Svrluga
A group of students filed a lawsuit Monday against San Francisco State University, alleging that the school fostered a climate of anti-Semitism "marked by violent threats to the safety of Jewish students on campus." The suit alleges that the school violated the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection, as well as the Civil Rights Act. "I didn't have the right to speak on my own campus; I felt afraid as a Jewish student," said Jacob Mandel, a recent graduate. He said "the administration was actively working against me."
"There is a tactic to silence people with whom extreme members of society don't agree," said Amanda Berman, director of legal affairs with the Lawfare Project. "There's a sense that people don't have a right to speak if certain communities don't want that message to get out." (Washington Post)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Iran Missile Strike on ISIS in Syria Sends a Warning to Israel and the West - Ron Ben-Yishai
The Iranian strike in Syria on Sunday - 600 km. away - should alarm not only Israel, but also the Arab Gulf states and the U.S. Demonstrating the ability to fire missiles with such a range is an Iranian show of force. (Ynet News)
See also Israel: Most Iranian Missiles Missed Targets in Syria
Iran's missile strike on Islamic State targets in Syria on Sunday was a flop, with six of the seven medium-range missiles failing to hit their target, Israeli sources said Monday. Sources quoted in Hebrew media said three of the missiles didn't even make it to Syria, falling in Iraq, and only one landed in its intended target, an Islamic State base in Deir Ezzor province. Another landed hundreds of yards away.
"If the Iranians were trying to show their capabilities and to signal to Israel and to the Americans that these missiles are operational, the result was...a failure," Channel 2 analyst Ehud Ya'ari said.
Ya'ari said Israeli security sources were "amazed" at the poor performance of the Iranian missiles. "This is what they have to show for 30 years of missile development? Even Hizbullah can do better," he quoted the sources as saying. (Times of Israel)
- Trump Envoy Visits Family of Slain Border Policewoman - Itamar Eichner
Jason Greenblatt, President Trump's Middle East envoy, arrived in Israel Sunday and paid a visit to the family of Hadas Malka, the border policewoman who was killed in Friday's Jerusalem terror attack.
(Ynet News)
- Egypt to Ease Gaza Power Crisis with Emergency Fuel Supply - Stuart Winer
Egypt will provide hundreds of tons of fuel oil for the Gaza power station to ease the Strip's ongoing electricity crisis, local media reported Tuesday. 500 tons of fuel a day will be trucked through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. (Times of Israel)
- Israel Tests New 400-Km.-Range Artillery Weapon
Israel Aerospace Industries has successfully completed a test trial of its LORA (Long-Range Artillery weapon system), striking a target at sea. LORA is a tactical ground-to-ground missile with a range of up to 400 km. and boasts precision of 10 meters or better. (Globes)
- Photos: Ancient Maps of Jerusalem - Tali Farkash
Dr. Milka Levy-Rubin, the humanities collection curator at the National Library of Israel, discusses Jerusalem through old maps of the city drawn by Christians. (Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
- Iran Has Squandered Its Chance to Avoid Sanctions - Joseph I. Lieberman and Mark S. Kirk
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), meeting this week in Spain, is the international governing body on combating money laundering and terrorism financing. Iran received a 12-month reprieve from sanctions at last year's FATF meeting following the nuclear deal.
One year later, Iran remains the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism, with no change in either Iran's money-laundering policies or in winding down its terror funding. Therefore, FATF must bring back the sanctions against Iran.
The nuclear deal provided the opportunity for Iran to demonstrate its commitment to stopping the flow of funds to terror groups and rolling back its money-laundering operations. But Iran squandered this opportunity. The writers are former U.S. senators.
(Wall Street Journal)
- Israelis Should Listen to Abbas - to Every Word - Gadi Taub
Ha'aretz's May 29 editorial was "Listen to Abbas." I want to join this call. Listen very carefully.
Abbas is very careful to use the term "two states," but not "for two peoples."
Because the Jews are not a people in his eyes, the two states that Abbas refers to are a national Palestinian state and a country called Israel, to which "the refugees" eventually "will return." Two countries will be west of the Jordan: one theirs and the other - also theirs.
Abbas knows from experience that it is sufficient to wrap this hostile position in a few terms that have a friendly ring - peace, harmony - so that well-meaning Israelis will hasten to interpret them according to their own wishes, ignoring everything else he says, allowing him to blur the fact that the Palestinians have refused every serious proposal put before them.
Last month, during his visit to India, Abbas spoke of the Nakba - an injustice that, in his words, "began over 100 years ago with the appearance of Zionism with its false vision....Our people will not leave behind the issue of the Nakba until all their legitimate national rights are recognized, without exception - and first and foremost, the right of return."
If we begin to listen to Abbas, methodically and over time, we will discover that he is not preparing himself for any compromise.
The writer is a senior lecturer in communications and public policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
(Ha'aretz)
- Gaza in the Dark - Efraim Inbar
Hamas wants Israel to supply it with electricity "or else," but there is no reason why Israel should submit to Hamas extortion. There is no strategic or moral reason why Israel should supply free electricity to Gaza. The billions of euros transferred to the Palestinians over the past two decades have been squandered through ineptitude and misappropriated through corruption. Very little aid has filtered down to the people. Hamas leadership, however, continues to be enriched by it. The writer is professor emeritus of political studies at Bar-Ilan University. (BESA Center-Bar-Ilan University)
- Who Else Profits:
The Scope of European and
Multinational Business in Occupied Territories
On March 24, 2016, the UN General Assembly Human Rights Council
voted to prepare a database of business enterprises in the territories under Israeli civil jurisdiction in the West Bank.
Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara and Turkey's of
northern Cyprus have both seen massive government-backed settlement enterprises that dwarf anything in the West Bank. The majority of the population in these territories now consists of settlers. There are also settlers in Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and
the Occupied Ukrainian Territories. In all these cases, foreign companies, quite commonly European ones, actively support the settlement enterprise.
This report demonstrates that such business
activity is certainly not a human rights issue, let alone illegal. Thus, the
Council cannot in good faith continue
its current database project aimed solely at Israel.
(Kohelet Policy Forum-NGO Monitor)
- Video: Songs of Holocaust Survivors Are Rediscovered - David C. Barnett
When the death camps and ghettos of Europe were liberated at the end of World War II, a psychologist from Chicago visited former prisoners and recorded their interviews. Unheard for decades, a long-missing reel of songs has been rediscovered, offering a haunting document of the horrors of the Holocaust. (PBS)
Observations:
New Palestinian Attempt at UNESCO to Claim Hebron and the Patriarch's Tomb as a Palestinian Site - Amb. Alan Baker (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
- Hebron, situated in the biblical region of Judea, is the site of the oldest Jewish community in the world, and since Bible times has been considered the second holiest city in Judaism after Jerusalem.
- The most famous historic site in Hebron is the Cave of the Patriarchs, which, as described in the book of Genesis, Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite for over 400 silver shekels to bury his wife, Sarah. Abraham insisted on purchasing the cave through a publicly witnessed, legal transaction in the presence of all residents of the town.
- The Palestinian attempt to mislead the international community regarding the Jewish history and heritage in the town of Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs runs contrary to the PLO commitment to foster a positive and supportive public atmosphere, mutual trust, and good faith in the relations between the two peoples as set out in Article XVI of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Oslo II).
- Article VII of the Protocol annexed to the Oslo agreement, together with the 1997 Hebron Protocol, sets down agreed guidelines for Hebron within the context of joint governance of the holy places.
- It is high time that the international community wakes up to the blatant abuse and manipulation of bodies such as UNESCO by the Palestinian leadership.
- The damage caused by such abusive Palestinian political exercises - all with the aim of delegitimizing Israel and nullifying Jewish history and heritage - will be irreparable.
The writer, former legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians.
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