• Victims of Jerusalem Synagogue Massacre Were Congregation's "Wise Scholars" - Isabel Kershner, Timothy Williams and Joseph Berger
  Rabbi Moshe Twersky, 59, was one of four Jewish men killed at prayer on Tuesday morning when two Palestinians armed with a gun and butcher knives stormed a Jerusalem synagogue. He immigrated to Israel in 1990, was head of the Toras Moshe yeshiva in Jerusalem and the scion of a celebrated Hasidic dynasty. He and the other three worshipers killed in the attack - Rabbi Kalman Zeev Levine, 55, and Aryeh Kupinsky, 43, who were both dual Israeli-U.S. citizens, and Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68, who came to Israel from England - all lived on the same street in the Har Nof neighborhood.
      Rabbi Levine was born in Kansas City, Mo., and moved to Israel soon after he married. Aryeh Kupinsky was born in Rhode Island, grew up in Detroit, and moved with his parents to Israel in 1982 when he was 11. He is survived by his wife and five children, ages 5 to 16. Though he was not an ordained rabbi, Kupinsky taught religious studies and served in the rabbinate of the Israeli military. Rabbi Goldberg was born in Liverpool, England, and moved to Israel in 1993.
      Rabbi Yitzhak Mordechai Rubin, the rabbi of Kehilat Bnei Torah, where the attack took place, said: "We are here, standing before three sacred men, the best of our congregation, wise scholars whose blood was spilled like water. As we count the number of widows and orphans who have been added today to the nation of Israel, we tally four widows and 24 orphans all on one street."  (New York Times)
• Israeli Druze Policeman Shot in Terrorist Attack Dies of Wounds - Dave Bender
  Israeli Druze Police officer Zidan Sayif, 27, died of his wounds on Tuesday, hours after a terror attack at a Jerusalem synagogue. He was the first on the scene to end the terrorist slaughter, Israel's NRG News reported. Zidan and another police officer were able to shoot and kill the assailants. Zidan was married with a seven-month-old daughter.
      Sheikh Muafik Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze community, said, "We are proud of our sons who act fearlessly in the face of terrorist attacks....This is a black day for Israeli society and the State of Israel, when its citizens are murdered just for being Jewish."  (Algemeiner)
• Spanish Lawmakers Vote to Recognize Palestinian State
  The Spanish Parliament voted Tuesday by 319 to 2 in favor of legislation demanding that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government recognize Palestine as a state. Rajoy's party was widely in favor of the bill, but set a requirement that a negotiation process between Israel and the Palestinians guarantee peace and security first. The parliament also called on the government to pressure the EU to recognize Palestine as well.
      Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said of the legislation: "It is not binding, it does not set a timeline for the recognition, it gives the government the margin to proceed with the recognition when it feels it will be opportune."  (Deutsche Welle-Germany)
      See also Is Palestine a State That We Can Recognize? - Beatriz Becerra
  Isn't it irresponsible for Spain, a country with territorial problems of its own [in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia], to champion initiatives of sovereignty recognition and statehood for non-states that don't even meet the minimum applicable requirements? The writer is a Member of the European Parliament from Spain. (Huffington Post)

• Abbas Forced by Kerry to Condemn Synagogue Attack - Khaled Abu Toameh
  PA President Mahmoud Abbas was forced to condemn the Jerusalem synagogue attack after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had phoned him twice over the past few days to demand that the Palestinians stop anti-Israel incitement.
      Over the past few months, Abbas and the PA have been telling Palestinians that Israel is planning to destroy the mosque on the Temple Mount. They have also declared the Palestinians who carried out the recent terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Gush Etzion to be "martyrs." As Abbas spoke out against the synagogue attack, several senior PA and Fatah officials went on Arab TV stations to declare that it was a "natural response to Israeli crimes."  (Jerusalem Post)
      See also Abbas Advisor and Fatah Praise Jerusalem Murders - Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
  Following Tuesday's murder of four Jewish worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue, PA Chairman Abbas' advisor Sultan Abu Al-Einein immediately praised the attack as a "heroic operation" on his Facebook page. He posted graphic images showing pools of blood and dead Jews in prayer shawls, as well as a photo of the dead terrorists with a bloody butcher's knife on the ground next to them. Al-Einein referred to them as "martyrs."
      Speaking in the name of MPs from Abbas' Fatah movement, spokesman Jamal Tirawi announced that they "welcomed the martyrdom-seeking operation in Jerusalem." On its Facebook page, Fatah described "handing out candy in the cities of the West Bank in celebration of the Jerusalem operation."  (Palestinian Media Watch)
      See also Palestinian Factions Praise Jerusalem Synagogue Attack (Ma'an News-PA)
      See also Hamas Social Media Abuzz with Cartoons Glorifying Jerusalem Terror Attack - Dov Lieber
  Hamas social media exploded Tuesday with violent and anti-Semitic cartoons praising the terrorist attack that killed five people Tuesday at a synagogue in Jerusalem. (Jerusalem Post)
• Israel Demolishes Home of Terrorist Responsible for Jerusalem Light Rail Attack
  Israeli forces on Tuesday demolished the home of Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi, the Palestinian responsible for the October 22 Jerusalem light rail attack that killed two and wounded five. (Ha'aretz)

• Horror in Israel - Editorial
  The murder of four men at a synagogue complex in Jerusalem on Tuesday was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years and the worst in Jerusalem since 2008. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had to be pushed by Secretary of State John Kerry into speaking out. As a political leader, Mr. Abbas has a duty to make the moral case that such brutality and inhumanity can only bring shame upon the Palestinian people. (New York Times)
• Jihad in Jerusalem - Editorial
  To understand why peace in Palestine is years if not decades away, consider the Palestinian celebrations after Tuesday's murder in a Jerusalem synagogue of five Israelis, including three with joint U.S. citizenship. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killings, but not without calling for Israel to halt what he called "invasions" of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
      The goal of this new jihad is to frighten Israelis into agreeing to a divided Jerusalem. Yet it is only under Israeli rule that all religions have been respected in Jerusalem. On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world should not be dividing cities. The Palestinians will never have a homeland as long as they cultivate a society that celebrates murdering the innocent in the name of religion. (Wall Street Journal)
• European Jewish Congress Calls on European Leaders to Condition Aid to the Palestinians on Ending Incitement
  In the wake of the terror attack against worshipers in a synagogue in Jerusalem on Tuesday, the European Jewish Congress has called on European leaders to condition future aid and cooperation between the European Union and the Palestinians on the end of rampant incitement against Israel and Jews in the Palestinian Authority. Dr. Moshe Kantor, EJC President, said, "The Europeans have an ability to influence and a tool with which to pressure the Palestinians to end the daily incitement emanating from its leaders, education system, media and religious institutions, and that is the financial assistance which is helping aid this system."
      "Incitement to hatred and violence, anti-Semitism, and religious hatred is by far the greatest obstacle to any lasting peace. The Europeans should demand that this ends immediately and threaten to withdraw all aid and cooperation until it does, before we see more massacres like the one this morning in Jerusalem."  (European Jewish Congress)
• Abbas Has Helped Foster the Climate for a New Intifada - David Horovitz
  There has been criticism of the Israeli leadership for pointing the finger of blame at PA President Mahmoud Abbas as the terror wave has risen in Jerusalem, when it is argued that Hamas and other extremist Palestinian groups are the primary terrorism-inflamers. But Abbas and his loyalists have emphatically swung to the extremes in the last few weeks. The PA chief accused Israel of "genocide" in Gaza from the UN General Assembly podium less than two months ago. Last week, he warned against "contaminating" the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He hailed the would-be assassin of Rabbi Yehudah Glick, a prime advocate of Jewish and Muslim prayer on the Temple Mount, as a martyr. Abbas has thus helped foster the climate for a new armed intifada.
      Palestinian terrorists, and those who incite them and support them, should know: We are not going to be shot and stabbed and bludgeoned out of here by your brutality and the false justifications you invoke to legitimate it. We seek co-existence. But your rights cannot be achieved by denying us ours. (Times of Israel)
• With Killings in Jerusalem, Prospect of U.S.-Sponsored Talks Dims Further - Carol Morello
  The dim prospect that U.S.-sponsored talks between Israelis and Palestinians could be resumed any time soon faded almost completely Tuesday after the bloody attack in a Jerusalem synagogue. "The pace and intensity of violence are accelerating," said Robert Danin, a former U.S. diplomat and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Right now, there's not much receptivity for negotiations on either side, from either leader. Both sides feel victimized, and that's a very bad place to be."
      Haim Malka, deputy director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, "There's a limit to what any administration can do. They can condemn violence. They can urge leaders to act calmly, and restrain calls for revenge. But the reality is they have a limited ability to change the violent dynamics on the ground."  (Washington Post)

The Murder of Jews at Prayer in Jerusalem - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister's Office)

Prime Minister Netanyahu said Tuesday:

• We are in the midst of a terrorist assault focused on Jerusalem. Today, during morning prayers, as they were wrapped in prayer shawls and tefillin, four innocent and pure Jews were slaughtered - Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, Aryeh Kupinsky, Rabbi Kalman Ze'ev Levine and Rabbi Moshe Twersky. May their memories be blessed.
• The human animals who perpetrated this slaughter were full of deep hatred and terrible incitement against the Jewish People and its state. Hamas, the Islamic Movement, and the Palestinian Authority are disseminating countless lies and falsehoods against the State of Israel.
• They are saying that the Jews are contaminating the Temple Mount. They are saying that we are planning to destroy the Holy Places, that we intend to change the order of prayer there - this is all lies.
• The world sees this slaughter but, to our regret, does not demand that the Palestinians stop the wild incitement against Israel that is the root of the conflict. To my regret, there are those who currently insist on giving the Palestinians a prize in the form of unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that does not recognize the state of the Jews.