News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:

• In Saudi Arabia, Obama Says U.S. Still Has "Serious Concerns" on Iran - Alexander Smith
  The U.S. continues to have "serious concerns" about Iran's behavior even after the nuclear deal last year, President Barack Obama said Thursday during a meeting in Saudi Arabia. Illegal Iranian arms shipments, ballistic missile tests, and "destabilizing acts" were a continued worry for the U.S. and its allies, the president said.
      "We have to be effective in our defenses and hold Iran to account where it is acting in ways that are contrary to international rules and norms, but we also have to have the capacity to enter into a dialogue," Obama said. Mistrust has grown "in part because of Iranian provocations."  (NBC News)
• After Court Ruling for Terror Victims, Iran Accuses U.S. of Theft - Rick Gladstone
  Iran reacted furiously on Thursday to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Iran's central bank must pay nearly $2 billion to American victims of the 1983 bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, calling the ruling thievery. The ruling will, at least theoretically, allow the families to obtain compensation from Iranian central bank assets that have been impounded. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, said the court's ruling on Wednesday "amounts to appropriation of the Islamic Republic of Iran's property."  (New York Times)
• Europe Says U.S. Regulations Keeping It from Trade with Iran - Thomas Erdbrink
  Three months after the lifting of many sanctions against Iran, European banks are refusing to finance any new deals, wary of running afoul of sanctions imposed by the U.S. over Iran's missile program and its sponsorship of terrorism. Europeans also point to new American visa regulations that make it more difficult for them to enter the U.S. if they have traveled to Iran.
      U.S. officials say - and most European experts agree - that it is not only the sanctions that are blocking Iran's access to the American financial system but also Iran's failure to update laws governing money laundering and prohibitions against the financing of terrorism. (New York Times)
• France to Hold Summit on Israel-Palestinian Peace
  France will host a meeting of ministers on May 30 to try to relaunch the Israel-Palestinian peace process, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced on Thursday. Ayrault said the aim was to prepare an international summit to be held in the second half of 2016. (AFP-France 24)
      See also France to Convene Mideast Peace Meeting Without Israel or Palestinians - Herb Keinon
  France will convene a meeting of 30 countries and international organizations to discuss the parameters for an international peace conference to be held in Paris. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians will be invited to the meeting, though they will be asked to join the peace conference. (Jerusalem Post)
• Congressional Panel Queries U.S. Education Department on Campus Anti-Semitism
  Citing reports of an increase in anti-Israel activity on college campuses, the U.S. House of Representatives Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism asked U.S. Education Secretary John King on Wednesday to outline how his department is tracking anti-Jewish bias. The 38 signatories said in the letter that they "hope you share our view that any campus activity that threatens, harasses, or intimidates Jewish students should not be overlooked simply because it is presented as 'anti-Israel' or 'anti-Zionist.'"
      The task force is chaired by Reps. Nita Lowey (D-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Kay Granger (R-Texas), Steve Israel (D-NY), Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.). (JTA)

• Netanyahu Tells Putin in Moscow: Golan Heights a "Red Line" for Israel - Jonathan Lis
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Moscow on Thursday: "Israel has clear red lines for purposes of self-defense. First, we are working to the best of our ability to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry from Iran and Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Second, we are working to prevent the establishment of an additional terror front against us on the Golan Heights. These are red lines and we will continue to maintain them."
      "Regarding the Golan Heights, we will not go back to the days when they fired at our communities and at our children from atop the Heights. Therefore, with or without an agreement, the Golan Heights will remain under Israeli sovereignty."  (Prime Minister's Office)
      See also Netanyahu Says He Got Russian Assurances over Syrian Threat - Ilya Arkhipov and Jonathan Ferziger
  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he received assurances of military coordination from Russia that would help Israel stop the transfer of weapons through Syria to Iranian-backed Hizbullah in Lebanon. Netanyahu said his meeting with Russian President Putin was "very successful." His senior military advisers will meet with Russian counterparts to work out a plan to help "preserve freedom of movement for the Israel Defense Forces and Air Force in the places most important to our security."  (Bloomberg)
      See also Report: Russian Forces in Syria Fired on Israeli Jets at least Twice - Yoav Zitun
  Russian fighter jets fired at Israel Air Force aircraft near Syria on at least two occasions, Yediot Ahronot reported Friday. The issue was raised during Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's visit to Moscow in March. Prior to his meeting with President Putin on Thursday, Prime Minister Netanyahu said: "I came here with one main goal - to strengthen the security coordination between us so as to avoid mishaps, misunderstandings and unnecessary confrontations."  (Ynet News)
• Israel Arrests Hamas Members Linked to Jerusalem Bombing - Gili Cohen and Yair Ettinger
  The Israel Security Agency said Thursday that several Hamas members from the Bethlehem area have been arrested for involvement in the planning and carrying out of the bus bombing in Jerusalem that wounded 20 on Monday. Three of the wounded are still in intensive care, mechanically ventilated and sedated. (Ha'aretz)
      See also Jerusalem Bus Bomber Came from a Well-to-Do Palestinian Family - William Booth
  Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, the first suicide bomber in Jerusalem in a decade, did not grow up in a refugee camp and his uncles are prosperous merchants. But the cover photo on his Facebook page includes the image of Yahya Ayyash, the chief bombmaker for Hamas, who was killed in 1996.
      His relatives said Abu Srour was more of a Palestinian preppy, the scion of a well-to-do clan of eight prosperous brothers who own and operate a string of furniture outlets and take their children for holidays in Jordan. His relatives scoffed at the idea that Abu Srour would know how to make a bomb himself. Who gave him the bomb and how it was detonated is now the object of an investigation. (Washington Post)

• The Maturing of Israeli-Russian Relations - Anna Borshchevskaya
  Russian President Vladimir Putin has pursued improved ties with Israel since he came into office in March 2000. Russian and Israeli officials maintain multiple open channels of communication. The two countries have an agreement on visa-free tourist travel. Israel is home to over a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
      Putin wants to be seen as a key player throughout the Middle East, and Israel matters in the region. Putin's regional policy, however, is primarily driven by zero-sum anti-Westernism, while Israel is a pro-Western democracy. Moscow's growing aggression in the former Soviet Union, especially in Ukraine, and increasing influence in the Middle East in the context of a Western retreat from the region, complicates Russian-Israeli relations.
      At the same time, the Western retreat from the Middle East is especially problematic for Israel, as it reduces Israel's options. The writer is a Fellow at The Washington Institute. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
• The Afghans Sent by Iran to Fight for Assad - Fariba Sahraei
  Iran has sent thousands of Afghan men, mainly ethnic Hazaras recruited from impoverished migrant communities in Iran, to fight alongside Syrian government forces. Almost three million Afghans live in Iran as second-class citizens. They were offered Iranian passports if they joined the multi-national Shia Muslim militia that Iran has mobilized to support Syrian President Assad. After two weeks of basic training, the Afghan recruits are flown directly to Syria.
      Many have since fled the battlefield and joined the refugee trail to Europe. At a migrant camp in Greece, a clearly traumatized teenage veteran describes how Afghan fighters were used as first-wave shock troops and were effectively disposable. "We would take ground at great cost and then have to hand it over to the Syrian soldiers. But they would usually lose it back to ISIS after a day or two."
      Another Afghan fighter who had served a year in Syria said that when he finally got back to Iran, the Revolutionary Guards broke their promises and gave him a only 30-day temporary residency document instead of a passport. (BBC Persian)
• Seven Months of Popular Palestinian Terrorism
  This study is an interim summary of the Palestinian popular terrorist campaign, currently concluding its seventh month. (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
• UNESCO Declares the Holiest Site in Judaism to Be the "Al-Aqsa Mosque" - Nadav Shragai
  In response to a Palestinian Authority initiative, UNESCO has decided to stop using the term "Temple Mount" and from now on will refer to the holiest site in Judaism as the "Al-Aqsa Mosque."
      For hundreds of years, Muslim scholars wrote in their own religious and historical texts that Solomon's Temple was located on the Temple Mount. They include Jerusalem-based Muslim historians such as Al-Muqaddasi or Aref al-Aref, Iranian scholar Al-Mastoufi, the poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, and the Muslim preacher Abu Bakhar al-Wasati. In the time of Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Waqf published a visitor's guide to the Temple Mount that read, "The site's identification with the Solomonic Temple is beyond all doubt."
      The Temple's existence is supported by archeological discoveries such as a fragment of a Second Temple-era Greek inscription found near the Lion's Gate, or the corner where trumpets were blown to herald the start of the Sabbath and holidays, unearthed at excavations at the compound's southern wall. And, of course, there is the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and a wealth of Jewish and other historical sources that show that the Temple stood on the Temple Mount. (Israel Hayom)
• Hizbullah Is a Transnational Criminal Organization - Matthew Levitt
  Hizbullah is deeply involved in organized criminal enterprises, running illicit networks of its own while also plugging into those of other criminal entities. In some cases, Hizbullah criminal operatives are carrying out direct instructions from Hizbullah officials. In other cases, members or supporters share the proceeds of their crimes with Hizbullah.
      The recent spike in criminal investigations has spooked the group. In a speech last December, Nasrallah categorically denied charges that Hizbullah is involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, and other crimes, challenging his accusers to "Bring me the evidence!" That has now been done, in case after case, with ample evidence from American and European law enforcement agencies. The writer is director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)


Weekend Features


• Frederick Mayer, Jew Who Spied on Nazis after Fleeing Germany, Dies at 94 - Eric Lichtblau
  Frederick Mayer, a German Jew who fled Nazi Germany for the U.S. as a teenager in 1938, parachuted back into Nazi-controlled Austria seven years later as an American spy. Mayer dropped behind enemy lines in February 1945 and posed as a German soldier for more than two months in the Tyrol region of western Austria, gathering critical intelligence on Nazi troop movements. He learned of a convoy of German military trains headed for Italy with troops and munitions, and he had the information radioed to American commanders, allowing Allied warplanes to bomb them.
      In Austria, Mayer also secretly organized hundreds of anti-Nazi resistance fighters and helped produce the "organized disintegration of enemy defenses" in the Innsbruck area and sped the Germans' early surrender without any further fighting, according to an OSS report in September 1945 that nominated Mayer for a Medal of Honor. (He did not get it.) "What he accomplished was just astonishing: He saved thousands of lives on both sides," said Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society.
      Just weeks before the end of the war, the Gestapo discovered Mayer's identity and imprisoned him. His German captors tortured him for days, waterboarding and pistol-whipping him repeatedly to try to get him to reveal the locations of his American colleagues, but he would not talk. (New York Times)
• Death in the Forests of Lithuania - Barbara Sofer
  Ruta Vanagaite, one of Lithuania's most popular authors, used her celebrity and talent to co-author a volume about the shameful and shocking past of her homeland, where 96% of the Jewish community was murdered during the German occupation in World War II. The vast majority of Lithuania's 220,000 Jews weren't deported to death camps. The Jews of Lithuania were slaughtered by their neighbors, with more than 20,000 Lithuanians taking part in the murder. Vanagaite discovered her relatives were involved. Her grandfather had made a list of Communist Jews for the Germans, and one uncle was a high-ranking police office.
      Her co-author is Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Israeli Nazi-hunter who heads the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem. Together, they visited 35 of the 227 mass-murder sites in the villages and forests of the country. Their book, Our People: Journey With an Enemy, published in Lithuanian in January 2016, has become a best-seller, to the surprise of the publishers and despite the topic. (Jerusalem Post)
• Israeli Surgical Sealant Gets EU Approval, FDA Fast-Track Status - David Shamah
  LifeSeal, the no-leak sealant solution for patients who have undergone gastrointestinal (GI) surgery, is now approved for use in the EU. The unique "glue" developed by Israel-based LifeBond allows doctors to prevents leaks after bariatric and GI operations. LifeSeal "has been proven in clinical studies to make a major positive difference for patients," said Ittai Harel, chairman of LifeBond. The sealant is stronger and longer-lasting than others and uses only natural ingredients so it is much better tolerated in patients. (Times of Israel)
• Israel a Role Model for Disaster Medicine, Says Red Cross Chief Surgeon - David Shamah
  "Providing medical assistance under emergency conditions where there are few resources and no order or protocol is far different than the ordered medical facilities where most doctors learn to treat people," Dr. Harald Veen, chief surgeon of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told a conference in Israel last week. "Israelis are very good at this kind of medicine, and they have successfully used their skills both on the battlefield locally and in emergencies such as earthquakes and floods, where they have set up effective and successful field care operations. Not all countries can do that."  (Times of Israel)

Anti-Zionism Is Indeed a Form of Anti-Semitism - Andres Spokoiny (Ha'aretz)

• Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. It holds that Jews, like any other people, have the right to national self-determination.
• Denying that right to Jews, and only to Jews, can't be called anything other than anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism isn't directed at any other national movement but that of the Jews.
• Most anti-Zionists wholeheartedly embrace other national movements, or at least fail to condemn the existence of any nation state other than Israel. Most notably, anti-Zionists often champion Palestinian national aspirations, but the stark double standard seems to escape them.
• Zionism restored freedom and dignity to a people oppressed for two millennia. Zionism is profoundly liberal and democratic.
• It was rooted in Jewish humanistic principles and in progressive ideas of 19th century national democrats like the Italian Giuseppe Massini, who understood that true democracy and freedom can only take place in the context of a sovereign national state.
• The Zionist movement's creation of the modern State of Israel was, and is, a triumph for human rights.
  
  The writer is President and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network.