Israel to Open Office at NATO Headquarters

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel on Tuesday night took another important step toward becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. The organization announced that it will allow Israel to open an office at NATO headquarters in Brussels to push forward a process that could ultimately lead to full-fledged membership for Israel.

NATO’s 28 members include the United States, Canada, European Union member states and other European countries.

The alliance obligates all member states to aid a fellow member if it comes under attack.

“I welcome NATO’s announcement, it is an important step that helps Israel’s security,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It is further testament to Israel’s standing and the desire of many to cooperate with us in the field of security.”

Israeli officials noted that NATO’s announcement came on the heels of a concerted diplomatic effort, with the help of the United States, Canada, Germany and other European countries.

Along with Israel, Jordan and Bahrain also received a green light to open offices at NATO headquarters. The geopolitical situation in the Middle East and spread of jihadi terrorism highlight the importance of the decision.

Newly Unearthed Hebrew Version of Elie Wiesel’s ‘Night’ Unveiled

(Ha’aretz) In Wiesel’s uncensored Hebrew “Night” manuscript, unveiled for the first time, the author expresses desire to take revenge on the Hungarians, lashes out at fellow Jews and describes sexual scenes from the train to Auschwitz.

Wiesel intended to turn it into a special, expanded Hebrew version of his bestseller “Night”—one of the most widely sold, read, translated and quoted Holocaust works internationally. However, before he completed his task, he decided to shelve the text, placing it deep in his archive. Even Haim Gouri, who translated “Night” from the French to Hebrew, didn’t know of its existence.

He describes at length his Christian-Hungarian neighbors, who joyously watched the Jews of his hometown being deported. “All the residents stood at the entrances of their homes, with faces filled with happiness at the misfortune they saw in their friends of yesterday walking and disappearing into the horizon—not for a day or two, but forever. Here I learned the true face of the Hungarian. It is the brutal face of an animal. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I were to say the Hungarians were more violent toward us than the Germans themselves. The Germans tended to shoot Jews,” Wiesel wrote.

Israel’s Temple Mount Approach Faces Renewed Questions After Latest Tensions

(Sean Savage/JNS.org) As both the holiest site in Judaism and home to a 1,400-year-old mosque, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount compound is a natural flashpoint of Jewish-Muslim tension. But the conflict over the holy site has been particularly heated over the past year, with the latest incidents coming during the recent Passover holiday.

In late April, a group of Muslims were removed from the Temple Mount for chanting “Allahu akbar” (“God is greater”) at nearly 1,000 Jewish and Christian visitors who had ascended the site during the Passover holiday. Prior to that incident, 13 Jews were removed from the Temple Mount for illegally praying at the site.

Following those incidents, Jordan’s government warned of “serious consequences” for Israel over what it has described as “the invasion of settler groups and Israeli occupying forces in the Al-Aqsa mosque.”

“There’s absolutely no basis for these claims,” Israeli officials countered. “Israel is behaving responsibly, and Jordan knows that.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that Israel will not change the Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian status quo—in place now for nearly 25 years—of a ban on Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount, despite pressure from some members of his own political party and ministerial cabinet to do so.

“Israel will continue to enforce its longstanding policy: Muslims pray on the Temple Mount; non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount,” Netanyahu has said.

Israeli officials have blamed their Palestinian counterparts for using the Temple Mount to incite a large portion of the past year’s terrorist attacks against Israeli Jews.

“We will not forsake our country and we will keep every inch of our land,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in Septembe, 2015. “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every shahid [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God…The Al-Aqsa mosque is ours. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is ours as well. They [Jews] have no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet, we won’t allow them to do that.”

Palestinian Terrorist Rams Car Into Three Israeli Soldiers

(JNS.org) Three Israeli soldiers were wounded by a Palestinian terrorist in a car-ramming attack in the Binyamin region of Judea and Samaria on Tuesday evening.

According to the Magen David Adom emergency response group, paramedics treated three Israeli soldiers, one who was in moderate to severe condition and was rushed to Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, and two others who were in mild to moderate condition who were taken to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

The other soldiers who were at the scene shot and killed the Palestinian terrorist.

The vehicular attack followed a stabbing attack that moderately wounded a 60-year-old Jewish man outside of the Lion’s Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem late Monday night.

Trump: Israel Should ‘Keep Going’ With Settlements Expansions

(Ynetnews) In an interview with the Daily Mail, the Republican frontrunner goes against long-standing U.S. policy, calling Netanyahu “a very good guy” and adding that “I think I’d have a very good relationship with him.”

Presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump said Monday that he supports further Israeli construction of settlements, coming out against the long-standing U.S. demand that Israel halt all building in the West Bank, a demand that both President Barack Obama and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton have previously supported.

Trump called the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks “the toughest negotiation,” stating that “Israel was never properly treated” by the U.S. “I would love to see if peace could be negotiated,” he told the Daily Mail.

After Crushing Defeats, Ted Cruz and John Kasich Suspend Presidential Campaigns

(Arutz Sheva and combined sources) Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Senator John Kasich quit the race following their latest defeats to Donald Trump in Indiana on Tuesday evening. Cruz confirmed he was dropping out in a speech to supporters in Indianapolis. The Texas senator had appeared likely to go all the way to the Republican convention, but a string of massive losses in the Northeast, and his subsequent defeat in Indiana, appear to have convinced him there was no way forward. Kasich was set to announce the end of his underdog White House bid on Wednesday, according to three campaign officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the candidate’s plans.

“From the beginning, I said I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory,” Cruz said in Tuesday night’s speech.

“Tonight, I’m sorry to say, it appears that path has been foreclosed. Together we left it all on the field in Indiana. We gave it everything we got. But the voters chose another path. And so, with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign,” he added, in comments quoted by The Hill.

Cruz lost Indiana despite pulling out all the stops, including a pact with Kasich and even naming his running mate—former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, who ran for the Republican nomination but dropped out early.

On Wednesday, even before news of Kasich’s decision surfaced, Trump signaled a new phase of his outsider campaign that includes a search for a running mate with experience governing and outreach to one-time competitors in an effort to heal the fractured Republican Party.

“I am confident I can unite much of” the GOP, Trump said Wednesday on NBC.

Shin Bet Intercepts Rocket Fuel Chemicals at Gaza Border

(JNS.org) Israel’s Shin Bet security agency on Tuesday announced that its forces, along with customs inspectors, prevented four tons of ammonium chloride—enough chemicals that could build hundreds of rockets—from entering Gaza.

The chemicals, hidden in a shipment of 40 tons of salt, were seized before the Passover holiday began at the Nitzana border crossing used by Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority for the transfer of goods into the Gaza Strip.

The Shin Bet believes that the importer of the chemicals is a Gaza resident affiliated with the Hamas terror group, who was convinced to smuggle in the materials for use in Hamas’ production facilities, particularly for building rockets.

Customs and land crossings personnel have worked together with the Shin Bet to foil several plots to smuggle dangerous items that terrorist organizations were suspected of planning to use in the Gaza Strip, including sulfuric acid, diving suits, rocket propulsion fuel components, polyurethane, sulfur, fiberglass rolls and especially coarse coal for use in iron smelters and metalwork.

Ex-NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Sentenced to 12 Years

(Ynetnews and combined sources) Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, 72, was sentenced to spend 12 years in prison following his conviction in a $5 million corruption case.

In addition to a $1.75 million fine, prosecutors asked that he serve substantially more than a decade in prison for causing “immeasurable damage” to the democratic process and public trust. Silver’s defense lawyers have sought leniency for him, citing his age, health and good deeds. He served for two decades in the Assembly.