Amid New Terror Attacks, Israel Increases Security Ahead of High Holidays
(JNS.org) Following a period of relative calm in recent weeks, multiple new terror attacks took place in the Jewish state since Friday, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to issue an assessment of Israeli security ahead of the High Holidays.
“This morning and over the weekend there were several attempts to attack IDF soldiers and security forces personnel,” Netanyahu said. “I commend the quick reactions of the soldiers and police personnel, and I send—on behalf of the entire Cabinet—my best wishes for a recovery to the wounded.”
In the latest incident on Monday, two Palestinian terrorists attempted to stab Israeli Border Police officers at the Cave of the Patriarchs. The officers shot and killed both men. In another incident earlier on Monday, a resident of Eastern Jerusalem stabbed two police officers before one of the officers neutralized the attacker. Both officers were wounded and taken to the hospital for treatment.
On Sunday, a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the Judean Jewish village of Efrat, where he stabbed and injured an IDF officer. A second soldier shot the terrorist. On Friday, a Jordanian man also tried to stab an Israeli Border Policeman at the Damascus gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. Two Palestinian terrorists also attempted a car-ramming attack on IDF soldiers using a truck at the entrance to the Kiryat Arba Israeli village near Hebron. Separately, a bus traveling between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim was pelted with rocks and glass bottles filled with paint. And an IDF soldier was lightly wounded in another stabbing attack at a junction near Hebron.
On Sunday, Netanyahu increased security around the country, especially in Jerusalem’s Old City, around the Temple Mount and in Judea and Samaria. He also ordered an increase in social media monitoring to prevent Palestinian incitement.
“Ahead of the Tishrei holidays, the risk threshold has risen,” Netanyahu said. “The IDF and the Israel Police are boosting their forces. The security forces are on heightened alert and I will meet with them today in order to ensure that we will be ready to defend our people during this sensitive period.”
U.S. Senators Urge Obama to Veto Anti-Israel UN Resolutions
(JNS.org) A bipartisan group of 88 U.S. senators sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Monday urging him to veto any anti-Israel resolutions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict brought in front of the United Nations Security Council before his term ends.
The pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), initiated and sponsored the letter with leading efforts by Sens. Michael Rounds (R-S.D.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).
Hours after the statement was released, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he supported the “spirit” of the letter but did not sign it because he rejects the idea that a “two-state solution” is the “only” resolution.
The letter states, “We urge you to continue longstanding U.S. policy and make it clear that you will veto any one-sided UNSC resolution that may be offered in the coming months. Any such resolution, whether focused on settlements or other final status issues, will ultimately make it more difficult for Israelis and Palestinians to resolve the conflict.”
The senators also wrote the only way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is through direct negotiations leading to a two-state solution.
The letter also reminded Obama about former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who vetoed a U.N. resolution that was one-sided in February 2011 as proof that “even well-intentioned initiatives” at the U.N. could “risk locking the parties into positions that will make it more difficult to return to the negotiation table and make the compromises necessary for peace.”
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Criticizes Anti-Israel Exhibit in British Church
(JNS.org) Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, criticized a historic Methodist church in London for demonizing Israel through a reconstructed Israeli border checkpoint exhibition.
“I am sad to learn that Hinde Street Methodist Church is planning an exhibition that portrays Israel as oppressors of victims,” Lord Carey said in a prepared statement, reiterating Israel’s need for a security barrier to safeguard against terror attacks. “The methods used by democracies to defend their civilians should not be undermined by religious leaders in places of worship and brotherhood.”
Coinciding with the World Council of Churches’ World Week for Peace in Palestine, the Hinde Street church created a replica of an Israeli security checkpoint called “You cannot pass today,” to allegedly portray daily life for Palestinians who cross the border between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
“Jewish people across Europe are increasingly being targeted and killed by terrorists, who often attempt to justify their actions by demonizing Israel,” Lord Carey added. “It is therefore particularly sad to see a church in London demonizing and singling out Israel’s defensive actions against terrorism.”
Marie van der Zyl, vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said in a statement the exhibit “looks like a one-sided exhibition, which puts unwelcome and unnecessary strain on Christian-Jewish relations.”
Obama Tells UN Israel Can’t Permanently ‘Occupy’ Palestinian Land
(JNS.org) U.S. President Barack Obama summarized his analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his final address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
“Surely Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel…[and if] Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land,” Obama said in a portion of his speech, calling for a “course correction” of nations on the path to “global integration.”
In Obama’s eight years in office, his administration has not succeeded in their efforts to produce a peace agreement.
Israel was not the only nation critiqued by Obama.
Russia was derided for using force to return to its “former glory” and fueling “nationalistic fervor.”
“The mindset of sectarianism, and extremism, and bloodletting and retribution that has been taking place will not be quickly reversed,” Obama said. “And if we are honest, we understand that no external power is going to be able to force different religious communities or ethnic communities to coexist for long.”
Obama said that for global integration to succeed, the world “must reject any forms of fundamentalism or racism, or a belief in ethnic superiority that makes our traditional identities irreconcilable with modernity. Instead, we need to embrace the tolerance that results from respect of all human beings.”
UC Berkeley Reinstates Anti-Israel Course
(JNS.org) The University of California, Berkeley on Monday reinstated a student-led, anti-Israel course after faculty and students petitioned its suspension one week ago.
Carla Hesse, dean of the College of Letters and Science, wrote to faculty members, “I fully support and defend the principles and policies of our campus that protect the academic freedom of all members of our community.”
Paul Hadweh, the course facilitator, and Hatem Batem, faculty advisor and the ethnic studies department chair, denied that the course promotes a political agenda and does not “cross over the line from teaching to political advocacy and organizing,” she said.
The “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis” course description and syllabus was also revised, but Hadweh admitted that changes were only “cosmetic,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) condemned Berkeley’s decision to reinstate the course.
“A course advocating dismantling a country would never be offered in respect of any other country,” ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said. “If one were, for example, [offering] a course advocating the dismantling of Italy or Peru, no one would even argue that it was not anti-Italian or anti-Peruvian. Clearly, a double-standard that is permissive where anti-Semitism is concerned is at work, and UC Berkeley, by reinstating this course, is enabling anti-Semitism.”
Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUS, an Israel advocacy group, said the decision was not unexpected, but maintains their original position against the anti-Israel course.
“We reaffirm our belief that it violates University of California policy prohibiting political indoctrination in the classroom,” Rothstein said. “Furthermore, we believe that denying the history, identity and rights of any people in their homeland is a destructive act of racism that deserves condemnation, not acceptance into mainstream discourse.”
Palestinian Cleric at Al-Aqsa Mosque Prays for Destruction of America, Russia
(JNS.org) A Palestinian Muslim cleric prayed to Allah to “vanquish America and Russia” in an address last week at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“Oh America, let me tell you about the day when the call to prayer will be heard from atop the White House, from atop the red palace in the Kremlin in Moscow,” Abdallah Ayed said in a video posted online and translated from Arabic by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Ayed said they will shout “Allahu akbar” (Arabic for God is great) from the top of the White House and Kremlin “because Allah promised us both places, Allah promised the prophet Muhammad that Islam would rule the entire land.”
Ayed ended his prayer asking to bring the caliphate soon and return to a Muslim religious and governmental rule.
