Pro-Israel News

Date:
Monday, October 27, 2014
By HERB KEINON |10/27/2014| The Jerusalem Post| 
 
A representative for the State's Attorney said directives have already been issued to carry out arrests and toughen punishment for rock throwers, including fining of parents of minors.
 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday blamed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for joining with Islamic extremists and inciting against Israel by spreading rumors that Israel planned to change the status quo on the Temple Mount.
 
“There is no change in the status quo in the Temple Mount, and there is no intention to make any changes in this area,” Netanyahu said at yet another consultation in his office dealing with the escalation of tension in the capital.
 
During the meeting Netanyahu issued directives to speedily move forward legislation to significantly stiffen penalties against rock throwers.
 
A representative for the State's Attorney said directives have already been issued to carry out arrests and toughen punishment for rock throwers, including in specific cases fining of parents of minors engaged in such acts of violence.
 
Among those who participated in the meeting were Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, and Israel Security Agency chief (Shin Bet) Yoram Cohen. 
 
Authorization of east Jerusalem housing units
 
Earlier on Monday, officials from Netanyahu's office said the prime minister authorized planning to advance 1,060 new housing units in neighborhoods in Jerusalem beyond the 1967 lines
 
According to the officials, 600 of these units will be constructed in the northern neighborhood of Ramot Shlomo, and another 660 in Har Homa.
 
Netanyahu has also given the green light to move forward infrastructure projects in the West Bank, including – the officials said – roads that will serve the Palestinians as well.
 
The official declined to comment whether there was concern these moves would significantly harm Israel's position in Europe and the US, which sharply condemned an announcement earlier this month of moving forward development in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos.
Date:
Friday, October 24, 2014
By JPOST.COM STAFF| 10/24/2014| The Jerusalem Post| 
 
In the night's latest incident, Arab rioters threw firecrackers, Molotov cocktails and rocks at Jewish homes in the Old City.
 
Jerusalem's security alert level was increased after a second violent day in the city, a day after a Hamas terrorist killed a three-month-old baby and injured several others during a violent car rampage. 
 
In the night's latest incident, Arab rioters reportedly threw firecrackers, Molotov cocktails and rocks at Jewish homes in the Old City.  
 
The rioters were eventually dispersed by Israel Police and border police. No damage or injuries were reported.
 
Earlier, Jerusalem police announced that there will be restrictions on who can enter the Temple Mount for Friday prayers due to security threats, Israel Radio reported.
 
Though Muslim women of all ages will be able to enter the Temple Mount, entrance for Muslim men will be allowed only for those above the age of 40. 
 
On Thursday, masked Arab assailants hurled stones at a kindergarten in the Ma’aleh Zeitim neighborhood, not far from the Palestinian quarter of Ras al-Amud in the eastern part of the capital.
 
There were no reports of injuries or damage. The assailants fled the scene immediately after the incident. Border Police and regular police personnel are conducting searches of the vicinity. 
 
A young Palestinian, 12, who was arrested on Wednesday for hurling stones at Jewish motorists near the A-Tor neighborhood was summoned before the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for a hearing on extending his remand.
 
Earlier on Thursday, unidentified assailants threw stones at the Jerusalem light rail station in Shuafat, just hours after the deadly vehicular terror attack which killed a Jewish infant girl. Jerusalem police vow to step up arrests of rioters in wake of the attack.
 
There were also reports of Palestinian stone-throwing toward police and Border Police units operating in the Issawiya section of east Jerusalem. Police used crowd-dispersal methods to quell the unrest. 
 
No injuries or damage was reported.
 
Near the entrance to the Shuafat quarter, a bus carrying soldiers en route to the IDF Central Command base came under a hail of rocks thrown by local Palestinians. There were no injuries reported.
 
The stone-throwers fled the scene soon after the incident.
 
On his Facebook page, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman posted a status linking the terror attack in Jerusalem to the horrific shooting that paralyzed the Canadian capital of Ottawa.
 
“The terror attacks that took place almost at the same time on opposite sides of the globe – Jerusalem and Ottawa – prove once again that terrorism is a worldwide plague that needs to be fought with force and without compromise,” Liberman wrote.
 
“Terrorism doesn’t stem from construction of homes in Jerusalem, Ottawa, New York, Madrid, London, or Moscow,” the foreign minister wrote. “Rather, it stems from a struggle against extremist Islam throughout the Western world. We stand by our friend Canada, which has proven by virtue of its joining the war against Islamic State and its steadfast support of Israel, that it doesn’t capitulate to terror. We will also continue to be determined in the fight against terror and terrorists.”
Date:
Thursday, October 23, 2014
European Union and Australia join Washington in denouncing fatal
ramming of pedestrians at train station
 
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF AND AFP October 23, 2014, 12:14 pm | The Times of Israel| 
 
 
The European Union and Australia on Thursday condemned a deadly attack that saw a
Palestinian terrorist ram his car into Israeli pedestrians standing in a train stop in
Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing a baby and injuring others.
Lars Faaborg-Andersen, the European Union’s ambassador to Israel, tweeted his condemnation
of the attack, writing, “I strongly condemn terrorist attack in Jerusalem killing a baby and wounding
several.”
Australian Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma posted a message on Twitter expressing his
shock at the incident.
“Shocked by terrorist attack in Jerusalem + condemn unreservedly,” Sharma wrote. “Esp
saddened by death of 3-month-old baby girl. Deep condolences to family.”
Eight other people were injured in the incident, which took place in the early evening. Israeli police
called it a “hit and run terror attack.”
Earlier, the US State Department denounced the attack.
“We express our deepest condolences to the family of the baby, reportedly an American citizen,
who was killed in this despicable attack,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a
statement.
“We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.”
The US State Department did not immediately confirm to The Times of Israel that the baby, Chaya
Zissel Braun, was a US citizen.
 
The driver, identified as Abdel Rahman Al-Shaludi, a Palestinian from Silwan in East Jerusalem,
died from his injuries early on Thursday, the Shaare Zedek Medical Center said. The 21-year-old
had been shot and wounded as he tried to flee the scene, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
It was the second such deadly incident in three months, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu to immediately order an increase in police presence across the city.
During the last attack in August, a Palestinian man driving an excavator rammed a bus, killing one
Israeli and injuring five. Police shot the driver dead.
The early evening incident triggered clashes between stone-throwing youths and police in several
east Jerusalem neighborhoods which lasted late into the night.
Police warned they would not tolerate any further unrest, referring to clashes which have gripped
the eastern part of the city on an almost daily basis for the past four months.
 
“Jerusalem police emphasizes that it will demonstrate zero tolerance toward any incident of
violence and will put its hand on anyone who disturbs public order in the city and prosecute them
to the fullest extent of the law,” Samri said in a statement.
Extra police forces were deployed in areas of friction in the capital, police spokesman Micky
Rosenfeld told AFP. He said a number of people had been arrested for stone-throwing overnight
but declined to give numbers.
“On an operational level, police presence was reinforced with extra border police, a motorcycle
unit and other units who specialize in public order,” he said, indicating they were deployed in East
Jerusalem areas such as Wadi Joz, Issawiya and Silwan to prevent any fresh unrest.
He said police had activated “a strategic plan” to end the wave of unrest, which would incorporate
increased manpower, technological resources and intelligence.
 
Date:
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Defense minister stresses solidity of US-Israel ties, but doesn’t hide
concern that a ‘bad deal’ on Tehran nuclear program may be looming
 
BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL October 22, 2014, 6:33 am
 
WASHINGTON — The formal motions of a 19-gun salute and a wreath-laying
ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Tuesday could not obscure the
distance between Washington and Jerusalem when it comes to the terms of a
nuclear deal with Iran.
“The Iranian question concerns us,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon acknowledged, shortly after
meeting here with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “The question of whether there will be an
agreement and what that agreement is concerns us, and I spoke with them about this,” he said.
“We are making our opinions known.”
 
The former IDF chief of general staff has had a tense relationship with the American
administration, notably since he referred to US Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this year as
“obsessive” and “messianic” when it comes to peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians,
and privately rejected Kerry’s West Bank security proposals as unrealistic.
Evidently determined not to exacerbate those strains, Ya’alon did not harp on the diplomatic
implications of the yawning gap between Israel’s hopes for a deal that will strip Iran of its capability
to enrich uranium and Washington’s position that reduced enrichment and international monitoring
will suffice. He carefully described his talks with Hagel and other security officials as “generally
very good meetings which point to the excellent relations” between the two countries.
 
But Ya’alon also did not suggest that Israel and the US were any closer now to an agreed
position regarding the terms of an acceptable Iran deal. The United States is one of six negotiating
partners in the framework of the P5+1 talks with Iran, which face a looming November 24 deadline
to either come to an agreement or hammer out terms for an extension.
Israeli officials – notably including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – have publicly stated
repeatedly that Iran’s “military nuclear” capabilities must be dismantled. The US, by contrast, is
reportedly willing to push a deal that would leave Iran with a proportion of its uranium-enriching
centrifuges.
Asked whether he believes Israel could live with a centrifuge-equipped Iran following a nuclear
deal, Ya’alon responded tellingly that “we have said along the way that sometimes it is better that
there is no deal rather than a bad deal. “
“The question is what we are talking about – if we are talking about a number of centrifuges, why
do we need to be talking about centrifuges at all? Are they talking about other aspects of the
Iranian military nuclear project, such as missile technology which can carry a nuclear warhead?
And what about other topics that lie outside the nuclear project, like terror?” Ya’alon added.
 
State Department officials involved in the negotiations have repeatedly reiterated that Iran’s other
problematic policies – its support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,
as well as its own domestic human rights violations – are not on the table in the P5+1 negotiations.
They have also said, however, that even if a nuclear deal is struck, Washington will still wait for
changes regarding these other topics before normalizing relations with the Islamic Republic.
Ya’alon maintained Tuesday afternoon that “all of those topics are on the table as part of a larger
vision, that we think at least, are common interests between us and the United States.”
When pressed, Ya’alon would not say that he felt at all satisfied by the US position on Iran.
Instead, he emphasized that “we still haven’t concluded the visit, but it is an opportunity to express
our position and our thoughts on any number of topics including those that are still being debated.
There is an opportunity and a place and discussion.”
 
The Likud minister sought to downplay what have become frequent tit-for-tat exchanges between
some Israeli ministers and the Obama administration.
Only last week, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett slammed Kerry for comments in which the
secretary of state said it was imperative to restart stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks, since the
conflict was helping the Islamic State recruit new members. “There wasn’t a leader I met with in
the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and
the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they
felt –- and I see a lot of heads nodding –- they had to respond to,” Kerry said Thursday. “People
need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with humiliation and denial
and absence of dignity.”
 
Ya’alon, no stranger to such brawls, said that he “thought [the topic] is behind us,” but also
acknowledged that “in general, there are disagreements, and we can’t always conceal them. It is
better that they are carried out behind closed doors; on this visit there have been opportunities to
discuss them.”
 
Speaking amidst rows of American war dead in Arlington National Cemetery, Ya’alon added that
“we must not forget that the United States is really the State of Israel’s most important strategic
ally. In every aspect, they are the leading power in the world, whether it is economically or
militarily or diplomatically, and it is good that we have the opportunity to share our opinions.”
Ya’alon stressed that he believed that the core US-Israel relationship was sound. “I think that in
general as I see on this visit, the relationships [are] so strong and well-based – both on shared
values as well as shared interests – that I believe that we can weather these storms.”
 
Date:
Tuesday, October 21, 2014

By HERB KEINON | 10/21/2014 02:25 | The Jerusalem Post| 

Israel and Hamas are expeceted to resume indirect negotiations in Cairo next week, following an invitation issued to both sides by the Egyptians.

The talks will come two months after a cease-fire went into effect ending Operation Protective Edge, and some two weeks after international donors pledged $5.4 billion to rehabilitate Gaza. The talks are meant to find a long-term arrangement in the Gaza Strip.

A senior Hamas official reportedly said the talks were set to resume on October 27.

"Hamas and the Palestinian factions will take part in a session of indirect negotiations with the occupation (Israel) on the 27th of this month at the invitation of Egypt," AFP quoted Hamas deputy leader Mussa Abu Marzuk as saying.

Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel’s position on the talks was simple: Israel supports the rehabilitation of Gaza on the condition that “this is not taken advantage of for the building of tunnels, or manufacturing rockets, or anything else that has a military-terrorist purpose.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, meanwhile, said it was clear Hamas is trying to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure.

He said he hoped the supervisory mechanism that has been put into place to oversee the transfer of construction materials into the Gaza Strip actually works.

“We have no reason to prevent the building of clinics or schools,” he said in an interview with Israel Radio. “But we do have to make sure that the supervisory mechanisms prevent them from using construction materials to rebuild the tunnels. We will know in a few weeks whether this supervision is effective or not. That is our responsibility.”

The two sides held indirect talks for less than a day in Cairo last month.
Date:
Monday, October 20, 2014
 
BY REBECCA SHIMONI STOIL October 20, 2014, 1:48 pm
 
WASHINGTON — An American academic group under fire for reportedly barring
Israelis from its conference says its boycott of Israel is not discriminatory and does
not include sanctions against individual Israeli academics.
The statement by the American Studies Association came after the Los Angeles hotel hosting its
annual conference was threatened with a discrimination suit over the group’s anti-Israel policies.
The Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles, California, came under scrutiny last week, when the
American Center for Law and Justice sent its management a letter warning that the hotel may
have exposed itself to civil action by hosting the ASA’s annual conference.
The legal watchdog group said that it was “deeply concerned that unlawful discriminatory
exclusionary policies will be implemented by the ASA as to who is permitted to attend the Annual
Meeting at the Westin Bonaventure,” due to the organization’s academic boycott of Israel.
A public petition calling on the hotel to refuse to host the organization was also initiated on the
Change.org website.
During its annual conference in 2013, the scholarly organization made headlines when its
members voted in favor of a resolution that would “honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a
boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”
Cast by both opponents and proponents as a watershed moment for the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions campaign, the well-established academic organization did not include the parameters
for the boycott in the initial resolution.
 
 
The group said in a statement at the time that the boycott was limited to banning “formal
collaborations” with Israeli institutions or scholars “expressly serving as representatives or
ambassadors” of Israeli institutions or the government.
“The resolution does not apply to individual Israeli scholars engaged in ordinary forms of academic
exchange,” the statement said.
 
The difference between a “representative or ambassador” of an Israeli academic institution and an
“individual Israeli scholar” who is affiliated with an Israeli academic institution remains vague. In at
least one letter addressed to the administration at the University of California – San Diego, the
ASA explained that it meant “deans, rectors, presidents and others.”
Although the Westin has not issued any statement about the conference, the academic
organization took to the blogosphere recently to defend itself against charges of discrimination.
Last week, in response to a blog post by Northwestern University Law School Prof. Eugene
Kontorovich, an ASA official explained that even a government official – in fact, even Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – could attend the group’s annual conference – provided they
represented themselves and not the boycotted institution.
Kontorovich believes that even though it does not preclude the participation of all Israeli
academics, the ASA’s version of the academic boycott constitutes “facial discrimination” –
discrimination which is enshrined in the organization’s rules rather than simply carried out on a de
facto basis.
 
“The ASA’s argument that it does not bar Israelis, but only Israelis who attend as representatives
of their academic institutions, will not likely help them much, as the normal way for academics to
attend academic conferences is as representatives of their institutions,” Kontorovich wrote in the
Washington Post’s Volokh Report, adding that the current argument “amounts to saying the [ASA]
is not discriminating as much as they could have, which is not an advisable defense in
discrimination cases.”
Later, however, ASA President Elizabeth Duggan responded to a blog post at Legal Insurrection
documenting this exchange by claiming that “the boycott never applied to attendance and
participation in the conference by Israelis. We invited several to participate, and they are on the
program.”
“The boycott never has applied to individual scholars, or to university officials participating as
individuals. Our boycott applies only to official ASA collaborations by ASA *as an association*
with Israeli universities, all of which are state supported. Our members and depts are free to act
according to conscience, the boycott applies only to the associations [sic] official actions,” she
wrote.
Duggan denied that additional wording placed on the organization’s website that explained that the
boycott did not include a boycott of most Israeli individuals constituted a “backtracking or a
change” from the pro-boycott resolution passed by the ASA’s members during last year’s annual
conference.
 
“We do not discriminate against any individuals at our conference. We never did, and never would
have,” Duggan wrote. “We will not engage institutions of the Israeli state on an official basis, and
that is a protest against the abridgment of Palestinian academic and other freedoms by Israel.”
The ASA did not respond to requests by The Times of Israel to clarify its position regarding the
academic boycott of Israel, and in what capacities specific Israelis would not be allowed to
participate in the organization’s annual meeting.
There is, in fact, at least one Jewish-Israeli academic whose primary affiliation is with an Israeli
university on the program for the ASA’s annual conference next month. Neve Gordon of Ben
Gurion University of the Negev is scheduled to participate, as are Ahmad Sa’di of the same
institution and Mohammed Wattab of the Zefat College School of Law.
But Kontorovich said that the overall impact of the organization’s “strong statements” on BDS
would naturally have a “chilling effect” on the participation of Israeli academics. Even if the ASA
has clarified its stance toward Israelis, he added, to do so less than a month before the
conference means that it would be too late for would-be participants to register to present papers.
While the American Studies Association’s primary focus is interdisciplinary study of American
culture and history, the organization’s newfound focus on Palestine figures prominently in the
conference.
 
Session titles include “Political Imaginings of Palestine Beyond the Here and Now”; “Encountering
Zionism: From Academia to Queer Activism and BDS”; “Teaching About Palestine: Changing the
Pain and Fury of Ignorance to the Pleasures of Knowing”; “Students For Justice in Palestine:
Awakening the US Campus”; and others.
Panels on more general topics, too, such as the carceral state in transnational perspective and
settler colonialism, mention Israel in over half of the cases. Even the session entitled
“Chican@/Native American Relations: Post-colonialism and Contradictions in the Spanish-Anglo
Colonized Borderlands” includes a paper comparing “Common Resistance: Indigenous, Chican@,
and Palestinian Articulations of Sovereignty, Nation, and Recognition, 1974-1982.”
Only the panel in which Wattab is a participant – “The Party’s Over: A Panel and Open
Discussion on the Aftermath of the ASA’s Boycott Resolution” – takes a critical view toward the
BDS resolution.
 
Date:
Friday, October 17, 2014

By JPOST.COM STAFF | 10/17/2014 13:14| The Jerusalem Post|

Israel conducted an exercise on Friday morning at Ben-Gurion Airport to practice identifying travelers arriving from countries at-risk with the Ebola virus. 

The drill encompassed an entire simulated screening process, from questioning visitor coming off the plane, to evacuation and hospital treatment. 

According to Health Ministry guidelines, authorities are instructed to evacuate to isolated hospital treatment travelers who have in the past three weeks visited a country where the strain is prevalent and have a fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). 

Israel will specifically begin monitoring travelers arriving at the airport from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone

The drill took place following talks held by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent week to discuss the spread of the virus.

“Israel is prepared to stop, as much as is possible, the entry of Ebola patients into our borders, as part of our general efforts to defend our borders from illegal infiltrators and terror,” Netanyahu said during the meeting. 

Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids such as blood, vomit, urine, and stools of an infected person, but not by coughing, sneezing or eating food touched by someone who is infected.

The disease has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in Western Africa, and that has infected a handful in the West, including the US and Spain.
Date:
Thursday, October 16, 2014

By Lidar Gravé-Lazi
10/14/2014 | The Jerusalem Post| 

“It is just a question of time until these people, living among us, become a lethal weapon directed against us,” says Tourism Minister Uzi Landau.

Tourism Minister Uzi Landau penned a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday calling to revoke citizenship for Israelis enlisting with Islamic State.

According to Landau, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police estimate that over 30 Israeli citizens have joined the ranks of the Sunni jihadist organization.

“These are people who live in Israel as citizens, and as such they enjoy a long list of rights as well as access to large and sensitive information. It is just a question of time until these people, living among us, become a lethal weapon directed against us,” the Bayit Yehudi minister said.

“This is a phenomenon of the utmost severity, which could gain momentum and transform into a sword over our heads,” he continued. “It is our duty as a government, as a society and as a state to take action to eradicate this from our midst.”

Landau said he was also appealing to Netanyahu to prevent these people from reentering the country.

“Every Israeli citizen must know that the State of Israel will act relentlessly against the activity of the ISIS organization, and in doing so will act meticulously,” he said.

He wrote the letter just days after reports surfaced that three additional Arab Israelis, from Yafia village in the Galilee, had joined Islamic State in Syria.

Marwan Kilabi, the father of one of the three youths who had joined ISIS, told Channel 2 on Tuesday that his son, Muhammad, had contacted him on Monday and said he was “fine.”

“We still don’t know what happened. Maybe they brainwashed him. He is a student, a good boy,” Marwan Kilabi said, adding that he was “embarrassed” to say that he didn’t know why his son had decided to join the organization.

Kilabi, who serves as a police volunteer, stressed that his family was not radical or overly religious, and repeatedly emphasized that he viewed Israel as his home.

When asked what he thought of Landau’s letter to Netanyahu, he said simply that he hoped his son would return home safely.

The issue of citizens leaving home to join the terrorist organization in Syria or Iraq is a problem plaguing not only Israel.

Last month, Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander told the National Post that his ministry revoked the passports of several Canadians who had intended to travel to “the volatile region to enlist as foreign fighters.”
Date:
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
BY RENEE GHERT-ZAND October 15, 2014, 11:38 am | The Times of Israel| 
 
‘We must rise to action in the defense of Israel! We must vote,
demonstrate and lift our voices in the press!” American preacher Dr.
Robert Stearns urged 5,000 Christian pilgrims from 80 different
countries filling the seats of Jerusalem’s new Pais Arena on Tuesday
evening for a spectacular show celebrating their declaredly
unshakable bond with Israel. They were at the arena for “Israeli Night,” an event of The Feast of Tabernacles to which Israeli
citizens and residents, including 300 Jewish, Christian and Druze IDF paratroopers who served
in Operation Protective Edge, were invited as special guests.
The 45 Fijian UN peacekeepers kidnapped in September on the Syrian side of the Golan
Heights by the Nusra front, and allegedly freed when Qatar paid a $25 million ransom, were
also in attendance. The Feast of Tabernacles has been presented annually on Sukkot for the past 35 years by the
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, an organization established in 1980 to represent
millions of Christians, churches and denominations to Israel and its people. It reaches
Christians in 140 countries and has branches in 80. ICEJ raises millions of dollars to assist with the aliyah to Israel of Jews from around the world,
most recently from India and Ukraine. During this summer’s conflict with Hamas, the
organization provided portable bomb shelters and other assistance to Israeli communities on
the Gaza border. ICEJ also runs a full-care residence for 70 Holocaust survivors in Haifa.
Tuesday’s spirited, colorful, music-filled extravaganza capped off a week of visits to holy sites
and study and prayer sessions for the pilgrims. They also participated in a march through
Jerusalem and heard addresses by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and World Jewish Congress
President Ronald Lauder, as well as by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu via video link.
 
‘We’re here because of our love of the God of Israel as he brings his people home’
According to ICEJ’s website, the Feast of Tabernacles is meant to celebrate the “recognition of
the hand of God in Israel’s modern day restoration and the need to work with what God is
doing, and bless it.” This year’s feast was the largest in seven years, despite Israel’s conflict
with Gaza, which ended less than two months ago.
“It’s an encouraging statement of solidarity,” ICEJ media director David Parsons told The Times
of Israel. “We needed to move it from Jerusalem’s International Conference Center to the Pais Arena
because we needed more space. [Jerusalem Mayor Nir] Barkat urged us to make the move,
and we were the first international gathering in the new arena,” he said.
Judy Russell, the personal assistant to Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile, the leader of Australia’s
Christian Democratic Party, came with a group of 22 pilgrims touring Israel for two and a half
weeks. “We’re here because of our love of the God of Israel as he brings his people home,” she said before the singing
and shouts of Hallelujah reached a deafening pitch.
“It is our mission to bless Israel. In Australia, people are
being manipulated by the Palestinian message. It is the
job of people like us to educate others about Israel’s
side,” Russell said. Roy Sims of Sydney, a member of Russell’s group who has made visits to Israel since the 1970s, agreed that Israel is misunderstood.
He said this summer’s fighting with Hamas in Gaza worried him, but it did not cause him to be
concerned about his personal safety or deter him from coming.
“It’s one thing to be in the lion’s den. It’s another to put oneself in the lion’s mouth, which is not
what we are doing,” he said. The evening’s program featured rousing musical performances by a variety of Christian
performers, as well as by a number of Israeli musicians, including composer Kobi Oshrat, who
had the 5,000-strong crowd signing along to his 1979 Eurovision-winning song, “Hallelujah.”
The pilgrims were obviously moved by a tribute to the IDF soldiers, who were called to the
stage with their commanding officers and Greek Orthodox clergyman Father Gabriel Naddaf,
who has encouraged Christian Arab youth to enlist in the IDF.
 
“Christians around the world are behind you, praying for you 24 hours a day,” ICEJ public
‘Israel does not answer to America. Israel answers to the promises of Hashem’
relations director Doron Schneider told the soldiers.
In his keynote sermon later in the program, Stearns, leader of the Eagles’ Wings ministry based
in upstate New York, called the young IDF soldiers “the watchmen on the walls of Zion, on the
frontline of the battle for all humanity.”
Stearns’ words brought the crowd to their feet, shouting “Halleluyah!” and blowing shofars.
“There has been a division between Jews and Christians for 2,000 years. Horrible things were
done to Jews in the name of Christianity, but that was never the spirit of the true followers of
Jesus,” he said. “Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew, and we follow the Jewish Jesus. We received the Bible and the
Prophets from the Jewish people.” Stearns sent a clear political message, expressing his
displeasure with the policies of the current administration
in Washington. “Israel does not answer to America. Israel answers to the promises of Hashem,” he said using a
traditional Jewish name for God.
“Don’t look to Obama. Don’t look to the UN. Don’t look to the EU. Lift your eyes to the God of
Israel. He is your rock, your salvation, you defender. He is your Iron Dome!” he told the
audience, presumably focused on the Israelis.
The preacher also directed remarks to the American president, accusing him of having his
priorities wrong in the Middle East.
 
“Obama, stop worrying where Israelis are building apartments in their capital of Jerusalem, and
start worrying about stopping ISIS from murdering Jews and Christians,” he said.
In conjunction with the Feast, a press conference was held on Monday afternoon calling for an
end to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. The event was hosted jointly by ICEJ,
the Israel Allies Foundation and the World Jewish Congress.
Later on Monday, Lauder thanked the thousands of Christians assembled in the Pais Arena for
standing with Israel through a difficult year, and pledged Jewish support in combating what he
termed a Christian “genocide” in the Middle East and Africa.
“Thank you for standing here, in Jerusalem, the undivided capital of the Jewish state of Israel.
Israel has no better friends in the world than you. We know that you have watched out for us
and we will always watch out for you. The fact is, there is no safer place in the Middle East for
Christians than here in Israel,” he said.
 
Shmulik Fried, director of the Friends of Israel department of Keren Hayesod-United Israel
Appeal, seconded the importance of nurturing and strengthening the Jewish-Christian alliance.
“The Christians are trying to change direction and are
trying to show shared values and that they want the best
for Israel, including aliyah of Jews to Israel,” he said as
he waited for Tuesday’s spectacular to begin.
“No one supports Israel like the Christians,” he said.
Twenty-three-year-old Olav Andre traveled from his home in Ulsteinvik, Norway, to personally
demonstrate his support.
He said he was glad to have made this first trip to Israel, so that he could see the country for
himself.
“In the media, Israel is the big devil, but it is really the opposite. I want to speak the truth about
what is really happening here and around the Middle East,” he said.
 
Date:
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
 

By LAHAV HARKOV \10/11/2014 08:07| The Jerusalem Post|

Israel Allies Foundation President and former tourism minister Rabbi Benny Elon said the MPs represent millions of Israel supporters from around the world.

Christian parliamentarians from around the world will show their support for Israel this week in a Christian Allies Caucus conference in Jerusalem.

The MPs have a packed schedule for the three-day event, including a briefing by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, participating in the Feast of Tabernacles with 5,000 Israel-supporters from 90 countries, and visiting a factory in Ma’aleh Adumim with 200 Palestinian workers.

The CAC members will also sign a petition to increase supervision of funds their countries send to UNRWA, the UN agency dealing only with Palestinian refugees and their descendants, which was widely discredited during Operation Protective Edge after Hamas rockets were found stored in and fired from its buildings and their vicinity. They will present the document to Communications Minister Gilad Erdan.

The participating parliamentarians hail from the UK, Italy, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala and Suriname.

Israel Allies Foundation president and former tourism minister Rabbi Benny Elon said the MPs represent millions of Israel supporters from around the world.

“Unfortunately, hatred toward the Jewish state, which connects radical Islam with the extreme Left, is making more noise and gaining more recognition than ever before, but it is important to know that around the world, there are hundreds of millions of Israel supporters, and we try to channel that into political power to help Israel,” Elon explained.

 

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