Pro-Israel News

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

By JPOST.COM STAFF |10/09/2014 06:22|} The Jerusalem Post|

Israel must play a central role in the reconstruction of Gaza, the United States said on Wednesday.

In a press briefing in Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki welcomed efforts by Israel and the Palestinians to allow the entry of much-needed aid into Gaza, following 50 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

"We were pleased to see that the UN, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority agreed on procedures aimed at expediting the passage of relief materials into [the Strip] while taking into account Israel’s security needs," Psaki told reporters.

She called on the organizers of the upcoming international donors conference on the rehabilitation of Gaza – which will be co-hosted by Egypt and Norway this weekend in Cairo – to include "all governments who can play a role" in assisting the war-torn enclave.

Psaki said the US was hopeful there would be, as in the past, more contributions to the cause. As for Israel's exact part in the reconstruction efforts, she said "they have contributed materials in the past, and we certainly hope they’ll do the same again."

The Obama administration expected both sides to agree on a permanent deal that "addresses the long-term issues" and will prevent another cycle of violence. "...We’re working towards a lasting cease-fire," Psaki added.

The cost of rebuilding the coastal territory in the wake of a seven-week battle, which has left entire neighborhoods flattened and hundreds of thousands homeless, is estimated to stand at just about $8 billion, according to PA projections.

It is believed that 17,000 homes were demolished during Israel's operation, which also took out Gaza's single power plant that the PA says will cost $250 million to repair.

While Psaki – responding to the question who was to blame for "the amount of aid, assistance" that went into projects that have been destroyed: Hamas, Israel or both – said she did not intend to play "the blame game," she did offer the administration's long-held concerns about "Hamas and their indiscriminate rockets" and "the fact that at times there was more Israel could do to avoid civilian casualties."

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

By YAAKOV LAPPIN |

10/07/2014 18:37 | The Jerusalem Post|

In a significant escalation in the already tense North, Hezbollah planted and detonated two bombs in the Mount Dov region along the border with Lebanon on Tuesday, with one device wounding two IDF soldiers.

A second blast tore through the same area about 30 minutes later, but failed to cause injuries or damage.

The wounded soldiers belonged to the Combat Engineering Corps bomb squad unit, which was accompanying Golani Brigade soldiers on patrol in the area.

Both bombs were planted on the Israeli side of the border.

The IDF responded by shelling two Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

The army suspects that the incident is directly related to Sunday’s attempted infiltration from Lebanon, which occurred in the same region.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened up the cabinet meeting Tuesday on the budget by addressing the incident along the northern border, and thanking the soldiers there for foiling an attack.

“We proved that we respond with force against any attempt to attack us, whether it is from the South, the North, or any other sector,” Netanyahu said.

“We are witness to threats accumulating around us, threats of which the whole world is now aware, and is even dealing with some of them.”

These threats, he said, necessitate investing massively in security, as well as investing heavily in communities along the confrontation borders.

The dominant assessment in the defense establishment at this time is that this was a pinpoint incident that will not escalate into a wider conflict. At the same time, the IDF took a severe view of the attack by the Shi’ite terrorist organization.

“The IDF sees this incident as a gross and violent violation of Israeli sovereignty, and sees the Lebanese government and Hezbollah as responsible for any attempt to harm Israeli soldiers or civilians,” the military said.

“The IDF reserves the right to act in any way, and at any time, to defend the citizens of the State of Israel.”

Hours after the incident, Hezbollah took the unusual step of officially claiming responsibility for the border bombings.

In a statement read out on Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV station and released on the Internet, the organization said the Hassan Haider Brigade had planted the bombs – apparently a reference to the name of a Hezbollah member who was reportedly killed in September while seeking to dismantle an Israeli listening device in southern Lebanon’s Sidon region.

The wounded soldiers received initial emergency medical treatment on the spot, before being evacuated to the hospital by helicopter for further treatment. Magen David Adom officials said they suffered from light wounds to their limbs.

In Sunday’s incident, IDF soldiers opened fire on a cell trying to infiltrate the country from Lebanon. An IDF unit dealing with operational security identified the men crossing the border into Israel, and the soldiers opened fire with small arms, apparently hitting one of the infiltrators.

“The cell fled back into Lebanese territory,” the army said afterward.

Lebanese media reported that Israeli cross-border fire had wounded a Lebanese soldier near Kafr Shuba on Sunday.

Last month, senior IDF officials said they were preparing for future hostilities with Hezbollah, and that the Lebanese organization had developed new offensive cross-border capabilities alongside its massive arsenal of rockets and missiles.

According to one of the officials, Hezbollah is planning to send dozens or hundreds of terrorists over the border into Israel in any future war, while targeting the Israeli home front with large numbers of projectiles.

That conflict, the officer said, could last as long as four months.

“Hezbollah’s confidence is growing, along with its combat experience in Syria. The battlegrounds of Syria have enabled Hezbollah to upgrade its capabilities.

Hezbollah plans to send many combatants into Israeli territory near the border and seize it,” the officer said, adding that this had prompted Israel to make “dramatic changes” to its border-defense plans.

The army has noted an increase in Hezbollah’s overt presence on the Israeli border in recent months, including the deployment of openly armed and uniformed operatives.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Monday, October 06, 2014 | Israel Today Staff| Israel Today |

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday hosted his sixth open Bible study at the official Prime

Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem since reestablishing the practice two years ago.

The event was attended by dozens of leading rabbis and academics, many of them members of

Knesset and the current government.

One of those participating in the round-table discussion was Education Minister Shai Peron, who spoke

on the topic of why the Bible begins with the story of creation, rather than jumping straight into God’s

relationship with and commandments to the Nation of Israel.

Peron cited the famous 11th century Jewish sage Rashi, who taught that the Bible begins with the story

of creation to demonstrate that the whole world belongs to God, and He gives this land or that to whom

He will.

Netanyahu noted that there are many in the world today who do not accept Israel’s divine appointment

to this particular land, and who seek to defame the Jewish people and deny their birthright.

The prime minister said that while these open Bible studies have only been held a handful of times, the

Word of God is studied in his home at least once a week. Netanyahu’s younger son, Avner, won the

National Bible Quiz for Youth in 2010, and, according to the prime minister, often leads their home

sessions.