Tag Archives: Country: Israel

AP: Israeli police say vandals have spray-panted slogans on the home of one of the leaders of a liberal Jewish women’s group that has angered ultra-Orthodox communities over its demands for equality of worship.

Fox News: An Egyptian Coptic cleric who was mistreated during Orthodox Easter services is threatening to sue.

CNSNews: Two months after the Obama administration released $250 million in aid to Egypt in what Secretary of State John Kerry called “a good-faith effort to spur reform,” the country is witnessing a surge of anti-Israel sentiment, much of it stoked by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.

Religion Clause Blog: In Israel today, Women of the Wall held their first prayer session since a court decision (see prior posting) vindicating their right to pray at Jerusalem’s Western Wall wearing prayer shawls (traditionally worn only by men).

The Times of Israel: Jews are currently permitted to ascend to the volatile holy site, but police forbid them from worshiping there.

Washington Times: Gaza “modesty police” are out in full force, and have arrested more than 40 in April alone, driving fears that Hamas-inspired Islamic fundamentalism is taking over the region.

The Volokh Conspiracy has posted a very interesting fact and graphic.

Washington Post: Women who want to wear prayer shawls while praying in the women’s section of the Western Wall are not breaking the law, according to a landmark decision handed down Thursday (April 25) by the Jerusalem District Court.

AP: Palestinians in this Christian village are hoping the new pope can succeed where others have failed – pressing Israel to drop plans to build a stretch of its West Bank separation barrier through their picturesque valley.

The Guardian: Natan Sharansky calls for plaza to include area for mixed public, while retaining the segregated sections for orthodox worshippers

Eugene Kontorovich at Volokh Conspiracy: I have put up a new working paper on SSRN, entitled Jurisdiction Over Israeli Settlement Activity in the International Criminal Court . . . In the wake of the U.N. General Assembly’s recent recognition of Palestinian statehood, the Palestinian government has made clear its intention to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), where it could challenge the legality of Israeli settlements. This Article explores the previously unexamined jurisdictional hurdles for such a case.

Religion Clause Blog: A New York Jewish Week article today speculates that dramatic changes in the relationship of religion and government could be in the offing in Israel as Benjamin Netanyahu moves to form a coalition government that may exclude the haredi (strictly Orthodox) Shas and United Torah Judaism parties

Washington Times: Designated terrorist group Hamas has warned President Obama against visiting the holy Temple Mount site in Jerusalem when he visits Israel next month, saying the action would be “a diplomatic catastrophe.”

AP: Police questioned 30 people on Tuesday and searched the homes of six employees of a private fertility clinic who are suspected of illegally trafficking human eggs and selling them to Israeli couples with fertility problems.

Haaretz: In interview with Al-Ahram on eve of Islamic Summit Conference in Cairo, Iranian president also says his country opposes outside intervention in Syria.

Israel National News: The United Nations says Israel must withdraw all of its citizens from the regions of Judea and Samaria. The recommendation came in a report issued Thursday by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has a history of passing numerous biased resolutions condemning Israel for various alleged ‘crimes’ each year.

LifeSiteNews: Israel’s two chief rabbis have again issued a letter to all synagogue and community rabbis urging them to condemn abortion and to support the work of Efrat, the country’s pro-life organization.

Jerusalem Post: Activists set to demonstrate against Jerusalem Conference for awarding a prize to Efrat, an anti-abortion organization.

Religion Clause Blog: Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that a Tel Aviv Family Court has broken new legal ground by granting a divorce to a same-sex couple who had married in Canada but lived in Israel.

ABC: The historic vote recognizes Palestine as a state and gives Palestine the right to join U.N. agencies. It opens the door for Palestine to become a party to the International Criminal Court, allowing them to bring cases against Israel.

AP: The Palestinians are certain to win U.N. recognition as a state Thursday but success could exact a high price: Israel and the United States warn it could delay hopes of achieving an independent Palestinian state through peace talks with Israel.

AP: Germany says it won’t back a Palestinian drive for statehood in a U.N. vote this week – putting it at odds with France and other European countries.

AP: The French foreign minister says France plans to vote in favor of recognition of a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly this week.

Reuters: A bomb exploded on a bus in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 15 people in what Israeli officials said was a terrorist attack that could complicate efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Christian Newswire: In the latest in a string of vandalism incidents to hit Christian holy sites in Israel this year, Calvary Baptist Church was defaced yesterday.

Religion Clause: The Greek Orthodox Church claims that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre– believed to be by the site of Jesus’ crucifixion– has always been given special treatment and exempted from water fees.

Haaretz: On the anniversary of the Jewish matriarch Rachel’s death, devout Jews from around the world bring their prayers to her tomb.

Religion Clause Blog: Arutz Sheva reported yesterday on a religious discrimination lawsuit filed in Israel against the city ofModi’in because it closed its popular Anabe Park to non-residents of the city last month during the holiday of Sukkot.

Jerusalem Post: As minority’s religious leader calls for political acknowledgement, Tehran blames Israel for Sunni terror attacks.

Chicago Sun Times: “The Christian community is vanishing, and it is not because of Islamic terrorism,” the Rev. Dr. Donald E. Wagner, program director of the Friends of Sabeel North America told the Sun-Times Editorial Board last week. “It is because of losing land, of having economic deprivation and just little future for the kids.”

The Christian Century: Jews from Manhattan to Mozambique held prayer vigils on Monday (Oct. 22) to protest the arrest and incarceration of an Israeli feminist as she was leading 250 American Jewish women in prayer at the Western Wall.

The Hill: Cantor released his report on “The Imperial Presidency” on Tuesday as a closing indictment of all that Republicans think is wrong with Obama’s leadership. Among the 40 or so examples are two instances of foreign policies included under the heading “ignoring the plain letter of the law and failing to faithfully execute the law.”

Education News: Rumors of a UN decision to re-introduce Holocaust studies in schools run by UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees — have raised the ire of Jordanian teachers, who say they will refuse to teach history that “harms the Palestinian cause.”

CNSNews: A leading Jewish human rights group is urging President Obama to sever ties with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood after its top leader called for “holy war” against Israel.

TimesofIsrael.com: Judge says Google-owned YouTube was not included as a respondent in the proceedings

AP: Israel’s foreign minister has condemned the vandalism of the Romanian church in Jerusalem, the latest in a string of attacks on Christian sites in the Holy Land.

Washington Post: Thousands of Christians from around the world have filled the streets of downtown Jerusalem in a jubilant show of support for Israel.

Fox News: Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the perpetrators defaced a wall leading to the Church of the Dormition. The century-old structure is built on the site where tradition says the Virgin Mary died. The graffiti, which read “Jesus, son of a whore, price tag,” had already been removed by midmorning, said Rosenfeld.

Ed News: The University of California Student Association (UCSA) secretly passed a resolution last month which condemned the nation of Israel of “racism.”

Breitbart News is doubling its reward–to $100,000–for one of the missing pieces of Barack Obama’s past, which may be the key to understanding his collapsing Middle East policy: the “Khalidi tape,” a video kept under wraps by the Los Angeles Times since April 2008.

New York CBS Local: On the region’s subways and buses, most ads we see don’t get much attention. But that may change with a pro-Israel ad that will soon grace MTA property which reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”

AP: After a series of attacks by vandals on Christian holy sites in Israel, normally tight-lipped Roman Catholic officials are beginning to speak out, publicly appealing to authorities to take a stronger stand against the violence.

Wall Street Journal: Mitt Romney said Palestinians don’t want peace with Israel and that establishing a Palestinian state is far easier said than done, according to additional sections of a recently surfaced videotape that have already caused a headache for the Republican presidential nominee.

Washington Times: Israel Science and Technology, the national database and directory of science and technology-related websites in Israel, has published an article asserting the long-form birth certificate released by the White House is a forged document.

Reuters: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has called on all Muslims to back the rebels in Syria, saying the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad would bring them closer to the ultimate goal of defeating Israel, according to an audio recording posted on the Internet on Thursday.

Wall Street Journal: Does President Obama want Israel to bomb Iran before the election? If we had more faith in this Administration’s competence, we’d be tempted to think so.

Religion Clause Blog: According to Haaretz today, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court has for the first time under Israeli law held that owners of a reception hall may not refuse on religious grounds to host a same-sex wedding reception.

HAARETZ: The White House’s response marks a new low in relations between Netanyahu and Obama, underscored by the fact that this is the first time Netanyahu will visit the U.S. as prime minister without meeting Obama.

Religion Clause Blog: The Palm Beach Post reports that Palm Beach County, Florida, Democratic Party Chairman Mark Alan Siegel resigned Friday, two days after making controversial remarks about pro-Israel Christians.

Haaretz: Statement by top clerics, including Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch, urges authorities to apprehend those responsible; Netanyahu: Israel will punish perpetrators severely.

Washington Free Beacon: Several pro-Israel sections of the 2008 Democratic Party platform have been removed from the 2012 platform—on Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, and Hamas.

Times of Israel: Prime minister bashes Obama’s ineffectual stance, US Ambassador Shapiro says he’s misrepresenting president’s position, newspaper claims

Reuters: Western envoys are urging Arab states not to berate Israel over its assumed nuclear arsenal at the U.N. atomic agency’s annual conference, fearing this could imperil wider efforts for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, diplomats say.

AP: Israeli officials said Tuesday that Egypt is violating the historic 1979 peace treaty between the two countries by deploying tanks in the demilitarized Sinai desert near the Israeli border.

TimesofIsrael.com: TV reporter adds: ‘I doubt Obama could say anything that would convince PM to delay a possible attack’ . . . The report added that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak believe Obama would have no choice but to give backing for an Israeli attack before the US presidential elections in November.

AP: Israel’s existence is an “insult to all humanity,” Iran’s president said Friday in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, as Israel openly debates whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Washington Post: Islamic militants in the Sinai Peninsula warned the Egyptian military on Wednesday against cracking down on jihadis and claimed they were not behind a sneak attack earlier this month that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers. In a statement posted on a website which usually carries al-Qaida and similar groups’ statements, the militants said their main focus is Israel and that they do not target Egyptians soldiers.

AFP: Mosque officials said they expected a total of 300,000 worshippers although it was not known how many would be from the West Bank, Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem or from Israel’s Arab minority.

UPI: Palestinians will apply for non-member status at the United Nations General Assembly next month, Palestine’s foreign minister says.

Richard Landes at Wall Street Journal: But Israel (which neither book examined) and the Arab world (which only the Landes book examined) illustrate the primacy of culture as both necessary and sufficient for economic development. Israel, a country with no natural resources, an economic backwater even in the Ottoman Empire, rose to the top of the developed world in a century on culture alone. The Arab nations, on the other hand, illustrate the necessity of a certain kind of culture: Even those with vast petrodollars still have among the least productive economies in the world.

Mitt Romney at National Review: But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? In the case of the United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth. Many significant features come to mind: our work ethic, our appreciation for education, our willingness to take risks, our commitment to honor and oath, our family orientation, our devotion to a purpose greater than ourselves, our patriotism. But one feature of our culture that propels the American economy stands out above all others: freedom. The American economy is fueled by freedom. Free people and their free enterprises are what drive our economic vitality.

JTA: A White House spokesman noted that Mitt Romney’s calling Jerusalem the “capital of Israel” contradicts United States policy over several successive administrations.

YNetNews.com: Military Rabbinate forbids soldiers from reciting ‘Avinu Malkeinu’ prayer in protest of universal draft

Washington Post: Mitt Romney is calling Jerusalem “the capital of Israel” and is pledging to stand with the U.S. ally.

FoxNews: Mitt Romney on Sunday gave his unequivocal support to Israel and its effort to thwart Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability, saying the United States has “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” to help in that effort.

Reuters: Gaza Islamist leader Ismail Haniyeh met Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on Thursday in an official visit that signaled a big shift in Cairo’s stance toward the Hamas movement after the election of a Muslim Brotherhood head of state in Egypt.

Rasmussen: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% of Likely U.S. Voters think it is at least somewhat likely that Israel will attack Iran in the next year while just 23% see such an attack as unlikely.

Sacramento Bee: An anti-Islam activist has won a preliminary round in her First Amendment fight to place New York City bus ads calling enemies of Israel “savages.” || The Volokh Conspiracy discusses the case.

Religion Clause Blog: In Israel yesterday, the Kadima Party withdrew from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government after only 73 days when negotiators were unable to reach a compromise on a new law to provide for the drafting of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews into the Israeli military.

AP: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews are protesting in Jerusalem against attempts to draft members of the cloistered community into the Israeli military.

LifeSiteNews reports and embeds the video.

AP: An Israeli parliamentary committee on Monday denounced a ruling in Germany banning ritual circumcision, saying the decision infringes upon religious freedom . . .

Daniel Pipes at National Review: The Russian and Chinese actions point to these alliances shaping the foreign policies of outside powers, too. Whereas the European Union and the U.S. government are increasingly sympathetic to Islamism, in part as a way to tame their own Muslim populations, Moscow and Beijing have a history of open conflict with their Muslim populations and therefore adopt policies more hostile to Islamism in the Middle East.

AP: Palestinian spokesman Hanan Ashrawi said the vote was an affirmation of Palestinian sovereignty over the site which marks the place where Christians believe Jesus was born.

YNet.com: Warning from Putin: Visiting Russian president cautions Israel against hasty military action in Iran, says ‘look at what happened to the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan’ . . . “Iraq has a pro-Iranian regime after everything that has happened there. These things should be thought out ahead of time before doing something one will regret later,” he said. “One should not act prematurely.”