From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
3 out of 4 of Israeli Jews say there is no occupation, survey finds
Israeli Border Police guarding a checkpoint in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, Oct. 15, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Nearly three-quarters of Israeli Jews, 71.5Â percent percent, do not view Israel’s control of the West Bank as “occupation,” a monthly survey found.
Exactly the same percentage of Arabs consider it an occupation, according to the May Peace Index survey of the Israel Democracy Institute released Monday.
Asked “Which of the following two things is more important to you: That a peace agreement be reached with the Palestinians or that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people?,” some 48 percent of the Jews polled said Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people was more important. Some 27 percent said the peace agreement was more important, while 16 percent said the two goals are equally important.
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From Russia Today
Poland ‘won’t accept refugees because of threat to security’ – Kaczynski
Published time: 9 May, 2016 05:02
Protesters hold flags as they gathers during anti-immigrant rally in front of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland February 6, 2016. © Kacper Pempe / Reuters
No refugees will be accepted in Poland, as they pose a threat to security, said the head Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party and former PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski, adding that Poland will oppose any law forcing EU members to pay €250,000 per refused refugee.
“After recent events connected with acts of terror [Poland] will not accept refugees because there is no mechanism that would ensure security,” Law and Justice (PiS) chair Kaczynski said on Saturday, as quoted by Radio Poland.
Poland is also staunchly against the European Commission proposal, announced last week, which would force EU member states to pay €250,000 per refused refugee.
“Such a decision would abolish the sovereignty of EU member states – of course, the weaker ones. We don’t agree to that, we have to oppose that, because we are and we will be in charge in our own country,” Kaczynski said.
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From Russia Today
German course teaches migrants how to flirt with women (VIDEO)
Published time: 8 May, 2016 15:19
© Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters
A German education center is teaching migrants how to approach and get acquainted with local women. Asylum seekers learn at the classes that “No means no,†along with basic hygiene rules.
“How do we speak to German women?” is the question sex therapist Christian Zech has to commonly deal with at the classes with migrants. Zech works with the Pro-Familia center, specializing in sexuality, partnership and family planning. It is funded by donations as well as government subsidies.
Bayerischer Rundfunk television filmed one of the classes teaching migrants how to get along better with women.
Today several Pro-Familia outlets teach young migrants how to approach a woman in a country they want to call home now. The classes in Ingolstadt, Neuburg and Eichstätt are meant for those who speak German on at least a basic level.
“The majority don’t have a clue how to approach the opposite sex in this country,” Zechs says.
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From Russia Today
US-led France ignored reality in Syria, harmed itself with Russia sanctions – frmr French intel boss
Published time: 8 May, 2016 04:47
Alain Juillet © Romain Lafabregue / AFP
The French government ignored its own intelligence in dealing with crises in Ukraine and Syria, and recklessly followed Washington’s lead by joining anti-Russian sanctions, dealing a huge blow to its agriculture, said a former French intelligence boss.
Alain Juillet, former deputy director of intelligence at France’s General Directorate for External Security, accused French authorities of making a range of poor foreign policy choices, such as its pro-rebel stance in the Syrian crisis and anti-Russian response to the Ukrainian turmoil, which he says have proven detrimental to French citizens.
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From Ynet News
Iran says tested mid-range ballistic missile that can reach Israel
The medium-range ballistic missile was, according to Iranian news agency Tasnim, tested 2 weeks ago; it has a range of 2000 kilometers. Iran reportedly successfully tested a medium-range ballistic missile two weeks ago that can reach as far as Israel, a senior military planning official was quoted as saying by Iranian new agency Tasnim on Monday.
“We tested a missile with a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) and eight metres error margin two weeks ago. An eight-metre error margin means …full accuracy,” Tasnim quoted Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi as saying.
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From Ynet News
Second Temple era archaeological site suffer serious damage
Visitors to Solomon’s Pools report a part of one of the water reservoir’s walls had collapsed; they urged the PA to either make the necessary repairs the site, which is located in Area A, or allow Israel to.
Solomon’s Pools, a historic site built in the Gush Etzion region over 2,000 years ago during the time of the Second Temple, has been damaged, perhaps irreparably.
Visitors who documented the damage to the site, located in Area A, demanded that the Palestinian Authority work to fix it or otherwise allow Israel to restore it.
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From Ynet News
ISIS kills 8 Egyptian police outside Cairo
In a rare attack in the Egyptian heartland, militants affiliated with ISIS attack and kill eight Egyptian police officers in a Cairene suburb, steal weapons. CAIRO- Militants opened fire on a microbus filled with plainclothes police in a Cairo suburb early Sunday, killing eight of them, including an officer, in an attack claimed by a local ISIS affiliate.
The attack was the deadliest in the heavily policed capital since November, when gunmen attacked a security checkpoint, killing four policemen. That attack was also claimed by the local IS affiliate. Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency said the policemen were inspecting security in the south Cairo suburb of Helwan early Sunday when four gunmen in a pickup opened fire on them.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Hillary Clinton calls BDS movement ‘harmful’ on eve of vote in her Methodist church
Hillary Clinton addressing the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 21, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — On the eve of a bid to have her church divest from companies allegedly profiting from Israel’s control of the West Bank, Hillary Clinton reasserted that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was counterproductive to peace.
Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, responded on Sunday to an appeal from the Israel Action Network, an affiliate of the Jewish Federations of North America, ahead of the quadrennial United Methodist Church General Conference starting Tuesday in Portland, Oregon.
In a two-page reply Clinton, who was raised and remains a practicing Methodist, does not directly mention the church, although it is the focal point of the letter to her from the Israel Action Network.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Donald Trump asks Jared Kushner, his Jewish son-in-law, for help on White House transition
Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban New York, Sept. 21, 2015. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has asked his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to plan for a possible White House transition team.
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, would not be involved in the actual transition but will be asked to provide a “blueprint for a transition team” should Trump win the elected in November, The New York Times reported, citing what it called two people briefed on his new assignment.
Kushner, 35, publisher of The New York Observer and head of his family’s real estate development company, will work with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and senior adviser Paul Manafort to determine the prospective team, according to the Times.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
No bidders for ‘anti-Semitic’ Taft letter opposing Brandeis nomination
LOS ANGELES (JTA) —Â A letter from former President William Howard Taft attacking the nomination of Louis Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court in thinly veiled anti-Semitic terms may be of historic value, but apparently not $15,000 worth.
That sum was the opening bid set by the Nate D. Sanders auction house in Los Angeles for the 1916 document, but by the April 28 deadline no bids had been received.
Taft’s epistle sheds light on the state of anti-Semitism at the time in the most “respectable†circles.
Taft had reportedly hoped that President Woodrow Wilson, his successor in the White House, would appoint him to the seat left vacant by the unexpected death of Justice Joseph Lamar as the 1916 presidential election campaign was heating up.
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From PressTV
Ceasefire in Aleppo extended for 48 hours: Syrian army
A fragile ceasefire in the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo and its surroundings has been extended for another 48 hours, the Syrian army says.
“The extension of the ‘regime of calm’ in Aleppo and its countryside for a period of 48 hours will be from Tuesday 01:00 a.m. (2200 GMT on Monday) until midnight on Wednesday,” the military said in a Monday statement.
The army announced on May 4 that a 48-hour ceasefire in Aleppo would go into effect at 01:00 a.m. on Thursday (2200 GMT on Wednesday). It was later extended for 72 hours.
Aleppo, war-hit Syria’s second-largest city, has been divided between government forces in the west and militants in the east since 2012, a year after the conflict broke out in the country.
The extension of the Aleppo truce came hours after Russia and the United States agreed to extend a broader ceasefire, dubbed the “cessation of the hostilities” agreement, across the whole of the Arab country.
“We have decided to reconfirm our commitment to the CoH (cessation of hostilities) in Syria and to intensify efforts to ensure its nationwide implementation. We also intend to enhance efforts to promote humanitarian assistance to all people in need,” said a joint US-Russian statement.
The truce, brokered by Moscow and Washington, went into effect on February 27 in a bid to facilitate negotiations between warring sides to the conflict. The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front are excluded from the ceasefire.
The truce is still officially in place in many parts of Syria despite surging violence in Aleppo, which has been a flashpoint over the past weeks.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has furthermore displaced over half of Syria’s pre-war population of about 23 million.
From Russia Today
Erdogan wants to sue German media boss for ‘laughing out loud’ at insulting poem
Published time: 10 May, 2016 04:36
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan © Adem Altan / AFP
The Turkish president is planning to take legal action against a German media giant’s CEO for backing the author of a notorious “defamatory†poem which sparked a free speech row. Axel Springer’s Mathias Doepfner “laughed out loud†over the poem.
Seeking a preliminary injunction, Erdogan requested that a lawsuit be filed against Doepfner, Reuters reported on Monday citing German media and Ralf Hoecker, the Turkish President’s lawyer. In a letter published by Die Welt in April, Doepfner said that he “wholeheartedly” endorsed the critical poem over which the German comic Jan Bohmermann has been facing defamation charges from Erdogan.
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From Russia Today
Putin calls for non-aligned international security system in face of global terror threat
Published time: 9 May, 2016 10:11
May 9, 2016. Russian President and Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Putin at a military parade to mark the 71st anniversary of Victory in the 1941-1945 WWII, on Moscow’s Red Square. © Grigoriy Sisoev / Sputnik
Vladimir Putin said Russia is all for creating a non-aligned system of international security to counter global terror. The president, speaking at the V-Day parade in Moscow, called on all nations to learn the lessons of WWII.
“Today our civilization has faced brutality and violence – terrorism has become a global threat,” the Russian president said, addressing the crowds on Moscow’s Red Square ahead of a parade dedicated to the 71st anniversary of victory in WWII. “We must defeat this evil, and Russia is open to join forces with all countries and is ready to work on the creation of a modern, non-aligned system of international security.”
READ MORE: ‘Immortal Regiment’ marches pay tribute to WW2 heroes worldwide (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
According to the Russian leader, the lessons of the World War II showed that “double standards” and “short-sighted indulgence to those who are nurturing new criminal plans” are unacceptable.
“The lessons of history show that peace on our planet doesn’t establish itself, that you need to be on high alert,” he said.
The Great Patriotic War (the term used in Russia and former Soviet republics to describe the conflict on the Eastern Front from 1941-45) will always remain “an outstanding, sacred heroic deed of our people, a call to live according to conscience, to keep the height of the truth and justice, to transfer these values from generation to generation,” the president added.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish passengers removed from flight over behavior, not religion, airline says
(JTA) — Dismissing reports that it discriminated against Jewish passengers in Spain, the British airline EasyJet accused the complainants of rowdy behavior that caused a delay.
“Flight EZY3920 from Barcelona to Paris Charles de Gaulle on 1 May 2016 with 180 passengers on board returned to the gate in Barcelona and was met by police due to a group of passengers behaving in a disruptive manner,†EasyJet spokesman Andy Cockburn told JTA on Monday.
His account followed a JTA query for reaction from the low-cost airline on an article published Thursday on the news website jpupdates.com that said some passengers aboard the flight felt they had been removed from the plane because they were Jewish. But Cockburn denied the allegation, saying the passengers separated were taken by police for questioning due to their disruptive behavior.
“All passengers were asked to disembark at the request of the police so they could speak to a small number of passengers in order to investigate the incident,” Cockburn said.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NYC landlord whose son berated Uber driver in viral video charged with fraud
Steven Croman and Harriet Croman attending an event in New York, Dec. 2, 2013. (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for DuJour)
NEW YORK (JTA) — A Jewish New Yorker who regularly appeared on “worst landlords†lists — and whose son recently drew headlines for verbally abusing an Uber driver in a viral video — has been charged with 20 felonies.
Steven Croman, who owns more than 140 apartment buildings in Manhattan, surrendered on multiple felony charges for his role in an alleged scheme to fraudulently obtain several multimillion-dollar refinancing loans between 2012 and 2014, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Monday.
In addition, Croman’s mortgage broker Barry Swartz has been charged with 14 felonies for his alleged role in the fraud. If convicted of all charges, each could face up to 25 years in prison, Schneiderman’s office said in a news release.
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