From Russia Today
3 new divisions at Russian border are ‘only one measure’ against NATO build-up – Russia’s envoy
Published time: 24 May, 2016 20:42
© Sergey Kuznecov / Sputnik
Russia’s plan to deploy two new divisions in its west and one in its south is only one step along the way to countering NATO’s significantly increased military presence on its borders, Russia’s envoy to the alliance said.
“Our security interests are to be firmly protected. Deployment of the three divisions announced by the defense minister is only one of the measures, which should be considered in this regard,” Aleksandr Grushko said.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
GOP-Trump joint finance team includes 5 Republican Jewish donors
Donald Trump attending the 2016 the New York State Republican Gala in New York City, April 14, 2016. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee announced a fund-raising team that includes five current or former Republican Jewish Coalition board members.
Of 20 members of the Victory Leadership Team announced Tuesday, five are or have been on the RJC board: Mel Sembler, a Florida developer and former RJC chairman who was the finance chairman of the presidential campaign this cycle of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Elliott Broidy, a venture capitalist who is influential among Hollywood conservatives; Sam Fox, a St. Louis businessman and past chairman of the RJC, whose son, Jeff Fox, backed the campaign of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; Lewis Eisenberg, a New York investment manager, who will serve as Trump Victory’s finance chairman; and Ronald Weiser, an Ann Arbor businessman and philanthropist who was chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.
The team coordinates fundraising strategy between the party and Trump’s campaign.
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From PressTV
Erdogan warns of scrapping EU refugee deal
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Ankara will scrap a refugee deal with the EU unless his country’s key demand of visa-free travel is granted.
“If that (the visa exemption) is not what will happen… no decision and no law in the framework of the readmission agreement will come out of the parliament of the Turkish Republic,” said Erdogan at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Erdogan’s warning comes amid rising tensions between Turkey and the EU over a series of issues including the country’s anti-terror laws and its human rights track record.
“Our foreign ministry, our EU affairs ministry will have discussions with the Europeans. If there is a result then great. If not, then I’m sorry,” he added.
Based on the deal, struck with the EU in March to stem the flow of refugees into Europe, refugees arriving on European soil via the Aegean Sea may be sent back to Turkey. For each refugee returned, the EU will take one Syrian refugee currently living in Turkey.
In return, the EU has made several commitments to Ankara, including financial aid, visa-free travel for Turks, and progress in its EU membership negotiations.
Over the last few weeks there have been growing indications that Turkey’s key demand will not be granted.
During talks held on the sidelines of the Istanbul summit on Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had told Erdogan that the deal would not go through if “the terrorism legislation is not changed in the coming weeks”.
Turkey formerly set the end of June as a deadline for the 28-member bloc to scrap visas for Turkish citizens, but sources in the EU said it is nearly impossible to meet the deadline.
Visa-free travel for Turkish nationals is a contested issue as some EU states fear it would open doors to more migration to the bloc, which is already struggling with an unprecedented influx of refugees who are fleeing conflict-ridden zones in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Syria.
From Russia Today
2 in 3 Germans don’t want their leader bowing to Erdogan’s demands – poll
Published time: 25 May, 2016 03:05
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan (L) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. © Tobias Schwarz / Reuters
The majority of Germans want to see Chancellor Angela Merkel take a strong stand against the Turkish President and stop caving to his demands even if it undermines the EU refugee deal with Ankara, a recent poll has shown.
The survey which found that as many as 77 percent want Merkel to stand up to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was published on Tuesday by Stern-RTL.
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From Russia Today
Bavarian police ready to hire migrants, German citizenship not required
Published time: 24 May, 2016 18:37
The uniform patch of an officer of the Bavarian Police Force. © Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters
A campaign to employ police officers of foreign origins regardless of whether they have a German passport or not has been launched in the state of Bavaria. The move is aimed at helping solve crimes involving migrants.
The news was announced by Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, who discussed the start of the campaign on Monday in Nuremberg, local media reported.
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From The Times of Israel
Where did Ploughshares get its money to sell the Iran deal?
Anti-nuclear group that paid J Street and NPR receives its funding from an assortment of larger foundations, Hollywood connections
WASHINGTON — Three weeks after The New York Times Magazine published its profile of deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, in which he describes creating an “echo chamber” of nongovernmental organizations, nuclear proliferation experts and journalists to sell the Iran nuclear deal, it was revealed a group he cited as disseminating the administration’s narrative had donated to news outlets to report on the accord, as well as to other advocacy groups supporting it.
The Ploughshares Fund, a grant-making foundation dedicated to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, gave the liberal Jewish lobbying organization J Street $576,000 to push the agreement and National Public Radio $100,000 to report on President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy initiative and related issues.
But from where did the 35-year-old organization get its war chest to support a major media organization’s coverage of the negotiations and contribute so generously to one of the most prominent campaigns championing the deal?
Mostly through other large-scale grant-making foundations and philanthropic organizations, some of the largest in the world, such as The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, each of which gave more than $100,000 to Ploughshares in 2015, according to its latest financial report.
Ploughshares Fund logo
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
UK golf ‘full’ of anti-Semitism, Jewish ex-BBC chair claims
(JTA) — A British media mogul who headed the BBC has accused the United Kingdom’s golf scene of being “full” of anti-Semitism, saying a prominent club banned him in the 1980s because he is Jewish.
Michael Grade, 73, who served as BBC chairman from 2004 to 2006, told the UK’s Telegraph that he learned to “steer clear of any clubs that have a reputation for being anti-Jewish.”
READ: New Jewish chairman of BBC pledges to take anti-Israel bias complaints seriously
Muirfeld, the Scottish club that allegedly excluded Grade, has come under fire recently for voting to continue its ban on female members.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Spanish Jews threaten legal action against lawmaker for ‘foreign agent’ comment
(JTA) — Spain’s main Jewish group threatened legal action against a local lawmaker for calling a community leader “a foreign agent.”
Benet Salellas espoused “the most repugnant form of anti-Semitism” and used speech that “is wholly illegitimate in diplomatic discourse,” FCJE said Tuesday in an unusually harshly-worded statement. The group said that unless Salellas apologized and walked back his statements, it would press charges against him for hate speech.
During a May 12 debate in Catalonia’s parliament, Salellas accused Uriel Benguigui, president of the Jewish Community of Barcelona, of being a “foreign agent” and part of a “Zionist lobby,” local media reported.
Salellas — a member of the Popular Unity Candidacy, a left-leaning movement in favor of independence for the Catalonia region — apparently objected to Benguigui’s presence at the meeting of the parliament’s foreign relations committee.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
BDS is anti-constitutional and discriminatory, Spanish tribunal rules
(JTA) — Citing anti-discrimination laws, a Spanish constitutional tribunal recommended scrapping a municipality’s motion calling for a boycott against Israel.
The Ministerio Fiscal, an advisory judicial authority charged with guaranteeing equality in the judiciary, made the recommendation this month, according to a statement by ACOM, a Spanish pro-Israel lobby. The recommendation came after ACOM sued the northern municipality of Gijon for declaring itself “a space free of Israeli apartheid.”
The motion, passed in January, also said the city would not pay for the services of firms implicated in “human rights violations” in Palestinian territories. It said the city supports the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts, sanctions and divestment against Israel. Gijon, a city of 270,000 residents, is located 290 miles north of Madrid.
But the Ministerio Fiscal said in its nonbinding recommendation that the objectives of Gijon’s boycott “violate the constitution as well as the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.” The motion’s clauses, according to the tribunal, “jeopardize the fundamental right to equality without discrimination on the bases of appearance, ethnicity and religion.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Amsterdam to pay Jewish community $11M for Holocaust survivor taxes
Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan, second from right, leading a march from City Hall to the Auschwitz monument in the Wertheimpark on the national memorial for the victims of the Holocaust in the Dutch capital, Jan. 26, 2014. (Remko de Waal/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — The city of Amsterdam will give its Jewish community $11 million as compensation for taxes imposed on Holocaust survivors who returned home to the Dutch capital following World War II.
Upon their return, according to an article in The Telegraph on Monday, the survivors were made to pay a tax because their homes were left empty during the Holocaust. They also had to pay back taxes for the years they had been taken away from the city, as well as insurance fees.
The taxes were discovered by a student in 2013, and that year, Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said the city should “put it right,” according to The Telegraph. On Friday, the city said it would pay the $11 million — an estimate of the total taxes paid by survivors following the war.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Donald Trump: No plans for trip abroad ‘at the moment’
Donald Trump speaking to supporters and the media at Trump Tower in Manhattan following his victory in the Indiana Republican primary, May 3, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said a trip abroad would not be prudent “at the moment” because it would not sway voters.
Trump’s comments, made Sunday to The Wall Street Journal, came amid reports that the Republican Jewish Coalition is planning an Israel trip for the billionaire real estate mogul. Earlier this month, Trump said he would visit Israel “soon.”
But speaking to the Journal, Trump said he wants to concentrate his energy on issues in the United States as of now, though a future trip could still be possible.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Republican Jewish Coalition decries ‘anti-Semitic invective’ in presidential race
Donald Trump delivering a speech about his vision for foreign policy at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., April 27, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(JTA) — The Republican Jewish Coalition condemned the “troubling increase of anti-Semitic invective” aimed at journalists covering the presidential campaigns, but without singling out the two most widely reported incidents, both involving supporters of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
“We abhor any abuse of journalists, commentators and writers whether it be from Sanders, Clinton or Trump supporters,” the RJC said in a statement released Tuesday. “There is no room for any of this in any campaign. Journalists, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity should be free to do their jobs without suffering abuses, anti-Semitic or otherwise.”
Last month, Julia Ioffe, a Jewish reporter who wrote a profile of Trump’s wife Melania for GQ, received multiple death threats and anti-Semitic rhetoric via email, phone calls and on social media from self-identified Trump supporters. She filed a police complaint because of the threats.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Bernie Sanders picks three Israel critics to help draft Democratic platform
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, left, embracing philosopher and social activist Cornel West in Des Moines, Iowa, Nov. 14, 2015. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Democratic Party platform drafting committee is top heavy with veterans of political battles over Israel — some friendly, some critical, and including at least one major backer of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
The Democratic National Committee named the committee on Monday, a day after reports emerged that Bernie Sanders, an Independent senator from Vermont running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, wants the platform to elevate the issue of Palestinian rights.
The names signal that the robust debate on Israel that has rattled the party’s relationship with the mainstream pro-Israel community over the past two years will continue through the party convention in Philadelphia in July.
Sanders, the first Jewish candidate to win major party nominating contests, named five of the committee’s members, while Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and front-runner in the party’s presidential primaries, named six. The remaining four were named by the DNC’s chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., among the most prominent Jewish leaders in the party.
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From Russia Today
Russian military denies ISIS destroyed its helicopters in Syria
Published time: 24 May, 2016 21:15
© Dmitriy Vinogradov / Sputnik
The Russian Defense Ministry has denied reports that Islamic State militants destroyed four Russian helicopters at an air base in Syria’s Homs province.
“All Russian combat helicopters currently stationed in the Syrian Arab Republic, are performing routine tasks destroying terrorists. There have been no losses among the personnel of the Russian air base there,” Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in an official statement on Tuesday.
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From The Times of Israel
Judicial candidate sorry for highlighting Jewish opponent’s religion
In campaign for Georgia judicial seat, Roderick Bridges’s literature notes he is Christian and his challenger is not
An attorney running against a sitting Jewish-Hispanic judge in Georgia apologized for turning religion into a criterion for the office.
Roderick Bridges apologized on Saturday to DeKalb County State Court Judge Dax Lopez for campaign literature that listed Bridges as Christian with a thumbs up sign, and Lopez as Jewish with a thumbs down sign.
Bridges also included party affiliation – he’s a Republican and Dax is a Democrat – in what is supposed to be a non-partisan race. Bridges would be the first African American to hold the position.
Bridges also said that including religion in the checklist was intended to highlight his own commitment to his faith. “I wasn’t talking about him, I was more so talking about myself,” Bridges said, according to the Daily Report.
A Jewish judge’s rival makes DeKalb contest a matter of religion https://t.co/HKCKsFlnov #gapol pic.twitter.com/MNMp2TOAfg
From The Times of Israel
Trump v. Clinton: Battle of the Jewish sons-in-law
Whoever ends up winning the election in November, Jews will be in the president’s inner family circle
May 23, 2016, 4:31 am
(JTA)
JTA — Somebody had better put a mezuzah on the Lincoln bedroom.
Whoever ends up winning the presidential election in November, one thing seems certain: For the first time in history, Jews will be in the president’s inner family circle.
Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have Jewish sons-in-law, and of course Bernie Sanders — in the unlikely event he makes it to the White House — is Jewish himself (though his daughter-in-law is not).
With the head-to-head contest between the two likely nominees heating up, we decided to take a closer look at Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, and Marc Mezvinsky, who is married to Chelsea Clinton.
Age
Kushner: 35
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