From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Sen. Robert Menendez indicted on corruption charges
(JTA) — Sen. Robert Menendez, who has championed intensified sanctions against Iran over the objections of the White House, was indicted on public corruption charges.
A federal grand jury in Newark, N.J., indicted Menendez (D-N.J.) on Wednesday for allegedly doing political favors for a friend and political contributor in exchange for gifts.
Menendez denies the charges, including conspiracy to commit bribery and honest services fraud, which were levied after a two-year investigation. The friend — Salomon Melgen, a Florida-based ophthalmologist and businessman — also was charged.
The two-term senator has said he will remain in office during the trial phase of the case.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish candidate quits UK race after saying Israel should kidnap Obama
(JTA) — A Jewish candidate for the British Parliament has withdrawn after suggesting that Israel should “do an Eichmann” on Barack Obama.
Jeremy Zeid of the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, quit his campaign on Thursday in response to the blowback to a Facebook post in which he suggested that Israel should “[k]idnap the bugger” and “lock him up for leaking state secrets,” according to the Jewish Chronicle. Zeid was outraged over the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran.
Zeid, a decorator, was running in a northwest London district with the second-highest number of Jewish voters of any constituency in Britain, at approximately 17 percent, according to the Chronicle. He denied that the UKIP, a right-wing party defined by its anti-immigrant positions, had pressured him to resign.
Zeid was replaced on the ballot by Dr. Raymond Shamash, a dentist who served as a medical officer in the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Shamash, in turn, told the Jewish Chronicle that he is “fearful” of Muslims, though he denied being Islamophobic.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Boehner in Jerusalem: U.S.-Israel bonds strong even with political spats
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The bonds between Israel and the United States are strong despite the occasional political dust-up, House Speaker John Boehner said in Jerusalem.
The two nations “cooperate on many different levels,” Boehner (R-Ohio) told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of their meeting on Wednesday afternoon. “And while we may have political disagreements from time to time, the bonds between our two nations are strong and they’re going to continue to be strong.”
Boehner is leading a delegation of congressional Republicans to the Middle East this week. The delegation also visited Iraq and Jordan.
Members of the delegation include Reps. John Kline of Minnesota, Devin Nunes of California, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey and Tom Cole of Oklahoma.
Click here for the full story
From Russia Today
Closing in on Assad: ISIS captures Palestinian refugee camp inside Damascus
“Credible information from public sources indicate that a variety of armed groups are engaged in fierce fighting in areas where Yarmouk’s 18,000 civilians, including a large number of children reside, placing them at extreme risk of death, serious injury, trauma and displacement,” said a statement from the UNRWA, the international agency that aids the Palestinians in the region.
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) stormed the camp from Hajar Aswad district, located directly to the south, where it has enjoyed a solid presence in the last few months. As it attempted to penetrate Yarmouk, it was met with gunfire from Palestinian jihadist organization Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, which has recently captured 10 IS infiltrators, provoking the ire of their commanders.
Click here for the full story
From The Independent
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Stephen Greenberg tapped to lead Conference of Presidents
(JTA) — Stephen Greenberg, a New Jersey lawyer, was nominated to be the next chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
An attorney with an extensive resume of Jewish communal involvement, Greenberg was recommended by the Presidents Conference nominating committee to succeed Robert Sugarman effective June 1. His candidacy will be presented to the umbrella group’s full membership on April 29.
Greenberg is currently the chairman of the National Council Supporting Eurasian Jewry (formerly the National Conference for Soviet Jewry). He is also chair of the New Jersey Federal Judicial Selection Committee and was the chief executive of Net2Phone, an Internet telephone communications firm. He is currently counsel to McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, a New Jersey-based law firm with offices in seven states.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Poll: Americans’ backing for Palestinian state at two-decade low
(JTA) — Support among Americans for creating a Palestinian state is at its lowest in nearly two decades, according to a new poll.
Asked “Do you support or oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” 39 percent of the respondents said they were in support and 36 percent said they were opposed, according to results from a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday. The remaining 25 percent expressed no opinion.
In 1998, asked in a Gallup poll if they favored a Palestinian state, 36 percent of Americans said yes and 26 percent said no, with 38 percent expressing no opinion. Five years later, another Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans were in favor of a Palestinian state and 22 percent opposed, with 20 percent having no opinion.
In the latest survey, 37 percent of respondents said they approved of the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was handling Israel’s relations with the United States, with 44 percent disapproving and 19 percent having no opinion.
Click here for the full story
From PressTV
Israeli forces abduct Palestinian lawmaker in West Bank
Israeli soldiers have reportedly abducted a Palestinian lawmaker after storming her house in the occupied West Bank.
Early Thursday, some 60 Israeli forces raided the house of Khalida Kan’an Muhammad Jarrar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), in the city of Ramallah and took her to an unknown location.
Media sources in Ramallah said Israeli forces kicked down the door of Jarrar’s residence and held her husband in a separate room while arresting the legislator.
Jarrar is one of the most outspoken critics of the Israeli occupation and has repeatedly slammed the Tel Aviv regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
The Israeli regime has been denying the lawmaker the right to travel outside the occupied Palestinian territories since 1988. She campaigned for months in 2010 before receiving the permission to travel to Jordan for medical treatment.
Click here for the full story
From PressTV
182 Palestinian kids in Israeli jails in February: Report
A recently released report says 182 Palestinian children were being held as security prisoners in Israeli jails at the end of February.
The number showed an increase of 12 percent compared to the figure recorded in January, according to the report published on Wednesday by Military Court Watch, a Palestinian voluntary association focused on the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention.
The group said the minors were among a total of 5,609 Palestinians from East al-Quds (Jerusalem), the West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, who were being held in connection with the conflict between Palestine and the Tel Aviv regime at the end of February.
More than half of the 182 children were in prisons located outside of the occupied Palestinian territories, the report said.
It said that 25 of those children were between 14 and 15 years old while 157 of them were aged 16-17.
From PressTV
Israeli shelling in 2014 Gaza war ‘up 533%’ compared to 2008-09
A newly released study shows that the use of explosive artillery by Israeli forces in last year’s war on Gaza increased by over 530 percent compared to the Israeli regime’s military offensive on the coastal enclave six years earlier.
The report, released by the British NGO Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) on Tuesday, shows that Israeli forces increased their firing of high explosive artillery by 533 percent during the war on Gaza in 2014 compared to the military aggression in 2008-2009.
The NGO said the use of artillery shelling “in and near populated areas puts civilians at grave risk of death and injury,” as these explosive weapons, which fire numerous rounds of “heavy, unguided shells” lack accuracy.
According to the study’s findings, the Israeli forces fired 34,000 unguided shells into Gaza last year, which is more than the shells fired in any Israeli operation since the 2006 war on Lebanon, when it fired off 170,000 shells.
The report also shows that Israeli forces dramatically shortened the safety distance that regulates how close artillery shells could land to residential homes from 300 meters to 100 meters, putting Palestinians at greater risk as the estimated “casualty-producing radius of a 155mm artillery shell is close to 300 meters.”
Click here for the full story
From The Times of Israel
Macedonian intel chief accused of bribery in Israel deal
Israeli suspected of assisting intel head Saso Mijalkov in arranging bribe for 2011 surveillance equipment sale
SKOPJE, Macedonia — Macedonia’s main left-wing opposition leader on Wednesday accused the head of the country’s intelligence service of taking a large bribe for a surveillance equipment deal with Israel in 2011.
Zoran Zaev, head of the Social-Democratic Alliance for Macedonia, released illegally recorded conversations he says details how intelligence service head Saso Mijalkov, his aide and an individual from Israel are arranging the money transfer for the bribe. Zaev didn’t specify the amount, but said it involved “many zeroes.”
Mijalkov has denied the accusations, saying a “donation” of 5.5 million euros ($5.9 million) was received for “purchasing equipment for special police units,” according to the local Netpres news agency.
The recording is the latest in a series of wiretapped material that Zaev has released that he claims reveals corruption at the highest level of government.
Zaev claims Premier Nikola Gruevski is behind the recordings, which a source passed onto him. Gruevski denies wrongdoing and has accused Zaev of plotting a coup.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Iran talks extended another day
(JTA) — Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program were extended for a second time beyond the March 31 deadline for a framework accord.
News agencies reported that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday had again delayed his departure from Lausanne, Switzerland, where marathon talks have been underway for days. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will also remain in the city, and they will be joined by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the French news agency AFP reported.
Representatives of six major world powers — the United States, Germany, France, China, Russia and Britain — have been negotiating with Iran for days in an effort to meet the self-imposed March 31 deadline for the framework accord on Iran’s nuclear program. The framework is intended to set the stage for a full and comprehensive accord to be reached by the end of June.
As the March deadline loomed on Tuesday, talks were extended one day. Late in the day Wednesday, they were extended again.
Click here for the full story
From Ynet News
New ‘Daily Show’ host defends anti-Semitic jokes after backlash
‘To reduce my views to a handful of jokes that didn’t land is not a true reflection of my character, nor my evolution as a comedian,’ says Trevor Noah.
Trevor Noah, the newly announced successor to Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s late-night news parody “The Daily Show,” defended himself against a backlash arising from past comments he made about Jews and women.
“To reduce my views to a handful of jokes that didn’t land is not a true reflection of my character, nor my evolution as a comedian,” the South African comedian said on Twitter on Tuesday.
Click here for the full story
