From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
Lindsey Graham in Jerusalem: Senate vote coming on Iran sanctions bill
JERUSALEM (JTA) — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said in Jerusalem that the Senate will vote on an Iran sanctions bill next month.
Graham (R-S.C.), who is expected to take over as chairman of the Foreign Appropriations Subcommittee when the Republicans assume control of the Senate in January, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Israeli capital on Saturday night.
Graham told Netanyahu that “the Congress will follow your lead” and will want to have a say about any final deal.
“In January of next year, there will be a vote on the Kirk-Menendez bill, bipartisan sanction legislation that says, if Iran walks away from the table, sanctions will be reimposed,” he said. “If Iran cheats regarding any deal that we enter to the Iranians, sanctions will be reimposed.”
From PressTV
3 Gazans injured as Israeli soldiers fire at protesters
At least three Palestinians have suffered injuries as a result of gunfire by Israeli forces near the Erez border crossing in the northern Gaza Strip.
On Sunday afternoon, dozens of young Palestinians staged a demonstration near the border fence to protest against the ongoing Israeli blockade of the impoverished Palestinian coastal sliver, which has slowed down the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip in the wake of Israel’s 50-day onslaught on the besieged territory last summer.
Israeli troops assaulted the protesters and fired rubber-coated steel bullets to break up the protest. Three young Palestinians sustained gunshot wounds. One of them was rushed to a hospital in the city of Beit Hanoun.
Hundreds of Palestinians rallied across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, demanding the reconstruction of the war-torn coastal enclave and protesting against Israel’s crippling siege, which has been in place since June 2007.
From PressTV
Israeli settler runs over Palestinian child in West Bank
A car driven by an Israeli settler has run over a seven-year-old Palestinian boy in the southern occupied West Bank, inflicting moderate injuries on him.
Locals identified the victim as Hamada Ali Ayish Qareesh, adding that the boy was struck by the car while trying to cross a main road in the village of Zif, located 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) south of al-Khalil (Hebron), on Sunday.
On October 19, five-year-old Palestinian girl, Enas Khalil, died after being injured in a hit-and-run incident involving an Israeli settler near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Khalil was one of the two girls that an Israeli settler hit with his car on the main road in the town of Sinjil near Ramallah. The second girl, identified as eight-year-old Nilin Asfour, was also badly injured in the accident.
From the Jewish Daily Forward
Journalist Chris Hedges Barred by University of Pennsylvania Over Israel Dig
Ex-New York Times Scribe Compared ISIS to Jewish Guerillas
By Forward Staff
Former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges says he was barred from speaking at a University of Pennsylvania conference on the prospects for peace in the Middle East after he compared Israel’s founding fathers to ISIS radicals.
Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for the Times, said he had been invited to speak at a conference sponsored by Penn’s International Affairs Association scheduled for April 3.
He was abruptly told he was not welcome after he published a controversial article in the Truthdig.com site, where he is now a columnist, Haaretz reported.
From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
From the Archive: Jewish teens and interfaith dating
For those who see intermarriage as an epidemic threatening the Jewish community and interfaith dating as the first step to intermarriage, the decision was troubling.
But for others, the move was simply an acknowledgment of prevailing norms among young non-Orthodox American Jews, many of whom were themselves raised in interfaith families.
While the American Jewish community has become increasingly accepting of intermarriage, teens questioned restrictions on interdating even in earlier decades when marrying out of the Tribe was still taboo. In JTA articles dating back to the 1950s, even teens who objected to intermarriage frequently reported that they found interdating acceptable.
From PressTV
Senator Graham threatens US could suspend funding to UN over Palestine bid
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) shakes hands with US Senator Lindsey Graham in al-Quds on December 27, 2014.A US senator has threatened that Washington may withhold funding it provides the UN with over a planned vote by the UN Security Council on the Palestinian statehood bid.
Lindsey Graham, a staunch pro-Israel senator, claimed in a Saturday joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in al-Quds (Jerusalem) that Congress would not “sit back and allow the United Nations to take over the peace process.”
Graham added that “any effort by the French, the Jordanians or anyone to avoid direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the peace process, anyone who tries to take this to the UN Security Council” will be met with “a violent backlash by the Congress that could include suspending funding to the United Nations.”
He told Netanyahu that Congress “has your back, in a very bipartisan way.”
From PressTV
Israel strikes deal to buy Sa’ar-class warships from Germany
German-made Sa’ar-class warships (file photo)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Tel Aviv has struck a deal with Berlin to purchase four new Sa’ar-class warships.
Netanyahu said the deal was signed between Israeli and German military officials earlier this week in the German capital.
“We purchased four new Sa’ar vessels,” the Israeli premier said during a graduation ceremony for the Israeli military pilots.
Netanyahu also praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel “for her commitment and constant assistance to our security.”
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From PressTV
Israeli PM makes new allegation against Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has once again made an allegation against the Islamic Republic by saying that recent remarks by a Palestinian Authority official against Israel has been encouraged by Iran.
Speaking at the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu cited Palestinian Ambassador to Tehran Salah Zawawi as saying, “The Zionist entity is an aggressive cancerous growth that sooner or later must be eliminated.”
Netanyahu said Zawawi has been “excited” by recent remarks by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who said on November 25 that, “The West Bank must be armed and prepared for defense; and this will definitely happen.”
Netanyahu also claimed that Iran has been stepping up its anti-Israel bids in the West Bank in recent weeks.
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From PressTV
Saudis remain tight-lipped on Israel-occupied islands
The area marked with red square shows islands of Tirana and Sanafir.Saudi Arabia and Western governments have for decades remained silent on the occupation of Saudi islands by Israel, Press TV reports.
Many wonder where these islands are and why Saudi Arabia never tries to regain its sovereignty over them.
The latest initiative to end the Arab-Israeli conflict was proposed by King Abdullah during an Arab League conference in 2002. But even then, the case of the two Saudi islands of Tiran and Sanafir was not brought up.
Tiran and Sanafir islands, with respective areas of 80 and 33 sq kilometers, are located at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, east of the Saudi territory.
From the Jewish Daily Forward
Arab Countries Ban ‘Exodus’ for Being Too ‘Zionist’
Does Bible Epic Include ‘Errors About Islam’?
By JTA
Published December 28, 2014.Several Arab countries banned the release of the film “Exodus: Gods and Kings.”
Egypt on Friday barred what its culture minister called a “Zionist film.”
“It gives a Zionist view of history and contains historical inaccuracies, and that’s why we have decided to ban it,” Gaber Asfour told the French news agency AFP.
A day earlier, Morocco banned the Ridley Scott movie as it was about to be screened in theaters throughout the country,
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Leader of Israel’s Black Hebrews Dies at 75
Ben Ammi Ben Israel Led Community to Settle in Dimona
By Forward Staff
Published December 28, 2014.The spiritual leader of an influential group of African-American Jews who moved to Israel died Saturday.
Ben Ammi Ben Israel, the Chicago-born leader of the African Hebrew Israelites group that lived near Dimona, Israel, was 75. There was no immediate cause of death, Haaretz reported.
“It was an honor and a blessing to have known him,” Yafah Baht Gavriel, a spokesperson for the community, told the paper. “We will continue to live our lives according to his teachings.”
