From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Portugal poised to adopt Jewish return law
(JTA) — Portugal’s law on naturalizing descendants of Sephardic Jews could become effective before March 15, a leader of the country’s Jewish community said.
The law, passed by parliament in 2013, is expected to be approved by Portugal’s Council of Ministers on Thursday, the president of Lisbon’s Jewish community, Jose Oulman Carp, told JTA. The final wording is to be published by Feb. 6, he said.
“We expect the law to be effective by mid-February or the beginning of March 2015,” Oulman Carp added.
According to the legislation, “the government will give nationality … to Sephardic Jews of Portuguese ancestry who belong to a tradition of a Portuguese-descended Sephardic community, based on objective prerequisites proving a connection to Portugal through names, language and ancestry.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Boehner’s Bibi surprise
The invitation from Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio,) the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress appears to have been very personal, indeed – virtually no one outside the Boehner-Netanayhu circle had any idea it was coming until just before Boehner’s announcement this morning.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman thinks it might also be ill-advised. “This looks like a political challenge to the White House and/or a campaign effort in Israel,” he told JTA.
Israeli elections are in March, and Boehner’s announcement came the day after President Obama said he would veto any new Iran sanctions legislation, something Republicans – backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – hope to overcome with enough Democratic votes to override a veto.
“I certainly support the sanctions if the deal doesn’t come through but having said that, the invitation and acceptance is ill-advised for either side,” Foxman said. “It is too important an issue to politicize it.”
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From PressTV
Israel’s summer aggression against Gaza caused more civilian deaths: Report
A new report has found that Israel’s indiscriminate military offensive during its latest war on the besieged Gaza Strip last summer caused more civilian casualties than previous acts of aggression against the coastal enclave.
The report, which was partly commissioned by Physicians for Human Rights and conducted by eight independent medical experts, showed that the Israeli regime did not differentiate between military targets and civilian populations during its latest assault on Gaza.
“Attacks were characterized by heavy and unpredictable bombardments of civilian neighborhoods,” said the 237-page report, which was published Tuesday.
It added that in many cases double or multiple consecutive attacks on a single location caused many civilian casualties as well as injuries and deaths among rescuers.
The Israeli military failed to give adequate warning to Palestinians to leave residential areas before assaulting them, the report said, adding that the Tel Aviv regime’s “early warning” procedures were not consistent and often did not give enough time for evacuation.
The report also pointed to suspected violations of humanitarian law and indiscriminate attacks which left medical workers dead, and urged a full investigation into the 50-day offensive.
The study was based on visits to the Palestinian territory during and after the Israeli aggression. It also used interviews with 68 people who suffered injuries during the war as well as autopsies on nearly 400 people killed and the review of medical files.
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From PressTV
Israeli military vessel shoots at Palestinian boats, wounds fishermen
An Israeli naval patrol has opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of the besieged Gaza Strip, wounding at least two Palestinian fishermen.
The Israeli vessel fired at the Palestinian boats sailing off the northern Gaza coast on Wednesday.
The Gaza Health Ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qudra, said the injured Palestinian fishermen were taken to a hospital to receive medical treatment.
An Israeli military spokeswoman has confirmed the attack on the fishing boats.
The Israeli boat “identified several vessels deviating from the designated fishing zone in the northern Gaza Strip,” the spokeswoman said.
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From PressTV
Israeli troops arrest 22 Palestinians in West Bank
Israeli forces have arrested at least 22 Palestinians during separate overnight raids on a number of houses across the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israeli military jeeps rolled into Balata and Askar refugee camps on the outskirts of Nablus, located approximately 49 kilometers (30 miles) north of al-Quds (Jerusalem), late on Tuesday.
The Israeli soldiers broke into dozens of homes and violently searched them, causing excessive property damage, before detaining 15 young Palestinians.
Separately, Israeli forces stormed the towns of Beit Ummar and Dura as well as the al-Fawwar refugee camp in the city of al-Khalil (Hebron), located 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of al-Quds overnight, and abducted seven Palestinian men.
Alaa al-Titi, a reporter for the Hamas-affiliated al-Aqsa satellite TV channel, was among the seven arrested Palestinians.
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From Ynet News
Argentina hostel targeted in anti-Semitic attack
Group of Israeli backpackers staying at hostel in Patagonia say drunken locals shouted anti-Jewish slogans, attacked hostel with stones over loud party music.
A hostel frequented by Israeli backpackers in Argentina’s Patagonia region was attacked by local residents angered over loud music being played at the guest house, with attackers yelling that the Jews were stealing Patagonia.
According to reports received by the Foreign Ministry’s situation room, a group of Israeli tourists threw a party, igniting the rage of neighbors who arrived at the hostel and pelted it with stones.
From the Jewish Daily Forward
Did Benjamin Netanyahu and the GOP Just Pull Off a Coup — or Lay an Egg?
By Nathan Guttman
A political coup for Republicans and for the Israeli prime minister — or a flop that could cost Benjamin Netanyahu precious votes in fast-approaching elections and poison the Jewish state’s all-important relationship with the U.S.?
House Speaker John Boehner’s daring invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress next month — without involving the White House — has analysts and players on all sides assessing the situation and sizing up the potential costs and benefits of the move.
For Boehner, this should be a slam-dunk. The Speaker is in the midst of a showdown with President Obama over a legislative initiative calling for new, tougher sanctions on Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons (a goal Iran denies harboring). Though it has some bipartisan support, the measure is being pushed hard by GOP congressional leaders.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
U.S. bans its workers from Israel-Lebanon border without permission
JERUSALEM (JTA) — United States government workers in Israel must obtain approval if they want to travel within a mile-and-a-half of the Lebanon border.
The State Department sent a security message on Wednesday to U.S. citizens registered with the nation’s diplomatic missions in Israel. It also included a ban on visiting most of the Golan Heights without permission.
The message also reminded workers of the ban on traveling on public buses throughout Israel and the West Bank. The reminder came on the same day of a stabbing attack on a Tel Aviv bus by a Palestinian assailant.
From PressTV
Thai workers being abused in Israel: HRW
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Thai laborers employed in Israeli farms are being abused in a series of highly unfavorable working conditions.
According to the HRW’s “A Raw Deal: Abuses of Thai Workers in Israel’s Agricultural Sector” report, which was published on Wednesday, some 25,000 Thai workers are suffering from “low pay, excessive working hours, hazardous working conditions, and poor housing.”
The 48-page report, which is based on interviews with 173 Thai workers, said the migrants “were paid less than the legal minimum wage, forced to work far more hours than the legal limit, exposed to unsafe working conditions, and had difficulties if they tried to change employers.”
Many of the workers were reportedly given “makeshift and inadequate” accommodation.
The report said that, while Israel “depends to a large extent on the labor of Thai migrant workers,” it is “doing far too little to uphold their rights and protect them from exploitation.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Menendez blasts Obama administration for ‘Tehran talking points’
Menendez, the New Jersey senator who is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Wednesday morning — hours after Obama’s State of the Union speech — told two top Obama administration officials that what they’re saying “sounds like talking points straight from Tehran.”
That barb and others seemed all the sharper because exchanges between Republicans and Democrats on the committee and by the two witnesses, Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen, were otherwise polite and friendly.
Menendez has chafed for over a year at Obama administration pushback against efforts he is leading with Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) to pass sanctions that would go into effect should Iran walk away from talks with major powers over its nuclear capabilities.
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From PressTV
16 Israelis wounded in Tel Aviv stabbing attack
At least 16 Israelis have been wounded, with six being in serious condition, in a stabbing attack by a Palestinian carried out on a bus in central Tel Aviv.
Israel’s Channel 2 said the attack took place on Wednesday on a bus on Menachem Begin Road.
Israeli police forces reportedly shot the assailant in the leg near the scene of the incident.
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