From PressTV
Palestinian Authority instigates violence in Gaza: Hamas
The Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas says the Palestinian Authority (PA) sparks violence in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Spokesman for Hamas Interior Ministry Iyad al-Bozum said on Saturday that “members of the former security establishment in Gaza” exploit “the difficult conditions, especially since the last war, to spread chaos and confusion with explosions, car burnings and shootings,” referring to the latest Israeli aggression against Gaza in the summer of 2014.
Over the past several months, bomb blasts have targeted cars used by Hamas officials, as well as some belonging to the members of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.
According to Bozum, investigations have revealed that the incidents were “the result of plans by security chiefs in Ramallah,” where the headquarters of the PA is located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He added that the acts of violence have been carried out with the aim of “spreading chaos in Gaza in order to cover up the government’s failure and absolve him (Abbas) from any responsibility.”
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From PressTV
Israel plans to build new separation wall along Jordan border
Israel is planning to build another separation barrier along the border with Jordan following the completion of a similar so-called security fence on its border with Egypt.
According to Israeli media sources, the army has recommended the construction of the 30-kilometer security barrier inside the West Bank near the Jordanian border.
The army claims that the massive wall is needed for the protection of a new airport which is currently under construction at Timna region, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the resort city of Eilat.
Tel Aviv also claims that the wall aims to foil attempts by possible infiltration of global militants from Jordan.
The wall will be equipped with security cameras and watch towers.
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From PressTV
Israeli troops attack Palestinian protesters; eleven wounded
At least eleven Palestinians have been injured and three others arrested when Israeli forces attacked a group of Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank.
On Friday, dozens of Palestinians held a demonstration in the village of Nabi Salih, located 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Ramallah, to express their resentment over illegal Israeli settlements as well as the construction of the separation wall which snakes across the occupied West Bank, isolating large swathes of Palestinian territories.
Violence erupted when Israeli soldiers stormed the Palestinians and used batons to disperse the crowd. They then fired tear gas canisters, stun grenades and live bullets at protesters.
One Palestinian protester was shot in the leg while ten others suffered multiple bruises from beatings by the batons.
Israeli forces also kidnapped three Palestinians during the demonstration.
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From Russia Today
‘Freedom in jeopardy’: Thousands rally across Canada against new anti-terror law
Organizers of the ‘Day of Action’ said that “over 70 communities” across Canada were planning to participate on Saturday, according to StopC51.ca.
From Russia Today
Iraqi Kurds: ‘Desperate’ ISIS using suicide bombers laden with chemical weapons
The Kurdish Regional Government says its peshmerga fighters came under attack from an Islamic State (formerly ISIS) suicide bomber driving a truck filled with toxic chlorine gas, in the latest chemical weapons accusation against the jihadist group.
“The fact ISIS relies on such tactics demonstrates it has lost the initiative and is resorting to desperate measures,” the Kurdish authority declared in a statement.
While footage of the attack emerged only recently, the attack took place on January 23, when Kurdish fighters tried to reinforce their positions on a highway between Mosul and the Syrian border. The Kurds have been in an all-out war against the Islamic State since last year.
From Russia Today
Ancient statues destroyed by ISIS fake, real ones safe – report
“They were copies. The originals are all here,” Baghdad’s museum director told Germany’s Deutsche Welle.
The head of the antiquity department in Iraq’s cultural heritage authority, Fawzye al-Mahdi, also told the German broadcaster that “none” of the artifacts “were originals.”
This, experts say, explains why in a video that shows the destruction statues crumble so easily.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Poll shows Herzog maintaining lead
(JTA) — A survey in advance of Israel’s general elections showed the Zionist Union leading the Likud by four seats.
The poll of 1,032 voters, conducted this week by Yedioth Ahronoth and published Friday ahead of the March 17 vote, had the center-left Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog and Tzippi Livni, clinching 26 seats in parliament compared to 22 seats for Benjamin Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party.
The poll conducted by the Mina Tzemach polling firm has a 2.5 percent margin of error and is consistent with other polls that showed the Zionist Union maintaining similar leads over the Likud.
A survey published Thursday by Haaretz had Likud with 21 seats compared to Zionist Union’s 24 seats. That poll, which had a 3-percent margin of error, was conducted by the Dialog polling firm among 714 respondents.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Q&A with Asian-Jewish researcher couple Helen Kim and Noah Leavitt
Helen Kim and her husband, Noah Leavitt – Whitman College professors who met as grad students in the social sciences department at University of Chicago – are the leading, and virtually only, experts on Asian-Jewish intermarriage in the United States. The two — she’s Korean-American, he’s Jewish — recently spoke with JTA by phone from Walla Walla, Wash., where they live with their 6-year-old son Ari and 3-year-old daughter Talia. This interview has been condensed and edited.
You’ve published two studies on Asian-Jewish families: the first focusing on couples, the second on grown children of Asian-Jewish parents. What do you see as the most significant findings?
Kim: The most significant thing about both talking with the couples as well as the kids is that these families are definitely creating Jewish homes and raising their kids as Jews … The concern always raised with intermarriage is about Judaism disappearing. That’s definitely not happening for the couples and the adult kids that we’ve talked to.
But isn’t that because couples and individuals with stronger Jewish ties are more likely to volunteer for a study about Jewish-Asian families?
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From Russia Today
‘Innocent mistake’: UK’s nuclear weapons web data routed through Ukraine
The hijacking of the companies took place over a 90-minute period Thursday, while many British Telecom customers experienced diverted traffic for five days, starting from Saturday, Dyn, Internet performance company, said in a report.
Several UK government bodies were affected by the problem, including the Royal Mail and the country’s Atomic Weapons Establishment, which is “responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent.”
UK traffic diverted through Ukraine included nuclear weapon maker AWE.
From The Times of Israel
Argentina declassifies files on Jewish center bombing
Government acquiesces to investigators’ demands following murder of prosecutor probing 1994 attack
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The Argentine government on Friday declassified its files on an unsolved 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish center that is at the center of a new political firestorm.
In a decree published in the Official Bulletin, the government declassified “all documents in their entirety” from the probe into the bombing.
It also declassified “any other new documents, reports or files that have not been part of the case and could be of interest in the investigation.”
The bombing at the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) killed 85 people and wounded 300, the deadliest such attack in the South American country’s history.
The case came back into the spotlight 21 years later after a prosecutor appointed to reopen the investigation died mysteriously in what his family says was an assassination.
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From The Times of Israel
Ultraconservative to head Iran’s top clerical body
In defeat for relative moderates, ayatollahs choose Mohammad Yazdi, 83, to lead Assembly of Experts which oversees supreme leader
Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerics who appoint and can dismiss the country’s supreme leader, picked an ultraconservative as their new chairman in a surprise appointment on Tuesday.
Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, 83, was a deputy speaker of parliament after the 1979 Islamic revolution and headed the judiciary for a decade until 1999.
He gained 47 of the 73 votes cast at a closed-door meeting in Tehran, according to the website of state television, citing officials.
Yazdi was among five contenders whose names had been linked to the post by Iranian media in recent weeks but he was not the most talked about.
His election represents a heavy defeat for former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate who previously held the position between 2007 and 2011, and who received 24 votes.
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Pamela Geller Anti-Islam Bus Ads Coming to Philadelphia
Court Rules Transit Authority Can Ban Hateful Message
By Elizabeth Daley
Philadelphia — (Reuters) — An ad campaign featuring an image of Adolf Hitler and linking Islam to Nazism could soon appear on Philadelphia-area buses after a court ruling this week that forces the regional transit authority to accept the campaign.
The ad’s sponsor, political blogger Pamela Geller, said on Friday she was pleased by a ruling by Philadelphia District Court Judge Mitchell Goldberg that a rejection of the ads would violate her First Amendment right of free speech.
“Jew-haters have been running anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ads on buses for years. We are responding,” she said in an email.
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Half-Jewish Ain’t the Whole Megillah for Her
We Don’t Agree About How to Raise Our Unborn Child
We are an interfaith married couple expecting our first child. She was raised Jewish and wants to raise our daughter Jewish because she doesn’t believe in both. She would rather do only Jewish or Christian or nothing — though, of course, she strongly prefers Jewish both because it is hers and it is a beautiful tradition that is shrinking. He was raised Protestant and thinks there is no problem in raising a kid with both and allowing them to decide when they grow up. Seesaw, what do we do? (Besides love our child. We know that part.) —Baby on Board
