From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Senators call for full funding for joint U.S.-Israel defense systems
(JTA) — A bipartisan group of 32 senators called on a Senate committee to allocate full funding for joint United States and Israel missile defense systems.
Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced the March 27 letter to the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee calling for the allocation of the full funding in the Fiscal Year 2016 Defense Appropriations bill. The programs include the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system as well as the David’s Sling and Arrow weapons systems.
“As you know, the cooperative programs being jointly developed by the United States and Israel continue to yield critical defense capabilities that protect Israel from missile and rocket threats from as near as the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and from as far as Iran,” the letter said. “Indeed, investments in U.S.-Israeli missile defense cooperation over the years continue to prove their worth and have saved the lives of countless civilians from indiscriminate rocket and missile attacks.”
The letter comes days after two House members requested additional funding from the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense for joint U.S. and Israel missile defense systems.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Netanyahu to visiting senators: Proposed deal ‘paves way’ for Iranian bomb
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a delegation of U.S. senators in Jerusalem that a proposed deal on curbing Iran’s nuclear program “paves Iran’s way to the bomb.”
Netanyahu met Sunday morning in Jerusalem with the delegation led by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the majority leader. Israel’s intelligence minister, Yuval Steinitz, also attended the meeting.
“We are very much concerned for our common interests by the developments in the Middle East,” Netanyahu told the senators, according to a statement issued by his office. “As we are speaking, Iran is rampaging through Yemen; it is conquering the Middle East. This is correctly seen by all the countries in the Middle East as a strategic move to dominate the region and therefore we are witnessing something quite unprecedented.
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From PressTV
Israel seeking to demolish ancient Palestinian village
Israel is seeking to demolish the ancient Palestinian village of Susya in the southern part of the occupied West Bank under the pretext of doing “archaeological work” at the site.
The regime is trying to obtain permission from a high court to flatten the Palestinian village to prepare that ground for “more archaeological work at the site,” Israeli media reported on Sunday.
Tel Aviv plans to relocate the village residents to the nearby city of Yatta in al-Khalil (Hebron).
This comes as the locals had obtained a temporary injunction against the demolition in 2014.
The Tel Aviv regime calls the Palestinian houses “illegal outposts,” with the Israeli military prohibiting residents from setting up homes in the area.
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From The Times of Israel
Kerry cancels travel plans to clinch Iran deal
Israeli minister says that even if an outline agreement is signed, there’ll still be time to sway the final terms
March 29, 2015, 10:57 am
Amid signs of trouble in the Iran nuclear negotiations, US Secretary of State John Kerry canceled plans Sunday to return to the United States for an event honoring his late Senate colleague Edward Kennedy in order to remain at the ongoing talks in Switzerland.
The State Department said Kerry had been looking forward to participating in the dedication of the Kennedy Institute in Boston with the family of the late Massachusetts senator on Sunday and Monday but that “given the ongoing nuclear negotiations in Switzerland, the secretary regrets he will not be able to share this special time with them in person.” Kerry served in the Senate with Kennedy for nearly 25 years and the two were close friends.
Kerry’s decision to stay comes as the talks appear to have hit obstacles ahead of a March 31 target for the outline of a final deal to be negotiated by the end of June. Officials have spoken of the hurdles in general terms, citing Iranian resistance to limits on research and development and demands for more speedy and broad relief from international sanctions.
With just three days to go, negotiators were meeting multiple times in various formats. Kerry has been in discussions with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the Swiss town of Lausanne since Thursday. The foreign ministers of France and Germany arrived on Saturday and the foreign ministers of Britain, China and Russia are due to arrive on Sunday.
The State Department said late Saturday that “serious but difficult work” remained for negotiators and that the pace of discussions expected to intensify as “we assess if an understanding is possible.”
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Is Ted Cruz Leading in ‘Sheldon Adelson Primary’?
By Josh Nathan-Kazis
March 27, 2015, 11:35am
Shmuley Boteach may have just dropped a major clue in one of the biggest mysteries of the 2016 Republican primary: Who does Sheldon Adelson like?
In an email yesterday, Boteach’s charity, This World Values Network, announced that Texas senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz would be a guest of honor at its May 28 gala. Also being honored? Sheldon Adelson… and Newt Gingrich.
The winner of the Jewish Las Vegas casino mogul’s political favor will profit mightily from his blessing. Adelson spent nearly $100 million in the 2012 election, singlehandedly buoying Gingrich in his doomed primary run and throwing millions more to Mitt Romney. Republican presidential hopefuls have been courting Adelson since early last year, traveling to speak to a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Las Vegas last March and making phone calls and other personal pleas.
The Washington Post reported last March that Adelson was looking for “a more mainstream Republican with a clear shot at winning the White House” in 2016. That points away from Cruz, a Tea Party favorite who is expected to struggle mightily to establish himself as a top-tier candidate.
From The Independent
From Ynet News
Still no nuclear deal as issues with Iran remain unresolved
2 days before deadline for high-stakes agreement, Iran denies that a deal has been reached, while the White House says it’s time for the Islamic Republic to “send a clear signal” about their willingness to cooperate. A senior Iranian negotiator said Sunday there was no agreement yet with global powers on Iran’s nuclear program, telling AFP outstanding issues had still to be dealt with.
“No deal has been reached, and the remaining issues have to be resolved,” the Iranian official said. Several Western diplomats have told AFP there is tentative agreement on some key parts of the emerging deal, but warned it was far from concluded.
From Ynet News
Iran, powers explore compromises aimed at breaking nuclear impasse, officials say
Sources in negotiations at Switzerland resort say Iran willing to accept fewer centrifuges, West considering allowing limited enrichment work.
LAUSANNE – Iran and the six major world powers were exploring possible compromises aimed at breaking an impasse in nuclear negotiations on Sunday, though officials cautioned that they still had no agreement and were unable to move on several sticking points.
From Ynet News
Sarkozy wins French local elections
Far right National Front makes limited gains, fails in bid to gain control of “departements” while ruling Socialists take electoral beating. The far-right National Front (FN) made only limited gains in French local elections won by ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives on Sunday.
The anti-immigrant, anti-EU party is likely to have won up to 108 local council seats, from holding only one currently. But they will have too few in any one of the 102 “departements” to control any of them, updated exit polls showed.
Sarkozy’s UMP and its allies will take over 66-70 departements, up from 41, while the ruling Socialists will lose about half of the 61 departements they previously held, a poll by CSA for BFMTV said. Other polls had similar results.
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From Ynet News
Haredi papers ban picture of young girl’s feet
Two newspapers in Beit Shemesh refuse to publish a sock store’s ad showing the feet of a two-year-old girl. ‘The radicals think they can run our lives, but I won’t be part of it,’ says ultra-Orthodox store owner. Two ultra-Orthodox newspapers in Beit Shemesh refused last week to publish an ad for a sock shop showing the feet of a two-year-old girl.
While business owners in the city are used to having pictures of women or young girls censored, the latest decision of the newspapers’ ad supervisor was seen as excessive radicalization.
“I’ve decided not to give in and not to publish any ads in the two newspapers which insisted that we remove the picture,” said the sock shop’s owner, Henny Spiegler.
Spiegler opened the LiLi sock shop four years ago and has occasionally been publishing ads in Beit Shemesh’s local newspapers without pictures. Ahead of Passover, she decided to include a picture of a small girl’s feet with white socks.
From The Times of Israel
Anti-Semitic fans pressure Hungarian band to cancel Israel gig
Tankcsapda’s bass player says group will come to Tel Aviv in June despite criticism on social networks
March 29, 2015, 5:15 pm
Members of a Hungarian punk rock band said they would ignore pleas and anti-Semitic comments from fans who want the band to cancel its upcoming concert in Israel.
The bass player of the rock band Tankcsapda, Lukacs Laszlo, said his group, which is popular in far-right circles, will travel in June to play in Tel Aviv despite the criticism it has received on social networks since announcing Israel’s inclusion for the first time in the band’s European tour, the news website index.hu reported.
“Anyone who knows us knows we do not get involved in politics and ideology,” Lukacs said. “On tour, we want to perform wherever possible.” On Israel, he added: “If Die Toten Hosen, Depeche Mode, Iron Maiden and Metallica play there, why shouldn’t we?”
But some of the band’s fans reacted with anger to the news of the Israel performance. One user wrote on Facebook profanities about circumcised penises. Another posted a picture of a kippah emblazoned with the band’s logo.
A third user wished “the artificially created entity of Israel be wiped off the face of the earth” and wrote profanities about Tankcsapda’s musicians.
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From The Times of Israel
Air raids cripple Yemen’s main airport
15 rebel troops killed as Saudi-led campaign hammers Houthi positions and weapons depots
March 29, 2015, 12:30 pm
Arab coalition warplanes targeting Iran-backed rebels bombed the runway at the Yemeni capital’s international airport and killed 15 pro-rebel troops elsewhere in Sanaa, military and aviation sources said Sunday.
On the fourth night of raids against Shiite rebels and allied troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, Saudi-led strikes paralyzed the airport in the rebel-controlled capital.
“This was the first time they hit the runway” since the campaign began, an aviation source said, a day after UN staff were evacuated from Sanaa. “The airport is completely out of service,” he said.
Witnesses reported hearing three loud explosions and seeing a large fire when the air facility was hit around midnight (2100 GMT Saturday).
Meanwhile, overnight airstrikes hit the headquarters of the rebel republican guard at Al-Subaha base in Sanaa, killing 15 soldiers, a military official said.
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