Dr. Patrick Slattery’s News Roundup
A service of DavidDuke.com
From The Times of Israel
Marco Rubio’s big Jewish backer and 7 other things to know about him
Republican candidate believes Israel merits unconditional US support; wants probe into death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman
NEW YORK (JTA) — After Marco Rubio’s strong performance in Wednesday night’s Republican primary debate, many Americans are taking a second look at the US senator from Florida. Here are a few things American Jews might want to know about him.
1. Rubio had humble beginnings — and rose quickly
The junior senator was born in Miami in 1971 to Cuban parents who moved to the United States in 1956 and later found work in bartending and housekeeping. After high school, Rubio paid for his first year of college with a football scholarship and then took out student loans. Rubio later repaid $100,000 in student debt out of the $800,000 advance he received for his 2012 book, “An American Son.” (He also sprung for a fishing boat.) While studying law at the University of Miami in the mid-1990s, Rubio interned for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R.-Fla., the first Cuban American elected to Congress and a staunch supporter of Israel. Rubio won election in 2000 to the state legislature, the Florida House of Representatives, and became its youngest-ever speaker in 2005. In 2010, Rubio was elected to the US Senate, defeating Florida’s governor, Charlie Crist.
2. Rubio’s biggest patron is a past president of the Miami Jewish federation
Billionaire auto dealership magnate Norman Braman, a past president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, isn’t just the single-largest backer of Rubio’s presidential campaign. Braman also helped finance the young senator’s legislative agenda, employed Rubio as a lawyer, hired Rubio’s wife (a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader) as a philanthropic adviser, helped fund Rubio’s position as a college instructor and assisted Rubio with his personal finances. In 2010, Braman and Rubio went to Israel together shortly after Rubio’s election to the US Senate.
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From Ynet News
Germany remains divided on refugee question
‘Transit zones’ versus ‘entry zones’: German coalition still divided on how to receive refugees at the borders; 2-hour meeting at the Kanzleramt fails to yield tangible results.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel met on Sunday morning with Horst Seehofer, (the leader of Merkel’s Christian Democrats’ Bavarian sister party CSU), and Sigmar Gabriel from the Social Democrats to discuss their united approach to the refugee question. For two hours, the coalition partners sat together in the Kanzleramt in Berlin – and the result turned out to be underwhelming.
Merkel, Seehofer and Gabriel apparently did not come to terms on the issue. As government spokesman Steffen Seibert said afterwards, “there is a lot of common ground, but there are also some points that remain open and have yet to be settled.” According to Seibert, these issues will be debated again on Thursday, when the German state minister-presidents are to come together as well.
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From PressTV
Israeli forces attack Palestinians at al-Khalil funeral
Clashes have erupted at the funeral procession for five Palestinian teenagers killed by Israeli forces in the recent wave of aggression against Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Thousands of mourners attended the funeral for the teenagers, including two girls, on Saturday in the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron) after Israeli authorities returned their bodies.
The Palestinians carried national flags and chanted anti-Israeli slogans when skirmishes broke out between them and Israeli forces.
Israel refrains from returning the bodies of those killed in clashes with its forces in order to prevent mass protests that usually follow funerals.
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From PressTV
Israeli troops kill Palestinian in West Bank
Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian, who was allegedly armed with a knife, in the occupied West Bank in yet another act of violence against Palestinian citizens.
The victim was reportedly heading from the West Bank city of Jenin to Israel on Saturday morning, when he was spotted at a checkpoint, shot and killed by Israeli troops.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society received the body of the Palestinian, whose identity has not been released yet.
An unidentified Israeli army spokesperson claimed that “the Palestinian attempted to stab security personnel at the crossing.”
Eyewitnesses, however, told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency that “there were no stabbing attempts” when Israeli forces opened fire on the Palestinian youth.
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From Ynet News
Palestinian dresses up as Hasidic Jew to avoid harassment
Nasser, a maintenance worker at a yeshiva, finds a creative way to move around freely in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, with a little help from his Haredi friends.
A Palestinian laborer found a creative way to move around freely in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and avoid harassment following the recent wave of terror: He dressed up as a Hasidic Jew.
Nasser, a maintenance worker at a yeshiva in the Belz neighborhood, asked his Haredi friends to help him avoid racially-motivated attacks by providing him with a prayer shawl and a large black skullcap. He was forced, however, to return to his home in Hebron at his family’s request until the situation calmed down.
Nasser the Hasidic Jew
From The Times of Israel
Israel losing edge in technology ‘war’ with Iran, IDF intel head warns
Herzl Halevi says Islamic Republic churning out several times more scientists, mathematicians and engineers, warns against watching footage of stabbings
The country’s top army intelligence officer has reportedly said Israel and Iran are engaged in a technological “war,” with the Jewish state slowly losing its qualitative edge over the Islamic Republic.
According to a report in Haaretz, Military Intelligence Head Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi also warned Thursday against watching video clips online of recent stabbings, saying that if the clips had been around in 1948, Israel may have lost the War of Independence.
Speaking during a private lecture at a Tel Aviv conference, Halevi said Iran’s higher education system was leapfrogging Israel’s, churning out more new scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
Right now, Israel has the upper hand, he said. But “Iran is closing in on it,” he said. “Since the 1979 revolution, the number of universities and university students in Iran has increased twentyfold, compared with three and a half times for Israel.”
Halevi, who has historically been media shy, termed the race between Israel and Iran to stay ahead technologically a “war.”
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From The Times of Israel
England, Wales pass new law on female genital mutilation
Though it’s a crime in UK, 137,000 British women and girls, most of them immigrants, said to have undergone practice
LONDON (AP) — A new law requiring professionals to report cases of female genital mutilation to police for those under 18 is being introduced in England and Wales, but some warn the law could make girls reluctant to seek medical care.
The law taking effect Saturday makes it a crime not to notify police when health care workers, social workers or teachers see someone under 18 who has had their genitals removed or damaged for non-medical reasons.
The goal is to intensify a government crackdown on the practice of removing external genitalia in young girls, which is seen as a form of child abuse and violence against women and was made a crime here in 2003.
But some charities working to protect girls from this practice, which is still widespread in some parts of Africa, fear unintended consequences from the mandatory reporting law.
“The reality is this doesn’t protect girls, because the rationale is to report girls who have already undergone FGM,” said Naana Otoo-Oyortey, director of the Forward advocacy group, using the acronym FGM for the process. “Yes, we see a need to report and prosecute. But it has to be alongside prevention.”
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From The Times of Israel
WATCH: Bernie Sanders hugs Muslim student, vows to fight racism as a Jew
Democratic presidential contender cites relatives’ deaths in Holocaust as he pledges to build a unified nation
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders embraced a Muslim student and referenced his Jewish background in condemning all forms of racism.
In the Q&A portion of a town hall meeting at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, Wednesday night, hijab-wearing senior Remaz Abdelgader identified herself as “an American Muslim student who aspires to change this world” and complained about the “rhetoric that’s going on in the media.”
In response, Sanders, a Vermont senator who identifies as Democratic socialist, hugged her and said, “Let me be very personal here if I might. I’m Jewish. My father’s family died in concentration camps. I will do everything that I can to rid this country of the ugly stain of racism which has existed for far too many years.”
Sanders went on to say that racism, sexism and homophobia have long been tools used to divide workers. “They played one group off against another. The rich got richer while everybody else was fighting each other. Our job is to build a nation in which we all stand together as one people.”
He also noted that “there is a lot of anger being generated, a lot of hatred being generated against Muslims in this country …”
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