From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Putin aligned with anti-Semites in attacking democracy, Senate Democrats say
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 economic summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. (Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — An in-depth report by Senate Democratic staffers on Russian meddling in elections in the West includes several instances when the initiatives included alliances with anti-Semites.
“The Congressional Research Service reports that many of the far-right European parties linked to the Kremlin are ‘anti-establishment and anti-EU, and they often share some combination of extreme nationalism; a commitment to ‘law and order’ and traditional family values; and anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, or anti-Islamic sentiments,’” said the 200-page report released Wednesday by the Democratic staff on the Foreign Relations Committee.
The report describes conferences across Europe for the far right as being sponsored by figures and organizations linked to the Kremlin, and notes that an official of Hungary’s anti-Semitic Jobbik Party was charged with spying for Russia. It also notes that the National Front in France, which has its roots in an anti-Semitic movement, took a loan from a Russian bank believed to have Kremlin ties.
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From PressTV
US may have been involved in raids on Russia in Syria
Russia says it detected an American spy aircraft circling in the skies between Russian bases in two Syrian cities during recent drone attacks on the facilities, implying that the United States may have been involved in the raids.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said 13 drones had targeted the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia Province and the naval facility in the port city of Tartus on Saturday.
It said Russian forces had repelled the assaults by shooting down seven of the drones and gaining electronic control over six others and safely landing them. It said the drone attacks had caused no damage.
The Russian ministry said data for the drone attacks could have only been obtained “from one of the countries that possesses knowhow in satellite navigation,” without naming any particular country.
“The programming of systems to control unmanned aerial vehicles and drop GPS-guided munitions requires completing engineering studies in a developed country. Besides, not everyone is capable of calculating exact coordinates using space surveillance data,” the statement read.
That technology, the ministry suggested, may have been transferred to terrorist groups in Syria to conduct the attacks. “We would like to stress once again that terrorists did not have anything of that kind until recently.”
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From PressTV
‘Syrian army hits Israeli jet, intercepts missiles near Damascus’
Syria’s army says its air defense systems have hit an Israeli aircraft and intercepted a number of rockets fired at targets on Syrian soil as the Tel Aviv regime continues its acts of aggression against the Arab country.
In a statement carried by state media on Tuesday, the army said that Israeli jets had fired missiles at the al-Qutaifa area northeast of the capital, Damascus, from inside the Lebanese airspace at 2:40 a.m. (0040 GMT).
The target of the strike in al-Qutaifa was said to be a weapons depot.
According to the statement, Israel then fired ground-to-ground rockets from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but the Syrian defenses brought the missiles down.
It said that Israeli jets had fired a final barrage of four rockets from inside Israel, and that the Syrian air defenses brought down one, but that the others caused material damage.
Syria’s official news agency (SANA) cited the general command of the army as saying that the attack had been carried out to raise the morale of the “defeated” terrorists in the Arab country.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Israeli startup moguls accuse Amazon of poaching staff
A worker at a new Amazon center in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 10, 2017. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Four Israeli tech leaders have accused Amazon of poaching their best developers.
In a Facebook exchange, the executives said that in seeking to build its own workforce, the Seattle-based online retail giant is recruiting Israeli employees who work for its own clients.
“Just learned that Amazon.com is actively trying to poach Lemonade employees,” Shai Wininger, the president of the Israeli insurance start-up Lemonade, posted on Facebook. “Game on!” A number of Israeli clients use Amazon’s cloud.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Support for Israel among young evangelicals is still high, but it’s slipping, says new survey
Evangelical pilgrims praying on the Dead Sea shore in Ein Gedi, Israel, Sept. 20, 2013. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — A new study has some troubling news for Israel and its supporters, who have come to rely on the political and financial support of the 25 percent of Americans who identify as evangelical Christians.
“Older American evangelicals love Israel — but many younger evangelicals simply don’t care,” reads the summary of the study released last month by the Nashville-based evangelical research firm LifeWay Research.
And while the summary may overstate the case, the survey, underwritten by Chosen People Ministries (which seeks Jewish converts to Christianity), shows that young evangelicals are less supportive and more ambivalent about the State of Israel than their older counterparts.
Though a majority of respondents aged 18-34 have a positive view of Israel, that number is lower than for all other age groups: 58 percent of millennials view the Jewish state positively, compared to 76 percent of those 65 or older.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
French publishing house suspends printing of WWII-era anti-Semitic essays
A Gallimard Editions book fair in Paris in 2013. (WIkimedia Commons)
(JTA) — A French publishing house that had resisted calls to drop publication of a famous author’s anti-Semitic screeds announced that it suspended the project.
Editions Gallimard announced Thursday the suspension of its plan to publish three Holocaust-era essays by the author Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, also known as Celine, the French news agency Agence France-Presse reported.
“The methodological and commemorative conditions were not met to complete the project satisfactorily,” Antoine Gallimard, the president of the prestigious publishing house, told AFP.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
District of Columbia renames street near Russian embassy for slain Jewish critic of Putin
(JTA) — In a move that Russian officials called a provocation, city authorities in Washington D.C. advanced the naming of a street adjacent to the Russian embassy for a murdered Jewish Kremlin critic.
The Council of the District of Columbia on Tuesday unanimously approved plans to create Boris Nemtsov Plaza. It honors the former deputy prime minister, an opponent of President Vladimir Putin, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015. Nemtsov was Jewish. Mayor Muriel Bowser still needs to approve the bill for it to go into effect.
“The portion of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the Russian Embassy [will be renamed] to honor slain democracy activist Boris Nemtsov,” the District of Columbia Council said on its website Tuesday.
Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian State Duma’s international affairs committee, called the plan “rude, harsh and done to spite us”, adding: “The anti-Russian flywheel cranked up by the Obama administration continues to turn,” the TASS news agency reported.
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From PressTV
UNHCR says Israel should halt policy of relocating African refugees
The United Nations refugee agency has called on Israeli authorities to scrap a new program that forces thousands of African refugees out of the occupied territories.
William Spindler, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said in a press briefing on Tuesday in the Swiss city of Geneva that the program was not “coherent” and “has been implemented not in a very transparent manner.”
“We are again appealing to Israel to halt its policy of relocating Eritreans and Sudanese to sub-Saharan Africa,” Spindler said.
“Official statements that the plans may eventually target families and those with pending asylum claims, or that asylum seekers might be taken to the airport in handcuffs, are particularly alarming.”
Spindler said some 27,000 Eritreans and 7,700 Sudanese lived in Israel, but authorities there had only granted refugee status to 11 since 2009.
In Europe, Eritreans have a very high rate of recognition as refugees fleeing war or persecution, the UNHCR spokesman said. “So we would expect that among them, many would qualify for refugee status.”
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