By Dmitriy Shapiro, JNS.org/Washington Jewish Week After months of rampaging through Iraq and stoking international fears that the Islamic State terrorist group could spread, a combination of Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, aided by targeted United States airstrikes, appear to have pushed back the self-proclaimed caliphate’s rampage in the region. Continue Reading
By Felice Friedson, The Media Line “As the international media is fixated on the struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, few reporters are focusing on Syria. But a spate of kidnappings of foreign journalists in Syria has made the country a mini-Iraq that few want to venture into.Continue Reading
(JTA) — The Islamist ISIS organization has released a video that apparently shows the beheading of the American journalist Steven Sotloff. The nearly three-minute video, titled “A Second Message to America,” was released Tuesday afternoon on Twitter and other online outlets. Sotloff family spokesman Barak Barfi said in a briefContinue Reading
By Abdullah H. Erakat, The Media Line WEST BANK – As support for the Islamist Hamas movement soars in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, members of the rival Fatah movement charge they have been harassed, beaten, and in some cases, even killed by members of the Islamist HamasContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service (JTA) – Between the war in Gaza and gains by Islamic militants in Iraq, Syria and Libya, there’s plenty of cause these days for pessimism about the Middle East. But amid all the fighting, there’s also some good news for Israel. If itContinue Reading
By Abdullah H. Erakat and Linda Gradstein, The Media Line (RAMALLAH) — After the rockets comes the spin machine, and both Israel and Hamas are claming victory in the fighting that has left 2,200 Palestinians, 69 Israelis, and one foreign worker dead, thousands of Palestinians wounded, and widespread devastation inContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s war is over, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fight may only have just begun. The past month has seen Netanyahu’s approval rating plummet, according to polling by Israel’s Channel 2. On July 23, about a week after IsraelContinue Reading
By Linda Gradstein, The Media Line An old Bedouin proverb says, “Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, and me and my cousin against the world.” In the Gaza conflict, while Egypt and Israel may not be brothers, they are certainly cousins with a joint interestContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — A rocket barrage fell on Israel, a boom sounded over Tel Aviv and then it was over — at least for now. After 50 days of missiles, airstrikes, ground operations, tunnel incursions, truce talks, cease-fire proposals, death and destruction,Continue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service OR YEHUDA, Israel (JTA) — Something that looks like a can of soda could be Israel’s high-tech answer to the network of tunnels that Hamas has created under the Gaza border. A sensor known as a geophone can detect underground movement based onContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Nearly 200 Hollywood elite, including Sylvester Stallone and Seth Rogen, signed a statement condemning Hamas as its conflict with Israel continues.From actors to directors to studio heads signed the statement by members of the Creative Community for Peace and posted on its website Saturday. The signers alsoContinue Reading
(JNS.org) Farmers in Israeli communities near Gaza will receive some 120 portable shelters to protect the manual laborers who work the land, officials said on Wednesday. The decision comes amid renewed hostilities between Israel and Hamas. With fields close to the Gaza Strip border fence, agricultural workers in the south haveContinue Reading
(JNS.org) Israel’s Channel 2 on Wednesday aired a recording of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri, who is based in Turkey, claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in June. The recording is the strongest evidence to date for Hamas’s involvement in that crime. “I praise the brave action that the al-QassamContinue Reading
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent The United States has little to worry about when it comes to the possibility of an Ebola virus outbreak here, according to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Ebola researcher Dr. Leslie Lobel: It’s not airborne, it requires direct contact with an infected human or animal,Continue Reading
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA World News Service (JTA) — My friend Alain Azria gave me a puzzled look when I told him, with some indignation and disbelief in my voice, that I had just heard talk of killing Jews at an unauthorized anti-Israel demonstration last month in Paris. A youngContinue Reading
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel extended immigration benefits to non-Jewish spouses in same-sex marriages.On Tuesday, Interior Minister Gideon Saar instructed the government to extend the benefits of the Law of Return to all married couples.The law affords non-Jewish spouses of Jewish immigrants full citizenship and immigration benefits, but Israel hadContinue Reading
By Rafael Medoff, JNS.org This year marks the 100th anniversary of the expulsion of thousands of Jews from Turkish-ruled Palestine to Egypt, in a dramatic reversal of the historic exodus from the Land of the Pharaohs to the Land of Israel. But from that tragic episode in 1914 would emergeContinue Reading
(JTA) — Palestinian rocket crews fired dozens of rockets at Israel as a 72-hour cease-fire came to a close, and Israel renewed its attacks on Hamas targets in Gaza. The Israeli strikes were carried out by aircraft over Gaza on Friday morning, Army Radio reported. The strikes resulted in the death of a 10-year-old boy,Continue Reading
By Abdullah H. Erakat, The Media Line WEST BANK — Prior to the outbreak of the 29-day war between Israel and Hamas and despite the failure of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace initiative, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly was a happy camper having survived unscathed in theContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, The Jewish Sound The news out of Turkey, when it comes to politics and Jewish life, is bleak. The positive relationship between Turkey and Israel has been deteriorating at least since Turkey began showing support for Hamas during Israel’s 2008-09 war in Gaza, andContinue Reading
