Tag: Israel

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Missing NJ man found dead in Israel forest

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish volunteers take part in searches for a missing New Jersey native in Jerusalem

Missing NJ man found dead in Israel forest
By David K. Li
August 28, 2014 | 11:16am

Israeli police have confirmed that the body found in a Jerusalem forest is that of a missing student from New Jersey.

An Israeli police official has confirmed that the body found in a wooded area in Jerusalem is that of a missing student from New Jersey.

Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld made the confirmation Thursday, hours after rescue workers found what they believed was Aaron Sofer’s body in a forest park in Jerusalem days after the student went missing, according to CNN.

The cause of death has yet to be determined.

Sofer, 23, got separated from a friend while hiking on a trail Friday afternoon, triggering a massive search that included helicopters, mounted police and canine units.

The young man’s parents, who live in Lakewood, NJ, had gone to Israel to help with the search.

Sofer’s loved ones earlier this week said they feared he had been kidnapped by Palestinians.

https://nypost.com/2014/08/28/body-found-in-israeli-forest-believed-to-be-missing-nj-man/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

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U.S. stance on Israeli-Palestinian conflict weakens Israel

Bob-Yudin

ROBERT B. YUDIN

Opinion: U.S. stance on Israeli-Palestinian conflict weakens Israel

August 21, 2014    Last updated: Thursday, August 21, 2014, 1:21 AM
By ROBERT B. YUDIN
The Record

SINCE THE founding of Israel in 1948, it has been the bedrock of U.S. foreign policy to support Israel politically, economically and militarily. The one inviolate rule was that Israel must always retain its qualitative military superiority. Until now, both political parties have in a very non-partisan manner adhered to this principal.

A recent Gallup poll shows a change in this thinking. When asked about the current conflict between Israel and Hamas and specifically “Americans’ Views of Israel’s Action in Current Middle East Conflict,” 31 percent of those identifying themselves as Democrats felt Israel was justified while 47 percent felt Israel was not justified. Among those identifying themselves as Republicans 65 percent felt Israel was justified and 21 percent felt unjustified.

When you couple this with President Obama’s freezing military shipments to Israel in the middle of a shooting war with a terrorist organization – Hamas – many people have a right to be concerned.

Hamas has stated in its charter that it is dedicated to the annihilation of Israel and to the death of world Jewry. To date, Hamas has fired over 3,000 missiles into Israel as well as using tunnels into Israel for the purpose of killing Israelis.

The freezing of military shipments indicates a basic change in Obama’s policy to Israel. Reuters is quoted as saying that State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf says it is not a diminution of U.S. support of Israel. Yet actions speak louder than words, and withholding delivery of munitions speaks volumes.

In addition, Obama says Israel has a right to defend itself but that he is concerned with civilian casualties. I hear that as code for saying Israel does not have a right to defend itself because if Hamas puts missiles in the basement and purposively places civilians on the first and second floor when Israel, in defending itself, sends a missile into that basement to take out Hamas missiles before they are fired into Israel, the civilians on the first and second floor will become casualties. That is what Israel means when it says Hamas uses civilians to shield its missiles.

Leading up to World War II, few people believed Hitler when it became clear what his intentions were toward the Jews – it was the Holocaust. How can anyone fault Israelis for believing Hamas when its own charter calls for the same Holocaust?

Whether it is Hamas, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood, their goals are the same: the destruction of Judaic-Christian religions, the destruction of our way of life and the domination of the world through the establishment of a Worldwide Caliphate.

Israel’s fight against Hamas is also our fight. If Israel loses, we are next.

Robert B. Yudin, a resident of Wyckoff, is chairman of the Bergen County Republican Organization.

See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-guest-writers/u-s-stance-on-israeli-palestinian-conflict-weakens-israel-1.1070853#sthash.WqN9uoB2.dpuf

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Are US millenials turning away from Israel?

hitler-meeting-a-member-of-the-hitler-youth-pic-swns-55608218

US millenials the new Hitler Youth ?

Are US millenials turning away from Israel?
By Niall Stanage – 08/09/14 12:50 PM EDT

Young Americans are showing far less fervent support for Israel than older generations, but almost no-one can agree on why the change is happening, how permanent it is likely to be, or what it all means.

Observers offer a laundry list of possibilities

They say millenials are more likely than their elders to be liberal and Israel’s actions — particularly in the current offensive in Gaza — increasingly meet with vigorous criticism in left-of-center circles.

Millenials are also much more avid consumers of social media, on which different narratives explaining the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are more readily available — as are especially gruesome images of the human toll extracted by Israeli missile strikes.

These young people also don’t have the same memories as their parents.

Many older Americans can still recall the Six-Day War in 1967 or the Yom Kippur War in 1973, during which Israel’s very existence seemed to be threatened by its Arab neighbors.

By contrast, “young Americans have grown up with Israel as an incredible superpower in the region, and with occupation and intifada,” said Ira Stup of J Street, the liberal-leaning pro-Israel lobby group. “Young Americans often have a vision of Israel vis-a-vis Palestine that is more in line with what is going on now.”

There is no mistaking the depth of the generational split.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/international/214756-are-us-millenials-turning-away-from-israel#ixzz39v5cS6cm
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

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Jon Voight Pens Letter to ‘Ignorant’ Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz on Israel: ‘Hang Your Heads in Shame’

voight

Jon Voight Pens Letter to ‘Ignorant’ Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz on Israel: ‘Hang Your Heads in Shame’

The actor urges colleagues to “examine their motives,” asking “Can you take back the fire of anti-Semitism that is raging all over the world now?”

My name is Jon Voight and I am more than angry, I am heartsick that people like Penelope Cruz andJavier Bardem could incite anti-Semitism all over the world and are oblivious to the damage they have caused.

They are obviously ignorant of the whole story of Israel’s birth, when in 1948 the Jewish people were offered by the UN a portion of the land originally set aside for them in 1921, and the Arab Palestinians were offered the other half. The Arabs rejected the offer, and the Jews accepted, only to be attacked by five surrounding Arab countries committed to driving them into the sea. But the Israelis won. The Arabs tried it again in 1967, and again in 1973, launching a sneak attack on the holiest Jewish holiday. Each time the Jews prevailed but not without great loss of life.  And when Israel was not fighting a major war, it was defending itself against terrorist campaigns.

And yet Israel has always labored for a peaceful relation with its Arab neighbors. It voluntarily returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in return for peace, and gave the Palestinians all of Gaza as a peace gesture. What was the response? The Palestinians elected Hamas, a terrorist organization, and they immediately began firing thousands of rockets into Israel.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jon-voight-pens-letter-ignorant-723007?mobile_redirect=false

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St. Cory’s Stunningly Shallow Worldview

saint-cory-booker-1

St. Cory’s Stunningly Shallow Worldview

Jul. 27 Cory Booker

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

There are three dominant camps in the modern Democrat Party when it comes to the plight of Israel, Save Jerseyans:

1 – Those who straight-up hate Jews;

2 – Those who are so ideologically liberal and morally relativistic that they’re also reflexively anti-war/colonialism/military; the end result is unthinking, unsubstantiated and automatic opposition to the militarily-superior participant in any conflict regardless of any other considerations; and

3 – Those who, frankly, are naive and dumb enough in equal measure to believe that humanity can “Care Bear stare” its way out of any conflict with sufficiently positive social media activism.

I’ve seen no evidence that Cory Booker (D-Twitter) shares anything other than a party registration (which is bad enough) with group #1; as for camps #2 and #3, however, it’s obvious enough to anyone paying attention that our state’s celebrity junior center is living in a different reality from the rest of us (and certainly the poor citizens of Israel who weather a daily barrage of rocket fire).

This is the MOST substantive quote I could find from him on the subject tangentially related to Gaza:

 @CoryBooker 

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” ― Jonathan Swift



Wow. Thanks for that, Senator.

– See more at: https://savejersey.com/2014/07/cory-booker-israel-gaza/#sthash.KcrbPXwW.dpuf

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The Moral Difference Between Israel and Hamas

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Rockets being launched from populated areas of Gaza.

The Moral Difference Between Israel and Hamas
Steven Bucci / @SBucci / July 17, 2014

What most Americans—and the world—hear about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas goes something like this: “125 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed by Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza. No Israelis have yet been killed.” This may be true, but there is absolutely no context to it. One must look at the methodologies of the two sides.

Hamas sets up rocket launchers—as well as supply dumps and command-and-control sites—in the midst of apartment buildings, mosques and schools. From these sites, its fighters launch dozens of rockets in salvos, targeting population centers with no discrimination at all. They have been firing almost continuously of late. But normally, they fire when Israeli school children move from their homes, which have safe shelters, to their schools, which also have shelters. They do this deliberately to try and catch the kids in the open. They don’t seek to minimize collateral damage – they seek to maximize it.

Israel, on the other hand, fires only at specific, intelligence-derived military targets. Since these targets are deliberately intermixed with the civilian population by Hamas, Israel must take steps to minimize the collateral casualties.

Before the Israelis strike a building, every home in it gets a call on its landline phone, as do all the cell phones associated with the inhabitants of the building—the cells additionally get text messages—telling them that in a few minutes the building will be targeted. Finally, to make sure everyone gets the message, Israel drops a dud bomb—one containing no explosives—onto the roof of the structure. Minutes later, the building is destroyed. There is no instance in modern military history where a force has taken greater measures to give the innocents as much chance to get out of the way. It is a “discriminant” as a modern military can be.

Additionally, Israel has developed its much-touted—and rightly so—Iron Dome rocket defense system, which renders most of Hamas’ efforts of no effect. Between the Iron Dome shooting down the rockets that might otherwise do damage, and the “Red Alert” app that alerts civilians on their cell phones in real time when a terrorist rocket attack is launched, and where it is headed, the civilian casualties in Israel have been negligible.

Israel just wants to be left alone; Hamas wants the destruction of Israel. There is no moral equivalence there, and the tactics of the two sides prove the point.