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Hamas claims Jerusalem shooting attack that kills 3 as Gaza truce is narrowly extended
(JTA) — Hamas has claimed responsibility for a shooting attack in the Ramot neighborhood of east Jerusalem that killed three and wounded six on Thursday morning, in what the Palestinian terror group said was retaliation for Israel’s war against it in Gaza and an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.
The attack was carried out by two brothers from east Jerusalem who had each served sentences in Israeli prisons for terror-related crimes, according to the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service. Ibrahim Namr, 30, and Murad Namr, 38, exited their vehicle and began firing on a group of civilians waiting at a bus stop located by the city’s entrance at around 7:40 a.m. Thursday.
The brothers were quickly shot and killed by two soldiers, one of whom was returning home from active duty in Gaza. That soldier, Roee Eizenbach, had left Gaza just hours earlier and was lightly injured in the incident.
The dead include Elimelech Wasserman, 73, who was reportedly on his way to Ashdod where he worked as a rabbinical judge; Libiah Dickman, 24, who was reportedly pregnant with her first child; and Chana Ifergen, 60, who died at an area hospital. Two of the other shooting victims are hospitalized in serious condition.
The two Namr brothers were both affiliated with Hamas when they were imprisoned in Israel, Murad from 2010 to 2020 and Ibrahim in 2014. The terror group said on Thursday that it was calling for “an escalation” of violence in response to Israel’s war against it in Gaza, declared after Hamas attacked Israel Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and taking hundreds of hostages, and in retaliation after two children were among four people killed during an Israeli army raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on Wednesday. The Israeli army said two senior terror operatives who were killed were the targets of the raid.
The attack occurred shortly after Israel’s 7 a.m. ceasefire deadline with Hamas was narrowly extended for another day. Instead of releasing 10 hostages, as it has been required to do each day since the truce went into effect last Friday, Hamas is releasing six women and two children, as well as the bodies of three hostages who died in Gaza, according to Israeli media reports. Two Russian-Israeli women released Wednesday as a “gesture” to Russian President Vladimir Putin are being counted in the daily tally.
It was not immediately clear which hostages were dead or which children would be released. There are only four children known to be held hostage in Gaza: teen siblings Aisha and Bilal Ziadna and Kfir and Ariel Bibas, toddlers who with their mother have become a symbol of the crisis. Hamas claimed on Wednesday that the Bibas brothers had been killed along with their mother; Israel has not confirmed or refuted the claim.
The shooting attack took place as U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was in Jerusalem to weigh in as Israeli officials plan the next phase of their war on Hamas. Herzog described the attack to Blinken as “another example of the condition we find ourselves in, a never-ending war against terror organizations and in particular Hamas.” Blinken also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reiterated after their meeting that Israel has committed to destroying Hamas. Blinken reportedly told him that the United States expects Israel to protect civilians in further fighting. According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, 14,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, a figure that does not distinguish between combatants and civilians or denote casualties from misfired Palestinian rockets.
The shooting at the Ramot bus stop comes just over a year after a bomb attack occurred at the same place, killing two. In both cases, far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared shortly at the scene of the attack calling for harsher measures in response to terror and for civilians to arm themselves. Ben-Gvir has said his party would resign from the government if the war is not resumed in short order.
The background of the shooters is certain to add fuel to the debate in Israel over the dangers of releasing prisoners in order to redeem hostages. Israel has released three prisoners held on security offenses for each hostage released from Gaza, but is expected to face pressure to release more prisoners if it wants to see male adults and soldiers released.
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The post Hamas claims Jerusalem shooting attack that kills 3 as Gaza truce is narrowly extended appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A Hanukkah Guide for the Perplexed, 2024
Here are eight things to know about Hanukkah, as the holiday begins tomorrow night:
1. A bust of Judah the Maccabee is displayed at West Point Military Academy, along with those of Joshua, David, Alexander the Great, Hector, Julius Caesar, King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon.
In 1777, Hanukkah candles were lit during the Valley Forge encampment, the turning point of the Revolutionary War, which solidified the victory of George Washington’s Continental Army over the British monarchy.
Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a player in the ratification of the US Constitution, paving the road to the Boston Tea Party, 1773, wrote: “What shining examples of patriotism do we behold in Joshua, Samuel, the Maccabees and the illustrious princes and prophets among the Jews…” On December 6, 2013, Ambassador Hank Cooper, a former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, wrote: “We need modern day Maccabees to preserve the heritage of liberty for our posterity….”
2. Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that commemorates an ancient national liberation struggle in the Land of Israel, unlike the national liberation holidays, Passover, Sukkot/Tabernacles and Shavu’ot/Pentecost, which commemorate the liberation from slavery in Egypt to independence in the land of Israel, and unlike Purim, which commemorates liberation from a Persian attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.
3. According to Israel’s Founding Father, David Ben-Gurion: Hanukkah commemorates “the struggle of the Maccabees, which was one of the most dramatic clashes of civilizations in human history, not merely a political-military struggle against foreign oppression … Unlike many peoples, the meager Jewish people did not assimilate. The Jewish people prevailed, won, sustained and enhanced their independence and unique civilization … It was the spirit of the people, rather than the failed spirit of the establishment, which enabled the Hasmoneans to overcome one of the most magnificent spiritual, political and military challenges in Jewish history….” (Uniqueness and Destiny, pp 20-22, David Ben Gurion, IDF Publishing, 1953).
4. Hanukkah and the Land of Israel. When ordered by Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid region to end the Jewish “occupation” of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Gaza, Gezer and Akron, Shimon the Maccabee responded: “We have not occupied a foreign land … We have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation (Book of Maccabees A: 15:33).”
5. Hanukkah highlights the centrality of the Land of Israel in the formation of Judaism and the Jewish people. The mountain ridges of Judea and Southern Samaria (the West Bank) — the cradle of Jewish history, religion, culture and language – were the platform for the Maccabean military battles: Mitzpah (the burial site of the Prophet Samuel, overlooking Jerusalem), Beit El (the site of the Ark of the Covenant and Judah the Maccabee’s initial headquarters), Beit Horon (Judah’s victory over Seron), Hadashah (Judah’s victory over Nicanor), Beit Zur (Judah’s victory over Lysias), Ma’aleh Levona (Judah’s victory over Apolonius), Adora’yim (a Maccabean fortress), Eleazar (named after Mattityahu’s youngest Maccabee son), Beit Zachariya (Judah’s first defeat), Ba’al Hatzor (where Judah was defeated and killed), Te’qoah, Mikhmash and Gophnah (bases of Shimon and Yonatan), the Judean Desert, etc.
6. Hanukkah’s historical context is narrated in the four Books of the Maccabees, The Scroll of Antiochus and The Wars of the Jews.
In 323 BCE, following the death of Alexander the Great (Alexander III) who held Judaism in high esteem, the Greek Empire was split into three independent and rival mini-empires: Greece, Seleucid/Syria, and Ptolemaic/Egypt.
In 175 BCE, the Seleucid/Syrian Emperor Antiochus (IV) Epiphanes claimed the Land of Israel. He suspected that the Jews were allies of his Ptolemaic/Egyptian enemy. The Seleucid emperor was known for eccentric behavior, hence his name, Epiphanes, which means “divine manifestation.” He aimed to exterminate Judaism and convert Jews to Hellenism. In 169 BCE, he devastated Jerusalem, attempting to decimate the Jewish population, and outlaw the practice of Judaism.
In 166/7 BCE, a Jewish rebellion was led by the non-establishment Hasmonean (Maccabee) family from the rural town of Modi’in, half-way between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean. The rebellion was headed by Mattityahu, the priest, and his five sons, Yochanan, Judah, Shimon, Yonatan and Eleazar, who fought the Seleucid occupier and restored Jewish independence. The Hasmonean dynasty was replete with external and internal wars and lasted until 37 BCE, when Herod the Great (a proxy of Rome) defeated Antigonus II Mattathias.
7. The reputation of Jews as superb warriors was reaffirmed by the success of the Maccabees on the battlefield. In fact, they were frequently hired as mercenaries by Egypt, Syria, Carthage, Rome, and other global and regional powers.
Hanukkah celebrates the Maccabean-led national liberation by conducting in-house family education and lighting candles — in a 9-branch-candelabrum –for 8 days in commemoration of the re-inauguration of Jerusalem’s Jewish Temple and its Menorah (candelabrum).
The Hebrew words Hanukkah (חנוכה), inauguration (חנוכ), and education ((חנוך possess an identical root.
8. Hanukkah highlights the defeat of darkness, disbelief, and the victory of light, faith, a can-do mentality, and optimism. The first day of Hanukkah is celebrated when daylight hours are equal to darkness hours — and when moonlight is hardly noticed — ushering in brighter days.
The author is a political commentator, and former Israeli ambassador.
The post A Hanukkah Guide for the Perplexed, 2024 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Ireland: Antisemitism Without Jews
When Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s Foreign Minister, recently announced the closure of Israel’s embassy in Ireland because of Ireland’s antisemitic actions and anti-Israel posture, it led to flurry of articles in the press.
The immediate cause of the closure was the decision by the government of Ireland to join South Africa in presenting the case accusing Israel of perpetrating genocide in Gaza. Largely missing from the discussion is that there are almost no Jews in Ireland.
Jews were never very numerous in Ireland, but today they are on the endangered list. The Jewish community in Ireland is declining, numbering only 800 in a population of 5.3 million. The number increases to about 2500 with the addition of Jewish expatriates and temporary residents, mainly Israelis, working in the technology sector.
James Wilson explains that the disappearance of Jews from communities outside Dublin grows further each year. For example, the last synagogue service in Cork was held in 2016. Most of the Belfast Jewish community left during the “troubles,” after the shooting of a member of the community and the kidnapping of another.
Wilson relates how the Chief Rabbi of Ireland once told a joke about three European Jews discussing emigration. One said he would go to America for comfort and security, the second to Israel because it was the land of his ancestors, and the third said he would go to Ireland. Why? Because the Devil would not think of looking for a Jew in Ireland!
The Rabbi’s joke is reminiscent of one told in James Joyce’s Ulysses. At an early point in the novel, Garrett Deasy (a minor character and headmaster of the school where Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s alter ego in the novel, teaches) jokes to Dedalus that Ireland is the only country that has not persecuted the Jews. Why? Because they never let them in.
Leopold Bloom, the novel’s protagonist, is a Jew, sort of. Bloom’s mother was a Catholic, and his father was a Hungarian-Jewish convert to Protestantism. Although baptized at birth, everyone who Bloom interacts with considers him a Jew. Indeed, he admits to being Jewish (and Irish) when challenged by antisemites at Barney Kiernan’s pub.
First published in 1920, Ulysses is a fictional account of one day, June 16, 1904, in the life of Leopold Bloom, as he wanders through Dublin on a journey that loosely follows that of Homer in The Iliad. Examples of antisemitism, including the slanders of ritual murder and global conspiracies, as well references to Zionist projects in Palestine, figure prominently.
Joyce wrote Ulysses when he was living in self-imposed exile in Trieste, then part of Austria-Hungary. Leopold Bloom was a creation based on two Jewish friends of that period, not from Joyces’s earlier Irish background. They were the likely sources of information about Judaism and Zionism.
The Limerick Pogrom (also called the Limerick Boycott), emblematic of the reason for the small number of Jews in Ireland, is not mentioned in Ulysses, although it took place in 1904, the same year as Bloom’s fictional ramble. This pogrom, preceded by antisemitic outbursts in the late 1800s, included violence and intimidation, and led to the exodus of most of the approximately 170 Jews of Limerick; some to other centers in Ireland, many to other countries.
As to the situation for Jews in Ireland today, the outgoing Israeli ambassador, Dana Erlich, noted that she heard concerns about safety from Jewish citizens and Israelis.
In fact, the relatively few Jews in Ireland are not safe. A few weeks ago, a Jewish–American student wearing a Star of David was beaten severely, according toThe Irish Times. The assault took place at a Dublin bar (Flannery’s, 1.5 miles from Barney Keirnan’s pub).
Quite a few Jews left Ireland after October 7, 2023, because of safety concerns, according to Newstalk. One woman, an Israeli, said she does not mention that she is from Israel and avoids speaking Hebrew on her phone in public.
A recent article on antisemitism by Harvard scholar Noah Feldman notes that antisemitism has never been about real Jews as much as the antisemite’s imagination of them. In Ulysses, for example, the antisemite Deasy comments to Dedalus that “the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction” — to which Dedalus replies “ A merchant is one who buys cheap and sells dear … jew or gentile…”
What better example of imagination and reality?
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
The post Ireland: Antisemitism Without Jews first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Palestinian Authority Violated US Law, and Biden Gave Them Billions; Will Trump Reverse Course?
The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to openly flaunt that it disregards American wishes and legislation.
American law prohibits funding the PA if the PA takes action against Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet that is exactly what the PA and Palestinian leaders have done:
PA-controlled Committee to Resist Settlements and the Wall Director of Documentation Amir Daoud: “We have seen profound changes in the positions of the states … and this reached a peak in the issuance of arrest warrants against [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu and [then Israeli Minister of Defense] Gallant …
We as Palestinians need to continue providing these organizations [e.g., ICC] with real documents and information to expand the scope of sanctions to ensure that all the occupation’s criminals will reach the world’s courts to receive their punishment.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Nov. 27, 2024]
Nevertheless, the Palestinians have no problem begging for and receiving American funding, to the tune of more than $2.1 billion since October 7, 2023, as reported in a USAID press release:
Since 2021, USAID/West Bank and Gaza has invested over $600 million in economic support funding of the Palestinian people, in addition to the over $2.1 billion in humanitarian assistance since October 7, 2023.
[USAID press release, November 15, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that the PA is acting contrary to the US Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014.
That law renders the Palestinians ineligible to receive money from the US Economic Support Fund if they actively support an ICC investigation. The law states:
“None of the funds appropriated under the heading ‘Economic Support Fund’ in this Act may be made available for assistance for the Palestinian Authority, if after the date of enactment of this Act… the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.”
Yet, the PA continues to show contempt for these basic American criteria. Not only does it fail to abide by the restrictions, but it celebrates its influence on the ICC decision as “among the most important achievements of the Palestinian struggle in the past 10 years.”
Secretary-General of the International Academic Campaign against the Israeli Occupation and Apartheid Ramzi Oudeh: “The courageous decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the arrest [warrants for former Israeli Minister of Defense] Gallant and [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu is among the most important achievements of the Palestinian struggle in the past 10 years. It is considered the most significant achievement. Today, this is a victory for the Palestinian people.”
[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Nov. 27, 2024]
American funding of the PA was cut off under President Trump due to the PA’s violation of the terms of the Taylor Force Act (TFA), but it was then reinstated under the Biden administration through various channels that bypassed the restrictions of the TFA.
With the PA gloating about its participation in ICC proceedings against Israel in violation of US restrictions, it will be noteworthy to see if the new US administration will stick to the letter and spirit of the law, which clearly intended for the US to cut off PA funding in such a case.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
The post The Palestinian Authority Violated US Law, and Biden Gave Them Billions; Will Trump Reverse Course? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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