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President-elect Donald Trump's advisers would like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend his inauguration Jan. 20, the New York Post reported Saturday.
According to a source close to the transition team, the advisers are also exploring the possibility of arranging "a meeting of the two leaders before then."
If Netanyahu accepts the invitation, he would become the first sitting Israeli prime minister to attend a presidential inauguration.
According to the report, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and other transition team officials "have been aggressively courting Netanyahu and want him to attend the Jan. 20 festivities."
"There's a plan for Trump to meet with Netanyahu," the source said. "They're talking all the time. And Netanyahu is talking about possibly going to the inauguration."
Sources close to Netanyahu said Sunday that the prime minister currently has no plans to attend the inauguration.
This article was originally published at JNS.org. Used with permission.
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Just days after his upset victory in the US presidential election, Donald Trump affirmed that his time in the White House will be marked a new closeness in US-Israel relations.
“I love and respect Israel and its citizens,” Trump wrote in a statement to daily commuter paper Israel Hayom, which is owned by one of Trump’s biggest campaign backers, Jewish-American billionaire Sheldon Adelson.
The US president-elect continued: “I look forward to strengthening the unbreakable bond between our two great peoples. I know well that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and that it is the only one that defends human rights, and that it is a ray of hope for many people.”
As for the peace process, Trump, like his official campaign platform, refused to commit to the two-state solution, instead insisting that the two sides must negotiate a mutually-agreeable solution.
“I believe that my administration will be able to fill an important role in aiding the two sides to reach a just and lasting peace, one which must come through negotiations between the two sides themselves, and not through coercion by outside elements,” he said. “Israel and the Jewish people deserve it.”
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Nearly 100 years ago, a very important document was written in the United Kingdom by foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to the leader of the Jewish community, Baron Walter Rothschild. It has become known in history as the "Balfour Declaration."
The text of that letter reads as follows: "I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. 'His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.' I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation."
The Balfour Declaration is a document that has been foundational in the world's recognition of Israel's right for self-determination within the boundaries of her own historical and biblical land of Eretz Yisrael. It was followed by another important agreement including the original Balfour Declaration, known as the San Remo Resolution, where the Mandate for Palestine was drawn together (land boundaries were decided four years later.)
As a result of the drafting of the San Remo Resolution, Great Britain became responsible for the drawing of the Mandate and land boundaries for Palestine. This became later known as the "British Mandate for Palestine." Fast-forward to 1947 and the United Nations voted in favor of Resolution 181 and the partitioning of Palestine between Jews and Arabs.
On May 14, 1948, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, one day before the end of the British Mandate, Israel became a modern nation. Within hours, five neighboring Arab countries declared war on the newborn Jewish state. One way or another, this war has lasted for 77 years.
According to the Palestinians, it is the Balfour Declaration that set in motion all the bloodshed seen in the Middle East in the last eight decades. In fact, Abbas insists that the Balfour Declaration paved the way to the rebirth of Israel, and thus Great Britain is to be held responsible for all Israeli crimes committed against Palestinians since.
This is a very bold move, even if it deals with people groups fighting for territory. Britain might have been involved in initiating the agreement, but whatever took place after the United Nations voted for the partitioning of the region, even if it was connected to the Balfour Declaration, remains the responsibility of Israel and her Arab neighbors.
Dan Margalit of Israel Hayom says, "But the Balfour Declaration didn't exist in a vacuum. The world supported it. Even King Faisal of Iraq, whose family originated in Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement with Weizmann on the terms. The declaration was approved in 1920 by an international conference that met in San Remo after World War I. The approval of the mandate by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 gave the Balfour Declaration international validity, almost like the 1947 U.N. resolution to establish a Jewish state in part of the land of Israel."
But here is a bigger problem: Palestinians didn't exist in 1917 (Balfour), 1920 (San Remo), 1924 (San Remo Land boundaries), 1947 (U.N. partition vote) and 1948 (Israel's Declaration of Independence). As a matter of fact, Palestinians didn't come onto the scene as a "people" until the mid-1960s. In essence, Abbas is retroactively inserting the Palestinians into history to justify the injustice he is claiming took place in 1917 and subsequent years. It is akin to quoting Abraham Lincoln saying: "Don't believe everything you read on the internet," except that the latter statement is funny because it was made tongue-in-cheek. Abbas is dead serious about the Palestinians going way back in history.
The original Palestinian was invented, forcibly placed in Israel as a "displaced refugee" and further coerced into staying through several generations, born within the refugee camps and/or territories. Palestine went from a geographical area to a political agenda aimed at the complete destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.
It took about 50 years to get where we are today. The current acceptance of the Palestinian narrative has become the new normal and is used as the foundation to historically justify a lawsuit against Britain for the Balfour Declaration. That justification doesn't rest on factual history, but this will not stop the PA from proceeding with the suit.
So what is next—a lawsuit against Italy for the San Remo Resolution of 1920? What about suing the United Nations for allowing Israel to become a modern nation in 1947/48? I suppose the Palestinians could even go as far as suing themselves for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993!
Taken to an extreme, they could sue God Himself for giving the Land of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants (Gen. 12:7, 13:15, 15:18-21, 35:9.) After all, it looks like God started it all!
Ironically, for once, the Jews are not being blamed, and I'll take that as a small victory.
Olivier Melnickwas raised in a secular Jewish family in Paris. After meeting Ellen, his future wife, and reading a book on prophecy that she had given him, Olivier began a search, which led him to belief in Yeshua (Jesus) as his Savior in 1983. His desire is to help Christians understand the Jewish roots of the faith and he hopes to train many to be effective in Jewish outreach. His passion is to see his people throughout the world receive Yeshua as their promised Messiah. He is the author of They Have Conspired Against You, a book on the rebirth of worldwide anti-Semitism and how to fight it, as well as the novel The Rabbi's Triad, an evangelistic thriller.
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HOOKED ON SMARTPHONES, HOW ELSE DO ISRAELIS DO LIFE? Zeev Klein, Ilan Gattegno, and Israel Hayom Staff
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
A record number of babies are being born; 74.8% of the population is Jewish, 20.8% Arab; citizen clock an average of 7.4 hours per day on their smartphones. How else do Israeli's do life?
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Israel's population continues to grow, and as the country moves through the High Holidays, the population stands at 8,585,000 citizens. This and other figures come from an annual census recently published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in its annual journal "Israel in Figures."
The country's population comprises 74.8% Jews and 20.8% Arabs. Some 183,000 foreign workers and illegal migrants also live in Israel.
Since Rosh Hashanah in September 2015, the country's population has increased by 172,000, a 2% growth over the previous year. A record 189,000 babies were born in 2015, compared to 178,000 in 2015.
HOW LONG DO ISRAELIS LIVE?
The average life expectancy in Israel has increased dramatically over the past two decades and now stands at 80.1 years, compared to 75.5 years in 1995. According to the CBS, expenditures on health comprise 7.5% of Israel's Gross Domestic Product. While people are living longer, the Israeli population as a whole is young in comparison to the average in OECD nations. While the number of Israelis 65 and older is increasing, they currently represent 11.1% of the population.
HOW WILL ISRAEL LOOK IN 2040?
The CBS is also looking ahead and has prepared projections for the year 2040, when it believes that Israel's population will have reached 13.3 million, 656,000 of whom will be over 80 years old. By then, the CBS numbers indicate, only 58.8% of Israeli residents will be secular Jews, compared to 68% today. Nearly one-fifth (19.4%) will be haredi Jews, compared to the 11.9% of the population the haredim comprise today.
MEANWHILE...
Israeli Jews are waiting longer to marry: In 2014, 62.7% of Jewish men aged 25 to 29 were single, as were 45.8% of women aged 25 to 29. In the year 2000, in comparison, only 54% of men and 33.3% of women aged 25 to 29 were unmarried.
IN GENERAL...
...Israelis are feeling pretty satisfied: 89% said they were happy with their lives, and 84% are happy with where they live. However, 36% of Israelis, some 1.3 million people, said they found it difficult to cover their monthly expenditures, and 24% said they felt under pressure constantly or frequently.
AS FOR CELL PHONES AND TECHNOLOGY...
...Israelis are also addicted to their smartphones. Over 90% of Israeli consumers use their phones morethan any other device, and average Israeli cellphone use stands at 7.4 hours per day, according to a survey by MasterCard in 23 different countries about consumers' relationship with digital technology.
According to the numbers, 84% of Israelis use a laptop computer for more than 4.5 hours a day, and 53% use a tablet computer two hours daily.
The survey indicated that Israeli consumers were satisfied with the digital options available on travel (76%), shopping (68%) and social media (62%). However, Israeli consumers said they wanted more digital innovation in the fields of education, health and public transport.
The vast majority of consumers in Israel -- 91% -- said they believed that digital technology will be in wider use and will affect most of the population, which will require advanced cybersecurity, the most important aspect of digital payment methods and protecting personal data.
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This is a lightly edited version of the original article published by Israel Hayom at http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=36781-
The Israeli American Council marked a significant achievement when the California legislator passed a bill barring all state bodies, including universities, from maintaining ties with organizations that support anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions activities, Israel Hayom learned Thursday.
The bill prohibits state bodies from investing in companies “engaging in actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with the State of Israel, or companies based in the State of Israel or in territories controlled by the State of Israel.”
The bill was the result of considerable lobbying efforts by the IAC, which seeks to counteract the BDS movement on legal, technological and public diplomacy levels.
Likewise, on Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a bill banning the state’s pension fund from investing in companies that boycott Israel.
“This bill sends a significant message: The hatred the BDS movement seeks to spread will have no room in California,” Shawn Evenhaim, of the IAC-affiliated Israel American Coalition for Action, told Israel Hayom Thursday.
“This bill is important because it makes it clear that [California] taxpayers don’t have to fund boycott activities. … We’re proud of the fact we were able to spur the Israeli-American community to push for this bill, as it will now, and in the future, protect California’s diverse population from discrimination.”
Originally posted at Jewish News Service. Photo credit: Credit: Abraham Joseph Pal.
European officials seem more focused on Israeli issues these days than on their own countries' national security. (iStock photo )
What is perhaps most conspicuous about the growth of anti-Semitism on the European Left, as exemplified by the current crisis in the British Labor Party, is that it is rising at a time when Europe should be busy with much more pressing issues, such as national security—particularly in London, where the terrorist threat keeps growing and security officials can barely keep up.
It has been less than two months since Islamic terrorists successfully targeted the Brussels airport and the Maelbeek metro station, killing 32 people and wounding many more. And it has been only a half-year since the Paris attacks, in which Islamic terrorists killed 130 people and wounded nearly 400.
These were groundbreaking, shocking events in the history of Islamic terrorism on European soil, so one would naturally assume that Israel and Jews in general, who make up such a marginal demographic group, constituting less than a half-percent of the population of the EU, would be the last thing on European politicians' minds. Another enormous immigration crisis looms, as 800,000 migrants, according to French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, are currently in Libyan territory waiting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. This means that Europe will most likely be facing even more chaos than it did last summer.
However, European politicians, instead of busying themselves with protecting their citizens from future terrorist attacks—as well as preventing another chaotic summer of migration chaos—incredibly find time to get mired in sordid squabbles about insane ideas of transferring Israeli Jews to the United States and claiming Hitler was a Zionist—as we saw in the U.K.—or composing elaborate peace conference initiatives to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—as we saw in France. If I were a European citizen, I would wonder why my government was occupying itself with these issues, which have no vital meaning to any Europeans, at a time when Europe is facing unprecedented security threats.
As I mentioned in a past column, one example of this preposterous mindset was France's rejection of Israeli terrorism tracking technology, which might have possibly prevented the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels—a clear example of Jew-hatred trumping national security concerns, especially at a time when national security should be the top priority of every single European government.
In the wake of the anti-Semitism debacle in the British Labour Party, the obligatory inquiries will be made, solemn reports will be written, and the culprits will be reprimanded, rebuked or excluded, upon which all will be forgotten and everyone will carry on as usual. It will change nothing, least of all the influence of the radical Left on mainstream leftist parties.
While the sordid ideas that are entertained by some in the European Left came out in the open in Britain on this occasion, this is most certainly not the last time we will see such a "crisis" revolving around the airing of some of these ideas, as the radical Left's influence becomes more and more apparent, not only in Britain, but across the European Union. No one should harbor any doubts as to whether this is a British phenomenon—it most certainly is not, as anyone who follows Scandinavian politics can ascertain.
At any rate, whatever the outcome, for British Jews, it is all too little and too late and the Labor debacle is only a political symptom of what has already become an undeniable fact on the street: Hate crimes against British Jews are at an all-time high. A report released on Sunday showed that there has been an increase of 50 percent in violent crimes against British Jews in the past two years and 1,000 anti-Semitic incidents in 2015 compared to 938 in 2014. Violent crimes constituted 196 incidents in 2015 compared to 126 incidents in 2014.
In other parts of the U.K., Jews are not faring any better. Almost 20 percent of Jews in Scotland have said that they have been victims of hate crimes. In Glasgow, home to the majority of Scottish Jews, more Jews are leaving or fearing to identify as Jews in a city, which has become increasingly hostile, something that culminated in 2014, when the Glasgow City Council decided to fly the Palestinian flag in what it said was a show of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Just as elsewhere in Europe, these developments are more likely than not to result in an even greater exodus of Jews from the European continent. Israel will be the richer for that and Europe the poorer. This leaves the Europeans with nowhere to escape from their irresponsible politicians. But they should ask why Israel and the Jews continue to be an almost clinical obsession to the point where Jew-hatred trumps national security. It would be very interesting to hear the answer.
Judith Bergman is a writer and political analyst living in Israel. For the original article, visit israelhayom.com.
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In a bold speech late last week, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump outlined his foreign policy, while blasting U.S. President Barack Obama's administration for "snubbing" Israel.
"Israel, our great friend, and the only true democracy in the Middle East, has been snubbed and criticized by an administration that lacks moral clarity," Trump said. "President Obama has not been a friend to Israel. He has treated Iran with tender love and care, and made it a great power."
Trump added that Iran's rise comes "at the expense of Israel, our allies in the region, and more importantly, the United States itself," and that Obama had been determined to negotiate a "disastrous deal with Iran, and then we watched them ignore its terms even before the ink was dry."
Trump said that in making a deal, "when the other side knows you're not going to walk, it becomes absolutely impossible to win, you just can't win." Unlike Obama, who promised that Iran would not have a nuclear bomb as long as he was president, Trump stressed that, if elected, he would ensure that Iran "will never, ever be allowed to have that nuclear weapon."
Trump added that America's allies, especially NATO members, "must contribute toward their financial, political and human costs—have to do it—of our tremendous security burden."
He also made clear that his "foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else."
Trump extended his criticism of the Obama administration to specifically include Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying, "I challenge anyone to explain the strategic foreign policy vision of Obama/Clinton. It has been a complete and total disaster."
He repeated his criticism of Obama's reluctance to single out radical Islam as a problem, saying, "President Obama won't even name the enemy, and unless you name the enemy, you will never ever solve the problem."
Speaking about the Islamic State group, he said, "I have a simple message for them: Their days are numbered. I won't tell them where and I won't tell them how."
Also on Wednesday, Trump called out rival Ted Cruz for naming Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate, saying the pick was "a desperate attempt to save a failing campaign by an all talk, no action politician."
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Israeli forces near the Gaza security fence (Israel Hayom )
Following Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, a great deal of attention shifted to Israel's need to develop a technological solution to the underground tunnel problem. Now, according to Foreign Policy magazine, it appears Israel has found that solution.
Under the headline "Israel Is Building a Secret Tunnel-Destroying Weapon," Foreign Policy reported last week that "according to intelligence officials, Israeli engineers are working tirelessly to develop what's being called the 'underground Iron Dome'—a system that could detect and destroy cross-border tunnels."
Israel's solution, says Foreign Policy, is a network of underground tunnels it is digging near the Gaza border, equipped with seismic sensors that can monitor underground vibrations.
Foreign Policy also reported that the Israeli government has spent more than $250 million on the project since 2004, and that the United States has "appropriated $40 million for the project in the 2016 financial year."
The goal, U.S. Defense Department spokesman Christopher Sherwood told Foreign Policy, "is to establish anti-tunnel capabilities to detect, map and neutralize underground tunnels that threaten the U.S. or Israel."
Sherwood also noted that, although the majority of the work in 2016 will be done in Israel, "the U.S. will receive prototypes, access to test sites and the rights to any intellectual property."
Among the Israeli companies working on the tunnel-detection project, according to the report, are Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, both of which declined to provide any details due to security reasons.
Meanwhile, Palestinian media outlets on Monday reported yet another tunnel collapse in central Gaza, killing a senior Hams field commander.
Overnight Monday, a rocket fired from Gaza exploded in an open field in southern Israel, causing no injuries or damage to property. Over the weekend, the Israel Defense Forces attacked targets in Gaza after terrorists in the coastal enclave fired four rockets at Israel.
In Egypt, news outlets reported that Hamas representatives, meeting Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo, asked that Egypt stop flooding underground tunnels in the Rafah area, which Hamas says has led to many Palestinian deaths.
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