Even more Belgian Jews to make Aliyah? - ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS

Even more Belgian Jews to make Aliyah?

Aliyah from Belgium increased by 25% last year and can be expected to grow following Tuesday's attacks.

By Gil Ronen  ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS

First Publish: 3/22/2016, 2:32 PM / Last Update: 3/22/2016, 4:39 PM

Jewish Museum in Brussels

Reuters

Tuesday’s terror attacks in Belgium can be expected to prod some local Jews to leave, and many of these will opt for Israel as their destination, if recent patterns hold up.

Aliyah – or Jewish immigration to Israel – from Belgium rose 25% last year, according to information recently provided by Arielle Di Porto, Director of Aliyah at the Jewish Agency. Di Porto also told the Knesset last month that 10,000 Jews made Aliyah from Western Europe last year, 8,000 of them from France.

It is generally assumed that the increase in emigration from Belgium is connected to the rise in anti-Semitism and terror attacks in Belgium, which used to be considered a very safe place for Jews.

The Jewish community in Belgium is estimated at around 42,000, of whom close to half live in Antwerp.

A November report in the British Telegraph estimated the number of Belgian Jews who move to Israel annually at 200, citing Betty Dan, a former president of Belgium’s Zionist association, who helps organize property fairs for Belgians who move to Israel. Following November’s massacre in Paris, she began receiving telephone calls from people seeking information on moving at a rate of five a day, compared to one a week previously.

“A few years ago it was the pensioners going, who wanted the Israeli sun,” said Dan, "Now it is young people with children who sell their houses and leave everything. They are scared.”

“It is a painful thing. I am a real Belgian – my country, my culture and my friends are here,” added Dan, who has been the manager of a Jewish radio station for 25 years. “My daughter never, never, never thought to leave. Now, she says of her little boy, what is his future here? We don’t feel safe."

In a series of interviews conducted before the multiple attacks in Paris last November, Belgian Jews told CBN News that life in Belgium was good, but “the possibility of danger was ever present.”

"The idyllic years are over. The tranquil years are definitely over," Jewish leader and linguist Julien Klener said. "You can go to a grocery [store] and all of a sudden someone can shoot you down. You can go to a museum and the same can happen."

"If we think it's not secure enough to let them go outside during the day, we keep all the students here during the day," Michael Greenberg, the head of Jewish Studies at the Jewish Tachkemoni School said. "Today you have anti-Semitism from the Left and the extreme Left; anti-Semitism that is going into a form that is called anti-Zionism and you have anti-Semitism from the Arab and Muslim communities,"

Rabbi Shimon Lasker of the Beth Chabad Synagogue in Brussels said that while he personally thinks reports of anti-Semitism have been overblown, "The Jewish community of Belgium, I'm talking about people who were born in Belgium, are starting to ask themselves, is Belgium the place for the future of their children or the future of them to continue living."

In May 2014, Mehdi Nemmouche, 29, a Frenchman of Algerian descent who had spent more than a year in Syria, went on a rampage at the Jewish museum in Brussels' Sablon district. His victims included an Israeli couple and a French volunteer at the museum, who were all killed instantly. Another man, a museum employee, was left in a critical condition and died shortly afterwards.

In November of 2014, a rabbi in Antwerp was stabbed in the throat on his way to deliver a sermon.

Official Belgian figures recorded 130 reports of anti-Semitic incidents in 2014, a 10-year high and a 50 per cent increase over the previous year.

Some families have removed the mezuzah from their front doors to avoid attention.

Belgium’s security services and politicians have been facing intense criticism over how Brussels, and in particular the tiny commune of Molenbeek, have become an hotbed of terrorist plots.

Western Leaders Ignore “Apocalyptic Islam” At Their Peril. - Joel Rosenberg

Western Leaders Ignore “Apocalyptic Islam” At Their Peril. (Israel National News coverage of my recent speech in Jerusalem.) by joelcrosenberg Last week, the managing editor of Israel National News covered my address to the Jerusalem Leaders Summit, and interviewed me about the threat of Radical and Apocalyptic Islam. The resulting article was published on Sunday, following the horrific terror attacks in Paris by jihadists loyal to the Islamic State. To watch my 39 minute speech in full, please click here. WESTERN LEADERS IGNORE "APOCALYPTIC ISLAM" AT THEIR PERIL Best-selling author says failure to understand messianic ideologies driving ISIS and Iran dooms the West to be repeatedly blindsided. By Ari Soffer, Israel National News/Arutz Sheva, November 15, 2015 (Jerusalem, Israel) -- Despite years of warnings by intelligence agencies that radicalized Muslims would eventually emerge from the battlefields of Syria and Iraq to launch bloody attacks in the West, Europe has been blindsided by one of the most brutal terrorist atrocities in recent memory. The coordinated attacks by three teams of ISIS terrorists in Paris on Friday sent shockwaves far beyond France, with the massacre of at least 129 people reigniting the debate around immigration after it was revealed that at least two of the attackers entered Europe posing as "refugees." The attacks also fueled debate over how to end the Syrian civil war, as well as over ongoing efforts to defeat ISIS on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, the latter of which has seen several successes over the past few weeks. But glaringly absent from the discussions are any serious attempts to understand the ideological motivations of the Muslim extremists, several of them French citizens, who carried out the worse terror attacks in France in a generation - including the first-ever suicide bombings on French soil. That, says best-selling author Joel Rosenberg, is the reason such acts of terror are bound to repeat themselves. Joel spoke to me prior to the attacks at the recent Jerusalem Leaders Policy Summit, and voiced concern that by failing to grapple with the apocalyptic ideology behind actors such as ISIS, Western states would never be able to decisively defeat them. A jovial, somewhat self-deprecating character, Rosenberg - who worked for Binyamin Netanyahu during his failed prime ministerial bid in 1999, as well as Natan Sharansky - describes himself as "a failed political consultant," but boasts a rather more successful career as writer, selling millions of novels highlighting the threat of radical Islam. Today he lives in Netanya in northern Israel with his family, having made aliyah from the US last August at the height of Operation Protective Edge (though a practicing Christian his father was Jewish, making him eligible for aliyah under the Right of Return). From there, he has continued his efforts to explain "the threats we mutually face as Israelis and Americans from radical Islam" - a threat he says he only fully appreciated after working with Netanyahu. "Misunderstanding the nature of the threat... of evil, is to risk being blindsided by it," he said, citing Peal Harbor and 9/11 as examples. "And we're going to be blindsided by a nuclear Iran, just like we're being blindsided by ISIS." "At the core of it, American leaders are refusing to deal with the theology and eschatology of our enemy," he said. "Not every Muslim is a terrorist, not every Muslim is a threat, not every Muslim is a problem - in fact the vast majority are not. "The question is, the ones who are - what do they want? What do they say they want? What motivates them?" The current US administration is particularly hesitant to label the threat as it is. "Obama refuses to even acknowledge radical Islam. Come on - really? At this stage in the 21st century you're not even ready to acknowledge the ideology that is motivating these folks? That's a problem." Days later, as the attacks in Paris unfolded, some criticized the US president for once again failing to mention radical Islam at all in his speech reacting to the massacre. But beyond the relatively wide umbrella of "radical Islam" Rosenberg warns of a far deadlier threat. "Radical Islam encompasses a wide range of groups... Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Al Qaeda - all of these are serious threats," he noted. "But apocalyptic Islam is now the biggest threat. this is the Iranian leadership, this is ISIS." He argues that the hyper-messianic ideologies shared by both sides of the Shia-Sunni jihadist coin are unprecedented in the history of modern western civilization. "Apocalyptic Islam is motivated by the idea that the end of days has come, that the Mahdi [Muslim messiah - ed.] is coming at any moment to establish a global Islamic kingdom or Caliphate, and that the way to hasten his coming is to annihilate two countries: Israel the 'Little Satan,' and America the 'Big Satan,'" he explained, describing the messianic beliefs shared by both ISIS and the "Twelver Shia" sect which figures prominently among Iran's leadership. "But the western political class doesn't want to even deal with the theological ideas that are driving the radical Islamists - let alone to explain the end of times theologies of two 'nation states'," he continued, referring to Iran and ISIS's self-declared "Islamic State," which encompasses huge swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. "Never in history have we had one, much less than two states, whose leaders are trying to force the end of the world," Rosenberg noted. While Jews and Christians also have their own beliefs in the "end of times" or the messianic age, the difference is that "we don't believe we have to commit a genocide to bring about the end of times." While some strategic and doctrinal differences do clearly exist between Iran and ISIS - who are themselves mortal enemies - Rosenberg emphasized that the fundamental threat was essentially the same. "Shia apocalypticism and Sunni apocalypticism are similar. Both believe the messiah is coming soon, that his kingdom is coming, they need to change their behavior to accelerate his coming... but the eschatology and strategies are different. "ISIS's strategy is to commit genocide today, because the goal is to build the caliphate, to force the hand of the messiah to come. "Iran is not trying to build a caliphate today. They're building the infrastructure to build nuclear weapons. Why? Because while ISIS wants to commit genocide today Iran wants to commit genocide tomorrow. The point is: don't launch until you're ready. Rather than kill thousands in one day, Iran wants to eventually kill millions." He disagreed with assessments shared by some experts that the Iranian regime, while extreme, ultimately functions as a rational actor, insisting their words, beliefs and actions only led to one conclusion. "When you look a the messages of annihilation they are saying... when you look at the infrastructure they're building and when you look at the eschatology, these roads converge. "They're not interested in negotiating something together with us - they're taking a gift," he said of the nuclear deal Tehran signed with world powers. "You're giving us two paths to a nuclear bomb: if we cheat, or if we don't cheat? OK we'll take it!" In the shorter term Iran might they use its nuclear capabilities for more limited political goals such as "blackmail or to give a cover for terror," he said. But in the long term its goals were just as bloodthirsty as ISIS. In facing down both threats, the West must recognize it is facing a zero-sum game. "For these guys killing is at the center of what they're doing. When you bear that in mind making concessions isn't just a mistake or misguided - it's insane." ___________________ Special Limited Offer: Pre-order a personally autographed copy of THE FIRST HOSTAGE today. Here are details. ——————————– To order The Third Target — now in paperback — please click here, or go to your favorite bookstore in your community. Follow on Twitter — @joelcrosenbergReceive every blog post automatically via the RSS feed. Invest in The Joshua Fund (www.joshuafund.net), our non-profit organization to educate and mobilize Christians to bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, care for the poor and needy with food and other humanitarian relief, and strengthen the Church in the epicenter. Read our latest Donor Report, and make a tax deductible, secure, on-line contribution. joelcrosenberg | November 17, 2015 at 4:21 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-3o7

Israel report from within the city of Jerusalem Oct. 12, 2015

Oct. 12, 2015

Here is a report from Jerusalem:

This morning began with an attempted stabbing of a police officer at the Lion Gate of the Old City in Jerusalem. 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/attacker-killed-after-stabbing-attempt-in-jerusalem-old-city/

Next, was a stabbing attack at Ammunition Hill just north of the Old City.  The officer stabbed was 20 years old, and the terrorist was an 18 year old female.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/201763

The third attack was the worst of the day, in Pisgat Ze'ev - where we have had the Aharai race each year that we've written about in the blog.  It is in the most northern neighborhood of Jerusalem, and the Light Rail train ends in this town.  A 20 (or 25) year old and a 13 year old were critically injured by two terrorists - 13 years old and 15 (or 17) years old.  Yes, children terrorists.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/20176

Most recently, this evening, an attack was thwarted in Tel Aviv by a taxi driver as he saw his female passenger jump out with a knife trying to stab people.  Praise God he was able to stop her until police came.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/201776


If you wish to see the reality of what is occurring, here is a 30 second video of an attack on border police from two days ago.

Life in the Shadow of Islam

By Dr. Mordechai Kedar September 13, 2015  Israel National News

The second Muslim Caliph, Umar bin Khattab, conquered Jerusalem in 638 C.E. without shedding a drop of blood. The city simply surrendered to him. Omar announced a list of conditions to be fulfilled by those Christians who desired to live in peace and security under Islamic rule. The document, known as the Pact of Umar, appears on the web here (Hebrew) and here (English).

Although the Pact of Umar was written over 1300 years ago, it was recently used as the basis of a document issued by Islamic State for the Christians living in the Syrian town of al-Kareten  This should not come as a surprise, since Islamic State has made no secret of its plans to reinstate ancient Islam and take us all back to the seventh century, the century during which Islamic conquests succeeded in overpowering empires and subjugating a large number of nations.

A short while ago, Islamic State gained control over the Syrian Christian town al-Kareten..The residents did not flee and instead, asked to live under Islamic State’s protection. How did the wise men of Islamic State respond? They produced a document that spells out the conditions that would allow the Christians to remain in their town underthe rule of Islamic State.

The entire contents of this document are brought below:

Islamic State, Ministry of Justice and Complaints:

In the name of Allah the Merciful and Compassionate

The Agreement Affording Protection [to Christians]:

Praise be to Allah, Cherisher and Sustainer of the world, who humbles heresy with his strength and says in the Qur’an:

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizya willingly while they are humbled.(Qur’an: Repentance, Chapter 9, verse 29, Sahih International translation).

“We bear witness that there is no god except for Allah, who keeps his promise, gives strength to his armies, defeats dissenters; there is no god other than Allah and we serve only him, are faithful to him and his religion even though the infidels abhor it.

“We bear witness that Mohammed is his servant and messenger, may Allah pray for him and grant him peace, he [Mohammed] who scoffs at [fears of] battle, whose lord sent him between the hands of the clock and the sword to serve the lord alone, and sent down to him  the [Qur’anic] chapters of “War”, “Default in Duty” and “Ranks”.

“We bear witness that Jesus son of Mary is Allah’s servant and messenger, and that Allah sent his word to Mary with his own spirit because Allah said in the Qur’an: “Never would the Messiah disdain to be a servant of Allah , nor would the angels near [to Him]. And whoever disdains His worship and is arrogant – He will gather them to Himself all together. (Qur’an: Women, Chapter 4, verse 172).”

Praise be to Allah for the power of Islam, for the joy of the strength [that Allah granted the Muslims], thanks flow to him up until the Day of Judgment.

Before you is the security granted by Allah’s servant, Abu Bakr el Baghdadi, Emir of the believers, to the Christians of the Damascus region, in the al-Kareten district: He secures their persons and possessions, assures them that they will not have to do anything against their religion and that none of them will be harmed.

The conditions for the above are as follows:

1. Christians may not erect a monastery or church nor designate an area where priests hold solitary vigils anywhere in or near their towns.

2. They must not display a crucifix in public nor any of their books in any of the places traversed by Muslims, or in their marketplaces, they may not use amplifiers in their prayers and ceremonies.

3. They must not read their books aloud or ring bells where Muslims can hear them. They may ring their bells in church.

4. They must refrain from any acts of aggression against Islamic State, such as harboring spies and men wanted by Islamic State’s laws, and if they know of any plots against Muslims they must immediately report them.

5. They must obligate themselves to refrain from public religious ceremonies.

6. They must respect Islam and Muslims and are forbidden to say anything against their [Muslim] religion.

7. (this part is missing)

8. Christians must be sure to pay the jizya (head tax) for each male adult among them, in the sum of four golden dinars. This refers to the dinar used in business, whose weight, 4.25 gram of pure gold, is fixed. This levy is for the rich, while those in the middle class pay half that, and the poor pay a quarter. They are forbidden to hide their possessions and are allowed two payments over a single year.

9. Christians are forbidden to own firearms.

10. They are forbidden to trade in pigs and wine with Muslims or in the marketplace. They may not drink alcohol in public, or in public places.

11.They will be allowed their own cemeteries, as is the custom.

12. They must be careful to keep the [general] rules laid down by Islamic State, such as [wearing] modest clothing, laws of buying and selling etc.

If they live up to these conditions, they will be privileged to live in the shade of Allah under the protection of Mohammed, may Allah pray for him and grant him peace,  [this protection] including their persons, property and possessions. They will not have to pay tithes on their possessions unless they bring funds for business from outside the borders of Islamic State. They are forbidden to cheat and they must not be cheated. No one of them will be punished for the misdeeds of another.

They may dwell in the shade of Allah who will pray for their protector and grant him peace until the day that Allah brings his word [at the end of time], as long as they adhere carefully to the conditions in this document.

If they do not keep any part of what is written in this document they will have no more protection and the Islamic State can do to them what it is allowed to do to militants and objectors.

Signed: Sunday 15/11/1436 Hijri, 30/8/2015 Gregorian

Seal of the Islamic State

Ministry of Justice and Complaints

This document is identical in spirit and in part of its wording, to the conditions in the Pact of Umar written in the seventh century, the early and holy days of a young, powerful and all-conquering Islam that became weakened and old as the generations passed. Now Islamic State has appeared to bring Islam back to the days of its youth, to the power of its adherents, the faith of its fighters and the glory of its conquests.

This document reflects the way a significant number of Muslims aspire to have Islam rule over Christian and Jewish culture, consolidating this control by various means, the choice of which depends on the conditions prevailing in each area.

In Islamic State, obedience is ensured by the sword, knife, rope, pole, pistol and rifle. Note that Saudi Arabia has similar laws for any Christians that live in the country or arrive there for business purposes.

In Europe, Muslim immigrants force their religious agenda on their surroundings by means of the majority that they have attained in some municipal authorities. That is the situation in several western European cities where Muslims are a majority, and where demands were raised to end the selling of alcoholic drinks and pork in supermarkets.

In the USA, there are Muslims who demand an end to the ringing of church bells and in some areas, Muslims have demanded that crosses be moved to where they cannot see them because they find them offensive..

The recent, massive Muslim migration to Europe will, without doubt, increase these demands; if not now, then in a few short years.

And although the coercive methods of Islamic State are not acceptable to most Muslims, the group’s religious demands, especially on the treatment of  Christians, are acceptable to Muslims in many different countries.

Every country that allows Muslims to migrate to it must take into account that at some point these demands will be brought up, and if it turns out that the migrants do not get what they want from the host country, they will turn that country into what they want it to be.

Reprinted with author’s permission from Israel National News

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/48783/life-in-the-shadow-of-islam-opinion/#6tlOoSg6H4LTeg0i.99

Soccer Fans to Flood Lone Soldier's Funeral

Soccer Fans to Flood Lone Soldier's Funeral

A Haifa soccer club called on its fans to attend the funeral of lone soldier Nissim Sean Carmeli.

By Yaakov Levi  ARUTZ SHEVA   ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS

First Publish: 7/21/2014

Nissim Sean Carmeli hy"d

IDF Spokesman

In a heartfelt call to fans, the Maccabi Haifa soccer club called on its fans to “do a mitzvah (a good deed) and attend the funeral of fallen IDF soldier Nissim Sean Carmeli, so that his funeral will not be empty.”

The funeral for lone soldier Carmeli, whose parents live in Texas, is set to take place later Monday night, after his parents arrive in Israel.


Carmeli is one of the 13 combat soldiers who were killed in the close fighting at the Battle of Shejaya Saturday night and early Sunday.

A lone soldier from South Padre Island, Texas, Carmeli was born to a secular Israeli family which along with him, became more religious over the past several years.

Named for his grandfather on his mother's side, Carmeli, 21, was studying in a Jerusalem yeshiva before joining the IDF. He had been given the opportunity to avoid service in Gaza because of a foot injury, but insisted on going anyway.


Carmeli's two sisters live in Israel as well, but that is apparently the only family he has in Israel – so officials of Maccabi Haifa decided to step in and provide an “honor contingent” to accompany the fallen hero to his resting place.


In the call to fans, the soccer club said that “Carmeli was a lone soldier, and we don't want his funeral to be empty. Come to his funeral Monday night to pay respects to a man who died so that we could live. This is the least we can do for him and for our nation,” the message said.

Israel Under Cyber-Attack, Jewish Hackers Strike Back

Monday, April 07, 2014 |  Ryan Jones ISRAEL TODAY  

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Cyberwar

The international hacker group Anonymous warned that Israel would be under a constant and determined cyber-attack on Monday, but by midday, Israeli cyber-security experts said the assault had been “unsophisticated” and largely unsuccessful.

Anonymous and allied hacker groups launched the fresh wave of cyber-attacks in response to Israel’s counter-terrorism strikes on the Gaza Strip.

The hackers primarily used two methods of trying to bring down or penetrate Israeli government and business websites. In the first, the hackers employed a distributed denial of service (DDoS) method that aims to overload servers and crash the websites they host. This type of attack was used to target the websites for Israel’s Postal Service and the Ministry of Education, though both websites were only temporarily offline.

The second type of attack involved attempting to penetrate network security and obtain login and/or financial details of website users and administrators. At the start of the day, Anonymous published a list of phone numbers and passwords purportedly belonging to Israeli government officials. But experts said the information had been stolen over a year ago, and much of it was no longer valid.

Israeli hackers and IT professionals were not merely fending off the attacks (they do that on a regular basis, thwarting up to 100,000 cyber-attacks per day), but were actively hitting back at Anonymous.

Roni Behar of Avnet Cyber and Information Security told Israel National News that Israeli hackers had managed to break into and alter content on numerous websites belonging to anti-Israel and Muslim extremist groups. One group of Israeli hackers even managed to penetrate the Anonymous website set up for the anti-Israel campaign.

In the meantime, Israeli Internet surfers have been advised to use caution and avoid opening suspicious emails or clicking untrusted links on social networks like Facebook. Users should also keep a close eye on credit card reports for suspicious charges.

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IDF Chief: Israel Must Retake Gaza if it Wants Quiet - ISRAEL TODAY

IDF Chief: Israel Must Retake Gaza if it Wants Quiet

Monday, March 24, 2014 |  Israel Today Staff  

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Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gen. Benny Gantz last week said that if Israel wants a return to quieter days in its southern regions, it will eventually have to reconquer the Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday, Gantz gave a presentation at a high school in the town of Gan Yavne, situated situated adjacent to the southern port city of Ashdod, a regular target of terrorist missile crews operating out of Gaza.

Students asked Gantz if it would ever be possible to put a full stop to the rocket fire that has effectively placed some one million Israelis under a kind of long-range siege.

Gantz responded: “If we want to make sure that nothing will come from there, we need to retake Gaza.”

The general said Israel had made the strategic decision to “sleep on it,” but indicated that reconquering the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave is a very real possibility.

Several high ranking Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, were calling for just such action last week, days after Gaza-based terrorists pounded southern Israel with over 50 missiles and mortar shells.

At a rally in Gaza City on Sunday, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (pictured) said any Israeli military move would be a major mistake.

“We tell the enemy…who is threatening to reoccupy Gaza that the time for your threats is over,” Haniyeh declared. “Any aggression or crime or stupidity you commit will cost you a very high price.”

On Saturday, hundreds of Israelis, including many journalists, received threatening cellphone text messages and emails from Hamas. The messages promised continued rocket attacks and kidnapping attempts against Israel, and vowed that the next Gaza war would result in Israel’s demise.

One email message received by staff at Israel National News spoke of revenge for the 2004 elimination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin by the IDF. It read:

“Ten years ago, Ismail Ahmed Yassin, our leader, was killed by three missiles as he left a mosque after morning prayers. This is a reminder that we do not forget our Sheikh’s blood on your hands. We vow once again that we will take revenge, and cut off the heads of your commanders. Missiles killed our Sheikh and now, our missiles will hit every place in the State of Israel. Know that the next war will see the end of your country.”

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