ISRAEL – IDF units intercepted a Hamas commando terrorist unit seeking to infiltrate Israel from the sea at Zikim beach on Tuesday. The IDF Spokesman reported that soldiers killed four terrorists.
A senior security official said an IDF force was dispatched to Zikim beach after the military detected suspicious movements in the area.
(VIA CNN) — The bodies of three Israeli teenagers who authorities said were kidnapped this month have been found in the West Bank, Israel’s Channel Two and Channel Ten reported Monday, citing sources in the Israeli military.
The Israeli military said Monday that it found three bodies northwest of Hebron and that the bodies are “going through forensic identification.” The military also said it has informed the families of the three missing teens about the discovery.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency security Cabinet meeting about the issue Monday; an announcement from the Cabinet is expected shortly, according to the Israeli military. (more…)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A U.N. expert panel has concluded that a shipment of rockets and other weapons that was seized by Israel came from Iran and represents a violation of the U.N. arms embargo on Tehran, according to a confidential report obtained by Reuters on Friday.
The finding comes just days ahead of the next round of negotiations in Vienna between Iran and six world powers aimed at securing a deal that would gradually lift international sanctions on Tehran — including the arms embargo — in exchange for curbs on the controversial Iranian nuclear program.
Despite Israel’s public statements that the seized arms were destined for Gaza — an allegation that Gaza’s governing Islamist militant group Hamas dismissed as a fabrication — the experts said the weapons were being sent to Sudan.
The experts do not speculate in the report about why the arms were being sent to Sudan, a country which Western diplomatic and intelligence sources have told Reuters has in the past been a conduit for Iranian arms shipments to other locations in Africa, as well as the Gaza Strip. (more…)
(Via Politico) There’s always Tunisia. Amid the smoking ruins of the Middle East, there is that one encouraging success story. But unfortunately for the Obama narratives, the president had about as much as to do with Tunisia’s turn toward democracy as he did with the World Cup rankings. Where administration policy has had an impact, the story is one of failure and danger.
The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good. Iran was contained, its Revolutionary Guard forces at home. Today, terrorism has metastasized in Syria and Iraq, Jordan is at risk, the humanitarian toll is staggering, terrorist groups are growing fast and relations with U.S. allies are strained. (more…)
FRANCE – A Frenchman [Mehdi Nemmouche – pictured left] with suspected ties to Islamic extremists in Syria has been arrested over last week’s shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels that left four people dead, according to sources linked to the investigation.
The 29-year-old suspect was arrested Friday in the southern French city of Marseille, the sources told the AFP news agency.
He was detained by customs officials at the city’s coach station on board a bus arriving from Amsterdam via Brussels and was found carrying a Kalashnikov automatic rifle and a gun with ammunition in his luggage, as well as a miniature video camera.
He has been detained on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, a judicial source said. (more…)
(ArutzSheva) – A Facebook page for the “Al-Bustan Culture Center in Silwan” features a homemade video that appears to show an Arab man engaging in an east Jerusalem version of the anti-Semitic “knockout game.” (more…)
(Via MEMRI) Muhammad Badi, General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, made an address to the court on May 18, 2014, rejecting the accusations brought against him and other members of the movement. In footage from the trial posted on the Internet, Badie says: “We have fought only against the Jews… yet now we are being accused of conspiring with Hamas against the Egyptian people. This is an absolute lie.”
Following are excerpts:
Muhammad Badi (standing before the court): Assalam Alaykum. Allah’s blessings and prayers upon you.
Judge: You have two minutes. (more…)
UKRAINE – A leaflet distributed in Donetsk, Ukraine calling for all Jews over 16 years old to register as Jews marred the Jewish community’s Passover festivities Monday (Passover eve), replacing them with feelings of concern.
The leaflet demanded the city’s Jews supply a detailed list of all the property they own, or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated.
Donetsk, a Ukraine province with 4.3 million people – 10 percent of Ukraine’s population – and 17,000 Jews, is home to much of the country’s heavy industry, and is thus the biggest prize of the eastern regions where pro-Russian separatists have captured government buildings in the past week.
The leaflet, signed by Chairman of Donetsk’s temporary government Denis Pushilin, was distrbiuted to Jews near the Donetsk synagogue and later in other areas of the city where pro-Russians activists have declared Donetsk as an independent “people’s republic”, defying an ultimatum from Kiev to surrender. (more…)
Politico has an interesting summary of the Israeli / Palestinian talk collapse filling in some timelines to the analysis we previously presented. Even if you are not a global political news junkie it’s worth the read.
While the Politico story doesn’t directly outline the ego of John Kerry as the impetus for the framework, and subsequent collapse, it’s still there and you can catch glimpses of it throughout the article.
Even among senior Obama aides, there’s disagreement about how wary the president actually was all along about taking another shot at the peace process, how much distance he was really trying to keep, and how much of his actions were about humoring an ambitious Kerry’s swing at the history books.
As we previously shared the entire construct of the Kerry spearheaded peace talks originated from Secretary Kerry’s desire to be something legendary, and do something on a grand scale worthy of his own opinion of himself.
John Kerry was not so much interested in the construct of Israeli security, or foundationally finding a substantive ‘two state’ solution; for Kerry -the ideologue- he wanted to carve the mold, and then watch the global media cast the brass bust.
(more…)
Somehow, in the bizzarro Easter Island land of long faces where John Kerry was spawned, this makes sense to him. Israel blamed for derailing peace talks Palestinians would not participate in.WASHINGTON DC – Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday said Israel’s announcement of new settlements in East Jerusalem last week derailed the peace talks with the Palestinians.
Israel first missed the deadline to release the fourth tranche of Palestinian prisoners, Kerry told lawmakers at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Israel then announced 700 new settlement units in Jerusalem.
“Poof, that was sort of the moment,” Kerry said at a hearing focused on the fiscal 2015 budget for national security and foreign policy priorities. (more…)