August 7, 2018
Report: Syrian Scientist Involved In Iranian Missile Program Assassinated
A senior Syrian scientist was assassinated in a car bomb in the city of Hama, Al Arabiya reported early Sunday (5th).
According to Hizbullah’s Al Manar TV station, Dr. Aziz Asbar was killed in an explosion in his car along with his driver several minutes after leaving his home.
Asbar was involved in Syria’s chemical weapons development as well as in the Iranian Fateh missiles program. He worked on the development of medium-and long-range missiles.
He was considered a close associate of Syrian President Bashar Assad and worked directly under him, with no mediation. He also had close ties with Iranian and North Korean scientists.
According to the IntelliTimes blog, Asbar headed Department 4’s Institute 4000, at the Syrian Scientific and Research Center in Masyaf, which is responsible for the manufacturing of missiles and rockets.
According to Al-Arabiya, Israel had hit the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center in Masyaf with airstrikes in the past to foil Iranian military activity that has been taking place for several years.
The latest reported Israeli strike in the area was on July 22, when Arab media reported IAF fighter jets attacked the research center’s production center near Masyaf.
Some media sources are blaming Israel for the assassination, however, as in all similar cases, Israel neither confirmed nor denied the report.
(ynetnews.com)
Netanyahu Assures Israelis: Nation-State Law Does Not Hurt Minority Rights
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Sunday (5th) that passage of the nation-state law would not hurt minority rights in Israel.
“The State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday (5th).
“Israel is a Jewish and democratic state. Individual rights are anchored in many laws including Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. Nobody has harmed – and nobody intends to harm – these individual rights.”
Netanyahu’s statement, released by his spokesman’s office, was made a day after tens of thousands, in a Druze-led protest, gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to protest the nation-state law, claiming it undermined the human rights of minorities in Israel.
Netanyahu rejected claims that the law was unnecessary and did more harm than good.
Netanyahu restated the State of Israel’s commitment to protecting the rights of the Druze community.
“The deep bond between the Druze community and our commitment to it are essential; therefore, today we will establish a special ministerial committee to advance this bond and this commitment, and at the same time will appreciate those of all religions and all ethnic communities who serve in the IDF and the security forces.”
(worldisraelnews.com)
The Arsonists Claim To Love The Land They Are Destroying – Renee Garfinkel
The arsonists attacking Israel are not loners. They are adults and children, recruited and organized by terrorist leaders, Hamas and others, to set fire to fields, forests and farms in Israel.
The arsonists’ disregard, even contempt for land, contrasts sharply with Israel’s culture of nurturing its land. Israel’s children are brought up with stories of heroes who drained the swamps, planted orchards and invented creative ways to irrigate them; heroes who made the desert bloom, and continue to maintain it today. The land itself is revered. The land is an active character in Israeli history, religion and culture.
Oddly, Palestinian leadership who back the arsonists, claim to love the land they are destroying. They’re loving it to death. Their drama, playing out daily on a fragile ecology, is simple: “If we can’t have the land, then no one will have it.”
(timesofisrael.com)
Anti-Israelism And Anti-Semitism – Melanie Phillips
Anti-Israelism has exactly the same characteristics that make traditional anti-Semitism a unique derangement. Both are based entirely on falsehoods and malicious distortions; both single out Israel and the Jews for double standards and treatment afforded to no other nation, people, or cause; both accuse Israel or the Jews of crimes of which they are not only innocent but are in fact the victims; both dehumanize Israel or the Jewish people; both impute to Israel or the Jewish people demonic global conspiratorial power; both are utterly beyond reason.
The treatment of Israel is described as mere “criticism” of its behavior. But it isn’t criticism at all. Criticism is rational. This is irrational and malicious demonization and delegitimization of Israel and of Zionism. Zionism is merely the right of Jewish people to self-determination. This anti-Zionism singles out the Jews alone for the destruction of their nationhood.
Jews are in fact the most persecuted people on earth, who even now have to sacrifice their children in Israel to defend themselves year in, year out against genocidal fanatics bent on their extermination. How can this not be recognized?
(commentarymagazine.com)
In Europe, ‘Holocaust Memory And Jews Are Under Attack,’ Says Elie Wiesel’s Son
The only child of the late Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel responded to the anti-Semitic desecration of his father’s childhood home in northwestern Romania over the weekend.
“Anti-Semitism exists in Europe. This is not an isolated incident,” Elisha Wiesel told The Algemeiner on Sunday (5th). What is happening to my father’s house is a small indication of what is happening on a continental level. Both Holocaust memory and Jews are under attack.”
The discovery of the graffiti – scrawled in bright pink paint – has prompted an investigation by local authorities, who also condemned the incident. Among the messages daubed on the small structure in the town of Sighetu Marmatiei was , “Nazi Jew lying in hell with Hitler” and “Public toilet,” and “Pedophile.”
In addition to condemning the attack, Elisha – who serves as chief information officer at Goldman Sachs – offered some practical steps and called on the Romanian government to add his father’s most famous work, his memoir Night – about his experiences in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz – as mandatory reading in the country’s national curriculum.
He also called for “making sure that the appropriate funding and governance exist so that my father’s home can tell the story it needs to tell: the story of a Jewish family and community that once was, and the story of a man who wanted their voices – and the lessons of their destruction – so desperately to be heard.
In total, 380,000-400,000 Jews were murdered in Romanian-controlled areas during the Holocaust under Marshal Ion Antonescu, the country’s fascist dictator who was allied with Nazi Germany.
Elie Wiesel and his family were deported in 1944 to Auschwitz. While he and two of his sisters survived, his father, mother and younger sister were murdered there.
Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
(thealgemeiner.com)
