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Tuesday, Mar. 22 '16, Adar Bet 12, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. 34 KILLED IN BRUSSELS BOMBINGS IN AIRPORT, SUBWAY STATIONS
2. ISRAELI WOUNDED IN BRUSSELS AIRPORT ATTACK
3. NETANYAHU: EVEN IF YOU GIVE UP BRUSSELS, TERROR WILL CONTINUE
4. ASSAULT RIFLE FOUND IN BRUSSELS AIRPORT, EXPLOSION AT UNIVERSITY
5. EVEN MORE BELGIAN JEWS TO MAKE ALIYAH?
6. ARUTZ SHEVA INTERVIEW: 'EUROPE WILL LEARN THE HARD WAY'
7. TRUMP: ISRAEL WILL HAVE TO PAY BACK THE MILITARY ASSISTANCE
8. WATCH: DANON BLASTS UN PLANS TO COMPILE 'JEWISH LIST'
1. 34 KILLED IN BRUSSELS BOMBINGS IN AIRPORT, SUBWAY STATIONS
by Arutz Sheva Staff
[youtube:2013723]
The Zaventem airport in Brussels was rocked by at least two explosions early on Tuesday morning. At least 14 people were killed in the attack on Zaventem airport, with some 90 people wounded.
A ceiling in the airport collapsed in the wake of the explosion, trapping dozens of travelers and complicating efforts to recover victims of the attack.
London-based Sky News has reported that at least one of the explosions was a suicide bombing.
The blasts reportedly occurred in the departures lounge and near the American Airlines desk. These reports have yet to be confirmed by an official source.
Just an hour after explosions rocked the Zaventem airport the Maalbeek metro station in Brussels was hit by an explosion.
The metro station bombing left at least 20 dead and 60 wounded, bringing the total death toll in Belgium to 34.
The metro bombing took place just a few hundred yards away from the seat of the European Union government.
A Brussels police spokesperson has stated that deaths were also reported at a nearby police station. It is unclear if these casualties are victims of the Maalbeek metro bombing or are from yet another attack.
Travelers are being evacuated and the airport is now on lockdown. The Brussels metro system has now been shut down, leaving thousands of desperate travelers stranded at the bombed Zaventem airport.
Witnesses reported that gun shots were fired prior to the airport bombings, accompanied by shouting in Arabic.
One Israeli was wounded in the attacks. The Foreign Ministry is currently investigating whether any other Israelis were injured in the explosions.
Following the attacks, the Belgian Interior Minister has raised the country's terror threat indicator to its highest level.
The bombings come just four days after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam in Belgium. Abdeslam is believed to have played a key role in organizing last year's Paris terror attacks.
[youtube:2013715]
2. ISRAELI WOUNDED IN BRUSSELS AIRPORT ATTACK
by Talia Blatman
The Foreign Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that an Israeli man from Jerusalem was wounded in a suicide bombing at an international airport in Brussels, Belgium. He is in light condition and suffers from a foot wound.
The victim received emergency medical treatment on site and did not require transportation to a nearby hospital.
The victim's identity has yet to be released.
At least 17 people were killed and 40 others were wounded when two explosions went off inside an international airport in Brussels. Another blast later went off at a metro station near the European Union's buildings in Brussels. Reports indicate that four blasts went off at various metro stations in the city.
While the circumstances surrounding the event have yet to be revealed, Israel's Foreign Ministry continues to be in touch with local authorities in an attempt to determine whether there are additional Israeli victims.
3. NETANYAHU: EVEN IF YOU GIVE UP BRUSSELS, TERROR WILL CONTINUE
by Arutz Sheva Staff
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu deliver a speech in a live broadcast to the AIPAC conference in Washington DC on Tuesday.
Responding to the horrific attacks in Brussels earlier in the day, Netanyahu said, "terrorists have no resolvable grievances, it's not as if we could offer them Brussels, or Istanbul, or the West Bank. That won't resolve their grievances."
"Their basic demand is that we simply should disappear," he said, emphasizing "that won't happen."
Elaborating on Israel's technological breakthroughs, Netanyahu said, "the world is coming to Israel," noting the expanding economic and technological ties worldwide.
However, he pointed out that while individual nations embrace Israel, the United Nations submits Israel to "systematic discrimination," working to "delegitimize its very existence."
He said he was glad to hear candidates from both parties in the US presidential race backing the basic principle of direct negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as opposed to supporting unilateral moves to pressure Israel at the UN.
Calling on the Palestinians to accept the Jewish state of Israel, he reiterated that he is open to start negotiations "anytime, anywhere," emphasizing that Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is not ready to negotiate. Netanyahu also noted the incitement by the PA teaching children to stab Jews, and their vision to establish a state on the ruins of all of Israel.
He then showed the "daily pledge of allegiance" among the Palestinians, playing a video revealing the rampant incitement to terror in official PA TV and social media. "This is sick," he said, after showing a video of an infant Arab girl waving a knife while shouting "stab!"
Netanyahu also mentioned how Abbas' Fatah faction called the terrorist who murdered American tourist Taylor Force in Jaffa (Yafo) several weeks ago a "hero," and said peace can only be advanced by the international community if the ending of incitement is demanded from the Palestinians.
Turning his attention to Iran, he said the nation "remains fully committed to genocide. Our genocide." He explained Tehran's leaders openly declare that they plan to destroy Israel, before enumerating its actions to strengthen a Hezbollah terror front on Israel's north, its funding of Palestinian terror inside Israel, and other steps against Israel.
He noted that Iran recently sent off a ballistic missile in a test in defiance of US and UN sanctions, and on the side of the missile was written a message in Hebrew reading: "Israel must be wiped out." He said, "the writing is not on the wall, it's on the missile."
4. ASSAULT RIFLE FOUND IN BRUSSELS AIRPORT, EXPLOSION AT UNIVERSITY
by David Rosenberg
Belgian investigators have recovered a Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle in the Zaventem airport in Brussels, seeming to confirm reports that gunfire was heard shortly before the first of two explosions in the airport.
At least 14 people were killed in the attack on the airport Tuesday morning, with an additional 20 confirmed dead at an attack an hour later targeting the Brussels metro subway system. A bomb went off in the Maalbeek metro station, just a few hundred yards away from the seat of government of the European Union.
The Belgian royal palace has been evacuated after an abandoned suitcase was discovered nearby.
According to the Daily Mail, eye witnesses reported that at least one of the bombs had been stored in a suitcase.
Many of those wounded suffered injuries in their lower extremities, lending credence to the claim that at least one bomb had detonated while inside a suitcase.
A fourth explosion was heard in central Brussels hours after the initial attacks in Maalbeek metro station and Zaventem airport. Belgian police have reported that it was a controlled explosion at Vrije University. The circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear.
5. EVEN MORE BELGIAN JEWS TO MAKE ALIYAH?
by Gil Ronen
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."
Idyllic years are over
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.
6. ARUTZ SHEVA INTERVIEW: 'EUROPE WILL LEARN THE HARD WAY'
by Talia Blatman
Deputy Defense Minister, MK Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, spoke to Arutz Sheva on Tuesday in response to the morning's terror attacks in Brussels, Belgium.
The Zaventem airport in Brussels was rocked by at least two explosions early on Tuesday morning. The exact death toll in the attacks is unclear at this time, with estimates ranging from 13 according to the BBC to 17 as reported by Russia Today. An additional 40 people have been wounded.
Just an hour after explosions rocked the Zaventem airport the Maalbeek metro station in Brussels was hit by an explosion.
The metro station bombing left at least 15 dead and 15 wounded, bringing the total death toll in Belgium to at least 28.
Two Jewish men were wounded in the attacks; one of the victims was an Israeli citizen.
In response to the attacks, the Deputy Defense Minister estimated that only through horrible terror attacks like the ones that took place in Brussels, will Europe finally be forced to learn how harsh the terror threat is against the continent.
Ben-Dahan told Arutz Sheva that the terror Europe has been suffering from is the same terror Israeli continues to fight against.
"We have been fighting terror for many years and do not allow the terror to hold its head high. I hope that now a change in tune will be heard from all the European countries, as well as Brussels, the European Union's capital, as now they will understand who the terrorists are and who is being attacked."
"I really hope that they will learn from the State of Israel how to act when it comes to terrorists," he added.
7. TRUMP: ISRAEL WILL HAVE TO PAY BACK THE MILITARY ASSISTANCE
by Uzi Baruch, Washington
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hinted on Monday that, if elected president, he would force Israel to pay back the military assistance it has received from the United States.
Trump, who was speaking to reporters prior to his speech at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, DC, was asked whether past statements condemning countries who he said received defense aid from the United States should apply to Israel as well.
"I think Israel will do that also, yeah, I think Israel do - there are many countries that can pay and they can pay big league," he replied.
[youtube:2013707]
The comments come amid negotiations between Jerusalem and Washington on a new military aid package, with the current package set to expire in 2018.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was recently urged to accept President Barack Obama's 10-year military aid package which reportedly include a total of $145.8 million for Israeli missile defense programs, a sharp drop in financial support.
A total of $3 billion in defense aid is given annually, but with those agreements expiring in 2018, Netanyahu has asked for an increase to $5 billion annually, in light of the greater need for security due to the growing Iranian threat after the nuclear deal.
8. WATCH: DANON BLASTS UN PLANS TO COMPILE 'JEWISH LIST'
by Ari Soffer, Washington DC
[youtube:2013705]
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has condemned plans to draw up a database of Jewish businesses and products from Judea and Samaria, saying it echoes anti-Jewish measures imposed against European Jews during the early 20th century.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva at AIPAC's 2016 Policy Conference, Danon related to aggressive protests outside of AIPAC, including a group of anti-Israel activists who targeted him personally Sunday night.
Danon said he was not ruffled by the demonstration, which pales in comparison with the hostility Israel faces daily at the UN. If anything, he said the threatening, often abusive, behavior of protesters simply proved to neutral observers that supporters of the Palestinians were the ones fueling violence.
"We will continue to tell the people the truth, and I know that the American people know that we are showing the facts, and they (the anti-Israel activists) are inciting," he said.
But while the UN is still largely beholden to an "obsession against Israel," Danon said he sees a gradual change occurring, with many other countries' envoys voicing support for the State of Israel in private. "We need to take that private support and make (it) public."
Many leaders now "understand that the Palestinians don't care about negotiation - they care about embarrassing Israel at the UN."
That change is most notable among African nations - with whom Israel has recently made concerted efforts to build closer relations - and even among some Sunni Arab states, who fear an encroaching Iran at least as much as Israel does.
However, he cautioned, the fruits of Israel's engagement with those budding allies would not be immediate. "It is a process. It won't happen in one day."
Danon took aim in particular at a proposal within the US by anti-Israel actors "to label products from Judea and Samaria and to actually create a database of all Judea and Samaria produce."
"This is unacceptable," he continued. "It reminds me of times in Europe way back when people and products were labeled. We will not allow it, and I hope that the European and other countries will stand with us."
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