Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Wednesday, Mar. 16 '16, Adar Bet 6, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. TERROR ATTACK THWARTED IN THE CAPITAL
2. HOTOVELY SCHOOLS HARVARD LAW STUDENTS ON JUDEA-SAMARIA
3. DROUGHT BRINGS SAN DIEGO CLOSER TO ISRAEL
4. ISLAMIC JIHAD THREATENS IDF IN 'ADVANCED WEAPON' VIDEO
5. ARABS WORK ADJACENT TO KINDERGARTENS WITH NO SECURITY
6. BROTHER OF TOULOUSE MURDERER FACES SPECIAL COURT
7. N. KOREA SENTENCES US STUDENT TO 15 YEARS HARD LABOR
8. NETANYAHU TOLD TO TEACH HIS DOG TO STOP BITING JEWS
1. TERROR ATTACK THWARTED IN THE CAPITAL
by Arutz Sheva Staff
Border Police officers at a surveillance point in the northern Shuafat neighborhood of Jerusalem on Wednesday morning thwarted a terror attack.
The officers spotted a 14-year-old Arab terrorist trying to climb over the revolving gates at the entrance to the neighborhood, in an attempt to leave towards the center of the capital without going through the security checkpoint.
A team of soldiers arrested him and found a knife on his person. An initial investigation revealed he was setting off to conduct an attack.
The terrorist has been transferred to security forces for investigation.
"A team of fighters was directed to the minor, identified and arrested him. In a search of his belongings a knife was found," read a Jerusalem district police statement.
The commander of the Jerusalem region Border Police's northern brigade praised the officers, saying, "the fighters are working in a high state of readiness which proves itself each day."
"The alertness of the fighters at the surveillance point and their professionalism led to the arrest of the suspect and prevented harm to innocents. We continue in our activities that are important for the security of the capital."
The knife Border Police Spokesperson Unit
2. HOTOVELY SCHOOLS HARVARD LAW STUDENTS ON JUDEA-SAMARIA
by Hezki Ezra
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) spoke on Wednesday afternoon with 50 law students from Harvard University's honors program.
As part of her ongoing efforts to campaign for Israel's rights in its Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, Hotovely took the opportunity to speak to the students about the criticism against Israel over it's presence in the region.
"The time has come to return to the legal truth according to international law - the 'occupation' is a lie from the Palestinian libel factory, together with the claims of apartheid, this is slander disconnected from the legal reality," she said.
Hotovely continued, explaining, "the state of Israel did not occupy Judea and Samaria in 1967 from the state of Palestine, because there never was such a state. Jordan was illegally in possession of the territory, and we liberated Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in a defensive war."
"After they were unable to defeat us in war throughout the years, the stage of delegitimization began; the BDS movement negates the state of Israel's right to exist, and the way to fight it is by revealing the lies and letting the truth be heard throughout the world."
Regarding the legal status of Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria, the 2012 Levy Report determined that Israel's presence is fully legal according to international law. However, despite being commissioned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, two consecutive governments led by him have yet to adopt the report.
3. DROUGHT BRINGS SAN DIEGO CLOSER TO ISRAEL
by Eliran Aharon
A closed conference was recently held in San Diego between local officials and Israeli representatives, in which participants discussed the possibility of cooperation in the field of water technology innovation.
The conference was organized by Prof. Robert Sullivan, dean of the UC San Diego Rady School of Management, and San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer together with his staff.
In calling the conference, Sullivan and Faulconer sought to learn directly about Israel's experience in overcoming the challenges of drought.
San Diego, which is located in southern California and is home to 1.3 million people, has been suffering from an ongoing drought for the last four years, leading to serious problems in providing water to the residents.
The acute drought has led Californian officials to place an increased focus on trying to solve San Diego's water problems.
A number of representatives from Israeli companies working in the California region were invited to the conference, including Mark Lambert, CEO of IDE Americas which recently established a seawater desalination facility in the area, and Dr. Maya Shimshoni of the BIRD Foundation for binational research between the US and Israel.
Zohar Yinon, CEO of the Gihon Company, presented participants at the conference with the structural changes and reforms in the Israeli water system that he was a part of, and also gave a survey of the work being pursued in implementing new water technology in California.
4. ISLAMIC JIHAD THREATENS IDF IN 'ADVANCED WEAPON' VIDEO
by Ari Yashar
The Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Gaza published a threatening video late Tuesday night, in which it presented an "advanced weapon" in its possession pointed at an IDF vehicle driving along the Gaza security barrier.
The video comes as a message due to "the ongoing breaches of the ceasefire," according to the terrorists. The accusation against Israel is ironic given that the IDF on Saturday struck four terror sites in Gaza only as a response to rockets fired by local terrorists, in breach of the ceasefire that ended 2014 Operation Protective Edge.
In the propaganda film, terrorists from Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigade are seen armed with rifles featuring advanced sights.
They are shown apparently observing an army vehicle in which the terrorists claim IDF officers sat, and setting up their "advanced weapon" - a Kornet antitank rocket launcher.
At the end of the film the terrorists are seen aiming the rocket launcher at the vehicle, but they do not fire, and then a message is shown in error-strewn Hebrew, reading: "to show you a shadow of the horror."
The video comes after Islamic Jihad on Tuesday said in a statement: "if Israel continues breaching, the ceasefire will end."
The terrorist group was apparently commenting on an IDF airstrike in which Hamas targets were hit Saturday, reportedly killing two ten-year-old children according to Palestinian sources in Gaza.
The strikes came in response to four rockets from Gaza hitting open areas in the city of Sderot on Friday night, fortunately causing no physical injuries or damages. Then on Monday night Gaza terrorists again fired a rocket at the Shaar Hanegev region, in yet another breach of the ceasefire.
Even before the rocket fire on Friday, Islamic Jihad earlier in the day called to massacre Jews "inside their towns" in infiltration attacks.
Aside from rocket attacks, terror groups in Gaza have been busily rebuilding their attack tunnels, although no fewer than ten tunnel collapses have been recorded in recent weeks leading to numerous casualties among the terrorists.
5. ARABS WORK ADJACENT TO KINDERGARTENS WITH NO SECURITY
by Shimon Cohen
The parents of children at three out of four kindergartens in the Har Homa neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem on Tuesday launched a strike, refusing to send their kids to kindergarten due to what appears to be a severe security failure.
Just adjacent to the kindergartens, which do not have security guards stationed at them, Palestinian laborers are working at a building site, posing a palpable security threat to the young children in the midst of a terror wave. Arab terrorists have repeatedly manipulated their place of gainful employment to launch attacks.
Batel Mishnayot, the mother of one of the children in the kindergartens, spoke to Arutz Sheva on Wednesday about the lacking response the parents have received from the relevant authorities about their security concerns, which led them to decide to strike.
"We are talking about kindergartens in which the age range is from three to five," explained Mishnayot. "They are in the Har Homa neighborhood which, as is well known, is adjacent to the security fence around Jerusalem."
The concerned mother said, "what bothers us is that they began building an active construction site adjacent to the kindergartens. Tractors are working right above the courtyard of the children - even aside from the security problems it's a safety problem. Rocks can roll down into the courtyard."
She emphasized that there is no security guard at the site to keep the children safe from the frightening risk of a terror attack.
Mishnayot reported that for the past several months parent representatives have repeatedly tried to request that the Jerusalem municipality and other relevant authorities place a security guard on site, but their requests continue to be passed from one department to the other and generally ignored. No solution has yet been presented to the parents.
"They directed us from one person responsible for such matters to another in the municipality. We didn't get a single answer. Everyone passed responsibility to another organization," she said.
"While there is an entry code that is supposed to provide some security, one can jump over the fence without a problem," she added, noting that the kindergarten is located on a relatively isolated street at the edges of the neighborhood, thereby heightening the dangers.
In response to the troubling security situation, the parents decided to hold a strike on the kindergartens, and three out of the four kindergartens in the area have been on strike since Tuesday.
Mishnayot related that it is difficult to find a way to cope during the strike; today her daughter will be with her grandmother at work. But she stressed that the difficulty of finding care is preferable to the danger that the children were exposed to.
"They are speaking with us about budgets and the responsibility of the police. We've lost the strength to struggle in the regular way," she said, explaining the decision to strike.
Arutz Sheva has contacted the Jerusalem municipality with a request to comment on the matter. No response has yet been received, but when one is given it will be published.
Batya Mishnayot
6. BROTHER OF TOULOUSE MURDERER FACES SPECIAL COURT
by Arutz Sheva Staff
A special court will try the brother of Mohamed Merah, who murdered seven people in a terror spree in the French city of Toulouse in 2012, for complicity in the attacks, judicial sources said Wednesday.
Merah, a self-described Al Qaeda sympathizer who had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, shot dead three Jewish schoolchildren and a teacher at Otzar HaTorah Jewish school in Toulouse as well as three French soldiers in a nine-day killing spree in March 2012. The spree ended in a siege in which the terrorist was shot dead.
His brother Abdelkader, who had been under closer scrutiny by intelligence services than Mohamed, claimed he was unaware of the plans for the attacks, which prompted stepped-up surveillance of suspected Islamic extremists.
Three anti-terrorist judges also ruled that another alleged accomplice, Fettah Malki, should appear before the panel of expert judges.
Malki, who has also been charged with complicity in the murders, has admitted supplying Merah with an Uzi submachine gun and a bulletproof vest.
Judicial sources said Malki too has denied any advance knowledge of Merah's plans.
Charges were dropped against a third man, Mohamed Mounir Meskine, who was suspected of helping the Merah brothers steal the scooter used in the killing spree.
It was not immediately known when the trial would start.
Merah's rampage began on March 11, 2012, when he killed a soldier in Toulouse. Four days later he gunned down two paratroopers in nearby Montauban, and on March 19 he murdered a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse.
He was killed at his home in a standoff with armed police on March 22.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned that France could be harboring "dozens of Merahs."
France, which is home to Europe's largest Jewish community, has seen an upsurge in Muslim terror attacks targeting Jews.
In January last year, an Islamist gunman murdered four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris two days after the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
The attacks have prompted a sustained rise in Jewish emigration from France to the Jewish homeland of Israel.
AFP contributed to this report.
7. N. KOREA SENTENCES US STUDENT TO 15 YEARS HARD LABOR
by Arutz Sheva Staff
North Korea's Supreme Court sentenced an American tourist to 15 years of hard labor on Wednesday for "subversion." The 21-year-old student had tried to steal a propaganda sign from a hotel he stayed at in January.
Otto Warmbier, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, was sentenced in a speedy one-hour trial, reports Associated Press.
The Wyoming, Ohio native confessed to trying to steal the propaganda banner as a trophy for the mother of a friend who wanted to hang it in her church, while visiting North Korea with a New Year's tour group. He was arrested while trying to leave in early January.
Trials for foreigners on similar charges are usually short and punishments are harsh in North Korea, but Warmbier's sentencing is particularly severe, likely given the current high tensions between the despotic regime and the US over Pyongyang's nuclear tests.
Warmbier was accused in late January of committing a crime against North Korea with "the tacit connivance of the US government and under its manipulation."
The young student had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel, and was charged with trying to take the propaganda banner from an area reserved for North Korean staff and forbidden to foreigners.
In a press conference in Pyongyang before the trial, Warmbier tearfully said he tried to take the banner as a trophy for a friend's mother, and said he was offered a used car worth $10,000 if he succeeded. Likewise he was told that if he was arrested, $200,000 would be paid to his mother.
He said he agreed because his family was "suffering from very severe financial difficulties."
In sentencing Warmbier, the court accused him of committing a crime "pursuant to the US government's hostile policy toward (the North), in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist."
North Korea has regularly accused the US and South Korea of sending in spies to overthrow its dictatorship.
Recently tensions have flared after North Korea held a nuclear test and vowed to conduct more tests, and has also threatened to conduct "indiscriminate" nuclear strikes on the US and South Korea. In response Washington and Seoul are holding massive joint military exercises.
8. NETANYAHU TOLD TO TEACH HIS DOG TO STOP BITING JEWS
by Ari Yashar
The Victims of Arab Terror organization (VAT) on Tuesday night issued a message to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in response to reports that his dog Kaiya has bitten a fourth victim.
Noting that this is the fourth time Kaiya has bitten an innocent Jew, VAT wrote in a statement that it "calls upon Netanyahu to immediately contact the Israel Dog Unit which trains canines to defend Jews against Arab terrorists."
VAT has teamed up with the Israel Dog Unit in the past in a call to use the trained canine companions to help prevent Arab terror attacks.
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Kaiya's most recent victim was a security guard stationed at the Prime Minister's Residence. The guard required medical treatment, but the Netanyahus kept the incident secret from the public before it was reported by Yedioth Aharonoth earlier this week.
About four months ago, Kaiya was quarantined for ten days after biting two people at a Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony at the Prime Minister's Residence - MK Sharren Haskel (Likud) and the husband of Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud).
Kaiya's first victim was in fact the Prime Minister himself, who she bit back in July, just several days after being adopted. Netanyahu's doctors decided not to take any chances and to administer a rabies vaccine.
The Netanyahus adopted Kaiya after the Prime Minister's son, Avner, pleaded with his parents to save the life of the "gentle" ten-year-old dog who was about to be put down.
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