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Iran Starting to Withdraw From Syria: Israel’s Outgoing Defense Minister; Iran’s Supreme Leader Releases Anti-Israel ‘Final Solution’ Poster

By Al Arabiya. Iran has begun withdrawing its forces from Syria, Israel’s outgoing defense minister said on Monday, without offering any evidence to support his assertion.

Naftali Bennett also urged his successor, Benny Gantz, to maintain pressure on Iran, adding that the trend might otherwise reverse.

Iran, Israel’s archenemy in the Middle East, has been a key supporter, along with Russia, of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria’s civil war, sending military advisers as well as material and regional Shia militias that it backs.

Israel, which monitors neighboring Syria intensively, has carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria targeting suspected arms and troop movements by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas it sponsors.

“Iran is significantly reducing the scope of its forces in Syria and even evacuating a number of bases,” said Bennett in his valedictory address. (Read more from “Iran Starting to Withdraw From Syria: Israel’s Outgoing Defense Minister” HERE)

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Releases Anti-Israel ‘Final Solution’ Poster

By The Jerusalem Post. Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali Khamenei on Tuesday published an antisemitic poster evoking Nazi Germany’s “final solution” that destroyed European Jewry in order to advance Tehran’s quest to abolish Israel.

The poster’s language reads: “Palestine will be free. The final solution. Resistance is referendum.”

Khamenei displayed the antisemitic poster in English, Farsi and Arabic on his official homepage.

The picture shows a conquered Jerusalem with photos of the late Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani.

(Read more from “Iran’s Supreme Leader Releases Anti-Israel ‘Final Solution’ Poster” HERE)

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Chinese Ambassador to Israel Found Dead at Home; China Emerges as Potential Strain on U.S.-Israel Relationship

By Fox News. China’s ambassador to Israel was found dead inside his home north of Tel Aviv on Sunday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

Du Wei, 57, arrived in Israel in mid-February amid the coronavirus outbreak and was living in the coastal city of Herzliya on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. He previously served as China’s envoy to Ukraine.

Staff found Du unresponsive in his bed with no signs of violence to his body, the Haaretz daily reported. Initial media reports said Du’s cause of death appeared to be from a cardiac incident. (Read more from “Chinese Ambassador to Israel Found Dead at Home” HERE)

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China Emerges as Potential Strain on U.S.-Israel Relationship

By The Hill. Increasingly close ties between China and Israel risk straining the special relationship Israel has with the U.S., especially as Washington ramps up its feud with Beijing over the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The historic alliance narrowly avoided a diplomatic fallout this week with Israel relenting to U.S. concerns and delaying a Chinese infrastructure project in the country, coinciding with a whirlwind visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Jerusalem.

While the U.S. has long expressed concern to Israel over its ties with China, Israeli officials have signaled they are not stepping back from relations with Beijing entirely.

Pompeo used his latest visit to highlight the risk of doing business with the Communist Party.

“We do not want the Chinese Communist Party to have access to Israeli infrastructure, Israeli communication systems, all of the things that put Israeli citizens at risk,” Pompeo said in an interview Thursday with an Israeli news channel, “and in turn put the capacity for America to work alongside Israel on important projects at risk as well.” (Read more from “China Emerges as Potential Strain on U.S.-Israel Relationship” HERE)

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Iran Calls Israel ‘Rabid, Predatory Dog’ as Jewish State Swears in New Government

By Newsweek. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali Khamenei railed against Israel this weekend as the Jewish state’s parliament approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new unity government.

“The Zionist regime & its criminal supporters recognize no bounds in brutality & trampling of moral norms,” Khamenei wrote in a series of tweets on Saturday evening local time. “They consider genocide, destruction, the massacre of children & women, & any oppression permissible in #Palestine. This rabid, predatory dog attacks innocent ppl [sic].”

Khamenei also accused the Zionist regime of failing to abide by any treaty. They do not “understand any language but the language of force,” he wrote. “Israel has proven it only knows force. It cannot be spoken to except with the Palestinian nation’s language of power & the Islamic nation’s global power.”

(Read more from “Iran Calls Israel ‘Rabid, Predatory Dog’ as Jewish State Swears in New Government” HERE)

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Airstrike Attributed to Israel Said to Kill 7 Iran-Backed Fighters in East Syria

By The Times of Israel. Unknown warplanes attacked Iran-backed fighters in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border, killing several of the Iraqi militiamen, Syrian opposition activists said Sunday.

The strikes late Saturday targeted a base near the border town of Boukamal, killing seven fighters, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.

Omar Abu Laila, a Europe-based activist from Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zour province, confirmed that a strike hit Iran-backed Iraqi fighters in the area, but had no exact word on casualties. The strikes came days after reinforcements were brought into the area from Iraq, the Observatory and Abu Laila said.

Abu Laila, who runs Deir Ezzor 24, an activist collective that reports on news in the border area, said Israel was most likely behind the attack, but gave no evidence. (Read more from “Airstrike Attributed to Israel Said to Kill 7 Iran-Backed Fighters in East Syria” HERE)

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Israeli PM Suggests Microchipping Kids

Cyber experts slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his proposal to “microchip” children who return to schools and kindergartens as the coronavirus lockdown is lifted, Ynet reported on Friday.

While speaking at a press conference on Monday, Netanyahu suggested the Health Ministry use new technology to help Israel adjust to its new routine as the state is lifting the coronavirus lockdown. “That is, technology that has not been used before and is allowed under the legislation we shall enact,” he clarified.

“I spoke with our heads of technology in order to find measures Israel is good at, such as sensors. For instance, every person, every kid – I want it on kids first – would have a sensor that would sound an alarm when you get too close, like the ones on cars,” the prime minister said.

“It will be hard to do it to more than a million schoolchildren who return to their educational institutions in order to ensure one student sits at the distance of two meters from another. It is fictional and dangerous,” cyber resilience expert Einat Meron told Ynet. . .

The Prime Minister’s Office responded to the report, telling Ynet Netanyahu’s suggestion “is not to be implemented through databases, but through simple technology notifying [the citizens] about their distance. It is a voluntary option that is designed to help children keep their distance, like Mobileye with vehicles.” (Read more from “Israeli PM Suggests Microchipping Kids” HERE)

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Israel Threatens to Pull Evangelical Christian TV Station Aimed at Jews

The Israeli government is threatening to take off air a Christian television channel that launched in the country to preach to Jews, warning that it will be barred if it breaks strict rules around proselytising.

GOD TV, an evangelical media network that broadcasts across the world, signed a seven-year deal with a major Israeli cable television provider, HOT, to host its new Hebrew-language channel that began airing last month.

In a video message, Ward Simpson, the CEO of God TV, said: “God has supernaturally opened the door for us to take the gospel of Jesus into the homes, and lives and hearts of his Jewish people.”

Many in the Jewish state see the conversion of Jews as a threat to the relatively small global population as well as their majority status within Israel. While the country’s laws do not place an outright ban on proselytising, it is forbidden to preach to a person under 18 without the consent of a parent. . .

Communications minister David Amsalem threatened last week to shut down the channel if it was confirmed to have broken the rules. “We won’t allow any missionary channel to operate in the state of Israel, not at any time and not under any circumstances,” Amsalem, a member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, said in a statement. (Read more from “Israel Threatens to Pull Evangelical Christian TV Station Aimed at Jews” HERE)

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COVID-19 Patient Treated With New ‘Passive Vaccine’; Israeli COVID-19 Treatment With 100% Survival Rate Tested on U.S. Patient

By The Jerusalem Post. A 29-year-old haredi (ultra-Orthodox) coronavirus patient who is being treated at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital has improved from serious to serious but stable condition, after receiving multiple doses of plasma over the weekend from a donor who recovered from coronavirus, a spokesperson for the hospital told The Jerusalem Post.

On Friday, “with the assistance of Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman and his assistant, a suitable donor, a resident of Jerusalem, was found,” explained MDA director-general Eli Bin.

MDA brought her in an ambulance to its blood service center before Shabbat. A special team was waiting for her and transferred the plasma units to the laboratories to perform all required tests and prepare them for transfusion. (Read more from “COVID-19 Patient Treated With Israel’s New ‘Passive Vaccine’” HERE)

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Israeli COVID-19 Treatment With 100% Survival Rate Tested on U.S. Patient

By The Jerusalem Post. Israeli-based Pluristem has treated its first American patient suffering from COVID-19 complications under the country’s compassionate use program.

The news comes days after a report by the company showed that six critically ill coronavirus patients in Israel who are considered high-risk for mortality were treated with Pluristem’s placenta-based cell-therapy product and survived, according to preliminary data provided by the Haifa-based company.

In the US case, the patient was treated with the company’s PLX cell therapy at Holy Name Medical Center in New Jersey, where Pluristem is already running a Phase III critical limb ischemia study. Like the patients treated in Israel, this patient was critically ill with respiratory failure due to acute respiratory distress syndrome and was intubated in an intensive care unit for three weeks. (Read more from “Israeli COVID-19 Treatment With 100% Survival Rate Tested on U.S. Patient” HERE)

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Israeli-Made Oral Vaccine for Coronavirus on Track, but Testing Will Take Months

An effective Israeli-developed vaccine for coronavirus is on track to be ready for testing within “a few weeks,” though it won’t be available for months because of the lengthy and sometimes bureaucratic testing and approval process, a member of the development team said Tuesday.

Chen Katz told The Times of Israel that the new oral vaccine for adults and children could “turn this disease into a very mild cold.” He said that for many people who are inoculated and then infected by COVID-19, “potentially it will not affect them at all.”

The rapid potential progress by the state-funded Migal Galilee Research Institute stems from the fact that the institute has been working for four years toward a vaccine that could be customized for various viruses, and has now adapted that work to focus on the coronavirus, he said.

Nonetheless, while Israel’s science ministry made headlines last week by touting the institute’s work and saying that its vaccine could be three months away, Dr. Asher Shalmon, the Health Ministry’s director of international relations, has warned against placing “false hopes” in it.

The vaccine will consist of a specially produced protein, and Katz said he expects to be clutching a bottle of it within “a few weeks.” But then comes clinical testing, which will take place in conjunction with a partner, and the paperwork, both of which will take time. (Read more from “Israeli-Made Oral Vaccine for Coronavirus on Track, but Testing Will Take Months” HERE)

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Two-Week Isolation Ordered for All Who Enter Israel (VIDEO)

All people entering Israel from abroad will be required to spend 14 days in home isolation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. The measure became effective at 8 p.m. Monday night.

“After a day of complex discussions, we have made a decision: Whoever arrives in Israel from abroad will enter quarantine for 14 days,” Netanyahu said in a video statement Monday as 50 Israelis were diagnosed with coronavirus. “This is a difficult decision but it is essential to maintaining public health, which takes precedence over everything.

The message came less than an hour after Israel’s Health Ministry announced that three more people were diagnosed with coronavirus: patients No. 40, 41 and 42. It also came two hours before patients No. 43 through 50 were announced. . .

The Health Ministry is asking that these tourists follow five guidelines: 1) Call Magen David Adom if they experience any symptoms; 2) pay careful attention to their personal hygiene; 3) stay away from public gatherings; 4) understand that they cannot leave and then return to the country and; 5) report on their whereabouts while in Israel.

The quarantine does not apply retroactively, explained Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman Tov. Though he cautioned that any Israeli or tourist who has landed in the country in the last 14 days and shows symptoms of the virus – fever, cough or difficulty breathing – should call MDA and be tested. (Read more from “Two-Week Isolation Ordered for All Who Enter Israel” HERE)

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WATCH: Israel Unleashes New Laser Weapon That Shoots Down Drones

A military defense company in Israeli released video this week that shows off a new laser weapon that it has developed that is able to shoot down small drones, which are increasing terror threat in many parts of the world.

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced on Thursday that it had conducted the first live demonstrations of its new Drone Dome-L counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS) system which features an “integrated hard-kill high energy laser effector.”

“The system achieved 100% success in all test scenarios,” the company said in a statement. “Drone Dome is designed to address threats posed by hostile drones both in military and civilian sites, offering advanced solutions for maneuvering forces and military facilities, critical border protection, as well as civilian targets such as airports, public facilities, or any other sites that might be vulnerable to the increasing threat of both terror and criminal drones.”

“The Rafael-sponsored demonstration, conducted in southern Israel in December 2019 but only disclosed by the company on 11 February, provided for end-to-end detection, tracking, and laser interception of ‘multiple UAS, including manoeuvring targets’ by Drone Dome-L’s laser capability. The event was preceded by a two-year internal test campaign, which, in the past six months, has brought the Drone Dome-L system to a sufficient level of maturity to enable Rafael to stage the multiple intercept demonstration,” Jane’s reported in an article that the company linked to. “Rafael used Phantom-class quadcopter UAS systems as the threat targets in the demonstration; engagement ranges and specific laser dwell time required to defeat the threat was not disclosed.” (Read more from “Watch: Israel Unleashes New Laser Weapon That Shoots Down Drones” HERE)

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The Democrat Palestinian ‘Peace’ Plan: Immoral and Indefensible

Democrats have a real problem with borders. Even as emphatic as the Left is about demanding that Trump destroy our secure borders, leftists seem to go absolutely apoplectic over his support for Israel’s right to secure its borders. Democrats condemned Trump’s peace plan in unison, regarding his generous proposal for a demilitarized Palestinian state as not substantial enough for their Hamas allies. “Trump’s ‘peace plan’ is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state,” fumed Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

So what do the Democrats and leftists want? The global elites and leftists repeat their mantra of a two-state solution and a Palestinian state like mindless robots without any regard for the geography, security situation, or logistical reality of such a proposition. It’s become a punch line without any meaning – much like the need for “comprehensive immigration reform” or “criminal justice reform.”

Regardless of the history of the Holy Land and how we’ve gotten to this point in history, it makes no sense to push for another state west of the Jordan River at this point – unless the objectives of those pursuing it are more sinister than a mere credulous desire to make peace with terrorists.

A geographically impossible approach

If one were to come to Earth from Mars and listen to the world leaders discuss Israel and a two-state solution with a laser focus on every last morsel of land (the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza, Golan), he would come away with the impression that the land in dispute is a massive territory – one in which can be created two viable, contiguous countries. In reality, modern-day Israel, even without the so-called West Bank, is only 8,522 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey. When coupled with the “West Bank,” that area only expands by 2,180 square miles.

New Jersey has almost 8.9 million residents and is already the most densely populated state in the United States. Israel’s population is roughly 8.7 million and is rapidly growing. Just based on geography alone, does it make any sense to deny Israel the 2,180 square miles it was originally granted and won back in a defensive war?

Moreover, none of the proponents of this mythical yet unassailable solution have ever explained how two independently contiguous states could be created by uniting Gaza with Judea/Samaria. Presumably, there is an unspoken plan to grab even more land from the heart of Israel in the south to make a proposed Arab “Palestinian” state contiguous in all its territory. An underground tunnel will not suffice in the long run.

Let’s take this a step further. The Arab/Muslim countries constitute a land mass 640 times the size of Israel. Does it make sense to squeeze the last few thousand square miles from the only Jewish state in order to create an Arab national state in the Holy Land for the first time in history, if there are well over 12 million square miles of Muslim lands?

Indefensible “Auschwitz borders”

It is clear that anyone peddling a two-state solution without the conditions Trump prescribed has either never looked at a map of the region or is implicitly supporting a “final solution” of pushing the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Just consider the consequences of Israel’s surrender of Gaza and extrapolate those grave dangers to Judea and Samaria.

When Israel surrendered the Gaza Strip in 2005, it immediately came under attack by short-range and medium-range rockets, attacks that continue to this very day. It was during one iteration of the rocket war that Israel discovered an even more serious threat to its existence. Hamas had dug a series of complex tunnels from Gaza underground that extended for miles deep into Israeli territory. Hamas planned to use those tunnels to commit mass terror attacks and conduct kidnapping missions throughout southern Israel.

Now consider the fact that Gaza is located in the southwest corner of Israel, the “least” perilous location for a tiny country defending against a genocidal enemy. Imagine if Hamas were allowed to create a state in Judea and Samaria – the heart of Israel? There would not be a single square inch of the remainder of Israeli territory that would not be subject to a perennial threat of terror attacks and infiltrations.

Were Israel to cede Samaria, even if the “Palestinian” state were demilitarized (which in itself is a pipe dream), any two-bit terror cell could paralyze the country indefinitely with cheap surface-to-surface, surface-to-air, and shoulder-fired rockets. Samaria is a mountainous region overlooking Israel’s coastal plain – the area containing 70 percent of the Jewish population and 80 percent of the country’s industrial base, as well as its only international airport. This tiny geographical strip, at its narrowest point, is nine miles wide. There is no way to defend it against the rockets and tunnels. This is exactly what Israel’s legendary diplomat Abba Eban meant when he referred to such an idea as “Auschwitz borders.”

Worse, once a recognized state is created, Israel would have no ability to conduct counterterror operations to halt the inevitable terror attacks. Any incursion would be regarded acts of war. Also, the newly created Arab government would play good cop/bad cop with the local terror networks and accuse Israel of launching a war of aggression against a peaceful government.

The only conclusion one can draw from leftist politicians and world leaders pushing an Arab Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is that either they are ignorant of the security situation and geography of the land, or they are seeking something much more sinister than a “two-state solution.”

The immoral double standard of a two-state solution

If the dangerous motives of the two-state solution aren’t apparent already, consider one final point that speaks to the immoral dichotomy inherent in creating an Arab Palestinian state. Israel is the only Jewish state in the world, yet despite its relatively tiny size, there are two million Arabs – mostly Muslims – living within the “pre-1967” Israeli borders. They enjoy full civil rights, voting rights, and representation in the Israeli parliament. Their elected officials have been free to side with Israel’s enemies while serving in the Knesset. Their members have even been free to walk out while the Israeli national anthem is played.

Now let’s examine the nature of the proposed Arab Palestinian state. What is the unspoken, yet implicit, directive of creating a Palestinian state? To make that land completely Judenrein – deracinating every last vestige of Judaism from the heart of the inherited land.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it used its own military to physically uproot every last Jewish resident of the region. Jewish houses, businesses, and farms were destroyed and the Jews exiled from their land. What’s worse, far from the painful concession fostering a peaceful reconciliation, Israel had to exhume every last Jewish grave in Gaza so that Jewish cemeteries would not be desecrated by the inevitable violence of the local Arabs. The Israeli government was originally going to destroy the synagogues but left them intact after the State Department and the Palestinian Authority promised to guard them. Yet within minutes of the Arabs occupying the land, the synagogues were torched and destroyed, vividly conjuring up images of Kristallnacht.

This is the Orwellian peaceful “solution” that would occur for the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Judea and Samaria, along with their cemeteries and holy sites, were Democrats and world leaders to successfully “promote a just and durable agreement,” as Bernie Sanders promised. In addition, remember, they also want to negotiate flooding the remaining skeleton borders of Israel with potentially millions more Arabs in addition to the two million already there.

If this double standard – forcing Israel to accept an unlimited number of hostile Arabs in a land the size of a broom closet on the geographical map while forcing out every Jew from the lands trodden by Abraham in Judea – is not inherently racist, then the oft-overused term has no meaning.

Hence, there is no moral, historical, or practical justification for pushing the creation of an Arab state west of the Jordan River other than ensuring the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world. And that’s exactly what these Democrat presidential candidates want. They despise Israel’s sovereignty and its desire to protect its people as much as they despise our own sovereignty and the security of our people. (For more from the author of “The Democrat Palestinian ‘Peace’ Plan: Immoral and Indefensible” please click HERE)

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