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Residents Near Gaza Border Say They Hear “Continual” Underground Tunnel-Digging

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Local government officials in towns near the Gaza border reported on Sunday receiving complaints from residents who say they hear digging underground.

“We have relayed these complaints to security officials who are looking into it,” one source told The Jerusalem Post’s Hebrew-language sister publication Ma’ariv. “According to the complaints, the digging hasn’t stopped for a moment.”

The complaints come less than a day after Israeli warplanes launched reprisal raids against targets in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Islamists in Gaza fired a rocket into Israeli territory earlier on Saturday. Earlier last week, at least two rockets were fired at Gaza frontier towns . . .

“We knew this would repeat itself, this trickle of missiles,” said Eran Zomer, a 27-year-old resident of the moshav of Amioz. “Very simply, the IDF didn’t do the job the last time.”

“I’ve also heard of many residents in the area complaining about hearing digging, so we weren’t surprised that a senior Hamas official said their people continue to prepare offensive tunnels,” he said. “I hope that next time [the army] will properly deal with the tunnels in a timely fashion instead of waiting until 14 terrorists pop out from underground.” (Read more from “Residents Near Gaza Border Say They Hear Underground Tunnel-Digging” HERE)

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US Billionaire Political Foes Unite to Fight Israel Boycotts

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One donated more than $100 million to the Republicans, the other has been the Clintons’ biggest backer. Now billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban, split on U.S. politics, have united to fight boycott threats against Israel.

Adelson and Saban hosted a conference of pro-Israel business executives and activists over the weekend in Las Vegas, to begin an initiative aimed at countering the growing threat of international sanctions against Israel.

“That he’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican has really very little to do with it,” said Las Vegas Sands Corp. founder Adelson, who holds the 25th slot on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, in a joint interview with Saban on Israel’s Channel 2 on Saturday. While you can “rest assured” the two men will not be supporting the same person in the 2016 presidential election, Saban said, “when it comes to Israel, we are absolutely on the same page.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has identified the global trend to boycott, divest and sanction Israel over its policy toward the Palestinians, known as the BDS movement, as a major threat.

The boycott issue gained new prominence after Stephane Richard, chief executive officer of Orange SA, said on Wednesday that the Paris-based telecom company would end its licensing deal with Israel’s Partner Communications Co. “tomorrow” if he wasn’t concerned about legal repercussions. Richard later apologized for his comments, made in response to a question over a threatened boycott of Orange’s Egyptian subsidy, Mobinil, and said they weren’t motivated by political concerns. (Read more from “US Billionaire Political Foes Unite to Fight Israel Boycotts” HERE)

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Qatar Buying Votes to Suspend Israel From FIFA, Says Diplomats; FIFA Execs Indicted

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By Eliezer Sherman. Qatar could be buying votes to suspend Israel from FIFA, Israeli diplomatic sources said on Thursday.

“We suspect that Qatar, about whom claims are circulating that it paid in order to host the 2022 World Cup, is now paying countries to vote in favor of the Palestinians,” diplomatic sources told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Israeli diplomats have been working globally behind the scenes to ensure that a vote at the FIFA congress on Friday to suspend Israel from the world soccer federation, spearheaded by the Palestinian Football Association, does not pass.

Although FIFA was racked this week by an explosive corruption scandal instigated by the U.S. indictment of nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives over financial conspiracies, Friday’s congress and the vote to suspend the Israeli Soccer Association were set to move forward. (Read more from “Qatar Might Be Buying Votes to Suspend Israel From FIFA, Israeli Diplomats Say” HERE)
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FIFA Execs Indicted

By Christopher Ingraham. In the end, it only took a $150 million scandal to make Americans care about soccer.

FIFA, the notoriously corrupt and yet seemingly invincible governing body of world soccer, has finally landed itself an indictment that some would say is worthy of its reputation. The charges against a handful of senior FIFA officials include money laundering, racketeering, bribery and fraud. In short, the federal lawsuit alleges what millions of soccer fans have suspected all along: that FIFA officials have been using the organization’s massive influence to line their pocketbooks.

On the surface, it’s just another white collar crime story: rich, powerful men making themselves richer and more powerful. But a closer look suggests that there is a lot of real-world suffering happening as a direct result of FIFA’s decisions.

For the most obvious example of this, look to Qatar. The decision to award the 2022 World Cup to the rich Gulf state with a terrible human rights record was a controversial one right out of the gate. There have been extensive allegations of bribery: why else, some figured, award the Cup to a tiny country with sweltering summer heat and no soccer culture to speak of?

Human rights advocates’ worst fears about Qatar seemed to be confirmed as Qatar began building the infrastructure to host the Cup, and reports of migrant worker deaths started to pile up. The numbers, to the extent that we know them, appear startling: A Guardian investigation last year revealed that Nepalese migrant workers were dying at a rate of one every two days. In sum, the Guardian put the total Qatar death toll of workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh at 964 in 2012 and 2013. (Read more from this story HERE)
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Corrupt FIFA Donated Tens of Thousands of Dollars to Clinton Foundation, and that’s Not the Only Tie

By Jackie Kucinich. Both Bill Clinton and his family’s charity have been tied to soccer’s governing body, as well as Qatar’s disastrous World Cup bid.

And just like that, another Clinton Foundation donor is in the news.

The Clinton global charity has received between $50,000 and $100,000 from soccer’s governing body and has partnered with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association on several occasions, according to donor listings on the foundation’s website.

Several top FIFA executives were arrested Wednesday in Zurich and face corruption charges stretching back two decades, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Involvement with the embattled body extends beyond the foundation to Bill Clinton himself. The former president was an honorary chairman of the bid committee put together to promote the United States as a possible host nation for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup. (Read more from this story HERE).

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Anti-Israel Protests Reverse Course, Starting to Fail in the US

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images (3)By David Daoud. The anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement suffered two resounding blows this week, in college campuses across the U.S.

Bowdoin College in Maine defeated on Wednesday a student-wide referendum, sponsored by the institution’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which called for a complete academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

The referendum, in which 1,619 students (85% of Bowdoin’s student body) voted on the issue, ran from May 2 until May 6, and was defeated with a vote of 228 in favor (14% of the student body), 1,444 opposed (71% ) and 247 abstaining (15%).

The referendum was held after the anti-Israel group managed to get 20% of the student body to sign a petition calling for a boycott of Israel. (Read more from “Anti-Israel Protests Failing in the US” HERE)

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Celebrated Singer Dionne Warwick Says Roger Waters’ Political Views on Israel ‘of No Concern’

By Eliezer Sherman. Legendary American singer Dionne Warwick said on Wednesday that her decision to perform in Israel this month would not be swayed by the “hard pressures” of prominent anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions activists in the music industry.

A statement released by the singer and U.N. global ambassador said Warwick “would never fall victim to the hard pressures of Roger Waters, from Pink Floyd, or other political people who have their views on politics in Israel.”

“Waters’ political views are of no concern,” the statement read.

Unlike singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill, who decided to cancel her Tel Aviv show just a few days before her performance this week, Warwick said that if she had “had an objection to performing in Israel, no offer would have been entertained and no contract would have been signed.”

“Art has no boundaries. Ms. Warwick will always honor her contracts,” the statement read. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Clinton Angles for the Pro-Israel Vote, Declares Need to Bring US-Israel Ties Back to ‘Constructive’ Footing

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clBy Lazar Berman. As the relationship between US President Barack Obama and Prime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu becomes even more frayed, prospective Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton appeared to emphasize that her approach to Israel would be different than that of the current administration.

In a telephone conversation Sunday with Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Clinton said that “we need to all work together to return the special US-Israel relationship to constructive footing, to get back to basic shared concerns and interests.”

“We must ensure that Israel never becomes a partisan issue,” she added.

Clinton also called for “a two-state solution pursued through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Hoenlein initiated the conversation, according to the Conference of Presidents. (Read more from “Clinton: Bring US-Israel Ties Back to ‘Constructive’ Footing” HERE)

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Obama-Netanyahu Feud a Problem for Hillary and Dems

By Fredric U. Dicker. A top GOP strategist and pollster for newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that New York Democrats, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, “will pay a heavy price” at the polls next year if they don’t break with President Obama’s policies on Israel and reject any deal he makes with Iran.

“Hillary Clinton, [Sen.] Chuck Schumer, [Reps.] Nita Lowey, Steve Israel, Jerry Nadler, Eliot Engel and others are about to get a whole new wave of pressure from Republicans on whether they agree or not with Obama on Israel,’’ New York-based national GOP pollster and strategist John McLaughlin told The Post.

“You’re going to have Republicans running for president, the Senate, for Congress next year supporting Israel and pledging to abrogate any deal Obama makes with Iran and challenging the Democrats to do the same,’’ said McLaughlin, who runs McLaughlin and Associates with his brother.

McLaughlin, who was with Netanyahu at the Israeli leader’s Jerusalem home the night of his victory earlier this month, said the GOP push would be especially powerful in heavily Jewish voting areas in the city, Westchester and Long Island.

“A lot of New York Democrats are going to have to decide if they back Israel, our strongest ally in the world, or a White House that has made a mess of the Middle East and threatens to do to Israel what they’ve just done to Yemen,’’ contended McLaughlin. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Israel: Beware of Obama; His Promise to Transform America was too Modest

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US-POLITICS-OBAMA-FILMBy Michael Goodwin. First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet.

He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast.

Now he’s coming for Israel.

Barack Obama’s promise to transform America was too modest. He is transforming the whole world before our eyes. Do you see it yet?

Against the backdrop of the tsunami of trouble he has unleashed, Obama’s pledge to “reassess” America’s relationship with Israel cannot be taken lightly. Already paving the way for an Iranian nuke, he is hinting he’ll also let the other anti-Semites at Turtle Bay have their way. That could mean American support for punitive Security Council resolutions or for Palestinian statehood initiatives. It could mean both, or something worse. (Read more from “Israel: Beware of Obama” HERE)

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Massive Sinkholes Break Open as Dead Sea Shrivels

By Molly Hunter. There are more than 3,000 sinkholes on the banks of the Dead Sea — and they’re multiplying exponentially, according to environmentalists, as the body of water dries up.


“It’s nature’s revenge,” said Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli Director at EcoPeace Middle East, an organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to protect their shared environmental heritage.

“These sinkholes are a direct result of the inappropriate mismanagement of water resources in the region.”

More than 1,400 feet below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on land. The first sinkhole was spotted in the 1980s. By 1990, there were 40, and 15 years later new chasms are breaking open every day.

“They could develop overnight. Or over time,” Bromberg said. “Making them unpredictable. And very dangerous.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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How Netanyahu’s Speech Played in Israel and among Arabs

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By JTA. In America, pundits and politicians are wondering what Netanyahu’s speech will mean for the next few months, years, even decades of US-Israel and US-Iranian relations.

In Israel, everyone is focused on the next two weeks.

Since the speech was announced in January, Netanyahu’s critics have accused him of using the US Capitol stage to boost his polls ahead of Israel’s March 17 election. Supporters say his only intention is to defend his country from a looming threat . . .

“There’s no doubt that the pictures of Congress giving a standing ovation can have a positive influence on the voters,” said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. “Israelis understand that the criticism of him was political. Israelis understand that Israel-US relations are strong.”

In Israel’s newspapers, responses to the speech, as always, fell along ideological lines. At the pro-Netanyahu daily Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, under the headline “The speech of a historic moment,” wrote that Netanyahu succeeded in transcending politics, as “there are moments in which a leader does what he does not for votes, but for the children … There are moments in history that a leader makes happen.” (Read more about how the speech played in Israel HERE)

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Arab Commentators Back Netanyahu On Speech to Congress

By Yochanan Visser. On the eve of the Purim festival, Israel watched Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu deliver a historical speech to the U.S. Congress on Iran. The speech was broadcasted on all Israeli TV Channels, albeit with a five-minute delay to make sure there was no ‘electioneering’ in what Netanyahu told Congress. Israel will hold elections in another two weeks.

In his speech, Netanyahu evoked the upcoming Purim festival, when the book of Ester is read and Jews commemorate the first attempt to commit genocide on the Jewish people by the Persian King Ahasueres (Ahasveros), who acted on the advice of his personal advisor Haman. Netanyahu compared this attempt to annihilate the Jewish people to the vows to destroy the Jewish state made by contemporary Iranian leaders.


Netanyahu said that “even if Israel has to stand alone – Israel will stand.”

Right after Netanyahu’s speech, commentators on Israeli TV highlighted the Arab and Iranian response to the event.

Tzvi Yechezkieli, the Arab affairs expert of Channel 10, said that many Arab commentators supported the content of Netanyahu’s speech. He cited a commentator on Al-Arabiya TV, who had said that he could have written a large part of the speech.

Yechezkieli said that the Arab countries are convinced that Obama will not safeguard their security interests in the current negotiations with Iran and will not protect them against Iranian aggression. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Netanyahu Showdown With Iran a ‘Replay of Bible Story’

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Christian supporters of Israel see Tuesday’s address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as more than just a political speech . . .

With the Feast of Purim and Netanyahu’s speech converging in the same week, there are lessons to be drawn from history, they say.

Purim celebrates Queen Esther’s brave intervention to stop a plot that, if allowed to go forward, would have led to a genocide against the Jews . . .

Netanyahu’s speech Tuesday will occur on the biblical Fast of Esther – the same day Mordecai told Queen Esther of Haman’s evil plot to kill the Jews and pleaded for her to approach the king of Persia on Israel’s behalf . . .

Could Congress be Israel’s modern-day Esther? Is Netanyahu, a modern-day Mordecai, pleading with America’s legislative body, the one that most directly represents the American people, to intervene in the situation by asking the “king” to foil the scheme of the ant-Semitic Haman, who in this case is the Iranian regime? (Read more about the showdown with Iran HERE)

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Here’s How Obama is Defending His Choice to Not Meet With Netanyahu

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Photo Credit: The BlazeBy Fred Lucas. President Barack Obama said his refusal to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks before Israel’s elections isn’t personal — he wouldn’t meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel under the same circumstances, either.

“As much as I love Angela, if she was two weeks away from election, she probably would not have received an invitation to the White House, and I suspect she would not have asked for one,” Obama said at a joint news conference with the German leader Monday at the White House. “Some of this just has to do with how we do business. I think it is important for us to maintain these protocols because the U.S.-Israeli relationship is not about a particular party” . . .

“I don’t want to be coy. The prime minister and I have differences around Iran’s sanctions,” Obama said. “I have been very clear and Angela agrees with me and [British Prime Minister] David Cameron agrees with me and the others who are members of the negotiations agree that it does not make sense to sour the negotiations a month or two before they are about to be completed and we should play that out if we can get a deal, we should embrace it. If we cannot get a deal, we will have to make a set of decisions and, as I said to Congress, I will be the first one to work with them to apply even stronger measures against Iran.” (Read more about how Obama is defending his choice to not meet with Netanyahu HERE)

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Despite Recent Criticism, Netanyahu Still Determined to Address U.S. Congress on Iran’s Nuclear Program

By Barak Ravid. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he is determined to address the U.S. Congress on Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu rejected the criticism in the United States and Israel, saying that “while some are busy with protocol or politics, a bad deal with Iran is taking shape.”

Speaking at a Likud election event, Netanyahu added that, as prime minister, it is his duty to do everything in his power to prevent a dangerous deal with Iran. “From the day Israel was established to this day, there have been essential differences between Israel and the U.S., and relations remained sound – this will be the case this time as well,” he said.

“This is not a political issue or a party issue, neither here nor there. This is an existential issue, and I approach it with the fullest responsibility.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Hezbollah Attacks Israel Using New Advanced Weaponry

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Photo Credit: Western Journalism By Yochanan Visser. At noon today, Hezbollah launched an attack across the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Fourth generation Kornet anti-tank missiles were fired at two IDF vehicles in the Har Dov area that were subsequently destroyed. This was the first time Hezbollah used this advanced anti-tank missile.

The IDF immediately responded with artillery fire on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon. After that, Hezbollah fired mortars on Israeli villages in the area of Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in Israel.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed, and seven others were wounded critically. Several Israeli citizens were also lightly wounded by Hezbollah fire and were evacuated to Ziv Hospital in Safed . . .

Hezbollah claimed that the attack on Israel was justified, and that it was an act of ‘legal resistance’ since the organization disputes Israeli sovereignty over the Har Dov area. In fact, this has been Hezbollah’s excuse for continuing its hostilities against the Jewish state after Israel withdrew fully from Lebanon in May 2000. The United Nations confirmed later that no Lebanese territory is occupied by Israel anymore. (Read more about how Hezbollah attacks Israel HERE)

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Iran Targets Netanyahu Children for Assassination

By Adam Kredo. Iran is encouraging its terror allies to pursue the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s children by publishing personal information about them, including photographs of the kids lined up in crosshairs, and declaring, “We must await the hunt of Hezbollah.”

The publication of the personal information and biographies of Netanyahu’s children follows an Israeli airstrike last week that killed several key Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian commander affiliated with the country’s hardline Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Iranian military leaders affiliated with the IRGC threatened in recent days harsh retaliation for the strike and promised to amp up support for Hezbollah as well as Palestinian terrorist organizations.

The information was originally published in Farsi by an Iranian website affiliated with the IRGC and quickly republished by Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

In addition to biographical details and pictures of Netanyahu’s children, the Iranians provided details about the families of former Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon. (Read more from this story HERE)

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