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In a key step towards normalization, the president of the United Arab Emirates officially ended his country’s economic boycott against Israel. President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also the Emir of Abu Dhabi, issued a decree as part of “the UAE’s efforts to expand diplomatic and commercial cooperation with Israel, leading to bilateral relations by stimulating economic growth and promoting technological innovation.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi described the move as “an important step towards peace, which will yield substantial economic and commercial achievements for both people while strengthening the stability in the region.”
The edict came after the UAE Embassy in Washington unleashed a torrent of criticism on Twitter against detractors of the agreement with the Jewish state. In a series of posts, the Gulf state accused Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Hamas and Hezbollah of promoting “nothing but fear and hate,” adding that “their rants say something about what kind of world they want to see.”
The UAE-Israel breakthrough elevated the voices of coexistence, reason and stability. And then there are some who speak nothing but fear and hate. pic.twitter.com/Ei0mQRKwej
— UAE Embassy US (@UAEEmbassyUS) August 27, 2020
Meanwhile, Israeli officials are eagerly awaiting a prospective official signing ceremony in Washington, D.C. “It will happen — is meant to happen, so I hope — before our Rosh Hashanah,” Regional Cooperation Minister Ofir Akunis said in reference to the Jewish High Holiday that begins on September 18.
It comes as top Trump administration adviser Jared Kushner and other members of the US peace team arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday to prepare for a trip to the UAE that will include a large Israeli delegation.
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Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has warned that his terrorist group will not agree to halt attacks against Israel until the blockade on the Gaza Strip is at least partially lifted. He qualified, however, that Hamas would continue to conduct Egyptian- and Qatari-mediated indirect negotiations with Israel in order to achieve his organization’s demands.
Haniyeh’s statement came amid reports that various terrorist factions in Gaza are coordinating efforts to increase the amount of rudimentary incendiary devices flown across the border into Israeli territory. Over the past month, the so-called terror balloons have sparked hundreds of fires, destroying swaths of Israeli agricultural land and causing damage to civilian property.
Israel has reportedly offered Hamas humanitarian aid in order to tackle the coronavirus outbreak in the coastal Palestinian enclave in exchange for an immediate end to the violence.
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Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs will welcome Saeb Erekat and Federica Mogherini as Fisher Family Fellows for the 2020-21 academic year.
Erekat, who has long been the Palestinian Authority’s chief peace negotiator, recently denounced the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, saying that it had “killed” the two-state solution. Erekat is a staunch proponent of the PA’s policy of paying stipends to terrorists jailed in Israel and in the past has accused the Jewish state of pursuing apartheid-like policies.
Mogherini, the European Union’s former top diplomat, is an unpopular figure in Israel and among many Jews due to her central role in devising the Iran nuclear deal and her perceived pro-Palestinian bias. At one point during her tenure, she was effectively declared persona non grata by the Israeli government.
The concern is that the two new fellows will present a skewed image of Israel to what Harvard claims are “future generations of leaders.”
Antisemitism Watch: Rapper Snoop Dogg compared the United States to Nazi Germany in a post to his more than 50 million Instagram followers. The image shows a black and white American flag that has a blue stripe halfway peeled off, revealing the flag of Nazi Germany in the background.
IfNotNow has walked back its condemnation of the spray-painting of “Free Palestine” on a synagogue in Graz, Austria.
While the group — which defines itself as a “movement of Jews to end Israel’s occupation and transform the American Jewish community” — initially joined other organizations in denouncing the antisemitic act, it later clarified in a tweet that its original “phrasing fell short”:
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The private rooms where Sigmund Freud treated patients in Vienna were opened to the public for the first time on Saturday — though they are largely empty because the Jewish founder of psychoanalysis took most of his belongings when he fled from Austria to London prior to the outbreak of World War II.
Only the waiting room, which could previously be visited, still has its original furniture.
Nevertheless, the rooms do contain some of Freud’s personal items, including books, a satchel and box of chess and tarot games. Freud lived and worked on Berggasse 19 street between 1891 and 1938.
The additions came after 18 months of renovations that had forced the closure of the Sigmund Freud Museum.
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Israel’s Health Ministry on Sunday released public guidelines in response to a major heatwave sweeping across the country. Eilat is expecting temperatures above 40°C (104°F) for the entire week, with a high of 44°C (111°F) forecast for Saturday. The thermometers in Beersheba and Jerusalem will hit 39°C (102°F) and 38°C (100°F), respectively, over the next few days.
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