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Iran has enriched more than 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, the head of the country’s atomic energy agency has claimed. In September, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has vastly expanded its stockpile of the product that was banned by the 2015 deal with world powers.
Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran is not allowed to enrich uranium above 3.67 percent, well below the 90-percent threshold needed to create a nuclear weapon.
However, Tehran increasingly abandoned its commitments after former US president Donald Trump ditched the accord and re-imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Relatedly, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled this week to host his Israeli and United Arab Emirates counterparts. The tripartate meeting will focus on progress made since the signing of the Abraham Accords as well Iran. America’s top diplomat will also hold separate bilateral talks with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed.
Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi and Manama signed the Washington-brokered Abraham Accords at the White House in September of last year. Israel and Sudan subsequently announced that they would normalize relations, and Morocco established diplomatic ties with the Jewish state in December.
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An Israeli court has upheld a ban on Jewish prayer at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, overturning a lower court’s decision that had sparked anger across the Muslim world.
Aryeh Lippo, an Israeli rabbi, was slapped with a two-week ban from the compound last month after praying there. A Jerusalem court struck down the move, saying Lippo’s whispered prayer did “not violate police instructions.” According to the prevailing “status quo,” Jews are allowed to visit Judaism’s holiest site but may not overtly pray or engage in rituals there.
Palestinians, as well as officials in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia condemned the lower court’s decision.
Israel’s Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev, who had warned that any changes at the flashpoint site would “endanger the public peace,” was among several officials who praised the reversal.
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An Argentine court dismissed a legal action against former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner charging she sought to cover up the alleged involvement of Iranian-backed terrorists in a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people and injured hundreds at a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
The court concluded that an agreement signed by Argentina and Iran in 2013 for conducting an investigation into the terrorist attack at the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association “did not constitute a crime.”
The claim against Fernández de Kirchner was filed in January 2015 by federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman. That same month, Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment, a day before he was set to testify to an Argentine congressional panel on the then-president’s role in covering up Tehran’s responsibility for the attack.
Iran and the Hezbollah terrorist group have long been linked to the attack. Based on the findings of Nisman’s investigation, six Iranians and one Lebanese have been placed on Interpol’s most-wanted list.
Fernández de Kirchner, who was Argentina’s president from 2007-2015, is now the country’s vice president.
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The number of people to thus far make Aliyah — immigrate to Israel — in 2021 has increased dramatically compared to last year. The easing of coronavirus restrictions is in part attributable for 20,360 people moving to Israel over the last three quarters — a 31 percent increase over the 15,598 indiviudals who immigrated to the Jewish state in all of 2020. It is projected that by the end of 2021 between 26,000-27,000 people could wind up moving to Israel, provided that Aliyah continues at the same rate for the last 3 months of the year.
The largest source of immigrants in 2021 has been from Russia, with over 5,000 people arriving, followed by 3,104 from the US. The latter figure already marks a 41 percent increase over 2020. Meanwhile, 2,819 people arrived from France and 2,123 from Ukraine. In addition, 1,589 have come from Ethiopia, primarily due to Operation Zur Israel, led by the Jewish Agency and the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, which aims to reunite families.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Israel on Saturday night in what will be her final visit to the country while still in office. She met on Sunday with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who thanked Merkel for making Israel’s ties with Germany ‘stronger than ever’ during her 16 years in power.
In 2008, Merkel addressed the Israeli parliament, expressing deep shame about the Holocaust in a speech that earned her a standing ovation.
During her two-day trip, the German leader will go to the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial museum, meet with President Isaac Herzog and attend talks with business and high-tech representatives. The chancellor will also be presented with an honorary doctorate from the Technion Institute of Technology.
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HonestReporting Readers Combat Anti-Israel Media Bias:
In response to HonestReporting’s article last week detailing the Associated Press’ whitewashing of a Hamas ‘workshop‘ that ended with the call for Israel’s destruction, various readers took the initiative to contact the wire service to voice their concerns.
The terror group’s [Hamas’] notion of what a “Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” would entail for Israel’s nearly seven million Jews was elucidated on September 30 at a convention dubbed, “The Promise of the Hereafter.” The gathering in Gaza was funded and attended by Hamas’ top brass, who discussed preparations for the future administration of what they called “post-liberation Palestine.”
The Associated Press (AP) on October 6 briefly mentioned the conference in an article ostensibly devoted to economic hardship that was titled, somewhat ironically, Tens of thousands in Gaza line up for Israeli work permits:
Hamas recently organized a workshop to discuss the management of natural resources in what is now Israel once the militant group ‘liberates’ historical Palestine. Critics saw the event as evidence of Hamas’ disconnection from the daily hardships endured by Palestinians in Gaza, where employment hovers around 50%.”
While the author of the piece notes Hamas’ intention to “liberate” all of present-day Israel, he stops short of elaborating on the part of the “workshop” that focused on murdering, expelling and prosecuting millions of Jewish Israelis; that is, except for the “educated Jews” who would essentially be enslaved.
HonestReporting’s critique prompted one of our followers to write this letter to the Associated Press:
I am a former journalist… and regular consumer of AP news. I write in regard to AP’s coverage of a recent Hamas conference in Gaza, as relayed on Honestreporting.com. If it is indeed the case that your reporter overlooked the conference’s call for the elimination of Israel, and the murder and deportation of Israel’s Jews, and finally, the enslavement of Israel’s elite intellectuals — well, I hardly need to detail the violation of your journalistic duties that omission entailed. You know those facts were material and important to the story. Please make an attempt to correct your perennial bias against the Jewish state.
Thank you very much.
A second letter by one of HonestReporting’s supporters to AP read thus:
I urge you to correct or retract: Tens of thousands in Gaza line up for Israeli work permits By WAFAA SHURAFA
This article foists all responsibility for poverty and conditions in Gaza on Israel. There is no mention of the corruption and mismangement by Hamas.
More importantly, I am absolutely horrified and outraged by your description of the “Hamas workshop.” Your author says it’s purpose was: to discuss the management of natural resources in what is now Israel once the militant group “liberates” historical Palestine. Failing to define liberate as total annihilation and clarify that the worshop was actually a planning session for genocide! As per MEMRI’s translation the Hamas-Sponsored ‘Promise Of The Hereafter’ Conference For The Phase Following The Liberation Of Palestine And Israel’s ‘Disappearance’ is where attendees planned which Jews would be slaughtered vs enslaved for their knowledge.
You must be a master of obfuscation to suggest this conference was just about managing natural resources!”
Recommended Reading
- Why the US Really Wants a Palestinian Consulate in J’Lem (Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, Israel Hayom)
- Interior Minister Shaked: Sugihara a Hero to Jews (Lazar Berman, Times of Israel)
- Why We Should Care About Threats to Azerbaijan (Jonathan S. Tobin, Jewish News Syndicate)
- A Reception for the Man in Black: Johnny Cash in Israel (Shai Ben-Ari, National Library of Israel)
- Afrikaans, Jewish, and on YouTube, Advocating for Israel (Mirah Langer, Jewish Report)
