| 1 |
The White House is worried Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in mere weeks. “Their breakout period is down from about a year, which is what we knew it was during the deal, to just a few weeks or less,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a press conference, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken similarly said the Islamic Republic’s breakout time was “down to a matter of weeks.” The breakout period refers to the amount of time it will take Iran to amass enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
On Monday, local media reported that Israeli National Security Advisor Dr. Eyal Haluta had traveled to the US to coordinate with American officials for a scenario in which the west fails to arrive at a deal with Iran. A White House statement on Haluta’s meeting with his US counterpart Jake Sullivan said that the two discussed “a range of regional and global security issues.”
Sullivan “emphasized that the United States is attuned to Israel’s concerns about threats to its security, including first-and-foremost from Iran and Iranian-backed proxies,” the White House said. Haluta and Sullivan also agreed to enhance ongoing coordination through the US-Israel Strategic Consultative Group, and bolster diplomatic and security coordination with other regional partners “wherever possible.”
Psaki said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and US President Joe Biden talked about Iran during a call on Sunday. Biden said during the conversation that he will make his first visit to Israel as president in the coming months.
| 2 |
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Israel’s Border Police launched multiple counter-terror raids across the West Bank, arresting 11 Palestinian suspects, the military announced on Tuesday. Raids occurred in the Palestinian villages of Qabatiya near Jenin; Bruqin in Samaria; Hableh, which is near Qalqiya; and Talfit near Nablus.
Security forces transferred the suspects to the Shin Bet for further questioning, the IDF said, adding that there were no injuries among Israeli personnel.
On Monday, the Shin Bet already announced that it had broken up an attempt by a “Palestinian Islamic Jihad cell in Gaza to set up a terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria in order to conduct attacks on Israeli civilians.” Seven terror suspects are due to be charged with severe security offenses, said the Shin Bet.
Earlier this month, security forces focused their activities on the Jenin area, after two terrorists infiltrated Israel from there and conducted deadly terror attacks in Tel Aviv on April 7 and Bnei Brak on March 28. Those operations regularly encountered gun and bomb attacks, leading to exchanges of fire. Backup military forces have also been deployed along gaps in the seamline security barrier.
On April 10, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a 360 million shekel ($112 million) plan to extend the security barrier by 40 kilometers and close some of the gaps in the fence.
| 3 |
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center on Extremism released its annual audit of antisemitic attacks on Tuesday, indicating the highest number of such incidents in 2021 since the organization started to track instances of harassment, vandalism and assault in the United States in 1979.
The ADL tabulated 2,717 antisemitic incidents throughout the US in 2021. “This is a 34% increase from the 2,026 incidents tabulated in 2020 and the highest number on record,” the organization noted.
An alarming uptick of 167 percent was also recorded in the number of antisemitic assaults, with 88 in 2021 compared to 33 in 2020. According to the ADL, these incidents involved 131 victims.
The surge of incidents in May 2021 coincided with the Hamas-initiated conflict with Israel: “For the entire month, 387 antisemitic incidents were tabulated by the ADL, 297 of which occurred between May 10 – the official start of military action – and the end of the month, an increase of 141% over the same period in 2020.” Of the 297 incidents, there were 211 cases of harassment, 71 cases of vandalism and 15 assaults.
ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan A. Greenblatt said in a statement: “…the violence we witnessed in America during the conflict last May was shocking. Jews were being attacked in the streets for no other reason than the fact that they were Jewish, and it seemed as if the working assumption was that if you were Jewish, you were blameworthy for what was happening half a world away.”
| 4 |
There are currently 161,400 Holocaust survivors living in Israel, according to figures published Wednesday by the Social Equality Ministry ahead of the coming Holocaust Memorial Day. The number includes those who were victims of antisemitism during the Holocaust period, according to a statement from the ministry’s Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority. The average age of Holocaust survivors is 85.5, with 31,500 over age 90 and more than 1,000 who have lived for over a century.
Among those living in Israel, 63 percent were born in Europe. Among European survivors, 37% are from countries of the former Soviet Union, 12% from Romania, and 5% from Poland. An additional 2.7% are from Bulgaria, 1.4% from Hungary, 1.4% from Germany, and 1% from Czechoslovakia or France. An additional 18.5% of survivors are from Morocco and Algeria, where they suffered discrimination and harassment under the Nazi-allied Vichy government.
A further 11% are from Iraq, survivors of the Farhud pogrom of June 1941. Seven percent are from Libya and Tunisia, countries that during the Holocaust passed racist laws against Jews and imprisoned their communities in labor camps. Some of the Jewish community were also sent to Italy’s Giado concentration camp in Libya.
Over the last year, the Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority spent over NIS 5.7 billion ($1,727 billion) on survivors, with a focus on increasing grants and expanding resources for those experiencing loneliness, stress and anxiety.
The Knesset hosted a Holocaust survivor and dozens of youths for a memorial event Tuesday night, as the country prepares to mark its annual Holocaust Memorial Day. The event, meant to evoke intimate living room talks popularized in Israel as Zikaron BaSalon (literally parlor remembrance), featured survivor Yosef Hershkovitz, who implored the mostly young crowd to safeguard what they have, speaking from his own experiences in the Holocaust.
“Take care of this country. You don’t know what this is to have it,” Hershkovitz told the audience at what was billed as the Knesset’s first-ever Zikaron BaSalon.
Recommended Reading
- The Staging of the ‘Jewish Attack’ on Al-Aqsa (Yifa Segal, Jewish News Syndicate)
- North American Jews and Israel Are Meeting Again – Opinion (Rebecca Caspi, Jerusalem Post)
- Universities Should Exercise Moral Leadership to Address SJP Antisemitism (Raeefa Z. Shams and Miriam F. Elman, Algemeiner)
- ‘Yom Hashoah: A Day to Remember’ Online Program to Feature Survivor’s Ordeals (Jewish News Syndicate)
- We Are Making ‘Hatikvah’ a Reality Every Day (Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, Israel Hayom)
