Free Republic

The European Union (EU) is seeking to reassure Israelis who are concerned about the economic harm caused by the EU’s decision to forbid its member states from cooperating, transferring funds, or giving scholarships or research grants to bodies in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. A senior delegation from the European Union will arrive in Israel early this week to examine ways of preventing damage to Israeli entities operating beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. …

At first glance, a proposed new bill asking Israel’s parliament to extend Israeli labor law to the West Bank and protect women against unlawful dismissal seems innocuous enough. But critics say that under the guise of woman’s rights, the bill’s true intent is to further entrench Israeli control over occupied territory the Palestinians seek for their future state. The debate sheds light on the complex and distinct legal system Israel has cultivated during its 46-year control of the West Bank. Since Israel has never annexed the territory, it technically remains under military rule, creating a bewildering legal reality. …

A number of Israeli families were in for a bitter surprise recently as they entered a large liquor store in the Dolomites region in northern Italy: Some of the wine bottles sold in the store were covered with pictures of Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring. … The tourists, who were shocked to see the portraits of the Jewish people’s destroyers, pulled out their smartphones in order to photograph the shelves, but were pushed away by the store workers who refused to let them take pictures after learning that they were from Israel.The salespeople told the...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with students at the UN headquarters in Jerusalem on Friday afternoon, and admitted that his organization was biased against Israel. Responding to a student who said Israelis felt their country was discriminated against in the international organization, Ban confirmed that there was a biased attitude towards the Israeli people and Israeli government, stressing that it was “an unfortunate situation.” … Addressing the attitude towards Israel, Ban said that the Jewish state was a UN member and should therefore be treated equally like all other 192 member states. Unfortunately, he added, Israel has been criticized...

Hamas has finally admitted that it is the Egyptians, and not Israel, who have turned the Gaza Strip into a “big prison.” … Why haven’t the “pro-Palestine” activists been sent to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing to voice solidarity with the residents of the “big prison”? The answer is obvious: First, the activists’ main goal is to condemn Israel and hold it solely responsible for the miseries of Palestinians. The activists do not care about the Palestinians’ suffering as much as they are interested in advancing their anti-Israel agenda. They devote most of their energies and efforts...

Billionaire George Soros’ philanthropy is bad news for Israel, according to an in-depth report from the NGO-Monitor watchdog group. The report listed the many causes in Israel, or pertaining to Israel, that are funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Among the top beneficiaries of OSF funding is Human Rights Watch, which has been criticized for targeting for criticism, and falsely libeling, the state of Israel. Another is J Street, which describes itself as “pro-Israel” but has been termed anti-Israel by others for, among other things, welcoming proponents of a boycott on Israel at its national conference and honoring IDF soldiers...

Pro-Israel activists have derided the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) anti-Israel movement, after a widely-trumpeted “success” in their campaign to isolate Israel was revealed to have been fabricated. … Last week, Electronic Intifada, a blog aligned with the BDS movement, announced its latest “victory,” claiming that Delta Air Lines had decided to stop serving a snack produced in the Barkan Industrial Zone, due to its location in Samaria. … Veteran Israeli activist Avi Mayer, however, was unconvinced, and promptly discovered that claims of a boycott were completely false. In a letter to Mayer (which he promptly published on his Facebook...

A prominent leader of the Muslim community in Toronto took advantage of the Al-Quds Day rally in the city’s downtown to incite against Israel and wish for the end of Zionism, Shalom Toronto reports. … Zafar Bangash, a noted Islamic movement journalist and commentator and a leader of the Muslim community in Toronto, spoke at the rally and stressed the importance of focusing on the struggle to “liberate” the Al-Aqsa mosque, according to Shalom Toronto. … He described a vision “for the future of Palestine” as the establishment of a state not based on ethnic cleansing, but one which treats...

It is a ritual that has become part of the political scenery. As Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiators gear up for “peace talks” with their Israeli counterparts, and as the Israeli government prepares to make “good will gestures” which include releasing 104 convicted murderers, the PA’s own TV stations continue to broadcast programs which appear uninhibited by such feelings of “good will.” A recent Ramadan TV competition (video below), exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, offers PA Arabs $100 if they guess the correct answers in a quiz about the geography of “Palestine”—which includes Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Ashdod and Meron,...

“The study of antisemitism,” admits Bruno Chaouat, a professor of French in Minnesota, “can be tedious.” This admirably candid confession appears relatively early in the pages of Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives, a collection of nineteen new essays edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, the distinguished director of Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and author of several major books about the Holocaust. Chaouat is right, of course: while a single anecdote about irrational hate can breed sorrow, anger, and/or shock, a thick book consisting entirely of such material is more likely to be, quite simply, numbing. It is...

The European Union expressed concern on Friday over a directive by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to suspend contact with Europe on matters related to Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, responded to the decision by saying, "The EU is concerned by reports in the Israeli media that the Israeli Minister of Defense has announced a number of restrictions affecting EU activities supporting the Palestinian people." Kocijancic stressed, however, "We have not received any official communication from the Israeli authorities. Our delegations on the spot are seeking urgent clarifications.” Israeli media outlets...

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is pushing for comprehensive guidelines to introduce separate labeling for products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria, Israeli-daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday. According to the report. Ashton sent a letter to European commissioners urging them to draft the guidelines by the end of 2013. The EU last week published guidelines that forbid the 28 members of the bloc from funding or dealing with Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, alleging that the areas are “illegally occupied.”

A federal appeals court Tuesday declared unconstitutional a law allowing Americans born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their birthplace on their U.S. passports, the latest ruling in a case that stretches back a decade. … The case was brought by parents of an American boy named Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in a Jerusalem hospital soon after the law was passed. The parents wanted to list Israel as his birthplace, but the U.S. has refused to recognize any nation's sovereignty over Jerusalem since Israel’s creation in 1948—so the boy’s U.S. passport only says “Jerusalem” as his birthplace. The Bush...

The European Union’s new ban on areas located beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines will do nothing to advance peace talks, Finance Minister Yair Lapid wrote on Friday. In fact, said Lapid in an op-ed which appeared in the New York Times, the ban will simply encourage terrorist groups. “As the American secretary of state, John Kerry, leads new efforts to reinvigorate peace talks among Israelis and Palestinians, one of the obstacles—if not the main one—is the presence of extremist Palestinians and their supporters,” he wrote. … According to Lapid, “The world shouldn’t make things easier for extremists. It’s challenging enough...

The European Union has published new guidelines explicitly banning any EU funding of Israeli institutions operating in territories occupied since the 1967 Mideast war, despite vigorous Israeli objections. The EU holds that Jewish settlements in territories such as the West Bank and east Jerusalem are illegal. The Palestinians want some of those territories for their hoped-for state. After EU officials announced plans this week for the new guidelines, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with several European leaders to express his opposition. …

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has said outsiders cannot tell him where his country begins or ends in reaction to new EU guidelines on settlements. Speaking in a 40-second-long TV clip in Hebrew on Tuesday (16 July), he noted: “I will not let anybody harm Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, the Golan and Jerusalem … We will not accept any external dictates regarding borders.”He added the EU should focus on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program and Syria's civil war instead of the Arab-Israeli conflict. …

Polish parliament’s lower house has voted to reject a government plan to reinstate the religious slaughter of animals. … Until January, Poland was making good business exporting kosher and halal meat to Israel and Muslim countries, but religious slaughter was banned under pressure from animals’ rights groups, which say it causes unnecessary suffering because the livestock aren’t stunned before being killed. …

When rock legend Paul McCartney came to Israel in 2008, he was, at least to some extent, taking his life in his hands. Not because of Israel's sometimes precarious security situation, but because he was threatened by BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) anti-Israel groups. “I got death threats, but I'm coming anyway,” the singer was quoted as saying by Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs researcher Adam Shay. “I got explicit death threats, but I have no intention of surrendering. I refuse to cancel my performances in Israel,” Shay quoted McCartney as saying.

Egypt's temporary President Adli Mansour announced the establishment of a commission of inquiry which will investigate the events surrounding the deaths of at least 51 people Monday in clashes outside a military building in Cairo. At least 435 people were wounded as well in the incident. Most of those killed were Muslim Brotherhood members, and the chain of events leading to the deaths were being hotly contested by the Brotherhood and the Egyptian Army. The Brotherhood claimed that those killed were innocent, doing nothing more than holding a sit-in against the ousting of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in what they...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is reaching out to Jews around the world to listen to the “Arab point of view” on stalled peace talks with Israel. … Palestinians say they will not talk unless Israel stops building Jewish housing in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which they claim for their future state, along with the Gaza Strip. …