Free Republic

A 38 year-old man was assaulted in Malmö, Sweden, on Sunday - for the sole crime of hanging an Israeli flag in his window. The assailants broke the man's window first, prompting him to seek the perpetrators, police said. "After that the man went out onto the street to see what was going on. Then he was attacked and it was on the basis of the flag. That is the information we have at present," police told the TT news agency Monday. They added that ten people chased the man from his building, wielding iron pipes. He managed to narrowly...

Norway’s Foreign Minister on Friday warned against an escalation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), and also made sure to point a finger at Israel as “an occupying power”. “The events of the last few days clearly show how quickly the current tense situation could spiral out of control. I urge both the Israelis and the Palestinians to exercise restraint,” Foreign Minister Borge Brende said in a statement. “It is important to seize upon the initiative for a ceasefire, which now appears to be coming from the Palestinians. Israel, as the strongest party, has a particular responsibility to show...

A senior IDF source said Thursday that the search for the three Israeli teens kidnapped by Hamas terrorists last Thursday suggests that Hamas leadership abroad, and particularly in Turkey, is behind the abduction. The source told Walla! that in particular Salah al-Arouri, a Hamas leader living in Turkey, has been a key source behind terror attacks in Judea and Samaria in recent years. Reports last December revealed that Turkey has replaced Iran as the leading financial backer of Hamas since 2012; Turkey is the only NATO member to recognize Hamas. According to the reports, Ankara has hosted a Hamas presence,...

A leader of the Presbyterian Church has added to the already existing tensions between his sect and the Jewish community by publicly calling on the Jewish people to leave Israel and permanently settle in the United States. Reverend Larry Grimm of the Capitol Heights Presbyterian Church in Colorado, a longtime advocate of the movement to economically and socially boycott the Jewish state, said that Jews should realize that America is the true Promised Land. Grimm’s statement comes as the Presbyterian Church (USA) prepares to vote at its General Assembly on whether to formally divest from Israel. In a posting on...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed on Tuesday the formation of the new Palestinian “unity government” which includes the Hamas terrorist group. In a statement, Ban expressed hope that new opportunities for progress towards a two-State solution with Israel will emerge soon, saying the UN had received assurances that the Hamas-Fatah deal would be implemented on the basis of previous commitments such as the recognition of Israel and non-violence. …

A bill designed to allow police access to EU airline passenger details would help prevent future attacks by suspected terrorists inside Europe, says the European Commission. EU home affairs spokesperson Michele Cercone on Monday (2 June) told reporters in Brussels the 2011 EU passenger records name (PNR) proposal—which has been stalled due to opposition from the European Parliament—“could facilitate the endeavors of the member states” to fight what he said was a growing internal security threat. The proposal would oblige airlines flying to and from the EU to hand over the personal details of the passengers onboard. The renewed interest...

An Egyptian court that sentenced to death 37 Islamists and handed life terms to 492 others defended its verdict on Sunday, saying the men were “demons” who followed Jewish scripture. […] In one trial in March, 529 were sentenced to death for the killing of a police officer but the court later upheld the sentencing against only 37 of them, while the rest were jailed for life. […] In a statement Sunday to justify its decision, the court […] described the men as “enemies of the nation” who used mosques to promote the teachings of “their holy book, the Talmud,”...

Z Street representative Lori Lowenthal Marcus spoke out in March 2013 about the harassment the pro-Israel group received from the Obama IRS: “They told us terrorism happens in Israel. Therefore, they had to look into our organization because they thought we might be funding terrorism. We’re a purely educational entity. We didn’t fund anybody. We barely funded ourselves.” Remember: This is the same administration that wouldn’t call the Benghazi massacre a terrorist attack but accused a pro-Israel group of supporting terror.

The police investigation is underway into yesterday’s deadly attack on Brussels’ Jewish Museum, but the Jewish community is still very much on edge. Precious little information is available yet as to who precisely was responsible for the shooting which left three people—an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv and a French woman—dead, and another person seriously wounded. […] [Special Adviser on European Policy to the European Jewish Congress (EJC) Philip] Carmel accused European governments—including Brussels—of not doing enough to stamp out anti-Semitism in general and prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place. More could be done in terms of...

The Hezbollah terror group continues to see Israel as its central enemy and not the rebels in Syria, the group’s deputy leader said on Thursday. “Israel is the main enemy,” Sheikh Naim Qassem said, according to the Lebanese Daily Star. “But the tactical priority depends on the direct threat, so our confrontation with takfiri (extremist) groups derives from the direct danger they represent, and it does not affect our readiness to confront Israel,” he declared. […] “Israel is the enemy of humanity and truth,” said Qassem. “It cannot coexist with anyone.” …

Egypt’s former foreign minister, Amr Moussa, denied on Monday that he had said that Hamas must recognize Israel, Al Ahram reported. AFP several weeks ago quoted Moussa as having said that Hamas must recognize the existence of Israel in order to make it possible to move forward with a Palestinian state. …

More than one in four Germans hold anti-Semitic views, according to a report released on Tuesday by the non-profit Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The figure is far higher than most other northern European countries. Based on a worldwide survey of 53,100 adults across 101 countries, a global average of 26 percent of people can be classed as anti-Semitic, the Anti-Defamation League said. ADL researchers classed respondents as anti-Semitic if they answered “probably true” to six out of 11 statements classed as “anti-Semitic stereotypes” in their questionnaire. The most common anti-Semitic belief was “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to [this...

Israel has launched a campaign calling for the United Nations to recognize Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur, as an official holiday. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor sent a letter to all U.N. member states, saying there are three major monotheistic religions, but only two—Christianity and Islam—are recognized by the U.N. calendar. “Such discrimination at the U.N. must end,” Prosor said in an excerpt of the letter sent to journalists Friday by Israel’s U.N. Mission. …

A nursery school in Latvia posted a sign last week stating it was “Judenfrei” (free of Jews). Russian and Latvian media reported that the Pucite School, owned by parliamentarian Imants Paradnieks who has in the past made anti-Semitic statements, posted the sign on the gate at the front entrance of the school on May 6. …

Hamas will never recognize Israel and will not accept the conditions laid out by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, according to the Islamist movement’s deputy leader. Speaking late on Saturday, Mussa Abu Marzuq said Hamas, which recently signed a reconciliation deal with the Western-backed Palestinian leadership in Judea and Samaria, would never agree to recognize Israel. “We will not recognize the Zionist entity,” he said at a press conference in Gaza City. […] “Hamas rejects the Quartet’s conditions because it denies some of our people’s rights,” he told reporters. “We will always refuse any conditions that deny our Palestinian rights.”...

Two founders of the Pink Floyd rock band have called on the Rolling Stones to cancel a concert in Israel in an op-ed for news website Salon.com. In the article, titled “Why the Rolling Stones shouldn’t play in Israel”, Roger Waters and Nick Mason wrote: “Playing Israel now is the moral equivalent of playing Sun City at the height of South African apartheid.” The aging rockers added that the Rolling Stones’ Israel concert comes at “a critical time in the global struggle for Palestinian freedom and equal rights.” The Stones are due to perform on June 4 at Tel Aviv’s...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Friday became a formal party to five global treaties banning torture and racial discrimination, and protecting the rights of women, children and the disabled, the UN said, according to AFP. Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN human rights office, told reporters that the move followed the PA’s April 2 declaration to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that they were adopting the treaties. In addition, the PA will on May 7 become party to an accord protecting children in conflict zones—which is an optional part of the overall child rights treaty—and on July 2 it will...

Israel Police spokesman denies claim, says, "The police are working around the clock on this issue."

A shocking video taped publicly by left-wing activists on the campus of Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum has provoked a storm of anger in Israel. The video was taken in front of a monument commemorating Holocaust victims, and features an actress dressed as a prostitute calling herself “the Holocaust,” who says the Jewish nation should thank her for teaching it “how to round up Palestinians in concentration camps.” Throughout her expletive-filled tirade the actress, who was flanked by a man who appeared to be a bodyguard, made obscene gestures and screamed at shocked members of the public who had come...

President of the European Jewish Congress Dr. Moshe Kantor spoke Sunday about the fact that Jews feel less welcome and more insecure in large parts of Europe during the release of the findings regarding the situation of anti-Semitism worldwide in 2013. […] During 2013, there were 554 registered violent anti-Semitic acts, perpetrated with weapons or without, by arson, vandalism and direct threats, against persons, synagogues, community centers and schools, cemeteries, monuments and private property. The highest number of recorded incidents comes from France: 116, a rise in violent cases has also been noted in the UK, with 95 cases compared...