Israel News for June 17, 2016
Jerusalem Terror
Terrorists threw four firebombs at a home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanetziv today. The firebombs were thrown from a street in neighboring Jabel Mukaber. Shortly after the attack, Police arrested four Arabs, all from Hebron.
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PM Contender
Former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has declared that he will run for Prime Minister in the next election saying, “Last month I resigned from my position as defense minister and Knesset member, and made it clear that I would return to public service. I intend to run for the leadership of Israel in the next elections.”
In his speech at the Herzliya Conference Yaalon said, “The State of Israel and its citizens deserve a stately leadership that stops cynically zigzagging (on its position) every other day. We deserve a leadership that doesn’t choose the corrupt system of divide and rule. I can’t stand the fact that the leadership in Israel of 2016 is busy fanning the flames, inciting, intimidating and dividing Jews and Arabs, the right and left wings, and different sectors of society. It does all of this just to survive, stay in government for another month or another year.”
He said that Israel did not face an existential threat to its survival from outside enemies, including Iran. “The State of Israel is the strongest in the region. I can confidently say that at this time and in the foreseeable future there is no existential threat to the state of Israel. I say this as someone who knows every last detail of the security situation in Israel, and who knows the power and strength of the IDF and its intelligence capabilities. The Iranian nuclear project likewise does not pose an immediate threat to Israel and the countries in the region.”
Yaalon added, “The leadership in the State of Israel should stop scaring civilians and giving them the feeling that we are on the brink of a second Holocaust.”
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Moskowitz Passes
Dr. Irving Moskowitz, the American Jewish philanthropist donated tens of millions of dollars to Jewish settlement efforts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, died yesterday at the age of 88.
The Moskowitz Foundation he founded in 1968 along with his wife, Cherna, was a major supporter of El’ad and Ateret Cohanim, two organizations involved in moving Jews to live in predominantly Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. It also was a major donor to the One Israel Fund, which supports projects in Judea and Samaria.
Moskowitz was born in New York City in 1928, the ninth child of Jewish immigrants from Poland. He grew up in Milwaukee, where he earned his medical degree, later moving to California, where he created a business building hospitals and ran a legal gambling business. He later moved to Miami Beach.
He will be buried in Jerusalem. May his memory be a blessing.
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Israel vs Facebook
An Israeli judge has approved a $400 million class action suit against Facebook for violating users’ privacy by using their private posts to determine which advertisements they should see, without obtaining their knowing consent to this policy. The suit also accused Facebook of violating Israeli law by not registering its database in the national database registry.
Facebook argued that its terms of use, agreed to by users, explicitly requires all suits against it to be heard by one of two specified California courts. It also claimed that its relationship with users is governed by California law, which would preclude Israeli courts from hearing such suits.
But Judge Esther Stemmer rejected these arguments, despite acknowledging that legal precedent does award jurisdictional priority to the courts stipulated in the users’ agreement.
She said, “Perhaps the time has come to examine the issue from a different angle, from the customer’s standpoint, especially when he’s the customer of huge international corporations that deal with customers all over the world.”
Stemmer added, “It’s not clear that Facebook’s right to litigate in one single place in the world, as stipulated in the uniform contracts it had users’ sign, overrides the right of all the users to readily obtain legal remedy in their own countries.”
The judge charged Facebook 10,000 shekels for court costs and gave it 90 days to respond to the suit.
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Syrian Kosher
Many of the rebel groups fighting in the souther region of Syria near the Israeli border might be going kosher. Well, not exactly, but they have been eating Israeli made food products including rice, flour and sugar. It’s unclear how the products are getting to the rebels, but they’re probably brought back by wounded soldiers treated in Israeli first aid stations and hospitals near the border. The rebels bring their wounded and leave with food, medicine and other Israeli aid.
Of course, the Arab press and social media is condemning the groups for collaborating with the evil Zionist enemy. Meanwhile, the Syrian rebels are enjoying the fruits (and medicine) of the Holy Land.
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