Jerusalem on Thursday 28 April 2016, responded to the looming French peace initiative, which is to involve an international effort forcing peace talks on Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). As part of the French initiative, an international summit has been announced for 30 May 2016, in which ministers from 20 countries will prepare an international summit in the second half of 2016, which would include Israeli and PA leaders. "Israel adheres to its position that the best way to a solution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is direct bilateral negotiations," read the Prime Minister's Office statement on the initiative on Thursday. Restating PM Binyamin Netanyahu's frequent public offers to negotiate with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the statement said, "Israel is prepared to start negotiations immediately with no preconditions. Any other diplomatic initiative distances the Palestinians from the table of direct negotiations." The French initiative aims to force discussions based on the 2002 peace initiative, which was rejected by Israel as it demands the Jewish state make enormous withdrawals and accept an influx of "Palestinian refugees," only to receive a paper promise of normalization from Arab states in return. (Arutz-7) [Comment]

 A new study revealed that 35% of Hungarians hold "high or moderate” anti-Semitic views, and 41% of voters favoring the ruling party admit that they have a negative opinion of Jews. The survey, which questioned 1,200 Hungarian citizens on their views toward Jews, was initiated by the Action and Protection Foundation, a Hungarian organization combating anti-Semitism in the country. Twenty-three percent of respondents claimed to hold "extreme” anti-Semitic views towards Jews, while 12% claimed to hold "moderate” anti-Semitic views towards Jews. When asked about their political affiliation, an alarming 59% of voters who support the extreme-right party Jobbik admitted to holding anti-Semitic beliefs. Meanwhile, 41% of voters who support the ruling Fids party also gave anti-Semitic views. (Israel National News) [Comment]

Citing reports of an increase in anti-Israel activity on college campuses, a bipartisan congressional task force on anti-Semitism asked USA Education Secretary John King to outline how his department is tracking anti-Jewish bias. The letter sent this week to King by 38 members of the USA House of Representatives cites reports of 500 anti-Israel programs on campuses in 2014-2015 and 29 Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns sponsored by student groups in the same period, which it said were respectively a 38 percent and 21% increase over the previous academic year. The signatories said in the letter that they "hope you share our view that any campus activity that threatens, harasses, or intimidates Jewish students should not be overlooked simply because it is presented as ‘anti-Israel’ or ‘anti-Zionist.’”
It asks King how many cases of anti-Semitism the department’s Office for Civil Rights is currently investigating; what instructions regional department staffers get to detect anti-Semitic bias, and whether they specifically receive guidance on how to ascertain whether discourse about Israel devolves into "hostile environments;” and whether staffers are told that according to a 2004 Department of Education directive, staffers may regard hostility targeting a faith group as equivalent to hostility targeting an ethnic group. (Times of Israel) Intercede for strong and influential voices to come out against anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias on university campuses in the USA and across Europe. Pray against the demonic strongholds that fuel the increasing hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. [Comment]

 Iran on Thursday, 21 April 2016 rejected a ruling by the USA Supreme Court which determined Iran would have to compensate families of victims of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and other attacks linked to the Islamic Republic. The ruling said Iran would have to compensate the victims with nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The spokesman of Iran's foreign ministry, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, blasted the verdict and said that "such a verdict is a theft of the assets and properties of the Islamic Republic of Iran." He added that Iran considers the American government responsible for compensating any damages that Iran might incur from the verdict. Over 1,000 American families had been involved in the ruling, which follows a lengthy legal battle over the fund and over compensation for Iranian terror attacks. Ansari said the verdict also shows Washington is still under the influence of Israel and that such hostile action against Tehran "only adds to the growing and intense mistrust of USA policies by the Iranian government and nation." (INN) [Comment]

France will host a meeting of ministers from 20 countries on 30 May, 2016 to try and relaunch the Israel-Palestinian peace process, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has announced. He said, however, that Israel and the Palestinian officials would not be invited to the meeting, which will take place in Paris. Ayrault explained that the aim was to prepare an international summit in the second half of 2016, which would include the Israeli and Palestinian leaders."The two sides are further apart than ever,” he admitted. But he said: "There is no other solution to the conflict than establishing two states, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, living side by side in peace and safety with Jerusalem as a shared capital. He said the discussions would be based on the 2002 Saudi peace initiative - approved by the Arab League but not Israel - which called on the Jewish state to withdraw from Palestinian territory captured in the 1967 Six Day War, including East Jerusalem, in exchange for a normalization of ties with Arab countries. (Times of Israel) What appears like wisdom to the world in carving up the State of Israel, whether it be through a false peace process with Israel’s foes, or through manipulating boycotts and decrees is direct disobedience to the Word of G-d and will trigger the most severe divine judgment. "I will gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; they have also divided up My land.” Joel 3:2 [Comment]

Though incitement spurred the current terror wave, another mind-bogging phenomenon has come to light where female perpetrators are concerned, a member of the Israeli cabinet disclosed last week. During a pre-Passover toast at the Knesset, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan pointed to what he claimed came as a surprise when examining the willingness of young Palestinians to commit stabbing, car-ramming and other attacks – inspired by content on the Internet. "I thought it couldn’t be that they believe the lies spread on social media,” Erdan said, referring to claims, for example, that Jews are trying to storm the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But then, said Erdan, "I went and read the transcripts of the interrogations of the terrorists who had been apprehended. It is simply unbelievable. The terrorists said they had returned from an event organized by the Islamic Movement, where they became convinced that Israel was really about to destroy the mosques, and they felt the need to contribute to the cause by trying to kill Jews.” It was while reading those transcripts, Erdan said, that he came across a phenomenon he hadn’t encountered before. "Whereas they used to promise terrorists 72 virgins [in paradise], now what has happened is that some of the terrorists were so good-looking that their female counterparts told their interrogators that they had wanted to die in order to hook up with them.” (Algemeiner) [Comment]

Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, the first suicide bomber in Jerusalem in a decade, did not grow up in a refugee camp and his uncles are prosperous merchants. But the cover photo on his Facebook page includes the image of Yahya Ayyash, the chief bomb-maker for Hamas, who was killed in 1996. His relatives said Abu Srour was more of a Palestinian preppy, the scion of a well-to-do clan of eight prosperous brothers who own and operate a string of furniture outlets and take their children for holidays in Jordan. His relatives scoffed at the idea that Abu Srour would know how to make a bomb himself. Who gave him the bomb and how it was detonated is now the object of an investigation. (Washington Post) [Comment]

 Iranian-backed Shia Islamist rebels have arrested a Yemenite rabbi they accuse of helping smuggle a 500-year-old Torah scroll out of the country to Israel. The scroll was brought to Israel by 19 Yemenite Jews who made aliyah in March 2016, escaping widespread persecution, death threats and violent attacks, particularly at the hands of Shia Houthi rebels, who are locked in a bloody civil war with Yemen's embattled government. Some 50 Jews opted to remain in Yemen, however, among them Rabbi Yahia Youssef Yaish, who remained holed up in a protected compound in the capital Sanaa together with most of what remains of the ancient community. But the Houthis, who seized Sanaa from government forces last year, promptly arrested Rabbi Yaish, on charges of "smuggling an ancient Torah scroll to Israel," and thereby "robbing Yemen's historical assets." Another Yemenite rabbi, Rabbi Saliman Dahari, physically brought the scroll to Israel. The Houthis are avowedly anti-Semitic, a racist sentiment enshrined in their infamous slogan: "God Is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam."

The Yemenite Jewish community is one of the most ancient Diaspora Jewish communities in the world, dating back to the First Temple Period. But while it was once a large, strong and thriving community - as late as the early twentieth century numbers tens of thousands - Yemen's Jews were ethnically-cleansed in the course of the last century. Persecution, discrimination, kidnappings, forced conversions and attacks by the Muslim majority prompted most Yemenite Jews to emigrate - largely to Israel but also to other parts of the Diaspora - and today only 50 Jews are known to remain in the country. (Arutz-7) Please intercede for the soon release and protection of Rabbi Yaish, and for Yemen’s small, remaining Jewish community. Pray the last of Yemen’s Jews will decide to leave Yemen and that provision will be made for them to make new homes in Israel.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon has sent a sharp letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, demanding that he condemn the Hamas terrorist organization. The call comes after Israel earlier this month uncovered a massive terror attack tunnel leading from Gaza into sovereign Israeli territory, and after a Hamas terrorist conducted a bus bombing in Jerusalem on Monday, 18 April 2016 leaving numerous victims wounded, in the first bus bombing of the current Arab terror wave. "The UN must call Hamas by name and condemn the murderous terror visiting upon the state of Israel," wrote Danon in his letter. Noting on how Hamas has been siphoning off humanitarian goods to build terror tunnels and construct rockets, he continued, "the terror tunnel was not built overnight. The leadership of Hamas has openly declared their intention to use all means standing at their disposal to conduct lethal attacks against Israel." Danon pointed out that the UN Security Council has yet to condemn the newly discovered tunnel, or the Jerusalem bus bombing. (INN) [Comment]

Google will grant $700,000 to an Israel-based initiative aimed at producing technology to help people with disabilities. The search engine giant’s grant to Tikkun Olam Makers, or TOM, was announced Tuesday 19 April 2016, as part of the Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities campaign. The funding will "underwrite TOM’s plans to support a global movement of innovators creating extremely affordable solutions to neglected needs of people with disabilities, with the goal of improving the lives of 250,000,000 within a decade,” according to a statement from The Reut Group, the Tel Aviv-based nonprofit think tank that started the initiative. Tikkun Olam Makers holds three-day innovation marathons in which engineers and technologists come together to invent products for people with disabilities - like a bionic hand and a walker that helps disabled people climb stairs. It claims to have created 120 product prototypes since 2014. (Arutz-7) [Comment]