Netanyahu To Attend Inauguration Of Brazil’s New President

Israel’s prime minister said he will congratulate Brazil’s newly elected president in person at his inauguration ceremony on January 1, 2019.

Benjamin Netanyahu told Jair Bolsonaro in a congratulatory telephone conversation on Monday (10/29) about his intention to greet him soon in Brasilia for his victory, according to a Sao Paulo newspaper.  Israeli media on Wednesday (10/31) confirmed the prime minister’s intention to travel to Brazil, citing an official in the prime minister’s office.

The Brazilian lawmaker is a passionate admirer of Israel and has vowed to transfer the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“I am certain that your election will lead to a great friendship between our nations and to a strengthening of Israel-Brazil ties.  I’m looking forward to your visit to Israel,” Netanyahu added, referring to Bolsonaro’s pledge to visit Israel on his very first international trip as president.

Netanyahu will become the first-ever sitting prime minister to visit the country.  When David Ben-Gurion visited in 1969, he was no longer head of the Israeli government.

Less than 24-hours after the announcement of his victory, Bolsonaro welcomed to his apartment for a private meeting Israel’s ambassador in Brazil, Yossi Shelley, and honorary consul in Rio, Osias Wurman.

In September 2017, Netanyahu spent several days in Latin America in a visit that included Argentina, Colombia and Mexico.  It was the first-ever visit of a sitting Israeli prime minister to the region, but its largest nation was left out due to the strong anti-Israel sentiment that had been permeating Brazil’s political environment after nearly 15-years of far-left governments.

(jta.org)

 

Israel’s Mossad Foils Iranian Assassination Plot In Denmark

Israel’s intelligence services aided Denmark in foiling a recent assassination attempt by Iranian agents, Israeli media outlets reported Wednesday (10/31).

On Tuesday (10/30), Denmark announced that it had recalled its ambassador to Iran, after it accused Tehran of plotting to assassinate three Iranian nationals residing in Denmark, AFP reported.

“I have decided to recall Denmark’s ambassador in Tehran for consultations…Denmark can in no way accept that people with ties to Iran’s intelligence service plot attacks against people in Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen was quoted as having told reporters.

“It is the Iranian government, it is the Iranian state that is behind the plot,”Samuelsen added.

A day later, Israel media outlets reported that Israel’s Mossad agency had played a key role in foiling the Iranian assassination plot, a senior Israeli official said.

The official claimed that the Mossad provided Danish security services with information which led to the arrest of a member of the suspected Iranian terror cell operating in Scandinavia.

Prior to Samuelsen’s announcement on Tuesday (10/30), the head of Denmark’s intelligence service PET, Finn Borch Andersen, said his agency believed the Iranian intelligence service “was planning an attack in Denmark” against three Iranians suspected of belonging to the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran.

(afp.com; reuters.com)

 

BDS: 15 Arab, Islamic Countries Cooperate With Israel

Twenty percent of Arab and Islamic countries possess diplomatic relations with Israel, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) global campaign reported on Monday (10/29).

“Nine Arab countries possess full diplomatic ties with the Israel occupation, while six others are experiencing lower-scale relations with Israel,” BDS said in its recent report entitled “The Reality of Normalization in the Arab and Islamic World.”

BDS warned the Arab states of what it described as a “dangerous reality” resulting from the “Arab countries’ unprecedented normalization with Israel.”

The Palestinian-led campaign called on all Arab and Islamic countries “to renounce normalization with the occupation [Israel] as well as pressure them to recognize the rights of the Palestinian people.”

The anti-Israel organization pointed out that Israel has been following what is described as “formal and informal normalization” across the Arabic region, and accused some Arab countries of committing “unforgivable crimes.”

“Palestinians won’t forgive anyone who normalizes with the Zionist entity” the boycott organization stressed.

BDS is a Palestinian-led movement.  It aims at raising global awareness about the importance of boycotting the Israeli occupation at all levels, and rejects its co-existence with countries who normalize relations with it.  

(middleeastmonitor.com)

 

Israeli Border Police To Issue ‘Stab-Resistant’ Gloves To Officers

In the latest response to the wave of grassroots Palestinian terror in recent years, Israel’s Border Police will soon equip thousands of troops with tactical stab-resistant combat gloves.

Border Police fighters are normally on the front lines of Palestinian terror and are often the targets of  knife-wielding terrorists. In many cases, border policemen have had to engage in close-range combat with terrorists using exposed hands.

The unique protective gloves were developed by the Border Police in conjunction with Israeli company AGILITE, which won the public tender.  The gloves are manufactured by American company Mechanix Wear, a global leader in the tactical combat glove industry.

As part of the comprehensive trial process, the Border Police’s most elite combat units tested several types of gloves.  The Mechanix gloves were designed to Border Police specifications, and are expected to be procured in large quantities.

The Border Police also recently developed the “Hadas” neck protector – named after Border Police Staff Sgt. Hadas Malka, who was killed in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in June 2017.

(israelhayom.com)

 

Poll: 38% Of British Voters Brand Jeremy Corbyn An Anti-Semite

LONDON – Thirty-eight percent of Britons believe Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left leader of the country’s main opposition party, is an anti-Semite, according to a new poll released Wednesday (10/31).

The poll also shows deep public skepticism about Corbyn’s repeated insistence that his controversial contacts with terror groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah are designed to bring about an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The annual survey for the British Israel Communications and Research Center, an independent UK-based think tank, indicates that Corbyn’s tough anti-Israel stance is out of step with most voters.  Support for the Jewish state in Britain is holding steady after reaching a seven-year high in polling conducted last October.

The research follows a particularly tumultuous six months for the Labour Party and its leader after a series of revelations about Corbyn’s alleged links to terrorists, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.

The news in March that Corbyn had previously defended an anti-Semitic mural, and the Jewish community’s “Enough is Enough” demonstration in Parliament Square in its wake, was swiftly followed by the row over the party’s refusal to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.

Over the summer, the Labour leader was hit by allegations that he attended a 2014 ceremony honoring the terrorists behind the 1972 Munich massacre and hosted a 2012 panel featuring a number of senior members of Hamas, as well as the disclosure of footage from 2015 in which he appeared to suggest that “Zionists” “don’t understand English irony” despite growing up in the country.

The BICOM survey, carried out at the beginning of October by the poling company Populus, tested the defenses deployed by Corbyn in the light of the accusations of anti-Semitism which have dogged his three-year leadership of the Labour Party.

(timesofisrael.com)