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July 13, 2020 at 10:09 am
Prof. Raanan Rein said the article is 'important' for bringing the two nations closer
A professor of Hebrew studies from Saudi Arabia has published an article in an Israeli academic journal, the first such occurrence in history.
Prof. Mohammad Ibrahim Alghbban published an article in Kesher, a journal from the Shalom Rosenfeld Institute for Research of Jewish Media and Communication at Tel Aviv University (TAU).
The article is titled "A Contribution Towards Improving the Image of the Prophet Muhammad in The Eyes of Israeli Public: Muhammad’s Alliances and Mail Exchanges with Jews of The Arabian Peninsula," according to the TAU press release.
Alghbban, head of Hebrew Studies program in the Modern Languages Department at King Saud Unive...
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July 13, 2020 at 10:09 am
Immigration and absorption minister says all efforts focused on coronavirus response
The current agenda of the Israeli government does not include a plan to apply Israeli laws to any West Bank areas, Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata said Monday.
In her interview for Reshet Bet radio, she hinted there was overall little clarity as to when any measure of the sort would be put before the government -- and whether that would happen at all.
She stressed that at the current time, the government was prioritizing the measures to contain the COVID-19 coronavirus above everything else.
Under a coalition agreement, a plan to apply Israeli laws to West Bank areas, as envisaged in a peace plan released by US President Donald Trump earlier this year, could have...
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July 13, 2020 at 10:06 am
Arab media maintain that pro-Iranian Shi'ite militia is attempting to cleanse country of last remaining Jews
The Houthi militia in Yemen, is reportedly rounding up the country's few remaining Jews, Egyptian newspaper Al Mesryoon claimed in a recent article.
According to the report as cited in Israeli outlet Arutz7, after being rounded up, the Houthis allegedly forced the Jewish residents of the Kharif District to sell their "homes, land and all their properties to Houthi leaders." There were further reports that the Houthis also pressure the Jews to leave Yemen.
Al Mesryoon further maintained that Yemen's tiny Jewish population - thought not to number more than approximately 100 - has consistently faced "systematic discrimination and human rights vio...
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July 13, 2020 at 9:54 am
Israel recorded Monday 611 new coronavirus infections since midnight, bringing its total active cases to 20,251 -- its largest confirmed figure up to date.
Over the course of Sunday, 1,221 individuals were found positive for COVID-19, according to the Health Ministry's coronavirus tracker.
The number of patients in serious condition has risen to 160, including 51 patients on respirators -- an increase of three from yesterday. Read more at i24
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July 13, 2020 at 9:54 am
It is the question that is on the mind of many parents, teachers and kids – what will Maryland schools look like in the fall?
According to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, the State Superintendent of Maryland Schools Dr. Karen Salmon will be giving the governor a potential plan for reopening schools in the fall.
In an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press, Hogan hinted at a possible hybrid plan which will feature a combination of at-home virtual learning and in-person classroom instruction to start things off this fall.
“(Salmon) has been meeting with all the local jurisdictions and with all of the top health professionals, getting all the stakeholders' input,” Hogan said on Meet the Press. “We’re going to come up with a plan that is probably going to be a...
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July 12, 2020 at 10:08 pm
According to the Biden campaign’s job listing, the position is aimed to “build and manage a national outreach program to support the political objectives of the campaign.”
WASHINGTON – Joe Biden’s presidential campaign tapped Aaron Keyak, a longtime political strategist and consultant, as the campaign point man for Jewish outreach, The Jerusalem Post has confirmed. The Jewish Insider first reported Keyak’s appointment.
According to the Biden campaign’s job listing, the position is aimed to “build and manage a national outreach program to support the political objectives of the campaign.”
Keyak is the managing partner and co-founder of Bluelight Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm. He previously served as the communications...
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July 12, 2020 at 9:38 pm
The White House is pressing Israel to hold off on moving forward with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan to apply Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria until Netanyahu wins the backing of senior coalition partner Benny Gantz, Kan reported Sunday evening.
According to the report, the US is urging the Likud to reach an agreement with Blue and White on the sovereignty plan, so as to maintain the Israeli government’s stability.
In addition, the report claims that the White House is trying to extract Israeli concessions to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria, in the hopes of using the concessions to bring the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table.
Prime Minister Neta...
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July 12, 2020 at 9:34 pm
Iran and China have quietly drafted a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
The partnership, detailed in an 18-page proposed agreement obtained by the newspaper, would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects.
In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil over the next 25 years.
The document also describes deepening military cooperation, potentially giving China a foothold in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades.
I...
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July 12, 2020 at 9:31 pm
A senior Hamas official defected to Israel over the weekend, a leading Saudi media outlet reported on Sunday.
According to the report, Mohammed Omar Abu Ajwa, who commanded an elite unit of naval commandos, escaped by boat accompanied by his brother on Saturday.
The official had apparently been exposed as an Israeli spy and was helped by the Israelis to cross into Israel. He was said to have been carrying important Hamas documents with him. He had reportedly been cooperating with Israel since 2009.
Alternatively citing the Hamas Interior Ministry and Palestinian media sources, Al Arabiya said Hamas also arrested 16 of its own members accused of espionage on behalf of Israel.
Most of the arrested were from the group’s Al Qassam Brigades, which has committed num...
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July 12, 2020 at 9:21 pm
WASHINGTON (Newsmax) – Polls indicate Joe Biden is the favorite to win in November — but 2016 sends a different message.
An overwhelming majority of polls four years ago also indicated Donald Trump would lose, tempering voters confidence in the latest round of surveys in key battleground states, according to USA Today.
And just as they did in 2016, polls in 2020 once again show Trump losing in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The director of the Marquette Law School poll said 2016 is “a reason to be very cautious.”
“It taught us the lesson that there really isn’t safety in numbers because it is possible for a systematic error or change in the last minute of the election to make everybody wrong and that’s what we saw in 2016,” Charles...
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July 12, 2020 at 9:17 pm
NEW YORK (Newsmax) – Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday the disrespect for the New York Police Department is worse than “the bad old days” of record crimes in the Big Apple — and holds the current mayor, Bill de Blasio, responsible.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Giuliani, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, said anti-police demonstrators are Marxists, and that de Blasio ought to be removed from office.
“It’s a disaster,” he said of New York City, conceding there were more murders when he became mayor in 1994.
“But we never had this total disrespect for the police,” he said. “Even in those bad old days, nobody was going to spit at a police...
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July 12, 2020 at 9:16 pm
BROOKLYN (VINnews) — The NYPD is seeking 3 men who are suspected to have beaten a 51-year-old man while yelling anti-Semitic slurs at him.
The incident occurred on Saturday July 11 at approximately 3:00 PM in the afternoon. Police say that they were called by an individual reporting an assault in front of 2525 Kings Highway, near East 27th Street in Brooklyn.
According to police, the victim was walking towards his house, when a vehicle containing 3 individuals stopped alongside him. The occupants began to hurl anti-Semitic slurs at him.
The responded to the verbal assault, at which point the occupants exited the vehicle, threw him to the ground and repeatedly punched him.
The victim was treated at Community Hospital for a broken finger and received stitches on his faces.
The NYP...
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July 12, 2020 at 9:06 pm
New York City’s plague of gun crime continued this weekend — with 15 people shot in the same number of hours since midday Saturday, police sources told The Post.
The shootings — including a 21-year-old man left fighting for his life after being shot in the head while sitting in a car in Sheepshead Bay early Sunday — were more in one day than the whole of the same week last year, sources said.
They capped 43 shootings so far this week — more than triple last year’s tally of 13 for the same period, sources said.
Read more at NY POST.
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July 12, 2020 at 9:05 pm
The Finance Ministry is demanding that social distancing rules be enforced also in private homes, since events that cannot be held in the closed event halls are being held in people’s homes, the Kan public broadcaster reports.
The ministry is also reportedly recommending establishing a database to track the locations of infections and determining infection hot spots.
Additionally, it wants the government to refrain from closing down entire sectors that have significant effect on the economy, according to the report.
Read more at Times of Israel.
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July 12, 2020 at 9:02 pm
The number of people placed in quarantine last week solely as a result of Shin Bet tracking of coronavirus patients is 70,051, Channel 12 reports, after the security service tracked the phones of 6,321 patients.
The report says 3,495 of the people placed in quarantine were diagnosed as COVID-19 patients, accounting for 70 percent of all the carriers found last week.
However, the report adds that one quarter of all appeals against the quarantine order were accepted, meaning that while useful in finding new cases, the Shin Bet tracking is also sending thousands into quarantine unnecessarily.
Read more at Times of Israel.
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July 12, 2020 at 8:59 pm
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., suggested Sunday that former special counsel Robert Mueller III may be invited to testify before his panel, although Graham did not give any details on the timing of any potential invitation.
Graham’s statement came one day after Mueller defended his office’s prosecution of Roger Stone, President Donald Trump’s longtime friend and political adviser, in a Washington Post op-ed.
Trump commuted Stone’s 40-month prison sentence on Friday, using his presidential authority to undermine the unanimous finding by a jury that Stone broke the law multiple times by lying to Congress and obstructing justice.
In his statement Sunday, Graham suggested that he had reconsidered his position on allowing Mueller to testify...
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July 12, 2020 at 8:55 pm
The Israeli government approved a new financial-aid package on Sunday for self-employed businesses that have been struggling due to coronavirus restrictions.
The package presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yisrael Katz provides grants of up to NIS 7,500 ($2,170) to independent contractors and small businesses.
“Last Thursday, I announced together with the Finance Minister an economic safety net for the coming year. Today, we will submit the first step of this plan to the Cabinet. We will declare an immediate advance to the self-employed and controlling shareholders,” said Netanyahu on Sunday at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. “This support, this grant, is not dependent on legislation, and we have instructed that it be put...
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July 12, 2020 at 8:53 pm
Assumptions of herd immunity to the coronavirus as more people get infected may be wrong, according to a worrying new study by British researchers, finding that people who recover from COVID-19 tend to lose their immunity within several months.
A team from King’s College in London has found that the amount of antibodies in recovered patients’ blood was significantly down after three months, meaning they could be vulnerable to reinfection, The Guardian reports.
That means people could catch the virus year after year, like the common cold. If confirmed by more research, it would mean that hopes for getting rid of the virus now depend on the development of an effective and safe vaccine.
Read more at Times of Israel.
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July 12, 2020 at 8:52 pm
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made clear on Sunday that she wants schools to reopen fully for most students for the 2020-21 academic year, even as covid-19 infection rates are soaring in some parts of the country and some superintendents say it is impossible for them to do that.
DeVos made her latest statement about what schools should do on CNN’s “State of the Union.” In the interview with journalist Dana Bash, DeVos doubled down on calls she made last week for schools to reopen. “Kids need to be in school,” she said. “They need to be learning, they need to be moving ahead. And we can’t – we cannot be paralyzed and not allow that or not be intent on that happening.”
DeVos said nothing, however, about what school superintendents hav...
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July 12, 2020 at 8:12 pm
Florida recorded more than 15,000 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the highest single-day increase any state has experienced during the pandemic, officials reported.
Florida’s Department of Health confirmed 15,299 new coronavirus cases in Florida residents inside the state, bringing the state’s total to 269,811 cases.
The state also reported 45 new deaths in Florida residents, adding up to a total of 4,242 fatalities. The new cases and deaths were “reported since yesterday,” according to the website.
Read more at The Hill.
