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Mazel Tov! Jerusalem Zoo Welcomes Mysterious New Addition

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Mazel Tov! Jerusalem Zoo Welcomes Mysterious New Addition

First baby langur monkey born at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, but staff still doesn’t know its sex, as it’s guarded my protective mom.

Congratulations are in order for the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, where a new baby langur was born last week, the zoo proudly announced Monday.

Newly arrived in the Shapiro Family orangutan exhibit, this cute addition has yet to be named because zookeepers still do not know its gender, as its mother is being very protective.

The langur (Trachypithecus auratus) is found in and near the rain forests on the island of Java and several nearby islands in the South Pacific. It is a species of monkey with an exceptionally long tail that is almost twice its body length.

Javan langur infants are born with coats of orange fur similar to orangutans, but the fur usually gets darker as they age. Most Javan langurs have glossy black coats with brown on the legs and belly, but some individuals remain orange, like the mother in the picture at the top of this article.

The infants develop quickly and are often independent within their first year of life, with the females being the primary caregivers for the infants. The langurs are known to also care for infants of other females within the group.

This new baby in Jerusalem is being looked after by both the mother and a black-coated “aunty.”

Located near the Malha shopping mall, the Zoo is known for having in its collection most of the 130 animals mentioned in the Bible.

Also new at the Biblical Zoo are the results of the recent animal elections – the fourth time in the past two years that simultaneous elections were held at the Zoo on Election Day, which is a public holiday in Israel during which the site gets a lot of visitors.

This time, the big name animals went head to head.

As expected, and despite a small dietary scandal in the lead up to the vote (a lion devoured a rabbit in front of a visiting school group), the lion came in a roaring first place with 28% of the vote, maintaining the carnivores’ ruling coalition.

In second place were the elephants with 20% of the votes, and the kangaroos were a surprise newcomer in third place, with 15% of the vote.

The zoo advises visitors to keep their eyes out for these rising – or rather hopping – stars of the animal kingdom if Israel goes to a fifth election later this year.

(United with Israel).

Iran: Damaged nuclear site will take days, not months to repair

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Iran: Damaged nuclear site will take days, not months to repair

Top Iranian nuclear official says Natanz uranium enrichment facility will be expanded during repair work, downplays damage from explosion.

Iran’s top nuclear official said Monday that foreign estimates of the damage done to the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz are overblown, saying most of the repairs will be completed in days, not months.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, spoke at the inauguration of the Iran Quantum Technologies Center on Monday, addressing the explosion at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility Sunday.

Salehi downplayed the explosion, which has been widely attributed to Israel, saying that most of the repairs would be completed in a matter of days.

“You’ll see within the next few days that a remarkable part of the acts of sabotage by the enemy will be repaired. A number of (centrifuge) machines went off-grid because of yesterday’s incident, and a number of others need to be re-examined. The ones that have been damaged will be replaced,” said Salehi.

The AEOI chief went on to say that the Natanz facility’s capacity would be expanded by 50% following the sabotage.

“Let me tell you that whatever has happened, the rectification has been several percent higher.”

“Moreover, we are building multiple advanced shops deep inside the mountains,” he added.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, also played down the incident, saying that a “small explosion” occurred at the Natanz facility, adding that repairs would be done quickly.

“The incident occurred at the electricity distribution center. There was a small explosion, but the damaged sectors can be quickly repaired,” Kamalvandi said, according to Iran’s Tasnim agency on Monday.

(Arutz 7).

 

Mossad warns Israelis: Beware the Iranian honey trap

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Mossad warns Israelis: Beware the Iranian honey trap

Iranian agents behind the fake profiles reportedly attempted to arrange both romantic and business meetings with unwitting Israelis.

Israeli security officials are warning that Iranian agents posing as attractive women on social media are trying to lure Israelis into traveling abroad, where they could become the victims of kidnap or worse.

According to a joint statement released on Monday from security agencies the Shin Bet and the Mossad, Iranian agents have created fake social media profiles depicting young women, who present themselves as working in tourism and other industries.

“These profiles made contacts with Israeli civilians, coordinated meetings with them abroad and attempted to draw them into romantic or commercial meetings,” the statement said.

The Iranian agents behind the fake profiles reportedly attempted to arrange both romantic and business meetings with unwitting Israelis in Gulf and Arab countries, Turkey, and various African and European nations.

“There is genuine concern that such activity by Iranian operatives could lead to attempts to harm or abduct Israelis in those countries in which Iranian [agents] are active,” the agencies warned.

The statement said that the honeypot scam targeting Israeli businessmen is not the first time the Iranian regime has used fake social media profiles to lure unsuspecting people. A similar method was used to persuade Iranian dissidents living abroad to return to Iran, the security agencies said.

Israelis who are working to develop legitimate business contacts in foreign countries should “be alert and aware regarding social media contacts from unknown profiles.”

In light of the risks, the agencies recommended that Israelis ignore friend requests and messages from strangers.

Kylie Moore Gilbert, an Australian-British academic held in Iran on false charges of spying, said in a letter smuggled out from Evin Prison that the regime attempted to use her as bait to lure her Israeli husband into the Islamic Republic.

“The Revolutionary Guard have imprisoned me in these terrible conditions for over nine months in order to extort me both personally and my government,” she wrote in late 2019.

“They have also attempted to use me as a hostage in a diabolical plot to lure my husband, an Australian permanent resident into joining me in an Iranian prison.”

(World Israel News).

 

Israeli Breakthrough in the Battle Against Brain Cancer

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Israeli Breakthrough in the Battle Against Brain Cancer

Researchers at Tel Aviv University discover that blocking a certain protein helps prevent the spread of brain cancer cells.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered a fix to stop certain cells in the brain from helping spread cancerous growths, the university announced on Sunday.

They focused on a problem that had frustrated scientists related to why the brain’s immune system fails to fight the disease and instead encourages division and the spread of deadly glioblastoma cancer cells.

“We’ve been studying glioblastoma for the last decade. We are intrigued by the way that glioblastoma, a very aggressive brain cancer, progresses and advances so quickly in the brain while most treatments are actually useless,” said Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, Director of the Cancer Biology Research Center and the Head of the Cancer Research and Nanomedicine Laboratory at the university.

Glioblastoma is the deadliest type of cancer in the central nervous system, accounting for most malignant brain tumors. It is aggressive, invasive, and fast-growing, making it resistant to existing treatments, with patients dying within a year of the cancer’s onset.

Moreover, glioblastoma produces “cold tumors,” which do not respond to immunotherapeutic attempts to activate the immune system against it.

“Five years ago, we decided to focus on the interactions between the glioblastoma cells and the resident cells in the microenvironment in the brain. We focused on microglia. These are the immune cells of the brain,” she explained.

“To our surprise, we found that not only do the microglia cells do nothing to stop the cancer cells, they actually play a crucial and negative role by accelerating the division, spread and mobilization of glioblastoma cells,” she said.

Satchi-Fainaro’s team found that the brain secretes a protein called P-Selectin (SELP), which alters the brain’s immune cells so that instead of inhibiting the spread of cancer cells, they do the opposite, enabling them to proliferate and penetrate brain tissues.

They then searched for a way to inhibit the SELP protein so that the microglia do what they’re supposed to do and block the spread of what is normally an incurable cancer.

“SELP is a known protein that normally helps cells travel inside the body – especially white blood cells and endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels,” explains Satchi-Fainaro. “The encounter between glioblastoma cells and microglia cells causes them to express SELP in large quantities. In the study, we were able to show that the overexpressed SELP helps the cancer cells travel and penetrate the brain tissue.”

“By inhibiting the secretion of this protein, we actually halted the progression of the glioblastoma in multiple models, in mice and in unique 3D models from brain tissues that has glioblastoma (taken) from patients,” said Satchi-Fainaro.

The results of the study may have lifesaving therapeutic implications and by sheer coincidence, a clinical study is already being conducted to inhibit SELP for a different reason – treating pain associated with sickle cell anemia.

Satchi-Fainaro hopes that since that treatment appears to be showing that inhibiting SELP is proving safe in humans, positive results from that trial could pave the way for relatively rapid approval of a clinical trial repurposing the new treatment for glioblastoma.

“Unfortunately, glioblastoma patients need new treatments immediately. Our treatment may be the needed breakthrough in the battle against the most daunting cancer of all,” she said.

(United with Israel).

Supreme Court rules against California’s limits on in-home religious gatherings

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Supreme Court rules against California’s limits on in-home religious gatherings

The decision noted it was the fifth time the court has rejected the
Ninth Circuit’s analysis of California coronavirus restrictions.

The U.S. Supreme Court in a divided decision late Friday ruled in favor of lifting restrictions on in-home religious gatherings, overturning a lower court ruling that upheld Gov. Gavin Newsom’s limits on people from different homes.

The 5-4 unsigned ruling follows other similar decisions recently regarding churches and the coronavirus pandemic. The decision noted it was the fifth time the court has rejected the Ninth Circuit’s analysis of California coronavirus restrictions.

Chief Justice John Roberts dissented but did not sign the dissenting statement submitted by justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer.

The ruling stated that before it can limit religious gatherings, the government must prove they pose a greater danger than secular activities that remain open, such as shopping or attending movies.

“Otherwise, precautions that suffice for other activities suffice for religious exercise too,” the majority opinion said.

It added that California “treats some comparable secular activities more favorably than at-home religious exercise, permitting hair salons, retail stores, personal care services, movie theaters, private suites at sporting events and concerts and indoor dining at restaurants to bring together more than three households at a time.”

The majority opinion added that the state can’t “assume the worst when people go to worship but assume the best when people go to work,” in a quote from a previous ruling.

Justice Elena Kagan, who ruled against easing restrictions along with Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and John Roberts, wrote in a dissenting opinion that the state has complied with the First Amendment because it also restricts secular at-home gatherings to three households.

California “has adopted a blanket restriction on at-home gatherings of all kinds, religious and secular alike,” she wrote in the dissent joined by Sotomayor and Breyer.

“The law does not require that the State equally treat apples and watermelons,” Kagan wrote, saying that in-home gatherings shouldn’t be compared to businesses.

The lawsuit had been brought by residents in Santa Clara County who hold in-home religious meetings and claimed the restrictions infringed on their constitutional rights, according to The New York Times.

A federal judge ruled against the suit, which was upheld by the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, before being overturned by the Supreme Court.

“The state reasonably concluded that when people gather in social settings, their interactions are likely to be longer than they would be in a commercial setting,” the Ninth Circuit wrote of the federal court’s findings, “that participants in a social gathering are more likely to be involved in prolonged conversations; that private houses are typically smaller and less ventilated than commercial establishments; and that social distancing and mask-wearing are less likely in private settings and enforcement is more difficult.”

(Fox News).

 

Prince Philip’s Mother Saved Jews during the Holocaust

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Prince Philip’s Mother Saved Jews during the Holocaust

Husband to the Queen for 74 years, Prince Philip was deeply proud of his mother, Princess Alice of Greece who was recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

“I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special,” Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, once said about his mother, Princess Alice of Greece, who rescued a family of Jews during the Shoah. “She was a person with deep religious faith and she would have considered it to be a totally human action to fellow human beings in distress.”

Prince Philip died on Friday, aged 99, he had been married to Queen Elizabeth for 74 years.

Princess Alice

Born at Windsor Castle in 1865, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Alice was diagnosed with deafness at a young age and by the age of eight had learned to lip read fluently. Known for her sensitivity to others, enhanced by her own disability, she was married to Prince Andrew of the Greek-Danish Royal family. During the Second World War, the southern part of Greece was occupied from 1941, with the north also occupied from 1943.

(Left) Princess Alice with her son Philip, (Right) Princess Alice and Prince Andrew.

The Nazis began deporting Jews from the south to death camps in Poland in 1941. Haimaki Cohen had been a Jewish member of the Greek parliament and was known to Princess Alice. He died in 1943, having fled to the north of the country. His wife Rachel and her family were hidden by a nun, Sister Chrisaki, on the outskirts of Athens, but had to flee after a short period of time, fearing they would be informed on by neighbors.


The Cohen family. Left to right, Tilde Cohen, Alfred Cohen, Haimaki Cohen and Rachel Cohen in 1941. Photograph: Evy Cohen

Princess Alice, who had been assisting the Swedish and Swiss Red Cross to help care for refugees, heard of the Cohen’s plight and opened the doors of the palace to them. Three of Rachel’s grown up children succeeded in escaping Greece, reaching Egypt via Turkey, while Princess Alice sheltered Rachel Cohen and her daughter Tilde in a third-floor apartment in the palace.

The Cohens remained in the palace for 13 months, with the princess regularly visiting and talking at length with Rachel, also assigning the family two Greeks who helped the family keep in contact with the outside world. It was this communication which helped Rachel discover that one of her sons had not been able to reach Egypt. He was also brought to the palace joining his mother and sister.

Helping a Jewish family came with great risks, especially for Princess Alice, since three of her four daughters had married German princes, who were serving as SS officers. Suspicions of her loyalty were rife, since Philip, her only son had much earlier enlisted to the British Royal navy at aged 18 where he served throughout the war with distinction.

At one point her daughters and their SS officer husbands visited her Athens home and were suspicious of who was living upstairs. The princess played up her deafness, pretending not to comprehend their questioning and claiming simply that a nanny lived with her.


Attending a wedding in 1957 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with the Queen to his left and his mother Princess Alice to his right.

After the war, Rachel and her two children left Greece and later moved along with her other children to Israel. The vast majority of Greece’s approximately 80,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

Princess Alice established a convent in Athens dedicated to helping the needy. Following a coup in the country, she returned to Great Britain to be near to her son and his wife the Queen, whom she lived with at Buckingham Palace, dedicating herself solely to helping the disadvantaged and needy.

Shortly before her death in 1969, Alice requested to be buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives. She died without any possessions having given everything she owned away. 19 years later in 1988, in accordance with her wishes, her body was flown to Israel and placed in the crypt in the Garden of Mount Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives.

Prince Philip laying a wreath at Yad Vashem in 1994.

In 1993, the Cohen family formally applied for Princess Alice to be recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, and a year later Prince Philip made the first visit of a member of the Royal Family to Israel to plant a tree in his mother’s memory.

He was a guest of the President of Israel, Ezer Weitzman, visited his mother’s tomb and spent time speaking with the Cohen family and their descendants who owed their lives to his mother’s kindness.

Speaking at the ceremony, Philip said his mother had acted purely out of faith and conscience. “For years, we did not know, and, as far as we know, she also never mentioned to anyone, that she had given refuge to the Cohen family.”

Princess Alice’s  tree at  the Avenue for the Righteous of the Nations at Yad Vashem 

Prince Philip also added his own recollection of Nazi anti-Semitism while studying at a boarding school as a 12-year-old boy, in the town of Salem in Southern Germany as Hitler rose to power. The school had been owned by one of his brothers-in-law.

“It was the custom of the school to appoint a senior boy to look after the new arrivals. I was unaware of it at the time, but it so happened that our ‘Helper’, as he was called, was of Jewish origin. One night he was over-powered in his bed and had all his hair cut off. You can imagine what an effect this had on us junior boys. Nothing could have given us a clearer indication of the meaning of persecution.”

Phillip had played cricket for his school in England, and still owned his cricket cap which he offered to the Jewish boy to cover his shame. “I was pleased to see that he wore it.”

In 2018, Prince Philip’s grandson, Prince William, currently second in line to the throne, visited Israel on the first official state visit, paying his respects at his great grandmother’s tomb and also meeting Evy Cohen, a granddaughter of Rachel Cohen, along with her son Philippe.

Evy Cohen and her son Philippe Cohen, the granddaughter and great grandson of Rachel Cohen, given refuge by Princess Alice of Greece.

Evy Cohen said, “It was very moving, for all sides. Prince William was very proud to know that his great-grandmother had saved our whole family.”

Philippe told the prince, “We all owe our existence to the courage of Princess Alice. Her attitude was extraordinary, and what she did was absolutely extraordinary. She was very courageous and risked her own life to take in a family in need.”

(Aish).

Intel officials say Mossad behind Natanz power cut; Iran calls it ‘terrorism’

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Intel officials say Mossad behind Natanz power cut; Iran calls it ‘terrorism’

Alleged Israeli cyberattack said to strike serious blow to Iranian
atomic program; security cabinet to meet next week to discuss
recent exchanges with Tehran.

Israel’s Mossad security service was behind a major power cut that halted uranium enrichment at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on Sunday, unidentified intelligence sources told Hebrew media outlets, in what Iran described as an act of “nuclear terrorism.”

In the early hours of Sunday morning, the underground Natanz facility suffered an electrical disruption in what was widely speculated to be an Israeli cyberattack. Iran said the attack did not cause any casualties and did not cause radioactive pollution. Israel has officially refrained from commenting on the matter, and Iran has not specifically accused the Jewish state of being responsible for the incident.

On Sunday evening, unnamed intelligence sources were cited by a number of Hebrew news outlets as saying that the Mossad was involved in the attack, which was reportedly more severe than Iran had indicated.

According to Channel 13 news, the cyberattack caused “severe damage at the heart of Iran’s enrichment program.”

The timing of the attack was also said to not be incidental, coming the day after Iran celebrated its National Nuclear Technology Day; the day after Iranian scientists began operating more powerful centrifuges; and amid ongoing talks in Vienna aimed at revitalizing the flagging 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, which Israel fiercely opposes.

The disruption at Natanz appears to have been designed to counter Iran’s efforts to raise pressure on the United States.

Iran hopes that amassing greater quantities of uranium and enriching it to higher levels will pressure the US into making concessions.

The spokesman for Iran’s atomic program, Ali Akbar Salehi, confirmed that the electrical disruption at Natanz was a deliberate act of sabotage, calling it “nuclear terrorism.”

In comments carried by Iranian state news, Salehi refrained from identifying a perpetrator, but said the attack was carried out by those who oppose Iran’s ongoing negotiations with the West to remove the sanctions against Tehran through the nuclear deal.

“To thwart the goals of this terrorist movement, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to seriously improve nuclear technology on the one hand and to lift oppressive sanctions on the other hand,” Salehi said, according to state TV.

He added: “While condemning this desperate move, the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the need for a confrontation by the international bodies and the (International Atomic Energy Agency) against this nuclear terrorism.”

On Sunday, Israel’s government announced that the high-level security cabinet is scheduled to meet next week for the first time since early February, reportedly to discuss the Iran issue. The meeting was reportedly called at the request of Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, in light of the recent exchanges between Israel and Iran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to refer to the recent events in Iran at a ceremony honoring the country’s security forces on Sunday night, saying the fight against the Islamic Republic was a massive undertaking.

“The fight against Iran and its proxies and the Iranian armament is a giant mission. The situation that exists today doesn’t say anything about the situation that will exist tomorrow,” Netanyahu said.

Last Tuesday, an Iranian cargo ship said to serve as a floating base for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces off the coast of Yemen was struck by an explosion, likely from a limpet mine. Iran has blamed Israel for the blast. An American official told the New York times that Israel was behind the attack.

A private Israeli intelligence firm released a satellite photograph of the ship from Sunday, showing that the vessel has not moved since last week’s attack and remained anchored in the Red Sea, directly between Yemen and Eritrea.

The Natanz nuclear facility, which maintains above ground workshops and subterranean uranium enrichment halls, is considered a major facet of Iran’s atomic program.

The alleged Israeli attack against it came hours after scientists at the site turned on a chain of 164 advanced IR-6 centrifuges that threatened to shorten the amount of time it would take for Iran to amass the highly enriched uranium needed for a nuclear bomb.

On Saturday, officials also began testing the IR-9 centrifuge, which they say will enrich uranium 50 times faster than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, the IR-1. The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only IR-1s for enrichment.

Natanz was largely built underground to withstand enemy airstrikes. It became a flashpoint for Western fears about Iran’s nuclear program in 2002, when satellite photos showed Iran building its underground centrifuges facility at the site, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.

Last summer, an explosion rocked the Natanz facility, in what was also said to have been an Israeli attack aimed at disrupting uranium enrichment and research at the site.

In 2010, the United States and Israel allegedly halted Iran’s nuclear program with the Stuxnet virus, which caused Iranian centrifuges to tear themselves apart, reportedly destroying a fifth of the country’s machines.

Iran has also blamed Israel for the killing last year of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who began the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier.

Sunday’s incident came as US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin landed in Israel for talks with Netanyahu and Gantz. The US, Israel’s main security partner, is seeking to reenter the 2015 atomic accord aimed at limiting Tehran’s program so that it cannot pursue a nuclear weapon — a move staunchly opposed by Israel, particularly Netanyahu.

Meeting with Austin on Sunday, Gantz said Israel viewed America as an ally against all threats, including Iran.

“The Tehran of today poses a strategic threat to international security, to the entire Middle East and to the State of Israel,” Gantz said. “And we will work closely with our American allies to ensure that any new agreement with Iran will secure the vital interests of the world, of the United States, prevent a dangerous arms race in our region, and protect the State of Israel.”

In addition to an ongoing, largely covert fight on the nuclear front, Tehran and Jerusalem are engaged in a maritime shadow war, with both sides blaming the other for explosions on vessels.

In recent months, at least two Israeli-owned cargo ships have been damaged in alleged Iranian attacks, one in the Gulf of Oman and the other as it was sailing to India.

IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi appeared to reference the recent tensions between Israel and Iran in a speech on Sunday.

The Israeli military’s “operations in the Middle East are not hidden from the eyes of the enemy,” Kohavi said. “They are watching us, seeing [our] abilities and weighing their steps with caution.”

Since then-US president Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has abandoned all the limits of its uranium stockpile. It now enriches up to 20 percent purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Iran maintains that its atomic program is for peaceful purposes — despite its leaders regularly threatening to destroy Israel and the Mossad stealing and publicizing Iranian documents showing plans to affix a nuclear device onto a missile. But fears about Tehran having the ability to make a bomb saw world powers reach the deal with the Islamic Republic in 2015.

The deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for it limiting its program and allowing IAEA inspectors to keep a close watch on its work, though not at military sites and some other locations — a key sticking point for critics of the deal.

US President Joe Biden hopes to return to the 2015 agreement, which his predecessor Trump abandoned in favor of a “maximum pressure” campaign in hopes of bringing Tehran to its knees.

However, Biden has so far claimed that he would remove sanctions on Iran only “after it returns to compliance” with the nuclear deal. Iran, meanwhile, is demanding full sanctions relief before it returns to the negotiating table.

Recent developments indicate that the Biden administration will make major concessions
to Iran in exchange for Tehran even agreeing to negotiate.

(Times of Israel).

 

ICC Has No Authority to Probe Israeli ‘War Crimes’

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ICC Has No Authority to Probe Israeli ‘War Crimes’

“The unacceptable interference of the court lacks any legal basis and contravenes the goals for which it was established,” Israel says.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has no authority to launch a war crimes investigation against the Jewish state, Israel has announced.

ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced in March she was launching an investigation against Israel for alleged crimes committed in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in recent days held discussions on the issue of Israeli policy regarding the announcement.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Minister Yuval Steinitz, Minister Yoav Galant, Minister Michael Biton, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, National Security Council (NSC) head Meir Ben-Shabbat, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, and other senior officials all participated in the discussions.

It was decided to adopt the recommendations of the inter-ministerial team led by the NSC, not to cooperate with the international court but also not to leave the prosecutor’s letter unanswered.

Israel will respond and make it clear that the court is acting without authority.

“It will also be made clear that Israel is a nation of laws that knows how to investigate itself,” Netanyahu’s office stated after the discussions.

In the response letter sent to the ICC, it will also be pointed out that Israel “absolutely rejects the claim that it has carried out war crimes.”

“Israel reiterates its unequivocal position according to which the court in The Hague lacks the authority to open an investigation against it,” the letter will note.

This position was also made clear to the court by other countries and noted experts in international law.

“The unacceptable interference of the court lacks any legal basis and contravenes the goals for which it was established. The State of Israel is committed to the rule of law and will continue to investigate any accusation against it regardless of the source and expects that the court will refrain from violating its sovereign authority,” the statement said.

Netanyahu said that “at a time when IDF soldiers are fighting with supreme morality against terrorists who perpetrate new war crimes every other day, it is Israel that the court in The Hague has decided to condemn. There is no other word to describe this other than hypocrisy.”

“A body that was founded to defend human rights has become a hostile body that defends those who trample human rights,” he added.

Mandelbleit restated his position that the ICC lacks any jurisdiction on this matter since no sovereign Palestinian state exists nor does any territory belonging to such an entity.

Israel is not a member of the ICC.

Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor at NGO Monitor, who authored the organizations’ amicus brief to the ICC, and has been involved in the ICC’s Israel-related dealings as far back as the initial efforts in 2008, stated that Bensouda’s decision was “expected,” and her claim that she and her office have consistently engaged in a “principled, non-partisan approach” is “utterly laughable.”

“From the very beginning of her tenure she encouraged the Palestinians to join the Court, has repeatedly relied upon claims from and engaged with Palestinian terror-linked NGOs, and invented out of whole cloth an attenuated legal theory to go after Israelis. And there are many other indications of bias,” she charged.

“It is unclear if the new Prosecutor will be able to undo the considerable damage she has done to the institution’s credibility,” she noted.

(United with Israel / TPS).

Cashing In: BLM Co-Founder Goes On ‘Real-Estate Buying Binge,’ Snagging Four Homes Totalling Millions Of Dollars: Report

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Cashing In: BLM Co-Founder Goes On ‘Real-Estate Buying Binge,’ Snagging Four Homes Totalling Millions Of Dollars: Report

One of the founders of the far-left Black Lives Matter movement is reportedly on a “real-estate buying binge,” already purchasing four homes with a price tag totalling upwards of $3 million.

Thirty-seven-year-old Patrisse Khan-Cullors “went on a real estate-buying binge, snagging four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone, according to property records,” The New York Post reported Sunday.

The progressive activist was also eyeing a spot in an “ultra-exclusive” resort in the Bahamas. The Post detailed:

Patrisse Khan-Cullors, 37, also eyed property in the Bahamas at an ultra-exclusive resort where Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods both have homes, The Post has learned. Luxury apartments and townhouses at the beachfront Albany resort outside Nassau are priced between $5 million and $20 million, according to a local agent.

The self-described Marxist last month purchased a $1.4 million home on a secluded road a short drive from Malibu in Los Angeles, according to a report. The 2,370 square-foot property features “soaring ceilings, skylights and plenty of windows” with canyon views. The Topanga Canyon homestead, which includes two houses on a quarter acre, is just one of three homes Khan-Cullors owns in the Los Angeles area, public records show.

As highlighted by The Daily Wire this past week, Khan-Cullors notably purchased a $1.4 million home in a secluded area of Los Angeles, where the population is reportedly less than 2% black.

“A secluded mini-compound tucked into L.A.’s rustic and semi-remote Topanga Canyon was recently sold for a tad more than $1.4 million to a corporate entity that public records show is controlled by Patrisse Khan-Cullors, 37-year-old “social justice” visionary and co-founder of the galvanizing and controversial Black Lives Matter movement,” dirt.com reported.

Khan-Cullors could be facing more than just fierce online criticism over the spending. According to the Post, “Hawk Newsome, the head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, called for ‘an independent investigation’ to find out how the global network spends its money.”

“If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” Newsome said. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.”

As reported by The Daily Wire’s Paul Bois last summer, the BLM organization’s since-scrubbed “What We Believe” page curiously outlined goals relative to “gender identity” and the disruption of the nuclear family:

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.

We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer?affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

(Daily Wire).

Prince William Rips Prince Harry for ‘Putting Fame Over Family’

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Prince William Rips Prince Harry for ‘Putting Fame Over Family’

The family rivalry of Prince William and Prince Harry is reaching a crescendo after the infamous Oprah interview that was rebuked for tarnishing the British royal family.

“The conversation Harry and William had after the big interview didn’t end well,” a source told Us Weekly.

“William feels that Harry has gotten too big for his boots since moving to California — that success and Hollywood have gone to his head. He’s already accused [Harry] of putting fame over family after the big interview.”

The brothers, sons of the late Princess Diana, had already not “seen each other for over a year,” according to the source.

An unveiling of a Princess Diana statue this summer has led to talk of a reconnecting of the royal brothers, but it might ultimately be the beginning of the end, the source suggested to the magazine.

Prince William was “insisting” on meeting with his brother, but if the division on the family leads to Harry “refusing to meet up,” William “won’t be bossed around,” the source told Us Weekly.

“If Harry acts out on the day or even worse, doesn’t show up, William will never, ever forgive him,” the source concluded.

Meghan Markle did not hold back about Kate Middleton, Prince William’s wife, in the Oprah interview.

“Rude and racist are not the same,” she said. “And equally, you’ve also had a press team that goes on the record to defend you, especially when they know some things are not true. And that didn’t happen for us.”

Prince Harry claimed there is a feeling of being “trapped” by the royalty.

“I was trapped, but I didn’t know I was trapped,” Harry said. “My father [Prince Charles] and my brother, they are trapped. They don’t get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that.”

(Newsmax).

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