Current News

F-16 fighters. Photo: WikiCommons.

An influential Israeli official said at the weekend the Jewish state is confident a military option can be effective if diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program fail.

Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser and close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told the Financial Times that Israel could halt Iran’s nuclear weaponscapability “for a very long time,” and added its air force had been conducting “very long-range flights . . . all around the world” as part of preparations for a possible military confronta… Read More »

UN general Assembly hall.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a UN interpreter caught by an open microphone expressing bewilderment at a slew of resolutions condemning Israel was “brave”, and offered her a job in Israel were she to be dismissed from her position at the UN.

“I hope nothing happens to the interpreter, but at any rate, a place of employment is guaranteed for her in Israel if there is a development in that direction,” Netanyahu said.

Unaware of the open mic, the interpreter broadcast her opinion to everyone at a General Assembly session last week.

“I mean, I think when you have fiv… Read More »

Jerusalem Technology Park. Photo: Wikipedia.

Israel has been ranked second in the Global Dynamism Index science and technology sector of one of the world’s largest worldwide accountancy firms with a mark of 62.7. Israel moved up one place to second from third, lagging only behind South Korea with a mark of 64.2. Israel was ranked ahead of Finland (62.6), Sweden (58.8), and Japan (58.7).

The Grant Thornton index draws together 22 indicators, including GDP growth, R&D spend, regulatory risk, access to finance and labor productivity, across five areas of dynamism (business operating environment, science and technology, labor and human capita… Read More »

Jewish state absent from map in Egypt-based adventure book for kids published by Scholastic Inc., which promises to stop book’s shipment

A detail from a map of the Middle East that appears in the book 'Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt,' published by Scholastic.

Arab textbooks are not the only ones erasing Israel from their maps. Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, has also eliminated the Jewish state in a book.

“Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt,” part of the popular Geronimo Stilton children’s series translated from Italian and published by Scholastic in 2012, tells th… Read More »

A tried-and-true method for lobbyists whose cause is opposed by the U.S. president is to bypass the White House by going to Congress. It worked for Jewish activists in 1943. But will it work in the current battle over sanctions on Iran?

Seventy years ago, the Holocaust rescue activists known as the Bergson Group found themselves stymied by an administration that did not want to take action to save Jewish refugees from the Nazis. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his aides insisted that rescue was not possible until the Nazis were defeated on the battlefield. The White House called its policy “rescue through victory”—a clever way of disgu… Read More »

Two Palestinians admit to murder of Saraya Ofer in Jordan Valley last month; plan began as robbery but upon discovering Ofer's military background they decided to murder him, Shin Bet says.

Men arrested for murder of former IDF colonel Photo: Courtesy

Two Palestinians accused of murdering IDF Colonel (res.) Saraya Ofer in the Jordan Valley last month, originally planned the crime as a robbery, but decided to commit the murder "as a gift to the Palestinian people" when they realized that Ofer was a senior IDF officer, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Thursday.

The two suspects, Oda Frid Taalb Haruv, 18, and Ba… Read More »

Eden Atias, 18, laid to rest after Palestinian teen fatally stabbed him.

Private Eden Atias Photo: Facebook

Thousands of mourners attended the funeral Wednesday night of murdered soldier Private Eden Atias who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian teen in Afula earlier in the day.

The 18-year-old Atias was laid to rest at 11 p.m. Wednesday at the military cemetery in Nazareth Illit.

Atias’s father, who is currently in prison, was brought to the funeral in his prison uniform accompanied by Prisons Service guards.

Earlier Wednesday evening, some 150 people protested at the Afula central bus station, w… Read More »

By Alina Dain Sharon/JNS.org -

While commemorations for the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht took place around the world last weekend, remembrance of the atrocity does not address the problem of modern anti-Semitism, which is often masked as anti-Zionism, the Simon Wiesenthal Center says.

During Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” from Nov. 9-10, 1938, Nazi officials and German civilians killed more than 90 Jews and vandalized more than 7,000 businesses, a turning point in the Nazi era that foreshadowed the Holocaust atrocities to come.

Earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Kristallnacht “one… Read More »

While Geneva talks make progress towards agreement, Iranian state television broadcast simulated missile attack on Israel

An agreement between the United States and Iran over the latter's nuclear program seems imminent, but the charm offensive in Geneva is not mirrored at home. In Tehran, the Iranian government sent a different message with a broadcast on state television of a simulated missile attack on Israel.

The hour-long documentary program included segments about the capabilities of Iranian missiles and the possibility of their use in response to foreign threats. The program included a video simulation of a potential response by Iran to an Israeli strike o… Read More »

‘The Jerusalem Post’ is granted an inside look at the unit that enables the IDF to operate anywhere in the world.

LT.-COL. OMER (last name withheld) stands near an advanced Amirim Battalion communications truck. Photo: yaakov lappin

Whether on the border with Gaza, inside Lebanon, or thousands of kilometers from Israel, any IDF unit operating in enemy territory needs to stay in constant touch with the rest of the military, and the Amirim (Hebrew for treetops) Battalion enables them to do just that.

The Jerusalem Post was given special access to the battalion, which is the pride of the IDF’s C4i (Teleprocessin… Read More »

It last happened in 1888 and, according to one calculation, won’t happen again for another 77,798 years: the convergence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah.

This year, Nov. 28 is Thanksgiving and the first full day of the eight-day Jewish festival of lights, which begins at sundown the previous night.

For many Jewish Americans, this is no trivial convergence, but a once-in-an-eternity opportunity to simultaneously celebrate two favorite holidays, one quintessentially American, the other quintessentially Jewish.

Earlier this year, when the rarity of the synergy began to dawn on American Jews, they began concocting “Thanksgivukkah&… Read More »