his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are
Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of
our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
And
here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either
through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and
only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this
land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.
12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
ISRAEL WILL BE IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM, THE SIGN OF THE START OF THE LAST GENERATION.
NEHEMIAH 2:17
17 Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we (ISRAELIS) are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste,(AD 70) and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem,(DAN 9:24-27) that we be no more a reproach.
LUKE 21:24
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.(ISRAEL RECAPTURES JERUSALEM)(THE BEGGINING OF THE LAST GENERATION AND THE LAST END OF THE AGE OF GRACE.NOT THE END OF THE WORLD ,THE WORLD GOES ON FOREVER)
Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says-In Jerusalem Day Knesset session, Netanyahu rules out a return to pre-1967 divided city, slams ‘absurd’ UNESCO resolution-By Marissa Newman June 1, 2016, 4:29 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear Wednesday that he was opposed to a return to the pre-1967 division of Jerusalem in a future peace deal, and slammed a UNESCO resolution eliding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.“Our roots are deeper than any other nation’s, including to the Temple Mount. Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,” he said, speaking in a special Knesset session marking Jerusalem Day.Israel doesn’t need to “make excuses for [its] presence in Jerusalem,” he added, but he did not definitively rule out any territorial concessions in the city.“We remember Jerusalem up until the [1967] Six Day War,” he said, when the city was split, with Israelis excluded from the Old City and its eastern neighborhoods. “We certainly do not want to return to that situation.”“I believe the Six Day War clarified to our enemies that we are here to stay,” he added.The prime minister also lashed out at an “absurd and outrageous” UNESCO resolution from April that omitted the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jerusalem generally. The resolution accused Israel of “planting fake Jewish graves in Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”“These historical distortions are reserved solely for Jews,” Netanyahu said.Opposition leader Isaac Herzog took to the podium after the prime minister, lambasted the latter’s partial endorsement of the Arab Peace Initiative on Monday and announced that “words mean nothing without action.”In his address, Herzog said Israel must strive for an agreement to keep Jerusalem “Jewish and moral, whole and secure.”“Your talk about regional opportunities is very impressive, but you must take care that they are not seen as flip-flopping or empty statements,” he said to Netanyahu, referring to the prime minister’s joint press conference on Monday with new Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in which the two pledged support for parts of the 2002 Arab proposal.“Jerusalem will not remain Jewish and moral, whole and secure if there is no dramatic change and unless we reach a peace deal,” said Herzog.Meretz leader Zehava Galon, meanwhile, accused Jewish Home’s Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of visiting the Temple Mount earlier in the day, an allegation later denied by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.Galon said Ariel had broken a Knesset ban on lawmakers visiting the Temple Mount on Wednesday morning. Edelstein said that the information was false, and because the issue was so “volatile” it was important to emphasize that no Knesset members had visited the holy site since they were barred from the area late last year amid rising tensions in the capital.Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) urged the government to improve infrastructure in the city’s eastern Arab neighborhoods, but emphasized that Jerusalem would remain united under any future peace agreement.“Unfortunately, one hears talk that in order to save Jerusalem, one must divide it. The Israeli public doesn’t want the city divided, and that’s why we will remain in power,” said Elkin. “If we place a clear red line against dividing Jerusalem, as has been for years, we will be able to reach a [peace] deal, it doesn’t matter with which initiative — French, Saudi, or any other initiative.”Israel on Sunday will mark Jerusalem Day, a national holiday that celebrates the 1967 Israeli capture of the Western Wall and Temple Mount holy sites, along with the city’s eastern half.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I (GOD) will shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAELIS) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
ISAIAH 41:11
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee (ISRAEL) shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing;(DESTROYED) and they that strive with thee shall perish.(ISRAEL HATERS WILL BE TOTALLY DESTROYED)
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
Palestinian woman tries to stab soldiers, is shot dead — IDF-No troops injured in incident at checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus-By Judah Ari Gross June 2, 2016, 1:36 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A Palestinian woman approached a checkpoint in the West Bank Thursday and attempted to stab a soldier. Troops opened fire and shot her dead, the army said.According to the Israel Defense Forces, the woman tried to attack one of the soldiers at the Anabta checkpoint near the Einav settlement, northwest of the Palestinian city of Nablus.Forces at the scene “responded to the immediate threat by shooting the attacker and killing her,” the IDF said in a statement.No Israeli soldiers were injured.On Monday, a 19-year-old Palestinian stabbed and lightly injured an IDF soldier with a screwdriver in Tel Aviv.After nearly six months of regular stabbing attacks in the West Bank and Israel, the past two months have seen a marked decrease in the number of such incidents.
EU legal adviser backs UK firm’s headscarves ban-Citing kippah policy, European Court of Justice’s advocate general says employees ‘may be expected to moderate the exercise of religion in the workplace’-By JTA June 2, 2016, 6:17 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A legal adviser to the European Union supported a British firm’s contested ban on Muslim headscarves, citing the company’s policy against wearing a kippah.The European Court of Justice’s advocate general, Juliane Kokott, gave her opinion earlier this week on a lawsuit for alleged discrimination brought by a Belgian Muslim claimant against her former employer, the security firm G4S, Britain’s The Sun daily reported Wednesday.Dismissing the claimant’s allegation that she had been discriminated against because of her faith, Kokott wrote: “A company rule such as that operated by G4S could just as easily affect a male employee of Jewish faith who comes to work wearing a kippah, or a Sikh who wishes to perform his duties in a turban, or male or female employees of a Christian faith who wish to wear a clearly visible crucifix or a T-shirt bearing the slogan ‘Jesus is great’ to work.”An employee cannot “leave his sex, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or disability at the door upon entering his employer’s premises,” but “may be expected to moderate the exercise of his religion in the workplace,” Kokott added in her nonbinding advisory ahead of the first hearing on the case at the European Court of Justice later this year.The arrival in Europe of millions of Muslims in waves of immigration that began in the 1950s has generated mounting opposition in predominantly Christian societies. The tensions were exacerbated by radical Islamist trends prevalent in many Muslim communities in Western Europe.Many European Muslims feel that opposition and legislation to religious clothing — face-covering clothing was made illegal in France and the Netherlands in recent years — is Islamophobic in essence, even though its application uses neutral and universal language.Meanwhile, some European Jews believe their way of life is collateral damage in the pushback by Europeans against the perceived effect of Muslim immigration, including in the banning in some European countries of ritual slaughter and the fight to outlaw nonmedical circumcision of boys.The debate on equal treatment on religious clothing came to a head in France in 2012, when Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, explained that she is forced to reluctantly support a ban on wearing kippahs because of her opposition to Muslim clothing.“What would people say if I’d only asked to ban Muslim clothing? They’d burn me as a Muslim hater,” Le Pen said, adding that she was “asking our Jewish compatriots to make this small effort, this little sacrifice” for the sake of equality.Founded by her father, a convicted Holocaust denier, the National Front has moderated under Marine Le Pen, who in 2014 said the party was a “shield” for Jews against radical Islam. But both Jewish and Muslim groups condemned her 2012 comment on kippahs and Muslim garb.
Despite BDS, Israeli firms enjoy a foreign investment boom-With pro-boycott arguments failing to make an impact, report finds, fertile conditions are driving record capital flow-By Raoul Wootliff June 2, 2016, 1:09 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Last week the Israeli State Comptroller’s Office issued a scathing report chastising the Foreign Ministry for not having a cohesive strategy to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which targets Israel over its perceived ill-treatment of the Palestinians.But despite the many “failings” detailed in the report, underlining an inability to present any significant political achievements in the battle against BDS, the movement seems to be having little economic impact, according to a Bloomberg report examining foreign capital flow into the country.While BDS has seen some victories in its efforts to stop international entertainers from performing in Israel and encourage companies to divest from Israeli firms, total foreign investment in Israeli assets has in fact gone up, with 2015 clocking a record high of $285.12 billion, Thursday’s report said. That’s a threefold increase since 2005, when the BDS campaign was first launched.“We don’t have a problem with foreign investment in Israel — on the contrary,” Yoel Naveh, chief economist at Israel’s Finance Ministry, told Bloomberg.The report showed that even firms based in the West Bank — a specific target of BDS — have seen an increase in investment. It surveyed nine major Israeli firms with varying ties to settlements that all recorded a hike in non-Israeli holdings over the past three years.Of the companies included, the two that saw the largest percentage increase in their foreign holdings were banks: Bank Leumi, Israel’s largest by total assets, went from 33 percent to 50%; and Israel Discount Bank more than quadrupled its percentage, going from 13% to 55%.A number of reasons were cited for the sustained increase in foreign investment.“Money managers, economists and government officials say Israeli assets are an attractive alternative to weak performers elsewhere. The country’s economy is slowing but growing faster than those of the US and Europe and its interest rate is higher,” the report said.A forecast of 2.8% growth for the Israeli economy in 2016 compared with just 1.8% in the US and Europe, coupled with an appreciating shekel, creates the perfect conditions for breeding foreign investor confidence.In addition, the moral arguments presented by BDS seem to have little impact on potential investors.The BDS movement says it targets Israel primarily over its treatment of the Palestinians through its continued military presence in the West Bank and blockade of Gaza. Yet, according to the report, many investors reject the idea “that investing in Israeli innovation and natural gas violates Palestinian rights, and that Israel’s misdeeds are so exceptional that they justify singling it out for censure.”Still, some companies have been swayed by the BDS movement and chosen to pull funding from Israeli projects and companies.In January 2014 GM of the Netherlands, one of the 20 largest pension asset managers in the world, decided to divest from five Israeli banks because of their involvement in financing the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Last year the US United Methodist Church followed suit, adding the banks to a list of companies in which it will not invest. More recently, Norway’s $860 billion sovereign wealth fund excluded Africa Israel Investments from its portfolio.But according to Israeli officials, the damage is but a drop in the vast ocean of foreign funding.True, there are “some institutional investors that said they are pulling their investments,” Naveh, the Finance Ministry economist, said, but based on the continued increase in foreign investment, “we don’t need it.”
As terrorism dips, IDF arrests on the wane in the West Bank-PA security forces also stepping up cooperation with Israel, scooping up Palestinians suspected of planning attacks-By Avi Issacharoff June 2, 2016, 10:53 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The past two months have seen a significant drop in the number of arrests carried out by the IDF in the West Bank, as well as in the number of raids made by Israeli forces in Palestinian Authority territory.The data is based on both the IDF and testimony from Palestinians, among them senior officials, who say it is the outcome of an implicit understanding between the sides. Senior Palestinian officials say contacts between representatives of the Israel and PA security services aimed at ending Israeli operations in Palestinian cities — an arrangement strongly opposed by members of the Israeli cabinet — have not borne fruit, yet the two sides agreed that IDF soldiers would operate in PA territory only in cases when they are preventing terror attacks.Those understandings led to a drop in the number of arrests and entries into PA territory, the Palestinian officials said. IDF figures show that in March there were 338 arrests in the West Bank. But by April there was already a considerable drop, to 223 arrests, and last month the number had further declined to 215.On the Israeli side, officials cite two main reasons for the drop. First is the plummet in the number of terror attacks, which has reduced the risk by a significant degree since the period between October 2015 and March 2016. The slackening of what has been termed the “lone wolf intifada,” the series of almost-daily terror attacks over those months, has lessened the need for Israeli operations in the Palestinian territories.The second reason for the drop in Israeli arrest operations is the relative effectiveness of the Palestinian security services, which have been carrying out many arrest operations, targeting Palestinians suspected of planning stabbing and shooting attacks and bombings.In general, the level of operations by PA security has significantly risen in recent months, and Palestinian officers are also active in the villages surrounding Jerusalem.Despite the hinted threats by the Palestinians to end security coordination, so far the cooperation remains in place and the joint activities between the two sides have only been increasing.The months from October last year till March saw near-daily stabbings, car-rammings, and shootings by Palestinians that claimed the lives of 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals. Some 200 Palestinians have also been killed over the same period, the majority of them while carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers, and the others during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army.In April Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to fire Education Minister Naftali Bennett as the two rowed over limiting IDF operations in the Palestinian territories with Bennett, who leads the nationalistic Jewish Home party, vowing to keep backing unrestricted Israeli security services access to all areas of the West Bank.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.
12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE
ISRAEL WILL BE IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM, THE SIGN OF THE START OF THE LAST GENERATION.
NEHEMIAH 2:17
17 Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we (ISRAELIS) are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste,(AD 70) and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem,(DAN 9:24-27) that we be no more a reproach.
LUKE 21:24
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.(ISRAEL RECAPTURES JERUSALEM)(THE BEGGINING OF THE LAST GENERATION AND THE LAST END OF THE AGE OF GRACE.NOT THE END OF THE WORLD ,THE WORLD GOES ON FOREVER)
Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says-In Jerusalem Day Knesset session, Netanyahu rules out a return to pre-1967 divided city, slams ‘absurd’ UNESCO resolution-By Marissa Newman June 1, 2016, 4:29 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear Wednesday that he was opposed to a return to the pre-1967 division of Jerusalem in a future peace deal, and slammed a UNESCO resolution eliding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.“Our roots are deeper than any other nation’s, including to the Temple Mount. Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,” he said, speaking in a special Knesset session marking Jerusalem Day.Israel doesn’t need to “make excuses for [its] presence in Jerusalem,” he added, but he did not definitively rule out any territorial concessions in the city.“We remember Jerusalem up until the [1967] Six Day War,” he said, when the city was split, with Israelis excluded from the Old City and its eastern neighborhoods. “We certainly do not want to return to that situation.”“I believe the Six Day War clarified to our enemies that we are here to stay,” he added.The prime minister also lashed out at an “absurd and outrageous” UNESCO resolution from April that omitted the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jerusalem generally. The resolution accused Israel of “planting fake Jewish graves in Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”“These historical distortions are reserved solely for Jews,” Netanyahu said.Opposition leader Isaac Herzog took to the podium after the prime minister, lambasted the latter’s partial endorsement of the Arab Peace Initiative on Monday and announced that “words mean nothing without action.”In his address, Herzog said Israel must strive for an agreement to keep Jerusalem “Jewish and moral, whole and secure.”“Your talk about regional opportunities is very impressive, but you must take care that they are not seen as flip-flopping or empty statements,” he said to Netanyahu, referring to the prime minister’s joint press conference on Monday with new Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in which the two pledged support for parts of the 2002 Arab proposal.“Jerusalem will not remain Jewish and moral, whole and secure if there is no dramatic change and unless we reach a peace deal,” said Herzog.Meretz leader Zehava Galon, meanwhile, accused Jewish Home’s Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of visiting the Temple Mount earlier in the day, an allegation later denied by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.Galon said Ariel had broken a Knesset ban on lawmakers visiting the Temple Mount on Wednesday morning. Edelstein said that the information was false, and because the issue was so “volatile” it was important to emphasize that no Knesset members had visited the holy site since they were barred from the area late last year amid rising tensions in the capital.Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) urged the government to improve infrastructure in the city’s eastern Arab neighborhoods, but emphasized that Jerusalem would remain united under any future peace agreement.“Unfortunately, one hears talk that in order to save Jerusalem, one must divide it. The Israeli public doesn’t want the city divided, and that’s why we will remain in power,” said Elkin. “If we place a clear red line against dividing Jerusalem, as has been for years, we will be able to reach a [peace] deal, it doesn’t matter with which initiative — French, Saudi, or any other initiative.”Israel on Sunday will mark Jerusalem Day, a national holiday that celebrates the 1967 Israeli capture of the Western Wall and Temple Mount holy sites, along with the city’s eastern half.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST
1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I (GOD) will shew thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAELIS) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
ISAIAH 41:11
11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee (ISRAEL) shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing;(DESTROYED) and they that strive with thee shall perish.(ISRAEL HATERS WILL BE TOTALLY DESTROYED)
ISRAELS TROUBLE
JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.
DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)
Palestinian woman tries to stab soldiers, is shot dead — IDF-No troops injured in incident at checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus-By Judah Ari Gross June 2, 2016, 1:36 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A Palestinian woman approached a checkpoint in the West Bank Thursday and attempted to stab a soldier. Troops opened fire and shot her dead, the army said.According to the Israel Defense Forces, the woman tried to attack one of the soldiers at the Anabta checkpoint near the Einav settlement, northwest of the Palestinian city of Nablus.Forces at the scene “responded to the immediate threat by shooting the attacker and killing her,” the IDF said in a statement.No Israeli soldiers were injured.On Monday, a 19-year-old Palestinian stabbed and lightly injured an IDF soldier with a screwdriver in Tel Aviv.After nearly six months of regular stabbing attacks in the West Bank and Israel, the past two months have seen a marked decrease in the number of such incidents.
EU legal adviser backs UK firm’s headscarves ban-Citing kippah policy, European Court of Justice’s advocate general says employees ‘may be expected to moderate the exercise of religion in the workplace’-By JTA June 2, 2016, 6:17 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
A legal adviser to the European Union supported a British firm’s contested ban on Muslim headscarves, citing the company’s policy against wearing a kippah.The European Court of Justice’s advocate general, Juliane Kokott, gave her opinion earlier this week on a lawsuit for alleged discrimination brought by a Belgian Muslim claimant against her former employer, the security firm G4S, Britain’s The Sun daily reported Wednesday.Dismissing the claimant’s allegation that she had been discriminated against because of her faith, Kokott wrote: “A company rule such as that operated by G4S could just as easily affect a male employee of Jewish faith who comes to work wearing a kippah, or a Sikh who wishes to perform his duties in a turban, or male or female employees of a Christian faith who wish to wear a clearly visible crucifix or a T-shirt bearing the slogan ‘Jesus is great’ to work.”An employee cannot “leave his sex, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or disability at the door upon entering his employer’s premises,” but “may be expected to moderate the exercise of his religion in the workplace,” Kokott added in her nonbinding advisory ahead of the first hearing on the case at the European Court of Justice later this year.The arrival in Europe of millions of Muslims in waves of immigration that began in the 1950s has generated mounting opposition in predominantly Christian societies. The tensions were exacerbated by radical Islamist trends prevalent in many Muslim communities in Western Europe.Many European Muslims feel that opposition and legislation to religious clothing — face-covering clothing was made illegal in France and the Netherlands in recent years — is Islamophobic in essence, even though its application uses neutral and universal language.Meanwhile, some European Jews believe their way of life is collateral damage in the pushback by Europeans against the perceived effect of Muslim immigration, including in the banning in some European countries of ritual slaughter and the fight to outlaw nonmedical circumcision of boys.The debate on equal treatment on religious clothing came to a head in France in 2012, when Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, explained that she is forced to reluctantly support a ban on wearing kippahs because of her opposition to Muslim clothing.“What would people say if I’d only asked to ban Muslim clothing? They’d burn me as a Muslim hater,” Le Pen said, adding that she was “asking our Jewish compatriots to make this small effort, this little sacrifice” for the sake of equality.Founded by her father, a convicted Holocaust denier, the National Front has moderated under Marine Le Pen, who in 2014 said the party was a “shield” for Jews against radical Islam. But both Jewish and Muslim groups condemned her 2012 comment on kippahs and Muslim garb.
Despite BDS, Israeli firms enjoy a foreign investment boom-With pro-boycott arguments failing to make an impact, report finds, fertile conditions are driving record capital flow-By Raoul Wootliff June 2, 2016, 1:09 pm-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Last week the Israeli State Comptroller’s Office issued a scathing report chastising the Foreign Ministry for not having a cohesive strategy to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which targets Israel over its perceived ill-treatment of the Palestinians.But despite the many “failings” detailed in the report, underlining an inability to present any significant political achievements in the battle against BDS, the movement seems to be having little economic impact, according to a Bloomberg report examining foreign capital flow into the country.While BDS has seen some victories in its efforts to stop international entertainers from performing in Israel and encourage companies to divest from Israeli firms, total foreign investment in Israeli assets has in fact gone up, with 2015 clocking a record high of $285.12 billion, Thursday’s report said. That’s a threefold increase since 2005, when the BDS campaign was first launched.“We don’t have a problem with foreign investment in Israel — on the contrary,” Yoel Naveh, chief economist at Israel’s Finance Ministry, told Bloomberg.The report showed that even firms based in the West Bank — a specific target of BDS — have seen an increase in investment. It surveyed nine major Israeli firms with varying ties to settlements that all recorded a hike in non-Israeli holdings over the past three years.Of the companies included, the two that saw the largest percentage increase in their foreign holdings were banks: Bank Leumi, Israel’s largest by total assets, went from 33 percent to 50%; and Israel Discount Bank more than quadrupled its percentage, going from 13% to 55%.A number of reasons were cited for the sustained increase in foreign investment.“Money managers, economists and government officials say Israeli assets are an attractive alternative to weak performers elsewhere. The country’s economy is slowing but growing faster than those of the US and Europe and its interest rate is higher,” the report said.A forecast of 2.8% growth for the Israeli economy in 2016 compared with just 1.8% in the US and Europe, coupled with an appreciating shekel, creates the perfect conditions for breeding foreign investor confidence.In addition, the moral arguments presented by BDS seem to have little impact on potential investors.The BDS movement says it targets Israel primarily over its treatment of the Palestinians through its continued military presence in the West Bank and blockade of Gaza. Yet, according to the report, many investors reject the idea “that investing in Israeli innovation and natural gas violates Palestinian rights, and that Israel’s misdeeds are so exceptional that they justify singling it out for censure.”Still, some companies have been swayed by the BDS movement and chosen to pull funding from Israeli projects and companies.In January 2014 GM of the Netherlands, one of the 20 largest pension asset managers in the world, decided to divest from five Israeli banks because of their involvement in financing the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Last year the US United Methodist Church followed suit, adding the banks to a list of companies in which it will not invest. More recently, Norway’s $860 billion sovereign wealth fund excluded Africa Israel Investments from its portfolio.But according to Israeli officials, the damage is but a drop in the vast ocean of foreign funding.True, there are “some institutional investors that said they are pulling their investments,” Naveh, the Finance Ministry economist, said, but based on the continued increase in foreign investment, “we don’t need it.”
As terrorism dips, IDF arrests on the wane in the West Bank-PA security forces also stepping up cooperation with Israel, scooping up Palestinians suspected of planning attacks-By Avi Issacharoff June 2, 2016, 10:53 am-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The past two months have seen a significant drop in the number of arrests carried out by the IDF in the West Bank, as well as in the number of raids made by Israeli forces in Palestinian Authority territory.The data is based on both the IDF and testimony from Palestinians, among them senior officials, who say it is the outcome of an implicit understanding between the sides. Senior Palestinian officials say contacts between representatives of the Israel and PA security services aimed at ending Israeli operations in Palestinian cities — an arrangement strongly opposed by members of the Israeli cabinet — have not borne fruit, yet the two sides agreed that IDF soldiers would operate in PA territory only in cases when they are preventing terror attacks.Those understandings led to a drop in the number of arrests and entries into PA territory, the Palestinian officials said. IDF figures show that in March there were 338 arrests in the West Bank. But by April there was already a considerable drop, to 223 arrests, and last month the number had further declined to 215.On the Israeli side, officials cite two main reasons for the drop. First is the plummet in the number of terror attacks, which has reduced the risk by a significant degree since the period between October 2015 and March 2016. The slackening of what has been termed the “lone wolf intifada,” the series of almost-daily terror attacks over those months, has lessened the need for Israeli operations in the Palestinian territories.The second reason for the drop in Israeli arrest operations is the relative effectiveness of the Palestinian security services, which have been carrying out many arrest operations, targeting Palestinians suspected of planning stabbing and shooting attacks and bombings.In general, the level of operations by PA security has significantly risen in recent months, and Palestinian officers are also active in the villages surrounding Jerusalem.Despite the hinted threats by the Palestinians to end security coordination, so far the cooperation remains in place and the joint activities between the two sides have only been increasing.The months from October last year till March saw near-daily stabbings, car-rammings, and shootings by Palestinians that claimed the lives of 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals. Some 200 Palestinians have also been killed over the same period, the majority of them while carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers, and the others during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army.In April Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to fire Education Minister Naftali Bennett as the two rowed over limiting IDF operations in the Palestinian territories with Bennett, who leads the nationalistic Jewish Home party, vowing to keep backing unrestricted Israeli security services access to all areas of the West Bank.
