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Morning turnout at highest since 1999 as Israelis vote for 5th time amid deadlock

Party leaders cast their ballots and encourage citizens to do the same before voting ends at 10 p.m.; Beit Shemesh polling station attacked by extremists
Over 12,000 polling stations opened across the country on Tuesday morning to allow around 6.8 million eligible Israeli voters to cast their ballots, as the nation went to the polls for the fifth…

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Abraham Accords-focused NGO plans to combat Jew-hatred with Holocaust education

“If we don’t stop anti-Semitism at a certain point, it will spread,” said Ahmed Khuzaie, director of U.S. affairs at Sharaka, calling the Shoah “a human story. It’s not just about the Jews.”

On Oct. 27, the fourth anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, hatred of Jews was a…

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Exclusive: Iran prepares enrichment escalation at Fordow plant, IAEA report shows

VIENNA, June 20 (Reuters) – Iran is escalating its uranium enrichment further by preparing to use advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its underground Fordow site that can more easily switch between enrichment levels, a United Nations nuclear watchdog report seen by Reuters on Monday showed.
The move is the latest of several steps Iran had long…

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Israel cancels youth trips to Poland over Holocaust studies

JERUSALEM — Israel has canceled educational trips to Poland for thousands of high school students this summer, claiming the Polish government is trying to control the Holocaust-studies curriculum taught to Israeli children, the Israeli foreign minister said.

The announcement by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid reignited longstanding tensions…

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The Scourge of Antisemitism Has Returned to America

The Jewish community is in crisis. For decades, we viewed the specter of antisemitism as a ghost of the past, a hatred from another time and another place. We still saw it in the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe, even in occasional glimpses from our Western allies. But when antisemitism appeared here in the U.S., it used to be on the…

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Anti-Israel demonstrators call for resistance ‘by any means necessary’ outside Israeli consulate in New York

Several anti-Israel organizations, including some designated by Israel as terrorist organizations, joined to protest actions in the last few weeks by the security forces in the Jewish state in front of Israel’s consulate and Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Midtown Manhattan, calling for “resistance and liberation by any means necessary”…

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UN votes to suspend Russia from Human Rights Council, with Israel’s backing

The UN General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the global organization’s leading human rights body over allegations of horrific rights violations by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, which the United States and Ukraine have characterized as war crimes.

The vote was 93-24 with 58 abstentions, significantly lower than the vote on two…

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Bennett: We’re working ‘around the clock’ to prevent further attacks

Security forces are working “around the clock” to prevent further terror attacks, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Saturday night after a terror attack was thwarted when Border Police killed three members of a Palestinian terrorist cell near Jenin yesterday.

Four Border Police officers were wounded in the operation by the Counterterrorism…

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Friday prayers on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount pass without clashes as Ramadan begins

Friday’s Muslim prayers on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the first of the holy month of Ramadan, passed without special incident as of late afternoon.

Israeli forces had been on the highest alert ahead of the prayers at the flashpoint site following a wave of terror attacks.

Police brought in hundreds of reinforcements to the city and set up a…

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Senate committee advances Deborah Lipstadt as antisemitism monitor

Two Republicans joined the Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in approving Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt to be the State Department’s next antisemitism monitor on Tuesday, paving the way for her likely confirmation by the full Senate.

Marco Rubio of Florida and Mitt Romney of Utah joined the Democratic majority in a vote,…

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Gantz meets Jordanian king in Amman to discuss tensions amid Ramadan

Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman on Tuesday to discuss concerns of spiraling violence amid the upcoming holy month of Ramadan, Gantz’s office said.

It was the third meeting between Abdullah and Gantz, with the first happening secretly in February 2021, and a second taking place publicly in January this…

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‘A Privilege to Help in Their Hour of Need’: Israel Welcomes 10,000th Immigrant Since Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Sasha Zlobjn from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv became the 10,000th refugee to immigrate to Israel since the start of the Russian invasion last month, Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Ministry announced on Monday.

“I fled from Kharkiv with my grandmother and grandfather, but unfortunately my parents were left behind,” Zlobjn recounted upon…

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68 Senators urge Blinken to help end UN inquiry on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

A large bipartisan group of 68 Senators sent a letter to US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, urging him to lead a multinational effort in the UN Human Rights Council and in the UN to end the permanent Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH) spearheaded the letter.

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UAE, US, Israel launch religious coexistence and tolerance team

The US, United Arab Emirates and Israel launched a joint working team that will promote religious coexistence and tolerance on Tuesday, just a day after the Abraham Accords states met at the Negev Summit in Israel.

The team is led by Intelligence Minister Elazar Stern, Emirati Health Minister Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al Owais and US Under…

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12 ISIS supporters arrested in Arab towns after Hadera attack

12 ISIS supporters and members were arrested in the Wadi Ara area of northern Israel and in Nazareth on Monday night, after two terrorist attacks were carried out by ISIS-affiliated terrorists in Hadera and Beersheba in the past week.

Items which may serve as evidence of the suspects’ affiliation with ISIS were seized by Border Police, Israel…

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‘Paradigm-shaping’ Negev Summit participants search for ‘constructive way’ to confront Iran

A bright sun shone over the oasis-like Kedma resort hotel in Israel’s southern Negev Desert during what was dubbed the Negev Summit, hosted by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and featuring U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and four Arab foreign ministers.

So successful was the summit that the ministers decided to make it a recurring…

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US envoy to Iran says he ‘can’t be confident’ a new nuclear deal is ‘imminent’

U.S. special envoy to Iran Robert Malley appeared skeptical on Sunday about the prospects of a new nuclear deal being reached any time soon.
“I can’t be confident it’s imminent,” Malley said at the Doha Forum in Qatar. “It’s not just around the corner and it’s not inevitable.”
The remarks stood in contrast to Sayyid Kamal Kharrazi, a foreign…

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Blinken heads to Israel to talk with Bennett about halting Russia’s war

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about Israel’s mediation efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine when he visits the Jewish state starting Saturday as part of his Middle East trip that will include stops in Morocco and Algeria.

“We will be discussing Israel’s efforts” to negotiate between…