Photo: Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon greets Australian foreign minister Penny Wong at a memorial event in Canberra. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS)

Monday didn’t start out easy for Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese. He and his entourage were heckled and picketed before they managed to enter the venue in Melbourne where an October 7 anniversary commemoration was being held.

One woman outside called him “fuckwit” and told him to go away. Others held pre-printed signs also instructing him to leave. At the vigil Australian Jews also expressed shock Albanese was attending, along with former Victoria premiers Jacinta Allen and Dan Andrews. The event was organized by Zionism Victoria and president of the organization Yossi Goldfarb delivered a scathing message to Albanese himself, sitting in the front row, saying the Labor government’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel and its handling of pro-Hamas protests domestically had led to an unprecedented surge in anti-Semitism in Australia.

Former Israeli ambassador to Lithuania and now to Australia Amir Maimon also spoke at an October 7 event held at dusk at the Israeli embassy in Canberra, saying:

“Remembering the horror, reliving the anguish and imagining the terror is painful, yet today we must confront those memories. This was not just a terrorist attack. It was an attempt to erase us. Over 1,200 innocent souls were ripped from our world that day. We did not start this war, but we are determined to win this war, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of the free world. This isn’t just another conflict. This is a battle between good and evil, between life and the forces of destruction.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton received numerous standing ovations at an October 7 commemoration in Sydney.

Members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community from throughout Lithuania, students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius, special guests from Israel, foreign ambassadors and others gathered at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius Monday to remember Hamas’s invasion of Israel, massacre of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of 250 Israelis, Americans, French and Thais hostage on October 7 last year.

Maya Parizer and Raz Shifer were witnesses to the atrocities and spoke at the synagogue.

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein delivered a moving and somber address there as well.

A special thank-you to the Palanga Jewish Community, the Kaunas Jewish Community, the Israeli embassy and the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium for their help and participation.

by Geoff Vasil

Monday will be day 365 of the Iranian hostage crisis. On October 7, 2023, Iranian forces took over 250 Americans, Israelis, French and Thais hostage in Gaza, brutally raping, burning, shooting and murdering another 1,200 people. Around 50 were released on humanitarian grounds and it is believed that of the 101 remaining at least half are now dead.

Day 365 is approaching the 444 days of captivity of the 53 American hostages Islamic Republic revolutionaries in Iran held at the former American embassy complex in Teheran which began in November of 1979.

On April 24, 1980, then president Jimmy Carter sent a hostage-rescue team to Iran to bring them home. The operation during that election year in the United States was a failure, but proponents of the Carter campaign for a second term later made allegations it was sabotaged from within, namely by colonel Oliver North and then-pilot Bob Gates, who later became the head of the CIA. Those allegations were never proven sufficiently.

What did happen, though, is that the leaders of the Iranian Islamic revolution upended talks with the Carter administration and announced in October of 1980 they would not release the hostages until after the November election for president in the United States. Carter’s team had hoped to strike a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini in order to gain American votes for a second term.

Photo: Police at Copenhagen Central Station on Wednesday, where they arrested suspects in relation to explosions near the Israeli embassy north of the city center. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT/Ritzau Scanpix

Two blasts early Wednesday near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen were likely caused by hand grenades, Danish police said.

“Two explosions occurred at 3:20 A.M. at the Israeli embassy. It is our preliminary assessment that it was due to two hand grenades,” Jens Jespersen of the Copenhagen police told a press conference, adding that three young Swedes had been arrested.

Police in both Denmark and Sweden said Wednesday they were probing incidents involving explosions or gunfire around Israeli embassies in their capitals.

In Denmark police arrested the three Swedish nationals after two blasts were reported in the “immediate proximity” of the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen in the early hours.

Iran fired 181 mainly ballistic missiles at Israeli cities Tuesday evening. Iran claimed they fired over 400 missiles including a new hypersonic missile. Israel reported one death of an Arab in Jehrico and some damage to buildings in Tel Aviv, a missile hitting near the Ayalon Mall and damaging a school with no one inside. Iran claimed they had delivered a crippling blow to the Jewish state and had only targeted military and intelligence installations. The first volley appeared to target Mossad HQ in Tel Aviv but apparently were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow anti-missile systems. The Kingdom of Jordan and the United States reportedly helped intercept incoming Iranian missiles. A Pentagon spokesman said American warships off the coast fired 11 interceptor missiles at incoming Iranian missiles. The United States and the United Kingdom condemned Iran’s attack while the prime minister of Australia again called for deescalation. Two Islamic terrorists from the West Bank murdered 6 Israelis and wounded another 12 using a knife and a gun at a transit station in Jaffa just before Iranian missiles were fired.

September 11, 2024

Brussels, September 11, 2024–The European Jewish Congress (EJC) strongly endorses the joint statement issued at the Austrian Parliament conference addressing the disturbing rise in anti-Semitism following October 7th as an affront to democracy and human rights, and are supported by parliamentarians and policymakers from across the world.

The conference titled “Never Again? Democracy Cannot Tolerate Antisemitism” organized on the initiative of Austrian National Council president Wolfgang Sobotka convened parliamentarians from 22 nations, including speaker of the Israeli Knesset Amir Ohana, members of the European Parliament, EU officials and Jewish community leaders from around the world, to confront the escalating anti-Semitic threats with a united and decisive response.

The joint statement condemned the alarming surge in anti-Semitic violence, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and calling for stringent oversight of online anti-Semitism and reinforced security for Jewish institutions. It also underscored the pressing need to address the growing anti-Semitic climate on university campuses.

Netanyahu Dismisses Claims of Imminent Cease-Fire Deal

by Peter Aitken, Fox News, September 5, 2024

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that holding the Philadelphi Corridor is key to long-term peace

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined “Fox & Friends” to discuss his efforts to rescue hostages and maintain red lines with Hamas.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday morning dismissed reports negotiators were close to agreeing a cease-fire deal.

“It’s exactly inaccurate,” Netanyahu told “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade during an interview. “There’s a story, a narrative out there that there’s a deal out there … that’s just a false narrative.”

Netanyahu stressed that Israel has agreed to several deals proposed by the negotiators from the US, Egypt and Qatar but that each time the deal lapsed because Hamas “has consistently said no to every one of them.”

Full story and video here.

Former governor of South Carolina, US ambassador to the UN and Republican presidential candidate now pledging her support to candidate Donald Trump Nikki Haley posted a tweet on X decrying the current administration’s lack of clarity on Hamas following the recent mass-murder of 6 Israelis and promises by Hamas to murder remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza:

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American citizen was executed in Gaza. Seven Americans are still being held hostage by the same terrorists who murdered Hersh.

It’s unacceptable. America should demand Hamas and their funders, Iran, release the hostages immediately. Harris and Biden need to acknowledge Hamas is a terrorist organization and treat them like, rather than pressuring Israel.

–Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) September 2, 2024

Vice-president and president of the US Senate Kamala Harris snubbed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu when he addressed the US Congress assembled earlier this year. She has courted the pro-Hamas protestors at US universities and the large Muslim populations in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois in order to secure an electoral college victory in November. The Biden-Harris administration has also restricted weapons exports to Israel to pressure Netanyahu into a US-engineered peace plan with Hamas while publicly proclaiming support for Israel’s right to self-defense. The newly-elected Labour Government in the United Kingdom under prime minister Keir Starmer announced this week they were banning weapons sales to Israel as well.

The United States State Department recognized Hamas as a terrorist organization in 1995 under the Bill Clinton administration.

Full story in Russian here.

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda says he has doubts concerning a proposal by EU foreign minister Josep Borrell to impose sanctions on members of the Israeli government. According to the Lithuanian head of state, EU member states do not have a common approach to the conflict in the Middle East.

“Fanning discord is bad, no matter where it comes from. I have serious doubts about Mr. Borrell’s initiative. It seems to me that he himself does not believe in the success of this initiative,” Nausėda told reporters on Monday.

“The EU is united by different states with different approaches to this conflict,” he stressed.

Last week Borrell proposed the 27 EU member states impose sanctions on Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Courtesy delfi.lt