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Iran Behind Explosion on Israeli Ship?
Defense Minister Benny Gantz accused Iran of orchestrating the explosion that crippled an Israeli ship off the coast of Oman.
No one was heard in the blast on Friday on the Israeli-owned MV HELIOS RAY as it anchored off of the Gulf of Oman. The freighter has since reported to Dubai for repairs, while Israeli intelligence agencies investigate the incident.
In an interview hours after the incident, Gantz said that the close proximity to Iran coupled with the high degree of tactical proficiency exhibited pointed to Iran as the culprit. He stressed, however, that the probe was still ongoing.
“We need to continue investigating,” Gantz told Channel 11. “The Iranians are looking to harm Israelis and Israeli infrastructure. The proximity to Iran brings the assessment that there is a likelihood that this is an Iranian initiative.”
A slew of vessels has suffered mysterious accidents in recent years in attacks attributed to Iran. The ship is owned by Israeli magnate Rami Unger and was carrying a fleet of cars from Saudi Arabia to Singapore when it was rocked by a massive explosion.
According to a report the Dryad Global maritime intelligence firm released on Saturday, the attack was likely perpetuated by Iran in an effort to hurt Israeli interests while maintaining plausible deniability.
“Whilst details regarding the incident remain unclear, it remains a realistic possibility that the event was the result of asymmetric activity by Iranian military,” wrote Drydad Global.
“Such activity would be commensurate with current tensions and Iranian intent to exercise forceful diplomacy through military means within its immediate area of interest,” continued the report. “Tensions between Israel and Iran remain fraught, especially in light of increased signs of rapprochement between Iran and the Biden administration.
“Increasingly, Iran is also becoming fearful of improving relations between Israel and the Gulf states. Recent reports of behind-the-scenes cooperation between Saudi and Israel to counter Iranian activity are likely to influence any potential Iranian activity.”
A New Helicopter for the IDF
The Defense Ministry announced that it has chosen the Sikorsky CH53K to be its new heavy-lift helicopter.
The CH-53K will replace the aging CH-53 Sea Stallion, which has been in service for over 50 years. The CH53K beat out the Boeing-made CH-47 and V-22 Osprey, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like an airplane, a capability that would have granted Special Forces more flexibility.
“The decision to purchase new Sa’ar transport helicopters for the Air Force, after decades, is a significant step in building the IDF’s power and essential for performing a wide range of operational tasks as routine and in combat,” said Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
“It is also essential to the IDF’s ability to carry out a wide range of operational activities,” Gantz added. “The new helicopter is adapted to the [IAF’s] operational requirements and to the challenges of the changing battlefield.”
The Israeli Air Force had recommended purchasing the CH-53K over the other two aforementioned models
due to the significant economic benefits. The CH-53K is based on the Sea Stallion’s design; retraining pilots to fly the helicopter would have been cheaper and easier.
The Israeli Air Force will include the CH-53K in the mammoth $9.5 billion arms package the cabinet approved last week. The largest-ever weapons purchase in Israel’s history, the deal will buy two new F-35 squadrons, the CH-53K, and new refuelers.
Named the “Yasur” in Hebrew, the CH-53 heavy-lift helicopter was tasked with ferrying Special Forces and gear behind enemy lines but had seen an alarming rise in accidents in recent years due to its age. First pressed into service in 1969, the IAF’s Yasur fleet was grounded entirely due to safety reasons last year. Senior officers had warned in recent months that continuing to operate the helicopter would lead to disaster.
In 2018, then-Israeli Air Force Commander Major General Amir Eshel said publicly that “flying 50-yearold helicopters with 50 people onboard during wartime and 30 people onboard in peacetime — that’s not safe.”
Denmark & Austria to Join Israel?
Denmark and Austria are exploring the possibility of establishing a joint vaccine production plant in Israel to ensure that all three countries have an uninterrupted supply of the lifesaving drugs.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced on Saturday that he and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had been conducting talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the initiative, adding that both would fly to Israel on March 4 to explore the idea further. Contending that the COVID-19 pandemic proved the importance of having access to the latest in pharmaceutical research, Kurtz wrote on Twitter that Austria had ramped up its research and production effort.
“The aim must be to adapt the existing vaccines and treatments as quickly as possible or to produce new ones as quickly as possible – and to do so independently,” tweeted Kurtz. He added that Austria’s most important challenge was to “accelerate the production and procurement of vaccines for the future.
“We have to prepare for this and for the phase after the summer,” said Kurtz.
Netanyahu and the Danish prime minister have already discussed the joint inoculation effort in a phone call on February 13, exploring cooperation in vaccine research and development, production, and marketing. Netanyahu also recently revealed that he is negotiating with Pfizer to establish a vaccine plant in Israel and will host CEO Albert Bourla in March.
Since ascending to power in 2017 at only 31 years of age, Kurtz has established a strong relationship with Netanyahu that has seen Austria reverse its traditional anti-Israel stance. In March, Kurtz publicly thanked Netanyahu for warning him of the danger of COVID-19, saying that the February 2020 conversation opened his eyes to the severity of the pandemic.
“Also, I can say in this case: Thank G-d for Bibi Netanyahu,” Kurtz said. “He contacted me some time ago and told me, ‘Hey, you’re underestimating this over there in Europe. Wake up and do something.’
“That was a wake-up call that shook me up.”
JNF Earmarks $11M for Judea and Samaria
The Jewish National Fund (JNF-
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KKL) voted to earmark NIS 38 million ($11.5 million) to purchase Palestinian-owned property in order to expand settlements in Judea and Samaria.
The vote was held over Zoom last Thursday and passed by a single vote, an extraordinarily slim margin that attests to the plan’s controversial nature. The vote followed an hour-long rancorous debate between the charity’s left-leaning board members who fiercely opposed funding settlement expansion.
While left-wing representatives had thought that they had a sufficient majority to block the measure, last-minute absences by the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America and Maccabi paved the way for the allocation’s approval. A final vote on the matter is scheduled to take place on March 23.
The far-left Meretz party has since appealed to the JNF’s governing body to order a repeat of the vote in light of the close result. A slew of progressive board members has also circulated a petition calling for the vote to be annulled, arguing that Chairman Avi Duvdevani had prevented them from hearing legal opinions holding that the measure violated international law.
The vote marks the first time the century-old charity fund has allocated budgetary funds for expanding settlements in Judea and Samaria. The JNF has traditionally avoided using its considerable resources to purchase property over the 1967 borders due to its controversial nature.
However, the JNF board of directors voted in February to begin funding land purchases in Judea and Samaria, enraging its more liberal members. Led by Duvdevani, the initiative will see the JNF work towards expanding Jewish communities in the disputed territories by locating and buying land from local Palestinians.
As per February’s resolution, the JNF-KKL will develop Jewish villages in Judea and Samaria by funding “projects, education, forestation and environmental protection.” The funds will be restricted towards expanding existing communities and will not go towards establishing new settlements.
The policy shift has resulted in sharp condemnation from left-wing movements, lawmakers, and non-Orthodox denominations in the U.S. and Israel, who say that it harms the effort establish a Palestinian State. Ahead of the vote in February, Defense Minister Benny Gantz penned a missive asking board members to reject the “highly sensitive” measure and due to the damage it would cause Israel “in the international arena as well as in relations with the incoming U.S. administration and relations with Diaspora Jewry.”
Members of the board on the right celebrated the development.
Fear of Terror at UAE Fair
Fears of an imminent Iranian terror attack reportedly led Israel’s biggest weapons companies to cancel their participation in a massive weapons exhibition in the United Arab Emirates.
Known as IDEX, the conference took place last week in Abu Dhabi and is the Middle East’s biggest arms fair. While Israeli companies had been historically banned from the trade fair since its inception, a slew of Israeli
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companies was slated to participate for the first time due to the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between the two countries.
With Israel being a world leader in weapons production, companies such as Elbit, the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and Rafael had expected to sign multi-billion dollar deals at the trade fair. However, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced on February 15 that the major weapons producers would not attend, ostensibly due to the month-long travel ban that has prevented Israelis from flying overseas.
But according to a new report, Israel didn’t take part in IDEX due to fears of an imminent Iranian terror attack that would target top executives at the trade fair. The result of intelligence supplied by the Mossad, the warning led the country’s biggest companies to pull out of the conference despite the lucrative deals they expected to sign.
The terror attack was said to be planned by Iran in retaliation for this past November’s killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a world-renowned physicist who headed Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has blamed Israel for the daring hit and has vowed to exact revenge for the killing.
With Abu Dhabi located a short distance from Iranian territory, Israel intelligence warned that the arms exhibition constituted an easy target for the Islamic Republic. The decision to scrap Israel’s participation, which included an official Defense Ministry delegation, was made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
Israel has been bracing for an expected Iranian retaliatory attack ever since the Iranian nuclear mastermind was killed near Tehran. Over the past three months, security at its overseas embassies have been upgraded to the highest possible level while the IDF has stepped up its defenses on the Lebanese border.
In December, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) vowed to exact revenge for Fakrizadeh’s assassination, warning that it “could happen at any place and at any time.”
“The great nation of Iran will inflict its harsh vengeance on them at the right time,” said Major General Hossein Salami. “The crime of the savage terrorists created a great honor for the martyr Dr. Fakhrizadeh, and it presented this scientist as General Haj Qassem Soleimani, who had taken revenge on the Americans many times during his lifetime.”
Israel is reportedly in talks with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to establish a regional anti-Iran military alliance.
Quoting senior Emirati and Saudi sources, Israel’s i24 television channel reported that the military alliance would be modeled off of NATO and would aim to halt Iran’s regional subversion. The talks are said to be in the early stages and are a response to the Biden administration’s intent to return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.
“There is much to be gained by expanding cooperation,” said one source. Notably, the report was not denied by Saudi Arabia or Israel, with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying simply that “we are always looking to expand our ties with our Middle East partners”.
The report came hours after Netanyahu conversed with Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the tiny island nation’s de-facto ruler. According to the official transcript of the call, the two leaders conversed about the Biden administration’s effort to reach an agreement with Iran and stressed “the importance of the participation of regional countries in any negotiations on the Iranian nuclear file.”
With Saudi Arabia officially refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist, the alliance would constitute a major change in the relations between the Arab world and the Jewish State. While the UAE and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel this past summer as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords, Riyadh refused
to follow suit despite heavy pressure from the Trump administration.
As part of the effort, Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia in November together with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) in the coastal city of Noem. The trip, which was denied by Saudi officials, marked the first time an Israeli leader set foot in the Kingdom.
PA Vaccine Fraud
This week, the Palestinian Authority acknowledged that some of the COVID-19 vaccines in its possession did not go to healthcare workers. Rather, the coveted shots went to government officials, the Jordanian royal court, and the Palestinian national soccer team.
The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry had previously said that the handful of doses available would be given first to healthcare workers and then to the elderly and other at-risk groups. As such, the announcement of where the vaccinations went produced ire amongst Palestinians.
Among those given vaccines were security officials working in the offices of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, 100 Palestinian students heading abroad to study, fieldworkers in the Central Elections Committee, PA government ministers, Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee members over the age of 65, and some foreign embassy staff in Ramallah.
The Palestinian national soccer team was also immunized. The Health Ministry explained that the team had been asked to play a match abroad representing Palestine and that a coronavirus immunization was a condition for their participation.
As of Tuesday, only 12,000 vaccines have reached Ramallah. Approximately 2,000 Moderna vaccines were sent by Israel to vaccinate medical staff, and another 10,000 were Russian Sputnik V vaccines sent as a donation by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Palestinian Authority sent around 2,000 Sputnik vaccines to Gaza.
The PA acknowledged that it also transferred 200 doses to Jordan.
The Health Ministry claimed that 90% of the vaccines it had distributed in the West Bank — around 9,800 vaccines — had gone to frontline health care workers.
The virus continues to surge in Palestinians territories. Palestinian Authority areas saw 1,819 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, with 28 patients on ventilators.
“Israel, the occupation state, has far more respect for and fear of its own people than you,” one furious commentator wrote on the Health Ministry’s Facebook page. “It even cares more for Arab workers… all you’ve done is inflict corruption and nepotism on us, while the rest of the people die from coronavirus or enter quarantine and die from hunger.”
Geirus Ruling
In an unfortunate turn of events, Israel’s high Court of Justice ruled on Monday that non-Orthodox conversions in Israel would be considered legitimate for the purpose of Israeli citizenship.
The Reform and Conservative religious movements celebrated the ruling.
Union for Reform Judaism Pres-
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