VFI News December 13, 2019

Hamas is building a second front in southern Lebanon to shoot more rockets into Israel!

#israel #themiddleast #israelipolitics #hamas #proisrael

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USA President Trump on Wed. 11 December 2019 signed an executive order threatening to cut federal assistance to colleges that fail to combat anti-Semitism. The directive increases protections against discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act to people subjected to anti-Semitism on college campuses.  The measure warns that if an incident is anti-Semitic it could violate a Title 6 law, which prohibits discrimination based on national origin, race or color in activities receiving federal financial assistance. Classifying Jews as a protected class under existing civil rights protections for other minorities would effectively recognize Jews as an ethnic minority and not exclusively a religious minority. (VFI News/JTA)

As 2019 comes to a close we want to thank all of you who have given so generously throughout the year. We couldn’t have blessed the needy of Israel in so many diverse ways without you. For those who would like the opportunity to bless Israel before the year’s end, there is still time for you to make a tax-deductible gift before 31 Dec. 2019, according to the laws in your own country. Give generously at www.visionforisrael.com.  Please continue to help hands and hearts at VFI rebuild hope and provide for the nation’s poor both now and in 2020. 

Jewish groups this week welcomed President Donald Trump’s Executive Order which will help to protect Jews on college campuses from anti-Semitism. “Jews are indeed a nationality, and Jewish students have faced increasingly-obvious bias on campus,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values. “The fact that it has been thinly disguised as ‘anti-Israel’ activity is no excuse for bigotry, and adopting the definition of anti-Semitism used by the State Department is the correct response. The President deserves our thanks for doing what is right and just,” he added. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO, likewise welcomed the measure. “It will have an immediate impact on USA campuses plagued with anti-Semitic and extreme anti-Israel acts, where many University officials complained that the lack of a working definition of anti-Semitism hampered efforts to deal with anti-Semitic incidents on campus. Now, through this Executive Order, university officials and Jewish students will be better equipped to deal with hate attacks often associated with the anti-Israel BDS campaigns,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC Director of Global Social Action. “More broadly, President Trump’s Executive Order sends a strong message domestically and around the world against history’s oldest hate at a time of surging anti-Semitism on both sides of the Atlantic,” Cooper added. (VFI News/Arutz-7) 

Prayers are being answered in the battle against anti-Semitism with USA President Trump’s latest measure against college anti-Semitism.  Other successes this year and last have occurred against the BDS movement which aims to delegitimize the State of Israel. Please continue to intercede against spiraling global anti-Semitism.

A demonstration that took place in London on Sunday 8 Dec. 2019, drew more than 3,000 participants, Jews and non-Jews  who waved signs reading, “Together against anti-Semitism,” “Anti-Semitism = Racism,” “Solidarity with British Jews” and “racist Corbyn unfit to be PM,” referring to the head of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.  The demonstration led by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was held four days before national elections. Corbyn has been dogged by criticism over anti-Semitism in Labour since his election as party leader in 2015. Some party members have been dismissed for anti-Semitic rhetoric, but others have been readmitted and thousands of complaints have gone unprocessed. Corbyn himself has called Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends.” The Labour Party leader has repeatedly denied that he has anti-Semitic leanings in spite of numerous actions and quotes exposed by British media sources proving otherwise. Corbyn apologized on Tue. 10 Dec. 2019, for the anti-Semitism in his party after a television host prompted him several times to "just say sorry." Many UK Jews have agreed that the apology wrung from Corbyn comes too late. (VFI News/Arutz-7) 

Please intercede that Britain’s Labor Party will be fully exposed and confronted in its blatant anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias.  

Jewish voters are turning away in droves from the UK Labour party, once seen as their traditional political home, owing to a combination of “extreme” left policies and poor leadership on anti-Semitism.  “Jews have deserted the Labour party for two main reasons,” said Jonathan Boyd, executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR). “First, the party has lurched to the left; and second, the party has failed to understand or recognize how anti-Semitism manifests itself in leftist politics and as a result allowed it to fester and grow. To regain the support of Jewish voters, it would have to shift on both fronts: move back towards the political center and root out the left-wing manifestations of anti-Semitism that exist – not only in the party itself but in wider society.”  A poll of British Jews earlier this year found that 86% of respondents believed there were high levels of anti-Semitism among Labour party members and elected representatives. Ivan Lewis, a British politician, said the “levels of anxiety and fear among UK Jews are really shocking. The sense that, for the first time in recent history, this country could become a cold home for Jews is probably held by 75% of local Jewish voters”. (VFI News/UK Guardian) 

An important historical change could be at hand following the UK elections - either Brexit or the Jews returning to Israel in mass. May the same shift in traditional Jewish support for clearly anti-Semitic/anti-Israel bias Democratic Party members take place in the USA. 

The motion proposed by lawmaker Sylvain Maillard of LREM, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, passed last week by a majority vote of 154-72 in the parliament’s lower house. “For some years now, France, the whole of Europe, but also almost all Western democracies are facing a rise in anti-Semitism,” the resolution states. “Anti-Zionist acts can at times hide anti-Semitic realities. Hate toward Israel due to its perception as a Jewish collective is akin to hatred toward the entire Jewish community.” In France today, “dirty Zionist… means dirty Jew,” said Maillard.  Meyer Habib, a lawmaker from the Union of Democrats Party representing French ex-pats in several countries, including Israel, said in support of the resolution in the National Assembly, “Anti-Zionists are not just critics of Israel, they are obsessed. They use anti-racist and anti-colonialist rhetoric to try to erase Jewish identity. Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan congratulated the National Assembly on passing the motion, calling it "an important decision that will help to fight the rising anti-Semitism in France and in Europe in general." (VFI News/J. Post)

Dozens of UN ambassadors from around the globe visited the City of David (Ancient Jerusalem) on Wed. 11 Dec. 2019. They came as the guests of Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon. The envoys toured the three-thousand-year-old archaeological excavations of ancient Jerusalem and recently uncovered Pilgrimage Road together with Moshe Leon, Mayor of Jerusalem. The visit comes as a new wind of change is felt at the UN with many nations beginning to change their traditional voting patterns in favor of support for Israel. Ambassador Danny Danon explained the significance of the visit to the City of David: “I brought United Nations Ambassadors here to the City of David; to see where it all began. Three-thousand years ago, this is where King David established his capital city. The land of Israel is our ancestral homeland and Jerusalem is our eternal capital. We will continue to bring UN Ambassadors and diplomats here to the City of David because there is nowhere better on earth to demonstrate the Jewish people’s ancient roots in this land”.  The City of David is Israel's largest active archeological site, situated upon the ancient city of Jerusalem. It is the place recorded in the Bible upon which King David established Jerusalem as the united capital of Israel 3,000 years ago. The City of David is an Israeli National Heritage Site with over half-a-million visitors annually where some of the most compelling personalities and seminal events of the Biblical period unfolded.  (VFI News/Arutz-7) 

Pray for tours to the Jewish state, briefings, lectures, films, correct statistics and all manner of factual/educational material about Israel to be offered to those representing the USA, Europe, and world- body organizations such as the UN.  Such measures are vastly improving Israel’s image and garnering well-deserved international respect.

An estimated 165,000 Christians are preparing to visit Israel during the 2019 Christmas holiday season, according to Israel’s Tourism Ministry. Tourism Minister Yariv Levin will host the annual pre-Christmas reception for Israeli Christians and church leaders, which will also be attended by ambassadors, leaders of Christian organizations in Israel and other dignitaries. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the Tourism Ministry will provide free shuttle service between Jerusalem and Bethlehem for Christian pilgrims. Also scheduled is a parade through the main street of Nazareth to the city’s Basilica of the Annunciation on 24 Dec. 2019 to be followed by a fireworks display. The Tourism Ministry reported that 55% of all tourists who visited Israel in 2019 were Christian. The most popular sites they visited were the Western Wall, the Via Dolorosa and the Mount of Olives, all in Jerusalem. (Algemeiner)

A recent Twitter post reported on a Mossad agent that was captured in northern Saudi Arabia. The official Saudi report determined that the “Mossad agent” was an Israeli vulture armed with photographic and “espionage” equipment.  “Heroes” of the Saudi security forces were on their way to place him under arrest and take the bird away for interrogation. Alas, the innocent bird is merely a vulture with a tracking device attached to his body by the Veterinary Department of Tel-Aviv University. The department is exploring the migration of birds in the region. This is not the first time that a “Mossad agent” has been caught in Arab countries. In fact, a few years ago another vulture was captured in Lebanon and was immediately accused of being part of an Israeli attempt to spy on Hezbollah. Sharks, pigeons, storks and even squirrels are all animals that have been reported in recent years as being used by the Mossad. Sad but true, a turkey captured by Palestinians some years ago spent days in a Gaza Strip jail before being convicted of spying for Israel.  He was executed shortly thereafter and served up for dinner among the prison staff.  (Israel Today/ VFI News)