SAUDI PRINCE SAYS IRAN DEAL WORSE THAN
NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR AGREEMENT
The nuclear deal with Iran will have worse consequences than the failed agreement with North
Korea, warned Saudi Prince and former ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan. President Barack
Obama accepted what he knew was a bad deal
because, ideologically, he felt like it was the right
thing to do, according to Bandar. The US president
ignored the intelligence and counsel of traditional
American allies in the Mideast, like Israel, which
said the Iran deal would invite terrorism throughout the region, or worse, spark an all-out war.
Former president Bill Clinton never would have
signed the North Korea nuclear agreement if he
had had the kind of evidence Obama has now
against Iran, Bandar said. If the Iran deal collapses
and the country goes for the bomb, he said, the
consequences could be much worse than North
Korea. Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor
reported that Saudi Arabia would intensify efforts
to confront Iran through its proxies and allies in
Yemen and Syria before the country gets windfall
cash from lifted sanctions. According to military officials cited in the report, the Saudis are weighing a
ground campaign in Yemen followed by a shift in
attention to Sunni-led airstrikes in Syria to provide
air cover for the Free Syrian Army, as it battles Iranian-backed Syrian president Bashar Assad, whose
forces have been bolstered by Lebanese Hezbollah. Article courtesy of MATZAV.COM
JEWISH WORLD POPULATION
REACHES PRE-HOLOCAUST LEVEL
The number of Jewish people in the world is almost
the same as it was before the Holocaust, according
to Israeli think-tank, the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI). Before the Holocaust – in which six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis – there were
16.5 million Jews in the world. Now, said the JPPI,
there are 14.2 million Jews, with a further 2.3 million
identifying as “partially Jewish”, including those with
one Jewish parent. The report attributed the rise to
population growth in Israel, which has one of the
highest fertility rates in Western countries. It also
attributed the growth to people identifying as “Jewish” if they have one Jewish parent. The past decade,
between the years 2005-2015, saw the biggest jump
in the number of Jews in the world since the end of
the war, with an over 8% increase. According to the
report, there are 6.1 million Jews living in Israel, 5.7
million in the USA and 475 000 in France – which has
the third-highest population of Jews in the world.
WAS ETHEL ROSENBERG INNOCENT?
According to declassified documents recently
released at the National Security Archive of
George Washington University, a Jewish-American woman executed for being a spy in 1953
may have been innocent. Ethel Rosenberg was
executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison in
Ossining, New York, after her brother testified
that she had passed atomic secrets to the Soviets during the Cold War.
However, the newly recovered documents suggest her brother was lying. It is believed David Greenglass had lied in order to protect his wife, Ruth, who was thought
to be the actual spy responsible.
This new evidence comes in the form of a grand jury testimony from 1950 after a
judge ordered it to be released on public interest grounds in June this year.
Rosenberg was executed together with her husband Julius, their case polarising
American public opinion at the very height of Cold War anxiety. The fact that Greenglass implicated his sister in the conspiracy just 10 days before the trial was seen as
a key factor in her conviction. However, he later told reporters he had lied to protect
his wife, and that he had never witnessed his sister typing notes in her apartment, as
he had previously claimed.
Intercepted cables proved Mr Rosenberg was a Soviet spy. Researchers have long believed that his wife was innocent but that she had stayed quiet, choosing to be ‘a martyr’ and die together with her husband. Greenglass was indicted as a co-conspirator.
At the trial, he told government prosecutors that he gave the couple highly sensitive
data relating to scientists working on a top-secret Manhattan project to build the
atomic bomb, and that he’d seen his sister transcribing information he had acquired
from his job at Los Alamos, New Mexico, for her husband.
However, the newly released testimony, taken months before he implicated his
sister, paints a different picture. Greenglass said he traded the information with Mr
Rosenberg and his wife, Ruth, insisting on more than one occasion he never spoke
to Ethel about it. There had never been any solid evidence to convict Ethel.
SCANS DECIPHER CHARRED 1 500-YEAR-OLD SCROLL
Using advanced scanning technology, scientists have deciphered a badly charred
parchment scroll found inside the Ark of an ancient synagogue at Ein Gedi, on
the west shore of the Dead Sea. The burned remains of the 7cm long parchment,
which was discovered alongside other charred remnants, have been found to be a 1
500-year-old copy of the Book of Leviticus. CT scanning has revealed the text originally written on the scroll for the first time since it was damaged in a fire. Researchers
were then able to virtually ‘unroll’ the scroll using software technology.
Dr Sefi Porath, who first discovered the scroll during excavations at Ein Gedi in 1970,
said: “The deciphering of the scroll, which was a puzzle for us for 45 years, is very exciting. Ein Gedi was a Jewish village in the Byzantine period (fourth–seventh century CE)
and had a synagogue with an exquisite mosaic floor and a Holy Ark. The settlement
was completely burnt to the ground, and none of its inhabitants ever returned to reside there again, or to pick through the ruins in order to salvage valuable property.”
The Ein Gedi fragment was scanned and then digital imaging software was used to
virtually unroll the scroll. Dr Porath said: “In the archaeological excavations of the
burnt synagogu