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1. Zbig Brzezinski: Shoot Down Israeli Planes if They Attack Iran
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for U.S. President Barack Obama, has called on the president to shoot down Israeli planes if they attack Iran. “They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast. Brzezinski, who served in the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981, is currently a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Maryland.
“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse.’" Israel mistakenly attacked the American Liberty ship during the Six-Day War in 1967.
Brzezinski was a top candidate to become an official advisor to President Obama, but he was downgraded after Republican and pro-Israel Democratic charges during the campaign that Brzezinski’s anti-Israel attitude would damage Obama at the polls.
President Obama’s advisors have emphasized that the former national security advisor is not playing any unofficial role as advisor to the White House.
His enthusiasm for President Obama has waned in the past several months. He recently told a London-based newspaper that the United States may be "sliding into a deeper conflict with various segments of the world of Islam ” because of the president’s failure to carry out his promises to the Muslim world.
Brzezinski said the Obama administration is "diddling around" in trying to reach an “evasive compromise” between Israel and the Arab world.
2. Israel Destroys Three WeaponsTunnels
by Hillel Fendel
The IDF bombed three Hamas arms-smuggling tunnels in Gaza overnight and reported precise hits.
The hits followed two Kassam rocket attacks at Israel over the Rosh HaShanah holiday. No one was hurt by the rockets, which landed in open fields near Sderot and caused no damage.
The Israeli planes bombed the tunnels around midnight Sunday night. Three weeks ago, as well, Israel bombed an arms-smuggling tunnel between Gaza and Egypt, in response to Kassam rockets fired at Sdot Negev.
Earlier this month, three Arabs were killed when a smuggling tunnel collapsed. In the past three years, 107 Arabs were killed in similar accidents, and more than 500 people were wounded, according to Mahmad Abdullah, a member of the Palestinian Civil Rights Center.
On Sunday afternoon, an IDF armored force fired at and killed two Palestinian terrorists detected attempting to place a bomb alongside the northern Gaza border fence.
3. Mumbai Chabad House Chose to Stay Open Despite Warnings
by Hana Levi Julian and Avraham Zuroff
The current Chabad emissaries in Mumbai, India kept the Chabad House open on Rosh HaShanah -- as did other emissaries from the Chassidic sect at similar guest houses around the country -- despite directives to keep a low profile. The emissaries, whose names were not made available for publication, said that they all received warnings against terrorist attacks on Jewish sites.
“Already a week ago, we received special directives to keep a low profile, to change regular patterns, not to leave home at routine times, and not to open to everyone. There is security around the house the entire time,” the Mumbai emissary told journalists before the Rosh HaShanah holiday, and asked to remain anonymous due to security concerns.
At least 20 Israelis had already called to say they would be coming to the Chabad House in time for the holiday. “I personally told them that there are travel warnings. There is concern, we’re only human, but concern won’t close the place," vowed the emissary, predicting it would be "a chag sameach – a happy holiday.”
By the close of the holiday, his words had come true. Chabad Houses throughout India reported they were crowded with young Israelis who traveled there on vacation despite the warnings by Israel's Counter-Terrorism Bureau of plans to attack the facilities.
The bureau had warned Israelis traveling in India to stay away from heavily populated areas or unguarded areas and in general to remain alert. A concrete alert was also issued for Kashmir.
According to a statement accompanying the warning, the terror organization that orchestrated the November 2008 attack in Mumbai is currently preparing to commit more attacks throughout the country, especially in areas frequented by Israelis and Westerners.
Rabbi Gavriel Holzberg, the previous director of the city's Nariman Chabad House, his wife, Rivka, and seven other Jews were murdered during the 2008 attack, which lasted more than 40 hours.
4. IDF Kills Two Gaza Terrorists
by Maayana Miskin
IDF soldiers killed two terrorists in northern Gaza on Sunday afternoon as they attempted to plant a bomb along the Gaza security barrier. Three other terrorists were wounded.
Soldiers reported seeing a group of suspects approach the barrier across from the town of Kfar Aza. They were ordered to stop, but ignored both the order and subsequent warning shots, soldiers reported. Soldiers then fired a tank shell, killing two.
The two were later identified as Abed al-Silawi of Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmed Nasir of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Military sources reported that both Silawi and Nasir had been involved in previous attacks and attempted attacks, including a mortar shell attack one month ago in which an IDF soldier was lightly wounded.
On Saturday, the Color Red rocket alert system was activated in the western Negev. The system detected two rockets en route from northern Gaza to Sderot. Security officials in the southern Negev have not yet located the sites of the rocket strikes; no injuries have been reported.
The Ansar a-Sunna terrorist group claimed responsibility for the Saturday attack.
5. 'Symbolic' Trilateral Talks Set for Tuesday in New York
by Hana Levi Julian
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will fly Monday afternoon to New York for the United Nations General Assemblyand a trilateral meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, arranged by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both meetings are likely to take place before his speech before the U.N. General Assembly, which is set for Thursday. Sources said the prime minister is likely to discuss the nuclear threat to the world posed by Iran and described the speech as "major."
Accompanying Netanyahu in New York are Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
No new information is expected to emerge from the three-way meeting, set for 10:00 a.m. Tuesday in New York and which at this point is expected to be primarily symbolic in nature.
According to a statement issued by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, the meeting "will continue the efforts of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and special envoy George Mitchell to lay the groundwork for the re-launch of negotiations, and to create a positive context for those negotiations so that they can succeed."
Abbas has insisted that he will not speak with Netanyahu until Israel freezes all construction in those areas, including any building to accommodate natural growth.
Netanyahu spokesman Nir Hefetz said the Prime Minister welcomed the invitation from Obama to attend the meeting, reminding journalists he had said he would travel anywhere in the world to secure peace for Israel.
PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, however, said in a statement that Abbas had no intention of pursuing peace at this point: "The Palestinian leadership is insisting that there will be no peace negotiations unless settlement activities are halted."
6. Holiday Arson Leaves Samaria Families Homeless
by Maayana Miskin
As the Jews of Havat Gilad in Samaria celebrated the second day of Rosh HaShanah on Sunday afternoon, a group of Arabs from a nearby village infiltrated the town and set fire to the area. Contrary to media reports, a house was burnt down, and the holiday ended with an emergency evacuation, several wounded residents, and two families left homeless.
Police arrested four Arab suspects near the scene of the crime.
The attack took place as most residents prayed in the community synagogue. Residents spotted the smoke from the synagogue windows and ran out to see part of the town in flames.
They battled the blaze for several hours as it consumed buildings and fields. Several of the volunteer firefighters later required treatment for smoke inhalation, and some were hospitalized.
To read the rest of this story, click here!
7. 'Hitler Youth' Synagogue Restored to Jews in Poland
by Hana Levi Julian
After decades of remaining empty, a synagogue in Poland formerly used by the “Hitler Youth” (Hitlerjugend) reopened for the Jewish New Year services. The synagogue is in Dzierżoniów, a town in southwestern Poland which used to be part of Germany.
The building had been in danger of collapse, having been deserted for more than 25 years.
But on Friday, it sprang to life with new vigor, the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), which provides resources to Jewish leaders and their communities in Europe, having provided at least a significant part of the wherewithal for its rejuvenation.
The story begins during World War II, when the Nazis seized the city of Reichenbach (as it was called when it was part of Germany).
Like almost every other in the region, the synagogue of Dzierżoniów was in danger of being demolished under the Nazi regime.
To save their beloved house of worship from this disaster, the Jewish community turned to Conrad Springer, a gentile who worked as a maintenance man for the community. Springer was given money by the members of the community to purchase the building from the authorities.
The synagogue was thus converted into the local headquarters for the Hitler Youth movement – The Hitlerjugend.
After the war, when remnants of the Jewish community returned to Dzierżoniów, Springer returned the keys of the synagogue to them without a request for payment.
“I have finished my task, now the synagogue is returned to you,” Springer told the Jews who returned. Springer’s grandson, who now lives in Berlin, still maintains a good relationship with the Jews of the community to this day.
Many Jews came to Dzierżoniów after the Holocaust and it soon became such a thriving Jewish city that many called it “Little Jerusalem”.
The synagogue also survived other tumultuous events. In March 1968, anti-Semitic riots broke out in the town, inspired by the communist authorities.
Most of the community fled to escape the persecution, leaving only a handful Jews in the town. The synagogue remained in use, however, until 1984, when at last it closed its doors. Slowly, the building deteriorated, becoming dilapidated and surviving a fire. It was even used as a rubbish dump by the local Poles.
It took 20 years for a rescuer to arrive.
In 2004, former resident Rafael Elias Blau set about returning the synagogue to its former glory. Blau enlisted the other 20 remaining Jews in Dzierżoniów in forming an association called “Beitenu Chai” (Our House Lives), which bought the synagogue and restored it.
“Now after the five years since we bought the synagogue and restored it, and 25 years since a single prayer was heard, the synagogue returns to its original purpose,” Blau said excitedly.
From Israel, the U.S., Sweden, Denmark and Germany, a group of 50 Jews who fled the March 1968 pogroms returned to the synagogue to attend Rosh HaShanah prayer services. The RCE helped make the celebration possible by providing all the necessities, including prayer books, prayer shawls and Shofars (the ram’s horn blown during the New Year’s service).
