Supreme Court rules PM can hold multiple ministerial portfolios

Russia argues Syria elections necessary

Russia’s foreign minister says Syria’s parliamentary elections are needed to shore up its existing state structures until peace talks pave way for a new vote.

Sergey Lavrov says Wednesday’s elections are necessary to prevent a “vacuum of power” in Syria. He adds that the peace talks set to restart in Geneva this week should lead to an agreement on the country’s new constitution and new elections.

Russia has been a crucial ally of President Bashar Assad’s government throughout the five-year civil war and launched an air campaign against insurgents last year.

Western leaders and members of the Syrian opposition have denounced the elections, which are only being held in government-controlled areas, as a sham and a provocation that undermines the Geneva peace talks.

Polling stations have been set up in 12 of Syria’s 14 provinces, excluding the northern province of Raqqa, controlled by the Islamic State group, and the northwestern province of Idlib, controlled by the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front and other insurgent groups.

Britain says the Syrian government’s decision to hold elections in the war-divided country shows “how divorced it is from reality.”

The UK government says in a statement that Wednesday’s elections are not in line with a UN Security Council resolution calling for elections in Syria after an 18-month transitional process.

The statement says the elections “cannot buy back legitimacy by putting up a flimsy facade of democracy.”

It notes that hundreds of thousands of people live in besieged towns and cities, and millions have fled their homes — many into exile — and thus cannot vote.

Britain also urges “the regime’s backers, especially Russia” to pressure Syria’s government to engage in discussion about political transition in UN-sponsored peace talks resuming Wednesday in Geneva.

— AP

Belgium releases Paris attacks suspects without charge

Three people arrested in Brussels in connection with the November Paris attacks have been released without charge, Belgian prosecutors say on Wednesday.

“Within the case opened in the wake of the Paris attacks of November 13th 2015, the three persons that were arrested for questioning yesterday… have been released by the investigating judge,” says Eric Van der Sypt, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutors.

“They have not been charged,” he adds.

On Tuesday, Belgian police arrested the three people in the Brussels district of Uccle during a raid linked to the investigation into the Paris attacks, which left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded.

A separate wave of attacks in Brussels on March 22 left 32 people dead and hundreds wounded.

— AFP

Egypt’s president defends giving Red Sea islands to Saudis

Egypt’s president on Wednesday defends his country’s declared intention to hand over control over two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, saying Cairo did not surrender its territory but “restored” the rights of the Saudis.

He also reiterates Cairo’s position that Egyptian security forces had nothing to do with the torture and killing of an Italian graduate student abducted in Cairo.

Egypt’s government maintains that the islands of Tiran and Sanafir at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba belong to Saudi Arabia, which asked Egypt in 1950 to protect them from Israel.

“We did not surrender our rights, but we restored the rights of others,” President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi says in comments broadcast live. “Egypt did not relinquish even a grain of sand.”

“All the data and documents say nothing except that this particular right is theirs. Please let us not talk about this subject again. There is a parliament that will debate this agreement. It will either ratify or reject it.”

Cairo’s decision to transfer custody of the islands to Saudi Arabia, which must be ratified by parliament, has kicked off a storm of protest in Egypt. The decision was announced during a five-day visit by King Salman, the Saudi monarch.

— AP

Israeli soldiers reportedly burn Palestinian flag

Israeli soldiers reportedly burn a Palestinian flag in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Ma’an News Agency says the incident takes place at a checkpoint near Hawara.

The report says Israeli authorities say they will investigate the incident and take punitive steps against the soldiers involved.

16 hikers trapped in south due to flash floods

Some 16 hikers are stranded in the Ramon crater in southern Israel due to flash floods in the area. Search and rescue teams are dispatched to retrieve them.

The group climbs to a higher area to await the rescue teams.

Army Radio says the group had alerted the services last night they were in danger.

Palestinian convicted of murder in deadly car-ramming

A Palestinian is convicted of murder and attempted murder in the fatal car-ramming attack in April 2015 that killed Shalom Cherki, 25, the brother of the victim says.

Yair Cherki, a Channel 2 reporter, announces the conviction of Khaled Koutineh on Twitter.

A young Israeli woman was also badly hurt in the attack.

‘Tyrant’ Katsav featured in IS magazine

Former Israeli president Moshe Katsav, currently in prison serving a 7-year sentence for rape, is featured in the Islamic State Dabiq magazine.

Sitting alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, both leaders are identified in the photo caption as “taghut,” a term referring to tyrants or false gods.

The "apostate" former president Moshe Katsav features in the latest issue of Dabiq magazine alongside Erdogan. pic.twitter.com/GnTVLISraZ

— Elie Leshem (@elieleshem) April 13, 2016

IDF investigating Palestinian flag-torching

The Israeli army says it is investigating the reported torching of a Palestinian flag by Israeli soldiers.

— Judah Ari Gross

.@MaanNewsAgency reports Israeli soldiers burned a Palestinian flag at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus. IDF is looking into the incident.

— Judah Ari Gross (@JudahAriGross) April 13, 2016

IS says Brussels brothers also behind Paris attacks

Islamic State’s online magazine, Dabiq, praises the attackers who killed 32 in Brussels last month, and hails two brothers who were suicide bombers in the attack as key actors in November’s bloodbath in Paris as well.

The group has claimed responsibility for both acts of carnage targeting Western European capitals.

“All preparations for the raids in Paris and Brussels started” with Ibrahim El Bakraoui, 30, and his brother Khalid, 27, Dabiq says. “These two brothers gathered the weapons and the explosives.”

It is “firstly due” to the El Bakraouis that the November 13 attacks that killed 130 victims in the French capital occurred, Dabiq says. Subsequently, it says, Khalid El Bakraoui had a dream “which motivated him to carry out another istishhadi (martyrdom) operation.”

The younger El Bakraoui blew himself up in a rush-hour Brussels subway train on March 22, killing 16 victims. That same morning, his older brother was one of two suicide bombers who detonated explosives-laden suitcases at Brussels Airport, killing another 16.

Dabiq also confirms Belgian and French police findings that Najim Laachraoui, the second Brussels Airport suicide bomber, manufactured the explosives used in both the Paris and Brussels attacks.

— AP

Rouhani heads to Turkey for Islamic summit

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani heads to Istanbul Wednesday for a summit of Islamic countries which Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, Turkey’s burgeoning ally, is also attending.

Rouhani and Salman, whose countries’ ties plummeted in January when Riyadh cut diplomatic relations, are to take part in an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit on Thursday and Friday.

The 80-year-old Sunni king arrived Monday in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greeting him at the airport in a rare break of protocol.

Saudi Arabia cut its diplomatic relations with Iran after a rampaging mob set fire to its missions in Tehran and Mashhad, Iran’s second city, in protest at the execution by Riyadh of a prominent Shiite cleric.

The regional rivals have since accused each other of funding terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East.

Rouhani will make a speech at the Istanbul summit and hold bilateral meetings with some of the dozens of leaders attending, according to Parviz Esmaeili, a spokesman in the presidency’s office.

— AFP

75-year-old man drowns in Dead Sea

A 75-year-old man drowns in the Dead Sea.

A Magen David Adom emergency team attempted to revive the man, but was forced to pronounce him dead.

The incident takes place at a beach adjacent to the Ein Gedi national park.

Police appoint first Muslim deputy commissioner

Jamal Hakrush becomes the first Arab Muslim deputy commissioner in the Israel Police.

Hakrush is formally appointed in a ceremony Wednesday.

Police commissioner Roni Alsheich praises Hakrush and urges qualified Arab Israelis to join the Israel Police.

Alscheich says that Hakrush, and the Israel Police, will work to crack down on illegal weapons in the Arab Israeli community.

Jewish couple gets married on Temple Mount

A video emerges of what appears to be a Jewish couple’s wedding on the Temple Mount last week.

The Hebrew-language Ynet website, citing one of the participants, reports there were 13 people in the wedding party, one of whom distracted the attention of police and Waqf officials while the brief ceremony was held last week.

MK Zehava Galon of the left-wing Meretz party, in a post to her Facebook page, seethes at the Temple Institute — which organized the wedding — for what she describes as threatening the delicate status quo at the Temple Mount.

“Not only did the people of the Temple Institute decide to thumb their noses at the delicate understandings on the Temple Mount, they also decided to do it right in our faces,” she writes. “I don’t know if the government thinks that our blood is worthless, or that the lives of Israeli citizens is less important than a quarrel with a loony group that wants to set up the Third Temple and, along the way, change the conflict from a nationalistic conflict to a religious conflict.”

“The time has really come for the prime minister to decide what he wants: quiet on the streets or to continue to transfer hundreds of thousands [of shekels] to organizations that push for building a third temple and a third world war.”

תיעוד: החתונה החשאית של הזוג היהודי בהר הבית, שעלולה לגרום למהומות pic.twitter.com/bVFlph5p2u

— חדשות 2 (@Channel2News) April 13, 2016

— Stuart Winer

First senator endorses Sanders for president

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon becomes the first of Bernie Sanders’ Senate colleagues to endorse his presidential candidacy.

In an op-ed piece in The New York Times and in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show Wednesday, Merkley gives Sanders high marks for resisting trade treaties that Sanders says have cost American jobs.

Merkley says in the broadcast interview that the Vermont senator has on many issues “been out there leading, clearly long before he decided to run.”

In the Times piece, Merkley also cites Sanders’ positions on the dangers of global warming, and the “threats to our economy from high-risk strategies at our biggest banks.” He says that Sanders has fought hard for military veterans, and he conceded he has an uphill battle ahead of him to win the Democratic nomination.

— AP

Spain detains man who sold arms to Hyper Cacher terrorist

Spanish police say Wednesday they had detained a French national suspected of heading a weapons trafficking ring that provided arms to Amedy Coulibaly, who staged a deadly attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris last year.

In a statement, police say Antoine Denevi, a 27-year-old originally from the northern French region of Pas-de-Calais, was detained on Tuesday in the southern Spanish area of Malaga at the request of French authorities.

— AFP

Australian lawyer suspended for rebuking child sex abuse victim

Melbourne attorney Alex Lewenberg is banned from practice for 15 months for rebuking a victim of child sexual abuse who cooperated with police on the basis that “Jewish people should not assist police investigating another Jewish person.”

Lewenberg made the comments twice in 2011 while representing now-convicted child sex abuser David Cyprys, who is currently serving a prison sentence after being found guilty of raping one boy and molesting eight others when employed at the Melbourne Yeshivah Centre and College.

He made the comment once while in court for a bail hearing and once in a telephone conversation with an abuse victim that was secretly recorded.

The judgment delivered by Judge Pamela Jenkins at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal contains the contents of a written apology from Lewenberg to the victim known only as AVB, in which Lewenberg wrote: “I apologize to you for what I said and I deeply regret the real hurt and harm those words have caused you.”

In imposing the ban on practicing law, Jenkins notes that it was the fifth time Lewenberg had faced disciplinary action. She also orders Lewenberg to complete legal education course in ethics and professional responsibility.

— JTA

‘Angry Young Men’ playwright Wesker dies aged 83

British playwright Arnold Wesker, a member of the “Angry Young Men” movement of the 1950s which pushed for more social theater about working-class lives, has died aged 83, his family says on Wednesday.

Prime Minister David Cameron and leader of the main opposition Labour party Jeremy Corbyn pay tribute at a weekly debate in parliament, with Corbyn saying that Wesker and his peers “changed the face of our country.”

The London-born writer was best known for his trilogy of plays “Chicken Soup With Barley,” “Roots” and “I’m Talking About Jerusalem” penned in the 1950s. He released his last work “The Rocking Horse” in 2007.

Wesker’s plays have been translated into 20 languages.

Wesker, who was knighted in 2006, died on Tuesday evening after a long illness, his widow tells the BBC.

He was born to Jewish communists and grew up in the East End of London. He drew on his working-class background for several works in a prolific career in which he wrote 50 plays.

— AFP

IDF says flag-burning an ‘irregular’ incident

The IDF responds to reports that Israeli soldiers burned a Palestinian flag in the northern West Bank, calling the incident “irregular.”

“The commanding officers are aware of the incident, and it will be investigated,” the IDF spokesperson says.

“From an initial investigation, this appears to be an irregular incident, in which troops acted against what is expected of them, and against the orders of their officers. It will be dealt with disciplinarily,” the IDF says.

— Judah Ari Gross

Egyptian hijacking suspect seeking Cyprus asylum

A man who has admitted hijacking a domestic EgyptAir flight and diverting it to Cyprus is claiming political asylum on the island, claiming he is afraid of how he could be treated by Egyptian authorities because of his political beliefs, officials say Wednesday.

Cyprus’ Interior Minister Socrates Hasikos tells The Associated Press that 59-year-old Seif Eddin Mustafa’s asylum claim is being examined while a request by Egyptian authorities for his extradition proceeds.

Mustafa’s lawyer, Robertos Vrahimis, says the asylum claim is grounded in his client’s fears about his possible treatment at the hands of Egyptian authorities.

Vrahimis says Cyprus could extradite Mustafa despite his asylum claim unless authorities grant his request. A court hearing on Mustafa’s extradition proceedings is scheduled for April 22.

— AP

Soldier jailed for 20 days over Palestinian flag-burning

The commander of the soldier who burned a Palestinian flag is sentenced to 20 days in jail and has his command position revoked following the incident, the army announces.

The soldier who torched the flag has been remanded to base for the next 28 days, the IDF adds.

The decision was made by the commander of the Kfir Brigade’s Nachshon Battalion, who held a court martial for the two combat soldiers after the incident.

— Judah Ari Gross

Army warns attacks could resume over holidays

The IDF warns that although Israel has seen a period of relative calm in past weeks, the terror wave could pick up again over the Passover holiday.

“We are gearing up for a significant escalation [in violence] and ahead of that, we will boost reinforcements,” an IDF official says, according to the Ynet news site.

“The holiday season, because of the Temple Mount and many hikers heading outdoors, will be a test of the current situation,” the official says.

The official says ten kidnapping attempts have been foiled since October.

He says 72% of attacks in the West Bank were directed at soldiers, according to Ynet.

Just 40% of pledged Gaza donations delivered — officials

Palestinian and international officials warn Wednesday of a potential slowdown in the reconstruction of Gaza, with only 40 percent of the money pledged after a 2014 war with Israel delivered.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah says they were able to repair more than 100,000 partially damaged homes, while giving compensation to businesses damaged in the war between Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

But he warns that funding is drying up.

“We call upon you to honor your obligations and effectively contribute to saving Gaza,” he tells a conference of donors, United Nations officials and others in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank.

In October 2014, following the 50-day war, international donors pledged $3.5 billion to rebuild the Gaza Strip.

But funding has been slow, with only around 40 percent of the money delivered, according to Palestinian officials, who cite World Bank figures.

— AFP

Paris attacks concert hall to reopen in November

The Paris concert hall in which 90 people were killed during last year’s terror attacks on the French capital is to open with a series of concerts in November, its managers says Wednesday.

British singer Pete Doherty and the Senegalese star Youssou N’Dour and his Super Etoile de Dakar band will play the venue on November 16 and 18 respectively, the team that runs the venue says in a statement.

— AFP

Punishment for flag-burners should go both ways — minister

Immigration Absorption Minister Zeev Elkin (Likud) says he hopes the army shows the same “decisiveness” in punishing Israeli Arabs or Palestinians who burn Israeli flags as it did for the soldiers who torched a Palestinian one earlier Wednesday.

“In light of the alacrity and decisiveness of the IDF in setting a punishment for soldiers who torched a Palestinian flag, I hope that the same determination will also [be applied] to every Palestinian or Arab Israeli who burns an Israeli flag,” he writes on Twitter.

Holocaust historian questioned in Poland for ‘insulting’ country

A Polish prosecutor has questioned a Polish-American scholar, Jan Tomasz Gross, to determine if he committed the crime of publicly insulting the nation with a statement on Polish violence against Jews during World War II.

Gross, a professor based at Princeton University, tells The Associated Press he was questioned for five hours Tuesday in Katowice but does not yet know if he will be charged with the alleged offense, which can carry a prison term of up to three years.

Poland’s case against Gross, which also involves a presidential threat to strip him of a state honor, has raised questions about the conservative leadership’s commitment to the freedom of scholarship. Law and Justice, a conservative and nationalistic party that controls both the presidency and parliament, is also centralizing power in a way that has raised concerns about its commitment to democracy more broadly.

Gross is questioned after multiple complaints were filed with prosecutors by Polish citizens over an article published last year in which Gross said Poles killed more Jews during the German occupation than they killed Germans — a claim that challenges a widespread conviction in Poland that the Polish response to the German terror was almost exclusively honorable.

— AP

2 US Jewish groups rap heckling activists at anti-bigotry meeting

Two Boston-area Jewish organizations criticize Jewish activists for disrupting a meeting called to discuss prejudice, including anti-Semitism and racism.

By trying to make the April 7 meeting in Newton, Massachusetts, only about anti-Semitism, the Jewish activists shifted its focus to the conduct of the meeting itself, the American Jewish Committee Boston and the Jewish Community Relations Council says in a statement issued Monday. A group of Jewish students later stood and spoke in favor of addressing the many forms of prejudice, including anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia.

Setti Warren, the mayor of the suburban Boston city, hosted the meeting attended by students, parents and members of the community following a series of anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic incidents in local schools.

During the meeting, Jewish activists heckled an African-American woman who spoke of her son being slurred at school, the superintendent was booed and had to be escorted to his car by police, and a woman held a sign reading “It’s not prejudice, it’s anti-Semitism,” according to the Boston Globe.

The Jewish activists were led by Newton resident Charles Jacobs, who has campaigned for years against city school textbooks that he sees as pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic.

The two Jewish groups acknowledge in the statement that the uptick in global anti-Semitism as well as the local incidents of anti-Semitism are concerning, but adds they do “not justify conduct that was manifest at this meeting or the disrespect that was shown to neighbors, who also had difficult experiences of their own to discuss. These activities do not represent the broader sentiments of the Jewish community.”

The statement says that the Jewish community “cannot fight anti-Semitism by showing disrespect to those from whom we also need understanding and support,” calling it “ill-conceived activism.”

— JTA

Kasich, Sanders seen by Israelis as least pro-Israel

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders are seen by Israelis as the least pro-Israel, a poll finds.

The survey of 500 Israelis, conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation, concludes that just 5% of Israelis believe the Jewish Democratic contender is the most pro-Israel, while just 1% believe Kasich is. Meanwhile, just 6% of Israelis believe Republican White House hopeful Ted Cruz is most supportive of the Jewish state.

Donald Trump is seen by most as the most pro-Israel (33%), followed closely by Hillary Clinton (31%).

Ivanka Trump says father ‘very supportive’ of conversion

Ivanka Trump says her father, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, was fully supportive of her conversion to Judaism.

“My father was very supportive,” she says at a CNN town hall meeting featuring the presidential candidate and his family broadcast Tuesday evening. “He knows me. He knows and he trusts my judgment. When I make decisions, I make them in a well-reasoned way. I don’t rush into things.”

Ivanka Trump, who works for her real estate magnate father’s corporation, had an Orthodox conversion before marrying Jared Kushner, the scion of another real estate family.

“I appreciate the support [my father] gave me because obviously these decisions are not taken lightly,” Ivanka Trump says, replying to a question from Joseph Cohen, a law student at Columbia University.

“And it would have been much more hard if I had had headwinds, but he believes in me,” she said. “He loves my husband. They’re incredibly close, which I think was obviously helpful. And he has been very supportive of me in that decision, as in many others that I’ve taken throughout the years.”

— JTA

France to reopen its cultural center in Gaza Strip

France is to reopen its cultural center in the Gaza Strip, which closed down 18 months ago over security concerns, the French foreign ministry says Wednesday.

“Activities will resume gradually,” ministry spokesman Romain Nadal says, noting that it was the only foreign cultural institution in Gaza.

The center, which is based in Gaza City, closed down following a fire and a bomb attack in late 2014.

In October of that year, a fire swept through its offices in what Palestinian police at the time suggested may have been a criminal act. Two months later, its southern wall was damaged by two blasts which were claimed by a small Salafist extremist group.

No-one was injured in either incident.

The French Cultural Center is the most visible foreign presence in the tiny Palestinian enclave, which is home to 1.8 million people.

Around 40 people with French or dual French-Palestinian nationality live in the Gaza Strip.

— AFP

Israel says it’s upholding Temple Mount status quo

Israel is upholding the status quo arrangement on the Temple Mount, which remains off-limits to ministers and Knesset members, the Prime Minister’s Office says in a statement.

A high-level meeting was held this week ahead of the Passover holidays, it says in a statement.

Israeli security officials have been conveying “reassuring messages” to the PA and Jordan to prevent an escalation in violence, it says.

Israelis officials have also been interviewed on Palestinian television to reiterate its support for the status quo.

“Israel will not accept disturbances and provocations to ignite this sensitive area,” the PMO says.

Supreme Court backs PM in holding multiple portfolios

The Supreme Court rejects a petition by the Yesh Atid party which argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not be allowed to hold multiple ministerial portfolios.

The Supreme Court rules the premier has the authority to do so.

Netanyahu currently serves as foreign minister, communications minister, economy minister, and regional cooperation minister.

Yishai offers support for rival Deri in corruption probe

Former Shas leader Eli Yishai offers support for colleague-turned-rival Aryeh Deri as police investigate the interior minister for corruption.

“There was never any schadenfreude and there never will be,” he says. “There are ideological gaps between us and political conflicts, but on a personal level we are brothers. Jews. I hope for his sake and for his family’s sake that the case ends in nothing.”

Woman accuses slain Likud minister of rape

A woman is accusing former tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi, assassinated by the PFLP in 2001, of rape, the “Uvda” investigative journalism TV program reveals in an excerpt of the woman’s testimony.

The full segment will be aired Thursday.

NATO could transmit Judeo-Christian values — Kasich

Making NATO a policing organization would play a role in transmitting what John Kasich has described as Judeo-Christian values, the Republican presidential candidate says.

“With Europe, I said that NATO needed to be transformed into a policing and intelligence organization,” Kasich, the governor of Ohio, says in an extensive interview with the New York Daily News editorial board posted Tuesday.

Kasich is referring – unprompted by his interviewers – to controversy he stirred last year when he proposed a US Department of Judeo-Christian values that would promote Western ideas in the same way that US State Department bodies have in the past promoted US culture and values.

“I mean, this is a battle between the civilized world and barbarians at the gate,” he tells the Daily News, which is publishing a series of interviews with presidential candidates ahead of next week’s primaries in New York state. “I mentioned something … You guys probably mocked me for it. You guys said, ‘Well, he wants to create, what do you call it, a ‘Jesus bureau’ or whatever. I said, our Judeo-Christian values are ones of respect for women, equality for women, right to protest, civilization, all this other stuff, and that we need to engage the whole world in this.”

— JTA

Over 100 said killed in upsurge in Syria’s Aleppo

Over 100 troops, pro-regime militia, jihadists and rebels have been killed in four days of fierce fighting on a strategic front of Syria’s Aleppo province, a monitoring group says Wednesday.

Since Sunday, fighting around Al-Eis and Khan Touman in Aleppo’s southern belt has killed 61 rebels and members of Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and 50 troops and pro-regime militia, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“In the past 24 hours alone, 42 rebels and Al-Nusra members died, as well as 34 regime loyalists,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman says.

Regime troops are trying to recapture Al-Eis, held by Al-Nusra and rebel allies, which in turn have launched an offensive to take over nearby Khan Touman from the regime.

— AFP

US says Russian planes buzzed Navy ship in Baltic Sea

Russian attack planes buzzed a US Navy destroyer in the Baltic Sea multiple times on Monday and Tuesday, at one point coming so close — an estimated 30 feet (9 meters) — that they created wakes in the water around the ship, a US says.

The official, who is not authorized to discuss details and spoke on condition of anonymity, says the Russian Su-24 planes appeared unarmed but on Tuesday flew what the commander of the USS Donald Cook deemed to be a simulated attack profile. The Cook’s commander judged the actions unsafe and unprofessional, the official says, but the ship took no action.

It was unclear when or if the US government would formally protest the Russian actions, which come at a time of tensions between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its military intervention in eastern Ukraine and fears among former Soviet states in eastern Europe that Russian aggression could threaten their independence.

US Navy photographs of the incident have not yet been released.

On Monday, a pair of Russian Su-24 planes made 20 close passes over the Cook, coming as close as 1,000 yards at an altitude of about 100 feet, the official says. A Polish helicopter aboard the Cook was scheduled to conduct flight operations but those maneuvers were canceled because of the Russian actions, the official says.

— AP

Deri’s brother identified as suspect questioned in case

The “close associate” of Interior Minister Aryeh Deri questioned by police on Tuesday is identified as his brother Shlomo Deri.

Deri, who is a lawyer, was asked about his brother’s assets in Jerusalem, according to Hebrew reports.

Norwegian rappers slammed for using ‘Jew’ as insult

A popular Norwegian rap duo is accused of mainstreaming anti-Semitism by using “Jew” and Ariel Sharon as insults in its latest single.

Karpe Diem, which has sold hundreds of thousands of CDs in Norway since its creation in 2000, released “Attitude Problems” last week, the online edition of the Verdens Gang daily reported Wednesday.

“I mean dog or bitch or whore, I mean pussy or Jew or dork,“ the lyrics read, and: “A joke is a joke, Ariel Sharon.”

The report follows the publication Wednesday on Facebook of an open letter to Karpe Diem by Eliana Hercz, a 21-year-old Jewish rap fan. The online version of the Aftenposten daily, Norway’s largest newspaper, reproduced the letter in its opinion section, drawing attention to the song by national media and prominent members of the Jewish community, including its president, Ervin Kohn, who praised Hercz on Facebook for highlighting the issue.

“It turned my stomach,“ Hercz, an activist against anti-Semitism, wrote about the song, which she said legitimizes anti-Semitism because it places the neutral word for Jew in Norwegian on equal footing with curse words.

— JTA