The UN Security Council convened a few weeks ago for a periodic discussion on the Middle East, during which Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, delivered a speech detailing the rights of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
In his speech which went viral, Danon presented the “four pillars” that link Judaism to the land of Israel and even read from the Torah in Hebrew while wearing a yarmulke.
After it went viral, Ambassador Danon expressed his satisfaction with the reactions to his speech. “The speech resonated so well due to the power of truth, and its success was a welcome surprise, as it conveyed to the world the strength of the eternal connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.”

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Palestinian National Council (PNC) condemned the German parliament’s decision to define the BDS movement against Israel as anti-Semitic.
According to PNC, the decision of the German parliament is tantamount to encouraging and supporting the “occupation, settlement and racial discrimination” that Israel has been committing against Palestinian Authority Arabs for more than 71 years.
The PNC also expressed regret at the German legislators’ “submission to the pressures and baseless lies” of the Israeli “occupation” against the BDS movement, calling on the German parliament to rescind its decision and support the PA’s right to self-determination.

The powerful Lebanese Hezbollah militia has thrived for decades on generous cash handouts from Iran, spending lavishly on benefits for its fighters, funding social services for its constituents and accumulating a formidable arsenal that has helped make the group a significant regional force, with troops in Syria and Iraq.
But since President Donald Trump introduced sweeping new restrictions on trade with Iran last year, raising tensions with Tehran that reached a crescendo in recent days, Iran’s ability to finance allies like Hezbollah has been curtailed. Hezbollah, the best funded and most senior of Tehran’s proxies, has seen a sharp fall in its revenue and is being forced to make draconian cuts to its spending, according to Hezbollah officials, members and supporters.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk died on May 17, just 10 days before his 104th birthday.
His literary agent, Amy Rennert, said he passed away in his sleep at his home in Palm Springs, Calif., where he settled after living for many years in Washington, D.C.
Wouk’s two-dozen works include The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, Marjorie Morningstar and The Caine Mutiny, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1952.

Top Israeli officials welcomed the German parliament’s condemnation on Friday of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement as “antisemitic.”
The non-binding motion — submitted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, their Social Democrat coalition partners, as well as the Greens and Free Democrats — read, “The argumentation patterns and methods used by the BDS movement are antisemitic.”

Iran said on Friday it could “easily” hit US warships in the Gulf, the latest in days of saber rattling between Washington and Tehran, while its top diplomat worked to counter US sanctions and salvage a nuclear deal denounced by President Donald Trump.
Tensions have risen in recent days, with concerns about a potential US-Iran conflict. Earlier this week, the United States pulled some diplomatic staff from its embassy in Baghdad following weekend attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf.
“Even our short-range missiles can easily reach (US) warships in the Persian Gulf,” Mohammad Saleh Jokar, the deputy for parliamentary affairs of the elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), was quoted by Fars news agency as saying.

Germany became the first European country to declare the BDS movement against Israel as anti-Semitic.
The non-binding motion, which was passed by the Bundestag on Friday, declared the campaign that seeks to inflict economic damage on Israel as “reminiscent of the most terrible chapter in Germany history” and triggered memories of the Nazis’ slogan “Don’t buy from Jews.”
The motion, which was sponsored by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, as well as the Social Democrats, FDP and the Green Party, also noted the “growing unease” of Germany’s Jewish community over the growth of anti-Semitism in recent years.
According to a report by Germany’s Interior Ministry, anti-Semitic crime and hate crime rose by 20 percent in 2018, to 1,800 incidents.

A swastika was found spray painted on a donkey in the southern city of Be’er Sheva over Shabbos.
Police have opened an investigation. A 40-year-old resident of the nearby town of Tel Sheva, believed the be the owner of several swastika-marked donkeys, was detained.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

A cluster of balloons attached to an explosive device landed in an IDF base in southern Israel this morning
Israel Police sappers, who were called in to neutralize the Gazan explosive device, said that no one was injured and no damage was caused.
“If you see a suspicious object, report it immediately to the police,” a police statement warned.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

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A video posted on Twitter showed a man in South Africa assaulting former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by rush past the 71-year-old’s security and landing a jumping kick on Schwarzenegger’s back before guards swarmed the man, detaining him and carrying him away.
Despite the man’s running start, the former governor appeared uninjured by the attack and later posted a video of himself greeting fans on Twitter while adding in a subsequent message that he thought he had been “jostled by the crowd.”