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  • Natalie Portman Wears Her Jewish Pride With a Balanced View of People

    Natalie Portman is Jewish. She was born in Israel. her father is Israeli and her mother is American. They moved to the U.S. when she ws three years old.

    The beliefs and stories of her heritage help form her life even today. For example, Natalie Portman recently famously claimed that she did not know where her Oscar statuette is. When asked about that, she cited the Hebrew story of Abraham.

    “I don’t know where it is,” she says. “I think it’s in the safe or something. I don’t know. I haven’t seen it in a while. I was reading the story of Abraham to my child and talking about, like, not worshipping idols. And this is literally like gold men. This is lit­er­ally worshipping gold idols — if you worship it. That’s why it’s not displayed on the wall. It’s an idol.”

    But her heritage as a Jew does not mean that Natalie Portman follows all Israeli sentiment.

    “I’m very much against Netanyahu. Against. I am very, very upset and disappointed that he was re-elected. I find his racist comments horrific. However, I don’t — what I want to make sure is, I don’t want to use my platform [the wrong way]. I feel like there’s some people who become prominent, and then it’s out in the foreign press. You know, shit on Israel. I do not. I don’t want to do that.”

    When she was asked about how she feels about former Dior fashion designer John Galliano, who was quoted as saying, “I like Hitler” and using anti-Semitic comments toward a Jewish couple, she chooses forgiveness.

    “I don’t see why not to be forgiving to someone who is, I mean, someone who’s trying to change,” she says. “However, I don’t think those comments are ever OK. I don’t forgive the comments, but … we’ve all done things that we regret.”

    Natalie Portman lives in Paris, which has seen an upswing in anti-Semitic activity. Is she nervous living there? She takes a cosmopolitan view of the situation.

    “Yes,” she says, “but I’d feel nervous being a black man in this country. I’d feel nervous being a Muslim in many places.”

  • Gaza Strip: Israel And Hamas Trade Rocket Fire Amid Truce Break Down

    The latest round of cease-fire talks between the Israelis and the Palestinian militants ended brusquely on Tuesday after a round of Hamas rockets rained in Southern Israel.

    According to reports, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told his cease-fire negotiators to go home after a total of 10 rockets launched from Gaza had fallen on Tuesday. This is in violation of an existing truce that Cairo was hoping to extend through the cease-fire talks.

    Israeli F-16s responded by firing up to six of their own missiles in the Sheikh Radwan, the neighborhood of the Gaza City home of Mohammed Yassin Dalu, late Tuesday. Dalu is reportedly the head of the Hamas rocket division.

    The Palestinians said Israel believed that Muhammad Deif, the commander in chief of Hamas’s military, was inside the home and was the bombing’s primary target. It is not clear whether Mr. Deif had been in the house at the time. Neither Hamas nor Israel has provided evidence of his survival or demise. Instead, Hamas accounts claim that one of Deif’s wives and their infant son died in the attack. Three other residents were also killed.

    Reports state that this is probably the fifth Israeli attempt to assassinate Deif.  He has been No.1 on Israel’s most wanted list for over twenty years. The fact that he eluded Israel by living underground for decades, and that he survived previous assassination attempts, has made him a symbol of Hamas’s staying power.

    In the 24 hours since the truce fell apart, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 150 rockets at Israel. Israel had also fired at dozens of sites in Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry said 22 people were killed by Israel.

    “We remain very concerned about developments in Gaza,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Wednesday, as reported by Washington Post. “We call for an immediate end to rocket fire and hostilities and a return to cease-fire talks.”

    Harf continued to say that Secretary of State John Kerry talked to Netanyahu to discuss Gaza and efforts toward a cease-fire but that she could not provide further details. She repeated that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself.

  • Israeli Airstrikes Reportedly Hit Hezbollah Target

    Israeli aircraft reportedly carried out an airstrike near the Syria-Lebanon border late Monday. Israel has declined to comment on the situation and there has been no confirmation from Lebanon, according to the AP.

    However, Lebanon’s National News Agency has taken a guess that the strikes happened near Nabi Sheet which is a remote village in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

    The residents of Nabi Sheet say otherwise. Jaafar al-Musawi, head of Nabi Sheet Municipality, said there was no airstrike on the town.

    “We heard warplanes followed by explosions, it could be along the border with Syria,” he said.

    A report from AFP includes commentary from a Lebanese security source who said, “two Israeli raids hit a Hezbollah target on the border of Lebanon and Syria.”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to take military action before, which would prevent Syria from shipping weapons to Hezbollah, Syria’s ally. Israel has also carried out several airstrikes inside Syria to halt suspicious shipments of missiles. These shipments sometimes include Russian anti-aircraft missiles and guided missiles from Iran.

    There is also this seeming confirmation from Israel’s “Yediot Aharonot”, which blared from the front page, “Foreign reports: Israeli strike in Lebanon”. The paper also referred to strikes Israel supposedly admitted carrying out against Hezbollah in Syria last year.

    Israeli officials do believe that Hezbollah has restocked its arsenal with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles after the month-long war back in 2006 between the archenemies that ended in a blood-soaked stalemate. Some of these rockets and missiles are said to be able to reach just about anywhere in the Jewish state.

    Over the weekend, Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz made remarks that seemed to imply that something could go down.

    “We are monitoring closely the transfer of all types of weapons to all fronts,” Gantz said. “Sometimes, in case of necessity, something can happen.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons