Pressure Increases on Iran from the Inside and Outside

Officials from the US, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates spent Wednesday pointing to Iranian behavior they characterized as dangerous and unacceptable, while in Israel the IDF posted a video of its destruction of a terror tunnels dug under the border between Lebanon and Israel by the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terror militia Hezbollah. The IDF statement included details that the tunnel was dug to a depth of 80 meters (260 feet) and ran over a kilometer from the southern Lebanese village of Ramiya to an exit close to the Israeli villages of Shtula and Zar’it.

US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mideast negotiator Jason Greenblatt landed in Israel Thursday on the final stop of a regional tour meant to set the groundwork for the “economic workshop” scheduled to take place from June 25-26 in Bahrain and meant to be the first step in building a consensus for the so-called “deal of the century” between Israel and the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have committed to sending representatives to the meetings, but the Palestinian Authority has flatly refused to even consider it.

In yet another defeat for the campaign to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Israel, national airline El Al announced on Wednesday that it will soon begin flying direct routes to Tokyo. “The importance of a direct air link between countries is basic, it brings the countries closer together and will enable bringing an increasing number of tourists to Israel, which is important, and also increase the number of investors who will arrive,” said Yaffa Ben-Ari, Israel’s ambassador in Tokyo.

Jerusalemites got some good news this week from the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research think tank, which published its annual report showing, among other things, that negative emigration out of the capital halted in 2018 after a decade of growth. Growing numbers of hi-tech business, which usually pay higher salaries than most other industries, were also mentioned in the report along with positive metrics in a number of areas.

Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda market is only a five-minute drive from the Knesset at night when there is no traffic. It is commonplace on long nights of voting that MKs leave to the market for dinner and even a bit of entertainment. But Wednesday night, like never before, the Knesset became the shuk.

Come along with an IDF spokesperson for a tour of the tunnel recently discovered and destroyed by the IDF, preventing the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite terror militia Hezbollah from using it to terrorize Israeli civilians living in the Galilee.

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