“Not for nothing did Abu Mazen rush to renew security coordination with Israel,” a senior Fatah official told TPS.

By: Baruch Yedid

There is a great deal of tension within the Fatah’s ranks and senior officials told TPS that there is an atmosphere of rebellion against the rule of Mahmoud Abbas, who is now perceived as responsible for crushing the organization and splitting it into rival factions.

“Disaster, collapse, black day, the end of Fatah,” the organization’s activists say, raising the possibility that the situation will worsen if Abbas also ousts Marwan Barghouti from the Central Committee.

Many elements are now joining the criticism against Abbas, including those who worked alongside Yasser Arafat, including foreign officials, officers and former senior officials, and are attacking Abbas as responsible for the drama and historical division in Fatah.

Fatah officials are even talking about the death of the movement.

Activists of Mouhamed Dahlan and Barghouti are calling for personal accountability with Abbas and his family members and even claim that they should be expelled from the area.

A senior Fatah official said that “this is Abu Mazen’s (Abbas’s) last battle for survival with the younger generation of the movement and he is expected to end his tenure like the Shah in Iran even though he feels strong now, like the Shah, on the eve of the revolution … Abu Mazen is responsible for the destruction of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, and he does not hesitate to allow Hamas to enter the PLO … The Palestinian People’s Court will come for him, not for nothing did Abu Mazen rush to renew security coordination with Israel,” he said.

Fatah is now talking about growing unrest in the PA-controlled territories and the possibility of acts of violence flaring up between the camps in Fatah. It is estimated in Ramallah that the Dahlan camp in the Gaza Strip has also become very strong in recent years and that the number of registered activists there is 92,000.

Meanwhile, there is growing speculation in Ramallah that Abu Mazen is approaching the decisive moment and the chances are high that he will announce the postponement of the elections while justifying the dramatic step in Israel’s refusal to allow ballot boxes in eastern Jerusalem. A senior official says there is an understanding, almost a decision by Abu Mazen, to postpone the election and save Fatah.

A security source in the Palestinian Authority explains that it is not for nothing that the PA recently demanded that 18 polling stations be set up in Jerusalem, and not just six, in order for Israel to refuse and pave the way for Abu Mazen to announce the postponement of the election.

Another source says that Israel is now pushing for Abu Mazen not to continue the election campaign, based on an intelligence assessment that has been formed in Israel according to which he is expected to be defeated.

A senior Ramallah official confirmed that businessmen Samar Khuri and Bashar al-Gaza, Abu Mazen’s friends, were sent to the US and are trying to check the pulse of the American response in case Abu Mazen decides to postpone the election.

The source says that the intelligence services in the US and Europe are increasing their interest in the Palestinian arena in light of the deteriorating situation in Fatah.

(TPS)

The Israeli president announced Tuesday his selection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new government.

By: WIN & TPS

After President Reuven Rivlin held a round of consultations on Monday with all parties elected to the 24th Knesset, he announced early Tuesday afternoon that he had selected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new government.

At the end of the round of consultations, 52 Members of Knesset (MK) nominated the prime minister and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu. Forty-five MKs recommended head of Yesh Atid Yair Lapid and seven MKs nominated chair of Yamina Naftali Bennet.

The Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and the Religious Zionist Party nominated Netanyahu. Yesh Atid, Kachol Lavan, Labor, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Meretz nominated MK Yair Lapid.

Yamina recommended MK Naftali Bennett. New Hope, the Joint List and Ra’am decided not to recommend any candidate.

“I know the position held by many, that the president should not give the role to a candidate that is facing criminal charges,” said Rivlin in a statement on Tuesday, referencing the corruption cases Netanyahu is currently battling, “but according to the law and the decision of the courts, a prime minister can continue in his role even when he is facing charges.”

Rivlin continued, “Given [the current] state of affairs, when there is no majority of 61 Knesset Members supporting a particular candidate, and without additional considerations indicating the chances of the candidates to form a government, I have come to a decision based on the numbers of recommendations, which indicates that MK Benjamin Netanyahu has a slightly higher chance of forming a government. Accordingly, I have decided to entrust him with the task of doing so.”

With a deadlock of 60-60, Israel may be facing its fifth round of elections in a little more than two years.

In his statement Tuesday, Rivlin said his selection of Netanyahu was “not an easy decision on a moral and ethical basis,” adding that he “fears for [his] country.

“I am doing what is required of me as President of the State of Israel, according to the law and to the ruling of the court, and realizing the will of the sovereign Israeli people,” said Rivlin

He concluded by quoting President Abraham Lincoln and Menachem Begin, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, … let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

(World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com & TPS

Roy Shaposhnik identified himself as a “former Israeli” businessman and close friend of Prince Hamzah, who is accused of mounting a coup in Jordan, but denied ever being an intelligence agent.

By: AP

Jordanian authorities said Sunday they foiled a “malicious plot” by a former crown prince, Hamzah bin Hussein, to destabilize the kingdom with foreign support, contradicting the senior royal’s claims that he was being punished for speaking out against corruption and incompetence.

Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, claimed an individual with links to foreign intelligence services had offered services to Hamzah’s wife on Saturday afternoon to try to get her out of the country.

The Jordanian news site Amoon identified the individual as an Israeli named Roy Shaposhnik, and reported that an “informed source” told the site that the individual is a former member of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Shaposhnik identified himself as a “former Israeli” businessman living in Europe, and a close friend of Hamzah’s, but denied ever being an intelligence agent.

He said he offered to host Hamzah’s wife and children after hearing about the prince’s predicament. The offer, he said, was based on the “strong personal friendship” between their families.

Faced with rival narratives, the United States and Arab governments quickly sided with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, reflecting the country’s strategic importance in a turbulent region.

Domestically, Hamzah’s unprecedented criticism of the ruling class — without naming the king — could lend support to growing complaints about poor governance and human rights abuses in Jordan.

At the same time, the king’s tough reaction — placing his popular half-brother under house arrest and accusing him of serious crimes — illustrated the limits on public dissent he is willing to tolerate.

“The kingdom’s stability and security transcend everything,” said Safadi, as he accused Hamzah and two senior Jordanian officials of conspiring with foreign elements to destabilize the kingdom. “The plot is totally contained.”

Yet Safadi’s news conference Sunday did little to address questions surrounding the weekend’s dramatic events. In the night from Saturday to Sunday, Hamzah had announced in a secretly recorded video leaked to the media that he had been placed under house arrest.

Hamzah’s mother, Noor, weighed in on Twitter, writing Sunday: “Praying that truth and justice will prevail for all the innocent victims of this wicked slander. God bless and keep them safe.”

Abdullah and Hamzah are both sons of the late King Hussein, who remains a beloved figure two decades after his death. Upon ascending to the throne in 1999, Abdullah named Hamzah as crown prince, only to revoke the title five years later. While the two are said to have generally good relations, Hamzah has at times spoken out against government policies, and more recently had forged ties with powerful tribal leaders in a move seen as a threat to the king.

In his video, Hamzah, 41, accused Jordan’s ruling class of corruption and stifling freedom of expression.

“I’m not part of any conspiracy or nefarious organization or foreign-backed group, as is always the claim here for anyone who speaks out,” he said. He said his love for the country is seen as “a crime worthy of isolation, threats and now being cut off.”

Hamzah is a popular figure in Jordan, widely seen as pious and modest. But in his televised address, Safadi painted a far different picture, accusing the prince of engaging in a secret plot that would have harmed national security had it not been foiled at the last minute.

“When they (security services) intercepted certain communications speaking about a zero hour, then it was clear that they (the alleged plotters) moved from designs and planning to action,” Safadi said. “As a result, it was necessary for the security and intelligence apparatuses to move to throttle at birth this malicious plot.”

Safadi did not provide specifics on the alleged plot or say what other countries were purported to have been involved. But he said that some 14 to 16 associates of Hamzah had been arrested, in addition to two former senior officials, Bassem Awadallah and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family. Awadallah is a former Cabinet minister and one-time head of the royal court.

Safadi said Hamzah was warned Saturday by the country’s military chief to halt his activities but rejected the request. He claimed the prince recorded the conversations, passed them to foreign sources and issued his video message “in an attempt to distort facts and to gain sympathy domestically and internationally.”

He said the prince’s activities amounted to “incitement and efforts to mobilize citizens against the state.”

Safadi accused Awadallah, now a prominent businessman in the Gulf, of handling the contacts with foreigners. He also claimed an individual with links to foreign intelligence services, later identified by as Amoon as Shaposhnik, had offered services to Hamzah’s wife on Saturday afternoon to evacuate her from the country.

Safadi declined to say whether the prince would be charged with a crime, saying only there were attempts to resolve the matter amicably.

Such public clashes between the highest ranks of the long-ruling family are unheard of, and any signs of instability in Jordan could raise concerns throughout the region.

The United States swiftly announced its “full support” for Abdullah. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait all expressed solidarity with the king.

Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst, said the strong support for Abdullah reflected his generally good relations across the region as well as a concern that similar troubles could strike other countries.

None of the leaders in the region “would like to see havoc hitting any regime,” Kamhawi said. “It could be contagious.”

The U.S. considers Jordan a major ally, granting it access to military equipment and assistance. U.S. special forces and other troops routinely train with the Jordanians. The kingdom hosts some 3,000 American troops.

Jordan made peace with Israel in 1994. The countries maintain close security ties, but relations have otherwise been tense in recent years, largely due to differences linked to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz called Jordan a “strategic ally” and dismissed the turmoil as an “internal Jordanian matter.”

Jordan, a country of some 10 million people, has been shaken by a series of crises in recent years, from the rise of the Islamic State group in neighboring countries to an influx of Syrian refugees and an economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Bessma Momani, a professor of international relations at Ontario’s Waterloo University, said the house arrest of Hamzah was “self-defeating” because it is likely to strengthen the prince’s popularity.

Nonetheless, she said it sent a powerful message to the Jordanian public. “If a prince can be stymied, no Jordanian is immune from the heavy hand of the state,” she said.

   (AP)

Could the Right form a government with the support of a Hamas-supporting, anti-Zionist party?

By: Batya Jerenberg

Could a right-wing government be created based on the support of a rabidly anti-Zionist party?

With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc gaining only 52 seats in the March elections, speculation is rife as to which parties may be tempted to join his consortium.

Many pundits assume that Naftali Bennett will ultimately come back into the fold, as his Yamina party is a natural fit ideologically and Bennett never joined the pre-election, anti-Netanyahu chorus. Yet that only brings seven more seats to the table, leaving the coalition two shy of a majority.

Attention has therefore turned to another faction whose leader coyly said he would join coalition talks with almost any party – Mansour Abbas’ Ra’am, which gained five mandates from its Arab constituents. Ra’am’s platform, however, seems out of sync with the beliefs of even the left-wing Jewish parties, let alone the right end of the political spectrum.

The party is the political wing of the Southern Islamic Movement, whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish country in two ways: By giving all Palestinian refugees and their descendants the right of return into Israel along with establishing a Palestinian state or by creating a single, binational state.

The Movement’s hostile attitude to the Jewish state is clearly stated.

“The State of Israel was born of the racist, occupying Zionist project; iniquitous Western and British imperialism; and the debasement and feebleness of the Arab and Islamic [nations]. We do not absolve ourselves, the Palestinian people, of our responsibility and our failure to confront this project,” the charter says.

Although it says its “most important goal” is to advance Palestinian Arab society by preserving its identity and enabling it to “achieve its rights in civil, national and religious spheres,” it admits that its participation in Israeli political life is also “an attempt… to aid our Palestinian cause, and to clash with the proposals and policies and programs of the Zionist project from within the heart of the state institutions.”

Abbas smartly focused his campaign on practical and social issues facing the Arab community in Israel, such as the need for expanded budgets to fight the rampant crime and violence plaguing the sector, instead of on the ideology that motivates the party.

He gave a very conciliatory-sounding speech carried live by every major television channel. He ignored the Palestinian cause completely while speaking of the need to “give us and our children the opportunity, the right, to understand one another.”

Middle East expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar of Bar Ilan University told Channel 20 Friday that Abbas’ address “was meant to lull the Jewish Israeli viewer to sleep and prepare the ground … [so that] the state will legitimize the [Islamic] Movement, which sees the state as an entity that has no right to exist,” he said.

             (World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

By: Eitan Elhadez-Barak

A few days before Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, 87-year-old Holocaust survivor Nissim Semu closed the circle and held his bar mitzvah ceremony in front of his children, grandchildren, and dozens of members of the senior center in the central Israeli city of Yehud.

It was a bar mitzvah celebration for all intents and purposes: candies ready to toss, a Torah scroll and lots and lots of balloons. Only a small detail testified that this is not a standard celebration: bar mitzvah “boy”, Nissim Semu, is almost 75 years late. Now at the age of 87 he is celebrating.. “The best gift I have received is to be surrounded by my family and friends for the day,” said Semu.

Semu attributes the reasons for the celebration of the late bar mitzvah to the difficult circumstances he found himself in when, at the age of 13, he lived in Israel, which fought for its existence in the days before the establishment of the state and the war of liberation.

Semu immigrated to Israel as a war refugee four years earlier in unconventional living conditions as only that war could have created.

“My father, Moshe, peace be upon him, escaped from a labor camp in Bulgaria and joined the partisans who fought the Nazis,” Semu recounted. “My father, who spoke several languages ​​and looked local, would sneak into local taverns, drink beer and impersonate a Nazi. He infiltrated a pro-Nazi group and managed to gather valuable pieces of information without being suspected.”

After acting on certain information gathered and saving the lives of local leaders, anti-Nazi Bulgarians offered him a senior position in the local government. But hat did not interest Semu’s father. “He was an ardent Zionist and asked to be allowed to immigrate to Israel”.

Moshe Semu took his wife and two children and managed to immigrate to Israel. In Israel they settled in Rishon Lezion and Nissim joined the army a few years later where he also met his wife.

In the mid-1950s he moved to the city of Yehud and opened his garage ‘Garage Oz’ a decade later. Semu ran the garage until the 1990s when he was forced to close when he became ill.

Yitzhak Rosenberg, chairman of the Association for Senior Citizen of Yehud, who is himself a Holocaust survivor, says that, following World War II, about a million Jewish children who survived the Holocaust could not celebrate their bar mitzvah.

During the ceremony organized by the Day Center for the Elderly in collaboration with Rabbi Shimon Wiener of Chabad Yehud, a letter was read from Semu’s granddaughter, Noa, who lives in New York.

“Grandpa, when I heard that you were going to celebrate a bar mitzvah, I was not surprised at all. I did not know you as a child or as a teenager but I have a feeling that, despite a few white hairs, you haven’t changed at all… I hope you stay ‘Peter Pan’ forever.”

(TPS)

Prosecution alleges Netanyahu made improper use of the governmental power entrusted to him; first witness describes pressure to change news coverage.

By: Paul Shindman

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court Monday at the start of the evidentiary stage of his trial on charges of corruption but left the court room immediately at the end of the opening speech and did not stay to hear any testimony, Kann News reported.

The hearing opened with a speech by the prosecutor from the State Attorney’s Office, attorney Liat Ben-Ari, who told the court that “the awareness of the Prime Minister that things are given to him because of his public status is what allows us to define things as bribery.”

“Defendant 1 is the Prime Minister of Israel, who according to the indictment made improper use of the great governmental power entrusted to him, inter alia, to demand and derive improper benefits from the owners of major media outlets in Israel in order to advance his personal affairs for a long time. To be re-elected,” Ben-Ari told the court.

At the beginning of the trial in February, Netanyahu pleaded not guilty. For years, the prime minister has maintained that the allegations against him are a witch hunt by people seeking to force him from power because they could not defeat him at the ballot box.

Ben-Ari alleged that Netanyahu’s communications regarding news coverage by the Walla news network were not just ordinary conversation.

“The discussion is not objective communication or not – but an impact on content,” said Ben-Ari. The main witness phase of the trial is expected to last up to several weeks, centering on the issue of whether or not Netanyahu and co-defendant Shaul Elovitch conspired to alter news coverage of the prime minister.

Elovitch at the time was CEO of the Bezeq communications company that had the controlling interest of the news website Walla, with Bezeq allegedly receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits from legislation Netanyahu advanced as long as Walla gave him positive coverage.

The first witness was former Walla CEO Ilan Yeshua, who testified that the biased coverage on the news site was done in exchange for regulatory benefits.

Yeshua said that Elovitch and his wife had told him on several occasions that if the prime minister’s wife Sara got angry, Netanyahu would get angry – and if he got angry, “we would be harmed,” as they put it.

Yeshua testified that senior staff members at the prime minister’s office constantly called him with articles ready to run on the website, and that the Elovitches pressured him to run articles critical of Netanyahu’s opponents.

As he delved into the details of how Shaul and Iris Elovitch had allegedly pressured him, Iris Elovitch at one point shouted towards the witness box, “How much can you lie?”

Yeshua’s testimony is expected to run through the end of the month, and the prosecution is expected to call at least 300 witnesses. Although only half of the witnesses are expected to be called to testify, the trial might continue for up to three years before a verdict is reached.

The defense is not obligated to announce at this point which witnesses it will bring. Netanyahu does not have to testify in court himself, but such a move may strengthen the suspicions against him, so he is likely to choose to testify at the relevant stage in the trial, Kann reported.

(World Israel News)

Read more at: www.worldisraelnews.com

By: TPS

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) era has been especially difficult for medium-sized businesses in the US that have been affected by the subsequent financial crisis, the evolving business scene, lockdowns and other new challenges.

In the past year, a number of Israeli startups targeting the US small business market have found that the technology they developed has changed the fates of businesses struggling to survive the economic crisis. These technologies were not developed specifically to contend with obstacles created by the pandemic but their market presence during this period has changed the course for the better of many small business operators.

One of the companies operating in the field is Tailor Brands, which provides small businesses with services that a regular branding company offers, but through a digital interface online, automatically, and in the first stage, also for free.

The technology is also available to street businesses that had to move online or enhance an existing digital presence, and for those who set up a completely new business during this period.

“We have thousands of customers who used the platform to make a living during the Corona,” said Yahli Saar, CEO and founder of Tailor Brands.

“For example, a single mother in South Carolina who was fired from her job during the Corona period used the platform to turn a hobby she started with her daughter into a pet boarding house that today is the main source of income for the home,” he shared.

“Most small businesses are still dying at the concept stage because the idea just does not materialize. The Corona era has transformed the ability to move from the concept stage to the application stage quickly from something that is nice to something that is necessary, “Saar added.

Tailor Brands allows people to create logos for free, build business branding, build a social media presence and their website. The system offers branded products like business cards, pens, shirts, bags. Everything is done in an easy, automatic process that takes a few minutes.

Saar said the company has almost 30 million registered businesses in the system. Tailor Brands sampled about 7 million of the businesses that were started recently around the Corona outbreak and during the pandemic.

“From the information analysis we saw a general increase in the number of small businesses starting as a result of rising unemployment in the past year. These are people who have decided to leverage their skills for business building. We have seen an increase in small jewelry and fashion manufacturers, manufacturers of art items. People were looking for a way to make things by themselves in their homes and turn their skills into a business, to produce a new source of income,” he explained.

Data supporting the trend presented by Saar can be seen at the site for opening small businesses in the US. During 2010, 2.46 million applications were submitted for opening small businesses, after a steady upward trend that lasted about a decade. The number of applications increased in 2019 to 3.47 million, and during the Corona year alone in 2020, a leap was made to 4.41 million applications for opening small businesses in the US.

Another company that operates in the field of small business services in the US is Tel-Aviv-based Melio, which provides a platform for transferring digital payments between small businesses in the US. The company was established to help small businesses manage incoming and outgoing payments remotely and improve their cash flow. This is a business efficiency that is required in ordinary times and even more so in a time when the world is facing the pandemic, which creates new difficulties when it comes to synchronizing expenses and income and also running the business remotely due to social distancing requirements.

Ziv Paz, a co-founder of Melio, noted that “what is unique about the technology we offer to small businesses is its suitability for people with no technological or financial background. We saw family businesses in the US that started using our solution and have never incorporated technological tools into the business before. For them, however, Corona disruptions brought them to an end and pushed them into digitization.”

Transferring payments for goods and services between US businesses is still largely done manually and involves inefficient processes, such as using paper invoices and checks, and they produce long payment times. Over 40% of US business transactions are still made through paper checks, which in 2019 reached a financial volume of $25 trillion.

“The founders of Melio decided to set up an accounting company in the US as a means of understanding the world of payments between businesses, feeling the pains of the field, understanding the nuances within the workflow. This helped to produce an accurate solution. Most of the money transfers through our systems are free, and the revenue is, for example, helping some customers advance or defer payments,” Paz said.

“During the Corona era, we also saw changes in the design and branding of small businesses,” adds Yahli Saar of Taylor Brands. “From vivid colors and playful styles of curvy lines and brush strokes to brands created primarily to instill confidence: strong and straight lines in shades of black and gray. These are trends that try to convey safety and stability, important elements in the world we are caught in which every product poses a potential risk.”

(TPS)

By: Aryeh Savir

A group of 11 Israeli Zionist and right-wing organizations issued a call on Sunday to the leaders of the right-wing parties to put their personal differences aside and join together to form a stable government that is not reliant on anti-Zionist parties.

Naftali Bennett, head of the Yemina party, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. Gideon Sa’ar, who heads the right-wing New Hope party, has vowed to not sit in another Netanyahu government.

Bennett, Netanyahu and Sa’ar, who have previously worked together and who mostly share the same views, are now rivals do to personal animosity.

With a few short of the required 61 Members of Knesset to from a majority coalition, Netanyahu has suggested his government rely on the Islamist Ra’am party, which expressed interest in doing so in return for meeting a list of civilian demands.

These 11 groups oppose a collaboration with Ra’am, which has expressed support for Hamas and individual terrorists.

“We, organizations from the nationalist camp, call on the leaders of the Zionist parties from the Right and Left to reject the possibility of forming a government supported from within or without by parties that don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish People,” the organizations stated.

“Any party whose members support terrorism must be rejected outright, whether it’s the Ra’am party of the Islamic Movement or the Joint List,” they said.

“All parties should reconcile with their political rivals because at the end of the day, the only thing that’s important is the Jewish state and Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel,” they concluded.

The organizations that signed the letter include Im Tirtzu, Regavim, Professors for a Strong Israel, Cafe Shapira Forum, the Choosing Life Forum of Bereaved Families, My Israel, Headquarters for the South Tel-Aviv Struggle, Wounded IDF Veterans Forum, Lach Yerushalayim, Lavi, and Yozma Ezrachit.

Matan Peleg, CEO of Im Tirtzu which initiated the move, said that the letter was a wake-up call to the heads of the Zionist parties.

“Our elected officials need to wake up and understand that they are leading the country down a path of selling out its Zionist values for no justifiable reason. The nationalist camp has a clear majority to form a stable government. We are calling on Benjamin Netanyahu, Gideon Sa’ar and Naftali Bennett to take responsibility. The good of the country needs to come first, not personal emotions and mutual hatred.”

Professor Asher Yahalom, head of the Professors for a Strong Israel organization, said that the leaders of the nationalist camp need to “put the interests of the Jewish People first.”

My Israel head Sara Haetzni-Cohen said that “the challenges abroad and at home require the establishment of a nationalist government.”

(TPS)

By: TPS

The State of Israel will mark the beginning of Yom HaShoah, its national Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, on Wednesday night with an official ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust memorial, announced that the somber day’s theme will be 80 years since Nazi Germany commenced its methodical program to annihilate world Jewry.

80 years ago, in June 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a surprise attack on the USSR.

The objective of the operation was to precipitate the collapse of the “fortress of Bolshevism” before the onset of winter, and the invading army seized thousands of kilometers of territory.

Operation Barbarossa was a milestone in World War II, and a turning point in the fate of the Jews.

Nazi Germany, which had already instituted a policy of expelling, isolating and persecuting the Jews in Germany, Poland and Western Europe, carried out a broad policy of mass murder for the first time in the USSR, which soon became systematic.

The Einsatzgruppen, four mobile killing units of the SS, were tasked with the war on “ideological threats”—Communists, partisans and Jews. Army units, police and other forces committed murder alongside them.

Men were the first to be shot in the first weeks after the invasion. Starting early in August 1941, the circle of murder expanded to encompass all of the Jews in the occupied areas, men, women and children, except for a small number who were assigned to perform forced labor.

Yad Vashem explained that the acts of murder followed a particular template: through threats and various forms of deception, the Jews were required to report to locations, where they were gathered together. They were taken to a location nearby— a ravine, forest, castle or vacation spot—and murdered. Sometimes the Germans forced the victims to dig the killing pits themselves. The Jews were ordered to undress and hand over their valuables at some distance from the mass graves, and then they were taken to the pits and shot. Many were buried alive.

Jewish life that had existed for centuries in Eastern Europe was practically obliterated. Approximately one million Jews were murdered within the Soviet Union’s prewar borders, and some 1.5 million Jews were massacred in the territories annexed by the USSR between 1939 and 1940.

In the last months of 1941, based on the accumulating experience in mass murder, and particularly due to the ideological radicalization that considered the war to be an “all-or- nothing” moment, the idea of murdering the Jews en masse crystalized into a comprehensive plan, beginning by destroying all the Jews of Europe: extermination camps were established and run, improved technologies for mass murder were implemented, and deportations by train “to the east” from the rest of Europe began.

The murder of the Jews of the USSR and the annexed territories was the beginning of the consolidation of the “Final Solution”—the systematic annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany. By the end of the war, some six million Jews had been murdered.

  (TPS)