A poll conducted by the influential magazine Condé Nast Traveler ranked Jerusalem’s newly refurbished Waldorf-Astoria hotel as the top hotel in the Middle East and the seventh-best in the world, The Times of Israel reported Thursday. Over 128,000 readers took part in the survey. “What an honor! We are thrilled,” the hotel responded on its...

• Kindle

More than 150 British artists, including Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, have signed a public letter opposing boycott campaigns against Israel. The group, which also includes Booker Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel and noted historian and BBC presenter Simon Schama, wrote an op-ed in The Guardian criticizing an earlier effort by British artists to refuse...

• Kindle

MobileODT, a company that uses mobile phones to detect cancer and other diseases, is this year’s winner of the 2015 MedTech Innovator competition. The Israeli startup beat out 300 early medtech startups from around the world to receive a $200,000 prize. The MedTech winners were announced at the AdvaMed 2015 conference in San Diego,...

• Kindle

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is taking credit for the current round of Palestinian anti-Israel terror, Marc Shulman wrote an analysis for Newsweek on Monday. Citing Israeli sources calling the violence an “ISIS uprising,” Shulman observed: [ISIS] issued five videos on this newest round of the conflict, trying to...

• Kindle

Bedouin leaders have condemned the “despicable” terrorist attack committed on Sunday by a young Bedouin man at the Beersheba bus station. The Times of Israel reported more: “Following [Sunday’s] terrorist attack at the Beersheba central bus station in which two innocent people lost their lives, we utterly and unreservedly condemn this...

• Kindle

The U.S. and Israeli Air Forces began their biennial Blue Flag joint exercise at the Uvda Air Base near Eilat on Monday. The drills will last two weeks and include other allied air forces. Two years ago, participating countries included the air forces of Greece, Poland, and Italy. Blue Flag “creates a multi-national learning...

• Kindle

The former chairman of the BBC, Lord Michael Grade, has criticized the network for its recent biased coverage of Israel, The Jewish Chronicle reported Monday. Grade wrote a letter to the BBC’s director of news and current affairs regarding a recent dispatch by correspondent Orla Guerin. Lord Grade said the report had implied “equivalence between Israeli...

• Kindle

The head of UNESCO, UN’s cultural agency, said that she “deplores” a resolution proposed by Arab country members of the agency’s executive board that would deem the Western Wall to be a Muslim holy site. Irina Bokova said in a statement that the plan, which is scheduled to be voted on today, “could be seen to alter the status...

• Kindle

Terrorist groups across the Middle East have called for increased violence against Israeli civilians in the past 48 hours. The Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas has called for a resumption of suicide bombings against Israeli civilian targets, while the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has released five videos glorifying the knife attacks against...

• Kindle

The Israeli government denounced the government of South Africa after its ruling party, the African National Congress, hosted a senior delegation of officials from the terrorist group Hamas. The Times of Israel reported more: The delegation, which was still in South Africa on Monday afternoon, is headed by the leader of Hamas’s political...

• Kindle