JNS news briefs: July 1, 2014

U.S. Reps.: Palestinian government should be dissolved after murder of teens

(JNS.org) U.S. leaders condemned the murders of the three Israeli teens, one of whom was an American citizen, while Congressional leaders called on the Palestinian unity government to be dissolved.

“The news of the murder of these three Israeli teenagers—Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach—is simply devastating. We all had so much hope that this story would not end this way,” Secretary of State John Kerry said.

“As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth,” said President Barack Obama.

On Facebook, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said he joined Obama and Kerry in their “sorrow and outrage,” and said he hopes the teens’ memories would “be a blessing.”

Meanwhile, Congressional leaders said that the murders were evidence that the Palestinian unity government between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and the terror group Hamas, which is suspected of being behind the murders, should be dissolved.

“If it is determined that Hamas is behind this horrific tragedy, Abu Mazen (Abbas) must immediately break up the unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization,” said U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chairwoman of the House Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, and Ted Deutch (D-FL), ranking member of the same committee.

Ros-Lehtinen and Deutch were in Israel as part of a Congressional fact-finding mission and were originally scheduled to meet with the families of the teens on Tuesday before news broke that the teens’ bodies were found.

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European human rights court upholds French burqa ban

(JNS.org) The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a French law that bans wearing full-face covering veils, known as burqas and niqabs for Muslims, in public and a variety of other places.

The case was brought to the court by a 24-year-old French-Muslim woman, identified only by her initials SAS, who argued that the ban on wearing the veil in public violated her freedom of religion and was “degrading treatment,” France24 reported.

In a majority ruling, the European Court’s Grand Chamber declared that the law did not violate Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects one’s right to privacy, and Article 9, which protects freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

The French law, which forbids anyone to hide his or her face in a number of places, including on the street, went into effect in April 2011. France has Europe’s largest Muslim population.

France, despite its overwhelming Catholic majority, is an officially secular country, where even overt religious symbols are banned in state schools.

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Homes of Hamas-affiliated kidnapping suspects targeted for demolition

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Palestinians reported overnight Monday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) explosives experts, accompanied by engineering units, demolished the home of Marwan Kawasme, 29, one of the Hamas terrorists suspected to have abducted and murdered Jewish teens Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Frenkel, and Gilad Shaar.

A similar operation was planned overnight at the home of Amer Abu Aysha, 33, the other primary suspect. His home was partially blown up in the operation. It was previously reported that troops from the IDF’s Duvdevan counterterrorism unit had surrounded the two homes.

Earlier Monday, soldiers clashed with dozens of Palestinians near the spot where the boys’ bodies were found. Soldiers surrounded a home where they believed the suspects were hiding when dozens of Palestinians began hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at them.

The Israeli defense establishment believes Kawasme and Aysha are still in Judea and Samaria. The Shin Bet security agency said, “[We] are continuing intelligence gathering and operational efforts to apprehend those involved.”

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Israel mourns as slain teens laid to rest

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The citizens of Israel were shocked and saddened on Monday when news emerged that the bodies of the three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped on June 12 were discovered in a field west of Halhul, near Hebron.

The funerals of Gilad Shaar and U.S.-Israeli national Naftali Frenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, were held Tuesday. Though the three did not live in the same town, they were buried side by side in the city of Modiin.

The kidnapping appalled Israelis who rallied behind the youngsters’ families in a display of national unity. The teens had apparently been shot soon after being abducted, while still in the kidnappers’ car, officials said.

 

African Union under fire after delegations shun Jewish group at summit

(JNS.org) This year’s African Union Summit in Equatorial Guinea is receiving criticism over an incident last Thursday involving a Jewish delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which left the gathering after several delegations refused to enter the summit’s venue in its presence.

“We were invited as official guests,” Conference of Presidents Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein told JNS.org.

Initially “we were treated very well” and met with many heads of state, Hoenlein said. But the Egyptian delegation would not enter the session hall on Thursday while the Jewish group, which the Egyptians called “Israelis,” remained inside—despite the fact that the group was American, not Israeli. Unconfirmed reports indicate the involvement of some South African delegates in the incident, and a delegation from Iran had also complained of the presence of anyone deemed Israeli.

“Clearly the Egyptians were in the lead,” Hoenlein said. He noted, however, that most of the country delegations present were not involved, that “many people were embarrassed” about the incident, and that representatives of the host country were also very supportive of the Conference of President delegation.

An African Union (AU) organizer had told Hoenlein about the objections to the delegation’s presence, to which Hoenlein responded that it would be “outrageous” to object to the presence of an Israeli delegation, but that the group was actually American. In the wake of this exchange, the delegation made the decision to leave.

“If this despicable lack of hospitality was indeed the result of efforts by the Egyptian and Iranian delegations, the former should be disciplined according to the steps available to the African Union under such circumstances, while the latter should be permanently barred from all future summits,” said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“The positive thing is that this is the first time a Jewish delegation was invited to the AU [summit],” Hoenlein said.

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FM Avigdor Lieberman: Jordan’s stability of vital interest to Israel

(JNS.org) In the strongest statement yet on the subject by an Israeli official, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it is in Israel’s vital interest to protect Jordan’s stability in light of the threat posed by the terror group Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).

“Jordan’s stability is one of Israel’s vital national security interests, and Jerusalem will do everything to preserve that stability,” Lieberman said during remarks with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Unlike most Arab states, Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, and as U.S. allies, the nations’ governments and military organizations maintain relatively close ties.

Jordan has been under threat from the advance of ISIS terrorists in Iraq. The terror group took over a key Jordanian-Iraqi checkpoint last week and has made several death threats to Jordan’s King Abdullah.s

“It is in the West’s and Israel’s best interest to put a stop to ISIS’s advancement,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Major General (ret.) Israel Ziv told JNS.org.

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Preceding provided by JNS.org, which is sponsored on the pages of San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.