JNS news briefs: August 12, 2014

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Known anti-Israel critic appointed head of UNHRC Gaza probe

(JNS.org) Known anti-Israel critic William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law, has been selected to head a three-person investigation by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) into the Gaza conflict, which the Israeli government slammed as a “kangaroo court.”

Schabas in the past has called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former President Shimon Peres, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, to be indicted before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“Why are we going after the president of Sudan for Darfur and not the president of Israel [Peres] for Gaza?” Schabas said in 2009, according to the watchdog group U.N. Watch.

“His opinions against Israel are known to all, and prove without a doubt that Israel cannot expect justice from this body,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird also slammed the UNHRC’s probe. “The UN Human Rights Council continues to be a sham for advancing human rights; today’s [announcement] for members of its Gaza inquiry reveals its agenda,” Baird wrote on Twitter.

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German authorities concerned over potential jihadist terrorism

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) terror group clashed last week with Kurdish Yazidis in North Rhine-Westphalia, the state housing Germany’s largest Muslim population.

The violence comes amid threats by a German jihadi to blow up an American nuclear weapons storage facility in Germany. German authorities have long warned of the threat posed by Salafism, a radically anti-Western ideology that seeks to impose Islamic Shariah law in Germany and other parts of Europe.

Membership in Islamic extremist groups in Germany rose to 43,185 in 2013, up from 42,550 in 2012, according to German intelligence estimates. The number of Salafists in Germany rose to 5,500 in 2013, up from 4,500 in 2012, and 3,800 in 2011.

North Rhine-Westphalia is home to the largest concentration (about 1,500) of Salafists in Germany and most of the estimated 60,000 Yazidis in Germany.

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Israel testing new tunnel detection system

(JNS.org) Senior Israeli officers are reporting that a sensor system is being developed that would be able to identify new tunnels being dug by Hamas into Israel from Gaza.

A senior officer told Yedioth Achronoth that the system, which could cost up to two billion NIS ($576 million), works via sensors that detect underground excavation and areas. The system was already successfully tested in Tel Aviv-area sewage tunnels. When fully operational, the system could be deployed all along the Israel-Gaza border.

Meanwhile, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Northern Command Maj, Gen. Yair Golan said that while the threat of tunnels built by Hamas on the Gaza border continues, “the general stressed that at the moment there are no known [Hezbollah] attack tunnels coming from Lebanon.”

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan elected as president

(JNS.org) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has recently said that Israel’s actions in Gaza have “surpassed Hitler in barbarism,” has been elected as the country’s president with just under 52 percent of the vote Sunday, according to a preliminary count of the ballots. The election makes Erdogan the first directly elected president in the history of the country.

“Without a doubt, new Turkey, great Turkey, leading Turkey has won today,” Erdogan said, despite his critics, who maintain that his authoritarian leadership is not beneficial, and that he is trying to Islamize the traditionally more secular Middle-Eastern country.

The role of president remains a ceremonial position in the country. However, “few doubt that he will continue to have the final say over every major policy decision, implemented through an obedient prime minister which he is set to appoint,” reported Haaretz.

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Iraqi prime minister amasses troops in protest to ousting

(JNS.org) Iraq’s president Fouad Masoum has ousted Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been in power for eight years, by naming a new prime minister. However, al-Maliki refused to abandon his post and has deployed militias on the streets of Baghdad.

The U.S., which had been instrumental in placing al-Maliki in the post after its 2003 invasion of Iraq, congratulated the new prime minister, Haidar al-abadi, on his appointment to the position. However, al-Maliki’s Dawa Party has declared the new appointment “illegal and a breach of the constitution,” reported Reuters.

The new political crisis in Iraq comes in the wake of targeted airstrikes launched by the U.S. at the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), who have been violently taking over parts of Iraq and executing non-Muslims, such as Christians, Yazidis and others.

ISIS terrorists consider members of the Yazidi minority to be “devil worshipers” and have ordered them to convert or die. Tens of thousands of Yazidis have fled from areas taken over by ISIS and have gathered on a mountain, where they have limited access to food and water.

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In honor of Tu B’Av: Israeli Love in numbers

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Many more Israeli couples are living together and having children without getting married, and the number of unmarried mothers is on the rise, according to an Israel Central Bureau of Statistics report released ahead of Tu B’av, the Jewish holiday of love, on Monday.

The report also showed that Israelis are apparently in no rush to get married. Among Israelis aged 25 to 29, 63 percent of men and 46 percent of women are single.

At the same time, the trend of living together and having children while unmarried is growing. The number of unmarried couples living together more than doubled over the last decade, from 29,200 in 2004 to 74,820 in 2014.

The number of babies born to unmarried Jewish women tripled over the last 14 years, from 2,600 in the year 2000 to 7,650 so far this year. The number of single mothers also grew from 8,400 in the year 2000 to more than 17,000 this year.

Still, Israel is considered conservative when it comes to the average age of marriage. For women, the average age rose from 21.8 in 1970 to 25.9 this year, and for men, from 25 to 28.

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