JNS news briefs: November 17, 2014

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Arabs riot after bus driver found dead despite police assessment of suicide

(JNS.org) Riots broke out in eastern Jerusalem late Sunday night after rumors spread that an Arab bus driver had been murdered by “Jewish extremists.” According to the Israel Police, however, the bus driver in question committed suicide.

The body of Yusuf Hassan Ramouni, a 32-year-old Arab resident of eastern Jerusalem who worked as a driver for the Egged bus company, was found hanging on a rope inside a bus. Paramedics arrived at the scene and tried to revive him, and he was later pronounced dead at Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital.

Police investigators determined that Ramouni committed suicide. There were no signs of violence on his body. Yet rumors began swirling in Palestinian social networks and Palestinian media outlets, reporting that Ramouni’s family claimed he was lynched.

The Israel Police called on the Arab public in Jerusalem to demonstrate restraint and wait for official autopsy results.

“At this point, there is no suspicion of foul play,” the Israel Police said Monday. “In contrast to various foreign media reports, there were no signs of violence on the body.”

Arab riots raged in a number of eastern Jerusalem locations, including A-Tur, Issawiya, Abu Dis, and Ras al-Amud. On Monday, stones were thrown at Israeli vehicles in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood and just southeast of the Old City. One Israeli driver was lightly injured.
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Netanyahu calls on Abbas to stop inciting violence
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at his cabinet meeting on Sunday that while he was meeting last week with Jordan’s King Abdullah and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss calming tensions in Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was working towards the opposite goal.

“It is impossible to stop the violence if the incitement that leads to the violence is not stopped. … Within 24 hours of the meeting in Amman, official Palestinian Authority media outlets called for a day of rage in Jerusalem. Abbas must stop this incitement that leads to violence,” Netanyahu said.
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Israeli man stabbed with screwdriver in latest Jerusalem terror attack
(JNS.org) An unknown Arab assailant stabbed a 32-year-old Israeli man with a screwdriver on Sunday in the latest terror attack in Jerusalem.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the haredi man who was stabbed made it on his own to Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate and showed police the screwdriver lodged in his back.

“Much to our surprise, a young haredi man approached us and said he had been stabbed in the back,” said Border Police Sgt. 1st Class Aviv Nahman. “He was in shock and was holding the screwdriver in his hand. We immediately reported the incident, called Magen David Adom emergency services and took him to the police station near the Western Wall. We spread out our forces in the area to look for the suspect.”
Dr. Ofer Marin, director of the trauma center at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, said the Jewish man’s wounds were not life-threatening.
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Arab Knesset member calls Jewish Temple a ‘myth’
(JNS.org) Amid ongoing Jewish-Muslim tensions over the Temple Mount site, Arab Member of Knesset Jamal Zahalka (Balad) said at a protest in Kafr Qara that the historic existence of a Jewish Temple “is a myth and nothing more, while Al-Aqsa mosque exists in the here and now.”

Zahalka participated in the protest with about 150 people, some of whom burned tires and clashed with Israeli police. The Kafr Qara protest was one of many similar Arab demonstrations that took place around Israel on Friday. In Umm al-Fahm, a protest drew about 1,000 people, including three Arab MKs and the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Raad Salah. Protesters called the Israeli government “a government of terror” and even targeted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, accusing him of being a “traitor” for ongoing security cooperation with Israel.

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Jewish man stabbed in Belgium
(JNS.org) A haredi Jewish man was stabbed in the neck while walking through an underpass in the Jewish quarter of Antwerp, Belgium, on Saturday morning. The motive for the crime remains unclear.

The 31-year-old victim was treated for his wounds and released from hospital. He was walking to synagogue at about 10 a.m. when a man he did not recognize stabbed him and fled. Security camera footage shows the attacker, who appears to be a white male, running away from the scene of the crime. The Belgian police have not yet determined whether the stabbing was an anti-Semitic crime.
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U.K. to bar jihadists returning from Middle East
(JNS.org) British Prime Minister David Cameron has unveiled a sweeping new anti-terror law that seeks to protect the United Kingdom from jihadists returning from Syria and Iraq by render-ing them “stateless.”

Cameron, who made the announcement while addressing the Australian Parliament, said that Britain had to take action to deal with the threat posed by “foreign fighters planning attacks against our people,” The Telegraph reported.

According to the law, suspected terrorists will be placed under “temporary exclusion orders” that will bar them from the country unless they submit to strict conditions, including monitoring and de-radicalization programs.

The orders, which will be approved by Home Secretary Theresa May, say that suspected terrorists would have their passports canceled—rendering them stateless—and would be put on a “no fly list” to prevent them from returning.
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French-Jewish umbrella group: recognizing ‘Palestine’ may stoke anti-Semitism
(JNS.org) CRIF, the umbrella group representing France’s Jewish community, issued a statement suggesting that the French government’s upcoming vote on Palestinian statehood would cause a rise in anti-Semitism and diminish France’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

A bloc of Socialist lawmakers put forth a proposal for the recognition of “Palestine” in the French National Assembly, to be voted on Nov. 28, while a similar proposal was also put forth in the French Senate. Both votes would be purely symbolic, as President Francois Hollande has exclusive power over foreign policy decisions.

“In France, after the anti-Semitic riots this summer, [recognizing a Palestinian state] would certainly not be understood as a peace initiative and might exacerbate anti-Semitic tensions that we saw last summer,” Roger Cukierman, head of CRIF, said in a statement.
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