JNS news briefs: December 12, 2014

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Israeli Embassy in Athens attacked by shooters
(JNS.org) Four unidentified attackers riding on two motorcycles fired shots at the Israeli Embassy in the Greek capital of Athens early on Friday morning. No injuries were reported.

“Any terrorist attack hitting at the heart of democracy hits the heart of the country,” Greek government spokeswoman Sofia Voultepsi said, Reuters reported. The Israeli Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, attributed the attack to the influence of anti-Israel incitement by Palestinian leaders and pro-Palestinian groups.

Police said they found 54 bullet cases about 130 feet from the embassy building following the attack. The assailants used a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Israeli film ‘Gett’ nominated for Golden Globe Award
(JNS.org) The Israeli film Gett: the Trial of Viviane Ansallem has been selected as one of the top five nominees for best foreign film at America’s Golden Globes Awards.

“Gett” will be competing with Leviathan from Russia, Force Majeure from Sweden, Ida from Poland, and Tangerines from Estonia. Gett tells the story of Viviane Ansallem, a woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce. Ansallem faces the Israeli divorce process, which is controlled by Jewish law, and encounters the obstacles posed by the rabbinical court. The film, produced in conjunction with partners in Germany and France, is considered one of the most significant Israeli co-productions to date.

“It’s a great honor to keep giving Viviane Ansallem a voice, in the name of women in Israel and all over the world, who win their freedom and independence as women. I still haven’t internalized it. It’s just amazing,” said Gett co-director Ronit Elkabetz, according to Israel Hayom.

The Golden Globe Awards will take place in Los Angeles on Jan. 11, 2015.

Trial date set for determination of terror victims’ compensation from Arab Bank
(JNS.org) A New York judge has set the date for a trial that will decide how much the Jordan-based Arab Bank is liable to pay in damages to American victims of terrorist attacks committed by Hamas.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan on Wednesday scheduled jury selection to begin on May 18 for a damages trial involving claims by 17 of the 310 Americans who were victims or related to victims of the terror attacks, Reuters reported.

In September, a New York jury found Arab Bank, which has $46 billion in assets, liable on 24 counts of supporting specific terrorist acts in and around Israel during the Second Palestinian Intifada by transferring funds to Hamas.

The landmark decision was the first terrorism financing civil case to reach a trial in the U.S. The American victims of Hamas terror attacks said that the bank violated the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act.

According to the plaintiffs in the case, the bank transferred more than $70 million to an alleged Saudi terror entity, charities that were a front for Hamas and 11 other terrorist clients.

New U.S. spending bill boosts military aid to Israel
(JNS.org) The new U.S. spending bill provides a boost in military aid to Israel, specifically for its highly successful Iron Dome missile defense system.

The $1.01 trillion Omnibus Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2015, which was unveiled this week by Congress and is currently being debated, provides for $3.7 billion in military aid to Israel, including $3.1 billion in regular annual military aid as well as a hefty boost of more than 20 percent in proposed funding for Israel’s missile defense program at $619 million.

This includes $351 million for Iron Dome and the remaining $268.8 million for the David’s Sling, Arrow-2, and Arrow-3 systems. This increase will make for the largest-ever U.S. military aid package granted to Israel.

The spending bill also requires that 55 percent of the components for Iron Dome be manufactured in America. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has partnered with the U.S. defense firm Raytheon to produce the Iron Dome system. Rafael, the Iron Dome’s developer, has also been marketing the system to the U.S. military as a cheaper alternative to Patriot missiles.

Regarding the Palestinian Authority (PA), the spending bill stops assistance to the PA if it unilaterally becomes a member state of the United Nations or other U.N. agencies without a peace agreement with Israel. The PA is currently a non-member observer state in the U.N.

The spending bill also allows the U.S. government to reinstate full military aid to Egypt at $1.3 billion. While the bill specifies a number of requirements before it can resume the aid, it allows for Secretary of State John Kerry to bypass them for “national security” reasons. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been engaged in a military conflict with Islamic State-linked terror groups in the Sinai Peninsula and has been increasingly seen as an important ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism.

Additionally, the bill includes $1 billion in economic and military aid to Jordan and additional U.S. humanitarian aid to the millions of Syrian civil war refugees.

French Senate, Irish Parliament pass non-binding Palestinian statehood measures
(JNS.org) The French Senate and the Irish Parliament have passed non-binding measures calling on their respective governments to recognize unilateral Palestinian statehood.

French senators voted by a narrow margin of 152-146 to “invite” the French government to recognize “Palestine,” while also calling for an “immediate restarting” of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The vote comes on the heels of a similar motion by France’s lower chamber, the National Assembly, to call on the government to recognize a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, the Irish Dail, the lower house of the country’s parliament, also voted to adopt a non-binding measure to recognize Palestinian statehood. The Irish Senate approved a similar measure back in October.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon slammed the Irish decision, saying that the Irish Parliament was giving a voice to “statements of hatred and anti-Semitism directed at Israel in a way which we have not heard before,” the Associated Press reported.

“Europeans may have nothing but good intentions, but recognizing ‘Palestine’ without the PA (Palestinian Authority) first achieving a settlement with Israel is ultimately misguided. It would be a setback for the quest for real peace and the establishment of a real Palestinian state,” Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, recently told JNS.org.

The Danish government will also vote on the issue in early January, while the Swedish government already officially recognized “Palestine” at the end of October. Symbolic votes on Palestinian statehood recently took place in the parliaments of Britain and Spain, and a vote by the European Parliament on such recognition is expected in mid-December.

JDC expands winter relief for Ukrainian Jews
(JNS.org) The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which has been delivering heating fuel, bedding, and clothing to Jewish communities across the former Soviet Union as part of its annual Winter Relief program, is expanding its efforts in Ukraine in response to a harsh winter as well as the country’s ongoing political and economic turmoil.

JDC said Dec. 8 that its staff is providing additional winter supplies from the 32 JDC-supported Hesed social welfare centers in Ukraine, allowing them to reach not only the elderly and the poor, but also displaced Jewish families and Holocaust survivors.

There are currently more than 5,000 JDC clients in eastern Ukraine, and more than 2,000 displaced Jews who need assistance in other parts of the country, the relief organization said. In addition, local currency has significantly devalued, resulting in a 50-80 percent increase in the cost of food and medicine. The Ukrainian government, meanwhile, has enacted energy-saving measures such as planned power outages that can adversely impact the poor and the elderly.

“While winter relief is a lifeline for tens of thousands of Jews in need on any given year, its even more essential in Ukraine where utility prices have soared and the crisis has continued with no end in sight,” Michal Frank, director of JDC’s former Soviet Union department, said in a statement.

“We have proudly stood by the Jews of Ukraine during this period and, together with our invaluable partners, have redoubled our efforts to ensure this winter is imbued with the warmth of Jewish solidarity and mutual care,” he added.

JDC’s partners on the Winter Relief initiative include Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the Jewish Federations of North America, World Jewish Relief, the Conference on Jewish Materials Claims Against Germany, the JDC Board, and individual donors and foundations.

ZOA asks Scholastic to address omission of Israel from map in children’s book
(JNS.org) The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) wrote a letter to Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, that asks the company to take steps to address its publication of a book containing a Middle East map without Israel.

The book, Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt, was published by Scholastic as part of the children’s series featuring the Geronimo Stilton character. Scholastic has called the omission of Israel from the map “inadvertent,” and the company confirmed that it will cease the shipment of the current edition of the book while it is being revised and reprinted.

But in its Dec. 10 letter, ZOA asked Scholastic to take additional steps to address the situation, including: “(1) investigate how this omission occurred and why; (2) suspend relations with the book’s author, illustrator and Italian publisher until the investigation is completed and those responsible are identified; (3) once the investigation is completed, terminate relations with those responsible for omitting Israel from the map; (4) ensure that Scholastic’s editors and proofreaders have the requisite experience, competence and attention to detail to prevent such errors and omissions from recurring; (5) issue accurate replacement to those who have already purchased the book omitting Israel; (6) conduct a thorough review of Scholastic’s other books to verify their accuracy, and (7) issue a public apology and a public statement reflecting all the steps that Scholastic will be taking to remedy the incident and prevent it from recurring.”

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Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman