Netanyahu: Israel ‘must speak our mind about the dangers to our people’
(JNS.org) Against the backdrop of the Obama administration’s opposition to his upcoming address before Congress on the Iranian nuclear program and radical Islam, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that Israel “must speak out” against the threats it faces.
“We share a special bond with the United States, which is built on common values, and it’s reflected in our expansive cooperation, especially on matters of security. … Yet it is the government of Israel that holds the ultimate responsibility for the security of the one and only Jewish state,” Netanyahu said Tuesday at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. “And here we must speak out and must speak our mind about the dangers to our people and our state. This is something we could not do at the time of the Holocaust.”
The White House believes that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) breached “protocol” by inviting Netanyahu, who accepted the invitation and will speak before a joint session of Congress on March 3.
Pastor John Hagee, the founder and national chairman of Christians United for Israel, told JNS.org that the speech will be Netanyahu’s “opportunity to express to America and the world his vision for the restoration of peace in the Middle East and the world.”
Netanyahu said Tuesday, “The ayatollahs in Iran, they deny the Holocaust while planning another genocide against our people. Let me be clear. The Jewish people will defend themselves by themselves against any threat. That’s what the Jewish state is all about.”
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Senate Democrats won’t vote for Iran sanctions before March 24
(JNS.org) Ten Democratic U.S. senators who support the Iran Nuclear Weapon Free Act of 2015, a new Iran sanctions bill initiated by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), told President Barack Obama that they would not vote for the sanctions until the deadline for a “political framework agreement” between Iran and the P5+1 powers on March 24.
“In acknowledgement of your concern regarding congressional action on legislation at this moment, we will not vote for this legislation on the Senate floor before March 24,” the senators, including Menendez, wrote in a letter to Obama. “After March 24, we will only vote for this legislation on the Senate floor if Iran fails to reach agreement on a political framework that addresses all parameters of a comprehensive agreement. This deadline is the critical test of Iranian intentions.”
The senators also wrote that they “remain deeply skeptical that Iran is committed to making the concessions required to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful” by the March 24 deadline. The deadline for a final nuclear deal is June 30. Obama has vowed to veto any new Iran sanctions bill.
Last week, Menendez struck a harsher tone on the issue, saying that the Obama administration’s talking points on Iran sound like they come “straight out of Tehran.”
Besides Menendez, the letter to Obama was signed by Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Gary Peters of Michigan, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Chris Coons of Deleware, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
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‘Night Will Fall’ documentary revealing Holocaust footage premieres on HBO
(JNS.org) A documentary film has been released about another documentary made in the aftermath of the Holocaust with the involvement of famous director Alfred Hitchock using real footage taken by Soviet and British soldiers while liberating concentration camps such as Bergen-Belsen.
The original documentary titled “German Concentration Camps Factual Survey” was meant to be shown to the German people in the aftermath of the Holocaust in order for them to see the horrors committed by the Nazis.
However the documentary was suppressed due to “the changing political situation, particularly for the British,” Dr. Toby Haggith, senior curator at the Imperial War Museum, told the British Independent newspaper.
The new documentary film about the suppressed film is titled Night Will Fall and premiered on the HBO network Monday before International Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday.
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Number of Jewish visitors to Temple Mount up 92 percent since 2009
(JNS.org) The number of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount has increased by 92 percent since 2009, recently released police statistics compiled by the Jerusalem-based Temple Institute show.
According to the figures, 5,658 Israeli Jews visited the Temple Mount in 2009. Then the number rose steadily year by year to a high of 10,906 in 2014.
Israel gained eastern Jerusalem along with its holy sites from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War. But the Temple Mount is administered by the Islamic Waqf, a Muslim trust overseen by Jordan that limits non-Muslim visitation and bans Jewish prayer.
The increase in Jewish visitors has been led by Jewish activist groups that have been calling for greater access to the Temple Mount.
“The official figures indicating that Jewish visits to the Temple Mount have almost doubled in recent years clearly demonstrate that the Jewish people are undergoing a spiritual awakening, and reconnecting—not only to their most holy site, but to their own destiny,” said Rabbi Chaim Richman, international director of the Temple Institute.
Tensions over the Temple Mount increased late last year after several Arab leaders spoke out about Jewish visitation, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who called for Muslims to “prevent” Jews from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“We [Muslims] should all remain present at the Noble Sanctuary [Temple Mount],” Abbas said in a speech on October 17, 2014. “We must prevent them [Jews] from entering the Noble Sanctuary in any way. This is our Al-Aksa and our church. They have no right to enter and desecrate them. We must confront them and defend our holy sites,” Abbas said.
These tensions ignited violent Arab protests in and around Jerusalem as well as several terror attacks.
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Speakers of European parliaments sign joint declaration against anti-Semitism
(JNS.org) The speakers of 29 European parliaments signed a joint declaration expressing their “grave concern” over growing anti-Semitism in Europe.
The gathering of the European leaders was part of the European Jewish Congress’s “Let My People Live!” conference that coincided with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“As heads of Parliaments we wish to make it clear that anti-Semitism, as well as other hate crimes, constitute problems for every society in which they are allowed to manifest themselves,” the European leaders said in a statement.
“Anti-Semitism employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits. Contemporary examples of anti-Semitism in public life include the distortion or denial of the Holocaust with the intention of hurting Jews around the world and the State of Israel,” the statement added.
The only parliamentary speaker not to sign the joint declaration was Turkey.
In an address at the gathering, European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor, said that Europe is on the cusp of a new “Dark Ages,” with the rise of jihadists and far-right neo-Nazi groups.
“Recent atrocities in Paris, Brussels and Toulouse are visible manifestations of the deep structural problems embodied in European society today,” Kantor told European leaders. “Jihadism is very close to Nazism. One could even say that they are two faces of the same evil.”
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Survivors and leaders mark 70 years since Auschwitz liberation
(JNS.org) More than 300 Holocaust survivors along with world leaders gathered at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on Tuesday to commemorate the 1.1 million people killed there, as well as the millions of other victims killed during the Holocaust, as part of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Halina Birenbaum, an 85-year-old Polish-Jewish survivor of the camp, said at the ceremony that Auschwitz was “like nothing similar to anything in human experience.”
“Cursing, beatings, sophisticated torture, corporal punishment for petty offenses or for nothing at all. Columns of people being led to gas chambers. A pillar of fire straight to the sky. Trains and trains full of new victims,” she said, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In a speech, president of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder warned that “slowly the demonization of Jews started to come back. Once again, young Jewish boys are afraid to wear yarmulkes on the streets of Paris and Budapest and London. Once again, Jewish businesses are targeted. And once again, Jewish families are fleeing Europe.”
In addition the “vilification of Israel, the only Jewish state on earth, quickly became an opportunity to attack Jews. Much of this came from the Middle East, but it has found fertile ground throughout the world,” Lauder added, the Associated Press reported.
In an official statement, President Barack Obama, who was not present at the ceremony, said that “the recent terrorist attacks in Paris serve as a painful reminder of our obligation to condemn and combat rising anti-Semitism in all its forms, including the denial or trivialization of the Holocaust.”
Numerous global leaders attended the commemoration of Auschwitz’s liberation from Poland, France, Germany, and several other European countries. Absent from the commemoration was also Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov attended the event instead, as did U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who is Jewish.
Putin was present at a separate Holocaust commemoration at Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Center for Tolerance on Tuesday.
At a reception in Krakow with 100 Auschwitz survivors on the eve of the gathering on Monday, American-Jewish film director Steven Spielberg—director of the famed Holocaust motion picture Schindler’s List— also said “we need to be preserving places like Auschwitz so people can see for themselves how evil ideologies can become tangible acts of murder.”
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