Israeli Knesset members move to bar Arab MK Zoabi from elections
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Member of Knesset Danny Danon (Likud) and the Yisrael Beiteinu party have joined forces in filing a petition with the Israeli Central Election Committee to bar controversial Arab MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) from participating in the March 17 elections.
Zoabi, who was suspended from the Knesset for six months last October after saying the Hamas kidnappers and murderers of three Jewish teenagers were “not terrorists,” is slated sixth on the Joint Arab List’s ticket, formed last week after the Balad, Ra’am-Ta’al, and Hadash parties— fearing they would fail to pass the election threshold—decided to merge.
The petition, filed Thursday with Central Elections Committee Chairman Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, stated that Zoabi’s outspoken support of Palestinian violence against Israel, as well as past statements in which she denied Israel’s existence, are in violation of Basic Law: The Knesset.
Zoabi said, “I have no interest in commenting on the actions of MKs from parties plagued by corruption, which are likely to vanish from the political map come the next election.”
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Iraqi Yazidis appeal to Israel for military aid to fight Islamic State
(JNS.org) An Iraqi Yazidi military commander has made an appeal to Israel for military aid to help in the fight against the Islamic State terror group.
“We appeal to the Israeli government and its leader to step in and help this nation, which loves the Jewish people,” Lt. Col. Lukman Ibrahim—a fighter in the Sinjar Protection Forces, a Yazidi militia—told Al-Monitor.
“We would be most grateful for the establishment of military ties—for instance, the training of fighters and the formation of joint teams. We are well aware of the circumstances the Israelis are in, and of the suffering they have endured at the hands of the Arabs ever since the establishment of their state. We, too, are suffering on account of them,” Ibrahim added.
Numbering around 1 million adherents, the Yazidis are a Kurdish ethnoreligious group that is linked to Zoroastrianism and other ancient Mesopotamian faiths. Their homeland is centered around Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.
Last summer, Islamic State jihadists conquered wide swaths of northern Iraq, displacing more than 1.8 million Iraqis, including Yazidis, Christians, and other minorities. Thousands of Yazidis were murdered by the jihadists, while many women and children were taken as prisoners or sex slaves. It is estimated that around 5,000 Yazidis are currently being held by Islamic State.
Another Yazidi fighter, Majdal Rasho, who returned to Iraq from Germany to protect his homeland from Islamic State, said that the persecuted Yazidis are facing a similar fate to that of the expelled Iraqi Jewish community.
“Our people had no choice but to flee. We are not Arabs, nor are we Muslims. We see ourselves as sharing a fate with the Israelis, who went through similar pogroms. Those besieged on the mountain approached me and asked, ‘Maybe our Israeli brethren could lend a hand?’” Rasho toldAl-Monitor.
While the Israeli government has not officially responded to the Yazidi fighters’ calls, Israeli humanitarian groups like IsraAID have been active in the region, providing essential humanitarian goods to Yazidi and Christian refugees.
At the same time, Israel maintains warm relations with Iraq’s Kurds, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed Kurdish independence.
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Israel rebuts Turkish reference to ‘massacred’ Palestinians at Holocaust event
(JNS.org) Israel on Thursday rebutted comments made Wednesday by Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek to members of Turkey’s Jewish community at a Holocaust memorial event. Cicek compared the atrocities of the Holocaust to the death of Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza last summer.
“As we remember the pain of the past, no one can ignore the last attacks on Gaza, in which 2,000 innocent children, women were massacred,” Cicek said, Reuters reported. “We need to see the picture as a whole.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said that Cicek “unjustly and harshly criticized [Israel] at a moment that is absolutely inappropriate.”
“Israel expresses its disappointment that a solemn event of an international nature dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust victims was misused in order to criticize Israeli policies,” he said.
Cicek’s comments are the latest in a recent series of harsh remarks about Israel made by Turkish officials. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed “crimes against humanity” equivalent to the Islamist terror attacks in Paris, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Netanyahu of carrying out “state terrorism.”
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AJC, Hartman Institute host Christian symposium on Judaism and Israel
(JNS.org) The second Christian Leadership Initiative (CLI) Alumni Study Symposium is taking place in Tampa, Fla., from Jan. 30-Feb. 1 on the theme of “Land and Jewish Identity in Israel and North America.” Renowned Christian leaders and scholars will be attending, along with CLI alumni of various Christian denominations and congregations.
The CLI fellowship, co-sponsored by the Shalom Hartman Institute and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), introduces prominent American Christian leaders to modern Judaism’s ideologies, theology, and practices, as well as the importance of Israel to the global Jewish community. This is accomplished through a 13-month educational program that ends with 10-day seminars at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
This year’s symposium adds to the experience by giving CLI alumni additional knowledge to enable them to better engage with Jewish communities, and to participate in richer dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“CLI gathers a unique core group of now 60 Christian scholars and introduces them to classical Jewish text study in the context of modern Israel,” said Rabbi Noam Marans, AJC’s director of interreligious and intergroup relations.
“The Alumni Study Symposium is another step toward realizing our dream of a multi-cohort CLI community that will have an indelible positive impact on Christian-Jewish relations,” he said.
“The push and pull of the havruta (peer study) experience allows us to learn from each other,” said Dr. Marcie Lenk, co-director of the Hartman Institute’s New Paths: Christians Engaging Israel initiative. “We each bring our own expertise, but we rely on each other to expand our own thinking.”
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