Jewish news briefs: July 30, 2015

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Top Israeli jurists crafting ‘legal Iron Dome’ to boost public diplomacy
(JNS.org) Top Israeli legal experts came together this week to formulate a new strategy to bolster the public diplomacy efforts of Israel’s government.

The project, promoted by Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), seeks to provide Israeli diplomats with solid public diplomacy messages to counter anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement worldwide, as well as the Palestinians’ attempts to have the International Criminal Court launch a war crimes investigation against Israel over last year’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

Hotovely, Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold, former chief justices Aharon Barak and Dorit Beinisch, former deputy attorney general Mike Blass, Israel Prize recipient in legal studies Prof. Ruth Lapidoth, and Hebrew University Law School Dean Prof. Yuval Shany, among others, convened Tuesday in an effort to craft talking points that could stand up to legal scrutiny in international fora where Israeli diplomats appear.

The two-hour meeting delved into legal issues pertaining to Judea and Samaria’s Jewish communities, land and human rights, rules of war, and Israel’s right to defend itself.

“We have to update Israel’s legal instruments, and to that end, Israel’s senior jurists, the best we have in the field of international law, have come together to assist the Foreign Ministry in its struggle,” Hotovely said, Israel Hayom reported.

“The State of Israel has to form a legal Iron Dome to fight international delegitimization efforts, the majority of which focus on two issues, Judea and Samaria settlements and military ethics,” she added, referencing Israel’s highly successful missile defense system.

The group of legal experts is scheduled to reconvene in the coming weeks.
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Here comes the sun: largest solar array in Israel becomes operational
(JNS.org) Israel’s Ketura Solar Field became operational on Wednesday, making it the largest solar array to be an active part of the Jewish state’s electric grid.

The solar array, which is located on Kibbutz Ketura in southern Israel’s Arava Valley, contains 140,434 solar panels spread over 134 acres and is capable of generating 40 megawatts of power at a cost of $79 million, Globes reported.

The solar field project is a joint venture between Israel’s Arava Power Company and EDF Energies Nouvelles Israel, a subsidiary of the French national electric corporation.

The Israeli government hopes that renewable energy reaches 10 percent of the country’s total energy consumption by 2020. Currently, that figure is at 2 percent.
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Houston is latest Jewish federation to oppose Iran deal
(JNS.org) The Jewish Federation of Greater Houston on Wednesday became the latest individual Jewish federation to officially oppose the Iran nuclear deal.

While the Jewish federations of Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix, and South Palm Beach, Fla., have also opposed the deal, an overwhelming majority of the 151 affiliates of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) umbrella group have not issued definitive opinions about the agreement. JFNA itself has also not directly opposed the deal, saying it is “concerned” due to “Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas” and “its aggressive threats toward neighboring countries—including Israel,” but also “hopeful that diplomatic efforts will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.”

The Houston federation said in a statement that it believes the deal “is cause for great concern” and that, “Regretfully, we have no choice but to oppose it and we urge others to join us.” While acknowledging “that there are diverse views within our community,” the federation said the agreement “puts Israel and others in harm’s way against a sworn and evil enemy in the world’s most volatile region.”

“We recognize we are not nuclear experts but we must heed the large, diverse and growing number of independent and nonpartisan experts and organizations who have raised serious concerns since the release of the details of the agreement,” said the Houston federation. “In particular, critical issues have been raised relating to inspections and verification, weaponization activity, infrastructure dismantlement of nuclear facilities, and the duration of some of the most sensitive components in the agreement. These issues, and the resulting vulnerabilities, are sufficient reasons to let our elected officials know that the existing agreement is too risky to approve and tougher terms will be needed. Therefore, it is critical that we urge their disapproval of the agreement.”
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Syrian state TV reports second Israeli airstrike on terror targets in a day
(JNS.org) An Israeli warplane on Wednesday attacked a terrorist base belonging to a pro-Syrian government Palestinian terror group, Syrian state television claimed.

The Israeli plane purportedly attacked a military base along the Lebanon-Syria border belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reported, citing the television report.

An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment on the reported strike.

Earlier on Wednesday, Arab media outlets reported that the Israeli Air Force struck a vehicle in the Quneitra region of southern Syria, killing at least two people and as many as five, who were possibly members of the Hezbollah terror group and the People’s Committees, a pro-Assad militia led by the Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar.
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Iraqi politician calls for peace with Israel, blasts Iran and Islamic State
(JNS.org) Sunni Muslim Iraqi politician Mithal Al-Alusi, who leads the Ummah Party, told the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Rai that Iraq should make peace with Israel. He also called Iran “insane” and said the Muslim world has created the Islamic State terror group by fostering a “mentality of vengeance and nullification of the other.”

“Yes. Israel is a state and I support peace with it,” Al-Alusi said in the interview, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“I want to see an [Iraqi] embassy [in Israel] and the Iraqi flag flying atop it. This is in our interest. I do not want to tie our interests [solely] to Abu Mazen” and the Palestinian Authority, he said.

Iran, according to Al-Alusi, “is the most insane actor, which gambles with the lives of its sons, its people, and its history in order to [realize] the Iranian leaders’ false vision. It is inconceivable that Iran will control the region someday, and it does not have the power to do so.”

Regarding the emergence of Islamic State, he said, “This crisis is not only Iraq’s. We must fight our internal mentality—the mentality of vengeance and nullification of the other [that] created ISIS, the criminal terrorist organization that harms Islam and that committed a criminal terrorist act in Kuwait against our Kuwaiti sons, friends, neighbors, and brothers, and the [terrorist] actions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere.”

“It is our creation, not a Western or European or Crusader or Jewish or Israeli creation. It is a creation of the Arabs and Muslims, because we have failed to protect our society and have allowed these extremist views to exist,” he added.
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Ivory Coast seeks to learn from Israel how to fight terrorism
(JNS.org) The president of Ivory Coast’s National Assembly legislature, Guillaume Kigbafori Soro, said his country wants to learn from Israel how to fight terrorism.

“The so called ‘Arab Spring’ was started by young people, and in Africa unemployed young people are the infrastructure for terrorist recruitment,” Soro, who is leading a delegation to the Jewish state from the West African nation, said in a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.

In a speech welcoming the delegation, Rivlin pointed out that both Israel and Ivory Coast are democracies navigating challenging circumstances. In Israel, “we have the problem of two nations in one state,” he said, as well as an economic gap between the rich and the poor.

“These are both problems that pose a danger for democracy,” said Rivlin, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Rivlin added that neither Israel’s nor Ivory Coast’s democracies are perfect, but “we have nothing better,” and that Israel’s relationship with Ivory Coast and with Africa as a whole is a very important one.

Soro told Rivlin that his country will try to help Israel gain observer status in the African Union, and that the Ivory Coast delegation was impressed by the Israeli people’s ability to achieve as much as they have in the short existence of their country despite enduring hardships.

The delegation also visited the olive tree planted in Israel by Ivory Coast’s first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny. He planted the tree in 1962, two years after Ivory Coast became independent, and donated a forest of 10,000 trees to Israel. Houphouet-Boigny planted the first trees in that forest with Israel’s second president, Yitzhak Ben Zvi.
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Archaeologists uncover remains of Nazi-burned Great Synagogue of Vilna
(JNS.org) A team of Israeli and Lithuanian archaeologists has uncovered the underground remains of the Great Synagogue of Vilna using ground-penetrating radar technology.

According to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), “the results of the ground penetrating radar survey showed significant remains of the synagogue below the surface, including sections of the Great Synagogue and possible remnants of the miqva’ot (ritual baths).”

The Great Synagogue was built in Renaissance-Baroque style in the 17th-century on top of a site used for Jewish prayer dating back to the 15th century. Eventually, the synagogue became the center of a vibrant Jewish community that included other synagogues, a library, kosher meat markets, ritual baths, and other community institutions.

The synagogue was burned and ransacked by the Nazis during the Holocaust and was later completely demolished by the Soviets during the 1950s. Today, a school partially sits over the site.

Excavation is planned for next year, with archaeologists hoping to uncover the remains and put them on public display as a memorial to the Jewish community of Vilna.

“Jewish built cultural heritage is seen as an important and inseparable part of Lithuanian heritage that needs to be celebrated by all and preserved for perpetuity,” the IAA said.
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Israel rejects ‘fundamentally flawed’ Amnesty International report on Gaza war
(JNS.org) The Israeli government has rejected what it is calling a “fundamentally flawed” Amnesty International report which claims there is “strong evidence” that the Israel Defense Forces committed war crimes following the capture of a soldier by Hamas during last summer’s Gaza war.

The Amnesty report, titled “Black Friday: Carnage in Rafah,” centers on August 1, 2014, a day that has since been dubbed “Black Friday,” when IDF soldier Lt. Hadar Goldin was captured by Hamas terrorists shortly after a 72-hour cease-fire was announced.

According to Amnesty, at least 135 civilians were killed during a massive air and ground assault by the IDF following the implementation of the so-called “Hannibal Directive,” which allows for an intense military response to prevent the capture of an Israeli soldier.

“Massive and prolonged bombardment began without warning while masses of people were on the streets, and many of them, especially those in vehicles, became targets,” Amnesty said.

“There is strong evidence that Israeli forces committed war crimes in their relentless and massive bombardment of residential areas of Rafah in order to foil the capture of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, displaying a shocking disregard for civilian lives,” Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty, said in a statement.

But the Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the report, calling it “fundamentally flawed in its methodologies, in its facts, in its legal analysis, and in its conclusions.”

“It seems that Amnesty forgot that there was an ongoing conflict—during which the IDF was operating to stop rocket fire and neutralize cross-border assault tunnels, and Palestinian terrorist organizations were actively engaging in intensive conflict against the IDF from within the civilian environment,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

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