(JNS.org) Hamas demanded the resignation of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas after Abbas said Israel “was founded in order to remain and not in order to vanish” as the result of a nuclear war with Iran, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported Sept. 18.
“We have condemned such statements coming from Israeli leaders, so we must certainly [condemn them] when made by a Palestinian,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, who called the comments “a shock to the Palestinian people.”
Abbas made his remark during a recent meeting in Ramallah with a group of rabbis led by former Israel Minister of Social & Diaspora Affairs Michael Melchior, according to MEMRI. The PA leader, while saying Israel should not “vanish,” maintained that the Jewish state’s existence “should not be at the expense of the absent Palestinian state.” Nevertheless, Hamas disavowed the comments.
Romney says Palestinians ‘have no interest’ in peace
(JNS.org) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that Palestinians “have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace,” according to video footage released this week by Mother Jones magazine.
At a private fundraiser in Florida in May, Romney elaborated that Palestinians are disinterested in peace for “political purposes” and are “committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel,” according to the footage.
Romney said putting pressure on Israel to resolve the conflict is “the worst idea in the world.” Regarding proposals for a Palestinian state in which a “border between Israel and the West Bank is right next to Tel Aviv,” he said Iran “would want to do through the West Bank exactly what they did through Lebanon, what they did near Gaza.”
“The Iranians would want to bring missiles and armament into the West Bank and potentially threaten Israel,” Romney said.
Given the Palestinians’ attitude about Israel, Romney called peace “almost unthinkable to accomplish.” According to reports, Mother Jones obtained the video from James Carter IV, President Jimmy Carter’s grandson, who leaked the footage to exact revenge on Romney for criticizing Carter.
“James: This is extraordinary. Congratulations! Papa,” Jimmy Carter wrote his grandson in an email reacting to the video, the Associated Press reported.
Founder of PJ Library, Jewish literacy nonprofit, launches poster initiative
(JNS.org) Philanthropist Harold Grinspoon—founder of PJ Library, a well-known Jewish nonprofit that gifts award-winning children’s books to families around the world—has launched a new venture that distributes posters to “connect Jewish thought and art to prompt conversations, instill pride, spark creativity, and more widely tie together the Jewish people,” his foundation said.
The “Voices & Visions” project creates packages of 18 posters with significant Jewish quotes, and both the “voice” of the quotes’ speaker and the “vision” of the posters’ designer are explained.
Jewish organizations including “Moishe Houses, Hillel Houses, Birthright groups, federations, Jewish community centers, synagogues, day schools, camps, and others” will exhibit the posters—with about 7,000 people and groups receiving them this month, according to a press release.
“We have a rich heritage of profound Jewish minds that call out from the past and inspire us in the present,” Grinspoon, whose charitable foundation is based in West Springfield, Mass., said in a statement.
Grinspoon’s PJ Library, meanwhile, delivered its 3 millionth book in May.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org and reprinted with permission