Abbas ignites controversy over ‘right of return’ remarks
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas ignited a firestorm of controversy over the weekend, stemming from remarks that he made on an Israeli television interview that seemingly conceded the Palestinian “right of return.”
In an English language one-on-one interview with Israel’s Channel 2, Abbas was asked if he would like to go back to Safed, the northern Israeli town where he was born in 1935. Abbas responded:
“It’s my right to see it, but not to live there,” he said. “I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah, and this is Palestine. I believe the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine, and the other parts are Israel.”
Abbas’s response has been widely interpreted as conceding the issue of the Palestinian “right of return.”
The “right of return” is one the core issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict, perhaps the most important issue to the Palestinian people. As part of the 1948 War of Independence, over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees as a result of the conflict they initiated. Today, the refugees and their descendants (estimated to be around 5 million) remain largely stateless in refugee camps throughout the Arab world.
Over the decades, Palestinian leaders have promised to seek the return of the refugees as part of any final peace agreement. However, the Israelis see this as an existential threat and despite Palestinian rhetoric, its leaders in recent peace negotiations have conceded on the issue.
“It is illogical to ask Israel to take five million, or indeed one million,” Abbas said in 2011, according to the New York Times.
Abbas’s remarks were widely condemned in the Muslim world. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, pictures of Abbas were burned and he was branded a traitor. However, in Israel, his remarks were met with mixed reaction. Politicians on the Israeli left praised his remarks, while right-wing politicians, including Netanyahu, did not see any connection with his remarks or actions.
Political analysts believe that Abbas was attempting to bring the issue of Palestinian negotiations to the center stage ahead of the Israeli elections in January.
After the political fallout, Abbas later partially retracted his remarks, saying, “What I said about Safed is my personal stance.”
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Syrian tanks enter Golan Heights demilitarized zone
(JNS.org) Syrian tanks have entered the Golan Heights demilitarized zone, raising concerns that the ongoing civil war could spill over into Israel.
The day after the Syrian incursion, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz toured the border region and instructed the IDF to be on high alert in the area. Gant warned the soldiers, “The Syrian affair could turn into our affair.”
IDF soldiers also told Gant that they could hear tank and automatic weapons fire as well as shouts of “Allahu Akhbar” from the Syrian side, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The IDF has called on the UN, which oversees the demilitarized zone, to manage the withdrawal of Syrian tanks.
Israeli officials, like all of Syria’s neighbors, are watching the conflict closely. While President Bashar al-Assad has never been a friend of Israel—with his support for terrorist groups and alliance with Iran, nevertheless, the border region between the two countries has largely been quiet over the past 40 years. If Assad were to fall from power and be replaced by Islamic radicals, Israel could face a threat similar to the current situation in the Sinai, or worse.
However, for the time being, the IDF believes that the incursion was part of the ongoing civil war and not direct aggression against Israel.
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Welsh Jews protest potential organ donation law
(JNS.org) The Welsh government is proposing a new law that will make everyone an automatic organ donor unless they officially opt out. Religious groups in the country, including Jewish, are voicing their objections.
“We believe that people should be able, or the family of the deceased should be able, to agree to organs being taken as a gift as a donation. I would have preferred there not have been a bill,” said Stanley Soffa, chairman of the South Wales Jewish Representative Council, according to the BBC.
Currently in Wales, specialist nurses approach families of potential donors even if they are not listed in the donor registry. Of those, about 60 percent agree to donate their organs or the organs of a loved one. The Welsh government hopes to increase this figure with the new law by 15 extra donors and about 45 more organs for transplant throughout the UK every year.
“Under the current system, clinicians take a sympathetic approach with families and strive to help them make decisions in accordance with their faith, even though if the person is on the organ donor register they have the legal right to proceed with transplantation. There will be the same approach in principle if the new law is passed,” a Welsh government spokesman said.
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Israeli cardboard bike inventor to make wheelchair
(JNS.org) An Israeli inventor who has already created a bicycle made nearly entirely out of cardboard that could allow developing nations to get bicycles for free (http://is.gd/5xK7IV) is now planning to make a cardboard wheelchair.
The bicycle is made out of cardboard but is treated with a secret organic concoction that makes it water and fire proof, and is then coated with lacquer paint. The similar cardboard wheelchairs will be maintenance-free, withstand water and humidity, and weigh 20 pounds, but will have the capacity to carry riders weighing up to 400 pounds.
Inventor Nimrod Elmish and I.G. Cardboard Technologies have been approached by an anonymous international non-profit organization for the purpose of producing cardboard wheelchairs in Africa. It will cost “a one-time fee of $6 million to build a factory for the production of cardboard wheelchairs in Africa and then almost nothing to produce them,” Elmish said, according to Israel21c, adding that the organization can then “produce as many wheelchairs as (it) wants once the factory is running. All we need is access to old car tires, plastic bottle recycling and cardboard recycling.”
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Iron Dome successfully intercepts long-range rockets in test
(JNS.org) The Israeli Defense Ministry successfully completed tests meant to upgrade the capability of the Iron Dome anti-rocket system last week. During the tests, an Iron Dome battery launched missiles against long-range rockets and successfully intercepted them.
The ministry is set to transfer an additional Iron Dome battery to the air force by next summer, bringing the total number of operational batteries in the country to five, Israel Hayom reported.
A spokesman for the ministry said a series of pre-planned tests were conducted recently to upgrade the system and enable it to operate against an unprecedented variety of threats. “The successful tests will upgrade the Iron Dome’s operational capabilities,” the spokesman said.
The fifth battery slated for transfer to the air force will be equipped with the advanced capabilities. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Sunday “This is a great accomplishment for all those involved in the project. The successful tests mark significant progress in the country’s multilayered defense system.”
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Beleaguered Syrian Christians face growing threat from jihadists
(JNS.org) Amid the ongoing Syrian civil war, Syria’s Christian community has come under growing threat as foreign jihadists and Muslim radicals increasingly play a role in the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian Christians, who comprise 10 percent of the population, have been put into a difficult situation by the conflict. On one hand, many support the rebellion against the ruthless Assad. At the same time, however, under Assad they were a protected minority. Many Christians fear that if Assad is overthrown and replaced by Islamists, they will face greater persecution. Signs of that are already beginning to appear.
“They wanted to kill us because we were Christians. They were calling us Kaffirs [infidels], even little children saying these things. Those who were our neighbours turned against us,” said one Syrian Christian to the UK’s Independent.
Syrian Christian religious leaders blame recent influx of Islamic radicals. Responsibility for the attacks lay with “an influx of jihadists in the rebels in the last six, seven months,” Archbishop Issam John Darwish said.
Another prominent and widely respected Arab Christian leader, Mother Agner-Mariam, claims that many of the jihadists are affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and are veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq. And now, “their cause is being recycled to kill Syrians,” she said.
As Syrian Christians face further attacks and persecution, many in the largely Christian West are doing little to come to their support. Archbishop Darwish believes this is because the West has a fundamental misunderstanding of the threat of Islamic radicals.
“I have raised this with officials in the West, they must bring peace. The jihadis will not stop here, the war will spread to Europe. What will England be like in ten or 15 years?”
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Anti-Israel speaker whitewashes Palestinian terrorism in Harvard talk
(JNS.org) Speaking at Harvard University last month, Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) spokeswoman and current fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, made a number of false assertions regarding Palestinian terrorism, the recent Goldstone report and legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, the media watchdog organization CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) reported.
A Canadian-born lawyer of Palestinian descent, Buttu has drawn significant criticism from the pro-Israel community over the years for her various assertions regarding Israel and the peace process.
Speaking on Palestinian terrorism, including rockets and suicide bombings, Buttu downplayed the lethality of Qassam rockets, claiming “Qassams don’t have an explosive head” and claimed that no “grad rockets were fired in 2008 and 2009,” according to CAMERA.
Scores of Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets launched by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and others over the past decade. Increased rocket fire in 2008 led Israel to launch Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Today, rocket fire from Gaza continues to terrorize southern Israel.
Buttu’s was asked by an audience member how the Palestinians feel in terms of accepting Israel as the Jewish state. She responded, “Putting aside the issue of Jewish sovereignty because that’s not really what it’s focused on, the idea of creating a Jewish state… is to try to expel and get rid of and try to legitimate the expulsion of the indigenous population.”
Buttu’s controversial talk is the latest in a growing number of anti-Israel programming at Harvard. Earlier this year, she also participated in the school’s “One State Conference” that focused on the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.
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Winston Churchill statue unveiled in Jerusalem
(JNS.org) Nearly half a century after his death, Winston Churchill was honored with the unveiling of a bronze statue near Yael Garden in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The project was conceived in partnership with the Jerusalem Foundation Labor Member of Knesset Isaac Herzog, son of former Israeli President Chaim Herzog, after he attended a reading of historian Martin Gilbert’s book Churchill and the Jews.
“The book laid out in crystal clear form that Churchill throughout his life was a passionate believer in the cause of Zionism,” Antony Rosenfelder, a British co-trustee of the Jerusalem Foundation, told the Guardian.
The sculpture used was formed from a cast made by internationally acclaimed Croatian-born Jewish sculptor Oscar Nemon.
Churchill has a mixed legacy among Israelis and Jews. Some are upset at his failure to bomb Nazi concentration camps and the British policy towards Jews during the mandate era, including restrictions on Jews fleeing Europe. However, Herzog and others hope that this statue will shed light on his support for Zionism and strong leadership in the face of tyranny.
“During times like these, when the free world is faced with the threat of a nuclear Iran and global terrorism, it is important to preserve Churchill’s legacy, having led the world to victory against the Nazi tyrant, in Jerusalem, the city of peace of freedom,” Herzog told Israel Hayom.
The event was attended by a number of Israeli and British dignitaries, including Jerusalem’s mayor, the British Ambassador to Israel and Churchill’s grandson, Lord Randolph Churchill.
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Netanyahu, French president attend Toulouse shooting memorial
(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Francois Hollande attended a ceremony Nov. 1 in Toulouse that honored the four Jewish victims (a rabbi and three children) of the shooting at the Otzar Hatorah school in that city last March.
In a speech at the memorial, Hollande promised to “relentlessly fight against anti- Semitism. The Jews of France must be aware that the republic will do everything it can to protect them and to give them security,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Israel “was established after the Holocaust as a refuge for the Jewish people,” Hollande added.
“That is why every time a Jew is a target because he or she is Jewish, Israel is concerned,” he said.
Netanyahu reminded attendees that the shooter, Mohammad Merah, also killed three French soldiers “indiscriminately—Christians and Muslims alike.”
“These murderers’ barbaric hatred threatens not only Jews, but civilization as a whole,” Netanyahu said.
French Ambassador Christophe Bigot, who also attended the ceremony, emphasized the importance of a strong relationship between Israel and France. “We will face difficult moments in the upcoming months and we will have to deal with this in the spirit of friendship,” he said.
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Jewish organizations launch Sandy relief efforts
(JNS.org) Days after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, leaving more than 70 people dead, Jewish organizations launched comprehensive relief efforts.
Jewish Federations across North America, in the few days that followed the storm, raised more than $43,000 through an online relief fund in 24 hours for recovery and rebuilding after the storm. Also launching relief funds were Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, and the National Council of Young Israel, while the Union for Reform Judaism’s (URJ) previously existing disaster relief fund is raising money for Sandy victims.
“Each donation, both large and small, can bring us closer to relieving the financial stress natural devastation so often brings forth,” said Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, director of the North County Chabad Center in Yorba Linda, Calif., according to Chabad.org.
Chabad-Lubavitch in New York City, in partnership with Chabad Young Professionals and Ari Teman of JCorps, and Julie Menin, a candidate for Manhattan Borough President, sent paramedics to help the elderly as well as more than 100 volunteers to go through lower Manhattan and visit nearly 3,000 affected apartment units. “Today we visited some housing developments of the lower east side to bring food and water to the elderly and disabled citizens who are without. You really become thankful for what you do have during a time like this,” said longtime JCorps volunteer named Jillian.
“I think the most important thing for these people is just a smiling face. One man didn’t speak to anyone in three days. He greeted me with a hug, relieved really just to see someone and talk to someone. That’s what we’re doing here,” said Rabbi Avrohom Rapoport, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Atlantic County, NJ.
To donate to the Jewish Federation, Chabad, URJ or Young Israel relief funds, visit www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=258452, www.mychabad.org/special/campaigns/hurricane_sandy/donate.asp?1=1&site=chabad.org, www.urj.org/socialaction/issues/relief/, and
www.youngisrael.org/securecontent/donate.cfm?dt=hurricane_relief.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org