Israel slams Abbas for ‘poisonous, hate-driven’ UN speech
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Hours after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, garnering overwhelming support for his bid to gain nonmember observer state status, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shot back, saying Abbas’s remarks were “not the words of a man who seeks peace.”
“The world watched a poisonous, hate-driven speech, full of misleading propaganda against the Israel Defense Forces and the citizens of Israel,” said a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.
“This was a meaningless decision that won’t change anything. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has clarified that no Palestinian state will be established without a deal that ensures the security of the citizens of Israel. He will not allow an Iranian terror base to exist in Judea and Samaria, in addition to the ones that already exist in Gaza and in Lebanon.
“The path to peace between Jerusalem and Ramallah passes through direct negotiations, without preconditions, not through one-sided U.N. resolutions. By going to the U.N., the Palestinians violated their agreements with Israel, and Israel will act accordingly,” the statement concluded.
In his speech at the UN, Abbas accused Israel of an “unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in occupied east Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.”
Mark Regev, Netanyahu’s spokesman, dismissed the UN.decision as “meaningless.”
“The remarks of the Palestinian leader tonight in New York are unfortunate. Instead of speaking the language of peace and reconciliation he came out with a litany of libelous charges against Israel and perverted historic truth. It’s Israel that wants peace, it’s Israel that is ready to except Palestinian statehood in the framework of peace and it is the Palestinian side that up until today refuses to except the legitimacy of the Jewish state,” Regev told Reuters Television.
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Prosor at UN: ‘Israel remains committed to peace’
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Following the Thursday vote giving the Palestinaisn upgraded status at the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor, applauding the latter’s rebuttal speech at the General Assembly.
“You represented Israel’s truth. Your speech was a speech of facts, contrary to [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas’s poisonous address,” Netanyahu said.
Prosor said “Israel remains committed to peace,” and that he represented “a state built in the Jewish people’s ancient homeland, with its eternal capital Jerusalem as its beating heart.”
“As for the rights of Jewish people in this land, I have a simple message for those people gathered in the General Assembly today: No decision by the U.N. can break the 4,000-year-old bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel,” Prosor said. “The people of Israel wait for a Palestinian leader who is willing to follow in the path of President Sadat. The world waits for President Abbas to speak the truth that peace can only be achieved through negotiations by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. It waits for him to tell them that peace must also address Israel’s security needs and end the conflict once and for all. For as long as President Abbas prefers symbolism over reality, as long as he prefers to travel to New York for UN resolutions, rather than travel to Jerusalem for genuine dialogue, any hope of peace will be out of reach.”
Prosor criticized Abbas for “ignoring history.”
“The truth is that 65 years ago today, the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate into two states: a Jewish state, and an Arab state,” he said.
“Two states for two peoples. Israel accepted this plan. The Palestinians and Arab nations around us rejected it and launched a war of annihilation to throw the ‘Jews into the sea.’”
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UN recognizes upgraded Palestinian membership (JNS.org)
The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution Thursday to upgrade the status of the Palestinians in the international body.
The 193-member assembly passed the resolution by a vote of 138-9, with 41 abstentions.
The Palestinians, represented through the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a non-governmental political and paramilitary organization, will now be recognized as a “non-member observer state.”
Immediately after the vote, a Palestinian flag was unfurled on the floor the General Assembly, the Associated Press reported.
In his speech, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly that it was “being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine.”
While short of full member status, the upgraded status will allow the Palestinians to join several UN agencies and treaties, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), where the Palestinians could bring criminal charges against Israel.
The Palestinians failed to gain full UN statehood status last year after the U.S. threatened to veto the initiative in the Security Council.
The U.S. and Israel were quick to condemn the vote.
“Today’s unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the path peace,” American UN Ambassador Susan Rice said.
“Abbas’s speech proves once more, for anyone who needed more proof, that we are dealing with an enemy who has no desire or intention to make peace” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Brookings Institution, said the U.S. believes the resolution will “do nothing to advance the peace and the two-state solution we all want to see,” NBC News reported.
Jewish groups also spoke out against the vote.
“The United Nations General Assembly recklessly set back the chances for peace between Israelis and Palestinians today,” read a statement from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris said in a statement that UN members “rewarded Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for defiance, for refusing to engage in direct talks with Israel.”
Chairman and Richard Stone and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents said the UN vote “will leave no victors but certainly a primary loser, peace in the Middle East.”
“This maneuver’s sole purpose is to bypass direct negotiations with Israel with the attempt to achieve through the UNGA vote recognition that will, in fact, not change anything on the ground for the Palestinian people, but will dim the prospect for peace,” Stone and Hoenlein said in a statement.
Notably, the UK abstained from the vote after it failed to receive assurances that the Palestinians would immediately return to negotiations and wouldn’t pursue criminal charges against Israel in the International Criminal Court.
While the vote is a major political setback for the U.S. and Israel, many analysts believe that it is largely a symbolic, with only real Palestinian independence being achieved through negotiations. However, it could provide a boost for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose power and relevance within Palestinian politics has diminished at the expense of Hamas.
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Historic synagogue in Jerusalem’s Old City to be restored
(JNS.org) The Jerusalem Municipality has announced plans to restore the historic Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Israel National News reported.
Originally dedicated in 1872, the synagogue was built as a place of prayer for the Old City’s Hassidic community. It became famous for its magnificent domed roof that dominated the Old City’s skyline. The dome was nicknamed “Franz Josef’s hat,” after the 19th century Austrian Emperor Franz Josef I, who provided the funding for the dome’s construction after seeing its unfinished roof on a visit to Jerusalem.
However, today the synagogue sits in ruins after Jordanian forces destroyed it during the 1948 War of Independence.
The nearby iconic Hurva synagogue—also destroyed in 1948—was rededicated in 2010.
“The Municipality considers the restoration and preservation of traditional sites in Jerusalem a very important project. The Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue was one of the greatest symbols of the Old Jewish Yishuv (pre-state community) in Jerusalem. We are proud to be able to restore and rebuild it,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
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Stevie Wonder backs out of FIDF gala after UN recommendation, BDS pressure
(JNS.org) Singer Stevie Wonder backed out of a performance of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Dec. 6 gala in Los Angeles due to “a recommendation from the United Nations to withdraw,” FIDF said Thursday.
Representatives for the 25-time Grammy Award winner said the UN made its recommendation “given Wonder’s involvement with the organization,” according to FIDF.
“We regret the fact that Stevie Wonder has decided to cancel his performance at an important community event of the FIDF, an American organization supporting the educational, cultural, and wellbeing needs of Israel’s soldiers, their families, and the families of fallen soldiers,” FIDF National Director and CEO, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yitzhak (Jerry) Gershon said in a statement. “FIDF is a non-political organization that provides much-needed humanitarian support regardless of religion, political affiliation, or military activity.”
Prior to Wonder’s decision to cancel his performance, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists posted a petition urging the singer to back out on Change.org. That petition garnered more than 4,600 signatures.
Israeli-American billionaire and media mogul Haim Saban is the chair of FIDF’s Los Angeles gala, which will still feature 16-time Grammy winner David Foster, as well as actor Jason Alexander as emcee.
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Jewish woman murdered, cut in two in Iran over home dispute (JNS.org) A Jewish woman in Isfahan, Iran, was murdered and cut in half by neighbors who wanted to take over her home.
The family of the 57-year-old woman says that the Muslim neighbors had killed her after having harassed her for years. The neighbors tried to expel the woman and her family from their home and confiscate the property for the adjoining mosque.
“The religious radicals even expropriated part of the house and attached it to the mosque’s courtyard. The Jewish family appealed to the courts with the help of a local attorney…despite the threats to their lives,” said Menashe Amir, an expert on Iranian Jewry, according to Israel National News.
The woman submitted a complaint to authorities about the efforts to take over her home. On Monday the “thugs broke into her home, tied up her two sisters who were living with her, and repeatedly stabbed her to death,” Amir added.
The event left the Jewish community in Iran, estimated to be around 25,000 people, worried and fearing escalating violence against it, reported Israel Hayom and Israel Radio. However, a government census published earlier this year now shows there may be fewer than 9,000 Jews left in Iran, and fewer than 100 Jewish families in Isfahan, Amir said.
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Israeli university develops technology to switch prawn gender
(JNS.org) An Israeli university has created a method to change the gender of prawns and make faster-growing male populations of the species, resulting in greater yield and higher farmer income.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) developed this advanced gene-silencing biotechnology for aquaculture. “The technology is sustainable because it doesn’t use any chemicals or hormones and does not create genetically modified organisms,” said BGU’s Prof. Amir Sagi. “Since males are faster growers, this discovery could help farmers increase their income.”
The new technology has been patented to the Tiran Group, an Israeli shipping company that operates aquaculture farms in China, and is also working to implement the technique in Vietnam. “As the world faces a challenging population growth and decreasing resources, (this) work provides sustainable solutions for developing nations,” said Doron Krakow, executive vice president of American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU).
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