Knesset speaker says Israel ‘worried’ about Hagel nomination
(JNS.org) Following the swift reaction of U.S.-based Jewish groups to President Barack Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, Israel began to weigh in on the move Tuesday—and the general sentiment was concern.
“Because of his statements in the past, and his stance toward Israel, we are worried,” Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said of the former Nebraska senator.
Hagel chairs the Atlantic Council think tank, which last month published a column titled “Israel’s Apartheid Policy.” In 2008, he infamously took a direct shot at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), telling former Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller in a quote that appeared in Miller’s book, The Much Too Promised Land, that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” in Washington.
Rivlin, however, added that “one person doesn’t determine policy” when it comes to the U.S.-Israel relationship, which he expects will remain strong.
An anonymous Israeli diplomatic source quoted by Israel Hayom said the Hagel nomination is “very bad news for Israel; it’s clear that it won’t be easy.”
“It looks as if Barack Obama wants to be the good cop in his second term,” the source said.
Additionally, Monday evening news broadcasts on Israel’s three main televison stations depicted Hagel as “cool toward Israel,” according to the newspaper.
Obama on Monday praised Hagel for his experience as a Vietnam veteran.
“As I saw during our visits together to Afghanistan and Iraq, in Chuck Hagel our troops see a decorated combat veteran of character and strength,” Obama said. “They see one of their own.”
Hagel, in his first public interview on the nomination, told the Lincoln Journal Star on Monday that critics have “completely distorted” his record on Israel and that there is “not one shred of evidence that I’m anti-Israeli.” He said he declined to sign a number of pro-Israel letters and resoutions backed by large majorities of U.S. senators when he was in office from 1997-2009 because they “were counter-productive and didn’t solve a problem.”
Tel Aviv paralyzed as heavy rains flood city
(JNS.org) Tel Aviv was paralyzed on Tuesday when heavy rains flooded the main highways and closed the city off to traffic, as police asked drivers to refrain from trying to enter the city. Central train stations, including three of the four stations in Tel Aviv, were also closed due to flooding, Israel Hayom reported.
The drainage ditch along the main artery of Tel Aviv—the Ayalon highway—overflowed, and the entire highway was submerged.
“The Ayalon was closed in both directions to ensure the safety of the drivers due to inclement weather,” a traffic police spokesman told Channel 10 news. Dozens of streets were closed around Israel due to the flooding, and school was canceled in the Tamar region near the Dead Sea and in Be’er Tuvia.
Sen. Paul on Israel visit: Jewish state would benefit from U.S. aid decrease
(JNS.org) U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), known for his opposition to foreign aid, on Monday reiterated that stance during his visit to Israel.
The senator, son of Texas congressman and 2012 presidential candidate Ron Paul, said Israel would actually benefit from a decrease in U.S. aid because the country would not need to approach the U.S. about its security-related decisions.
“I don’t think you need to call me on the phone to ask permission for what you want to do to stop missiles from raining down on you from Gaza,” Rand Paul told reporters at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, according to the Associated Press.
Paul, who on Jan. 4 was appointed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it “will be harder to be a friend of Israel” if the U.S. is out of money. “It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process,” he said. “I think there will be significant repercussions to running massive deficits… you destroy your currency by spending money you don’t have.”
According to Paul, America should only cut aid to an ally like Israel after cuts for countries such as Pakistan and Egypt, whose relations with the U.S. are strained. He fears, however, that aid to both Israel and Egypt can create a Middle East arms race which poses a threat to the Jewish state.
“I’m concerned that some of the weaponry that we are currently giving to Egypt may one day be used against Israel,” he said.
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) on Jan. 4 opposed Paul’s addition to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saying the move “should be raising red flags and provoking severe concern across the pro-Israel community” due to his opposition to foreign aid.
“The overwhelmingly pro-Israel American public deserves much better than a radical ideologue on the Senate’s primary diplomatic committee who has demonstrated a singular obsession with slashing aid to the Jewish state,” NJDC President and CEO David A. Harris said in a statement.
Paul’s spokesperson, Moira Bagley, told JNS.org “I’m sure Sen. Paul would be happy to respond to [NJDC] when he returns from Israel next week.”
Austrian Jewish leader: Anti-Semitic incidents doubled in 2012
(JNS.org) The leader of Austria’s Jewish community, Oskar Deutsch, said that anti-Semitic incidents in Austria doubled in 2012 and that he fears the rising anti-Semitism in the rest of Europe.
In an interview with the Kurier newspaper, Deutsch said that the Jewish community had suffered 135 anti-Jewish incidents in 2012, compared to 71 in 2011.
Deutsch named Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Greece as the countries where Jews are facing the greatest threats.
In November, a Hungarian lawmaker from the far-right Jobbik party called for Jews to be registered on lists as threats to national security. While in Greece, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has become notorious for its blatant anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric as well as attacks on Jews and other foreigners.
France, which has Europe’s largest Jewish community, has also garnered significant attention over the past year for a rise in anti-Semitism, especially after last March’s Islamist terrorist attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse that left a rabbi and three Jewish children dead.
“What is worrying now, since the murders in Toulouse, [is that] there has been an increase in anti-Semitic attacks unrelated to the Middle East events,” Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, director of the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Paris office, told JNS.org last month.
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