Bereaved families angered by plan to release Palestinian prisoners
(JNS.org) Families of terror victims are harshly criticizing the Israeli government’s plan to release 85 Palestinians imprisoned prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority ahead of renewed peace talks.
Arnold Roth—whose 15-year-old daughter, Malki, was murdered along with 14 others when a suicide bomber struck the Sbarro pizza restaurant in downtown Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001—told JNS.org that Israel “conceded to the U.S. administration,” which “had to deliver this,” by agreeing to the prisoner release.
“From the standpoint of simple negotiating theory, what Israel has done, even if Israel never actually delivers, is a losing move,” Roth said. “Even if there were a case for saying Israel ought to concede to a list of pre-negotiating demands from the other side, freeing terrorists ought never to have been one of them.”
Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian woman who transported both the bomb and the bomber to the Sbarro restaurant, was freed from prison in October 2011 as part of the deal in which 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who spent more than five years in Hamas captivity.
“I am emphatically not political, and it does not come naturally to me to be speaking against something the government in its wisdom decided to do,” Roth said. “But the idea to hand over murderers in order to prime some sort of negotiating pump simply enrages me.”
Israel Defense Forces Sgt. Avraham Bromberg died at 20 four days after being attacked on is way home from a Golan Heights base by Karim Younis and his cousin Maher Younis in November 1980, but Israeli President Shimon Peres commuted their sentence in August 2012, making them eligible for parole in 2023. The Palestinians now demand that the Younis cousins be included in the upcoming prisoner release by Israel.
“It is inconceivable that the state can ignore the bereaved families like this,” said Bromberg’s son, Avi, according to Israel Hayom. “President Peres and the government are grateful to Abu-Mazen (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) for the difficult concessions he agreed to for the sake of the negotiations, and we will be left to pay the price. We didn’t even get a phone call. The government’s conduct is a disgrace.”
Ruling denies Jerusalem-born Americans the right to list Israel as birthplace
(JNS.org) A law enabling Americans born in Jerusalem to list Israel as their birthplace on U.S. passports is unconstitutional because it infringes on the president’s executive power, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on Tuesday.
In 2003, Ari and Naomi Zivotofsky, the parents of Jerusalem-born Menachem Zivotofsky, filed a lawsuit demanding that the U.S. State Department enforce the law passed by Congress in 2002 so that Menachem could list “Jerusalem, Israel” as the birthplace on his passport. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the appeals court needed to rule on the enforcement issue.
But Judge Karen Henderson of the appeals court’s three-judge panel wrote on Tuesday that the president—not the legislative branch—“exclusively holds the power to determine whether to recognize a foreign sovereign.” This U.S. has not officially recognized Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem since the Jewish state gained independence in 1948.
Jewish groups criticized the court’s decision. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations expressed hope that the Supreme Court “will reverse this policy that discriminates singularly against Israel, and will afford those born in Jerusalem the same right accorded to those born elsewhere” if it hears the Zivotofsky case again.
“Current practice in regard to the passport issue is inconsistent with legislation passed by the Congress of the United States, recognizing united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” the Conference of Presidents said.
Marc Stern, the American Jewish Committee’s general counsel, said the ruling “undermines the existing balance of power between the Congress and Executive branch in foreign policy.”
The appeals court “has effectively given a stamp of approval to the offensive State Department policy that singles out Israel for ‘special’ treatment,” said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
“All other American citizens born abroad may choose to list a city or area of birth instead of a country,” Foxman said. “Even Taiwan-born U.S. citizens are permitted to identify Taiwan as their birthplace, despite protests by China, the recognized sovereign over that territory.”
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Minister likens PA peace agreements to Mecca truce broken by Muhammad
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, in a sermon attended by PA President Mahmoud Abbas on the day that renewed peace negotiations with Israel were announced, described PA peace agreements to a 10-year truce that was broken by the Prophet Muhammad after two years.
The PA minister, according to a July 19 Palestinian Authority TV broadcast cited by Palestinian Media Watch, compared the Palestinian leadership’s approach to peace agreements such as the 1993 Oslo Accords to the “Treaty of Hudaybiyyah” between Muhammad and the Quraish Tribe of Mecca. Just like the Palestinian leadership encountered “much criticism and much opposition by some [Palestinians]” over the Oslo Accords, Muhammad was initially met with “anger and fury” from his followers for the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, Al-Habbash said. Questioned at the time why he didn’t decide to conquer Mecca, Muhammad assured his followers the 10-year truce would turn out to be a “victory.”
“In less than two years, the Prophet returned and based on this treaty, he conquered Mecca,” Al-Habbash said. “This is the example, this is the model [for contemporary agreements with Israel].”
Similarly, the Oslo Accords brought Palestinians “to where we are today,” Al-Habbash said.
“We have a [Palestinian] Authority and the world recognizes the [Palestinian] state,” he said.
In order to get the PA to agree to renewed peace negotiations with Israel, announced July 19 by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Israel agreed to release 85 Palestinian terrorists who were imprisoned before the Oslo Accords.
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Egypt security forces ignored slaying of Coptic Christians, human rights group says
(JNS.org) A report by the human rights group Amnesty International blames Egyptian security forces for standing by idly and failing to intervene during an 18-hour-long attack on Coptic Christians on July 5 that left four dead and one man hospitalized.
“It is outrageous that this attack was left to escalate unhindered in this way. Amnesty International has documented a series of cases in the past where Egypt’s security forces used unnecessary force or live fire during demonstrations, yet in this case they held back even though people’s lives were threatened,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
According to the Amnesty International report, the attack began around 3 a.m. on July 5 after a body of a Muslim man was found near Christian homes. The family of the dead Muslim man blamed local Christians for his death, and by mid-day more than 100 Christian homes had been attacked by an angry mob armed with metal bars, knives, tree branches and hammers in a small town 18 kilometers west of Luxor.
“The attack went on for 18 hours, and there was not a door on which I did not knock: police, army, local leaders, the Central Security Forces, the Governorate. Nothing was done,” said Father Barsilious, a local Egyptian priest, according to Amnesty International.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org