Obama’s handling of Syria means he won’t successfully deal with Iran, Israelis say in poll
(JNS.org) In a new Israel Hayom poll, a majority of Israeli Jews—66.7 percent—characterized U.S. President Barack Obama’s handling of the Syria crisis as “not successful.” Meanwhile, 65.3 percent said that given Obama’s conduct regarding Syria, he would not be able to successfully deal with the Iran nuclear program.
A plurality of Israeli Jews—49.7 percent—said Obama’s decision to delay a military strike against Syria was wrong, while 32.8 percent said he made the right choice.
Poll respondents were asked who won the current round of events in Syria—Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, or Israel. Putin came in first at 48.3 percent, followed by Assad (39.6 percent), Obama (8.8 percent) and Israel (5.1 percent). On the question of who lost that round of events, 63 percent said Obama.
Yom Kippur War surprise unlikely to recur, Israeli Jews say
(JNS.org) Israel is unlikely to be caught off guard like it was when the Yom Kippur War erupted in 1973, contend 43.5 percent of Israeli Jews in a new Israel Hayom poll; 31.8 percent believe Israel’s enemies could launch a surprise attack, reminiscent of the events of Oct. 6, 1973; and 24.7 percent have no opinion on the matter.
The poll was conducted on Sept. 11 by New Wave Research using a random and representative sample of 500 Hebrew-speaking Jews who are 18 or older.
Asked who was the victor in the war, a majority—63.8 percent—said Israel, 14.4 percent said the Arab states, and 21.8 percent said they had no opinion. When asked if Israel had drawn the necessary conclusions in the aftermath of the war, 56.2 percent of respondents answered yes, 23.9 percent answered no, and 19.8 percent had no opinion.
Israel’s biggest mistake in the run-up to the war was its overconfidence, according to 36.6 percent of those polled, with 20.1 percent blaming Israel’s intelligence agencies. Israel’s biggest mistake was belittling its enemies according to 15.9 percent, and 6.1 percent said the diplomatic stalemate in the 1970s was what led to the war’s outbreak. Israel’s chief shortcoming was the conduct of the military’s top brass according to 3.4 percent of respondents; and 17.9 percent said they had no opinion.
Palestinian terrorist whose attack killed 37 Israelis idolized by Jordanian children
(JNS.org) Jordanian children are taught from early ages to idolize Palestinian terrorists including Dalal Mughrabi, who in 1978 led a bus attack in which 37 Israeli civilians were killed, Palestinian Media Watch reported Sept. 12.
Najla Sahwil, a Jordanian actress, recently told the official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV channel that she and her Jordanian peers were inspired by Mughrabi as youths.
“I dreamt of playing the part of that great personality, Dalal Mughrabi,” Sahwil said. “We grew up in school on the personality of this Palestinian female fighter.”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas in August awarded a $6,000 grant to a youth dance group named for Mughrabi. Additionally, “The Lion Cubs and Flowers,” a youth group for boys and girls run by Abbas’s Fatah party, named a class after Mughrabi.
While Iran nuclear program progress continues, Obama and Rouhani may meet at U.N.
(JNS.org) U.S. President Barack Obama has corresponded with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani about arranging a face-to-face meeting at the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month, the Los Angeles Times reported. The leaders’ potential meeting comes on the heels of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, announcing that Iran is continuing to increase its nuclear capacity.
Both the U.S. and the European Union expressed optimism at a meeting Wednesday that correspondence with Rouhani would eventually lead Iran to soften its stance on continuing to advance its nuclear program.
“We are hopeful that the Rouhani administration will live up to its assurances of transparency and cooperation by taking concrete steps over the next several months,” Joseph Macmanus, U.S. Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna and to the IAEA, told a closed-door meeting, Reuters reported.
But Macmanus added, “Should Iran continue its intransigence and obfuscation, we will work with fellow board members at the November board meeting to hold Iran appropriately accountable.” The IAEA’s latest report on the Iran nuclear program stated that the Islamic Republic is “continuing to install advanced and first-generation centrifuges.”
The talks would be the first between the U.S, and Iran since the severing of diplomatic ties in 1978.
Rouhani’s election was seen by the White House and others in the West as an opportunity to engage with Iran due to the perception of Rouhani as more moderate than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yet Rouhani was recently quoted by Iranian Press TV as saying about Israel, “After all, in our region there has been a wound for years on the body of the Muslim world under the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the beloved al-Quds.”
Steven Spielberg, Elie Wiesel to get Israeli presidential medal
(JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres will award his Presidential Medal of Distinction to a group of seven recipients that includes film director Steven Spielberg and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.
Peres’s office said in a statement that it is honoring Spielberg “for his contribution to cinema over the past 50 years and specifically his unique contribution to the memory of the Holocaust, to the State of Israel, to the Jewish people and Tikkun Olam.”
Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, world-renowned author, and human rights activist, is being honored for his efforts “to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust across the world.”
The other recipients include Dr. Zvi Tabor, founder of the National Physical Laboratory of Israel; IDF Brig. General (res.) Avigdor Kahalani, a hero of the Yom Kippur War; Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Firer, founder of Ezra LeMarpeh, a non-profit organization that provides medical assistance to the needy; Avi Naor, a former executive at AMDOCS and founder of Or Yarok, a traffic safety organization; and an anonymous member of Israel’s security services.
Previous winners of the award, which is equivalent to the America’s Presidential Medal of Freedom or France’s Légion d’Honneur, have included Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and composer Zubin Mehta.
Syrian shells land in Golan Heights as Israeli hospitals treat wounded refugees
(JNS.org) Three Syrian mortar shells fell near the Israel-Syria border in the southern Golan Heights on Thursday. The shells landed in Israel accidentally, the Israel Defense Forces said.
While there are no reports of injuries or damage resulting from the shells on Thursday, wounded Syrians continue being admitted for treatment in Israeli hospitals. Most recently, a Syrian man with a wound to his head, a one-year-old, and a 10-month old were admitted to Western Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, according to the Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio.
A total of 85 Syrians have been treated in the Nahariya hospital so far during the Syrian civil war, while the Ziv Medical Center in Safed has treated several dozen Syrians.
Putin: Israeli-Palestinian conflict talks weakened by Syria strike
(JNS.org) Russian President Vladimir Putin has written an editorial for the New York Times cautioning that striking Syria could “undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Russia recently proposed a plan to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control, a move that led U.S. President Barack Obama to postpone a congressional vote on a U.S. strike of the civil war-marred nation. The U.S. strike would be a response to the use of chemical weapons on civilians by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
But Putin believes it is possible that the Syrian opposition, and not the Assad regime, used the chemical weapons. The Russian president also warned that Syrian rebels may attack Israel.
“No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack—this time against Israel—cannot be ignored,” Putin wrote.
Pope Francis in Italian newspaper praises Jews for having ‘kept their faith in God’
(JNS.org) In an open letter appearing in the Italian newspaper La Republica, Pope Francis I praises the Jewish people for having “kept their faith in God” despite centuries of persecution.
The message about the Jewish people was part of a larger letter written in response to prominent Italian atheist Eugenio Scalfari, who wrote a series of editorials addressed to Pope Francis over issues of religion.
The pontiff responded to a question posed by Scalfari about whether the Jewish people had been forgotten by God. “Believe me,” Francis replied, “this is a question that radically involves us as Christians because, with the help of God, starting from the Second Vatican Council, we have discovered that the Jewish people are still, for us, the holy root from which Jesus originated.”
Francis went on to say that he has also questioned this in conversations he has had with Jewish friends in his native Argentina and as well through prayer that he has “asked God, especially when I remember the terrible experience of the Shoah.”
“What I can say, with the Apostle Paul, is that God has never stopped believing in the alliance made with Israel and that, through the terrible trials of these past centuries, the Jews have kept their faith in God. And for this, we will never be grateful enough to them, as the Church, but also as humanity at large,” Pope Francis wrote.
Francis added that by Jews “persevering in their faith in God,” they “remind everyone, even us as Christians that we are always awaiting, the return of the Lord and that therefore we must remain open to Him and never take refuge in what we have already achieved.”
Since becoming pontiff in March, Pope Francis has made Jewish-Christian relations a priority, continuing the legacy of his predecessors. Last week, in a meeting with global Jewish leaders at the Vatican, Pope Francis wished Jews around the world a sweet and peaceful new year ahead of the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
Pope Francis has also met several times with Jewish leaders and has announced tentative plans to visit Israel next year.
*
Preceding provided by JNS.org