Arab MKs attack plan to build new Galilee Jewish communities
(JNS.org) The Knesset’s Interior Committee was the scene of heated emotions on Thursday as Arab MKs attacked the Israeli government initiative to build new Jewish communities in northern Israel’s Galilee region.
MK Hanna Swaid (Hadash) spoke of the “obsession of the housing and construction minister [Uri Ariel] to build new settlements,” according to Israel Hayom.
MK Jamal Zahalka (National Democratic Assembly) said, “The Galilee is ours and the land is ours.”
Yael Solomon, of the Israeli Interior Ministry’s planning directorate, said in response that there is no trend of “making the Galilee more Jewish,” and that the National Council for Planning and Construction has formulated a policy of strengthening and enhancing new communities.
Gaza terrorists fire 3 rockets at southern Israel
(JNS.org) Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into southern Israel in two separate incidents on Thursday, Israel Hayom reported.
A Qassam rocket exploded in an open area in the Eshkol region on Thursday night, causing no injuries or damage. Earlier on Thursday, two Grad rockets exploded in open areas in the Ashkelon region, also causing no injuries or damage.
Last week, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned Hamas, which rules Gaza, about continued rocket fire.
“We will not tolerate rocket fire toward Israel or any attempt to return to the situation to what it was before Operation Pillar of Defense [in November 2012], and we will respond decisively to any attempts to harm Israeli citizens or disrupt their lives,” Ya’alon said.
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Poll: 61% of Israelis say Kerry threatened Israel with boycott remarks
(JNS.org) Sixty-one percent of Jewish Israelis believe that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Israel last weekend when he said that Israel might face boycotts and further delegitimization if the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations fail, a new Israel Hayom-New Wave Research poll found.
Kerry was widely criticized in Israel for his statements. In the poll, about 21 percent of respondents said Kerry’s comments were made out of concern for Israel, and about 18 percent said they did not know what Kerry’s intentions were.
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Thomas Friedman: ‘Third Intifada’ is boycott movement fueled by settlements
(JNS.org) The movement to boycott Israel is a “Third Intifada” whose roots are Israeli construction beyond the 1967 lines, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote Feb. 4.
This intifada isn’t led by the Palestinians, but “by the European Union in Brussels and other opponents of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank across the globe,” according to Friedman, whose column came on the heels of Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent warning at a security conference in Munich that Israel would face more boycotts and isolation if the U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations fail.
“Israelis are right to suspect some boycotters of using this cause as a cover for anti-Semitism, given how Israel’s misdeeds are singled out. But that doesn’t mean that implanting 350,000 settlers in the West Bank and turning a blind eye to dozens of wildcat settlements—that even Israel deems ‘illegal’—is in Israel’s interest or smart,” wrote Friedman.
“If Israel really wanted to slow down the boycott campaign, it would declare that as long as Kerry is trying to forge a deal, and there is hope for success, Israel will freeze all settlement activity to give peace its best chance,” he added.
Andrea Levin, executive director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, told JNS.org that Friedman and the Times “are actually fueling the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaigns against Israel because so much of the coverage distorts Israeli actions and fails to tell the full facts about the bigoted BDS attacks on the Jewish state.”
“In his ‘Third Intifada’ column, Friedman claims the BDS attackers are motivated by opposition to ‘the occupation’ and to settlements—when actually BDS proponents openly call for the dissolution of the Jewish state,” Levin said. “The Times should be leading the way in exposing the biased assault on Israel. Instead, not only does the paper carry Friedman’s skewed message, but it gives a platform as it did only days ago to the founder of the BDS campaign, Omar Barghouti, who urged the inundation of Israel with millions of Palestinians.”
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MK David Rotem backtracks on calling Reform Judaism ‘another religion’
(JNS.org) Member of Knesset David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) drew outrage across the Jewish world for his remarks calling Reform Jews “not Jewish” and Reform Judaism “another religion” during a hearing in the Knesset on Wednesday.
“The Jewishness of the Reform Movement is beyond question and in no need of defense. The government of the State of Israel needs to respond appropriately, to censure MK David Rotem and other MKs who permit themselves behavior that the public good ought not permit to them,” Conservative movement leaders Rabbi Julie Schonfeld and Rabbi Steven Wernick said in a statement.
Jay Ruderman—president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which prioritizes Israel-Diaspora relations—said Rotem’s comments were “blatantly wrong” and “destructive to the relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community.”
“Such irresponsible statements serve to alienate the very community which works tirelessly to ensure a strong relationship between the American government and Israel,” Ruderman said.
But on Thursday, Rotem appeared to backtrack on his remarks, writing on Facebook that “belonging to the Reform Movement does not make anyone less Jewish” and that his remarks were “misinterpreted by the media.”
Rotem added that while he is an Orthodox Jew and has theological differences with the Reform movement, he “maintains the greatest respect for all Jews, regardless of their denomination and background.”
“I apologize for any misunderstanding and all offense generated by the content of my comments,” he wrote.
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Egyptian Christians support El-Sisi presidential candidacy, says Catholic bishop
(JNS.org) A prominent Egyptian Catholic leader believes that Field Marshal General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s expected candidacy for Egyptian president is a positive development for Egypt’s Christians.
An El-Sisi candidacy “is an important fact for the whole country, not just for Christians,” Coptic Catholic leader Boutros Fahim Awad Hanna, Bishop of Minya, told the Fides News Agency.
“In the last year El-Sisi has had a key role in Egypt. His choices have been appreciated by most of the people. The growing consensus that surrounds him is also seen in the streets,” Hanna said.
Last week, Coptic Pope Tawadros II and a delegation of Coptic bishops also visited with El-Sisi to congratulate him on his promotion to field marshal, and said they support the Egyptian military’s fight against terrorism.
Despite El-Sisi being the overwhelming favorite to win the presidential election, Hanna added that he believes it is important that there be other candidates to compete with him, and that the Church must allow voters to make them own choice for president.
“One should refrain from addressing the faithful towards one or the other candidate. Every believer will choose in freedom and according to their conscience, based on the program that is most convincing. We bishops should keep a reserved attitude,” Hanna said.
El-Sisi on Thursday told Kuwait’s Al-Seyassah newspaper that he is running for president, but the Egyptian army denied the Kuwaiti report.
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British anti-Semitic incidents reach lowest level since 2005
(JNS.org) British anti-Semitic incidents have reached their lowest level since 2005. The Community Security Trust (CST) reported that 529 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in 2013, down 18 percent from the previous year. The number of violent assaults—69— remained the same as 2012, marking the lowest level since 2003.
“The levels of reported anti-Semitic incidents in the UK often rise temporarily, or ‘spike,’ in response to ‘trigger events’, often but not always related to Israel or the wider Middle East,” a report by CST, which advises the British Jewish community on safety issues, stated. “The record high total of 931 incidents in 2009 was triggered by anti-Semitic reactions in the UK to the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel that year between Israel and Hamas.”
The 2013 numbers, however, were still much higher than those recorded when CST first began monitoring the issue in 1984. “Any fall in the number of anti-Semitic incidents that take place is to be welcomed, but we are always wary of reading too much into short-term trends as we know that the picture can change considerably from year to year,” CST spokesman Mark Gardner said, according to Reuters.
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Planes to Sochi Olympics threatened with toothpaste bombs, Jews remain vigilant
(JNS.org) The Chabad-Lubavitch center in Sochi, Russia is taking security precautions as it welcomes an influx of Jewish athletes and visitors to its 3,000-member local Jewish community for the 2014 Sochi Olympic games, which began Thursday. New safety concerns arose Thursday after U.S. intelligence indicated that terrorists could use toothpaste tubes to hide explosives on airplanes flying to Russia.
New safety concerns arose Thursday after U.S. intelligence indicated that terrorists could use toothpaste tubes to hide explosives on airplanes flying to Russia.
“I think you’re going to see a tightening of the screening procedures on these types of items that could contain explosive devices, that could either be used to blow up an airplane going to Russia or be smuggled into the Sochi are for the Olympics,” U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said, ABC News reported.
Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, the Chabad emissary to Sochi, recently told JNS.org that the Sochi Jewish community is “in touch with local officials and security experts” regarding safety precautions. In December, two suicide attacks killed 34 people in Volgograd, about 700 kilometers north of Sochi. An Islamist group from the Caucausus claimed responsibility for the attacks. Up to 70,000 personnel will be patrolling the games, according to some estimates.
Mark B. Levin, executive director of the National Conference Supporting Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia (NCSJ), told JNS.org that NCSJ isn’t certain about any specific threats to Jews attending the games, but that the group has been contacted by some concerned individuals and is directing those people to the U.S. State Department.
“As any American who might be going over, we hope necessary [safety] precautions would be taken,” Levin said.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org