Sweden officially recognizes a Palestinian state
(JNS.org) Sweden on Thursday officially recognized a Palestinian state, with Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom saying that the “criteria of international law” have been met because there is “a [Palestinian] territory, a people, and government,” The Associated Press reported.
New Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven had supported a Palestinian state earlier in October, but Swedish Ambassador to Israel Carl Magnus Nesser at the time attempted to walk back the prime minister’s comments by saying that such recognition would only follow extensive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Yet that is not the case with Sweden’s latest announcement on the issue.
“The Swedish government needs to understand that relations in the Middle East are more complicated than a piece of furniture from IKEA that you put together yourself, and it should act with responsibility and sensitivity,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.
*
Knesset upholds 6-month suspension of Arab MK Zoabi
(JNS.org) The Israeli Knesset on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected Arab MK Hanin Zoabi’s appeal of the Knesset Ethics Committee decision to bar her for from Knesset meetings and discussions for six months.
Sixty-eight Members of Knesset from coalition and opposition parties voted in favor of the ban, while only 16 MKs—from the Meretz, Hadash, Hatnuah, and Israeli Arab parties—voted against it. The six-month ban was enacted in late July following multiple complaints filed by MKs against Zoabi over her anti-Israel statements.
A recent poll commissioned by Israel Hayom from the New Wave Research Institute revealed that 85 percent of Israelis would like to see Zoabi dismissed (not just suspended) from the Knesset due to her recent remarks comparing Israeli soldiers to Islamic State terrorists.
*
Jewish umbrella says ‘chickenshit’ damage not undone, group criticizes disability insult
(JNS.org) The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents 51 national Jewish groups, said the Obama administration’s criticism of its official who called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickenshit” is a welcome development but does not “undo the damage” of the remark.
The insult of Netanyahu means that “every manifestation of division between these two allies is exploited by the enemies of both,” said Conference of Presidents Chairman Robert G. Sugarman and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein.
“We ask that the person responsible be held to account and the appropriate steps be taken by the administration,” they said. “We call on officials, media and others in the public arena to consider the consequences of the words and deeds.”
Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the National Security Council, had said Wednesday regarding the anonymous official’s slur of Netanyahu, “Certainly that’s not the administration’s view, and we think such comments are inappropriate and counter-productive.”
Meanwhile, the Ruderman Family Foundation, an organization that prioritizes the inclusion of people with disabilities, focused on a different Obama administration comment than “chickenshit.” In the same article for The Atlantic that revealed the “chickenshit” slur, Jeffrey Goldberg also reported, “Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery.’”
“The term ‘Aspergery’ was used in a manner that is insulting to the millions of people around the world with Asperger Syndrome,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation. “It is never OK to insult someone by referring to them by using disability in a negative manner.”
The foundation called on the Obama administration to release a statement denouncing the use of the name of a disability in a derogatory manner.
*
Activist on Jewish access to Temple Mount seriously wounded in shooting
(JNS.org) Activist Yehuda Glick, a promoter of Jewish access to the Temple Mount, was shot and seriously wounded on Wednesday night by a gunman riding a motorcycle outside of a Jerusalem conference. On Thursday, Israeli police shot and killed the Arab man suspected of trying to assassinate Glick.
Glick—the former director of the Temple Institute education and research organization, which says its work “touches upon the history of the Holy Temple’s past, an understanding of the present day, and the Divine promise of Israel’s future”—remained in hospital and in serious condition on Thursday. The gunman was identified as Moatez Hijazi, an Islamic Jihad activist. Hijazi, 32, had spent 11 years in an Israeli jail and was released in 2012.
“Yehudah is a selfless champion of the right for Jews to pray at the Temple Mount who works tirelessly towards this goal, and together with all of Israel, we are deeply concerned for his welfare, and in prayer for his speedy and complete recovery,” the Temple Institute said in a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I would like to send my best wishes for a full and quick recovery to Yehuda Glick, who is now fighting for his life. … The international community needs to stop its hypocrisy and take action against inciters, against those who try to change the status quo.”
“I have ordered significant reinforcements so that we can maintain both security in Jerusalem and the status quo in the holy places,” added Netanyahu. “This struggle might be long, and here, like in other struggles, we must first of all, lower the flames. No side should take the law into its own hands. We must be level-headed and act with determination and responsibility, and so we shall.”
*
Head of New Israel Fund-supported group called Israel ‘apartheid regime’
(JNS.org) New research shows that the head of the Human Rights Defenders Fund (HRDF), a controversial Israeli NGO supported by the New Israel Fund (NIF), has called Israel an “apartheid regime” and has ties with the global movement to boycott the Jewish state.
In a newly released factsheet on the group, the watchdog group NGO Monitor says the executive director of HRDF, Alma Biblash, has made statements referring to Israel as “racist” and “murderous” and has called for “dismantling the Israeli apartheid regime.” Biblash was formerly an activist with the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, which advocates for Arab residents of Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
The HRDF, founded in 2011, says it assists “human rights defenders struggling to finance legal actions.” NGO Monitor says that HRDF received approximately $260,000 in funding from NIF from 2011-2013.
Founded in 1979, NIF describes itself as “the leading organization committed to democratic change within Israel” by advocating for civil and human rights in Israel and opposing Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories. While NIF states that it opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, the organization has come under fire for providing support to groups that promote BDS.
“HRDF is a stark example of the irresponsible role of donors to destructive NGOs,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, told JNS.org.
“While the leaders of the New Israel Fund and the European governments claim to support Israel and human rights principles, they enable the highly destructive activities that do the opposite,” he said. “By the time these funders acknowledge this failure and end their support, the damage will be done.”
*
India buys anti-tank missiles from Israel for $525 million
(JNS.org) India has decided to purchase anti-tank missiles from Israel in a $525 million deal, instead of an alternative offer from the U.S.
The “Spike” missiles slated for India are produced by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The missiles have the capability to lock on their targets before firing.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel visited India several times, most recently in September, to pitch the joint production of a new generation of Lockheed Martin’s Javelin missiles to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the Indian government decided to go with the Israeli missiles.
This is not the first major Indian purchase of Israeli military technology, as the Indian army’s Northern Command recently bought 49 miniature unmanned aerial vehicles (more commonly known as drones) from the Jewish state. India plans to have the drones patrol its borders with Pakistan and China. Israel said the drones will be unarmed, The Diplomat magazine reported.
*
SodaStream to close oft-targeted West Bank plant
(JNS.org) The beverage carbonation company SodaStream has decided to close its West Bank plant in Ma’ale Adumim. The plant’s location has made it a frequent target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel—particularly leading up to the 2014 Super Bowl, when it ran a TV advertisement featuring Jewish-American actress Scarlett Johansson.
SodaStream plans to relocate its plant to northern Israel by late 2015. Despite ongoing pressure from BDS activists, a spokeswoman for SodaStream told Bloomberg News that the decision to move the plant was “purely commercial” and part of the company’s “global growth plan.”
This year, the West Bank plant employed 500 Palestinians and 450 Israeli Arabs, along with 350 Israeli Jews. Johansson had drawn criticism from the U.K.-based charity Oxfam International for serving as a pitchwoman for SodaStream, leading her to quit her role as a global ambassador for Oxfam.
“I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine,” Johansson said at the time. “SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights.”
In February, SodaStream Chief Executive Officer Daniel Birnbaum said the company is “not a settlement, we’re a factory… We do not sustain the settlement economy, we sustain the Palestinian and Israeli economies, so shutting this factory down will have no benefit to the Palestinian people or the peace process.”
Qatar funds payment of Hamas civil servants in Gaza
(JNS.org) In a sign of progress in cooperation between the Hamas terrorist group and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, Hamas civil servant workers in Gaza on Wednesday received payments via the new West Bank-based Palestinian unity government.
The payments were part of $30 million donation by Qatar, an ally of Hamas, to be distributed in the amount of $1,200 each to 24,000 civil servants, the New York Times reported. But excluded from receiving the payments is Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Robert Serry, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, is overseeing the payments.
Since 2007, when Hamas took over Gaza from the PA, more than 70,000 PA employees in Gaza have continued to receive payments, despite not working, while 40,000 Hamas-affiliated workers who run day-to-day operations in Gaza have not been paid since last year.
Last spring, Hamas and its rival Fatah (which dominates the Palestinian Authority) signed an agreement to form a technocratic unity government under the control of Abbas. Attempting to work out compensation for both the PA and Hamas workers in Gaza is one of the unity government’s goals.
*
Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.