Israeli-Palestinian tension escalates in Hebron
(JNS.org) Fresh riots broke out in the flashpoint city of Hebron on Thursday as a Palestinian youth shot and killed by Israeli Border Police on Wednesday was buried, Israel Hayom reported. Dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks and firebombs at IDF troops, who responded with crowd dispersal munitions. The Palestinians report five people injured in the protest.
An Israel Border Policewoman, 19, shot and killed a Palestinian youth on Wednesday night in Hebron after the latter pointed a handgun at the head of another Border Policeman at a checkpoint near the Cave of the Patriarchs.
It was only after police forensics teams investigated the scene that it was discovered that the gun the Palestinian youth was brandishing was fake, Border Police commander Maj. Gen. Amos Yakov told Army Radio on Thursday morning. Yakov said that any Border Police officer would have acted the same way, as the handgun looked real. Yakov said the policewoman acted quickly and correctly when she assessed that her colleague’s life was in danger.
“We’re talking about Hebron, which is a volatile area. And it was dark and cold. So when you look at the gun used, in daylight it looks very real, so in the darkness in a tense situation it looked very real,” Yakov added.
The Palestinian Maan News Agency identified the killed Palestinian man as Muhammad Ziad Awad Salaymah, 17. Salaymah’s brother was reportedly a terrorist released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap deal and banished to the Gaza Strip.
Amid EU criticism, Israel withholds tax revenue in response to PA debt
(JNS.org) The Israeli Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday that 435 million shekels ($115 million) that were to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in December would be used to compensate the Israel Electric Corporation for the more than 600 million shekels ($160 million) it is owed by the Palestinians.
The move comes a day after Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel would stop transferring tax revenues collected on behalf of the PA until at least March, in response to its statehood campaign at the United Nations last month, Israel Hayom reported.
In a statement on its website, the European Union insisted this week that Israel process its tax transfer to the Palestinians, because “Contractual obligations… regarding full, timely, predictable and transparent transfer of tax and custom revenues have to be respected.” At the same time, most EU countries—by voting in favor of “Palestine” as a nonmember observer state at the UN Nov. 29—approved a violation of the Palestinians’ contractual obligation to reaching a final status agreement with Israel through negotiations, according to the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Israel collects some $100 million a month in duties on behalf of the Palestinian Authority because the latter lacks its own facilities to handle overseas imports. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is highly dependent on the Israeli grid because it lacks sufficient infrastructure to generate enough power on its own.
“The Palestinians can forget about getting even one cent in the coming four months, and in four months’ time we will decide how to proceed,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a speech on Tuesday night. “Israel is not prepared to accept unilateral steps by the Palestinian side, and anyone who thinks they will extract concessions this way is wrong,” he said.
Left-wing Meretz party Member of Knesset Zahava Gal-On, however, said the tax funds “do not belong to the State of Israel but to the residents of the Palestinian Authority; the finance minister and the prime minister have overstepped their authority in a most egregious manner.”
YU, Wiesenthal, ADL heads have top salaries for American Jewish leaders
(JNS.org) Yeshiva University President Richard Joel earned the top salary among American Jewish executives in 2011 at $879,821, followed by Simon Wiesenthal Center President and CEO Rabbi Marvin Hier at $702,857 and Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman at $688,280, according to an analysis of 74 Jewish nonprofits conducted by the Forward newspaper.
While Joel’s salary increased by 3.73 percent from 2010 to 2011 and Hier’s dropped 2.61 percent, Foxman’s jumped by 10.75 percent.
Rounding out 10 highest-paid executives were Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland CEO Stephen Hoffman ($644,518), Jewish Federations of North America President and CEO Jerry Silverman ($612,990), American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee CEO Steve Schwager ($550,994 before he left that position), Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks ($525,596), American Israel Public Affairs Committee Executive Director Howard Kohr ($506,232), American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris ($500,916), and Touro College President and CEO Alan Kadish ($496,019).
AJC’s Harris, with a bump of 13.73 percent, was the only executive within the top 10 to see a larger raise than Foxman, and Kadish had the top 10’s largest salary decrease at 9.41 percent.
The Forward’s full analysis, published Dec. 10, can be found online at www.forward.com/articles/167238/salaries-of-american-jewish-leaders
Israeli ambassador to Denmark warns Jews to hide heritage in public
(JNS.org) Jews in Denmark have been warned by officials not to appear publicly in Copenhagen wearing Jewish religious symbols such as yarmulkes or stars of David in order to avoid increasing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic altercations.
“We advise Israelis who come to Denmark and want to go to the synagogue to wait to don their skull caps until they enter the building and not to wear them in the street, irrespective of whether the areas they are visiting are seen as being safe,” Israel’s ambassador to Denmark, Arthur Avnon, told AFP.
Israelis were also warned not to speak Hebrew too loudly, according to Israel National News.
Between 6,000 and 8,000 Jews reside in Denmark. Just a few weeks ago, the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen was attacked. Anti-Israel protesters threw fireworks and sprayed the embassy entrance wall with graffiti that spelled “childkillers.” The Jewish Belief Center says it has received 37 reports of anti-Jewish incidents in Copenhagen this year.
Germany approves new law to protect male infant circumcision
(JNS.org) The German Bundestag (legislature) has overwhelmingly approved a resolution that explicitly permits male infant circumcision, ending months-long uncertainty for Jewish and Muslim groups, the Associated Press reported.
Jewish groups applauded the German government’s vote, which passed with 434 lawmakers in favor, 100 against and 46 abstaining.
“The Bundestag action is a welcome affirmation of Germany’s commitment to religious freedom,” said Deidre Berger, director of American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Berlin Office, in a press statement.
“What’s important for us is the political message of this law, which is that Jewish and Muslim life is still welcome here,” Dieter Graumann, the head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, told AP.
In June 2012, a German court in Cologne issued a ruling that banned circumcision, including religious circumcisions. Jewish and Muslim leaders at the time called the ban “an outrageous and insensitive act,” and both Israel’s president and chief rabbi urged Germany to lift the ban. Charges were even brought against two Jewish rabbis who continued practicing circumcision.
FBI: Jews are the victims of nearly two-thirds of religious hate crimes
(JNS.org) The release of the FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) report indicated a promising new trend in America, with overall hate crimes overall falling by 6 percent in 2011. However, despite the improvement, anti-Jewish hate crimes still remain disproportionately high, the report found.
According to the report, there were 6,222 hate crimes in the U.S. in 2011 with 1,480 religious hate crimes, down 3.4 percent from 2010. These incidents included offenses like vandalism, intimidation, assault, rape, murder, the FBI report said.
Of the 1,480 religious hate crimes, nearly two-thirds were anti-Jewish at 63.2 percent, with Islam a distant second at 12.5 percent and Catholicism next at 5.7 percent.
While the overall number of anti-Jewish hate crimes fell slightly from 887 in 2010 to 711, Jews are still overwhelmingly the victims of hate crimes compared to other religious groups.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed the overall decline. However, the group expressed concern at the disproportionately high number of anti-Jewish attacks.
“It is also troubling that Jews and Jewish institutions continued to be principal targets, accounting for 63 percent of all religion-based hate crimes in 2011—showing, once again, that anti-Semitism is still a serious and deeply entrenched problem in America,” said Barry Curtiss-Lusher, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, in a joint statement.
According to a 2010 Pew Research Center report, Jews comprise approximately 1.6 percent of the U.S. population, whereas Muslim account for 0.6 percent. The two largest religious affiliations in the U.S. are Evangelical Protestants and Catholics, at 26.3 percent and 23.9 percent, respectively.
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