British MP Galloway walks out on debate with an Israeli at Oxford
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) British MP George Galloway has been accused of anti-Semitism for storming out of a debate at Oxford University on Wednesday evening after learning that his opponent as an Israeli citizen.
Galloway, the Respect party MP for Bradford West and a virulent opponent of Israel and supporter of Hamas, left the debate at Oxford’s Christ Church College upon finding out that his opponent, Eylon Aslan-Levy, a third-year philosophy, politics and economics student at Brasenose College, was an Israeli citizen. Aslan-Levy later accused Galloway of “pure racism.”
During the debate, Galloway spoke for 10 minutes in favor of the motion “Israel should withdraw immediately from the West Bank.” According to reports in two Oxford student news websites, The Oxford Student Online and Cherwell, less than three minutes into Aslan-Levy’s speech against the motion, Galloway was made aware that his opponent was an Israeli citizen.
Galloway then interrupted Aslan-Levy’s speech, saying, “I have been misled. I don’t debate with Israelis.” He then left the room with his wife, Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, and was escorted out of the college by a college porter. Asked to explain why Aslan-Levy’s nationality prompted him to abandon the debate, Galloway said, “I don’t recognize Israeli citizens.”
The debate organizers said that they had not misled Galloway because at no time had either of the debaters’ nationalities been raised.
After the debate, Aslan-Levy said, “I am appalled that an MP would storm out of a debate with me for no reason other than my heritage. To refuse to talk to someone just because of their nationality is pure racism, and totally unacceptable for a member of parliament.”
Galloway has been consistently outspoken in his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in 2009 received a Palestinian passport from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU.
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Iran-backed terror plots against Israelis revealed in Nigeria, Cyprus
(JNS.org) While the aftermath of the Bulgarian investigation that said Iran-funded Hezbollah was responsible for last summer’s Burgas bus bombing continues to unfold, terrorist plots against Israel that were backed by the Islamic Republic were revealed in Nigeria and Cyprus.
The Nigerian secret police on Wednesday said it foiled a terrorist group backed by “Iranian handlers.” Secret police spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar said in a statement that the leader of the terrorist group, 50-year- Abdullahi Mustaphah Berende, “took photographs of the Israeli culture center in Ikoyi, Lagos, which he sent to his handlers.” Nigeria has arrested Berende and two other suspects from the group, which it did not describe any further.
Ogar said Berende’s studied at an Islamic university upon traveling to Iran in 2006, and learned to make homemade explosives when he returned to Nigeria in 2011.
Meanwhile, a Lebanese-Swedish citizen, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, who is on trial for terrorism charges in Cyprus, admitted in court to taking part in surveillance against Israeli targets for Hezbollah, the New York Times reported.
Yaacoub was arrested by Cypriot authorities last July with the license plates of buses that carried Israeli tourists. He is facing eight terrorism-related charges. His arrest came less than two weeks before a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria was blown up, killing give Israelis and one Bulgarian. A recent report by the Bulgarian government implicated Hezbollah in the attack.
Yaacoub claims he is innocent and that he would not take part in a plot to target Israelis.
“Even if they [Hezbollah] asked me to participate in a terrorist action I would refuse. I could never do that,” Yaacoub said, according to the New York Times.
The verdict in Yaacoub’s case could influence the European Union’s decision on whether or not to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization—if Yaacoub is found guilty of terrorism, it would provide additional proof that Hezbollah was planning attacks in another EU member state, Cyprus.
U.S. and Israeli officials have strongly urge the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and crack down on the group’s presence within the EU. The EU, however, has so far refused to blacklist Hezbollah.
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Anti-Semitic attacks in France rise to ‘unprecedented’ levels in 2012
(JNS.org) Anti-Semitic attacks in France rose to “unprecedented” levels in 2012, according to a report released by the French-Jewish security organization, Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (SPCJ).
According to the report, “614 anti-Semitic acts were recorded in 2012 against 389 in 2011, which constitutes a 58-percent increase of anti-Semitic acts in France in 2012.”
The report attributed the rise in anti-Semitism on the terrorist attack by Mohamed Merah on a Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012, which left a rabbi and three Jewish children dead.
“After the Toulouse attack, numerous anti-Semitic acts were committed and included support or identification to Merah and his act,” the report said.
The SPCJ recorded 90 anti-Semitic incidents in the 10 days following the Toulouse attack.
While 2012 saw a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic attacks, overall anti-Semitism has been increasing over the past decade in France.
“In the last 13 years the number of anti-Semitic acts has exploded. French citizens, because they are Jewish, must be protected when they study, gather or pray,” said Richard Prasquier, head of France’s leading Jewish group, Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France (CRIF), in a press release.
American Jewish leaders called on the French government to do more to stop rising anti-Semitism.
“The SPCJ report is a sobering reminder that major institutions, both governmental and civil society, must further step up their efforts against those who would act in the name of such venomous and violent hatred—hate that threatens not only the country’s Jewish community, but, no less, French society, and its core values structure, as a whole,” said American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris in a press release.
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Turkish official: Marmara trial of Israeli commanders ‘political’
(JNS.org) A top Turkish government legal official has said that his country’s in absentia trial of top Israeli commanders for their role in May 2010 Marvi Marmara flotilla incident is “political, not really judicial.” The trial will restart Thursday after first beginning in November 2012.
The Turkish government is using a 144-page indictment to seek life sentences for former chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, former OC Navy V.-Adm. (res.) Eliezer Marom, former OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin and former Air Force Intelligence chief Brig.-Gen. (res.) Avishai Levy. The trial will feature the testimony of about 490 witnesses.
“What does Turkey want with this? Maybe they’re waiting to [see] what the next government looks like,” the official told the Jerusalem Post anonymously, adding that the Turkish government is ignoring the UN’s Palmer Report on the Marmara incident, which stated that Israel had the legal right for the blockage under international law.
Any Israeli violations of the law regarding armed conflict on a vessel were worsened by the fact that Israeli Navy sailors were attacked on the ship, the official said.
“The trial is being used for cynical political processes,” he said. The Israeli government has previously referred to this trial as a “kangaroo court.”
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Sharansky re-elected as Jewish Agency chairman
(JNS.org) Members of the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) Board of Governors has re-elected Natan Sharansky for another term as JAFI’s chairman of the executive, Israel Hayom reported. He was first elected to the position in June 2009.
Elections for Jewish Agency chairman are held at the closing session of the board meeting, which took place in Jerusalem this week. The Board of Governors meet three times a year, with participants from Jewish communities and organizations from Israel and around the world.
Sharansky, perhaps the best-known “refusenik,” famously spent nine years in the Soviet Gulag. He established the Yisrael B’Aliyah party in Israel and served as deputy prime minister, and for the last few years has overseen JAFI’s shift in attention from aliyah to building global Jewish identity.
“Many Jews in the world are spending time in ‘repairing the world activities,’ or tikkun olam activities,” Sharansky said in an interview with JNS.org last year. “But unfortunately, for many of them, that is a way for them to abandon their Jewishness, to abandon their identity. We believe that it has to be absolutely the opposite. It is very important that they understand that the source of the energy, the motivation to make the world better all comes from your connection to your identity and to your family.”
Meanwhile, the JAFI Board of Governors on Tuesday called on U.S. President Barack Obama to take immediate action for the release of Jonathan Pollard, who has been imprisoned in the U.S. for 27 years on charges of espionage.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org