Israel fears UN will pull peacekeepers from Golan Heights
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel has expressed concern that the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights may pull out altogether after Syrian rebels snatched 21 UN troops in the cease-fire zone bordering Israel, the French news agency AFP reported on Thursday.
An international negotiating team has been sent to Syria on behalf of the U.N. to secure the release of the 21 peacekeepers taken captive on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Spokesman Farhan Haq told Army Radio on Thursday. “We certainly hope it will be resolved, and the secretary-general and the Security Council are united in calling for the immediate release of the prisoners,” Haq said.
Haq said he did not know how long it would take to free the prisoners.
“This kidnapping is likely to convince countries which participate in this force to bring their troops home, which would undoubtedly create a dangerous vacuum in no man’s land on the Golan,” an Israeli official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Since its creation, this force has fulfilled its mission which was to keep the peace.”
Israel fears that the departure of the UN troops may leave the cease-fire zone between the Syrian and the Israeli sectors of the Golan Heights open to infiltration by hardline militant groups, AFP reported.
The UN Disengagement Observer Force has been monitoring the cease-fire between Syria and Israel since 1974. The 21 peacekeepers who were taken captive—three officers and the rest enlisted personnel—were in a four-vehicle convoy when they were intercepted by Syrian rebels around noon on Wednesday near Jamlah, in the Daara province, less than 2 miles from the Israel-Syria cease-fire line, said Philippine military spokesman Col. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos. Most of the peacekeepers were unarmed. They were part of a group of 300 from the 6th Philippine Contingent, led by Lt. Col. Nolie L. Anquillano, which is involved in peacekeeping efforts in the Golan Heights.
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Jewish groups help defeat divestment bill in Stanford student senate
(JNS.org) Stanford University’s ASSU Undergraduate Senate, 15 undergraduates elected each spring who deal with the school’s legislation, advocacy and programming, on March 5 voted against a divestment bill proposed by Students for Palestinian Equal Rights (SPER).
The SPER bill called on the Senate to ask the Board of Trustees to discontinue endowment investments in eight companies that it said commit “human rights abuses and violations of international law.” But some groups that attended the Senate hearing, such as Chabad at Stanford and the pro-Israel education group StandWithUs, called the bill an attack on Israel in disguise.
Samar Alqatari ’14, one of the bill’s co-authors, said all of the companies are “legitimate companies to divest from.” But Don Waintraub, StandWithUs Northern California and Pacific Northwest Coordinator, attended the vote and told JNS.org he thought “those supporting divestment at Stanford were well-meaning but just misguided.”
“Though, a few of them were simply filled with anger and hatred,” Waintraub said. “One girl kept ranting about the Zionist White supremacy of our time.”
In the debate Tuesday, the Stanford senate listened to students speak on both sides of the issue and ultimately voted against the bill. The senators then voted on a resolution asking university students to debate divestment in other forums, with eight votes of support and five abstentions.
“It was heated and incredibly unfortunate that it had to end up like this. The original anti-Israel bill was shut down seven ‘nay’ to one ‘yay,’ with the rest abstaining. Neither side left happy, everyone just left exhausted and drained,” Waintraub said.
“It’s incredibly important to stress that this was a student-led defense of Israel. They were the ones who pulled off this defense,” he added.
StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein said in a statement, “Without the efforts of the pro-Israel community, anti-Israel misinformation and bias would go unchallenged, and many students would be led to believe, mistakenly, that Palestinians bear no responsibility for the ongoing conflict and that Israel alone is the obstacle to peace. We applaud the pro-Israel students for their courage and commitment to educating students about the facts, and attempting to restore reasonable debate on campuses.”
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Palestinian students attack British diplomat
(JNS.org) Palestinian students angry at century-old British policies attacked a senior British diplomat at Birzeit University near Ramallah.
The students swarmed the vehicle of British consul-general, Sir Vincent Fean, as he attempted to leave the university following a meeting with the school’s dean. Some leapt over his vehicle and tried to attack him, while others reportedly threw rocks, Israel Hayom reported.
While Fean was unhurt, a photographer from the Associated Press said that he saw a student kicking him.
The violent outburst forced Fean to cancel a speech at the school.
The students were apparently upset over Great Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration, which supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in the then British-ruled Mandate of Palestine. Israel eventually declared its independence in 1948 amidst Arab attacks, and largely without the support of the British.
“We asked the university to cancel his visit because Britain is the cause of the Palestinian tragedy,” said Taha Afghani, student leader of the Fatah group. Fatah is the Palestinian political party headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“Get out of Birzeit!” they yelled in English, according to the Associated Press.
“Occupation is your shame!” they shouted, in protest to Israel’s presence in the West Bank.
In a statement, Biezeit University condemned the actions of its students.
“We believe it would have been much more useful if the students had a dialogue with the guest and expressed their political views in a peaceful way,” the university said.
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Former U.S. defense official calls for Pollard’s release
(JNS.org) Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb said on Tuesday that the U.S. should release convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard from prison, saying Pollard’s punishment was “disproportionate.”
“As an American, I can’t accept the injustice of it,” Korb said, according to Israel Hayom.
Korb was assistant secretary of defense when Pollard was arrested by U.S. authorities in 1985. Pollard was later convicted of spying for Israel and sentenced to life in prison.
Now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington, Korb made his comment while visiting Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.
“Pollard is the only person in U.S. history to be served a life sentence for spying for a friendly country,” Korb said. “Israel is undoubtedly a friend, not an enemy. The average sentence for spying for a friendly country is only a few years. He needs to be released not because of interests, but because it is the right thing to do.”
“It is time for the Israeli public to make its voice heard,” he said. “Precisely because we are such close friends, it is important that President [Barack] Obama hears your voice.”
More than 100,000 Israelis have signed a petition calling for Pollard’s release. The petition will be presented to Obama during his visit to Israel later this month. Prominent signers of the petition include former President Yitzhak Navon, writers A.B. Yehoshua and David Grossman and Nobel Prize winners Dan Shechtman, Aaron Ciechanover and Robert Aumann.
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Peres awards 11 Belgian families with ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ honor
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres began his visit to the European Union on Tuesday with a ceremony in which, together with Belgian Crown Prince Philip, awarding the Jewish state’s Righteous Among the Nations honor (given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust) to 11 families.
“On behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, I thank you from the depths of my heart. The righteous amongst the nations brought light to the world, in the face of the atrocities of the Holocaust, they exhibited courage and heroism. The righteous amongst the nations are the greatest example of humanitarian values and humanity itself,” Peres told the families.
“The Nazis were great in number and the saviors were few, but the candle of the righteous brought light to the world which will be remembered for generations. It is a privilege for us to see you here, with families, you should be very proud because there were not many like you. Today, we are all one family which wishes to see a world without cruelty and bloodshed,” he said.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders spoke on behalf of the Belgian government. He said, “The righteous amongst the nations showed that even in the darkest times when lives are in danger it is possible to say no to cooperation with cruelty.”
In the last year Belgium has taken responsibility for its involvement in the fate of Jews during the Holocaust, and last year Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo apologized for the first time on behalf of the entire country during the inauguration of a new Holocaust museum in the city of Mechelen.
In January 2013 the Belgian Senate passed a resolution to examine requests for reparations and also to support and to fund studies into Holocaust research and preventing anti-Semitism.
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Libyan Islamists arrest and torture 48 Christians
(JNS.org) Libyan Islamists affiliated with the fundamentalist Salafi groups arrested and reportedly tortured 48 Egyptian Coptic Christians last week in Benghazi.
According to AFP, the Coptic Christians were arrested and detained by armed Salafists on charges of proselyting. A video later released by the Salafists showed dozens of men with shaved heads squatted on the floor in a tiny room with a bearded Libyan recounting their charges.
According to Fox News, the Christians were later released by the Salafists and are awaiting deportation back to Egypt.
But during their detainment, family members back in Egypt claimed that the Coptic Christians were tortured by their captors, including having their heads shaved and having acid used to burn off crosses that were tattoo to their wrists, Ahram Online reported.
“When the residents of the village told me that he was imprisoned, I embraced his sons and told them they would not see their father again,” Fardoos Salib, the mother of Coptic farmer Atif Kamel, told Egyptian newspaper al-Watan. “I prayed in the church, until God responded and he was released, as God knows our conditions.”
This is the latest incident involving an increasing series of attacks on Christians in post-Qaddafi Libya. In late December, two Egyptians died in a blast at a Coptic Church in the town of Dafniya. In February, four foreign missionaries were arrested on charges of proselytism. Last week, a Catholic priest was attacked by armed militia men in Tripoli, according to Independent Catholic News.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org