Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations stumble over which issues come up first
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) While outwardly looking positive and accommodating, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are in fact in disagreement over when to bring up core issues such as borders and security, with the Palestinians wanting to talk about borders first, and the Israelis wanting all topics to be discussed at the same time, senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasser Abed Rabbo said Wednesday.
Speaking on the Voice of Palestine radio station, Abed Rabbo said that from the Palestinian perspective, the Israeli demand to talk about all the issues at the same time could be seen as an attempt to thwart a deal. He added that the Palestinian Authority informed the Americans that Israeli construction beyond the pre-1967 lines would doom the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations.
Israeli officials in Washington said on Tuesday that the venue for talks from now on would alternate between Jerusalem and Ramallah. A date for the next meeting has yet to be set, but once underway, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations are expected to be intensive and deal with core issues. General outlines will be formulated on each issue, after which professional teams from both sides will go into the details. Palestinian sources said talks would focus first on technical issues. The borders of the future Palestinian state and security arrangements that Israel is requesting won’t be discussed during the initial stage, sources said.
Speaking on Israel Radio on Wednesday, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who has been briefed on the talks, said Israel’s position is that the talks are about the two-state solution, with land swaps. “We are talking about two states and the settlement blocs. Ariel, Gush Etzion, Maaleh Adumim are part of Israel and the Palestinians are going to have to come to terms with that,” Lapid said.
Jewish NBA player who scored league’s first basket dies at 94
(JNS.org) Oscar “Ossie” Schectman, a Jewish player who scored the first basket in the history of what evolved into the National Basketball Association (NBA), died Tuesday at age 94.
Schectman’s historic field goal came on Nov. 1, 1946 for the New York Knicks of the Basketball Association of America (BAA)—the precursor to the NBA—against the Toronto Huskies. The Knicks won the game, 68-66.
“Playing for the New York Knickerbockers in the 1946-47 season, Ossie scored the league’s first basket, which placed him permanently in the annals of NBA history,” NBA Commissioner David Stern said in a statement. “On behalf of the entire NBA family, our condolences go out to Ossie’s family.”
Schectman’s basket would later inspire the title of “The First Basket,” a 2008 documentary about Jews and basketball from executive producer David Vyorst.
“The film is about the cultural history of Jewish basketball players, not only of how they contributed to the evolution of the NBA, but how basketball is an essential part of American Jewish history,” Vyorst told JNS.org in June.
In his only professional basketball season, 1946-47, Schectman averaged 8.1 points and 2.0 assists per game for the Knicks. The team’s roster sported significant Jewish flavor—Schectman’s teammates were Sonny Hertzberg, Stan Stutz, Hank Rosenstein, Ralph Kaplowitz, Jake Weber, and Leo “Ace” Gottlieb.
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Turkish officials’ anti-Semitic comments lead to bipartisan letter calling for condemnation
(JNS.org) Members of U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee have sent a bipartisan letter to Turkish President Abdullah Gül asking for the condemnation of recent anti-Semitic statements by Turkish officials.
The letter by Brad Schneider (D-IL), Randy Weber (R-TX), Lois Frankel (D-FL) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) was signed by 46 U.S. Representatives and noted remarks by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referring to Zionism as a “crime against humanity.”
Recep Erdoğan also mentioned “the Interest rate lobby” in reference to the protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, which the U.S. Representatives’ letter called “a thinly veiled reference to Jews.” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay also recently blamed the “Jewish diaspora” as one of the communities fueling the Turkish demonstrations against Recep Erdoğan.
The U.S. Representatives wrote of the close relationship between the Obama administration and Turkey, urging the Turkish government “to publicly condemn the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric by government officials,” which “has no place in a democracy.”
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Dr. Oz speaks on Jewish values during Israel visit with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
(JNS.org) American medical TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and religious public figure Rabbi Shmuley Boteach participated in a Jerusalem panel discussion on Jewish values that also included Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky.
Dr. Oz, as he is known, is dubbed “America’s doctor” and is currently on his first visit to Israel, sponsored by U.S. Jewish philanthropist Sheldon G. Adelson. “What changed my life is traveling through a country that has been traumatized, yet sees so much hope,” Oz said during the panel, which was moderated by The Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde.
Oz, who is Muslim and of Turkish descent, also shed light on his Israel visit with Rabbi Boteach in a Jerusalem Post interview. “My family and I are visiting Israel, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, in an effort to better understand the source of the universal Jewish values that have so positively impacted on the world and the place from which they stem,” Oz said.
New Holocaust museum honors couple that hid Jews in Latvia
(JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres attended a ceremony marking the opening of a museum honoring a couple that saved 50 Jews during the Nazi occupation of Latvia in World War II.
The museum, located in Latvia’s capital of Riga, honors Zanis Lipke and his wife Johana, who hid Jews in a 90-square foot-underground pit. Yad Vashem honored Zanis and Johana in 1966 as “Righteous Among the Nations,” Israel’s official recognition for non-Jews who helped save Jews during the Holocaust.
Latvia had a thriving Jewish community prior to the Holocaust. Jews were represented in Latvia’s parliament during its period of independence between World War I and World War II.
“The Jews of Latvia invested a lot in Latvia’s prosperity, but the Holocaust destroyed them,” Peres said at a state dinner hosted by Latvian President Andris Berzins before the ceremony, The Baltic Coursereported.
At the dinner, Peres spoke about the Rumbula Massacre, in which a Nazi SS unit killed about 25,000 Jews with the help of local collaborators. But Peres also mentioned that many Latvians, including Zanis Lipke, worked to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
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Al-Qaeda-linked fighters abduct Jesuit priest in Syria
(JNS.org) Rebels linked to Al-Qaeda have abducted Italian Jesuit Priest Paolo Dall’Oglio, Vatican Radio reported.
Father Dall’Oglio—who is a well-known advocate of Christian-Muslim dialogue and a vocal critic of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose government is in the midst of the Syrian civil war with rebel forces—was reportedly abducted in the rebel-held eastern Syrian city of Raqqa.
The Vatican’s envoy to Syria, Archbishop Mario Zenari, toldVatican Radio that he has no official confirmation of Dall’Oglio’s abduction.
According to Zenari, Father Dall’Oglio is well respected in the region and has worked for years to restore Deir Mar Musa or Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian, an ancient Christian monastery located 80 kilometers north of Damascus, into a modern center for Muslim-Christian interfaith dialogue.
“He is truly a man of virtue, a Jesuit of great talent and a person who loves Syria,” Zenari said.
Father Dall’Oglio is the latest Christian leader facing violence in Syria. In April, two Christian bishops, one Catholic and the other Orthodox, were abducted in northern Syria. Meanwhile, in early July, Catholic priest Francois Murad was publicly beheaded by Syrian terrorists. Zenari called these continuing abductions “a painful wound inflicted on the Syrian nation and its people.”
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Preceding provided by JNS.org