Netanyahu responds to Arab Knesset member who said Arabs were in Israel first
(JNS.org) While the Knesset on Wednesday night voted on a bill to necessitate a national referendum among Israelis on any peace deal that would require territorial withdrawals, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who did not have any planned remarks, responded to an Arab Member of Knesset (MK) who said Arabs were in Israel first.
During the plenum debate on the referendum bill, Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (National Democratic Assembly) said the bill was irrelevant because it referred to “occupied territory, and as such, what applies is international law; the referendum should apply to the nations of the world,” Israel Hayom reported.
Members of Knesset from the Habayit Hayehudi party subsequently heckled Zahalka, saying, “You are the foreigners in this land.” Zahalka responded, “We were here before you and we will be here after you.”
Netanyahu then responded from the Knesset podium, “I did not plan to speak but I heard what MK Zahalka had to say. You said ‘We were here before you and we’ll be here after you’re gone.’ The first part is not true and the second part will never take place.” Netanyahu slammed his hand on the podium before leaving, and his comments were met with applause from much of the Knesset.
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Next Bank of Israel governor slated to be Leo Leiderman
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Bank Hapoalim’s Chief Economist Professor Leo Leiderman is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s nominee for the position of the next governor of the Bank of Israel.
Wednesday’s announcement was made just two days after former Bank of Israel chief Professor Jacob Frenkel announced he was dropping his bid for a third term in office due to an ongoing shoplifting scandal.
Once Leiderman is confirmed, President Shimon Peres will sign his letter of appointment and he will become Israel’s ninth central bank governor.
“In the current situation of the economy, one of our first challenges is to restore household, consumer and business confidence in the market,” Leiderman told Israel’s Channel 1. Several weeks ago, Leiderman expressed concern over the recession and the drop in foreign investments in Israel, saying that the main challenge for 2014 would be to boost market growth.
Leiderman, 62, came to Israel from Argentina at the age of 17. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and later earned his master’s and doctorate at the University of Chicago. The future bank chief has been a faculty member at Tel Aviv University’s Eitan Berglas School of Economics since 1979. From 1996 to 2000, he served as director of the Bank of Israel’s research department, and was member of its executive board. In the early 2000s, he was managing director of emerging markets research at Deutsche Bank. He has been Bank Hapoalim’s chief economist since 2003.
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New Iran sanctions target oil sales, require president to report on sanctions’ impact
(JNS.org) New Iran sanctions that overwhelmingly passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday aim to cut Iranian oil sales from 1.25 million barrels per day to 250,000 per day by the end of 2014. The sanctions also establish a formal process requiring the president “to report to Congress every 60 days regarding the Iranian nuclear timetable and the projected economic effects of international sanctions on Iran.”
Passed in a 400-20 vote, the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act (H.R. 850)—authored by U.S. Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Ed Royce (R-CA)—also expands sanctions targeting Iranian human rights violations as well as the country’s automotive and mining industries. The bill gives the U.S. president authorization to “impose sanctions on a foreign person that knowingly conducted or facilitated a significant financial transaction with the Central Bank of Iran or other Iranian financial institution subject to sanctions for the purchase of goods (other than petroleum or petroleum products) or services by or from a person in Iran, or on behalf of a person in Iran,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
Calling the House’s passage of the new Iran sanctions “forceful action,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said it “urges the Senate to move quickly on its own version of sanctions legislation.”
“The window is rapidly closing to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability,” AIPAC said in a statement.
The new Iran sanctions came in advance of the Aug. 4 inauguration of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president. Royce believes the leadership change will not alter Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“New president or not, I am convinced that Iran’s Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) intends to continue on this path,” Royce said, according to Reuters.
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Muslim anti-Semitic incidents concern Jewish community of Malmoe, Sweden
(JNS.org) Swedish Jews, particularly those who reside in Malmoe—the country’s third-largest city—are growing concerned over an increasing number of anti-Semitic incidents, many perpetrated by “young men with roots in the Middle East,” said Jehoshua Kaufman, a member of the city’s Jewish congregation.
About one-third of Malmoe’s 310,000 residents were born abroad, including many in the Middle East. There are about 2,000 Jews in the city. Sixty-six anti-Semitic incidents were reported in Malmoe in 2012, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. About halfway through 2013, there have been 35 reports of anti-Semitic incidents. In all of 2010 and 2011 combined, there were 44 such incidents reported. Malmoe police said the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Malmoe is twice as large as the number in Stockholm, whose population is three times as large.
Although there are other types of right-wing extremism in Sweden besides for radical Islam, in Malmoe it is “the young Muslim guys that are the problem,” said Barbro Posner, a member of city’s Jewish community, according to Israel National News.
“[Muslims behind anti-Semitic incidents in Malmoe] come from countries where there are racist, anti-Semitic TV programs,” Posner said.
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BDS actions by Australian professor prompt racial discrimination lawsuit
(JNS.org) The Israeli civil rights group Shurat HaDin has filed a class action lawsuit under Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 against University of Sydney Associate Professor Jake Lynch, over his participation in an academic boycott of Israeli universities.
Last May, the Student Representative Council of the University of Sydney passed a motion endorsing the academic Israel boycott initiated by Lynch, who is the director of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, according to the anti-Israel website BDS Movement, which tracks and promotes the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
“Israel is a state that systematically defies international law. It has occupied Palestinian territories in defiance of the UN Security Council for over 40 years, expanding settlements which are regarded as illegal by the international community,” the University of Sydney student council resolution read.
Lynch refused to work with Israeli professor Dan Avnon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and also called for a boycott of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Shurat HaDin Solicitor Andrew Hamilton said the BDS movement “is racist by its own definition because it seeks to discriminate and impose adverse preference based on Israeli national origin and Jewish racial and ethnic origin of people and organizations.”
“By singling out Israel and no other country, the BDS extremists expose the anti-Semitism that motivates them,” Shurat HaDin Director Natsana Darshan-Leitner said in a statement.
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Bashar al-Assad, amid bloody Syrian civil war, launches Instagram account
(JNS.org) While his government’s armed forces are being accused of war crimes and using chemical weapons in the midst of the bloody Syrian civil war, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has launched an account on the popular social media platform Instagram in an attempt to boost his popularity.
As of July 31, the Instagram account under the handle“syrianpresidency” had more than 4,400 followers. Most of the pictures uploaded onto the account feature Assad and his wife Asma being warmly greeted by other officials as well as meeting with Syrian children and adults who have been injured in the Syrian civil war.
Since March 2011, the Syrian civil war has resulted in more than 100,000 deaths and the displacement of 1.7 million people, according to the United Nations.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org