U.N. Palestinian ‘Day of Solidarity’ features series of condemnations of Israel
(JNS.org) In advance of the 66th anniversary of the Nov. 29, 1947 endorsement of the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine, which would have established neighboring Jewish and Arab states but was rejected by the Palestinians, the U.N. General Assembly on Monday marked “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” with a series of resolutions and speeches condemning Israel.
The Arab League’s U.N. ambassador, Ahmed Fathalla, called Israel “racist” and accused the country of illegally “Judaizing Jerusalem.” David Wildman, executive secretary for human rights and racial justice at the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Ministries, accused Israel of “colonization,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid practices,” in addition to calling for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions efforts against the Jewish state.
“This event unfortunately continues to damage the U.N.’s credibility as a peace-promoting institution and further serves to widen the chasm between Israelis and Palestinians,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said in a statement. “For the U.N. to spearhead a day full of hate masquerading as a day of ‘solidarity’ is very disturbing and only highlights the uphill battle that we must continue to fight at the world body.”
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor noted that the U.N. last week adopted nine resolutions condemning Israel, including one condemning Israel for its treatment of the Syrian people despite the fact that Syrian civil war refugees are receiving medical care in Israeli hospitals. In 2012, the U.N. passed 22 resolutions condemning Israel and only four singling out all other nations.
“The worst human rights abusers receive a fraction of the condemnation that Israel—the only democracy in the Middle East—receives,” Prosor said, according to Israel Hayom. “These irresponsible actions have irreversible consequences. The states that rubberstamp the anti-Israel resolutions every year have given the Palestinians a false sense of reality and fed their culture of victimhood.”
Israel concerned Palestinian Authority is destroying artifacts at Hasmonean fortress
(JNS.org) Israel is concerned that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is going to lose or destroy ancient artifacts from an ornate fortress dating back to the Hasmonean dynasty, currently under excavation near Bethlehem. The PA has been organizing the digs in Area A in the West Bank, Israel Hayom reported.
The issue of the PA-administered digs came to light earlier this week after the Kfar Etzion Field School conducted a preliminary tour of the area, prepping for an IDF-approved trip and walkabout at the site for tour guides in training. The trip to the area of the Hasmonean fortress was the first such Israeli outing to the area to be approved in 20 years. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, no Israeli has legally stepped foot in the area.
The site—situated south of Bethlehem—is nicknamed Tel Beit Betzi and includes the remains of an elaborate fortress dating back to the Hasmonean dynasty during the Roman period. Excavations completed in the 1980s uncovered a bulwark constructed following the battle of Elasa in 160 B.C.E., in which Hasmonean rebel leader Judah Maccabee was killed.
Yaron Rosenthal, director of the Kfar Etzion Field School, said that although “diplomatic agreements left the former settlement in Area A (which is under PA control), there’s no reason for our nation to abandon the cultural legacy from the time of the Maccabees’ rebellion.”
Israel, EU reach compromise on Horizon 2020 project
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel and the European Union have reached a compromise that would enable Israel to participate in the Horizon 2020 program despite the EU’s directives limiting the funding afforded by its member nations to Israeli institutions operating beyond the Green Line. Israel now stands to be the only non-EU member participating in the program.
Horizon 2020, the EU’s $108 billion research and development program that is set to take place between 2014 and 2020, stands to become a major contributor to scientific research funding in Israel. The Israeli Science and Technology Ministry welcomed the compromise, saying Israel is expected to invest some $1.35 billion in Horizon 2020.
According to the compromise reached, Israel will sign an addendum by which it would be able to retain its position that the language used by the EU in the Horizon agreement— which states that there is a difference, funding-wise, between research bodies operating within and beyond the Green Line—is unacceptable, but will also state that will abide by the EU’s demand that the scientific funding offered by the bloc’s member nations will not be diverted to institutions based beyond the Green Line.
Both sides have also agreed that any Israeli institution operating both within and beyond the Green Line would be allowed to apply for EU grants according to the program’s overall outline, and each application will be considered according to its individual merit.
Jewish groups raise concerns on Iran nuclear deal in calls with White House
(JNS.org) White House national security officials tried to assuage leaders of American-Jewish organizations about the newly reached nuclear deal between the P5+1 powers and Iran during several conference calls.
Officials spoke to groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the American Jewish Committee, and the Jewish Federations of North America. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents, said Jewish leaders “raised the concerns that are quite obvious to the community and the issues that have come up regarding the process of the accord [and its] implementation.”
“We raised the questions about what the accord says about the [Iranian] weaponization program, the development of their ballistic missile system, what it says about the development and production… of centrifuges, what happened to the Arak [heavy water] facility… what happened to the uranium, why it was not removed, why they’re allowed to keep it, why the process does not call for dismantling the existing infrastructure as the [U.N.] Security Council resolutions call for,” Hoenlein told JNS.org.
The White House officials, according to Hoenlein, in some cases “indicated that these are issues they will address in the coming months and the next stage, and this is only an interim agreement, and we only learned yesterday that in fact [the agreement] doesn’t go into effect right now, it only goes into effect once the joint commission [to monitor the agreement’s implementation] is established, once the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is able to verify that Iran is living up to its commitment.”
Hoenlein said that after the conference calls, Jewish leaders “understand [the deal] better, and that was the purpose.” Yet there is “every reason to be skeptical when you’re dealing with the Iranians,” he said.
“Their history is one of deception, manipulation, lying… and there’s nothing to indicate a change except the pressure of these sanctions and the internal Iranian reaction to them and the impact that [sanctions] had on the economy,” Hoenlein said. “[Iranian President Hassan) Rouhani was one of the negotiators, he was the key interlocutor from 2003 to 2007, and he wrote a book where he clearly proclaims how he lied, distorted, and manipulated in order to buy time for them to move ahead with their nuclear program.”
The U.S. and Israel “want the same thing out of this process, which is that Iran does not achieve nuclear weapons,” and it is critical that the allies “work together on what needs to be done to ensure that the final agreement or the next steps are really conducive to the ends that they declare they want,” Hoenlein said.
Legendary Israeli singer Arik Einstein dies
(JNS.org) Legendary Israeli singer Arik Einstein died Tuesday at 74 after being admitted to the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, suffering a hemorrhage in a major heart artery.
“We operated on him, but his condition was too difficult for us to save him,” said Prof. Gabi Barbash, director of the Sourasky Medical Center, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Einstein is considered one of the greatest Israeli rock musicians. Among his most famous songs are “Ani Ve’ata” (Me and You), “Sa Le’at” (Drive Slowly), “Yesh Li Ahava” (I Have Love).
“We all grew up on his songs. You said, ‘Arik Einstein,’ and you said, ‘the Land of Israel.’ He was a wonderful singer and a wonderful person,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
“We are sad to hear about Arik Einstein’s death and send our condolences to his family, friends, fans, and to all Israelis. Einstein is an Israeli cultural legend and probably the greatest Israeli singer of all time, and we’re sure that every Israeli who lives in the U.S. today shares in the sadness of his passing. A major icon of Israeli culture has left us, but his memory and songs will stay with us forever,” Shawn Evenhaim, Chairman of the Israeli-American Council, said in a statement.
Israeli company building highway discovers 10,000-year-old house
(JNS.org) While conducting a routine dig as part of a highway expansion program, an Israeli transportation company uncovered the remains of a 10,000-year-old house and a 6,000-year-old temple.
The newly excavated site, which dates back to the the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, will be opened to the public on Nov. 27 by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Netivei Israel Company, the company working on the highway project.
“Whoever built the house did something that was totally innovative because up until this period [local human groups] migrated from place to place in search of food. Here we have evidence of man’s transition to permanent dwellings, and that in fact is the beginning of the domestication of animals and plants; instead of searching out wild sheep, ancient man started raising them near the house,” the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement, according to the Times of Israel.
ADL: New FBI hate crime statistics ‘seriously flawed’
(JNS.org) The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has questioned the validity of the FBI’s 2012 Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) report, the calling it “seriously flawed” for its incomplete numbers.
According to the ADL, more than 25 percent of the nation’s law enforcing agencies failed to provide the FBI with hate crime statistics.
“Due to a deeply disturbing trend of under-reporting and under-participation by law enforcement agencies, including more than a dozen of the largest agencies in the United States, the 2012 Hate Crime Statistics Act report is seriously flawed,” Abraham Foxman, ADL national director, said in a statement.
Nevertheless, in the report, Jews remained by far the largest target of religiously motivated hate crimes. According to the FBI, 59.7 percent of all religious hate crimes in 2012 were anti-Jewish. But overall, hate crimes fell by seven percent from 6,222 incidents in 2011 to 5,796 in 2012.
Pope Francis reaffirms commitment to Jewish-Christian relations, regret for anti-Semitism
(JNS.org) Pope Francis on Tuesday released his widely anticipated first Apostolic Exhortation, which included a strong reaffirmation of dialogue with the Jewish people and an expression of regret for past anti-Semitism.
The 224-page comprehensive document, titled Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), outlines the pope’s vision for the Catholic Church.
“We [the Catholic Church] hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked,” Pope Francis wrote in the document.
The pontiff added, “Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. The friendship which has grown between us makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured, and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians.”
The American Jewish Committee expressed a “warm appreciation” for the Pope Francis’s message.
“His emphasis on the ongoing Divine Presence in the life of the Jewish People and on the importance of the ‘values of Judaism’ for Christians, is particularly significant in further advancing the historic transformation in the Catholic Church’s approach towards the Jewish people,” said Rabbi David Rosen, AJC’s International Director of Interreligious Affairs.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org