Boycott of Israel endorsed by American Studies Association leaders
(JNS.org) The national council of the American Studies Association (ASA) on Wednesday announced its adoption of a resolution to boycott Israel. The ASA’s 5,000 members now have until Dec. 15 to vote on the measure.
“Our resolution understands boycott as limited to a refusal on the part of the Association in its official capacities to enter into formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions, or on behalf of the Israeli government, until Israel ceases to violate human rights and international law,” the ASA national council stated.
Kenneth Stern, director on anti-Semitism and extremism for the American Jewish Committee, said the ASA resolution “is despicable, contravenes the most basic values of academic freedom and does nothing to advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace.”
“Treating Israeli academic institutions in a way no other universities are treated anywhere else in the world is discrimination pure and simple,” Stern said in a statement.
Ron Dermer, new Israeli ambassador to U.S., presents credentials to Obama
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Ron Dermer presented his credentials to U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday, officially becoming Israel’s 18th ambassador to the U.S.
Dermer, a former top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a 42-year-old Florida native who studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Oxford University before immigrating to Israel in 1997. Between 2005 and 2008, Dermer served as the economic attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
“I feel proud and honored to serve as Israel’s ambassador to the United States,” Dermer wrote to Obama in the White House guest book. “America is a country to which the Jewish people owe so much and to which I, as a son of America, am so personally indebted. I look forward to working with you and your administration to make the bonds between Israel and America stronger than ever.”
Begin Prize awarded to NGO Monitor
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Menachem Begin Heritage Center awarded NGO Monitor the Begin Prize Wednesday night for “the organization’s efforts exposing the political agenda and ideological bias of humanitarian organizations that use the discourse of human rights to discredit Israel and to undermine its position among the nations of the world.”
The award was also given to Abraham Foxman for his work as Anti-Defamation League director and to iconic Israeli actor Chaim Topol for founding and running the Jordan River Village camp for kids suffering from serious illnesses.
“NGO Monitor humbly appreciates the recognition by the Begin Heritage Center for our contributions and years of hard work,” NGO Monitor founder and president Professor Gerald Steinberg said in a statement. “Menachem Begin fought against the moral hypocrisy that denied the Jewish nation the same rights granted to others, including self-defense and sovereign equality in our homeland. In this spirit, NGO Monitor was founded to expose and end the double standards among powerful organizations that exploit the banners of human rights and democracy.”
Jerusalem terror attack victims awarded $9 million in damages from Iran
(JNS.org) A San Diego federal court on Tuesday ordered the Iranian Defense Ministry to pay $9 million in damages to victims of a 1997 double suicide bombing in Jerusalem by Iran-funded Hamas.
The plaintiffs, including five U.S. citizens injured in the Hamas attack and four family members of victims, were represented by Shurat HaDin, an Israeli law center.
“We still remember the heinous murders carried out by the Iranian proxy, Hamas, in 1997,” Shurat HaDin founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said in a statement. “We are still fighting every single day for a measure of justice and compensation from the outlaw regimes that supported the terror organizations.”
The same terror victims won a $70 million judgment from Iran in 2003, but they were never paid because Iran opted to freeze assets held by San Diego-based Cubic Defense Systems. Iran in 1977 had signed a $12 million contract to purchase equipment from Cubic, but the equipment was never delivered because U.S.-Iran ties were cut off after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran had already won a judgment for $2.8 million of the funds from Cubic, and placed a lien on the remainder of the $12 million on the grounds of the 1981 Algiers Accords, which resolved the Iran hostage crisis by requiring the U.S. to “restore the financial position of Iran, in so far as possible, to that which existed prior to November 14, 1979.” On Tuesday, however, Judge Barry Moskowitz of the San Diego court ruled that the frozen funds should be transferred to the Jerusalem terror victims.
Yasser Arafat was not poisoned, French scientists say
(JNS.org) French forensic scientists said Tuesday that former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat did not die from radioactive polonium poisoning, as was suggested by a recent Swiss report.
While the official cause of Arafat’s 2004 death was a stroke, Swiss forensic experts claimed last month that samples they had tested from Arafat’s body indicated polonium poisoning, though not definitively.
Arafat’s widow, Suha Arafat, said in a statement from Paris, “You can imagine how much I am shaken by the contradictions between the findings of the best experts in Europe in this domain,” according to Reuters.
Senior Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah leader Jibril Rajoub recently claimed that the U.S. and Israel were involved in the death of Arafat, falling in line with what Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) calls a “libel” frequently featured on PA television.
“It’s not surprising that the PA would like to present the U.S. as co-conspirator in the so-called poisoning of Arafat, because inciting hatred against the U.S. is a consistent PA policy over many years,” Itamar Marcus, director of PMW, recently told JNS.org.
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(JNS.org) Israel’s Chief Rabbinate will allow women to become Kashrut supervisors for the first time in the wake of a petition filed by the Emuhah women’s rights group to the High Court of Justice.
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau has decided to remove stipulations from the guidelines preventing women from applying for the job. Emunah, which has advocated for this change for two years, created a course to train women to work as Kashrut supervisors.
“This is without doubt a historic breakthrough and achievement,” Emunah Chairwoman Liora Minke said following the announcement of the decision.
Member of Knesset Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) said the Chief Rabbinate “must continue to find ways to make itself more accommodating to reality in Israel.”
White House: ‘We will explore’ allowing Iran to enrich in permanent nuclear deal
(JNS.org) The U.S. “will explore” the possibility of allowing uranium enrichment for domestic purposes in a permanent agreement on the Iran nuclear program, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The recently reached interim agreement between Iran and world powers states that Iran can enrich uranium up to 5 percent, while suspending high-grade (20 percent) enrichment.
“Over the next six months, we will explore, in practical terms, whether and how Iran might end up with a limited, tightly constrained, and intensively monitored civilian nuclear program, including domestic enrichment,” White House National Security Council spokesman Caitlin Hayden told the Free Beacon.
“Any such program would be subject to strict and verifiable curbs on its capacity and stockpiles of enriched uranium for a significant number of years and tied to practical energy needs that will remain minimal for years to come,” Hayden said.
Top Israeli leaders and many members of the U.S. Congress believe Iran should be prohibited from all enrichment. Hayden told the Free Beacon that while the U.S. “does not recognize that Iran has a ‘right to enrich,’” Iran should still “have access to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
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