Requesting Jewish state recognition a ‘mistake,’ Kerry says
(JNS.org) Secretary of State John Kerry called it a “mistake” to continue to ask for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in efforts to reach a peace agreement.
“I think it’s a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a state, and peace, and we’ve obviously made that clear,” Kerry told a U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee budget hearing on Thursday, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“‘Jewish state’ was resolved in 1947 in Resolution 181 where there are more than 40, 30 mentions of ‘Jewish state,’” he added. “In addition, [PLO] chairman [Yasser] Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of mentions.”
Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key demands during the U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations. Yet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently said there is “no way” he would recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and Nabil Elaraby, the head of the Arab League, called on Arab countries to take a “firm stand” against such recognition.
Israeli Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said Kerry’s comments show he “does not understand the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which he purports to solve.” Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) said, “The secretary of state expects that we will completely dismantle both our strategic properties and our moral conviction.”
“At a time when the citizens of the State of Israel are being attacked by rockets, I would expect Kerry to be making clear statements against terror organizations instead of disputing the basic rights of the Jewish nation to its land,” said Deputy Education Minister Avi Wortzman (Habayit Hayehudi), according to Israel Hayom.
Aliyah up 6.7% in early 2014
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) January 2014 saw a 6.7-percent rise in the number of new immigrants to Israel compared to the same month in 2013, data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) shows.
A total of 1,218 immigrants arrived in Israel in January 2014, compared to 1,141 in January 2013.
According to the CBS statistics, the January 2014 numbers project to a total annual aliyah of 20,500 for 2014, compared to 19,200 in 2013 and 18,900 in 2012.
Northeastern University bans Students for Justice in Palestine for intimidating students
(JNS.org) Northeastern University’s Center for Student Involvement has banned the anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for the intimidation of students on campus.
According to a letter sent to SJP by the director of the Center for Student Involvement, Jason Campbell-Foster, the group has been banned for at least one year and its board members are banned from serving on any future board within the center. Additionally, SJP members must undergo training by university administrators for reinstatement.
“You have not shown a concerted effort to improve your practices and educate your members on how to properly operate your organization within the boundaries of university policy,” Campbell-Foster wrote.
The ban is connected to a February incident in which SJP members distributed mock eviction notices underneath the doors of several residence halls on campus during the mid-term exam period.
Northeastern University’s Hillel chapter said in a statement that the mock eviction notices had “factually inaccurate content about Israel” and were “part of a campaign of intimidation and fear used to manipulate public opinion against Israel.”
“Rather than seeking to prompt dialogue, the fake eviction notices alarmed and intimidated students in their homes, in clear violation of Northeastern policy,” the Hillel said.
In an interview with Democracy Now, one of SJP’s leaders, Northeastern law student Max Geller, said SJP has launched a petition against the suspension and is “right now considering the most spectacular way of delivering this petition to the president’s door.”
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Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva partners with U.K. on dementia research
(JNS.org) Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva has announced a joint $21 million deal with the United Kingdom to fund research on dementia.
The announcement of the deal came on a tour of the company’s facilities by British Prime Minister David Cameron. Teva will team with the U.K.’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) on the project. The Israeli pharmaceutical company will contribute the lion’s share of funding, $20 million.
“We are delighted to collaborate with NIHR on both clinical development and early dementia research. It will be a catalyst for innovation to take place within a healthcare system that is admired the world over,” said Michael Hayden, Teva’s president of global R&D and chief scientific officer, Jerusalem Post reported.
During his tour, Cameron praised Israeli innovation and remarked on the impact Teva has had globally.
“Success in technology, in innovation, in enterprise particularly in our pharmaceutical and healthcare sector are absolutely vital if Britain and Israel are going to be winners in what I call the global race,” Cameron stated.
While not a disease itself, dementia is brought on by other diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease. Researchers estimate that nearly half of all people over the age of 80 suffer from a form of dementia.
Islamic Jihad claims truce with Israel, more rockets launched
(JNS.org) Islamic Jihad claims a truce with Israel following the Palestinian terror group’s recent barrage of at least 60 rockets. Yet several more rockets on top of Wednesday’s initial attack were fired at Israel, Ynet reported.
According to reports, Egyptian mediators brokered a truce with Islamic Jihad.
“Following intensive Egyptian contacts and efforts, the agreement for calm has been restored in accordance with understandings reached in 2012 in Cairo,” Islamic Jihad member Khaled al-Batsh wrote on his Facebook account. The 2012 Cairo agreement refers to the truce mediated by Egypt to end Operation Pillar of Defense.
In response to the announcement by Islamic Jihad, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Thursday that “quiet would be met with quiet,” but that no truce had been formally established.
Ya’alon added, “If provocations continue, we will know how to pound whoever needs to be pounded.”
“We do not seek an escalation but we will not resign ourselves to any provocation from the organizations in Gaza,” he said.
Israeli ministers say retaking Gaza is only way to stop rockets
(JNS.org) In the wake of the largest Gaza rocket attack on Israel since late 2012, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman criticized former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza, in which Israel relinquished control of that territory to the Palestinian Authority before it was eventually seized by the terrorist group Hamas.
About 10,000 Jewish Israelis had to relocate from their homes in Gaza. In addition to Hamas, several smaller Islamist terror groups are present in Gaza today, including Islamic Jihad, which is responsible for the latest rocket barrage.
“Sooner or later we will have to take control of Gaza, in order to get rid of the Hamas regime,” Steinitz said. “We do not need to reoccupy it permanently, but we do need to remove from Gaza the option of firing rockets on us. If and when the moment comes when we must retake Gaza—and that moment is coming soon—the operation will have to be a very quick one,” he said.
Lieberman criticized the view by the former Sharon government that the Israel Defense Forces could always respond to any hostility emanating from Gaza. “We cannot allow the areas that Israel evacuated to be used for terror attacks on us,” said Lieberman. “The only solution is a reversal of the process, a retaking of Gaza.”
Steinitz argued that a takeover of Gaza could be temporary. “We retook areas like Jenin, Tulkarem, and Hevron temporarily, but we did not remain there,” Steinitz said. “We went in, got rid of the terrorists, and left. And now that area is more or less quiet. The only reason we were able to stop the suicide bombing attacks of the second intifada was that we went in and halted the terror, and this what we are going to have to do in Gaza,” the minister said, Israel National News reported.
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Brothers plead guilty over extortion of divorce from Jewish husbands
(JNS.org) Two Orthodox-Jewish brothers in Brooklyn admitted to being involved with a crime ring that used violence to threaten Jewish husbands to agree to grant their wives a religious divorce. Avrohom Goldstein, 34, and Moshe Goldstein, 31, are among a group of 10 men involved in the ring. The men would kidnap Jewish men and beat them until they would agree to grant their wives a divorce.
Orthodox Jewish women can only divorce their husbands if the husbands agree to grant them a religious divorce, or a “get.” According to New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, the two men were caught last October at a warehouse in Edison, NJ, by FBI agents posing as an Orthodox Jewish wife and her brother who agreed to pay $10,000 up front and another $50,000 for the men to beat the woman’s husband.
The brothers pleaded guilty in federal court to traveling in interstate commerce to commit extortion. They will be sentenced in June. The other men in the ring include New York personal trainer David Hellman, 31 (who will also be sentenced in June), the brothers’ father Jay Goldstein, 59, Rabbis Mendel Epstein, 68, and Martin Wolmark, 55, and others. All ring members still face criminal charges, Reuters reported.
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Christian-Jewish aid group increases support for beleaguered Ukrainian Jews
(JNS.org) The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) has announced an increase in support to $10 million for Ukraine’s beleaguered Jewish community amid the violence and political upheaval.
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of IFCJ, made the announcement during a visit with Ukraine’s Jewish community in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital.
“For months now we have received repeated and increasingly urgent requests from Jewish leaders in Ukraine, desperate because of the worsening economic plight and escalating safety concerns, pleading with us for immediate additional help,” Eckstein stated.
“Many Jewish schools, orphanages, and other institutions are on lockdown, with Jews afraid even to walk outside for fear of becoming victims of attack. Needs are growing astronomically as this crisis continues and more and more Jews have fallen into desperate circumstances,” he said.
IFCJ recently sent an emergency relief package of $2 million to Ukraine’s Jewish community.
Eckstein thanked Christians throughout the world for coming to the need of Ukraine’s Jews.
“I am so grateful that our donors, Christians in North America and around the world, are quick to show their deep love for the Jewish people,” he said.
Founded in 1983, IFCJ promotes understanding between Jews and Christians. The group has raised more than a billion dollars, mostly from Christian donors, for Jewish immigration, social programs in Israel, and struggling Jewish communities around the world.
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