Poll: 64% of Israeli Jews say election won’t swing peace process with Palestinians
(JNS.org) Almost two-thirds of Israeli Jews (64 percent) believe that the peace process with the Palestinians will not advance no matter which political party forms Israel’s next government, according to the newly released monthly Peace Index poll by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University.
Sixty-four percent of Israeli Jewish respondents also said that Palestinian leaders will not show greater flexibility and readiness for concessions if a new government is headed by the Zionist Union alliance’s Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni. On the topic of U.S.-Israel relations, 49 percent of Israeli Jews and 20 percent of Israeli Arabs believe that the Obama administration will be friendlier to a Herzog/Livni government than one headed by the Likud party’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while 33 percent of Israeli Jews and 17 percent of Israeli Arabs said the White House would show the same level of friendliness to either government.
Israel’s Knesset election is March 17.
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Hillel CEO Eric Fingerhut drops out of J Street conference
(JNS.org) After being listed as a speaker for the upcoming national conference of the left-wing J Street lobby, Hillel International President and CEO Eric Fingerhut announced Monday that he will pull out of the conference due to concerns regarding other speakers’ history of “inflammatory statements” against Israel.
The current list of J Street conference speakers includes Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in the spring of 2014. Erekat has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “filthy war criminal.”
Another controversial J Street conference speaker is James Baker, the U.S. secretary of state under former president George H.W. Bush. In the 1980s, Baker barred Netanyahu (who was then a senior Israeli foreign policy official) from the State Department in response to Netanyahu’s criticism of America’s Mideast policy. Baker is also widely known to have said, “F**k the Jews, they didn’t vote for us anyway.”
“My desire to attend the [J Street] conference was based on my wish to speak at a student-only session directly with the students who will be in attendance, to thank those who have joined in the fight against BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and anti-Semitism on college campuses, and to urge everyone to take up this crucial cause,” said Hillel’s Fingerhut, who heads a campus umbrella organization with a presence at 550 colleges and universities. “However, after reviewing the full list of speakers, I now realize that any benefit that might come from this opportunity would be overshadowed by concerns regarding my participation amongst other speakers who have made highly inflammatory statements against the Jewish state.”
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U.N. panel investigating Gaza war asks for extension on report
(JNS.org) A United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) panel that is investigating Israel’s military operation in last summer’s Gaza war, but not the actions of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, has asked to postpone the publication of its report from an initial March deadline until June in order to consider additional evidence it has received.
The report was due to be presented to the UNHRC on March 23. Last month, the head of the U.N. probe, William Schabas, stepped down following a revelation that he performed consulting work for the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Schabas was already known for his past criticism of Israel, including a call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former president Shimon Peres to be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for alleged human rights violations.
Mary McGowan Davis, who succeeded Schabas as head of the panel, said, “In this context, the Commission must analyze with the utmost objectivity the large number of additional submissions and documents received over the past few weeks from both sides, relating to the fact-finding dimension of our mandate,” Reuters reported.
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Jay Leno returning to Israel to host Genesis Prize ceremony
(JNS.org) Former “Tonight Show” host and comedian Jay Leno has said he will return to Israel in June to host the “Genesis Prize” award ceremony, after hosting the prize’s inaugural event last year.
The $1 million prize, which has been dubbed “the Jewish Nobel Prize,” is being awarded this year to actor Michael Douglas for his “passion” for Israel and his Jewish heritage.
“People [in Israel] seem to be genuinely happy to see you,” Leno told the Associated Press. “There, you kind of get swarmed. People run over, and the grandmas pinch your cheeks. So that was kind of fun.”
Given calls by Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement activists for celebrities not to travel to or perform in the Jewish state, “Israelis are thrilled when you actually show up,” Leno said.
Douglas—the son of Jewish actor Kirk Douglas—has said he will donate his Genesis Prize money to projects promoting Jewish inclusiveness.
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Chief Rabbinate removes ban on Christmas trees at Israeli hotels
(JNS.org) The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has removed a prohibition against the placement of Christmas trees in Israeli hotels.
Prior to the change, hotels that offered “references to gentile holidays” could lose their kosher licenses, hurting the chances of religiously observant customers staying there.
The removal of the Christmas tree restriction came in response to a petition from Hiddush – Freedom of Religion for Israel, a nongovernmental organization that filed a petition in protest of the ban with Israel’s attorney general and the Ministry of Religious Services.
“The importance of our victory is twofold,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, president and CEO of Hiddush, the Religion News Service reported. “First, it will finally give the numerous Jewish and non-Jewish groups that visit Israel the freedom and respect which has been denied them,” and second, “it is an important lesson in the development of the rule of law in Israel, which emphasizes that the Chief Rabbinate is bound by Israeli law and is not above it,” Regev said.
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PayPal acquires Israeli cybersecurity start-up CyActive
(JNS.org) The American online payments giant PayPal is purchasing the Israeli cybersecurity start-up CyActive for $60 million. Spokespeople from PayPal and CyActive both did not comment on the acquisition, but Globes reported that the deal has been signed and is expected to close shortly.
CyActive, which was founded in 2013 by CEO Liran Tancman and Chief Technology Officer Shlomi Boutnaru, claims that its technology can predict and prevent hacker attacks by forecasting the future of malware evolution “using bio-inspired algorithms and a deep understanding of the black hats’ hacking process.”
The Israeli start-up was part of an incubator program launched by the Be’er Sheva-based venture capital firm JVP. CyActive is PayPal’s second acquisition in Israel. In 2008, PayPal purchased the financial fraud-monitoring company FraudSciences for $169 million.
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Press Release from Americans for Peace Now:
Washington, DC – Americans for Peace Now today called on Eric Fingerhut, the President of Hillel International, to reconsider his decision to boycott J Street’s annual conference. Fingerhut says he decided to cancel his planned appearance at the conference because one of the people invited to speak there is Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat.
APN’s President and CEO, Debra DeLee said: “Fingerhut’s decision is misguided, odd and damaging. Erekat has spent hundreds if not thousands of hours negotiating with Israeli and American officials, but somehow he is not ‘kosher’ enough to be on the same conference program as the President of Hillel.
“It is odd, because Erekat is a Palestinian moderate. While he has made statements with which APN and others in the pro-Israel, pro-peace community profoundly disagree, he has long been a staunch and vocal supporter of a negotiated two-state peace agreement with Israel, and rejected violence and terror. Indeed, Erekat embodies the Palestinian ‘diplomatic option.’ For that, he is routinely and viciously attacked by Palestinian rejectionists and extremists.
“Fingerhut’s decision is damaging because it sends a terrible message to young American Jews. The message is that engagement with any Palestinian leader, even a pro-two-state moderate like Erekat, is wrong.
“Fingerhut’s decision is a terrible mistake. We urge him to reconsider it.”