Wednesday’s “News in Review” Round-Up

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Contents:  Weekly Quotes |  Short Takes | On Topic Links

 

 

On Topic Links  

 

The Significance of Sukkot: Jeruasalem Online, Oct. 8, 2014

Swedish Mistake: Jerusalem Post, Oct. 5, 2014

Going the Distance to Lead the Faithful: Emily Jane Fox, New York Times, Sept. 24, 2014

Wishes for a Happy Sukkot Holiday: Dry Bones Blog, Oct. 7, 2014

 

 

“Definitely Jews can buy apartments wherever they want in Jerusalem, and especially in the City of David, which is the place of ancient Jerusalem 3,000 years ago,” —Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. Jewish settlers moved last week into 26 apartments in seven buildings in a politically delicate, predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The neighborhood, Silwan — just south of the Old City in territory Israel captured in the 1967 war — is home to about 50,000 Palestinians. It is also the site of archaeological ruins believed to be the City of David, a Jewish historical landmark. (ABC News, Oct. 2, 2014)

 

“Swedish Prime Minister Lofven needs to understand that no declaration and no step by an outside player can replace the direct negotiations between the sides and a solution that will be part of a comprehensive agreement between Israel and the entire Arab world,” —Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman was responding to comments made by Lofven during his inaugural address in the Swedish parliament last week that his government will recognize “Palestine.” Sweden’s ambassador to Israel has been summoned for a reprimand meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Liberman issued a statement saying that “If the Swedish prime minister’s inauguration speech is concerned with the situation in the Middle East, he would be better off focusing on the urgent problems in the area, like the daily mass killings in Syria, Iraq, and other places in the region.” Officials in Jerusalem are concerned by the Swedish declaration for a number of reasons – Sweden is the first major European country which has chosen to recognize ‘Palestine’ as a state, and is essentially a signal from the heart of the EU that recognition of ‘Palestine’ is increasing. Israeli officials claim that Swedish recognition of ‘Palestine’ is intended for a domestic political audience, as more than six percent of the local population is Muslim, and many in that demographic voted for the Social Democratic Party currently in power. (Ynet, Oct. 5, 2014)

 

“If I had known this was what the future held, I would never have married. It would be better to have died [fighting] in Kobani,” —Mostafa Kader, who fled his village, which lies 16km from Kobani centre, two weeks ago. I.S. extremists closed in on the besieged, mainly Kurdish city of Kobani, in northern Syria, on Saturday. Kader and his wife took their five-year-old, their toddler and what little else they could carry. His uncle planned to join them but at the last minute changed his mind, unable to leave a village that had been his home for more than eight decades. I.S. extremists beheaded him, refugees arriving later told Kader. “He was 85 – he could not even lift a weapon,” said the young father, baffled by the brutality. Even more haunting were stories from his wife’s village, where the fleeing family found the bodies of her sister and an eight-year-old niece lying in pools of blood. “They had been raped, and their hearts were cut out of their chests and left on top of the bodies,” he said, struggling to hold back tears. “I buried them with my own hands.”  (Guardian, Oct. 4, 2014)

 

“We have been fighting for 20 days now. Isis swore they would celebrate this Eid in the Kobani mosque, but we have prevented them,” —Ismat Sheik Hasan, a commander of YPG, the Kurdish militia defending Kobani. “One of the US air strikes yesterday damaged their machine gun and another took out a cannon. We don’t know if they hit their tanks or not.” Despite the success of their overnight defence and the limited relief provided by US air strikes, Hasan warned that the city’s fate still hung in the balance. His fighters were running low on supplies, and promised aid had not arrived. “We called the Turkish government for weapons and help. They said they will not allow Isis to control Kobani, but until now we have not seen them do anything.” (Guardian, Oct. 4, 2014)

 

“A terrible slaughter is coming. If they take the city, we should expect to have 5,000 dead within 24 or 36 hours,” —Rooz Bahjat, a Kurdish intelligence official. “It will be worse than Sinjar,” he added. Bahjat predicts that if Kobani falls, Islamic State will murder thousands in the city, which is crammed with refugees—Kurdish, Turkmen, Christian, and Arab—from other parts of Syria. As many as 50,000 civilians remain in the town, Bahjat said. (Atlantic, Oct. 6, 2014)

 

“We know why the NDP is opposed (to Canadian involvement in the U.S. led mission against I.S.). It has consistently opposed any Canadian participation in any military action since the Second World War. Tom Mulcair’s speech to the Commons was a feast of red herrings, irrelevant historical anecdotes and pointed mentions of “the U.S.,” but what it boiled down to was: we say this is war and we say the hell with it. But the Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, has taken a rather different position — or rather positions. When the idea of an international military campaign against ISIS was first proposed last month, he spoke in favour of Canadian participation; now he is against it, having spent the intervening weeks saying he was undecided. Fair enough. Positions evolve. Only he still is not opposed to military intervention in principle: only to Canada taking part in it. And he has not begun to explain why,” —National Post columnist Andrew Coyne, referring to the House of Commons debate over Canadian participation in the mission against Islamic State. (National Post, Oct. 3, 2014)

 

“It may appease the watchtower guards of obsessive feminism to think of the military and jets as macho projections; but I doubt very much if the Kurds and Syrians and Iraqis now struggling with ISIS, the young girls rounded up, the millions of displaced and hounded by these villains, the families of beheaded journalists, think quite so flippantly or so contemptuously of the foreign militaries who are, or will be, coming to their aid,” —National Post columnist Rex Murphy parsing on Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s comment that any air support for a military effort against I.S. was similar to Harper and the Conservative government of Canada “trying to whip out [their] CF-18s and show how big they are.” Murphy continued: “It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. (Oh, there’s a phrase he could play with.) It was the signature of an unserious mind, not to mention a mindless hit on the pilots of Canada’s military, to paint them so glibly as extensions of some macho ethos. We should expect more — both in class and thought — from a national leader, especially when he is speaking in the context of the miseries that have been inflicted by one of the most sadistic collection of terrorists the planet has ever offered. How will they be stopped but by force?” (National Post, Oct. 4, 2014)

 

Contents

 

 

CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY APPROVES COMBAT MISSION IN IRAQ (Ottawa) —Armed with a fresh mandate from a divided House of Commons, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will deploy a contingent of nine military aircraft and more than 600 personnel to take on the Islamic State in Iraq, saying the government’s overarching goal is keeping Canadians safe at home. In a vote on Tuesday evening, the Conservative majority ensured that the motion to send CF-18s to conduct air strikes in Iraq passed with a comfortable majority of 157-134. Most opposition NDP and Liberal MPs voted against the combat mission. Liberal MP Irwin Cotler abstained from the vote. (Globe & Mail, Oct. 7, 2014)

 

INTENSIFIED U.S. AIRSTRIKES MAY KEEP KOBANE FROM FALLING (Kobane) —The U.S.-led coalition stepped up airstrikes around the Syrian border town of Kobane on Tuesday after Turkey appealed for help, enabling Kurdish fighters to reverse the advance of Islamic State for the first time since the extremists launched their assault about three weeks ago. The strikes followed the request by Turkey for intensified U.S. efforts to prevent the predominantly Kurdish town from falling to the Islamic State. Turkey has been widely criticized for its perceived inaction, but many Syrian Kurds also have accused the U.S. of neglecting their plight, contrasting the Islamic State’s unchecked advance on Kobane with the swift response to the group’s gains against Kurds in Iraq in the summer. (Washington Post, Oct. 8, 2014)

 

KURDS PROTEST AGAINST TURKEY AS IS ADVANCES ON KOBANE (Ankara) —Kurds across Turkey have vented their anger at the government’s lack of military support for the defenders of the Syrian border town of Kobane being attacked by Islamic State fighters. Police used tear gas and water cannons as unrest spread to at least six cities. At least 19 people died. Turkish troops and tanks have lined the border but have not crossed into Syria. Some protesters accused Turkey’s government of collaborating with IS. There have also been protests across Europe. Dozens of demonstrators smashed a glass door and entered the European Parliament. (BBC, Oct. 7, 2014)

 

BIDEN COMPLETES APOLOGY TOUR WITH PHONE CALL TO SAUDI OFFICIAL (Washington) —U.S. Vice President Biden apologized Tuesday to a top Saudi official for remarks last week suggesting key U.S. allies destabilized Syria by sending arms and money to extremists. The phone call is the latest effort by the VP to patch up relations with U.S. partners in the war against the Islamic State. Biden previously apologized to leaders of Turkey and the United Arab Emirates – he had mentioned all three nations in his criticism last week. Biden’s off-the-cuff remarks Thursday at Harvard University enraged U.S. allies, just days after the U.S. and several Arab nations launched a coordinated airstrike campaign against the Islamic State in Syria. Speaking at Harvard, Biden had said that “our biggest problem is our allies” in responding to the civil war in Syria. (Fox News, Oct. 7, 2014)

 

SHIITE REBELS ARE YEMEN’S NEW MASTERS (Sanaa) —The capital of Yemen has new masters. Shiite rebels control almost all state buildings, from the airport and the central bank to the Defense Ministry. While the world has been focused on the fight against the Islamic State, Yemen — at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula — saw its own sudden, seismic upheaval when Shiite tribesmen known as Houthis overran Sanaa two weeks ago. Now the Houthis, who many believe are backed by Shiite-led Iran, are poised to become Yemen’s version of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah — top power brokers dominating the government and running a virtual state-within-a-state. (Washington Post, Oct. 5, 2014)

 

IDF SHELLS HEZBOLLAH TARGETS IN LEBANON AFTER BORDER BLAST INJURES 2 ISRAELI SOLDIERS (Beirut) —Two IDF soldiers were lightly injured when a Hezbollah bomb went off in their vicinity in the Har Dov region on Tuesday. The IDF said it shelled two Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the border bombing. Some 30 minutes after the incident a second explosion occurred on the border. There were no injuries or damage in the second blast. Hezbollah later claimed responsibility for the blast. The incident came after IDF soldiers opened fire on a cell trying to infiltrate Israel from Lebanon on Sunday. (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 7, 2014)

 

NETANYAHU SLAMS ‘PEACE NOW’ SABOTAGE OVER JERUSALEM (Jerusalem) —Prime Minister Netanyahu has slammed what he called a “deliberate” attempt by the Peace Now movement to sabotage his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama last week. The group publicly recycled stale news about a Jerusalem housing project in the southern part of the capital that had already won its initial approval in 2011, with its final processing and approval signed last week. The news “leak” was timed to coincide with Netanyahu’s meeting at the White House. The announcement of 2,610 new building tenders in Jerusalem’s Givat Hamatos neighborhood was greeted with a harsh condemnation by the U.S. State Department, which labeled the project “poison.” (Jewish Press, Oct. 2, 2014)

 

EU SET TO REASSESS TIES IF ISRAEL DOESN’T MOVE ON PEACE (Brussels) —The EU is  threatening to reevaluate bilateral ties with Israel if the Netanyahu government fails to make progress toward a two-state solution and continues its current policy of allowing construction beyond the pre-1967 lines. The EU’s new policy has gone largely unnoticed due to this summer’s Operation Protective Edge, but EU officials are already busy at work on a set of sanctions against Israel that Brussels could enact whenever the union’s political echelon gives a green light. Indeed, some in the EU are currently considering implementing a mechanism that would immediately penalize Israel for every step deemed unhelpful to the peace process. (Times of Israel, Oct. 8, 2014)

 

BRITAIN TO VOTE ON RECOGNITION OF ‘PALESTINE’ (London) —British lawmakers will hold a symbolic parliamentary vote next week on whether the government should recognize “Palestine” as a state. It is unlikely to win approval through the British parliament because it is at odds with official policy, but even if it did pass, it is non-binding and would not force the government to changes its diplomatic stance, Reuters reported. “It’s against the government position, but it’s not an attack on them as such, we just feel that now’s the time shout out loud that this should be done,” said lawmaker Grahame Morris from the opposition Labour party who is sponsoring the debate. Britain’s move comes just days after Sweden stirred some controversy by declaring it would recognize the “state of Palestine.” (Arutz Sheva, Oct. 7, 2014)

 

CIJR Wishes its Friends and Supporters a Happy Sukkot Holiday!

NB: We will not be Publishing our Isranet Daily Briefing Thursday or Friday Because of the Holiday, or Monday as it will be Canadian Thanksgiving—Ed

On Topic Links 

 

The Significance of Sukkot: Jeruasalem Online, Oct. 8, 2014—For forty years as the Jewish people were wandering in the desert on the way to the Land of Israel after being slaves in Egypt, they lived in temporary shelters known as sukkahs and were protected by a great cloud hovering above them.

Swedish Mistake: Jerusalem Post, Oct. 5, 2014 —Stefen Löfven, Sweden’s recently elected prime minister, did not waste time. During his inaugural address on Friday, he declared that his government will recognize “Palestine” as a full-fledged state.

Going the Distance to Lead the Faithful: Emily Jane Fox, New York Times, Sept. 24, 2014—Rabbi Rami Schwartzer, a Connecticut-born fourth-year rabbinical student at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, won’t be spending the High Holy Days as he usually does. Instead, he has traveled nearly 1,600 miles to spend the Jewish New Year, which began Wednesday evening, in Cypress, Tex., leading services for a bunch of strangers with a borrowed Torah in a rented clubhouse.

Wishes for a Happy Sukkot Holiday: Dry Bones Blog, Oct. 7, 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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