Wednesday’s “News in Review” Round-Up

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Contents:  Weekly Quotes |  Short Takes | On Topic Links

 

 

On Topic Links  

 

What The “Two State Solution” Has to Do with the Rise of Islamic Extremism: Zero: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, Oct. 20, 2014

Palestinian Statehood?: Louis René Beres, Gatestone Institute, Oct. 20, 2014

Iran Remains the Threat in the Middle East: Prof. Efraim Inbar, Besa, Oct. 19, 2014

Metropolitan Opera Stifles Free Exchange of Ideas About a Propaganda Opera: Alan Dershowitz, Algemeiner, Oct. 21, 2014

 

“The truth is we – there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt – and I see a lot of heads nodding – they had to respond to…People need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with the humiliation and denial and absence of dignity,” —U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, at a State Department reception for the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival. Kerry was referring to meetings he held at an international fund-raising conference held in Cairo last week at which $5.4 billion was pledged for reconstruction in Gaza. The U.S. State Department later denied that Kerry had made the statement attributed to him. (Gatestone Institute, Oct. 20, 2014)

 

“The notion regarding the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not true and puts Israel at risk,” —Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, on Facebook. The economy minister was criticizing remarks by Secretary of State Kerry implying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was responsible for the broader problem of Islamist terrorism in the region. Bennett added that, “The creation of ISIS had nothing to do with Israel. ISIS’s military gains in Iraq and Syria have nothing to do with Israel. The intense hatred between Sunni & Shiite Muslims has nothing to do with Israel.” Bennett called the concept “not just wrong,” but “dangerous for the State of Israel. If Israel is the source of the region’s troubles, then we might as well get rid of Israel. Who needs the headache?… This is the true story,” he wrote. “Even when we are speaking to the United States – our best friend and strongest ally – we need to tell the truth. This is why I will not be silent,” Bennett concluded. (Algemeiner, Oct. 19, 2014)

 

“Jerusalem has a special flavor and taste not only in our hearts, but also in the hearts of all Arabs and Muslims and Christians…Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Palestinian state and without it there will be no state,”—Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Addressing Fatah activists in Ramallah, Abbas called on Palestinians to prevent Jewish “settlers” from entering the Temple Mount. He also called on Palestinians to be present at the Temple Mount at all times to confront the “fierce onslaught on Al-Aksa Mosque, Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre Church…we must prevent them from entering the Noble Sanctuary in any way. This is our Al-Aksa and our church. They have no right to enter and desecrate them. We must confront them and defend our holy sites.” Abbas also said he was determined to go to the UN Security Council to seek a resolution calling on Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines. (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 19, 2014)

 

“Behind his [Abbas’] suit and the pleasantries aimed at the international community, he ramps up incitement against Israel and the Jews and calls for a religious war,”—Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, criticizing Abbas for remarks suggesting that Jews should be prevented from visiting the Temple Mount, and that Palestinians should defend the site from them. Liberman said Abbas’ remarks reveal his attempt to ignite the conflict by using the most sensitive place, the Temple Mount. The Foreign Minister then compared Abbas to some of the most extreme Islamist groups. “Abbas has effectively joined the frontlines of extremist Islamist organizations, such as the Islamic State and the al-Nusra front who sanctify religious war,” he said. (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 19, 2014)

 

“I had the feeling that we are living in Hamburgistan,” —Daniel Abdin, imam of Hamburg’s Al-Nour Mosque, “the atmosphere was very, very explosive.” Parts of downtown Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, resembled a war zone after hundreds of supporters of the jihadist group Islamic State engaged in bloody street clashes with ethnic Kurds. The violence—which police say was as ferocious as anything seen in Germany in recent memory—is fuelling a sense of foreboding about the spillover effects of the fighting in Syria and Iraq. The unrest began on the evening of October 7, when around 400 Kurds gathered outside the Al-Nour mosque to protest against IS attacks on Kobani. According to police, the initially peaceful protest turned violent when the Kurds were confronted by a rival group of around 400 Salafists. More than a dozen people were injured, including one person who nearly had his leg chopped off by someone wielding a machete, and another person who was stabbed in the stomach with a kebab rod. Germany is home to an estimated 4.3 million Muslims, one million Kurds and 60,000 Yazidis. Germany is also home to 30 active Islamist groups and 43,000 Islamists, including 950 members of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, 1,300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood and 5,500 Salafists. (Gatestone Institute, Oct. 15, 2014)

 

“Although Iran has modified its tone recently, there have hardly been any changes of substance since the soft-spoken president, Hassan Rouhani, took over the reins from his aggressive predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” —Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, in an opinion piece entitled “Don’t Make a Bad Deal With Iran,” published in The New York Times. “Neither administration has budged from the insistence that Iran should retain most of the 9,400 operational centrifuges it deploys to enrich uranium, as well as its nearly completed nuclear reactor in Arak, which could produce plutonium in the future,” Steinitz wrote, adding that “President Obama must stand by his declaration that no deal with Iran is better than a bad deal…choosing the ‘no deal’ option will very likely produce extra pressure — including some new sanctions — on Iran and, subsequently, might pave the way for a better deal in the near future.” Iran and the P5+1 nations are seeking a comprehensive agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program by a November 24 deadline. That deadline was set after the sides failed to reach an agreement by a previous deadline in July. (Arutz Sheva, Oct. 20, 2014)

 

“We’ve said all along that better no agreement than a bad agreement and the question is what are they discussing at the moment, are they talking about how many centrifuges there will be and if so, why should they have centrifuges at all?” — Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, after talks with his American counterpart Chuck Hagel in Washington. Ya’alon expressed concern about the shape of an international agreement with Iran over its nuclear aspirations: “are they talking about other elements of the Iranian military nuclear project such as missiles ready for nuclear warheads?” Ya’alon also slammed Turkey over its reluctant participation in US-led efforts to fight the Islamic State as well as its support for Hamas, which is branded by Israel, the EU and US as a terrorist group: “Turkey is playing a cynical game…Hamas is supported by Turkey and Qatar, and has two military headquarters – in Gaza and Istanbul. Hamas transferred its military headquarters from Damascus to Istanbul, where it is represented by Saleh al-Arouri, who orchestrates terror attacks against Israel and attempts to incite a coup against Mahmoud Abbas…” (Ynet, Oct. 22, 2014)

 

“We aim to show that by no means do all of the members of Cambridge University hold the stance expressed in the academics’ statement, and that there is strong support for Israel within our community,” —letter signed by over 60 students at Cambridge University, angered by academics who had launched an attack on Israel following the recent Gaza conflict. The letter written by Josh Goodman, a classics student, said a statement that was signed by 55 university teaching staff showed a “severe lack of nuance surrounding the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict” and, in the students’ view, was “un-academic.” The 55 staff signatories said they wanted to “add our voices to those of the Palestinian resistance” as well as show their support for 300 Holocaust survivors who lodged an open grievance against Israel’s actions during the war with Hamas. They also registered their concern about the “victimization of students and lecturers, inside and outside of Israel, for speaking out on this issue.” (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 19, 2014)

 

“Neither Mr. Adams nor librettist Alice Goodman reached out to us when creating the opera, so we didn’t know what to expect when we attended the American debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991. We were devastated by what we saw: the exploitation of the murder of our father as a vehicle for political commentary,” —Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, children of Leon Klinghoffer, who was shot in the head by Palestinian hijackers on the Achille Lauro cruise ship, his body and wheelchair thrown overboard into the Mediterranean. The Klinghoffer’s added that “Over the years we have been deeply distressed with each new production of “Klinghoffer.” Critical views of Israel permeate the opera, and the staging and props of various productions have only amplified that bias. To have it now produced in New York — in our own backyard — by the country’s most prestigious opera company is incredibly painful.” “The Death of Klinghoffer” opened Monday at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera. (JTA, Oct. 19, 2014)

 

“The real problem, and it is a serious one, involves the decision to use a family’s tragedy for art without the permission of the family’s members. Nothing gave the composers a moral right to profit from his death,” —Walter Russell Mead, writing on the “Death of Klinghoffer.” (American Interest, Oct. 21, 2014)  

 

Contents

 

DRIVER WHO KILLED CANADIAN SOLDIER HAD BEEN QUESTIONED ON TERRORIST LINKS (Montreal) —The Canadian man who ran over two soldiers, killing one of them, had previously been detained and released as part of a probe into his alleged links to a group affiliated with Islamic State militants, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. Canadian authorities had been investigating 25-year-old Martin Rouleau ’s links to the group when he was detained at an airport preparing to board a plane to Turkey sometime between June and this month, the person said. The hit-and-run incident on Monday involving Mr. Rouleau, who was shot and killed after a police chase, came as Canadian security officials have warned of increased threats since Ottawa said this month it would contribute six warplanes to join the U.S.-led fight against I.S. (Montreal Gazette, Oct. 21, 2014)

 

ISRAEL TO SUPPLY EGYPTIANS WITH NATURAL GAS (Cairo) —Israel will supply Egyptian consumers with natural gas from its off-shore Tamar reservoir for the next seven years. The agreement reached with the Dolphinus Holdings company is worth an estimated $500-700 million a year. Egypt supplied Israel with natural gas for 20 years, until 2012, when a series of terror attacks on the pipeline in the Sinai brought the deal to an end. Recent discoveries of off-shore gas reservoirs have turned Israel into a supplier to its neighbors. Last month Israel and Jordan signed an agreement that makes makes Israel the Hashemite Kingdom’s biggest energy supplier for years to come. (I24, Oct. 20, 2014)

 

HAMAS LEADER’S DAUGHTER TREATED IN ISRAELI HOSPITAL (Tel Aviv) —Representatives from Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv confirmed on Sunday evening that it treated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s daughter. The hospital said that Haniyeh’s daughter had been admitted for a number of days, noting that she was one of over a thousand Gazans that the hospital treats every year. 
Haniyeh’s daughter was admitted for emergency medical treatment after she suffered complications from a routine procedure. Haniyeh, who has 13 children, is the leader of the Islamist group in Gaza and one of its most senior figures overall, serving as a deputy to Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile. (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 19, 2014)

 

SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 10 HOUTHI REBELS IN YEMEN (Sanaa) —A suicide car bomb on Monday targeted a house used by Shiite Houthi rebels in a town south of Sanaa, killing at least 10 and injuring 15, security officials said, in an attack that bore all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda. The officials said the bombing hit the house of Abdullah Idris, a top local official with the party of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh. All victims were members of the Houthi movement, whose fighters overran the capital of Sanaa last month. The Houthis have since made significant military advances widely suspected to have been made with the help of Saleh’s loyalists among tribes and in the military. No one claimed responsibility for the bombing, which took place just hours after the officials reported that fighting resumed between the Houthis and Al Qaeda fighters in Radaa. (Fox News, Oct. 20, 2014) 

 

PAKISTANI CHRISTIAN WOMAN’S APPEAL OF DEATH SENTENCE IS REJECTED (Lahore) —The Lahore High Court of Appeals has upheld the death sentence of a Pakistani Christian woman in a high-profile blasphemy case and dismissed her appeal for acquittal. The defendant, Asia Bibi, a farmworker, was sentenced to death in 2010 after being convicted of blasphemy. The courtroom was packed with clerics and members of extremist groups who supported the prosecution, and they erupted in celebration upon hearing the two-judge panel’s decision to dismiss Ms. Bibi’s appeal. Qari Salaam, a co-worker of Ms. Bibi’s and the main complainant in the case, and other farm-workers accused Ms. Bibi of shouting insults against the Prophet Muhammad. But she and her family deny that, saying the workers decided to lash out at her because a manager had ordered her to bring water out to the workers, and they refused to drink from bowls she had touched. (New York Times, Oct. 16, 2014)

 

US POLITICIANS JOIN PROTESTERS AT MET ‘KLINGHOFFER’ OPENING (New York) —Politicians including former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani joined a crowd of demonstrators outside the Metropolitan Opera to protest an opera they say glorifies Palestinian terrorists. Demonstrators, primarily associated with Jewish groups, rallied outside Lincoln Center with 100 wheelchairs, in honor of the slain handicapped Leon Klinghoffer, on whom “The Death of Klinghoffer”  is based. The opera, which centers on the terrorists who perpetrated the murder, has been accused of glorifying terrorism and incorporating antisemitic tropes. Monday’s was the first of eight performances. The Met has vowed to go ahead with the production, calling it a legitimate piece of art, though the protests have had their effect. The company earlier pulled the plug on planned HD and radio broadcasts, canceled a panel discussion out of safety concerns, and agreed to include a note in the program from Klinghoffer’s daughters denouncing the opera. (Times of Israel, Oct. 21, 2014)

 

NAZIS EXPELLED FROM US WERE PAID MILLIONS IN SOCIAL SECURITY (Washington) —Dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards collected millions of dollars in U.S. Social Security benefits after being forced out of the U.S., an AP investigation has found. The payments, underwritten by American taxpayers, flowed through a legal loophole that gave the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave the U.S. If they agreed to go, or simply fled before deportation, they could keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal U.S. government records. Among those receiving benefits were armed SS troops who guarded the network of Nazi camps where millions of Jews perished; a rocket scientist who used slave laborers to advance his research in the Third Reich; and a Nazi collaborator who engineered the arrest and execution of thousands of Jews in Poland. (Times of Israel, Oct. 20, 2014)

 

GERMAN JUDGE SAYS ANTISEMITISM WAS ONLY LIMITED TO NAZI PERIOD (Munich) —A regional judge in Munich is embroiled in a highly charged dispute over her statement in a civil case that German antisemitism was limited to the Nazi period of 1933-1945, suggesting that post-Holocaust antisemitism is not a factor in Jew-hatred. The judge, Petra Grönke-Müller, sparked outrage on October 8 with her courtroom assertion during a civil case that “a fiery anti-Semite is someone in Germany who talks, with conviction, in an anti-Semitic way and, with conviction, does not condemn the Third Reich and cannot view the period 1933-1945 as separate from the background of history.” The case, which goes to the heart of a modern understanding of antisemitism in Germany, pits a co-founder of the German Green Party, Jutta Ditfurth, against an extreme nationalistic journalist, Jürgen Elsässer. During a television interview in April, Ditfurth called Elsässer a “fiery anti-Semite.” In response, Elsässer wrote that she had “defamed“ him and engaged in “character assassination,” and filed a lawsuit against her. (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 17, 2014)

 

LONDON STUDENT UNION REFUSES TO COMMEMORATE HOLOCAUST (London) —In yet another controversial decision, the Goldsmiths College Students’ Union has rejected, by a margin of around 60 to 1, a motion to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day and all victims of genocide. Education officer Sarah El-Alfy urged students to vote against the proposal, rejecting it as “Eurocentric” and “colonialist”. One unnamed student added that, “the motion would force people to remember things they may not want to remember,” whilst another argued that as the Union was “anti-Zionist” she couldn’t commemorate the Holocaust. This follows news that the student union voted against a motion condemning ISIS and supporting the Kurdish resistance as to do so would be Islamophobic. (Breitbart, Oct. 16, 2014)

 

BRITISH MP CONDEMNED FOR ANTI-ISRAEL COMMENTS (London) —Sir Alan Duncan, an Arabist and former government minister who retains a desk in the Foreign Office as Britain’s special envoy to Oman and Yemen, has been strongly criticized for a series of stinging attacks not only on Israel, but also on the so called “Israel lobby” both in the US and Britain. Duncan vented his views both during last week’s historic House of Commons debate on Palestinian statehood and in a controversial speech he gave to the prestigious Royal United Services Institute. In his address to the Royal United Services Institute, having comprehensively attacked Israeli policies – an example of which was his assertion that West Bank settlements were “a wicked cocktail” of occupation and illegality and a system akin to apartheid in South Africa, he made an unprecedented verbal assault on those who supported settlements, suggesting they should be barred from public office. (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 19, 2014)

 

FRENCH CITY FACING LEGAL ACTION OVER MARWAN BARGHOUTI STREET (Valenton)— A watchdog on anti-Semitism vowed legal action against a French municipality that named a street after Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian who was convicted in 2004 to multiple life sentences for planning dozens of deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis. The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism prepared to ask an administrative court to void the move by Valenton, near Paris.  During the Sept. 15 inauguration of Marwan Barghouti Alley, Valenton Mayor Françoise Baud, a member of the French Communist Party, called Barghouti “the face of the unwavering resistance of the Palestinian people against the occupation, the crimes, the destruction, the apartheid and the colonization perpetrated by the Israeli government.” (JTA, Oct. 15, 2014)

 

RARE ROMAN MONUMENT BEARING HADRIAN’S NAME FOUND IN JERUSALEM (Jerusalem) —A rare fragment of a stone engraved with an official Latin inscription dedicated to the Roman Emperor Hadrian has been found in Jerusalem. Researchers say this is among the most important Latin inscriptions ever discovered in the area. In the past year, the Israel Antiquities Authority has carried out salvage excavations in several areas north of the Damascus Gate to the Old City. It was in one of those areas that the stone fragment bearing an official Latin inscription from the Roman period was discovered. The inscription, consisting of six lines of Latin text engraved on hard limestone, was read and translated by Avner Ecker and Hannah Cotton of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Only a small number of ancient official Latin inscriptions have been discovered in archaeological excavations throughout the country and in Jerusalem in particular. (Jewish Press, Oct. 21, 2014)

On Topic Links 

 

What The “Two State Solution” Has to Do with the Rise of Islamic Extremism: Zero: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, Oct. 20, 2014—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim that the lack of a “two-state solution” has fueled the rise of the Islamic State [IS] terrorist group reinforces how clueless the U.S. Administration is about what is happening in the Arab and Islamic countries.

Palestinian Statehood?: Louis René Beres, Gatestone Institute, Oct. 20, 2014— When U.S. President Barack Obama announces in the United Nations that he wants a two-state solution for Israel and “Palestine,” and when U.S. Secretary of State repeated it recently — and when Sweden and the UK vote for a Palestinian State, and now possibly Spain and France — they should be more careful what they wish for.

Iran Remains the Threat in the Middle East: Prof. Efraim Inbar, Besa, Oct. 19, 2014 —The emergence of the Islamic State (IS) on the battlefields of the civil war in Syria, and its subsequent spectacular successes in conquering parts of Syria and Iraq, have grabbed international attention.

Metropolitan Opera Stifles Free Exchange of Ideas About a Propaganda Opera: Alan Dershowitz, Algemeiner, Oct. 21, 2014 —On Monday night I went to the Metropolitan Opera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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