Wednesday’s “News in Review” Round-Up

WEEKLY QUOTES

“To the nations that continue to allow prejudice to prevail over truth, I say ‘J’accuse,'”— Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor, during the United Nation’s annual commemoration of the vote on the partition of the British Mandate. Addressing diplomats and dignitaries, Prosor took a page from Emile Zola’s “J’accuse“—a famous 19th century pamphlet on antisemitism— to respond to the anti-Israel declarations at a special session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Prosor told the attendees, “I accuse you of hypocrisy. I accuse you of demanding concessions from Israel, but asking nothing of the Palestinians. I accuse you of speaking about Israel’s right of self-defense in theory, but denying it in practice. I accuse you of lending legitimacy to those who seek to destroy our state,” said Prosor, adding, “Our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state.” Prosor attacked European governments, in general, and Sweden, in particular, saying they are “failing us again” and their recognition of a Palestinian state was an “historic mistake.” The Israeli ambassador said such votes and declarations are “giving the Palestinians exactly what they want – statehood without peace. By handing them a state on a silver platter, you are rewarding unilateral actions and taking away any incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate or compromise or renounce violence.” (Ynet, Nov. 25, 2014)

“The fact that there is no deal now means there is an opportunity to continue the economic pressure that has proven the only thing that has brought Iran to the table,” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s comments came during a BBC interview in which he said the current stalemate in the Iran nuclear talks is a “lot better” than the deal that he said Iran was pushing for. That deal, which he described not as a “bad deal,” but rather a “horrible deal,” would have “left Iran with the ability to enrich uranium to an atom bomb while removing sanctions.” The deal that the world should be pushing for, he added, was to “dismantle Iran’s capacity to make atomic bombs, and then only to dismantle the sanctions.” Netanyahu said Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles is a clear sign that it is seeking nuclear weapons. “The only reason you build ICBMs is to launch a nuclear warhead. So Iran, I think everyone understands, is unabashedly seeking to develop atomic bombs. And I think they shouldn’t have the capacity either to enrich uranium or to deliver nuclear warheads. And I think that is the position the P5+1 should take.” Netanyahu said one of the justifications for not taking that position was that to do so would “offend Iranian pride.” “So what,” he said. “If this position was taken in the 1930s against Germany, it would have offended German pride, but saved millions and millions of lives.” (Jerusalem Post, Nov. 24, 2014)

“In the nuclear issue, America and colonial European countries got together and did their best to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees, but they could not do so — and they will not be able to do so,” —Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei issued his remarks on his personal website the day after a deadline for concluding a nuclear agreement was extended for seven months. Khamenei has the final say on all important policy matters in Iran, including the country’s nuclear program. In the Iranian Parliament, lawmakers erupted in their usual chants of “Death to America” after a lawmaker commenting on the deadline extension spoke of “the U.S.’s sabotaging efforts and its unreliability.” (New York Times, Nov. 25, 2014)  

“I think it is the last chance for Iraq, and this is the moment to back it,” —British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.  Fallon urged Canada to expand its commitment to Iraq during what he says is a “critical stage” in the battle against Islamic State. During an international security forum in Halifax, Fallon said that he planned to encourage Canada’s defence minister to firm up plans to contribute to training for Iraqi security forces. During the past three weeks, Canadian fighter jets have struck a warehouse used to manufacture improvised explosive devices, a piece of artillery, some construction equipment and a bunker. “But if there’s more [Canada] can do on training, if there’s more they can offer in terms of stocks of arms and ammunition they don’t need, now is the time to throw it into the fight,” Fallon added. (Globe & Mail, Nov. 21, 2014)

“Ultimately what we need to do is wage a jihad against jihadism,” —Kamran Bokhari, a Middle East analyst and author. Bokhari said it was up to police and intelligence agencies to deal with those who break the law, “but they can’t police ideology, that’s the job of the Canadian Muslim community.” He said a Muslim mainstream would have to emerge to moderate the extremists defining the problem as “it’s our way or the highway” thinking. “How do we reach out to them? That is our challenge.” (National Post, Nov. 23, 2014)

“Within the limits of our capacity, we are leading the world in many ways in responding in a balanced way,” —Canadian Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney. The minister said the bombing campaign by Canadian and allied warplanes had made it much harder for the Islamic State to use its heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery. “They can no longer move out in the open like that,” he said. Kenney defended the Canadian approach to the crisis, which he said involved a range of policies, from resettling refugees to “discreet” military operations. (National Post, Nov. 23, 2014)

“The significance of these attacks and others is enormous and cannot be underestimated,” —latest edition of the Islamic State propaganda magazine Dabiq, released Friday. The magazine claims that last month’s attacks that killed two Canadian Forces members in Quebec and Ontario were “the direct result” of its call for violence in countries that had joined the international military campaign against the terrorist group. “By calling on Muslims around the world to rise up in arms, the sheikh launched attacks in Canada, America and Australian … without nothing more than words and a shared belief in the act of worship that is jihad,” it claimed. While individual jihadists had previously referred to the attacks, the magazine marked the first time Islamic State had mentioned them in its official propaganda. The violence “demonstrates the immense power that jihad wields over those who chose to embark upon its path,” it said. (National Post, Nov. 21, 2014)  

“Canada is strongly opposed to the glorification of Nazism and all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance. We are deeply concerned by the rise of neo-Nazism in many parts of the world, and are committed to eliminating racism and discrimination, in all their forms,” —François Lasalle, a spokesman for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. At the United Nations on Friday, however, Canada voted against a resolution, brought by Russia, “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Canada was joined in its opposition by just two other countries, U.S. and Ukraine. The motivation for the Russian resolution is thought to be related to Russia’s claims that far-right extremist groups are aligned with Ukrainian nationalists and even the Kyiv government in escalating clashes with pro-Russian separatists. Canada objected because the resolution has a “narrow focus” and it draws on the controversial declarations of the 2009 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which Canada regards as antisemitic. “…The resolution put forward at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on November 21 on the glorification of Nazism regrettably includes references which are counterproductive to this goal, including by seeking to limit freedom of expression, assembly and opinion…Given its narrow focus and these concerns, Canada did not vote in favour of the resolution,” Lasalle said. (National Post, Nov. 23, 2014)

“You cannot put women and men on an equal footing…it is against nature,” —Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at a women’s conference in Istanbul. Women cannot do all the work done by men, he added, because it was against their “delicate nature…Our religion regards motherhood very highly,” he said, adding “feminists don’t understand that, they reject motherhood.” Earlier this month, Erdogan claimed that Muslims had discovered the Americas more than 300 years before Christopher Columbus. (BBC, Nov. 24, 2014)

“Every day, we get more and more calls from more terror victims who want to fight back who are seeking justice, who more than anything else in the world don’t want to be victims anymore,” —Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Centre) director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner. Darshan-Leitner and her colleagues have been hard at work since 2003 choking off terrorist funding through legal cases against terrorist-sponsoring countries, banks and other entities terrorists use to fund and carry out their murderous activities. Darshan-Leitner, who spoke at a CIJR event in Montreal earlier this month, said her organization has won more than $1 billion in judgments, with $120 million in actual payments to victims of terror, and has frozen more than $600 million in terror assets. “Every day, we find cases we must get involved with on behalf of the Jewish community and the State of Israel. We fight terrorism in court because we are doing what governments are not able to do. Governments cannot sue other governments, banks or terror organizations. They have political considerations, foreign relations and treaties they sign — they have to be politically correct. We don’t. We are private lawyers who represent private people that have one goal — to bankrupt terrorism one lawsuit at a time. We will keep fighting terrorism in court because we don’t have any other choice. We live in Israel and we want to send our kids to school and make sure they come back safe. We want to shop in our malls, ride our buses, sit in our cafés and walk on our streets. We don’t want to send our kids to fight in Gaza. We don’t want to run to shelters three, six or nine times a day. We want to live normally in our country,” she said. (Suburban, Nov. 19, 2014)

SHORT TAKES

U.S. DEFENCE SECRETARY HAGEL RESIGNS (Washington)— U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Monday he is stepping down, leaving under pressure following a rocky tenure in which he has struggled to break through the White House’s insular team of national security advisers. Hagel is the first senior Obama adviser to leave the administration following the sweeping losses for the president’s party in the Nov. 4 elections. It also comes as the President’s national security team has been battered by crises including the rise of Islamic State and Russia’s provocations in Ukraine. In recent weeks, Hagel sent a letter to national security adviser Susan Rice in which he said Obama needed to articulate a clearer view of the administration’s approach to dealing with Syrian President Assad. The letter is said to have angered White House officials. (Globe & Mail, Nov. 24, 2014)

CABINET APPROVES ‘JEWISH STATE BILL’ (Jerusalem)— Israel’s Cabinet approved a contentious bill to officially define it as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The bill, which still needs to be passed in parliament to become a law, ostensibly looks to define Israel’s existing Jewish nature into law. But its various versions have drawn accusations that it will undermine the country’s democratic character. The vote comes at a time of soaring tensions between Arabs and Jews and a wave of violent attacks, including last week’s deadly assault on a Jerusalem synagogue in which two Palestinians killed five people. The Israeli government vowed to respond to the wave of violence with harsh new measures, including a proposal to strip Palestinian attackers of their residency rights. In its current form, the bill calls for recognizing Israel’s Jewish character, institutionalizing Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and delisting Arabic as an official language. (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 23, 2014)

HAMAS PLANNED TO ASSASSINATE LIEBERMAN (Jerusalem)— A Hamas terrorist cell planned to assassinate Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the IDF, Shin Bet and police said in a statement. According to the statement, the group, comprised of members of Hamas military wing from the Bethlehem area, planned to target top Israeli officials, including Lieberman. They sought to purchase an RPG rocket launcher with the intent of shooting Lieberman’s car.  Ibrahim Salim Mahmoud al-Zir, 37, from the village of Harmela near Bethlehem, led the terror cell behind the mission. Al-Zir is known to Israeli security forces and has in the past served time for security offenses he conducted with Hamas. Al-Zir planned the attack in August, during Operation Protective Edge, in order to send a message to Israel to stop its war in Gaza. (Ynet, Nov. 20, 2014)

OLMERT TO BE QUESTIONED ON ALLEGATIONS THAT BARAK TOOK BRIBES (Jerusalem)— Israeli police announced on Sunday that former prime minister Ehud Olmert will be called as a witness in its investigation of allegations that former prime minister Ehud Barak took bribes. Two weeks ago, Attorney-General Weinstein ordered police to investigate bribery allegations Olmert made against Barak in a taped conversation. The decision came a day after an NGO asked Weinstein to investigate taped allegations Olmert made sometime in 2007-2009 that his then defense minister Barak had taken millions of dollars in bribes as part of arms and weapons transactions. The NGO’s letter to Weinstein followed an airing of taped conversations between Olmert and his then top aide, Shula Zaken, in which he tells her of the allegations. Barak has denied the allegations. In the tapes, Olmert tells Zaken that Barak “has millions, tens of millions, stashed away in secret bank accounts in Switzerland or somewhere,” which he allegedly illegally skimmed off weapons deals. (Jerusalem Post, Nov. 23, 2014)

AFGHANISTAN SUICIDE BOMBING KILLS 50 PEOPLE AT VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT (Kabul)— A suicide bomber blew himself up at a volleyball tournament in Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least 50 people and wounding about 60 more in the country’s deadliest terrorist attack this year. The bloodshed came just hours after Parliament approved agreements allowing U.S. and NATO troops to remain in the country past the end of the year. Volleyball is a popular sport in Afghanistan, played across the country, and the attacker is likely to have targeted the event to ensure maximum casualties. No one claimed responsibility. Paktika, bordering Pakistan, is one of Afghanistan’s most volatile regions, a place where Taliban and groups like the Haqqani network are waging an intensifying war against the government. Earlier this year, a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives near a busy market and a mosque in Paktika’s Urgun district. (CBC, Nov. 23, 2014)

KENYAN STRIKE ON MILITANT CAMPS KILLS 100 AFTER BUS SHOOTING (Mombasa)— Kenya’s army said it killed more than 100 fighters of the Islamist group al-Shabaab in assaults on its camps in neighboring Somalia after the terrorists claimed responsibility for a bus attack in northeastern Kenya that left 28 people dead. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the Nov. 22 attack on a bus while it was traveling northeast of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Non-Muslims were separated from other passengers before being killed by gunmen. Kenya has faced increasing attacks by Islamists since sending its troops into neighboring Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabaab, which has waged an insurgency against that country’s government since 2006. (Bloomberg, Nov. 24, 2014)

RUNOFF WILL DECIDE PRESIDENT OF TUNISIA (Tunis)— Tunisia’s first democratic presidential election will be decided in a runoff next month between the two leading candidates, President Moncef Marzouki and Beji Caid Essebsi, a former prime minister, the election board announced on Tuesday. Preliminary results of the first round, held on Sunday, showed Essebsi in first place with 39.46 percent of the vote, and Marzouki second with 33.43 percent. The two will face each other in a runoff because no candidate secured a majority in the race. Given that only six percentage points separated them in the first round, the runoff may well be a closer contest than expected. It has already reopened the deep divisions in Tunisian society between secularists and Islamists and could frustrate hopes of a national unity government between the two main blocs in Parliament: Essebsi’s party, Nidaa Tounes, and the main Islamist party, Ennahda. (New York Times, Nov. 25, 2014)

GERMANY OPPOSES UNILATERAL RECOGNITION OF PALESTINIAN STATE (Berlin)—German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that Germany was opposed to the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, urging for the renewal of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. Merkel said Friday that Berlin supports a two-state solution and “we see how difficult that is, so we also believe that unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state won’t move us forward” toward that goal. Last week, Spain’s Parliament approved a non-binding resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, following similar motions in Britain and Ireland. Sweden’s new government officially recognized a Palestinian state on Oct. 30,  making it the first major European Union member state to back Ramallah’s statehood bid in this way. (Times of Israel, Nov. 21, 2014)

SWISS MUSEUM ACCEPTS ART TROVE AMASSED UNDER NAZIS (Bern)— Kunstmuseum Bern will accept the bequest of an immense trove of art amassed by a Nazi-era art dealer, but will ensure that any looted art in the trove is returned to its rightful owner. The bequest was made by the dealer’s reclusive son, Cornelius Gurlitt, just before he died in May. A cousin of Gurlitt made a last-minute attempt to block the bequest, but the president of the museum’s board of trustees, said he did not expect that action to prevent the museum from accepting it. German authorities seized the trove after Gurlitt died at his Munich home. An agreement reached among the museum, the German federal government and the state of Bavaria calls for the collection to be dealt with as openly as possible. Looted art remains a thorny issue nearly seven decades after World War II ended. Art experts and historians are hoping that the museum’s pledge of openness in handling the Gurlitt bequest will set a new tone for dealing with future discoveries of looted artworks. (New York Times, Nov. 24, 2014)

ISRAEL TO EASE ABSORPTION, EMPLOYMENT FOR IMMIGRANTS FROM FRANCE (Jerusalem)— Israel’s government cabinet decided to clear obstacles to the absorption of new immigrants in the labor market, in particular, those from France. “We want to see masses of Jews coming here,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said. “I appeal especially to the Jews of France; this is a community that I know, love and appreciate. We see you today not only as brothers and sisters but as our very flesh.” Antisemitism is a key factor in rising migration of wealthy Jewish families. At present there are between 3.5 to five million Muslims in France, representing between five to ten percent of the population. Islam is currently the second most widely-practiced religion in France, after Roman Catholicism. Intelligence and law enforcement personnel in France are becoming increasingly concerned about Islamic radicalization and antisemitism. (Jewish Press, Nov. 23, 2014)

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT TO MARK AUSCHWITZ LIBERATION IN PRAGUE (Kiev)— Ukrainian President Poroshenko is set to travel to Prague in January to attend an event marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz. Poroshenko was reportedly invited along with the leaders of other countries that fought against Germany during the Second World War and is the first to confirm his attendance. The Holocaust has become politicized in the conflict between Russia and its former Soviet subject, with Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar holding a Holocaust memorial in Crimea shortly after its annexation by Moscow. Members of antisemitic groups have been seen fighting on both sides in the civil war in Ukraine’s eastern regions bordering Russia, a war that Western nations have accused Russia of fomenting. Some Ukrainian Jews have denounced Russia for allegedly stirring up provocations, and the World Jewish Congress has downplayed the severity of anti-Semitism there, even as Russian outlets report nonexistent pogroms in Odessa. (Jerusalem Post, Nov. 23, 2014)

14 HONORED FOR SAVING JEWS IN THE NETHERLANDS (Amsterdam)— Israeli diplomats serving in the Netherlands honored 14 non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. The title of Righteous Among the Nations was given posthumously to Frederika Maria Segboer and Christina Segboer — sisters who hid Jews in southern Netherlands and helped them reach safety in Spain. Frederika’s daughter accepted the honor at a ceremony in Gorinchem for her mother and aunt, who directed Jews they hid to the Westerweel group — a ring of resistance fighters who helped smuggle at least 210 Jews out of the Netherlands, as well as hundreds of non-Jews who were wanted by the Nazi occupation forces. Many of the Jews that the group smuggled to Spain left from there to pre-state Israel. The Netherlands, which used to be home to 140,000 Jews before the Holocaust, has over 5,350 Righteous Among the Nations. (Jerusalem Post, Nov. 23, 2014)