Wednesday’s “News in Review” Round-Up

WEEKLY QUOTES

“Now they are publishing the fringe demagogue Max Blumenthal, whom far-left German politicians recently described as an anti-Semite,” —Gilead Ini, a senior analyst with media watchdog CAMERA, referring to Blumenthal’s NYT op-ed quoted above. Blumenthal’s appearance in the pages of the NYT was described by Ini as evidence that the “downward spiral at the New York Times Opinion pages continues.” (Algemeiner, Dec. 8, 2014)

“You either pack your bags, or prepare your explosive devices. You either purchase your airline ticket, or you sharpen your knife,” — video produced by a propaganda group linked to the Islamic State. The speaker identified himself as Abu Anwar al-Canadi, but five former friends said they recognized him as John Maguire, a University of Ottawa dropout who converted to Islam and became radicalized before vanishing last year. The six-minute video said Canadians would be indiscriminately targeted and that Muslims were obliged to either join IS or “follow the example” of the attackers who struck in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. The video refers repeatedly to the October killings of two Canadian Forces members in Quebec and Ottawa by men who had adopted Islamist extremist beliefs. It said the attacks were a “direct response” to Canada’s military role in Iraq. “The more bombs you drop on our people, the more Muslims will realize and understand that today, waging jihad against the West and its allies around the world is beyond a shadow of the doubt a religious obligation binding upon every Muslim…I was one of you. I was a typical Canadian. I grew up on the hockey rink and spent my teenage years on stage playing guitar,” the video narrator said. “I had no criminal record. I was a bright student and maintained a strong GPA in university. So how could one of your people end up in my place? And why is it that your own people are the ones turning against you at home? The answer is that we have accepted the true call of the prophets and messengers of God.” (National Post, Dec. 8, 2014)

“Here we are, a nation [Hungary] that is on the verge of ceding its sovereignty to a neo-fascist dictator getting into bed with Vladimir Putin, and we are sending the producer of The Bold and The Beautiful,” —U.S. Senator John McCain. McCain’s remarks were made during a hearing in the U.S. Senate to confirm Colleen Bell as the new U.S. ambassador in Budapest. Bell is a producer of the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful and a major donor to President Obama ’s election campaign. (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3, 2014) 

“I don’t know if I’m pessimistic or optimistic,” — Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the last American general to lead combat operations in Afghanistan, on the US military’s reduced role next year. “The fact that we are in less places, the fact that there are less of us as a coalition, is obviously concerning,” he added. In an interview Monday in his office after the lowering of the flag that signaled the official end of the coalition’s war-fighting mission, General Anderson offered a nuanced take on the final year of America’s longest war. The record casualties of Afghan forces are not sustainable, and neither are their astounding desertion rates, he said. Political meddling, not intelligence, drives Afghan military missions. The police and the army do not work together. More than 5,000 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed this year, eclipsing previous years, and surpassing the entire coalition death toll since the invasion began in 2001. The deaths mount even as many soldiers and police officers are reluctant to leave their bases, and the deadly attacks have continued into the cold months when fighting typically stops. “It’s been a hell of a year,” General Anderson said. “Now everyone wants this to be in the rearview mirror, and of course we still don’t have the right guys in the right places and that just causes people to not know what to do.” (New York Times, Dec. 8, 2014)

“We have to stand up and say, ‘This is the line that is drawn in the sand…It’s clearly a fight between good and evil,” —Jordan’s King Abdullah II, on the ISIS threat. “This is a Muslim problem. We need to take ownership of this. We need to stand up and say what is right and what is wrong,” Abdullah told CBS News’ Charlie Rose. Abdullah met with US President Obama in Washington on Friday, and the two leaders discussed ways in which to overcome the Islamic State. The US and its allies are making slow but steady progress in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Obama said, pledging more aid to Jordan to grapple with Syrian refugees. Jordan has absorbed some 1.5 million refugees from Syria’s civil war. “I hope the short term part of it is going to be the military, the medium term is the security aspect of it. But the long term is going to be the ideological one,” the king said of defeating Islamic State. The king also linked the Israeli- Palestinian conflict to extremists’ rise in the region, asserting, “You know, whether it’s true or not, that argument is still being used by the extremists. And countries around the world realize that they have to solve the problem for their benefit.” (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 7, 2014)

“In the Middle East today, there is one country where Christians are affectionately granted freedom of expression, freedom of worship, and security,” — Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest from Yafia, near Nazareth, to a Washington audience. Naddaf made news when he publicly urged Israeli Christians of Arab descent to join the IDF. He’s also encouraged Christians to integrate themselves into Israeli society rather than maintain an Arab identity. Jihadist Islam, which prefers martyrdom to life, cannot be accommodated, Naddaf insisted. “I want to love them, but I won’t let them kill me,” he said. He complained that too many non-extremist Muslims in Israel and throughout the region are silent. “If Christians grow, Israel becomes stronger,” he said in conclusion. “Don’t weaken Israel. Don’t boycott. If you don’t support Israel you’re signing a death warrant for the Middle East and all Christians in the Mideast.” (Weekly Standard, Dec. 1, 2014)

“In bringing his ashes to Israel and laying them to rest here, beside the soldiers of the Jewish brigades that he established, we come full circle historically, and we repay a very great debt to one of the heroes of our people, one of the greatest supporters that Zionism, the Jewish people and the State of Israel ever had,” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a ceremony honouring John Henry Patterson, commander of the Jewish Brigade in the British army in World War I. Patterson was reburied in Israel on Thursday. The man whom Netanyahu called “the godfather of the Israeli army” had expressed a wish to be buried with his soldiers. Patterson, born in 1867 in Ireland to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother, went on to command the Zion Mule Corps and the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (also known as the Jewish Brigade) in World War I. There, he became enamoured with the idea of a Jewish State. “[Patterson] had absolute confidence that the Jews would make remarkable soldiers – not adequate soldiers, but remarkable soldiers. And I think he had a lot to do with that. He began the reconstitution of the ability of the Jews to defend ourselves,” Netanyahu said, adding:  “We salute you, John Henry Patterson.” (Breaking Israel News, Dec. 7, 2014)

SHORT TAKES

ISRAELI WARPLANES STRIKE SYRIAN TARGETS (Damascus)— Syrian state television said on Sunday that Israeli jets had bombed areas near Damascus airport and in the town of Dimas, near the border with Lebanon. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict, said that 10 explosions were heard near Dimas. According to foreign reports the attack targeted a warehouse of advanced S-300 missiles, which were en route from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has repeatedly warned that it is prepared to use force to prevent advanced weapons, particularly from Iran, reaching Hezbollah through Syria. (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 7, 2014)   

SENIOR PALESTINIAN OFFICIAL DIES AFTER CLASH WITH IDF (Jerusalem)— A senior Palestinian official died en route to a Ramallah hospital Wednesday after he was struck in the chest by an IDF soldier, Palestinian reports said. The IDF said it was looking into the incident. Ziad Abu Ein, who headed the PA government agency that fights against the security barrier and settlements, was involved in a scuffle with Israeli troops near Turmusaya, south of the Shiloh settlement in the northern West Bank. A Fatah leader, Jibril Rajoub, told The Times of Israel that the Palestinian Authority would cease all security coordination with Israel in the West Bank in the wake of Abu Ein’s death. There was no immediate announcement of such a decision by Abbas’s office. (Times of Israel, Dec. 10, 2014)

SENATE REPORT CALLS CIA INTERROGATION TACTICS INEFFECTIVE (Washington)— A Senate investigation into the CIA’s detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks concluded that its techniques weren’t effective, that CIA management of the program was deeply flawed, and that the program was “far more brutal” than the agency had acknowledged. The report, which was written by Senate Democrats and wasn’t supported by Republicans on the panel, culminated an investigation that began more than five years ago. It detailed in sometimes graphic terms the treatment of detainees, describing them as being imprisoned in boxes, chained to walls and “water-boarded.” The release of the report now, as terrorism spreads, was criticized by Republicans, and  renewed the battle between Senate Democrats and the CIA over how the history of the program will be written. (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 2014)

2 HOSTAGES KILLED IN YEMEN AS U.S. RESCUE EFFORT FAILS (Sana)— US commandos stormed a village in southern Yemen in an effort to free an American photojournalist held hostage by Al Qaeda, but the raid ended in tragedy, with the kidnappers killing the American and a South African held with him. The hostages — Luke Somers, an American photojournalist, and Pierre Korkie, a South African teacher — were killed by their captors when they realized the rescue effort was underway. Obama said he had authorized the operation, led by about three dozen Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos, after concluding that Somers’s life was in “imminent danger.”  (New York Times, Dec. 6, 2014)

AL-QAEDA TERROR CHIEF KILLED IN SHOOT-OUT (Islamabad)— One of al-Qaeda’s most senior leaders who had been implicated in plots to blow up the London Underground and the New York subway has been killed during a raid on his hideout in Pakistan. Adnan Shukrijumah, the terror group’s chief of global operations, died along with two other suspected terrorists in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area early on Saturday. A New York court has accused Shukrijumah, who lived in the US for 15 years, of being the mastermind behind a series of plots against the West. (Telegraph, Dec. 6, 2014)

STABBING OF AMERICAN TEACHER A ‘LONE TERRORIST ACT,’ UAE SAYS (Dubai)— The woman accused of stabbing to death an American teacher in a public restroom at an Abu Dhabi mall last week was carrying out a “lone terrorist act,” a security official in the United Arab Emirates said Sunday. The official said initial investigations and evidence show that the Emirati woman, who also planted a bomb outside an American doctor’s home, learned how to manufacture explosives from websites affiliated with terrorist organizations. The UAE, home to Abu Dhabi and the investment hub of Dubai, prides itself on being a safe haven in the turbulent Middle East. It is part of the U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State. (Fox News, Dec. 7, 2014) 

GERMANY SENTENCES ISLAMIC STATE MILITANT TO PRISON (Frankfurt)— A German court on Friday handed a jail term to a former Islamic State militant who fought in Syria. The 20-year-old man was sentenced to three-years and nine months by a Frankfurt court after he confessed to joining Islamic State and fighting in Syria. While his trial marks the first time Germany has successfully prosecuted one of its own citizens for joining the militant group, the country’s security services have struggled to stem the tide of radical Islamists joining the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. About 400 German nationals and residents are believed to have joined IS in Syria and Iraq and more than 100 have returned, said the German Interior Minister. (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 5, 2014)

IRAQ AND KURDISTAN AGREE ON OIL DEAL (Baghdad)— The Iraqi government agreed last week to an oil export deal with the northern region of Kurdistan, signaling an end to a years-long political impasse that has nearly bankrupted both governments and hobbled efforts to fight the Islamic State. The broad deal would allow Baghdad and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government or KRG, to mend relations that have put the defense of the country against Islamic State on shaky ground. The accord is also likely to further muffle voices in Iraqi Kurdistan that only six months ago had called for a referendum on the region’s independence from Baghdad. (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 2, 2014)

US CALLS ON UNRWA TO ‘UPHOLD NEUTRALITY’ AFTER CALL TO BOYCOTT ‘POST’ (Jerusalem)— The State Department is calling on personnel at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to “uphold its stated policy of neutrality,” after its spokesman, Chris Gunness, called for a boycott of The Jerusalem Post last week. Gunness claimed impartiality in an article published by the Post last week, reacting with a series of tweets critical of the newspaper and its staff. The article was an op-ed, written by Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid. One of those tweets called for a “boycott of JPost,” interpreted by the newspaper as a breach of its commitment to neutrality. A Change.org petition is calling on US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power to condemn UNRWA for Gunness’s comments and demand his apology. The State Department provides roughly $400 million in funding to UNRWA annually.(Jerusalem Post, Dec. 8, 2014)

MAN STABBED IN HEAD IN NEW YORK SYNAGOGUE ATTACK (New York)— Police fatally shot a man armed with a knife after he stabbed a rabbinical student from Israel in a Brooklyn synagogue. Authorities quickly stepped up security at Jewish houses of worship around the city. The suspect, Calvin Peters, who has a history of mental illness, stabbed and wounded 22-year-old Levi Rosenblat, who was studying at the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Brooklyn. When police arrived at the synagogue they found the suspect with the knife in his hand and threatening other worshippers. Rabbi Motti Seligson said Peters was heard saying repeatedly, “Kill the Jews.” Rosenblat was stabbed in the temple and was in stable condition at the hospital. (Telegraph, Dec. 9, 2014)

SYRIAN HEBREW BIBLES COULD SPARK OWNERSHIP DISPUTE (Jerusalem)— Two decades after Israeli spies helped Syrian Jews whisk ancient Hebrew bibles from Damascus to Jerusalem, Israel’s national library asked an Israeli court to grant it custodianship over the manuscripts — a move that could spark an ownership battle over some of the Syrian Jewish community’s most important treasures. Known as the Crowns of Damascus, the nine leather-bound parchment books were written mostly in Spain and Italy between 700 and 1,000 years ago. For hundreds of years, they were guarded inside synagogues in the Syrian capital. The existence of the bibles was revealed in 2000 when they were exhibited at the Israeli president’s residence. On Monday, the National Library of Israel went to court to formally ask to establish a kind of charitable trust for bibles. (Huffington Post, Dec. 8, 2014)

JEWS RALLY IN PARIS SUBURB TO PROTEST RISE IN ANTISEMITISM (Paris)— Hundreds of Jews gathered Sunday in Creteil, to protest a violent racially motivated attack last week in the Paris suburb, after the interior minister admitted that antisemitic threats and incidents have more than doubled so far this year in France. Last Monday, three men armed with pistols broke into an apartment in Creteil and attacked a young Jewish couple – raping a 19-year-old woman. Her 21-year-old boyfriend, who was tied up during the robbery, said the men targeted the apartment because they knew the residents were Jewish. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe. But violent incidents like the murders of three Jewish children and a rabbi by Islamist gunman Muhammad Merah in 2012, and clashes at pro-Palestinian rallies have disturbed some in the Jewish community. In the first three months of 2014 more Jews left France for Israel than at any other time since the Jewish state was created in 1948. (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 8, 2014)

FRANCE TO PAY HOLOCAUST VICTIMS REPARATIONS (Paris)— France said on Friday it had agreed to put $60 million into a fund managed by the US to compensate Holocaust victims deported by French state rail firm SNCF to Nazi death camps, a deal that protects it from future U.S. litigation. As part of the deal, the U.S. government will work to end lawsuits and other compensation claims in U.S. courts against SNCF, which is bidding for lucrative high-speed rail and other contracts in U.S. markets. SNCF transported about 76,000 French Jews to Nazi concentration camps. SNCF has expressed regret for what happened, but argues it had no effective control over operations during the Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1944. Only in 1995 did France acknowledge a direct role in the Holocaust, when then-President Chirac said the state bore responsibility. (Israel Hayom, Dec. 7, 2014)

BENNETT SIGNS UP UST GLOBAL TO BRING 10,000 JOBS TO ISRAEL  (Jerusalem)— The giant California-based UST Global will build a cyber-defense center in Israel and will employ up to 10,000 people, including Haredim, Minister of Economy and Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett announced from Washington. UST CEO Sajan Pillai said that one of the reasons his company chose Israel to build the center is “the ability of the government leadership to act quickly.” Pillai said he hopes to start working on the new center by the end of March, which just happens to be 17 days after Israelis vote for a new Knesset. UST Global is a multinational provider of IT services and solutions and specializes in healthcare, retail and consumer goods, banking and financial services, media, entertainment, insurance, transportation and manufacturing. (Jewish Press, Dec. 8, 2014)

CANADIAN PROFESSOR AWARDED YAD VASHEM BOOK PRIZE (Jerusalem)— Prof. Jan Grabowski of the University of Ottawa in Canada was awarded the 2014 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research for his book memory of Holocaust survivor Abraham Meir Schwarzbaum and his family members who were murdered in the Holocaust. His book “Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland” was published by the Indiana University Press and documents the involvement of the local Polish citizens in locating and killing Jews in their midst during the Holocaust. The book draws on materials from Polish, Jewish and German sources and focuses on accounts of the fates of individual Jews. (Jewish Press, Dec. 8, 2014)