WEDNESDAY’S “NEWS IN REVIEW” ROUND-UP

 We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to:  Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station  H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com

 

 

On Topic Links

 

Twenty Years on, Rabin’s Vision of Peace is Still Unrealized: Rafael Barak (Israel’s Ambassador to Canada), Globe & Mail, Nov. 4, 2015

Syria’s Unraveling Gives Way to New Regional Order: Yaakov Amidror, Israel Hayom, Oct. 30, 2015

Obama’s Syrian Illusions: Wall Street Journal, Nov. 2, 2015

Turkey’s Election Results Stink of Fraud: Daniel Pipes, National Review, Nov. 3, 2015

A Mass Migration Crisis, and It May Yet Get Worse: Rod Nordland, New York Times, Oct. 31, 2015               

 

“Mr. Trudeau has been very consistent from the very beginning of his campaign, in expressing his support for Israel…I’m sure maybe the style will change. But I don’t feel there will be a change on the substance. I’m really reassured.” — Rafael Barak, Israel’s ambassador to Canada. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Canada’s Prime Minister designate, Justin Trudeau, in a telephone call affirming the friendship between the two countries. The call from Netanyahu took place October 23 and left his country assured that relations between Canada and the Jewish state will remain strong after the defeat of the staunchly pro-Israel government of Stephen Harper on October 19. (Times of Israel, Oct. 30, 2015)

 

“The reactions generally expressed joy and displayed a triumphalist outlook at this development, including statements such as ‘Canada runs away’ and referring to it as ‘the crumbling of the Crusader alliance.’” — Elliot Zweig, Director of Government & Public Affairs for MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). Online jihadists are reacting with “elation and a sense of triumph at a perceived defeat of Canada” over Canada’s election results as they anticipate the Liberals’ promised end to airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, says a report released Thursday. The MEMRI study said “known jihadists” and supporters of the Islamic State were rejoicing at the election of a government committed to halting Canada’s involvement in the international air coalition. (National Post, Oct. 29, 2015)

 

“Anything that is done on the ground is going to be much more effective than anything from the air…I think this is a big step…Any attempts to go after Daesh (Islamic State, or I.S.) in Syria without dealing with the root cause, which is Bashar al-Assad, are doomed to failure…Ultimately, Daesh will be defeated when Assad is removed.” — Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister and a former ambassador to Washington. After years in which Obama rejected “boots on the ground,” the deployment of up to 50 Special Operations troops to northern Syria is a relatively modest commitment. The administration made the decision after abandoning the Pentagon’s failed efforts to train its own rebel army to take on I.S. in Syria, and it underscored a shift toward reliance on Kurdish allies, the most effective forces working with the United States. (New York Times, Oct. 31, 2015)

 

“The whole Middle East dispute is tantamount to matter of life and death for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from my vantage point, and I know that Iranians seek to unseat the Saudi regime by playing the Palestinian card. Hence, to foil their plots, Saudi Arabia and Israel must bolster their relations and form a united front to stymie Tehran’s ambitious agenda…I will side with the Jewish nation and its democratic aspirations in case of outbreak of a Palestinian Intifada and I shall exert all my influence to break any ominous Arab initiatives set to condemn Tel Aviv, because I deem the Arab-Israeli entente and future friendship necessary to impede the Iranian dangerous encroachment.” — Saudi Arabian prince and media mogul al-Waleed bin Talal. Talal asserted that Iran seeks to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, thereby bolstering its own presence and influence in the region. (Breaking Israel News, Oct. 29, 2015)

 

“This is unprecedented, and we don’t have a road map…When political dynamics fail, people turn back to religion. We are in this terrible moment of transition where sect is very high in people’s minds…Radical individuals are deliberately fomenting this violence…And irresponsible governments allow it to happen.” — Rami Khouri, a senior fellow at the American University of Beirut. Events over the last few weeks have raised fears of an accelerating confrontation between the region’s Shiite and Sunni Muslims, with Saudi Arabia and Iran escalating their power struggle. The perils of sectarian polarization have been evident for more than a decade, since the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Recently, tensions have been inflamed by the war in Syria. The latest violent turn has been “ratcheted up by the Iranian-Saudi conflict,” Khouri said. (New York Times, Oct. 17, 2015)

 

“Iraqi people in general, not only us, have started to feel that the Americans are not serious at all about the fight against Islamic State…Every victory that the PMF (Popular Mobilization Forces) does without the help of the Americans is a big embarrassment for the Americans.” — Moeen Al- Kadhimi, a spokesman for the Iran-backed Badr Corps militia. A big victory over I.S. provided fresh ammunition for the many Iraqi Shiites who prefer Iran as a battlefield partner over the U.S. Shiite militias and politicians backed by Iran have claimed much of the credit for the Iraqi recapture a little over a week ago of the city and oil refinery of Beiji. But U.S. officers say the Iran-backed proxy militias, or PMF, played only a supporting role. The bulk of the fighting was by Iraqi police and elite counterterrorism units trained by the U.S., the officers said. (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 30, 2015)

 

“I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria…I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya.” — U.S. President Barack Obama, in a nationwide address in September, 2013, when he threatened air attacks if Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad crossed the red line of using chemical weapons. Obama ordered elite U.S. fighting units to Syria last week, breaking the explicit promise he made two years ago and escalating American military involvement just as Russia and Iran are ramping up their combat roles in the raging civil war. (Globe & Mail, Oct. 30, 2015)

 

“Our island, our home, has caught fire, and when your house catches fire you call the fire brigade. But after that you don’t just step out for coffee. You also pitch in to put it out. We did that, then desperately waited for [government or EU] support — for the fire brigade to arrive. But it is not coming.” — Lesbos Mayor Spyros Galinos. The Greek island has run out of room to bury the bodies of desperate migrants trying to reach Europe, the island’s mayor said yesterday. More than 218,000 arrived last month according to UN data – the figure was the highest monthly total on record, and more than during the whole of 2014. Galinos said there were more than 50 bodies in the morgue for which the authorities were still trying to find burial locations. (Yahoo, Nov. 3, 2015)

 

“Ukraine is the place of most importance to Russia, but they went to Syria for three reasons…President Putin had to get in there before Assad fell so that Russia could retain its foothold in the Middle East with its airport and naval base. Secondly, he wanted to show his domestic population and the world that Russia is a global power. And finally, he needed to distract the world’s attention from Ukraine. Putin still has 25,000 soldiers in Crimea and there is still a large Russian military presence in Donbass, which is why he won’t let the OSCE in to see what they are doing.” — Lt.-Gen. Ben Hodges, commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe. According to Hodges, those who thought that Russia was no longer focused on Ukraine because it recently joined the air war in Syria were wrong. (National Post, Nov. 3, 2015)

 

“Not closing Gitmo eight years after he pledged to do so would be a failure for his legacy, plus whatever continuing costs it has to national security in his eyes…But the only way to close it is to use an extraordinarily aggressive interpretation of executive power to act against the will of Congress and not obviously in a way that the American people support, just as he is walking out the door.” —Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and former Justice Department lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. As President Obama approaches his final year in power, a political impasse over the Guantánamo prison appears increasingly likely to force him to choose between two unsavory options: Invoke executive power to relocate the remaining detainees in defiance of a statute, or allow history to say he never fulfilled his promise to shutter the prison. (New York Times, Oct. 31, 2015)

 

“Democracy is law…I believe in the law, not because I want to be more Jewish than the Jews. I am a proud Arab with Palestinian roots, and I am the proudest Israeli…In my community there are conflicts…between their identity, their Israeliness and their reality.” — Superintendent Luba Samri, a 44-year-old Israeli officer and Arab Muslim citizen of Israel. For Samri, police work has been a calling since she joined the force nearly 20 years ago. Over the past month, Palestinian assailants using knives, guns and their vehicles as weapons have attacked Israelis, often several times a day, and many of the suspects have been fatally shot by police officers, soldiers or civilians at the scene, generating a furor that has engulfed both sides. (New York Times, Oct. 30, 2015)

 

“Where are the Christian leaders right now as Israel stands alone on the front lines of the world’s war on terror?… We are in a war with evil and silence feeds that evil. Christian silence is adding fuel to the wildfire which is spreading the evils of Islam across the Middle East and around the world…We are now standing quietly by as America’s only friend and ally in the Middle East – Israel – stands alone in the battle against the spread of radical Islam.” — Earl Cox, an international Christian broadcaster and journalist, lashing out at Christian silence with regard to supporting Israel in its current time of need. (Breaking Israel News, Oct. 29, 2015)

 

Contents

 

AKP PARTY IN TURKEY REGAINS PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY (Ankara) — In a stunning electoral comeback, the Islamist party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regained its majority in Parliament on Sunday, ensuring Erdogan’s continued dominance of Turkish politics after months of political turmoil and violence. The Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., captured 49.3 percent of the popular vote, giving it a solid majority of 316 seats in Parliament. Critics say Erdogan’s divisive rhetoric, by denigrating opponents as terrorists or traitors, helped polarize the country. And a government crackdown on dissent in the lead-up to the vote, with mobs attacking newspaper offices and a recent raid on a media conglomerate opposed to the government, raised concerns abroad about Turkey’s commitment to democracy. (New York Times, Nov. 1, 2015) 

 

TURKISH AUTHORITIES ARREST EDITORS ACCUSED OF INCITING UPRISING (Ankara) — Turkish authorities on Tuesday arrested two editors of a political weekly on charges of inciting an armed uprising against the government for suggesting on the magazine’s front page that the aftermath of Turkey’s election would mark the start of a civil war. Nokta said on its website that its editor-in-chief and news editor were formally arrested, accused of attempts to bring down the government. They become the latest journalists to be arrested as Turkey’s government continues to crack down on media organizations and journalists critical of the government. Dozens of editors from leading international news organizations have written to Erdogan recently, expressing concern over deteriorating media freedoms in Turkey. In August, authorities detained three journalists reporting for Vice News in Turkey’s restive Kurdish southeast. One of them, Mohammed Rasool, is still in custody. (Yahoo, Nov. 3, 2015)

 

IRAN MAY QUIT SYRIA TALKS AS SPAT WITH SAUDI ARABIA WORSENS (Vienna) — Iran said on Monday it would quit Syria peace talks if it found them unconstructive, citing the “negative role” of Saudi Arabia. Increasingly bad-tempered exchanges between the conservative Sunni-ruled kingdom and the revolutionary Shi’ite theocracy have dampened hopes of improved ties after the adversaries sat down for their first meeting to discuss the Syria war last week. World and regional powers including Iran and Saudi Arabia met in Vienna on Friday to discuss a political solution to Syria’s civil war but failed to reach a consensus on the future of President Bashar al-Assad. Iran backs Assad in the war while Saudi Arabia supports rebels seeking to oust him. (Newsweek, Nov. 2, 2015)

 

AT LEAST 65 SYRIANS KILLED IN GOVERNMENT ATTACK (Damascus) — At least 65 people were killed and 250 wounded Friday in air, rocket and artillery attacks by Syrian regime forces on a rebel-held town near Damascus, as world and regional powers met in Vienna to discuss a political settlement for Syria’s four-year war. More than a dozen rockets slammed into the main open-air food market and nearby residential neighborhoods in Douma. The attacks appeared aimed at inflicting maximum carnage on civilians, striking just after 8 a.m. when the market was packed with vendors and shoppers. Artillery fire, mortars and intermittent airstrikes continued for more than seven hours after the initial strike on the market. (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 30, 2015)

 

HEBRON RADIO STATION SHUTTERED FOR INCITEMENT (Jerusalem) — IDF forces raided the offices and studio of the Al-Hurriya radio station in Hebron, confiscating the station’s technical equipment and transmitters in order to prevent its operation. The IDF also issued a six-month closure order during which it will be prohibited from broadcasting. The IDF stated that the station had broadcast vicious incitement against Israel, encouraged stabbing attacks, and supported violent resistance. In the past month, 29 attacks originated in the Hebron area, of which 22 were stabbing attacks. The station was shut down twice, in 2002 and in 2008. (Ynet, Nov. 3, 2015)  

 

PA NAMES STREET AFTER TERRORIST WHO FATALLY STABBED 2 ISRAELIS (Jerusalem) — The PA has named a street on the outskirts of Ramallah after a Palestinian terrorist who killed two Israelis. Muhannad Halabi was a 19-year-old Palestinian who killed two Israelis, Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi and Aharon Bennett, in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem on Oct. 3. Halabi, who was eventually shot dead by Israeli police, also injured Bennett’s wife Adele and their 2-year-old son in the attack. The purpose of the street naming was “to honor Halabi, who carried out a stabbing and shooting operation against settlers in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem,” Palestinian news reported. Halabi was also posthumously awarded an honorary law degree from the PA Bar Association, while a Fatah official brought soil from the Temple Mount to his grave. (Algemeiner, Oct. 28, 2015)

 

IRANIAN-AMERICAN EXECUTIVE ARRESTED IN IRAN (Tehran) —  Iranian security forces have arrested an Iranian-American businessman who had promoted improved ties between the two countries, adding to signs that hard-liners in Tehran are trying to block foreign investors from entering Iran in the wake of the historic nuclear deal. In the past few weeks, Iranian businessmen with links to foreign companies have been detained, interrogated and warned against wading into economic monopolies controlled by the Revolutionary Guard Corps. About two weeks ago, Siamak Namazi, the head of strategic planning at Crescent Petroleum Co., was arrested as he was visiting relatives in Tehran from his home base in Dubai. (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29, 2015)

 

BADAWI AWARDED PRESTIGIOUS SAKHAROV PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (Damascus) —A Saudi blogger sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for Insulting Muslim clerics has won the European Union’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for human rights. Raif Badawi — whose wife and three children live in Quebec’s Eastern Townships region — was honoured with the award as a symbol of the fight for freedom of speech. Ensaf Haidar, Badawi’s wife, said she has information that her husband’s flogging is set to resume. The punishment was suspended after Badawi received the first 50 lashes in January. The freedom of thought award is named after the Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov. It was set up in 1988 to honour people and organizations who are defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. (Globe & Mail, Oct. 29, 2015)

 

AL QAEDA CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR ATTACKS ON TWO PUBLISHERS IN BANGLADESH (Dhaka) —Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for attacks on two publishers in Bangladesh who put out works critical of fundamentalist Islam. The two men were stabbed, one fatally, eight months after a similar attack on Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American known for his critical writings on religious extremism. The claim of responsibility by Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent was made in statements posted on Twitter on Saturday. One of them said the two men were “worse than the writers of such books, as they helped propagate these books and paid the blasphemers handsome amounts of money for writing them.” (New York Times, Nov. 1, 2015)

 

EX-RAPPER WHO JOINED ISIS, IS KILLED BY U.S. AIRSTRIKE (Damascus) — The German-born former rapper Deso Dogg, who abandoned his music career in 2010 and became a recruiter in Syria for I.S., was killed in an airstrike this month, the Pentagon confirmed. The musician, born Denis Cuspert, toured with the American performer DMX in 2006 but later abandoned rap music and became a well-known singer of nasheeds, or Islamic devotional music, in German. The State Department designated him a terrorist in February after determining he had become a “willing pitchman” for I.S. Using his adopted Arabic name, Abu Talha al-Almani, the former rapper had tried to recruit other Germans to join. (New York Times, Oct. 30, 2015)

 

NEW YORK STATE SENATOR PUSHES FOR ANTI-BDS LAW (New York) — New York Senator Michael Gianaris vowed to introduce legislation barring the state from doing business with corporations or individuals engaging in the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel (BDS). Gianaris said the law would be the most comprehensive legislative measures taken to confront the BDS movement in New York to date, and it follows similar legislation in Illinois, South Carolina and Ohio. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has called for a wide front to combat BDS, and many in the pro-Israel community have worked to counter the movement, including American billionaire pro-Israel activists Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said fighting BDS must be a “priority.” (Algemeiner, Nov. 3, 2015)

 

‘ANCIENT GREEK CITADEL’ DISCOVERED UNDER JERUSALEM CAR PARK (Jerusalem) — The Israel Antiquities Authority claimed Tuesday to have solved “one of Jerusalem’s greatest archaeological mysteries” by unearthing an ancient Greek citadel — the Acra — buried under a car park. Archaeologists have puzzled for more than a century over the exact location of the Acra, built by Seleucid Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes (215-164 BC) to control Jerusalem and the ancient Jewish temple there. The temple was razed by the Romans in 70 AD. “Researchers…believe they have found the remains of the stronghold… in the Givati parking lot excavations at the City of David,” the authority said. The citadel is mentioned in the Jewish Book of Maccabees and in the writings of historian Flavius Josephus in the 1st Century AD but its exact location was unknown until now. (Yahoo, Nov. 3, 2015)

 

DAVID CESARANI, HOLOCAUST HISTORIAN & EICHMANN BIOGRAPHER, DIES AT 58 (London) — David Cesarani, an English historian of 20th-century Jewish life whose work included a biography of Adolf Eichmann that sought to refute Hannah Arendt’s famous appraisal of him as a banal functionary, died on Sunday in London. He was 58. Widely considered Britain’s foremost scholar of contemporary Jewish history, Professor Cesarani was a regular presence on television and radio there, illuminating subjects from the Holocaust to Jewish life in 19th- and 20th-century England. Professor Cesarani was almost certainly best known for his Eichmann biography, published in Britain in 2004 as “Eichmann: His Life and Crimes” and in the United States in 2006 as “Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a ‘Desk Murderer.’ ” (New York Times, Oct. 30, 2015)

 

CANADIAN-ISRAELI VICTIM OF 2014 HAR NOF MASSACRE DIES (Jerusalem) — Chaim Yechiel “Howie” Rothman, who was critically wounded in the Har Nof synagogue massacre on November 18, 2014, passed away in October, putting the death toll of those murdered in the Arab terror attack at six. The November 18 attack in the normally terror-free neighborhood of Har Nof wounded six others. The Arab terrorists, both from Jerusalem, were killed. Among the victims were American-Israelis Rabbi Moshe Twersky, Rabbi Calman Levine and Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky. Also killed was British-Israeli Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg. Rabbi Rothman made Aliyah to Israel from Toronto in 1985. He has been in a coma since the murderers severely axed him in the attack. Rothman was buried at the Har HaMenchot-Givat Shaul Jerusalem cemetery. (Jewish Press, Oct. 24, 2015)

 

On Topic Links 

 

Twenty Years on, Rabin’s Vision of Peace is Still Unrealized: Rafael Barak (Israel’s Ambassador to Canada), Globe & Mail, Nov. 4, 2015—Twenty years ago today, Israelis went to bed in the middle of a living nightmare. After a rally with 100,000 Israelis coming together in support of peace, our Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated.

Syria’s Unraveling Gives Way to New Regional Order: Yaakov Amidror, Israel Hayom, Oct. 30, 2015 — An in-depth look at recent events in Syria gives way to reflections on the future of the region, especially given the Russian deployment in Syria. The move, the first of its kind since the 1970, was coordinated with Iran, making it even more unusual.

Obama’s Syrian Illusions: Wall Street Journal, Nov. 2, 2015 —So the U.S. government that was surprised by Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Crimea, surprised by his invasion of eastern Ukraine, surprised by his plan to sell S-300 missiles to Iran, and surprised by his intervention in Syria now thinks the Russian strongman will sue for peace in Syria on U.S. terms and oust Bashar Assad.

Turkey’s Election Results Stink of Fraud: Daniel Pipes, National Review, Nov. 3, 2015 —Like other observers of Turkish politics, I was stunned on November 1 when the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP) was reported to have increased its share of the national vote since the last round of elections in June 2015 by 9 percent and its share of parliamentary seats by 11 percent.
A Mass Migration Crisis, and It May Yet Get Worse: Rod Nordland, New York Times, Oct. 31, 2015—They arrived in an unceasing stream, 10,000 a day at the height, as many as a million migrants heading for Europe this year, pushing infants in strollers and elderly parents in wheelchairs, carrying children on their shoulders and life savings in their socks. They came in search of a new life, but in many ways they were the heralds of a new age.