 | ||
 |         |  |
 | ||
| MP3 Radio | Website News Briefs: | |||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
 |  |
1. Abbas Eulogizes Munich Massacre Mastermind
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has euologized Abu Dauod, the mastermind of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munch Olympics in 1972 and who died Saturday. “He is missed. He was one of the leading figures of Fatah and spent his life in resistance and sincere work as well as physical sacrifice for his people's just causes,” said Abbas.
Dauod, a former commander of the Fatah party that Abbas now heads, died late Friday night as the age of 73.
Abbas’ eulogy and praise for the planner of the murders came less than a month after he told American Jewish leaders in Washington that he will work to stop incitement of violence against Jews. Abbas provided the funds for the Munich massacre, according to Dauod.
The Black September gang said it received its orders from Fatah, which denied involvement in the massacre.
The Munch murder gang consisted of masked terrorists who stormed the apartments where Israeli athletes were staying in the Olympic Village. The terrorists took the athletes as hostages and demanded the release of 200 Arabs from Israeli prisons.
By the time the attack was over, the Israeli athletes were killed, along with one German officer and five of the terrorists. Daoud and one other member of the gang survived.
The Games continued after several hours.
Dauod said in interviews four years ago that he does not regret the massacre. “You can only dream that I would apologize,” he said.
The Israeli victims were:
Moshe Weinberg, wrestling coach, age 33;
Yossef Romano, weightlifter, 31
Ze'ev Friedman, weightlifter, 28
David Berger, weightlifter, 28
Yaakov Springer, weightlifting coach, age 51
Eliezer Halfin, wrestler, 24
Yossef Gutfreund, wrestling referee, 40
Kehat Shorr, shooting coach, 53
Mark Slavin, wrestler, 18
Andre Spitzer, fencing referee, 27
Amitzur Shapira , track coach, 40
2. Netanyahu Under Strong Pressure Not to Extend Freeze
by Hillel Fendel
As Prime Minister Netanyahu prepares to leave Monday for his meeting with U.S. President Obama on Tuesday, loudspeakers outside his office, and Cabinet ministers inside, remind him of his pledge to resume Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria.
Netanyahu will be making his third try in four months to have a positive meeting with the American leader. In March, he was shunted into the White House via a back door and did not participate in a public press conference with Obama, prompting Congressional criticism of Obama for mistreating a valued ally.
Five weeks ago, just after the flotilla incident, a scheduled Netanyahu-Obama meeting in Washington was called off when White House staffers feared that Netanyahu would use the occasion to explain to the world Israel’s position on the flotilla incident.
This time, Obama is planning to make up for the previous occasions – at least publicly. “What's most important for the United States is appearances,” AFP quotes Barry Rubin, editor of The Middle East Review of International Affairs, as saying. “Basically this is an administration that wants to look good, that wants to claim it's achieving something, and appearances could be spun in that direction."
No Rift
For the record, American officials are saying that relations between the U.S. and Israel are fine. “There is absolutely no rift between the United States and Israel,” said spokesman and Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes, whose official title is deputy national security advisor for strategic communications.
Strong Pressure on Netanyahu not to Extend Freeze
Netanyahu, for his part, is facing strong domestic pressure not to agree to extend the ten-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. The freeze, which Netanyahu agreed to under strong pressure from the United States as a means by which to get the PA to agree to talk with Israel, is set to expire in late September.
During this morning’s Cabinet meeting, several Cabinet ministers sought to remind Netanyahu to remain firm and not give in to further pressure on the matter. Minister Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said, “I call upon the Prime Minister: You gave your word that the freeze would not be extended, and I believe that you will remain true to your word.” Ministers from Shas and the Jewish Home made similar statements.
The ministerial committee for legislation is considering a proposal by Likud MK Carmel Shama to require that further construction freezes be decided upon only by the Knesset, not be government ministers. Netanyahu objects, but the ministers of Israel Our Home and Shas have said they will vote in its favor.
Erekat Issues Partial Denial
Just in time for Netanyahu’s trip is an unconfirmed report from London’s Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper that the PA has agreed to let Israel keep 2.3 percent of Judea and Samaria – including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Pisgat Ze’ev, Gush Etzion and Modiin Illit – in exchange for the same amount of area south of Hevron and a land passage between Gaza and Judea. Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat has already denied the Old City aspects, adding that that the details of the negotiations are secret and that he would not comment.
Direct Talks
Netanyahu, for his part, said this morning that he would press for direct talks with PA chief Mahmoud Abbas. “There is no substitute for direct talks. Ramallah is only ten minutes from here [by helicopter], and it’s time that Abu Mazen agree to meet with me. Whoever wants peace must agree to direct talks.”
3. PA Denies Report that It Offers Israel Control of Jewish Quarter
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat categorically denied Saturday a report that the PA told George Mitchell it would allow or accept Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall in a new Arab state.
The London-based Al-Hayat Arabic language daily reported Saturday that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell a signed letter that the PA would surrender its demand that the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem be part of his proposed PA state.
Erekat told Voice of Israel government radio that the talks are secret and that he would not release details to the public.
The Al Hayat report also claimed that Abbas agreed to leave large Judea and Samaria communities, such as Gush Etzion, in Jewish hands, in return for Israeli land that would link Gaza with Arab communities in Judea and Samaria.
The supposed offer, headlined by mainstream Israeli media, would be surprising if true because the PA has claimed for years that the Western Wall is a Muslim site and has no connection with Judaism. It also has denied the existence of the First and Second Temples.
Al Hayat said that Abbas’ offer was part of written proposals he handed over to Mitchell, who is leading indirect discussions with Israel, dubbed by the United States as proximity talks.
4. Ongoing Palestinian Terrorism: 5 Dead, 232 Hurt in 6 Months
by Hillel Fendel
The Yeshanews.com website has prepared a detailed summary of Palestinian terrorism against Israelis in the first six months of 2010. The picture is not as serene as a quick, occasional glance at daily newspapers, or even a detailed perusal thereof, might provide.
In short, five people -- a civilian Thai worker, a policeman and three soldiers -- were murdered, and a soldier was killed by friendly fire. Two Israelis were critically wounded, nine were moderately wounded, and 232 were lightly hurt in terror attacks or while fighting against terrorists.
A total of 139 rockets were fired during the six months, while 130 Arabs were apprehended with knives, of whom 22 admitted intending to perpetrate a terror attack. There were 60 shooting attacks, bombs, missiles fired, and attempted infiltrations at the Gaza border fence.
There were three documented attacks in which Arab drivers attempted to run down Israelis in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem; four people were lightly hurt. Other such attacks have been suspected, but as yet not proven.
Thirty-eight bombs were discovered throughout Judea and Samaria, while 218 people were hurt in rock attacks and Arab violence, including 56 civilians, among them three children.
Over this period, the Israel Air force attacked eight arms tunnels, a weapons factory, four terror bases, four munitions storage areas, and three terrorist cells engaged in shooting rockets. A total of 12 terrorists were killed and one was critically wounded. The Israeli marines killed six terrorists planning an attack from the sea, and altogether three terrorist infiltrations were prevented.
At least six incidents of vandalism against cemeteries have been documented, including three against the ancient Jewish cemetery in Hevron and the destruction of 23 gravestones on the Mt. of Olives.
5. UN Warns of New War in North; Claims on Gas May Be Trigger
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that violence may break out again between Hizbullah and Israel as tensions rise over charges that the terrorist organization has obtained advanced long--range Scud missiles from Syria.
Ban's warning came as the IDF concludes a massive training exercise in the north, where soldiers are preparing for war.
"Amidst allegations of continued arms transfers to Hizbullah... a perceptible increase in tension between the parties was recorded," Ban reportedly wrote in his report, a copy of which was obtained by the French news agency AFP,. The report comes four years after the beginning of the Second Lebanon War, which ended with U.N. ceasefire resolution 1701 that Israel says has not stopped continued stockpiling of arms by Hizbullah.
"This raised the specter of a miscalculation by either party leading to a resumption of hostilities, with potentially devastating consequences for Lebanon and the region.” Ban noted.
The U.N. leader continued to deny there is any evidence of Hizbullah’s smuggling weapons in southern Lebanon despite foreign media and Israeli intelligence reports pointing to Syria’s freely transferring weapons into Lebanon.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said in Beirut Saturday that he does not believe that war is imminent. “I believe that whether it is the other side [Israel] claiming it or some other party, they are exaggerating,” Moussa stated after meeting with Lebanese leaders. He did not refer to the warning by Ban.
One trigger for another war could be the huge natural gas fields that Israeli firms have discovered off Israel’s Mediterranean Coast and which both Lebanon and Hizbullah claim belongs to them.
Replying to Lebanese warnings to Israel not drill in its waters, Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau declared last week that Israel would use force if necessary to defend its rights to develop the fields, which it says are not in Lebanese territory.
The gas fields off the coast the Haifa area are estimated to contain enough natural gas to supply Israel’s needs for more than three decades and allow the Jewish State to export gas, instead of having to import energy.
6. On LIne Judaism in the IDF: Shabbat-Friendly Phones for Soldiers
by Maayana Miskin
The IDF rabbinate has developed a Shabbat-friendly phone that will allow soldiers to speak on the telephone without desecrating Shabbat. The military magazine B'Machaneh reports that hundreds of the new devices will be distributed on IDF bases in the upcoming months.
The phone makes use of bluetooth wireless technology, and allows for fast dialing. Soldiers can answer calls using an earpiece attached to the device. While the device makes use of some technologies that would normally be prohibited on Shabbat, the technologies are used in an indirect manner, making use of the phone permissible.
The devices will replace an earlier phone designed for use on Shabbat, which was expensive and could be used only on select lines. The previous phone also received complaints for its relatively lengthy dialing time and delays in conversation.
Soldiers are permitted to desecrate Shabbat when necessary for security reasons, due to the precept that Shabbat laws may be violated in order to save a life. However, the rabbinate works to minimize Shabbat desecration whenever there is an option to do so.
Israel National News turned to Rabbi -- and engineer -- Yisrael Rosen, well known head of the Tzomet Institute for Halacha and Technology based in Gush Etzion, to get his reaction to the new technology.
"It is wonderful to see religious Zionism in action in the latest initiative of the Unit for Halacha and Technology in the IDF Rabbinic Corps,” Rabbi Rosen said. “They are in constant communication with our Insitute from the time this unit was formed in response to the increasing numbers of religiously observant officers, combat and commando unit soldiers who turned to IDF Rabbis for solutions to halachic problems that arise in the fight against terror and on the battlefield."
"The IDF Rabbinate", he continued, "under the last two IDF Chief Rabbis, Weis and Ronsky, expanded the chaplaincy's halachic activities beyond the traditional kashrut, prayer and enablement of religious practice to dealing with these new technological combat issues. The halachic authority figure in the unit is IDF Colonel Rabbi Ayal Krim whose assistant, IDF Captain Rabbi Ronen Aharon also has an extensive technological background."
Rabbi Rosen explained that the technologies developed by the Unit for Halacha are not meant for general use. "The two fields of security and medicine are areas where there is room for special, specific 'heterim', i.e. lenient halachic decisions, due to the fact that these may affect issues of life and death,” he said. “They are generally not applicable to economic areas, such as tourism, agriculture or industry, but can be used, with Rabbinic consultation, in old age homes or for the handicapped."
7. Interview with Holland's Chief Rabbi: Dutch Anti-Semitism
by Rachel Sylvetsky
Dutch Chief Rabbi Benjamin Jacobs’ family has lived in Holland for generations. As a little boy, he recalls being almost embarrassed to be the only one of his friends to have both grandparents, a rare miracle indeed since 90 percent of Dutch Jewry was murdered by the Nazis.
“This horrifying statistic” he told an Israel National News’ interviewer, “was achieved with the full cooperation of the Dutch police who went from house to house to round up the Jews for the Nazi death machine.
“And last week”, he continued, “when I left my home located opposite a kindergarten, a four year old child pointed at me and yelled ‘Jew, Jew;”
Recently, when the rabbi presided at a memorial for Holocaust victims, Dutch youths yelled “Heil Hitler” during his speech. "Punshing them won't keep them from doing it again," he asserts.
INN conducted a phone interview with Rabbi Jacobs on Thursday night, after he declared that the Dutch police force’s plan to impersonate Jews in order to catch perpetrators of anti Semitic acts was punitive but not preventive. He posited that only education could prevent the growing evidence that anti-Semitism is on the rise once again in Holland.
The Rabbi, whose jurisdiction as a chief rabbi includes 11 of the 12 Dutch Provinces and who serves also as a senior member of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), told INN that he was approached by the mayor-elect of Amsterdam to discuss his ideas on how combat the situation. His suggestions will appear in the Dutch Jewish Magazine, the NIW, as well.
INN: “What can you tell us about the Jews of Holland before the war?”
R. Jacobs : “Holland once had Jews in every town and city, fully integrated into Dutch society, mostly observant and with full communal services in each place in which they lived. Jews felt very Dutch, but there were few mixed marriages, in comparison with Dutch Jewry today. In fact, a 600-year-old mikve (ritual bath) was just discovered in southern Holland. Jews are part of Holland’s history.
INN: “And today?”
R. Jacobs: “The war changed all that with Dutch Jews believing until it was too late that what happened to German Jews could never happen to them. The Nazis began by forming a Judenrat and continued on step by step while the Jews were often unware to their approaching fate, trusting in their integration and loyalty to Holland.
Today there are 40,000 Jews in Holland by a generous estimate, and most don’t live in organized communities. There are three kosher bakeries and one kosher butcher shop in the entire country. Very few Dutch Jews are Orthodox as those towns were decimated and a large percentage of survivors moved to Israel. Those who remained have less interest in Judaism, although there is a traditional ‘cheder’ school and a regular Jewish school.”
INN: “Doesn’t Anne Frank’s diary show that Dutch gentiles helped save Jews?”
R. Jacobs: “Let me tell you two stories that will answer your question.
During vacation time, I supervise the kashrut (kosher food) at a Golden Tulip Hotel located in the country at Beekbergen. The guests always want to visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I tell them that I have never been there myself because that one example is the exception. It encourages the belief in the fairy tale that the Dutch hid Jews from the Nazis.
I tell them to go to the building that housed the Jewish Theater instead. That is the place to which the Dutch helped round up the Jews so they could be sent to Westerbork, the infamous transit camp where they were kept before continuing on to the death camps. (Picture at left: Rabbi Jacobs reads names of 102,000 Dutch victims of Holocaust.)
INN: “And the second story?”
R. Jacobs: “One day, the Queen of Holland was to attend a memorial service and I asked the venerable Rabbi Vorst, the former rabbi of Amsterdam, to honor us with the Kaddish prayer. It seemed more fitting that it should be said by a survivor, although my parents, who married after the war, also suffered much during that period.
My father was hidden in Amsterdam, where those who hid him took the food vouchers he got from the partisans he had joined and starved him until he made his way back to the partisans and told them. It took him a half year to get his home back from the Dutch gentiles who had taken it over. My mother, who was blond and looked Dutch, was hidden in northern Holland by a righteous gentile family who falsified her papers.
Rabbi Vorst agreed although it was hard for him, but he turned white as a sheet and almost fainted when he saw that the honor guards at the ceremony were wearing the same uniforms as the military police who had kept him imprisoned in Westerbork during the war. The head of the Military Police apologized for his unit’s behavior during the Holocaust even though he was born after the war.“
INN: “What is happening today?”
R. Jacobs: “There has as yet been no violence, but anti-Semitic behavior is becoming prevalent. On the way to synagogue during the week, youngsters will yell “Jew” at you. However, it should not be exaggerated. Many of the Dutch are upset by it. When paint was thrown at the door of a synagogue, we were deluged with flowers, fruit baskets and offers to pay for the restoration.
The difference is that during WWII, the government was anti-Semitic, and today the opposite is the case. The police and government are absolutely on our side.”
INN: “How can that help? Do you really think you can eradicate anti-Semitism through education?
R. Jacobs: “Not at all. Gentiles find many excuses for anti-Semitism, that Jews are richer, separate, brilliant, etc. etc. None of them are valid, but you can’t change Jew hatred by reason and explanations.
Twenty years ago we founded the Jad Achat (Working Together) organization to combat anti Semitism. Government representatives came to see us and actually asked if we had managed to eradicate anti-Semitism. They asked that we record what we did and what results were achieved. It was almost laughable.”
However, you can demand behavioral standards and I think the government will help us do this. We don’t have to just sit and wait for the spread of the poisonous process that Hitler also started by brainwashing youngsters.
INN: “What is your educational plan?”
R. Jacobs: “To become Dutch citizens, immigrants are compelled to study Dutch culture and the Dutch mentality. An integral part of this curriculum has to be educating for the acceptance of the multi culturalism which characterizes Holland. Dutch culture is an accepting, tolerant culture and Muslim immigrants must be told clearly that this is a basic condition for citizenship. The child who taunted me with shouts of “Jew” is an immigrant and the teacher said she learned it at home. Why not insist that her parents learn and accept that tolerance is part of law observant behavior in Holland, no matter what their private views are? Right now it’s not part of their language.
It’s not only Muslims, though. As for the native Dutch, groups must go to schools and teach about diversity, about Jewish history in Holland, about what Jews are and what happened to them in WWII. Dutch youth must hear survivors and meet Jews.
INN: “What does the future hold for Dutch Jewry in your eyes?”
R. Jacobs: “As the situation is today, the future for Dutch Jewry is moving to Israel. I see myself as a lifeguard, sent here by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, keeping Judaism alive while surrounded by a 70-80 percent assimilation rate. But in order to save those who will, G-d forbid, assimilate, we need lifeguards and lifeboats. And the more lifeguards and lifeboats, the more Jewish souls could be saved for Holland and for Israel.” (Picure: Rabbi Jacobs leads Dutch boy at Bar Mitzvah ceremony at Western Wall.)
More Website News:
 | Proposed Bill to Require Knesset Approval for Building Freeze  |
| ‘The Myth of Fayyad’s PA Economic Revolution' |
| Latvians Commemorate Nazi Conquest |
| English-Language Al Qaeda to 'Inspire' Americans and Brits |
| Methodist Boycott Call 'Ignores Arab Misdeeds' |
