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1. UN to Hold Another Durban Conference; Anti-Semitism Expected
by Hillel Fendel
By a 121-19 vote, with 35 abstentions, the UN General Assembly resolved
to launch what has been called another “global anti-racism hatefest,”
known as Durban III.
The conference, known as the World Conference against Racism,
commemorates the 9th anniversary of the first such conference, held in
Durban, South Africa just 10 days before the 9/11 World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks. That conference was described by the ICEJ as a
“concerted effort by nearly all the Muslims of the world to denounce and
de-legitimize the Jewish state of Israel; an awful verbal forerunner
much as the one the Nazis sent before launching the Holocaust of the
expunging of Israel as sovereign Jewish state from their Arab Muslim
midst.”
Though the vote in favor of Durban III was overwhelming, a majority of
the world’s democracies either voted against or abstained. Among those
who voted against were the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
and Australia, as well as most of the countries that knew Nazism at very
close range: Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Italy,
Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
The upcoming conference is to be held in New York City just ten days
after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in September 2011.
Conveniently Scheduled
Human rights scholar and activist Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro
College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, commented that most
heads of government avoided Durban I, and the only one to attend Durban
II was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and therefore “for Durban
III, the UN decided to ensnare most heads of state and government by
scheduling the event to coincide with the annual opening of the UN
General Assembly, when they are all present in New York anyway.”
Israel, the U.S., and others have expressed their opposition to the UN
vote. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said it was “unfortunate
there are those who want to deflect from the fight on racism for
anti-Israeli propaganda purposes.”
John Sammis, the U.S. Deputy Representative to the UN’s Economic and
Social Council, stated that the vote “risks undermining the relationship
we have worked hard to strengthen over the past few years between the
United States and the UN.” In addition, he added, the U.S.is “deeply
troubled by the choice of time and venue for the 10th anniversary
commemorative event [just days after] we will have honored the victims
of 9/11… [We] regret that this resolution contains elements that require
us to vote no…”
Calling on Obama
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY, D) said, “We all witnessed how
extreme anti-Semitic and anti-American voices took over Durban I and
Durban II, and we should expect the same thing to happen with
Durban III… I appreciate the Obama Administration’s strong statement
opposing yesterday’s resolution, and urge it to again withdraw from the
event and encourage other nations to do the same.”
Similarly, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the Obama administration to
“announce publicly, right now, that we will stay away from Durban III,
deny it U.S.taxpayer dollars, and oppose all measures that seek to
facilitate it. And we should encourage other responsible nations to do
the same.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was very critical of the UN
resolution, calling it "outrageous and shameful." ADL National Director
Abraham H. Foxman issued a statement saying, “The 2001 Durban Conference
is permanently tainted as a notorious vehicle to promote anti-Semitism
and incite hatred against Israel… [It] represented a colossal failure of
the international community to prevent the perversion of a UN
conference designed to address the scourge of racism, discrimination,
xenophobia and all forms of intolerance. Each commemoration or review of
the 2001 conference is an outrageous and shameful reminder of the harm
perpetrated by an automatic majority of member states who allowed
the Durban conference to become the symbol for expressions of
anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate...”
2. Report: Clinton and Obama Pulled 'Bait and Switch' on Netanyahu
by Maayana Miskin
As Israel waits for a letter clarifying America's guarantees in
exchange for a proposed building ban for Jewish residents of Judea and
Samaria, a diplomatic source has come forward saying that no such letter
is on its way. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton misled
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and contrary to reports, the U.S.
does not guarantee an end to the freeze, the source said.
The source, a senior diplomat with inside knowledge of Netanyahu's
recent meetings in Washington, said Clinton made commitments when
talking to Netanyahu, but later slipped out of them by claiming that she
had not been speaking on behalf of U.S. President Obama – who, she said
in the end, did not give his approval.
When Netanyahu called the State Department to clarify America's
position, officials expressed surprise at his surprise, the source
continued. While Clinton made promises, Netanyahu knew from the
beginning that Obama has the final word, they allegedly said.
Clinton had told Netanyahu that the proposed construction freeze would
last for three months, and that it would end regardless of whether or
not there was progress in talks between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority. After that, she said, America would not push for a third
building freeze.
However, according to the diplomat, U.S. leaders have since said that
the building ban for Jews in Judea and Samaria would only end if Israel
and the PA reached an agreement on the borders of a proposed PA state.
Several other American promises have been called into question as well.
While it was initially reported that Israel would receive F-35 fighter
jets in exchange for the freeze, Israeli ministers later clarified that
the jets are part of a separate package, and that Israel will pay for
them in full. It was also suggested that the construction ban would not
apply to Jews living in Jerusalem; however, U.S. officials later stated
that it would apply to all Jews living east of the 1949 armistice line,
including those in Israel's capital city.
If America does not openly declare that a second construction freeze
would end in three months with or without a deal with the PA, Netanyahu
is unlikely to get the cabinet's support for the new construction ban.
Ministers in Shas and within Netanyahu's own Likud party have already
stated that they would vote against the proposal without a U.S. promise.
Netanyahu previously made the unprecedented step of unconditionally
freezing construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, in an
attempt to bring the PA to the negotiating table. PA leaders
reluctantly agreed to talk just as the 10-month freeze reached its
conclusion, but left the talks again when the freeze ended.
3. Israel Preparing for Hizbullah Coup in Lebanon
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Israeli Security Cabinet convened Wednesday to prepare for a
Hizbullah takeover of Lebanon in the wake of the Hariri probe crisis,
while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives in Beirut to
preach unity.
An increasing number of foreign officials and analysts have stated the
past several months that it is only a question of time as to when,
rather than if Hizbullah will take over the Lebanese government.
The catalyst could be an expected report by the United Nations Tribunal
in Lebanon announcing that Hizbullah was behind the bloody 2005 car
bomb attack that killed former anti-Syrian Prime Minister Rafik Hariri,
whose son now is prime minster and who has forged ties with the Syrian
regime.
Wracked by mounting Syrian and Hizbullah military and political
influence in Lebanon, the Beirut government is fragile, with Hizbullah
holding veto power over major Cabinet decisions.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned earlier this month that the
Hizbullah terrorist army has in effect merged with the Lebanese Armed
Forces to the point that it is difficult to distinguish between the two.
Outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has warned that Lebanese
armed forces are assisting the Hizbullah army which includes terrorists
trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and which has been heavily
armed with weapons from Syria and Iran.
Last week, Ashkenazi again brought up the possibility of a Hizbullah
coup, less than a month after intelligence officials estimated that the
terrorist organization could take over the country “in a matter of
hours, not days.”
In southern Lebanon, where then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak led an abrupt
withdrawal of the IDF in 2000, Hizbullah has filled the vacuum with a
“state within a state,” providing social and public services for
civilians. The presence of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon
has (UNIFIL) has not stopped Hizbullah from stockpiling tens of
thousands of missiles, more than three times the number it possessed
before the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Fears that the timing for a Hizbullah coup is near were sparked this
week by a Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) report that the United
Nations tribunal investigating the Hariri assassination has implicated
Hizbullah terrorists.
Hizbullah has warned there will be repercussions if it is blamed. The
office of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not comment on the
Canadian report.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Beirut in an
effort to maintain political calm, but he also was met at the airport by
100 Armenian protesters, who raised signs proclaiming, "The Lebanese
have not forgotten Turkey's bloody history in the region" and "Today's
Turkey is yesterday's Turkey: malicious, oppressive and an ally of the
enemy" -- meaning Israel.
The Lebanese community of 140,000 Armenians charged Turkey with
genocide in fighting under the Ottoman regime nearly a century ago.
4. Iran's Parliament Planned to Oust Ahmadinejad
by Gil Ronen
Iran's parliament planned to impeach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but
refrained from doing so following the intervention of Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Wall Street Journal reported. Four members
of Tehran's parliament launched a petition to hold a debate on
Ahmadinejad's impeachment, conservative Iranian newspapers said.
The papers reported Monday that legislators started a move to collect
the 74 signatures needed to hold an open debate on the president's
impeachment. Forty lawmakers have already signed the motion.
This is the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that
parliament has discussed impeachment of a president. However, the move
needs Khamenei's support in order to succeed – and it does not appear to
have it at this time.
In a report discussed in parliament Monday, four lawmakers voiced
unprecedentedly harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad, accusing him of breaking
the law and acting without the approval of the legislature. The Iranian
president was charged with “illegally importing gasoline and oil,
failing to provide budgetary transparency and withdrawing millions of
dollars from Iran's foreign reserve fund without getting parliament's
approval,” WSJ reported.
The moves against Ahmadinejad are a manifestation of domestic unrest
over his plans to gradually eliminate subsidies for fuel, food and
utilities, a move that is expected to drive up inflation. The opposition
to Ahmadinejad is described as politically "conservative," while
Ahmadinejad himself is an "ultraconservative"– as is Khamenei.
U.S. officials Monday said they are following the political struggle in
Tehran and believe that they are caused, in part, by the sanctions
imposed on the Iranians by the US, the United Nations and the European
Union.
However, observers noted that Ahmadinejad's opponents, too, favor
Iran's nuclear weapons program, and that even if Ahmadinejad is toppled,
the program is likely to continue.
Parag Khanna, Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New
America Foundation, predicts that “the next Iranian revolution is very
close,” in an interview with Globes. Khanna, who was an adviser to U.S.
President Barack Obama, said that “there are many underground tremors”
in Iran, that will lead to a change in the power structure in the next
few years.
Regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear arms program, Khanna estimated
at 50% the chances that the West will be able to check the Iranian
program before it reaches the point of no return. He is not sure if this
will happen through military or diplomatic means, but says – “I have
hunch that we will succeed in stopping them.”
5. Rabbinate Takes Action in American Jewish Divorce Case
by Maayana Miskin
In an unusual step, an official rabbinic court in Tel Aviv has ordered a
United States citizen to remain in Israel for proceedings in a divorce
case. The man, who has refused to give his wife a divorce, was detained
in Israel following her request; she is also a U.S. citizen.
The court order was made possible by a law that allows Jewish women to
sue for alimony and child support in Israel – and to enforce sanctions
on husbands who refuse to pay – even if they are not Israeli citizens.
The law does not allow for the detention of recalcitrant husbands merely
because they refuse to give a divorce, but it is quietly understood
that if he agrees to grant the divorce, other proceedings against him
will usually be dropped.
The case at hand involves a hareidi-religious couple from New York City
with one child. The husband and wife have been separated for several
years, but the man refuses to grant a Jewish divorce or to pay child
support, despite having been ordered to do so by a rabbinic court in New
York. The woman has accused her husband of verbal and physical abuse
during the course of their marriage, and says she was forced to flee New
York due to his threats.
In the U.S., rabbinic court sanctions generally cannot be enforced by
civil courts. In Israel, on the other hand, courts are allowed to forbid
a man who refuses a divorce to leave the country, to revoke his
driver's license, and even to send him to jail. The Rabbinate has also
published the pictures of missing recalcitrant husbands in an attempt to
track them down.
The law allowing Israeli rabbinic courts to help non-Israeli Jewish
women who are being refused a divorce was the brainchild of the Merkaz
HaYehudi HaBein-leumi (International Jewish Center). The center was
founded by Rabbi Tzuriel Bubliel, an attorney himself, and Attorney
Avivit Moskowitz, with the goal of assisting “agunot,” Jewish women
denied a divorce; the law aims to bring non-Israeli cases into Israeli
courts where rabbinic judges have more tools with which to enforce their
decisions.
Under Jewish law, a woman is not allowed to remarry until her husband
gives her a divorce document (known as a Get). If she enters a new
relationship without having received a divorce, the relationship is
considered adulterous, and children born will be illegitimate. A man is
also forbidden to remarry until his wife accepts a divorce, but if he
does remarry, the marriage is not considered Biblically adulterous.
Hillel Fendel contributed to this report.
6. Zionism in Action: Awarded for Building Seven Jewish Towns
by Hillel Fendel
The Ohr
National Missions has received the Prime Minister’s Prize for its work
in starting seven new communities in the Negev and Galilee.
Roni
Flamer (pronounced Flahmer), who founded and heads the organization,
told Arutz-7, “The secret to our success is that we work quietly, along
the lines of the rabbinic dictum, ‘One whose deeds precede his wisdom,
his wisdom will endure.’ For eight years, we invested our energies in
taking action and creating facts, without much publicity. As is taught,
Blessing is found in that which is hidden from the eye.”
Flamer and
Ohr received the Prime Minister’s Prize for Initiatives and Innovation
last week, together with Pnina Furst and Maya Efrati. Furst set up an
SMS-based network of over 15,000 workers and 1,000 employers that allows
employers to find temporary workers within minutes. Efrati developed a
process that converts used polyethylene bags into purses, wallets and
the like using an environmentally-friendly glue that creates strong,
multi-layered sheets.
Ohr [Light]
was founded several years ago by a group of young idealists from
central Israel, with the goal of promoting Jewish settlement and
development in the peripheral areas of the Land of Israel, particularly
in the Negev and the Galilee. The organization has developed novel and
modern tools to locate families and consolidate core groups to
strengthen existing communities in the periphery.
Ohr has
founded Tzukim in the Aravah (eastern Negev), Be’er Milkah, Merhav Am,
Givot Bar, Sansana, Haruv, and Retamim, as well as Mitzpeh Ilan in the
Galilee. It has also helped changed the negative growth trend in other
communities, bringing in families to breathe new life into the towns.
“Our
communities are different than those in Judea and
Samaria,” Flamer said. “Our target market is Israelis in general, and
not necessarily the religious; 70% of [our people] are secular, people
who are very concerned about jobs, weather and the like. They don’t all
speak 'Zionism' – but Zionism is rather something inside them serving as
a motivating factor."
Flamer noted that in the early years,
“we used to have parlor meetings in homes, but now we are better
known... We work in total cooperation with the government, especially
the Ministry for the Development of the Galilee and Negev. In the last
Settlement Fair that we held in Tel Aviv, there were 15,000 people, of
whom more than 2,000 have already begun the process of moving to one of
our towns…We are active in more than 40 communities.”
Flamer also
has a message for the residents of Judea and Samaria: “I wish to
strengthen and encourage you. We are all in the same battle. The Negev
and Galilee are also suffering from a freeze of sorts – perhaps not
because of orders given in Washington, but rather all sorts of other
delays and obstacles. We are all working for the same goal and to
overcome similar challenges.”
7. Arab Princess Getting Royal Treatment at Israeli Hospital
by David Lev
A daughter to one of the royal families in the Persian Gulf is in
Israel undergoing a complicated heart operation, according to Knesset
Member Ayoub Kara.
The royal patient insisted on undergoing the procedure here - after her
doctors recommended one of Israel's leading hospitals as the best place
to undergo the operation. For security and other reasons, the name of
the hospital has not been published.
MK Kara said he was contacted by a Druze doctor who has been working in
Europe for decades, along with the head of a well-known European
medical center, and was asked if he could help the princess enter Israel
for the operation. After discussing the situation with Interior
Ministry officials, Kara was able to secure an entry visa for the
patient, he said, and she landed here last Thursday, accompanied by her
husband and her personal doctor. She checked into the hospital Sunday,
and the operation is set to take place Tuesday.
The woman's husband, a prince of the unnamed Gulf kingdom himself, is
considered a key figure in his country. He told MK Kara that if – and
hopefully, when – his wife recovers, he plans to lobby for construction
of a large medical center that will take in patients from around the
Arab world – with Israeli doctors helping to set up the project. In a
statement, MK Kara's sees medicine as an important bridge to bring
Israel and the Arab world closer, “especially given the fact that in
recent years more and more Arabs have been exposed to Israeli medicine,
and are well aware of the high quality of Israeli medicine.”
Commenting on the story, MK Kara said that “this is another
humanitarian gesture that displays the true values of the State of
Israel. Incidents like help bring peace closer than the last 10 years of
peace talks did; peace is made not with a piece of paper, but with
positive human relations between nations."
8. PA Project Cuts Access to Tomb of the Patriarchs
by Maayana Miskin
A new Palestinian Authority construction project could cut Jewish
access to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hevron, Jewish activists say.
The Tomb is one of Judaism's most holy sites; however, the PA claims the site as a mosque, and demands that Israelis leave Hevron under any future peace deal.
The PA is sponsoring the construction of a new marketplace between the
Tomb of the Patriarchs and the nearby Jewish city of Kiryat Arba. The
street between Kiryat Arba and Hevron is the road Israelis and tourists
from around the world use to access the Jewish neighborhood of Hevron
and the historic tomb.
Hevron currently has a large marketplace located elsewhere in the city, several blocks away from the Jewish neighborhood.
Kiryat Arba-Hevron Regional Council head Malachi Levinger and leaders
of the Jewish community of Hevron protested near the construction site
on Wednesday and brought about a temporary halt in the building.
However, while police ordered builders to stop while the situation is
clarified, one tractor continues to work, and is creating a roadblock,
the Jewish protesters said.
“They want to block off Kiryat Arba... They are bringing terrorists who
served time in Israeli prisons to here to create an area that is
dangerous for Jews,” said Noam Arnon, spokesman for the Hevron Jewish
community.
“This is an area where the IDF is in charge of security,” he continued.
However, he said, as the PA controls civilian affairs, it can build a
dangerous area while claiming that the structures will be used for
civilian purposes.
Hevron's new Arab market is to be funded by various foreign states and
extreme-Left organizations, he said. The project is estimated to cost at
least $20 million.
Levinger called on Israel to put a stop to the construction in its
current location. “Prevent the creation of a dangerous casbah
[marketplace] that will pose a threat to Israeli citizens who visit the
Tomb of the Patriarchs and will cut off Kiryat Arba from the city of our
Patriarchs,” he told Israel's lawmakers and the IDF.
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