Palestinian riots continued in Hebron five days after the city\’s Cave of the Patriarchs was designated an Israeli national heritage site.\n\nAs Palestinian schoolchildren demonstrated Thursday near the site, other Palestinian protesters set tires on fire and threw stones at Israeli soldiers and police.\n
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Arab nations will usher in a new Middle East \”without Zionists and without colonialists.\”\n\nHe made the statement Thursday during a two-day visit to Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad.\n
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asserted his innocence at the start of his trial on corruption charges.\n\n\”Several months ago, when I came here for the first time, I said that I came as an innocent man and that I would leave as an innocent man,\” Olmert said Thursday morning upon his arrival at the Jerusalem District Court. \”Today the bombastic declarations, plastic descriptions and personal slander end.\”
A bill that allows civil marriage in Israel to couples who could not be married by the rabbinate failed by a large margin in its initial reading.\n\nThe Civil Union bill, introduced Wednesday by the Kadima Party\’s Meir Sheetrit, was defeated 58-22. One-third of the Kadima lawmakers did not participate in the vote, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Australia\’s foreign minister summoned Israel’s ambassador over three Australian passports used in the assassination of a senior Hamas official.\n\nAmbassador Yuval Rotem met Thursday with Stephen Smith to discuss Israel’s alleged role in the slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on Jan. 20.
Several rare early American Jewish books will be auctioned in New York.\n\nAmong the offerings at next month\’s sale by Swann Auction Galleries is an early Jewish-American cookbook and the first Hebrew Bible printed on American soil.
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