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LIVE BROADCAST: Temple Judea Shabbat Services – June 15, 2012 Read More »
Some 50 nongovernmental organizations called on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
“For over five years in Gaza, more than 1.6 million people have been under blockade in violation of international law,” the groups said in a petition issued Thursday. “More than half of these people are children. We the undersigned say with one voice: ‘end the blockade now.’ “
Israel initiated the blockade five years ago when the terrorist Hamas organization took over the coastal strip, which is home to 1.6 million Palestinians.
Signatories to the petition Amnesty International, Oxfam and the World Health Organization, as well United Nations bodies such as UNESCO, UNICEF, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the World Health Organization.
Israel relaxed the blockade restrictions two years ago, including expanding the list of building materials allowed in, but continues to inspect all goods entering Gaza to prevent terrorist activity.
NGOs call on Israel to lift Gaza blockade Read More »
An attorney for convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk filed a complaint with German prosecutors claiming that his death was hastened by medication administered at a nursing home in Bavaria.
Ulrich Busch asked prosecutors in Rosenheim, Bavaria, in a 12-page complaint to open an investigation of five doctors and a nurse, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
The complaint posits that a specific pain medication, common in Germany but banned in the United States, led to Demjanjuk’s death in March as he awaited an appeal of his conviction last year by a Munich court for his role in the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp in Poland.
Born and raised in Ukraine, Demjanjuk immigrated to the United States following World War II. In 1986 the Cleveland-area autoworker was sent to Israel to face trial on charges of being the notorious Treblinka guard “Ivan the Terrible.” An Israeli court sentenced Demjanjuk to death, but the Israeli Supreme Court ordered him released due to reasonable doubt while noting that substantial evidence emerged during the trial identifying him as a guard at Sobibor.
Demjanjuk returned to suburban Cleveland in 1993 and resisted multiple attempts to strip him of his U.S. citizenship and deport him again. But in 2009, U.S. authorities deported him to Germany, and in May 2011 he was convicted for his crimes in Sobibor. Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison.
Demjanjuk’s death hastened by medication, complaint says Read More »
A Palestinian sniper fired at an Israeli farmer in a field near the Gaza border.
The farmer hid behind his tractor until Israeli soldiers came to his rescue Thursday morning, Ynet reported. The soldiers fired back, according to reports.
The tractor was damaged by gunfire.
Later Thursday, a mortar was fired from Gaza at southern Israel but did not cause any injuries or damage.
Palestinian sniper targets Israeli farmer Read More »
The son of a West Bank Hamas leader who spied for Israel and wrote a book about his experiences has returned to Israel.
Mosab Hassan Yousef arrived in Israel Wednesday night and was held up at the airport for several hours before being allowed to enter the country, according to reports.
Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheik Hassan Yousef, was invited to speak in Israel by Likud Party lawmaker Ayoob Kara, a Druse Arab.
Yousef, who lives in California and converted to Christianity, was given political asylum by the United States after the 2010 publication of an autobiography about his decade-long experience as an undercover agent for the Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency. Israel has neither officially confirmed nor denied his story.
He is scheduled to remain in Israel for nearly a month lecturing at universities and other venues, The Associated Press reported.
‘Son of Hamas’ arrives in Israel Read More »
The president of Sweden’s Jewish communities said the country’s tourism agency should replace this week’s guest operator of the national Twitter account.
The operator, Sonja Abrahamsson, during her stint on @Sweden has caused a stir with some references she made about Jews. She offered a crude comment about how to identify Jewish men and said it was difficult to tell Jews apart from non-Jews.
“This woman’s tweets are more stupid than anti-Semitic,” Lena Posner-Korosi, president of the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, told JTA on Thursday. “What is disconcerting is that VisitSweden has not terminated Abrahamsson’s stint even after her silly remarks. Letting Abrahamsson tweet for all of us will not make Sweden appear more attractive.”
Abrahammson, 27, is a guest tweeter for VisitSweden, a government-owned corporation; the guests change every week. The corporation hopes to make Sweden more attractive abroad by having ordinary Swedes write short messages on Twitter.
An employee of VisitSweden said Thursday that no one from the corporation was available for comment on the matter.
Abrahammson’s tweets on Jews began Tuesday when she discussed how to identify a Jewish male. She then wrote, “In nazi German they even had to sew stars on their sleeves. If they didn’t, they could never now who was a jew and who was not a jew.”
“Once I asked a co-worker what a jew is. He was ‘part jew,’ whatever that means. He’s like ‘uuuuh … jews are.. uh.. well educated..?” she wrote and mentioned that she grew up in a place with no Jews. Abrahamsson then apologized if her words were seen as offensive and said she didn’t understand why people hated Jews.
Tommy Sollen, social media manager at VisitSweden, told The Wall Street Journal that the tourism agency would not interrupt Abrahamsson’s stint as national tweeter.
Remove guest tweeter, head of Swedish Jewish community says Read More »
Iranian security forces have arrested the alleged assassins of thee nuclear scientists, an official state news agency reported.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced the arrests in a statement Thursday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official news agency. The arrests were made “in various regions and through timely and blitz operations,” the statement said.
Details of the arrest would be made public, the statement said, “after lapse of security precaution.”
At least five nuclear scientists have been assassinated in the last two years. Iranian officials have said they believe that Israel and its Mossad intelligence agency were behind the killings.
In May, Iran executed a man convicted of spying for Israel and assassinating an Iranian nuclear scientist. Majid Jamali Fashi, 24, was sentenced to death in August 2010 for the murder of Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at Tehran University killed by a remote-controlled bomb in a January 2010 attack.
In April, more than 15 Iranian and foreign nationals reportedly were arrested for carrying out alleged terrorist missions for Israel in Iran, according to IRNA. The group was accused of spying for Israel, the attempted assassination of an Iranian expert and sabotage.
Iran arrests alleged assassins of nuclear scientists Read More »
Sheldon Adelson reportedly has said he will donate “whatever it takes” to defeat President Obama.
Forbes Magazine reported Thursday that a source close to the casino magnate said that Adelson is willing to donate more than the $10 million he gave this week to Restore Our Future, a pro-Mitt Romney political action committee. Such PACs generally run negative attacks on a candidate’s opponent. The source told Forbes that Adelson believes “no price is too high” to defeat Obama.
Adelson had said previously that he was ready to spend as much as $100 million to help Newt Gingrich, his old friend and the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, win the Republican nomination.
After Gingrich withdrew, Adelson said he would switch allegiances to Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and the presumptive nominee.
Romney and Adelson met late last month. Adelson, a major donor to Jewish and right-wing pro-Israel causes, says Israel is a critical element in how he determines political support.
Adelson says he’ll pay ‘whatever it takes’ to oust Obama Read More »
A photo posted on the Israel Defense Forces website in honor of Pride Month showing two male soldiers in uniform holding hands was staged, according to an Israeli news website.
Only one of the soldiers is gay and both work for the IDF Spokesman’s Office, The Times of Israel reported shortly after the photo went viral on Facebook earlier this week.
The photo posted Monday and captioned “It’s Pride Month. Did you know that the IDF treats all of its soldiers equally?” had garnered more than 10,800 likes and more than 8,800 shares, as well as 1,555 comments as of Thursday evening.
Positive comments appear to outnumber the negative by a large margin.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Office did not deny the photo was staged, according to the Times of Israel, and said in a statement that “The photo reflects the IDF’s open-minded attitude towards soldiers of all sexual orientations. The IDF respects the privacy of the soldiers featured in the photograph, and will not comment on their identities.”
Meanwhile, Anastassia Michaeli, an Israeli lawmaker from the Yisrael Beiteinu party, made anti-gay statements during a Knesset discussion Wednesday on sexual harassment. Michaeli said that “Most homosexuals are people who experienced sexual abuse at a very young age,” and she accused Israel’s Channel 10 of broadcasting programming that encourages children to be homosexuals,
Yisraeli Beiteinu in a statement distanced itself from the comments. Gay rights leaders and opposition political leaders slammed Michaeli’s remarks.
In January, Michaeli was suspended from the Knesset plenum for a month after she threw water at Labor Party lawmaker Ghaleb Majadele’s face during an Education, Culture and Sports Committee meeting.
IDF Pride photo was staged, Israeli news site reports Read More »
The president of a prestigious university in Paris apologized for an exam question that said a 2009 Israeli bombing in Gaza may have been a war crime.
Vincent Berger, president of Paris Diderot University, wrote a letter expressing his “dismay” and “regret” at the inclusion of the question in an exam for medical students on June 12.
“The question inquired as to the classification of a bombing in the Gaza Strip which resulted in 22 victims: crime of war; crime against humanity or genocide,” he wrote.
Berger added that the question “contained a regrettable polemic character which contradicts the spirit of neutrality and moderation of higher education.”
The question does not fit the relevant pedagogic framework and is irrelevant to medicine or humanitarian medicine, he also said, adding that the university will review the incident internally.
The dean of the university’s medical faculty, Benoit Schlemmer, expressed his regret about the question in a separate letter. Schlemmer said he “shares the legitimate feelings” that the question invoked in some of the students who complained to the university about it. He added “personal undertakings do not belong” in his faculty.
Paris Diderot, or Paris 7, was ranked as France’s fourth best university for 2011 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Paris university president apologizes for Gaza exam question Read More »