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Newsletter : 9fax0226.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN Feb. 26, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 40
Palestinians Call for Ocalan's Release
By VOA
Palestinians demonstrated in the West Bank Thursday, calling for the release of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. Palestinians have much in common with Kurds and their struggle for self-determination. About 200 demonstrators -- chanting slogans condemning Turkey, the United States and Israel -- marched through the market center of Ramallah in solidarity with the Kurds and Ocalan. Marchers said Palestinians identify with the plight of Kurds and remember that Kurdish militants fought alongside the PLO against Israel in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Sheinbein will be Tried for Murder in Israel
By David Gollust (VOA-Jerusalem)
Israel's Supreme Court has reversed a lower court-decision and
ruled that a U.S. Jewish teenager -- wanted for murder in Maryland
-- should not be returned to the United States to stand trial.
The case is already a sore point in U.S./Israeli relations.
The high court ruled 3-2 that 18-year-old Samuel Sheinbein is an
Israeli -- as well as an American -- citizen and cannot be returned
to Maryland for trial. But the young man, who fled to Israel in
1997 in the face of a pending murder charge, will be tried for the
crime in Israel. Sheinbein and another youth were charged in the
grisly killing of a 19-year-old acquaintance, Alfred Tello Jr.
To prevent extradition, the young man -- who had never lived in
Israel -- nonetheless claimed citizenship through his father, who
was born in pre-state Israel, but left the country in 1950.
A Jerusalem district court last year ruled that his ties to
Israel were too weak to qualify for citizenship. But the high
court said a narrowly-worded 1978 Israeli extradition law left it
no choice but to block Sheinbein's return to the United States. The
high court decision prompted calls in Israel for the amendment of
the 1978 law, which had been strongly backed by the late Prime
Minister Menachem Begin.
Amnon Rubenstein, a Knesset member from the opposition Meretz
party, said the law barring extradition of its citizens gives
Israel a bad name -- and if it wants to be part of the democratic
world, it has to accept the rules.
The Clinton administration had been pressing for extradition and
Sheinbein's lawyer, David Libai, said the decision underscored the
independence of Israel's judiciary: "Our Supreme Court proved again
that it is independence and did not yield to pressures --
political pressures -- from the United States."
Israeli Justice Ministry officials stressed that Sheinbein --
who has been in jail since his arrival in Israel -- will remain
in detention and will face indictment on the U.S. murder charge
within a few days.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement
expressing hope and confidence that the United States -- as an
enlightened state of law -- will accept the ruling of the Supreme
Court, which it (the office) said is known for being independent
and apolitical. Members of Congress last year had threatened to
block aid to Israel, if Sheinbein was not returned.
Israeli Finds 72-year-old Message From French Soldiers
By IsraelWire
In 1926, a group of French soldiers stationed in a historic
Middle East fortress put a simple message in a bottle for those who
would follow: We were here. Seventy-two years later, an Israeli
park ranger found the message -- and wants to track down the
senders.
An employee of the Kalaat Namroud National Park in the Golan
Heights found the tattered, yellowed letter sticking out of a
broken bottle in the walls of an army barracks used by French
troops in the 1920s, Parks Authority spokesman Ofer Greenstein
said.
The letter, dated October 1926, declares "these buildings have been
made by the soldiers of the French Army... Let the one who will
find this document keep it as a souvenir." The letter is signed by
four soldiers and three workers who apparently built the barracks
inside a cliffside Crusader fortress.
Parks Authority archaeologist Tzvika Tzuk examined the document and
said the type of paper, the message content and its location proved
its authenticity. It's unlikely however, that the soldiers
anticipated how many times their barracks would change hands.
From 1920-1946, the French were stationed on the Golan Heights, located in French-mandated Syria, near the border of British-ruled Palestine. The Golan passed to Syria in 1946 when it won independence, and was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Greenstein said he gave the letter to the French Embassy in Tel
Aviv and invited the soldiers, if any are still alive, to come back
to their old army post. Greenstein hoped that their family members
or the present-day commander of the unit will visit.
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