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Newsletter : 0fax0427.txt
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>JN April 27, 2000, Vol. 8, No. 76
Armenian Genocide will be Taught to Israeli Students
By Ross Dunn (VOA-Jerusalem)
Israeli students are to be taught for the first time about Turkey's genocide of Armenians in the First World War. The planned change is a shift in Israeli educational policy. The decision to include the Armenian massacre in a new curriculum was announced on the 85th anniversary of the 1915 massacre.
Turkey disputes the Armenian version of the events, including the number of those killed and displaced. But Armenians insist that out a total of 2.5 million of their people living in Turkey at the time, 1.5 million were slaughtered. Armenians say 1 million more were evicted from their homes and forced to flee the area.
The announcement that the massacre would be taught at schools in the Jewish State came from Israel's Education Minister, Yossi Sarid, who is also leader of the left-wing Meretz Party.
Sarid says the massacre of Armenians was one of the most atrocious events of the modern era. He says Jews, the victims of murderous hatred, are committed to identifying with other victims. "Whoever stands idly by and ignores it, always helps the murderers and never helps the victims."
Sarid says he sees no reason why teaching the Armenian massacre in Israeli schools would harm relations between Jerusalem and Ankara.
The directors of Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem, say they have no objection to the move. The memorial commemorates the murder of 6 million Jews during the Second World War.
The directors of Yad Vashem issued a statement saying they believe that the teaching of the Armenian genocide in Israeli schools will enhance, rather than detract, from the understanding of the Holocaust.
Arab Man Petitions High Court for Israeli Citizenship
By IsraelWire
A 23-year-old Arab man has petitioned the High Court of Justice to grant him citizenship. The petitioner has lived in Israel illegally since he was 13 when he arrived in "Israel proper" from Gaza, seeking employment.
He found work on a Rishon L'Tzion construction site and began spending nights on the site. Soon thereafter, a local resident began assisting him with his day-to-day needs. As a result, he began to learn the ways of the land and the ways of an Israeli. In 1997 he was placed on trial for his illegal residence and sentenced to 45 days in prison and then expelled. He was turned over to PLO Authority security forces and was then marked as an informant, enduring hardships as a result. He was ordered to make payment amounting to all the monies he earned while living in Israel.
He decided his best alternative was to hideout in "Israel proper" once again, returning to Rishon L'Tzion. There he began to earn a living once again, befriending community residents. He speaks fluent Hebrew and lives more or less like his Jewish friends from Rishon L'Tzion.
His attorney, Noga Shavit explained the young man should be granted citizenship. Shavit added that his client has adopted the Israeli and Jewish way of life, totally removing himself from his Arab roots and is seeking "physical and spiritual solace." Shavit explained that his illegal presence compels him to maintain an underground existence.
47% of HIV Carriers in Israel are Immigrants from Ethiopia
By IsraelWire
According to recently released Health Ministry statistics, 47 percent of Israelis infected with or carrying the HIV virus are members of the local Ethiopian community. Health Ministry data indicates that in the Israeli Ethiopian community, there are 1,086 infected with AIDS or carrying the virus.
According to Professor Tzvi Bentowitz, who heads the AIDS center at Rehovot's Kaplan Hospital, the statistics may not be accurate, explaining that there are between 4,000-5,000 AIDS patients in Israel, twice the 2,200 reported by the health officials. Therefore he explains, the percentage of persons in the Ethiopian community infected with the virus is considerable lower when compared to the national average. Bentowitz estimates that the actual number is more like 10 percent, compared to 1.8 percent in 1991.
Addressing the Knesset Immigration & Absorption Committee, the professor explained the average among African nations is about 10 percent. The committee hearing was called by chairwoman and Knesset member Naomi Blumenthal and dealt with the spread of AIDS among new immigrants.
Representatives of the local Ethiopian community told committee members that the Ethiopian community in Israel does have a serious problem with educating its own members on how one may act to minimize the spread of the disease.
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