 |
 |
Newsletter : 7fax0319.txt
Directory | Previous file | Next file
Mufti Calls on Muslims to Conquer Jerusalem
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Ikrama Sabri, a preacher in the Al-Aksa mosque and Mufti of Jerusalem, called on all Muslims to conquer Jerusalem and "the rest of Palestine which is under Zionist occupation."
Sabri warned that any Muslim or Muslim government who did not work to conquer these lands would be committing a sin. He also repeated earlier claims that Israel's repair work and archeological digs in Jerusalem's Old City would damage the Al-Aksa mosque, despite the fact that international teams have declared the mosque to be completely safe.
White House: US will Not Resume Palestinian Aid
By Paula Wolfson (VOA-White House)
The change in the Palestinian leadership has apparently led to no change in Bush administration policy.
The Palestinians put together a new government of two feuding factions - militant Hamas and moderate Fatah - in hopes of getting the United States and its allies to resume financial support. But the White House said the change was not enough, and the conditions for resumption of aid have not been met.
White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said the Palestinians still have not accepted the guidelines set down by Mideast negotiators from the United States, Russia, the U.N., and the European Union - the so-called Quartet. "We have said very clearly that this new government needs to accept the Quartet principles. These are the sort of fundamental building blocks for peace in the Middle East."
Speaking on CNN's Late Edition program, Hadley emphasized the Palestinians must renounce violence, and recognize Israel's right to exist. He said the previous Hamas-led government refused to take these steps, leading to the suspension of aid. "They have not accepted those principles," he said. "We have not dealt with them. We will not deal with this government until it accepts those principles."
The White House national security adviser left no doubt the Bush administration will be watching the Palestinian government closely. And he made clear Washington was not encouraged by comments made Saturday by the new Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyah of Hamas.
"We will be watching, obviously for the words and deeds of this government," noted Hadley. "It was a little troubling that Prime Minister Haniyah in his statement in the program of the government talks about the right of resistance. This is not the same as [saying] 'we are giving up violence and terror.'"
Israel has already said it would boycott the new Palestinian government, although it will maintain contacts with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who was elected separately.
The United States has also said it would continue a dialogue with Abbas as well as other Palestinian officials with no ties to Hamas, which Washington has long considered to be a terrorist organization.
The rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas formed the unity government last week in hope of ending a crippling Western embargo against the Palestinian Authority, and halting months of factional fighting that has left more than 130 people dead.
In contrasting speeches Saturday, Abbas said the Palestinians reject violence, and are ready to negotiate peace, while Haniyeh of Hamas maintained the right to resist Israeli occupation.
Poll Shows Israeli-Arab Holocaust Denial, Support for Hizbullah
By IsraelNationalNews.com
A new Haifa University study reveals an alarming trend of Holocaust denial, sympathy with Hizbullah and belief that they will one day be transferred out of Israel among the Arab citizens of Israel.
The survey, conducted by the university's Dean of Social Studies Sammy Smooha, found that more than a quarter of Israel's Arab citizens believe the Holocaust never happened. The poll found that 28 percent shared that belief, and that the percentage actually rose the more educated those asked were. Of college and high-school grads, one third (33 percent) believe the Holocaust to be fiction.
Although tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs were forced into bomb shelters during the war against Hizbullah, nearly half (48 percent) believe that Hizbullah's shelling of Israel's northern residents was justified. The same figure believes the kidnapping of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser was justified and 90 percent consider Israel's bombing of Lebanon to have constituted war crimes.
Smooha, not known to be sympathetic to the right-wing, said he was surprised by the survey's results. "One would expect Israeli Arabs to be more pro-Israel due to the unique situation in the last war. The war did not involve the Palestinians and the Hizbullah rockets endangered their lives and property too. The aggressor was a fundamentalist Islamic organization that most Israeli Arabs do not support."
The study found that 63 percent of Israeli Jews are afraid to enter or drive through Arab towns of cities, while the same percentage of Israeli Arabs believe Israel may transfer authority over their villages to the Palestinian Authority. 60 percent fear that they will be transferred out of Israel en masse.
Seventy-six percent of Arabs believe that Zionism is racist and 68 percent of Israeli Jews fear an Israeli-Arab wave of violence. The poll involved 721 Arabs and 702 Jews, with a margin of error of 3.7%.
New Israeli Arab Minister Won't Sing Israel's National Anthem
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Israel's first Muslim Arab government member - Minister of Science, Culture and Sports Raleb Majadle - refuses to sing Israel's national anthem, HaTikvah.
Majadle, a long-time member of the Labor Party, defended his decision, saying he does not believe that "enlightened and sane Jews" would request a Muslim to sing a song which speaks to the Jewish people. "The Arabs are not in a mood to sing right now," the Arab minister commented.
The new minister said in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, "To the best of my knowledge, the law does not require me to sing the anthem, but to honor it." He said he expresses his respect by standing up when the anthem is sung.
"Of course I would not sing the anthem in its current form," Majadle said. "But before we talk about symbols, I want to talk about equal education for my children. It's more important that my son would be able to buy a house, live with dignity."
Majadle's announcement led to protests from National-Religious camp and staunch support from Israeli-Arab Knesset Members. Knesset member Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP) explained that he does not desire to force Majadle to sing the anthem, but believes that someone who does not identify with the character of the state as expressed by the national anthem should not be serving as a minister.
MK Zevulun Orlev (NU/NRP) expressed concern that Majadle's refusal might be a violation of his declaration of loyalty to the state, and requested that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ask Majadle if he is loyal to Israel as a Jewish state.
Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List) responded, "The attacks on him from the right-wing are hypocritical, self-righteous and ridiculous." MK Tibi added that he, too, never sings the anthem. "HaTikvah's words cannot be sung by any Arab citizen," he pointed out. "Lately we have witnessed a torrent of anti-Arab statements and this should be understood in this context," he said.
Majadle said on Sunday that Israel acted aggressively in the 1948 War of Independence. During a government meeting to discuss the threat posed by the joint Fatah-Hamas leadership of the Palestinian Authority, Majadle said that Israel accepted the 1947 United Nations proposal to split the British Mandate into two parts only because the Jewish leadership knew that local Arabs would reject the plan.
Al-Qaeda: US strike on Iran Inevitable
By YnetNews.com & IsraelNationalNews.com
A US strike on Iran is "inevitable," a top al-Qaeda leader in Iraq said in an internet recording made available last week on a jihad forum. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi is the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaeda organization which seeks to create a Taliban-like Islamic republic in Iraq's Sunni triangle.
In the recording, released on the al-Hanein jihadi forum, Baghdadi claimed that the US, together with its Saudi ally, was working to strengthen Hizbullah, in order to create a pretext for an attack on Iran. "It is inevitable the Americans will launch a military strike against Iran," Baghdadi said. "This is what led their (military) machine to strengthen and aid Hizbullah, with Saudi Arabia's help, and the knowledge of the Saudi's priests," he added.
Referring to Shiites as the "envious sect," Baghdadi declared: "There is the real jihad, and then there is the jihad by the infidels. If you follow the interpretation of the infidels (reference to Shiites – Y.L.), you will end up in a house of infidelity."
And in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Sunday for more extensive connections between his government and Iranian citizens living abroad. He directed his speech to Iranians living outside of Iran, asking them to display Iran's rich and honorable culture to the rest of the world. (Ed. Israel News Faxx assumes that the president is not referring to approximately 40,000 Iranian Jews living in America.)
Ahmadinejad asked Iranian parents living abroad to expose their children to Iranian language and culture and stress the importance of a connection to Iran. The physical presence of the children in Iran would help the country, he added.
However, Iranian officials have threatened to kidnap Americans and Israelis in retaliation for allegedly kidnapping senior Iranian officers. Earlier in March Iranian Gen. Ali Reza Askari disappeared while on vacation in Turkey; he was later reported to be in Europe and was said to be giving America important intelligence on Iranian links to Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah.
Two other Iranian officials have gone missing since. One has been named as Col. Amir Mohammed Shirazi. Iranian officials have accused Israel and America of orchestrating the disappearances. American sources claimed that Askari had worked as a spy for America for several years, and was fleeing to America by choice.
Israel to Hold Nationwide Missile Attack Drill
By YnetNews.com
The Home Front Command and all of Israel's rescue services will hold a first-of-its-kind drill Tuesday across the country simulating conventional and unconventional terror attacks and missile strikes in different areas.
At 2 p.m. Tuesday, a siren will be sounded in most areas of the country. The siren will last 90 seconds and will be heard from southern Israel to Hadera. The Home Front Command decided not to sound the siren in the north and in Gaza vicinity communities in order not to cause panic.
The drill is aimed at examining the Home Front's preparedness for different emergency scenarios. The forces will implement lessons learned from the second Lebanon war. Among the scenarios: A missile hitting a building in Netanya, causing the three-story house to collapse, and a missile landing at the Reading Power Station in Tel Aviv, causing a large number of casualties.
The rescue services will be dispatched to other "missile landing" areas in Petah Tikva and in a Jaffa community center. In Be'er Sheva a drill will be held simulating a "mega-terror attack," simultaneous to a heavy barrage of rockets in southern Israel, causing many injuries.
Verification Council for Israel's Russian Jewry
By IsraelNationalNews.com
At least 25 percent of registered Jewish immigrants from Russia are not Jewish - leading to the formation of a council to verify Jewishness. Approximately one million new immigrants have arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union since 1990. Interior Ministry statistics indicate that of them, 290,000 are not Jewish.
However, Russian Aliyah experts tell a different story. Some of them say that of the million new Israelis, more than half of them - up to 550,000 - are not Jewish. This means that over a quarter-million of the 710,000 who are listed as Jews by Israel's Interior Ministry are actually not Jewish. Others say that the numbers are not that high, but that as many as 25 percent of those listed as Jews are actually not.
The source of the problem is apparently a well-oiled apparatus that forges papers on a very high-quality level, fooling rabbis both in Russia and Israel.
Based on findings such as the above, a project has been started to verify the Jewishness of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Zalman Gilechinsky, who immigrated to Israel in 1989, is the founder and head of a body known as the World Council for the Verification of Jewishness of Immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The council, which makes it checks based on documents, ancestry, and personal interviews, has the blessing of rabbis from various streams of Orthodox Judaism.
