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| Wednesday, Jun 27 '12, Tammuz 7, 5772 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1. Bodyguards Separate Lieberman and ‘Terrorist’ MK
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Bodyguards stepped between Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Arab MK Talab Al-Sana, who Lieberman called a terrorist during a tour of an illegal Bedouin village in the Negev on Wednesday. During a visit to the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Al-Zarnog near Be’er Sheva, MK Al-Sana appeared and accused the Foreign Minister of acting like the head of "a gang" instead of a government official. He charged that Lieberman’s objective is to take the spotlight off 12-year-long criminal investigations against him that have not produced an indictment. “You already have caused worldwide damage to Israel, and now you have come here to inflame the land from within?” he asked the Foreign Minister. Lieberman replied sharply with a thinly veiled threat. “I will take care of you. You are a terrorist,” he asserted. MK El-Sana retorted, “What do you mean you ‘will take care of me’? By using the methods of the mafia?” At that point, security forces and bodyguards took over and separated the two before the verbal confrontation escalated further. Unlike a couple of dozen settlements in Judea and Samaria that are determined to be illegal, the official term for hundreds of Bedouin villages is “unrecognized.” The government also has authorized a regional council of “unrecognized” Bedouin outposts that have unilaterally taken over vast regions of the Negev, claiming ancestral rights. The nationalist Regavim organization, which argues in the courts for Jewish land rights and for equal application of the law against illegal Arab and Bedouin homes, hosted Lieberman’s visit. “The Al-Zarnog village is an illegal village that was built on private Jewish land, but the Bedouin residents refuse to leave even though the government has offered them to relocate elsewhere,” Regavim explained. Regavim appealed to the courts two weeks ago to order their expulsion based on the precedent that High Court established against the residents of the Jewish community of Migron in Samaria. Foreign Minister Lieberman agreed that “it is not reasonable to destroy houses in the Ulpana neighborhood [of Beit El in Samaria] and ignore 100,000 illegal residential structures in the Arab [and Bedouin] sectors in the Galilee in the north and in the Negev.” Hundreds of Bedouin protestors demonstrated against Lieberman at the village and waved Hamas flags.
Tags: Avigdor Lieberman ,Bedouin ,Settlements ,Migron
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2. MK Tells French Envoy: You Are Responsible for Anti-Semitism
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Knesset Member Danny Danon confronted the French ambassador to Israel Wednesday, telling him that France is responsible for the growing anti-Semitism in the country. MK Danon, speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Aliyah Committee that he chairs, revealed that violent anti-Semitic incidents in France soared by 53 percent in the period of January to May of this year compared with the same period in 2011. He added that Jews are afraid to walk in the streets with a kippa. French Ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot was invited to the session, and MK Danon told him, “You are responsible for anti-Semitism in your country. Do not let the violence against Jews raise its head – stop the anti-Semitism before it is too late.” Bigot replied that most of the rise in anti-Semitism occurred following the brutal point-blank murders of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse March 19. Danon confirmed that instead of a fall in violent anti-Semtiic attacks after the murders, sixty percent of the anti-Semitic attacks in the January-May period were carried out in the 20 days following the Toulouse murders. He said that France must fight anti-Semitism and that it has invested half a million Euro for security. Danon said there were 274 recorded incidents of anti-Semitism in the five-month period, and more than half of them involved murder, attempted murder or other attempts to physically harm Jews.
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3. Mofaz to Meet Abbas in Ramallah
by Elad Benari  Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will meet Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz next week, Channel 2 News reported on Tuesday. It will be Abbas’ first meeting in months with an Israeli cabinet minister. The report said that Mofaz will arrive in Ramallah on Sunday for the meeting. The meeting comes after many attempts by Mofaz to bring Abbas to meet with him. He recently indicated that he means to meet with Abbas in order to get the peace process going, which is one of the four major issues to be addressed as part of the recent coalition agreement between Likud and Kadima. Channel 2 News reported that the upcoming meeting between the two was organized by Kadima MK Yisrael Hasson and attorney Yitzhak Molcho, who is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s chief negotiator. The report added that the message Mofaz intends to convey to Abbas is that he should take advantage of the broad coalition consisting of 94 Knesset members and use it as an opportunity to advance the peace process. Mofaz recently publicly called on Abbas to take advantage of the large coalition and begin peace negotiations. Speaking at a meeting of the Kadima council, Mofaz addressed Abbas, saying, “Forget the letters, forget the preconditions - Let's talk peace now. The coalition today is the widest ever, and this allows for a political breakthrough.” Channel 2 noted that Netanyahu is allowing Mofaz to try to bring Abbas to the negotiating table because of his desire to keep Kadima in his coalition. Abbas, despite having described Netanyahu as ‘a partner for peace’, has repeatedly continued to demand that Israel accept the indefensible pre-1967 lines as final borders, release all Arab terrorists from its jails, and halt construction in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem for a second time before talks begin. He recently warned that he may seek non-member status for a Palestinian state at the United Nations if peace talks with Israel do not resume. Abbas’ chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, recently said Abbas will demand the release of 123 long-term prisoners before agreeing to meet Netanyahu.
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4. Lieberman: UN Presence at Iran Hate Speech Aids Anti-Semitism
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Wednesday condemned the United Nations and European nations for making anti-Semitism look legitimate by sitting at meetings where Iran spreads hate of Jews. Iran’s deputy vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi charged at a UN conference in Tehran Tuesday that the Talmud teaches to "destroy everyone who opposes the Jews" and that Jews control the international drug trade. “The fact that United Nations and European Union representatives still participate in conferences in Iran, where anti-Semitism is rampant, makes the Ayatollahs' regime look legitimate while it endangers the entire world,” the Foreign Minister said. He added that the Iranian regime is not made up of crazy people but rather is composed of “fanatics” who are anti-Semites and “openly display their plan, which includes destroying the State of Israel.” “Hitler said the same crazy things, and he succeeded in carrying out his program,” Lieberman added, charging that the international community does not understand that the Iranian regime is a “recipe for danger.”
Tags: Avigdor Lieberman ,Iran ,Anti-Semitism
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5. Car Crash Kills Two IDF Officers
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  The naval soldiers were on their way back to their base in the port city of Ashdod when their van struck a truck and then went out of control and hit a barrier before overturning near Rishon LeTzion on Highway 4, which connects Ashdod with metropolitan Tel Aviv and Netanya. One of the injured was rescued from inside the vehicle after crying out for help. He is in serious condition at Tel HaShomer Hospital in Tel Aviv. The second injured passenger was found standing outside in shock and also was rushed to the hospital. Two dead officers were 25 and 22 years old. Their families have been notified. The truck driver said he saw the soldiers’ vehicle in his rear view mirror before his vehicle was hit. He called the police after he saw the vehicle behind him hit a traffic barrier and flip over. Police are investigating. Photo: Yossi Zeliger/Flash90
Tags: car accident ,IDF ,traffic death
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6. Anti-Israel Candidate Demands Recount after Huge Loss
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  New York City councilman Charles Barron, who has called Israel a “terrorist state,” was clobbered in his bid for a Congressional seat but blamed the media and demanded a recount. Barron lost out to state Assemblyman Hakeen Jeffries in the race to succeed retiring 24-year incumbent Congressman Edolphus Towns. The redrawn district is highly Democratic and Jeffries can expect to coast to a victory in the November elections against the Republican party nominee. Jeffries won the primaries Tuesday night by a whopping 72-28 percent margin. Democratic party leaders went all out to prevent an upset victory by Barron, which would have seriously embarrassed the party and President Barack Obama because of the ex-Black Panther’s stated hostility towards Jews and Israel. His severe loss did nothing to gag his venom. He denounced the media as “really lowlife scum” and he refused to concede defeat. "At the risk of sounding like a sore loser, honesty compels me to say there will be no congratulatory statement to the opposition tonight, only because of the way the campaign was run," Barron was quoted as saying by the New York Daily News. "We had them scared from the very beginning,” Barron claimed. “There's something bigger than politics and that's a movement. A movement of the people. We have that here tonight. When we launched this campaign, we knew we were going up against...the entire New York Democratic political leadership."
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7. Anti-Israel Billboards Taken Down in LA
by Fern Sidman, INN US Correspondent  Several weeks ago, a conglomerate of anti-Israel activists known as the "Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel" claimed to be "thrilled" when 23 Los Angeles area billboards featuring their message of "Tell Congress: Spend our Money at Home, Not on the Israeli Military" pictured over the image of an American flag were erected. One week later, the billboard operator, CBS Outdoor, (a subsidiary of the CBS Corporation) removed the billboards on the grounds that the Stop $30 Billion to Israel organization had used the CBS name without permission in their organizational e-mails and in their petition thanking CBS for putting up the billboards. According to their web site's mission statement, the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, "advocates an end to the ten year commitment of $30 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid pledged to Israel in 2007 by the Bush administration. We also oppose Israel’s ongoing occupation and control over Palestinian Territories – East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip." Among those political offshoots that lend their name and support to the Coalition to Stop $30 Billiion to Israel are Amnesty International Chapter 101, Albuquerque, Another Jewish Voice (Albuquerque), Another Jewish Voice - Santa Fe (AJVSF), Irish Freedom Committee, Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance, Muslim Women Outreach, The Social Concerns Committee of the Albuquerque Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the New Mexico People's Weekly Forum, the Pax Christi Saint Bernadette (Albuquerque), Stop The War Machine, the United Nations Association, Albuquerque Chapter, and Veterans For Peace in Santa Fe and Albuquerque (VFPA). Having orchestrated billboard campaigns of this nature in several other American cities to spread its vehemently anti-Israel message, the "Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel" entered the Los Angeles market on June 11th, with billboards scheduled to run for four weeks, and more to follow. Through its literature and fundraising appeals the "Coalition" overtly implied that CBS Outdoor supported its anti-Israel cause. In their online petition, the "Coalition" stated, "By contracting with the grassroots, nonprofit Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, this billboard company is demonstrating its support for the basic American tradition of free speech.” Responding almost immediately, CBS Outdoor, removed the billboards only a week after they were put up, while informing the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel in a curt note that their money would be refunded, as they had used the CBS Outdoor name without permission. The Coalition asserts that the billboards were dropped because of pressure from pro-Israel groups; not because it crossed red lines by implying that CBS Outdoor supports its cause. It has embarked on a campaign calling for its supporters to deluge CBS Outdoor with phone calls and e-mails demanding that the billboards go back up. "These kinds of factual distortions characterize the anti-Israel campaigners", said Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organization based in Los Angeles. "They misrepresent facts about Israel and mislead the public about who supports their movement, as they did with CBS Outdoor. "Why? Probably because they hope to persuade well-meaning people that their cause is respectable and mainstream, when in fact it is a fringe, extremist movement that seeks to harm the U.S. and one of our most valuable allies, Israel. They can't make that case without distorting the facts," she added. Countering the anti-Israel billboard campaign over the last several years with use of their own ads, Stand With Us has responded to the inflammatory, anti-Israel canards of the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel in such cities as Washington, DC, Albuquerque, Houston, Chicago, New York, Seattle and San Francisco. In the coming months, Stand With Us will be erecting 23 of their own pro-Israel billboards throughout the Los Angeles area.
Tags: anti-Israeli ,StandWithUs ,Los Angeles
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8. Russia Has No Problem Recognizing Palestine, Declares Putin
by Elad Benari  Russian President Vladimir Putin met on Tuesday with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem. In a joint press conference the two held after their meeting, Putin declared that Russia has no problem recognizing an independent Palestinian state, saying, “We did it 25 years ago and our position has not changed.” Abbas called to convene a peace conference in Moscow to try to restart the Middle East peace process, nothing that a decision on such a conference was made several years ago but has yet to be implemented. In an interview with the Russian Interfax news agency ahead of his meeting with Putin, Abbas said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave messages that were "too general" in a recent exchange of letters and that he did not address points Abbas had raised. Abbas said the diplomatic deadlock between Israel and the PA is due to continued construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and called for "a freeze on Jewish construction in the territories which is spreading like crawfish." Abbas has repeatedly continued to demand that Israel accept the indefensible pre-1967 lines as final borders, release all Arab terrorists from its jails, and halt construction in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem for a second time before talks begin. He recently warned that he may seek non-member status for a Palestinian state at the United Nations if peace talks with Israel do not resume. Abbas’ chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, recently said Abbas will demand the release of 123 long-term prisoners before agreeing to meet Netanyahu. Putin’s meeting with Abbas came after his visit to Israel on Monday, during which he met with both Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. During his meeting with Peres, Putin said that serious negotiations for peace cannot be promoted without trust between the parties, adding that it is important to quickly restore trust and return to the negotiating table. He also said that he places an importance on maintaining Israel’s security and noted that “it is the Russian national interest to ensure peace and tranquility for Israel.” Putin also warned Peres that attacking Iran could backfire and advised the world to keep its nose out of affairs in Syria, where Russia has a vested interest.
Tags: Mahmoud Abbas ,Vladimir Putin ,Peace Process
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Everyday of Freedom is an Act of Faith for my writings ============> http://robertoscaruffi.blogspot.com for something on religions ===> http://scaruffi1.blogspot.com
Wednesday 27 June 2012
