Again American 'Deeply Concerned' by Jewish Houses

Thursday, July 30, 2015 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY

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Settlements

Though Israel on Thursday demolished a number of “West Bank” houses its Supreme Court deemed illegal, the US and Europe did not waste the opportunity to suggest that the building of new Jewish residences in areas claimed by the Palestinians called into question Israel’s commitment to peace.

The Palestinian Authority quickly latched onto that message.

“We are deeply concerned about the Israeli government’s announcement today of the advancement of nearly 300 new housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beit El, as well as hundreds of new housing units in East Jerusalem,” said US State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

“Settlement expansion threatens the two-state solution and calls into question Israel’s commitment to a negotiated resolution to the conflict,” the American official continued.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly approved the new Beit El and Jerusalem construction projects after Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a demolition order against a Beit El neighborhood that it determined had failed to obtain proper approval.

The American condemnation came despite the fact that no signed peace agreements prevent Jewish construction inside the already-defined boundaries of existing Jewish settlements, nor has Israel ever agreed to even the possibility of surrendering Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the European Union quickly followed up the American statement with condemnation of its own, insisting that the building of Jewish homes in disputed territories, rather than continuing Palestinian violence and incitement, was the primary obstacle to peace.

“The EU expects the Israeli government to demonstrate its commitment to the two-state solution not only in words, but also through its actions,” read the European response.

Needless to say, the Palestinian Authority was thrilled with the international reaction to the audacity of Jews building homes in Samaria, the ancient biblical heartland of Israel.

“These settlement measures and war crimes are part of a plan by Israeli leaders to impose a ‘Greater Israel’ on historic Palestine and destroy the two-state solution and the chance for peace,” said senior PLO figure Hanan Ashrawi, who sought to both outdo the condemnations emanating from the West and rewrite history.

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Europe’s Jews decry ‘beast’ of anti-Semitism overtaking continent

Europe’s Jews decry ‘beast’ of anti-Semitism overtaking continent

Community heads bemoan increasing prevalence of anti-Israel efforts and a Europe ‘fed up’ with the Holocaust

BY AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN June 24, 2015 Times of Israel




WRITERS

Amanda Borschel-Dan

Amanda Borschel-Dan is The Times of Israel's Jewish World editor.


European Jewry is all in the same boat, and that boat is slowly but surely sinking. That, at least, is the impression one gets from a roundtable conversation Tuesday at the Jerusalem Press Club with leaders from 25 of the continent’s Jewish communities.

During the hour and a half lunch in a picturesque hall overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City, even those leaders who claimed their countries are without anti-Semitism today were pessimistic about the future of Europe. The obliviousness to a looming Nazi regime pervasive in 1930s Jewish communities was referenced, as were the increased Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) efforts that have taken over Scandinavia and elsewhere.

The 30-odd leaders were assembled under the banner “A Time for Action” for the fifth Israeli Jewish Congress (Hakhel) Gathering and Solidarity Mission to Israel of senior European Jewish leaders. The IJC was founded as a conduit for Diaspora-Israel dialogue in 2011 by Russian businessman Vladimir Sloutsker, a former senator in the Russian Federation Senate.

Among the intensive three days of events, the leaders were taken to the Knesset on Tuesday morning. There they met with Speaker Yuli Edelstein and other senior ministers and MKs, and addressed a special emergency hearing on anti-Semitism by the Diaspora Affairs Committee.

In a late lunch following their morning at the Knesset, between bites of eggplant salad and carpaccio, the leaders took turns at the microphone in describing their escalating concerns — and the need for an emergency contingency plan should Jews in danger need to be evacuated.

Musician Peter Gyori, the vice president of the Jewish Community of the Czech Republic. ‘I know that if something would happen to me, nobody would protect me.’ (courtesy)

Musician Peter Gyori, the vice president of the Jewish Community of the Czech Republic, said his country doesn’t suffer from anti-Semitism, nor are there any calls for BDS. He said he can be openly Jewish, and appears widely on radio and television. But he has no utopian illusions.

“I know that if something would happen to me, nobody would protect me,” said Gyori.

For her part, Gkratsiela Sofia Bourla, wife of the president of the Greek Jewish community, Moses Constatinos, said she cannot believe leaders, such as the delegates from the Czech Republic and Portugal, who say their countries do not have any anti-Semitism.

“I think the beast is sleeping in their countries,” said Bourla.

Continuing with anti-Semitism as beast imagery, the Serbian Jewish community’s president Ruben Fuks said no one is dealing with the monster itself, only its manifestations, such as anti-Semitic slogans or BDS.

Gkratsiela Sofia Bourla from Greece said she cannot believe leaders who say their countries do not have any anti-Semitism. ‘I think the beast is sleeping in their countries.’ (courtesy)

“Seeing what’s around, how the beast is waking up, raising its ugly head, I’m worried,” said Fuks.

Born in Ostend, Belgium, in 1939 and hidden as a child during the Holocaust, Baron Julien Klener, the immediate past president of the Consistoire Israelite de Belgique, said he too is anxious in today’s Europe.

As if relating a parable, he told a story of when he was a boy during World War II in his parents’ shop. Two German soldiers entered and in the midst of completing their transactions, Klener said they realized that the business was run by a Jewish family. One of the soldiers turned to Klener’s mother and astonishedly asked, “What are you still doing here?” and told her the family should flee.

Klener’s mother shrugged and answered, “Nothing will happen to us because we’re Belgians.” The rest, said Klener, is of course known.

“I love it when leaders say their countries cannot be their countries without the Jews. I love it when they love us,” he said, implying that this has not been, and may not always be, the case.

“We cannot forget the Holocaust,” said Ruth Gertner Frohman, the honorary president of the Jewish Foundation of Belgium. “But the people of Europe are fed up with hearing about it.”

“When they’re nice, they’ll listen and say, ‘But in Israel, today you’re doing the same thing to the Palestinians,'” said Frohman.

A June 23, 2015 trip to the Knesset was part of the fifth Israeli Jewish Congress (Hakhel) Gathering and Solidarity Mission to Israel of senior European Jewish leaders which brought together 36 delegates from 26 European countries under the banner ‘A Time for Action.’ (courtesy)

And it is this anti-Israeli sentiment, which can easily escalate into anti-Semitism, that is most worrisome to these Europeans. For to the less educated angry masses, when the Holy Land is at war, the distinctions between the people of Israel and the country of Israel are blurred.


‘We can’t put roses around a situation which might get very nasty and dangerous’

Although Gibraltar’s Jewish community only boasts 750 members, its vice president Suzanne Levy, who referenced its close proximity to Muslim Morocco, said there must be a contingency plan in place.

“We can’t put roses around a situation which might get very nasty and dangerous,” said Levy.

“We have to be realists: What if it doesn’t get better? What if it gets worse?” she said. “Let’s get a plan in case we need to quickly run home.”

Europe Helps Palestinians Create 'Facts on the Ground'

Friday, February 06, 2015 |  Israel Today Staff

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Peace Process

The European Union has begun to engage in precisely the kind of activity against which it constantly cautions Israel: prejudging the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations by creating facts on the ground.

In recent weeks, the EU has erected several hundred illegal homes for Palestinians in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, the so-called “West Bank.” Most of the new accommodations are to be in the vicinity of the Jerusalem suburb of Ma’aleh Adumim, one of the largest Jewish settlements. And all the homes bear the logo of the EU (as seen pictured).

The Israeli government has thus far failed to publicly respond to this provocation, but Regavim, an NGO focused on legal issues related to land ownership in the territories, has shined a spotlight on the issue.

“It used to be restricted to diplomatic and financial support,” Regavim told journalists during a tour of the area. “But now it is about active cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. …This is part of their plan to unilaterally create a Palestinian state.”

Most of the newer EU houses were built in “Area C,” the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control, and given to the large Bedouin tribes dwelling there.

Regavim further noted that many of the houses were constructed on historically state-owned land, and in some cases on protected nature reserves.

At the end of 2014, the Knesset’s Defense Committee was presented figures showing that over the past year in Area C there were 550 cases of illegal Arab construction (some provided by the EU), compared to just 150 cases of illegal Jewish construction. Nevertheless, it was the Jewish cases alone that made international headlines.

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Israel Surprised by EU Call for Hamas Disarmament

Wednesday, July 23, 2014 |  Israel Today Staff

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Israel was pleasantly surprised on Tuesday when European Union foreign ministers echoed Jerusalem’s demand that Hamas and its terrorist allies be disarmed as an outcome of the current Gaza war.

“The EU calls on Hamas to immediately put an end to these acts and to renounce violence. All terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm,” read the first clause of a joint statement issued following a meeting in Brussels.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued its own statement praising “the European Union’s call for the disarmament of the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip of their weapons and the demilitarization of Gaza. These EU statements are completely in line with the perception that guides Israel in the fight against terrorism and they open the door for cooperation in implementing common principles for restoring peace and security.”

Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the week told CNN that the international community must “undertake a program to demilitarize Gaza,” explaining that Israel could not tolerate a war with Hamas every couple years.

A week earlier, Netanyahu explicitly told visiting Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini that the disarmament of Gaza had become a major goal of the current war and for Israel in the long-term. Prior to that, former Israeli Defense Minister Shaul proposed offering $50 billion investment in Gaza in return for Hamas handing over its missile stockpiles.

Tuesday’s EU statement agreed with the Israeli leaders that the status quo in and around Gaza cannot continue, and that more should and could be done to open up that territory and return it to economic stability.

Israel has long maintained that it desires a Gaza Strip that is prosperous and self-sustaining. In fact, Israel withdrew from the coastal enclave in 2005 with that goal in mind, having left behind a wealth of Israeli agricultural businesses for the use of local Palestinian residents.

However, Israel is also adamant that this end goal cannot come at the expense of security for the citizens of the Jewish state. Of course, were the EU’s condition regarding disarmament met, that obstacle would be removed.

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Christians to EU: Israel is Our Safe Haven - ISRAEL TODAY

Christians to EU: Israel is Our Safe Haven

Monday, March 24, 2014 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY

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Some 150 Israeli Arabic-speaking Christians on Sunday demonstrated outside the European Union mission in Tel Aviv, demanding that the international community stop nitpicking against Israel and start combatting the severe persecution of Christians everywhere else in the Middle East.

“Nations, organizations and international missions are quick to raise an accusing finger against Israel at every opportunity,” said Father Gabriel Nadaf, spiritual father of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum, which organized the rally.

Those same nations and organizations “don’t life a finger against the ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East,” the priest continued.

Father Nadaf went on to explain that from Syria to Egypt to Iraq to the Palestinian Authority, Christians on a daily basis suffer intimidation, harassment, desecration, coercion, torture, rape, physical abuse and murder. “According to the statistics, a Christian is murdered every five minutes [in the Middle East], and the Western world is silent about this,” he lamented.

In messages posted to its Facebook page during the Tel Aviv rally, the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum insisted that “there is no place but Israel that is safe for Christians in the Middle East!”

While the rally was largely ignored by the mainstream Western media, the Israeli press took great interest, and forum spokesman Shadi Khalloul, a veteran of the IDF, was interviewed by various television and print media outlets.

Khalloul has spoken numerous times with Israel Today regarding the Christian awakening within Israel, and the bonds of brotherhood than bind local Christians to the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

Last month, Israel’s Knesset took the first important step toward recognizing local Christians as an independent minority separate from the Arab Muslims. Both Nadaf and Khalloul say this is necessary, since local Christians were here before the Arab Muslim conquest around 600 AD.

A growing number of Israelis, including lawmakers and opinion shapers, are likewise waking up to the strong Christian minority in their midst, a minority that has been long neglected, but which is now beginning to boldly take its place alongside the Jews.

PHOTO: Young, proud Arabic-speaking Israeli Christians demonstrate in Tel Aviv

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CBN News - Netanyahu: EU's Criticism of Israel 'Hypocritical'

Netanyahu: EU's Criticism of Israel 'Hypocritical'

By Julie Stahl

CBN News Mideast Correspondent

Friday, January 17, 2014

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chastised the European Union on Thursday for being what he called "hypocritical" in its criticism of Israeli building in biblical Judea and Samaria (aka, the West Bank).

Speaking to foreign journalists at the annual Government Press Office 'New Year's Toast with the Prime Minister' in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Israel made a great sacrifice in releasing terrorists from jail as part of goodwill gestures to coax Palestinians back into U.S.-sponsored peace talks.  Everyone knew that in exchange Israel would continue building new housing units in Israeli communities in the disputed areas, he said.

"We're keeping in line exactly our understandings that we undertook in the beginning of the talks," Netanyahu said.

"It was very clear that Israel was doing something very, very difficult…to release these terrorists, but it was equally clear that Israel undertook no restraints on construction and it was understood," he said.

Netanyahu said that to say the Israeli building was hampering the talks they're forgetting it was part of the deal.  He added that the settlements are not an "obstacle to peace" and it's a "bogus claim" to say so.

"I think that this is hypocritical," he said.

"Our ambassadors to the EU are now called in because of this, the construction of a few houses. When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors to complain about the incitement that calls for Israel's destruction? When did the Palestinian ambassadors get called in to hear complaints about the fact that security officers in the Palestinian security forces are participating in terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis?

"Palestinian state-run television, school books and other activities regularly teach children that Israel is the enemy and they should work to destroy it.  They also delegitimize Israel's right to exist but the international community doesn't complain about it.

"I think it's time to stop this hypocrisy. I think it's time to inject some balance and fairness into this discussion. Because I think this imbalance and this bias against Israel doesn't advance peace. I think it pushes peace further away," Netanyahu said.

"It tells the Palestinians: You can basically do anything you want, say anything you want, incite any way you want, and you won't be held accountable," he continued. "And Israel that takes tremendous efforts to preserve the peace and fight terrorism for the benefit of both Israel and Palestinians alike, it always gets criticized. That's not good and doesn't advance peace."

Netanyahu also said he'd had an "excellent" meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II on Thursday in Amman, where the two leaders discussed recent developments in the Israeli-Palestinian talks.

The relations between Israel and Jordan are based on peace and security, he said, and key to any agreement that Israel makes in the future.

"We all want to see the secure border, that quiet border that we have between us continue to be quiet and secure and tranquil," the prime minister said.

Palestinians want to take over the Jordan Valley between Israel and Jordan as part of a final agreement, but Israel (and some say Jordan) want Israel to remain there as a security buffer.

Israeli Experts Challenge Double Standards on 'Occupation' - Israel Today

Israeli Experts Challenge Double Standards on 'Occupation'

Sunday, December 29, 2013 |  Israel Today Staff  

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Two leading experts on international law, a former Israeli ambassador and a Jewish-American professor, are taking the European Union to task over the double standard it applies to the so-called Israeli “occupation.”

Professor Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern University and former Israeli Ambassador to Canada Alan Baker have demanded to know why the EU recently signed a new fishing agreement with Morocco that included the waters of the Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco illegally occupies.

In remarks to The Times of Israel, both men noted that the EU’s approach to the fishing agreement is hypocritical just months after it published guidelines forbidding business dealings with Jewish businesses operating out of territories claimed by the Palestinians.

Baker and Kontorovich sent a letter to EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton insisting on clarification, but instead received a response stating that her office views the two occupations as being different. No explanation was provided.

The two experts noted that Western Sahara is not the only example of this double standard. For instance, the EU continues to do business with Turks living in Cyprus, even though Turkey’s occupation of the northern portion of the island nation is not recognized by the international community.

The full Times of Israel article is worth a read. Click here to do so.

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