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Latest news briefs from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
(JTA) - E.U. fraud squad eyes Arafat
The European Union reportedly wants to interrogate Palestinian terrorists about funding abuses by Yasser Arafat. The E.U. fraud squad, which is investigating the extent to which the Palestinian Authority has funneled European aid money into terrorism, recently asked Israel for permission to question imprisoned members of Arafat's Fatah movement, Ha'aretz reported Wednesday. According to the daily, the request from the 25-nation bloc is likely to be approved by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his National Security Council, who long have sought to focus international scrutiny on the P.A. president's terrorist links. Israeli and E.U. officials did not immediately comment.
(JTA) - French police: Incident not anti-Semitic
French police say an incident in which three Jewish youths were attacked near Lyon earlier this week was not motivated by anti-Semitism. According to reports citing police sources Wednesday, the Jewish youths mentioned nothing about anti-Semitic insults during police questioning, despite referring to such remarks in earlier interviews with journalists. Following the incident Sunday, in which the youths were kicked and punched during an altercation with a group of 15 young men in the Lyon suburb of Villeurbanne, the Lyon region prefecture the state representative in each French region issued a statement alluding to the anti-Semitic nature of the attack. The statement provoked immediate reaction from Jewish groups, with local Jewish official Marcel Amsalem saying the incident was one of many anti-Jewish attacks in the area. Three of the attackers are to be charged with assault.
(JTA) - Deadline set for Gaza evacuation
Israel plans to evacuate all Gaza Strip settlers by September 2005. Ariel Sharon's national security adviser, Giora Eiland, was quoted as announcing the plan Wednesday in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the first formal presentation of the timetable for the Israeli prime minister's plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians. Eiland added that all Israeli troops will be out of Gaza by December 2005, and that by 2008 there will be no more Palestinian laborers in Israel. There was no immediate comment on when the government would move on four West Bank settlements also slated for evacuation under the disengagement plan.
(JTA) - Aid workers leave Gaza
A U.N. aid agency withdrew all but a handful of its foreign workers from the Gaza Strip. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which tends to Palestinian refugees, said Wednesday it was pulling all but nine of its foreign staff out of Gaza. UNRWA began evacuating staff last month amid increasing chaos between Palestinian Authority security forces and pro-reform vigilantes in Gaza, during which several foreigners were briefly abducted. But agency spokesmen said the latest round of evacuations was prompted by deep Israeli military incursions to rout Palestinian rocket crews out of northern Gaza.
(JTA) - Day planned on Sudan
U.S. Jewish organizations joined a coalition that is planning a day to raise awareness about government-sponsored killings in Sudan. Some 20 groups are part of the Save Darfur Coalition, which is planning an interfaith day of conscience on Aug. 25 to take place in churches, synagogues, mosques and community centers across the country. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service are among the groups that formed the coalition. The United Nations has called upon Sudan's government to end its support of Sudanese Arabs who have killed tens of thousands of African tribesman.
(JTA) - Israeli Arab held in Hamas plot
An Israeli Arab student was linked to a Hamas plot to bomb a Jerusalem cafe. The suspect, a Galilee Arab who was studying for a master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was arrested last month for aiding a Hamas terrorist cell from Hebron, the Shin Bet announced Wednesday. He is accused of helping plot a triple suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Cafit restaurant, which was foiled after the Shin Bet received advance intelligence and posted extra security in the area. The suspect also is believed to have carried out reconnaissance for the Islamic terrorist group of a major defense firm and sites frequented by Israeli troops in the Galilee. He is to be indicted next month.
(JTA) - Hillel updates campus guide
Hillel has updated its Guide to Jewish Life on Campus. The online database reviews hundreds of college campuses around the world according to indicators like Jewish student population, kosher dining options and Jewish studies courses. The guide can be found on Hillel's Web site, www.hillel.org, which also provides direct links and contact information for local campus Hillels.
(JTA) - Burials on hold?
Israel's undertakers announced a nationwide strike. Local religious councils, which administer religious services, are to halt all burials as of Thursday to protest widespread non-payment of salaries. The strike, announced Wednesday, will not affect Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, where funeral services are provided by private chevra kadisha groups. The move was endorsed by Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger. "Certainly it would be preferable that the burials go ahead, but the government cannot be allowed to starve its rabbis," Metzger told Israel Radio. Political sources said the Interior Ministry would enter 11th-hour talks with the religious councils in hopes of averting the strike.
(JTA) - Historical find in Jaffa
Archaeologists uncovered Crusader-era graves in Jaffa. The four adult male skeletons unearthed Wednesday outside the walls of Jaffa's Old City were the latest evidence linking the port city to European shipping traffic in the Byzantine and medieval eras, the archaeologists said. The remains are believed to be of ordinary people, due to the lack of jewelry or ritual items nearby a factor that makes their ethnicity unclear. The remains are to be passed to the Religious Affairs Ministry, which will decide how to rebury the bones.
(JTA) - Burns meets Ayalon on settlements
The State Department's top Middle East envoy met with Israel's ambassador to the U.S. and pressed him on settlement expansion. "We're having discussions with the Israelis and we'll stay in close touch with them on their commitments to end settlement activity," spokesman Richard Boucher said after William Burns, the U.S. assistant secretary of state, met Tuesday with Ambassador Daniel Ayalon. Israel is "aware of our concerns, and we continue to press them to live up to the statements of the 'road map' " peace plan, Boucher said. The Bush administration is frustrated by Israel's slowness in dismantling unapproved settlement outposts and by reports that Israel is building inside existing settlements. Ayalon said he told Burns that Israel was committed to dismantling the outposts and that plans to build in existing settlements more units were just announced for the Jerusalem suburb of Ma'aleh Adumim were launched before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged to President Bush that he would freeze new construction. "We will keep this process of removing the unauthorized outposts as promised," Ayalon told JTA. Burns and Ayalon also discussed Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a part of the West Bank.
(JTA) - Israel to Egypt: Good job
Israel is happy with Egyptian efforts to clamp down on arms smuggling. Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to Washington, told William Burns, the top Middle East official at the U.S. State Department, that Israel is pleased with Egyptian plans to facilitate Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. "The Egyptians are very much interested in the success of the disengagement and they have been stepping forward in terms of blocking smuggling through the Philadelphi corridor," Ayalon told JTA after his meeting Tuesday with Burns, referring to a strip along the Gaza-Egypt border. Israel ultimately would like to pull out of the Philadelphi strip, Ayalon said.
E.U. rips settlement plans
The European Union criticized Israel's plans to expand a West Bank settlement. The group joins Britain and the United States in criticizing plans to build 600 new homes in the Jerusalem suburb of Ma'aleh Adumim. "Such plans run counter to both the letter and the spirit of the 'road map' for peace that Israel has accepted," the Dutch president of the European Union said Tuesday in a statement, referring to an internationally backed peace plan.
(JTA) - Reform: Withdraw, but note Palestinians
The U.S. Reform movement endorsed Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but pressed for humanitarian relief for Palestinians. The Union for Reform Judaism's board of trustees passed a resolution strongly endorsing the unilateral withdrawal plan, Rabbi David Saperstein said in a letter Tuesday to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. "For peace to emerge, unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank must be matched by the United States' vigorous pursuit of a return to the peace process," Saperstein, the Religious Action Center's director, said in his letter. Saperstein also criticized two recent Congressional measures endorsing the withdrawal because they "fail to address the troubling humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians." The resolution supported the construction of Israel's security barrier "as close as possible to the Green Line, as a defensive measure against terrorism, while requesting that the Israeli government operate the barrier in a way that minimizes undue hardship for Palestinians."
(JTA) - Strategic vulnerability seen
Israel's main airport is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, a Knesset panel found. The committee, which undertook a survey of security at strategic sites in Israel after a double suicide bombing at the Ashdod port in March, released its report Tuesday. Ben-Gurion Airport and Haifa's seaport were cited as vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. The report also listed several army bases that are insufficiently secured and 154 factories that produce toxic chemicals but are not properly regulated. Police sources said the report was being studied to decide how to combat security failings.
Hebron stabbing fails
A Palestinian tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron. The man was arrested after Tuesday's failed attack.
(JTA) - Fourth person dies from Tashkent blast
A fourth person died as a result of last week's bombings near the Israeli Embassy in Uzbekistan. An Uzbek policeman died Tuesday of wounds suffered in last Friday's blast in Tashkent. Three suicide bombers also died in the attacks, which included a bombing near the U.S. Embassy and the State Prosecutor's Office, both in Tashkent.
(JTA) - Past B'nai B'rith leader dies
Jack Spitzer, 86, a Jewish leader known for his work in promoting social justice, died Saturday following cardiac arrest. Spitzer was president of B'nai B'rith from 1978 to 1982 and a was member of Hillel's international board of governors. Spitzer spread his passion for social justice by training college student leaders in an annual conference called the Charlotte B. and Jack J. Spitzer B'nai B'rith Hillel Forum on Public Policy. JTA END
(JTA) - E.U. fraud squad eyes Arafat
The European Union reportedly wants to interrogate Palestinian terrorists about funding abuses by Yasser Arafat. The E.U. fraud squad, which is investigating the extent to which the Palestinian Authority has funneled European aid money into terrorism, recently asked Israel for permission to question imprisoned members of Arafat's Fatah movement, Ha'aretz reported Wednesday. According to the daily, the request from the 25-nation bloc is likely to be approved by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his National Security Council, who long have sought to focus international scrutiny on the P.A. president's terrorist links. Israeli and E.U. officials did not immediately comment.
(JTA) - French police: Incident not anti-Semitic
French police say an incident in which three Jewish youths were attacked near Lyon earlier this week was not motivated by anti-Semitism. According to reports citing police sources Wednesday, the Jewish youths mentioned nothing about anti-Semitic insults during police questioning, despite referring to such remarks in earlier interviews with journalists. Following the incident Sunday, in which the youths were kicked and punched during an altercation with a group of 15 young men in the Lyon suburb of Villeurbanne, the Lyon region prefecture the state representative in each French region issued a statement alluding to the anti-Semitic nature of the attack. The statement provoked immediate reaction from Jewish groups, with local Jewish official Marcel Amsalem saying the incident was one of many anti-Jewish attacks in the area. Three of the attackers are to be charged with assault.
(JTA) - Deadline set for Gaza evacuation
Israel plans to evacuate all Gaza Strip settlers by September 2005. Ariel Sharon's national security adviser, Giora Eiland, was quoted as announcing the plan Wednesday in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the first formal presentation of the timetable for the Israeli prime minister's plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians. Eiland added that all Israeli troops will be out of Gaza by December 2005, and that by 2008 there will be no more Palestinian laborers in Israel. There was no immediate comment on when the government would move on four West Bank settlements also slated for evacuation under the disengagement plan.
(JTA) - Aid workers leave Gaza
A U.N. aid agency withdrew all but a handful of its foreign workers from the Gaza Strip. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which tends to Palestinian refugees, said Wednesday it was pulling all but nine of its foreign staff out of Gaza. UNRWA began evacuating staff last month amid increasing chaos between Palestinian Authority security forces and pro-reform vigilantes in Gaza, during which several foreigners were briefly abducted. But agency spokesmen said the latest round of evacuations was prompted by deep Israeli military incursions to rout Palestinian rocket crews out of northern Gaza.
(JTA) - Day planned on Sudan
U.S. Jewish organizations joined a coalition that is planning a day to raise awareness about government-sponsored killings in Sudan. Some 20 groups are part of the Save Darfur Coalition, which is planning an interfaith day of conscience on Aug. 25 to take place in churches, synagogues, mosques and community centers across the country. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service are among the groups that formed the coalition. The United Nations has called upon Sudan's government to end its support of Sudanese Arabs who have killed tens of thousands of African tribesman.
(JTA) - Israeli Arab held in Hamas plot
An Israeli Arab student was linked to a Hamas plot to bomb a Jerusalem cafe. The suspect, a Galilee Arab who was studying for a master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was arrested last month for aiding a Hamas terrorist cell from Hebron, the Shin Bet announced Wednesday. He is accused of helping plot a triple suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Cafit restaurant, which was foiled after the Shin Bet received advance intelligence and posted extra security in the area. The suspect also is believed to have carried out reconnaissance for the Islamic terrorist group of a major defense firm and sites frequented by Israeli troops in the Galilee. He is to be indicted next month.
(JTA) - Hillel updates campus guide
Hillel has updated its Guide to Jewish Life on Campus. The online database reviews hundreds of college campuses around the world according to indicators like Jewish student population, kosher dining options and Jewish studies courses. The guide can be found on Hillel's Web site, www.hillel.org, which also provides direct links and contact information for local campus Hillels.
(JTA) - Burials on hold?
Israel's undertakers announced a nationwide strike. Local religious councils, which administer religious services, are to halt all burials as of Thursday to protest widespread non-payment of salaries. The strike, announced Wednesday, will not affect Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, where funeral services are provided by private chevra kadisha groups. The move was endorsed by Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger. "Certainly it would be preferable that the burials go ahead, but the government cannot be allowed to starve its rabbis," Metzger told Israel Radio. Political sources said the Interior Ministry would enter 11th-hour talks with the religious councils in hopes of averting the strike.
(JTA) - Historical find in Jaffa
Archaeologists uncovered Crusader-era graves in Jaffa. The four adult male skeletons unearthed Wednesday outside the walls of Jaffa's Old City were the latest evidence linking the port city to European shipping traffic in the Byzantine and medieval eras, the archaeologists said. The remains are believed to be of ordinary people, due to the lack of jewelry or ritual items nearby a factor that makes their ethnicity unclear. The remains are to be passed to the Religious Affairs Ministry, which will decide how to rebury the bones.
(JTA) - Burns meets Ayalon on settlements
The State Department's top Middle East envoy met with Israel's ambassador to the U.S. and pressed him on settlement expansion. "We're having discussions with the Israelis and we'll stay in close touch with them on their commitments to end settlement activity," spokesman Richard Boucher said after William Burns, the U.S. assistant secretary of state, met Tuesday with Ambassador Daniel Ayalon. Israel is "aware of our concerns, and we continue to press them to live up to the statements of the 'road map' " peace plan, Boucher said. The Bush administration is frustrated by Israel's slowness in dismantling unapproved settlement outposts and by reports that Israel is building inside existing settlements. Ayalon said he told Burns that Israel was committed to dismantling the outposts and that plans to build in existing settlements more units were just announced for the Jerusalem suburb of Ma'aleh Adumim were launched before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged to President Bush that he would freeze new construction. "We will keep this process of removing the unauthorized outposts as promised," Ayalon told JTA. Burns and Ayalon also discussed Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a part of the West Bank.
(JTA) - Israel to Egypt: Good job
Israel is happy with Egyptian efforts to clamp down on arms smuggling. Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to Washington, told William Burns, the top Middle East official at the U.S. State Department, that Israel is pleased with Egyptian plans to facilitate Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. "The Egyptians are very much interested in the success of the disengagement and they have been stepping forward in terms of blocking smuggling through the Philadelphi corridor," Ayalon told JTA after his meeting Tuesday with Burns, referring to a strip along the Gaza-Egypt border. Israel ultimately would like to pull out of the Philadelphi strip, Ayalon said.
E.U. rips settlement plans
The European Union criticized Israel's plans to expand a West Bank settlement. The group joins Britain and the United States in criticizing plans to build 600 new homes in the Jerusalem suburb of Ma'aleh Adumim. "Such plans run counter to both the letter and the spirit of the 'road map' for peace that Israel has accepted," the Dutch president of the European Union said Tuesday in a statement, referring to an internationally backed peace plan.
(JTA) - Reform: Withdraw, but note Palestinians
The U.S. Reform movement endorsed Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but pressed for humanitarian relief for Palestinians. The Union for Reform Judaism's board of trustees passed a resolution strongly endorsing the unilateral withdrawal plan, Rabbi David Saperstein said in a letter Tuesday to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. "For peace to emerge, unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank must be matched by the United States' vigorous pursuit of a return to the peace process," Saperstein, the Religious Action Center's director, said in his letter. Saperstein also criticized two recent Congressional measures endorsing the withdrawal because they "fail to address the troubling humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians." The resolution supported the construction of Israel's security barrier "as close as possible to the Green Line, as a defensive measure against terrorism, while requesting that the Israeli government operate the barrier in a way that minimizes undue hardship for Palestinians."
(JTA) - Strategic vulnerability seen
Israel's main airport is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, a Knesset panel found. The committee, which undertook a survey of security at strategic sites in Israel after a double suicide bombing at the Ashdod port in March, released its report Tuesday. Ben-Gurion Airport and Haifa's seaport were cited as vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. The report also listed several army bases that are insufficiently secured and 154 factories that produce toxic chemicals but are not properly regulated. Police sources said the report was being studied to decide how to combat security failings.
Hebron stabbing fails
A Palestinian tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron. The man was arrested after Tuesday's failed attack.
(JTA) - Fourth person dies from Tashkent blast
A fourth person died as a result of last week's bombings near the Israeli Embassy in Uzbekistan. An Uzbek policeman died Tuesday of wounds suffered in last Friday's blast in Tashkent. Three suicide bombers also died in the attacks, which included a bombing near the U.S. Embassy and the State Prosecutor's Office, both in Tashkent.
(JTA) - Past B'nai B'rith leader dies
Jack Spitzer, 86, a Jewish leader known for his work in promoting social justice, died Saturday following cardiac arrest. Spitzer was president of B'nai B'rith from 1978 to 1982 and a was member of Hillel's international board of governors. Spitzer spread his passion for social justice by training college student leaders in an annual conference called the Charlotte B. and Jack J. Spitzer B'nai B'rith Hillel Forum on Public Policy. JTA END
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