We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com
Contents: | Weekly Quotes | Short Takes | On Topic Links
Jewish Commentators on Brexit: Jeremy Sharon: Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2016
Why I Voted Against My Party: Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, National Post, June 16, 2016
Remaking Rutland with Refugees: Sonia Bailley, American Thinker, May 24, 2016
Terror Show at a Gaza Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony (Video): Youtube, June 1, 2016
WEEKLY QUOTES
“I am in favor of Britain leaving the EU so that it can become once again a democratic, self-governing nation. I also believe it would be in the interests of the US, Israel and Europe itself if the EU were to break up…Uncontrolled migration, Islamization and the absence of any ability to hold EU rulers to account have caused mass alienation among the European public from the political mainstream. This has created rising support for ultra-nationalist and extremist parties.” — Melanie Phillips. In Thursday’s “Brexit” vote, the European Union could see the first-ever departure of a member state. The United Kingdom is putting their E.U. membership to a country-wide referendum that still remains too close to call. (Jerusalem Post, Apr. 27, 2016)
“Israel has a vested interest in the continued existence of the present EU membership, albeit greatly weakened internally. Like several other supranational bodies, the EU scandalously discriminates against Israel. It regularly incites against Israel and interferes in its internal affairs. The EU applies double standards in its relations with Israel, such as its requirement for labeling of products from the West Bank and the Golan. This is an anti-Semitic act according to the IHRA definition of this hatred which was accepted by many countries…Yet if Britain exits the EU, the resulting instability in Europe could potentially bring disadvantages for Israel in its wake. A Brexit would also free the UK from commitments to act in line with overall EU policies. If, untrammeled by such commitments, a Labour party government would win British elections in the future, the resulting problems for Israel could increase greatly.” — Manfred Gerstenfeld (Arutz Sheva, June 14, 2016)
"I think profiling is something we're going to have to start thinking about as a country…You look at Israel and you look at other countries; they do it and they do it successfully. I hate the concept of profiling, but we're going to have to use common sense." — Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Racial profiling is a strategy in which individuals or groups are targeted for additional law-enforcement scrutiny because of race or other characteristics. It has been sharply criticized by Democrats and Libertarians in the US, who view it as a form of racism. (Jerusalem Online, June 19, 2016)
“Hillary Clinton will be a disaster for Israel.” — Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, an early dropout in the GOP race, suggested Clinton would continue Obama’s policy regarding Israel. “And I don’t think anyone would say that Israel-US relations have been good under his leadership over the last eight years,” he commented. Huckabee noted that the greatest common foe facing Israel, the US and the free world was “radical Islamic ideology that takes us back to the 7th century…We have a common enemy and that enemy is radical Islam that wishes to destroy civilization itself and wishes to turn the clock back to centuries ago.” (Telegraph, June 12, 2016)
“Estranged in important ways from both mainstream America after 9/11 and modern Islam, the president nonetheless sees himself as a bridge between the two. He gave himself that assignment in his 2009 Cairo speech, citing his father’s Islamic background in Kenya and his own boyhood in Indonesia. “I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” he declared…That aim, surely born of good intentions, was a profound mistake that continues to wreak havoc. The president of the United States cannot be a broker between his countrymen and a foreign enemy that has declared war on us…As the late Fouad Ajami wrote, Obama sees himself as the American “redeemer,” a man who would fix the country by acknowledging its past errors and charting a different course for the future.” — Michael Goodwin. (New York Post, June 19, 2016)
“This is yet another attempt at hollow victories by the Palestinian representatives…They are once again avoiding direct negotiations and instead turning to the international community. This meaningless statement does not bring any stability to our region and, more importantly, will not better the life of a single Palestinian.” — Israel’s United Nations ambassador, Danny Danon. The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad H. Mansour, said that his government had begun preliminary negotiations with Egypt to define the extent of Palestinian-claimed territory in the Mediterranean off the roughly 25-mile-long coast of Gaza, the strip bordering Israel and Egypt. Mansour said the negotiations were possible because of the Palestinian territories’ UN status as a non-member observer state, which the General Assembly recognized in 2012. (New York Times, June 17, 2016)
“BDS has failed as both an economic and diplomatic weapon. Consider that since 2006, when the movement began, Israel’s gross domestic product has nearly doubled, going from a little over $154 billion to $299 billion for 2015. Israel is also warming ties with countries all over the world, even as Europe and the United States are increasing the pressure over Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Start with Africa. Next month…Netanyahu will be the first Israeli prime minister since Yitzhak Rabin to travel to African capitals for meetings with the leaders of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Israel…is also expanding links with China, now the country’s third-largest trading partner. A similar story can be told about Israel’s relationship with India, whose Narendra Modi is expected to be the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel later this year. As the Israelis increase defense trade with India, it has also begun to end some of its historic support for the Palestinians at the United Nations. Then there’s Russia. Netanyahu met with President Vladimir Putin four times in the last year. He also worked out a deal…in which Russia will allow Israeli jets to target members of the terrorist group Hezbollah in Syria, where Russians now control the air space.” — Eli Lake (New York Post, June 18, 2016)
“Why has it taken over 70 years for the defendant to be put on trial?…The answer is as simple as it is shocking — German society did not want to deal with the injustice of the Holocaust…It was late, very late…but thankfully it comes in just enough time to provide some justice…This is the very least that our society can do to give survivors of the Holocaust at least a semblance of justice, even 70 years after the crime. Even with a 94-year-old defendant.” — German judge Anke Grudda. Reinhold Hanning, a 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard, was convicted Friday of being an accessory to the murder of 170,000 people, in what could be one of Germany's last Holocaust trials. Hanning was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in facilitating the slaughter at the Auschwitz death camp. Grudda, in a stirring, impassioned hour-long judgment, acknowledged the pain he and his fellow survivors described in their harrowing testimonies earlier this year. “The arbitrary terror was boundless and without any mercy,” she said, admitting that their memories often left her trembling. “They were always on the brink of death.” (National Post, June 17, 2016)
“The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the killer; Old age is no excuse…These are people who are least deserving of any sympathy because they showed no sympathy to their victims, including people who were as old as they are now.” — Efraim Zuroff, the lead Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. According to historian Andreas Eichmuller, 6,500 SS officers at Auschwitz survived the war, but fewer than 100 were ever tried and only 50 were convicted. (National Post, June 17, 2016)
“I feel that my loved ones that were murdered finally got some justice, an acknowledgment against those who say, even today, that this never happened…My murdered mother and father now, perhaps, can rest in peace.” — Hedy Bohm, a Toronto Holocaust survivor whose parents were murdered at Auschwitz. (National Post, June 17, 2016)
SHORT TAKES
TURKEY, ISRAEL TO AGREE NORMALIZATION DEAL (Istanbul) — Turkey and Israel will announce a deal on normalizing ties, ending a six-year diplomatic crisis sparked by an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in which ten Turkish nationals died. Two of Turkey's key conditions for normalization – an apology and compensation – were largely met, leaving its third demand, that Israel lift its blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, as the main obstacle. Under terms of the deal, Israel will allow the completion of a much-needed hospital in Gaza, as well as the construction of a new power station and a sea water distillation plant. Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza in June 2006 after terrorists there snatched an Israeli soldier. The restrictions were tightened when Hamas took control of Gaza. (Arutz Sheva, June 21, 2016)
ISRAEL REPORTEDLY CONSTRUCTING AN UNDERGROUND WALL AROUND GAZA (Jerusalem) — Israel is reportedly constructing a deep underground wall around the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to counter the threat of assault tunnels built by Hamas. The move, which comes almost two years after Israel fought a deadly 50-day war with Hamas in Gaza, was reported by the Israeli news outlet Ynet. The presence of more than 30 Hamas-built attack tunnels around the Gaza periphery shocked Israeli citizens during the 2014 war. At least 14 of the tunnels went under the fence line and into residential communities in Israel. According to the media report, the new wall will update the existing wire border fence, which was constructed in 2005 after Israel withdrew its Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip. It will extend the length of the Palestinian territory’s roughly 40-mile border with Israel and cost an estimated $570 million. (Washington Post, June 19, 2016)
FBI RELEASES PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTS OF MATEEN’S 911 CALLS (Washington) — Orlando gunman Omar Mateen identified himself as an Islamic soldier in calls with authorities during his rampage and demanded to a crisis negotiator that the U.S. “stop bombing Syria and Iraq,” according to transcripts released by the FBI on Monday. The partial, printed transcripts were of a 911 call made by Mateen and three conversations he had with the police crisis negotiators during the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, in which 49 people died and dozens were wounded. In the first call Mateen told a 911 operator, “Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God,” he told the dispatcher, referring to God in Arabic. (National Post, June 20, 2016)
STATE DEPT. DIPLOMATS SLAM OBAMA ON SYRIA (Washington) — More than fifty State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo critical of U.S. policy in Syria, calling for military strikes against President Assad's government to stop its persistent violations of a civil war ceasefire. The "dissent channel cable" was signed by 51 State Department officers advising on Syria policy. It calls for "targeted military strikes" against the Syrian government in light of the near-collapse of the ceasefire brokered earlier this year. Military strikes against the Assad government would represent a major change in the Obama administration's policy of not intervening directly in the Syrian civil war. However, the White House reaffirmed its policy toward Syria and said it wouldn’t be swayed by calls within the State Department for airstrikes to weaken the Assad regime. (Newsmax, & Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2016)
SUICIDE ATTACK KILLS THREE AT ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL IN SYRIA (Aleppo) — A suicide bomber reportedly killed three people Sunday in an attack in the city of Qamishli during an event commemorating the 101st anniversary of the massacre of Assyrian Christians by the Ottoman army in 1915. Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II was presiding over the event and was unharmed. A group that advocates for the protection of Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs and other minorities in Iraq and Syria, posted a comment from Patriarch Ignatius following the attack. "I would like to see Christians remaining here in their homeland of their ancestors. The blood of our martyrs has been mixed with the soil of this land, Bethnahrin for many centuries," he wrote. (CNS News, June 21, 2016)
US-LED COALITION SAYS ONLY 1/3 OF FALLUJAH CLEARED OF I.S. (Baghdad) — Only a third of Fallujah has been "cleared" of I.S., the U.S.-led coalition said Tuesday, days after the Iraqi government declared victory in the city west of Baghdad, which was held by I.S. for more than two years. Iraqi forces pushed into the center of Fallujah on Friday, retaking a government complex and the central hospital. That evening Brig. Gen. Haider al-Obedi, with Iraq's special forces, said his troops controlled 80 percent of the city. But in recent days there have been persistent clashes between Iraqi forces and I.S. fighters holed up in dense residential neighborhoods along the city's northern edge. Fallujah is the last I.S. bastion in the sprawling Anbar province. I.S. still controls pockets of territory in Iraq's north and west, including Mosul, the country's second largest city. (New York Times, June 21, 2016)
LIBERALS RECOGNIZE I.S. ATROCITIES AGAINST YAZIDIS AS GENOCIDE (Ottawa) — After months of pressure from the opposition, the Liberal government has recognized I.S. atrocities against the Yazidi religious minority in Syria and Iraq as genocide. Canada joins the likes of the U.S. and the European Commission in calling the terrorist group’s actions genocide. A UN investigative panel found that I.S. still holds more than 3,200 Yazidi women and children, most of whom are in Syria, where Yazidi women and girls continue to be sexually enslaved. It said thousands of Yazidi men and boys are also missing. (Globe & Mail, June 16, 2016)
SECURITY CONTRACTORS EN ROUTE TO CANADIAN EMBASSY IN KABUL KILLED IN BOMBING (Kabul) — A suicide bomber killed 14 Nepalese security guards in an attack Monday on their minibus in the Afghan capital of Kabul. The Nepalese were on their way to the Canadian Embassy, where they worked as guards, according to another Nepalese guard who was wounded in the attack. A Canadian official confirmed that all embassy staff and officials are safe. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to media, saying it was retaliation for the execution last month of six Taliban prisoners. But in a conflicting statement, the Afghanistan affiliate of I.S. in Iraq and Syria also claimed responsibility. (CBC, June 20, 2016)
TERRORISTS INFILTRATE JORDAN FROM SYRIA, KILL SIX TROOPS (Amman) — A car bomb attack at the Jordanian-Syrian border on Tuesday killed six Jordanian guards and wounded 14 more, a Jordanian army source said. The explosives-laden vehicle exploded a few hundred meters from a camp for Syrian refugees in a desolate eastern area of the country. A Jordanian official source said the attack was launched from the Syrian side of the border. Earlier this month, five people including three Jordanian intelligence officers were killed in an attack on a security office near the Jordanian capital, Amman. The authorities said that was an isolated incident. (Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2016)
IRAN REACHES DEAL TO PURCHASE 100 BOEING PLANES (Tehran) — Iran said it has reached an agreement with U.S. aerospace giant Boeing to purchase 100 aircraft to renew its aging fleet, though the deal must still be approved by the US government. Iran has ordered about 200 planes from three Western manufacturers since January, when economic sanctions were lifted following a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program. A nuclear agreement in July has lifted some of the economic sanctions on Iran in return for limits on the Islamic Republic’s controversial atomic program. Many of Iran’s aging civil aviation fleet are in desperate need of replacement. (Times of Israel, June 19, 2016)
FORMER MOSSAD CHIEF JOINS BOARD OF ‘UNITED AGAINST NUCLEAR IRAN’ (Jerusalem) — Former Mossad director Tamir Pardo is joining the board of directors of the American ‘United Against Nuclear Iran‘ organization, a non-profit group intent on raising awareness about the dangers posed by the Iranian regime. Members of the group include former heads of the CIA, Sen. Joe Lieberman and a number of other officials from around the world. The organization was founded in 2008 by U.S. Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, the late U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former CIA director Jim Woolsey and Middle East expert Dennis Ross. UANI operates at an international level, working to convince domestic and global corporations not to do business with Iran. (Jewish Press, June 21, 2016)
IRAN ORDERED TO TURN OVER TORONTO HOUSE TO VICTIMS OF TERROR (Toronto) — A tiny house in the North York area of Toronto may be vacant and run-down, but the story behind it is replete with terrorism and diplomatic headaches. An Ontario court found that the building — as well as another empty property in Ottawa and two bank accounts — is owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran. And last week, a Toronto judge dismissed the country’s arguments of state immunity from seizure of property and ordered that the assets be turned over to American victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism who have won cases against Iran in U.S. courts. The complex case highlights the little-known fact that federal legislation allows for victims of state-sponsored terrorism from other countries, and their families, to ask Canadian courts to seize Iranian assets here if they can prove their case. (Toronto Star, June 20, 2016)
ABBAS, HERZOG REPORTEDLY AGREED ON BROAD PEACE FRAMEWORK (Jerusalem) — PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog reached understandings on the main principles of a peace agreement through secret talks they conducted prior to the 2015 election. The two agreed that the Arab Peace Initiative should be the basis for a new Middle East reality to be created by the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. However, Herzog shelved these understandings immediately after the election. The two reportedly agreed that the Palestinian state should include an area equivalent to 100 percent of the territory Israel captured in 1967. They also agreed that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a Palestinian state and Israel would withdraw from that part of the city, but both halves of the city would be governed by a single municipal administration. (Ha’aretz, June 19, 2016)
ADL: DRAMATIC RISE IN US ANTI-SEMITIC ASSAULTS IN LAST YEAR (Washington) — According to new data released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the US saw a dramatic increase of violent antisemitic assaults, contributing to almost a three percent rise in the number of antisemitic incidents during 2015. The ADL reported a total of 941 incidents recorded in the US during 2015, up from 912 recorded in 2014. The largest increase of antisemitic incidents recorded were incidents at college campuses, which nearly doubled. The ADL reported that while antisemitism had declined recently in the US overall, reaching its highest peak in 2006 with 1,554 incidents reported, the rising trend in campus antisemitism, violent assaults and online hate-speech is greatly worrying. (Jerusalem Post, June 22, 2016)
MASS NAZI SALUTE AT EURO 2016 MATCH SPURS INVESTIGATION (Paris) — French police are investigating a group of Hungarian soccer fans who were caught on camera performing the Nazi salute during their team’s Euro 2016 match against Iceland. The fans in question, believed by police to be far-Right “ultras” (soccer enthusiasts whose fanaticism about the game often erupts into violence), were wearing identical black shirts with the word “Magyarország” (Hungary) in white letters, as they made the gesture, en masse, in the direction of the competing team. The Stade Velodrome, the stadium in Marseilles where the match took place, is located near a Jewish district, whose residents regularly complain of intimidation from antisemites. (Algemeiner, June 19, 2016)
PROSECUTOR TURNING AROUND POOR RECORD AT CONVICTING SS SOLDIERS (Berlin) —Thomas Walther is a retired German judge outraged by how little his country has done to bring Nazis to justice. More than 120,000 investigations of suspected Nazi war criminals were carried out by post-war Germany, but only 560 people were ever convicted. Walther has pursued the last surviving ex-Nazis in a way that is beginning to turn those results around. One of his first successes was John Demjanjuk, a former Ukrainian and later Ohio autoworker, and former SS guard at the Nazi extermination camp of Sobibor. Walther convinced German prosecutors they could bring him to trial because he stood guard as thousands were marched into the gas chambers. And now, his work on behalf of 30 of the 57 plaintiffs in the case of Reinhold Hanning has resulted in a guilty verdict. (National Post, June 17, 2016)
BIBLICAL SHEEP TO END 3,000-YEAR EXILE (Toronto) — A flock of sheep from Canada is even closer to making “baa-aliyah” after El Al agreed this week to subsidize the cost of flying the 113 sheep from Toronto to Tel Aviv. The sheep belong to Gil and Jenna Lewinsky, and are called “Jacob sheep” because they sport the markings of “spots and speckles” that also characterized the sheep forefather Jacob took from his father-in-law in the book of Genesis. The Lewinskys are still working to secure land where they hope to house them in a farm that will be open to visits from the public. They are still working to raise approximately $200,000, including around $30,000 to get the sheep from British Columbia to Toronto, where they will board a direct flight to Israel. (Times of Israel, June 21, 2016)
KNESSET APPROVES NATIONAL HOLIDAY TO CELEBRATE IMMIGRATION TO ISRAEL (Jerusalem) — A bill creating Israel’s newest national holiday, Yom HaAliyah, passed its final reading in the Knesset. Yom HaAliyah pays homage to Aliyah – immigration to Israel – as a cornerstone of both Israel’s founding and its future. The law also makes history with Israel becoming the first country in the world to dedicate a national holiday to honoring the contribution of immigrants. Although the legislation earmarks the 10th of Nisan, Israeli schools and the Knesset, which are on Passover recess during that time, will mark the national holiday on the 7th of Heshvan, coinciding with the Torah portion in which God commands Abraham to leave his home and head for the land of Israel. (Breitbart, June 22, 2016)
Jewish Commentators on Brexit: Jeremy Sharon: Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2016—With the UK poised for its fateful referendum on Thursday to decide whether to stay in the European Union or leave the continent to its own devices, political commentators from the Jewish community have weighed in both for and against Brexit.
Why I Voted Against My Party: Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, National Post, June 16, 2016—On Tuesday, I stood with three of my Liberal colleagues to support a Conservative motion. My government encourages reasonable and respectful disagreement, yet it was still an odd position to be in, and one that I’d like to explain to my constituents and to Canadians. The actions of ISIL are unspeakable, and should be condemned without reservation. But do they amount to genocide? The Conservative motion called on the House to declare yes.
Is ISIS a GOP Franchise?: Caroline Glick, Breaking Israel News, June 16, 2016—Is Islamic State opposed to gay marriage? Was anger at the US Supreme Court’s decision mandating recognition of homosexual marriage what prompted Omar Mateen to massacre fifty Americans at the gay nightclub in Orlando on Saturday night?
Remaking Rutland with Refugees: Sonia Bailley, American Thinker, May 24, 2016 —The character of the city of Rutland, Vermont is facing major change. Nestled in the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont, it is an unsuspecting city targeted for refugee resettlement. After being kept in the dark since their mayor’s unilateral decision to accept 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees in October, Rutland citizens should investigate the threatening impact that refugee resettlement has on their own public security, economic stability and community health before it’s too late.
Terror Show at a Gaza Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony (Video): Youtube, June 1, 2016 —The following is a translated report by Israel's channel 1 news of a kindergarten graduation party held in Gaza, courtesy of the Islamic Jihad movement. This is but one of many examples showing the anti-Israel incitement and indoctrination prominent in various sections of the Palestinian public.
