Rabbi Sydney Shoham z”l, Rabbi of Beth Zion Congregation in Montreal, was our spiritual guide and good friend. He officiated at our son’s Bar Mitzvah and other family events. When we heard the sad news this morning, after being out of town for a few weeks, we immediately began reflecting on what a great and inspiring individual Rabbi Shoham was. In 2007, shortly after his retirement, while I was co-chair of the Israel Bonds-Business Division, we decided to honor the Rabbi and use the opportunity to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem. Under his resourceful direction and guidance, we put together an unforgettable audio-visual show about Jerusalem and its history. What a pleasure it was to work in a team with Rabbi Shoham, a brilliant scholar and an effective organizer. We are deeply saddened by his sudden passing: the Jewish community of Montreal has lost one of its pillars and most beloved spiritual leaders. May his memory be a blessing to us all and at this time we wish to offer Jewel and the extended Shoham family our most sincere condolences. ותנצב"ה יהי זכרו ברוך .
Jacob Kincler, Board Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
[Rabbi Sydney Shoham served as sole spiritual leader of Beth Zion Congregation in Montreal for 50 years—Ed.]
Basic Protection: Jerusalem Post, Sept. 17, 2015 — Alexander Levlovitz, 64, was not killed in a car crash Sunday night, as some reports over-cautiously phrased it.
UN Bias Encourages Palestinian Violence: Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, Sept. 20, 2015 — With incidents of Palestinian violence growing in recent weeks, Israelis are wondering now if the Jewish New Year that is just beginning will soon bring with it a new war with Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
The Muslim Schism Over Jerusalem: Pinhas Inbari, JCPA, Sept. 22, 2015— The notion of a “conflict over Jerusalem” immediately brings an association with the Arab-Israeli conflict over the Holy City.
UN Gives Palestinians Flags, But No Democracy: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, Sept. 17, 2015 — Last week, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of a motion allowing the Palestinian flag to be flown in front of the UN buildings.
More Than Half of Palestinians Oppose Two-State Solution, Survey Shows: Algemeiner, Sept. 21, 2015
Senior Israeli Official: World Needs to See Through Abbas's 'Charade': Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 24, 2015
Who are Temple Mount's Mourabitoun?: Shlomi Eldar, Al Monitor, Sept. 18, 2015
Obama’s Partners in the PA-PLO and Their American Victims: Michael Lumish, Jewish Press, Aug. 18, 2015
Jerusalem Post, Sept. 17, 2015
Alexander Levlovitz, 64, was not killed in a car crash Sunday night, as some reports over-cautiously phrased it. Levlovitz, driving home in Jerusalem from Rosh Hashana dinner, was murdered in cold-blood by Arab stone-throwers whose aim was hardly innocuous. Stone-throwers are terrorists in every sense of the word, and they are out to cause harm – preferably fatal, if they “succeed.”
Hurling rocks at moving vehicles is invariably an extreme act of malice aforethought. There are no pacifist and compassionate stoners. An act of intentional premeditated violence cannot be downplayed as nonviolent and trivialized as frivolous by harried law-enforcers, overworked prosecutors or aloof judges.
There are no scripted, guaranteed conclusions to any stone-throwing incident. Motorists may – as was the case with Levlovitz – suffer a coronary episode and lose control of their car. This doesn’t make the dire outcome the result of a random car accident because the misfortune wasn’t triggered by a medical mishap or by any haphazard misjudgment on part of the driver. In the circumstances of such attacks, there’s no telling which driver might crash and what may transpire as a result. This should be elementary to our judiciary, but evidently it isn’t.
Moreover, such essential context and information must be accentuated relentlessly to foreign news outlets, most of which failed altogether to even mention Levlovitz’s murder. Likewise, there was no condemnation from world leaders who rarely pass up any opportunity to rake Israel over the coals on any pretext. The tendency internationally is often to belittle the crime of stone-throwing and regard it as an expression of youthful exuberance, which is how the Arab communities which send out brainwashed youths to target Jewish traffic like to present things. Unthinkably, stoning Jews has become a popular sport which is glorified in Arab society as heroic.
There’s nothing grassroots or spontaneous about the end-products of systemic and incessant incitement to homicide. Regrettably, the fact that many of the rock-throwers are young puts temptation before our clogged judicial system to process the cases speedily by meting out negligible punishments. Therefore, the latest government initiative to legislate minimal sentencing requirements is nothing less than vital.
Maximum sentencing guidelines exist on our law books – and indeed were rendered more stringent only last July. Yet these don’t oblige judges and don’t mitigate the inclination to dispose of bothersome cases via ludicrously light sentences (some of them, involving only short stints of community service). Significantly, the heaviest sentence imposed this year on a stone-thrower was 22 months, in a case in which a baby was critically wounded. The cumulative total for the crimes committed in that particular incident could have amounted to a 30-year term.
Attacks on innocent travelers mustn’t be belittled merely because the weapon of choice isn’t a firearm. “Cold” projectiles can also kill and they have – too many tragic times. These projectiles aren’t necessarily tiny pebbles, though size shouldn’t count here. Often large rocks are hurled, heavy cement blocks and even outright boulders. Stones, rocks, blocks and boulders all kill.
Back in the 2000 intifada, Bechor Zhan, traveling with his brother south from Haifa on the coastal highway, was murdered by rock-throwing teens from Jisr a-Zarka. In 2001, Yehuda Shoham, just five months old, had his skull crushed by rock-throwers. Asher Palmer, and his infant son, Yonatan, were both killed in 2011 when their car was pelted with stones. Last February, four-year-old Adele Biton died after two agonizing years in which she lay semi-comatose following a March 2013 stoning attack. Arab terrorists hurled rocks at the family car driven by Adele’s mother, Adva. Its passengers were Adva’s three young daughters. As the vehicle passed near Ariel, a hail of rocks caused it to overturn.
Stoning attacks have claimed many more lives over the years and they are ongoing and rampant. Nobody is immune when private and public transport is targeted. The very least which the state and its legal establishment owe the public is basic protection. If this realization must be reinforced by legislation, so be it.
UN BIAS ENCOURAGES PALESTINIAN VIOLENCE
Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary, Sept. 20, 2015
With incidents of Palestinian violence growing in recent weeks, Israelis are wondering now if the Jewish New Year that is just beginning will soon bring with it a new war with Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Hamas has been hard at work in recent months digging new terror tunnels and fortifying the strip with Iranian assistance. But the decision of the Palestinian Authority and its leader Mahmoud Abbas to try to compete with the Islamists by ramping up tensions in Jerusalem has made a renewal of last year’s fighting an even greater possibility. But rather than seek to calm these tensions, the United States has been largely silent about Abbas’s incitement as well as Iran’s role in stirring up more trouble. Just as troubling is the way the United Nations Security Council has reacted to the dispute over the Temple Mount. Last week, it issued a statement that made it clear the international community has no respect for Jewish rights in the holy city. But it also indicated that it is openly siding with Palestinians who are seeking to use this issue as a way to stir up even more hatred against Israelis and Jews. The willingness of the Obama administration to acquiesce to this disreputable stand shows its untrustworthiness as an ally as well as the dangers that lie ahead for Israel should the president seek to restart peace talks.
Any discussion about the Temple Mount must begin with an acknowledgment that Israel has sought to preserve the unsatisfactory status quo whereby the holiest spot in Judaism remains under the sole authority of a Muslim Wakf. Jews are prohibited from praying on the site, a rule enforced by Israeli police. But not even this is enough to satisfy Palestinian radicals who routinely harass non-Muslim visitors and subject Jews who dare to ascend the plateau to constant abuse. Just as bad, the mosques there have been used as staging areas for Arab violence with stones and firebombs stored there. While a minority of Jews has agitated for the right to pray there, the “hardline” Netanyahu has resolutely opposed them. But it has been forced to step in to forestall violence on the Temple Mount, which overlooks the Western Wall Plaza.
But as they have done throughout the last century, Palestinian leaders are using the Temple Mount to fuel more hatred by claiming that Jews are trying to destroy the mosques. Even supposed moderate Abbas said this week that he was seeking to prevent “filthy Jewish feet” from desecrating holy places and did so without criticism from the Obama administration that has lauded him as a force for peace. The number of incidents in which Palestinians used firebombs or stones to attack Jews, included one in which a 64-year-old Jewish man was murdered on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, is rising. Not to be outdone, the possibility of Hamas using its massive rocket arsenal to up the ante with both Israel and Abbas’s Fatah Party may bring the region to the brink of another war.
Yet faced with this crisis, the UN Security Council issued a statement that both ignored the truth about what is happening on the Temple Mount. The Security Council referred to the Temple Mount — the site of the biblical Holy Temples — upon which Muslim conquerors subsequently built mosques only by its Arabic name, the Haram al-Sharif. This is a blatant denial of both Jewish and Christian ties to the site. Nor did it mention that Palestinians who seek to deny not only Jewish rights but also Jewish history in Jerusalem solely initiated the violence there.
It ignored the question of Jewish rights and merely stated that the “Muslim worshippers at the Haram Al-Sharif must be allowed to worship in peace, free from violence, threats, and provocations.” This is absurd since no one is threatening Muslim worshippers there with violence. To the contrary, it is the Palestinians who are threatening the Jews as well as seeking to prevent Jews from exercising their rights.
But while this latest example of UN bias against Israel might be dismissed as meaningless, it is actually quite significant. Palestinian leaders seeking to foment a wave of religious hatred against Israel will only be encouraged by this kind of international support to step up their incitement. Moreover, they cannot have failed to note that the United States went along with this sort of one-sided approach to a dispute in which the Palestinians are the ones who are seeking to escalate.
This does more than give Abbas an incentive to keep stoking the fires of hate in order to make his faction appear to be as militant as Hamas. It may provide the justification for more terrorism against Jews in Jerusalem or the West Bank that will be viewed by Palestinians as a defense of their religion. Just as last year’s war began with violence in the West Bank, there is always the chance that the same pattern could repeat itself leading to more bloodshed. But even if the cease-fire with Hamas holds and all Abbas will do is to posture and threaten without more violence, this stance on Jerusalem by the UN and the United States is a portent of future diplomatic trouble for Israel.
By treating the Temple Mount in this manner, the U.S. is signaling the Palestinians that they need not moderate their stance on seeking Jerusalem’s division should peace talks ever resume. It also illustrates the fallacy behind expecting the Palestinian Authority to respect Jewish rights even in the event that they were prepared to sign a peace agreement. This effort is more proof that the goal of the Palestinians isn’t just to re-partition Jerusalem but rather to deny Jewish claims and evict hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in the currently undivided city.
Of course, that is a purely theoretical problem since Abbas has repeatedly showed that he will not agree to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. But it does undermine Obama’s rationale for pressuring Israel to bribe the Palestinians to come back to the peace table should that be on the top of his agenda when he meets next with Prime Minister Netanyahu in November.
By backing Abbas in his effort to needlessly inflame Muslim sentiments about Jerusalem, the UN and Obama are playing with fire. If the president truly cares about peace, instead of backing Abbas’s incitement, he should be issuing a clear warning to the Palestinians that he will support Israel’s effort to crack down on terror. Anything less than that will constitute a green light to both Fatah and Hamas as they continue pushing the region down the road to more conflict.
THE MUSLIM SCHISM OVER JERUSALEM
Pinhas Inbari
JCPA, Sept. 22, 2015
The notion of a “conflict over Jerusalem” immediately brings an association with the Arab-Israeli conflict over the Holy City. Surprisingly, however, amid the systematic destruction of mosques and holy places in the Arab world, it is precisely Israel’s responsibility for security at the mosque compound on the Temple Mount that protects the mosques there from a similar fate. To understand the nature of the danger to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one needs to understand the disputes within the world of Islam over the mosque and over the importance of Jerusalem in general.
Islam is divided into the Shia and the Sunna, but the Sunna is also divided into two main groups: the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood. There are other groups as well, such as the Sufis, but that does not concern us in this discussion.
The controversy between the Salafis – from whom Al-Qaeda emerged and who are also known as Wahabis – and the Muslim Brotherhood is about, among other things, what constitutes the center of Islam. Whereas the Salafis view the Arabian sites of Hijaz and Mecca as the center of the faith, the Muslim Brotherhood locates it at the Cairo Al-Azhar University, founded in the year 970 as a center for Islamic studies from which rulings and edicts on Islam and Islamic culture emerge. But because Cairo has no special religious holiness, the Brotherhood regards Jerusalem as their religious center. Thus, from the Salafis’ standpoint, the Muslim Brotherhood’s enhancement of the special status of Jerusalem poses a danger to the status of Mecca.
The conflict is not only theoretical and theological but concerns positions of power. In Syria, for example, the Salafi Islamic State is engaged in an outright war with the Nusra Front of the Muslim Brotherhood. [Editor’s note: The author exposes Al Nusra’s affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Until now, reports suggested Al Nusra was an offshoot of Al-Qaeda.]
The theological debate, of course, is undergirded by the political-military struggle between the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood. One source of the theological disagreements between the two sides is the attitude toward holy places. Whereas the Salafis frown upon the cult of holy places other than Mecca and Medina and destroy such sites systematically – and not only antiquities and shrines of Christianity but Muslim shrines as well – the Muslim Brotherhood accepts the icons of holy places.
This religious controversy also involves Jerusalem. “Liberating Al-Aqsa” or “Al-Aqsa is in danger” are main motifs of the Muslim Brotherhood’s preaching throughout the region. Salafis, however, downplay the issue of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa to the point of omitting it altogether. And whereas the Muslim Brotherhood focuses on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, the Salafis focus on a more immediate goal: “conquering Rome” – that is, the Christian world.
Although the Salafis do not state explicitly that they reject the status of Jerusalem in Islam, it can be inferred from where they place their emphases. For example, it appears that there is a Salafi cleric in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, and he has a website called The Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. At the site, however, the reference to Al-Aqsa is geographic – the marking of a place. There is no reference to its holiness, only to various religious matters with no discussion of Jerusalem or Al-Aqsa at all.
On one of the Facebook pages that reveal Salafi followers’ attitudes, a follower called Abdullah wrote: “One must ask why the Prophet first conquered Mecca and [many other places] before he turned to Jerusalem? Why didn’t the first caliph, Abu Bakr, conquer it? And why did Omar conquer it only after many other conquests? And also, why did Saladin conquer it only after he had defeated the Fatimids in Egypt and spread the Sunni school in Egypt and at Al-Azhar?” For him, Jerusalem was at the bottom of agenda for the Prophet and his successors, and Mecca was at the top. Against this backdrop, the proclamation that the Islamic State disseminated in Jerusalem during the most recent Ramadan should come as no surprise: it did not refer to Al-Aqsa or Jerusalem, but only warned Christians to leave the Muslims’ neighborhoods…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
UN GIVES PALESTINIANS FLAGS, BUT NO DEMOCRACY
Khaled Abu Toameh
Gatestone Institute, Sept. 17, 2015
Last week, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of a motion allowing the Palestinian flag to be flown in front of the UN buildings. The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership and various "pro-Palestinian" groups have hailed the vote as a "symbolic victory" for the Palestinians. The Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said that the vote regarding the flag would be "another step" towards solidifying Palestinian statehood.
The 119 UN member states that voted in favor of the motion are apparently convinced that this is a "big victory" for the Palestinians and their political aspirations. But what these countries do not know is that flying a Palestinian flag outside UN buildings is probably the last thing Palestinians need at this stage.
The vote in favor of hoisting the flag is not going to bring democracy, freedom of expression and transparency to Palestinians. The Palestinians do not need "symbolic victories" such as the one concerning the Palestinian flag. A Palestinian living in the West Bank or Gaza Strip does not really care if his flag is flown in front of a UN building. For Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, there are more urgent matters that need to be dealt with immediately, such as the harsh economic conditions and the repressive measures of the Hamas regime. For those living in the West Bank, economic development, employment and democracy are more important than any flag raised in front of the UN headquarters.
But the countries that voted in favor of the motion do not really care about the needs and interests of the Palestinians. They do not care if the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip respectively are functioning as repressive and corrupt regimes that have no respect for human rights or public freedoms. The vote was mainly directed against Israel. Its main goal was to taunt Israel rather than help the Palestinians move closer towards building an independent state. The vote at the UN concerning the Palestinian flag came amid increased human rights violations by both the PA and Hamas. But since when does the UN care about human rights violations committed by the PA and Hamas against their own people?
The UN state members that voted in favor of raising the flag pay attention to human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip only when there is a way to lay the blame on Israel. In recent weeks, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have reported a number of incidents that demonstrate how the Palestinian Authority and Hamas continue to show complete disregard for due process, human rights and freedom of expression. These incidents continued even as the 119 UN members raised their hands in favor of the hoisting of the Palestinian flag.
In the Gaza Strip, for example, Hamas security officers beat and detained a number of local journalists who tried to cover the removal of debris from homes that were destroyed during last year's military confrontation between Hamas and Israel. One of the journalists, Fadel al-Hamami, was hit in the face with the butt of a rifle and had to rush to a hospital for treatment. Hamas does not want journalists to cover any reconstruction work in the Gaza Strip. It wants the world to continue believing that the Palestinians are still unable to rebuild their houses because of Israeli "restrictions" and lack of international funds. That is why the journalists who tried to cover the removal of the debris were physically assaulted and detained for interrogation.
The UN General Assembly, of course, did not hear about this incident when its members voted in favor of raising the Palestinian flag outside its buildings. Even if the UN does hear about it, it is unlikely that the General Assembly or the Security Council would ever issue a statement condemning the assault on representatives of the media. Nor is the UN going to condemn Hamas's use of force to disperse Palestinians protesting against power cuts in the southern Gaza Strip. The lack of electricity has triggered widespread protests throughout the Gaza Strip, where many Palestinians hold the Hamas government fully responsible. Eyewitnesses said Hamas policemen used live ammunition and clubs to disperse the protesters…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
More Than Half of Palestinians Oppose Two-State Solution, Survey Shows: Algemeiner, Sept. 21, 2015— Fifty-one percent of Palestinians now oppose a two-state solution with Israel, according to the results of a survey conducted among 1,270 people in the West Bank and Gaza from Sept. 17-19 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Senior Israeli Official: World Needs to See Through Abbas's 'Charade': Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 24, 2015 — The international community should end the “charade” whereby Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to negotiate with Israel, deliberately creates a crisis, adds to the crisis through inflammatory rhetoric and then pleads to the world to “save us,” a senior government official said on Wednesday night.
Who are Temple Mount's Mourabitoun?: Shlomi Eldar, Al Monitor, Sept. 18, 2015— The battle over the Temple Mount is heating up. It is no longer just an occasional violent clash between Muslims and Jews, but daily battles with increasingly violent and growing numbers of participants. Loyal “soldiers” in “God’s army” are deployed on both sides, willing to sacrifice themselves in the religious war being waged over one of their holy sites.
Obama’s Partners in the PA-PLO and Their American Victims: Michael Lumish, Jewish Press, Aug. 18, 2015 —The Obama administration has asked a judge Monday to “carefully consider” the size of the bond demanded from the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its role orchestrating years of terror attacks against Israelis and Jews – directly interfering in a US court case.
