Israel Newsbriefs from JNS.org

Jewish crime-fighting volunteers in London met over the weekend with Muslim leaders and agreed to patrol mosques and other Islamic buildings to reduce anti-Muslim hate crimes.

Since the murder of British soldier Drummer Lee Rigby on the street by Muslim extremists in southeast London, anti-Muslim hate crimes have risen in Great Britain.

The local Muslim community turned to the local Liberal Democrat councillor, Ian Sharer, who connected them to the Shomrim — Jewish volunteers who collaborate with authorities to prevent crimes, including hate crimes — the London Jewish Chronicle reported.

“This is a very serious situation, and so I thought, why not call my friends from Shomrim? We wanted to see if we could offer them protection and also security lessons,” Sharer said. The collaboration is “just the beginning of a long-term partnership between the two communities,” said Shomrim patrol supervisor Chaim Hochhauser.

Ramallah protesters call

for launch of third intifada

Arab demonstrators with covered faces marched in Ramallah on Monday, calling for the launch of a third intifada (uprising) against Israel and chanting “military action is the shortest route to end occupation.”

Ma’an News Agency reported that the protester group called Tamarod (rebellion), the same name as the movement that protested recently deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, included both men and women who chanted that a new intifada will revive the Palestinian cause.

“If you want a third intifada to break, you have to rebel against the Palestinian reality which the current leadership brought due to their disputes and different trends,” the protester group posted on its Facebook page.

Service bill does not apply

to Israel’s Arabs

A bill requiring eligible haredi men to report for military duty or civilian service in Israel was approved in a 14-4 vote by the Israeli cabinet on Sunday.

Israeli Arabs were excluded from the proposed bill’s requirements.

“I attach a great deal of importance to involving [haredim] and Israel’s Arab citizens in sharing the national burden, and the current proposal does address the issue, but I feel that it isn’t complete yet,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We will have to continue dealing with the matter.”

The bill states that starting in 2017, all eligible such men over the age of 18 will be expected to report at the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) induction centers for enlistment, excluding 1,800 students who will be granted exemptions. The proposal allows for a three-year deferment of service, after which each individual will have to decide whether to serve in the IDF or a civilian program.

Christian-Arab defends her

allegiance to Jewish state

A young Israeli-Arab Christian woman, Rajada Jaraisi, has taken to social media to speak out in support of Israel and the right to enlist the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Jaraisi’s statement on Facebook comes amid tension within the Israeli-Arab community over military service. Recently, Greek Orthodox cleric Father Gabriel Nadaf was allegedly threatened by Arab members of the Israeli Knesset for encouraging Arab Christian youths to enlist in the IDF. Israel’s attorney general has launched an investigation into the incident, Israel Hayom reported.

In an open letter to Arab MK Hanin Zoabi posted on her Facebook account, Jaraisi said that Zoabi does not speak for her or for other Israeli Christians.

“Hear me, we are not Palestinians and we don’t care about them. We are Israeli Christians, covered in blue and white in our hearts and souls,” Jaraisi wrote, according to a translation provided by The Jewish Press.

Jaraisi added, “We simply love blue and white. And we as Christians will enlist in the IDF and will serve the state.”

Women of Wall face thousands of counter-protestors

Between 5,000 and 7,000 Orthodox seminary girls turned out to at the Western Wall on Monday, Rosh Chodesh Av, to counter and prevent the monthly prayer session of the controversial prayer-rights activist group Women of the Wall.

Approximately 250-300 people showed up to participate in Monday’s prayer service of Women of the Wall, which seeks egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall, as opposed to the current gender separation at the site. United Torah Judaism political party organized the appearance of the seminary girls, the Jerusalem Post reported. Meanwhile, a smaller group of about 1,000 ultra-Orthodox men stood nearby, shouting insults at the women’s group.

According to the Associated Press, the Women of the Wall accused the Israeli police of cooperating with the Orthodox protesters. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld denied the allegation and said the police were protecting the women’s group. The police arrested three Orthodox male protestors for public disturbance.

Girls on PA TV call Jews pigs

Two young sisters demonized Israel and the Jewish people in a poem they recited on Palestinian Authority TV (PA TV), with one of the girls calling Jews “barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs,” Palestinian Media Watch reported in its July 7 bulletin.

On the PA TV program “Palestine This Morning” on July 3, one of the girls said of Jews, “Oh, you who were brought up on spilling blood — you have been condemned to humiliation and hardship. Oh Sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations; oh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs.”

The other girl advocated for armed violence against Israel in the name of Islam, saying about Jerusalem, “As long as my heart is my Quran and my city; As long as I have my arm and my stones; As long as I am free and do not barter my cause; I will not fear your throngs; I will not fear the rifle.”

Holocaust survivors to get

Hungarian compensation

Hungary will resume compensation to Holocaust survivors after settling a dispute with the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), ending a year-long freeze on payments. About 600,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The Hungarian government had signed a five-year agreement with the Claims Conference in 2007 to distribute $21 million to Holocaust survivors, but then accused the Claims Conference of improper calculations. The Claims Conference denied that accusation. The parties have now agreed to bring in an independent international auditing firm to monitor all accounting.

Most Israelis say apology for flotilla incident unjustified

Seventy-one percent of Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apology to his Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident was unjustified, a new poll revealed.

The poll, commissioned by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and conducted over the phone from June 16-19, found that 85 percent of Israelis say their chances of going on vacation to Turkey in the near future are very low. Only 28 percent of Israelis believe that relations between Israel and Turkey under Erdogan will improve in the near future, while 42 percent think relations will stay the same and 30 percent believe they will deteriorate further. — Israel Hayom

Casspi signs with Houston

Omri Casspi, the first Israeli-born player in National Basketball Association (NBA) history, has agreed to terms on a two-year, $2 million contract with the Houston Rockets, who will be his third NBA team, the Houston Chronicle reported.

A 6-foot-9 forward whose four NBA seasons have been split between the Sacramento Kings and Cleveland Cavaliers, Casspi averaged career-lows of 4.0 points and 2.7 rebounds per game last season for the Cavaliers. His best season came as a rookie in 2009-10, when he averaged 10.3 points and 4.5 rebounds per game for the Kings.

Casspi will be joined in the state of Texas next season by the second Israel-born player in NBA history, 6-foot-3 Israeli point guard Gal Mekel, who reportedly agreed to a three-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks last week.

Oren leaving ambassadorship

Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. since July 2009, announced on Friday that he plans to step down from the position this fall.

“Israel and the United States have always enjoyed a special relationship and, throughout these years of challenge, I was privileged to take part in forging even firmer bonds,” Oren said in a statement on his Facebook page.

Oren, who grew up in New Jersey, is Israel’s first American-born ambassador to the U.S., and his replacement could be the second. In late June, Army Radio reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would appoint his close aide Ron Dermer, a native of Miami Beach, as Oren’s successor.

‘Further evidence’ Hezbollah was behind Bulgaria bombing

Tsvetlin Yovchev, the new interior minister of Bulgaria, said “further evidence had been added” to an investigation implicating Hezbollah in the July 2012 bus bombing in Burgas (Sarafovo) that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver.

There has been “no change” in Bulgaria’s view — as expressed by former interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov — that there is a “justified assumption” that Hezbollah was behind the Burgas bombing, Yovchev said July 4.

“I am familiar with all the facts and the investigation conclusions up to this moment. My expert opinion is that the assessment and the statement that followed are correct. I support them,” he said.

In June, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin appeared to backtrack from Bulgaria’s investigation into the Burgas bombing that implicated Hezbollah, saying there was only an “indication” that Hezbollah was behind the attack. But Vigenin went on to clarify his remarks, telling Bulgaria’s Standart newspaper that Bulgaria had “not reconsidered its stand on Hezbollah” from the initial investigation.

Israeli high school students

win contest with robot wedding

A team of ninth-graders from a high school in Rehovot, Israel, won the RoboCup 2013 international robotics competition in Holland with their robotic re-enactment of a Jewish wedding.

The competition included contestants from more than 40 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Slovenia and Turkey. The students had been tasked with creating robots to act out one of three scenarios: A soccer match between a pair of two-person robot teams, a choreographed dance, or a rescue robot that can identify victims at disaster scenes and navigate to safety.

“We [the students and I] built bride and groom robots that, using sensors, know to enter the wedding canopy and start dancing. The robots we built are considered tall, at 1.3 meters [4 feet], and that also impressed people in the competition,” said Sarit Zaltsman, the teacher in charge of the robotics division at the high school.

‘Christian Century’ under fire

The Christian Century, a mainline Christian magazine based in Chicago, has come under fire from the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) for its ties to James M. Wall, an associate editor at the controversial Veterans News Now (VNN), who appears on the publication’s masthead.

CAMERA said that VNN is a magazine that “traffics in ugly anti-Semitic tropes and imagery,” including several recent pieces that highlighted “Jesus’ Aryan identity” and a pro-Iran piece titled “Abraham is Not My Father.” On the front page of VNN on July 3, an article titled “Earth’s alpha predator: Zionist Mafia” argues that the American public has been “brainwashed by lies” from the Zionists.

In a statement to CAMERA, David Heim, executive editor at The Christian Century, defended Wall’s association with his magazine.

“James Wall did a lot for our magazine,” Heim said. “He deserves to be on our masthead.”

Heim added that he appreciates the different perspectives Wall brings to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict.

German cartoon depicting Israel as wild monster draws ire

Israeli Ambassador to Germany Yakov Hadas-Handelsman and Jewish activists criticized a major Munich newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, for publishing a cartoon demonizing Israel.

The cartoon — which the newspaper has since apologized for and called “a mistake” — depicted Israel as a wild monster about to feast with a fork and a knife while being served by a woman, along with the wording, “Germany is serving. Israel has been given weapons for decades ¬and partly free of charge. Israel’s enemies think it is a ravenous Moloch.”

Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper said, “The characterization of the Jewish state as a ravenous Moloch — an idol to whom children were sacrificed — is a blatant anti-Semitic canard,” the Jerusalem Post reported.