London Jewish couple honored for rescuing killer they helped to convict

(JTA) — London police honored a Jewish Orthodox couple for helping to solve a murder case and for rescuing a wounded man from Turkish mafia thugs who tried to kill him.

Haim and Rachel Bublil, 33 and 32, received a certificate of appreciation on March 18 from the High Sheriff of Greater London for rescuing and then secretly recording Samuel Zerai, 22, reveal the identity of his shooter, Jamie Marsh-Smith. The recording also has Zerai incriminating March-Smith in a murder that occurred just before Marsh-Smith shot Zerai, the newspaper Alondon reported this week.

Haim Bublil, who was born in Israel, and his French-born wife met Zerai last year, when he showed up at their home in Tottenham and begged them to let him in so he could escape Turkish mafia thugs who had shot him, the Alondon monthly reported.

Zerai told the couple that hours before he was injured, he helped March-Smith kill Zafer Eren of the Tottenham Turks gang. Zerai was March-Smith’s getaway driver but March-Smith shot Zerai because he was a potential witness to the murder. Zerai was severely wounded but managed to escape into the Bublils’ residence, where they live with their six children.

Zerai believed he was going to die, Haim Bublil told Alondon, so he told the couple the whole story, which Haim Bublil recorded. Zerai asked the Bublils not to call the police. Haim Bublil spoke in Hebrew to the Shomrim volunteer guards of the Jewish community and asked them to call the police anyway.

Zerai and March-Smith are among several criminals convicted thanks to the Bublils’ actions.

At one point, Haim Bublil fought off thugs who chased Zerai to Bublil’s home with a large barbecue fork, he said. Then the couple began applying pressure to Zerai’s wounds to stop his bleeding.

But Haim Bublil said the couple was offended when police treated them as suspects in the beginning of the investigation.

In that situation, “Jews will help anyone, regardless of faith or origin,” he said.

Israelis Haven't Lost Hope in Peace, but Are More Prudent About the Process

While not all Israelis support Netanyahu, most share his fundamental foreign policy concerns.

Prior to the Israeli elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came under fire for securing his right-wing base when he stated, "I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel."

Those on the left, he cautioned, are ignoring reality by "burying their heads in the sand." From there he went on to say that he would not support such a Palestinian state.

But would any Israeli government support such a state?

Netanyahu ran on a national security ticket and underscored the growing threat of Islamism and Iran. He did not need to remind Israelis about their last war with Hamas in Gaza, but rather pointed to growing regional instability. All represent real predictors of a radicalized West Bank, especially under a Hamas-Fatah coalition. If one looks at Gaza, the West Bank in its current state could easily be transformed into an ISIS like environment, and a clear and present danger to Israel perhaps worse than those Israelis face along their southern and northern borders.

For the majority of Israelis, Netanyahu still represents a reassuring voice.

Moreover, Netanyahu has always argued for a demilitarized Palestinian state. His recent statement was not a policy departure about the kind of neighbor Israel seeks.

Critics have concluded that Netanyahu's pre-election comments abandoned the two-state solution proposed in his 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, but a closer look reveals more about animosity towards Netanyahu.

This was only one of the misreadings surrounding the election. The Israeli media badly misread the pre-election signs and exit polls. These showed that while there were a plethora of domestic problems articulated by Isaac Herzog, Tzipi Livni, Yair Lapid and company, the majority of Israelis see the real threat to Israel as Islamist. For them, Netanyahu still represents a reassuring voice.

Diplomatically, the two-state solution is still the basis for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Diplomatically, the two-state solution is still the basis for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, as advocated by most of the international community, spearheaded by Washington. Reaching it is the official policy of both the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but it is no secret that Hamas does not support this notion, with or without PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

More importantly, from Yasser Arafat to Abbas, we have witnessed generations of Palestinians support rejectionism rather than statehood. They cling to the notion of being a refugee for life rather than a citizen of any country. Neither Herzog nor Netanyahu can overcome this.

In the heyday of the Oslo peace process, the push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement was done on every possible level, socially, politically and militarily, and even reached a point where being "anti-Oslo" connoted being anti-Israel. But 20 years of bitter experiences later, Oslo has lost its allure and has been replaced by a more skeptical prism of the region.

The alleged centrality of the "settlements" is really an empty issue, which deflects attention from the real issues that obstruct a negotiated settlement. There is little debate over the fact that – should a peace agreement be completed – there will be a redistribution of land. Most of the bargaining is about whether these exchanges will take the shape of a total phased Israeli withdrawal, or exchanging the most populous Israeli towns for lands in the Jordan Valley or Negev desert. But this must be left to the parties to decide and not imposed by outside powers.

The Israeli commitment to a two-state solution predates Netanyahu and represents a consensus that encompasses both the left and the right. As the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated during his UN speech in 2005:

The essence of my Jewish consciousness, and of my belief in the eternal and unimpeachable right of the people of Israel to the Land of Israel. However, I say this here also to emphasize the immensity of the pain I feel deep in my heart at the recognition that we have to make concessions for the sake of peace between us and our Palestinian neighbors. The right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel does not mean disregarding the rights of others in the land. The Palestinians will always be our neighbors. We respect them, and have no aspirations to rule over them. They are also entitled to freedom and to a national, sovereign existence in a state of their own. I am among those who believe that it is possible to reach a fair compromise and coexistence in good neighborly relations between Jews and Arabs. However, I must emphasize one fact: There will be no compromise on the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, with defensible borders, in full security and without threats and terrorism.

Sharon's final caution clearly mirrors that of Netanyahu and represents the majority of Israelis.

Israelis have not lost hope in peace, but they are more prudent about the process. Netanyahu still underscores that "just as Israel is prepared to recognize a Palestinian state, the Palestinians must be prepared to recognize a Jewish state."

Both sides need to make concessions, but Israel's security and Jewish identity concerns deserve as much attention as Palestinian territorial claims.

Asaf Romirowsky is a fellow at the Middle East Forum, and co-author of Religion, Politics and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief(Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Please sign the petition opposing the 'Antisemitic' Israel conference at Southampton University

Dear SFI Colleagues and Friends on Facebook/Twitter, 

 

If you have not yet signed this important petition I urge you to do so NOW!

 

This conference not only “concerns the legitimacy in international law of the Jewish State of Israel”, as this petition makes clear, but in so doing also seeks to delegitimise Scottish Friends of Israel’s own support for the Jewish State.

 

Please give it your support and ask your friends and families to do likewise!

 

Renaud Sarda 

Scottish Friends of Israel 

 

Here's the link:

http://www.change.org/p/the-university-of-southampton-we-call-upon-the-university-of-southampton-to-distance-itself-from-the-upcoming-conference-on-israel-s-right-to-exist-by-removing-it-from-campus-in-order-to-avoid-giving-the-event-credibility-and-official-approval-to-big

 

 

The Academic Friends of Israel

 

 

Please sign the petition opposing the 'Antisemitic' Israel conference at Southampton University

 

Southampton University, one of 24 members of the British Russell Group of Institutions which have distinguished themselves as research-led universities of international quality is to hold a conference on the 17-19 April 2015questioning both the legal and moral right of the state of Israel to exist.

 

The conference "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism" is described by the organisers as “the first of its kind and constitutes a ground-breaking historical event ... it is unique because it concerns the legitimacy in international law of the Jewish State of Israel.” 

 

The event will be addressed by over 80 academics from Universities around the world, including the USA, Britain, Australia and Israel. The organisers, who include Southampton law professor Oren Ben-Dor and George Bisharat, professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law;  have said that the conference will “engage controversial questions concerning the manner of Israel’s foundation and its nature, including ongoing forced displacements of Palestinians and associated injustices.” Ben-Dor and Bisharat have committed themselves in the past to the delegitimisation of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian State.

 

The majority of speakers at this one-sided conference support a boycott of Israel include Richard Falk, the former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and  anti-Zionist Israeli academic Ilan Pappe.  

 

Criticising Israeli policies is acceptable in debate, but denying its right to exist veers into Antisemitism.  As French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared: “Antisemitism, this old European disease…hides itself behind a fake anti-Zionism.”  It discriminates against the Jewish people, denying them the right to self-determination which is enshrined in international law. Such historic prejudice lies behind much BDS activity.

 

In deference to the principle of freedom of speech, The Academic Friends of Israel are not calling for cancellation of the conference.  Nor are we calling for a more balanced program. Such bigotry cannot be balanced.

 

Please sign our petition which calls on the University of Southampton to distance itself from the upcoming conference by removing it from campus, in order to avoid giving the event credibility and official approval to bigotry and Antisemitism.

Jerusalem Officials Say Obama Administration is More Hostile Than Europe — ‘Not Even Half a Minute of Grace Was given

President Obama. Photo: CUFI

Israeli officials in Jerusalem said on Wednesday that the Obama Administration is acting in a manner that is more hostile to Israel than European governments, Israel’sWalla News reported.

As the tensions between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu were ratcheted up by the Administration this week, the officials in Jerusalem noted the relatively positive response from Europe to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s re-election last Tuesday.

Since the results of the election came in showing that Netanyahu’s Likud had won 30 seats in the Knesset, European governments, as well as representatives of the European Union, have been content to send laconic congratulatory messages to Netanyahu, according toWalla‘s report. Some of the communiques also emphasized the importance of the negotiation process with the Palestinian Authority in order to achieve a two-state solution.

The most prominent positive message came from Frederica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign minister, who phoned the Prime Minister and later issued a congratulatory statement. Mogherini urged Netanyahu to act to promote the two-state solution, stressing the importance of the matter to Europe, without “scolding” Netanyahu over his recent controversial statements on the matter.”The feeling is that the European Union is telling Netanyahu, ‘we’re giving you a chance’,” the officials told Walla.

By contrast, the officials noted, a diplomatic war has broken out between Jerusalem and Washington. “By contrast [to Europe], with the White House, not even half a minute of grace was given,” said an official close to the Prime Minister.

The fact that the European response to Netanyahu’s election victory is more favorable than the US response is an indication of the depth of the crisis with Washington, Walla said, considering that Europe’s position on Israel’s settlements has not relaxed at all

 

British Foreign Office Spokesperson said: “We support the Saudi Arabian military intervention in Yemen"

British Foreign Office Spokesperson said:

“We support the Saudi Arabian military intervention in Yemen following President Hadi’s request for support by ‘all means and measures to protect Yemen and deter Houthi aggression.’ As the UN Security Council has made clear, President Hadi is Yemen's legitimate President.

“The recent Houthi actions and expansion in Aden and Taiz is a further signal of their disregard for the political process. Any action taken should be in accordance with international law.  

“Ultimately, the solution to the crisis must be a political one. The international community will continue to use diplomatic and humanitarian support to achieve long-term stability, avoid civil war, economic collapse and a deeper humanitarian crisis in Yemen.”

Netanyahu Told to Mend Ties With Onama

JERUSALEM —  

Israel’s president on Wednesday officially handed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the task of forming a new government, saying its first priority was to repair relations with the United States and indirectly chiding Mr. Netanyahu for his Election Day warning that Arab citizens were flocking to polling places in “droves.”

“One who is afraid of votes in a ballot box will eventually see stones thrown in the streets,” the president, Reuven Rivlin, said as he ceremonially received the certified results of last week’s election. Later, standing next to Mr. Netanyahu, he described “a difficult election period” in which “things were said which ought not to be said — not in a Jewish state and not in a democratic state.”

Mr. Netanyahu apologized this week for expressing concern in a video about Arab turnout, remarks that the White House, world leaders, American Jews and many inside Israel had condemnedas race-baiting and fearmongering. As he accepted the mandate for a fourth term, the prime minister did not revisit the uproar over those remarks or directly address his pre-election disavowal of support for a Palestinian state, which together have drawn unrelenting criticism from President Obama and his aides.

“Our hands are held out in peace towards our Palestinian neighbors, and the people of Israel know that true peace will only be guaranteed if Israel remains powerful, both in spirit and in strength,” Mr. Netanyahu said Wednesday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, on Thursday.

MENAHEM KAHANA / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

“We greatly appreciate, and will keep our pact with, the closest of our friends, the United States of America,” he continued, “and we will nonetheless continue to act to prevent the unfolding deal with Iran, an agreement which puts in danger us, our neighbors, the world.”

Mr. Netanyahu now has up to six weeks to form a governing coalition, an internecine process of deal-making over ministerial posts and policy positions. He is widely expected to do so with six rightist and religious parties that together won 67 of Parliament’s 120 seats, though some Israeli analysts said the crisis in relations with Washington had increased the pressure on him to form a unity government with the center-left Zionist Union or the centrist Yesh Atid, or both.

Senior members of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party and the heads of the ultranationalist Jewish Home and Yisrael Beiteinu factions are all vying for the Foreign and Defense Ministries. Mr. Netanyahu has promised the finance position to Moshe Kahlon, a former Likud minister who formed Kulanu, a faction that focused on economic issues.

On Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu vowed that the government’s first budget would include steps to reduce the cost of housing and food and dismantle monopolies, tenets of Mr. Kahlon’s campaign.

Mr. Rivlin, a Likud member whose term as president has been marked by outreach to Israel’s 1.7 million Arab citizens and residents, said Mr. Netanyahu should make the government “as inclusive as possible.”

Alongside improving relations with the United States, other “critical missions” for the new government, according to Mr. Rivlin, include returning stability to the political system to avoid another early election, and “healing the wounds, mending the painful rifts, which have gaped open in the past years, and widened further in the course of this recent election.”

Without US cover at UN, Israel could face diplomatic avalanche

http://www.timesofisrael.com/left-alone-at-un-israel-can-ignore-but-not-avoid-diplomatic-fallout/


By Raphael Ahren
March 25, 2015, 12:52 pm


It would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago for the White House to consider furling up the diplomatic umbrella it had used for decades to shield Israel at the UN.

But even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to do damage control for a series of recent controversial pronouncements, reiterating his support for a two-state solution and apologizing for his election day anti-Arab rhetoric, Washington seemingly remains determined to “reassess” its policy vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians.

Very little, if anything, would change on the ground, but a Security Council resolution calling for a Palestinian state is certain to have severe diplomatic repercussions for Israel, analysts say.

While the administration insists it has made no changes to US policy yet, officials say that President Barack Obama strongly is considering backing Palestinian moves at the United Nations Security Council.

This could mean that Washington will hold back from vetoing a French or Jordanian resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with land swaps.

The US could even propose its own resolution seeking to enshrine the parameters of a future peace deal based on a two-state solution.

No Palestinian flagpoles are going to pop up across the West Bank in the near term, nor will Jerusalem have to fear an immediate barrage of harsh sanctions or other punitive measures as a direct result of a resolution in Turtle Bay.

But a Security Council resolution would signal to the international community that the Americans are no longer interested in providing cover for Israel’s desire to maintain the status quo, which is liable to set in motion a diplomatic avalanche that will ultimately weaken Israel’s position in negotiations with the Palestinians.

“The symbolism could potentially have some longer-term implications,” said international studies professor Stephen Zunes, who coordinates the University of San Francisco’s Middle Eastern Studies program.

Washington backing Palestine-related moves at the UN would highlight Israel’s isolation even more, which might motivate Israelis to vote for a less hawkish government in the future, surmised Zunes, a known critic of American diplomatic support for Israel.

While no sanctions come automatically with the violation of a Security Council resolution, the administration’s putative move at the UN might spur the European Union to start implementing punitive measures, such as labeling West Bank products, which would negatively impact Israel’s economy, he said.
Benjamin Netanyahu gives the thumbs-up to supporters at the Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv, early on March 18, 2015, hours after the TV exit polls were announced for the previous day's elections were published. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

PM Netanyahu at the Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv, early on March 18, 2015, hours after the TV exit polls were announced for the previous day’s elections were published. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Jerusalem adamantly opposes any Security Council resolution on the Palestinian issue, though it appears few efforts are being made to dissuade the Americans from their ostensible plan to push for one.

Instead, the Netanyahu administration has focused all its efforts at preventing a bad nuclear deal with Iran, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday. Officials in Jerusalem have been arguing that the US administration’s threats on the Palestinian front were intended to divert attention from the Iran deal it is currently negotiating.

So far the Americans have only said they would reassess their policy but have not taken any decision, the official argued.

“US policy has always been that peace will be achieved by direct negotiations between the parties. That is the correct policy — there’s no other way to achieve peace,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Israel holds the record in ignoring Security Council resolutions

Things are bad, but they could be even worse. At the end of the day, said Robbie Sabel, a former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, any Security Council resolution on Palestine will not be enforceable and therefore Israel doesn’t have to worry about immediate concrete reprisals.

It would be different if said resolution were passed under Chapter VII of the UN charter, which deals with threats to world peace or “acts of aggression.” But in its entire history, the Security Council has never passed a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under Chapter VII and it is virtually guaranteed that the currently discussed draft will be no exception, several international law experts said.

Sanctions imposed on states based on resolutions filed under Chapter VII are binding on all UN member states — for example the sanctions leveled on Iran over its rogue nuclear program. But since this won’t be the case with the US-backed Palestine resolution, Jerusalem won’t have to confront a concerted international sanctions regime.

However, individual states or bodies such as the EU could independently decided to sanction or boycott Israel.

Any Security Council resolution on the two-state solution would instead be filed under Chapter VI, which exhorts states in conflict with each other to engage in negotiations. Legal scholars argue whether such resolutions are legally binding, but agree that there is no way to enforce them.

The much-dreaded resolution on the two-state solution is therefore not much more than a “political statement,” said Sabel, who teaches international law at the Hebrew University. Rather than a Palestinian doomsday weapon heralding Israel’s imminent withdrawal from the West Bank, it should be seen as a “non-binding recommendation” on the two parties to negotiate based on the framework provided by the resolution.

Israel is already in violation of nearly 100 Security Council resolutions, most of them calling for a withdrawal from occupied territory, so another resolution could easily be added to the list and filed away by Jerusalem.

While there are many other countries that ignore Security Council resolutions (most of them US allies), Israel holds the record, a 2002 study found.

Most well-known among them is Resolution 242 of November 1967, which says that Middle East peace should include the “[w]ithdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

Other resolutions condemn Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, though so far there are none that would specify the terms of Israel’s withdrawal more concretely.

But drafts being circulated, which the US may let pass, would do exactly that — by explicitly making the 1967 lines the basis for the future border between Israel and Palestine. And that could put a serious dent in Israel’s negotiating position, said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and close Netanyahu adviser.

“A UN Security Council resolution that explicitly delineated Israel’s future borders would first and foremost undermine Israel’s bilateral agreement with the Palestinians, that made the future of borders an issue for negotiations and not something that would be imposed from the outside,” Gold said.


Dore Gold (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)


A Security Council resolution demanding an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, even with minor land swaps, would contradict the spirit of Resolution 242, Gold argued.

“It should be stressed that in a 1975 memorandum between the US and Israel, Washington gave assurances that it would vote against any initiative in the Security Council that would alter adversely or change Resolution 242 and 338 [after the Yom Kippur War] ‘in ways that are incompatible with their original purpose.’”

A US-backed resolution enshrining the Green Line as the base line for a future peace agreement will not change anything on the ground but it will upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s negotiation position, said Ilai Saltzman, an Israeli international relations professor currently teaching at Claremont McKenna College in California. “This is a slippery slope. If the Americans will not veto any resolution it opens up a window for additional shifts in US foreign policy.”

‘It will allow the Palestinians to assume the role of Israel in the late 1940s and 1950s. We’ll have a complete reversal of the roles of David and Goliath’

True, Jerusalem will maintain the ability to prevent the de facto establishment of a Palestinian state. But one Security Council resolution on the matter will lead to another, and Israel’s violation of all of them will eventually put Israel on a collision course with the entire international community, Saltzman added.

“There will be an accumulative effect of these resolutions and eventually, even if Netanyahu sustains his premiership for the full four years, the pressure will only increase over time,” he said.

Israelis are proud that they accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 while the Arabs rejected it, Saltzman said. Israel ignoring a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state solution could undermine that position, he posited.

“It will allow the Palestinians to assume the role of Israel in the late 1940s and 1950s. We will have a complete reversal of the roles of David and Goliath.”

More dangerously, Saltzman added, an American willingness to abandon Israel at the UN has the potential to unleash sanctions and penalties from the European Union, which has long considered imposing certain restrictions, especially on goods from the West Bank.

“The international community is very much fed up with the Israeli occupation,” he said, and if it the US translated that frustration into policy, “this could seriously undercut European-Israeli relations. Israel will be in a very precarious situation.”

How to Fight Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is rising around the world. So the question becomes: What can we do to fight it? Do education campaigns work, or marches or conferences?

There are three major strains of anti-Semitism circulating, different in kind and virulence, and requiring different responses. 

In the Middle East, anti-Semitism has the feel of a deranged theoretical system for making sense of a world gone astray. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, doesn’t just oppose Israel. He has called it the “sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region.” He has said its leaders “look like beasts and cannot be called human.”

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran reinstated a conference of Holocaust deniers and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. Two of Iran’s prominent former nuclear negotiators apparently attended. In Egypt, the top military staff attended a lecture on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The region is still rife with the usual conspiracy theories — that the Jews were behind 9/11, drink the blood of non-Jews, spray pesticides across Egyptian lands.

This sort of anti-Semitism thrives where there aren’t that many Jews. The Jew is not a person but an idea, a unique carrier of transcendent evil: a pollution, a stain, a dark force responsible for the failures of others, the unconscious shame and primeval urges they feel in themselves, and everything that needs explaining. This is a form of derangement, a flight from reality even in otherwise sophisticated people. 

This form of anti-Semitism cannot be reasoned away because it doesn’t exist on the level of reason. It can only be confronted with deterrence and force, at the level of fear. The challenge for Israel is to respond to extremism without being extreme. The enemy’s rabidity can be used to justify cruelty, even in cases where restraint would be wiser. Israeli leaders try to walk this line, trying to use hard power, without becoming a mirror of the foe, sometimes well, sometimes not.

In Europe, anti-Semitism looks like a response to alienation. It’s particularly high where unemployment is rampant. Roughly half of all Spaniards and Greeks express unfavorable opinions about Jews. The plague of violence is fueled by young Islamic men with no respect and no place to go. 

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg has an essay, “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?” He reports on a blizzard of incidents: a Jewish school principal who watched a Frenchman of Algerian descent pin his 8-year-old daughter down in the schoolyard and execute her; a Swedish rabbi who has been the target of roughly 150 anti-Semitic attacks; French kids who were terrified in school because of the “Dirty Jew!” and “I want to kill all of you!” chants in the hallway; the Danish imam who urged worshipers in a Berlin mosque to kill the Jews, “Count them and kill them to the very last one.” 

Thousands of Jews a year are just fleeing Europe. But the best response is quarantine and confrontation. European governments can demonstrate solidarity with their Jewish citizens by providing security, cracking down — broken-windows style — on even the smallest assaults. Meanwhile, brave and decent people can take a page from Gandhi and stage campaigns of confrontational nonviolence: marches, sit-ins and protests in the very neighborhoods where anti-Semitism breeds. Expose the evil of the perpetrators. Disturb the consciences of the good people in these communities who tolerate them. Confrontational nonviolence is the historically proven method to isolate and delegitimize social evil. 

The United States is also seeing a rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents. But this country remains an astonishingly non-anti-Semitic place. America’s problem is the number of people who can’t fathom what anti-Semitism is or who think Jews are being paranoid or excessively playing the victim.

On college campuses, many young people have been raised in a climate of moral relativism and have no experience with those with virulent evil beliefs. They sometimes assume that if Israel is hated, then it must be because of its cruel and colonial policies in the West Bank. 

In the Obama administration, there are people who know that the Iranians are anti-Semitic, but they don’t know what to do with that fact and put this mental derangement on a distant shelf. They negotiate with the Iranian leaders, as if anti-Semitism was some odd quirk, instead of what it is, a core element of their mental architecture.

There are others who see anti-Semitism as another form of bigotry. But these are different evils. Most bigotry is an assertion of inferiority and speaks the language of oppression. Anti-Semitism is an assertion of impurity and speaks the language of extermination. Anti-Semitism’s logical endpoint is violence. 

Groups fighting anti-Semitism sponsor educational campaigns and do a lot of consciousness-raising. I doubt these things do anything to reduce active anti-Semitism. But they can help non-anti-Semites understand the different forms of the cancer in our midst. That’s a start.

Home Office reassures Board: “No plans to review Beth Din”

The Home Office has reassured the Board of Deputies that there are no plans to review the status of the Beth Din.

The comments come after London Mayor Boris Johnson appeared to rubbish the idea parallel systems of law, including Beth Din courts and Sharia, calling them “absolutely unacceptable”.

A Board spokesperson told Jewish News: “We have been reassured by the Home Office that there are no plans to review Batei Din courts, as there is no evidence that they are working in a way that is incompatible with the law. The Government accepts the existence of Shari’a courts, just as it accepts Batei Din courts, but ministers want to make sure that they are operating in accordance with the law.”

Boris’s comments were on LBC radio, when he said he took “grave exception” to suggestions that religious law like Sharia could be introduced into the English legal system.

“The idea of a parallel system of law, a parallel judicature, people making the laws holding to a different system, is absolutely unacceptable, it’s alien to our traditions,” said Johnson. “I won’t have it.” 

Asked if the Beth Din would “have to go,” the mayor replied: “Yes, absolutely. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

Boris said he accepted that Jewish couples could go to a Beth Din to seek sanction for their divorce, but added: “It cannot substitute for UK civil proceedings. They cannot replace the civil proceedings. If they want to have some ceremonial proceeding according to religious ritual or whatever, that is fine. But the actual implementation of the law has got to be done in British courts according to British law, agreed by Parliament.”

His comments come after Home Secretary Theresa May announced plans for an independent investigation into the application of the Muslim legal code in England and Wales if Conservatives win the general election.

 

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Board President Vivian Wineman: Israel needs to use its power responsibly

Board President Vivian Wineman at the We Believe in Israel conference (Photo Credit: John Rifkin)

OPINION: Israel’s power places huge responsibility on its actions

By Vivian Wineman, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews 

It feels as if there has never been a quiet time for Israel’s supporters. 

The last We Believe in Israel conference took place in 2011. At the time the issue was the blockade of Gaza. 

Today we have the results of the elections to consider and their impact on relations between state of Israel and its neighbours and between the state and its minorities.

As a diaspora community proud of Israel and its democratic traditions we hope fervently that the state will adhere to the high ideals set out in its Declaration of Independence. 

Above everything, however, looms the issues raised by Operation Protective Edge.

The vast disparity in force between the Israelis and their foes puts a huge responsibility on Israel and one which was discussed by the workshop I was privileged to lead.

If it wished to, Israel could flatten those areas of the territories which are the source of the violence that threatens her. 

Clearly everyone accepted that a massive air bombardment would not be acceptable. But what about a more limited air attack as was suggested in 2002 in Jenin. 

This city in the West Bank had been the source of a large number of suicide bombers who had not only killed hundreds of Israelis but had also generated an atmosphere of fear throughout the country.

The government was urged to launch an air attack which while frugal with Israeli lives would kill a large number of residents who had not themselves been involved in terrorism. 

The minister of defence Beinyamin Ben Eliezer said he could not do this both because of the moral imperative not to kill large numbers of civilians and because of the international repercussions.

The result was that he sent in ground forces. Initially the world’s media called it a horrendous massacre but later the statistics showed that  52 Palestinians were killed compared to 23 Israelis. The bereaved parents of some of the soldiers wrote an angry letter to Ben Eliezer accusing him of complicity in the death of their children.

In 2014 Israel tried different tactics – the result was that the casualty rate was much more lopsided. Again this resulted in very heavy criticism, this time coming from the international community.

The moral dilemmas are labyrinthine. 

It is reassuring to note as Luke Akehurst of We Believe said at the beginning of the conference that the proportions supporting Israel and the Palestinians remained roughly constant during the conflict and though he did not say this the proportion supporting Hamas remained minuscule. In fact they are only marginally less unpopular than Islamic State

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2.5 Million Christians Have Left Iraq Since 2003

Christian woman in a Church - Erbil

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Less than 1.3 million Christians remain in the country

Christian MP in Baghdad Joseph Slewa claims that since 2003, 2.5 million Christians have fled Iraq. 

“The number of Christians who have left Iraq since 2003 has reached 2.5 million. Due to the current situation in the country, five Christian families leave Iraq every day,” said Slewa. 

“According to our information, every day between 3 and 5 Chaldean and Assyrians families leave Iraq for neighboring countries.” 

“These families fly to those countries, before trying to emigrate to Europe or the US. 

“There are less than 1.3 million Christians remaining in Iraq,” he added. 

Slewa said instability and a lack of implementation of legal protection had contributed to the exodus, alongside the current conflict with Islamic State.