Middle East briefs

By JTA

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Barenboim gets Palestinian citizenship

JERUSALEM (JTA)—The controversial Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim received honorary Palestinian citizenship. Barenboim, a world-renowned pianist and conductor whose left-wing activism has sometimes raised hackles in the Jewish state, was issued a Palestinian Authority passport over the weekend.

The Argentine-born musician said he was honored by the move and hoped it could symbolize Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. Barenboim, 65, has long lent his talents to Palestinian youth and founded an Israeli-Arab orchestra. Among some Israelis he is notorious for his insistence on staging works by Richard Wagner, the 19th-century German composer and anti-Semite lauded by Adolf Hitler.

Syria erases evidence at suspected attack site

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Syria is rebuilding a site targeted by Israel in a mysterious bombing run last year.The Jan. 12 New York Times published satellite photographs showing a new building at a secret site in north Syria that was destroyed Sept. 6 by Israeli warplanes.International analysts have speculated that Israel destroyed a nascent nuclear reactor, though this was denied by Damascus. Jerusalem and Washington had no comment.After the bombing, Syrian authorities flattened the strike area in a move that stirred suspicions of a cover-up. The new building could scotch any future efforts by foreign nuclear inspectors to collect evidence at the site.

IDF kills 15 in Gaza

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli forces killed at least 15 Palestinians in a major raid on the Gaza Strip. Troops backed by tanks stormed into eastern districts of Gaza City early Jan. 15, touching off clashes with local gunmen. At least 15 Palestinians, most of them armed, were killed, and dozens more wounded. There were no immediate reports of Israeli casualties in the mission, which military officials said aimed to put pressure on Hamas and other Gazan terrorist groups, with a view to stemming cross-border rocket fire. Among the dead Palestinian gunmen was Husan Zahar, son of a top Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar. Another Zahar son was killed in 2003 by an Israeli air strike that wounded his father. Mahmoud Zahar, a hard-liner even by the standards of an Islamist movement that preaches the Jewish state’s destruction, blamed his second son’s death on President Bush and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Bush said no lame duck

JERUSALEM (JTA)—President Bush’s last year in office will be of critical importance to Israel, Ehud Olmert said. The Israeli prime minister, briefing his Cabinet on Bush’s visit earlier this month said on Jan 13 that he was pleased by the U.S. president’s empathy for the Jewish state’s concerns regarding the Palestinians and Iran. “Even though this is President Bush’s last year in office, I believe that there is great consideration, deep significance and unprecedented sensitivity for the positions that the United States will take this year, especially on matters that are especially sensitive vis-a-vis the security of the state of Israel,” Olmert said in broadcast remarks. Many political analysts see Bush as a lame-duck president whose clout in the Middle East is increasingly limited. Olmert and Bush see eye to eye on the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program despite a U.S. intelligence report concluding Tehran shelved its quest for warheads in 2003.

Orthodox institute to ordain women

NEW YORK (JTA)—The Shalom Hartman Institute will begin ordaining Orthodox women as rabbis. It is the first Orthodox institution to do so. The Jerusalem-based institute, which runs Orthodox middle and high schools for boys, will begin accepting women and men of all denominations this fall for a four-year course leading to ordination, according to the Jerusalem Post. The candidates will receive ordination, or smicha, from the sects to which they belong. Rabbi Donniel Hartman, co-director of the institute and son of founder Rabbi David Hartman, downplayed the significance of this revolutionary step. He told the Post that the institute was not trying to make a political statement, but was responding to a need for “master educators” in North American Jewish high schools.

Gaza sniper kills kibbutz volunteer

JERUSALEM (JTA)—A Palestinian sniper killed a foreign volunteer on a kibbutz near the Gazan border. The volunteer, a 20-year-old man from Ecuador, was shot in the back Jan 15 as he worked the land at Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. His name was not immediately released. The Ecuadorian Embassy in Israel said his family had been notified. Hamas claimed responsibility for the sniper attack, which came from the nearby Gaza Strip at the height of an Israeli army incursion against Palestinian terrorist targets. Foreign volunteers have long been an institution at Israeli kibbutzim, though their numbers dropped off sharply with the eruption of Palestinian violence in 2000.

Israel seeks doctors

JERUSALEM (JTA)—A fellowship program is being launched to bring more doctors to Israel. The aliyah group Nefesh B’Nefesh, in conjunction with Israel’s ministries of health and immigrant absorption, is attempting to address the serious shortage of doctors projected to occur in Israel over the next few years. The Physician Aliyah Fellowship is targeting American- and British-trained doctors younger than 40. It will provide an initial grant upon arrival in Israel and monthly supplementary income for the first two years, for a total of about $60,000. Doctors must be willing to practice at least nine months a year in Israel.

Protesters hit Israeli fund-raiser in Paris

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Demonstrators tried to derail a Paris fund-raiser for the Israeli Border Police. A large contingent of French police manned barricades outside a central Paris music hall to keep away at least 200 demonstrators from Jan. 13 evening event for the Magav following violent incidents in the afternoon. Some 1,000 guests attended the fund-raiser. Prior to the show, about 40 mostly Arab and black African youngsters—some with sticks, according to witnesses—chained themselves in front of the Bataclan Hall and began chanting anti-Israeli slogans. Serge Bittan, head of the Migdal Association, which organized the fund-raiser, said riot police took the protesters away in large paddy wagons. He said tires had been burned in front of the hall Friday night. “We do this show every year and demonstrators won’t stop us,” he said. “We are wide open about supporting the Israeli Border Police and the army .” Bittan said the police were working closely with the community’s security detail. Migdal raised about $294,000 last year for the border police. Funding this year is earmarked to build a rest house in northern Israel.

Jerusalem stage for Anglican ‘schism’

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Conservative clerics from the Anglican Church plan to hold a breakaway summit in Jerusalem. Traditionalist clergy said they would use the Global Anglican Future Conference, which is scheduled to take place in Israel’s capital in June, to highlight their opposition to a lenient stand on homosexuality professed by some of their coreligionists. The apparent schism runs roughly along cultural and geographical lines, with more hard-line Anglicans hailing from Africa, Latin America and Asia while more liberal church members tend to be in North America and Britain. Nominally linked to the Church of England, Anglicanism has 77 million followers worldwide. The future conference will likely set the tone for July’s Lambeth Conference in Britain, a gathering every 10 years of Anglican leaders.

Report: Bush praises Syria strike

JERUSALEM (JTA)—President Bush was quoted as saying Israel’s airstrike in Syria last year was an “important preventive action.” During his visit to Israel this month, Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert discussed the Sept. 6 attack in northern Syria, Defense News reported on Jan 14, citing a Jerusalem official who was briefed on the talks. The president said the mission, which many independent analysts believe targeted a nascent nuclear reactor, “was an important preventive action,” according to the American magazine. Jerusalem and Washington have not offered details on the bombing. Syria has denied having any secret nuclear facilities. Defense News further reported that Israeli intelligence found no links between the alleged Syrian reactor and Iran.

Olmert renews threat on Iran

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel renewed a veiled threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities pre-emptively. “We cannot resign ourselves to a nuclear-armed Iran,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in a Jan. 14 briefing. “All options are being considered.” The Israeli prime minister’s remarks were the most forceful since a U.S. intelligence report late last year said Iran likely shelved its military nuclear program in 2003—an assessment that was widely seen as ending any plans for pre-emptive strikes. Like Olmert, President Bush has said Iran still poses a threat but voiced confidence in the effectiveness of Western sanctions in curbing the atomic ambitions of the Tehran regime. Yediot Achronot reported that Israeli and U.S. officials will resume a strategic dialogue focused on Iran at the end of the month. Israel’s representative will be Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz; his U.S. counterpart will be State Department official Nicholas Burns.

Court will allow more Falash Mura

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel may allow 1,400 additional Ethiopian Falash Mura to immigrate to Israel. In a court hearing Jan. 13, a panel of three Israeli High Court judges recommended that Israel bring 1,400 or so more Ethiopians to comply with a 2004 government decision to bring some 17,188 Ethiopian immigrants. But the court stopped short of explicitly issuing an order, and it also refused to hear a petition that sought to force Israel’s Interior Ministry to screen an additional 8,500 Falash Mura for their eligibility to make aliyah. Israel’s government decided in February 2003 to enable the aliyah of thousands more Falash Mura, Ethiopians who claims links to Jewish ancestors who converted to Christianity more than a century ago due to social and economic pressures. The government clarified that decision in 2004, specifying 17,188 immigrants. At thke recent hearing, the state told the court it had finished processing the potential immigrants from 2003, including children born since then. State attorney Yochi Gnessin told the court that 15,775 Falash Mura from the original list either already were in Israel or would be coming soon. Justice Ayala Procaccia asked Gnessin to have the state allow another 1,413 not on the original list to immigrate, if they meet the state’s requirements, to “improve the morale” of the Ethiopian community. That addition would bring the total number of Falash Mura immigrants up to the number specified in 2004.

Newsweek: Bush ‘disowned’ NIE to Olmert

JERUSALEM (JTA)—President Bush reportedly “all but disowned” the recent National Intelligence Estimate in private talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. A report by Michael Hirsh in Newsweek magazine’s Jan. 21 issue makes that assertion, attributing it to a senior Bush administration official who accompanied the U.S. leader on his visit to the Middle East. The article also states that when asked after Bush’s visit if he felt reassured on the Iran threat, Olmert told Newsweek, “I am very happy.” The anonymous source said Bush briefed Olmert about the NIE, which concluded that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, a week before it was published and that “Bush told Olmert he was uncomfortable with the findings and seemed almost apologetic,” Newsweek reported.

Israelis killed in Namibia plane crash

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Five Israeli diamond dealers were killed in a plane crash in Namibia. Officials in Windhoek said Jan. 13 that a light plane that crashed upon takeoff over the weekend was carrying five Israeli employees of the international diamond firm Lazare Kaplan International. The pilot also died. The five Israelis had planned to go on safari. The Israeli Embassy in neighboring South Africa sent a team to help recover and identify the remains.

Israeli airstrike kills 2 Hamas gunmen

JERUSALEM (JTA)—An Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinian gunmen in the southern Gaza Strip. Two gunmen, identified as Hamas members, died Jan. 12 in an Israeli airstrike on their base in Khan Younis. Military officials did not provide details on the operation. Israel has stepped up attacks recently on Hamas assets in Gaza in a bid to stem cross-border rocket fire and keep up pressure on the ruling Islamist faction.

Hamas says it foiled assassination plot

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Hamas accused Palestinian rivals of trying to assassinate its leader in the Gaza Strip. A man linked to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction was arrested while trying to smuggle a bomb into a Gaza stadium where Ismail Haniyeh was scheduled to speak, Hamas announced over the Jan. 12 weekend. Haniyeh was prime minister in the former Cabinet dissolved by Abbas after the June civil war between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas said it was holding several other Fatah-linked suspects in the alleged assassination plot. Fatah accused Hamas of concocting false charges against its members. Abbas has said in the past that Hamas members were trying to kill him.

Activists detained during Bush visit

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Police detained three Israeli activists distributing material to the press corps during President Bush’s visit. On Jan. 9, Jeff Daube, the Zionist Organization of America’s director in Israel; Susie Dym, the head of the Cities of Israel organization; and Yehudit Dassberg, who lost a daughter and son-in-law in a Palestinian terrorist attack, were standing in front of Jerusalem’s Dan Panorama Hotel as part of an effort to have Israeli English speakers talk to the press. Most of the press corps covering Bush’s visit was staying at the Dan Panorama. The project was an initiative sponsored by the National Council of Young Israel in Israel and the Center for Near East Policy Research. Police first asked the group to move to the street corner away from the hotel before detaining the three, who were taken to the Russian Compound police headquarters. Daube, who made aliyah two weeks ago and opened up the Israeli branch of ZOA, said their Israel identity cards were confiscated. They were released without charges an hour later with a warning not to return to the hotel. A report the activists were distributing about what they called the tolerance and promotion of terrorism by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party was confiscated. Police called it “seditious and inciteful” after a cameraman for Fox News offered to take one to his producer, according to Daube. The booklets, Israelbehindthenews.com/pdf/ModerateFatah.pdf, were not returned when the activists were released. Israel Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told Israel National News that the three volunteers were released “after it became clear there was no security threat involved and there was no incitement with the materials they had.” Rosenfeld said the booklets were confiscated in order to be “examined” but said he had to “look into” why they were not returned. “We are requesting an apology to the Israelis, including Jeff Daube, Susie Dym, and Yehudit Dassberg, whose freedom of speech and assembly rights were violated and who were improperly detained, and to the ZOA from the Israeli Police Superintendent Chaim Moshe,” ZOA National President Morton Klein said in a statement.

Olmert: Bush no lame duck for us

JERUSALEM (JTA)—President Bush’s last year in office will be of critical importance to Israel, Ehud Olmert said. The Israeli prime minister, briefing his Cabinet on Bush’s visit earlier this month said on Jan 13 that he was pleased by the U.S. president’s empathy for the Jewish state’s concerns regarding the Palestinians and Iran. “Even though this is U.S. President Bush’s last year in office, I believe that there is great consideration, deep significance and unprecedented sensitivity for the positions that the United States will take this year, especially on matters that are especially sensitive vis-a-vis the security of the state of Israel,” Olmert said in broadcast remarks. Many political analysts see Bush as a lame-duck president whose clout in the Middle East is increasingly limited. Olmert said Bush had agreed with him on the need for the Palestinian Authority first to impose order in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip before statehood talks can progress. Olmert and Bush further see eye to eye on the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program despite a U.S. intelligence report concluding Tehran shelved its quest for warheads in 2003. “I reiterate what I told the U.S. president, despite the report by the American intelligence services, Iran was, and continues to be, dangerous, therefore, action must be taken to remove this danger and the U.S. is certainly aware of this,” Olmert said.

Bush: I’ll be back for 60th

JERUSALEM (JTA)—President Bush left Israel after pledging to come back to help celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary. “I intend to come back to help the peace process move forward but also to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary,” Bush told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres before boarding Air Force One Jan. 11 after completing his first presidential visit to the region. Israel launches year-long 60th anniversary celebrations on May 8.

Security Council condemns attack on Israel

JERUSALEM (JTA)—A rocket attack on northern Israel has drawn the condemnation of the U.N. Security Council. Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, the current president of the council, fought the resolution’s adoption for 48 hours, Ha’aretz reported. The resolution, adopted Jan. 11, came in response to a Katyusha rocket attack on the northern Israeli town of Shlomi Jan. 8 which caused light damage to a house. No injuries were reported. The council also condemned a roadside bombing that wounded two U.N. soldiers stationed in southern Lebanon on Jan. 8 and called for a stricter delineation of the so-called ‘Blue Line’, the U.N.-designated boundary between Israel and Lebanon.