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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Syria blasts Israel
Syria accused Israel of ducking peace talks.
Syrian officials said Tuesday that Israel was using international pressure on Syria following a U.N. report into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and over the infiltration of anti-U.S. forces into Iraq from Syrian territory, to avoid peace talks with Damascus.
“Israeli officials are trying to exploit the wave of political, media and psychological pressure on Syria in order to express in a rude manner their hostile attitudes toward Syria,” said Syria’s information minister, Mahdi Dakhlallah. “The Syrians uphold their right to recover and liberate the Golan until the last inch.”
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ruled out peace talks if Syria maintains preconditions such as the return of all of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.
House marks papal document
The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Vatican’s repudiation of anti-Semitism.
The resolution, moved by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), marks 40 years since Nostra Aetate, the Vatican encyclical that banned “displays of anti-Semitism directed against Jews at any time or from any source.” Holt’s resolution passed Monday 349-0. The bill also encourages the United States to take the lead in combating anti-Semitism.
The resolution now heads for the Senate
House backs Israel’s membership in world group
The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution expressing support for Israel’s membership in the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.
Likened to an economic NATO, the 30-member organization sets standards to promote democracy and the free market. Israel first applied for membership in 2000. The resolution, introduced by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House’s Middle East subcommittee, passed Tuesday by 391-0.
Mexico, Britain and the United States are pressing the OECD to accept Israel as a member.
Legislators introduce Rabin legislation
Seven members of Congress introduced a resolution honoring Yitzhak Rabin on the 10th anniversary of his assassination.
The sponsors of the resolution introduced last Friday include five Jewish Democrats, Reps. Eliot Engel and Gary Ackerman of New York, Henry Waxman and Tom Lantos of California, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House of Representatives’ Middle East subcommittee; and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leader of the U.S. civil rights movement. A right-wing extremist opposed to relinquishing territory to the Palestinians killed Rabin, the Israeli prime minister, on Nov. 4, 1995.
The resolution, which “expresses its admiration for Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy and reaffirms its commitment to the process of building a just and lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors,” has been referred to the House’s International Relations Committee.
http://jta.org
posted by Somebody @ 10:20 PM Permanent Link
 
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