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Thursday, December 01, 2005
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Palestinian committees OK’d at U.N.
The U.N. General Assembly passed a series of resolutions widely seen as anti-Israel.
The body passed its annual resolutions Thursday extending the mandates of the so-called Palestinian committees, which support the Palestinian agenda at the United Nations.
The assembly also again passed resolutions on Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the “peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine.” On Wednesday, a senior American adviser at the U.N. General Assembly called for the elimination of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the Division of Palestinian Rights within the Secretariat, which, along with the Special Information Program on the Question of Palestine, had their mandates approved in Thursday’s vote.
“Endorsing resolutions that condemn Israeli actions but that fail to address Palestinian actions or inactions have real consequences,” Robert O’Brien, senior U.S. adviser to the 60th session of the General Assembly, said in advance of the vote. “One-sided resolutions such as these before us today undermine the ability of the United Nations to play a constructive role in furthering peace.”
Israel, its supporters and Jewish leaders have also called for the committees to be abolished.
Sharon hints at Iran strike
Ariel Sharon hinted that military action, by Israel or another country, would succeed in halting Iran’s nuclear program.
“Such a capability exists,” the Israeli prime minister told reporters Thursday when asked if there could be military means of preventing Iran from getting the bomb.
While he endorsed European-led efforts to curb Iranian uranium enrichment, a key step for making nuclear weapons, Sharon said Israel would not sit idly by if the diplomacy fails. “Israel, and not just Israel, cannot accept a situation in which Iran has nuclear weapons,” he said. “Israel is not helpless and is taking all the steps it needs to be taking.”
Foreign experts speculate that Israel, which bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, could take similar action against Iran if it believes the Islamic republic is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.
U.S. to world: Condemn Iran
A senior U.S. official called on the international community to condemn what he termed Iran’s disruptive role in the search for Israeli-Arab peace.
Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, outlined Iran’s role in backing Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups that target Israel in a major Iran policy address he delivered Wednesday.
“When Palestinians and Israelis are rightfully celebrating the benefits of Gaza withdrawal and the opening last week of the border crossing at Rafah, Iran is moving in the opposite direction by encouraging terrorism in the Middle East to thwart the possibility of peace,” Burns said. “The world community needs to find a stronger voice in opposing Iran’s support for terrorism.”
Poll: U.S. Jews back Israel
Most American Jews support Israel but rarely defend the Jewish state in public, a new poll found.
The study, conducted by Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research for the Israel Project, found that 82 percent of American Jews support Israel — 63 percent said they did so strongly — and that Jewish identity is more intense for Republican Jews and synagogue members.
The survey also found that 19 percent of American Jews never defend Israel, while 24 percent said they did it rarely and 18 percent said they did it a few times a year. The remaining people said they talk about or defend Israel at least once a month. The study also found Jewish identity for men aged 18-49 was 13 percent lower than for women of the same age.
Pollster Frank Luntz, who explained the results in Washington on Thursday, said the Jewish community should do more to reach young men, by discussing Israeli sports and pop culture, and placed the onus on parents, from whom 45 percent of Jews said they first learned about Israel.
“Jewish parents need to understand their kids are listening to them in what they say and every way they say it,” Luntz said.
French Jewish thinker sued
French organizations, led by a group called Euro-Palestine, are taking legal action against the French-Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut.
The action is being taken against Finkielkraut for comments he made to the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz on Nov. 18 about the ethnic motivations of the recent suburban riots. This action comes a week after an anti-racism group dropped charges it had filed against the philosopher.
http://jta.org
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