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Thursday, December 15, 2005
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Bush postpones embassy move
President Bush extended for another six months an act of Congress that would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Bush promised during his 2000 campaign to move the embassy immediately, but he has used a national security exemption every six months to delay the move. The concern is that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would upset the Arab world.
“My administration remains committed to beginning the process of moving our embassy to Jerusalem,” Bush said Wednesday in issuing the order.
Israeli sued in Washington
A former Israeli military chief of staff was sued over his alleged role in the killing of more than 100 Lebanese civilians in 1996.
Someone tried to hand Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon an envelope Thursday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he is a fellow. Ya’alon, scheduled to join a panel about the attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, did not want to accept the papers and let the envelope drop to the floor. The papers named Ya’alon as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by Lebanese families over a 1996 bombing, part of the Israeli response in southern Lebanon to Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel.
Israel, which said it was striking back at a nearby Hezbollah artillery battery but misjudged the target, ended the operation immediately.
It was the second such serving in a week: Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, was served in New York last week over his role in a 2002 bombing in the Gaza Strip.
Congressman: Save the holidays
A Jewish congressman introduced a resolution to protect the symbols of Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Ramadan.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) planned to introduce his resolution Thursday evening to counter another resolution, introduced earlier by Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.), that “recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas” and “strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas.” Israel tried to get Davis to amend her resolution when it came to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday night, but she refused, citing procedural rules.
Israel’s resolution replicates Davis’ language precisely, except for substituting “Chanukah, Ramadan and Kwanzaa” for Christmas. After a raucous debate on Davis’ resolution Wednesday evening between Democrats — most of them Jews — and Republicans, it passed on a voice vote, and is undergoing a member-by-member roll call.
Hamas resolution considered
A congressional resolution that warns of policy consequences if Hamas joins the Palestinian Authority government is set for a vote.
The resolution, supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and opposed by Americans for Peace Now, was considered late Wednesday night, and was set to undergo a roll call on Thursday.
The U.S. House of Representatives forewent a voice vote in order to get a record of each member’s vote.
The measure, sponsored by Republican and Democratic leaders, warns that a role in government for any terrorist group “will inevitably raise serious policy considerations for the United States, potentially undermining the continued ability of the United States to provide financial assistance and conduct normal relations with the Palestinian Authority.” Palestinians go to elections next month.
Jail time for plot against rabbi
Israel jailed a Palestinian terrorist who planned to assassinate a leading rabbi.
The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday sentenced the member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to 12 years in prison after he confessed to the plot against Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, chief mentor to the Shas Party.
The terrorist, from a neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, voiced regret.
Jewish charity never got Abramoff gift
A charity for Jewish children with learning disabilities says it never received a $300,000 gift claimed as a tax exemption by a Jewish lobbyist at the center of a burgeoning scandal.
“We’ve never received a $300,000 gift, not in our 28 years,” Rabbi Burton Jaffa, P’tach’s national director, told the Austin American-Statesman in its Thursday edition.
The gift was reported in 2002, the newspaper reported. Abramoff faces a multitude of investigations, some of them checking allegations that he laundered political gifts through charities.
U.S.-Israel scanner deal signed
The United States and Israel signed a $50 million agreement to put high-tech scanners at border crossings into Palestinian areas.
The money comes out of $300 million earmarked this year for the Palestinians, aimed at improving Palestinian life now that Israel has withdrawn from the Gaza Strip.
The money will “purchase, deliver and install state-of-the-art scanning devices at crossing points between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza,” said a statement this week from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which will administer the money. “The government of Israel commits to effectively operate and maintain the detection equipment, which is to be used exclusively for facilitating the traffic of people and goods at the crossings.”
http://jta.org/
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