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Thursday, December 22, 2005
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Senators urge Bush on Hamas
Seventy-three U.S. senators signed a letter urging President Bush to call on the Palestinian Authority to disarm Hamas before elections next month.
“If terrorist groups gain a substantial foothold in the Palestinian legislature, it will make it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for there to be any progress on the ‘road map’ or on the road to achieving a two-state solution,” the letter sent Wednesday said, referring to an internationally backed peace plan. The Bush administration opposes Hamas’ inclusion in the Jan. 25 legislative elections, but prefers to leave the decision to the Palestinians.
The letter follows a House of Representatives resolution last week warning of policy consequences if Hamas joins the Palestinian government. Congress has oversight powers over U.S. funding to the Palestinians, and the Senate letter echoes the warning. “There would be even more severe policy implications if any such groups were then brought into the Palestinian Authority,” it says.
Foxman: No moral equivalence in ‘Munich’
Steven Spielberg’s new film does not posit a moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli Mossad agents, Abraham Foxman said. “The Palestinians are projected as terrorists, brutal in killing innocents without any hesitation,” said Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who attended a recent screening of the movie, which tells the story of Israeli reprisals after the 1972 massacre of its athletes at the Munich Olympics. “The Israelis are responding in counterterrorism and they project a human dimension. They think and they are challenged by the enormity of taking human life. They are humane, they are considerate and they are struggling with issues the world is struggling with today,” he said.
Indeed, Foxman said, the film, which opens Friday, “is a justification for counterterrorism.”
Group meets to discuss North African Jews
A group that is pushing for restitution for Jews who fled Arab countries wants to preserve Jewish sites in the Muslim world.
Several members of the French branch of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, which met this week in Paris, said the group should focus on registering Jewish sites as historical sites with UNESCO. The group, convened under the guidance of CRIF, the umbrella group of secular French Jewish groups, outlined several broad aims: to remember the Jews who came from Arab/Muslim countries; re-establish historical truth concerning ancient Jewish communities existing in Arab countries; and collect testimony regarding the conditions under which Jews lived in Arab countries and which led them to leave these lands.
The group will work with several other French Jewish organizations to promote the culture, history, memory and politics of Jews from these areas.
http://jta.org/
posted by Somebody @ 10:22 PM Permanent Link
 
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