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Saturday, May 06, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Annan wants full U.N. membership for Israel
Kofi Annan said he wants to see Israel’s unqualified membership in the United Nations.
Addressing the American Jewish Committee’s 100th anniversary dinner Thursday night, the U.N. secretary-general noted Israel’s recent membership in the Western Europeans and Others Group, which granted Israel access to certain U.N. bodies that previously had been closed to it because of Muslim opposition.
“I hope that within my lifetime, just as in this country, where Jews are accepted without question as full citizens by all their fellow citizens, so Israel will be accepted without question as a member by the whole family of nations,” Annan said to applause
Senate slashes Egypt aid
The U.S. Senate slashed 10 percent of domestic assistance to Egypt.
The $47 million cut was passed Wednesday in a little-noticed voice vote on an amendment to a foreign operations appropriation that allocated $35 million to famine assistance in Africa and $12 million for disaster relief in the United States, Guatemala and Pakistan. The total was drawn from the domestic aid package to Egypt.
A number of legislators want to cut assistance to Egypt because of its failure to introduce promised democratic reforms. The Bush administration opposes the cuts, noting Egypt’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and a Bush ally in the U.S. House of Representatives said he would restore the assistance when the foreign operations bill goes to conference.
“Egypt is a strategic ally. We shouldn’t be doing something like this right now,” Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz), chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee, told National Journal. Egypt gets $1.3 billion in military aid and just under $500 million in domestic assistance stemming from its 1978 peace accord with Israel.
Court upholds Fulani expulsion
The New York Supreme Court upheld a decision by the state’s Independence Party to effectively expel two members because of anti-Semitic statements.
In February, the party’s executive committee dissolved three New York City-area party committees, which had the effect of ousting Lenora Fulani and Fred Newman. In their petition, Fulani and Newman said the comments cited in the ouster as anti-Semitic were in fact “pro-Jewish.”
In a 1985 speech in Harlem, Newman, who is Jewish, said of the Holocaust, “We responded to that genocide by selling our souls to the devil,” which he identified as “international capitalism.” In a 1989 review of a play by Newman, Fulani said Jews “had to sell their souls to acquire Israel” and must “function as mass murderers of people of color in order to keep it.” The court rejected the petition April 20, saying it was not its place to interfere in internal party matters.
The Independence Party is one of three small New York parties that support major party candidates in exchange for patronage. Democrats had said they could not work with the party as long as Fulani remained a member.
Merkel: German Jews a ‘joy’
Germany’s growing Jewish community is a source of “great joy,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said. “We are able to note with great joy that Jewish schools are thriving, synagogues are being built and, as of next fall, rabbis will be ordained,” Merkel said Thursday, addressing the American Jewish Committee’s 100th anniversary celebrations in Washington.
Germany’s Jewish community, which Merkel estimated at 200,000, is the only one outside Israel undergoing substantial growth, mainly because of immigration from the former Soviet Union. Merkel also said her country would not tolerate a nuclear weapon for Iran.
First Chinese mikvah since WWII
A Chabad center in China is building the country’s first mikvah since World War II.
The ritual bath, being installed at the new, $1.8 million Rohr Family Chabad Community Center of Chabad of Beijing, will include some distinctive Chinese touches, including a pagoda and a carved dome ceiling designed by Chinese artists. It also will include a Jacuzzi, multi-jet shower and massage services.
The Chinese architect worked closely with several rabbis to ensure that the mikvah’s specifications were in line with Jewish law.
Albright: Lobby paper ‘highly overstated’
A paper alleging that a powerful pro-Israel lobby controls U.S. Middle East policy is “highly overstated,” Madeleine Albright said.
The former U.S. secretary of state is launching a new book about U.S. failures in Middle East policy. Appearing at a Council of Foreign Relations event in New York City earlier this week, Albright was asked about the paper written by two foreign policy academics, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University.
The paper was “highly overstated,” she said. “It’s very easy to get on this tack all of a sudden that it’s some kind of an overly powerful Jewish lobby. There are other lobbies that are very strong, and Washington is full of lobbyists. So I would not, in fact, stress that as much as I would stress the fact that the U.S. does have an indissoluble relationship with Israel that is based on history and culture.”
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