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Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Syrian group threatens abductions
An obscure Syrian terrorist group threatened to abduct Israeli soldiers.
In a statement read by Al-Jazeera television Wednesday, the Men of the National Resistance vowed to emulate the border kidnapping tactics of Hezbollah in order to bargain for the release of Syrians held in Israeli prisons. According to the report, the apparently new group operates in the Golan Heights.
Israeli security sources played down the threat, noting that the Golan is populated by Israeli Jews or by Druse who, while professing loyalty to Syria, generally are peaceful.
Hezbollah firm on swap
Hezbollah says it won’t relent on its demand to release two captive Israeli soldiers only as part of a prisoner swap.
“There is no unconditional release. It is not feasible,” Energy Minister Mohammed Fneish, a Hezbollah representative in the Lebanese government, said Wednesday.
Hezbollah captured Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a July 12 border raid that also killed eight soldiers, and the group insists on releasing them only in exchange for hundreds of Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Israeli media has speculated that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would settle for a compromise whereby three Lebanese prisoners go free.
ADL blasts Annan for Iran visit
The Anti-Defamation League came out against Kofi Annan’s plan to meet the Iranian president.
The national director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, said Wednesday that the U.N. secretary-general’s talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran this weekend would be akin to meeting with Hitler.
“This is a man who time and again has vowed to destroy Israel and who openly questions the Holocaust,” Foxman said.
Annan, who was in Jerusalem on Wednesday as part of a regional tour to consolidate the U.N.-brokered cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, defended the planned meeting, saying it was his job to maintain contacts with international leaders.
Calif. mayor won’t apologize
A mayor in California refused to apologize for bestowing an honor on a Palestinian who called Hezbollah an “amateur in terrorism compared with Israel.”
Santa Cruz Mayor Cynthia Mathews provoked the ire of local Jewish leaders earlier this month when she presented a key to the city to Afif Safieh, a longtime member of the PLO, at a talk in front of 250 people, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Mathews said the gesture was not a means of taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but was meant to endorse Safieh’s vision of a two-state solution. Jewish leaders note that the PLO includes groups like the Fatah Movement’s Al-Aksa Brigade, whose members would like to “wipe Israel off the map of the world,” said Rick Litvak, rabbi of a local Reform synagogue.
Livni spared lawsuit
Danish authorities turned down a request to prosecute Israel’s visiting foreign minister for alleged war crimes.
The Attorney General’s Office in Copenhagen rejected the appeal filed by a left-wing lawmaker against Tzipi Livni, who visited Denmark this week as part of a European tour, Israel Radio reported Wednesday.
The lawmaker had argued that Livni should be arrested and prosecuted for her role in Israel’s recent offensive against Hezbollah, which drew international censure due to the high civilian toll in Lebanon.
Israel says its armed forces acted within the bounds of international law.
http://www.jta.org/
posted by Somebody @ 10:18 PM Permanent Link
 
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