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Thursday, October 05, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Olmert, Bush to meet
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet President Bush in Washington in November.
Olmert, who met in Jerusalem on Wednesday with Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, told a Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ conference call on Thursday that he would meet Bush on his way to Los Angeles for the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, which is scheduled for Nov. 12-15.
Rice is campaigning to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and Olmert is scrambling to rally the country after this summer’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Ukrainian leader to visit Israel
Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko will visit Israel in early November.
Yuschenko, who is expected to arrive Nov. 7, said his country is ready to assist Israel in developing satellites and missiles.
“We were among the developers of the Sputnik in the days of the former Soviet Union, and we have a long-range missile industry and much knowledge that we can share with Israel,” Yuschenko said this week in Berlin where he and Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres were awarded a prestigious prize.
“I am a great believer in relations with Israel,” Yuschenko said.
Yuschenko’s previously scheduled visits to Israel were postponed due to what his administration said were scheduling conflicts.
Some Jewish leaders had expressed fears the cancellations were due to Ukraine’s desire not to offend Iran. Yuschenko said he had not yet decided whether to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his trip.
Jewish groups opposed Rice meeting
U.S. Jewish officials opposed a planned meeting between Condoleezza Rice and members of a Palestinian terrorist group linked to the Fatah Party.
The U.S. secretary of state, who is touring the Middle East in a bid to revive Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, met Wednesday with Palestinian officials in the West Bank. Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations who is currently in Israel, said he heard from reliable sources that members of the Al-Aksa Brigade had been expected to attend.
“We communicated that would be ill-advised,” Hoenlein told JTA. “It was better to avoid a problem rather than having to react to one.”
The Al-Aksa representatives did not attend the meeting in the end, Hoenlein said.
Israel opens office in Atlanta
Israel’s Ministry of Tourism opened an Israeli government tourist office in Atlanta.
The Georgia office will be Israel’s hub to the Bible Belt and to a huge Christian market that provides 35 percent of Israel’s tourism, according to ministry officials.
Atlanta was desirable because Delta Airlines offers direct flights to Israel out of the city. The Tourism Ministry also has offices in New York and Los Angeles.
Israeli arrested for mosque threat
An Israeli was arrested for allegedly threatening to attack a major Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.
Police said the suspect, described in media reports as a 51-year-old rabbi, was taken into custody Wednesday after announcing in the lobby of a Tel Aviv hotel that he would carry out an attack in the Temple Mount, an apparent reference to the Al-Aksa Mosque located there.
He has no history of political or criminal violence and was sent for psychiatric
evaluation.
Police said he would be arraigned at Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
Israel is on high alert for violence at the Temple Mount, given Palestinian allegations, repeatedly debunked and denied by the Israeli government, that Jews are secretly plotting to undermine Muslim worship there.
Former envoy opposes Ahmadinejad-Hitler parallels
A former U.S. ambassador to Israel said comparisons of the Iranian president to Hitler are inappropriate.
Israel Radio on Thursday quoted Martin Indyk as coming out against a letter of protest which Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, issued after the Council on Foreign Relations in New York hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month.
Ayalon suggested that the event was akin to hosting Hitler.
But Indyk, who is Jewish and a member of the council, disagreed.
Israel Radio quoted Indyk as saying that, while Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials and calls for the Jewish state to be eliminated were reprehensible, the fact that 25,000 Jews live largely unharmed in Iran means Nazi parallels are inappropriate.
http://www.jta.org/
posted by Somebody @ 11:34 PM Permanent Link
 
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