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Monday, December 04, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Bolton to step down
John Bolton, a staunch defender of Israel at the United Nations, resigned as U.S. ambassador.
The White House said Monday that Bolton would step down once his recess appointment ends.
President Bush had given Bolton the position in August 2005, but his nomination was blocked in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The appointment will expire by early January, though Bolton may step down earlier.
Most major U.S. Jewish groups broke with tradition to endorse Bolton, who in addition to his support of Israel is a strong opponent of Iran’s nuclear drive.
Money for Olmert-Haniyeh talks?
An Israeli billionaire offered to pay Hamas a small fortune to arrange a meeting between the Palestinian Authority prime minister and Ehud Olmert.
Ahmed Yussuf, a senior aid to P.A. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said in a television interview Monday that he was contacted recently by Avi Shaked, an Israeli magnate.
Shaked offered to donate $100 million to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority if Haniyeh would meet his Israeli counterpart, Yussuf said.
He did not describe Haniyeh’s response.
In any event, Olmert would be extremely unlikely to accede to any such meeting given that Israel, like the United States and European Union, shuns Hamas as a terrorist group.
Chavez wins re-election
Hugo Chavez, who has been accused of encouraging anti-Semitism, was re-elected president of Venezuela.
Chavez’s victory was announced late Sunday night.
He won at least 61 percent of the vote to challenger Manuel Rosales’ 38 percent.
With his victory, Chavez gains another six years in power to pursue his Socialist-inspired policies.
In August, he drew fire for saying that Israelis “are doing what Hitler did against the Jews” and that Israel is carrying out “a new Holocaust” against the Palestinians.
Critics have also cited Chavez’s support for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president who has denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s destruction.
Jews, Presbyterians launch ‘consultation’
Leaders of three Jewish streams launched a “national consultation” with the Presbyterians in the wake of differences over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, who heads the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); Rabbi Jerome Epstein, the Conservative movement’s executive vice president; Carl Sheingold, the Reconstructionist movement’s executive vice president; and Reform President Rabbi Eric Yoffie met last week in Louisville at the Presbyterian Center.
The principal focus was the Presbyterian Church’s decision this year to roll back Israel divestment initiatives.
“We discussed frankly and openly our different perceptions of the situation in the region and found some ways to begin working together in this area that has most divided us in the past,” a joint statement said.
The leaders affirmed “that peace for Israel and the Palestinians should be built on the foundations of security, justice, and the establishment of two viable states.”
Yoffie said, “It would be a mistake to say that we’re at exactly the same place on Israel. But the significant differences that generated so much anger in the Jewish community have been addressed, so we are all at this point anxious to move on.”
http://www.jta.org/
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