Jerusalem News (27 May, 2015, 9 Sivan, 5775)
Contents:
1. HOTOVELY TELLS FOREIGN MINISTRY TO QUOTE TORAH TO THE WORLDÂ by Arutz Sheva Staff
2. How Israel's army skirts minefields to pave a smoother road to conversion by MITCH GINSBURG
3. Shady Ships and Turkish Lips by Burak Bekdil
4. Newly Revealed Bin Laden Documents Reveal Extent of Antisemitism as Motivating Factor for Attacks by Algemeiner Staff
5. Iran's Kurdish Rebellion by Stephen Schwartz
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1. HOTOVELY TELLS FOREIGN MINISTRY TO QUOTE TORAH TO THE WORLD
by Arutz Sheva Staff
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/326985
Extract:
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) told Israeli envoys on Thursday to reference the Torah in presenting the historical rights of the Jewish people to the entire land of Israel while representing the state.
"It is important to say that this land is ours, all of it is ours. We didn't come here to apologize for this," she said.
Hotovely has supported Jewish sovereignty in the Biblical heartland of the ancient Jewish state located in Judea and Samaria.
"The international community deals with considerations of morality and justice. Facing this, we have to return to the basic truth of our right to this land," Hotovely emphasized.
Hotovely also quoted the commentary of the famous Jewish scholar Rashi on the book of Genesis, in which he wrote that the Torah begins with describing the creation of the world so that if the nations of the world accuse the Jews of stealing the land of Israel, they can respond that the entire world belongs to G-d and He chose to give Israel to them.
A participant at the event told AFP that a few of the diplomats were surprised to hear Hotovely referencing the Torah to support Israel's right to the land, evidently indicating how such arguments have not been commonplace in the foreign ministry.
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2. How Israel's army skirts minefields to pave a smoother road to conversion by MITCH GINSBURG
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-army-skirts-minefields-to-pave-a-smoother-road-to-conversion/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=cca690d88b-2015_05_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-cca690d88b-55063645
Extracts:
Alex Asyanov, an Israeli paratrooper of Russian parentage, marched into Gaza this past summer with the rest of his platoon. He took comfort in the ponds of white light illuminating the kibbutzim strung along the border but still could not rid himself of the unwelcome knowledge that if he died, if there were a bullet with his name on it, he would be buried as a gentile, in a separate part of the cemetery.
This understanding was new to him. As a combat soldier, he had thought of death before, but had only learned several months earlier, Â via army mail, that the State of Israel, for purposes of marriage and death, did not consider him a Jew. Only when he opened up an invitation to the Jewish Zionist Identity Program for Immigrant Soldiers, or Nativ, as it is known in Hebrew, did he realize that, despite having been born in Israel, practically raised on his grandfather's gefilte fish on Friday nights, there was a problem with his Judaism.
He went home to Yavne and spoke to his parents. His father was born a Jew. His mother was not. She had converted, though, and anyway, the family was Jewish, they told him. Disturbed, he took the idea to the religious hesder soldiers in his platoon and was stunned by the simplicity of their questioning. Is your mother Jewish? they asked. He said yes; she had undergone a Reform conversion. They told him that halachically � according to Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law, he was not a Jew. End of story.
Nativ, a partnership between the IDF, The Jewish Agency, and the Government of Israel, is the army's gateway to conversion. It's Judaism and Zionism 101, taught by civilian and army instructors on a grassy campus, providing participants with reasonable food in a coed setting on the army's dime. The seven-week course, even if one does not continue toward the conversion seminars that follow, counts toward time served. In short, most soldiers know that if they are entitled to the course, they might as well go.
... The Orthodox conversion process, in the civilian world, was run by the ultra-Orthodox. It held sacrosanct the notion that converts must be dissuaded at first from converting, their devotion tested closely over time.
This attitude endures and is at least partially responsible for the fact that of the 349,000 Israelis of Jewish heritage who are not considered Jewish, according to statistics provided by Rabbi Seth Farber of Itim, in 2013 only 4,843 chose to travel the road toward civilian conversion.
Roughly 3,000 soldiers opt to start the Nativ courses every year. The first seven weeks are a bit like college. The classes are taught by religious, secular, Reform and Conservative teachers. The dorms and classrooms are sprinkled with students from all over the world ... but the clear majority are from Russian-speaking homes.
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3. Shady Ships and Turkish Lips
by Burak Bekdil
The Gatestone Institute
May 22, 2015
http://www.meforum.org/5256/turkish-ships
Extracts:
"This is the first time in history that a foreign army has killed civilian Turks in peacetime!"
This is how government-friendly media justified Turkey's reaction to Israel when, in May 2010, the Israel Defense Forces raided the Mavi Marmara, a ship in a Turkish-led flotilla off the Gazan coast, and killed nine pro-Palestine activists aboard.
Any reader could be tempted to believe that Turkey was preparing to go to war with Israel.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, then foreign minister, insisted that "This is Turkey's own 9/11."
Turkey asked the United Nations Security Council to summon an emergency meeting. It knocked on other doors too: NATO, the European Union (EU), the Arab League and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Then Prime Minister (now President) Recep Tayyip Erdogan called to discuss the Mavi Marmara crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Erdogan's portrayal of the incident contained words such as "state terrorism," "an attack on world peace," "piracy," "thuggish state," and "massacre." He said that:
Israel must definitely be punished,
Israel will pay a very heavy price for this,
Israel murdered innocent people at sea, and
[Addressing and threatening Israeli citizens:] Israel is openly exposing your security to great risk.
Since the incident, Turkey's relations with Israel never normalized. Neither country has an ambassador in the other's capital. Turkey has vowed to isolate Israel internationally until Israel has apologized, paid compensation to the families of the victims, and removed the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip (which a UN commission probing the Mavi Marmara incident later declared to be legal).
One might, initially, understand the Turkish ire. After all, a foreign country's military had targeted a civilian ship and killed people aboard, with or without good legal reason. After all, again, the vessel that was attacked was not a Turkish frigate intending to shell the Israeli coast. So, Turkey's justified anger presumably had nothing to do with the inherent anti-Semitism of its Islamist rulers. Really?
For Erdogan, Israel is a terrorist state. But apparently, he has had a confused mind about another Mediterranean-basin country: Libya. In 2010, Erdogan, with a happy and smiling face, received Libya's "distinguished" Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. He returned the favor by eventually joining an allied force that overthrew the Libyan dictator and led to his lynching. However, shortly before Erdogan decided that Turkey should join the allied forces, he had publicly said -- in criticism of the planned NATO operation against Gaddafi -- "What business does NATO have in Libya?"
As Turkey did in the Palestinian territories, or elsewhere where such groups exist, it apparently has an obsession about supporting the Islamists in Libya, too.
In response, Abdullah al-Thinni, the Prime Minister of the Libyan interim government, has repeatedly accused Turkey of interfering in the domestic affairs of Libya and earlier this year warned that Libya's government could put an end to investments by Turkish companies in the country.
On May 10, almost five years after "Turkey's own 9/11," a Turkish cargo ship's third officer was killed and several other crewmembers were wounded after the ship was shelled off the Libyan coast and attacked from the air by Libyan forces.
The vessel, the Tuna-1, was approaching Tobruk, a coastal city in Libya where the country's internationally-recognized government is headquartered, to deliver sheetrock cargo loaded in Spain, when it was shelled in international waters, 13 miles away from the Libyan port city. The Tuna-1 was then attacked twice from the air as it tried to leave the area. A Libyan military spokesman told Reuters that the Turkish vessel was bombed "after it was warned not to approach the Libyan city of Derna."
For Turkey's Islamists, what was done does not matter much. Who did it does.
But this time there was no request for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council; no talks with the EU, NATO, Arab League, OIC, Obama or Merkel. No words flying in the air such as "terrorist state," "piracy," "massacre," "an attack on world peace." No "murderers." No threats to Libyans that "your security is being exposed to great risks." And, naturally, this is not "Turkey's own 9/11."
Instead, the Turkish Foreign Ministry on May 11 issued a weak protest note. It condemned the attack and demanded legal action. It called the attack a violation of international law. All Turkey's Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, could say was that Ankara had sent a frigate off the Libyan coast to escort the Tuna-1 back to Turkish waters.
Still wondering why Turkey's voice was so loud after the Mavi Marmara incident? For Turkey's Islamists, what was done does not matter much. Who did it does.
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4. Newly Revealed Bin Laden Documents Reveal Extent of Antisemitism as Motivating Factor for Attacks by Algemeiner Staff
May 26, 2015 6:29
http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/05/26/newly-revealed-bin-laden-documents-reveal-extent-of-antisemitism-as-motivating-factor-for-attacks/
Extracts:
Newly declassified documents and correspondences found in Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound have underlined the extent to which Al Qaeda used antisemitism, as a valuable motivating factor for terrorism, Â the Anti-Defamation League blog reported on Tuesday.
'References to Jews were far more frequent in propaganda pieces and in items discussing plans for propaganda than in strategic memos or other letters,' Â said the ADL.
The group commonly adopted antisemitic ideology that singles Jews out for controlling finances and enslaving the Western world for its devices.
One article lambastes the 'filth of [the Americans and Europeans] Zionist capitalist masters producing the money and manpower which their masters utilize to seek to destroy Israel's enemies and to rob the people of the globe of their minds, honor, land, resources, chastity, minerals, oil and lives.'
Often, the group used violence against Jews as a litmus test for the commitment of potential affiliates to jihadi causes.
'If you want to resist, as you claim, we challenge you and your party to shoot one bullet against the Jews! So show us the Jews as your targets!' one article reads.
Many references to Jews highlight the former Al Qaeda leader's use of antisemitism to frame antagonism towards other Muslims. For example, one letter suggests that Lebanese Hezbollah is controlled by Jews seeking to slaughter Sunni Muslims. Another ridicules Saudi Arabia's royal family for 'blind obedience to the [Saudi king], who supports Jews and Christians.'
Other documents use support for Jews as a rationale for attacking or attempting to depose Arab governments, according to ADL.
The U.S. declassified the documents last week, about four years after special forces raided the arch terrorist's Pakistani compound and killed the Al Qaeda leader who was behind the 9/11 terror attacks.
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5. Iran's Kurdish Rebellion
by Stephen Schwartz
The Huffington Post
May 22, 2015
http://www.meforum.org/5258/iran-kurdish-rebellion
Note: This commentary was written with Veli Sirin.
Extracts:
Violent protests by Iranian Kurds have taken the world by surprise, and mainstream reporting on them is sparse. That is doubtless explained by the general absence of decent journalism under the regime of the Islamic Republic, including restrictions on the entry of foreign correspondents. Yet the events in Mahabad, a city of up to 280,000 mainly-Kurdish inhabitants in the Iranian province of Western Azerbaijan, has fascinating aspects to those who follow Kurdish (and Iranian) affairs.
The demographic profile of Iranian Azerbaijan reveals the ethnic diversity of Iran. The country is not entirely Persian, as many outsiders believe. Turkic, Kurdish, and other non-Farsi languages are spoken by large minorities.
The recent turbulence in Mahabad began as such urban troubles often do, with an alleged abuse of power, a death, and rapid communication through the streets. According to the English-language web portal of the Kurdish newspaper Rudaw, which is professional and reliable, in the first week of May a Kurdish woman, Farinaz Khosrawani, aged 25, died after she fell, jumped, or was pushed from the fourth floor of the Tara Hotel in the city. Ostensibly, the victim, while employed at the hotel, sought to escape a rape attempt by an Iranian state official.
The rape and subsequent death of Farinaz Khosrawani early this month touched off the largest anti-government Kurdish demonstrations Iran has seen in years.
Similar, if more tranquil, events were seen in Iraqi Kurdistan, in Rojava, the liberated Kurdish zone of Syria, in Turkey, in Germany, home to a large community of Kurds from Turkey, and in Scandinavia, where many Iranian Kurds have gained asylum. They are heartened and proud, obviously, at the manner in which their forces beat the so-called "Islamic State" at Kobane on the Turkish-Syrian border in January 2015, after a five-month siege.
The successful defense of Kobane was aided by air strikes coordinated with the U.S.-Arab coalition against ISIS, but the Kurdish liberation movement is overwhelmingly leftist, of a kind that for those who read history appears a revival of a distant past. Most Kurdish combatants at Kobane belonged to the People's Protection Units (known by its Kurdish initials as the YPG), which are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S., and other authorities.
Kurdish ultra-leftists may have become a vanguard for real popular sovereignty in their ancient lands.
For years, the PKK and its founder, Abdullah calan, hewed to hard-line Marxism-Leninism and were assisted by Turkey's traditional enemy, Greece, along with the brutal and eccentric Communist dictator of Romania, Nicolae Ceau escu. When Ceau escu was overthrown and executed in 1989 the PKK was among few organizations in the world to mourn him. But calan was arrested in Kenya in 1999, having left shelter in the Greek Embassy. Since then, the PKK leader has claimed to have abandoned his former ideology in favor of a voluntaristic, anarchist libertarianism that, truth to tell, might fit better with the history and traditions of the Kurds. Women have been active combatants in the ranks of the Kurdish peshmerga - a word meaning "they who face death" - in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. It is said that ISIS thugs are frightened of "martyrdom" at the hands of women.
Turkey, for its part, has not abandoned its long-held posture of hostility to Kurdish demands for autonomy. When the Kurds battled ISIS at Kobane, the Turkish army stationed tanks on the border with Syria. Turkey was accused of siding with ISIS, since the Turkish authorities consider the assertion of Kurdish identity more dangerous to them.
Iraqi Kurds are gratified that, thanks to the no-fly zone imposed by U.S. President George H.W. Bush after the first Iraq war, in 1991, they could establish a democratic parliament in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and initiate significant economic development. They emphasize that when Saddam Hussein was removed in 2003, no coalition troops lost their lives in the KRG.
Still, foreigners should have no illusions about the Kurds. They are tolerant of religious differences, with Sunni and Shia adherents among them, as well as heterodox metaphysical Sufi groups like the Ahl-e Haqq (People of Truth) in Iran, who are called Shabaks in Iraq, where they are targeted for genocide by ISIS. Of course, many Kurds, as radical leftists, are atheist.
History is not linear. The Afghan national struggle against the Russians was turned into an anti-Western jihad after the Russians withdrew and their Stalinist puppets fell. Kurdish ultra-leftists may have become a vanguard for real popular sovereignty in their ancient lands.