Jerusalem News (5 May, 2013, Iyar 25, 5773)
Contents:
1. The Most Anti-Jewish Countries in Europe: Lithuania, Greece and Hungary, and Ireland
Whitewashing anti-Semitism by EFRAIM ZUROFF
2. Israeli Air Forces Strikes in Syria
Source: IDF targeted missiles in transit to Hezbollah from Iran.
3. Chinese Interest in Israel - A Coming Danger?
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1. The Most Anti-Jewish Countries in Europe: Lithuania, Greece and Hungary, and Ireland,
Whitewashing anti-Semitism
By EFRAIM ZUROFF
29/04/2013
Extracts:
The problem in this regard must be divided into two different categories.
Ireland is generally acknowledged to be the most actively anti- Israel
country in Western Europe, whereas Lithuania, Greece and Hungary all have
hitherto consistently failed to sufficiently address serious issues of
anti-Semitism in their countries; in some respects the governments
themselves are directly responsible for the problems.
In Lithuania, for example, the government has actively promoted the Prague
Declaration which supports the canard of historical equivalency between
Communist and Nazi crimes and seeks to undermine the accepted narrative of
the uniqueness of the Holocaust.
Besides honoring Nazi war criminals and collaborators and seeking to
prosecute Jewish anti-Nazi partisans on trumped up charges of war crimes,
the authorities have failed to apprehend, let alone punish, those
responsible for a slew of attacks on Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust
memorials and even Jewish community institutions, the number of which rose
considerably in the wake of the ultra-nationalist agenda implemented by
the government.
In Greece, the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, with its openly
anti- Semitic rhetoric and blatant Holocaust denial threaten Greek Jewry.
In Hungary, World War II fascists, including Admiral Miklos Horthy, who
bears significant responsibility for the mass deportation of 437,000
Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, are publicly honored, and the notoriously
anti-Roma and anti- Semitic Jobbik Party calls for the registration of
Jews in the Parliament and government ministries, accusing them of double
loyalties, and creating an anti- Semitic atmosphere which arouses memories
of the darkest periods in the history of the local Jewish community.
The author is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem.
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2. Israeli Air Forces Strikes in Syria
Source: IDF targeted missiles in transit to Hezbollah from Iran.
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Explosions-shake-Damascus-Syria-blames-Israel-312070
Extracts
BEIRUT - Israeli jets bombed Syria on Sunday, rocking Damascus for hours and sending pillars of flame into the night sky in what a Western source called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Local people reported massive explosions and internet video showed the capital's skyline lit by flashes; Syrian opponents of President Bashar Assad rejoiced at Israel's third raid this year, and second in 48 hours, while anger in Tehran highlighted how Syria's civil war risks spinning further beyond its borders.
Israel, while declining to confirm the strike, stressed its focus was to deny its Lebanese foes new Iranian firepower and not take sides between Assad, long seen as a toothless adversary, and rebels who have won sympathy from Israel's Western allies but who also include al-Qaida Islamists hostile to the Jewish state.
People living near the Jamraya base spoke of explosions over several hours in various places near Damascus, including a town housing senior officials: "Night turned into day," one man told Reuters from his home near Jamraya, also struck on Jan. 30.
After an Israeli strike on Friday, US President Barack Obama defended Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah, which fired many rockets into Israel during a war in 2006.
A Western intelligence source told Reuters: "In last night's attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah."
It was unclear whether Israel sought US approval for the action; in the past, officials have indicated that Israel sees a need only to inform Washington once such a mission is under way.
Netanyahu and Obama have had a fraught relationship in past years, as Washington seeks to hold Israel back from any attack on Iran's nuclear program while diplomatic moves continue.
Syrian state news agency SANA said Israeli aircraft struck in three places: northeast of Jamraya; the town of Maysaloun on the Lebanese border; and the nearby Dimas air base.
"The sky was red all night. We didn't sleep a single second. The explosions started after midnight and continued through the night," one man told Reuters from Hameh, close to Jamraya.
"There were explosions on all sides of my house," he added, saying people hid in basements during the events. In the centre of Damascus, people at first thought there was an earthquake.
Some opposition activists said they were glad strikes may weaken Assad, even if few Syrians have any liking for Israel.
"We don't care who did it," said Rania al-Midania in Damascus. "We care that those weapons are no longer there to kill us."
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3. Chinese Interest in Israel - A Coming Danger?
[Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
 - Any discussion of Israel-Chinese relations and the
potential significance of Chinese participation in a Red Sea - Mediterranean
rail that serves, among others, Chinese mother vessels from the Far East
docking in Eilat and Chinese feeder vessels serving the Mediterranean and
beyond from Ashdod can ask themselves two simple questions:
#1. What country in the world would bomb a transportation system with heavy
Chinese participation/interest?
#2. What international body could initiate or impose sanctions impacting a
transportation system with heavy Chinese participation/interest?
The bean counters who don't see the economic justification for a Red Sea -
Mediterranean rail with Chinese involvement have failed to factor in the
tremendous strategic value of the project.]
Netanyahu's Visit to China: Opportunities beyond Iran by Yoram Evron,
INSS Insight No. 422, May 2, 2013.
http://www.inss.org.il/research.php?cat=45&incat=&read=11395
Extract:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to make an official visit to
China in early May 2013. This would be the first visit by an Israeli prime
minister to China in over six years, and given the rarity of the meetings
between the two heads of state and China's increased influence
internationally, the trip is important. Furthermore, this past March China
completed a change of government, and new people are now holding top
leadership positions. This will be an opportunity for Israel to meet China's
new leaders, some of whom are expected to remain in their positions for the
next ten years.
No less important, China has been rethinking its Middle Eastern policy since
the start of the Arab Spring. Since China opened up to the world in the late
1970s, its approach to the Middle East has been characterized by a lack of
significant involvement in political and diplomatic processes in the region,
exclusive focus on promoting its economic interests, and maintenance of a
balanced policy toward states and other actors in the region. The Arab
Spring, which damaged China's economic interests in the region, coupled with
Beijing's declared intention in recent years to acquire a significant status
in world politics, led China to presume that its existing policy toward the
Middle East has exhausted itself. Instead, it must deepen its ties in the
region in order to establish a firm, long term foothold while exploiting the
fact that the regional array of forces is undergoing significant change. The
highly influential October 2012 article by Wang Jisi, China's leading
Chinese scholar of international relations, created a stir by asserting that
China needs to adopt a new strategy, 'march West,' strengthening its
influence and position in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Finding common interests with China is of great importance for Israel, and a
meeting between the heads of state at this time can promote this. In spite
of China's traditional support for the Arab line and its energy ties with
the Muslim states, it credits Israel with several important assets. One is
that Israel holds one of the main keys to stability in the region, an issue
in which China has much interest; another is that the events of the Arab
Spring have demonstrated that Israel is an island of stability in the heart
of a volatile region. In addition, Israel is an important source of
knowledge about events in a region in which China often feels at a loss.
Israel is also seen in China as a source of advanced technologies, and China
has an interest in promoting its science and technology ties with Israel,
and perhaps even energy ties as Israel's natural gas industry develops.
Finally, while China no longer believes, as it once did, that Israel has
unlimited influence in Washington, it does feel that strengthening its
relationship with Jerusalem would be a sign that it gradually is coming to
possess a foothold in the region, while somewhat offsetting, and perhaps
even undermining, American political influence there.