11/09 Links: 29% of EU Jews wanted to Emigrate, Obama Turns on Israel, Kerry in Wonderland

From Ian:

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FRA survey on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in EU Member States

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) today published its ground breaking survey of Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of hate crime, discrimination and antisemitism in the EU.
The survey covers the UK, France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Italy Hungary, and Latvia: around 90% of the estimated Jewish population in the EU. It will enable European politicians to understand Jewish concerns and to better respond to them.
Across Europe, 27% at least occasionally avoid local places because they do not feel safe there because they are Jewish. Belgium (42%), Hungary (41%) and France (35%) are the worst places for this. 23% at least occasionally avoid Jewish events or sites for the same reason. 68% of respondents at least occasionally avoid wearing items in public that might identify them as Jewish. The figure for the UK is 59%; the highest figures were in Sweden (79%) and France (75%).
Across Europe, 11% have either moved or considered moving out of their neighbourhood in the past five years due to concerns for their safety as Jews. 29% have, at some time or other, considered emigration: this rises to 48% for Hungary, 46% for France and 40% for Belgium. In the UK, 18% have considered emigration..

World Jewish Congress leader: Kristallnacht lives on in modern anti-Semitism

Although “Germany and Europe “are a much better place than they were” during the Nazi era, Israel's neighbors today “slaughter hundreds of thousands of their own” and “we see the growing, visceral hatred of the Jewish state throughout Europe,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder wrote in an op-ed for the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

On Kristallnacht anniversary, Obama calls for speaking out against intolerance

“Kristallnacht foreshadowed the systematic slaughter of six million Jews and millions of other innocent victims,” Obama said.
“Seventy-five years later, Kristallnacht now signifies the tragic consequences of silence in the face of unmitigated hatred,” he said in a statement. “As we mark this anniversary, let us act in keeping with the lessons of that dark night by speaking out against anti-Semitism and intolerance, standing up to indifference, and re-committing ourselves to combating prejudice and persecution wherever it exists.”

Daniel Pipes Obama Turns on Israel

Barack Obama’s March 2013 trip to Israel had a too-good-to-be-true feel about it. While barely pressuring Israel, he instructed Palestinians not to set preconditions for negotiations and admonished them to “recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state.” It felt out of character, suggesting a price to be paid later.
Well, that price has now, eight months later, been revealed, and it has two components. If I might paraphrase the U.S. position as presented to Israel: “First, sit by quietly as we reach an accord with Tehran that freezes but does not dismantle its nuclear buildup. Second, stop the illegitimate residential construction on the West Bank or the Palestinian Authority will, with American acquiescence, start a third intifada.”

Sarah Honig: Another Tack: Glitch in Glion?

Those who seek to establish a spurious equivalence in effect urge that democratic Israel be leaned on while autocratic Iran be allowed to enjoy leniency. Soon their rallying cry will resound: Israel first. Nuclear disarmament’s endgame will be to weaken Israel’s deterrent and guess who wants that to happen?
Even less inimical countries, which themselves would never disarm, will readily demand Israeli disarmament. It’s tempting to blur the distinction between nations which covet WMDs for openly-hyped genocidal purposes and diminutive Israel – the only nation against which genocidal plots are actually hatched.
Therefore, Israel can ill-afford ostensibly inconsequential goodwill gestures or glitches – not in glorious Glion or elsewhere. True, if tiny vulnerable Israel is deemed intransigent, all nuke-stockpiling nations will posture resplendent in their self-righteousness and castigate its “obstructionism.” But so what? That’s nothing new.

Kerry in Wonderland

The crux of Kerry’s unhappiness was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement that Israel would, as had been an agreed condition for negotiation, continue settlement expansion in return for its release of more than one hundred Palestinian murderers from prison. This was the pact with the devil that permitted the resumption of negotiations, now in their fourth month of mutual recrimination that is increasingly unlikely to produce the peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that Kerry so evidently wants to claim as his crowning achievement. Predictably, President Abbas backtracked and immediately threatened that unless Israel halted construction in Jerusalem and nearby settlements the peace negotiations would terminate “without results” and “the situation is likely to explode.” In translation, Israel’s reward for abiding by their shared understanding would be another intifada.

HERE IS ISRAEL - Doctor Kedar Presents: THE Obstacle to Peace...


In Geneva, the French hold out for tougher conditions on Iran

Iran and six world powers remain split on the terms of a nuclear deal because the French are holding out for tougher conditions on the Iranians, a Western diplomat who is in Geneva for the talks told The Associated Press Saturday.
The diplomat said that most of the six powers were agreed on their demands — with just France demanding stricter terms.
Earlier Saturday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on a plutonium-producing reactor and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium to a level that cannot quickly be turned into the core of an atomic bomb.

Our negotiators are not ‘compromisers,’ Khamenei tweets

The Iranian delegates are shown in color, while the Western delegates, headed by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, are blurred and in black and white.
In the top right of the photo is a caption which reads, “Children of Revolution: No one should consider our negotiating team as compromisers… These are the children of revolution.”

Obama’s Secret Iran Détente

The Obama administration began softening sanctions on Iran after the election of Iran’s new president in June, months before the current round of nuclear talks in Geneva or the historic phone call between the two leaders in September.
While those negotiations now appear on the verge of a breakthrough the key condition for Iran—relief from crippling sanctions—began quietly and modestly five months ago.
A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the U.S. government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June.

Obama calls Netanyahu, restates vow to keep Iran from a bomb

Obama underscored Washington’s “strong commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” and discussed the US’s “ongoing efforts to advance a peaceful resolution of the international community’s concerns.”
News of the call, coupled with the convergence of Western ministers in Geneva on Friday and the imminent arrival of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and a Chinese deputy foreign minister on Saturday, deepened the expectation that a deal between world powers and Iran was reaching its final stages.

Dershowitz Warns Clintons: Blumenthal's a Problem for 2016

Noted defense lawyer, scholar, and pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz has warned the Clintons that they will need to distance themselves from Sid Blumenthal unless he stops defending his son Max's anti-Israel book. The book, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, compares Israel to Nazi Germany. In recent years, Max Blumenthal has made a career of criticizing Israel and attacking its American Jewish supporters.

Swastikas, Slurs and Torment in Town’s Schools

For some Jewish students in the Pine Bush Central School District in New York State, attending public school has been nothing short of a nightmare. They tell of hearing anti-Semitic epithets and nicknames, and horrific jokes about the Holocaust.
They have reported being pelted with coins, told to retrieve money thrown into garbage receptacles, shoved and even beaten. They say that on school buses in this rural part of the state, located about 90 minutes north of New York City and once home to a local Ku Klux Klan chapter president, students have chanted “white power” and made Nazi salutes with their arms.

Abbas proposed Jerusalem united under supreme council, adviser says

Speaking to official Palestinian radio, Nimer Hammad said that the president’s recent proposal to make East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital and west Jerusalem the Israeli capital was received with “great international support,” while Israel continues to insist that Jerusalem remains united under its sovereignty.
“On the municipal level Jerusalem will remain united,” Hammad said. “A municipal council will be established for East Jerusalem, another for west Jerusalem, and a supreme council above both.”

Hamas Vows To Continue Building Terror Tunnels

A spokesman of the Al-Qassam Brigade military branch of Hamas recently expressed the organization's intentions to continue attacking Israel, promising that the Hamas terrorists will continue working in secret to dig new terror tunnels and continue fighting against the "occupation."

Christians threaten to quit Egypt constitution panel

Egypt’s ultraconservative al-Nour Party has pushed adding a portion defining the Islamic, or Sharia, law that will be recognized in the constitution. Critics warn doing so could allow for stricter interpretations of what Sharia is.
Safwat El-Bayadi, a representative of Christians on the panel, said Thursday they might withdraw to “voice our opinion.” The Islamist version of the constitution has yet to come up for a vote, but the Christians fear Islamists might push the issue.

Prominent cleric calls for jihad against Egyptian army

Jihadi cleric Sheikh Abu Mundhir al-Shinqiti has called on Egyptians to stop using nonviolent means such as protests, and instead to attack the regime and the “army of infidels” and “a collection of criminals.”
A prominent but somewhat shadowy jihadi thinker, the Mauritania-born Shinqiti wrote this in an article published on October 17 on the jihadi website Minbar al- Tawhid Wal-Jihad, according to a report Wednesday by MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute).

Israeli Clinicians Develop Novel Way to Needle (VIDEO)

Fear needles? Well fear no more–Hebrew University students and Hadassah Medical Center clinicians have come up with a novel solution.
They “created a semi-automatic handheld device for rapid and safe IV insertion. Called SAGIV, the device uses infrared sights and electrical sensors to identify veins, insert the needle into the correct location, and withdraw it in a single, rapid robotic movement,” writes the website Nocamels.com, after interviewing Dr. Yotam Almagor, the group’s clinical expert.

Report: Israeli Actress Gal Gadot Tipped for Hollywood’s ‘Wonder Woman’ Role in 2015 Batman-Superman Film

Female crime fighters on the big screen should watch out, as IDF combat-trained actress Gal Gadot is atop a short list to play ‘Wonder Woman’ in a 2015 ‘Justice League’ reunion film being planned to star Ben Affleck, as Batman, and Henry Cavill, as Superman, Variety reported.