Saturday, February 07, 2015
Letter to a BBC Jerusalem correspondent – from 1948
In February 1948 two successive bombings rocked Jerusalem. Three people were killed at the beginning of the month when the building housing the offices of the Palestine Post (later to become the Jerusalem Post) was attacked by means of a car bomb. Three weeks later another car bomb was detonated on Ben Yehuda Street killing over fifty people and injuring dozens more. Both attacks were initiated by the commander of Arab forces in the Jerusalem area and were carried out by two British Army deserters.College Students Honor Convicted Palestinian Bomber
Shortly after the second bombing, the founder and editor of the Palestine Post Gershon Agron wrote the letter below to the BBC’s correspondent in Jerusalem at the time, Richard Williams, with whom he had previously engaged in an apparently heated conversation.
There are also a number of quotations that point out that the BBC was too hasty in discovering that the people who threw a bomb at The Palestine Post offices (on February 1, 1948) were either Arabs or Jews. But the Post quoted the BBC news item from London that some 300 British citizens left England to join the Arabs. This news item was never denied, even after it was proven to be false.
But this February we were the bad boys again. The BBC announced that “Jerusalem was quiet after a great Jewish anti-British demonstration.” This was the day after Ben-Yehuda Street was bombed. Jerusalem was not particularly quiet on this very day and night. A search was going on for the bodies of the 66 persons killed in this bombing. To show that in Jerusalem only the British are killed is a sham. But this was, perhaps, what the British listener wished to hear.
All this indicates that everybody falsifies and some do it on purpose. The British try to show that each murder (isn’t this a norm?) was committed by Jews. And why? Because the particulars of the murder do not explain what happened before. It may be understood that somebody wishes to see himself to be just in his own eyes. But why claim that this is the whole truth, and not something that depends on other factors?
If we arrive at a day when we all agree that the Jewish nature will show the way to the Jewish people, exactly as the British try to square things according to the British point of view, we will be able to live in peace, each respecting the other in this not entirely easy country. As one of my friends said yesterday that “only in peace we will find confidence and mutual prosperity.”
Students at DePaul University are rallying behind a woman who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a bombing in Jerusalem.
Rasmieh Odeh was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine when the group killed two students in a bombing at a market in 1969.
Odeh, now in her late 60s, was released in 1995 as part of a prisoner exchange and came to the United States.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held a fundraiser for Odeh’s legal defense after a federal jury found that she lied on her immigration papers by answering “no” to the question of whether she’d been convicted of a crime.
Seth Winberg, an Orthodox rabbi and executive director of Metro Chicago Hillel, talked to Brian Kilmeade this morning about his group’s effort to protest the SJP’s actions.
Irony: Saudi UN Rep Can’t Condemn Israel On Women’s Rights Without Hijab
NOT A JOKE: The Saudis are now investigating why one of its top female envoys spoke at the U.N. without a head scarf. Irony: Manal Radwan’s speech to the U.N. Security Council condemned Israel for violating women’s rights. Maybe Ms. Radwan will want to speak next time in the Israeli parliament, where she can condemn anyone without having to hide her hair or face.Saudis investigate UN envoy for speaking without veil (condemning Israel on women's rights)
Anne Bayefsky Scandal Rocks the U.N.
Not only did the council adopt the ICJ’s recommendation, it appointed a member of the board of directors of the ICJ’s American affiliate to do the job — Mary McGowan Davis.BBC WS Newshour enables the Schabas show
Three days ago, she accepted Schabas’s chair with alacrity and promised “a report that meets the highest standards of independence and impartiality.”
In what universe?
There is a reason why the council — along with its Palestinian partners, who are working furiously behind the scenes to salvage the fiasco — is so desperate to plow ahead. We now know that Schabas provided the Palestinians with legal advice about how to move forward with the prosecution of Israelis before the ICC, a step that they subsequently took. There is no doubt that the Schabas/McGowan Davis report will immediately be sent to the ICC prosecutor to assist in deciding whether a “preliminary examination” already underway should become a full-fledged “investigation.” The report’s lack of credibility has put the credibility of the ICC in question.
Setting aside all the legal verbiage, the politics are painfully clear. Criminalizing Israel’s efforts to exercise its right of self-defense against a foe openly committed to genocide strikes at the heart of the sovereignty, well-being, and legitimacy of the Jewish state. Demonizing a democratic society that is ready, willing, and able to ensure the accountability of its armed forces is not about protecting Palestinians. It is about endangering Israelis.
Human-rights law is being perverted for anti-human-rights ends, and it is about time human-rights lawyers — and all those who care about defeating the enemies of rights and freedoms — stood up and objected.
On the same day that the BBC News website published its selectively framed report on the resignation of William Schabas from the position of chair of the UN HRC commission of inquiry (established in July 2014 before the conflict between Hamas and Israel had even come to an end), the BBC World Service Radio programme ‘Newshour’ broadcast a five-minute long item on the same story.Sky News sorry for Gaza images during Holocaust interview
That entire item was devoted to the provision of a platform for Schabas to promote his version of events. Presenter Tim Franks introduced it as follows:
“The Israeli government has called on the UN Human Rights Council to scrap its inquiry into last year’s Gaza-Israel conflict. The Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made the demand after the Chairman of the commission of inquiry handed in his resignation on Monday. William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law, stepped down after Israel had complained that in 2012 he’d offered legal advice to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Earlier, Professor Schabas came into the Newshour studio.”
William Schabas: “Israel has been attacking me since the day…since the minute…I was appointed, claiming that I show appearance of bias or that I’m biased and that campaign has continued. A few weeks ago they announced that they were organizing their attack on the report of the commission and that personal attacks on me would be an important part of that.”
The British broadcaster Sky News apologized for showing images of the Gaza conflict during an interview about the Holocaust with British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.Jews in Turkey: Unending Discrimination
The apology over the January 27 broadcast came in a letter sent by Peter Lowe, Sky News’ managing editor, to a viewer who sent Sky News a letter of complaint about the interview conducted by presenter Adam Boulton, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported Thursday.
Lowe said showing images of Gaza while the chief rabbi talked about the Israel-Palestinian conflict was logical, but that with hindsight he would not have combined the two, calling it “an indelicate clash.”
He added: “I’m sorry if you or anyone was upset by the interview Adam did with the chief rabbi. I agree that the particular circumstances of the use of the pictures from Gaza was unfortunate.”
The Jewish homes in Israel are not an obstacle to peace. The only obstacle to peace is the hatred of Israel's neighbors.Experts Warn House Committee That Palestinian Court Gambit is Undermining Peace Efforts
Many of us in other countries in the Middle East see Israel as the only light of freedom and democracy in the midst of darkness, terrorism and hatred in the region.
The concept of real freedom and democracy seems foreign to anti-Semites. From here, it looks as if many of these self-proclaimed liberals have a self-congratulatory concept of what is right and wrong as closed-minded, un-free and un-democratic as that of the most rigid tyrant.
When people show solidarity with the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas, or with those who jail, try or flog people for free speech, it just further proves Israel's rightfulness and legitimacy.
You would defend yourself against incoming rockets; why shouldn't they? Israel has nothing to apologize for.
The Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) is damaging to the peace process and must be stopped, four expert witnesses told the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. The four witness were Jonathan Schanzer, Vice-President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Eugene Kontorovich, professor at Northwestern University School of Law; Danielle Pletka, Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute; and David Makovsksy, Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.Abbas forms committee to oversee ICC cases
Kontorovich echoed Schanzer’s concerns in his published testimony, observing:
On the diplomatic front, the Palestinian Authority’s ICC bid represents a rejection and termination of negotiations with Israel as the exclusive method of determining all “final status” issues. That repudiates what has been for decades central pillar of U.S. diplomacy with regards to the conflict. Moreover, it represents a violation of two provisions of the Oslo Accords: not to seek a final determination of the status of disputed territory outside of negotiations, and exclusive Israeli jurisdiction over its nationals in the West Bank. The Palestinians are asking to have both their statehood and borders declared by the ICC, without Palestinian compromise or Israeli consent, and to give to the Court a jurisdiction over Israeli civilians that the PA does not possess. As the guarantor of the Oslo Accords, the U.S.’s diplomatic credibility with its allies, and in the [Middle East] Peace Process, depends on responding to this breach.
The Palestinians formally joined the ICC last month, enabling them to submit war crimes and crimes against humanity complaints against Israel.Kerry ranked least effective US diplomat in past 50 years
The new committee will be headed by chief negotiator Saeb Erakat and will include various figures from the Palestinian political scene, universities and human rights organizations, said the official Wafa news agency.
The committee “will identify and prepare the documents and records that the state of Palestine will present to the ICC,” the agency said, citing Abbas.
The yearly Ivory Tower survey conducted by Foreign Policy magazine polled over 1,600 scholars from 1,375 colleges throughout the US on the best schools and study programs in their field as well as various policy issues.Vice President Joe Biden Skipping Netanyahu’s Congress Speech
Asked who was the most effective secretary of state in he past 50 years, the majority chose Henry Kissinger (32.32 percent) while only 0.31% chose Kerry, leaving him in the 13th and last spot. Kerry’s predecessor Hillary Clinton was ranked at number 4 along with Madeleine Albright, both garnering 8.7% of the vote.
As for the most pressing foreign policy issues, armed conflict in the Middle East came in at number 2 with 26.81% of the vote, with climate change leading the pack (40.96%) and global terrorism at number 5 (21.23%).
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on March 3, with the vice president’s office saying that he will be traveling to an unspecified location abroad that day.Biden, Kerry meet with Herzog; both set to skip PM in DC next month
“We are not ready to announce details of his trip yet, and normally our office wouldn’t announce this early, but the planning process has been underway for a while,” an official in the vice president’s office told The Jerusalem Post.
American vice presidents—who also serve as president of the U.S. Senate—are normally in attendance when foreign leaders address Congress, usually sitting behind the podium along with the speaker of the House of Representatives.
US Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry both met informally with Zionist Camp co-leader Isaac Herzog — head of the Labor Party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival in the Israeli elections — on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany, Herzog’s office said Saturday.US billionaire behind V15 campaign denies support for Herzog
Their discussions revolved around security matters and the Zionist Camp’s defense strategy, according to reports.
Herzog also met with the EU’s Foreign Affairs Chief Federica Mogherini and German FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the sidelines of the conference.
An American billionaire who helped finance the grassroots group V15 said that he does not direct financial support to Zionist Camp co-leader Isaac Herzog, head of the Labor Party, or any other candidate for prime minister.French Ambassador dismisses rumors of resolution against Hezbollah
S. Daniel Abraham denied that he funded the Zionist Camp party directly. He said he had a strong interest in Israel’s well-being. “I am helping Israel obtain the best prime minister that Israel can have,” said Abraham during an interview with Channel 2 on Friday.
The Jewish-American businessman was vocal about his support for the V15 group — a grassroots outreach organization seeking “change in the government” — and declared his vision for the Jewish state.
France's ambassador to Lebanon, Patrice Paoli, denied rumors that Paris was preparing a UN Security Council draft against Hezbollah, Lebanon's Daily Star reported on Friday.PM orders demolition of EU-funded Palestinian ‘settlements’ in West Bank
In an interview with a Lebanese Daily newspaper, Paoli reaffirmed France's stance towards the troubled Middle Eastern state, "which calls for the protection of Lebanon's sovereignty, territorial integrity and Resolution 1701.”
“There is no French conspiracy against any [political] party,” the ambassador added. “We are in a conspiracy for the sake of Lebanon and its stability.”
A day prior to Paoli's interview, reports surfaced that linked France to a alleged resolution aimed at censuring Hezbollah for its assault on an Israeli convoy last Wednesday that killed two Israeli soldiers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to move forward with a plan to demolish some 400 Palestinian structures built in the West Bank with European funding, Israeli media reported Friday.‘Turkish FM boycott more proof Israel’s apology was a mistake’
The prime minister’s order came shortly after a Thursday exposé in the Daily Mail claimed that the EU sank tens of millions of euros into homes which were not granted building permits by the Israeli government.
Official EU documentation discovered by the newspaper stated that the buildings were intended to “pave the way for development and more authority of the PA over Area C,” raising concerns that the governmental organization was taking sides in the dispute by shaping the demographics of the Israeli-controlled territory.
A portion of the homes, which largely resemble prefabricated caravans, were built in the E1 area between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim and near the Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus, according to Israeli news site NRG.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Friday that the Turkish FM’s announcement that he would not attend a conference in Germany so as to avoid Israeli representatives was “more proof Israel’s apology to Turkey was such a big mistake.”Sweden to urge Abbas to boost role of women
“As long as Turkey is being led by its current leadership, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his friends, rehabilitating Israel-Turkish ties stands no chance,” said Liberman, adding “Turkey under Erdogan is a country only interested in attacking and taunting Israel and we must react accordingly.”
Earlier Friday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he would not attend the Munich Security Conference, citing the presence of Israeli representatives at the event.
“I was going to participate in the conference but we decided not to after they included the Israeli representatives in the Middle East session,” he told the official Anatolia news agency in Berlin.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is set to get a taste of Sweden’s feminist foreign policy next week when he visits the Nordic country known for its egalitarianism.Explosion rocks Gaza in apparent assassination attempt
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, who wants a bigger role for women in global peace and security affairs, said Friday she will press Abbas to include women in efforts to build a viable Palestinian state.
After Sweden in October became the first European Union member to recognize Palestinian statehood, “we will have their ear,” Wallström told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
“We want them to refrain from violence, to seek cooperation in all possible ways. And above all to defend democracy, human rights and the position of women in what’s going to be nation-building for Palestine from now on,” Wallström said. (h/t J_April)
The vehicle of a senior Hamas official exploded Friday in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, injuring a civilian. The official, Sami al-Hams, was not wounded in the incident, the Palestinian al-Quds news station reported.Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to visit Iran next month
Initial reports suggested that Palestinian assailants deliberately targeted al-Hams and that they placed explosive charges beneath his car.
In late January, unidentified assailants blew up the car of a Hamas security official in Gaza, in a sign of increasing instability in the Palestinian enclave. Witnesses said the car belonged to Helmi Khalaf, administrative and financial manager of the Hamas-run military police. It was unclear who carried out that alleged attack.
A series of explosions in November targeted officials from Fatah, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s own political party, but caused no injuries.
The head of Hamas’s political bureau, Khaled Mashaal, is set to visit Iran next month in a bid to strengthen ties between the terror group and the Islamic Republic, Iran’s Fars news agency reported Friday.Israeli minister urges West to give more arms to Kurds, Jordan
“Mashaal will travel to Tehran in less than a month,” the it quoted Hamas official Ahmed Yousef as saying.
The move was seen as further indication that Iran was willing to overlook Hamas’s unwillingness to side with Syrian President Bashar Assad, a staunch ally of Iran, against the rebels in the Syrian civil war. Hamas had raised Iran’s ire over the issue and reports surfaced of a distancing between the two.
Mashaal was until 2013 based in Damascus.
Western states should provide more weapons to Jordan, Egypt, Kurdish forces and certain opposition forces in Syria, Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said on the sidelines of the Munich Security conference on Friday.US says no proof for IS claim American woman killed in airstrike
Israeli officials had previously stopped short of making such explicit calls, citing concern that such groups would face added hostility by being publicly associated with Israel.
Kurdish regional forces are battling Islamic State militants on Syrian and Iraqi territory where IS has submitted whole towns to strict Islamic rule. Egypt is trying to defeat jihadists operating in the Sinai Peninsula, bordering Israel.
The US on Friday said it had no proof to support a claim from the Islamic State group that a coalition air strike killed an American woman it was holding hostage in Syria.U.N: ISIS Uses Mentally Challenged Children as Suicide Bombers
The jihadists named the woman as Kayla Jean Mueller, saying she had been buried under rubble after a raid by a Jordanian warplane in the Syrian city of Raqa, the extremist group’s self-proclaimed “capital.”
But Washington refused to confirm her death while Jordan, still reeling from the brutal murder of one of its pilots by the jihadist group, rejected the claim as an “old and sick trick” to deter coalition strikes.
The atrocities of ISIS have gone almost beyond the power to shock, but it’s still jarring to see so much depravity collected into a single report. The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child speaks of the Islamic State selling young children into slavery, pressing mentally handicapped kids into service as suicide bombers, using them as human shields against American air strikes, and conducting mass executions of children by beheading them, crucifying them, and burying them alive.WaPo Editorial: Growing Bipartisan Concern over American Nuclear Concessions
From a Reuters report:
“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”
Children from the Yazidi sect or Christian communities, but also Shi’ites and Sunnis, have been victims, she said.
“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Winter told Reuters. “There was a video placed (online) that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.”
President Barack Obama “suspects a bipartisan majority would oppose the deal he is prepared to make” with Iran, a staff editorial asserted today in The Washington Post.Iran: The ‘Americans Are Begging Us for a Deal’
The editorial cited three concerns about the emerging deal identified by “authorities ranging from Henry Kissinger, the country’s most senior former secretary of state, to Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, Virginia’s junior senator”:
First, a process that began with the goal of eliminating Iran’s potential to produce nuclear weapons has evolved into a plan to tolerate and restrict that capability.
Second, in the course of the negotiations, the Obama administration has declined to counter increasingly aggressive efforts by Iran to extend its influence across the Middle East and seems ready to concede Tehran a place as a regional power at the expense of Israel and other U.S. allies.
Finally, the Obama administration is signaling that it will seek to implement any deal it strikes with Iran — including the suspension of sanctions that were originally imposed by Congress — without seeking a vote by either chamber. Instead, an accord that would have far-reaching implications for nuclear proliferation and U.S. national security would be imposed unilaterally by a president with less than two years left in his term.
A top Iranian military leader claims that U.S. officials have been “begging us” to sign a nuclear deal during closed door negotiations with Tehran over its contested nuclear program, according to recent comments made to the Iranian state-controlled media.Iran’s Ahmadinejad launches website ahead of elections
Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the commander of the Basij, a paramilitary group operating under the wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), recently claimed that the “Americans are begging us for a deal on the negotiation table,” according to comments published in Persian and independently translated for the Washington Free Beacon.
Naghdi added that American officials routinely “plea” with Iran in talks and that the United States is negotiating from a position of weakness, according to his comments, which follow earlier reports claiming that Iran’s leading negotiator “frequently shouts” at U.S. officials.
Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has launched a website ahead of parliamentary elections next year in a sign he may be considering a political comeback despite a recent corruption scandal.Houthis, the Shi'ite Muslim group, dissolves parliament and assumes power in Yemen
The website, ahmadinejad.ir, was launched Sunday with a big smiling photo of Ahmadinejad and the slogan: “We will come soon.”
Ahmadinejad effectively disappeared from Iran’s political landscape after his second term ended in 2013. The hard-line leader’s eight-year rule was marked by hostility toward the West and inflammatory rhetoric calling for the destruction of Israel and casting doubt on the Holocaust.
Yemen's dominant Houthi movement on Friday dissolved parliament and said a new interim assembly would be formed, a move that could ease a power struggle that forced the president to step down last month.Who’s Behind Italy’s Rising Anti-Semitism?
The new assembly will elect a five-member interim presidential council to manage the country's affairs in a transitional period of up to two years, according to a televised statement.
Some political leaders attended the announcement which took place at the Presidential Palace.
Former interior and defense ministers were also there, indicating that the announcement has the blessing of some other political factions.
Long before Israel went to war in Gaza and the anti-Semitic outbursts which followed in the streets of Europe, Italy’s Jews were already telling researchers that they found themselves increasingly under attack. A new study from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, based on data collected through 2012, finds that over two-thirds of Italy’s Jews report a rise in anti-Semitism. These findings accord with similar surveys across the rest of Europe, most notably one compiled by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2013, which found that 76 percent of European Jews perceived anti-Semitism to have worsened in the last five years.Dutch owners change name of vessel called after Nazi
But the findings also diverge from other countries in Europe in an important way. Whereas studies in states like France have found that anti-Semitism resides predominantly among the Muslim population, the IJPR report found that Muslims played only a small role in Italy’s rising anti-Jewish sentiment. Instead, respondents fingered a different culprit: the left.
A Dutch ship that sparked controversy because it was named after a Nazi will have its name changed, its owner said.No new building on mass graves, say Sobibor activists
The change was announced on Friday by Allseas, the shipping giant that built and named the Pieter Schelte for a prominent Nazi industrialist and Waffen-SS officer.
“As a result of the widespread reactions which have emerged over the last few days, Edward Heerema, president of the Allseas Group, has announced that the name of the vessel ‘Pieter Schelte’ will be changed,” Allseas said in a statement. “It has never been the intention to offend anyone. The new name will be announced within a few days.”
Edward Heerema is the son of the late Pieter Schelte.
After he uncovered the path that two of his uncles followed to the gas chambers at Sobibor, Yoram Haimi thought the complex he had worked years to unearth would be preserved for posterity.Blacks And Orthodox Jews Of One Mind-On Kosher Wine
So when Polish authorities announced in 2011 that they would build a museum and monument inside the former death camp, Haimi, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, went on the offensive, warning that his excavations of structures long thought to have been destroyed by the Nazis were in peril.
Polish officials dismissed his objections and advanced the project, which had been approved by the Sobibor Steering Committee, an international forum that includes representatives from leading Israeli and European Holocaust institutions.
Now two of those institutions, including Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum and research institute and an influential member of the Sobibor committee, are calling for the $5 million plan to be re-evaluated following another Haimi find — in September, he uncovered the remains of Sobibor’s gas chambers.
In a strange confluence of events, the black community and the Orthodox Jewish community have found an item that sells like hotcakes in each community: Bartenura Moscato kosher wine. The wine from Italy in the blue bottle had a huge following among religious Jews starting in the 1980s and 1990s, who comprised 85% to 95% of its consumers.Dutch JNF branch celebrates planting 1.5 million trees in Israel
But the brand took off and became the most famous and most successful Moscato in America due to its allure to the Hip-Hop community. In 2015, Bartenura will sell roughly four million bottles.
In 2005, hip-hop artist Lil’ Kim rapped, “Still over in Brazil sippin Moscato/ you must’ve forgot though/ so I’m a take it back to the block yo … ” Kim’;s mention of Moscato triggered a run in the black community, which prompted bartenura to advertise to the black community. Jay Buschbaum, Bartenura’s E.V.P. of Marketing, said, “We saw rappers were talking about Moscato and identified the opportunity. We bit the bullet and decided to spend a fortune against marketing the product to fans of hip-hop, and the plan worked.”
Other rappers joined the parade; Drake followed in 2009 by emoting, “It’s a celebration/ clap clap bravo / lobster and shrimp / and a glass of Moscato … ”
The Dutch branch of the Jewish National Fund celebrated planting of 1.5 million trees in Israel.
The occasion was celebrated on Tu b’Shvat – Judaism’s day of celebrating trees, which this year fell on Feb. 4 — by 120 Jews and non-Jews who filled Amsterdam’s small Uilenburger Synagogue to capacity, said Pam Evenhuis, a spokesperson for the Dutch branch, which was founded in 1902 and has been collecting money for Israel since 1905.
The 1.5 million figure refers to trees planted since 1945, he said.
Among the speakers at the event was Israel’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Haim Divon, who recalled playing as a boy in the outskirts of Jerusalem in the shade of trees planted by JNF, and every week putting some money in a JNF collection box.
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