From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
Blaze at Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem suspected as arson
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A joint Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem was torched in what is believed to be an arson attack.
A classroom of the Max Rayne Hand In Hand Jerusalem School was set on fire late Saturday night. “Death to Arabs” and “There is no coexistence with cancer” were among the anti-Arab epithets spray-painted on the school walls.
A preliminary police investigation found that the blaze was intentionally set.
The school opened as usual on Sunday morning as city workers worked to remove the anti-Arab graffiti.
Click here for the full story
From PressTV
Israel detained 549 Palestinians in November: NGO
Israel arrested as many as 549 Palestinians from East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the occupied West Bank in November, a Palestinian NGO says.
The highest number of arrests was made in East al-Quds and al-Khalil (Hebron), the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement issued on Sunday, the Worldbulletin News website reported.
The NGO further delineated that the Tel Aviv regime’s arrests included 120 Palestinians from al-Khalil, 43 from Ramallah and al-Bireh, 34 from Bethlehem, 30 from Nablus, and 26 from Jenin.
It added that most of a group of 233 detainees from East al-Quds were minors who were released later. It added that the released minors were subsequently forced to pay fines or were put under house arrest.
Click here for the full story
From PressTV
More than 2mn Iraqis internally displaced by conflict: UN
The number of Iraqi people displaced as a result of domestic conflict in the country has exceeded 2.1 million, many of whom are now more vulnerable as winter draws near, the UN says.
“The lack of proper shelter, thermal insulation of shelters and non-food items will eventually negatively impact the health status of displaced populations during winter,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said in a report published on Sunday.
A large number of people in Iraq have been forced to flee their homes mainly because of attacks by the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group which began in June.
Kurdish regions in Iraq’s north, especially the city of Kirkuk, have been badly affected by the violence along with the cold weather as snow has begun falling on the regions, home to nearly half of the IDPs (internally-displaced people) in the country, the report added.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
Anti-Semitism watchdog sues Romanian mayor over Hitler haircut
(JTA) — A Jewish watchdog group in Romania sued a mayor for allegedly inciting hatred by celebrating his Hitler-style hairdo.
The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, or MCA Romania, filed a criminal complaint last week against Radu Mazare, who leads the seaside resort town of Constanta, after he spoke to the media about his haircut, which resembles that of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Mazare in 2009 was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform.
MCA Romania’s complaint to the prosecutor’s office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice accused Mazare of inspiring pro-Nazi sentiment by celebrating the haircut. The complaint qualifies the mayor’s actions as an “outrageous, provocative and defiant” show of Nazi sympathies.
Five years ago, Mazare attended a fashion show with his son while wearing a fake Nazi uniform, which he said he bought because he liked how it looked. Mazare said he did not see the swastikas on the uniform. Critics disputed the assertion, as he climbed the stage with his son while marching in a military style typical of German soldiers.
Click here for the full story
From PressTV
Syria to press ahead with fighting terrorism: Officials
Senior Syrian officials say the country will push ahead with its efforts to fight against terrorism and establish national reconciliation, Press TV reports.
Delegates from 25 western and regional countries participated in an international conference on combating terrorism and religious extremism hosted by the Syrian government in Damascus.
Syrian Prime Minister Wael Nader al-Halqi underlined the countries’ determination to push ahead with the fight against terrorism.
“The Syrian government continues fighting terrorism wherever it may be present on Syrian soil, and provide all needed support to the Syrian armed forces,” al-Halqi said, adding, “The government will also continue working to reach a comprehensive national reconciliation to defeat the conspiracy.”
From the Jewish Daily Forward
Will Benjamin Netanyahu Call Snap Election To End Coalition Infighting?
Despite Falling Polls, Bibi Still in Driver’s Seat
By Reuters
Netanyahu’s government has been torn by differences over proposed cuts to the 2015 budget, policy towards Palestinians in Jerusalem, and a Jewish nation-state bill that critics say would discriminate against Arab citizens.
Speculation has been rife that Israel’s elections may come much sooner than the scheduled 2017, but Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was the highest ranking official to confirm the possibility in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 television.
Click here for the full story
From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
From the Archive: Jews welcome the stranger
President Obama’s landmark immigration executive order announced Nov. 20 is expected to impact the lives of millions — very few of whom will be Jewish.
Nevertheless, a number of Jewish groups greeted the new policy, which offers protection to some 5 million undocumented immigrants, with excitement. In the United States, Jews have been both the subject of exclusionary immigration policies as well as the leaders to liberalize those laws.
In the 1920s, after decades of relatively loose immigration laws had enabled more than 2 million Eastern European Jews to settle in the U.S., Jews fought an effort to close the gates to the “goldene medina.” The Immigration Act of 1924, a bill advanced by a notoriously racist Republican congressman named Albert Johnson, enacted a quota system that would severely limit Jewish immigration and totally exclude immigrants from Asia.
Jewish leaders staunchly opposed the bill, with JTA reporting “militant action against” it. The United Hebrew Trades, an association of Jewish labor unions in New York, brought together 136 Jewish organizations in order to “wage a nationwide campaign to defeat” the bill.
From PressTV
Israel irked by photos of officials in Nazi uniforms
Israeli authorities are launching a probe into photos posted on the Internet featuring the regime’s top officials in Nazi uniforms.
Calls for investigations came after President Reuven Rivlin, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Finance Minister Yair Lapid and a number of public figures were shown in Nazi uniforms on a fictitious Facebook account under the name Natan Zoabi.
On Sunday, the Israeli prosecutor’s office ordered the police to find those behind the move.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch called the page “the crossing of a black line.”
From the Jewish Daily Forward
Why Is This Canadian Jew Fighting for Kurds? Did ISIS Nab Her?
By J.J. Goldberg
November 30, 2014, 6:21pm
Kurdish military sources in Kobani are telling Israeli media this evening that it’s “impossible” that Canadian-Israeli Gillian Rosenberg was captured by ISIS last week, as was reported on pro-ISIS social media today. They say she was in a different sector of the city from the Kurdish unit that suffered the ISIS attack where she and 10 others were supposedly captured.
…
She was born in White Rock, British Columbia, a southern suburb of Vancouver near the U.S. border. The Canadian Jewish News reported that she graduated in 2001 from Maimonides Jewish High School, where she was class valedictorian. She studied aviation in Vancouver, then moved to Israel in 2006 and joined an IDF search-and-rescue unit.
In 2009 she turned herself in to the FBI for extradition and trial on charges that she’d participated in a Nigerian-based scam to bilk elderly Americans out of their savings. Victims were told they’d won a lottery, then instructed to send in an advance to cover the operating costs of the payout. She served about four years under a plea bargain and then was deported to Israel.
