Weekly roundup of world briefs

Israel’s military head has ordered plans for possible hit on Iranian nuclear sites

(JNS) — Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said he has ordered the preparation of plans to attack Iran’s nuclear sites in order to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“Iran can decide that it wants to advance to a bomb, either covertly or in a provocative way. In light of this basic analysis, I have ordered the IDF to prepare a number of operational plans, in addition to the existing ones. We are studying these plans, and we will develop them over the next year,” he said in a speech to the Institute for National Security Studies.

“The government will, of course, be the one to decide if they should be used. But these plans need to be on the table, in existence and trained for,” stressed Kochavi.

Earlier this month, Minister of Settlement Affairs Tzachi Hanegbi of the Likud Party said Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear program if the United States decides to go ahead and re-enter the deal. On Jan. 13, Israel launched unusually forceful strikes at Iranian targets in Syria.

Kochavi also urged the new Biden administration not to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal.

“With the changing of the administration in the United States, the Iranians have said they want to return to the previous agreement. I want to state my position—the position that I give to all my colleagues when I meet them around the world: Returning to the 2015 nuclear agreement or even to an agreement that is similar but with a few improvements is a bad thing, and it is not the right thing to do,” he said.

During his confirmation hearings last week, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said that America would not be joining the Iranian nuclear deal “anytime soon.”

On Monday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat that the U.S. would “closely consult” with Israel on all matters of regional security.

Acting US ambassador to UN: PLO mission to be reopened

(JNS) — The United States will renew relations with the Palestinians, including reopening the Palestine Liberation Organization mission in Washington, D.C., acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Mills, who is serving in this interim position until U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to be America’s ambassador to Turtle Bay, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, said the Biden administration will restore U.S. assistance to the Palestinians.

The Trump administration cut off most U.S. assistance to the Palestinians, including through the Taylor Force Act, due to Palestinian leadership financially rewarding terrorists and their families. The PLO mission was closed in October 2018.

Washington’s Mideast policy “will be to support a mutually agreed, two-state solution, in which Israel lives in peace and security, alongside a viable Palestinian state,” said Mills, adding that a peace deal must be agreed to by both Israelis and Palestinians.

He also warned both sides against unilateral actions.

While Biden will encourage more Arab countries to normalize ties with Israel, that’s “not substitute for Israeli-Palestinian peace,” said Mills.

Meanwhile, a report by the Palestinian Maan News Agency said that the PLO has had contact with the Biden administration. Ahmed Majdalani, who sits on the Executive Committee of the PLO, said that the Biden administration has expressed support for a two-state solution and against former President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan. He also said that Biden has promised to re-open the PLO’s mission as well as restore aid to UNRWA.

Israeli minister pays first official visit to Sudan since normalization

(JNS) — In a historic first, an Israeli Cabinet minister led an official delegation to Sudan on Monday.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen met with Sudanese leaders, including Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the acting head of state, to discuss a variety of diplomatic and security issues as well as the potential for economic cooperation, reported Reuters.

“I am confident that this visit has laid the foundations for many important collaborations, which will help both Israel and Sudan, and security stability in the region, deepen our ties with Africa and lead to further agreements with countries in the region,” said Cohen, according to Israel HaYom.

Sudan officially joined the Abraham Accords on Jan. 6, following the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which also agreed to normalize relations with the Jewish state. Morocco followed in December with a similar agreement.

Sudan agreed to normalize relations with Israel in October on the condition of being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. A stipulation on the U.S. side of the agreement included the guarantee that Sudan would agree to pay $335 million in compensation to American victims of terrorism.

Palestinian terrorist killed following attempted stabbing near Ariel

(JNS) — Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man on Tuesday after he attempted to stab a soldier at an intersection near Ariel in Judea and Samaria, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The assailant attacked a soldier at the Gitai Avishar Junction west of Ariel, according to the military.

The soldier repelled the terrorist after he had attempted to stab her several times, at which point her commander opened fire, killing him. No Israeli soldiers were wounded.

According to IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman, the soldier involved in the incident belonged to the IDF Home Front Command and was a lone soldier from the United Kingdom.

In a first, Israeli Hebrew novel is translated into Moroccan Arabic

By Tess Levy

(Israel21c via JNS) — For the first time, an Israeli novel has been translated into Arabic in Morocco and will be sold in Moroccan bookstores.

The groundbreaking novel, A Girl in a Blue Shirt, was written by Gabriel Bensimhon of the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University.

The novel, published by Yediot Books in 2013, tells the love story of an immigrant boy from Morocco and an Israeli girl who is in love with a Holocaust survivor. It takes place against the background of the early years of the State of Israel and the influx of immigrants from Morocco.

The book was chosen for translation by Mohamed Elmedlaoui of the Mohammed V University of Rabat and was translated by his student, Ayashi Eladraoui.

“I grew up in the town of Sefrou in Morocco until I immigrated to Israel at the age of 10,” recounted Bensimhon.

“As an academic, I have studied Moroccan culture extensively. There was always a warm corner in my heart for the rich and multifaceted aspects that characterize the Moroccan culture. As a Moroccan Jew, I feel that I have come to realize a dream: the fact that my works are read in my hometown is a source of great personal pride.”

The news follows the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel in December.

This article was first published by Israel21C.

IAI to sell advanced drones to undisclosed central Asian country

By Hanan Greenwood

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Israel Aerospace Industries on Monday announced the sale of advanced Heron MKII unmanned aerial-vehicle systems to an unnamed central Asian country.

In a press release, IAI said the sale includes reconnaissance payloads, Heron MK II drones and land arrays. The deal is said to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

The Heron MK II reaches an altitude of 35,000 feet, has a maximum speed of 140 knots and can stay in the air for up to 45 hours. Its design includes a wider and stronger chassis, enabling for quick and easy maintenance without affecting the UAV’s net weight.

According to IAI, the drone enables the use of new configurations and has a long-range reconnaissance sensor and radar. It can carry a range of additional payloads, such as communications intelligence and electronic intelligence-gathering equipment.

The UAV’s advanced systems allow it to gather intelligence on its targets from a great distance—meaning it has no need to cross borders. In addition, the Heron MK II boasts improved avionics, and an improved and reinforced engine.

IAI Military Aircraft Group chief Moshe Levy told reporters, “I commend the signing of the two Heron MK II deals. The systems will operate in a land configuration and will carry out different missions, border protection among them. The Heron MK II UAVs can land on any airstrip and can maneuver under extreme weather conditions. I am certain that these deals will open the door to additional Heron MK II deals.”

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

Israel’s new Labor Party leader pulls out of unity government

By Danielle Roth-Avneri

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Newly elected Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli announced Monday that her party is pulling out of Israel’s unity government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Michaeli, who won the party primaries on Sunday with 77 percent of the vote, ordered Economy Minister Amir Peretz and Labor and Social Services Minister Itzik Shmuli, both members of Labor, to resign.

The vote followed the resignation last month of Peretz, who announced that he would be stepping down after the party had its worst showing ever in the last election, and after having lost the support of many Labor voters when he broke his campaign promise not to join a coalition headed by Netanyahu.

“The Labor Party is leaving the corrupt Netanyahu-[Benny] Gantz government,” Michaeli said in a statement. “I told Peretz and Shmuli they must resign immediately. The Labor Party is starting over.”

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

Florida State University student senate slated to vote on BDS, other resolutions

(JNS) — The Florida State University student senate is expected to vote on three resolutions next week, including one calling on the university to join the BDS movement against Israel.

Before the resolutions can reach the full student senate, they must be passed by the Student Life and Academic Affairs Committee.

The BDS resolution calls on the university to divest from companies that do business in Israel — namely, for “FSU trustees to review their investments and to divest from companies that violate international humanitarian law.” It calls out Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and the U.K.-based multinational security services company G4S as examples.

An FSU spokesperson previously told JNS that while the university “supports freedom of expression, it does not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”

Another one of the resolutions calls on FSU to “rescind” its adoption of the widely accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism.

The resolution calls on the university to “find a more appropriate definition of anti-Semitism to ensure support and protection for Jewish students. However, this definition must not be one that will erode free speech rights for Palestinian, Jewish and Allied Students on campus who wish to legitimately support the Palestinians People’s movement for the right to Self-Determination, Freedom and Human Rights.”

The third resolution calls on FSU, the student senate and Student Government Association “to take both short- and long-term action to ensure that Florida State University is a just, fair and welcoming place for all students, but more specifically, for Arab and Muslim students.”

The primary sponsor of the resolutions, which JNS obtained, is Ahmad Daraldik, who was recently removed from his position as president of the student senate but is still a member. In June 2020, the student senate voted against removing him as president, despite his anti-Semitic posts.

Austrian government, Jewish community vaccinate survivors on Holocaust Remembrance Day

By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) — The main representative body of Austrian Jewry organized the vaccination of Holocaust survivors in Vienna on Wednesday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In the project by the Jewish Community of Vienna on Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, multiple survivors were brought from across Austria and Slovakia to a vaccination center in Vienna to get the first of two injections for a COVID-19 vaccine, The Associated Press reported.

“We owe this to them,” Erika Jakubovits, who organized the Jewish Community of Vienna vaccination drive, told AP.

Twelve physicians who belong to Vienna’s Jewish community volunteered to administer the shots in the operation, which city and Health Ministry officials facilitated, the AP report said. Some of the recipients were driven to the vaccination center by ambulance, others were taken by relatives and some arrived on their own.

About 400 Jews were vaccinated in total, including others aged 85 or over.

Austria has about 8,000 Jews. Before the Holocaust, during which Austria was a part of Nazi Germany, more than 190,000 Austrian Jews were murdered.

In Holocaust memorial day speech, Lithuanian lawmaker says Jews and communists share blame

By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) — In an unusual move, the U.S. ambassador to Lithuania accused a local senior lawmaker of distorting the history of the Holocaust and blaming Jews for it.

Robert Gilchrist, who took up the post in February last year, made the accusation following a speech Wednesday by Valdas Rakutis, a member of the Seimas, Lithuania’s parliament, and chairman of its commission on historical memory.

“There was no shortage of Holocaust perpetrators among the Jews themselves, especially in the ghetto self-government structures,” Rakutis said in the speech, which took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “We need to name these people out loud and try not to have people like them again.”

Rakutis also said that two wartime collaborators with Nazi Germany, Kazys Škirpa and Jonas Noreika, were not to blame for the fact that more than 95 percent of Lithuanian Jewry was murdered, mostly by locals and often by followers of the two leaders.

The speech prompted rare recrimination from the U.S. ambassador, as well as from advocates who monitor anti-Semitism in the region.

“It is shocking that on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, of all days, a member of Seimas should espouse distortions regarding Holocaust collaborators in Lithuania and shamefully seek to accuse Jews of being the perpetrators,” Gilchrist wrote on Twitter under the official account for the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius.

Efraim Zuroff, director of Eastern European affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in a statement said: “Rakutis has clearly demonstrated that he is totally unsuited to head the Seimas committee on national memory, unless lying about Lithuanian history is the main requirement for the post.”