Weekly roundup of world briefs

Bennett tells supporters he has ‘no plans’ to return to politics

(JNS) — Alternate Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has told his supporters that he has no plans to run in the country’s upcoming general election, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

The announcement comes after Channel 12 reported on Friday that Bennett had been presented with a series of polls indicating that a party led by him would succeed in crossing the electoral threshold in November.

According to the figures, the would-be party could become the kingmaker during the formation of Israel’s next government. Such a party would, according to the polls, take votes away from the parties led by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

According to the research, Bennett would also obtain votes from a number of undecided voters, the majority of whom belong to the national religious camp.

Bennett told Channel 12 in May that he had yet to make a definitive decision about his political future, but that he would like to return at some point. “I think I was a prime minister who tried to do good for his people and his country,” he said at the time.

German president acknowledges responsibility for 1972 Munich attack, aftermath

(JNS) — German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday admitted to feeling shame over the fact that it took Berlin 50 years to reach a compensation agreement with the families of the Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich Olympics terror attack.

Speaking beside Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who is currently in Germany for an official visit, Steinmeier said, “That it took 50 years to reach this agreement in the last [few] days is indeed shameful,” according to a report by AFP.

Disagreement over the German government’s previous offer to the victims’ relatives threatened to derail Monday’s memorial ceremony in Munich, with the families warning that they would boycott the event if the offer stood.

However, a settlement was reached on Aug. 31, with compensation totaling €28 million.

At a state banquet in Herzog’s honor at Bellevue Palace in Berlin on Sunday, Steinmeier acknowledged that Germany bore a share of responsibility not only for the tragedy itself, but for its aftermath.

“Part of our responsibility as Germans is to shed light on the many unresolved issues, the blind spots of the attack in Munich—and also the blind spots in how we have dealt with the attack since then,” he said.

“For far too long, we did not want to acknowledge the pain of the bereaved families. And for far too long, we did not want to acknowledge that we, too, had to shoulder some of the responsibility: it was our job to ensure the safety of the Israeli athletes,” he added.

On Sept. 5, 1972, eight gunmen from the Palestinian terrorist group Black September burst into the Israeli team’s Olympic village quarters, killing two Israelis and kidnapping nine.

All nine hostages, as well as eight terrorists and a German police officer, died during a botched rescue effort by West German police.

Over the years, victims’ relatives have worked hard to obtain an official apology from Germany, access to official papers and greater compensation than the €4.5 million offered to the families of the 11 slain Olympians, the report noted.

“I came home with the coffins after the massacre,” Ankie Spitzer, whose husband, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, was killed after being taken hostage, told AFP. “You don’t know what we’ve gone through for the past 50 years.”

Israel advances plan to build 700 units in new East Jerusalem settlement

By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — Israel’s government advanced a plan to build as many as 700 new apartment units in a suburb of Jerusalem that opponents say encroaches on a Palestinian village that straddles the country’s pre-1967 lines.

The Jerusalem planning and building committee on Monday approved a plan for a new neighborhood called Givat Shaked, which would include high-rise buildings that come right up to the edge of Beit Safafa — a village that was split from 1948 until 1967, when Israel captured eastern Jerusalem in the Six-Day War.

Haaretz quoted residents of the village as saying that the intention appears to be to limit the growth of the Palestinian neighborhood while increasing the Jewish population in the disputed city. The new neighborhood appears aimed at attracting Jewish residents, including in its planning of a site for a synagogue.

Right-wing Jewish activists have objected to a new golden dome atop a mosque in Beit Safafa.

Israeli officials have said in the past that new building benefits all residents of Jerusalem. They note that there are Palestinians renting units in some of the neighborhoods built after 1967.

The new village would also inhibit any future plan to connect Beit Safafa to the West Bank, and it is seen as part of a plan to cut off southeastern Jerusalem from the West Bank.

The Biden administration hopes to preserve the prospect of a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and objects to any building that would inhibit Palestinian statehood.

Israeli forces arrest 25 in Judea and Samaria raids; Palestinian sources claim one person killed

(JNS) — Israeli security forces arrested 25 terror suspects across Judea and Samaria in a series of raids overnight Tuesday, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Illicit funds and weapons were also seized.

During a raid in the Fara’a refugee camp northeast of Nablus, IDF forces were fired upon and attacked with an improvised explosive device, the military said in a statement. No Israeli casualties were reported. Palestinian sources reported that one person had been killed in the clash.

“A Palestinian claim of a casualty is known to us,” said the IDF.

Meanwhile, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) announced on Wednesday that, together with the Israel Police, it had arrested over the past two months five Arab Israeli suspects on suspicion of assaulting a Jewish man during the May 2021 widespread disturbances that erupted during “Operation Guardian of the Walls.”

In the May 12 incident, the victim, Mor Janashwili, was set upon by a mob that hurled stones and other objects at his car, and then pulled him out and assaulted him using clubs and metal bars before setting fire to the vehicle.

Janashwili lost consciousness during the attack and was rushed to hospital, where he spent a considerable amount of time recovering, the Shin Bet said.

The five suspects have been charged and will stand trial. They join two other Acre residents who were arrested in May 2021 and charged.

The Shin Bet said it would not cease tracking down those involved in activities that endanger state security, including those who took part in violence during the May 2021 disturbances.

Teacher posthumously honored in UK for saving children from Nazis in Prague

(JNS) — A bronze statue was unveiled in England in tribute to a British schoolteacher who helped 669 children in Prague escape Nazi persecution.

Trevor Chadwick from Swanage, England, assisted Sir Nicholas Winton in arranging for the children to travel safely to Britain in 1939 before and after the capital of the Czech Republic was occupied by Nazi German forces, according to the Trevor Chadwick Memorial Trust. He was later nicknamed the “Purbeck Schindler” for his efforts. He died in 1979 at the age of 72.

Winton, who has also since died, previously called Chadwick “the real hero,” saying “he did the more difficult and dangerous work after the Nazis invaded … he deserves all praise. He managed things at the Prague end, organizing the children and the trains, and dealing with the SS and Gestapo.”

The statue unveiled in Chadwick’s hometown of Swanage on Aug. 29 features a child sleeping on his shoulder while the teacher holds the hand of another youngster who looks up at him. It overlooks the recently renamed Trevor Chadwick Park and the Swanage Lifeboat Station, where he served as a crew member for several years.

The unveiling ceremony was attended by hundreds of guests, including Chadwick’s grandchildren and Winton’s son, Nick Winton.

Nick said that his father “would have been delighted to know that at long last there was something to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of Trevor Chadwick,” reported Metro.

He added that “it is a fitting tribute, and I think it is essential that people have a record of the extraordinary contribution made by ordinary people like Trevor Chadwick to help others in need.”

Jewish group slams Greece Supreme Court vice president for backing Holocaust denier

(JNS) — The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) is criticizing the appointment of the Greek Supreme Court’s new vice president for her previous support of an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.

The Jewish group said on Sept. 2 regarding Marianthi Pagouteli’s position that it “expresses the strong resentment of the Greek Jewry for the appointment at the high level of the Greek Justice of a person who cannot defend the declared position of the Greek State against anti-Semitism, even more so in the capacity of the vice president of the Supreme Court of our country.”

During the infamous trial in Greece of right-wing extremist author Konstantinos Plevris regarding his anti-Semitic book Jews, the Whole Truth, Pagouteli, who was a judge of appeals at the time, joined the minority vote in support of his acquittal. In a 32-page report explaining her vote, she justified Plevris’s views.

She reportedly noted that Plevris “did not designate a subhuman Jew as a Jew in general, but as a war criminal Jew” and that the author adopts “the Nazi view that the white race does not want Semites in Europe without intent to offend or provoke acts of violence.” 

She added that Plevris “rightly points out” how Jews who follow the teachings of the Talmud are “manifestly lacking in humanism.”

In the first edition of his book, Plevris, who was eventually convicted in the case, described himself as a “Nazi, fascist, anti-democrat, racist and anti-Semite,” and the “high priest” of Greek neo-Nazism.

Marianthi was condemned in 2013 for having an Internet blog in which she denied the Holocaust, compared Zionists to Nazis and said she wished that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler would have “eradicated” all Jews.

Ben & Jerry’s redoubles efforts to block Israel ice-cream deal

(JNS) — Ben & Jerry’s is reviving its efforts to reverse parent company Unilever’s decision to sell the ice-cream business in Israel.

According to two people familiar with the situation, the Vermont-based ice-cream company plans to file a revised complaint in New York federal court in the coming weeks, reported Bloomberg.

The independent board of Ben & Jerry’s wants to terminate Unilever’s sale of its brand and trademark to local licensee Avi Zinger, as the agreement will allow the dessert products to be marketed in Judea and Samaria.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. refused Ben & Jerry’s plea for an injunction to prevent the sale.

“Unilever’s feigned ignorance of the independent board’s authority over Ben & Jerry’s social mission stands in stark contrast with the explicit language of the merger agreement,” said Ben & Jerry’s attorney Shahmeer Halepota, according to the report.

Shekel falls to its lowest level versus dollar since July

(JNS) — The shekel has again been weakening, reaching its lowest level on Wednesday against the U.S. dollar since July.

In afternoon interbank trading, the shekel is up 0.85 percent versus the dollar, trading at NIS 3.445/$, and up 0.32 percent against the euro, trading at NIS 3.402/€.

According to a report in the Israeli business daily Globes, Bank Hapoalim chief financial-market strategist Modi Shafrir said: “If we look at the shekel against the dollar, it looks like the trend is downwards but against the basket of major currencies, the shekel is still very strong.”

Shafrir added that “when the markets fall, as is happening now, they buy dollars. The institutional investors are exposed to overseas markets through contracts and by buying dollars they increase their collateral.”

Israel advances plan to build 700 units in Jerusalem neighborhood that opponents say encroaches on Palestinian village

By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — Israel’s government advanced a plan to build as many as 700 new apartment units in a suburb of Jerusalem that opponents say encroaches on a Palestinian village that straddles the country’s pre-1967 lines.

The Jerusalem planning and building committee on Monday approved a plan for a new neighborhood called Givat Shaked, which would include high-rise buildings that come right up to the edge of Beit Safafa — a village that was split from 1948 until 1967, when Israel captured eastern Jerusalem in the Six-Day War.

Haaretz quoted residents of the village as saying that the intention appears to be to limit the growth of the Palestinian neighborhood while increasing the Jewish population in the disputed city. The new neighborhood appears aimed at attracting Jewish residents, including in its planning of a site for a synagogue.

Right-wing Jewish activists have objected to a new golden dome atop a mosque in Beit Safafa.

Israeli officials have said in the past that new building benefits all residents of Jerusalem. They note that there are Palestinians renting units in some of the neighborhoods built after 1967.

The new village would also inhibit any future plan to connect Beit Safafa to the West Bank, and it is seen as part of a plan to cut off southeastern Jerusalem from the West Bank.

The Biden administration hopes to preserve the prospect of a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and objects to any building that would inhibit Palestinian statehood.

Sisters who survived the Holocaust together die days apart in Alabama

(JNS) — Two sisters who survived the Holocaust together and moved to the United States have died days apart from one another in Birmingham, Ala.

Ruth Scheuer Siegler died on Sept. 3 at the age of 95 just 10 days after her sister, Ilse Scheuer Nathan, died on Aug. 23 at the age of 98, according to the Alabama Holocaust Education Center.

“They were always together,” Ann Mollengarden, the center’s education director, told Al.com. “When Ilse died, I think Ruth was ready.”

The sisters were born in Germany and sent with their entire family to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where their father died. Siegler and Nathan were separated at the camp from their mother and brother, whom they never saw again.

The sisters were assigned to work at Auschwitz. They went on a forced death march in February 1945 and ultimately survived the Holocaust. Siegler was held prisoner in a total of five Nazi concentration camps, reported Al.com.

“The girls worked carrying bricks from one end of the compound to the other for hours at a time [in Auschwitz],” said a biography of the two women. “Ilse sewed gun covers and uniforms as well. Working close to the crematory ovens, they saw the mountains of shoes. For the first time, they realized that their fellow prisoners were being killed and cremated.”

The sisters married fellow Holocaust survivors in 1949. Siegler and her husband moved to Birmingham in 1960 to be near Nathan, who was already living in the area.

Siegler published the memoir “My Father’s Blessing” in 2011 and the Siegler Fellowship, which helps students research Holocaust-related topics, was created by her children on her 90th birthday.

Syrian opposition: IRGC building large base in eastern Syria for ‘advanced weapons’

(JNS) — The Syrian opposition website Ayn Al-Furat (“Eye of Euphrates”) asserts that Iran is constructing “a large base to hold advanced weapons” close to Ayn Ali, in the Deir Al-Zour region of eastern Syria.

According to a report by MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor, the article states that like the Imam Ali base, recently established by Iran in the desert near Al-Bukamal, the new base is being built in the desert as well, where the “second-largest concentration of Iranian forces in eastern Syria” is located.

Under strong security, the IRGC has also brought in heavy construction equipment from Al-Bukamal and Al-Mayadin, and has also reportedly begun prepping the site for the base’s construction.