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JERUSALEM (WJC)—Israel’s Foreign Ministry has rejected a call by the European Union’s chief diplomat Javier Solana for the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state even in the absence of a peace agreement. At a lecture in London, Solana had called on the UN Security Council to adopt a two-state solution including borders, refugees, Jerusalem and security arrangements by a fixed deadline, whether or not the Palestinians and Israel reach a settlement.
Solana was quoted as saying: "It would accept the Palestinian state as a full UN member, set a calendar for implementation. It would mandate the resolution of remaining territorial disputes and legitimize the end of claims.” He added that mediators should set a timetable for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and "if the parties are not able to stick to it, then a solution backed by the international community should be put on the table."
After such a deadline has passed, he said, "a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution" and accept a Palestinian state as a full UN member.
"Peace must be built, not imposed," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told ‘Israel Radio’. "With all due respect to Solana, he is about to retire ... and we should not overstate the importance of his statement," Lieberman declared.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "We do not object. It's time for the international community to stop treating Israel as above the laws of man."
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Far right reorganizes as 'Hungarian Guard Movement'
BUDAPEST (WJC) —Across Hungary, members of the recently banned Hungarian Guard have re-launched as the ‘Hungarian Guard Movement’. Nearly 3,000 guard supporters attended Sunday's rallies in Budapest, and hundreds more at several smaller meetings staged throughout the country. Rally participants waved flags and regalia resembling those of the murderous wartime Arrow Cross. A separate demonstration, also in Budapest, demanded the release of Gyorgy Budahazy, an extreme-right activist currently held on terrorism charges.
Also on Sunday, about 400 mostly elderly protesters attended a Budapest rally in support of the government, which has pledged to fight the guard.
Courts ordered the Hungarian Guard to be disbanded on the grounds that it generated ethnic tension and threatened public order. However, the latest appeals court ruling does not impinge on the general right of peaceful assembly. The guard now claims to be a social movement. Legal experts say this contravenes the will and purpose of the courts.
Supporters at the Budapest rally arrived in civilian clothes but many later donned uniforms. They included Gabor Vona, chairman of the neo-Nazi Jobbik Party, and Lajor Fur, a former Hungarian defense minister. Vona announced that should he win a seat in the next national elections, as expected, he would enter parliament wearing the guard’s uniform.
Former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the leader of the opposition Fidesz and widely expected to form the next government, has said his party would never enter a coalition with Jobbik.
Prosecutors in Halimi murder
may appeal 'lenient' sentences
PARIS (WJC)—French Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie asked a prosecutor to appeal for increased jail terms against several members of a gang convicted last week for kidnapping the Jewish man Ilan Halimi, torturing him and leaving him to die. Youssouf Fofana, leader of a group calling itself the "gang of barbarians," was handed a life sentence over the 2006 murder of the 23-year-old Halimi, the maximum penalty under French law. He will have to serve a minimum time in jail of 22 years. Twenty-four other members received sentences ranging from six months suspended to 18 years in prison. Two were acquitted.
The French Jewish umbrella organization CRIF said in its reaction that stiffer sentences for the other gang members were necessary to give a strong signal to stem the rising tide of anti-Semitism in France.
"This morning, I asked the prosecutor from the Paris court of appeals to appeal against the sentences that were inferior to what was requested by the prosecutor," Alliot-Marie told reporters after a meeting of the French Cabinet.
Earlier, France's National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA) demanded a retrial, calling for a demonstration Monday evening outside the offices of the justice minister. The BNCVA said in a statement, that the court ruling was "lenient'' and "incomplete''.
At the close of the two-and-a-half-month trial Ilan Halimi's family had already called for a retrial, which was held under a media blackout because two defendants were minors at the time of the murder.
Cyber-Referrals
SAN DIEGO—Following are recommendations for articles on other websites submitted by our writers and readers:
Jay Jacobson passed along an article by Samuel Sokol and David Bedein on World Net Daily reporting that the New Israel Fund has been backing Israeli Arab groups that are openly pro-Iran and anti-Israel in orientation. Furthermore, the article reports, NIF is receiving some of its funds from Jewish Federations in North America. Here is a link
Bruce Kesler of Encinitas spotted a piece by New York University Prof. Hasia R. Diner about what she describes as a myth that American Jews in the first two decades after World War II tried to ignore the Holocaust. Here is a link
Dan Schaffer of San Diego saw a piece by Anne Bayefsky of Jewish World Review suggesting that U.S. President Barack Obama has become apologist in chief for the Muslim world.
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