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Fury Over Belgian Senator’s False Accusation That Israeli Rabbis Order ‘Rape’ of Palestinian Women
Belgian Senator Nadia el Yousfi speaks at a parliamentary hearing. Photo: Screenshot
Belgium’s representative Jewish organization has angrily denounced a Socialist Party senator for comments made at a parliamentary hearing that amounted to “hateful antisemitism.”
Brussels Senator Nadia El Yousfi made the remarks at a hearing on international affairs on Monday debating the ongoing Israeli military operation in Gaza provoked by the Oct. 7 pogrom carried out by Hamas terrorists.
Accusing Israel of “genocide” and “state terrorism” while Israel’s Ambassador in Brussels, Idit Rosenzweig-Abu, observed the proceedings, El Yousfi claimed without citing evidence that Israeli rabbis have called for the rape of Palestinian women.
“I remind you that within the Israeli government, the far right is very present,” El Yousfi stated. “There are calls for hatred, calls for the destruction of Gaza, all the calls to empty Gaza of its inhabitants. And one of the elements that also shocks me is that we have rabbis … who call for the rape of Palestinian women and so on. I think it’s important to have all the facts so that we can be as objective as possible.”
In response, an incredulous Rosenzweig-Abu said her initial thought was that El Yousfi’s accusation had been mistranslated.
“It’s the first time I’ve heard that,” the envoy said. “I was so shocked that I thought it was a translation error. But that’s exactly what she said.”
She added that during “past discussions in parliament and the senate, I’ve had confrontations, difficult discussions, I’ve heard many defamatory accusations, but this is a new low.”
In a statement on Thursday, the Coordination Committee of Belgian Jewish Organizations (CCOJB) added to the condemnation of El Yousfi.
“Such statements are the expression of a particularly hateful antisemitism that has no place in the Palais de la Nation,” the CCOJB declared.
The group pointed to evidence of the systematic rape and sexual abuse of Israeli women witnessed on Oct.7, particularly at the Nova music festival in the Negev.
“The particularly unbearable nature of the remarks denounced takes on a truly abject dimension in the context of the acts of femicide, rape, disembowelment, beheadings, and other serious attacks on Israeli women, perpetrated on Oct. 7 by Hamas terrorists,” the CCOJB asserted.
Comparing El Yousfi’s words with classically antisemitic “dark rumors” about Jews, the CCOJB argued that “over and above the criminal charges that such remarks may incur, Ms. El Yousfi bears full political responsibility for them, gravely tarnishing her status as a representative of the nation.”
“In view of the seriousness of Ms El Yousfi’s remarks, we feel that the most severe measures against her are called for,” the statement concluded.
Joel Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League Against Antisemitism, situated El Yousfi’s speech in the context of growing antisemitism faced by the community since Oct. 7.
“The Jews in Belgium experienced a double trauma: the images of Oct. 7 with these pogroms, and the political reactions, the press, or even universities,” Rubinfeld told the French language service of Israeli broadcaster i24.
“Every weekend, demonstrations take place and bring together up to 50,000 people with antisemitic slogans. This climate contributes to the departure of many people,” Rubinfeld added.
The post Fury Over Belgian Senator’s False Accusation That Israeli Rabbis Order ‘Rape’ of Palestinian Women first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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