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Israel’s UN envoy says he’ll wear Nazi yellow star until other countries condemn Hamas
(JTA) — Israel’s envoy to the United Nations,took an unusual step on Monday while exhorting the international body to condemn Hamas, the terrorist group that his country is trying to defeat.
Ambassador Gilad Erdan pinned to his suit jacket a yellow Star of David, telling those in attendance that he would wear the symbol — which the Nazis required Jews to wear during the Holocaust — until the United Nations votes to condemn Hamas. His version bore the words “Never Again,” a longtime rallying cry for those who want to prevent another genocide of Jews.
“Some of you have learned nothing in the past 80 years. Some of you have forgotten why this body was established,” Erdan said. “So I will remind you. From this day on, each time you look at me, you will remember what staying silent in the face of evil means.”
He added, “Just like my grandparents and the grandparents of millions of Jews, from now on, my team and I will wear yellow stars. We will wear this star until you wake up and condemn the atrocities of Hamas.”
Earlier this week, the United Nations General Assembly rejected a motion to condemn Hamas, whose attack on Oct. 7 killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians. Instead, the body passed a call for a ceasefire. Israel rejects the call for a ceasefire, which would allow Hamas to remain in place in Gaza.
Some within Israel have taken to comparing Hamas to the Nazis, citing the gruesome atrocities carried out against Jews in the course of murdering them. But the Israeli government and military have more often cited ISIS, the Islamic terror group, as an apt comparison, even releasing a video showing captured Hamas terrorists agreeing with the comparison. The United Nations and world leaders around the globe have condemned ISIS and sought to eliminate the group.
Not everyone within Israel is on board with Erdan’s display. Several representatives of the Foreign Ministry told Haaretz that Erdan’s “media gimmick” was not coordinated with the country’s strategy on discussing Hamas and seemed like more of a political gambit than a strategic one.
And Yad Vashem chair Dani Dayan criticized his display, saying it “disgraces both Holocaust victims and the state of Israel” because Israel, unlike the Jews of the Holocaust, has the capacity to defend itself.
“The yellow star symbolizes the Jewish people’s helplessness and their being at the mercy of others,” he tweeted. “Today we have an independent state and a strong army. We are the masters of our fate. Today we shall wear a blue-white flag, not a yellow star, on our lapel.”
The appropriation of the yellow star in other settings has drawn criticism before, including when people opposed to vaccination requirements and other public health measures during the pandemic donned them to suggest that they were being persecuted the way the Nazis persecuted the Jews.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.