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Netanyahu rejects South Africa’s claim that his quote about ‘Amalek’ was a call to genocide
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected claims that his comments invoking Amalek, an enemy people of the ancient Israelites, suggested genocidal intent in Israel’s war on Hamas.
South Africa quoted Netanyahu and other Israelis officials in bringing genocide charges against Israel at the International Court of Justice this month. In particular, its charging document singled out Netanyahu for his statement as Israel prepared its ground invasion on Oct. 23.
“The Prime Minister invoked the Biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites, stating: ‘you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember’,” the charging document said. It also quotes I Samuel 15, in which King Saul is instructed to “spare no one” in attacking Amalek.
Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday that the charge was one of a number of “absurdities” aired at initial hearings last week at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. “This false and preposterous charge reflects a deep historical ignorance,” it said in a statement.
“The Amalekites mercilessly attacked the Children of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt,” the statement said. “The comparison to Amalek has been used throughout the ages to designate those who seek to eradicate the Jewish people, most recently the Nazis.”
The statement from Netanyahu’s office noted that the phrase “Remember what Amalek has done to you” appears at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum, and is inscribed on a memorial to Dutch Jews murdered during the Holocaust at The Hague, where the court sits. “Obviously neither reference is an incitement to genocide of the German people,” the statement said.
Malcolm Shaw, the British barrister who leads the team defending Israel at The Hague, noted during last week’s testimony that Netanyahu makes clear in the fuller quotation that he is identifying Amalek with Hamas, not with Palestinians generally.
“We are now entering the second phase of the war, which its objectives are clear: destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the return of the hostages back home,” Netanyahu said. “In the last couple of days, I have met with our soldiers in the bases, in the field, in the north and in the south. Remember what Amalek has done to you. We remember, and we are fighting.”
“There is no need here for a theological discussion on the meaning of Amalek in Judaism, which was indeed not understood by the Applicant,” Shaw said.
The South African charging document also misattributed the source of Netanyahu’s quote, inaccurately suggesting he was referring to I Samuel 15. Netanyahu, however, did not quote that passage; instead, “Remember what Amalek has done to you” is from Deuteronomy 25, and refers to how God saved the Israelites from the peril posed by the Amalekites in the desert. In the context of Deuteronomy, the phrase appears among a litany of commandments and is seen by Jewish scholars as a commandment to remember that God is with the Jews even in times of peril.
“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt,” the passage reads, “how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”
The phrase as it appears in Deuteronomy has repeatedly been used since the Holocaust as a call to witness; Yad Vashem features the phrase on a banner, and its archives include letters between European Jews during the Holocaust in which they plead with one another to bear witness should they survive. Commentators said the calls to spare no Amalekites or to blot out their memory were to be understood metaphorically, not literally.
Netanyahu’s appeal came weeks after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, murdering some 1,200 people and brutalizing thousands more. Since Israel launched counterstrikes on Oct. 8, more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of children, spurring the genocide charges. Israel says approximately a third of the dead are combatants.
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The post Netanyahu rejects South Africa’s claim that his quote about ‘Amalek’ was a call to genocide appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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