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State Dept. condemns far-right Israeli minister for saying his right to travel in the West Bank is ‘more important than Arabs’ freedom of movement’
(JTA) – The State Department condemned far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for saying that Jewish rights to freedom of movement in the West Bank trump those of the territory’s Arab residents.
Both Ben-Gvir and the Israeli prime minister’s office fired back, claiming that his statement had been misunderstood and that he had been referring to Israeli settlers’ rights to protection from Palestinian terrorist attacks.
Ben-Gvir lives in the Israeli West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba and made the comments in an appearance Wednesday on Israeli Channel 12.
“My right, my wife’s right, my children’s right to travel on the roads of Judea and Samaria is more important than Arabs’ freedom of movement,” he said, using the Israeli government’s preferred term for the West Bank.
Turning to Arab Israeli journalist Mohammad Magadli, Ben-Gvir said, “Sorry, Mohammad, but that’s the reality, that’s the truth. My right to life precedes the right to movement.”
The remark was criticized by a series of public figures and activist groups. The Palestinian Authority called it “racist and heinous,” and additional condemnations came from Israeli opposition politicians and liberal American Jewish groups. Palestinian-American supermodel and activist Bella Hadid went after Ben-Gvir’s comments on her Instagram page, which has nearly 60 million followers.
The State Department condemnation marked the latest diplomatic flare-up between Israel and the United States. The Biden administration has previously objected to inflammatory statements or actions from far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition including Ben-Gvir.
A State Department spokesperson denounced Ben-Gvir’s comments, telling the Times of Israel that the United States “strongly condemn[s] Minister Ben-Gvir’s inflammatory comments on the freedom of movement of Palestinian residents of the West Bank.”
The spokesperson added that the U.S. “condemn[s] all racist rhetoric” and that remarks like Ben-Gvir’s are “incongruent with advancing respect for human rights for all.”
The administration has criticized Israeli settlement activity and supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Human rights groups in Israel and abroad have documented that Palestinians face restrictions on their freedom of movement within the territory occupied by Israel, needing to traverse checkpoints and lacking access to some roads. Israel says that access roads to settlements, and restrictions on Palestinian travel, are meant to prevent terror attacks on Israeli civilians.
In the days since he made the remark, Ben-Gvir has doubled down while insisting that he was misunderstood. He has also received backing from Netanyahu’s office. Both say his statement was referring to the idea that Israeli settlers’ right to safety from lethal attack trumps Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement. In a video statement on Friday, Ben-Gvir said, “Not only do I not regret my words. I am saying them yet again.”
In the days before Ben-Gvir made the statement, Batsheva Nigri, an Israeli settler, was killed in a shooting attack near the West Bank city of Hebron, and an Israeli father and son were killed in a shooting in the northern West Bank. Since the beginning of the year, more than two dozen Israelis and more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in escalating violence.
In an English-language tweet on Thursday, Ben-Gvir maintained that his words, which circulated widely in a video clip that he also shared, had been misquoted by “the Israeli radical left.”
“I said yesterday on a TV broadcast that the right of Jews to live and not be murdered in terror attacks prevails over the right of Arabs in Judea and Samaria to travel on the roads without security restrictions,” he wrote in the tweet. That is why checkpoints should be placed on roads where regular terrorism and shooting by Jihadists are committed against Jews.”
In the Friday video, Ben-Gvir claimed that his statement accords with international law and said, “The right to life trumps the right to freedom of movement.”
In its statement, Netanyahu’s office said that “Israel allows maximum freedom of movement in Judea and Samaria for both Israelis and Palestinians,” and that Ben-Gvir was referring to “special security measures” that Israel’s military implemented in order to curb the threat of “Palestinian terrorists” who “take advantage of this freedom of movement to murder Israeli women, children and families by ambushing them at certain points on different routes.”
This is not the first time the Biden administration has admonished Ben-Gvir’s actions: The U.S. also slammed a visit he made earlier this year to the Temple Mount, which is revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and has been the setting for a number of violent clashes. Ben-Gvir, who is a former follower of the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane and heads the Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power party, has previously been convicted of incitement to terrorism, and his appointment as national security minister was met with concern from observers in Israel and the U.S.
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The post State Dept. condemns far-right Israeli minister for saying his right to travel in the West Bank is ‘more important than Arabs’ freedom of movement’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UAE Says Suspects in Murder of Chabad Rabbi Are From Uzbekistan
A view shows Rimon Market kosher store, which was managed by Zvi Kogan, an Israeli rabbi who was found murdered, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alexander Cornwell
Three suspects arrested in the United Arab Emirates and accused of murdering an Israeli rabbi in the UAE are citizens of Uzbekistan, the Emirati Ministry of Interior said on Monday.
The ministry released a statement identifying the three men as Olimpi Toirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, also 28, and Azizbek Kamlovich, 33, releasing images showing each of them blindfolded and handcuffed in custody.
Ministry of Interior: Security authorities identify the perpetrators of the murder of the Moldovan citizen and initiate legal proceedings.
The Ministry of Interior announced that the competent security authorities have begun initial investigations with the three… pic.twitter.com/f5eNwVvdCa
— وزارة الداخلية (@moiuae) November 25, 2024
The investigation by Emirati authorities is continuing, the statement said, without saying whether the men had been charged.
The embassy of Uzbekistan in Abu Dhabi did not immediately respond to an emailed Reuters request for comment.
The body of the rabbi, Zvi Kogan, 28, was discovered on Sunday. He had been reported missing on Thursday and an Israeli official has said it is believed Kogan was last seen in Dubai.
Emirati authorities have not said if they have established a motive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it was an “antisemitic terrorist act,” and the Israeli official had said it is believed Kogan was targeted because he was Jewish.
“The murder of Zvi Kogan, of blessed memory, is an abhorrent act of antisemitic terrorism. The State of Israel will use all means and will deal with the criminals responsible for his death,”read a joint statement on Sunday from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry.
Former Israeli Druze politician Ayoob Kara, speaking to Reuters in Dubai on Sunday, accused Iran of being involved. Iran’s embassy in Abu Dhabi has rejected the accusation.
Kogan’s death has shaken the UAE‘s Jewish community, which Jewish groups estimate to number in the several thousand.
Kogan was a resident of the UAE and also a Moldovan national, according to local authorities. He lived in the UAE for several years, working with the New York-based Chabad movement, involved in Jewish community outreach.
Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of Chabad, said on Sunday that “the worldwide Chabad community and the international Jewish community at large are shocked, grieving, and outraged.”
“Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a young Chabad emissary, was kidnapped and murdered in cold blood last week while serving the Jewish community in the UAE,” Krinsky said. “Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries serve in countries around the globe in a spirit of generosity and kindness. Wherever they are stationed to grow and sustain Jewish life, they benefit the larger community as well with their love and light for all humanity.”
Israeli agencies are taking part in the investigation, the Israeli official told Reuters on Sunday. The Moldovan foreign ministry has said that it is contact with UAE authorities.
UAE Ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba has said that Kogan’s murder was a crime against the Gulf Arab country, which sits on the Arabian Peninsula and across the Gulf from Iran.
The Israeli and Jewish community in the UAE has grown more visible since 2020, when the Gulf Arab country established official ties with Israel under a US-brokered agreement known as the Abraham Accords.
The UAE has maintained ties with Israel amid the 13-month-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In the US, the White House National Security Council condemned Kogan’s murder.
“Our prayers are with his family, the Chabad-Lubavitch community, the broader Jewish community and all who are mourning his loss,” Sean Savett, a spokesman for the council, said on Sunday. “This was a horrific crime against all those who stand for peace, tolerance, and coexistence. It was an assault as well on UAE and its rejection of violent extremism across the board.”
Savett added that the US “is working in close coordination with Israeli and UAE authorities, and we have offered all appropriate forms of support.”
The post UAE Says Suspects in Murder of Chabad Rabbi Are From Uzbekistan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s Khamenei Calls for Death Sentence for Israeli Leaders
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with Iran’s parliament members in Tehran, Iran, July 21, 2024. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The so-called “supreme leader” of Iran, which backs the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists fighting Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, said on Monday that death sentences should be issued for Israeli leaders, not arrest warrants.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was commenting on a decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense chief Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri.
“They issued an arrest warrant, that’s not enough … Death sentence must be issued for these criminal leaders“, Khamenei said, referring to the Israeli leaders.
Khamenei made the comment on Monday while speaking before a gathering in Tehran of Basij forces, the paramilitary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an Iranian military force and internationally designated terrorist organization.
“Iran’s Basij will definitely succeed in destroying the Zionist regime one day,” he added, according to Iranian media. What the Zionist regime did in Gaza and Lebanon is not victory; it is a war crime. They are fools and should not believe that by bombing houses, hospitals, and congregations they are achieving victory. Nobody considers that victory.”
In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
The decision was met with outrage in Israel, which called it shameful and absurd. Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.
The warrant for Masri lists charges of mass killings during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, and also charges of rape and the taking of hostages.
Israel has said it killed Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike in July but Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this.
The post Iran’s Khamenei Calls for Death Sentence for Israeli Leaders first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Anti-Israel Group Lambasted for ‘Desecrating the Name of Raphael Lemkin’ in ‘Infuriating Abuse’
Raphael Lemkin being interviewed on Feb. 13, 1949. Photo: Screenshot
Pressure is mounting on a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization that has usurped the name of a Jewish lawyer and anti-genocide activist to pursue a campaign of strident anti-Israel activism.
Earlier this month, The Algemeiner exposed the extreme anti-Israel activities of the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, reporting that family members of Raphael Lemkin are outraged that the name of Lemkin, who died in 1959, is being used without their permission to groundlessly vilify the world’s lone Jewish state.
Jewish organizations and Israeli government representatives voiced alarm at the situation disclosed in the article. Lemkin was an ardent Zionist who coined the term genocide and spearheaded the effort to win passage of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, while the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, founded in 2021, has repeatedly and — despite all evidence to the contrary — accused Israel of planning and perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.
“The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (@LemkinInstitute) is desecrating the name of Raphael Lemkin and the word ‘genocide’ by falsely labeling the Gaza war as ‘genocide,’” the Simon Weisenthal Center said in a social media post linking to The Algemeiner story. “Lemkin was a Jewish lawyer who coined the term ‘genocide’ and dedicated his life to exposing the horrors of the Holocaust. While the Lemkin Institute is entitled to its political agenda, it has no right to besmirch Lemkin’s legacy.”
An Israeli diplomat, Tammy Rahaminoff-Honig, posted about the article from her official government account: “An important story by @IraStoll in the @Algemeiner reveals infuriating abuse by @LemkinInstitute of Raphael Lemkin’s name and legacy, as well as the terms Holocaust and Genocide, for political bashing of Israel.”
The Azerbaijani Jewish Assembly of America wrote in response to the article, “Finally, @LemkinInstitute has been exposed. It has been a platform for not only antisemitic rhetoric but also blatant Azerbaijanophobia. Backed by funding from the Armenian lobby, it has relentlessly targeted Azerbaijan, promoting the dehumanization of the Azerbaijani people.”
The Lemkin Institute, which didn’t answer The Algemeiner‘s inquiries before the article was published, issued “a note on recent criticism of the Lemkin Institute.”
“We are proud of our record and of our unfailingly frank assessments,” the statement said. “It is almost never popular to call out genocide as it is happening or to point to red flags as the process is getting started.”
In a social media post, Michel Elgort characterized the Lemkin Institute’s note as “a very long, vague, and empty statement that didn’t answer the most basic question that was asked by The Algemeiner: Did you or did you not co-opted the name of Raphael Lemkin to appropriate the good will associated with his name and works, without his family and successors approval?”
The post Anti-Israel Group Lambasted for ‘Desecrating the Name of Raphael Lemkin’ in ‘Infuriating Abuse’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.