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‘We’re listening,’ Israel’s new Diaspora minister says in first public comments in the US
AUSTIN, Texas (JTA) — The new Israeli government is listening to the concerns of more liberal Jews, Israel’s new minister of Diaspora affairs said on Thursday.
But Amichai Chikli said that while some proposed changes that worry Americans — including an overhaul to the country’s Law of Return — would happen slowly, any criticism is largely misplaced.
“There is a large alarm on the left, it’s obvious, and it affects dramatically most of the Jews who live here in America,” Chikli said at the summit of the Israeli American Council, which aims to keep Israelis in America connected to Israel, often through business.
“We had an election. The result was crystal clear. We were very honest with our agenda, and it is our responsibility to form this agenda,” he said. “And it does not mean that we are not listening. We do listen, and I spent hours today, yesterday, to listen to Jewish leaders and what they have to say about the Law of Return, about the judicial changes, and everything. We’re listening to the criticism. We’re listening to the concerns. We care about it.”
Chikli was making his first public comments outside of Israel since being appointed minister of Diaspora affairs late last month in Israel’s new right-wing government, helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s decision to ally with extremist parties, including ones that advocate for curbing rights to Arab Israelis, LGBTQ Israelis and non-Orthodox Jews, has drawn concern from across the Diaspora, as has the government’s effort to weaken Israel’s judiciary, which historically has acted to protect the country’s minorities.
Diaspora Jewish leaders have raised particular concern about the coalition’s agreement to amend Israel’s hallmark Law of Return, which permits anyone with a Jewish grandparent to claim citizenship. The eligibility rules were crafted to reflect the Nazis’ criteria for whom to kill during the Holocaust, but Israel’s religious parties say that has left the door open to immigrants who are not invested in building a strong Jewish state.
Speaking in a live interview with Israeli journalist and TV presenter Miri Michaeli, Chikli said he believed it was a problem for Israel’s identity that a decreasing percentage of immigrants from the former Soviet Union are connected to Judaism and many of them don’t stay in Israel for very long.
But the new minister said any changes to Israel’s Law of Return would happen slowly and through a process that includes consultation with others.
“No one, no one is going to cancel the Law of Return, which is fundamental for the state of Israel,” Chikli said.
“We’re not saying we’re about to cancel Chapter Four tomorrow morning,” he said, referring to a technical name for the law. “That’s not what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen is there’s going to be a committee to determine how can we deal with this serious challenge. And as you see when you go into the details, that’s a challenge. We need Israel to be a strong Jewish state, and we need to tackle this challenge, and we’re going to do it slow. We’re going to do it by listening to all.”
Chikli, who has previously made disparaging remarks about Reform Judaism and who has said the LGBTQ Pride flag is an antisemitic symbol, grew up and lives on a kibbutz founded by the Conservative movement of Judaism where three-quarters of voters backed left-wing parties in the most recent election. He said his government’s critics would do well to change how they form their opinions about the government.
“I think that maybe one tip is less Haaretz and New York Times, and more common sense and tachlis, what the government is actually doing,” Chikli said, referring to newspapers perceived as liberal and using the Hebrew word meaning details. “That’s it. We are proud to be Zionists. Me, myself, I’m proud to represent this government.”
Nearly 3,000 people, many of them Israelis living in America, are expected to attend the IAC’s summit in Austin this week. Chikli’s comments came during the opening day, when Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke to the summit via video message and acknowledged concerns around the new administration.
“It’s no secret that, since Israel’s most recent election, questions were raised by many of our friends around the world and in the United States,” Herzog said. “Our friends want to know that Israel will continue to carry the rich, ethical heritage on which our country was founded, that it will continue to stand for those values of democracy, liberty and equality, which are the animating force behind the United States and Israel alliance. So allow me to reassure you that Israeli democracy is strong.”
Many of the events during the conference’s first day did not address the month-old government, its turmoil or the concern ricocheting across the world, including among many of Israel’s allies.
Ofer Krichman, an Israeli expat who works in finance and lives in New Jersey, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had expected the new Israeli administration to be a bigger topic of conversation.
Instead, he said, he had conversations about “ideology, but based not on politics, based on Jews all around the world, antisemitism, how to cope with that, which is not business, but that’s a valid topic to discuss, and it’s a concerning topic.”
One of Chikli’s first acts was to extend his title to include a mandate to fight antisemitism. He says the movement to boycott Israel, known as BDS, is of particular concern to him. Noa Tishby, Israel’s first special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization of Israel, also spoke during the summit’s first day.
The turmoil was on the minds of some attendees. Grinstein, the founder of the Reut Group, a nonpartisan Israeli policy think tank, told JTA that the relationship between Israel and world Jewry is at a pivotal moment.
“The new government represents a massive challenge to world Jewry on a number of counts,” Grinstein said. “First of all, the government handed responsibility over key touchpoints to world Jewry in Israel to the most radical factions of the government. … These things really make it structurally challenging for world Jewry to be as involved in Israel as they used to be.”
Those concerns offered an undercurrent during the first day of the conference. But the dominant vibe was simply on making business connections and meeting people.
Shani Gil, who works in real estate in the Los Angeles area, said she spent her first day at the conference going through the booths, mingling and handing out business cards.
“It’s an electric vibe in the air,” she said. “Everyone’s very excited.”
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Ilhan Omar Poses for Photo With Swedish MP Wearing Garment Depicting Erasure of Israel
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks at a press conference with activists calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC, Dec. 14, 2023. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MI) has come under fire after being spotted posing for a photo with Malcolm Jallow, a virulently anti-Israel member of the Swedish parliament.
The picture, which was posted on Jallow’s Instagram page on Sunday, showed the controversial Swedish politician posing alongside Omar and anti-Israel political pundit Medhi Hasan. Jallow draped a stole around his shoulders depicting the complete erasure of the state of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state.
“Spending these days with so many inspiring leaders from around the world — including two of the most inspiring and courageous voices of our time, Congresswoman @ilhanmn Omar and international journalist @mehdirhasan — has been like reigniting an inner flame. I feel recharged with energy, hope, and determination,” Jallow wrote on Instagram.
Jallow has an extensive history of attacking Israel and promoting antisemitic conspiracy tropes. For example, he has “liked” a comment on social media that accused Jewish organizations of participating in freemasonry, fueling a false conspiracy theory that claims a secret coalition of Jews and Freemasons is working to control the world.
The Gambian-born lawmaker also lambasted Sweden for its supposed complicitly in a “genocide” in Gaza and stated in another social media post that Europe “betrayed” the Palestinian enclave by “financing the bombs” and “legitimizing the apartheid & the occupation.” He further appeared to threaten Swedish civilians who support Israel, writing, “To every ordinary citizen who waved the flag of the oppressor & laughed while Gaza burned, We will not forget you. We know your names. We save your statements. We screenshot your posts.”
He also seemed to threaten legal action against Swedish citizens who publicly demonstrate support for Israel’s defensive military operations against Hanas.
“And one day, whether in courtrooms of law or the court of history, In this life or the hereafter, you will be held to account,” Jallow posted. “That is not a threat. That is a promise to the people of Gaza.”
“Why is the Swedish government complicit in Israel’s acts of genocide against the Palestinian people?” he added on Instagram.
Jallow has also criticized Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for taking certain measures to combat antisemitism, arguing that such actions endanger the country’s Muslim population.
“The Swedish Prime Minister’s statement that antisemitism holds a ‘special status’ and is worse than anti-Muslim propaganda is deeply problematic and dangerous. It not only diminishes the severity of hatred against Muslims but also normalizes the growing Islamophobia in Sweden,” Jallow wrote in an official statement last year.
“Ranking hate and prioritizing one group’s suffering over another is not only ignorant and offensive — it undermines our collective struggle against all forms of intolerance and discrimination,” he continued.
Sweden has reported a notable increase in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, prompting alarm within both the Jewish community and governmental bodies.
According to a report released by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRA) last year, hate crimes motivated by antisemitism in the country surged in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. The BRA found that police registered 110 complaints between the Hamas invasion and Dec. 31 in 2023, compared to just 24 incidents the prior year.
While Jews constitute a small fraction of Sweden’s population, they have represented a disproportionately high share of religious-hate-crime victims. In 2020, for example, antisemitic incidents made up about 27 percent of all religion-based hate crimes documented by police despite Jews making up only 0.1 percent of the population, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Omar for years has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress, calling on Washington to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state.
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Groundbreaking analysis of Hitler’s DNA shows no Jewish ancestry — but finds a genetic disorder
Adolf Hitler had a sexual disorder that made it more likely for him to have a micro-penis, according to the first-ever analysis of his DNA. He also did not have the Jewish ancestors that some have claimed he had.
The analysis is being revealed in detail in “Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator,” a new documentary premiering Saturday night in the United Kingdom. The documentary looks at the researchers who decided to tackle the genetic makeup of one of history’s greatest villains, as well as what they learned — and cannot learn — from his DNA.
They found that he had Kallman syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by incomplete puberty, according to an exclusive report published Wednesday in the Times of London. They also found that he had genes making him more likely to have autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, though they cautioned that the DNA alone is not sufficient to deliver a diagnosis.
Among those quoted in the documentary is the prominent British Jewish psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (father of actor Sacha). “Behavior is never 100% genetic,” he said in the Times report. “Associating Hitler’s extreme cruelty with people with these diagnoses risks stigmatizing them, especially when the vast majority of people with these diagnoses are neither violent nor cruel, and many are the opposite.”
The analysis, conducted by a team led by a prominent British geneticist, is more definitive on the subject of Hitler’s possible Jewish ancestry. Rumors about such a background were prevalent during Hitler’s rise: In one notable example, a newspaper aligned with the Austrian chancellor who the following year would be assassinated by Nazis in 1933 challenged German authorities to disprove his Jewish ties.
And the rumors have endured: In 2022, Russia’s foreign minister repeated the claim that Hitler had Jewish ancestry to rebuff criticism that Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine, that it needed to be “denazified,” was undermined by the fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish.
But while previous analyses of the DNA of Hitler’s relatives suggested that he may have had some genetic links to groups that he sought to destroy, including Jews, the new analysis, on Hitler’s own DNA, shows only Austrian German ancestry.
The analysis is based on a swatch of fabric stained with blood that a U.S. soldier cut from the couch upon which Hitler shot himself. The researchers were able to confirm without a doubt that the blood came from Hitler by comparing the DNA found in it to DNA previously confirmed to have come from one of his relatives.
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German Authorities Arrest Another Suspected Hamas Operative Amid Growing Terror Threat to Jews in Europe
Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski
As concern mounts over a potential surge in Hamas-linked attacks in Europe, German authorities have arrested another suspected member of the Palestinian terrorist group accused of acquiring firearms and ammunition to target Jewish communities.
On Tuesday, local police arrested Lebanese-born Borhan El-K, a suspected Hamas operative, after he crossed into Germany from the Czech Republic — part of an ongoing probe into the Islamist group’s network and operations across the continent.
The German federal prosecutor’s office confirmed the suspect obtained an automatic rifle, eight Glock pistols, and more than 600 rounds of ammunition in the country before handing the weapons to Wael FM, another suspected member of the terrorist group, in Berlin.
Local law enforcement arrested Lebanese-born Wael FM last month, along with two other German citizens, Adeb Al G and Ahmad I.
Prosecutors believe the three men acted as foreign operatives for Hamas and procured firearms and ammunition intended for attacks on Israeli and Jewish institutions in Germany.
Hamas, long supported by the Iranian regime as well as Qatar and Turkey, is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and several other Western countries, including the United States.
Earlier this month, Mohammed A, another alleged member of the Palestinian terrorist group, was arrested in London at the request of German police. He is accused of taking five handguns and ammunition from Abed Al G before moving them to Vienna for storage.
Last week, Vienna authorities uncovered a hidden arsenal linked to Hamas, reportedly intended for “potential terrorist attacks in Europe” targeting Jewish communities.
The Austrian government confirmed that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN) has been conducting an internationally coordinated investigation into a global terrorist network with ties to the Islamist group.
During the investigation, Austrian authorities uncovered evidence suggesting that this group had brought weapons into the country for potential terrorist attacks in Europe.
For its part, Hamas issued a statement denying any connection to the criminal network, calling the allegations of its involvement “baseless.”
However, experts have warned that Hamas has expanded its terrorist operations beyond the Middle East, exploiting a well-established network of weapons caches, criminal alliances, and covert infrastructure quietly built across Europe over the years.
Last month, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center released a study detailing how Hamas leaders in Lebanon have been directing operatives to establish “foreign operator” cells across Europe, collaborating with organized crime networks to acquire weapons and target Jewish communities abroad.
In February, four Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe went on trial in Berlin, in what prosecutors described as the first court case against terrorists of the Islamist group in Germany.