Uncategorized
Israel’s foreign minister cuts India visit short as Jews caught in crossfire of violent clashes
(JTA) — India’s small Bnei Menashe community is reeling after a member was killed and a synagogue was burned during violent clashes in the country’s northeast.
Some members of the community, practicing Jews who are seeking to move to Israel, have sought shelter at paramilitary camps, according to Isaac Thangjom, a Jew from the area who now lives in Israel. He said the situation is “very grim,” conditions are “squalid” and food and aid are scarce.
“It’s anarchy,” Thangjom told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week. “They’re specifically targeting Kuki [tribe members] and calling us foreigners, telling us to ‘go back to Burma.’”
Bnei Menashe sources in Manipur, where the violence took place, were unreachable as the government suspended internet service in the region. Jewish community members in Mizoram, the nearby region which is also home to several small communities of Bnei Menashe Jews, said it had not been affected.
A planned visit to India by Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, was cut short on Tuesday because of a military operation in Israel. Cohen had not been planning to visit Manipur, the region where the violence took place, and Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration did not return requests for comment or questions about whether he would address the violence during his visit. His planned agenda included inaugurating a “Jewish Trail” in Mumbai that highlights sites of Jewish significance including synagogues there. An estimated 4,000 Jews currently live in Mumbai.
Manipur is home to an estimated 5,000 Bnei Menashe Jews, all members of a group that an Israeli chief rabbi in 2005 recognized as a “lost tribe” with historic Jewish ties. While researchers have refuted that claim, instead documenting that the group has undergone a recent mass conversion, community members all practice Judaism and many are trying to move to Israel, sometimes putting their lives on hold for years in preparation. About 5,000 Bnei Menashe have successfully immigrated to Israel, where they undergo formal Jewish conversions upon arrival.
The recent violence in Manipur began after a student group organized a protest against talks to grant “scheduled tribe” status to the Meitei community, which represents more than half of Manipur’s population of 3 million. The status would grant the Meitei special privileges in education and employment reserved for minority tribal groups, who say the Meitei community already has outsized political representation and privilege.
The region has been plagued by tribal conflicts for decades, but the recent violence is being seen as a side effect of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist administration. The Meitei are mostly Hindus, while most members of the Kuki and other tribal groups are Christian. Members of the Manipuri Jewish community were targeted because of their dual identity as Kuki-Mizo tribe members, Thangjom says.
The Manipur government said Tuesday that violence has died down in recent days and the state is “returning to normalcy.” Hundreds of cars, homes and churches in the region were vandalized or torched, according to media reports. India’s army has evacuated some 20,000 people and issued “shoot-at-sight” orders as they attempt to gain control over the situation. According to the Manipur government, at least 60 deaths have been recorded so far.
The Indian army was been deployed to Manipur as the people who live there — including the Bnei Menashe — are trying to remain safe during a volatile situation.
In recent years, tensions have arisen within Bnei Menashe communities in Manipur and nearby Mizoram surrounding the process to move to Israel, which since the early 2000s has been managed by Shavei Israel, an Israeli nonprofit dedicated to easing immigration for descendants of Jews in isolated communities. A newer group, Degel Menashe, has launched to advance the emigration, which it alleges Shavei Israel has not advanced effectively; Shavei has denied those allegations. Thangjom is an organizer with Degel Menashe.
Michael Freund, founder and chairman of Shavei Israel, said in a statement that some members of the Bnei Menashe community had been wounded in this week’s violence, in addition to the one who died. A Torah scroll had been burned when a synagogue was destroyed, he added.
“The area in northeastern India where the Bnei Menashe community lives is experiencing grave ethnic conflicts and its members are in real danger,” Freund said in the statement. He added, “It is time for Israel to act and bring them home to the Jewish state before more Bnei Menashe Jews are killed.”
—
The post Israel’s foreign minister cuts India visit short as Jews caught in crossfire of violent clashes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israeli Druze Leader Seeks US Security Guarantees for Syrian Minority
Leader of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, speaks with Reuters at his house in Julis, northern Israel, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Sawafta
Israeli Druze leader Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif urged the United States to guarantee the security of the Druze community in Syria to prevent a recurrence of intense violence earlier this year in Sweida, a Druze-majority province in Sunni-dominated Syria.
Washington needed to fulfill its “duty” to safeguard the rights of Syria’s minorities in order to encourage stability, Tarif told Reuters on Tuesday during an official visit to the UN in Geneva, adding that US support would also remove the need for Israeli intervention in Syria’s south.
“We hope that the United States, President Trump, and America as a great power, we want it to guarantee the rights of all minorities in Syria … preventing any further massacres,” he said.
US President Donald Trump vowed in November to do everything he can to make Syria successful after landmark talks with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
BLOODY CLASHES IN JULY
The Druze are a minority group whose faith is an offshoot of Islam and have followers in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.
In July, clashes between Druze and Bedouin residents broke out in Sweida after tit-for-tat kidnappings, leading to a week of bloodletting that shattered generations of fragile coexistence.
The violence worsened when government forces dispatched to restore order clashed with Druze militiamen, with widespread reports of looting, summary killings, and other abuses.
Israel entered the fray with encouragement from its Druze minority, attacking government forces with the stated aims of protecting Syrian Druze and keeping its borders free from militants.
Tens of thousands of people from both communities were uprooted, with the unrest all but ending the Bedouins’ presence across much of Sweida.
In the aftermath, Druze leaders called for a humanitarian corridor from the Golan to Sweida and demanded self-determination, which the government rejects.
‘NEED TO REBUILD TRUST’
Asked about proposals by influential Druze Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari to separate Sweida from Syria, Tarif took a different stance, stressing the need for internal autonomy or self-governance within Syria as a way of protecting minorities and their rights and pointing to federal systems in Switzerland and Germany as examples.
It was inconceivable to ask the Druze to surrender their weapons, he said. Talks to bring Sweida’s former police force onto Damascus‘ payroll — while allowing the Druze to retain wide local autonomy — had been making steady progress until July’s bloodshed derailed them.
Al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander who led rebel factions that ousted former long-time leader Bashar al-Assad last December, has vowed to protect the Druze. However, Hajari insists he poses an existential threat to his community and in September rejected a 13-point, US-brokered roadmap to resolve the conflict.
Asked if talks should be revived, Tarif said trust had to be rebuilt by allowing residents to return to their homes, and permitting full humanitarian access to Sweida.
“There is no trust today … Trust must be rebuilt,” he said.
Uncategorized
Lebanon Foreign Minister Declines Tehran Visit, Proposes Talks in Neutral Country
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and members of the Lebanese cabinet meet to discuss efforts to bring all weapons in the country under the control of the state, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Lebanon‘s foreign minister Youssef Raji said on Wednesday he had declined an invitation to visit Tehran for now, proposing instead talks with Iran in a mutually agreed neutral third country, Lebanese state news agency NNA reported.
Raji cited “current conditions” for the decision not to go to Iran, without elaborating, and stressed that the move did not mean rejection of dialogue with Iran. He did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for additional comment.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had extended the invitation last week, seeking talks on bilateral ties.
Raji said Lebanon stood ready to open a new phase of constructive relations with Iran, on the condition that ties be based strictly on mutual respect, full recognition of each country‘s independence and sovereignty, and non-interference in internal affairs under any pretext.
In an apparent reference to calls to disarm Iran-backed Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group, Raji added that no strong state could be built unless the government held the exclusive right to hold weapons.
Hezbollah, once a dominant political force with wide influence over the Lebanese state, was severely weakened by Israeli strikes last year that ended with a US-brokered ceasefire. It has been under mounting domestic and international pressure to surrender its weapons and place all arms under state control.
In August, Iran’s top security official Ali Larijani visited Beirut, warning Lebanon not to “confuse its enemies with its friends.” In June, Foreign Minister Araqchi said Tehran sought a “new page” in ties.
Uncategorized
Iceland to Boycott 2026 Eurovision in Protest of Go-Ahead for Israel
A photographer takes a picture of a TV screen in Wiener Stadthalle, the venue of next year’s Eurovision in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Iceland will not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, the country’s public broadcaster RUV said on Wednesday, after organizer the European Broadcasting Union last week cleared Israel‘s participation.
The decision to allow Israel to take part in the next Eurovision, which will be held in Vienna in May, earlier prompted Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Slovenia to withdraw in protest, citing Israel‘s conduct in the Gaza war. Israel waged a two-year military campaign against Hamas after the Palestinian terrorist group invaded the Jewish state, massacred 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages in October 2023.
“It is clear from the public debate in this country and the reaction to the EBU’s decision last week that there will be neither joy nor peace regarding RUV’s participation,” the broadcaster’s Director General Stefan Eiriksson said in a statement.
Iceland was among the countries that had requested a vote last week on Israel‘s participation. But the European Broadcasting Union, or EBU, decided not to call a vote on Israel‘s participation, saying it had instead passed new rules aimed at discouraging governments from influencing the contest.
Iceland has never won the song contest but came second in 1999 and 2009. The Eurovision Song Contest dates back to 1956 and reaches around 160 million viewers, according to the EBU.