Channels

Photo: AP
Funerals after Beit Hanoun incident (Archive)
Photo: AP

Former Canadian minister slams UN report on Beit Hanoun incident

Jewish news wrap-up: New Holocaust center may open in Britain; Shiite Cleric slams Australian PM for backing Israel

Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler has slammed a UN report on the November 2006 incident in Beit Hanoun, in which artillery fired by the IDF in response to Qassam attacks killed 19 Palestinians, the Canadian Jewish News reported.

 

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, which he says institutionalizes anti-Israel condemnation "as a standing item on the agenda," Cotler said: "The terms of reference deliberately ignored the Palestinian rocket attacks on the Israeli city of Sderot that preceded Israel's actions."

 

Cotler had turned down an invitation by South African Archbishop Desomond Tutu to join the investigation, saying: "I could not accept a mandate to hear only one side of a dispute."

 

"How could one accept a fact-finding mission, a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland inquiry, where the conviction was secured and the sentence passed even before the inquiry began?" Cotler said.

 

Shiite Cleric slams Australian PM for backing Israel

Australia's top Shiite cleric has said that Prime Minister John Howard's support for Israel is "encouraging terrorism," the Australian Jewish News (AJN) reported this week.

 

"Sheikh Kamal Mousselmani, the head of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council of Australia, which governs the 30,000-plus Shiites living here, told the Weekend Australian newspaper that John Howard's government is 'encouraging Israel to kill our people daily,'" the AJN said.

 

"If Australia supports Israel, they are defending terrorism. Because we believe terrorists come from Israel - not from our people. I support Hizbullah," Mousselmani, who was born in Lebanon, was quoted as saying.

 

"Our opinion is that Hizbullah is not a terrorist group. We consider Hizbullah a resistance group. Put those words down, we are not afraid to say that," he told the newspaper.

 

The report added that Australian security forces are investigating the Shiite community in Australia.

 

New Holocaust center may open in Britain

"Plans are afoot once again to establish a Manchester Holocaust center," the Jewish Telegraph reported this week.

 

"The idea was first mooted by historian Bill Williams almost 10 years ago. But the Manchester Jewish Museum trustees did not agree to his proposal to extend the building to include a Shoah Centre," the report added.

 

"Mr. Williams then spearheaded an ambitious project to construct a Shoah Centre, to be designed by the famous architect Daniel Libeskind, adjacent to the Imperial War Museum of the North. The scheme fell through for lack of funding.

 

"But now museum trustees are seriously considering the establishment of an adjacent Museum for Tolerance, possibly modeled on the one in Los Angeles," the report added.

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.23.07, 18:00
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment