Israel Newsbriefs from JNS.org

L’Accuse! Turkey frees bird charged as Israeli spy

Authorities in Turkey have exonerated and freed a bird that was accused of being a spy for Israel.

According to Turkish daily Hurriyet, residents of the village of Altinavya in the eastern province of Elazig became suspicious when they found the kestrel, a common Eurasian bird belonging to the falcon family, with a metallic ring stamped with the words “24311 Tel Avivunia Israel.”

The villagers immediately delivered it to authorities, who proceeded to bring the bird to Firat University for medical examinations, including x-rays, to determine that it wasn’t carrying microchips or other spying devices.

Fortunately for the residents of Turkey — and for the bird — the bird was determined not to be a threat and was allowed to fly away.

This isn’t the first bird accused of being an Israeli spy.

Last year, residents in Sudan claimed that a captured hawk was carrying spy devices for Israel. The hawk was found with labels in Hebrew that said “Israel Nature Authority” and “Hebrew University Jerusalem.” In 2011, a bird found in Saudi Arabia was also accused of being a spy when they found a tag for “Tel Aviv University” on its leg.

Ornithologists often attach tracking devices to birds to track their migratory patterns.

Palestinian’s Facebook map labels all Israel ‘Palestine’

As renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations began Monday, the Facebook page of Palestinian negotiator Mohammad Shtayyeh featured a map including all of Israel with “Palestine” written on it in Arabic letters.

Middle East analyst Oren Kessler reported the presence of Shtayyeh’s Facebook page map on Twitter. Last December, the Fatah party marked its 48th anniversary with a similar symbol. The Fatah anniversary logo included a map identifying all of Israel as “Palestine,” along with the slogan “The state and the victory,” Palestinian Media Watch reported.

Pope eyes trip to Israel

Pope Francis is considering making his first trip to Israel as pontiff next year.

The head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics said that he might travel to Israel to mark the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s visit to Jerusalem in 1964, according to the Times of Israel. Pope Francis visited Israel once before, as a young Jesuit priest, as the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973.

During a visit in April, the first by a head of state to the newly elected Pope, Israeli President Shimon Peres formally invited Pope Francis to visit Israel. The Pope reportedly accepted the invitation “with willingness and joy,” a Vatican spokesman said, Reuters reported.

Hezbollah links its wings

Following the recent European Union designation of only Hezbollah’s “military wing” as a terrorist organization, a Hezbollah official confirmed that the Lebanese group does not distinguish between its military and political wings.

“Everyone knows that Hezbollah’s political and military wings are one and the same,” Hezbollah international relations official Ammar Moussawi said after a meeting with EU Ambassador to Lebanon Angelina Eichorst, Ya Libnan, an English-language Lebanese daily, reported.

Eichorst said that the primary reason for Hezbollah’s designation was its role in the Burgas bus bombing last summer that killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian, Ya Libnan reported.

Arab media ousted from Gaza over harm to Hamas

Hamas has closed two Arab media bureaus in Gaza over their coverage of the Palestinian terror group.

Ismail Jaber, Hamas’s Attorney-General, told the Associated Press that the group had closed down the bureaus of the Saudi Arabian owned Al-Arabiya and the West Bank-based Ma’an News Agency because they “spread fabricated rumors” that “harm the Palestinian national interest and resistance movements.”

But a Ma’an correspondent told the Associated Press that Hamas was upset with Ma’an reports that Hamas terrorists were contributing to the chaos in the Sinai Peninsula.

Hamas has been feeling increasing pressure since the ouster of neighboring Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in early July.

Hamas, which is an offshoot of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood party, is concerned about Egypt’s military crackdown on Islamic extremists in the Sinai Peninsula.

Hamas, Iran meet on ties

Despite differences over the civil war in Syria, senior Hamas officials met with Iranian and Hezbollah officials in Beirut last month in an effort to mend ties, the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Sunday.

Palestinian sources cited in the report said “Important meetings were held in Lebanon at the end of last month between officials from Hamas, officials from Hezbollah, and Iranian officials in an attempt to resolve any differences.”

Last year, multiple reports claimed that Hamas had vacated its long-standing Damascus headquarters, so as not to be seen as supporting President Bashar al-Assad, whom Iran and Hezbollah staunchly back in his battle against rebels. —Israel Hayom

Syrian Christians facing

religious cleansing

In a recent visit as part of a humanitarian aid mission to Syria, Dr. John Eibner, CEO of Christian Solidarity International, met with a Syrian Christian man from the city of Qusayr who described the religious cleansing of his home by Islamic extremists.

According to Solidarity, before the civil war the city of Qusayr, located in eastern Syria near the Lebanese border, had around 40,000 people, including 7,000 Christians.

“In late 2011, the Sunni townsmen came and told us to either join them in anti-regime demonstrations or leave the town. If we didn’t, we would be killed,” Fadul Abu Yohanna Kasouhah, a Christian resident of Qusayr, described to CSI.

According to Fadul, the Sunni Islamists in his village used the loudspeakers from the Mosques to name the Christian families by name and told them to leave.

Fadul described how his cousin was gunned down by Sunni extremists for refusing to leave.

“My cousin Bater said, ‘We will not leave. This is our town, our land.’ He was recently married, and his wife was seven months pregnant. They shot him to death as he was going to work on his motorbike,” Fadul said.

Eventually, the local Sunni extremists were joined by foreign Islamic jihadists and cleansed the town of Christians, according to Fadul.

Navy system counters

Russian anti-ship missile

Israel’s Navy has begun installing a new defense system on its missile boats that would protect them from the feared Russian Yakhont anti-ship missile, Israel Hayom reported.

The Barak 8 medium-range missile is designed to intercept airborne threats, including enemy aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, anti-ship missiles and cruise missiles.

“History has never seen ships capable of controlling territory as well as Israel’s Navy using the Barak 8 missile,” according to a source familiar with the weapon.

Weiner hit for donation

from Al Jazeera lobbyist

Former Brooklyn Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is facing growing pressure to quit the race for mayor over his growing “texting” scandal, is also under fire for accepting a $4,950 campaign donation from John Merrigan, a lobbyist for the Al Jazeera television network.

“Al Jazeera and its lobbyists are no friends to New York City or our Jewish community, and Anthony shouldn’t accept their support,” Boro Park Councilman Lew Fidler said. Al Jazeera aired taped propaganda messages from al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

“Anthony Weiner should know better than to accept contributions from friends [at] Al Jazeera, which has been a voice for terrorists and spewed hatred against Jews and the state of Israel,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Alan Maisel. “They have echoed and attempted to legitimize hate speech about wiping Israel off the map. It’s disgraceful.”

Dagestan rabbi’s condition

The Chabad-Lubavitch emissary and chief rabbi of Derbent in the Republic of Dagestan, who was shot near his home and underwent emergency surgery, has been upgraded from serious to “satisfactory” condition.

Rabbi Ovadia Isakov, 40, was leaving his car after having performed the ritual slaughter for kosher meat when he was shot, sustaining a gunshot wound to his right lung and liver.

Conflicting reports indicated that there were between one and three assailants who escaped from the crime scene. Isakov’s Jewish appearance “is among the possible motives investigators are considering for the attack,” said Russia’s Investigative Committee in a statement.

Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim Russian territory bordering Azerbaijan. The attack was condemned by the acting head of the region and blamed on “extremists and terrorists.” Israeli Army Radio reported the attack was most likely criminal, not terrorist.

Israeli doctors and medical assistants assisted with Isakov’s treatment.

Putin to visit Iran in August

In a bid to restart talks over Iran’s nuclear program, Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit Tehran in mid-August, a few days after Iranian President-elect Hasan Rouhani is inaugurated into office.

Putin may offer the Iranians an alternative to the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system — after the Russian-Iranian arms deal was frozen by Israeli and American pressure on the Kremlin. According to the report, Moscow would instead offer the S-300VM system, which is designed to defend against ballistic, cruise and air-to-surface missile attacks.

The British Foreign Office, meanwhile, announced that it would boycott Rouhani’s inaugural ceremony, declining to send a diplomatic representative. There has been no British diplomatic staff in Tehran since November 2011, when a mob of protesters ransacked the U.K.’s embassy and residential compound. —Israel Hayom

PLO leader in Pakistan:

Oslo pact doesn’t OK Israel

Speakers at the international Palestinian solidarity conference called “Palestine: Manifestation of Muslim Ummah’s Unity,” held in Karachi, Pakistan, said that Israel is an illegitimate state that must cease to exist.

Mohammad Zazeh, who is described as one of the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the international Palestinian group headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said the PLO has never recognized Israel as a legitimate state, and that the 1993 Oslo Accords should not be misunderstood to have constituted Palestinian recognition of Israel.

“Israel is an illegitimate state. Palestine belongs to Palestinians. An independent state of Palestine is what the Palestinians will get recognized,” Zazeh said.

Egypt: Protect Christians

Human Rights Watch joined the growing number of international human rights groups calling on Egyptian authorities to do more to protect Egypt’s ancient Christian community.

“Egyptian security forces should be on high alert to prevent and halt sectarian violence in the current tense and polarized situation,” Nadim Houry, acting Middle East director at HRW, said in a statement. “Egypt’s religious and political leaders should denounce the dangerous escalation of sectarian attacks.”

According to HRW, at least six attacks on Christians have taken place since former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster on July 3, including in Luxor, Marsa Matrouh, Minya, North Sinai, Port Said, and Qena. In most of these incidents, security forces failed to take the necessary action to prevent or stop the violence.

One of the oldest communities in Christianity, Egypt’s Coptic Christian church was established by one of Jesus’s apostles, Saint Mark, in 42 CE. Coptic Christians constituted a majority of Egypt’s population until the Middle Ages, when Islam, introduced by the Arab invasions in the 7th century, eclipsed their religion.

New Belgium King Philippe praised by Jewish leader

The president of the Belgian Israelite Consistory, Baron Julien Klener, at the abdication ceremony of Belgian King Albert II and the coronation of his son Philippe praised the new king’s “intellectual curiosity that has led him to take an interest in the diversity of human thought and in the various beliefs.”

While he was still crown prince in 1993, the new king had unveiled a plaque in which Belgian Jews expressed gratitude to non-Jewish Belgians for the rescue of many Jews during the Holocaust, Klener noted, according to the World Jewish Congress.

More recently, in 2012, King Philippe attended the 56th pilgrimage to the Dossin barracks, a former assembly camp from where thousands of Jews and Roma were transported to concentration camps, as part of the National Day of Jewish Martyr of Belgium and the 70th anniversary of the start of the deportation of Belgian Jews.