Knesset to disqualify member who boarded Gaza flotilla
(JNS.org) The Knesset Central Elections Committee is set to disqualify Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zoabi (National Democratic Assembly) from running in the upcoming elections, Israel Hayom reported. Zoabi took an active part in
a 2010 Turkish flotilla that aimed to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza. She sailed aboard the Mavi Marmara, the ship where clashes between IDF commandos and activists claimed the lives of nine activists. For many in Israel, this called her loyalty to Israel into question.
On Sunday, a petition seeking to disqualify Zoabi was submitted by the committee’s Deputy Chairman MK Ofir Akunis (Likud) to the committee’s chairman, Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein. The request had been signed by 13 of the Central Election Committee’s 36 members, the number required when the request is submitted against a single MK. A majority of committee members favor Zoabi’s disqualification. Should she be disqualified, she can appeal the decision to the High Court of Justice. “The High Court will have difficulty countering the argument that Zoabi transgressed clause 7a of Basic Law: The Knesset,” Akunis said. She has ceaselessly sabotaged the state of Israel and openly incited against its government, institutions, IDF soldiers and commanders”

Fatah-Hamas collaboration on the rise
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is allowing Hamas to hold a festival in commemoration of its 25th anniversary, showing a clearer willingness by Fatah to collaborate with Hamas, Israel National News reported, citing the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency. The festival will take place in the city of Nablus in Samaria under the slogan of “statehood and victory.” This collaboration is a break from the ongoing dispute between Fatah and Hamas. In the wake of the UN’s decision to grant “Palestine” the status of a non-member state, Abbas is expected to use the renewed partnership between Fatah and Hamas to show that the Palestinian Authority can lead a unified country. However, Hamas continues to officially declare its aim of destroying Israel.

Israel monitoring status of Syrian chemical weapons
(JNS.org) Syrian chemical weapons are still under the control of President Bashar al-Assad, contrary to reports saying Damascus could lose such arms in the chaos of civil war, Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry Diplomatic-Security Bureau, said Sunday. “As far as my assessment goes, the weapons are still secure and have not been moved, but we need to monitor this at every moment,” Gilad said, according to Israel Hayom. As Syria’s southern neighbor, Israel feels at risk from the deepening conflict and has said it would intervene to stop jihadi rebels or Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists from seizing Assad’s chemical weapons. Echoing Gilad’s remarks that the regime is still in control of the weapons, Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon told Israel Radio on Sunday, “On these matters, we have to be prepared to protect ourselves, by ourselves. … At this time, we see no sign that this weaponry is being pointed at us.”

Human Rights Watch dismisses threats to destroy Israel
(JNS.org) At least one organization does not take Iran’s threats to wipe Israel off the map, coupled with the continued progress of its nuclear program and the terrorism of its surrogates, at face value. The Wall Street Journal reported that Kenneth Roth, the executive director of George Soros-funded Human Rights Watch (HRC), wrote in an internal email, “Many of [Iran’s] statements are certainly reprehensible, but they are not incitement to genocide. No one has acted on them.”
Roth’s claim that Iran has not acted comes despite the fact that, according to the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, Iran’s work on the deep underground nuclear site of Fordo is nearly complete. Meanwhile, Iran-funded groups continue to terrorize Israel. Hamas recently prompted the war in Gaza by launching an onslaught of rockets — namely, Iranian-developed Fajr-5’s — at the Jewish state. Additionally, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently boasted that his group has the capability to hit Israeli targets “from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat,” representing Israel’s northernmost and southernmost points.
HRC’s Roth said, however, that Iran’s statements are not “incitement,” but rather “advocacy.” The distinction, according to Roth, is that with advocacy there is “time to dissuade — to rebut speech with speech — whereas in the case of incitement, the action being urged is so imminently connected to the speech in question that there is no time to dissuade.”
Roth’s position is controversial even within HRC itself, with Vice Chairman Sid Sheinberg writing in another internal email revealed by the Journal, “Sitting still while Iran claims a ‘justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel’… is a position unworthy of our great organization.”

Christiane Amanpour to host ABC Israel series
(JNS.org) ABC News has announced that controversial veteran correspondent reporter Christiane Amanpour will host an upcoming series on Israel, raising concerns within the pro-Israel community over media bias. Titled “Back to the Beginning,” the series will follow Amanpour as she travels to Israel to “explore the powerful stories from Genesis to the Birth of Jesus.” Amanpour, who currently serves as a CNN international news anchor, has been
accused of anti-Israel bias in the past. In 2007, she hosted the CNN mini series “God’s Warriors,” in which her reporting drew heavy criticism from media watchdog groups. “Given Christiane Amanpour’s record of biased and factually shoddy coverage of Israel — particularly her reprehensible ‘God’s Warriors’ series for CNN —viewers, unfortunately, have good reason to expect the worst in the upcoming ABC broadcasts,” Andrea Levin, executive director of CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) told JNS.org. The series will air as a two-part, four-hour special beginning on Dec. 21.

Sudan catches Israeli ‘spy bird’
(JNS.org) Sudanese officials caught what they now call an Israeli “spy bird.” The vulture was tagged with an Israeli GPS chip, labeled with “Israel Nature Service” and “Hebrew University, Jerusalem,” Yedioth Ahronoth reported. Relations between Israel and Sudan have been tense since an airstrike destroyed a weapons manufacturing compound in Khartoum in October. Though Sudan blamed Israel, the Jewish state neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the bombing.
In fact, Israeli conservation officials often tag wild birds that visit Israel as part of their migration paths with GPS chips for ornithological study. “This is a young vulture that was tagged, along with 100 others, in October. He has two wing bands and a German-made GPS chip,” said Ohad Hazofe, an ecologist with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. “This equipment can give out distance and altitude readings only. That’s the only way we knew something had happened to the bird,” he said.
The opposition in Sudan has been quick to use the incident as a way to mock the Sudanese regime. “How is it possible that the regime was able to detect one vulture, but was unable to detect the jets that bombed the arms facility?” the country’s Justice and Equality Movement wrote on its website.

UN says detention of Alan Gross violates international law
(JNS.org) Josefina Vidal, head of North American Affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said in a press conference Wednesday that the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has informed Cuba that the country’s ongoing detention of Jewish-American contractor Alan Gross violates international law, the Associated Press reported. Dec. 3 marked the three-year anniversary of Gross’s arrest. He was sentenced to a 15-year prison term for helping Cuba’s Jewish community access the Internet. Comprised of neutral experts from Chile, Norway, Pakistan, Senegal, and Ukraine, the UN working group issues opinions that are not binding or enforceable, but could still be significant, Gross’ attorney, Jared Genser, told JNS.org. “Having an independent and impartial group in the United Nations saying that he’s been held in violation of international law provides a very strong political and public relations tool to put pressure on the government of Cuba to resolve the case,” Genser said.

Teva to bring breast cancer vaccine to Israel
(JNS.org) Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva has signed a deal with American pharmaceutical company Galena Biopharma to develop and sell the promising breast cancer vaccine NeuVax in Israel, Globes reported. Galena
Biopharma president and CEO Mark Ahn said, “This agreement is the first piece of our global commercialization strategy. Teva is a world-class pharmaceutical company and a major pharmaceutical company in Israel.” Kaplan Medical Center department of oncology head Dr. Noa Efrat, an investigator for the trial in Israel, said, “We are embarking on a very exciting and innovative venue for the adjuvant treatment of early breast cancer.” According to Galena Biopharma, NeuVax is vaccine aimed at preventing or delaying the recurrence of breast cancer in cancer survivors. In clinical trials thus far, it has been proven safe and effective, and it is now entering Phase III testing in the U.S.

Peres welcomes Pope to Twitter
(JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres officially welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the social network Twitter with a personalmessage, the Associated Press reported. “Your holiness, welcome to Twitter. Our relations with the Vatican are at their best and can form a basis to further peace everywhere,” Peres tweeted. Despite Peres’s message, relations between the Vatican and Israel have been strained lately. The Vatican warmly welcomed the Palestinians, who recently upgraded to the same UN status as the Vatican, and also published a highly critical article of Israel’s recent Jerusalem construction announcement in its daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. The Vatican said that the Pope will tweet mostly on spiritual topics in more than eight languages starting Dec. 12. However, the Pope whose twitter handle is @pontifex, will not be following anyone himself. Peres has also embraced social media. Earlier this year he met with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who helped him launch his official Facebook page.