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The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism
Newsletter
Volume 1 No. 24
22 June 2007

REPORTS
 
House Passes Resolution against Ahmadinejad’s Call for Destruction of Israel
H.CON.RES.21 --Title: Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Passed with 411-2 votes.
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Libya Designated to Head UN Anti-Racism Conference
(UN Watch)  Libya today was designated head of an anti-racism panel of the United Nations Human Rights Council, to oversee two years of preparatory meetings leading up to a world conference in 2009.
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Hamas and the Second Six Day War: Implications, Challenges, and Opportunities
(Washington Institute) Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute, addresses the Institute's special Policy Forum – “Hamas's victory over Fatah in six days of fighting -- a second Six Day War -- serves as a clarifying moment for the Middle East, a pivotal event that is characterized not only by dark clouds but also by potential silver linings.”
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Was Wiping Israel Off the Map a Misquote?
(National Review) Michael Rubin writes about how certain academics and policy makers quibble over the Persian translation, and provides a link to the Iranian Republic’s official news site that quotes Ahmadinejad’s “Israel Must Be Wiped Off the Map.”
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
 
MIDDLE EAST
 
Brothers to the Bitter End
(NY Times) Fouad Ajami writes “The Palestinian ruin was a long time in coming. No other national movement has had the indulgence granted the Palestinians over the last half-century, and the results can be seen in the bravado and the senseless violence, in the inability of a people to come to terms with their condition and their needs.”
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Arafat's Children
(Wall Street Journal) The Journal’s view -- Scores of Palestinians were killed this week in Gaza in factional fighting between loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and those of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. What is happening today is the result of that choice--their choice.
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Siege was Months in the Making
(Globe and Mail) Hamas spent months planning and preparing to take over the Gaza Strip, importing weapons from abroad and training for a confrontation that the militant group's leadership believed had become inevitable, officials in the Islamist movement said.
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Abbas Aide says Iran Told Hamas to Use Violence in Gaza
(Ha’aretz) "Iran supports non-democratic groups in Palestine, Lebanon and in Iraq and we hold Iran responsible for encouraging Hamas to carry out its coup in Gaza," senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo said.
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In the Trenches: Gaza's Downfall: Israel's to Blame?
(Jerusalem Post) Some now assert that a two-state solution has been achieved. Instead of it being Israel and Palestine, though, it’s Hamas-run Gaza and Fatah-run West Bank.
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'Hamas are Butchering People'
(YNet) Injured Palestinians arrive at Israeli hospitals, share horrifying experiences of last few days. “The women, children at Erez must get medical attention before it's too late,” says hospital official
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Looters Raid Arafat's Home, Steal his Nobel Peace Prize
(Jerusalem Post) Enraged Fatah leaders on Saturday accused Hamas militiamen of looting the home of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza City.
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Analysis: Hamas is a Wolf in Moderate Clothing
(Ha’aretz) "We have no plans to control Gaza," Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal claimed. "We were forced to take over as an emergency measure." He explained that "Hamas plans to cooperate with Mahmoud Abbas for the good of the Palestinian people."
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Hamas Lying in Wait in West Bank
(Washington Post) Hamas leaders in the West Bank have been driven underground by a Fatah campaign of kidnappings and arrests, but the Islamic militants warn they'll eventually come out of hiding to try to destabilize the rule of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with car bombings and assassinations.
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Inside Gaza, a Landscape Marked by Violent Change
(Washington Post) Israel has kept the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip closed, citing security concerns and a problem coordinating passage with Hamas, whose military conquest of Gaza has solidified the strip's political and cultural isolation from the West Bank. As a result of the closure, hundreds of Palestinians remained crammed inside the 900-foot-long tunnel, living amid trash, human waste and debris.
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Last Chance for Abbas
(Washington Post) Charles Krauthammer writes about Mahmoud Abbas’s last chance to make the West Bank a success.
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Running Guns to Gaza: A Living in the Desert
(NY Times) The Hamas military takeover of Gaza last week was partly fueled by caches of weapons smuggled through tunnels below Rafah, Egypt, a gritty Sinai border town. To stanch the flow of weapons, Egypt will have to address the economic and social concerns of the region, and not rely solely on its security forces.
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Secretary-General Condemns Rocket Attack from Lebanon on Israeli town
(UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today strongly deplored the rocket attack launched from southern Lebanon at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, calling it the most the serious violation of the Blue Line since the end of last year’s war in the region.
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UN's Ban Faults Rights Council over Israel
(YNet) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined Western nations in criticizing the world body's own Human Rights Council for picking on Israel as part of an agreement on its working rules
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Declaration of War
(YNet) In this opinion piece, Boaz Ganor writes, Israel “must immediately declare that the attack on Kiryat Shmona constitutes a declaration of war by Lebanon against Israel. Lebanon is responsible for what goes on in its territory and we cannot accept that it turn a blind eye or display helplessness in this case, for that would recognize the existence of an extra-territorial enclave.”
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Millions of Shekels transferred from Saudi to Hamas
(YNet) The millions of shekels were received from the Charity Coalition – an umbrella organization that encompasses Hamas charitable societies in Saudi Arabia. The money was transferred to non-profit organizations in the A-Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem to conceal its final destination – the Hamas movement in the city.
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'Christians must accept Islamic rule'
(YNet) Christians can only continue living safely in the Gaza Strip if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings. The militant leader said Christians in Gaza who engage in "missionary activity" will be "dealt with harshly."
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Gaza's Christians Fear for Their Lives
(Jerusalem Post) Christians living in Gaza City on Monday appealed to the international community to protect them against increased attacks by Muslim extremists. Many Christians said they were prepared to leave the Gaza Strip as soon as the border crossings are reopened.
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Iran Curtails Freedom in Throwback to 1979
(Washington Post) The recent detentions of Iranian American dual nationals are only a small part of a campaign that includes arrests, interrogations, intimidation and harassment of thousands of Iranians as well as purges of academics and new censorship codes for the media
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NORTH AMERICA
 
US Congress: Charge Ahmadinejad for Inciting Genocide
(YNet) The US House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on the UN Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating international laws pertaining to genocide by calling for the destruction of Israel.
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Houses Urges Charges against Ahmadinejad
(JTA) The non-binding resolution passed 411-2. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a long-shot contender for the Republican presidential nomination, were the only votes against.
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Father of the Iranian Revolution
(Jerusalem Post) An op-ed stating that, “the entire nightmare [of Iraq] can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.”
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World Yawns Once Again At Anti-Semitic Dangers
(Jewish Light) As anti-Semitism around the world rises at levels not seen since the late 1930s, once again the world is greeting the alarming phenomenon with a giant collective yawn.
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We're Being Targeted: Jewish Community
(Gazette) A Hasidic Jewish community in Val David, 90 kilometres north of Montreal, has been the victim of house fires that the Surete du Quebec calls suspicious.
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"Europe is possible"
(Sign and Sight) An interview with Bernard-Henri Levy, author of “American Vertigo,” a reflection on the intellectual scene in the USA and the relationship between Europe and the USA. 
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EUROPE
 
Slamming Israel, Giving Palestinians a Free Pass
(Economist) Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard University law professor, predicted that British academia would be “destroyed” if it went ahead with a boycott of Israel, because the countervailing reaction would be so powerful.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, You Make Me Laugh
(Ha’aretz) Yossi Sarid writes an op-ed on UNISON, the trade union that represents 1.3 million workers in the United Kingdom, and their decided to impose an economic and cultural boycott on Israel.
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51 Nobel Prize Laureates against British Boycott
(YNet) Fifty-one Nobel Prize laureates from around the world signed a petition slamming Britain's University and College Union's proposal to impose an academic boycott on the State of Israel.
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Rushdie Knighthood Rekindles 18-year-old Controversy
(Guardian) The honour was intended to recognise the contribution to literature from Salman Rushdie, one of Britain's most high-profile and also most controversial writers. But the government's decision to give Rushdie knighthood has generated the kind of international furor that once threatened to engulf his career and put his life at risk.
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Muslim World Inflamed by Rushdie Knighthood
(Times) The question of blasphemy in The Satanic Verses, Sir Salman Rushdie’s 1988 tale of a prophet misled by the devil, remains a deeply sensitive issue in much of the Muslim world and the author’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last week has inflamed anti-British sentiment.
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Rushdie Furore Stuns Honours Committee
(Guardian) The committee that recommended Salman Rushdie for a knighthood did not discuss any possible political ramifications and never imagined that the award would provoke the furious response that it has done in parts of the Muslim world
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Russia Starts Delivery of Advanced Fighter Jets to Syria
(International Herald Tribune) Russia has started delivery of top-of-the-line fighter jets to Syria under a new deal estimated to be worth US$1 billion, but Sergei Chemezov, head of state arms-trading monopoly Rosoboron export, flatly denied business daily Kommersant’s report.
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Obituary: Man of the Century: Waldheim Former Nazi and Instrumental in Passing UN Resolution that Zionism is Racism - Dies
(Jewish World Review) Paul Greenberg writes on the life and death of Kurt Waldheim.
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