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The Yale
Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism YIISA LECTURE Tuesday, October 28th @ 7:30pm “Is it 1939? Assessing the State of World Jewry” Slifka Center, 80 Wall Street, Sylvia Slifka Chapel (2nd Floor) Speaker: Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
SAVE THE DATE YIISA Director, Dr. Charles Small, will engage in a conversation with Wall Street Journal writer and editor, Bret Stephens. Monday, December 1st @ 8:15pm Buttenwieser Hall, Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street, New York City “Radical Islam and the Nuclear Bomb: Understanding Contemporary Genocidal Anti-Semitism” Location: 92Y, Manhattan -- Please click here for more information.
LECTURES OF INTEREST Friday, October 24th @ 12:00pm “Turkish-American Relations Since 9-11” ISPS, 77 Prospect Street, Room A002 Lunch will be served. Speaker: Omer Taspinar, Brookings Institution Sponsor: The Council on Middle East Studies at the MacMillan Center Contact: kira.gallick@yale.edu – Please click here for more information
REPORT UN Resolution 1701: A View from the United States (Washington Institute) This PolicyWatch is the third in a three-part series examining the situation in Lebanon two years after the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. This series coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon on October 23, 1983, an attack that continues to inform U.S. policymaking in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East.
IRAN Stopping A Nuclear Tehran (Washington Post) Daniel R. Coats and Charles S. Robb write, “ It is likely that the first and most pressing national security issue the next president will face is the growing prospect of a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran. After co-chairing a recently concluded, high-level task force on Iranian nuclear development, we have come to believe that five principles must serve as the foundation of any reasonable, bipartisan and comprehensive Iranian policy.”
Top Iran officials recommend preemptive strike against Israel (Haaretz) Senior Tehran officials are recommending a preemptive strike against Israel to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear reactors, a senior Islamic Republic official told foreign diplomats two weeks ago in London. The official, Dr. Seyed G. Safavi, said recent threats by Israeli authorities strengthened this position, but that as of yet, a preemptive strike has not been integrated into Iranian policy.
Documents Say Iran Aids Militias From Iraq (NY Times) American officials have long cited Iranian training and weapons as reasons for the lethality of attacks by Shiite fighters in Iraq. Iranian officials deny that such training takes place. Now, more than 80 pages of newly declassified intelligence documents for the first time describe in detail an elaborate network used by Iraqis to gain entry into Iran and train under Iranian supervision.
Japan defeats Iran for seat on U.N. Security Council (LA Times) Japan defeated Iran for a nonpermanent Asian seat on the United Nations Security Council and Austria and Turkey edged out Iceland for European seats in secret-ballot voting Friday. Iran, under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear program, received only 32 votes from U.N. members, compared with 158 for Japan.
Berlin Plans to Deter Trade with Iran (Spiegel) It has been rough going in both the European Union and in the United Nations when it comes to agreeing on tougher sanctions against Iran. Now, though, the German government has decided to go it alone and has made moves to up the pressure on companies in Germany to decrease trade with Iran.
US slaps sanctions on Iran bank (Associated Press) The Bush administration on Wednesday imposed financial sanctions on an Iranian state-owned financial institution for allegedly providing financial services in support of the country's weapons program. The Treasury Department's action means that any bank accounts or other financial assets belonging to the Export Development Bank of Iran that are found in the United States are frozen. Americans also are prohibited from doing business with the bank.
Iran feels pinch of oil price fall (Financial Times) When Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad was elected president of Iran three years ago, he pledged to bring the oil money to every Iranian’s dinner table. While oil was trading close to $150 a barrel, the populist leader could lay on quite a feast. Now, with prices at about $70 and falling, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad could find he has less cash to spread around. This new reality means Iran, one of Opec’s biggest price hawks, will be leading the calls to slash production when the oil cartel meets in Vienna on Friday.
German official was at anti-Israel rally (Jerusalem Post) German Ambassador to Iran Herbert Honsowitz violated EU guidelines by allowing a military attaché to attend an anti-Israel military parade in Teheran late last month, according to a spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry's Iran section. Israel must be wiped off the map" was one of the slogans painted on Shihab-3 missiles featured at the event in Teheran, which commemorated the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.
MIDDLE EAST Ultraconservative Islam -- Salafis -- on rise in Arab nations (USA Today) Critics worry that the rise of Salafists in Egypt, as well as in other Arab countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, will crowd out the more liberal and tolerant version of Islam long practiced there. They also warn that the doctrine is only a few shades away from that of violent groups like al-Qaeda — that it effectively preaches "Yes to jihad, just not now."
Gay Palestinian fears for life, seeks residency in Israel (YNet) A 33-year-old gay Palestinian man petitioned the High Court of Justice on Sunday, asking it to grant him permanent residency in Israel so that he may live with his partner, who lives in the central Israeli city of Bat Yam. The man, a resident of the northern West Bank village of Tamon, further claimed to fear for his life, since his family refuses to accept his sexual orientation and may try to harm him.
NORTH AMERICA Ambivalence as Part of Author’s Legacy (NY Times) An Exhibition Review -- One of the strange things about the exhibition “Woman of Letters,” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, is that if you pay attention just to the handsomely displayed objects and texts, you will come away with one understanding of its subject. But if you spend some time in the show’s Salon — a reading room in which a loose-leaf notebook is filled with detailed translations of documents and copies of recent critical essays — you will be challenged to think quite differently. Click here to read
EUROPE Britain faces threat from radicalised Muslims for 30 years, says security minister (Telegraph) Lord West warned that it will take decades to win the argument against terrorism and extremism in some sections of British society. " He added that no matter how much work the Government puts into improving Britain's ability to detect and thwart terrorist plots, the threat will only be overcome by persuading Muslims not to engage in violence.
Anti-Semitic literature at Frankfurt Book Fair (YNet) Official Turkish booths at international German bazaar presented publications dealing with Jewish conspiracies. The Frankfurt Book Fair already had a reputation of being an anti-Semitic stage. This time however, the sources are not the Iranian or Syrian booths but rather that of Turkey, the guest country of honor.
German town nixes Kristallnacht event (Jerusalem Post) The German town of Goerlitz is refusing to allow its Jewish community to hold its own ceremony marking Kristallnacht. Instead, the only ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom will be held by the local Protestant church, which has traditionally focused on all victims of the Third Reich.
Jewish graves vandalized in Bucharest (Jerusalem Post) 200 graves and 100 monuments have been vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest, officials said Thursday. Romanian Jewish community spokesman Paul Schwartz said it was the worst act of vandalism in the nation in recent times. He said the destruction was discovered early Thursday in the Jewish Cemetery in south Bucharest.
Anti-semitism rears its head again (First Post) The death of Austria's far-right politician Jorg Haider in a car crash on Saturday draws attention to an ugly truth about modern politics - the new anti-semitism sinking its roots in Europe. Haider liked to present himself as a man of the people - expressing simple Austrian thoughts about too many immigrants, too much Europe, too much political correctness. But underneath these standard right-wing tropes - shared by the BNP, UKIP, and populist politicians of the left and right elsewhere in Europe - was a man who carefully developed a politics of anti-semitism.
BOOK REVIEWS Family Ties (City Journal) A review of Bernard-Henri Lévy’s Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism.
Rebirth of the Beast? (Independent) A review of Denis MacShane’s Globalising Hatred. Jonathan Romain writes, “Into this world of largely-accepted-but occasionally-punctured integration steps Denis MacShane, whose book asserts that there is now a ‘new anti-Semitism.’”
WEEKLY QUOTES Source: Canadian Institute for Jewish Research (Montreal) “The UN has saved itself from disgrace by preventing Iran’s acceptance into the Security Council.”Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, commenting on Iran’s defeat by Japan for a seat at the UN Security Council. Iran was one of two nations vying for the position. The other, Japan, won the required two-thirds support, taking 158 votes over Iran’s 32 votes, in a secret ballot, and will occupy the seat for two years. Gabriela Shalev, Israel’s new UN Ambassador, agreed saying, “The members of the international community have demonstrated their resolve to prevent Ahmadinejad’s Irana country that supports terrorism and threatens international peacefrom a seat on the Security Council.” U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff added, “It’s encouraging and important for Iran to understand that its continued violation of international binding resolutions of the Security Council is reflected in this very poor showing.” (Jerusalem Post, Oct. 16; Agence France-Presse, Oct. 17)
Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism | ISPS | yiisa.program@yale.edu
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