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Friday February 23, 2007

Shorts: world

U.K., Israeli academics plan to fight boycott

British Jewish leaders met in London with the heads of Israeli universities to coordinate the fight against an academic boycott of Israel.

The recent meeting in Jerusalem was hosted by the Fair Play Campaign Group, represented by its co-chairmen, Board of Deputies of British Jews President Henry Grunwald and Jewish Leadership Council member Brian Kerner.

The meeting was held ahead of the University and College Union’s annual congress May 30, when the union is expected to vote on an academic boycott of Israeli institutions. According to the FPCG, participants at the meeting agreed that each university would appoint a liaison with Fair Play to spearhead local campaigns against proposed academic boycotts. — jta

Belgium documents Holocaust collaboration

Belgium has issued a report documenting its collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II.

“Docile Belgium,” a historical study commissioned by Brussels and issued this week, paints a picture of a country that was ripe for helping carry out the Holocaust due to the anti-Semitism of the ruling classes.

“Belgium adopted a docile attitude providing collaboration unworthy of a democracy in diverse and crucial areas for a disastrous policy toward Belgian and foreign Jews,” the 1,114-page report by the Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society, www.cegesoma.be, says.

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt called for the findings to be incorporated in the country’s schoolbooks. — jta

Al Qaida courting Palestinians

Al Qaida is calling on Palestinians to join the international terrorist network. Ayman Zawahiri, senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, said in a statement posted on the Internet that Palestinians should abandon their oldest national movement, Fatah, and embrace radical Islam.

“Brothers in jihad, steadfastness and martyrdom-seeking, freedom and a sovereign government will only be achieved if you liberate Palestine from the Jews and their agents, and only if you set up a government which rules by Islamic law,” Zawahiri said.

He denounced Fatah, which is formally committed to founding a Palestinian state alongside Israel, for being too “secular.”

“Because I hope that the nationalists and leftists will return to the truth, I call on all of them to ask themselves: Who is today confronting America and Israel? Who spoiled their criminal plans in Afghanistan and Iraq? Isn’t it the mujahedeen?” Zawahiri said, referring to al-Qaida and its allies. — jta

Polish lawmaker issues anti-Semitic booklet

A Polish lawmaker published a booklet suggesting Jews are unethical, obsessed with separateness and a “tragic community” because they don’t accept Jesus as the messiah.

European Parliamentarian Maciej Giertych, a former head of the nationalistic, Catholic-based League of Polish families, released the 32-page “Civilization at War in Europe” last week at European Parliament headquarters in Strasbourg, France.

The League is now led by Giertych’s son Roman, who is Poland’s education minister and deputy prime minister. The book is devoted to proving that European culture, education and morality should be the province of only one civilization, based on Christianity; Jews are presented as detrimental to this goal. — jta

Anti-Semitic school to stay open in Ukraine

A Kiev court reversed a decision by Ukrainian authorities to shut down regional branches of a private university that is a major purveyor of anti-Semitic propaganda.

The Kiev Court on Economic Affairs ruled Tuesday, Feb. 20, that 26 provincial branches of the Interregional Academy for Personnel Management can continue to operate.

This week’s ruling overruled a decision last September by Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science that denied recognition of diplomas issued in 2006 to 4,655 graduates and ordered the closure of 26 regional branches. Jewish leaders long have criticized Ukrainian authorities for not doing enough to stop anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist propaganda that MAUP leaders spread through a number of school magazines.

It was not immediately clear if the ministry would appeal the court decision. — jta

Holocaust denier gets 5-year sentence

German Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel was sentenced last week to five years in prison for Holocaust denial and racial incitement, the maximum sentence such offenses carry in Germany.

Zundel, a German, was deported from Canada to stand trial in Germany in 2005. In his closing statements to the court, he called for Germany to set up an international commission of experts to “examine” whether the Holocaust took place. It was not immediately clear if Zunde, 67, has the option of appealing his sentence. — jta

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