Schalit 'Freedom March' arrives in Jerusalem
Thursday, July 8, 2010
By: ICEJ News

News in brief...

Some 15,000 supporters of Gilad Schalit packed into a Jerusalem park on Thursday evening for a rally marking the end of the Schalit family’s 12-day “Freedom March” for the release of the kidnapped IDF soldier. Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this evening, Schalit’s mother Aviva urged him not to “ignore us – I promise that we won’ t give up on Gilad and I wont let you give up on him either.” Stressing that Israeli parents send their children to serve in the army based on an unwritten societal pact that the state will always bring them back, she pleaded, "don't ignore our calls, don't disparage our values.” Police had to close several main streets in central Jerusalem as some 10,000 marchers made their way into the capital city from nearby Beit Shemesh today. Among them was Shas chairman Eli Yishai, who told Israel Radio that he joined the march "to support the family" and that he believed the march was the right way to go about freeing Schalit. The cabinet minister added that everything must be done to free Schalit but not at any price. The march participants will remain in town for various events on Friday, while parents Noam and Aviva Schalit have vowed to stay in a protest tent outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem until their son is safely returned.

Iran admits sanctions could ‘slow down’ nuclear program
Iranian officials admitted for the first time on Wednesday that recent UN sanctions might “slow down” the Islamic Republic’s renegade nuclear program, but at the same time defiantly declared that they will continue to enrich uranium. "One can't say sanctions are ineffective," the head of Iran's atomic energy, Ali Akbar Salehi, told a press conference yesterday in the port city of Bushehr, where a nuclear power plant is to be activated in September. "If sanctions are aimed at preventing Iran's nuclear activities... we say they may slow down the work, but will not stop the activities. This is a certainty,” said Salehi. He added that Tehran is ready to negotiate with world powers over the nuclear issue but only if talks would be on the basis of the proposal agreed with Brazil and Turkey which preceded the latest round of UN sanctions.

Hamas to hunt and execute ‘unrepentant collaborators’
Hamas has vowed to hunt down and punish, including by execution, dozens of suspected Palestinian “collaborators” with Israel who have refused to “repent” and turn themselves in under an amnesty offer from the Islamist terror militia. An ultimatum was issued two months ago to alleged collaborators in Gaza under the National Campaign to Combat Collaborators with the Enemy, to either repent by July 10 or receive the death penalty. Campaign leader Anwar al-Barawi said Hamas has always tracked down any Israeli informants but claimed those who voluntarily turn themselves in to Hamas security will be  punished less severely. “Those who handed themselves over will face fair trials,” Barawi vowed. “They will have to bear the consequences of their actions against the fighters of the Palestinian people.” Two Palestinian men were executed in April for allegedly giving information to Israel that was later used to kill terrorists in Gaza. Once the ultimatum expires, Hamas said this week that it will wage war against any suspected informants in Gaza. “We won’t have any mercy on the traitors,” said a top Hamas official.

Hamas bans rival Palestinian newspapers from Gaza
The Islamic terror militia Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip banned three Palestinian newspapers just hours after Israel announced a decision to let them enter Gaza. Al-Quds, Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat al-Jadida, printed in Jerusalem and Ramallah by non-Hamas publishers, have not been sold in the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized power there in a violent coup in June 2007. Israel decided to let copies of the newspapers into the Strip as part of a general easing of the blockade aimed at bolstering the status of the rival Palestinian Authority, but Hamas said that the newspaper editors did not apply for permission to sell in Gaza and ordered Hamas security units to confiscate all copies at the border crossings. Palestinian journalists in the West Bank condemned the move and said it would only “solidify” divisions among the Palestinians and “harm the social fabric of Palestinian society.”

CNN fires editor over pro-Hizbullah tweet
CNN editor for Middle Eastern coverage, Octavia Nasr, was fired after posting a comment on Twitter that she was saddened over the death of Lebanon’s Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on Sunday. Fadlallah was “one of Hizbullah’s giants I respect a lot,” Nasr had tweeted. Though she later apologized for her post, CNN’s vice president for international news gathering, Parisa Khosravi, confirmed on Wednesday that Nasr’s credibility had been damaged and she was asked to leave. Nasr was based in Atlanta and had worked for the global news firm for 20 years. The Hizbullah cleric supported suicide bombings against Israel, routinely denounced the US, and was linked to bombings in Lebanon that killed over 260 American soldiers and civilians. Meantime, a British ambassador on Wednesday also paid homage to Fadlallah on her government internet blog. "When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person," UK Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy wrote in her blog, which is hosted by the British government. "The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints."

Israel-Jordan committee probing brush fires in Jordan Valley
A joint committee of Jordanian and Israeli officials visited the site of several large brush fires in the Jordan Valley region on Wednesday in an attempt to assess the damage from the blazes, which burned thousands of dunams of farmland on both sides of the border. "The idea of the visit is to evaluate the damage incurred on plots of farmland in Jordan and come up with solutions to halt the annual fires that break out each year in summer," Jordanian Minister of Agriculture Saeed Masri said. This week’s fire was the first major blaze of the season after two very large fires destroyed crops and trees last summer. The Jordan Valley’s total agricultural area consists of 300,000 dunams (a dunam is approximately a quarter acre), most of which are planted with vegetables and the rest with bananas, grains and citrus fruit.

Swedish students offer to unload Israeli ships
When Sweden's dockworkers' union recently staged a week-long protest by refusing to unload Israeli ships in the wake of the Turkish flotilla incident, a 2,500-strong student union that supports Sweden's leading Moderate Party offered to load and unload Israeli cargo themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, the students declared, "it is Hamas' fault that people are suffering in Gaza, not Israel's." Gustaf Dymov, 24, who chairs the student union, explained in an interview what outrages him the most: "It's very obvious [the dockworkers] did this not out of a will to support the Palestinians but to show hatred toward Israel… We view this as a conflict between Israel, a democratic and free country that deserves our support; and Hamas, a terror organization that has an explicit aim to destroy and kill other people."