Israel Matzav

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive!

The Obama administration's effort to deny Prime Minister Netanyahu's charge that Obama was behind the passage of a UN resolution declaring the Western Wall to be 'Palestinian territory' has come apart under the weight of its own lies.

You will recall, if you follow the links above that the Obama administration denied the Netanyahu government's accusations that Obama-Kerry were behind and orchestrating the UN resolution. And if you keep reading below, you will find out that in fact, the Obama administration has been orchestrating this resolution since September, and that John Kerry's little post-election trip to New Zealand (and Antartica) is likely connected to it.

On Wednesday morning, Israel Radio reported on an Egyptian newspaper report that published a summary of a meeting among Kerry, Susan Rice and chief 'Palestinian' negotiator bottle washer Saeb Erekat. That led to this denial from US National Security Council spokesman Ned Price:

This is a total fabrication. This meeting never occurred. https://t.co/FHDL1taIlF

— Ned Price (@Price44) December 28, 2016

To which CAMERA analyst Gidon Shaviv responded.

/@Price44
Can I point out the meeting is on the schedule online? Any response? pic.twitter.com/Z4KAwi4KRR

— Gidon Shaviv (@GidonShaviv) December 28, 2016

Price equivocated.

/@Price44 Are you saying a meeting took place but the transcript is fake, or that Rice wasn't at the meeting?

— Gidon Shaviv (@GidonShaviv) December 28, 2016

Price never responded to the question.

But in fact, on Tuesday, the State Department's Mark Toner admitted that the meeting did take place. And much more (full transcript here).

QUESTION: Yeah. I mean, tensions have been increasing since the UN vote on Friday. I’m sure you’ve seen all the reports and heard a lot of the words. The Israeli officials are now being quoted as saying that they have evidence that they will lay out to the Trump administration of – in which the U.S., specifically Kerry, had discussions with the Palestinians before the vote, a few weeks before, during a visit to Washington where Saeb Erekat was around, and basically that he pushed them to go to Egypt and to move ahead with this resolution. That’s one of the things.

MR TONER: Okay.

QUESTION: So the question is: Was the U.S. hiding behind this other group of countries to submit the resolution? Were those discussions ever taken place? Because the Israelis feel that they’ve got evidence that there was meddling by the Americans.

MR TONER: Excuse me. Forgive me. (Coughs.) I picked up a cold over the weekend too, unfortunately, so I apologize.

So you’re right. We’ve obviously seen the same reports, an amalgamation of different allegations that somehow this was U.S.-driven and precooked. What I’ll say – excuse me – (coughs) – is that we reject the notion that the United States was the driving force behind this resolution. That’s just not true. The United States did not draft this resolution, nor did it put it forward. It was drafted and initially introduced, as we all know, by Egypt, in coordination with the Palestinians and others. When it was clear that the Egyptians and the Palestinians would insist on bringing this resolution to a vote and that every other country on the council would, in fact, support it, we made clear to others, including those on the Security Council, that further changes were needed to make the text more balanced. And that’s a standard practice on – with regard to resolutions at the Security Council. So there’s nothing new to this.

Actually, it's not 'standard practice' unless you're looking for an excuse not to veto it. If the United States had planned to veto the resolution - as happened many times in the past - it would not have bothered to pretend to make the text 'more balanced,' because it would not have mattered. And it certainly would not have sent Secretary Kerry gallivanting around the world to work on it. 

You look like you’re pouncing on me, but go ahead.
QUESTION: No, we just —

MR TONER: No, we’ll continue. I can continue, but if you have a – do you have a follow up?

QUESTION: No, no. Let’s just keep going with this.

MR TONER: Okay, sure. And this is a really important point. We also made clear at every conversation – in every conversation – that the President would make the final decision and that he would have to review the final text before making his final decision. So the idea that this was, again, precooked or that we had agreed upon the text weeks in advance is just not accurate. And in fact —

QUESTION: But we know that —

MR TONER: Go ahead. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

QUESTION: No, we know that the U.S. didn’t draft it or put it forward. But was the U.S. in any way coaxing on any – another group of countries to move ahead and go and move ahead with this resolution?

You mean like 'humiliated' Joe Biden leaning on Ukraine to improve the 'optics' and make it 14-0? But Toner didn't bother to explain that.

MR TONER: Well, again, these are – I mean, again, I think it’s important to have the proper context, in that all through the fall there was talk about – and we often got the question here and of course we replied that we’re never going to discuss hypotheticals in terms of what resolutions or what is circulating out there – but of course, there has been for some time in the fall talk about this resolution or that resolution with regard to the Middle East peace and the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Yes, of course. Because without the need to worry any more about himself or his party, the true Jew-hating Obama was free to come out. 

So of course, in the – of course, in the course of those conversations, we’re always making clear what our parameters are, what our beliefs are, what our – what we need to see or what we – in order to even consider a resolution. That’s part of the give-and-take of the UN.

QUESTION: But surely these countries, before they would move ahead, would want to get the view of an influential member of the Security Council of the UN of who – of what their position would be on this.

MR TONER: Well, again, I think we – of course, as the draft or the text was circulated, we said to those on the Security Council that – what further changes were needed to make the text more balanced. And in fact, we ended up abstaining because we didn’t feel it was balanced enough in the sense of it didn’t hit hard enough on the incitement-to-violence side of the coin.

No. When you abstain and you could have vetoed, that's a vote in favor. Let's call a spade a spade. 

Go ahead. You look perplexed. (Laughter.) Go ahead, Said.
QUESTION: At what stage did you intervene to try and balance? Was it after Egypt said they’d withdraw it?

MR TONER: I think it was once – yeah, I mean, once – I mean, I don’t have a date certain. It was once the Egyptians and Palestinians made it clear that they were going to advance this text or bring this resolution to a vote and that, in fact, it would be supported by other countries.

QUESTION: Does that date predate Mr. Erekat’s visit to the State Department?

MR TONER: I don’t know the date of his visit. But again, I’m not – I’m not exactly – and I’m not necessarily excluding that when he did visit to the State Department that they didn’t discuss possible resolutions or anything like that in terms of draft language. But again, there was no – nothing precooked. There was nothing – this was not some move orchestrated by the United States.
Please.

Erekat 'visited' the State Department on December 12 - ten days before the Egyptians presented and withdrew the resolution, and eleven days before Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela - with open support from the UK and behind the scenes support from the US - presented it again. Orchestrated? Bet on it. 

QUESTION: Could you be clear what you just said? I heard a double negative in there. You’re not precluding that they didn’t discuss it. Are you saying they – that when the Palestinians were here —

MR TONER: I don’t have a readout. Yeah, I don’t have a readout of that meeting in front of me. I just – but I said I can imagine that they talked about Middle East peace broadly and efforts to reinvigorate the process. I don’t know that they discussed the possible action at the UN. But of course, as we – as I said in answer to Lesley’s question, that was something that was in the mix for some months now in New York at the UN that there might be some action taken there.

This wouldn't be anywhere near as suspicious had the meeting been publicly disclosed on December 12. But if had, Israel would not have been blindsided.

QUESTION: And what about New Zealand, when the Secretary was there before Antarctica?

MR TONER: Yeah.

Yeah indeed. Let's interrupt for a minute. Here's a New Zealand Herald report from November 13, five days after the US election.

One of the closed-door discussions between United States Secretary of State John Kerry and the New Zealand Government today was a potential resolution by the United Nations Security Council on a two-state solution for the Israel - Palestinian conflict.

After the talks, Foreign Minister Murray McCully even raised the possibility of the US or New Zealand sponsoring a resolution.

"It is a conversation we are engaged in deeply and we've spent some time talking to Secretary Kerry about where the US might go on this.

"It is something that is still in play," McCully told reporters after talks today in Wellington.

New Zealand's two-year term on the Security Council will end in ignominy on Saturday. But then, we should not have been as surprised by their behavior as we were. Our bad.

Back to the State Department. 

QUESTION: And also I believe he had a meeting here with Mr. Shoukry at some point in early December.

MR TONER: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Was the resolution discussed at either of those meetings with those diplomats?

MR TONER: Again, I can’t specifically say whether the resolution – but certainly, if a resolution or action at the UN was discussed, it wasn’t discussed in the level of detail where there was some final text. We always reserved the right with any text that was put forward, drafted and put forward, to veto it or to not take action or abstain, which is what we ended up doing.

Like I said - when you have a veto and you don't use it, you're voting in favor. 

QUESTION: But you advised them on how to put together a motion that the United States would feel comfortable abstaining or voting in favor of?

MR TONER: Well, I think what we said is – and this is not just unique to this process, but once a text, a draft text is to the point where it’s going to be put forward to a vote, of course we would provide input on what we believed were – was language that didn’t pass or didn’t allow us to vote for it or —

QUESTION: You see what I’m saying?

MR TONER: Yeah.

QUESTION: You didn’t just say bring whatever motion you like up and we’ll vote however we feel about it. You were encouraging them to bring forward a motion that you would feel comfortable not blocking.

Sounds like game, set and match right here. 

MR TONER: Well, but we have to be really careful in how we’re talking about this because what the allegations —

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR TONER: No, I know and I understand that. But no, no, but I’m saying that some of the allegations out there, frankly, are implying that this was somehow some – as I said, some orchestrated action by the U.S. to pass a resolution that was negative about settlement activity in Israel, and the fact is that that’s just not the case. Of course, we would always provide, when the final text was going up for a vote, our opinion on where the red lines were. But I think that – I think this is all a little bit of a sideshow, to be honest, that this was a resolution that we could not in good conscience veto because it condemns violence, it condemned incitement, it reiterates what has long been the overwhelming consensus international view on settlements, and it calls for the parties to take constructive steps to advance a two-state solution on the ground. There was nothing in there that would prompt us to veto that type of resolution.

Actually, no. The only party it calls on to do anything is Israel. 

QUESTION: But there was nothing in there —

MR TONER: And in fact —

QUESTION: — because you told them not to put anything in there that would cause you to veto it.

MR TONER: But that – but again, not at all. And I said we did not take the lead in drafting this resolution. That was done by the Egyptians with the Palestinians. But again, in any kind of resolution process, of course there’s moments where – or I mean, it’s not like our views regarding settlements or regarding resolutions with respect to Israel aren’t well-known and well-vetted within the UN community. There’s been many times in the past where we’ve not – or we vetoed resolutions that we found to be biased towards Israel. But that’s another point here is that there’s nothing – the other canard in all of this is that this was somehow breaking with longstanding U.S. tradition in the UN Security Council, when we all know that every administration has vetoed – or rather has abstained or voted for similar resolutions.

Actually, no administration other than the Carter administration has ever called 'settlements' illegal. And no administration has ever called on 'all States'

to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967

That's right. In case you missed it, the Obama administration voted for a resolution that backs BDS.

QUESTION: But it’s true then that you had opportunities to ask them not to bring it forward at all and didn’t take them.

MR TONER: I’m not sure what you’re —

QUESTION: Well, instead of saying why not write the motion this way, you could have said please don’t bring a motion.

MR TONER: Well, again, I think when it was clear to us that they were going to bring it to a vote and that every other council – every other country on the council was going to support that resolution, that draft text —

Since when does a country with veto power have to worry about what 'every other country on the council' is going to do, especially a week before ten of the council's 15 members are about to turn over? Funny that we never hear Russia or China worrying about what 'every other country on the council' is going to do.

But the effort to destroy Israel in the council goes back much further than Kerry's trip to New Zealand in November. Here's Adam Kredo from the Washington Free Beacon.

Jonathan Schanzer, a Middle East expert and vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Free Beacon that he spoke with U.S. officials in September who admitted that “a U.N. measure of some shape or form was actively considered,” a charge that runs counter the White House’s official narrative.

“We know that this administration was at a minimum helping to shape a final resolution at the United Nations and had been working on this for months,” Schanzer said.

“This isn’t terribly dissimilar from the administration’s attempts to spin the cash pallets they sent to Iran,” he added, referring to the administration’s efforts to conceal the fact that it sent the Iranian government some $1.7 billion in cash.

“The fact is, the administration has been flagged as being an active participant in this U.N. resolution,” Schanzer said. “Now they wish to try to spin this as inconsequential. This was an attempt by the administration to lead from behind, as they have done countless times in the past and which has failed countless times in the past.”

And if you're having any doubts whether to believe Schanzer or to believe the Obama-Kerry spin, please consider this.

One veteran foreign policy insider and former government official who requested anonymity in order to speak freely described senior Obama administration officials as “lying sacks of shit” who routinely feed the press disinformation.

A senior congressional aide who is working on a package of repercussions aimed at the U.N. told the Free Beacon the administration is scrambling to provide excuses in response to the breakdown in its own narrative regarding the resolution.

“The administration got caught red handed, and now they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. “First they claimed the resolution was simply not objectionable. Now they say it will actually help advance peace. These denials only look more ridiculous with each passing day as new evidence surfaces that the White House was behind this anti-Israel resolution.”

The Obama administration has been caught several times misleading the public about its campaign to discredit Israel, including the funding of an organization that sought to unseat Netanyahu in the country’s last election, according to one congressional adviser who works with Republican and Democratic offices on Middle East issues.

All of which leads this Jew to believe that columnist and lawyer Kurt Schlichter is spot-on with this tweet.

If you are Jewish and supporting Barack Obama and John Kerry, well, you would have made a fine helper at Auschwitz.

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 28, 2016

Indeed.

Labels: American allies, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, New Zealand, Saeb Erekat, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:35 PM 0 comments

Obscenity personified: Obama lies, stabs Israel in the back, wishes us a Happy Chanuka

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone. And a freilichen (Happy) Chanuka too.

The title of this post was stolen from a tweet by Anne Bayefsky after the United States abstained in the Security Council on Friday, allowing a resolution to pass that condemns as 'a flagrant violation' of 'international law' Israel's 'settlements' in the 'West Bank' and 'east' Jerusalem.

Will this resolution matter? John Bolton thinks it will. Let's go to the videotape.



Meanwhile the killing in Syria continues, but since there are no Jews involved, no one cares.

What better time to break with 50 years of US policy in the Middle East and try to impose a 'solution.'

Oh and guess what the mamzer was doing at the very moment he let the resolution pass... he was wishing all the stupid Jews who voted for him a Happy Chanuka.

Thanks for the stab in the back Obama.

While the resolution has not woken up too many Democrats to the fact that Obama's a Jew hater, it has woken up the Israeli government. In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu claims that Obama had specifically promised to veto any UN resolutions in his last days in office.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday accused President Barack Obama of breaching a specific commitment to Israel by allowing through Friday’s UN Security Council anti-settlements resolution, and compared the outgoing president’s behavior to that of predecessor Jimmy Carter, “a president who was hostile to Israel.” 

Vowing not to be forced by international pressure into withdrawing from disputed territory, he said the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump had indicated that it would join an all-out war against what he called a “shameful” and “scandalous” decision.

He described the 14-0 vote in the Security Council, with the US abstaining, as “the swan song of the old world that is anti-Israel.” Now, he said, “we are entering a new era. And as President-elect Trump said, it’s going to happen a lot faster than people think.”

In this new era, it will a lot more costly for those who seek to harm Israel, he warned.

Practically speaking, Netanyahu also announced that Israel was re-evaluating all of its dealings with the United Nations, and that he had already instructed officials to cut off “30 million shekels ($7.8 million) of funding for five UN bodies that are particularly hostile to Israel.” More such action will follow, he promised.

He noted that he had recalled Israel’s ambassadors from New Zealand and Senegal, two of the four countries that sponsored the resolution that have diplomatic relations with Israel. Israeli aid to Senegal has also been halted, he said.

I think he should recall his ambassadors from the UK and France and Egypt as well, and call the US and Russian ambassadors in for a dressing down.

Netanyahu had more to say.

The US abstention came in “a complete contradiction” to a “specific commitment by President Obama in 2011,” he said. It was “a shameful anti-Israel ambush” by the administration, he said.

“The whole Middle East is going up in flames,” he said, “and the Obama administration and the Security Council” target Israel, the region’s only democracy. “How shameful.”

...

US legislators intend to pass a law to punish states or organizations, including the UN, that seek to hurt Israel. The US alone, he noted, provides a quarter of the UN’s funding.

He said Israel was “on a journey” to improve its relations with the nations of the world. “It could be that this scandalous decision yesterday will accelerate this process. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Yesterday’s decision is a recruitment call to all our many friends in the US and around the world — friends who have had enough of the UN’s hostile treatment of Israel and who intend to push fundamental change at the UN.”

Therefore, he said, invoking the spirit of the Hanukkah festival which began on Saturday, “the light will oust the darkness.”

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Egypt, France, New Zealand, Russia, Senegal, UN terrorist funding, United Kingdom, United Nations Security Council, United States, US veto

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:02 AM 2 comments

New Zealand lied?

You will recall that on Monday I blogged a post by @BarakRavid that claimed that the last two New Zealand ambassadors to Turkey were listed on the embassy's website as having been credentialed to both Israel and the 'Palestinian Authority.' I questioned whether that was case based on Wikipedia.

It now turns out that according to the way back machine, the website of the New Zealand embassy in Turkey was changed sometime between August 8, 2014 and today to add that the ambassador was credentialed to the 'Palestinian Authority.' Previously, it had said he was credentialed to the 'occupied Palestinian territory.' This week was likely the first that Israel's foreign ministry heard of it.

I got this by email from Marty R.

According to archive.org, it does seem to be new.

May 26 and July 2, 2014: "Jordan, Israel and occupied Palestinian territory"

Feb 13, 2014 the website design changed, but it does not list PA, either on the main page or when you click on Israel:
    "Living in Turkey
    Living in Israel
    Living in Jordan"

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nzembassy.com/turkey

I went back to October 1, 2013 and clicked on the "what the embassy does" link and it included 'occupied Palestinian territory.' So I sent an email to Marty R asking him to clarify when the reference to the 'Palestinian Authority' started. Here's his response:

Oh so this must be more recent, sometime b/w August 8 and today.

- August 8 archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20140808171125/http://www.nzembassy.com/turkey/about-the-embassy/what-the-embassy-does

"Occupied Palestinian territory" is how most define the area, and I should instead be looking for "Palestinian Authority".

According to google, it is only mentioned once, on main page: https://www.google.com/search?q="Palestinian+Authority"+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.nzembassy.com%2Fturkey (when searching the site directly, it is also in "What the Embassy does", as you pointed out)

For main page: 

Today, as you mentioned, it says "Authority": "Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Georgia and Azerbaijan" 

While at least up to Aug 8, it said "territory": "Jordan, Israel and occupied Palestinian territory".

Same thing Under What the Embassy does: 

Today, "The New Zealand Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey is also accredited to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the State of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Georgia and Azerbaijan." 

While at least up to Aug 8, is said "The New Zealand Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey is also accredited to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the State of Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territory."

There may be other archiving websites besides archive.org (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Web_archiving_initiatives), if you want  a more recent date than Aug 8. In any event, it seems recent enough. It used to be "Palestinian territory", which is how the area is categorized by I assume most countries, while they now deal with PA as if it is a country on its own.

Indeed. In the world of diplomacy, there is a world of difference between 'occupied Palestinian territory' and the 'Palestinian Authority.' One just clarifies that the ambassador is credentialed to Judea and Samaria (and Gaza?) without recognizing Israel's claim to it, while the other recognizes a different governing authority in that territory.

That makes the Foreign Ministry's reaction to Curr's presentation of his credentials far more understandable.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, diplomatic relations, New Zealand, Palestinian Authority

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

Israel rejects New Zealand's new ambassador

Israel has rejected the credentials of New Zealand ambassador Jonathan Curr on the grounds that Curr is also slated to be his country's ambassador to the 'Palestinian Authority.'

New Zealand does not maintain an embassy in Israel; its relations with Israel are handled by its embassy in Ankara, which is responsible for several countries in the region. Its ambassador to Turkey serves as nonresident ambassador to Israel and comes to Jerusalem every month or two for meetings.

New Zealand’s new ambassador to Turkey, Jonathan Curr, was meant to come to Israel this week to present his credentials. A packed schedule for his visit was almost set, when last Thursday he told Foreign Ministry personnel that since he is also responsible for New Zealand’s relations with the PA, he also planned to visit Ramallah for an official ceremony with PA president Mahmoud Abbas as well.

This was not to be a full presentation of credentials, since New Zealand does not recognize a state called Palestine. Curr was to present instead a letter of introduction, a document which merely informs Abbas that he is the New Zealand diplomat who handles ties with the PA.

When the Foreign Ministry heard this, officials informed Curr that this violated diplomatic protocol. They noted that since the Oslo Accords, Israel had firm rules that forbade a foreign ambassador to be credentialed to both Israel and the PA, and that unless his “dual credentials” were canceled, he could not serve as ambassador to Israel.

Well, yeah, except that for years, the Leftist-controlled foreign ministry had allowed New Zealand to do exactly what Curr wanted to do....

Curr was shocked, because his two predecessors were credentialed to both Israel and the PA and Jerusalem had never protested. Senior ministry officials explained to Curr that, even if this was the case, his two predecessors had presented credentials to Abbas without informing Israel.

Claims by Foreign Ministry officials that such accreditation had taken place without Israel’s knowledge seem rather strange, since the website of New Zealand’s embassy in Turkey states clearly that its ambassador is also accredited to Israel, the PA and Jordan.

To try to resolve the issue, the Foreign Ministry suggested that a lower-level diplomat from the embassy in Turkey present the letter of introduction and be responsible for ties with the PA. This further insulted Curr, who retorted that Israel was not going to tell his country how to handle its diplomacy.

Haaretz's Barak Ravid goes on to report that the government of New Zealand, which he describes as being  'pro-Israel,' (which they probably are) is furious over the 'snub' to Curr.

The problem here is that Israel should never have accepted a situation where it shares an ambassador to the 'Palestinian Authority' in the first place.

But I'm not sure Ravid is right. Wikipedia maintains a list of New Zealand's ambassadors. There are a lot of instances where New Zealand has ambassadors accredited to multiple countries, but here's what it says about the ambassador to Turkey:

The embassy is located in Ankara, Turkey's capital city. New Zealand has maintained a resident ambassador in Turkey since 1993. The Ambassador to Turkey is concurrently accredited to Israel and Jordan.

But in fact the web page of the New Zealand embassy in Turkey says that the ambassador is accredited to Jordan, Israel, the 'Palestinian Authority,' Georgia and Azerbaijan.  Maybe this really is something new as Israel's foreign ministry claimed?

Hmmm.

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, diplomatic relations, New Zealand, Palestinian Authority

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:25 PM 0 comments

Make it an even dozen

Forget all their issues with the Mossad: New Zealand has pulled out of Durban III.

In a statement issued to The Jerusalem Post on Friday, McCully said: "We remain concerned that the commemoration of the 2001 Durban Declaration could re-open the offensive and anti-Semitic debates which undermined the original World Conference. For these reasons, we have decided not to participate.”

He added that "New Zealand is fully committed to combating racism and we agree the UN should lead discussions on the elimination of racism. That is why we engaged constructively in the preparatory discussions in New York. However, in the end, the text is not one that we could support.”

The New Zealand Foreign Affairs Ministry statement said “New Zealand joins a growing list of countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Israel and the USA, that have also indicated they will not participate in the event.

New Zealand did not participate in the Durban Review Conference held in 2009.”

On the other hand Denmark, Romania and France are still in, and Hungary is likely to be in as well.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Denmark, Durban III, France, New Zealand, Romania

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:38 AM 2 comments

Tefillin cause a scare in New Zealand

And here we go again.

Once again, we have a scare on public transport because someone has never seen Tefillin. This time it's in New Zealand.

An Israeli tourist visiting New Zealand caused a minor panic on a New Zealand ferry on Sunday after the captain reported to police that a passenger was carrying a "suspicious article," NZTV reported.

Some media in New Zealand even reported a hostage situation aboard the ferry, even though the passenger was cooperative with police, according to the report.

The man was described as wearing what appeared to be "boxes" with "wires taped" to his body. "One individuals had two boxes attached, one box taped to his leg and one box seemingly taped to his forehead," a transportation services spokesman was quoted as saying in the report.

Jewish websites described the man as having worn his tefillin (phylacteries) on the morning ferry voyage.

He was stopped by police at the ferry's destination after it finished crossing the Cook Strait and was released by the police without being charged.

That's better than what happened the last time. See the links above.

Labels: Cook Strait, ferry, New Zealand, Tefillin

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:43 PM 2 comments