JERUSALEM: He has accused Barack Obama of anti-Semitism, suggested his own country’s president was not important enough to assassinate and described US Secretary of State John Kerry as having the mental abilities of a 12-year-old.
Ran Baratz’s Facebook and web page barbs might have remained forever on the margins of social media, save for one thing: the appointment of the 42-year-old philosophy lecturer as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new communications director.
As head of public diplomacy and media, Baratz, who was named to the post on Wednesday, will be tasked with improving Israel’s reputation in the world.
But days before Netanyahu embarks on a visit to the White House, an effort to mend fences after fierce feuding over the Iran nuclear deal that Israel opposes, the timing of the decision to give Baratz the job raised questions.
Within hours of his appointment, Israeli media outlets found a clutch of cuttings, headline-grabbing quotes on Facebook and articles he had penned on news web sites. Netanyahu’s staff, it appeared, may not have checked.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unaware of the things Ran Baratz wrote and sees them as inappropriate remarks,” the Israeli leader’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
“Baratz made clear to the prime minister that the public role requires he conduct himself in a statesman-like and reserved manner, which he was not obligated to do as a private person on Facebook.”
In a Facebook entry last March, Baratz said Obama’s response to a speech by Netanyahu to the US Congress, during which he criticized the emerging Iran deal, “was what modern anti-Semitism looks like in Western and liberal countries.”
The White House was not immediately available for comment. Obama said at the time that no one could dispute that Iran had repeatedly “engaged in the most venomous of anti-Semitic statements.” But, the president said, Netanyahu offered no viable alternatives “to the core issue, which is how do we prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
In October last year, Baratz took aim at Kerry in an article on Mida, which bills itself as a “news and intellectual website” dedicated to providing information and views that are not prevalent in other Israeli media.
Baratz termed as “comical” remarks Kerry made on the occasion of a Muslim holiday, when he said Middle East leaders had told him feelings stirred by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were a factor in Islamic State recruitment.
“This is the time, then,” Baratz wrote, “to wish the secretary of state success and count down two years on the calendar with the hope that someone in the State Department will then wake up and begin to see the world through the eyes of a man with a mental age above 12.”
The US State Department did not immediately comment on Thursday when asked about the remarks.
CRITICISM OF ISRAELI PRESIDENT
Sniping at Israel’s head of state, Baratz commented on Facebook last week about photos showing President Reuven Rivlin — whose post is largely ceremonial — sitting in economy class on a flight back from an official visit to the Czech Republic.
“It mainly shows him to be such a marginal figure that there is no concern for his safety. I think he could be sent in a para-glider to the Syrian Golan controlled by ISIS. They’ll return him the next day with a request for negotiating their return to Iraq, if only we take him back,” Baratz wrote.
Baratz posted a separate remark on Facebook under a screen grab of a TV interview with Daniella Weiss, a Jewish settler leader. The frozen frame carried a subtitle, which read: “He is not important enough to kill,” a reference to Rivlin.
Baratz appeared to concur, writing: “I said that way before she did, but it’s good when practical people confirm the observations of theoreticians.” He was quoted by Israel’s Channel Two television as saying his statement was satirical.
Rivlin’s office publicly demanded to know whether Netanyahu was aware of Baratz’s comments when he appointed him.
“The remarks are particularly serious in light of the fact that this is a senior civil servant who is supposed to serve in a representative capacity and reflect the positions of the State of Israel at home and abroad,” the president’s office said.
“It is also troubling that the candidate cast his comments as mere ‘satirical statements,’ and this at a time when Israel is waging a real war through social media based on an understanding of the power of such posts, and the short distance between them and legitimizing an act.”
A phone call and text message to Baratz from Reuters, requesting comment, went unanswered.
Baratz, who lives in a West Bank settlement, also expressed support in 2004 for the construction of a third Jewish temple on what is now the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, where two destroyed biblical temples once stood.
Muslim allegations, denied by Israel, that Netanyahu intends to change a long-standing status quo under which Jewish prayer is banned at the sensitive site, have helped fuel a wave of Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks.
Eleven Israelis have been killed. At least 68 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli forces, including 41 who Israel says were attackers. Many were teenagers.
“The desire to build the third temple is worthy, Jewish and Zionist to the first degree,” Baratz wrote on the NRG news website 11 years ago, acknowledging such aspirations were harbored by fringe elements in Israeli society.
But he added: “I wish a way could be found to build it.” (Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and by Idrees Ali in Washington; editing by Luke Baker and Timothy Heritage)
Netanyahu aide suggested Obama anti-Semitic, Kerry comical
Netanyahu aide suggested Obama anti-Semitic, Kerry comical
Afghan Taliban’s treatment of women under scrutiny at UN rights meeting
- The Taliban say they respect rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law
- Taliban have barred girls from high school and women from universities and jobs
GENEVA: Afghanistan’s Taliban face criticism over their human rights record at a UN meeting on Monday, with Washington accusing them of systematically depriving women and girls of their human rights.
However, in an awkward first for the UN Human Rights Council, the concerned country’s current rulers will not be present because they are not recognized by the global body.
Afghanistan will instead be represented by an ambassador appointed by the previous US-backed government, which the Taliban ousted in 2021.
In a series of questions compiled in a UN document ahead of the review, the United States asked how authorities would hold perpetrators to account for abuses against civilians, “particularly women and girls who are being systematically deprived of their human rights“?
Britain and Belgium also raised questions about the Taliban’s treatment of women. In total, 76 countries have asked to take the floor at the meeting.
The Taliban say they respect rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law.
Since they swept back into power, most girls have been barred from high school and women from universities. The Taliban have also stopped most Afghan female staff from working at aid agencies, closed beauty salons, barred women from parks and curtailed travel for women in the absence of a male guardian.
Under the US system, states’ human rights records are subject to peer review in public meetings of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, resulting in a series of recommendations.
While non-binding, these can draw scrutiny of policies and add to pressure for reform.
The UN Human Rights Council, the only intergovernmental global body designed to protect human rights worldwide, can also mandate investigations whose evidence is sometimes used before national and international courts.
Indian students protest US envoy’s campus talk over Gaza war
- Student-led protest led to university canceling an event involving US ambassador
- Indian students say they stand in solidarity with students protest across US
NEW DELHI: Students at one of India’s most prominent universities gathered in protest over an event involving the US ambassador to New Delhi on Monday, as they stood up against American support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti was invited for a talk on US-India ties at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi on Monday afternoon, which would take place amid protests on American campuses demanding their universities cut financial ties with Israel over its military offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
At the university’s convention center, over 100 students organized by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union protested the invitation of Garcetti, calling out his complicity “in the genocide Israel is currently doing in Palestine.”
JNUSU President Dhananjay told Arab News: “By calling such a person in the university … who is supporting the genocide, we want to tell them that JNU is not silent on this issue and we want to speak up.
“We are protesting against the US support for the genocide in Gaza committed by Israel.”
Hundreds of US college students have been arrested and suspended as peaceful demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from companies linked to Israel spread across American campuses.
The student-led movement comes after nearly six months since Israel began its onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which Tel Aviv said was launched to stamp out the militant group Hamas.
Hundreds of thousands of housing units in the besieged territory have either been completely or partially destroyed, while the majority of public facilities, schools and hundreds of cultural landmarks have been demolished and continue to be targeted in intense bombing operations.
JNU student leaders said they stood in solidarity with the protesting students in the US.
“We are students, and we need to ask questions. If some atrocities are taking place and there are mindless killings going on, speaking out against this should be the responsibility of all sections of society,” Dhananjay said.
“The visuals that we see make us shiver and shake our conscience. If we don’t speak up, then I don’t think we have a right to be a social being.”
At the JNU campus on Monday, the student protest led to a cancellation of the event involving the US envoy.
“We feel happy that we forced the administration to cancel the talks by the ambassador,” JNUSU Vice President Avijit Ghosh told Arab News.
Despite India’s historic support for Palestine, the government has been mostly quiet in the wake of Israel’s deadly siege of Gaza.
When Indians went to the streets in the past months to protest and raise awareness on the atrocities unfolding in Gaza, their demonstrations were dispersed by police and campaigns stifled.
Members of Indian civil society have since come together to challenge their government’s links with Tel Aviv and break Delhi’s silence on Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, reflecting similar concerns that some university students also felt.
“The US is supporting Israel in the killing of Palestinian people in Gaza. It’s also suppressing students in its country who are raising voice against the genocide in Gaza,” Ghosh said.
“We are agitated that India is being a mute spectator and not taking a clear stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges US to speed up weapons deliveries
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that vital US weapons were starting to arrive in Ukraine in small amounts and that the process needed to move faster as advancing Russian forces were trying to take advantage.
Zelensky told a joint news conference in Kyiv alongside visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that the situation on the battlefield directly depended on the speed of ammunition supplies to Ukraine.
“Timely support for our army. Today I don’t see anything positive on this point yet. There are supplies, they have slightly begun, this process needs to be sped up,” he said.
Scotland’s Humza Yousaf quits in boost to Labour before UK vote
- Yousaf quit after a week of chaos triggered by his scrapping of a coalition agreement with Scotland’s Greens
- He then failed to secure enough support to survive a vote of no confidence against him expected later this week
LONDON: Scotland’s leader Humza Yousaf resigned on Monday, further opening the door to the UK opposition Labour Party regaining ground in its former Scottish heartlands during a national election expected to be held later this year.
Yousaf said he was quitting as head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) and first minister of Scotland’s devolved government after a week of chaos triggered by his scrapping of a coalition agreement with Scotland’s Greens.
He then failed to secure enough support to survive a vote of no confidence against him expected later this week.
Resigning little over a year after he replaced Nicola Sturgeon as first minister and SNP leader, Yousaf said it was time for someone else to lead Scotland.
“I’ve concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm,” Yousaf said, adding he would continue until a successor was chosen in an SNP leadership contest.
Yousaf abruptly ended a power-sharing agreement between his pro-independence SNP and the Green Party after a row over climate change targets. The SNP’s fortunes have faltered over a funding scandal and the resignation of Sturgeon as party leader last year. There has also been infighting over how progressive its pitch should be as it seeks to woo back voters.
Caught between defending the record of the coalition government and some nationalists’ demands to jettison gender recognition reforms and refocus on the economy, Yousaf was unable to strike a balance that would ensure his survival.
The SNP is losing popular support after 17 years of heading the Scottish government. Earlier this month, polling firm YouGov said the Labour Party had overtaken the SNP in voting intentions for a Westminster election for the first time in a decade.
Labour’s resurgence in Scotland adds to the challenge facing British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party which is lagging far behind Labour in UK-wide opinion polls.
The Scottish parliament now has 28 days to choose a new first minister before an election is forced, with former SNP leader John Swinney and Yousaf’s former leadership rival Kate Forbes seen as possible successors.
If the SNP is unable to find a new leader to command support in parliament, a Scottish election will be held. Yousaf, the first Muslim head of government in modern Western Europe, succeeded Sturgeon as first minister in March 2023. Once hugely popular, Sturgeon has been embroiled in a party funding scandal with her husband, who was charged this month with embezzling funds. Both deny wrongdoing.
Iran slams crackdown on US student protesters
- The demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York and have since spread across the country
Tehran: Iran on Monday criticized a police crackdown in the United States against university students protesting against the rising death toll from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
“The American government has practically ignored its human rights obligations and respect for the principles of democracy that they profess,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.
Tehran “does not at all accept the violent police and military behavior aimed at the academic atmosphere and student demands,” he said.
American universities have been rocked by pro-Palestinian demonstrations, triggering campus clashes with police and the arrest of some 275 people over the weekend.
The demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York and have since spread across the country.
In Iran, hundreds of people demonstrated in Tehran and other cities on Sunday in solidarity with the US demonstrations.
Some carried banners proclaiming “Death to Israel” and “Gazans are truly oppressed,” state media reported.
The Gaza war broke out after the October 7 attack by Palestinian militants on Israel which killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Tehran backs Hamas, but has denied any direct involvement in the attack.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has since killed at least 34,488 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
“What we have seen in American universities in recent days is an awakening of the world community and world public opinion toward the Palestinian issue,” Kanani said.
“It is not possible to silence the loud voices of protesters against this crime and genocide through police action and violent policies.”
