World News in Brief

JTA

The move, announced on Tuesday, is unprecedented in that it focuses an official government inquiry on racism and hate speech into one of the county’s oldest parties, which used to be regarded as mainstream and moderate.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission for months studied Labour’s spiralling anti-Semitism problem before launching the probe.

The commission’s investigation will evaluate the Labour Party’s handling of many acts of anti-Semitic discrimination, including those detailed in the dossiers that Campaign Against Antisemitism, a Jewish community watchdog group, has provided since July 2018, the campaign said.

The commission is vested with tough powers designed to force organisations to comply with equality and human-rights laws. It may compel the Labour Party to reveal details of its handling of anti-Semitism in recent years, including internal communications such as text messages and emails.

SodaStream holds iftar

SodaStream hosted a Ramadan breakfast at its factory in the southern Israeli town of Rahat.

The iftar meal on Monday was attended by Bedouins and Jewish Israelis as well as the company’s Palestinian employees and other Palestinian guests. The meal was also attended by United States ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.

In October 2014, SodaStream announced it would close its factory in Maale Adumim and move to southern Israel in the face of pressure from the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS). The company now has more than 1 400 employees in the Idan Hanegev industrial park near Rahat, one-third of them Bedouin Arabs from the surrounding area.

Neo-Nazi party warns Israel

An accused neo-Nazi running for president in Argentina’s general elections on 27 October warned that he would expel the Israeli ambassador.

Alejandro Biondini, a veteran far-right ultranationalist leader, is the presidential candidate for the Patriotic Front party. Biondini has openly espoused anti-Semitism, and his admiration for Adolf Hitler.

His previous party, New Triumph, was banned by Argentina’s electoral court in 2009. In November 2018, a federal judge in Buenos Aires granted approval to Biondini’s new party, the Patriotic Front. The DAIA (Argentina’s Jewish political umbrella organisation) condemned the judge’s decision, saying that the party was a “neo-Nazi and ultranationalist movement, a danger to an egalitarian society”.

Israeli technology secures HP

HP has started installing malware protection software on its new computers using an Israeli company’s technology.

Technology from Tel Aviv-based Deep Instinct is used to create HP Sure Sense that comes on the latest EliteBook and ZBook lines, HP announced.

The deal is valued at $150 million (R2.2 billion) over four years, the Israeli business news website Calcalist reported.

Kushner in Middle East

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is in the Middle East to garner support for his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, and will visit Israel.

Kushner, White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, and special Iran envoy Brian Hook were in Morocco on Tuesday, and were scheduled to visit Jordan and Israel during the week.

The visits come ahead of the Trump administration’s economic summit scheduled for next month in Bahrain. The meeting aims to encourage capital investment in the West Bank, Gaza, and countries in the region. It reportedly is the first step in the administration’s peace plan, scheduled to be rolled out in coming months.

The Palestinians have announced that they will not attend the meeting.

Call for Jewish emojis

An organisation of European rabbis has called on the world body that regulates emojis to add images that represent Jews.

The Conference of European Rabbis in a letter to the Unicode Consortium called for new emojis that show men in kippahs and women in head coverings.

The non-profit consortium selects the emoji icons used by the world’s smartphones based on submissions from individuals and organisations.

“There are emojis of women in the hijab and Arab clerics, and the Jews have been forgotten,” a statement from the Conference of European Rabbis read. The need for equality and non-discrimination begins with the small things.”