World News in Brief

(JTA) Bombed AP building ‘had Iron Dome jamming tech’

Israel’s United States ambassador told Associated Press (AP) that the Israeli army destroyed the building containing its Gaza bureau because Hamas was developing technology there that would jam Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Gilad Erdan, also United Nations ambassador, met on 7 June with the wire service’s president, Gary Pruitt, and its vice-president of international news, Ian Phillips.

Hamas’s research and development and intelligence arms were in the building, Erdan said.

“The unit was developing an electronic jamming system to be used against the Iron Dome defence system,” Erdan said, according to a release by the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Israel authorities told residents and workers in the building to evacuate about an hour before it bombed the 12-storey building on 15 May.

Hamas launched about 4 500 rockets at Israel during the 10-21 May conflict. Most hit open areas, but about 1 500 headed for built-up areas, and the Iron Dome intercepted about 90%.

Erdan told Pruitt and Phillips that Israel didn’t believe that AP knew Hamas was headquartered in the building. The ambassador said Israel was willing to assist AP in rebuilding its offices and operations in Gaza.

Holocaust denier gets five years for death threats

A blogger who posted videos of himself calling for the murder of prominent French Jews was sentenced to five years in prison by a court in France.

The sentence, for promoting terrorism and making death threats, is among the harshest in recent years in France over such offenses.

The tribunal of Cusset, a town near Vichy in central France, handed down its guilty verdict and sentence on 3 June to Ahmed Moualek, 53, who had posted death threats against Gilles William Golnadel and Alain Jakubowitz, two well-known Jewish lawyers, as well as journalist Elisabeth Levy, La Montagne reported.

Moualek is a former associate of Dieudonne M’bala M’bala and Alain Soral, Holocaust deniers who 10 years ago founded the now-defunct Anti-Zionist Party. Moualek was among the party’s founders.

Belfast council calls for expulsion of Israeli ambassadors

The City Council of Belfast in Northern Ireland passed a motion calling on the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland to expel Israel’s ambassadors to those countries.

“The expulsion of ambassadors is a first step – a preliminary step – to greater action, but it’s an incredibly important and symbolic step,” Fiona Ferguson, a far-left politician who initiated the voting, said during the session, the Jewish Chronicle of London reported.

The motion passed with votes from left-wing parties including Sinn Fein, the council’s largest party, with 18 seats out of 60.

Opposition parties voiced their disapproval of the motion. “The Jews are the original indigenous inhabitants of Palestine and as such have the right to exist as a nation state,” said John Kyle of the Progressive Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. “Israel is confronted by organisations which do not recognise its right to exist … and this is antisemitism.”

Switzerland adopts IHRA definition

The Swiss government has adopted the definition of antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), making the Alpine nation the 36th country to do so.

“This definition can serve as an additional guide for identifying antisemitic incidents within the framework of the various measures to combat antisemitism in Switzerland,” the Federal Council, the country’s highest executive authority, said on 4 June.

The IHRA working definition describes various forms of antisemitism, including hatred and discrimination against Jews and Holocaust denial.

It also lists examples of anti-Israel criticism that it says in certain contexts can be defined as antisemitic, including comparing the country’s policies to those of Nazi Germany, denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and “applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”.

The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Parliament are among the national and international bodies that have adopted the definition.

Hebrew Israelite student forced to eat to pork

A high school football coach in Ohio and seven of his staff have been suspended for punishing a Hebrew Israelite student-athlete by forcing him to eat a pepperoni pizza in violation of his religious commitment to keep a kosher diet, according to a report from Cleveland 19 News.

The 17-year-old student at McKinley High School in Canton, Ohio, was being disciplined for missing a weight lifting session on 20 May, said Edward L Gilbert, an attorney for the boy’s family.

Four days after missing practice, Coach Wattley Marcus and other coaching staff presented him with a pizza topped with pepperoni, chosen because it includes pork.

“They ordered him to go into the gym,” Gilbert told Cleveland 19 News. “There is a pizza box on the floor. He picks up the pizza. They tell him that he has to, as punishment, eat that whole pizza.”

The student’s religious identity and his avoidance of pork were known to Marcus and other coaching staff, according to Gilbert.

“I mean it just crosses a line on every level, it’s just wrong,” Gilbert said.

Canton City School District said it was investigating the incident.