Shorts: Mideast

Windsurfer's gold medal stolen


jerusalem (jta) | Burglars stole Israeli windsurfer Gal Fridman's Olympic gold medal.

Fridman, pictured windsurfing in the 2004 Athens Games where he won the medal, said "If the thieves can't return everything, at least they should give back the medal. I can't describe the sort of trauma this is."

The medal was stolen this week from his parents' home in the Israeli town of Karkur, police said. Fridman and the Israeli Olympic Committee issued an appeal over national media for the medal's return.




Guantanamo-like scandal for Israel?


jerusalem (jta) | Israeli Arab lawmakers demanded a probe this week into allegations that prison guards tore three copies of the Koran during a recent search for weapons and unauthorized cell phones in Megiddo Prison, where hundreds of Palestinian terrorists are held.

As Palestinian prisoners went on a hunger strike, members of Israel's Muslim community warned that the Jewish state could face a scandal on par with the one surrounding allegations that U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, desecrated the Koran while interrogating suspected Islamist terrorists.

Israel's Prisons Service denied wrongdoing, saying that the pages allegedly torn from the Korans were too large to have come from those books, and suggesting that the accusations were politically motivated. "Total nonsense. It never happened. It was a provocation," Prisons Service Commissioner Yaakov Ganot told Israel Radio. A Prison Service spokesman said the accusations stemmed from prisoners' anger over the jail search, which uncovered weapons.




Arabs are biggest bloc in Labor Party


jerusalem (jta) | Arabs have become the largest constituency in Israel's Labor Party.

Data collected this week showed that 22 percent of party members are Arabs, marking the first time they are the largest force in Labor, Ha'aretz reported. The percentage of kibbutz members in the party dropped to 10 percent from 16 percent.




Sharansky runs for Zionist post


jerusalem (jta) | Natan Sharansky is challenging Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's candidate to run the Jewish Agency for Israel.

The former Soviet dissident and Israeli Cabinet minister announced this week that he would run as a candidate to head the World Zionist Organization. The head of WZO also serves as chairman of the Jewish Agency. Sharon's candidate to head the Jewish Agency is Ze'ev Bielski, mayor of Ra'anana.

Unlike Sharansky, Bielski supports Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and is seen as a consensus figure in the Jewish world. A decision on the position is expected at the Zionist General Council, which meets in Jerusalem on June 21, and at the Jewish Agency's Assembly, which meets June 26.




Baby formula sales for terror?


jerusalem (jta) | Proceeds from black-market sales of baby formula are being used to finance terrorist groups, the FBI director said.

The New York Times cited Robert Mueller as saying that some of the millions in dollars earned from stolen baby formula in the United States finances Hamas and Hezbollah.




Jerusalem Day turns violent


jerusalem (jta) | Palestinians threw rocks at Jews on Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

Two groups of Jewish tourists were allowed up to the holy site as Israel marked Jerusalem Day, but came under a barrage of rocks thrown by hundreds of Palestinians who had gathered at the mosques there. Two tourists were lightly hurt before police dispersed the crowd. A suspected stone-thrower was arrested.

Last week, Israeli authorities turned down a request by the Temple Mount Faithful, a Jewish extremist group, to visit the site as part of celebrations marking 38 years since Jerusalem was reunited in the 1967 Six-Day War.




Iraq and Israel may see thaw


jerusalem (jta) | An Iraqi Kurdish leader hinted that his country could seek to establish ties with Israel.

"Relations with Israel are no crime, as many Arab countries have ties with the Jewish state," Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdish province, told the Saudi newspaper Al-Hayat on Wednesday, June 8. "The moment an Israeli Embassy is opened in Baghdad, I will propose opening an Israeli consulate in Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan."

Post-Saddam Iraq has yet to officially rescind its state of war with Israel, but some Iraqi officials have suggested the possibility of diplomatic contacts between the two countries. Barzani dismissed reports in the Arab press that Israeli agents are operating in Kurdish areas. "There is no Israeli presence in our parts," he said.