Shorts: World

Officials say El Al jet targeted

frankfurt (ap) | Six people were under investigation in Germany on Monday, Nov. 20 over an alleged terrorist plot to blow up an El Al aircraft.

The six are believed to have begun preparations for an attack on behalf of "so far unknown" terrorist backers, German prosecutors said in a statement.

Several of the accused approached a person with security clearance at an unidentified airport last summer, the statement said. That person agreed to smuggle a case or bag containing explosives onto a plane in an exchange for an unspecified payment, it added.

A security official said the plot was centered on the Frankfurt airport and the intention apparently was to attack a plane belonging to El Al.




Muslims demonized, London mayor says

london (jta) | The mayor of London said Muslims are demonized like Jews were in the past.

"Over recent weeks we have seen a demonization of Muslims only comparable to the demonization of Jews from the end of the 19th century," Ken Livingstone said.

Livingstone's comments were made in connection with the launch of a coalition comprised of legislators, unions, campaign groups and Muslim groups.




Briton held in swastika graffiti

london (jta) | British police have arrested a 21-year-old man suspected of defacing a war memorial.

The memorial in West Sussex, England, was defaced with an SS symbol and swastika, and a nearby house was spray-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti just before Remembrance Sunday, when the British mark the end of World War I.




French urged to investigate murder

paris (jta) | The Anti-Defamation League is calling on the French Interior Ministry to investigate the police handling of the murder of Ilan Halimi, a French Jew abducted and murdered by a Muslim gang earlier this year.

Halimi is believed to have been lured to an apartment in the Parisian suburbs last January, where he was kept prisoner for three weeks while his abductors attempted to extract a ransom from the family.

His death prompted a public outcry in France.




Anti-Semitic incidents decline in France

paris (jta) | Anti-Semitic attacks in France have dropped drastically because of a number of government initiatives, France's prime minister said.

"We have obtained real results" since launching a crackdown in 2002, Dominique de Villepin said in remarks delivered to a World Jewish Congress gathering Nov. 12 and released Monday, Nov. 20 by the French Foreign Ministry.

"In 2005, anti-Semitic acts fell by 47 percent compared with the previous year. The figures available today for 2006 confirm this downward trend," Villepin noted.




Indian Jews head to Israel

new delhi (jta) | A group of Bnei Menashe immigrants left India for Israel on Monday, Nov. 20 to make aliyah.

The group was converted last year by rabbinical judges sent to India by Israel's Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.

Amar has declared Bnei Menashe, who claim descent from the biblical tribe of Menashe, as "descendants of the Jewish people" and has been working to help facilitate the aliyah of those who want to live in Israel.




Indonesia supports Palestinian state

jakarta (jta) | President Bush reaffirmed his commitment to Palestinian statehood in a meeting with Indonesia's president.

"Both presidents stressed their support for the establishment of a viable, independent, democratic and sovereign Palestinian state that would live side-by-side in peace with Israel," said a joint statement released Monday, Nov. 20 after Bush met with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during Bush's Asian tour.




Germany urges oversight on looted art

berlin (jta) | Germany's culture minister called for greater oversight in the restitution of Nazi-looted art.

The statement came after Bernd Neumann met Monday, Nov. 20 in Berlin with museum heads.

The meeting followed a contested restitution of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's 1913 "Berlin Street Scene." Berlin's Bruecke Museum passed the painting to the heir of the Hess family, which had been persecuted by the Nazis. The heir auctioned the work for $38 million. But the museum's patrons association argued that the Bruecke had given up the work of art too easily.