Settlements OK in east Jerusalem, U.S. says

Jewish housing in eastern Jerusalem is not part of the Obama administration’s demand for a settlement freeze, the State Department clarified this week.

“As far as Jerusalem is concerned, our policy in Jerusalem has not changed,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said June 23 in his daily briefing. “Jerusalem is a final-status issue. Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resolve this status during negotiations.”

A day earlier, Kelly had said that the administration’s demand for a stoppage of settlement construction included Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

Israel does not consider eastern Jerusalem part of the West Bank, although the international community does refer to housing in that area as settlements. — jta

Mitchell-Netanyahu meeting called off

A meeting scheduled for this week between Benjamin Netanyahu and George Mitchell in Paris was canceled.

The Israeli prime minister was to meet June 25 with Mitchell, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East. Instead, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak will come to Washington on Monday, June 29, to meet with Mitchell, according to media reports.

Mitchell and Netanyahu were expected to talk about the U.S. demand that Israel stop all settlement activity. The meeting was called off so that the two sides would have additional time to “clarify some issues,” a Netanyahu spokesman said, according to media reports. — jta

YouTube removes Blumenthal video

YouTube has removed footage of young American Jews making racist remarks about President Barack Obama.

Attempts to access the video on June 19 were met with a message saying it had been “removed due to terms of use violation.” YouTube typically removes videos when they are flagged by users as inappropriate.

“I won’t ascribe motives to Youtube I am unable to confirm, but it is clear there is an active campaign by right-wing Jewish elements to suppress the video by filing a flood of complaints with Youtube,” Max Blumenthal, who made the video, wrote on his blog.

The video caused a stir when it first appeared in early June and led to criticism that Blumenthal had targeted drunk young adults and portrayed them as reflective of a wider strain of racist thought within the Jewish community. Blumenthal responded that drunkenness did not lead people to express views they didn’t already hold. — jta

Survivors’ lawyer disbarred after cheating them

A lawyer who won reparations for Holocaust survivors in the 1990s was disbarred in New Jersey after he swindled some of the very survivors he helped.

The New Jersey Supreme Court on June 23 found that Edward Fagan had taken $350,000 from the accounts of survivors Gizelle Weisshaus, Estelle Sapir and others without their permission to pay his bills.

Fagan had participated in class-action suits in the 1990s against Swiss banks, German firms and other entities on behalf of survivors, helping win more than $1 billion for more than 30,000 survivors.

He earned millions in fees, but told the court that he used the money to pay off debts and fulfill the terms of a $2.6 million divorce settlement. Fagan also was disbarred last year in New York on an unrelated case. — jta

Nixon talks on tape about anti-Semitism

Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham believed Jewish opposition to Christian evangelism efforts would foster anti-Semitism.

“Deep down in this country there is a lot of anti-Semitism. All this is going to do is stir it up,” said the former president in a Feb. 21, 1973 phone conversation with Graham, a leading evangelist.

The exchange was part of 150 hours of audio recordings released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library.

“Anti-Semitism is stronger than we think,” Nixon says on the tape. “You know, it’s unfortunate. But this has happened to the Jews. It happened in Spain, it happened in Germany, it’s happening — and now it’s going to happen in America if these people don’t start behaving.”

A little later in the 20-minute conversation, Nixon says that he wants to be “not only a friend of Israel and a friend of Jews in this country, but I have to turn back a terrible tide here if they don’t get a hold of it themselves. They better understand it quick because there are elements in this country, not just [members of the John Birch Society], but a lot of reasonable people that are getting awfully sick of it.”

Nixon later states about Jews that “it may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.” — jta

U.S. to have ambassador in Syria again

President Barack Obama plans to return an ambassador to Syria, filling a post that has been vacant for four years and marking an acceleration of Washington’s engagement with the Arab world, the White House said June 24.

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama’s decision was aimed at fulfilling his promise to show more U.S. engagement in the Arab world and not a response to any explicit policy change on Syria’s part.

The move reinforces Obama’s determination, outlined in his Cairo speech earlier this month, to deepen America’s role in the Middle East as he seeks to broker peace among Israel and its Arab neighbors and improve U.S. relations in the region.

The U.S. withdrew its ambassador to Syria in 2005 to protest Syrian actions in neighboring Lebanon. — ap

ADL seeks investigation of group linked to Hamas

The Anti-Defamation League is urging the Justice Department to investigate whether a U.S.-based group is raising money for Hamas.

Viva Palestina U.S. is a campaign modeled after a similar European initiative, led by British Parliament member George Galloway, that delivered money and a convoy of vehicles to Hamas representatives in Gaza in March. Galloway plans to lead a similar Viva Palestina U.S.–sponsored convoy next month, and he has been visiting the United States recently to publicize and raise funds for it.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the ADL said “it is not verifiable that this ‘committee’ will function independently of the Hamas leadership in Gaza” and added that Galloway “has already demonstrated his willingness to directly support Hamas.”

Viva Palestina U.S. organizers say they intend to adhere to U.S. law and will deliver the money raised to a reception committee of nongovernmental organizations in Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. — jta