FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)A Palestinian bishop who has been a harsh critic of Israeli settlements and a proponent of a shared capital in Jerusalem was chosen for a top post in the Lutheran Church.
Munib Younan, 59, told Lutheran leaders after his election as head of the Lutheran World Federation in Stuttgart on Saturday that he hoped to contribute to building peace in the Middle East.
The Jerusalem native said his church must dedicate itself to fighting “extremism and xenophobia, especially anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” according to the Deutsche Welle news agency. He added that “The conflict in my own home is never far from my thoughts.”
Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land, will head a church federation with 145 member churches in 79 countries.
Some critics have charged Younan with being anti-Zionist. While he declared support for a two-state solution in a 2009 interview with PBS (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/by-topic/middle-east/bishop-munib-younan-seeing-god-in-the-other/3045/), he also suggested that Israeli policies were to blame for violent attacks on Israel.
“We Palestinians, Christian or Muslim, care for the security of Israel,” he told PBS. “But the security of Israel depends on the freedom and justice of the Palestinians.”
In 2006 he signed “The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism,” condemning the pro-settler Christian movement as “detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel.” The declaration also promoted “nonviolent resistance as the most effective means to end the illegal occupation.”
In the PBS interview, Younan also said that Palestinians had to understand the trauma of the Holocaust for Jews, and Jews and Israelis must “understand the deep trauma of occupation in the depth of us Palestinians. Although there is no comparative suffering. Suffering is suffering.”
European Countries, Canada Approve New Iran Sanctions
European Union foreign ministers and Canada approved a package of stiffer economic sanctions against Iran.
The EU sanctions approved Monday in Brussels are similar to the new U.S. sanctions imposed last month. They target Iran’s petroleum, banking, shipping, insurance and transportation industries as well as nuclear-related industries. The EU sanctions are scheduled to go into effect immediately, according to the Washington Post.
The Obama administration had exerted pressure on the EU to put new sanctions into effect.
New sanctions targeting third parties that deal with Iran’s energy and finance sectors, as well as human rights abusers, were approved by the U.S. Congress last month.
The Canadian government’s sanctions, also announced Monday, include a ban on new investment in the oil and gas sector, and restrictions on exporting goods that could be used in its nuclear program.
B’nai Brith Canada commended the Harper government.
“To avoid the military option against the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons program, Canada and her allies need to do everything in their power to sanction and isolate Iran,” said Frank Dimant, the group’s executive vice president, in a statement. “Targeting Iran’s most important lifeline, its oil and gas industries, as the Canadian Government has done, is a very welcome development.
Egypt’s Jewish Community Head Disappears
The president of Egypt’s Jewish community has allegedly fled the country after being convicted of fraud and ordered to prison.
Carmen Weinstein, 82, was convicted last week by an Egyptian court and sentenced to three years in prison, as well as fines and restitution totaling more than $8,000.
Weinstein was convicted of selling an Egyptian businessman a Jewish community building that did not belong to her and then refusing to return his money. Weinstein said documents proving she had sold the building for 3 million Egyptian pounds, or $520,000, were forged.
Egyptian security sources have not been able to find her, Ynet reported Sunday.
The Jewish community secretary, Rauf Fuad Tawfiq, told Ynet that Weinstein had gone to visit the United States days before the ruling, and that she intended to return.
Weinstein heads a Jewish community of only dozens of members, most of whom are women. According to the Jerusalem Post, she rents out a few buildings to support the community.