Comments (0)Israel Denies Blood Diamond Accusations
November 3, 2009Jerusalem
JTA Wire Service
Israel refuted accusations by a United Nations panel that it was involved in the blood diamond trade.
The U.N. panel on Tuesday said Israel was involved in the illegal export and sale of diamonds from the Ivory Coast. It also said the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Guinea and Liberia were not enforcing a U.N. embargo on buying the diamonds mined in the West African nation.
A blood diamond, or conflict stone, refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency or warlord, usually in Africa. Civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia were financed largely by an underground diamond trade.
“Israel has never dealt in diamond trade with the Ivory Coast,” Israel’s Diamond Controller Shmuel Mordechai said in a statement. “We are shocked by these false accusations and completely refute them.”
Settler Arrested for Attacks on Palestinians, Jews
A West Bank settler was arrested for several hate crime attacks against Palestinians and Jews.
Yaakov Teitel, 37, was arrested last month, according to reports Sunday following the lifting of a gag order on the case.
Teitel is alleged to have killed two Palestinians. He also allegedly assembled a package bomb that seriously injured the son of a messianist Jew and set up a pipe bomb near the home of left-wing professor Ze’ev Sternhell.
A Florida native, Teitel made aliyah in 2000, though he moved back and forth between Israel and the United States for the past 20 years, according to Ha’aretz. The father of four, he is a resident of the Shvut Rachel outpost in the northern West Bank.
Police said Teitel has confessed to the 1997 murders of a Palestinian cab driver and a Palestinian shepherd, planting several explosive devices in 2006 and 2007, sending the parcel bomb to the messianic family in Ariel last year and planting the pipe bomb near the Sternhell home in September 2008.
He also has supported, through leaflets and posters, a shooting attack last summer on a gay and lesbian teen club in Tel Aviv that left two dead. Shin Bet officials, however, told Israeli media that they do not believe Teitel was the shooter.
Teitel was arrested in Jerusalem in a joint police-Shin Bet operation on Oct. 7, Ynet reported.
Guns and parts used for making explosive devices were found in his home, according to reports. The guns included a sniper rifle, an M15 machine gun, an M16 automatic rifle and a Glock pistol. Teitel was licensed to carry a firearm.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement released Sunday evening said, “There is still among us a minority that is not prepared to accept democracy and are not prepared to accept the rule of law. They do not represent the majority of the nation. They are a small and marginal group, but we have already seen the strength and damage of one murderer.
“We must continue to condemn the use of violence and to use all legal power against any attempt at violence.”
Two Die in Torrential Rain in Israel
Two Israeli contractors died in a mudslide as torrential rains throughout Israel caused damage and flooded roads.
The men died Sunday afternoon while working on a sewer line near Petach Tikvah.
Heavy rains on Saturday also caused damage and power outages throughout the country. Roads in Tel Aviv were flooded; some were closed to traffic.
A memorial to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to mark the 14th anniversary of his assassination, scheduled for Saturday night in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, was postponed a week due to the weather.
Heavy rain is expected this week in the Galilee and the Golan Heights. After two days of rain, the level of the Sea of Galilee on Sunday had risen by nearly two inches.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.