US attendance at Durban II still in balance

As the Obama administration attempted to engage with organisers of the UN World Conference against Racism this week, a troubling picture emerged of the resolutions expected to be adopted at the conference.

The April event (dubbed Durban II after the first conference, held in South Africa in 2001) has been high on the agenda of Jewish leaders and Israeli diplomats for more than a year, as they worry it will serve once again as a platform for accusations against Israel of racism.

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France ‘facilitated’ Nazi-era crimes

The highest court in France has for the first time recognised the state’s responsibility in the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews during the Nazi era. The Council of State said that the collaborationist Vichy regime had “allowed or facilitated the deportation from France of victims of antisemitism” and called for the “formal admission of the state’s responsibility”.

Around 76,000 French Jews were deported to Nazi camps.

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Hizbollah attack feared in Venezuela

Venezuelan Jews fear they face a terror attack like the Hizbollah-linked Amia bombing in Argentina, a leading community member has warned.

The Iranian-backed movement was thought to be behind the 1994 attack on the Buenos Aires community centre in which 85 people died.

“Hizbollah is growing in force here,” said Sammy Eppel, Director of the Human Rights Commission of B’nai B’rith Venezuela. “We are trying to avert something like Amia happening in Venezuela.”

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Australian, 90, survives bush fire

A 90-year-old Jewish man feared dead in Australia’s worst bush fires has been found alive.

Eugene Goodvach’s burnt-out car was found last week near his country house in Marysville, a small Victoria town destroyed in fires that have killed more than 180 people.

His family was unable to contact him but it is now understood that Mr Goodvach had been evacuated to a nearby village by emergency personnel.

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Likud man barred from US for spying

The United States is refusing to grant a visa to Professor Uzi Arad, a former top Mossad operative and a senior adviser to Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu.

Mr Arad resigned from the Mossad in 1997 after serving as director of the spy agency’s Intelligence Department.

He served as Mr Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser during the Likud leader’s first term as prime minister in the late 1990s and has been widely touted as a candidate to head the National Security Council if Likud forms the new government.

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Two men jailed for 2002 bomb

A French court sentenced two men to prison for their part in the 2002 bombing of a Tunisian shul in which 21 people were killed. Christian Ganczarski, a German convert to Islam, was sentenced to 18 years and Walid Nouar, the brother of the suicide bomber, received 12 years.

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Caracas attack arrests

Venezuelan police have arrested 11 people, including seven police agents, in connection with an attack on a synagogue in Caracas. President Hugo Chavez had blamed the attack, which caused international outrage, on elements hostile to his government.

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