Bibi's flotilla testimony: Israel acted lawfully

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a panel investigating the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla incident that Israeli commandos acted in accordance with international law.

The Israeli leader also told the Turkel Commission on Monday that it was necessary to enforce the naval blockade of Gaza.

Netanyahu was the first witness to appear before the Israeli panel appointed to investigate the May 31 interception of the flotilla in which nine Turkish nationals, including one Turkish-American citizen, were killed during clashes on board the Turkish-flagged ship the Marmara.

Last month the commision, which is led by former Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel, was given the power to subpoena witnesses and receive sworn testimony.

In statements made before the closed-door part of his testimony, Netanyahu said that by the end of the investigation "it will be clear that the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces conducted themselves in accordance with international law and that the IDF fighters who boarded the Marmara displayed a rare courage in fulfilling their mission and in defending themselves against a real threat to their lives."

He added that "The appearance of Israel’s prime minister before this committee today is the best evidence of the high standards by which Israel’s democracy functions."

Netanyahu pointed out that two flotillas that followed the May 31 incident were intercepted without problems.

He said the government's decision to enforce the naval blockade on Gaza was to prevent the smuggling of arms that could be used against Israel into Gaza.

Netanyahu told the commission that Israel tried to prevent the launch of the flotilla at the diplomatic and security levels for weeks, and that Israel encouraged the transfer of the goods through Israeli or Egyptian ports.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak was put in charge of the operation, Netanyahu told the panel, as he was in the United States for a meeting with President Obama. The prime minister said it was obvious that the "flotilla organizers were interested with clashing with the IDF."

Gay anti-Israel group to march in Montreal

TORONTO (JTA) -- For the second consecutive year, the protest group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will march in Montreal's Gay Pride parade.

Parade organizer Fierte Montreal Pride told the group that organizers will have the final say on the acceptability of banners and slogans carried in the Aug. 15 parade, the Montreal Gazette reported.

B'nai Brith Canada's League for Human Rights urged organizers and sponsors "to dissociate themselves from the promotion of hate," and condemned the use of the term "Israeli apartheid."

The gay Jewish group Ga'avah -- Hebrew for pride -- which is also taking part in the parade, objected to the use of the term "apartheid" but put free speech first.

"Promoting another agenda at Pride parades and hijacking the spotlight is unfortunate and divisive for the LGBT community," Ga'avah spokesman Carlos Godoy told the Gazette. He added, though, that "as a free society, we would be remiss to stop this or any other group from promoting our collective rights in Montreal."

The situation contrasts starkly with Toronto, where Queers Against Israeli Apartheid's participation in that city's July 4 Gay Pride parade stirred months of controversy.

Toronto parade officials, responding to pressure from Jewish groups and local politicians, originally disallowed the group from marching under its name, but they reversed  the policy days before the parade.

Israeli freed from Libyan prison

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- An Israeli who had been held in a Libyan prison for five months was freed.

Rafael Haddad, 34, arrived in Israel Monday afternoon following secret negotiations between Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Libyan authorities.

Haddad, who holds dual Israeli and Tunisian citizenship and was traveling on his Tunisian passport, reportedly was arrested while taking photographs of a building that once belonged to the Jewish community for the Or Shalom Center, an organization seeking to preserve Libyan Jewish history. He was accused of spying.

Italy's intelligence agency and American Jewish groups reportedly assisted in the negotiations. But reportedly it was Lieberman's use of private contacts close to the Libyan regime, including Austrian-Jewish businessman Martin Schlaff, that brokered the deal.

Israel allowed the cargo of a Libyan aid ship into the Gaza Strip, and allowed Libya to build 20 prefabricated housing units inside Gaza, in exchange for Haddad's release, according to several reports.

The case had been under a gag order in Israel since Haddad's arrest in March.

Alleged Treblinka guard could be charged

BERLIN (JTA) -- A man living in Bavaria could be charged with participating in the shooting of Jewish prisoners in the slave labor camp Treblinka I during World War II.

According to Der Spiegel magazine, state prosecutors in Munich will decide soon whether to bring charges against a man identified as Alex N. for his alleged activities as a Nazi SS guard.  Born in 1917 in Ukraine and living in the city of Landshut since the end of the war, Alex N. was granted German citizenship in 1991.

Investigators at the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwisburg provided information leading to the current investigation. The labor camp was located near the death camp, Treblinka II, in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Alex N., who reportedly trained at the same Nazi SS facility, Trawniki, as accused war criminal John Demjanjuk, offered testimony at the Demjanjuk trial in Munich last February. Demjanjuk is charged as an accessory to the murders of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp.

Alex N. reportedly has bragged over the years about having shot Jews.

A few weeks ago, Germany filed charges against another witness in the Demjanjuk trial -- Samuel Kunz, 90, the No. 3 man on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted Nazis. Kunz was charged with helping to murder 430,000 Jews in the Belzec concentration camp in occupied Poland.

Two men under investigation died recently, never having stood trial: former SS officer Erich Steidtmann, 95, of Hanover, and Adolf Storms, 90.

A third case reportedly is now under investigation in Bavaria. Klaas Carel F., 88, was convicted in Holland of murdering 22 civilians. He fled a Dutch prison in 1952, and has been living in the German city Ingollstadt. Prosecutors are looking into whether they can sentence him based on the Dutch conviction.

Back to school: Jewish holidays out in Providence

(JTA) -- The largest school system in Rhode Island is removing the Jewish High Holidays as vacation days after more than 30 years.

The Providence School District deleted Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur on the public school calendar, the Providence Journal reported. Absence from school on those days will be excused. The system has more than 23,000 students.

Marty Cooper, community relations director of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, said he received a dozen phone calls complaining about the change.

“This is not an act of anti-Semitism," Cooper said. "They thought long and hard about this.”

The Jewish population of Providence has been declining as other religious groups, including Muslims, have been growing, according to the newspaper. Muslims have lobbied to have their holy days included on school calendars in other U.S. communities.

Rabbi Morris Kipper, high school in Israel founder, dies

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Rabbi Morris Kipper, the founder of a high school in Israel program, has died.

Kipper, who in 1972 founded the Alexander Muss High School in suburban Tel Aviv, died at his home in Miami, Fla. He was 79.

The longtime Miami resident founded the Hod Hasharon school with his wife, Lenore, and in partnership with the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.

Initially designed as a program for Miami-area students to boost interest and attachment to Israel during the formative teenage years, its popularity caused organizers to include students from throughout North America.

The eight-week program for 10th- to 12th-graders has more than 20,000 alumni.

“Rabbi Kipper’s legacy of commitment to Jewish education and the land and people of Israel will be realized through the thousands more young students who will participate in the program in the years to come, all made possible through Kipper's unique vision and understanding for the needs of the modern Jewish community," said Gideon Shavit, CEO of the Muss high school.

The son of an Orthodox rabbi and a kosher caterer, Kipper received rabbinic ordination in Cincinnati and then worked as a rabbi in Temple Beth Shalom in Peabody, Mass. He joined Temple Judea in Coral Gables in 1964, where he also taught in its weekly religious school. His teaching experience at Temple Judea led him to design the more intense high school in Israel program, according to the Miami Herald.

Kipper resigned from the Muss program in 1990 and held several rabbinic positions until his death.

He and his wife visited the school last June.