The Jewish Voice
MAY 11, 2012
BREAKING NEWS
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Google Earth images show Hezbollah building new bases Hezbollah has been building new bases and facilities in southern Lebanon and in the eastern Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border, the Lebanese Daily Star reported Tuesday, basing the report on recently uploaded Google Earth satellite images. ccording t o imager y analy sts and E uropean int elligence officials quot ed by the Daily Star , the images sho w what appears t o be a Hezbollah training base in an area of secluded hills near the border with Syria. The base includes what is suspected to be a driving c ourse, a 100-me ter firing range and a possible urban t errain assault c ourse. The exper ts also indicat ed that the training base began construction in 2006, the y ear Hezbollah engaged in a war with Israel.
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The images also sho wed a g reat deal of o vert c onstruction ac tivity in Hezbollahdominated areas in southern L ebanon, particularly in hills south of the t own of Jezzine, which ser ved as the t errorist or ganization’s main line of def ense after the 2006 S econd Lebanon War, the report said. Hezbollah’s c onstruction ac tivity suggests the or ganization has made eff orts t o prepare f or another possible c onfrontation with Israel. ISRAEL HAYOM, COURTESY OF JOINTMEDIA NEWS SERVICE
An image from Google Earth showing what is suspected to be a driver training course and other Hezbollah facilities. (CREDIT: GOOGLE EARTH)
Jewish al-Qaeda Hostage Pleads for Obama’s Cooperation By JV Staff ewish-American Warren Weinstein, who has been held hostage sinc e last August by al- Qaeda in P akistan, appear ed on a newly released video this week pleading with P resident Obama t o ac quiesce t o the terrorist g roup’s demands . Weinstein said that he w ould be k illed if Obama did not agree t o c ease its airstrikes in a number of Muslim c ountries and r elease essentially all Muslim terror suspects worldwide.
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“My lif e is in y our hands , M r. P resident,” Weinstein said in the tape. “If you accept the demands, I liv e; if y ou don’t ac cept the de mands, then I die.” Weinstein, age 70, lives in Rockville, Maryland and at the time of his abduc tion was serving as the country director in Pakistan for J.E. A ustin A ssociates, a Virginia-based firm that provides professional advice to a variet y of Pakistani business and government sectors. In a video message that was post ed on militant w ebsites this past Dec ember, alQaeda leader A yman al-Za wahri insist ed
that Weinstein would be released only when the Unit ed Stat es ended its airstrikes in A fghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. He also demanded the r elease of all al- Qaeda and Taliban suspects around the w orld. The White House has not issued an y comments on the new video. According to the SITE I ntelligence Group, which monit ors t errorists’ messages , Al-Sahab – the media division of al- Qaeda’s media arm – placed the Weinstein video on jihadist forums on Sunda y.“It’s important you accept the demands and act quickly and don’t delay,”
Weinstein said in the video , speak ing to the president. “There’ll be no benefit in dela ying, it will just make things more difficult for me.” He also appealed t o Obama as a f ellow father. I f the pr esident goes along with the terrorists’ demands , Weinstein said , “then I will live and hopefully r ejoin my family and also enjo y m y childr en, m y t wo daught ers, like you enjoy your two daughters.” Following his k idnapping, Weinstein’s company said that he was in poor health, and it publiciz ed a detailed list of medications, many of them for heart problems, that it requested the kidnappers give him. In the video released this past week, Weinstein said he w ould like his wif e, Elaine , t o k now “I’m fine, I’m well, I’m getting all my medications, I’m being taken care of.”
Interpol Issues Notice For Fugitive Iraqi Vice President nterpol says it has issued an int ernational “red notice” for the arr est of I raq’s fugitive Vice P resident Tareq al-Hashimi “on suspicion of guiding and financing t errorist attacks.” The L yon-based int ernational polic e
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agency said on M ay 8 that the notic e, its highest possible aler t, was issued at the r equest of Iraqi authorities. Hashimi, who is being tried in absentia in a Baghdad court and was last known to be in Istanbul, has been char ged along with sev-
Flaum's Settlement Continued from page 1
ment. “We won the respect we deserve and you can, too. We finally arrived at justice.” The dispute began four years ago when 17 of the w orkers had their emplo yment terminated following their protest over unpaid wages and poor w orking c onditions at the c ompany’s fac tory in Williamsburg. The workers pressed their case in both the streets and the legal sy stem, with substantial suppor t from a c oalition of labor or ganizers and social justic e g roups, including Uri L’Tzedek, a Modern Orthodox group. Advocates for the jilted former employees claim that their campaig n against the food c ompany c onvinced mor e than 120 supermarkets, including F ood Emporium
Arts & Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Auto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Breaking News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Business & Technology . . . . . 21 Calendar of Events . . . . . . . . . 26 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
and Zabar ’s, t o c ease their sale of F laum’s products, including its popular S onny and Joe’s hummus , as w ell as pick les and herring. But according to Moishe Grunhut, the owner of Flaum’s Appetizing, only six stores boycotted his c ompany’s products. “Hopefully the battle is o ver,” he said af ter the agreement was announc ed. “We wish this had happened a f ew years earlier. I tried t o make this offer and they wouldn’t accept it.” Daniel Gr oss, the ex ecutive dir ector of a Queens-based adv ocacy g roup that r epresents w orkers in the f ood pr ocessing and r etailing industries , c ontended that the business model in this “critical par t of the f ood supply chain ” increasingly r elies on questionable methods of cutting expenses and “exploiting” immi-
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eral bodyguards with k illing six I raqi judges and senior officials. He has said the char ges against him ar e politically motivated and that he fears for his life if he goes back to Iraq. Iraqi authorities issued an arr est warrant
for Hashimi in December. Soon afterwards, Hashimi fled to the autonomous Kurdistan region in nor thern Iraq and then lef t for Turkey, after stops in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
grant workers of color. “With their exemplary victory,” Gross exulted, “the Flaum workers ha ve sho wn that abusiv e w orkplaces in this sec tor can be transf ormed thr ough organizing, grassroots advocacy and litigation.” The w orkers had claimed that F laum’s acted contrary to labor la ws by neglecting to pay them o vertime wages – sometimes even minimum wage – f or workweeks that often ex tended up t o 80 hours . They also complained that they w ere vic tims of discrimination and anti-immig rant comments from Flaum’s senior management. The settlement resolves both a federal lawsuit filed in M anhattan and litigation filed with the National Labor Relations Board. Grunhut’s v ersion of the ev ents surrounding the case is diff erent than the one presented b y the w orkers and their sup porters, but he expr essed satisfac tion o ver
the abilit y of both sides t o settle . He said that the w orkers had not been fir ed, but in actuality had “walked out” of their jobs v oluntarily, and that the issue of o vertime pay was a “gray ar ea.” Grunhut – who had also claimed that the emplo yees w ere undocumented immig rants and thus not entitled to o vertime pa y – fur ther stat ed that the National Labor Relations Boar d, which had determined that the owner did not have sufficient evidenc e t o back up his claim, did not give him enough time t o confirm their status. Grunhut said he was finally willing t o settle the disput e because he wants “to do business, not litigating.” “Many rabbis and community members stood with the w orkers of F laum and will continue to energetically support an ethical food system,” said Rabbi Ari Hart, co-founder of Uri L’Tzedek. “The Torah calls on us t o fight for justice.”
Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Iran. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Jewcy News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
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Kashrut. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 National . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Op-Ed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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