Reporter Injured

TBILISI — Yediot Achronot reporter Tzadok Yehezkeli suffered serious chest wounds Aug. 12 while covering fighting between Georgian and Russian forces in Gori, the newspaper said. Yehezkeli, 52, was taken to a hospital in Tbilisi and was in stable condition. Several journalists have been killed or wounded in the war over Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has accused Russian troops of deliberately firing on news reporters.

Radio Station Closes

LONDON — London’s only Jewish radio station shut down after losing a libel lawsuit. George Galloway, a British MP and vocal critic of Israel, won $28,000 (US) in damages against the station, forcing its closure. He sued the station, Jcom, after an impersonator named “Georgie Galloway” used the phrase “Kill the Jews, kill the Jews” in a broadcast. The station apologized for the November show, which was heard online by 36 people and in a small area of north London.

Lawmaker Censured

TEHRAN — Iranian lawmakers condemned an official who said he was willing to be “friends” with Israelis. A statement signed Aug. 12 by 200 parliamentarians, urged Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to dismiss the vice-president for tourism, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, calling his remarks “unforgivable.” On Aug. 10, Mashai repeated his comment that Iranians are “a friend of all people in the world, even Israelis and Americans.” An ally of Ahmadinejad, Mashai stressed that his country opposes Israel, not Jews.

President Pledges To Fight Anti-Semitism

CARACAS — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised visiting Jewish leaders he will condemn “all forms of anti-Semitism.”
Chavez’s pledge came in an Aug. 13 meeting in Caracas with leaders of the World Jewish Congress, arranged by the presidents of Argentina and Brazil. WJC president Ronald Lauder said Chavez promised to initiate a meeting with leaders of those nations to jointly condemn “all forms of anti-Semitism, discrimination against minorities and anti-Muslim sentiment.”
A leftist career military man, Chavez came to power in 1999 and has unsettled the West with his fierce criticism of global economic policy and his embrace of rogue leaders such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Chavez was accused of anti-Semitism after a 2006 speech in which he said the “the descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ” controlled the world’s wealth, although some Venezuelan Jews said the critics took the comments out of context. Under Chavez, the Venezuelan Jewish community has declined by about 25 per cent, the WJC said.
“The world Jewish community is calmer now about President Chavez,” Latin American Jewish Congress president Jack Terpins said after the meeting. “He has demonstrated that he is a great friend of this community.”