ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 539
The Times of Israel liveblogged Tuesday’s events as they unfolded.
US President Joe Biden appears to accuse Russian leader Vladimir Putin of genocide on Tuesday during a speech about gasoline prices.
“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank — none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away,” Biden says at the event in Iowa.
The Biden administration has sought to blame sharp rises at US gas stations on Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, during which Russian troops have been accused of committing atrocities against civilians.
The FBI is joining the hunt for the man who shot 10 people in a subway car in Brooklyn earlier today before fleeing the scene.
The FBI is working with the NYPD on the investigation and is following “every viable lead,” says Michael J. Driscoll, assistant director in charge of the FBI New York Field Office, according to CNN.
Authorities have a photo of a suspect in today’s shooting in a Brooklyn subway train and are working to confirm his identity, two law enforcement officials say. The motive remains unknown.
Officers around the city are told to look out for a U-Haul truck with a certain Arizona license plate number and to stop it and detain all occupants immediately.
Investigators recovered a handgun at the scene, along with multiple smoke devices and other items they are analyzing, the officials says. They say the suspect is believed to have had at least two extended magazines.
Investigators believe the weapon jammed, preventing the suspect from continuing to fire, the officials say. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has completed an urgent trace to identify the gun’s manufacturer, seller, and initial owner.
The officials were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
KYIV — Ukrainian officials say fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who is both a pro-Russian opposition leader and a close associate of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has been detained in a special operation carried out by the country’s SBU secret service.
Ivan Bakanov, the head of Ukraine’s national security agency, said on the agency’s Telegram channel that Medvedchuk had been arrested. The statement came shortly after President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on social media a photo of Medvedchuk sitting in handcuffs and wearing a camouflage uniform with a Ukrainian flag patch.
Medvedchuk leads the pro-Russian party Opposition Platform – For Life. He was being held under house arrest before the war began and disappeared shortly after hostilities broke out.
Putin is the godfather to Medvedchuk’s youngest daughter.
Zelenksy announces the detention of Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian oligarch who was one of Putin’s closest allies in Ukraine (Putin is godfather to his daughter). He was a fugitive. There has been an arrest warrant out against him since 18 March. Unclear why he is in camouflage pic.twitter.com/6jXqFR2yq2
— Bel Trew (@Beltrew) April 12, 2022
The global chemical weapons watchdog says it is “concerned by the recent unconfirmed report of chemical weapons use in Mariupol” and is closely monitoring the situation in Ukraine.
The spokesperson for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says in a statement that the allegations follow “reports in the media over the past few weeks of shelling targeted at chemical plants located in Ukraine, together with accusations leveled by both sides around possible misuse of toxic chemicals.”
The spokesperson says that the “use of chemical weapons anywhere by anyone under any circumstances is reprehensible and wholly contrary to the legal norms established by the international community against such use.”
Both Russia and Ukraine are among the organization’s 193 member states.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization says it “remains ready to assist any State Party upon its request, in case of use or threat of use of chemical weapons.”
An El Al plane conducts a emergency landing immediately after taking off from Ben Gurion, Channel 12 reports.
The pilot tried twice to take off but was unable to do so, after which the passengers were transferred to another plane, the network says.
Members of the US Congress say the Biden administration and its allies will not stand by if chemical weapons were used in the Russian war with Ukraine.
Lawmakers monitoring developments during a trip to Poland say that the US is investigating reports that a poisonous substance has been dropped in Mariupol. But they caution that determining the nature of the attack in the beleaguered port city could take time.
“We’re taking those reports seriously and I know the United States government and others are trying to determine if that did indeed occur,” says Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo.
Crow says the administration “has been very clear that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated.”
The Democratic lawmakers, all members of the House Intelligence Committee, are bracing for a potential long war in Ukraine. They say at a press briefing that Congress is looking at next steps in sending additional military and other aid to Ukraine.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also addresses the reports coming from Mariupol.
“We’re not in a position to confirm anything, I don’t think Ukrainians are either,” Blinken tells reporters. “But let me say that we had credible information that Russian forces may use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, that would cause stronger symptoms to weaken, incapacitate… Ukrainian fighters and civilians, as part of the aggressive campaign” in Mariupol.
“We share that information with… Ukraine and other partners,” Blinken says. “And we’re in direct conversation with partners to try to determine what actually is happening.”
The NYPD has found a handgun suspected of belonging to the escaped shooter in the subway station, NBC News reports.
Officers found three extended round magazines — an empty one on the floor, one in the shooter’s backpack, and a third that jammed in the gun — the report says.
It quotes an official as saying the jamming of the gun saved lives.
UK Prime Minister Johnson says he paid a fine from police for attending a lockdown-breaching birthday party in his official residence, making him the first British leader to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office.
“I have paid the fine and want to offer a full apology,” he says. “I understand the anger many will feel that I myself fell short when it came to observing the very rules which the government I lead had introduced to protect the public. I accept in all sincerity that people had the right to expect better.”
Downing Street says Johnson is being sanctioned for attending a “gathering of two or more people indoors in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street” on June 19, 2020. The event was a surprise birthday party for the prime minister.
Johnson says the gathering lasted “less than 10 minutes,” and “at that time, it did not occur to me this might have been a breach of the rules.”
An American defense official says the US can’t confirm Ukrainian allegations of a chemical attack in the city of Mariupol.
Ukrainian lawmaker Ivanna Klympush said yesterday that Russia had used an “unknown substance” in Mariupol and that people were suffering from respiratory failure. “Most likely chem.weapons!” she tweeted.
Ukraine’s Azov battalion in a Telegram message earlier in the day had claimed a Russian drone dropped a “poisonous substance” on Ukrainian troops and civilians in Mariupol.
“We cannot confirm the use of chemical agents at this time,” the US official tells reporters, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The official also says Washington does not possess evidence that Russia has been moving chemical agents near Ukraine or into the country, according to Reuters.
NEW YORK — At the press conference, NY Gov. Hochul vows to combat crime in the city. Her comments also come against the backdrop of her lieutenant governor being indicted on corruption charges this morning.
“I’m committing the full resources of the state to fight this surge in crime, this insanity in our city,” says Hochul.
“Everyone involved in this has one purpose — to stop the insanity of these crimes,” she says.
Police officers are stationed on street corners in a wide area around the scene of the shooting. Emergency vehicles with their lights flashing patrol the area and a helicopter hovers overhead.
Police have cordoned off the area, which is thronged by around 200 fire personnel, transit workers, medical responders and police, including officers armed with assault rifles and accompanied by police dogs.
Much of the city’s subway system has been disrupted, causing delays and frustration to passengers in Brooklyn and other boroughs.
Around 400 civilians have been buried in the town of Severodonetsk near the frontline in eastern Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the regional governor says.
“In Severodonetsk, pits are dug with a tractor and graves are systematized in the register… During the 48 days of the war about 400 burials,” Sergiy Gaiday says, referring to civilians.
There are no life-threatening injuries among the 10 people shot in this morning’s Brooklyn subway attack, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell says. At least six more people were injured.
There is no known link to terrorism, the commissioner says, adding that there are no known explosive devices.
Five people are in critical condition, but stable, according to the New York Fire Department commissioner.
The gunman sought in the attack “is still on the loose” and dangerous, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says at a press conference shortly after noon.
The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says the future of his country shouldn’t depend on the resurrection of its nuclear deal with world powers.
He also says that the talks to revive the 2015 pact, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, are “going well,” according to Reuters.
Gunfire in a New York City subway wounded at least eight people, and at least 16 in all were injured in some way in the attack at the 36th Street station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, officials say.
At least 11 people are being treated at two local hospitals.
No MTA workers were physically hurt, according to a statement from the Transport Workers Union Local 100.
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are smuggling weapons to arm Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, The Guardian reports.
RPGs, anti-tank missiles and Brazilian-designed rocket launcher systems have made their way from Iraq to Ukraine, according to the report, which cites members of the Iranian-backed militias as well as regional intelligence services familiar with the matter.
An Iranian-made Bavar 373 missile system was also donated to Moscow by Iranian authorities, a source who helped organize the transfer is quoted as saying.
RPGs and anti-tank missiles belonging to the Hashd al-Shaabi Shia militia group were transported on March 26 from Iraq to Iran, where they were collected by Russian authorities, who then shipped them to Russia by sea, a commander of the militia branch that controls the crossing tells the British daily.
Hashd al-Shaabi also dismantled Brazilian-designed Astros II rocket launcher systems on April 1 for shipment to Russian forces.
“We don’t care where the heavy weapons go [because we don’t need them at the moment],” one Hashd al-Shaabi source tells the Guardian. “Whatever is anti-US makes us happy.”
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian prosecutors are expanding their war crimes investigations in northeastern suburbs of Kyiv after Russian forces withdrew.
Reports of killings of civilians have primarily focused so far on the northwestern suburbs such as Bucha, but the Prosecutor-General’s Office says it is also looking into events in the Brovary district, which lies to the northeast.
Russian troops advanced into that area last month before retreating to focus on fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The Prosecutor-General’s Office says the bodies of six civilians have been found with gunshot wounds in a basement in the village of Shevchenkove and that Russian forces are believed to be responsible.
Prosecutors are also investigating an incident in which they allege Russian forces fired on a convoy of civilians trying to leave by car from the village of Peremoha in the Brovary district, killing four people including a 13-year-old boy. In another incident near Bucha, five people were killed, including two children, when a car was fired upon, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors do not say when they believe the incidents occurred.
Eight people are being treated at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn for injuries they sustained during the subway attack, according to a spokesperson quoted by The New York Times.
The spokesperson says all eight are in stable condition and are being treated for gunshot wounds or smoke inhalation.
“We saw an ambulance coming out with a stretcher with a person on it,” an eyewitness, Silvana Guerrero, 20, tells the Times. “Their leg was injured — I’m not sure exactly what went on or what was going on. And then, we saw after that, two ambulances coming out, with two people, like, hopping on one leg.”
A spokesperson for the Israeli consulate in New York says there were no Israelis known to have been injured in the attack.
“My subway door opened into calamity. It was smoke and blood and people screaming,” Sam Carcamo, an eyewitness to the New York subway attack, tells radio station 1010 WINS, saying he saw a gigantic billow of smoke pouring out of the N train once the door opened.
Danny Mastrogiorgio of Brooklyn had just dropped his son off at school when he saw a crush of passengers, included multiple wounded, running up the subway stairway at the 25th Street station in panic. At least two had visible leg injuries, he says.
“It was insane,” he tells The Associated Press. “No one knew exactly what was going on.”
Allan Lee was running his business, Cafe Nube, when a half-dozen police cars and fire vehicles suddenly converged on the block.
“Then they started ushering people that were on the block to the adjacent block and then closed off the subway entrance” near the cafe’s door, he tells the AP. When he noticed bomb squad officers and dogs, he was certain it was no everyday subway problem.
Juliana Fonda, a broadcast engineer at WNYC-FM, tells its news site Gothamist that she was riding the train when passengers from the car behind hers started banging on the door between them.
“There was a lot of loud pops, and there was smoke in the other car,” she says. “And people were trying to get in and they couldn’t, they were pounding on the door to get into our car.”
Putin says that lack of consistency in Ukraine’s demands was slowing down talks on ending Russia’s military operation there.
“Yesterday the Ukrainian side changed something again. Such inconsistency on fundamental points does create certain difficulties in reaching final agreements,” the Russian president says.
The New York Police Department tweets that there are “NO active explosive devices at this time.”
“Please stay clear of the area,” the NYPD tweets, urging witnesses to contact a police tip line with any information.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul says she has been briefed on the “developing” situation.
“First responders are on the scene and we will work with @MTA & @NYPDnews to provide updates as the investigation continues,” she tweets.
The New York Fire Department is now saying at least 13 people are injured in the subway attack.
There is no immediate word on the condition of the injured and the causes of their injury, beyond five who were earlier confirmed to have been hit by gunfire.
Putin dismisses reports of the discovery of hundreds of dead bodies of civilians in the town of Bucha outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after the withdrawal of Moscow’s troops.
Putin compares the accusations to those concerning the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“It’s the same kind of fake in Bucha,” Putin says during his press conference with Lukashenko at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says Moscow will proceed according to plan with its military operation in Ukraine as the pro-Western country braces for a major Russian offensive in the east.
“Our task is to fulfil and achieve all the goals set, minimizing losses. And we will act rhythmically, calmly, according to the plan originally proposed by the General Staff,” Putin says during a televised press conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Multiple people were shot this morning at a subway station in Brooklyn, New York, the city fire department says.
Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke at the 36th Street station in the Sunset Park neighborhood found multiple people shot and undetonated devices, a New York City Fire Department spokesperson says.
According to a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation, preliminary information indicates a suspect was dressed in construction attire.
A graphic photo from the scene shows people tending to bloodied passengers lying on the floor of the station.
Further details are not immediately available. New York City police say they are responding to reports of people wounded either by gunfire or an explosion.
Trains servicing that station were delayed during the morning rush hour.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says investigators had received reports of “hundreds of cases of rape” in areas previously occupied by Russian troops, including sexual assaults of small children.
“In areas freed from the occupiers, the recording and investigation of war crimes committed by Russia continues. Almost everyday we find new mass graves,” he tells Lithuanian lawmakers via video link.
“Hundreds of cases of rape have been recorded, including those of young girls and very young children. Even of a baby!”
The leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party calls for Prime Minister Johnson and Finance Minister Sunak to resign for breaching COVID-19 lockdown laws.
“Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have broken the law and repeatedly lied to the British public,” Keir Starmer says on Twitter after it emerges both will be fined for breaking the law. “They must both resign.”
US inflation soared over the past year at its fastest pace in more than 40 years, with costs for food, gasoline, housing and other necessities squeezing American consumers and wiping out the pay raises that many people have received.
The Labor Department says that its consumer price index jumped 8.5% in March from 12 months earlier, the sharpest year-over-year increase since December 1981. Prices have been driven up by bottlenecked supply chains, robust consumer demand and disruptions to global food and energy markets worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine. From February to March, inflation rose 1.2% , the biggest month-to-month jump since 2005.
Across the US economy, the year-over-year price spikes were widespread in March. Gasoline prices have rocketed 48% in the past 12 months. Used car prices have soared 35.3%, though they actually fell in February and March. Bedroom furniture is up 14.7%, men’s jackets suits and coats 14.5%. Grocery prices have jumped 10%, including 18% increases for both bacon and oranges.
Even excluding volatile food and energy prices, which have driven overall inflation, so-called core inflation jumped 6.5% over the past 12 months, the biggest such increase since 1982.
The March inflation numbers are the first to capture the full surge in gasoline prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Moscow’s brutal attacks have triggered far-reaching Western sanctions against the Russian economy and have disrupted global food and energy markets. According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of gasoline — $4.10 — is up 43% from a year ago, though it has fallen back in the past couple of weeks.
The Israel Defense Forces says it is further bolstering troops in the so-called “seam zone” area along the West Bank security barrier.
Two more battalions — one infantry and one from the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps — as well as two heavy equipment companies are being deployed.
The move comes amid attempts by Israel to better secure the border with the West Bank following two deadly terror attacks committed by Palestinians who entered Israel through gaps in the fence.
UK Prime Minister Johnson and finance minister Rishi Sunak will face fines for breaching Covid-19 lockdown laws in what has become known as the “partygate” scandal, a Downing Street spokeswoman says.
“The Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have today received notification that the Metropolitan police intend to issue them with fixed penalty notices,” she says.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev threatens to step up military operations in the West Bank should the wave of Palestinian terror persist.
Addressing terrorists, he says, “The State of Israel and its security forces, including the Israel Police, will pursue you wherever you are, day and night, and get to you.”
Barlev, whose ministry is in charge of the police, adds, “Just as in recent days, forces from the police, IDF and Shin Bet have been operating in the Jenin refugee camp, so we will continue to counter terrorism with a strong fist, and we won’t hesitate to embark on even more extensive military operations, in Jenin and anywhere that is a hotbed of terrorism.
“Don’t try us,” he warns.
The Justice Ministry gives the green light on Tuesday for connecting some illegal West Bank outposts to electricity, a controversial step that as of last week was one of Yamina MK Nir Orbach’s demands for remaining in the imperiled coalition.
The matter will move to the Defense Ministry for authorization and to determine the criteria for homes to be included, according to an opinion issued by Deputy Attorney General for Civil Affairs Carmit Yulis.
Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar welcomes the opinion from Yulis, which, he says, “in principle allows connection to electricity for towns in the young settlement movement that are eligible for regularization.”
A source close to Sa’ar confirms that the opinion only applies to outposts built upon Israeli state land, not Palestinian private land.
The source says a similar approval process to connect Palestinian homes to the grid in West Bank Area C is planned for the future, but not as part of the current effort.
The Shin Bet security service says it has examined travel mugs sent by the Chinese embassy to a government ministry and concluded that they are not covert listening devices.
“Shin Bet experts who examined the suspicious part and concluded that *it is an innocent part* meant to retain the vacuum seal in the cup’s walls and maintain its temperature over time.”
The Chinese embassy releases a statement denying reports a gift it it gave to an Israeli minister was found to contain a component suspected to be a possible spying device.
The statement reads as follows:
On the occasion of Passover, following diplomatic customary practices, the Chinese Embassy in Israel sent holiday gifts to the Israeli side to express our friendship. However, on April 12, the Embassy noticed that certain Israeli media spread rumors that a thermal mug in the gifts “may” contain a “suspicious device”. The fact is, the so-called “suspicious device” is a getter, which could be easily found in the same kind of thermal mugs. The baseless rumors have a severe impact as they aim to drive a wedge between China and Israel, tarnish China’s image and seriously mislead the public. Media reports say they cited “sources” from relevant Israeli government authority, but the mentioned government authority made clear to the Embassy that it hasn’t made any statement to the press regarding this matter. We ask the relevant media outlets to immediately withdraw the false reports, stop helping spread rumors, and take real actions to eliminate the negative impacts that are already caused. If the media agencies insist on spreading such rumors, we will reserve the right to seek accountability.
British police say they are fining at least 30 more people for breaching coronavirus restrictions at government offices.
The Metropolitan Police said at the end of March that it issued 20 fixed penalty notices over parties held by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff during the UK’s coronavirus lockdowns.
The force says it is “continuing to assess significant amounts of investigative material.” It does not identify the recipients of the fines, though Johnson’s office has said it will reveal if he gets one.
The “partygate” scandal has angered many in Britain and seen dozens of politicians and officials investigated over allegations that the government flouted its own pandemic restrictions.
Police sent questionnaires to more than 100 people, including the prime minister, and interviewed witnesses as part of the investigation.
Johnson has denied any wrongdoing, but he is alleged to have been at several of the dozen events in his 10 Downing St. office and other government buildings that are being investigated by the police.
He has acknowledged attending a “bring your own booze” party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020 during the first lockdown, but insisted he believed it would be a work event.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz says his office is working on plans to allow thousands more Palestinian workers into Israel legally, as Israel aims to close up gaps in the West Bank security barrier.
“Alongside intelligence, offensive and defensive operations, we are advancing solutions that will enable tens of thousands of additional workers to enter Israel in an orderly manner,” Gantz says during a tour of the barrier.
He says he has instructed relevant bodies to prepare a plan that also includes upgrading the border crossings.
“It will improve security and improve both the Israeli economy and the Palestinian economy. We will continue to fight terrorism and take care of the economy,” he adds.
In a blow to the state prosecution, a judge refuses to approve a plea bargain with Eurocom Holdings Ltd., which is involved in the ongoing corruption trial of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Michal Agmon-Gonen, of the Tel Aviv District Court, says that Eurocom should not sign a plea deal admitting wrongdoing when its previous owner, Shaul Elovitch, is still on trial and denies the suspicions against him.
According to the rejected deal, the company would have confess to charges brought against it in two ongoing cases and pay a NIS 400,000 ($124,000) fine.
Those charges include receiving a bribe under aggravated circumstances, multiple fraud counts, and breach of trust. The company is also accused of giving bribes and of money laundering through the actions of Elovitch, as part of so-called Case 4000.
Agmon-Gonen says that deliberations in Eurocom’s case will be postponed until next May at least.
The besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol yields up more horrors after six weeks of pummeling by Russian troops, with the mayor saying more than 10,000 civilians have died in the strategic southern port, their corpses “carpeted through the streets.”
As Russia pound targets around Ukraine and prepare for a major assault in the east, the country’s leader has warned that President Vladimir Putin’s forces could resort to chemical weapons, and Western officials say they are investigating an unconfirmed claim by a Ukrainian regiment that a poisonous substance was dropped in Mariupol.
The city has seen some of the heaviest attacks and civilian suffering in the war, but the land, sea and air assaults by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information about what’s happening inside the city.
Speaking by phone with The Associated Press, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accuses Russian forces of having blocked weeks of attempted humanitarian convoys into the city in part to conceal the carnage. Boychenko says the death toll in Mariupol alone could surpass 20,000.
Boychenko also gives new details of allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the corpses of victims of the siege. He says Russian forces have taken many bodies to a huge shopping center where there are storage facilities and refrigerators.
“Mobile crematoriums have arrived in the form of trucks: You open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” the mayor says.
Boychenko speaks from Ukrainian-controlled territory outside Mariupol. The mayor says he has several sources for his description of the alleged methodical burning of bodies by Russian forces in the city, but does not detail the sources.
The discovery of large numbers of apparently massacred civilians after Russian forces retreated from cities and towns around the capital, Kyiv, already has prompted widespread condemnation and accusations that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Israel Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai assails Joint List party chief Ayman Odeh for comments in which he called on Arab Israelis not to serve in security forces, including the police, operating in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“I won’t allow anyone to besmirch Arab officers, our brothers in arms,” Shabtai says in a speech during a ceremony for elite police units.
“The police, under my command, will be a fortified wall in the face of anyone who wishes to harm them and undermine their Israeli identity and the responsibility that so courageously took upon themselves.”
Odeh caused outrage on Sunday when he said Arab Israelis serving in the security forces in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were “humiliating” their own people and called on them to throw down their weapons and quit.
Odeh’s remarks specifically referred to Arabs serving in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which have seen high tensions in recent weeks, not those serving as police inside the pre-1967 borders.
The lawmaker’s comments nonetheless sparked calls to investigate him for inciting violence as Israel is facing the deadliest wave of terror attacks in years.
Odeh, in a Ramadan video posted from the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, also said his ultimate goal was to see the Palestinian flag flying over Jerusalem.
On Monday, Odeh doubled down on his comments despite the wall-to-wall criticism, and also called on Jewish Israelis to refuse to serve in the “occupation forces” in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
