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Israel and Austria to the rescue

Coming to the aid of White Helmets under siege in Syria and Lautenberg refugees in limbo in Vienna


ISRAEL: Israeli Defense Forces assisted hundreds of White Helmets—largely civilian rescue workers who have worked in rebel-held areas throughout the Syria civil war to rescue casualties—escape advancing government forces into the Israeli-controlled area of Golan Heights and on to Jordan.

More on Israel’s nation-state law passed last week from The Philos Project executive director Robert Nicholson: “Overall I don’t think there is a whole lot in this law that is new. It’s really just articulating the current reality in the form of a Basic Law. … The main problem outsiders have, and where it’s worth spending some time in explanation, is the fact that Jewishness is an ethno-national identity and not a religious one.” What’s worth watching, according to Nicholson: “The nation-state law only makes sense in the context of a two-state paradigm. The Jewish state of Israel cannot swallow the Palestinians. They are too numerous and too nationally minded to be digested. I don’t think Israelis need to apologize for affirming the ethnic character of their state, but I do think that efforts to reinforce the Jewish identity of Israel should be paired with similar efforts to recognize the Arab character of the future State of Palestine. Clarification and correction from Friday’s Globe Trot: Israel recently designated Aramean an official ethnic identity (not Aramaic, the language of Arameans), and that doesn’t change under the new law. Under it, the status of Arabic is “special” rather than “official,” and it’s unclear whether that will affect actual usage.

AUSTRIA: Four of the more than 100 Lautenberg refugee cases we’ve been following in Vienna have been granted asylum by the Austrian government, largely through the advocacy of Gudrun Kugler, an Austrian People’s Party member of the Austrian Parliament, and the U.S.-based Nazarene Fund. The action should put pressure on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—under a court order to reconsider the remaining cases this week.

NICARAGUA: Originally asked to mediate a rising street protest movement, clergy are increasingly becoming the face of opposition to the authoritarian government of President Daniel Ortega: “One thing that has to be clear is that being the mediators of a dialogue does not make us neutral before injustice, before human rights violations, before the death of innocents.”

PAKISTAN: A Barnabas Fund campaign has succeeded in freeing 287 families of brick kiln laborers—a form of indentured labor that frequently enslaves Christians. Meanwhile, in Punjab province, police have ordered brick kiln laborers to demolish their church.

SYRIA: Seven years ago, as massive street uprisings in Hama and other cities continued to grow, a crackdown on protesters by the Assad regime led to an ongoing civil war that has killed more than half a million people and displaced nearly 10 million civilians.

To have Globe Trot delivered to your email inbox, email Mindy at mbelz@wng.org.

NOTE: I’ll be in Washington, D.C., this week attending the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom and related side events.


Mindy Belz

Mindy, a former senior editor for WORLD Magazine, wrote the publication’s first cover story in 1986. She has covered wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Africa, and the Balkans and is author of They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run From ISIS With Persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Mindy resides in Asheville, N.C.

@MindyBelz

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