Tag: British Jews

  • Rebels ask leader of UK’s Libyan Jews to run for office

    Rebels ask leader of UK’s Libyan Jews to run for office

    U.K. Libyan-Jewish leader: I was invited to run for office in Libya
    the Book of Mordechai
    (JTA) — The leader of the Libyan Jewish community in Britain said he has been invited to run for political office in post-Muammar Gadhafi Libya.

    Raphael Luzon told the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, a day after the fall of the Libyan capital to rebel forces, that opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil had invited him to return to Libya and run in free elections. Jalil is a former Libyan justice minister and now chairman of the rebel council in Benghazi.

    Luzon told the newspaper that he was invited to take part in the elections “because they would like it to be open to all people, including women and Jews.”

    Luzon, whose family fled Libya in 1967, met Gadhafi twice in recent years. He said he would await further developments in the country before making a decision.

    Reconstruction of the war-torn country and the restitution of Jewish assets confiscated by the Libyan regime would top his political agenda if he ran, Luzon told the Jerusalem Post.

    Fighting continued in the Libyan capital on Tuesday, centered around Gadhafi’s fortified compound.

    www.jta.org, August 23, 2011

    Rebels ask leader of UK’s Libyan Jews to run for office

    By GIL SHEFLER, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

    Raphael Luzon tells ‘Post’ that rebel council chief told him post-Gaddafi gov’t should include women and Jews.

    The day after the fall of Tripoli to the rebels, the leader of a Libyan-Jewish Diaspora group said he was offered by the emerging ruling power to run for office in free elections in that country.

    Raphael Luzon, the head of Jews of Libya UK, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil recently invited him to return to his country of birth and participate in the political discourse.

    “A week ago I received an [invitation] from the chief of the rebels,” he said referring to Abdul Jalil, a former justice minister and current chairman of the rebel council in Benghazi.

    “They proposed for me to take part in one of the parties because they would like it to be open to all people including women and Jews.”

    The Benghazi-born Jew, whose family was forced to flee Libya following a pogrom in 1967, said he was waiting for further developments before he gave a definitive answer.

    “I said I would accept it once I see it is real democracy and the proposal is offered,” he said. “If I do it I do it for one matter: the historical matter. The first Arab country that proposed that a Jew run in a free election.”

    Jews have lived in Libya since ancient times. At its peak during the 1930s the Jewish community in Libya numbered 25,000 but persecution by Italy and Germany during World War II and a series of state-sponsored pogroms after Libya became independent in 1951 took a toll and its members immigrated mostly to Israel, Italy and the UK. The last Jew in Libya left the country almost a decade ago.

    From his base in London, Luzon has been in contact with Muammar Gaddafi’s regime over the past decade representing the demands of Jewish Libyans abroad. He visited his country of birth several times and met with the Libyan dictator privately twice.

    If he were to return to Libya, Luzon said the reconstruction of the war-torn country and the restitution of Jewish assets which were confiscated by the Libyan regime to their rightful owners would top his political agenda.

    “As you know we left there 82 synagogues, land and property and I would like to take care of this because it belongs to the Jewish community of Libya,” he said.

    Luzon dismissed fears that the northern African country might emerge as a hotbed for radical Islam.

    “No country in northern Africa has a tradition of Islamic extremism,” he said. “They’re never Islamist. Perhaps there will be a small party in Libya but different than the ones in Egypt.”

    The 57-year-old Luzon also did not rule out the option that Israeli Jews of Libyan descent would be free to visit their country of origin similarly to other northern African countries.

    “If it will be democratic there will be no reason not to visit, like in Tunisia and Morocco,” he said.

    He emphasized that all this depended on the outcome of fighting in the capital, which is still raging between the rebels and forces loyal to the Libyan dictator, who has so far evaded capture.

    “First they have to get rid of Gaddafi, rebuild the country and decide which direction to take,” he said.

    www.jpost.com, 23 August 2011

  • MP’s talks over Leeds United fan deaths in Turkey

    MP’s talks over Leeds United fan deaths in Turkey

    Fabian Hamilton MP
    Leeds MP Fabian Hamilton

    An MP has held talks with a Turkish diplomat in an attempt to get justice for two Leeds United fans who were murdered in the country 10 years ago.

    Chris Loftus, 35, and Kevin Speight, 40, were killed in Istanbul on the eve of Leeds’ Uefa Cup semi-final against Galatasaray on 5 April 2000.

    Four men were convicted of involvement in the murders but were bailed pending an appeal which has still to be heard.

    Leeds MP Fabian Hamilton* said his talk with the Turkish ambassador went well.

    He said: “I was impressed at how articulate he was and how concerned he was that this particular case is a running sore in Anglo-Turkish relations.

    “It’s something that he wants to see put to bed, not just for the sake of the relationship between our two countries but he was very concerned and expressed a lot of concern about the families of the victims.”

    Wreaths laid

    Mr Hamilton hopes Turkey’s aspiration to join the European Union could be used as leverage to get progress in the long-delayed case.

    He said the recently-appointed ambassador said the Turkish government could not directly interfere in judicial proceedings.

    “But I pointed out to him that Turkey is an aspiring member of the European Union and we do want Turkey to join the European Union, all political parties here in great Britain are in favour,” he said.

    “But this issue has to be resolved because it’s symptomatic of a judicial system that is not working fairly and transparently.”

    Mr Hamilton has campaigned for justice alongside the men’s families.

    In April about 300 fans joined them to mark the 10th anniversary of the deaths by laying wreaths at Leeds United’s Elland Road ground.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-11220754, 7 September 2010

    * “New Jewish ministers and the Miliband rivalry” by Jessica Elgot, The Jewish Chronicle, May 14, 2010