Jewish Life Digital Edition November 2014 | Page 11

PALESTINE VOTE ‘ ENCOURAGED TERRORISM’

DANES SUPPORT DEMANDS FOR
BAN ON BRIS MILAH
Doctors, human rights advocates and members of the Jewish and Muslim communities joined politicians for a debate on ritual circumcision
in the Danish parliament recently. It took place a day after the publication of a poll showing that 74 percent of Danes support a ban on nonmedical male circumcision. Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, chairman of
the country’s Jewish community, said the local media was “filled with
misinformation about circumcision and its effects”. He added: “I’m not at
all surprised about the outcome of the survey.” During the hearing, the
Danish Health and Medicines Authority’s director general, Else Smith,
said a ban is not justified because the risks are not serious enough. However, two Danish political parties and the country’s children’s ombudsman support a ban because they believe circumcision violates children’s
rights. “The tactic among those who oppose non-medical male circumcision is to convince more and more MPs that it is wrong, in the hope that
a proposition for an outright ban will be put forward in parliament. So
far there has been no such proposition and our job is to see to it that it
doesn’t happen,” Rosenberg Asmussen said. There have been heated
debates about circumcision in Scandinavia in recent years. In 2013, ombudsmen and medical professionals from across the region met in Oslo,
Norway and issued a common statement claiming that non-medical circumcision on boys under 18 breached the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child. Norway’s foreign minister later vowed the country would
not ban circumcision, though restrictions have been enforced so that the
practice can now only be carried out at hospitals.

Israel’s intelligence minister has accused British MPs of
encouraging terrorism by voting to support Palestinian statehood. During a visit to London last month,
Israeli intelligence and strategic affairs minister, Yuval
Steinitz, said calling on the government to recognise
Palestine had sent “the wrong message” in the wake
of the Gaza conflict. The passing of the non-binding
motion by 274-12 could be seen as a reward for Hamas
terror, he claimed. “It’s like saying, ‘look, we cannot
care less about rocket attacks on Israel’. I know this
was not the purpose, but the people who initiated it,
it seems they could not care