--Right-wing Yedioth commentator Ben-Dror Yemini comes to the defense of the Arab Israeli community of Israel, unlike the country's Prime Minister, following the shooting attack by an Arab Israeli.**
This week, Alpher discusses what we can expect in Israel and Israel-US relations in 2016; the notion that the Palestinian issue increasingly will become an internal Israeli affair; how the Arab and Muslim worlds will respond to this and if we will witness external aggression against Israel; and prospects for some sort of international political agreement regarding Syria, spearheaded by the US and Russia
ISRAEL, SURROUNDED not only by threats to its existence but also by governments and movements that practice tyranny, is a stubbornly free society.
Briefing call: What you need to know about Israel's proposed NGO
funding bill, with MK Merav Michaeli, Naomi Chazan and Michael Sfard
Briefing Call: The threats facing Israeli democracy with Professor
Mordechai Kremnitzer
Peace Now report: Who is Funding Israeli Right-Wing
NGOs?
Israel’s new NGO Bill – what it is and what it means
APN Statement: Israeli Government's anti-NGO Bill: Hate Crime
against Democracy
Recommended Reading - Washington Post: A danger to Israeli
democracy
You Must Be Kidding:
"Sometimes you get sick of damaging property, etc. and you want to make a clear strike that will set the accursed on fire, then you just want to set fire to the house itself with its inhabitants inside."
--From a document belonging to "The Revolt" network, the radical religious right-wing Jews who hoped to spark a war between the Palestinians and the Israelis in order to topple the government and create a Jewish kingdom.
News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:
94% of the donations of 9 well-known right-wing NGOs are nontransparent
In light of the NGO bill, a Peace Now study examining the funding sources and transparency of 9 right-wing pro-settler NGOs finds that 94% of the donations to these organizations in the years 2006-2013 were nontransparent, meaning that there is no possibility to identify their original donor. The study also finds that the majority of the funding to the organizations examined originated from private individuals abroad, arriving mainly through U.S. organizations with a tax-deductible donations status. Many other millions of shekels originated from Israeli taxpayers' money through government ministries and an local municipalities.
Following Peace Now's report, Netanyahu distances himself from plans to build a settlement in E-1 (Ynet, 12/30/2015)
Peace Now: Israel plans over 55,000 new West Bank settler units (Jordan Times, AFP story 12/28/2015)
APN: New NGO bill is not about transparency but about silencing dissent (Times of Israel, 12/30/2015)
Peace Now: Israel has plans for over 55,500 West Bank housing units (JTA, 12/28/2015)
Peace Now: Israel plans over 55,000 new W.Bank settlement homes: Peace Now (i24news, 12/28/2015)
Peace Now: Israel seeking to revive E1 construction plans (AFP, 12/28/2015)
Peace Now report: Israel advances planning for controversial West Bank zone (Financial Times, 12/28/2015)
Peace Now: Israel plans settler homes in strategic area (The Associated Press, 12/28/2015)
Peace Now report: Housing Ministry working on plans for 55,548 settlement homes (Times of Israel, 12/28/2015)
Official documents obtained by Peace Now: Israeli government renews construction plans for E-1 (Haaretz, 12/28/2015)
Peace Now calls Cabinet endorsement of anti-NGO bill "a hate crime against democracy" (12/27/2015)
Peace Now: Anti-NGO bill is "hate crime against Israeli democracy" (Jerusalem Post, 12/27/2015)
APN protests Israeli bill aimed at silencing progressive Israeli non-profits (San Diego Jewish World, 12/27/2015)
Peace Now: NGO bill is Hate crime against democracy (AFP, 12/27/2015)
Peace Now: Cabinet's endorsement of anti-NGO bill is a "hate crime against democracy" (Reuters, 12/27/2015)
Peace Now says new anti-NGO bill is a "Hate crime against democracy" (Wall Street Journal, 12/27/2015)
Peace Now criticizes Cabinet for endorsing anti-NGO bill (Deutsche Welle, 12/27/2015)
Peace Now condemns Cabinet endorsement of anti-NGO bill (New York Times, 12/27/2015)
Peace
Now condemns anti-NGO bill (Associated Press, 12/28/2015)
--Haaretz's Washington correspondent Chemi Shalev writes that if the "waves of chauvinistic anti-democratic legislation and incitement" were washing over the US, Jewish Americans would not stay silent.**
You Must Be Kidding:
Two Israeli Arabs were forced to get off a plane before the flight home from Greece due to the demand of a group of Jewish Israeli passengers, who stood up preventing the plane from taking off until they did.***
--Mazen Qaq, an Arab Israeli, who has offered 40,000 shekels to anyone who provides information that could lead to the capture of suspected Tel Aviv shooter Nashat Melhem.**
You Must Be Kidding:
"We told the officers that we are people, not numbers. We have no problem with a security check, but not in this manner."
--Hebron residents outraged after IDF assigns numbers to Palestinians who live near Jewish settlement enclave in Hebron.***