APN's daily news review from Israel

Tuesday August 11, 2015 
 

Quote of the day:

---

Front Page:

Haaretz

---

 

News Summary:
 
Prominent rabbis defied the Chief Rabbinate and formed an alternative conversion court, a Golan Druze mother of four was charged with murder of a wounded Syrian, and the Israeli stabbed by a Palestinian said Palestinian gas station attendants only laughed, making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers. Also in the news were reports about whether a Palestinian detainee on hunger-strike would be force-fed and the latest on the battle over the Iran deal.

Yedioth reported that Israeli drivers were scared to use the West Bank Hwy 443 after a Palestinian young man stabbed an Israeli civilian at an Israeli gas station alongside the highway. The lightly wounded Israeli, Yehuda Ben-Moyal, 26 complained that Palestinian gas station attendants laughed when he called for help. Itai, another Israeli man at the gas station saw the knife-wielder, but did not know that Ben-Moyal was stabbed. Itai drove away and called the police. “After two minutes, an IDF jeep arrived at the gas station. I straight away directed them to him, and within half a minute I heard shots and I did a circle in the gas station. That’s how the event ended. The terrorist was eliminated,” Itai told Yedioth. Hundreds of Palestinians marched Monday in the funeral procession of  the alleged stabber, Anas Muntaser Taher, 20, from Qutna village, Maan reported.
 
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Democratic Congressmen he would not tell them how to vote on the Iran deal. Rep. Steny Hoyer said members of a US delegation met with current and ex-senior officials in the Israeli defense establishment, whose judgment about the deal was ‘more reserved’ than that of prime minister, Haaretz+ reported. Meanwhile, Zionist Camp MK Tzipi Livni called for a Knesset hearing on Netanyahu's campaign in the US, both in Congress and among American Jews, against the deal. She said the affect Netanyahu’s initiative could have on U.S.-Israel relations needed to be examined, Haaretz+ reported. Already, Jewish Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii expressed his support for the deal. And US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Israel’s Army Radio that despite the dispute over the deal, Israel needs to prepare for the day after the congressional vote. "It is not productive for us just to argue...we can still begin to prepare for the day after.” (Maariv)
  
Israel moved Mohammed Allaan, a Palestinian administrative detainee, who has been hunger-striking for 54 days from Soroka Hospital to Barzilai Hospital, likely because Soroka refused to force-feed him, the papers reported. Allaan is protesting with his body that Israel has jailed him without charges for over nine months. But Dr. Hezi Levy, Director of Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, said his hospital would also refuse to force-feed Allan. Maariv reported that the hospital said it won’t force-feed him “but will treat him if he loses consciousness.” The Israeli Doctors’ Union warned that force-feeding was “torture that could cause death.” But one Israeli medical ethics expert said hunger strikers should be force-fed, Haaretz+ reported. The Joint List's MK Basel Ghattas wrote a letter to Levy, urging him not to force-feed Allaan, (Maariv) Up to 80 Palestinian activists set up protest tents at the ICRC offices in E. Jerusalem in support of the hunger striker. And in Israeli jails, Palestinian prisoners declared a campaign of 'disobedience,' which would continue until their demands were met, but it was not clear what those demands were, Maan reported.
 

Quick Hits:

---

Features:

With No Land to Farm, Palestinian Refugees Are Looking Up for Answers
Like most Palestinian refugee camps, Aida is cramped and overpopulated, with open land nearly nonexistent. The solution: Growing crops on the roof. (Sheren Khalel, Haaretz+) 
On a small boat at sea, only Syrian folk songs can assuage the fear
In the second part of a series, Thaer al-Nashef chronicles his journey as he joins thousands of fellow Syrian refugees desperately seeking sanctuary in Europe. (Thaer al-Nashef, Haaretz+)

Commentary/Analysis:

The Hebrew state is disappearing, the Jewish state is taking over (Uri Avnery, Haaretz+) We are witnessing a mutation of Judaism, a new Judaism – fanatic, violent and now murderous as well. It is liable to bury the state, just as it buried the Second Temple. 
Too little, too late: measures against Jewish terror are far from sufficient (Yossi Melman, Maariv) Too little, because the law still discriminates and continues to discriminate between Palestinian terrorist suspected of terror and Israeli citizens suspected of similar crimes. Against the Palestinians, Israel uses in special cases defined as "ticking bombs" severe physical and psychological methods. Palestinians are tried in military courts in the (Palestinian) territories and Israeli civilians (in the Territories) are tried in civil courts in Israel. Palestinians are convicted and punished, also with collective punishment by sealing off or demolishing their homes. Israelis are immune from punishment. In 48 years of occupation, Israel gradually developed a legal technique, according to which, Israel does not annex the (Palestinian) territories to Israeli sovereignty, but applies Israeli law to the Israelis living in the Territories. This is in contrast to what is accepted in law, according to which the law applies to the territory. The measures being taken now are too late. Too late because the raids on outposts this week had to be conducted 30 years ago, with the exposure of the first Jewish underground, which assassinated (Palestinian) mayors in the West Bank. It’s too bad a father and his baby had to fall victim to Jewish terror for the state to understand that if it does not bring it down, it will rattle the foundations. Still, better late than never. 
Netanyahu must stop silencing intel chiefs who find Iran deal acceptable (Amir Oren, Haaretz+) There are those in the Intelligence Corps whose views on the nuclear agreement are at odds with Netanyahu's position; their opinions are being kept from the public. 
A small jump into the future: This is how the event for the 25th anniversary of the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane will look (Natan Zehavi, Maariv) Thousands will flock on Thursday, the 5th of November, 2015, to the ceremony, which will be held at the memorial site for Dr. Baruch Goldstein in the holy city of Hebron. The emcee will announce: "This is a great day for the real Jews." Zahavi's prophecy of fury: Exactly at 20:00 there was a hush and on a small stage, behind which a giant screen was placed with a picture of the Rabbi (Meir Kahane), Rabbi Menachem Fierstein walked up and reached forward, with a clenched fist, and shouted, his voice thundering, "Kahane Chai.” (Kahane lives.) The crowd responded three times "Kahane chai, Kahane chai, Kahane chai.” His thundering voice could be hear across Hebron: “Today, the 5th of November, 2015, the 25th anniversary of the death of the leader, the prophet, the brave warrior, the proud Jew - Rabbi Meir Kahane. We are gathered here at the holy memorial site Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who, within 29 seconds, eliminated Amalekite idolaters that settled in the land of our forefathers and were like a thorn in the butt of those close to us. On this important day, the real Jews decided, the members of the salvation organizations, to provide ‘light-tag’ to our heroic brothers, who are fighting day and night for the expulsion of the schemers from our country, who set fire to the beasts that walk among us and that push out and incite our children to go astray from their straight paths. As your eyes can see, gathered together at the sacred site are the ‘Red Cow’ organization, the ‘Builders of the Temple’ organization, the ‘Pulsa de Nora Rabbis,’ the ‘Hilltop Youth,’…’The Beast Destroyers,’ the ‘Altar Slaughterers,’ the ‘Tree Cutters,’ the ‘Mosque Burners,’ the ‘Church Arsonists’ and other various comrade activists as well as representatives of the secret gangs that operate within the enemy organizations of our people, who wear masks out of fear that they will be identified by rats of the Shin Bet who planted them within our forces, but we know who they are and we will expose them at the time and place that we determine….”
Israeli leftists are using the murder of an innocent Palestinian baby to score points (Amiel Ungar, Haaretz+) Leftist pundits are competing over who can stretch the collective guilt doctrine of Jewish Israelis to its limit.
'Jewish power' is an illusion (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) If opposition to Iran deal continues to grow, it won't be because of successful campaign launched by Netanyahu or Jewish lobby, but because of Obama's failed marketing of agreement.  
Wholesale administrative detention is no remedy for terrorism (Haaretz Editorial) This is an exceptional measure that should be used only when there is near-certainty of a real danger. 
There is a price: the unexpected consequences of the pressure on the extremist elements of the right-wing (Karni Eldad, Maariv) The blitz of arrests and administrative detentions against hilltop youth achieves the opposite effect: there are less price-tag actions (attacks), but they are much more deadly than before. 
Administrative detentions are legitimate (Dan Margalit, Israel Hayom) The government will have to prove it can withstand the pressure to forgo the administrative detention practice. Will it have enough stamina?
How France can stop its citizens joining ISIS (Nitzan Horowitz, Haaretz+) The European nation has been a proud standard-bearer for secularism, but it must address the issue of integration – or risk losing a generation of immigrants to radical Islam.
Israelis will pay the price for Obama-Netanyahu battle (Eitan Haber, Yedioth/Ynet) The US president will go back to Chicago in a year and a half and the Israeli prime minister will retire one day, but Israel's citizens will likely be left with Iranian atom bombs and an America which won't forget and won't forgive. 
And – poof! – Charles Schumer disappears (Seth Lipsky, Haaretz+) Why, given that he's already burned bridges with the White House, hasn’t the Democratic senator launched a full campaign to block the Iran deal? 
Shifting priorities: The rise and fall of Arab revolutionary discourse (Ramzy Baroud, Maan) The people, who revolted across various Arab countries are now marginalized in this discussion, and are only used as fodders -- killers and victims -- in a war seemingly without end. But how did it all go so wrong?
Let the ministers do their jobs (Dr. Haim Shine, Israel Hayom) It is inconceivable that Israeli taxpayers fund art works and exhibitions that give expression to extreme anti-Israel views.
McDonald's Is Rotating on a Spit in the Iranian Grill (Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz+) Iranian opponents of nuclear deal competing with U.S. Congressmen in race to rescind it. Their worries concern the foreign entities that want to do business on their soil.

"Deserving of death": The former Jewish underground member who opposes price-tag attacks
Yehuda Etzion, 64, a member of the Jewish underground in the ‘80s, is sharply critical of Jewish terrorism and states that "it’s not only an ideological decline and a decline in actions, but also part of the moral, political and spiritual situation in Israel.” (Interviewed by Riki Ratt in Makor Rishon/NRG Hebrew)
 "Look at where have gotten. It starts with graffiti, continues with arson of mosques without casualties, and ended in casualties,” said Yehuda Etzion, raising his voice, just days after the murder of baby Ali Saad Dawabsheh in the village of Duma. "This is a dreadful act, we must stand up against it. I see importance in this statement coming from me, who is one of the fanatics."
 
 


 

Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.