Currently the fight against [Arab-Jewish] intermarriage is spearheaded by the Yad L’Achim organization . Not long ago its chairman, Rabbi Shalom Dov Lipschitz, wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, warning of “a fundamental failure in the Jewish education and values in the secular education system in Israel.”
IOA Editor: This is traditional racism at its very best: such attitudes – the separation of couples on racial grounds – are well known in European and North American history, and elsewhere. This news story is important because in the “advanced” countries that Israel would like to associate with and be treated as an ally of, such behavior would be rejected, and is generally outlawed. One would think that such blatantly racist practices are not in Israel’s self-interest, yet it involves organizations which benefit from government support, possibly involving high level government officials.
Peace Now secretary general Yariv Oppenheimer said yesterday that Ya’alon’s clarifications were “lip service only.”
IOA Editor: Indeed. Unlike some other Israeli leaders, General Ya’alon is highly educated, analytical, and measured. He is the opposite of a “hot-headed Israeli” who lets his tongue run ahead of himself. His violent language reflects cold and calculated thinking. He also must know that past comments from fellow members of the Israeli extreme-right were followed by violence, including the assassination of PM Rabin. If there was a mistake here, it was in considering that his comments, made in a closed meeting, would be leaked. That he may regret. Or not.
“The aim of the flight was to stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it,” Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri was quoted as saying in the mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth. “We are certain that, thanks to the prayer, the danger is already behind us,” [he] added.
IOA Editor: The most scientifically-advanced country (and The-Only-Democracy) in the Middle East now has God on its side, yet again, as an added measure of protection – this time against the swine flu. Beware, Swines!
“Out of 20 percent of the population of the state, not one Arab could be found who would be qualified to be honored with serving on the committee?”
It would seem that as long as Arab educators, academics and policymakers are excluded from planning, there will be no improvement. The Arab minority constitutes nearly 20 percent of Israel’s population, but has little to no real influence over its own education policy, budgets, standards or curricula.
The performances of Amos Kenan’s play “Friends Talk about Jesus,” scheduled for next week at the Arab-Hebrew Theater of Jaffa, have been canceled due to opposition from Jaffa residents.
Diskin told the cabinet Hamas rhetoric had changed somewhat in recent weeks. “Public statements by leaders attest to efforts by Hamas to appear interested in ending the conflict with Israel, based on the model of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in exchange for a long-term hudnah [cease-fire],” Diskin said before Netanyahu silenced him.
IOA Editor: Almost lost in the discussion about Netanyahu’s obnoxious behavior while running a cabinet meeting is the following small detail: According to Israel’s Shin Bet, Hamas appears to be ready for a Hudna (extended cease-fire). Readers of this website might remember that this is not the first time an Israeli government source reports on such willingness. Unfortunately, neither Netanyahu nor his predecessors were interested in pursuing such a possibility.
British diplomats touring the Shepherd Hotel recently in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah expressed concern about Israeli construction plans there, particularly in light of the site’s close proximity to the British consulate in East Jerusalem. The tour, which also included American diplomats, was led by Jerusalem city councilman Meir Margalit of Meretz, who is also active in the Committee Against House Demolitions. During the visit, Margalit said, the British diplomats asked their American colleagues to pressure Israel on the issue and take the lead in applying international pressure to stop settlement building. “The British said explicitly – the Israelis don’t pay attention to us, but if you apply pressure, there is a chance,” Margalit recounted.
A ministerial panel approved Sunday a bill to ban funding by the state of groups that mark the Palestinian Nakba, which commemorates Israel’s independence as a day of mourning… The bill is the revised version of a proposed law scrapped two months ago – after opposition from several ministers – that would have forbidden Israeli Arabs from commemorating the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” on Independence Day.
The proposal by Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz to redo all signs so that even names written in Arabic will be transliterations of Hebrew (for example, the city known as Jaffa in English will now be written as Yafo on signs in Arabic, not Yaffa), was received like all other injuries to Arabs: easily – like Arab high-schoolers’ matriculation results or Arab infants’ high mortality rates.
Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communication normally with the White House. To appreciate the depth of his paranoia, it is enough to hear how he refers to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Obama’s senior aides: as “self-hating Jews.”
IOA Editor: This is an alarming report, given the potential destruction Netanyahu can inflict upon the region.
After years of decline in immigration, Israel is expected this year to absorb 15 percent more new arrivals than last year, thanks in part to 20 flights arriving this summer carrying 5,000 immigrants from North America, France, Great Britain, South Africa and beyond.
A significant change is occurring within the IDF, and it has not yet been sufficiently analyzed. The face of the army, especially the middle ranks, has become more religious over the last decade. It’s not just a matter of counting skullcaps at graduation ceremonies at Training Base 1, where religious soldiers account for 30 percent of infantry officer course graduates. The same process is playing itself out in most of the fighting units. As a result the IDF, and not just its chief rabbi, is speaking with a different, more religious voice.
Housing Minister Ariel Atias… warned against the spread of Arab population into various parts of Israel, saying that preventing this phenomenon was no less than a national responsibility. “I see [it] as a national duty to prevent the spread of a population that, to say the least, does not love the state of Israel,” Atias told a conference of the Israel Bar Association, which focused on a reforming Israel’s Land Administration.
It’s true, there is liberty in Israel, but only for us, the Jews. We have a regime that is no less tyrannical than the ayatollahs’ regime: the regime of the officers and the settlers in the territories… When you get a chance, go on Friday to Na’alin or Bil’in and see what happens there. Demonstrators are killed here with similar brutality, but in Iran the crowd is standing up to a tyrannical regime, while here only a handful of brave people stand up to the Border Police, who are firing weapons. Moreover, we hardly write anything about the protest being silenced with bullets. It interests no one, and this, too, is called democracy.
It seems that never before has so much been written and said about the “natural growth” of so few… Maybe it is no coincidence that the government spokespeople insist on describing the homes for “sons returning from the army” rather than homes for young couples, or students. Someone might dare to check the housing situation in Arab villages or East Jerusalem, whose residents actually on Israeli soil as opposed to the settlers.
Residents of the Misgav bloc of communities in the Galilee consider themselves to be liberal, peace-loving people who support coexistence with their Arab neighbors… Which is why they were shocked this week when proposals raised at local council meetings to accept only applicants who shared their Zionist principles drew negative headlines and criticism for alleged racism.
Samieh Jabbarin, 40, a native of Umm al-Fahm, is a theater director and an Ibna al-Balad activist who normally resides in Jaffa. He has been under house-arrest in Umm al-Fahm since February, after being falsely accused of violence in an election related demonstration, with a court hearing now scheduled for 7 June 2009.
The Committee for Solidarity with Samieh Jabbarin has been campaigning for his release, including a petition and recent statement in advance of the court hearing.
Only three countries in the world are less peaceful than Israel, according to Global Peace Index figures released this week.
A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic.
A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic.
“The findings are worrying because they reflect an exaggerated and unnecessary fear,” Prof. David Menashri, the head of the [Iranian Studies] Center, said. “Iran’s leadership is religiously extremist but calculated and it understands an unconventional attack on Israel is an act of madness that will destroy Iran. Sadly, the survey shows the Iranian threat works well even without a bomb.”
The survey shows that Holocaust denial among Israeli Arabs has become more prevalent in recent years… “This radicalization in the positions of Arabs was caused by a series of factors such as the Second Lebanon War, the stalemate in the negotiations with the Palestinians.”
Protesters, activists and draft evaders are being targeted by a broad programme of state repression.
Hadash Chairman MK Mohammed Barakeh: “Passing our heritage from one generation to the next is essential for our steadfastness and survival in our homeland. Our survival is not open to interpretation or negotiation, and is our formative feature as a community that narrowly escaped the threat of expulsion and remained in its country.”
“Yad Vashem talks about the Holocaust survivors’ arrival in Israel and about creating a refuge here for the world’s Jews. I said there were people who lived on this land and mentioned that there are other traumas that provide other nations with motivation,” Shapira said.
The authorities consider him a traitor, even though he did not betray secrets to enemy countries, a terrorist organization or foreign security organizations. He exposed Israel’s nuclear secrets to the British Sunday Times… The justifications are weak and exaggerated. The claim is that Vanunu holds more secret information about Israel’s nuclear program. The entire world assumes Israel has nuclear weapons, so what further damage can he cause to the security of the state? Based on this logic, he may never leave Israel.
A complaint of racism and incitement has been lodged against an Upper Nazareth city councillor who called for Arabs to “disappear,” in an Independence Day greeting to local residents… Upper Nazareth is a sister city to Nazareth, the largest Israeli Arab municipality in Israel.
IOA Editor: Referring to Upper Nazareth as a “Sister City” to Nazareth is quite remarkable: Might the Haaretz editors mean the younger sister who sneaked up behind her older sibling, stabbed her and grabbed her jewelry?
The answer to this question can be found in Israeli culture, in which the sanctity of life is pretentiously discussed, while only death is really held sacred. Holocaust Remembrance Day is a good example of how in Israel the dead become heroes who get commemorated, honored and glorified, while those who survived, those who were saved, those who are alive but not fully intact mentally and physically are ignored or humiliated.
[L]et’s admit it: We are (almost) a state governed by religious law.
The problem with the ruling is that Soufir knew very well what he was doing. He was sane enough to pick an Arab driver instead of a Jewish one. He knew what kind of knife to take from his brother’s house and how to lure Karaki to his apartment, where he murdered him in cold blood. It is clear he could differentiate between right and wrong. He chose not to take his own life – is that not sign enough that he was sufficiently sane to stand trial? Instead, he was declared “insane” and is now waiting to start a new life in Paris.
The inherent aim of the Zionist enterprise was and is to turn the country – at least up to the Jordan River – into a homogeneous Jewish state. Throughout the course of Zionist-Israeli history, this aim has not been forsaken for a moment. Every cell of the Israeli organism contains this genetic code and therefore acts accordingly, without the need for a specific directive.
A right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is widely seen as spelling the end of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Given the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Netanyahu has promised to accelerate, no other outcome seems conceivable.
Professor Shlomo Sand, the Tel Aviv University history professor and author of a controversial book on the genetic origins of the Jews, this week received a top critics prize from French journalists.
Ms Zoubi, 39, a representative of the Tajamu Party, known for its Palestinian nationalist platform, has already shown she will not be following in their path. On a recent induction day for Knesset members, she made headlines locally when she pointed out to an official who repeatedly referred to “the territories” that he meant “the occupied Palestinian territories”.
Opposition is created first and foremost in the street, not in an electoral carnival where the political programs are produced by strategist Reuven Adler and other propaganda experts. Whatever the makeup of the next coalition, the left’s role will be manifested in the streets, not in waiting for the next elections.
