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1. Ministers Accept Settlement Freeze
by Hillel Fendel
Minister Yuli Edelstein, thought to be among the more right-wing of the Likud’s elected officials, praises Netanyahu for his Yesha settlement policy.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to announce a six-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria (Yesha), in keeping with U.S. President Barack Obama’s demand – but only after building 500 more units. Minister Edelstein, as well as his more centrist colleague Minister Michael Eitan, feels this is the best approach, under the circumstances.
Following the Sunday morning Cabinet meeting, Edelstein told Arutz-7’s Hebrew newsmagazine, “Compared with all sorts of rumors and headlines of the past few days, we had a nice surprise today. There will be an immediate approval for 500 new units, and this means that the construction freeze that we have had in recent months has been broken – and I hope this is just the beginning.”
Pressure from Obama
“My concerns are not about Netanyahu,” Edelstein said, “but rather about the pressure being exerted on the Government of Israel and on Netanyahu. I hope that the Likud will help prop him up, and that he will stand strong, and that in the end we will withstand the pressures and emerge victorious."
"We must deal with the American pressure wisely," said Edelstein, a resident of Gush Etzion in Judea. "Just to bang on the table and say that we’re building 30,000 units and that we don’t care what anyone says – that’s not a way to deal with it. On the one hand, we have to not give in to unrealistic demands, such as a total freeze, or stopping construction that has already begun, or not giving any permits at all for new construction. We will not give in on these issues... Also Netanyahu’s clear stand that Jerusalem is totally not for discussion is important, because the Americans want us to talk about Jerusalem, too.”
Eitan: We're Not Alone
Minister Michael Eitan said more clearly: “The Likud has its platform, but there are two little problems: One is that the other parties in the coalition don’t necessarily agree with us, and the other is that the countries of the world don’t necessarily agree with it... In order to keep our partnership with the United States, we sometimes have to give in to some things that we don’t like – including, yes, a construction freeze.”
Dayan: Three Homes in Each Town?
Yesha Council head Danny Dayan does not accept this line of thinking. “The fact is,” he said on Sunday, “that the government headed by the national camp has frozen construction throughout all of Yesha, and has put the entire area of Judea and Samaria – all the way up to the Green Line – on the negotiating table.”
Dayan said that Netanyahu’s offer to build 500 units in all of Judea and Samaria amounts to “an average of three new homes in each town. Just in Maaleh Adumim or Beitar alone there should be 500 units or more!”
2. Likud Nationalists to Fight Bibi’s Building 'Thaw-Freeze'
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Most of the Likud’s 28 Knesset Members, including several Cabinet ministers, are opposed to the prime minister's proposed building freeze, despite the expected approval to build 500 new houses, MK Tzipi Hotobeli stated.
The government “will have to provide answers. I will not accept a whitewash," said the novice MK, who has become a political force in her own right as a strong proponent of a Jewish presence in Judea. She told the Hebrew-language Arutz-7 website that she and most of the Likud faction are not impressed by the expected announcement on Monday that Defense Minister Ehud Barak will sign the papers to approve 500 housing units in Judea before closing the door on all new building for Jews in the area.
The new construction is expected to be approved only for areas where there is a relatively large concentration of Jews, such as Maaleh Adumin and Gush Etzion. All of the new units already have been approved by other authorities but were frozen because they lacked Barak's final signature.
“I am in direct contact with leaders in Judea, and there is an immediate need to build 2,500-3,000 units for natural growth; 500 is not enough,” MK Hotobeli stated. She added that senior Likud members, including Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, and several ministers, such as Gilad Erdan and Moshe Yaalon, are opposed to the freeze.
Erdan, Minister for Environment, warned Monday morning against policies that would “turn Gush Dan into Sderot” and create a situation in which Arabs could fire rockets into Tel Aviv from nearby areas in Judea. However, he cautioned against any attempt to topple the Netanyahu government, a move he said would be self-defeating.
Information Minister Yuli Edelstein said on Sunday that most ministers back the proposed building freeze.
MK Hotobeli has invited faction members for a meeting on Wednesday, similar to a previous conference she has called, but she insists she is not “rebelling” against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Her style has been to focus on ideology and not the political manipulations that generally are the trademarks of Israeli parties.
“We promised the public not to approve a building freeze,” she said. "This is a part of our democratic obligation. It doesn’t matter what the world, including the Palestinian Authority, says. Continuing building is in the national interest and is not just for the residents of Judea,” which includes the areas of the Jordan Valley, the Judean Desert and hills and the area of Samaria, north of Jerusalem.
“We have to make it clear to the world that our historic and national rights belong to the People of Israel on the basis of the Bible and promises of the Almighty. That is why we were elected. We have to know how to place borders and red lines at the moment of truth and we have arrived at that moment,” she said.
3. Preparing for the Freeze: 455 Units in Judea, Samaria
by Hillel Fendel
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the construction of 455 housing units in settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria. No further building is expected to be approved for Jews in these areas until further notice, as demanded by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Over a third of the units will be built in two Gush Etzion communities, over 100 will be constructed in and around Maaleh Adumim, and 76 more will be built in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev. Only 45 units will be built in small communities.
In addition, Barak has issued permits for a sports park that has already been built in Ariel, and a new school in Har Adar, just north of Jerusalem.
To read the rest of this important story, click here!
4. Israel-Based Journalist Brings Down Obama Official
by Yehezkel Laing
A senior official in the Obama Administration was forced to quit his job after Jerusalem-based journalist Aaron Klein wrote an expose revealing the man had supported conspiracy theories about the 9/11 Al Qaeda terror attacks on Manhattan's Twin Towers.
Klein, who covers Israel for World Net Daily, caused a major embarrassment to the Obama Administration in a web expose originally written last April. In the report, he revealed that President Barack Obama's "green jobs czar" Van Jones subscribed to anti-U.S. conspiracy theories about the multi-site 9/11 attack, including supporting a statement that senior Bush government officials may have allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur.
On Saturday, Jones quit after Fox News and other websites confirmed the story and headlined it around the world.
According to Klein, a day after the 9/11 attacks Van Jones led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as with what he called the victims of "U.S. imperialism" around the world. Klein also charges Van Jones with being an admitted black nationalist and radical communist.
When Jones was in jail for participating in a “peaceful demonstration,” he reportedly said, "I met all these young radical people of color - I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary."
Jones was the leader and founder of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. The group led a vigil Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif. The radical group's manual boasted that the 9/11 vigil was held to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans and to mourn the civilians killed in the terrorist attacks "as well as the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world".
"We honored those who lost their lives in the attack and those who would surely lose their lives in subsequent U.S. attacks overseas," STORM's manifesto recalls.
5. Harish to Become Hareidi-Religious City?
by Hana Levi Julian
The small community of Harish, just south of the Galilee, may be about to blossom into a new hareidi-religious city after almost a decade of delays - but the move is facing major opposition from neighboring residents in both the Jewish and Arab sectors.
The National Council for Planning and Building is set to give a green light on Tuesday for plans to expand the tiny Jewish community of 1,000.
Area residents plan to demonstrate during the hearing in Jerusalem at which the plans are being considered, claiming the expansion will lead to another round of Arab violence such as that which poured forth during the Oslo War, also known as the Second Intifada.
Originally, Harish was to expand into a small city of 30,000, but construction was frozen when the second intifada got underway in 2000.
Three years ago the expansion plans were resurrected, this time in the form of development into a hareidi-religious city. The proposal was backed by two Shas party members, Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Housing Minister Ariel Atias.
Growing Jewish Presence Among Arab Villages
The village of Harish was founded in 1982 as a Nahal outpost. It became a kibbutz in 1985, then later transformed into a full-fledged community. It merged with another nearby village, Katzir, in 1993, and then later with a third, Mitzpeh Ilan, to form a local council near the Israeli-Arab city of Umm al-Fahm in the Wadi Ara region.
At present the community is similar in size to many of its Jewish counterparts in Judea and Samaria, and for that matter, also similar in size to the many Israeli-Arab villages scattered around the country, both recognized and unrecognized.
The master plan for Harish calls for the expansion of the community to eventually reach Highway 65 in the north (the Afulah-Hadera route), and Baqa-Jatt in the south, skirting close to two unrecognized Arab villages, Dar El-Hanoun and Um El-Qutuf. Officials in both, as well as in the Arab town of Kafr Qari, say they fear land from their communities will be appropriated for the expansion of Harish.
The Supreme Court recently rejected an appeal by the Society for the Preservation of Nature in Israel opposing the development of the nearby community of Mitzpe Ilan, located near Dar El-Hanoun.
'This Will Ignite the Entire Country'
Ilan Sadeh, head of the Menashe Regional Council, expressed concern that Harish would be expanded to accommodate 150,000 residents. He warned that it "would ignite not only the Wadi Ara area, but the entire country."
Sadeh alleged that "both Jewish and Arab lands will have to be expropriated" in order to build the city. He also accused the government of employing a double standard, in that a similar request to expand the nearby Arab village of Barta'a was recently denied on the grounds that the lands near the council should remain "green." This same land, he said, will now go towards the expansion of Harish.
Riad Kabha, former head of the Barta'a Local Council, said his real concern was specifically focused on the issue of living together with a growing hareidi religious population. "We are not opposed to Jews living in the wadi," he said, "but setting up a hareidi city whose residents are unfamiliar with our mentality could lead to another intifada."
Sadeh agreed, suggesting that the hareidi-religious Jews go elsewhere. "There is the Negev and Galilee, so why build here? There are no Tombs of the Righteous or any other religious element that would provide any special reason for establishment of a hareidi city. I hope someone wakes up before it's too late."
6. Singles Summer Flight for NBN Aliyah Season Finale
by Hana Levi Julian
Of the 204 new Western immigrants expected to arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport Tuesday morning, at least 81 will be singles with dreams of building a new life -- and new Jewish homes -- in the Land of Israel. The final Nefesh B'Nefesh aliyah flight of summer, scheduled to touch down at approximately 7:00 a.m. Israel time, will cap a record season in which the organization has brought 3,000 new Western immigrants to Israel.
Family and friends from around the world -- including Israel -- will be able to join in the excitement by watching as events unfold through a live feed here on Israel National News. The broadcast will include live coverage of the olim (immigrants) landing in Israel and the subsequent welcoming ceremony at Terminal 1 in Ben Gurion Airport.
Among the government dignitaries who will be waiting to greet the new arrivals will be government Opposition leader and Kadima party chairwoman MK Tzipi Livni. Joining her will be Knesset Member Yaakov Katz, Jewish Agency Treasurer Hagai Merom and Senior Deputy Head of Aliyah at the Immigration and Absorption Ministry, Shifra Kirshenbaum.
Both co-founders of Nefesh B'Nefesh, Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart, will also be on hand to welcome the new Israelis home.
The planeload of immigrants will comprise the sixteenth such aliyah flight to have been jointly organized by NBN and the Jewish Agency for Israel this summer.
Founded in 2002, NBN has eased the way for some 23,000 new immigrants make aliyah to Israel by removing or minimizing financial, professional, logistical and social obstacles that often come with the process. The vast majority -- 98 percent -- of the Western olim who come to Israel with NBN choose to remain and build vibrant new lives, each then reaching out to help the next through the organization's professional and social networks.
7. Bnei Akiva Welcomed to Israel
by IsraelNN TV staff
Hundreds of young Jews beginning a year in Israel with Bnei Akiva were welcomed to the country Thursday in a festive ceremony in Jerusalem. The ceremony took place in Armon Hanatziv, overlooking the Old City.
[weJe Email readers please click here to view the video report!
The head of World Bnei Akiva, Ze'ev Schwartz, was present at the ceremony, as was Solly Sacks, the director of World Mizrachi. Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky was unable to attend the event, but sent a message expressing pride in Bnei Akiva's young members for spending a year in Israel.
Three hundred young adults from 12 countries are taking part in the Hachshara gap-year program this year. Organizers expressed hope that over the course of the year, participants would strengthen their connection to Israel and the Jewish people – and that some will make aliyah (immigrate).
