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1. Ex-Envoy Indyk Flunks Obama, Mitchell on ‘Mideast 101’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, has joined a growing number of people who backed Barack Obama for president and now criticize him. Both President Obama and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell have failed in the Middle East, Indyk said in an Omaha, Nebraska forum.
Indyk, a Jew born in England, told Der Spiegel last January, “We have to be less naïve and more humble. I am sure Obama has understood that.”
Today, less than a year later, Indyk is sounding a different tune. “It’s clear that things are not going as he planned,” Indyk said at the Nebraska forum. He explained that President Obama counted on the support of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who rebuffed the overtures for even a minor compromise regarding the 2002 Saudi initiative.
The king’s proposal was for a “normalization” of relations with Israel in exchange for a total surrender of all land liberated in 1967, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, and the immigration of several million foreign Arabs into what would remain of Israel.
Indyk also failed the president and Mitchell for focusing on trying to freeze building for Jews in Judea and Samaria. The former ambassador said that they violated a basic rule in negotiations in the Middle East: don’t get bogged down in details.
“George Mitchell didn’t hear that sucking sound,” Indyk added.
2. MK Ben-Ari: Why Barghouti Allowed to Interview?
by Gil Ronen
Knesset Member Dr. Michael Ben-Ari and several other petitioners filed a motion to the High Court Wednesday against the Prisons Authority Commissioner, the Prisons Authority, the Minister for Interior Security and convicted terror prisoner Marwan Barghouti. They are demanding that the defendants be required to say “why they have not replied to the plaintiffs' inquiry why Barghouti was not put on trial for interviews he granted to different media without any permission.”
If Bargouti has been tried, the punishment meted to him should be published, the plaintiffs added. Barghouti is serving five life sentences for murder.
The plaintiffs – who, besides Ben Ari, include his parliamentary aide Itamar Ben Gvir and the SOS Israel group, noted that “in the past four months, Defendant Number 4 [Barghou began giving a series of interviews to the media, as if he were an important public figure. His personality came up for renewed public debate and he was mentioned as one who is well-versed in the details of the deal for release of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit – a deal the details of which the military censor is hiding with great efficiency, leaving Defendant Number 4 as one of the only people speaking freely about the deal without the censor's restrictions.”
Barghouti's name has been mentioned as one of the terrorists who might be released in return for Shalit, the petitioners noted, and he has “made use of these rumors and the special status accorded him by some journalists – especially haters of Israel – and chose to give interviews to Arab media as well as to the Reuters news agency to get his messages across.”
The plaintiffs mentioned in their earlier letter to the Prisons Authority that unlike Barghouti, who received lenient treatment over his interviews, Jewish prisoner Yigal Amir was sentenced to six months in solitary confinement for granting interviews without permission.
3. Barak Warns Recruits of Iron Fist on Refusals, Cites Talmud
by Gil Ronen
Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited the IDF's induction base (Bakum) Tuesday where new recruits slated to become Kfir regiment combat soldiers joined the IDF. He warned them of the consequences of refusing orders, and he made specific reference to the soldiers donning kippas, the traditional Jewish head covering.
Barak's words of warning came against a backdrop of a growing controversy over the use of the IDF forces in razing “illegal” Jewish communities and expelling their residents. The Kfir regiment has been shaken by several such protests recently.
“Kfir is an operational regiment that carries out the main operative assignments in Judea and Samaria every day and night,” he said, “and is prepared, in cases of a wider conflagration, to take part in any mission. You will receive the best equipment that is currently available in the world for combat soldiers.
"You are being enlisted in a difficult period,” he conceded. “ Some of our activity in Yesha is in the focus of controversy,” he said. “We are the army of a democratic nation that has only one army. The army is subject to the leadership of the elected government, and the army carries out the missions that the state entrusts it to carry out.
“We have seen several phenomena of refusal of orders, from one side [of the political ma and, in the past, from a second direction. These things have no room in a democratic country. We intend to use an iron fist to limit this phenomenon. We all serve the nation; we are all brothers. I see among you kippah-wearers, I tell you, remember what is written throughout the Talmud: 'anything but civil war.'”
4. Hesder Rabbi Fights Calls to Close Yeshivas over Refusal Issue
by Gil Ronen
A heated debate took place Wednesday morning in the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on recent acts of conscientious objection by soldiers who refuse to expel Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria.
The head of the IDF's Personnel Branch, Maj-.Gen. Avi Zamir, said that he met with the rabbinical council of the hesder yeshivas after the protest at the Kotel (Western Wall) swearing-in ceremony, and demanded that they talk to Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, head of Har Beracha yeshiva, and rethink his educational path.
He said that after the Kotel incident, he read a book by Rabbi Melamed "from which it was clear that the rabbi calls for refusal of any order to expel Jews.”
MK Amir Peretz (Labor) said that Rabbi Melamed and Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, who heads the Elon Moreh hesder yeshiva, should no longer be allowed to head these institutions.
The committee gave Rabbi David Stav, rabbi of the city of Shoham, the right to respond to the accusations, and he replied that taking away the rabbis' right to lead the yeshivas would be an undemocratic act because rabbis cannot be prevented from expressing their opinions before students. He also said that he has yet to hear of a call to take away the licenses of academic institutes like the Sapir Academy and others, where IDF soldiers participate in study days and where lecturers have been known to incite against the IDF.
MK Yuli Tamir (Labor) answered him by arguing that while IDF soldiers who attend these academic institutions do so at a late stage in their service, the soldiers go to the hesder yeshivas at an early stage, in which they are educated to combine military service and learning.
Rabbi Stav predicted that a decision to take away the licenses of the Har Beracha and Elon Moreh yeshivas would lead to an opposite result to the one the IDF wants, because it would cause all of the hesder rabbis, including the moderate ones, to stand behind Rabbis Melamed and Levanon.
5. Arab-Linked US Ring Tried to Smuggle Weapons to Israel’s Enemies
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
American authorities have busted a ring of six men, most of whom have Arab and Muslim names, for allegedly trying to smuggle anti-aircraft missiles and machine guns to Iran or Syria for use by the terror “resistance.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested and charged Hassan Mohammad Komeiha, originally from Lebanon, and Dani Nemr Tarraf, after Tarraf arrived in Philadelphia to examine weapons he planned to ship to Israel’s enemies. Three other members of the ring are still at-large, two of them overseas.
The smuggling ring developed from Komeiha’s original link with an undercover FBI agent who sold him laptop computers, cell phones and PlayStation game consoles which Komeiha believed were stolen.
'Take down an F-16'
During the two-year investigation, the defendants raised the ante from computer games to night vision camera lenses and then to missiles and rifles. Tarraf specifically asked the undercover agent if he could supply him with guided missiles that could "take down an F-16."
The US-made F-16 fighter jet is a central component of several advanced air forces, including those of Israel and the USA.
Tarraf, Komehai’s boss and who was identified as having residences in Lebanon and Slovokia, was charged with conspiracy to buy and ship anti-aircraft missiles and machine guns. Tarraf’s associate was his brother Douri Nemr Tarraf, both of whom wired tens of thousands of dollars to the undercover agent for the goods they bought.
Authorities refused to state whether any of the defendants were connected with a terrorist organization, but both Iran and Syria are described by the United States as countries that support terror.
6. Construction Freeze is Nothing New, Says Efrat Mayor
by Gil Ronen
In the past decade, the town of Efrat – the 'capital' of Gush Etzion – has grown only by 700 residents. Despite record demand for housing in the town, which is especially popular among immigrants from Anglophone countries, the past seven years have seen a total freeze in the marketing of homes in Efrat, according to Lt-Col (res.) Oded Revivi, the town's mayor.
Revivi said Tuesday that hundreds of housing units have already received all of the necessary approvals and the infrastructure for their construction is in place, and a total of 3,000 units are planned. He presented the details to Knesset members from the Jewish Home faction and the heads of the Yesha Council who toured Efrat Monday.
Revivi, 40, who was elected last year, noted that the governments of Israel, including the current one headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, have been preventing the construction of public institutions as well and have banned all planning processes. “The Israeli government is strangling Efrat despite the declarations that Gush Etzion is within the Israeli consensus,” he lamented. “Netanyahu is even preventing the residents of Efrat from enjoying natural growth. Residents who grew up here cannot live in the community because there is no supply of apartments. The prices of rent and housing have reached Jerusalem levels and many houses have been split up into small units in order to make it possible to rent them out.”
Science Minister Daniel Hershkovitz held a meeting with other members of his Jewish Home faction in the Efrat municipality and said that he fears that the faction members will have to fight the construction freeze on their own, because other coalition members will not support them.
MK Zevulun Orlev attacked the building freeze too, and said it was “an inhuman, immoral and un-Jewish act.” The chairman of the Amana housing group, Ze'ev Hever (Zambish), said that “the sounds emanating from Netanyahu nowadays remind [hi of [Arie Sharon” while Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan said that "Netanyahu's tactics have become his policies."
"Netanyahu is implementing Yossi Beilin's vision," he said, referring to an ultra-leftist former politician who engineered the ill-fated Oslo accords.
7. Civil Rights Leader Jailed for Not Showing ID
by Hillel Fendel
Shmuel Medad, head of the Honenu legal rights organization, has been in jail since Monday night for not showing his ID card at an IDF checkpoint.
Medad, widely known as Zangy, was on his way home to Hevron from visiting the families of recent Land of Israel-related arrestees in the Shomron (Samaria) when he reached the Tarkumiye checkpoint. The site is located on the main highway leading from pre-1967 Israel to southern Judea, from Kiryat Gat to just south of Gush Etzion. It has been touted as the future border crossing along the Gaza-Judea road when it was talked of giving the two parts of the Palestinian Authority a connecting highway. The Hamas take-over of Gaza from Fatah has put such talk on hold for now.
Zangy was asked at the checkpoint to show his ID - and, as he has done in the past, he refused. This time, however, instead of merely being forced to wait an hour or so, policemen arrested him and claimed he had “interfered with a policeman in the line of duty.”
Residents who pass through the location say that travel there has become a nightmare, as security forces stationed there arbitrarily demand that residents show identification and hold up traffic. Motorists say they sense that orders have been given "from above" to make the Judea residents’ lives difficult - similar to that of those in Gush Katif in the last few months before the Disengagement/expulsion.
Zangy told the policemen that he had not touched any policeman. He also called the Hevron District Police, who said they know him and can “vouch” for him – but the checkpoint police didn’t wait, and incarcerated him for the night.
Wife Has Been There Before
Zangy’s wife Ettie told Israel National News, “It is not acceptable for someone to be arrested for not showing his ID. On other occasions when someone refuses to show his ID at the checkpoint, he is sometimes detained for a minute or much longer. But why should he be arrested? We are willing to show our ID at a shopping mall and the like, where there is a real security need, but here there is no such need; they are just trying to harass us.”
Ettie Medad herself was imprisoned, together with her baby daughter (the youngest of her ten children), for 25 days in 2005, when she refused to stand trial on Land of Israel-related charges of which she had been acquitted two years earlier for lack of evidence.
Tuesday and Wednesday in Court
On Tuesday morning, Zangy was taken before a Magistrates Court judge in Kiryat Gat. Zangy said that this was a “show and a political trial,” that it is not based on Jewish values, and that he refused to “take part in the performance.” He said the policemen well know his identity, and that the incident is merely “one more in a chain of similar events.” He noted the arrests of soldiers who object to evicting Jews, and of Tzviya Sariel of Elon Moreh, who has been in jail for three weeks for her refusal to recognize the right of the authorities to try her on what witnesses claim are trumped-up charges related to her right to walk freely in the Land of Israel.
The judge decided to extend Medad’s custody for another 24 hours, and he is scheduled to be brought before a judge on Wednesday morning. Update: On Wednesday, the presiding judge extended custody for yet another 24 hours, but implied that Medad would be released on Thursday.
