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1. MK Elkin Fights for Hesder by Withholding Money from DM Barak
by Avi Yellin
In response to Defense Minister Ehud Barak (Labor) withholding 22 million shekels from Hesder yeshivot, where students combine Torah study with military service in the IDF, member of Knesset Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) said Friday that he will withhold three billion shekels from the defense ministry until it releases the money it is currently keeping from the Hesder yeshiva program.
Elkin, who sits on the Knesset Finance Committee, told Israel National News that the defense ministry’s behavior is apparently connected to the public opposition of Hesder yeshiva rabbis to their students’ participation in the expulsion of Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria. “If someone in the defense ministry thinks he can blackmail the Hesder yeshivot, he must understand that he will have a fight on his hands.”
Elkin also conditioned releasing money to the defense ministry on Defense Minister Barak ensuring the protection of Jewish travelers on roads in Judea and Samaria, something the lawmaker claims the IDF has been lax in but was solved earlier this week.
2. Solidarity Shabbat Services to Take Place in Nahlat Shimon
by Avi Yellin
Shabbat services will be held by Jewish residents of the Nahlat Shimon (Sheikh Jarrah) neighborhood of Jerusalem this weekend in protest of the harassment of local Jews by foreign anti-Israel activists.
Nearly half a year ago, under a court order, police evacuated Arabs who had been illegally squatting in Jewish-owned homes in the mixed neighborhood. Since then, foreign anti-Israel activists have harassed Jewish residents and have encouraged local Arabs to do the same.
In response, community activists have begun to organize solidarity Shabbat services to strengthen the resistance of local Jews to the provocation of the foreigners. Last week’s services drew a crowd of one hundred and fifty people.
One Nahlat Shimon resident, Shlomo Zalman Korman, told Israel National News that it pleases the local residents to see such wide support for the Jewish neighborhood. “We urge the public that loves the land of Israel to come and express solidarity with the Jewish residents of this Jerusalem neighborhood.”
Next week, in honor of the eight day Chanukah festival, candle lighting ceremonies will take place in Nahlat Shimon and will be attended by leading rabbis, members of parliament and public figures in the struggle for Jewish sovereignty over a united Jerusalem.
3. Army Arrests Leader of Weekly Arab-Anarchist Protests
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The IDF Thursday night night arrested the leader of anarchist-Arab security barrier protests, often violent, that have beleaguered Israel for more than four years. The arrest followed a failed attempt in September to nab Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, a 38-year-old teacher from Bil’in, where protestors have harassed and taunted soldiers and police every Friday since 2005.
Abu Rahmeh had been hiding in the nearby city of Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, before Thursday night’s counterterrorist maneuver, when nine army jeeps surrounded his apartment.
The demonstrations spread two years ago to the nearby village of Naalin, and hundreds of soldiers, policemen, Arabs and anarchists have been wounded in violent clashes at the security fence.
The High Court ruled in 2007 that the route of the barrier at the village was not based on security considerations and took away too much of the village’s land. The case is pending the outcome of appeals.
The protests that are staged every Friday are often led by foreigners, who have been backed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and South African cleric Desmond Tutu. The demonstrators frequently throw rocks at soldiers, one of whom lost an eye, forcing police and army troops to respond with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets.
4. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed Meets Deputy Defense Minister
by Gil Ronen
The Head of Har Bracha Yeshiva, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, met Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai Thursday evening at the 'Beit HaChayal' soldiers' hostel in Jerusalem.
The rabbi's confidantes explained that the meeting was held after clarifications that it was not a 'hearing' and after a neutral venue was chosen. “The meeting was held in a good atmosphere and in mutual respect,” they said. “The positions were clarified in a practical manner and there are still several subjects requiring clarification that may be discussed in the near future and perhaps in a second meeting.”
The rabbi's confidantes told Arutz Sheva that the rabbi quoted from his own column in Besheva magazine, which appears Thursday. In the column, 'Revivim,' he cited the words of the late Rabbi Shlomo Goren, former Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who gave a Torah ruling in favor of refusing an order to expel Jews from their communities and compared it to an order to desecrate the Sabbath.
Rabbi Melamed noted that when Rabbi Goren was asked if he is not afraid that he would be tried for sedition, he declared that he is willing to be shot dead there and then, but he will not change his mind. He shared his feelings and views with his students and told them that he is truly willing to die for this matter.
Rabbi Melamed also told the Deputy Defense Minister – and wrote in his column – that following the Oslo accords Rabbi Goren gave a Torah ruling that an IDF soldier may not participate in the tearing down of a community or camp in the Land of Israel, and if he does receive such an order he must refuse it. “His sorrow over the Oslo accords affected his health,” Rabbi Melamed added. “He saw these accords as causing profound damage to the purpose of the State of Israel and was certain that they would weaken the state and expose its citizens to terrible terror attacks. When the initiative to evacuate Hevron was raised, he announced that this must be fought with body and soul, and said that he, personally, was willing to be killed in order to prevent the abandonment of Hevron.”
“His opinion was published and made waves,” Rabbi Melamed recounted. “For a whole day he gave interviews to radio and television networks from Israel and the world. At the end of that day he told me on the telephone that it had been an important day, and that with the help of G-d he succeeded in making his opinion widely heard, and he hopes that it had the desired effect."
5. Pro-Israel Group to Protest at Israeli Consulate
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
An American pro-Israel organization is planning to lead a demonstration in front of the Israeli consulate in New York on Sunday against the government's declared policy of freezing further construction by Jews in Judea and Samaria.
The event is being called an "urgent anti-freeze demonstration" by Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI). "People of conscience will gather to protest against the immoral, illegal, discriminatory construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, ordered by [Prime Ministe Binyamin Netanyahu," the organization's publicity material says.
AFSI is intending to have protesters carry Chanukah menorahs, holiday candelabras, as the event is scheduled for the second day of the eight-day festival. "The warmth and courage of the Chanukah lights will melt the freeze," AFSI declared.
Organization members are preparing signs that will carry messages such as: "Let My People Grow"; "End the Freeze of Appeasement"; "Likud - Honor Your Mandate to Preserve the Land of Israel"; "Bibi - You were elected to serve Israel, NOT the U.S."; "Obama - Stop Iranian Nukes - Not Jewish Homes"; "Obama – There will be NO Evacuation of Jewish homes – Make no such promises"; and "Jews are the Chosen People – Never Frozen".
The messages echo, and in some cases are identical to, the signs carried at the large protest in Jerusalem on Wednesday against the construction freeze. Tens of thousands took part in that demonstration.
According to AFSI, speakers at the New York protest "will be grassroots activists following the cry of Judah Maccabee: 'All who are faithful follow me!'"
Founded in 1970, AFSI is dedicated to supporting the rights of Jews to live, thrive and expand their communities in all of the Land of Israel, free from outside interference. AFSI is thus self-described as "a major political support group for the Jewish communities of Judea, Samaria and the Golan". The organization also asserts that a strong, territorially defensible Israel is essential to U.S. security interests in the Middle East.
The AFSI rally is slated for 11:00 a.m. on December 13, outside the Israeli diplomatic offices on 42nd Street and Second Avenue in New York City.
6. Terrorist Marwan Barghouti: I Have Not Changed
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Marwan Barghouti, serving five life terms in prison for involvement in murderous attacks on Israelis, told CNN that he has not changed his political views and that he expects to be one of hundreds of terrorists Hamas wants released for the safe return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Barghouti evaded answering whether he would return to violence if freed.
Barghouti is considered the most popular personality in the Palestinian Authority, and although he is a member of the Fatah faction, the rival Hamas party is interested in including him in an exchange for Shalit in order to pave the road for a reunification of the two parties. Several months ago, Barghouti said he does not see any difference between Hamas and Fatah.
“I have high hopes and expectations to be released in this deal,” he told the interviewer.
Barghouti dodged giving direct answers to several questions. When asked if the "resistance” movement includes bombings, Barghouti answered, “What I mean by resistance is the one that is permitted under international law and has international legitimacy…. It is the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli military and settlement occupation.”
Concerning the likelihood that he would run in elections for PA chairman if freed, Barghouti answered that he would make the “appropriate decision…when we are capable of holding elections.”
He explicitly said that his years in prison have not changed his political views and added be believes “in a two-state solution living side by side in peace and security, based on a total Israel surrender from all land restored to the Jewish State in the Six-Day War in 1967.
The convicted terrorist stated that several Knesset Members have visited him in his Negev cell, where he has been granted special conditions, but that "not one single Israeli official has met with me." He referred to his arrest in 2002 as a "kidnapping."
7. Bezeq Returns Judea, Samaria and the Golan to the Map
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Israel's largest telecommunications service provider, Bezeq, corrected a services map of Israel on its website that failed to include Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights. the correction was made following an inquiry by Arutz Sheva.
Several readers approached Arutz Sheva earlier in the week regarding a map on Bezeq's website showing locations of health clinics that stay open overnight. On the company's homepage, in a window promoting the new service, appeared a map of Israel that did not include the Golan Heights. The areas of Judea and Samaria were colored differently from the rest of the map, but the same color as the Gaza region, which is currently ruled by the Hamas.
A fuller map on an internal webpage for the new service was no better, showing locations of Bezeq's night clinics while visually removing the residents of Judea, Samaria and the Golan from the State of Israel.
When approached by Arutz Sheva regarding the inaccurate and politically biased maps, Bezeq responded by saying that the issue was a graphical error. The company spokesperson assured our correspondent that the maps would be corrected. Within two days, Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and even Gaza were back on the map and indistinguishable from the rest of Bezeq's map of Israel.
