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1. Jerusalem Mayor's Plan: Relocate Arab Residents of King's Garden
by Hillel Fendel
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is set to publicize his new plan to deal with the hundreds of Arab squatters in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood in the King’s Garden area.
Over the past 20 years, approximately 88 illegal Arab houses have been built in what had been a tree-filled area with no structures – purposely kept that way by the previous Ottoman-Turkish and British governments. Ironically, only during the period of Israeli rule has the uniqueness of the area been desecrated by gradual pirate Arab construction.
The King’s Garden is the area below the City of David, also known as Silwan, at the southern entrance to the Kidron Valley. It is mentioned in the Books of Kings, Jeremiah and others.
Mayor Barkat's plan calls for the retroactive approval of many of the illegal houses, the granting of land to the other illegal squatters for the construction of new and larger houses, and turning much of the King's Garden area into a green area, dotted by two small hotels. The goal is to preserve the area as a historic treasure. Update, Tuesday afternoon: At Prime Minister Netanyahu's request in light of strong Arab opposition to the plan, Barkat has agreed to suspend it for now and continue negotiations with the Arab squatters.
Four Responses on Army Radio, Including Three From the Left
Army Radio made sure to bring some strong Arab responses to Barkat’s plan. Arab MK Ahmed Tibi said that Barkat is “behaving like a pyromaniac, igniting fires and tension in eastern Jerusalem,” while the Mukhtar of Silwan said, “The residents are not at fault that their buildings are illegal; it’s rather the municipality’s fault for not granting permits… If Barkat implements this plan, he will begin a major war in eastern Jerusalem.”
A third response was elicited from the radical Jewish Peace Now organization, which accused Barkat of trying to Judaize the eastern areas of the Holy City and of preventing any future compromise between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem.
(Photos above: King's Garden in 1967, filled with trees; King's Garden now)
Army Radio did bring one nationalist response, that of Likud party city councilman Elisha Peleg. He said that granting land to the squatters is a way of “rewarding law-breakers” and that their illegal structures that cannot be approved must be razed before any arrangements are made.
Though the municipality has occasionally razed illegal structures in Silwan and the King's Garden, the situation has basically been ignored over the years. Former Mayor Uri Lupoliansky formulated a plan to deal with the problem, but it was shelved in the wake of heavy international pressure. The current plan is likely to face the same pressures, or more.
The issue has come to the fore because of instructions issued by the State Prosecution to demolish the one unapproved Jewish structure in the neighborhood, the 5.5-story Beit Yehonatan. Barkat has taken a strong stand, saying he would not demolish a Jewish house while the illegal Arab structures remain standing.
2. Anti-Semitism Rising in France, Canada
by Hana Levi Julian
Anti-Semitism in France is strongly on the rise, according to the 2009 annual report released late last week by the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ). The organization reported that 832 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in France in 2009, as compared with 474 such incidents in 2008 - a 75% increase.
The statistics were gleaned from records in the organization's Aid to Victims Department, which cross-checked the figures with data published by the French Ministry of Home Affairs. Included were “statistics, comments, analyses and extracts from sentences handed out by courts in cases involving anti-Semitism,” according to the Council Representing Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF).
CRIF President Richard Prasquier attributed the increase to the French population's anger at Israel during its counter-terrorist operation in Gaza, Cast Lead, last January. There were 354 anti-Semitic incidents recorded in January 2009 alone - a “totally unacceptable transposition to France of the Israel-Palestine conflict,” Prasquier said. He added that “anti-Semitic words and deeds on a daily basis, often under the cover of anti-Zionism, have become a major and worryingly trivial fact of life.”
In 2007, the number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded by the French Interior Ministry was 386, a lower figure than had been recorded in previous years. But the trend had already begun to change long before the Operation Cast Lead was carried out; the 2008 figures were already 22 percent higher than those of the previous year.
At least part of the reason for the hatred may have been due to the corresponding rise in the country's Islamic population.
As of 2003, there were an estimated five to six million Muslims living in France, according to a report issued by the country's Interior Ministry. However, by 2007, that number had climbed to an estimated eight million, according to Odile Jacob's Intégrer l'Islam.
In 2008, there were some 490,000 Jews living in France, according to a survey by Professor Sergio Della Pergola of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute and the Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University.
Canadian Anti-Semitism Rising Too
Anti-Semitic incidents in Canada also reached record highs in 2009, according to an annual report released by the B'nai Brith Canada organization. The survey showed an 11.4 percent jump in the number of incidents over the previous year, 2008 – a figure that constituted the highest level ever reported in the 28-year history of the audit.
According to the report, 1,264 anti-Semitic incidents took place in Canada in 2009. These included 32 violent attacks, 348 cases of vandalism and 884 reports of harassment. The majority of the incidents took place in the province of Ontario.
In the greater Toronto area, incidents dropped by 11 percent, but rose elsewhere in the province by nearly 50 percent. In the French-speaking Quebec province, there was a 52.5 percent rise over the 2008 data, and in the city of Montreal, where a large Jewish population resides, there was a 58.7 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents.
The figures are higher than those reported for 2008, but it is the distribution that has changed, rather than the numbers themselves. A total of 1,135 incidents were reported in that year.
The organization noted there has been a five-fold increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Canada over the past decade. As happened in France, the highest number of attacks occurred last January, during Israel's counter-terrorism operation in Gaza.
According to the Toronto Muslims website, Muslims living in Canada today number more than 750,000, with some 61 percent of those residing in Ontario, where the majority of the anti-Semitic incidents occurred. “Since the September 11 terrorist attacks many Muslims have begun to look to Canada as an alternative to the United States... This is especially true with international students who have come to Canada in much larger numbers since 9/11,” the site noted.
3. Hizbullah Censured for Threats
by Maayana Miskin
Senior Lebanese politician Samir Geagea has responded to Hizbullah's latest threats against Israel, saying the group has “no right” to cause conflict. “The Lebanese people have not granted [Hizbullah head Hassan] Nasrallah the right to declare war with Israel,” Geagea said, according to the Hizbullah news service Al-Manar.
He said that only Lebanon's elected government has the right to determine the fate of the Lebanese people, and that no single party may make unilateral decisions on pressing national issues.
Nasrallah threatened Israel last week at a memorial event for assassinated Hizbullah leaders. “I say to the Israeli leaders that if you bomb the Rafik Hariri Airport in Beirut, we will bomb Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport... We will bomb your buildings if you bomb ours, your power plants if you bomb ours... I announce this challenge and we accept this challenge,” he said.
Geagea leads the Lebanese Forces party and militia and is a senior member of the pro-Lebanese-independence March 14 Alliance. He was sentenced to multiple life sentences for crimes committed during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990, but was pardoned in 2005.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reportedly warned that the United States will not stand in Israel’s way in the wake of Hizbullah’s stockpiling of advanced weapons.
4. Intelligence Veteran: Al-Mabhouh Hit Team was Aware of Cameras
by Gil Ronen
The security camera footage of the assassins who eliminated Hamas terrorist Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh did not surprise the operation's planners, according to Menachem Landau, a former senior officer in the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shin Bet).
Speaking to Arutz Sheva's Hebrew news magazine, Landau was careful to note that he does not know who carried out the assassination, but said that “there is no doubt that whoever did it is a professional.”
"He did a good job,” he added. The speculation that Mossad was behind the operation improved Mossad's status, Landau estimated: “Ambiguousness is power,” he said. “It undoubtedly raises the level of deterrence.”
"All the people who yammer, I would say, about the matter, saying there was a foul-up – are talking nonsense,” he said. “When you prepare for an operation of this sort – any organization that prepares for this kind of operation, it is not as if someone gets up in the morning and gets on a plane and does what he does.”
'A very nice success'
Landau said that preparations for an operation such as this include checking out the territory, collecting information and determining which paths of arrival and escape are optimal. Regarding the security footage and passport photos which allegedly embarrassed Mossad, Landau opined that the photos had been altered in advance: “I have no doubt that whoever did this knew that there are cameras, and I have no doubt that all of the people and photographs that we see are not look alikes of the original subjects...you definitely do not have the real names.”
The operation, he summed up, was “a very nice success.”
Landau served in the ISA for 32 years and reached a rank comparable to that of a major general in the IDF. The ISA operates primarily within Israel, including Judea and Samaria, while Mossad operates in other countries.
5. Benny Begin: Zero Expenses
by Hillel Fendel
Benny Begin, a minister-without-portfolio in the Netanyahu government, set a hard-to-beat record for least expenses this past year: zero.
Statistics released for this past year show that MK Lia Shemtov, a second-term Knesset member of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, had more expenses than any of her colleagues: NIS 95,118. She spent the largest amount, 32,359 shekels, on professional media consulting, and another 25,285 on secretarial work.
She was followed on the list of least spendthrift Knesset members by MKs Haneh Sweid (Hadash), Amir Peretz (Labor), Chaim Oron (Meretz), and Robert Ilatuv (Israel Our Home), each of whom put in for roughly NIS 65,000.
Among the ministers, Environment Minister Gilad Erdan asked to be reimbursed for the largest amount: 62,138 shekels.
Minister Begin, for whom this is a fourth Knesset term – he served from 1988 until 1999, and rejoined the Knesset last year – served in the past as Minister of Science, and now serves as Minister-without-Portfolio. Contacted by Israel National News about his “low” score on the list of expenses, the son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, “I don’t know what you’re referring to. This is the first I’m hearing of a list of expenses, and I have nothing to say… I’m sure those who spent had reason to do so; apparently I didn’t. I have a driver, but that’s a necessity for security reasons. I don’t engage in comparisons, and I have nothing else to say about it.”
MK Shemtov’s office released the following statement in response to the report: “MK Shemtov uses the budget allocated to her via the Knesset for the purpose of fulfilling her job. As opposed to the MKs who serve also as Cabinet Ministers and who benefit from the ministry’s budget, the only budget serving an MK for the purpose of running his/her office, including printing, spokespersons, office equipment and the like, is the budgetary clause known as ‘contact with the voter.’ MK Shemtov used her budget in accordance with the law and in the spirit of the purpose for which the budget was allocated, to fulfill her job in the best way as a representative working on behalf of and for the public.”
6. Barak: 'If Attacked, We Won't Chase Individual Terrorists'
by Hana Levi Julian
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told a Washington, D.C. think tank last Friday that if attacked, Israel would return fire to the source of the problem, rather than waste time chasing “individual terrorists.”
Barak spoke to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a group founded by the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) lobbyist organization. He met afterwards with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joseph Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Mike Mullen.
Barak was blunt in his address about the source of the problems currently facing Israel. Lebanon is today supported by a militia comprised of Hizbullah terrorists who serve in the country's parliament and government, Barak informed his audience. “It has weapons systems that some – many sovereign nations – do not have.”
Hizbullah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah boasted in a recent address that his militia has missiles that can reach every part of the State of Israel. Hizbullah is funded and equipped by Syria and Iran, both of whom have managed to slip in to Lebanon “many civil servants in uniform and without uniforms,” Barak said. All three countries – Lebanon, Syria and Iran – are voting members of the United Nations.
Iran also provides generous funding, weaponry and other technical support to another partner in the regional axis attempting to form a choke-hold around Israel - the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.
Barak also spoke about the Iranian nuclear threat, telling his audience that Iran's continued defiance of the United Nations' ban on its nuclear development activities may constitute an existential threat to the Jewish State.
The defense minister stressed the importance of “significant and effective sanctions within a time limit,” but reserved the option of a different response by Israel if sanctions were not carried out, or didn't work. Israel, he said, would “carry a certain skepticism and think thoroughly and in a constructive manner about what should happen if, against our hopes and wishes, it won't work.”
Nevertheless, he added, “I don't think the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, are going to drop it immediately on someone in the neighborhood. They understand what may follow. They are radical, but not totally crazy.”
7. Alan Hoffmann is Director General of the Jewish Agency
by Gil Ronen
Alan Hoffmann, Director General of the Department of Education of the Jewish Agency, has been named Director General of the Jewish Agency by a special committee of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors. Hoffmann, who made Aliyah to Israel from South Africa in 1967, is the first Oleh (immigrant) to hold this position.
Hoffmann's professional life has been dedicated to promoting Jewish Education, initially as the director of The Young Judea Year Course. After three years of doctoral study in educational policy at the Harvard School of Education, he spent 13 years at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at the Hebrew University, including six years as its director. Subsequently, he served as the Executive Director of the Council for Initiatives in Jewish Education (CIJE) in New York and in 1997 was named the head of the Mandel Center for Jewish Continuity at the Hebrew University.
Developed MASA, MAKOM
He founded the "Revivim" program at Hebrew University, which trains Israeli educators in Jewish content for Israeli public schools.
In February 2000, Hoffmann became the Director General of the Education Department of the Jewish Agency. Under his leadership, the department developed such groundbreaking initiatives as MASA Israel Journey and MAKOM.
MASA, a joint program of the Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel, brings young people from around the world to Israel on long-term programs that include study and volunteerism. MAKOM generates content and drives educational processes that re-imagine the place of Israel in Jewish life.
'The right man'
Hoffmann was also responsible for numerous educational initiatives in Jewish communities worldwide, including summer and winter camps in the Former Soviet Union; training Israeli counselors to work in camps in North America; professional training initiatives for Jewish educators; sending Israeli educators ("Shlichim") to communities and institutions around the world (including "Campus Fellows" engaged in advocacy efforts at universities); Hebrew language Ulpanim, and more.
Upon his appointment, Alan Hoffmann re-stated his commitment to connecting world Jewry to Israel and to the Jewish People, saying that "strengthening Jewish identity worldwide through the connection to Israel is crucial to the survival of the Jewish people and to efforts to encourage Aliyah."
Chairman of the Executive Natan Sharansky said that the right man was chosen for the right job, at the right time. "Alan's extensive experience in the Jewish Agency and in Jewish Education will serve him well and will help the Jewish Agency face the challenges that lie ahead, particularly in strengthening Jewish identity among the next generation and intensifying the connection between world Jewry and the State of Israel."
Alan Hoffmann lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Nadia. They have four children.
