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1. 'Feiglin to Announce He is Leaving Likud'
by Gil Ronen
Moshe Feiglin, head of the Manhigut Yehudit oppositional faction within the Likud party, has decided to leave the Likud along with his movement, Makor Rishon reported Friday.
Feiglin has reportedly called a meeting of the central activists in Manhigut Yehudit for Sunday, in which he intends to announce his decision. He will recommend that the movement seek its political home outside Likud. On the record, Feiglin would only tell Makor Rishon that “we are in a period of internal inquiries that will last about two weeks and we are involving the activists in the dilemmas.”
Speaking with Arutz Sheva's Uzi Baruch Friday, Feiglin did not deny the report but said: “The movement already announced a week ago that it would be choosing its options vis-a-vis Netanyahu – including the possibility of another contest with Netanyahu a year from now, as well as leaving the Likud."
A senior source within Manhigut Yehudit denied the Makor Rishon report and also said that the meeting of activists will not be held this Sunday but one week later.
Feiglin joined the Likud 10 years ago, out of a conviction that the multi-party system does not really work in Israel, and that the only way to seize leadership is through the largest party, Likud. He vied twice for party leadership and failed both times. Feiglin was in the party's 20th slot for the Knesset in the last elections, but legalistic and political maneuvers by Binyamin Netanyahu forced him out of that slot and prevented his entry into the Knesset. It should be noted that Feiglin never seemed to content himself with the goal of getting elected to a Knesset seat, but was intent from the outset on becoming the party's leader.
Before forming Manhigut Yehudit, Feiglin led 'Zo Artzenu', a high-profile protest movement against the Oslo process.
Feiglin, who is considered a bright and creative mind by his supporters and foes alike, also writes a weekly column in one of the leading news websites.
Netanyahu nemesis
Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu has seen Feiglin as his nemesis within Likud, and accused him of trying to effect a hostile takeover of the Likud with the aim of turning it into a religious party. “We are not an extremist messianic party; we are a national and liberal movement,” he said ahead of the latest confrontation with Feiglin.
That confrontation took place late April and centered on an internal Likud vote to change the party's constitution in a way that would put off to 2011 the elections to its central committee. The move was seen as a bid to prevent Feiglin from gaining strength in the party's grassroots leadership and to give Netanyahu time to add more moderate grassroots members to Likud, to offset the ones that Feiglin had brought in.
Feiglin said the showdown would ultimately determine the fate of Jerusalem. Netanyahu, he warned emotionally, wants to silence opposition in the Likud because he has made a secret pact with US President Barack Obama that involves partitioning Jerusalem. Several Likud Knesset members, including Danny Danon, Tzipi Hotovely and Yariv Levin, also opposed Netanyahu's move – but Netanyahu succeeded in passing the resolution anyway.
This last failure is what seems to have convinced Feiglin to leave the Likud and essentially abandon his decade-long project.
A source within the National Union estimated Friday that the NU would issue a call to Likud members who followed Feiglin to join the NU instead. NU leader MK Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz has said that Feiglin's political strategy was not completely above board in that it called on people who did not really vote for Likud or believe in its path to become official party members. That enabled them to have a voice in determining the party's list but it was not certain that they voted for the party in the ensuing elections.
2. British Election: Hung Parliament, Future Unclear
by Gil Ronen
Britain's election results are pouring in Friday, and they are pointing to a hung parliament. According to a BBC exit poll, the Conservative Party under David Cameron is expected to garner 305 seats – 95 more than it presently holds but 21 short of the 326 needed for a ruling majority. Labour under Gordon Brown lost 94 seats and will have 255 seats, according to the poll. Liberal Democrats were down 1 to 61, while Nationalists and others would have 29.
Labour's Brown suggested he would try to form a coalition but if results hold, even a coalition with the Liberal Democrats would not suffice for a majority.
"Our country wants change. That change is going to require new leadership," Cameron said early Friday. Speaking earlier in Scotland, Brown vowed to "play my part in Britain having a strong, stable" government and pledged action on election reform, a key demand of the Liberal Democrats. These are seen as hints he intends to form a coalition with the Lib-Dems.
Official results early Friday showed the Conservatives with 226 seats won, Labour with 175, and Liberal Democrats with 36, according to ITN.
3. Hevron Residents: Fire at Cemetery was Arson. Police Disagree
by Gil Ronen
The Jewish cemetery in Hevron was damaged late Thursday night in a fire that local residents say was undoubtedly a deliberate terror act. Police, however, said the fire was inadverently started by Arab children who were at play and not an act of arson. Residents said that graves that are over 200 years old were damaged. Police denied this as well. They did not explain why they thought Arab children were playing with fire at midnight.
Photos and video of the fire can be seen at bottom and at the Hevron website. Viewers are invited to decide whom they believe.
Jewish residents of the ancient Biblical city say this is the third time in two weeks that arsonists have set fires in the cemetery.
A source in the Hevron Security Department told Arutz Sheva that an IDF observation post identified flames in the Jewish cemetery at around midnight between Thursday and Friday. A military patrol was directed to the spot and a reinforcement was sent in, along with the Hevron Security Department.
"We saw flames coming from the cemetery,” the source said. “The flames' source was at the fence – a fact that points at suspected arson. We called the fire brigade and began to fight the fire. By a great miracle the flames did not reach the Rabbis' plot but Hevron's ancient graves were damaged.”
MK Dr. Michael Ben Ari (National Union) asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to instruct the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and police to make a supreme effort to find the arsonists. “It is strange that Netanyahu, who is quick to denounce the burning of a small carpet in a mosque, is silent when the problem is daily pogroms against Jews,” Ben Ari said.
4. Israel Police, FBI Coordinate on Terror
by Maayana Miskin
Israel Police Inspector-General David Cohen and FBI Director Robert Mueller met Thursday in Jerusalem. The two discussed joint efforts on fighting terrorism and organized crime.
Head of Investigations and Intelligence Yoav Segalovitch and Intelligence Department head Ronni Ritman attended the meeting as well.
Cohen said the Israel Police and the FBI had successfully coordinated their efforts to stop organized crime in recent years. Israeli police face unique challenges, as they are expected to fight terrorism as well as street crime and organized crime.
Mueller praised Israel as a “close ally,” and said the FBI would continue to work with its Israeli counterpart. Organized crime, terrorism, and computer crime go beyond national borders, he said, and can only be fought through international cooperation.
5. European Representatives Look Into Anti-Semitism
by Maayana Miskin
The consuls-general of five European nations – France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic – met this week in Los Angeles to discuss anti-Semitism. The meeting was hosted by Second Generation of Los Angeles, an organization created by and for the children of Holocaust survivors.
Britain's consul-general was invited as well, but did not attend the event.
The discussion was open, and an audience of over 100 people kept the diplomats on their toes, asking questions about attitudes towards Jews in their countries, recent anti-Semitic incidents, and the rise of the far Right in European politics.
The diplomats reviewed the steps their respective countries were taking to combat anti-Semitism. Many European countries have criminalized Holocaust denial and hate speech.
Some diplomats noted that the US's reluctance to criminalize racist speech has allowed European anti-Semites to spread hate on the Internet, using US-based servers. Europeans can also easily access propaganda created by Americans and posted online.
Participants also discussed the ways in which today's anti-Semitism differs from historic European anti-Semitism. Attacks on Jews in recent years are often perpetrated by Muslims, and motivated by anti-Israel sentiment, they said.
6. Netanyahu to Visit Canada
by Maayana Miskin
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is planning to visit Canada in late May at the invitation of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He will be the first Israeli prime minister to visit Canada since then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin visited in 1994.
The Prime Minister will be accompanied by Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Minister of Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein.
Harper and Netanyahu met in the United States in 2009. Harper has frequently spoken out in support of Israel. Since his election, Israel and Canada have strengthened their political, military and economic ties.
"It is a pleasure to welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu to Canada,” Harper said in a statement this week. “Our countries have a close and enduring friendship which we are working to further strengthen.”
In March, the Canadian government publicly condemned the construction of housing in a Jewish neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. Harper urged Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations.
7. Are European Jews Turning On Israel? Expert Says No
by Hillel Fendel
Dr. Emmanuel Navon – consultant, university lecturer, and international relations public speaker – says the new European left-wing J-Call group does not represent European Jewry.
J-Call publicized a petition this week signed by 3,000 European Jews in favor of a Jewish construction freeze in Six Day War-liberated Jerusalem. In response, French-born Dr. Navon claims that most of them are left wing Israelis. He said he is leading a counter-petition “that will prove that Europe is not only those left-wing Israelis who ran away from here [Israel] and incite against Israel. There are many in Europe who truly understand our struggle, including some in conservative parties; they recognize our rights and know that we always tried to make compromises with the Arabs.”
Navon spoke with Arutz Sheva’s Hebrew newsmagazine on Wednesday.
“Those who like to malign Israel,” he said, “have an entire theory about how to solve the Middle East conflict. But this theory has failed and continues to be disproven again and again. But instead of admitting that they are wrong, they choose to blame Israel for the failure.”
As an example, Dr. Navon cites a former Israeli Ambassador to France, Prof. Eli Bar-Navi. “He is a history professor who taught in Tel Aviv University… When he was ambassador, he always attacked us; in 2000 he emigrated from Israel, and since 2005 he has headed the European Museum, leading the anti-Israel initiative – all in order to tell the Europeans that Israel is the one to blame for the lack of peace in the Middle East.”Dr. Navon, a political commentator for Israeli and French media, said that J-Call receives funding from many European countries: “The European press likes to attack Israel, and an organization that attacks Israel instead of blaming the Arabs receives positive coverage… We can say one thing in favor of Israelis who left Israel in order to find refuge in Europe: at least they don’t live in the country whose very right to existence they are unsure of.”
