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1. Message to Bibi: 'A Promise is a Promise'
by Maayana Miskin
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with United States President Barack Obama, the Judea and Samaria (Yesha) Council is taking steps to “remind” the prime minister of his commitment to end the Judea and Samaria building freeze in September.
The “A Promise is a Promise” campaign has put up billboards quoting statements from Netanyahu and members of his cabinet which unequivocally confirm that the current Judea and Samaria building freeze will not be extended.
"The things that the prime minister, and most of his ministers, said regarding the fact that the freeze will not be extended are very clear... This is a contract between elected officials and the public – they gave their word – their trustworthiness lies in the balance,” said Judea and Samaria council head Danny Dayan.
Netanyahu agreed to prohibit construction in Judea and Samaria for ten months in order to bring the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table. The PA has refused to hold direct talks, demanding that Israel first freeze construction in much of Jerusalem, but has agreed to indirect “proximity talks” through American mediators.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the building freeze is a one-time, temporary measure, members of the Yesha council said. However they said, “These statements will shortly be put to the most decisive test, the American test.”
"Netanyahu is flying to Washington next week, and there he will apparently be pressured to continue the freeze,” they explained.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has upped pressure to continue the building freeze, telling American officials that he will consider direct talks in four months – if the freeze is made permanent.
Last Thursday, the Likud Central Committee unanimously adopted a resolution supporting construction in Judea and Samaria when the 10-month freeze ends. On Monday, Members of Knesset, led by MK Yaakov Katz, held a conference on the damage caused by the freeze to date.
2. Netanyahu Faces Nation: We Can't Pay 'Any Price' for Shalit
by Gil Ronen
As the march by First Sergeant Gilad Shalit's family and supporters neared Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took a step Thursday to preempt public pressure on him and gave a clear statement of his policy on freeing terrorists.
In a live news conference, Netanyahu said that Israel agreed to free 1,000 Hamas terrorists from its jails in exchange for Shalit, who was abducted four years ago. This, he said, is a heavy price to pay. However, he said, Israel would not compromise on two principles in the negotiations for Shalit: First, it would not free terrorists who had murdered people into Judea and Samaria, but rather – into Gaza or other countries. Second, it would not free “arch-terrorists” who killed dozens of people.
Freeing murderers into Judea and Samaria would strengthen the terror infrastructure there and lead to a surge in attacks on Israelis, he explained. The attacks would not be limited to Judea and Samaria but would reach central Israel and Tel Aviv, he reminded the Israeli viewing audience – a large proportion of which is concentrated in Israel's coastal plain.
Freeing the “arch-terrorists” would strengthen Hamas's leadership, he said.
Netanyahu noted that Israel had, in some cases, used force to free hostages. His brother, Yoni, he noted, was killed in an IDF raid for freeing hostages on an Air France jet that was hijacked to Uganda in 1976. He himself, he added, was hurt in an operation for freeing hostages on a hijacked Sabena jet (in 1972). But in some instances, he explained, Israel adopted a policy of freeing prisoners in exchange for hostages. He then told the story of the deal for freeing Elchanan Tenenbaum in 2004. The terrorists freed in that deal murdered 17 Israelis after their release, he said.
As Prime Minister, he said, he bears the responsibility for the security of the entire nation. He said that while he feels the pain in the eyes of the Shalit family – he also feels the pain in the eyes of terror victims' families. "The State of Israel is willing to pay a heavy price” for Gilad Shalit, Netanyahu said, but it cannot say it will pay “any price” for his freedom.
The Prime Minister's statement echoed themes that have been sounded over the past few years by terror victim families' representatives, which have done their best to balance the public relations machine that is operating in favor of accepting to Hamas's demands for Shalit. Victims' group Almagor has put together a mosaic of photographs of 180 Israelis murdered between 2000 and 2006 by terrorists released in swaps for hostages.
3. PA Thieves Drain Jewish Town Dry
by Maayana Miskin
Sixty Jewish families living in the town of Pnei Hever, near Hevron, face a Sabbath without water due to Palestinian Authority water thieves. Officials at Mekorot, Israel's national water company, say they are unable to help.
Pnei Hever and other Jewish towns in the Hevron region have faced daily water theft for some time. PA Arabs drill into water pipes leading to the town every night, stealing an estimated 75% of the towns' water supply.
On Thursday night, PA thieves drilled into the pipes leading to Pnei Hever and rerouted the water supply. Residents of the village woke up Friday morning to find that they had only 10 cubic meters of water to split between hundreds of people.
As Mekorot workers said they could not help, residents turned to the Public Security Ministry and Ministry for National Infrastructure in the hope of getting assistance.
A similar incident took place last Thursday, when residents of Pnei Hever awoke to discover that nearly all of their water had been stolen overnight. Children were forced to go to school or daycare without so much as brushing their teeth or washing their hands.
Yigal Klein, head of the Pnei Hever secretariat, said the water theft phenomenon was a familiar one. A resident recently witnessed an Arab truck driver fiddling with a water pipe near the Jewish town of Susiya, he said. “Many times trucks fill up with water and drive to the [Arab] villages,” he said.
Some of the pipes bringing water to local Jewish villages pass through Arab villages, where residents do what they please with the water supply and the IDF's hands are tied, he said.
Water bills have risen repeatedly in the last few months with a 5% rise to take effect shortly.
"What's most worrisome is that we've been told to prepare for an entire summer like this,” he said. “Our regional council is trying to put pressure on the government ministries, on the Water Authority, on Mekorot, but we're getting the feeling that this is what's been decreed for us and there's nothing to do.”
4. Barak at IAF Graduation: Immigrants Make us Proud
by Maayana Miskin
The IAF Flight School held a ceremony Thursday for its 160th class of graduates. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was there, as were President Shimon Peres and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.
Barak noted the high number of immigrants in this graduating class. 20% of the new pilots were not born in Israel.
"These immigrants are what make us most proud today,” he said. “You are the true Zionists, and you prove how much the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union contributed, and continues to contribute, to the country.”
Barak took the opportunity to call for peace talks. “Our hand is extended in peace to our neighbors. We are ready for negotiations with no preconditions,” he said.
Peres spoke of peace as well. “We have not lost in war, and we will not give up on peace,” he said. “Peace is best for us and our neighbors... Peace becomes more urgent with each child who is born.”
Ashkenazi took a more somber and realistic tone in his speech. “Dear soldiers, the skies of the Middle East, which you will soon meet in your aircraft, are covered these days by threatening clouds, near and far... Only a strong army, with a powerful aerial arm on which to rely, can stand up to the complex challenges awaiting us,” he said.
"The times in which we live make the burden of responsibility that rests on your shoulders that much heavier,” he added.
The new pilots received their wings after a three-year course in which they completed not only flight training, but also officers' training and a three-year academic degree. They were given a choice of studying Computer Science, Government and Politics, IT Management, or Economics.
47.5% of the graduates are from the north of the country, and another 47.5 are from the central district. 12.5% of the graduates speak fluent Russian, another 15% speak English.
7.5% of the graduates identify as religious, while another 7.5% do not identify as fully religious but observe many religious customs. 45% were active in youth groups prior to enlistment.
5. IDF Feature: Tenacity and Talmud
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Overlooking the conference table in the Academic Board Room at West Point, the famed American military academy, there stand the statues of three Jewish warrior-scholars - Joshua, King David and Judah the Maccabee.
When leaving West Point, head east, cross the Atlantic Ocean, travel the length of the Mediterranean Sea, come ashore on a Tel Aviv beach, and then make your way towards Jerusalem. About half-way to the holy capital city of Israel you will come upon the city of Modi'in - the revitalized hometown of that same Judah whose statue graces the board room of the United States Military Academy at West Point. And it is here, in the modern city of Modi'in, that new Maccabees are being shaped daily - living, breathing Maccabees, not stone carvings.
The institution turning out those scholar-warriors is the Meir Harel Yeshiva, a Hesder yeshiva (one of a network of Torah study academies combining demanding Judaic studies and military service) headed by Rabbi Col. Eliezer Chaim Shenvald. And one of the first scholar-warriors the yeshiva produced is a young man named Yoad Kaplan, from Caesarea.
In December 2008, at the tail end of Chanukah - holiday of the Maccabees - Kaplan and fellow Meir Harel Yeshiva student Uri Spiegel were squad commanders in the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade, gathered in a staging area just outside the Gaza region in southern Israel. Daniel Attar, also a Meir Harel Yeshiva student, was with another company assigned the same mission: enter Gaza and neutralize the enemy.
By that point, the Hamas regime in Gaza and its allied jihadists had been bombarding Israeli cities and towns with hundreds of Kassam and Grad rockets for years - ever more intensely after the unilateral disengagement from the region in 2005, in which thousands of Israelis were uprooted from their homes. As Yoad and his comrades waited, they heard and saw the Hamas rockets flying out of Gaza, heading toward their civilian targets on the Israeli homefront.
"We felt like emissaries.... It felt like we were defending our homes," Yoad told a local Modi'in newspaper. For his company commander, however, it was even more literal - his Ashdod home had been hit by a Hamas rocket just a short time earlier.
Operation Cast Lead (also called the Gaza War) began on the sixth day of Chanukah with a series of airstrikes, but one week later, on a Saturday night, the infantry was ordered to penetrate the enemy lines. The 51st, Kaplan's battalion, was one of the first in.
It was also one of the first hit when the enemy fired dozens of mortars toward the advancing Israeli ground forces. Yoad and 17 other soldiers suffered wounds of varying severity when a shell landed in their midst that very night. Suffering from what was determined to be moderate injuries, Yoad was evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where he was rushed immediately into the operating room. Doctors worked diligently to save his arm.
After a few days of hospitalization, Yoad mentioned matter-of-factly to his doctor that he was going to begin an officer's course in two months. It was then that Yoad got the shocking news: only after another year of rehabilitation would it be possible to determine if he could ever return to a combat unit, much less an officer's course.
But Yoad would not be held back.
For the next several months, he made intense efforts to strengthen himself both physically - with physiotherapy three times a week - and spiritually - with a return to high-level learning at Meir Harel Yeshiva. Doctors, physiotherapists, friends and family were amazed by Yoad's speedy recuperation, which they saw as just short of miraculous.
Within seven months of suffering what was supposed to be a debilitating arm injury, Yoad requested to return to combat duty. He quickly persuaded all the relevant decision-makers that he was fit to take part in the infantry officer's course, no matter how physically demanding it may be.
So it was that Yoad Kaplan was called to step forward before hundreds of new and veteran officers two months ago to be awarded recognition as Outstanding Officer of the Course. At the concluding ceremony, when Yoad received his Second Lieutenant rank, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak offered high praise for Yoad's dedication to excellence. His success, they said, demonstrates the awesome power of faith in the righteousness of one's cause and tenacity in reaching one's goals - with which one can achieve the impossible.
Building those character traits, along with moral and practical leadership skills, are part and parcel of the encompassing Torah learned, lived and taught at Hesder Yeshivas such as the Meir Harel Yeshiva. There can be no doubt that Judah the Maccabee would feel more at home overlooking Rabbi Shenvald's study hall than he ever could peering down from the mantelpiece at West Point.
(Nissan Ratzlav-Katz - "a dynamic and effective writer," according to former US presidential speech-writer David Frum - provides marketing and business communications services for a wide array of organizations in Israel and abroad. He is also a former Opinion Editor for Israel National News.com. Nissan can be reached at nissan@nrk-online.com or through www.nrk-online.com.)
6. Arab ’Refugee’ Time Bomb Begins to Explode in Lebanon
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Arab “refugee” time bomb began to explode Sunday as thousands protested six decades of squalid living conditions in United Nations-run camps. No violence was reported.
Arab countries have generally refused granting rights to approximately five million people who are descendants of approximately 700,000 Arabs who fled Israel, most of them with the urging of Arab leaders, during the War of Independence in 1948.
A small minority of the Arabs who left were forced out of the fledgling country by the outnumbered Israeli army, but leaders of Arab countries, trying to squash the re-establishment of a Jewish State, encouraged most of those local Arabs who left to do so, promising they would return after the expected victory that never came.
Jordan, Lebanon and other neighboring Arab nations have refused rights to the fleeing Arabs and their descendants, partly out of fear of their potential political power but also as part of a plan to use their growing numbers to overtake Israel with mass immigration.
The “right of return” demanded by the Palestinian Authority is the insistence that Israel allow their immigration, which would turn Jews into a minority. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has refused to recognize that Israel is a Jewish State, a definition that would preclude implementing the “right of return.”
Sunday’s massive protest in United Nations villages spread from the southern city of Tyre to the northern city of Tripoli.
“We just want to live with dignity," Imtithal Abu Samra told Reuters. He is one of 435,000 Arabs registered in United Nations camps in Lebanon. A larger number of Arabs live in Jordan, which Israeli Knesset member Aryeh Eldad (National Union) has said should be the national home of Palestinian Authority Arabs.
"Lebanon has marginalized Palestinian refugees for too long," Human Rights Watch's Beirut director Nadim Houry stated last week. "Parliament should seize this opportunity to turn the page and end discrimination against Palestinians."
Lebanon, Jordan and other host states generally bar the stateless Arabs from working in professional jobs, and they are denied public services, relying instead on United Nations aid.
7. OECD Praises Israeli Innovation in Field of Agriculture
by Yoni Kempinski
The first event of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held in Israel since the Jewish State was invited to join it took place Tuesday at the Ministry of Agriculture's center in Rishon LeTzion.
After about two years of joint work and a successful peer review of Israeli agriculture in the headquarters of the organisation in Paris, a comprehensive review of Israeli agricultural policies during the last two decades was released to the public.
The publication includes the OECD's recommendations for the future, a comparison of Israel's achievements with other countries, and other topics. In the following video, Arutz Sheva TV speaks with Ken Ash, Director of the OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate
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