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1. MKs Seek Forgiveness for Freeze
by Maayana Miskin
Members of Knesset from the Jewish Home and Yisrael Beiteinu “confessed their sins” Thursday, saying the Judea and Samaria construction freeze was a bad decision and they were sorry it had begun. Jews traditionally confess their sins prior to Yom Kippur and apologize to those they have wronged.
Minister of Science Daniel Hershkowitz, head of the Jewish Home party, said, “Everyone has their personal introspection to do, but as a minister in the government, on a national level, the greatest mistake was the construction freeze, the decision made ten months ago. We came to the land to build and be built, and also, putting politics aside, it is absurd to freeze construction only for Jews.”
If it weren't for the decision to freeze Judea and Samaria construction for Jews, the government would not currently be under pressure to continue the freeze, Hershkowitz said. “The mistake was that we set the standard that we can freeze construction, that is the sin and the great mistake, and I hope that regarding what we did, the damage can be rectified,” he said.
Israel can repent for the freeze by refusing to extend it despite pressure from the United States, and renewing construction on September 26, he concluded.
MK David Rotem of Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) made a similar apology. “We sinned in that we did not sufficiently strengthen our settlement in the land of Israel, and as a result, we did not sufficiently resist the construction freeze. For this we must ask forgiveness,” he said.
Rotem listed other national sins as well. “We sinned in that we did not allow the soldiers of the IDF to protect the people of Israel with all their might. We sinned in that Gilad Shalit is still not home, because we should have carried out a strong, serious operation to bring him home,” he said.
He added an apology to non-Jews who have been mistreated while attempting to convert to Judaism. “I want to request forgiveness from all those who wish to convert, and we create unnecessary obstacles,” he said.
“I want to request forgiveness from all of those I mentioned, and I hope the next year will be a better year,” Rotem continued. He concluded, “We must make every effort to fix things, we may not always succeed, but we must make the maximum effort.”
2. Clinton: Netanyahu and Abbas Already Discussing 'Core Issues'
by Maayana Miskin
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are already discussing “core issues” in the fledgling Israel-PA negotiations, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday in an interview with Channel 10 news.
“I really admire the way they got right into it,” Clinton said of the latest meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas, earlier this week. There were no agreements reached, she said, but there were “very difficult and intense negotiations on all of the core issues.”
“Core issues” include the status of Israel's capital city, Jerusalem, which the PA demands much of as the capital of a future PA state, the Arab world's demand for a “right of return” for descendents of Arabs who fled Israel during the War of Independence, and the future of the roughly 400,000 Israeli Jews living east of the 1949 armistice line, in territories claimed by the PA as part of a future Arab state that will not allow Israeli Jews to stay on as citizens. Prime MInister Netanyahu's "core" issues, the recogniztion of Israel as a Jewish state and ensuring security for Israel's citizens, were not mentioned..
Clinton spoke regarding the 10-month construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. Abbas has demanded that Netanyahu extend the freeze, which Netanyahu has refused to do, citing the widespread opposition to the freeze within his coalition, and the fact that Abbas avoided talks until the freeze was close to its end.
While recognizing Netanyahu's arguments as “fair,” Clinton pushed for an extension of the freeze, saying that additional time in which Jews are prohibited to build east of the armistice line would be “extremely useful” for talks.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also went onto Israeli television Thursday to talk about the freeze. Speaking on Channel 1, Mubarak said he had told Netanyahu to extend the freeze by three or four months.
3. 10 Years Without Joseph's Tomb
by Elad Benari
Hundreds of people gathered on Thursday for a special ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of Israel’s pullout from Joseph’s Tomb. The ceremony was held in the Samaria community of Mitzpe Yosef, which is located on Har (Mount) Gerizim near Shechem (Nablus) and overlooks Joseph’s Tomb. Har Gerizim and Har Eival are the mountains near Shechem named in the Pentateuch as the place where the Priests and Levites addressed the tribes entering Israel after their sojourn in the desert, blessing them at Mount Gerizim if they kept G-d's commandments and elucidating the punishments they would receive at Mount Eival if they did not..
During the ceremony, it was announced that the coming year will be known as the year of Joseph’s Tomb, and will include educational and public activities as well as many other special events.
The ceremony centered around the writing of a Sefer Torah, which the organizers believe will be placed into Joseph’s Tomb once Israel has permanent borders and “takes back the stolen property stolen by the Palestinian Authority to its rightful owners, the people of Israel,” as the organizers said. Each of the evening’s speakers began by writing a letter in the Sefer Torah.
Rabbi Dov Lior, the Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba and Hevron, was the first speaker. He said that learning history in the Jewish tradition means learning lessons and drawing conclusions, and that Joseph’s character should serve as an example to Jews in the present generation. “We have a state, army, ability and power,” said Rabbi Lior. “After we returned to our country we have a commandment to reclaim the land and settle it. Handing over of territories is a sin and we have paid a price for it, as we have seen in recent years. Even thinking about it is bad. Terrorists act against the very existence of Israel. We need to strengthen ourselves as the righteous Joseph did.”
Deputy Knesset Speaker MK Danny Danon told participants about his recent visit to the area with his son two months ago. “My son asked me why we cannot go down to Joseph's Tomb, and I did not know what to say… I believe that with G-d's help we will this year return to Joseph's Tomb and to other places from which we’ve been uprooted.”
Other speakers at the ceremony included Gershon Meskia (head of the Samaria Regional Council), Rabbi Elyakim Levanon (the rabbi of Elon Moreh), and MK Uri Ariel of the National Union Party who read the names of the IDF soldiers who fell while guarding Joseph’s Tomb. Ariel emphasized that those soldiers must be remembered so that the return to Joseph’s Tomb can be accomplished.
The ceremony was initiated by Gar’in Shechem, a group of residents of Judea and Samaria who seek to re-establish a Jewish presence in Joseph’s Tomb. It was organized by the Shomron Regional Council, the Shomron Religious Council, the Samaria Residents Council, the Shechem Echad organization, and Matnas Shomron.
4. Final Approval for F-35 Purchase
by Maayana Miskin
A ministerial committee headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak has given its final approval to the purchase of F-35 warplanes from the United States. Senior IDF officials took part in the final decision.
“Purchasing this fighter jet, the most technically advanced on earth, is a significant step in strengthening Israel's military prowess,” Netanyahu said during the committee meeting.
Barak announced the impending approval of the F-35 purchase in August saying the plane "will give the Air Force the best capability in the short and long range and allow Israel to maintain aerial superiority.”
His decision was met with criticism from the Finance Ministry, which called on him to reconsider it. In early September, it was reported that Israel would go ahead with the purchase after being given a green light to add Israeli technology to the aircraft.
Israel is expected to begin by purchasing 20 of the planes, for a total cost of 2.7 billion dollars. The deal will be the most expensive in the IDF's history.
Defense Ministry Director-General Udi Shani, a retired IDF general, confirmed that Israel has received approval to install its own technologies in the F-35. In addition, he said, Israel and the U.S. have reached a deal for a counter-purchase by the U.S. worth billions of dollars.
Lockheed-Martin has agreed to allow Israeli participation in the creation of the F-35s, specifically, in building wing parts. The Israeli contribution is expected to generate up to $4 billion for Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems.
5. Syria to Get Advanced Anti-Ship Missiles from Russia
by Maayana Miskin
Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has announced that his country will sell advanced anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria, as agreed in a 2007 contract. Israel has expressed concern that the deal will endanger Israeli ships in the Mediterranean. The United States had also objected to the deal.
Syria supplies weapons to the Hizbullah terrorist army in southern Lebanon. During the Second Lebanon War, Hizbullah used weapons obtained from Iran to attack an Israeli warship, killing four soldiers and causing serious damage.
The missiles that will be sold to Damascus are P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles. They can carry a warhead weighing up to 200 kilograms, have a range of 300 kilometers, and are difficult to detect due to their ability to cruise near the water's surface.
Serdyukov said Russia sees “no cause for the concern” expressed by the U.S. and Israel. Russia does not believe that the weapons will make it into terrorist hands, he said.
“Undoubtedly, [the contract] would be fulfilled by the Russian side,” he stated.
In May, Russian officials announced that they had agreed to supply Syria with MiG-29 fighters, anti-aircraft artillery, anti-tank weapons, and short-range surface-to-air missiles. Israeli officials criticized the deal, and expressed skepticism as well, saying Syria cannot afford to pay for advanced weaponry.
At the same time, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev visited Damascus to discuss the possibility of Russia assisting Syria in building a nuclear power plant. While there, Medvedev visited Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.
6. Pipes: I Want to Defeat Radical Islam
by Elad Benari
On Wednesday, Professor Daniel Pipes, noted columnist, author and lecturer, director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, spoke in Jerusalem on the topic of “Radical Islam and the Real Obstacles to Middle East Peace.”
His talk was sponsored by Hadar-Israel, Council for Civic Action, an organization dedicated to securing Israel’s future through its citizens and headed by prominent national figures such as former ambassador Dore Gold and IDF general (res.) Uzi Dayan.
During his talk, Pipes said that he wants "to defeat radical Islam", or Islamism, which he defined as the third of three radical utopian movements, along with Fascism and Marxism. According to him, while the other two did not survive over time since they did not learn from their failures and stuck with “brutal violent totalitarian ways” right to the end, Islamism, on the other hand, has learned and is not making the same mistakes now as it did 30 years ago. Pipes brought forward Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan as the model of what he called “a second generation of Islamist takeover” which uses democracy to legitimize itself.
Pipes addressed the Obama Administration’s tendency not to criticize the Iranian regime, and said that it is embarrassing that leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemn Iran, while President Barack Obama does not. He added that while Obama’s tendency not to criticize Iran is not having any effect, neither did the Bush Administration’s policy to criticize Iran. The example of the failure of the Bush policy, said Pipes, is Hamas, a terrorist organization that was elected and came to power in democratic elections.
He said that he endorsed the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but in both cases he thought that Americans should overthrow the regime and then “hand the keys over to the kingdom.” He believed that what President Bush tried to do in these countries was too ambitious.
“We Americans rehabilitate countries,” said Pipes. “Well, you don’t always succeed at that. My prediction now, and I’m sorry to make that prediction and I hope I’m wrong, is that both Afghanistan and Iraq are doomed in the sense that our trillion dollars, [and] our 400,000 deaths will have been seen in retrospect as wasted.”
Pipes described the regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as “kept regimes”, which make their own decisions but are there by virtue of the support of coalition forces. “Take those [forces] away and the regimes will fall, especially given the Iranian and Pakistani interests in these two countries,” he said.
Another example of a kept regime is Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. Pipes said that without Israeli security support and foreign aid, Abbas would be gone from power. He posited that such regimes are obviously not a “healthy development.”
Turning to the conflict between Israel and the PA and the United States’ attitude towards this conflict, Pipes explained that Israel’s priority is clearly Iran, while the American priority is the Palestinians. He explained the reason for this as “linkage”, meaning that the Americans believe that all the problems in the Middle East are made worse because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In terms of the peace negotiations, Pipes said: “I see a possible deal where Israelis make concessions against their better judgment in order to get some concessions on Iran.”
INN commentators noted that this might eliminate looming danger from Iran in the short term, but the long term results of concessions to the PA might be just as disastrous for Israel.
7. Hamas Terrorist Killed during IDF Arrest
by Maayana Miskin
A Hamas terrorist was killed overnight as the IDF conducted arrests near the city of Tulkarem in Samaria. Soldiers shot and killed the terrorist when he behaved in a threatening manner, running toward soldiers with his hands hidden and refusing to stop.
The man was identified as Iyad Abu-Shalabiya, 38, a Hamas member and former senior commander. He had served time in prison in Israel for security offenses, and was on the IDF's “wanted” list.
After he was shot, it was discovered that Abu-Shalabiya had not been holding a weapon. The IDF opened an investigation into the incident.
12 Hamas terrorists were arrested in the overnight operation. There were no injuries among the IDF troops.
Earlier in the week, IDF troops shot and killed two Gaza Arabs who stood near a tank holding an anti-tank RPG missile. It was later found that the two were not terrorists, but rather were shepherds who had lifted the missile after finding it in their fields.
IDF commanders said the incident proved yet again that Hamas and other terrorist groups put Gaza civilians at risk, in this case, by leaving deadly weapons in a civilian area.
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