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1. Israel Seeks US Support Against PA State Bid
by Hillel Fendel
The New York Times reports that the PA is increasingly considering abandoning negotiations with Israel and seeking international recognition of a PLO state instead.
Correspondent Ethan Bronner, whose son was drafted into the IDF earlier this year for 18 months of service, spoke with PLO officials Hanan Ashrawi and Hanna Amireh. They both implied that negotiations are not working for them, and that therefore they would have to try to get international bodies to intervene for them.
“If we cannot stop the settlements through the peace process,” Ashrawi said, “we have to go to the Security Council, the Human Rights Council and every international legal body.”
“We don’t have strong cards,” Amireh told Bronner from his Ramallah office, “but we want to convince the world to take a position and gain recognition of a Palestinian state.”
What the PA is Not Doing
The ongoing PA incitement against Israel on television and educational programs, its honoring of terrorists who had murdered Jews, its refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, its intransigence on border issues, and other issues were not mentioned in the article. Bronner wrote only that “The Israelis say that what is really going on is a Palestinian effort to secure a state without having to make the difficult decisions on the borders and settlements that negotiations would entail.”
It is noteworthy as well that when providing the background of the situation, Bronner wrote that the direct talks began in September, and added, “But a freeze on West Bank settlement construction by Israel ended four weeks later, and the Palestinians said they would not return to the table without an extension.” The article did not note that the freeze had been in effect for nine full months beforehand, for the express purpose of enticing the PA to negotiate.
As Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at the time, “For ten months we have been waiting for the Palestinians to please come to the negotiations. They come at the last month - that’s their problem.”
Israeli officials reject the PA bid to detour the negotiations as unacceptable and a violation of the 1993 Oslo accords that govern Israeli-Palestinian relations, the article states.
Israel is attempting to get the Obama Administration on its side in this issue. Abraham H. Foxman, the American national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Times, “This is part of the delegitimization campaign against Israel. The Obama administration needs to have the same public moxie on the declaration of a pre-emptive state as it has had on Israeli settlements. All the exit doors have to be closed for the Palestinians so they have no choice but to negotiate.”
Leading Implication
"The United States is pleading with the Palestinians not to give up hope,” the Times article reports, implying that Israel is the impediment to a successful negotiated solution.
2. 'Foreign Agent Registration' Law Passes Vote, Leftists Anxious
by Gil Ronen
The Knesset approved in the first reading Wednesday an Israeli version of the “Foreign Agent Registration Act” that requires non-governmental organizations to declare any money that they receive from foreign state entities. Ultra-leftist groups are very concerned by the bill, which would hamper the ability of groups supported by the European Union to operate freely without disclosing whom they are beholden to.
Twenty-three Knesset Members voted in favor of the bill and 12 opposed it. The bill now goes to the Law, Constitution and Justice Committee that will prepare it for the final readings.
The bill was proposed by Coalition Chairman MK Ze'ev Elkin (Likud). It is a watered-down version of his original bill, that would have taken away tax-exempt status from bodies that receive aid from foreign governments.
The bill in its current form requires a body that wishes to receive funds from a foreign government to register itself as a grantee of foreign funds with the registrar of non-profit organizations (NPOs, or 'amutot' in Hebrew).
Immediately upon receipt of a financial grant from a foreign state entity, the grantee must notify the registrar of the sum, its source and its purpose, as well as any commitments the body has given to the foreign entity.
If the grantee has an Internet website it must feature this information prominently upon it. The fact that the grantee received aid from a foreign state entity must also be featured clearly on any document it publishes pertaining to political activity. In addition, the grantee's representatives must state that the grantee receives foreign aid, in their opening remarks in any political debate or meeting that is relevant to the purpose for which the aid was given.
The explanatory notes to the bill clarify that it is intended to increase transparency with regard to the funding of political activity in Israel by foreign state entities. While NPOs are already required by law to declare aid they receive from foreign states, such foreign grants are also given to bodies that are not NPOs, and therefore are not currently required to report them. The NPOs, too, can circumvent the requirement by using a third body for transfer of the funds or by only reporting the aid after a long time has passed, when the report is no longer relevant.
In addition, the current law does not require a grantee of foreign state funds to state their status in its documents and in the political activities it takes part in.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a flagship grantee of the New Israel Fund, has been campaigning against the bill. ACRI claimed the bill was superfluous, but if the Knesset does decide it is necessary, the bill should force disclosure not just of grants from foreign state bodies, but also of grants from “an individual who is not an Israeli citizen, an Israeli citizen not residing permanently in Israel, or from any foreign corporation or other foreign legal entity.”
This, presumably, is an attempt to hamper the activity of nationalist groups that receive grants from Jews and other supporters who live abroad.
Journalist David Bedein, who has been lobbying for the bill for years, said it was “a great step forward.” He estimated that recent revelations by grassroots student organization Im Tirtzu about the New Israel Fund helped awaken Knesset members to the need for such a law. Bedein said that he had exposed, as early as 2001, that the EU was funding 40 radical groups within Israel.
The proposed law is based on the US's Foreign Agent Registration Act that was passed in 1938 to hamper the ability of Nazi Germany to use American groups in order to further its aims within the US.
3. 12 Wounded in Hamas 'Work Accident'
by Chana Ya'ar
More than a dozen people, including children, were wounded Wednesday by a Hamas “work accident” at one of the terrorist organization’s military bases, located in a crowded neighborhood in the southern Gaza border city of Rafiah.
Explosives often are detonated prematurely or accidentally while terrorists are setting up roadside bombs, suicide bomber belts and similar weapons.
Five children, three women and five other people were hurt in the blast, according to a statement by the group. Hamas was unwilling to explain the cause of the explosion, which the Associated Press reported appeared to be accidental.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said 58 people were wounded in a similar explosion that destroyed seven houses just two months ago.
The group has repeatedly issued public statements calling on Hamas, which rules the region with an iron fist, to store its explosives outside of civilian areas.
4. More Rabbis Join Call Not to Sell Land to Arabs
by Gil Ronen
Rabbis from the Our Land of Israel group have sounded their support for 18 rabbis from northern Israel who issued a call to Jews not to sell land to Arabs. Our Land of Israel has also requested that the Council of the Chief Rabbinate be convened to discuss the problem of “creeping conquest” by Arabs in mixed cities and formerly Jewish neighborhoods. This conquest, the group said, endangers security and increases intermarriage.
Jews who transgress this edict are desecrating G-d's name, they said.
The rabbis' letter also gives other reasons for refraining from selling to non-Jews. Among these is the concern that a Gentile neighbor might, in some cases, abuse the surrounding Jewish population. If a non-Jewish buyer bothers his neighbors, Jewish Law (as explained in the book 'Shulchan Aruch') says that the seller must do everything he can to remove the problem, even at a great cost.
Earlier in the week, 18 of Israel's leading northern rabbinic authorities issued a letter strictly prohibiting the sale or renting of land in Israel to a non-Jew. "In response to the many questions,” they announced, “we hereby respond that according to the Torah it is strictly forbidden to sell or rent land to a non-Jew in Israel."
The letter was signed by the Rabbi of Tzfat, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, and other rabbis from the northern part of Israel. Chabad.info noted that these include Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Wilshansky, Head of the Chabad Yeshiva of Tzfat, and Rabbi Mordechai Bistritzky, the rabbi of Tzfat's Chabad community.
Arab MK Hana Sweid (Hadash) responded to news of the rabbis' letter by calling for a reopening of an investigation against Rabbi Eliyahu on charges of racist incitement. Rabbi Eliyahu was the subject of a police investigation in the early 2000s after he said the Tzfat College should not allow Arab students on campus. He made the statement immediately after a horrifically murderous bus bombing in which a student from the college was complicit. The charges against him were canceled in 2006 after the rabbi agreed to issue clarifications to his statement.
5. Arutz Sheva Report Leads Court to Check Out False Arab Graves
by Elad Benari
The Jerusalem Magistrates Court held a discussion on Wednesday regarding the ancient Muslim cemetery in the city’s center. The Muslim Waqf had asked the court to force the Jerusalem Municipality to stop the actions it has taken to remove the false graves that had been planted in the area, in an attempt to add property to the cemetery..
The false graves had first been reported on exclusively by Arutz7 in August. The graves had been dug in the Mamilla Cemetery, an ancient Muslim cemetery which is located on the outskirts of Jerusalem's Independence Park. The cemetery had been in a state of severe disrepair for more than a century, despite being under the supervision of the Waqf. Recently, however, trucks, tractors and other heavy machines were spotted in action as they dumped building materials which workers then shaped into Muslim-style tombstones with no one buried beneath them. Dozens of these faux-graves were being created on the eastern end of the park. A visit to the cemetery by an Arutz7 reporter found approximately 100 such tombstones.
Following Arutz7’s report, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Lands Authority began removing the tombs. It was speculated that the false graves were part of a plan to have the Muslim Waqf submit a demand for the additional land to be placed under Muslim ownership.
Later it was reported that the same phenomenon was occurring in the area of the Eastern Wall in Jerusalem (adjacent to the Western Wall), with the Arabs simply ignoring a law that deems the area a national park.
The Jerusalem Municipality pointed out during Wednesday’s hearing that the cemetery in question is an ancient cemetery which is being maintained and restored by both the State of the Israel and the Municipality, using a budget that has been allocated by the state for this purpose. The Municipality added that all the graves that had been removed were not ancient, but rather new and fictitious ones, and that the removal work was supervised by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Israel Lands Administration, which owns the land.
According to the Municipality, a total of 300 false tombstones have been removed and it will continue to enforce the law to prevent any attempts at illegal building or attempts to take over public land.
“The Municipality will not allow the area to be invaded and as such acted to remove the false tombs in the cemetery. The Jerusalem Municipality wishes to stress that it preserves the ancient tombs in the cemetery.”
6. LA’s Israel Film Festival Celebrates 25 Years
by Elad Benari
One of the most famous Israeli film festivals that is held annually outside of Israel is marking its 25th anniversary this year: The Los Angeles Israel Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday and will run through November 7.
Although the festival began in Boston and quickly moved to New York, its real and most well-known home is Los Angeles. The moving force behind the festival is Meir Fenigstein, who is known in Israel as the drummer for the popular band Kaveret. Fenigstein founded the Israel Film Festival in 1982 as a four-day, six-film event.
"One thing led to another," Feingstein told Variety Online. "I didn't always know what I was doing. When I decided to do a festival, my motive was to produce something myself, to find what I was good at. From my days in the band, I knew I could organize things."
Fenigstein, who in 1982 was a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, visited Israel and spoke to an Israeli entertainment executive in the hopes to get him interested in creating an Israeli film festival in the US. "He said, 'Why don't you take more films and do a festival? Take me to Boston and I'll do your marketing and PR,'" Fenigstein told the Hollywood Reporter.
Today, the festival, which is intended to be a celebration of pure Israeli cinema, runs about 35 films of a variety of genres, including features and documentaries.
As Meyer Gottlieb, prexy of Samuel Goldwyn Films and an IFF board member told Variety: “The contributions are manifold," says, speaking about the fest's impact. "It showcases these films in the global arena of Hollywood, which is very important, offering an opportunity for Israeli filmmakers to show their works in a peer-to-peer situation.”
Filmmaker Avi Nesher, whose drama "The Matchmaker" opened this year’s festival and whose film “The Troupe” opened the first fesitval, met Fenigstein in the early 1980s in a New York coffee shop, and had doubts that he could pull this off.
"It's the grand American story, a man with a dream," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "This guy was a drummer in a rock band and he put the whole festival on by himself."
In addition to the celebration of Israeli cinema, honors will be bestowed on four greats in the film industry: Richard Dreyfus for his career achievement, founder and CEO of Relativity Media Ryan Kavanagh for film achievement, Jon Landau for his vision, and co-founder of Nu Image and Millennium FilmsAvi Lerner for lifetime achievement.
The festival will close on November 7 with two movies that were honored at this year's Israeli Film Academy Ophir Awards (the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars): “The Human Resources Manager,” a drama named best picture in Israel which has been selected as the Israeli entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, and “Precious Life” which won the Israeli Film Academy's award for best documentary.
As for Fenigstein, he plans to continue with the festival for many more years. "People ask me where I get the energy," he said. "But I'm as excited now as if it were the first one."
7. Ask the Rabbi: Should US Citizens in Israel Vote in USA?
by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed
Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, founder and Dean of Yeshivat Har Brachah in the Samaria (Shomron) community of the same name, is the author of a series of books on Jewish Law and thought, as well as a weekly column in B'Sheva. Here, he relates to the question of Israeli Jews voting in American elections.
Question:
We are immigrants to Israel from America. Should we make an effort to participate in the upcoming elections for the U.S. Senate and Congress if we want to strengthen candidates who oppose the policies of President Barak Obama? Is it ethical for us, who live in Israel, to vote according to the interests of Israel, when the elections mainly concern those living in America?
Rabbi Melamed's answer:
In practice, U.S. citizens throughout the world execute their right to vote according to their personal interests. Why, then, should the rights of Jews who immigrated to Israel be any different? It is well known that the Jews made great contributions in the fields of the arts, science, economy, and defense of America, and many U.S. immigrants to Israel still pay taxes on assets they possess there. Why should their rights be less than any other person holding U.S. citizenship?
America and Israel
Beyond this, as believers in G-d, we are sure that the support which America granted the Jewish exiles and the State of Israel is one of the significant accomplishments of that great country. As in the times of Cyrus, about whom it is written (Isaiah 44:28): "He is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure: and saying to Jerusalem, You shall be rebuilt; and to the Temple, your foundation shall be laid," so too, a number of outstanding Americans assisted the Jewish nation to return to its land and fulfill the vision of the Prophets – to plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria, to return sons to their borders, to build the desolate cities, and to fill them with “flocks of people.” And as it is written (Genesis 27:28): "Those who curse you are cursed, and those who bless you are blessed", America was blessed by helping the Jewish nation.
An Afro-American President: Tears of Excitement
When Barak Obama was elected President, I, along with many others, felt a spirit of rejoicing. Behold, in the country that, at its very beginning, enslaved Africans as servants against their will, an Afro-American, married to a woman descended from slaves, was voted by the majority of citizens of the world's most powerful country to its most esteemed office. I had tears in my eyes when I saw a picture of Afro-Americans standing upright on both sides of the avenue leading to the White House, gazing with pride at the new President, Barack Obama, as he went into the famous office.
What a wonderful victory for the spirit of a man who overcame all the obstacles in his path. Undeniably, friends warned: "This is a man who is hostile to the State of Israel." Nevertheless, there was hope that a man like him would also understand the Jewish nation, which granted the world the message of freedom and the foundations of morality, and concur that after 2,000 years of exile and suffering, it is fitting for the world to help the Jewish nation return to its land, as the word of G-d heard through the Prophets.
Regrettably, it has become clear that he is perhaps the most hostile U.S. President that Israel has ever faced.
Though the splendid idea remains, and the dream has not faded, its implementation by Barack Obama is a unacceptable.
"They Have Raised Their Hand against Jerusalem and the Land of Israel"
Instead of assisting the Jewish nation to build the Land of Israel, he began pressuring to freeze construction in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. The Prophet said (Zechariah 12): "The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel. The saying of the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him; Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the peoples round about" -- that is, anyone who passes the threshold of Jerusalem in order to harm her, will be punished. "And on that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples: all that burden themselves with it (attempt to transfer her to another nation) shall be grievously hurt... On that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem… and it shall come to pass on that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem."
And Zachariah continues (14): "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations who came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And whoever does not come up of all the families of the earth to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, upon them shall be no rain (economic blessing)…"
And lo and behold, precisely on the holiday of Sukkot, when the freeze on construction ended, instead of encouraging the Government of Israel to stop being negligent in building Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, Obama and his team of ministers and advisors pressured it to continue the freeze on building in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. What punishment will this bring on his country?
Responsibility
It is fitting for every American citizen who believes in G-d and His Prophets to vote for true friends of Israel, for people who believe that the entire Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish nation, as G-d promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – no matter what party they represent. And if there is no friend of Israel in that state, then one should vote for the candidate who will best hinder Barak Obama from exerting pressure on Israel.
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