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1. Knesset Passes Referendum Law With Large Majority
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu and Elad Benari
The Knesset passed on Monday evening the bill that would require a
referendum before any land officially under Israeli sovereignty is
surrendered, specifically the Golan Heights and Jerusalejm. 65 MKs
voted in favor of the bill while 33 opposed it.
Labor ministers Ehud Barak, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Isaac Herzog, and
Avishay Braverman did not participate in the vote. However, two other
members of the Labor Party, Minister Shalom Simchon and Deputy Minister
Matan Vilnai were present and voted in favor of the referendum.
Prior to the vote, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office rejected
the idea that the referendum law would hurt the chances for peace
negotiations between Israel and its neighbors.
"A referendum prevents an irresponsible agreement and on the other hand
makes it possible to achieve a strong public backing for an agreement
that will respond to Israel's national interests," said Netanyahu.
A recently-passed law already
required an absolute majority of 61 Knesset Members before any of the
Golan could be handed over to Syria, which has been demanding the entire
Golan Heights. A referendum would place a major obstacle if any
government were able to win a majority in the Knesset for giving up the
area and its rich water resources.
The referendum bill also covers United Jerusalem and the rest of
Israel except for Judea and Samaria which officially are under military
control.
Earlier on Monday Kadima leader Tzipi Livni made a U-turn on the bill
the party once backed. The Kadima leader said her opposition to the
Golan referendum bill is based on a principle that the Knesset, and not
the general public, should have the final say on legislature. However,
despite Kadima's decision to oppose the referendum bill, two of its
members, MKs Otniel Schneller and Eli Aflalo, voted in favor of the
referendum.
Consistent with her previous attacks on Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, Livni said that he is a ”weak prime minister. This has
nothing to do with left or right, but with decision-making in this
democracy. There is one referendum, and that's general elections, and
the prime minister must say the same thing before and after the
elections."
Her move to the left is surprising because Kadima formerly had
encouraged the bill, which would create a major obstacle to any future
effort to surrender any part of the Golan. However, her opposition is
consistent with an almost automatic disagreement with every policy
promoted by the prime minister and the Likud coalition.
MK Livni lost a bitter contest to form the current coalition two years
ago. She has claimed she should be heading the government because her
party won one more seat than the Likud in the winter 2009 elections.
However, she was not able to win over Yisrael Beiteinu, headed by
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and Shas, leaving her with minority
support that did not enable her to form a coalition.
2. ‘US-Trained Armed Forces Turning PA into Police State’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The United States may have created a Frankenstein in the Palestinian Authority, which human rights groups fear is using U.S.-trained forces to build a police state.
“I feel real concern that we are reaching the level of a police state,”
according to Ramallah-based human rights group director Shawan Jabarin,
quoted by the Financial Times.
The United States has taken pride in its training PA ”policemen,”
avoiding use of the words "armed forces" in order not to violate Oslo
agreements. General Keith Dayton, who recently stepped down as director
of the training program in the PA, has said the forces have been
instrumental in eliminating Arab terror.
However, most of the terrorists and their supporters who have been
arrested belong to Hamas, which threw its bitter rival Fatah out of Gaza
in a bloody military war more than three years ago.
The Financial Times noted that PA politician Badr Abu Ayyash was
arrested in September by the “Preventive Security Unit,” which allegedly
tortured him to the point that he can hardly walk today. Other
prisoners were quoted as saying that Hamas members are routinely beaten
and tortured.
Human Rights Watch last month stated that “reports of torture by
Palestinian security forces keep rolling in.” Randa Siniora, the
director of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights,
told the Times, “We are looking at a very gloomy situation. I am afraid
that this will become systematic.”
The anti-Hamas actions may prevent inroads by fundamentalist Muslim
members of Hamas, but European countries, which generously fund the
Palestinian Authority, have openly questioned whether their contribution
justifies the PA becoming a police state.
The U.S. State Department five years ago encouraged the PA to establish
democratic elections for the first time. However, then-Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice was shocked to discover that Hamas won the
legislature.
Since then, no general legislative elections have been held, and PA
Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas continues to serve beyond his
expired term, leaving the PA without any signs of the democracy that the United States introduced.
Ahmed Salhab, who said he was tortured in a PA prison, told the Times,
“I had to eat lying on my back. I had to pray on my back and other
inmates had to carry me to the toilet. I never broke the law. In the
past, nobody would have believed that the PA would torture its own
people. But now everybody knows that they do not respect human rights.”
Hamas charged on Monday that continuing arrests of its members in Judea
and Samaria “are poisoning the atmosphere. A statement from its
Damascus headquarters stated, “More than 50 armed men of the security
services of the Palestinian Authority on Sunday night raided the home of
MP Fathi al-Qarawi, arrested one of his sons and confiscated
computers." It also charged that a preacher was “kidnapped” from her
home in Shechem.
3. British MP Says Israel is 'Cause of Terrorism'
by Elad Benari
A controversial British politician has accused Israel of being the
“cause of terrorism” and has said that the West's treatment of Muslims
was caused by what she called “Holocaust guilt” and the “power of the
pro-Israel lobby”.
According to a report published in the European Jewish Press website,
Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Jenny Tonge made the comments in the
British House of Lords on Friday during the Strategic Defence and
Security Review, which defines how the British government is to handle
the priorities identified in its national security strategy.
“The treatment of Palestinians by Israel is held up as an example of
how the West treats Muslims and is at the root cause of terrorism
worldwide,” said Tonge. “Even Tony Blair has now admitted this publicly.
Why do we let it continue? Is it Holocaust guilt? We should be guilty
-- of course we should. Is it the power of the pro-Israel lobby here and
in the USA? I do not know.”
Tonge also said that she feels “sorry for the people of Israel”, since
as she put it “their government's policies have made that country the
cause of a lot of the world's problems, yet now they are seen as the
remedy and the base for the West to fight back.”
This is not the first time that Tonge has made statements against Israel. In 2004, she said that she would consider becoming a suicide bomber
if she were an Arab living in the Palestinian Authority. She originally
made the remarks before a pro-Palestinian group, but later told Sky
News that she stands by her words. “I think if I had to live in that
situation -- and I say that advisedly -- I might just consider becoming
one [a suicide terrorist] myself,” she said.
In 2006 Tonge said that “the pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the
western world, its financial grips. I think they've probably got a grip
on our party.”
This past February, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg sacked Tonge
from her position as the party's spokeswoman on health after she
suggested that an inquiry should be established regarding the accuracy
of allegations of organ harvesting by IDF medical teams at the scene of
the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Clegg said the comments were “wrong,
distasteful and provocative” before dismissing her from her post.
In response to her latest anti-Israel comments, Jon Benjamin, head of
the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BOD), was quoted in European
Jewish Press as saying: “Baroness Tonge has once again used language
that has crossed every red line that her party colleagues have tried to
lay down for her.”
The Jewish Chronicle reported on Tonge’s latest remarks and noted that
they came only two days after Clegg admitted that Israel’s voice had not
been well enough represented within the party.
During a conversation with the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel,
Clegg had said: “Israel’s right to thrive in peace and security is
non-negotiable for Liberal Democrats. No other country so continually
has its right to exist called into question as does Israel, and that is
intolerable.”
A spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party told The Jewish Chronicle
that Tonge’s comments did not reflect the views of the party.
4. Iran Suspends Nuclear Enrichment; Stuxnet Virus Suspected
by Gil Ronen
Major technical problems in Iran's nuclear program have forced the
temporary shutdown of thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium at
Iran's Natanz plant, diplomats told The Associated Press on Monday.
The diplomats said the problems have caused Iranian experts to “briefly power down” the machines they use for enrichment.
The sources said they did not have further details but suspicions
focused on the Stuxnet worm, the computer virus which has recently
plagued Iran's nuclear program, and is believed by many observers to
have been unleashed by the US or Israel.
Experts said last week that the Stuxnet worm was designed to destroy centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control.
“There have been hints that the program is beset by technical
problems,” AP reported. “Even a brief shutdown of the thousands of
enriching machines would be the strongest documentation to date that the
program – Iran's nuclear cornerstone and a source of national pride –
is in trouble.”
Experts said that Stuxnet is believed to be able to send centrifuge
speeds up to above-normal levels – up to 1,410 cycles per second – and
then suddenly cause the speeds to drop to 2 cycles per second, thus
“disrupting their operations and destroying some in the process.”
Another official cited a Western intelligence report suggesting that
Stuxnet had “infected the control system of Iran's Bushehr reactor and
would be activated once the Russian-built reactor goes on line in a few
months.” The virus would then interfere with control of "basic
parameters" such as temperature and pressure control as well as neutron
flow, he told the news agency. This could result in the meltdown of the
reactor.
Stagnation
Iranian enrichment capacity has “stagnated” in recent years, the news
agency reported, and hundreds of centrifuges have been taken off line
over the past 18 months. A UN official described as close to the
International Atomic Energy Agency said a complete stop in Iran's
centrifuge operation would be "unprecedented to his knowledge” but would
not discuss specifics. AP also spoke to two senior diplomats from IAEA
member countries who confirmed the incident at Natanz.
The IAEA is about to issue a confidential update on Iran's nuclear
program to its 35-nation board. Three weeks later, talks will resume
between Iran and the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.
Iran has yet to acknowledge that it suspects Israel in the sabotage of
its nuclear system's computers. However, if it turns out that Israel has
indeed taken control of Iranian centrifuges by means of the Stuxnet
virus, this should not come as a surprise to Iranian strongman Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, who has often repeated the anti-Semitic slur that Jews
control the world.
"A small handful of Zionists, with a very intricate organization, has
taken over the power centers of the world,” the diminutive dictator said
in 2008. “According to our estimates, the main cadre of the Zionists
consists of 2,000 individuals at most, and they have another 8,000
activists.”
5. British Muslim Schools Teach Saudi Hatred of Jews and Israelis
by Chana Ya'ar
A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news program, Panorama,
reported Monday night that children in Britain are being taught in a
Saudi national curriculum on the weekends to hate Jews, Israelis and
homosexuals.
The textbooks being used to teach some 5,000 Muslim children Shari'a
law in 40 weekend schools are reportedly using the Saudi Arabia national
curriculum. According to the segment "British Schools Muslim Rules,"
children as young as six years old are being taught that those who do
not believe in Islam die in “hellfire.”
Students are asked by one of the textbooks to list the “reprehensible” qualities of Jews, the program reports.
The same law teaches 15-year-olds that convicted thieves should be
punished by having their hands cut off on the first offense. The second
time around, their feet should be cut off, according to the text used in
the schools. The books also advocate the execution of homosexuals.
Other materials in the textbooks include content claiming that some
Jews are transformed into pigs and apes, and that Zionists want to
establish world domination by Jews.
British Education Minister Michael Gove was quoted by the program as
saying that although he had no desire to interfere with Saudi Arabia as a
sovereign nation, the teaching of anti-Semitic material to children in
Britain was not acceptable.
The Saudi Ambassador to the UK responded to the program in writing,
saying the teachings were not endorsed by the Saudi embassy.
6. PA Declares Western Wall Was not Jewish’ until 16th Century AD
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Palestinian Authority’s rewriting of the Bible has reached a new
peak or – low – with a “scientific study” claiming that Jews did not
begin to claim a connection to the Western Wall (Kotel) until 500 years
ago.
The Western Wall, also known in pre-State times as the “Wailing Wall,”
is the outer wall of the Second Temple compound, the only
remaining structure from the compound, and has been a symbol of the
deepest connection between most of the Jewish world, both religious and
secular, and Judaism for two thousand years following the destruction
of the Second Temple on the 9th of the Jewish month of Av in 70 C.E.
From that date until the present, Jews came to mourn at the Wall,
including the Spanish Jewish poet and philosopher Yehudah Halevi who is
believed to have been killed while praying there in 1141.
However, “Jews did not worship at the Wailing Wall at any time until
the Balfour Declaration of 1917", according to a report on the “study”
posted by the PA Undersecretary of the Ministry of Information D.
Mutawakkil Taha.
Writing on the official PA website,
he added that the report quotes the “Jewish Encyclopedia, published in
1917” that “the Western Wall became part of the Jewish religious
tradition around the year 1520, as a result of Jewish immigration from
Spain, after the Ottoman conquest the year 1517... This was not part of
the wall of the so-called Jewish Temple.”
Jews do not claim the Wall is part of the Temple building, but of the compound surrounding it..
The Ministry of Information also stated that a basis for the study’s
denial of an ancient Jewish connection to the Western Wall is a Reform
Judaism leader's comment that “there is no sanctity to the Western Wall
in Judaism.”
The study also leans on one alleged opinion based on the “Biblical
Criticism” theory that regards the Bible as an historical document and
rejects much of 2,500 years of translations and interpretations by
revered rabbinic sages.
The report concludes that the “Occupying Power” of Israel has practiced
"racism" and has conducted “massacres against the Wailing Wall and the
Islamic and Christian sanctities.
“Nor can any Muslim or Arab or Palestinian, for whatever reason, give
up a single stone or piece of dust from the Wailing Wall or other holy
places, because that would be a concession on the Temple Mount,
Jerusalem and the holy sites.”
The PA report was published one day after the Palestinian Authority
castigated approval by the Israeli Cabinet for a multi-million dollar tourist center at the Western Wall area. The Palestinian Authority sad the plan was illegal because the area is claimed by the PA.
The Temple Mount site itself is the holiest site in Judaism, but the Arab world the past several years has conducted a campaign the past several years to deny Biblical accounts of the Jewish First and Second Temples.
The campaign also has included rewriting interpretations of the Bible,
claiming that the “Binding of Isaac” actually was the “binding of
Ishmael,” the forefather Abraham’s first son by the maidservant of his
wife Sarah, who later gave birth to Isaac.
Muslim clerics, despite protests by Israeli archaeologists, also have removed tons of debris from the Temple Mount area as part of an effort to eliminate any discoveries of remnants of the First and Second Temples.
7. Incoming MI Chief: Victory in Battle is the Test
by Gil Ronen
The IDF's new Head of Military Intelligence, Major-General Aviv
Kochavi, formally entered his new position Monday and was promoted from
the rank of brigadier-general.
In a ceremony honoring Kochavi and outgoing MI Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos
Yadlin, The IDF's Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi,
hailed Yadlin for being an honest person – “an essential trait for any
leader and commander, and even more so for the head of Military
Intelligence.”
He told Kochavi: "You embody the professionalism that the role
requires. You have the tools and the capacity for straightforward
thought that will enable you to carry on and lead the organization.”
Maj.-Gen. Kochavi vowed that he will “do everything in order to provide
the units with the necessary intelligence... and to make it possible
for decision-makers to make the right decisions. We should remember that
the supreme test is the test of the result on the field of battle, and
the ability to achieve victory.”
Kochavi was born in 1964. He served in various combat roles since his
conscription in 1982, mostly as a commander in the Paratrooper Brigade.
He commanded the Brigade during the 2003-2004 “Defensive Shield”
campaign and was Commander of Gaza Division during the 'Disengagement' –
the forcible eviction of thousands of Jews from their homes in the
Katif Bloc (Gush Katif).
Toasting the change (L-R): Lt.-Gen. Ashkenazi, Maj.-Gen. Kochavi, Maj.-Gen. Yadlin, Defense Minister Ehud Barak / IDF Spokesman's Unit
8. Threat Letters with White Powder Sent to Hareidi Leaders
by Gil Ronen
Four hareidi-religious politicians and two prominent hareidi rabbis
received identical letters containing threats, abusive language and
white powder on Sunday and Monday. The envelopes were handed over to the
police.
The first batch of letters arrived Sunday at the offices of Deputy
Prime Minister Eli Yishai (Shas), Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman
(United Torah Judaism) and MKs Moshe Gafni and Uri Makleb (UTJ). On
Monday, two more letters were received at the homes of Rabbi Menachem
Erstner in Bnei Brak and Rabbi Shalom Cohen. Rabbi Erstner heads the
Vizhnitz Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, and Rabbi Cohen is a member of Shas's
Council of Torah Sages.
The letters contain an anti-hareidi screed that proclaims:
"We, the enlightened residents of the State of Israel, demand that you,
the people of darkness, stop living at our expense, studying all day
without working, and refusing to serve in the army and do reserve duty.
The missives tell hareidis to "stop sucking our blood and living at our expense” and to “go back to Brooklyn.”
It also contains an explicit threat: “If you continue to extort funds
at our expense and that of our students and public culture, you will pay
a heavy price for this. We will start fighting you physically and not
just with demonstrations!... We will make your lives miserable! We will
attack you in your cities and neighborhoods!”
MK Menachem Eliezer Moses (UTJ) called on Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin Monday to help "tone down the hatred," as he put it.
In a letter to Rivlin, Moses wrote: "Recently a campaign of terror is
being conducted against the hareidi population and its institutions.
Almost every day we hear in both written and broadcast media about
attacks against hareidis on the streets, and about desecration of
synagogues and other religious institutions, for no apparent reason."
According to the Globes news site, the government's annual current
budget for yeshivas is 975 million NIS. About 100,000 students receive
monthly stipends of 475 to 855 shekels (between $130 and $240) per
month.
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