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| Monday, Apr 29 '13, Iyar 19, 5773 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1. Holocaust Survivor tells MKs, ‘Let Us Die with Dignity’
by Maayana Miskin 
The Knesset’s Labor, Health and Welfare Committee held a discussion Monday on the need to give more aid to Holocaust survivors in Israel. “We have to push this forward quickly, to ease Holocaust survivors’ lives while they are still with us. The problem is going away – in 15 years, there will not be anyone left to give to,” said committee head Haim Katz (Likud). Welfare Minister Meir Cohen agreed. “I’m amazed that nobody took charge of this issue… I’m prepared to take responsibility and to pursue the Finance Ministry to get the budget expanded,” he said. A 2007 report officially defined who is considered a Holocaust survivor, and called to both increase the number of survivors eligible for special assistance and to set a minimum level of aid that would guarantee survivors the ability to live with dignity. Katz said he would push legislation based on the report. Deputy Finance Minister Mickey Levy (Yesh Atid) said that Finance Minister Yair Lapid would be willing to expand the budget as needed. “When the needs have been defined we will find the necessary funds, despite the current financial hole. There is no one more willing to help than Finance Minister Lapid in this matter,” he said. Levy’s call to define survivors’ needs before creating a budget upset several of his listeners. Holocaust Survivors’ Welfare Fund head Avi Dichter said, “Eradicating poverty among Holocaust survivors is not complicated. We could postpone investments in infrastructure and in water treatment, because those can be fixed later. We won’t be able to make up for neglect of Holocaust survivors.” Holocaust survivor Dora Roth responded with outrage to Levy’s statements, “All this talk doesn’t interest us at all,” she said. “How can it be that there are Holocaust survivors living without heat? It’s a disgrace. Let us die with dignity.”
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2. Baby Adelle Suffered Direct Hit from Terrorist’s Rock
by Maayana Miskin 
An investigation has found that three-year-old Adelle Biton’s wounds were caused directly by a rock flung at her car, Channel 10 reports. Adelle, her mother and two sisters were all wounded several weeks ago when terrorists hurled heavy stones at their car as they drove in Samaria (Shomron). The rock attack caused a car crash, and it was initially believed that Adelle’s injuries, along with those of her mother and sisters, were a result of the crash. However, the investigation showed that Adelle was hit in the head by a stone the size of an adult man’s fist. The resulting head injury left Adelle in critical condition, and she has been comatose for the past six weeks. Adelle was two years old at the time of the attack. Last Thursday her family celebrated her third birthday at her bedside. One month ago it was reported that police and soldiers had arrested five Palestinian Authority teenagers, ages 16-17, who are suspected of having stoned the Biton family’s car. The five have confessed to the attack.
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3. Father of Boston Bomber Hospitalized, Preventing Departure to US
by Arutz Sheva staff 
The father of two brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon has been hospitalized, preventing his departure for the United States, he said Sunday. Anzor Tsarnaev told the Ria Novosti news agency he had left Makhachkala, capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan, for Moscow to catch a flight to the United States but had to be hospitalized due to a sudden rise in his blood pressure, the AFP news agency reported. "I am in hospital but not in Moscow," Tsarnaev said, refusing to state his location. "Due to the illness I've decided to put off for the moment my journey to the United States," he added. Tsarnaev had told a news conference on Thursday that he wanted to go to the United States "to clear everything up" after one of their sons was killed and the other injured and captured following the bombing of the Boston Marathon that killed three and injured 264, according to AFP. "I want to see my youngest son and bury my eldest," Tsarnaev said of Dzhokhar, 19, who has formally been charged with federal terror offences, and Tamerlan, 26, killed in a shootout after the April 15 bombings at the finishing line of the prestigious race. The parents of the two suspects spoke to reporters in Dagestan, where they were when the marathon bombings took place. Their mother Zubeidat, in a hugely emotional intervention, accused U.S. security services of needlessly killing her eldest son and tearfully expressed regret that the family ever moved to the United States. The parents have recently been living in Dagestan, an overwhelmingly Muslim region on the Caspian Sea where the family briefly stayed before leaving for the United States. Anzor is an ethnic Chechen born in Kyrgyzstan while Zubeidat is an ethnic Avar who hails from Dagestan itself. The brothers spent most of their youth in Kyrgyzstan before the family moved to Dagestan and then the United States. The surviving bombing suspect, Dzhokhar, is being held at a federal prison medical centre where he was transferred early Friday after spending several days in the same hospital as some of his alleged victims in Boston.
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4. 'Act Expeditiously to Totally Reverse Israel Academic Boycott'
by Arutz Sheva staff 
The American Jewish Committee has expressed outrage over the Association of Asian American Studies’ (AAAS) endorsement of an academic boycott against Israeli academic institutions. A resolution favoring the boycott was adopted at the national organization’s recent annual meeting, though only ten percent of the membership reportedly voted. “This pernicious resolution stands in stark contrast to the broader American academic community position opposing such boycotts,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “Moreover, this AAAS action will not bring closer Israeli-Palestinian peace. That can only be achieved through direct, bilateral negotiations, which the Palestinians have spurned for the past four years.” The American Association of University Professors has long opposed academic boycotts. Moreover, in 2007, more than 400 American college and university presidents signed a statement proclaiming such efforts “intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.” The AAAS resolution accuses Israeli academic institutions of being “complicit” in the “occupation” of and ”discrimination” against Arab students and scholars. The resolution also revealingly targets the United States, stressing that “the AAAS seeks to advance a critique of U.S. Empire, opposing U.S. military occupation in the Arab world.” “We call on responsible Asian American academics to urge the AAAS to move expeditiously to totally reverse this resolution,” Harris added. “The current resolution is counter-productive to the cause of Middle East peace, to freedom of expression and inquiry, and to dissemination of knowledge on American campuses.”
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5. Syrian PM 'Survives Damascus Car Bombing'
by Arutz Sheva staff 
Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi survived a bomb attack that targeted his convoy in central Damascus on Monday, according to media reports. The blast occurred in the Mazzeh district, state television said. Both Syrian state television and the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the incident. At least one person was killed in the attack, the observatory said. Syrian news agency Sana said the explosion hit near Ibn Rushed Park.
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6. Steinitz: Nuclear Iran is Like 30 Nuclear North Koreas
by Elad Benari 
International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz warned on Sunday that Iran having a nuclear weapon would be equal to “thirty nuclear North Koreas”. “We have the right and the ability to defend ourselves,” he said in a speech at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York. “The cooperation with the United States is very important but ultimately each country will make its own decisions on maintaining its security,” said Steinitz, stressing that “Israel can deal with any threat.” 80 years ago, said Steinitz, “only one person identified on time and warned the world against the rearmament of Nazi Germany. This was Winston Churchill, but people refused to listen. Some people even mocked him.” “We shouldn’t repeat the same mistake again,” he added, referring to Iran. “The Nazis spoke about the final solution of the Jews in Europe, and the Iranians are talking about destroying the Jewish State in the Middle East. We have to learn from history, even if it doesn’t repeat itself exactly, and if there’s a lesson to learn from history, it is not to repeat the same mistake again and not to allow, come what may, the nuclearization of Iran.” Referring to Syria, Steinitz rejected allegations that Israel asked the United States to take military action in the war torn country.. “We never asked and never encouraged the U.S. to take military action in Syria,” Steinitz told the conference, referring to reports that Israel has been pressuring the Obama administration to get involved in Syria, in the wake of the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. “It is up to the U.S. to decide its policy on Syria,” said Steinitz. “Of course, we exchange views with the U.S. about the situation; it’s a very complex and difficult issue." He emphasized that Israel will “do its utmost to prevent delivery” of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles to terrorist groups such as Hizbullah.
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7. Chief Rabbi: Equal Burden of Service? Nonsense
by Maayana Miskin 
Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the Chief Sephardi Rabbi of Israel, dismissed calls to require hareidi-religious men to enlist in the IDF in a talk Saturday night. Rabbi Amar spoke prior to the weekly Torah lecture given by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Rabbi Amar said that the issue of hareidi enlistment “is nothing more than the evil inclination, which has put a ruach shtut [lit. ‘spirit of nonsense’ – ed.] into some people.” “In our generation Torah is flowering like we have not seen for generations,“ he said. “The evil inclination saw this and was jealous, and went and put it in some people’s heads to fight against Torah.” “There has never been nonsense like this,” he said. “As if we have no issues, our society doesn’t have rich or poor, we’re all ‘fully equal.’ This is the only equality we lack, there are no enemies, we have made peace with them. The only enemy left is the yeshivas.” “There has been nothing like this before, this craziness… Due to our sins this spirit of nonsense entered some people,” he said. “Our redemption depends entirely on Torah,” he concluded.
Tags: Rabbi Shlomo Amar ,hareidi army recruitment ,Equal Burden of Service ,Torah students ,hareidi enlistment
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8. Shaked's Anti-Terrorist Bill Approved for Preliminary Vote
by Elad Benari 
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved on Sunday a bill by MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi), which would prevent terrorists from filing lawsuits against the State of Israel. The bill, introduced by Shaked in Feburay, will thwart any possibility that nationals from enemy countries could sue the State of Israel for damages. The bill has come to be known as the “Dirani Law,” named after Mustafa Dirani, a Hizbullah terrorist who held missing IAF navigator Ron Arad for several years and was believed to have information on what happened to him. Dirani was abducted by the IDF as a bargaining chip for Arad and was returned to Lebanon in 2004 as part of a swap with Hizbullah, in exchange for the bodies of three soldiers who were kidnapped near the Lebanese border in 2000 and abducted Israeli citizen Elchanan Tenenbaum. The moment he set foot back on Lebanese soil, Dirani announced that he was re-enlisting in Hizbullah to destroy Israel. He has filed a lawsuit against Israel, for damages he claims he suffered during his imprisonment. In July of 2011, the High Court of Israel allowed Dirani to sue Israel for 6 million shekels in damages, rejecting the State’s argument that the British law that prevents enemy aliens from suing the State in its own courts applies to the case. Israeli law, the judges said, “grants special status to the right to approach the courts and to a person’s basic right to protection of his body and dignity.” The purpose of Shaked’s bill is to change the existing law, which states that terrorists and nationals from enemy countries cannot sue Israel for acts that took place after 2000, but are still allowed to sue Israel for incidents that occurred before that. The “Dirani Law” will be brought to a vote in a preliminary reading in the Knesset this week. "The role of the legislature to enact clear rules that do not leave loopholes for interpretation,” said Shaked following Sunday’s discussion. “In no civilized country can nationals of an enemy state sue for damages, and here in Israel it should also not be possible to do so.”
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Wednesday, 1 May 2013
