Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Sunday, 31 December 2017
Spotlight: Tennis star Dudi Sela honored as Israel’s best of 2017
Israel’s Number 1 tennis player, Dudi Sela..
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Shabbat law continues to create conflict for the Israeli PM
Shabbat continues to cast a pall over the coalition, with the government currently experiencing severe difficulties in mustering enough votes to pass a law banning businesses from opening on the day of rest.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Party hardy: Revelers brave Times Square on a frigid New Year's Eve
NEW YORK – New York’s Times Square was filling up on Sunday as hordes of hardy revelers, undeterred by bitter cold and an unprecedented security operation, maneuvered for prime spots to view the giant New Year’s Eve ball drop at midnight.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
North Korea's Kim says US will never start war against North
SEOUL – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Monday that the United States will never be able to start a war against North Korea now that his country has developed the capability to hit all of the US mainland with its nuclear weapons.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Five British among dead in Sydney New Year's Eve seaplane crash
MELBOURNE- Five of six people killed when a seaplane crashed during a 20- minute joy ride in Sydney on New Year’s Eve were British nationals, including an 11-year-old girl, authorities said.
Detective Superintendent Mark Hutchings, from the New South Wales Police, identified the tourists as Richard Cousins, 58, Emma Bowden, 48, Heather Bowden, 11, Edward Cousins, 23, and William Cousins, 25.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Israel extends Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar's detention without trial to 1 year
Israel last week extended the administrative detention of Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar by a further six months, meaning she…
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Economists expect higher inflation and a stronger shekel for Israel in 2018
Economists on the whole are predicting that 2018 will see higher inflation in Israel along with a strengthening shekel, according…
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Tzipi Livni testing waters to break up Zionist Union, run separately in next election
Tzipi Livni, the head of the Hatnuah party, one of the components of the Zionist…
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Watch-Thousands-gather-for-Priestly-Blessing-at-Western-Wall-486896
Report: Israel's ultra-Orthodox are getting better educated
Sports shorts: In-form yellow-and-blue visits Sakhnin
Maccabi Tel Aviv looks to keep pace with the Premier League leaders by registering its third straight win when it visits Bnei Sakhnin on Monday night, equaling its longest streak of the campaign so far.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
Population and Immigration Authority: Zero ‘infiltrators’ entered in 2017
Amid ongoing legislation to forcefully deport tens of thousands of African refugees to Rwanda, the Population and Migration Authority on Sunday released a report claiming no “infiltrators” entered Israel in 2017.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
Haredi population tops one million
The number of Haredim in the country reached one million in 2017, representing 12 percent of the population and rising.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
At least 12 die in plane crash in Costa Rica
SAN JOSE – A plane crashed in Costa Rica on Sunday killing at least 12 people, most of them foreign tourists, the country’s security ministry said.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
Liverpool car park blaze destroys hundreds of vehicles on New Year's Eve
LIVERPOOL – Firefighters in the northern English city of Liverpool were battling a huge fire at a car park on Sunday that destroyed hundreds of vehicles and prompted the evacuation of multiple buildings in the surrounding area.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
Three reasons Israel doesn’t want a war in Gaza right now – and, yes, Iran is one
The Israeli statements about the stability of the Israel Defense…
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
New laws should also consider settlers in West Bank, says Israeli attorney general
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit on Sunday circulated new guidelines to his deputies, stating that all government-sponsored…
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
Lawmakers vote to maintain secrecy of oil pipeline that once linked Israel with Iran
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee voted on Sunday to extend the order banning publication of information on the operations of the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company for five more years, allowing the company to continue operating secretly.
The Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co (EAPC) was a joint venture set up between Israel and Iran in 1968 to transport Iranian oil via Israel to the Mediterranean. Ties were cut after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, and the enemies are now locked in arbitration that could be worth billions of dollars.
The committee also voted to expand the order to the company that will replace the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company when its franchise ends in September – the Europe Asia Pipeline Company. The order states that releasing information about the activities of the pipeline company is an espionage offense punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment.
Last summer, following a petition to the High Court of Justice by the Union for Environmental Defense, the state decided that environmental groups, planning and building bodies and business-licensing agencies would not be subject to the ban. This decision was made after an oil spill from the company’s pipeline that resulted in serious damage to the En Evrona Nature Reserve in the Arava in 2014.
The Eilat Ashkelon Oil Pipeline franchise ended in March after 49 years and it was decided that a new company, called the Europe Asia Pipeline Co, begin operations and take over the former EAPC in September.
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Thank you,
This email address has already registered for this newsletter.
Close
The government first published the original secrecy order in 1968, a few months after the pipeline began to operate. According to the order: “Any information involving the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline, including investments in the pipeline itself, investments involving its operations, work on the pipeline, sources of the fuel and its uses, including sale of the fuel to foreign elements, is declared a secret matter.” The finance minister at the time appointed the chief military censor as the official who can decide whether to allow publication of matters associated with the pipeline.
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee voted unanimously on Sunday to establish a new sub-committee that will decide whether to approve extending the order. The members of the subcommittee are MKs Avi Dichter (Likud), Moti Yogev (Habayit Hayehudi) and Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid). The three lawmakers examined the confidential material and they in turn voted unanimously to extend the order. People present at the meeting said that none of the MKs on the committee criticized the extension of the secrecy order or opposed the measure in the initial discussion.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
Cousin of Ahed Tamimi filmed slapping soldiers indicted for assault
The IDF filed an indictment on Sunday against Nur Tamimi, 20, on charges of aggravated assault on a solider and interfering with a soldier in carrying out his duties. She was filmed slapping a soldier together with her cousin, 16-year-old cousin Ahed Tamimi, two weeks ago in the West Bank village of Nebi Salah.
Nur Tamimi was initially arrested together with Ahed and Ahed’s mother Nuriman, who filmed the incident and posted it on Facebook. On Thursday, the military court ordered Nur released and extended the detention of Ahed and Nuriman. However, the court delayed Nur’s release until Sunday to allow the military prosecution to appeal the release.
Nur is the only one of the three to whom the army does not attribute previous acts of violence.
According to the indictment, the soldiers Nur Tamimi attacked had come to an area near the homes of residents of Nebi Salah after Palestinians had thrown stones toward a road traveled by Israeli vehicles. According to the indictment: “A captain, a staff sergeant and a number of other soldiers came near the homes of village residents to stop those who were disturbing the peace, who had taken up positions in an area with a good view near them, and from there were throwing stones and rolling burning tires onto the main road.” The soldiers arrived, according to the indictment, “to reduce the risk to human life.”
The military prosecution noted in the indictment that after the soldiers arrived, Nur and Ahed Tamimi began to attack them, while Ahed’s mother, Nuriman Tamimi, filmed them. “At this point, live feed began from the Facebook page belonging to Nuriman Tamimi, bearing her name, documenting the incident and distributing it widely.
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Thank you,
This email address has already registered for this newsletter.
Close
“The accused and Ahed stood very, very close to the captain and the staff sergeant and began to attack the soldiers,” the indictment stated, adding that the soldiers “responded with restraint” while Nur and Ahed continued to kick them.
Nur Tamimi’s attorney, Gaby Lasky, told Haaretz on Sunday that she had not yet seen the indictment, nor had she been informed it had been served. “On Thursday, they decided to release Nur, and then came the delay to allow an appeal to be filed. They didn’t file an appeal and they were to have released today. At 12:30 P.M. I get a text that they intend to indict her. I didn’t receive the indictment or a summons to court. At 4:30 P.M. [the prosecution] calls me from the courtroom and says that Nur is already in the courtroom. They didn’t think it was important to summon the other sideInstead of releasing her they held a hearing without summoning us. The court sent us a ruling and extended Nur’s detention by 24 hours,” Lasky said.
The video clip shows Ahed Tamimi slapping a soldiers and trying to kick him, to provoke a response. After the first soldier she harassed did not respond violently, Ahed Tamimi kicked him and slapped him. After that she approached the second soldier standing nearby and tried to strike him as well. Then Nur joined in and pushed the soldiers, while Ahed continued to attack them. The two soldiers did not respond, either by striking them or chasing them away. Ahed Tamimi was arrested the following day and her mother was arrested when she went to the police station to find out what was happening with her daughter.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Hadar-Goldins-mother-slams-UN-for-brutal-silence-on-sons-kidnapping-519794
Hamas calls US ambassador 'racist,’ says all ties should be cut with DC
The Palestinians should cut off all ties with the United States because of “racist” and “ignorant” comments US Ambassador David Friedman made to The Jerusalem Post last week, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said on Saturday.
Friedman, a driving force behind US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy there from Tel Aviv, told the Post that while the Palestinians’ angry reaction was expected, “We were disappointed with some of the rhetoric, which was ugly, needlessly provocative and antisemitic.”
“As we go forward,” he added, “this has to change.”
Barhoum said that Friedman’s statements reflected “the ambassador’s racism, ignorance and contempt for Palestinian rights and international law. He is affirming, in this policy, that they are partners to the occupation in all of its crimes against our people and its holy sites.”
According to the Hamas spokesman, the statements “are sufficient to justify an official Palestinian declaration of cutting ties with the American administration and ending Oslo.” He said the time has come to end the Oslo process, which, he said, “has led to the relinquishment of Palestinian rights and reinforcement of the Israeli occupation.”
The is not the first time that the Palestinians have lambasted Friedman. For instance, in September, the Palestinians were furious when Friedman said in another interview that the settlements are “only occupying 2% of the West Bank,” and that he sees the settlements as as part of Israel.
Nabil Shaath, a senior advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas, called Friedman at the time “this alleged ambassador of the United States” and said he “has absolute ignorance of facts of law of the position of the United States.”
Adam Rasgon contributed to this report.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Sylvester Night is not a holiday
Israelis call the night that ushers in the civil new year “Sylvester”. This is the name commonly used in German speaking countries as well as in Poland instead of “New Year’s Eve”, so that it is probably safe to assume that the Catholic name took hold due to early waves of European immigration to Israel.
Growing up in my parents’ home in the immigrant neighborhhood of the lower East Side of New York, “Sylvester Nacht” was something akin to the night Niagara Falls froze over and the resultant eerie silence awakened people for miles around. Our house was silent on that night and not because of the carol by that name.
My father’s alarm clock woke us at 4 a.m. every day. He rose at that unearthly hour to sit in the kitchen with a faint light glowing and a cup of hot, strong black coffee in front of him studying Talmud to the traditional singsong chant before he went to synagogue prayers (shacharit) and then work (we snuggled happily under the covers, knowing that he would bring fresh, crusty rolls home first). My father, who came home from work every evening, went to synagogue for maariv prayers, had his dinner, and then sat bent over his Talmud until almost midnight —did not study Torah on “Sylvester” night.
He did not allow us to study Torah either. He explained that this was a silent night, made so by the Eastern European Jews who lived in fear of the yearly pogroms that accompanied the ushering in of the what is the civil new year today. This evening was, once the calendar settled on December 25th as Christmas, calculated to be the night preceding the circumcision of the child born in the “little town of Bethlehem”, therefore a call for the local peasants to engage in drinking, making merry and killing Jews.
Darkness along with the silence before a storm reigned in Jewish shteitls (small villages) that night in an attempt to make it harder to find defenseless victims, barricaded behind the flimsy doors of their huts. Torah study, which was done by the light of candles, was thus impossible.
As opposed to random pogroms and other manifestations of Jew hatred, this was a predictable yearly date.
Torah study that night eventually became forbidden, in memory of the horrors perpetrated on that evening, the same way Torah study is prohibited in a house of mourning and on the Ninth of Av when the Holy Temple was destroyed. Certain Hassidic sects, among them Satmar, refrain from Torah study on the eve of January 6 for the same reason to this day, a vestige of the fluctuations in the Gregorian Calendar.
A “Yerushalmi”, i.e. someone who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem before the State of Israel was declared, once told me that in this part of the world they would barricade their doors on Easter Sunday, knowing that the traditional Christian procession would often end in rioting against the local Jews. Communal Jewish history is made up of commandments, holidays and customs, but also of this type of memory.
It is jarring to hear the term “Sylvester” used casually by the media in Israel and to see the advertisments in Hebrew newspapers and on internet sites for parties and gala celebrations that usher in the civil new year on “Sylvester Nacht”.
Sylvester was Pope from January 31, 314 C.E. to December 31, 335 C.E. His Saint’s Day is the day he was buried, and it falls on December 31 of every year, that is since the civil solar calendar was straightened out (the Jewish calendar is a lunar one).
Not much is really known about him, but he presided over the Catholic Church during an important period in its history. He is thought to have been instrumental in the process that led to the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity, certainly nothing to celebrate for Jews.
Subsequent Jewish history did not turn this day into one that should be celebrated by Jews. An historical overview of New Year’s Day from a back issue of News and World Report makes me almost wonder if the writer spoke to my late father before writing his article. It reads:
“On New Years Day 1577 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory Catholic conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night services. On New Years Day 1578 Gregory signed into law a tax forcing Jews to pay for the support of a ‘House of Conversion’ to convert Jews to Christianity. On New Years 1581 Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community. Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign.
“Throughout the medieval and post-medieval periods, January 1 – supposedly the day on which Jesus’ circumcision initiated the reign of Christianity and the death of Judaism – was reserved for anti-Jewish activities: synagogue and book burnings, public tortures, and simple murder.
“The Israeli term for New Year’s night celebrations, Sylvester, was the name of the ‘Saint’ and Roman Pope who reigned during the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.). The year before the Council of Nicaea convened, Sylvester is said to have convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in Jerusalem. At the Council of Nicaea, Sylvester arranged for the passage of a host of viciously anti-Semitic legislation. All Catholic Saints’ are awarded a day on which Christians celebrate and pay tribute to that Saint’s memory. December 31 is Saint Sylvester Day – hence celebrations on the night of December 31 are dedicated to Sylvester’s memory.”
Unwittingly, Israelis who party and Jews who stand in Times Square and celebrate in other places in the world watching the civil year come in, are doing the same. I preferred the silence in my childhood home.
(Note: The eve of December 25th, Nittel Nacht, is also a night traditionally without Torah study, but since Jews have no temptation to celebrate that night and this article is intended to explain why the eve of December 31 is no a time to attend parties, it is not discussed here.)
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Knesset to vote on bill to allow separating neighborhoods from Jerusalem
The Knesset plenum is planned to vote on Monday in the second and third readings for an amendment to Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, that will raise the number of MKs needed to give up Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem to 80 MKs, while also allowing the redrawing of the boundaries of the city.
The bill will essentially allow the creating of a new municipal entity for the neighborhoods behind the security barrier, and open the door to a plan advanced by Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Ze’ev Elkin that intends to do so.
While the plan has not yet been fully revealed, Elkin told The Jerusalem Post in an interview in November that Jerusalem neighborhoods that are located behind the security barrier that was constructed last decade will be cut off from the capital and a new local municipal entity will be established for them. He also said that in the first stages, a committee appointed by the Interior Ministry will govern it.
This body will govern the northern area, which consists of Kafr Akab and the surrounding neighborhoods, as well as the northeastern area, which consists of the Shuafat refugee camp and surrounding neighborhoods, the eastern area of Sawahra and a-Sheikh Sa’ad, and parts of the southern village of Walaja.
Many of the residents of these districts are originally from the Old City and surrounding neighborhoods, but due to a lack of legal municipal building planning, they moved into the area where the municipality doesn’t routinely oversee construction.
Elkin said that this plan intends to combat what he sees as a “demographic challenge” to the Jewish majority in the capital. He said that because the neighborhoods are wide open to the West Bank, Palestinians are settling in them, marrying the locals, and increasing the Arab population in Jerusalem.
“We are facing a ticking demographic time bomb,” Elkin said. “Because we have neighborhoods here in which both residents of Jerusalem [Israeli ID holders] and West Bank Palestinians live, we see a phenomenon in which people from these two groups marry, and their children are then entitled to receive an Israeli ID,” he said.
Discussing the Knesset vote, Mounir “Abu Ashraf” Zghayer, head of the local residents’ committee of Kafr Akab, told the Post on Sunday that such a move will cause a mass migration from these neighborhoods back into Jerusalem’s inner city.
“They will all return inside the city,” he said. “We will have Muslim countries such as Turkey that will be funding building licenses in the city so people could stay. There will not be even one small hole where people could live in east Jerusalem that will not be populated.”
While the plans do not maintain that Israeli IDs will be revoked from citizens, Zghayer said that many are afraid that this is just another step toward it. Residents are concerned that they will be no longer able to work in Israel and that they will be prevented from accessing al-Aksa Mosque.
This bill, submitted by MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli (Bayit Yehudi) was pushed and endorsed by her party leader Naftali Bennett.
Right-wing city councilman Arieh King told the Post that he is ashamed of Bayit Yehudi MKs for advancing a bill that will essentially allow separating parts of Jerusalem.
“It will allow dividing Jerusalem with no referendum. It will allow handing away neighborhoods in Jerusalem… like they are just a simple real-estate piece, and not a part of the Holy City of Jerusalem,” he said.
“I wonder how [Agriculture Minister] Uri Ariel and [MK] Bezalel Smotrich (two representatives of the right-wing Tekuma faction) are staying in such a party that for the first time is taking a step toward actually dividing Jerusalem,” he added.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
The sweet story behind ‘The Cakemaker’
Ofir Raul Graizer, the writer/director of the acclaimed new drama The Cakemaker, passes a case of tempting pastries at the cafe in the Jerusalem Theater, and is flattered when I tell him that none of them look half as good as the black forest cake that is a key part of his movie.
Graizer, who lives in Berlin, is back in his native Israel to promote the movie, which combines his passions for Jerusalem and baking in a drama of love, loss and betrayal. The movie, which is in theaters now throughout Israel, has won awards all over the world, including the Lia van Leer Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival last summer.
It tells the story of Oren (Roy Miller), an Israeli man who goes to Berlin for work and falls in love with a young man, Thomas (Tim Kalkhof), who works in a bakery – and who makes the most appetizing-looking black forest cake ever photographed. But Oren has a wife, Anat (Sarah Adler), and child in Jerusalem who know nothing about his secret life in Berlin. After Oren is killed in an accident, Thomas comes to Jerusalem and gets a job in the cafe that Anat runs. It’s winter and Thomas warms up the cafe by baking the cakes that Oren loved, which revitalize Anat’s business. Meanwhile he and Anat develop a close but unpredictable and unconventional relationship.
It’s an unusual story and Graizer is an unusual director. He grew up in Ra’anana, the son of two accountants, a father of Polish descent who was from a religious family and a Greek-Italian-Bulgarian mother, who was secular. He grew up on early Spielberg films, horror movies and Fellini classics. Graizer studied film at Sapir College in Sderot and he was something of a wunderkind there: a short film he made his first year, Prayer in January, and his graduation film, Dor, were shown at festivals around the world and won many prizes. His 2015 short film La Discotheque premiered at Cannes in the Director’s Fortnight.
For years he has divided his time between Israel (usually Jerusalem) and Berlin, where he lives with his husband and teaches cooking when he’s not working on movies.
The idea for The Cakemaker, his first feature film, came to him when he heard that someone he knew, who had a wife and three children, “was having affairs with men, and nobody knew about it. She didn’t find out about it until he died, and I got the idea to make a film about this. I thought about this woman, she has to mourn, but you can’t really mourn if you have to be angry at the same time… I thought of the perspective of the lover, too. He has a different kind of grief. I thought, I’ll put them in the kitchen together and see what happens.”
The image of Thomas “baking alone at night, the magical act of baking which can have so many meanings,” was especially evocative.
The presence of a German in a Jerusalem restaurant kitchen brings out all kinds of conflicts, notably on the religious front, as Oren’s brother-in-law (Zohar Shtrauss), who is religious, worries that the cafe’s kosher certification will be revoked if Thomas bakes there.
In spite of all the tensions in Jerusalem, Graizer loves this city.
“It’s my favorite city in the country… The way I experience the diversity, complexity and tension of the city is like a family gathering.”
As someone who loves food and cooking, Jerusalem “is the best place to cook and eat. There is an amazing variety of ingredients and a thousand different cultures. In Mahane Yehuda, you’ve got everything.”
It was his dream to make a film set in Jerusalem, but realizing his vision took him on a long journey. The Jerusalem Film Fund was the first to give him financing, but many other organizations and film funds initially turned him down. Undeterred, he starting filming with the film only partly financed, shooting as many as eight scenes a day. But the pace enhanced the film. “We had to shoot so fast, it added to the tension of Thomas’ character… this was the reality. You take this German guy, you throw him in Jerusalem, you throw him in the kitchen, and he has to work.”
Eventually, other funding came through, and he was able to finish the film.
The Cakemaker will be opening in the Czech Republic, the US, Canada, Korea, Chile, Taiwan and Uruguay, among other places, and Graizer can’t help but notice the irony: “When I was looking for financing, nobody wanted to fund it, and now that it’s finished, everyone wants it.”
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Likud vote for West Bank sovereignty 'does not obligate' Netanyahu
More than 1000 Likud central committee members voted unanimously Sunday night to endorse exercising Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria in a meeting at Avenue Hall in Airport City.
Organizers of the event said the decision obligated all the Likud’s current ministers and Knesset members. But a source close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was noticeably absent from the event, told The Jerusalem Post exclusively that the decision “does not obligate him at all.”
The decision was considered a victory for Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett, whose party champions immediately exercising sovereignty over Area C, the parts of the West Bank that are under full Israeli control. But Likud leaders said no one could take credit away from their party.
“The time has come to express our Biblical right to the land,” said Netanyahu’s number two in Likud, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. “There are those who say it was their idea. But I presented a bill to exercise sovereignty five or six years ago. The decision belongs to the leadership of the Likud.”
Erdan said Israel cannot miss the opportunity of having in the White House US president Donald Trump, who Erdan said does not believe settlers are an obstacle to peace. He downplayed the role of the overwhelming majority of the rest of the international community.
“We are telling the world that it doesn’t matter what the nations of the world say,” Erdan told the crowd. “We must recognize this sovereignty. We have an ethical right and a moral obligation to give equal rights to the half million Israelis living legally in Judea and Samaria.”
Netanyahu’s previous number two in Likud, former minister Gideon Sa’ar, clarified that the decision that passed does not apply to the Palestinian Authority or areas populated by Palestinians but only the Jews living in Judea and Samaria. The decision does not call for annexation, which would mean that Israel would control all of the land and all of its residents.
“In the jubilee year since the liberation of Judea and Samaria, including our eternal capital Jerusalem, the Likud central committee calls upon the elected officials of the Likud to work toward free construction and application of Israeli law and sovereignty in all liberated areas of settlement in Judea and Samaria,” the decision said.
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, who lived in Gush Etzion in Judea for many years, explained that in the current situation, Jews who live over the Green Line do not receive the same privileges as their counterparts in pre-1967 Israel.
“We can no longer accept that our friends in Gush Etion, Shilo, Ariel and Maale Adumim will be second class citizens,” Edelstein said. “The time has come for building in all of the land. The time has come for proper infrastructure. The time has come for sovereignty.”
The central committee was convened after party activists Shevah Stern and Natan Engelsman drafted the signatures of more than 900 central committee members requesting the meeting. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said credit for the central committee’s decision belonged to Women For Israel’s Tomorrow heads Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover, who persuaded nearly the entire Likud faction that the time for sovereignty had come.
Ma’ale Adumim mayor Benny Kashriel called upon the members of Knesset to pass the sovereignty bill in the Knesset immediately, while Trump was president.
“If we don’t do it now, when will we be able to?” he said.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog responded that the central committee’s decision harmed Israel’s interests, and Netanyahu knew it.
“Netanyahu was too scared to come to his party and tell them the truth,” Herzog said. “That is the difference between a leader and a politician.”
Peace Now accused the Likud of “becoming a marionette controlled by Bennett.”
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
At least one dead, several injured in Colorado shooting
At least one officer was killed and “multiple” sheriff’s deputies were injured on Sunday morning after responding to a report of a domestic disturbance near Denver, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said.
The office also tweeted that the suspect was shot and believed dead, and was no longer considered a threat.
The injured deputies were responding to a call of shots fired in a residential area in Douglas County, about 10 miles south of Denver, around 6 a.m. local time. At least one deputy was injured, said Jason Blanchard, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office.
For the full story, click here.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Health basket recommendations okayed
The National Health Council on Sunday approved recommendations for expanding the basket of health services provided by the public health funds for 2018. Such approval of the health basket committee’s recommendations is pro forma.
The NIS 460m. in medical technologies were presented by committee chairman Prof. Ronni Gamzu. The council also approved the addition of NIS 40m. to increase basic dental-care coverage for those up to the age of 16, instead of the 15-year cutoff that was in effect in 2017.
The Health Ministry said 140,000 more children will now be entitled to free or subsidized basic dental services. Of the 2.4 million children who were eligible in 2016, just 700,000 took advantage of the dental treatment at their health fund clinics or affiliated facilities during that year.
The Health Council called on the government to increase future annual additions to the basket and to set a fixed annual percentage incremental rise. This has long been opposed by the Finance Ministry, which determines the increase each year.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Rouhani: Iranians have right to protest but must avoid violence
LONDON – President Hassan Rouhani, giving his first public reaction to four days of anti-government protests, said on Sunday Iranians had the right to protest and criticize the authorities but their actions should not lead to violence or damage public property.
“People are absolutely free to criticize the government and protest but their protests should be in such a way as to improve the situation in the country and their life,” Rouhani was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as telling the cabinet.
“Criticism is different from violence and damaging public properties.”
Anti-government protesters demonstrated on Sunday in defiance of a warning by the authorities of a tough crackdown, extending for a fourth day one of the most audacious challenges to the clerical leadership since pro-reform unrest in 2009.
Tens of thousands of people have protested across the country since Thursday against the Islamic Republic’s unelected clerical elite and Iranian foreign policy in the region. They have also chanted slogans in support of political prisoners.
“Resolving the problems is not easy and would take time. The government and people should help each other to resolve the issues,” Rouhani said, according to IRNA.
Rouhani also rebuffed US President Donald Trump’s comments in support of the protests.
“This man in America who is sympathizing today with our people has forgotten that he called the Iranian nation terrorists a few months ago. This man who is against the Iranian nation to his core has no right to sympathize with Iranians,” Rouhani said.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Trump, Republican allies endorse Iranian protesters
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers offered implicit support on Sunday to tens of thousands of Iranians protesting against the Islamic Republic’s unelected clerical elite and Iranian foreign policy in the Middle East.
“Big protests in Iran,” Trump said in a tweet from his private club in Palm Beach, Florida. “The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism.
“Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!”
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement: “The Iranian government is being tested by its own citizens. We pray that freedom and human rights will carry the day.”
The protests, which initially focused on economic hardships but now include anti-government messages, appeared to resume for a fourth day on Sunday despite Tehran’s warnings of a crackdown and restrictions on messaging apps used by the demonstrators.
The protests are the biggest since unrest in 2009 that followed the disputed re-election of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Senior US Republican senator: 'Let Mr. Mueller do his job'
WASHINGTON – The special counsel investigation of links between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 election campaign should continue without interference in 2018, despite calls from some Trump administration allies and Republican lawmakers to shut it down, a prominent Republican senator said on Sunday.
Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate armed forces and judiciary committees, said Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller needs to carry on with his Russia investigation without political interference.
“This investigation will go forward. It will be an investigation conducted without political influence,” Graham said on CBS’s Face the Nation news program.
“And we all need to let Mr. Mueller do his job. I think he’s the right guy at the right time.”
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
What could doom Iran's leaders to follow Egypt into the abyss
Donald Trump has every reason to be gleeful about the protests that have erupted in…
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
American Jews: Ahed Tamimi is your issue, too
Dear fellow American progressive Jews,
I am sorry to hear that the setbacks of 2017 have disappointed you, not least the attitude of Israel’s prime minister towards you. Well, OK, not so much. Your previous comfort level with current-day Israel was troubling, and I am relieved for anything that loosens its grip.
You may refrain from mentioning Israel in your synagogues because you find it divisive, but you are not thereby excused from responsibility. The unmentioned rifts fester, they do not heal.
Your patient political deliberation would be solely your business if the net effect were neutral. However, the passage of time is not neutral. It embeds the status quo. It normalizes a violence that must not be allowed to feel normal.
How many settlers occupied the West Bank when you first felt queasy, and how many more live there now? How many Gazan babies have been born behind walls – condemned before birth – since you decided that justice within the Green Line should come first?
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Thank you,
This email address has already registered for this newsletter.
Close
Since Trump unilaterally handed over a city that does not belong to him, you’ve gone even quieter.
You waved an egalitarian banner so vigorously to demand justice in front of one wall this year, and I am aggrieved and indignant with you on that prayer plaza.
Then a Gazan double amputee waved a flag before another wall. He was unarmed, far away from well-armed Israeli soldiers. When he was targeted, shot and killed by an IDF sniper, did your sense of justice join him on that field?
He was one of a dozen killed in these protests so far. Ahed Tamimi is in military custody at the age of 16 years, and her 14-year-old cousin, comatose after being shot in the face; they are among an unconscionable number of child victims.
This violence is too debased. You are not immune to other suffering, so how can you be a spectator at the suffering inflicted in your name? How can you not weigh in, with your numbers and your influence and your organizations, to arrest this accumulation of new pain, and bring peace one step closer?
Did you think you are not implicated? When an intersection of protest against the occupation embraced Palestinians and a number of young Jews, did you think they wouldn’t point at the left side of the tent?
This ‘tent’ of the American Jewish liberal conscience and community – it is an echo chamber, whose establishment sounds as scripted as their Palestinian counterparts. Worse for you, as thinking progressives, the gatekeepers of the tent regulate what should be your personal, unflinching, full-frontal encounter with power and powerlessness.
It’s past time to disintermediate the old gatekeepers, as a hopeful number of mostly-young Jews and Palestinians are doing. They are walking out. Will you?
Make 2018 your breakout year of primary sources. Here are four that help me.
Listen directly to the Palestinian voices of the new generation. Because you cannot meet them in person, make an extra effort to hear the musicians of Gaza, watch the dancers, visit the virtual art gallery, read their writing of their own stories, hire a freelancer. Let their whole humanity make demands upon yours.
Study the Jewish primary sources. Unshroud our 6000-year-old religion from a 60-year-old policy. Wrestle with the grammar and the poetry of Biblical Hebrew to read the assignment of the Prophets.
Read the arguments. From the hilltops to the intersections, seek out your most thoughtful and ardent opponents. Debate them in substance rather than caricature.
Read about human rights and international law. Adopt the frameworks that humanize, protect, and hold our two peoples responsible. That’s the tent to dwell in.
Dear fellow Jewish progressives, there is no tame space left for this humming and hawing that Trump was, well, unfortunate but, um, still sort of right because of the, you know, facts on the ground, and the UN – OK, kind of the whole world – is just anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and anyway, they’ve always been unreasonable about Jerusalem…
The next facts on the ground to be validated will be the settlements, you know that, right? Next Year in Ramallah, in time for Trump’s Congressional elections?
Injustice is happening in your name.
So, please, make yourself uncomfortable in 2018. Study the primary source material, and take a side. Find your piece of it, and act.
Marilyn Garson worked nearly two decades with communities affected by conflict, including 2011 – 2015 in the Gaza Strip. She writes from New Zealand, and her blog is Transforming Gaza. Twitter: @skinonbothsides
Article source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-says-it-will-push-Jewish-nation-state-bill-for-first-vote-soon-518338
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)