Israel
headlines tell a story. They tell you the news. But sometimes, they reveal some
underlying truths.
Return to
this blog every Tuesday and Friday after Noon. You’ll see a sampling of headlines
from Israel’s press—and some comments about those headlines.
Today’s headlines
come from November 5 - November 7, 2013.
The Arab-Israel
conflict
-Hamas to
Teach 'Resistance to Israel' in Gaza Schools
-Returning
PA Terrorists Guaranteed Incomes (up to 12k NIS/month)
-Netanyahu
Slams Palestinian Authority 'Intransigence'
-Peace talks
threatened by Palestinian incitement, Netanyahu tells Kerry
-Fatah
Gloats: Israel, Go Pray for Your Dead
-Poll: Most
Palestinians Predict Terror War
-MK Struck's
bus attacked by Molotov cocktails en route to Hebron
-Kerry: US
Sees Jewish Judea and Samaria as 'Illegitimate'
-Kerry
Threatens Israel with 'Third Intifada'
-Hamas: New
Terror War ‘A Matter of Time’
-PA
Officials Call for 'International Probe' into Arafat Death
-Arafat
polonium — junk science
-Expert:
Arafat poisoning reports 'completely fabricated'
-Terror
Shooting Near Modiin; None
America and Israel
-Young
Israel Pres.: America Hypocritical on Pollard
-Abbas
Accused of Contradicting Childhood Narrative
--Peace
talks blow up after teams swap accusations
-As talks
flounder, US to give $75 million more in aid to Palestinians
--Obama:
Bibi is a Pain in the...
-Kerry urges
Israeli settlement limits
--Report:
Obama Linking 'Peace Talks,' Iran
-Kerry
extends Mideast trip in effort to salvage peace talks
-Obama's
Public Approval Ratings Plunge Below 40%
-US ordered
to turn over Red Cross files on Gitmo
Iran
-IAEA Chief Not Sure Iran’s Nuke
Program Peaceful
-UN cannot
guarantee all Iranian nuke work peaceful
Life in
Israel
-OECD report says Israelis are
wealthy, but fearful
-Water
Authority Worried: Kinneret Too High
-Israel
faces water surplus
-Wix raises
$127m in Nasdaq IPO
-Israel at
OECD Conference Hopeful for Economic Future
-America
Movil makes strategic investment in Israel's Mobli
-El Al to
launch low-cost flights to Europe
-Israeli
water tech comes to rescue of EU farmers
-Israel’s
Applied CleanTech to Clean Up Netherlands
Israel politics
-Report:
Livni Offering Abbas More than PM Wants
-Lapid
freezes transfer of NIS 105m. to settlements
-Samaria:
Acts of Terror Outnumber Livni's "Advancement"
-Former
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Acquitted
--Gal-on:
A-G Weinstein should be probed for handling of Liberman case
-Call for
A-G to Resign after Lieberman Verdict
-With
Lieberman cleared, Netanyahu wins back his most stable partner
The war
against religion
-US
Ambassador Supports Challenge to Jewish Tradition
-Rabbis:
Women's Groups Pushing Out Religious Soldiers from IDF
-Hareidi,
Secular MKs Threaten 'Culture War'
Jews
around the world
-Two Muslim
Women Attack Jewish Man in Montreal
-Toronto
University Arrests Unruly Anti-Israel Students
-Pig’s head
left on doorstep of Ukrainian synagogue
-Boycott
Movement in Vancouver Against SodaStream
----
This news
cycle contains at least four news stories to talk about: Mahmoud Abbas tells
another fib; the religious in Israel are again taking fire from Jews who hate
Judaism; the United States again demonstrates its animus towards Israel; and the
PLO accuses Israel of killing Yasser Arafat in 2004.
The Abbas
story did not make waves in Israel. Only one media outlet ran it. But it’s
still important because Abbas has been selling the world the fiction that Israel
started the 1948 War by forcefully exiling Arabs who lived in Israel. Abbas most
recently repeated this canard last year at the United Nations, where he
declared that Arabs in Tzefat [Sefad] “were uprooted and thrown into exile” by
Jews in 1948. But the media-watch group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has
discovered that Abbas has unwittingly revealed that the Arab narrative of Jews
deliberately ‘exiling’ Arabs from Tzefat was a lie. Abbas is quoted as telling
an Arab TV interviewer, “The [Arab] Liberation Army retreated from the city [of
Tzefat], causing the people to begin emigrating. In Tzefat, just like Hebron,
people were afraid that the Jews would take revenge for the [Arab] massacre [of
Jews] in 1929... The people were overcome with fear, and it caused the people
to leave the city in a disorderly way."
That’s
interesting: for decades, Jewish and non-Jewish haters of Israel have claimed
repeatedly that, in 1948, Jews expelled Arabs from Israeli cities as part of an
organized government effort to expel Arabs from Israel. Tzefat was supposed to
be one of those cities. Now Abbas himself admits that Arabs left Tzefat of
their own accord.
This may
seem like a little point. But when Abbas stands before the world at the United
Nations and demonizes Israel with lies in order to plead for statehood, why should
we remain silent? We must make sure the world sees how Abbas builds his case for
statehood upon lies and misrepresentations.
If we remain
silent, Abbas will define the terms of Arab-Israel relations. That’s not in
Israel’s best interest.
This week,
Israel’s anti-religious Left attacked religious Jews on two fronts. First, the
Left wanted to see severe—even criminal—charges filed against Haredi (ultra-religious
Jews) who do not enter the army. Second, Leftist women’s groups in the IDF
continue to push against religious men in the IDF. Their complaint appears to
be that it is religious soldiers who are taking opportunity away from women.
The religious are loading up Officer Training Programs (recent Training classes
have averaged close to 40 per cent religious); and religious soldiers are
volunteering at an above-average rate for combat assignment.
That’s a threat.
Apparently, these women don’t want religious officers—or religious Jews in
combat.
They want equality.
They want women officers and women in combat.
There’s just
one problem with that: a study (which the army doesn’t like to talk about)
shows that women who enter combat training become severely injured at an
above-average rate. They drop out of training. This leaves their assigned
combat units understaffed; and that hurts IDF battle-preparedness.
Is this how these women want the IDF to face
its enemies, with undermanned units?
These
Leftists don’t care. They want women officers and women in combat—and they appear
intent on harassing the religious until they win.
With Jews
like these in Israel, who needs enemies?
The third
story in this news cycle may have a very short shelf life—or spark a wave of
terror against Jews in Israel. This is the story of how Yasser Arafat died in
2004. In 2012, Arabs claimed that a substance called polonium-210 was found on
the clothing Arafat wore just before he died. ‘Scientists’ were asked to
confirm this. They have now supposedly confirmed that Arafat’s body contained perhaps
20 times what might be expected to be found. The PLO has called for an
international investigation: someone, they say, killed their beloved leader—and
the prime suspect, they claim, is Israel.
In this news
cycle, the peace talks appeared near collapse even before the Arafat story
broke. US Secretary of State John Kerry (and his US masters) have therefore taken
several steps to keep the peace-momentum going: (1) Kerry declared that any
Jewish presence in Judea-Samaria is illegitimate;(2) Kerry announced that the PA will receive an
additional 75 million dollars; (3) President Obama linked the Arab-Israel
‘peace talks’ with Iran talks, suggesting that Israel needs to ‘make progress’ with
Abbas so that the Iranian nuclear ‘problem’
can be solved (suggesting that an American failure to deal with Iran will be
Israel’s fault); (4), Kerry suggested in an Israel TV interview that, if peace
talks failed, Israel will face intense world-wide isolation—and a third
intifada; and (5) an announcement “suddenly” appeared in the press that a new
American book about President Barak Obama has come out in which Obama is quoted
as saying, about Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ‘he’s a pain in the
as*.
These
remarks send four messages: first, the Americans can no longer speak civilly about
Israel; second, the Americans reject all of Israel’s suspicions about a
so-called ‘peace’; third, the Americans have pre-judged who will be responsible
for the talks’ failure; and fourth, the Americans are signalling how all should
respond to the talks’ failure: isolate Israel and start a terror war against
Israel.
Israel’s
leaders believe that America is our friend. Well, with a ‘friend’ like this,
who needs enemies?
In Israel,
meanwhile, business grows, another Israeli company has gone public on the
American NASDAQ exchange, and Israeli technology makes a hit outside Israel. Israel—perhaps
unique in the Middle East—appears to have a water surplus; and the
Israeli economy gets praise at a meeting of the OECD. This is the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development. It’s a prestigious club that’s
limited to the 34 most Developed Nations in the world.
Israel is a
member of that club.
Of all the
news we saw this news cycle, were these four story-lines truly the most
important? You’ll have to wait for more news to find out.
Stay tuned.
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