 | | Finding Jobs for People Without Homes
Employment continues to be possibly the most acute problem facing the former population of Gush Katif - economically, socially, family-wise, and emotionally.
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More Details |  | | Editor: Hillel Fendel
Monday, November 28, 2005
26 Cheshvan 5766
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| | | 1. Finding Jobs for People Without Homes
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
Employment continues to be possibly the most acute problem facing the former population of Gush Katif - economically, socially, family-wise, and emotionally.
| Several factors contribute to the problem: Many of the expellees are aged 45-60 who now have to start new careers; most of them do not know where they will be living; and most of them have been occupied with expulsion-related problems such as helping their families cope, loss of income, no belongings, temporary residencies in hotels, planning for the future, maintaining community ties, and more.
Many of the people involved worked in Gush Katif-related jobs, such as in the local council offices and neighborhood stores. In Nitzan, the largest of the pre-fab sites set up for the homeless until permanent communities are built two years from now, the problem is particularly acute: Men and women who used to awaken early and eagerly for a full day's work in their fields or elsewhere now feel they have nothing for which to get up. Their lack of ability to support their families has lowered their self-esteem and weakened their family structure.
Avi Duan, formerly of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, founded the Placement Center for the expellees in the Ministry of Industry and Trade this past May. He told Arutz-7 that of the nearly 2,000 job-seeking expellees, some 300 are currently working, just over 200 are being re-trained, and another 120 are being given emotional, financial or vocational counseling.
Duan confirmed that the State deducts 30% of the unemployment payments for those in re-training courses, even though it was the State itself that caused them to be unemployed. "We are working on a proposal in the Knesset to exempt the [expellees] from this requirement," Duan said, "and it has already passed its first reading. We hope that it will be in place within a month."
Duan said that he works in cooperation with other organizations "such as L'maan Achai and Lev Echad, and with the volunteer employment center [JobKatif; see below]; this is an urgent problem, and whoever can help is welcome. In addition, we have to work with the leadership of the population, and we do so."
Seeking to speed up the pace of job-placement, the government implemented yet another approach yesterday. A new directive orders government companies seeking new employees to turn first to those expelled from their homes in Gush Katif and northern Shomron.
Expellees who possess the necessary qualifications will be given preference over other potential applicants. The administrator of the Government Corporations Authority will be required to file a monthly report with the Finance Minister, the Minister of Industry and Trade, and the ministerial disengagement committee regarding the number of refugees accepted for employment.
Another way expellees find new jobs is via a volunteer Hebrew website entitled JobKatif. Over 800 potential jobs are listed, available only for those who have previously registered - i.e., former residents of Gush Katif and northern Shomron. One page on the site includes links to 33 Israeli websites offering employment.
An English page is to be added shortly, on which English-speaking employers can list their jobs and attract employees.
The site and enterprise is run by Netta Shapira, Rabbi Yosef Rimon and David Porat. "In about two months of operation," Porat told Arutz-7 today, "we have found jobs for around 40-50 people - a very nice achievement, but not enough. Unemployment is problem #1 for the expellees, in Nitzan and wherever they are around the country. Some 80% of them are still out of work."
"We know that the expellees are high-quality people, and very productive, and we seek to find them jobs in a large variety of fields, making great efforts to find them jobs that match their abilities. We distributed forms to most of the expellees, in which they filled in their details and professional preferences. We have about 100 volunteers - we want to have about 100 more - and each one works with five families. The volunteers are trained to write resumes and to help the job-seeker present himself to the job market in the best way possible."
With some 1,700 expellees still seeking work, the difficulties of the Sharon Disengagement plan are still from solved.
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| | 2. Jenin Suspect Used Charity Money to Fund Families of Terrorists
|  | | By Debbie Berman
Jenin Hamas member Ahmed Saltana was charged Sunday with distributing monies collected through international charity groups to the families of Arab terrorists.
| Israeli defense officials say that Saltana’s arrest delivers a great blow to the existing terror infrastructure in Jenin.
Though arrested several months ago, Saltana's case was released for publication on Sunday. Saltana is accused of mis-using funds intended for the sick and poor. The Jenin Charity Funds Committee, headed by Saltana, was outlawed by IDF OC Central Command Yitzchak Eitan on June 30, 2002. Despite the efforts to shut it down, the committee continued to serve as a pipeline for the transfer of funds to terrorists' families.
The Jenin Charity Funds Committee collected some one million dollars annually in recent years. The funds were generated by various charity organizations, including International Human Appeal and Interpal based in England, CBSP and ABSPP based in France and Italy, and the Al-Aqsa organization with offices in Belgium, Germany, and Denmark. The money was distributed in monthly payments to families of suicide bombers, prisoners and Hamas terrorists as a means of rewarding them for their terrorist efforts.
The Jenin Charity Funds Committee allegedly doled out monies to family members of the suicide bomber who carried out the August, 2001 Sbarro restaurant bombing in Jerusalem. Fifteen people, including 7 children, were murdered in that attack. The IDF confiscated documentation showing monthly payments to the family of Hamas explosives expert Amaj Fiad, who was killed in an IDF counter-terror operation. Families of Hamas terrorists killed in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield were also beneficiaries of the funds.
The IDF, Shin Bet (General Security Service) and the Police International Investigations Branch coordinated a joint anti-terror operation that led to the arrest of Saltana several months ago. Saltana began working for the Hamas Charity Funds Committee in Jenin in the late 80’s and has headed the office since 1996. He previously served a three-year prison sentence for terrorist involvement.
Israeli defense officials see Saltana’s arrest and ultimate trial as a step that will cause significant damage to Hamas influence in Jenin by reducing the financial incentive among potential suicide bombers.
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| 3. Girls Still in Prison, Despite Supreme Court Order
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
Contrary to the best efforts - and orders - of Supreme Court Justice E. Rubenstein to free six girls from prison after two weeks, they have not yet been released.
| The girls, aged 14-16, are accused of ripping open bags of olives harvested by Arabs from Sinjil, near Shilo, and with fighting with policemen who came to arrest them. Officials of the Honenu legal rights organization, which is representing them, say the evidence against them is flimsy at best - but that in any event, their place is not in prison.
Honenu founder and chairman Shmuel Medad told Arutz-7, "No one saw these girls during the incident, and everything is based on the testimony of one or two Arabs... In addition, the court already ordered them released, and even then, they were re-arrested a day later once again."
After they were first arrested on Nov. 13, at least two judges ordered them released, but the police and State Prosecution, using various legal devices, continued to keep them in prison until Nov. 17. The next day, they were brought once again to court, where the judge acceded to a police request to keep them in prison until the end of the proceedings.
Despite the above, an earlier ruling by Jerusalem District Court Judge Yosef Shapira ordered the consideration of a form of house arrest for the six - but he set the date for the hearing only for Dec. 5. The girls therefore remained in prison.
At this point, Supreme Court Elyakim Justice Rubenstein [pictured] came to the rescue - or tried to. Atty. Naftali Wurtzberger of Honenu said that Rubenstein, in yesterday's hearing, decided to put aside the legal argumentation and concentrate on the "human problem" of the girls who "are sitting in jail while waiting for a report of alternatives."
Rubenstein set facts on the ground by ordering the girls freed to their home communities - though not their own homes. He said that they should be released that very evening, even before all the paperwork, including payment of guarantees and the like, was completed. He also asked the relevant authorities to "hurry" their report on an alternative form of restriction of the girls' movement, such as house arrest.
In the event, however, once again the legal system got the better of the judges, and the girls had still not been released as of this afternoon (Monday). The mother of one of the girls said, "I called the prison, and they said that they knew nothing of a release, and had heard nothing from any court. I feel that they are simply toying with me." She later called and found out that three of the girls had been kept in isolation until this morning.
The 16-year-old sister of one of the six is also in prison. She has been incarcerated for two months, charged with offenses related to protesting withdrawals from the Land of Israel. She refuses to agree to restrictions placed on her by a court that does not employ Jewish Law. Another of her sisters is to be married tomorrow night, and it is not clear whether she will be allowed to go to the wedding.
Another immediate problem she faces is that as of Saturday night, she has been in isolation - without even a mattress to sleep on. Her mother said, "Some girls stood outside the prison on Saturday night and called out to her and tried to encourage her, as they have been doing for several weeks. My daughter apparently called out her thanks and said she heard them - and then the jailers put her in isolation. From what the other girls report, it means that she doesn't even get a mattress. In addition, she hasn't called me, which to me is the clearest sign that she's in isolation."
Knesset Member Gila Finkelstein, who has helped out in similar situations before, has been approached regarding this problem.
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| | 4. Tree-Cutting "Libel" - Once Again, Jews Stand Accused
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
Once again, reports that Jewish settlers cut down Arab-owned olive trees are suspected to be a "left-wing provocation" against the Jews of Judea and Samaria.
| It was widely reported Sunday, in the name of Arab sources in the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, that Jewish settlers from the Shomron had chopped down 200 olive trees owned by Arabs. The Ynet site, for instance, wrote, "Palestinian sources reported that settlers from an outpost near Elon Moreh had cut down" the trees.
The reports were immediately followed by condemnations of the Jewish population in the Shomron and Israel's rule there. The extremist left-wing organization "Peace Now" released a statement saying that the incident was a direct result of the lack of law enforcement in the areas and the continuing "problem of the [Jewish] outposts."
However, the Yesha Council looked into the matter and said that though "we condemn all violence, including harming Palestinian property," it had found that the incident was apparently a provocation staged by extreme left-wing activists who "wish to sully their Jewish brothers, while at the same time extending their hand to terrorists."
The residents of Elon Moreh, in a statement, "wish to emphasize that we have no connection with this incident, which is based on the testimony of a single Arab."
A widely-published AP photo of an Arab woman weeping and embracing an allegedly chopped-down tree (similar photos were taken by Reuters, AFP, and others] shows that the trunk is intact, and that only the top branches are cut off - as if it had been purposely pruned. In fact, the Haifa-based Land of Israel Task Force says that this is exactly what happened.
"The left-wingers and Arabs pulled the same trick last year," Task Force head Aviad Visuly said, "and using the same method." Photos of the trees show that the branches were sawed off in a manner that is beneficial to the trees. "Why would vandals bother sawing off each individual branch? Wouldn't they just cut down the trunk?"
The branches begin growing back 2-3 months after they are cut, and grow to full size within two years. "In the meanwhile," Visuly said, "the orchard owners receive stipends from the Saudis, via the PA."
Visuly said that left-wing activists look for trees that have been pruned, and then blame the Jews for cutting them. "They have even admitted to the police that they do this," he said, "such as in the case of Ein Avus near Hawara [south of Shechem]. In that incident, they blamed the people of [nearby] Yitzhar, because Yitzhar was a convenient media target. Two Jews were arrested for five days and were then released with no charges whatsoever. Today, it's convenient for them to accuse the people of Elon Moreh. If the police had an investigator who was half-fair, he would throw the case out."
Two years ago, a similar story on Arutz-7 began as follows: "It led to anti-settler headlines, international embarrassment for the State of Israel, condemnations, and apologetics - and yet it all may have been one big bluff, or worse." At the time, international media reported as fact that Jews had destroyed the Arab trees, and President Katzav and Prime Minister Sharon issued statements implying that the Jews were responsible. Even the Yesha Council said that the tree-cutting had "defamed the entire sector of Jews living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza."
What went under-reported was that the police began to suspect that left-wing Israelis and Arabs were behind the incident. The police even asked Rabbi Arik Asherman of the Reform Movement and an Arab who filed charges against Jewish Yesha residents to submit to lie-detector tests - but it was reported at the time that the two had refused.
A Jewish National Fund expert brought in by the police concluded that no lasting damage was done to the trees, and that the tree-cutters did not "cut down" the trees, but rather "pruned" them.
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Click Here! | | 5. New Jordan Valley Community Still Waiting
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
The families of the former Gush Katif town of Shirat HaYam have moved to the Jordan Valley, but are still awaiting final approvals for the new community they are supposed to build.
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The community to be built is in a location called Maskiyot, near Shadmot Meholah in the Jordan Valley, south of the Kineret Sea. "The Prime Minister has given his approval in principle," Shirat HaYam's Yossi Hazut, head of the secretariat, "but practically, we still have to wait for other ministries and offices to approve."
In the meantime, ten of the families moved this past Thursday into the nearby vacation village Brosh HaBik'ah (Valley Pine). Another two families that joined Shirat HaYam in the final months before the expulsion, and another 8-9 families from elsewhere in Gush Katif, are also planning to join the group when it arrives in Maskiyot.
Maskiyot is to be an agricultural community, and in the meantime, the pioneers will seek employment as workers in other farming communities in the area.
photo above: Shirat HaYam on the day of its expulsion
The beachfront community of Shirat HaYam numbered over 30 families at the time of its destruction over three months ago, but almost half of these were newcomers who came to shore up the ranks in the weeks preceding the expulsion. They were originally taken to Kedumim on the day they were thrown out of their homes, and later moved to Alon Shvut, where lived until last week.
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| | 6. On A7 Radio: Live From Behind Bars!
|  | | A7 Radio's "The Activist Hour" with Avi Hyman
| Live From Behind Bars!
Daniel Pinner calls in live from Maasiyahu Prison where he has been held for the last six months. He was arrested after firing warning shots into the air when an Arab mob attacked him while walking his dog in Gush Katif.
Also: Fifteen years after an Al Qaeda sniper murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane, hear the rabbi's prophetic words in a speech entitled "Return to Zion," courtesy of http://kahane.hostultra.com.
Plus: Shifra Hoffman speaks of how Rabbi Kahane asked her to start the Shuva organization dedicated to Emergency Aliyah and the importance of this message today!
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*To download audio files, right-click and choose 'Save Target As'
For more A7 Radio visit www.IsraelNationalRadio.com.
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