 | | Peretz, Sharon Already on Collision Course
PM Sharon says he can't meet with new Labor head Amir Peretz before Thursday; Peretz threatens to quit the government as early as Wednesday - revealing extremist left-wing views in the process.
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More Details |  | | Editor: Hillel Fendel
Sunday, November 13, 2005
11 Cheshvan 5766
 |
| | | 1. Peretz, Sharon Already on Collision Course
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
PM Sharon says he can't meet with new Labor head Amir Peretz before Thursday; Peretz threatens to quit the government as early as Wednesday - revealing extremist left-wing views in the process.
| Peretz accused Sharon of "irresponsible behavior" by postponing their meeting from today (Sunday) until Thursday. Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon explained, however, that holding the meeting today was mentioned only in passing. "Sharon was one of the first to congratulate Peretz on his victory," Maimon said, "and he certainly cannot be accused of showing disdain for Peretz." But because of all the Rabin memorials and meetings with world leaders at the beginning of this week, Maimon explained, Sharon had no choice but to postpone the meeting. "With all due respect to politics, nothing will happen if Peretz waits until Thursday."
Peretz said that Sharon is merely trying to stall and buy time, "but the era of marathons has ended. I know these political tricks."
It is possible that the crisis between Peretz and Sharon over their meeting date will remain only on a personal level, however. Interior Minister Ophir Pines of Labor said it is not likely that his party will vote against the government in Wednesday's Knesset dissolution vote.
Commentators noted that Amir Peretz's bulldozer style, which helped propel him to the party leadership, may now face an iron wall as he proceeds to try to implement his policies. Almost all of the Labor Party's ministers and top MKs supported Shimon Peres and opposed Peretz in the recent race for party leader.
Peretz, speaking to the press last night and today, also revealed his post-election plans - including some extreme left-wing tilts: If Labor loses, "we will not join a Likud-led government, even if I am offered the position of Finance Minister." And if Labor wins, "I do not rule out the possibility of having Arab ministers in my government." Never before in Israel's history has an Arab party been part of the government.
Peretz explained that appointing Arab ministers would "reduce tensions in the country." Others see it as another step towards the abrogation of the United Nations Resolution of November 29, 1947 which called for the "establishment of an independent Jewish State in Palestine," and towards the Arab goal of turning Israel into a bi-national state.
Speaking at the official memorial rally for Yitzchak Rabin in Tel Aviv last night, Peretz said, "I have a dream. Between Sderot [where Peretz lives - ed.] and Beit Hanoun [a city just four kilometers away from where Kassam rockets are often launched], an industrial zone will be built, and our children will play with Palestinian children together. We will then be able to tell you, Yitzchak: Nirtzahta, aval nitzahta - You were murdered, but you won."
"The path of Oslo is alive and well," Peretz cried out, "and everyone knows that it is our hope for peace... We need today a moral Road Map - the protection of 'human worth' in Israel, the end of the conquest, and the signing of a permanent status agreement."
In response, Likud Knesset faction leader MK Gideon Saar said that Peretz's extremist positions have thus been revealed. "Peretz's declaration regarding his intention to form a coalition with the Arab anti-Zionist parties symbolizes the Zionist and moral bankruptcy of the Labor Party," Saar said.
It now appears that passing the budget for the year 2006, which was a top priority for the Sharon government, will be an impossibility for the coming future, and that the date of early elections has become the burning issue. Some have said that new elections could be held, following the toppling of the government or the dissolution of the Knesset, as early as this coming March.
Peretz said he had talked with National Religious Party chairman Zevulun Orlev and that the two will coordinate their moves regarding the latter's proposal to dissolve the Knesset. Orlev's proposal is scheduled to be voted on this Wednesday. A similar proposal by MK Yitzchak Levy of the National Union has been tabled, but Peretz has apparently not been in touch with him.
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| | 2. Atzmonah Takes Refusal in Stride, Wants to Build New Community
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
A proposal to move the 55 expelled families of Atzmonah currently living in Faith City encampment has been voted down - by 11 families of Kibbutz Shomriyah. The 55 say they'll build somewhere else.
| The government's Disengagement Ministerial Committee decided a few days ago to approve a project that would enable the Gush Katif expellees to establish new communities in the Lachish region, in the northern Negev bordering southwestern Judea.
One of the communities, however, was to be in Kibbutz Shomriyah - the youngest kibbutz in Israel, and a very unsuccessful one. It was founded in 1982 by the left-wing HaShomer HaTza'ir [Young Guard] movement. Of the 35 families living there in its heyday, only 11 remain. The government plan was to move the 55 Atzmonah families to the kibbutz, in place of the 11 families currently there. The latter were to be paid $300,000 each - but they demanded $500,000.
By a 17-5 vote (each family gets two votes), the kibbutz decided to reject the offer. The families of Atzmonah will therefore remain in their encampment, uncertain of their future.
This is not the final word, however. For one thing, the government is likely to increase its offer, leading to another vote in the kibbutz.
The families of Atzmonah are not holding their breath, though. They actually prefer to move to another area, just north of Shomriyah, where they will be able to start a new community from scratch. Resident Dudu Reish explained to Arutz-7:
"The name of the place is Mirsham, next to an Arab village of a similar name. It was supposed to be a Jewish settlement site some ten years ago, but never got off the ground, and we hope now to redeem it, and build it up."
Asked why the government would be willing to pay so much to the kibbutz families rather than have the Atzmonah families move into pre-fab housing like other expellees, Reish said, "We're not just talking about apartments, but rather about starting a new farming community, like we had in Atzmonah - with land, and infrastructures, and water, and hothouses, and a sapling nursery, and a dairy. This is a major undertaking."
Reish explained that he and his co-townsmen hope not to move to Shomriyah, "as we have no interest in causing, even indirectly, Jews to sell out their community in the Land of Israel... Ideally, we would love to help them [the people of Shomriyah] build up their kibbutz again - but that's not happening."
On his way to a meeting with government officials about Mirsham, Reish said,
"For some reason, they're telling us that it will take eight months to get it ready - but we have informed them that if work doesn't start within a week or two, enabling us to arrive there within three months, we'll simply move there ourselves! We'll take all our caravans and tents from Faith City and move them to the site. They say there's no water? We'll bring a water tower. They say there's no electricity? We'll bring a generator. The people of Atzmonah are used to building communities from scratch - but there's no reason to wait eight months! We had a traumatic experience, and now we have to repair the damage that was caused. The Land of Israel is waiting for us!"
The 55 families are actually closer to 70, Reish said, as some others are currently living in Yad Binyamin or other temporary housing sites. "Within a few years," he added with his trademark enthusiasm, "we expect to grow, with G-d's help, to 150-200 families, and turn this area into another flourishing community in the Land of Israel."
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Click Here! | | 3. Clinton, Peretz Speak at Rabin Memorial Rally
|  | | By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told crowds gathered at the annual Rabin memorial rally to stop memorializing and continue Rabin's policies.
| "There is enough of all this [expression of] missing," Clinton told participants of the 10th annual memorial at Rabin Square Saturday night. He said that if Yitzchak Rabin were present, he would tell them, "If you really think I lived a good life and if you think I made a noble sacrifice in death, for goodness take up my work and see it to the end."
Clinton hosted the signing of the Oslo Accords with the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chief Yassir Arafat on the White House lawn in September, 1993.
The crowd wildly applauded newly-elected Labor party chairman Amir Peretz who declared, "The way of Oslo is the way to peace."
Making his first major speech since his triumph over Shimon Peres Wednesday night, Peretz said the series of Oslo peace agreements, which Yitzchak Rabin pursued as Prime Minister, "lives in every corner and is our hope."
Peretz foresaw the days that "Arabs from Bet Hanoun [in northern Gaza] and Jews will play together" near the Negev city of Sderot, Peretz's home town. Scores of deadly rockets have been fired from Bet Hanoun at Israeli civilians in Sderot over the past few years. The last rocket landed near Sderot on Friday.
The crowd interrupted Peretz with applause when he said, "The land is full of violence. It is found among ourselves. We have not stopped the atmosphere of violence" which he said is caused by arresting Arabs in Judea and Samaria.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Likud) told the crowd, "I see the signs and slogans, but this is not a political rally." Several politicians and public figures have criticized the annual memorial for the assassinated Prime Minister as being too political.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said "tens of thousands" participated in the Saturday night rally. Israel's Ynet news site quoted a police source as saying 70,000 participated. Rally organizers claimed that the number was more than double the later police figure.
Earlier in the evening, former American President Bill Clinton told the Saban Forum on United States-Israel Dialogue that he believes Rabin's policies still represent "our best chance for a comprehensive and lasting peace."
The conference and dinner, for which people paid up to $100,000 to attend, was held at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Clinton told Israelis, "Do what Jews have done throughout history: Grieve, laugh, remember that God gives no guarantees, and get back to greening the desert of despair, one tree at a time."
In the framework of Rabin's Oslo Accords, Israel gave the PLO terrorist organization land, military autonomy, and permitted the issuance of tens of thousands of rifles to establish an Arab paramilitary police force which would protect Israeli civilians from terrorists.
In the ten years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, 1110 Israelis were murdered by Arab terrorists, far more than the ten years preceding. More than 10,000 Israelis were wounded.
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| | 4. PA Demands Polling Stations in Jerusalem
|  | | By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The PA is lobbying the U.S. to pressure Israel into allowing PA polling stations and campaigning in Jerusalem - enabling the Hamas terrorist organization to campaign in Israel's capital.
| Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz said the issue of how the PA's January elections will be conducted has not been discussed by the Israeli government, according to The Forward, a liberal New York Jewish daily. "We will formulate a position on the issue shortly, but what our position could be is obvious, given that we oppose Hamas participation in the elections," Mofaz said
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is claiming to American officials that Israel is not allowing unrestricted election participation by 120,000 non-Israelis who reside in the city. The PA wants to place polling stations in the city, a move which Israel fears would appear as a symbol of PA sovereignty over the capital.
In previous municipal elections, Israel unofficially allowed only limited campaigning, but the PA wants all candidates - including those of terrorist organizations - to be able to electioneer. Approving the demand would allow Hamas and other terrorist groups to place posters for their candidates.
Hind Khoury, the PA minister for Jerusalem affairs, was in Washington last week to lobby on the issue. "We hope that the United States will support the right of [Arab] Jerusalemites to practice democracy," she told the Forward.
The PA legislative elections are scheduled for late January. Hamas has announced it will field candidates. It support in polls has ranged from 20-25 percent.
"Israel may be faced with posters carrying Hamas' emblem and belligerent Hamas slogans in East Jerusalem," said Nathan Brown, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.
PA Arabs in Jerusalem voted at post offices in previous elections, an arrangement which the PA now rejects. Ammar Dweik, its chief electoral officer, argued that the post offices do not have the capacity to accommodate voters. "We think that more residents of Jerusalem will vote if they have easy access to polling stations," he said.
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Click Here! | | 5. Religious Schools to Strike for Two Hours
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
For the first time in history, the religious education system in Israel will initiate its own strike - for two hours - to protest the ruthless budget cuts of the past few years.
| Studies in yeshiva high schools, ulpanot (girls' high schools), and religious high schools all over the country will begin at 10 AM on Thursday, instead of at 8 AM.
The strike will not affect the hareidi-religious school systems.
The decision to close the schools was made by the Religious Education Task Force, headed by Yanki Friedman of the Noam-Tzivya Religious Education Network. Other members of the task force are Elchanan Glatt of the Yeshivot Bnei Akiva movement, Amit Network head Amnon Eldar, and representatives of principles of religious high schools around the country.
At issue are budget cuts totaling no less than 70% of the religious education budget over the past four years. The principals and yeshiva heads have warned at various emergency gatherings over the past several months that they cannot continue to operate the double-curricula of Jewish and general studies that characterize their institutions.
Though tuition costs have risen sharply as a result over the past few years, the principals say that they cannot continue to foist the financial burden upon the parents. "In the current situation," one strike-organizer said, "we cannot operate our institutions the way we have until now - and certainly not at the current level of Jewish studies and activities."
The organizers say that all their attempts to meet with Finance Minister Ehud Olmert have been unsuccessful.
Until now, during strikes called by teachers' unions, religious schools have always attempted not to cancel Torah studies, because of the sacred value in Jewish tradition of such learning. How to deal with this issue in the upcoming strike has still not been finalized. Friedman told Arutz-7 that a meeting on the issue with Rabbi Chaim Druckman and other leading rabbis would be held this evening. "One possibility is to have Torah studies at synagogues and other places near the schools," he said.
The option of holding the strike in the afternoon hours, when general studies are usually taught, has been ruled out for now because of logistical difficulties, Friedman said.
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| | 6. Egypt Arming PA; Minister Ramon: They Need Weapons
|  | | Egypt will soon deliver rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers to the Palestinian Authority.Minister Chaim Ramon (Labor): "They need weapons." PA police vow to use them only against Israel.
| "We have completed a study and we found that indeed the PA needs weapons," said Minister Without Portfolio Chaim Ramon (Labor). The first shipment of Kalachnikov (AK-47) assault rifles, pistols, grenades and launchers was delivered through the Rafiah crossing, according to Mideast Newsline.
The shipments come at the same time that PA police informed chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) that they would use their guns only against Israelis and collaborators.
Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz, one of several government officials who have opposed allowing increased arms shipments to the PA, has stated several times that the PA would have more than enough weapons if it would disarm Arab terrorists.
Earlier this month, Israel capitulated on the issue of Egypt's supplying ammunition to the PA - but insisted that the approval did not extend to additional weapons. "We have agreed to let Egypt provide the Palestinians with ammunition in the form of bullets, but not weapons, so that Mahmoud Abbas will not have any more excuses to hold back from attacking the terror infrastructure," a senior Israeli official was quoted recently by the French news service AFP.
The United States has supported the PA demand for light arms.
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| |
| 7. Rabbi Menachem Libman, 60
|  | | By Hillel Fendel
Rabbi Menachem Libman, 60, among the leading rabbis and educators in the religious-Zionist yeshiva community, died on Friday after a difficult illness.
| His funeral set off last night from the Merkaz HaRav Kook yeshiva to the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Libman, survived by his wife, children, brothers and sisters, was among the first to settle in newly liberated Hevron and Kiryat Arba in 1969. He moved several years ago with his family to Atzmona in Gush Katif, where he lived until the months before his death; his family was expelled under the recent Disengagement Plan.
Of late, he lived in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem, where devoted students would often visit him for Sabbath-ending Melaveh Malkah meals. At times, he was to weak to meet with more than one or two students at a time.
Rabbi Libman taught at many leading yeshivot, including the recently displaced Torat HaChaim, which was thrown out of N'vei Dekalim and is now in Yad Binyamin. He was widely regarded as a tzaddik, a truly righteous person, and a leading Torah scholar. He was appointed by the late Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren to head the Idra Kollel opposite the Western Wall.
Rabbi Libman's son Shlomo, a student at the Joseph's Tomb Yeshiva, was killed by Arab terrorists in August 1998 while he was on civilian patrol in the Shomron community of Yitzhar.
Another son Eliyahu, an IDF reserves officer and the security officer of Hevron, is one of the few civilians to have received a medal of honor from the Chief of Staff. He received it for his role, as a civilian, in a battle against a terrorist ring. His son Yehuda is also a reserves IDF officer, and the director of the Joseph's Tomb Yeshiva. A fourth son, Yisrael, lives in Beit El and is active in the widely-acclaimed Paamonim charity organization. Several of the deceased's daughters live in other communities in Yesha.
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| | 8. On A7 Radio: Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor ... YOUR SINGLES!!!!
|  | | A7 Radio's "The Aliyah Revolution" with Go'el Jasper
| Go'el and Simcha focus on the Aliyah experience for singles. They also profile the northern coastal town of Nahariya, a beautiful town a half hour from Haifa. The Ima also gives her perspective on children's books.
Listen Now -or- Download*
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For more A7 Radio visit www.IsraelNationalRadio.com.
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| | Today on IsraelNN.com: |  |  | Likud in a panic as Peretz threatens to topple govt.
|   | | |  | |  | Peace Tomorrow, Not Now
When speaking of peace, the word shalom has a context of holiness. A Jewish peace is not a handshake or a piece of paper, which more accurately is a truce.
|  | | | "Retiring" to Israel Like Abraham
Avraham and Sara were not youngsters when they made aliyah. According to the Torah text, they were 75 and 65 years old respectively. So, here is my new idea, based on G-d's model. Programs need to be developed to bring older people to Israel, just as there is today a wealth of programs for younger people.
|  | | | | |  | Rabbi Kook on the Atmosphere of Eretz Yisrael
Under the influence of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, an American Jew came to Eretz Yisrael with the intention of settling here permanently. One day, however, he showed up the rabbi's house and requested a farewell blessing. For some reason, he had decided to return to America.
|  | | | Lech Lecha: A Pleasant View
Avraham and Sarah arrive in a country similar to the modern State of Israel, one that awaits redemption and return -- as the Canaanite nations "still" inhabit the Land (12:6). This raises a question that remains timely: What advantage is there for a Jew to live in Eretz Yisrael if this is not yet the appointed time?
| Rabbi Steven Ettinger for Aloh Naaleh | | | | | |  |
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