Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Thursday, Jan. 21 '16, Shevat 11, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. UK MINISTERS BLAST VIOLENT ANTI-ISRAEL RIOT AT LONDON COLLEGE
2. FAR-LEFT ACTIVIST ARRESTED AT AIRPORT IS EZRA NAWI
3. 'I REMEMBER SCREAMING - NEHEMIA!'
4. WATCH: LONDON JEWISH STUDENT ASSAULTED DURING ANTI-ISRAEL RIOT
5. TEKOA STAB VICTIM TO BE RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL
6. SENIOR PA OFFICIAL: PALESTINIAN STATE IN WEST BANK JUST A PHASE
7. HANIN ZOABI CONVICTED FOR INSULTING PUBLIC OFFICIAL
8. VIDEO: SEARCH IS ON FOR ENGAGEMENT RING THROWN IN THE TRASH
1. UK MINISTERS BLAST VIOLENT ANTI-ISRAEL RIOT AT LONDON COLLEGE
by Cynthia Blank
Condemnation rushed in Wednesday from British government ministers and Jewish groups after reports of a violent riot by anti-Israel activists at a leading London university.
Police were called to King's College London University on Tuesday night, after a speech by former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon was attacked with shocking violence by pro-Palestinian groups.
Anti-Israel activists from the "Action Palestine" student group hurled chairs at people attending and set off fire alarms in the building more than a dozen times in order to disrupt the event, reportedly also physically assaulting event co-host Esther Endfield.
Britain's Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson blasted the activists for their "violent intimidation," telling the UK's Jewish News that "Britain and Israel share many important academic links and speakers must be able to address meetings peacefully."
"Our universities should be safe spaces for students to expand their minds, and there can be no justification for violent intimidation that curtails free speech," she stressed.
Baroness Shirley Williams, Britain's Communities Minister, also tweeted her condemnation: "Appalled to hear reports of violent protests at Kings College Israel Society meeting yesterday. Totally unacceptable."
The Israeli Embassy in the UK was similarly appalled calling the violence at the event both "shocking and shameful," adding that "it reflects the fear that groups centered around hatred of Israel harbor toward those who promote dialogue and a peaceful solution in our region."
A spokesperson for King's College said the university was launching an "urgent investigation" into what had happened, stressing it would "not condone the use of any form of violent protest."
2. FAR-LEFT ACTIVIST ARRESTED AT AIRPORT IS EZRA NAWI
by Ari Soffer
The far-left activist recently arrested at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport is Ezra Nawi, who was recently exposed entrapping and handing over Palestinians to the PA for execution for selling land to Jews.
Nawi was arrested last week at Ben Gurion as he tried to flee the country, but a police gag order was placed on the identity of the arrested suspect, which has only been lifted Thursday morning.
Nawi is one of three extremists held in connection with the revelations made by Channel Two's "Uvda" undercover report. The identities of the other two suspects are still under a gag order, although it is known that one is a far-left Jewish activist, while the other is an Arab volunteer for the far-left B'Tselem NGO.
The Channel Two expose showed Nawi, who heads the "Ta'ayush" anarchist group, posing as a Jewish land-broker in order to entrap a Palestinian seller who wished to sell land to Jews - an "offense" punishable by death under the Palestinian Authority. Nawi is also seen bragging about how he helped torture and kill several other Palestinian Arabs who tried to sell land to Jewish "settlers."
Nawi's key accomplice was a Palestinian Arab B'Tselem activist from the Hevron region named Nasser Nawaja, who put him in contact with the Palestinian secret police.
The expose was carried out by an undercover activist planted by the "Ad Kan" organization, which seeks to expose violence, incitement and other illegal activities by the many, European-funded leftist NGOs in Israel.
Yesterday, police extended Nawi's remand in custody by 24 hours, along with the detention of the second Jewish far-left suspect, pending an appeal over a court ruling to free him as authorities continue an investigation into his actions.
3. 'I REMEMBER SCREAMING - NEHEMIA!'
by Arutz Sheva Staff
Neta Lavi, the widow of Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, recounted Wednesday the moments of terror she experienced watching the stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City during last Sukkot in which both her husband and Aharon Bennett were murdered.
In an interview on Channel 20, Lavi described how the attack began: "We were at the end of the meal, we went down to the house from the sukkah and heard terrible shouts from the window."
"Our windows directly face Hagai Street which leads from the Damascus Gate to the Kotel and we heard horrible shouts," she continued. "I thought for a moment it was a crazy woman yelling, it didn't sound like something ordinary."
"Our daughter, a sixth grader, went to the window to see if the person yelling was an Arab or a Jewish woman. She shouted 'it's a Jew.'"
Before Neta could even understand what was happening, her husband was already headed to the street. "Seconds later, I didn't see him. He just ran down to help her. I didn't absorb it right away because I still did not understand what exactly was happening."
As Neta realized it was an attack, her husband was already downstairs trying to fend off the terrorist, before being fatally injured himself.
"He came out of the yard, turned toward Adele (Bennett) whom the terrorist had seriously injured. It was a few meters to the right where Nehemia met her. He didn't notice the terrorist and and turned toward her to help her. The terrorist spotted him and he came up to him from behind and stabbed him in a major artery, which didn't even faze Nehemia. He began to struggle with (the terrorist)."
Neta descended a short time after her husband and as she made her way to the street, she saw Nehemia lying on his back, fighting the terrorist for control of his gun.
"At some point, Nehemia drew his weapon to shoot him but he was weakened from loss of blood. Those were terrible moments. I remember screaming - Nehemia!"
4. WATCH: LONDON JEWISH STUDENT ASSAULTED DURING ANTI-ISRAEL RIOT
by Ari Soffer
Video footage has been released showing the moment a Jewish pro-Israel student was violently assaulted during an anti-Israel riot at Kings College London University (KCLU) on Tuesday evening.
Esther Endfield, who is President of KCLU Israel Society, was attacked during an event in which former Shin Bet chief and Israeli left-wing activist Ami Ayalon was speaking. Anti-Israel activists threw chairs and smashed a window during the incident, as they attempted to violently disrupt Ayalon's talk.
Endfield described the attack, which left her in tears, in a Facebook post the next day (in full at the end of this article), and filed a criminal complaint with police.
Video of the assault was only released late Wednesday evening, and shows an anti-Israel activist hitting Endfield as she filmed the violent protest.
A campaigns organizer for KCLU Israel Society also filmed some of the violent protest from outside, in which anti-Israel extremists can be see banging on the windows and attempting to force their way inside. Both videos were handed to Arutz Sheva, and footage can be seen below:
[youtube:2011755]
Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Endfield said she felt "absolutely terrified" during the incident. She said that while she was the only person so far to have filed a criminal complaint, at least one other person was "slapped in the face" by anti-Israel activists, including individuals identified as members of the "Action Palestine" student group from both KCLU and the London School of Economics (LSE).
Action Palestine had openly called for a protest of the event, although it is not clear if everyone involved were members of the group.
"I was outside the room but inside the building where the talk was going to take place," Endfield recounted to Arutz Sheva. She noted that among the large number of people not allowed inside the room - which was already filled to capacity - were a significant number of Action Palestine activists.
"As we went to shut the doors and go inside a mob of people just came and pushed through the door, trying to get into the building," she said. "I was violently pushed... people started throwing chairs - you can see the chairs scattered on the floor in the video.
"Then this girl came towards me - I was trying to video it - and she came towards me and hit me. In the video it's very clear... My phone fell to the ground.
"I was probably the only one who reported it to the police but there were plenty of other people who were hurt that night."
Kings' College University has said it is opening an investigation into the violence, which was condemned by several senior British politicians and Jewish leaders.
The full text of Endfield's Facebook response is posted below:
Never did I ever think that I would have to write a post like this, but in life sometimes you do things that you never expect. This evening KCL Israel Society along with LSE Israel Society (David and Jamie) attempted to host an event with Admiral Ami Ayalon (not going to write up his bio, but he is now considered a peace activist and was the former head of the Shin Bet).
Protests by KCL action Palestine at this event was inevitable but it was never inevitable that it would turn violent, not to the point that I have just reported being assaulted to the police (which is also being investigated under a hate crime), not to the point that there were chairs thrown at the room and at me, not to the point where they were so violent that Kings College London windows have been smashed, not to the point where two police cars and two police vans along with 15 + officers came to protect the people inside the room, not to the point that people were running up and down the 4 story building on each floor so set the fire alarms off probably 15+ times, not to the point that I was crying hysterically for over half an hour because I was so terrified, not to the point where my event had to be stopped and the building evacuated because college security and the police were so scared that they would light a real fire and that we wouldn't know because of the false alarms. When did I become so unsafe in one of the global universities in the world that we can no longer hold an event without being scared for our safety.
What if I hadn't arranged the 3 campus security guards plus 3 Safe Space Offers ( plus 7 other staff- included KCL and KCLSU staff), what if all the protesters had got into the building, what if they had managed to get into the room and started throwing the chairs at the people inside, what if they had started hitting not only windows but speaker and the people attending, what if they had set a fire, what if I had actually got hit so badly that I would actually have been hurt to the point that I would have been injured, what if KCL Action Palestine would have come to event with questions and challenged the speaker in a respectful and peaceful manner…
Also sincere apologies to the 200+ people that came to our event to listen and learn, I'm truly sorry that it turned violent and to the 150 of you that got turned away because only 56 people being allowed into the room. Thank you for coming along and giving an Israel society a chance to have its voice heard. Despite us being shut down early I heard that he was actually a great speaker and I wish I could have been inside the room to listen instead of being barrcading against the door by 4 security officers and hope that in the future that no student society event ever gets violent and looking forward to seeing you all at the next event.
5. TEKOA STAB VICTIM TO BE RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL
by Hezki Ezra
Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem relayed Thursday morning that Michael Froman is in the "advanced stages of rehabilitation from her injury.
The pregnant Froman was moderately injured in a stabbing attack Monday in a clothing store in the Gush Etzion community of Tekoa.
She was treated at the scene by Magen David Adom paramedics who evacuated her to Shaare Zedek in the capital.
Froman is the wife of Shivi Froman, a former advisor to former education minister Shai Piron, and the daughter-in-law of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman, who served as Tekoa's rabbi for decades.
"I'm a 30-year-old settler," Froman said after the attack. "I imagined this situation but when you are in it you don't believe it."
"There was no one around who could have eliminated him (the terrorist). He could could have killed me but he just stabbed me once and fled. I felt like someone sent him or he just wanted to check it off. If he wanted to kill, he could have invested a little more," she added.
According to a statement from the hospital Thursday, Froman is expected to discharged later this morning in a "generally good condition."
6. SENIOR PA OFFICIAL: PALESTINIAN STATE IN WEST BANK JUST A PHASE
by Ari Soffer
A senior member of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas's inner circle has insisted that any "two-state solution" with Israel would merely be a "phase" in the ultimate dismantlement of the State of Israel.
Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi made the comments in a recent interview with Ma'an TV - the same interview in which he made widely-publicized comments defending Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as "not corrupt" and calling him "daring."
Tirawi began by expressing satisfaction with the ongoing "intifada" - referring to the wave of terrorist attacks against Israelis - which he said had succeeded in "uniting the Palestinian people" in "all of geographical Palestine," which he identified as including not only Judea-Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza, but the rest of Israel as well.
When his interviewer suggested there could still be a Palestinian state limited to the "pre-1967 lines," Tirawi said he agreed, but only as a first step.
"A Palestinian state in the 1967 borders (sic), with Jerusalem as its capital, is just a phase, as far as I'm concerned," he said, in comments translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
The interview provided an interesting insight into the subtle strategic and political differences between Fatah and other Palestinian factions such as Hamas.
Whereas for Hamas any Palestinian state - even as an interim stage - limited to Judea, Samaria and Gaza would be illegitimate until all of the rest of Israel were incorporated into it, Tirawi says he would still accept such a state - if only as a basis for continuing the war against Israel.
"Don't think that there can be a solution to the Palestinian issue by establishing a state, the borders of which are limited to the West Bank and Gaza," he said.
He also opined that the Jews of Israel could stay - but as a minority in an overwhelmingly Arab "Palestine." While differing from Hamas's open rhetoric of annihilating, expelling, or throwing into the sea all Jewish Israelis, the political end-goal of dismantling the State of Israel and ending Jewish political independence would be the same.
Tirawi's view of a "two-state solution" is in line with those of other senior Fatah officials, many of whom openly talk in Arabic of destroying Israel "in stages".
7. HANIN ZOABI CONVICTED FOR INSULTING PUBLIC OFFICIAL
by Cynthia Blank
A Nazareth court convicted Arab MK Hanin Zoabi (Joint List) on Thursday of a her role in a confrontation she had with police in her hometown of Nazareth in July 2014.
Zoabi was indicted earlier this month after pleading guilty in December to the charge of insulting public officials, as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors relating to comments she made during the clash.
During the incident, the firebrand MK accosted Arab police officers guarding a protest in the northern city, calling them "traitors" and accusing them of being "collaborators."
"We need to spit on their faces, we need to mop them off the floor. We must not shake their hands, nor let them be among us. They should be afraid of us when we're in the street," she shouted to protestors.
However, the court dispute on Thursday stemmed from prosecutors' demands that Zoabi remain on probation for three years with the stipulation she go to jail for a year if she violates her probation.
"I had no intention of insulting a public official; that is not my way," Zoabi said in court Thursday. "This is my inner truth and my way is through politics. My struggle is not against people."
8. VIDEO: SEARCH IS ON FOR ENGAGEMENT RING THROWN IN THE TRASH
by Yoni Kempinski
[youtube:2011742]
A bride who accidentally threw her engagement ring in the trash has issued an urgent, and unusual, plea for public help.
The bribe-to-be - who is due to get married in one month - accidentally threw her ring into the trash in Jerusalem's Geula neighborhood. Just seconds later, the trash can was emptied by a passing garbage truck, and only after several minutes did the frantic bride realize what she had done.
As soon they were contacted, the Jerusalem Municipality ordered the garbage truck to pull over at the municipal depot and unload its contents, and the desperate search for the ring - worth several tens of thousands of shekels - began in earnest
The woman's family have appealed to members of the public to help, and are offering a cash reward to whoever finds the missing ring.
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