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Friday, Feb. 05 '16, Shevat 26, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. BEREAVED SON LIVID OVER MKS' MEETING WITH TERRORIST FAMILIES
2. FALSE CONFESSION REVEALED IN DUMA ARSON CASE
3. AFTER ATTACK, RAMLE MAYOR SAYS CITY A MODEL OF COEXISTENCE
4. KNESSET SPEAKER TO PUBLIC: COMPLAIN AGAINST ARAB MKS
5. MAP SHOWS CHRISTIANS FACING VIOLENT MUSLIM PERSECUTION
6. AUSTRALIA'S LABOR PARTY CONSIDERING BANNING ISRAEL TRIPS
7. 'THE THIN LINE BETWEEN CRIMINALS AND TERRORISTS'
8. AWKWARD: BUSH HAS TO ASK AUDIENCE TO CLAP
1. BEREAVED SON LIVID OVER MKS' MEETING WITH TERRORIST FAMILIES
by Ido Ben Porat
Micha Avni, son of 76-year-old Richard Lakin who was murdered in a knife and gun attack in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in October, expressed outrage on Thursday over the meeting between three Arab MKs and relatives of one of the terrorists who murdered his father.
The three MKs in question are Jamal Zahalka, Hanin Zoabi and Basel Ghattas.
"I call on the Speaker of the Knesset to remove the parliamentary immunity of the Knesset members who met with relatives of my father's murderer, and relatives of other murderers. I also call on the chief of police to investigate them for incitement," Avni said Thursday night.
"If because of a sexist statement, which I of course vehemently condemn, an investigation is launched against a member of Knesset and he is asked to resign, there most certainly should be an investigation against MKs who encourage and applaud a terrorist who murdered a retired school principal who dedicated his life to education and coexistence," he continued.
"It is important to understand that words are important, and when leaders and elected representatives of the Arab sector share in the grief and listen to the suffering of the families of the terrorists, and called the killer a 'shahid' (martyr -ed.), it may incite their constituents to carry out similar crimes," warned Avni.
"The meeting as a whole is very outrageous and only alienates us from the dream of coexistence that my father dreamed about for so many years," he concluded.
The meeting between the three MKs and families of terrorists garnered criticism and condemnations from politicians from both left and right on Thursday.
MKs Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union) and Amir Ohana (Likud) later said they would file a complaint with the Ethics Committee against the three MKs.
In an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein also announced they would file a personal complaint with the Knesset Ethics Committee against the three Arab MKs.
2. FALSE CONFESSION REVEALED IN DUMA ARSON CASE
by Ari Yashar
Transcriptions of the interrogation proceedings in the lethal Duma arson case were released on Thursday night, revealing that one minor suspect was forced into making a false confession due to the brutal torture used against him.
The transcriptions were received by Channel 10, and revolve around the case of A., a 17-year-old from Samaria. Under torture he admitted to committing the arson last July - but he was not indicted for doing so, showing how the torture induced false confessions.
Officials including Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud) and Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) had admitted prior to the confessions under torture that there was no evidence against the suspects.
A. was held in an Israeli Security Agency (ISA) facility in the north, and initially interrogated by an agent given the name Roni who told him: "you are the central suspect in committing the attack in Duma."
In response, the 17-year-old laughed. For several days he continued to keep silent or else sing in defiance.
But then two weeks later, ISA head Yoram Cohen contacted Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and received unusual permission to use physical force against the suspects.
The granting of permission to torture was revealed in late December by sources involved in the case, who told Haaretz that Weinstein had indeed given his approval for the brutal torture three weeks prior.
Shocked by the sudden torture, A. broke down after several hours and in order to stop the abuse told the interrogators that he together with Amiram Ben Uliel committed the arson. Ben Uliel also made a confession under intense torture and was brought to reenact the alleged act.
But there is only one problem - despite having confessed to the act, A. only had an indictment submitted against him for being involved in planning the arson, showing that even ISA understood that it had tortured the 17-year-old into a false confession.
"I'm ready to give a confession"
The transcriptions show A. made the confession by first saying, "if you want me to just make a confession, I'm ready to give a version, but it isn't correct." "We're ready to listen," responded the ISA interrogator.
"Amiram woke me up that night, he had a bag on his back with the materials to conduct the attack, we went down by foot to Duma village, went into the village, searched for a house with a window and no shutters, or with an open door," A. said.
"We passed several houses, threw a firebomb into the first house and then a firebomb into the second house, Amiram wrote 'The Messiah King lives,' 'Revenge' and (drew) a Star of David."
In response the interrogator asked, "why did you search for a house inside the village and not on its edges?," to which A. said, "apparently we didn't find an appropriate target on the edges of the village."
The interrogator then asked what the distance was between the homes, and A. said it was several minutes walk. He was then asked who threw the firebomb, and responded that he had thrown it.
A. then started crying and said, "since I confessed can we end the interrogation already?" The interrogator said, "only when you tell the truth, the story you gave is full of holes, you are intentionally warping the details to make us think you aren't involved."
One of the holes in the story was the distance of the homes, which are actually adjacent to each other; A.'s apparent lack of familiarity with the Arab town would seem to suggest a surprising absence of information for someone accused of helping to plan the attack.
As noted A. was cleared of suspicion over having committed the arson, whereas Ben Uliel was indicted over his confession.
The indictment against Ben Uliel accuses him of conducting the arson murder alone. However several issues with the allegations have been pointed out, including that the handwriting of the graffiti at the arson site appears to have been written by two different people, and witnesses testified to seeing more than one assailant.
ISA admitted to false confessions
In response to the publication of the transcriptions, ISA sources told Channel 10 that the incident shows they do not accept all confessions made under torture.
"There were holes in the confession and therefore we did not use it," claimed the sources.
Attorneys of the suspects responded by noting the ISA statement is an admission that there is a confession that was extracted under physical pressure and that it is a false confession, and therefore the confession of Ben Uliel needs to be treated in the same light and canceled.
Regarding the torture, records from the visit of Deputy Attorney General Raz Nizri to see the suspects last December released Thursday revealed that they gave him detailed testimony of the torture they were being exposed to, but he chose to cover up the torture in public statements and not take any action.
Attorney David Halevi, who represents several of the suspects for the Honenu legal aid organization, said the "torture included sleep deprivation, food deprivation, serious psychological pressure including heavy physical violence on our clients, with the only end to these acts (of torture) being to produce confessions, and in effect what was presented were false confessions."
3. AFTER ATTACK, RAMLE MAYOR SAYS CITY A MODEL OF COEXISTENCE
by Benny Tocker
Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavi spoke to Arutz Sheva on Friday, a day after two 13-year-old female Arab Israeli terrorists conducted a stabbing attack at the city's mall adjacent to central station.
In the attack the two Arab citizens stabbed and lightly wounded a security guard. One later admitted to police: "we came to kill Jews."
But Lavi was convinced that the attack by the young girls did not indicate any problems for the mixed Jewish and Arab city that is located in the coastal region near Tel Aviv.
"We were surprised, we're kind of in shock, although life has already gone back to normal," said Lavi. "Relations are very good between the (Arab) sector and us. These are families that are integrated in the society, who live in Jawarish, a neighborhood in Ramle."
"They are Israeli citizens who are within the Israeli society, we have no problems of loyalty, they are good people," insisted the mayor, who ran with the leftist Kadima party in the 2009 elections and opposed joining Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government.
Lavi called on the public not to be deterred by the attack and to come shop at the Ramle market, saying, "you'll see tons of Arabs and Jews shopping at the joint market."
The mayor said that Arab schools in the city are under the supervision of the Education Ministry, and added, "it isn't eastern Jerusalem here, they are Israeli Arabs."
"It could be that here and there they act in a way that doesn't exactly match your or my viewpoint when it comes to Memorial Day or Independence Day," he added, noting the common displays of hostility seen among Arab citizens on the holidays. "But at the same time the schools are supervised by the education system, we visit the Arab schools, they all are under supervision."
"They sit with us on the study material, they are integrated and studied about in the schools. And I can tell you with a certainty that in the mosques and schools in the city there is no education to hate Jews, there is no education to harm the state of Israel, this isn't eastern Jerusalem."
Despite Lavi's protestations, Ramle has a long history of tension. Massive Arab riots were seen in the city last October in support of the current Arab terror wave as it began to gain steam. Back in 2013 a Jewish protest against growing vandalism, verbal harassment and a firebomb attack by Arab residents was interrupted by yet more Arab violence.
Rabbi Aryeh Handler, dean of the Ramle Hesder Yeshiva, told Arutz Sheva last July that the Arab residents are acting like "occupiers," after students caught on film the Arab rock and firebomb attacks the yeshiva suffers on a weekly basis.
Regarding the question of sentiments among Israel's Arab citizenry, a poll last November found 57% of Israeli Arabs feel the radical Islamic Movement in Israel that is funded by Hamas represents them faithfully. Likewise 18.2% of Arab Muslim citizens of Israel said they do not consider Islamic State (ISIS) to be a radical terrorist organization, and that they are not ashamed of the brutal jihadist group.
4. KNESSET SPEAKER TO PUBLIC: COMPLAIN AGAINST ARAB MKS
by Hezki Ezra
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) on Friday morning called on Israeli citizens to file complaints to the Knesset Ethics Committee against the three Arab MKs who met this week with the families of terrorist murderers.
The three MKs are Hanin Zoabi, Jamal Zahalka and Basel Ghattas of the Joint List party's Balad faction.
"I call on every citizen who feels harmed by the conduct of a Knesset member to submit a complaint to the Ethics Committee," said Edelstein.
"The Knesset is the house of the people. It listens to them and works for them, and therefore it is the right of everyone who was harmed to contact it (the Knesset) for clarification," added the Knesset Speaker.
Among the terrorist family members the three MKs met with was the father of Baha Alian, who together with another accomplice conducted the lethal shooting and knife attack on a bus in Jerusalem's southeast Armon Hanatziv last October, murdering 78-year-old Haim Habib, 51-year-old Alon Guvberg and 76-year-old Richard Lakin.
Edelstein's statement came after he spoke on Friday morning with Micha Avni, the bereaved son of Lakin. Avni asked Edelstein what he could do in light of the meeting, to which he was told that he could submit a complaint to the Ethics Committee.
In an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Edelstein on Thursday announced they would file a personal complaint with the Knesset Ethics Committee against the three Arab MKs.
Likewise MKs Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union) and Amir Ohana (Likud) said they too would file a joint complaint with the Ethics Committee against the MKs.
5. MAP SHOWS CHRISTIANS FACING VIOLENT MUSLIM PERSECUTION
by Hillel Fendel
The Christian aid group Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) has published a new "Prayer Map" highlighting countries where Christians face violent persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists around the globe.
The organization says the primary purpose of the map is to "encourage people to pray for persecuted Christians." A quick review of the map serves to teach much regarding the state of Christian persecution throughout the world, especially by radical Islamists.
A printable version of the map can be seen here.
One side of the new map identifies countries where Christians are persecuted, tortured, imprisoned and even killed because of their faith. Nearly every Muslim country in the world is colored "restricted" on the map, meaning that government policy or practice "prevents Christians from obtaining Bibles or other Christian literature," or that "government-sanctioned circumstances or anti-Christian laws that lead to believers being harassed, imprisoned, killed or deprived of basic needs."
The reverse side of the map is more specific, highlighting nations where Christians face violent persecution by Islamic extremists.
Notably, the map does not mention Israel at all, but instead lists "Palestine" as if it were a recognized country. The map states that the area is comprised of two separate parts: the "West Bank" and Gaza, and that while the Palestinian Authority (PA) controls the main towns and scattered enclaves in the former, "Jewish settler enclaves and Israeli military authorities control the rest."
The map further states that "the dwindling Christian minority in both the West Bank and Gaza" is being squeezed out by "pressure from all sides, particularly from Islamists." It is not clear what sides other than the "Islamists" are doing said squeezing. "Most Arab Muslims view Arab Christians not as fellow Arabs, but as infidels and western collaborators," the map notes.
The Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors, releasing its annual list of countries where Christians face the greatest persecution, has found that 2015 was the worst year in modern history in this regard. Before that, 2014 had held that distinction. More than 7,000 Christians were killed for their faith between Nov. 1, 2014, and Oct. 31, 2015.
Though North Korea was listed as No. 1 on the World Watch List, making it the greatest persecutor of Christians in the world for the 14th consecutive year, the other countries in the top 20 are mostly Muslim. Iraq is #2, followed by Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Libya and Yemen. In Nigeria (#12), the Boko Haram terrorist group murdered more Christians in 2015 than any other terrorist group. The "Palestinian Territories" are listed at #24 – persecuting Christians at a higher rate than countries such as Tunisia, China, Algeria, Kuwait, and Colombia.
6. AUSTRALIA'S LABOR PARTY CONSIDERING BANNING ISRAEL TRIPS
by Ben Ariel
Australia's opposition Labor Party is mulling a proposal by pro-Palestinian lawmakers to ban its members from participating in sponsored trips to Israel, Haaretz reported Thursday.
The motion by Labor Friends of Palestine, which will be moved at a state conference in Sydney beginning February 13, has triggered a bitter backlash with local Jews, the newspaper reported.
If passed, the motion would preclude state MPs from New South Wales, party officials and Young Labor members from joining paid trips to Israel.
The motion says the ban should be enforced so long as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government "continues settlements, refuses a Palestinian state [and] brutally mistreats Arab residents of the West Bank."
Taking part in paid-for trips "in the circumstances is an insult to the Australian community who support our party," the resolution says, according to Haaretz.
One of the proponents of the ban is Shaoquett Moselmane, the first Muslim MP elected to the state parliament in Sydney, who in 2013 accused supporters of Israel of being "cancerous" and "malicious."
The motion highlights an ongoing push within Labor towards the Palestinian narrative, bolstered by Bob Carr, a former foreign minister who was a founder of the Labor Friends of Israel in 1977 and has recently become a patron of the Labor Friends of Palestine.
Carr has in the past blamed the "pro-Israel lobby in Melbourne" for wielding "extraordinary influence" on the Australian government.
Responding to the proposed ban, Colin Rubenstein, who runs the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) told Haaretz that the motion, if passed, would be a "damning indictment" of the Labor Party.
"This resolution is part of a bullying campaign to try to stop members of the Australian Labor Party from learning about the genuine complexities of the Middle East, by people who prefer ignorance and simplistic slogans to informed debate," he said.
The proposal is "intellectually offensive and discriminatory," he added.
Also blasting the motion was Aboriginal leader Warren Mundine, a former national president of the Labor Party who has been on a sponsored trip to Israel.
"It is an illogical, verging on anti-Semitic approach," he said, according to Haaretz.
"Name another country that the Labor Party bans people from going to? There are none. What is the difference with this country? The only difference is that they are Jewish, and I just find that quite sickening that a party that I was president of would move down that road," he added.
The Labor Party's move comes after it agreed this past summer on a resolution that should the party come to power, it would consider recognizing Palestinian statehood.
The motion stipulated such course of action on a lack of progress in the currently stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
"If ... there is no progress in the next round of the peace process a future Labor government will discuss joining like-minded nations who have already recognized Palestine and announcing the conditions and timelines for the Australian recognition of a Palestinian state, with the objective of contributing to peace and security in the Middle East," the document read.
Haaretz noted that relations between the Jewish community and the Labor Party hit rock bottom in the 1970s under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, but improved dramatically in the next decade under Bob Hawke.
Relations soured again in 2002 and 2003 when Labor MPs unleashed tirades against Israel and the Jewish lobby in federal parliament.
7. 'THE THIN LINE BETWEEN CRIMINALS AND TERRORISTS'
by Ido Ben-Porat
Combat soldiers in the Golani Brigade's patrol battalion conducted arrests on Thursday night, in the Arab village of Deir Balut adjacent to the towns of Peduel and Alei Zahav in Samaria, just east of the 1949 Armistice line.
In recent months a cell of Arab criminals from the town broke into Jewish groves and stole over a ton of avocados and highly expensive agricultural equipment.
Following detailed investigations, the IDF force on Thursday night entered the town and arrested members of the cell.
"We are working widely against the criminal activity in the region for several reasons," explained Efraim Brigade Commander Col. Roi Sheetrit. "The first is that the role of the army in Judea and Samaria is also to preserve the public law and order."
"Secondly and more importantly - the line between criminal activity and terrorist activity is a very thin and dangerous line," he warned.
"Today the criminal succeeded in breaking into the farm and only stole a tractor, tomorrow he is liable to arrive to the homes of families in the region as well. The criminals have a contempt of the public law, and they must be arrested and brought to justice."
Illustrating the danger mentioned by the commander was the recent murder of Dafna Meir last month at the entrance to her home in Otniel, Judea, after an Arab terrorist broke into the town.
The IDF combat soldiers have already conducted arrests in the town of Deir Balut in the past, and on Thursday night the hunt after the criminals came to a close.
"We are happy to aid farmers of the state of Israel, and greatly appreciate the police for their significant investigation activity," concluded Sheetrit.
8. AWKWARD: BUSH HAS TO ASK AUDIENCE TO CLAP
by Ben Ariel
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush had an awkward moment during a campaign event this week in New Hampshire, where the next round of the primaries will be held.
Bush, who spoke at a town hall event in Hanover, New Hampshire, had to ask the audience to clap after he failed to rile them up.
"I will not trash-talk," he said. "I will not be a divider in chief or an agitator in chief. I won't be out there blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up. I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter, but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interests of this country — to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world."
The crowd, despite the fiery speech, failed to applaud the former Florida governor and, after an awkward silence, Bush said, "Please clap."
The audience laughed before finally clapping.
[youtube:2012236]
The event took place this past Tuesday, just one day after Bush finished in sixth place in the Iowa caucuses.
Bush, as part of his campaign, has advocated for strengthening ties between the United States and Israel.
He also suggested that the United States should consider providing Israel with the necessary weapons to strike Iran's nuclear program, saying he would push to give Israel "access to the most sophisticated military equipment" for offensive security measures.
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