Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Thursday, Feb. 11 '16, Adar 2, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. 'IDF MUST BE PREPARED FOR POSSIBLE WAR WITH HAMAS'
2. US REFORM JEWS 'BOYCOTT' ISRAELI MINISTER
3. HOW THE US NAVY SAVED THE JEWS IN THE HOLY LAND 100 YEARS AGO
4. AUSTRIAN PROSECUTOR OKAYS CALLING HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS A 'PLAGUE'
5. ISRAEL MAKES HISTORY WITH FIRST MUSLIM POLICE COMMISSIONER
6. 'PALESTINIAN INCITEMENT CAN BE STOPPED'
7. FORECAST: HEAT WAVE HEADED TO ISRAEL
8. SPRINT AND STAB: FOOTAGE SHOWS ARAB ATTACK ON ISRAELI JOGGER
1. 'IDF MUST BE PREPARED FOR POSSIBLE WAR WITH HAMAS'
by Cynthia Blank
Senior officers in the IDF's Southern Command have begun to express concerns that the security situation along Israel's border with Gaza is nearing the same levels of strain as during Operation Protective Edge.
However, according to one officer, unlike the 2014 campaign, there is now a possibility of the Israeli army taking offensive action against Hamas' terrorist tunnels - from across the border.
"The various units should prepare for the possibility that the political echelon will lose patience or that the threat of tunnels in the Gaza Strip will not allow for restraint, and they will try to initiate treatment of the tunnels in Palestinian territory," the officer told Walla! News.
He added that all military units should maintain a high level of readiness for the possibility of deployment, and that exercises be conducted for entering Gaza, including the scenario of rockets being launched at IDF bases.
Indeed, members of Security Cabinet have already suggested that Israel initiate action against the Hamas tunnels leading into Israel.
According to a Channel 2 report on Monday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) recently made such a demand only to be rejected by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon.
The two later publicly said that "on this matter we must exercise judgment and responsibility" and equated such action to attacking Hezbollah missiles or Iran's nuclear facilities.
The topic of Hamas's terror tunnels has come back in the spotlight in recent weeks, after four tunnels collapsed in the last two weeks killing 11 Hamas terrorists.
According to some estimates Hamas has succeeded in again digging tunnels into Israeli sovereign territory, and Israeli officials have sought to play down fears from residents in southern Israel who say they have heard Hamas diggers underneath their homes.
The IDF however has not ruled out the possibility that Hamas tunnels may succeed in reaching Israeli territory; all forces on the ground are being trained on how to deal with such an infiltration.
2. US REFORM JEWS 'BOYCOTT' ISRAELI MINISTER
by Cynthia Blank
After Tourism Minister Yariv Levin asserted US Reform Jews would become "irrelevant" within two generations, the denomination hit back by scrapping a planned meeting between the minister and community representatives.
The Likud minister made the critical remarks in the wake of a government decision last week to allow non-Orthodox denominations of Judaism an expanded site for prayer at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem.
"The Reform Jews in the United States are a waning world," Levin charged during the Cabinet discussion on the proposal. "The assimilation there is of enormous extent. They don't even properly track [the assimilation] inside their communities."
In response, the head of Israel's Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, called in a letter to the Reform Jewish community in the US on Wednesday to stop cooperating with Levin.
According to a report on Army Radio Thursday morning, his US counterpart Rabbi Rick Jacobs was quick to comply.
"As long as he (Levin) doesn't think that Diaspora Jews have the right to voice opinions on matters such as the Kotel, there's no reason to give him a platform in Jewish communities and organizations in the United States,"Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told Army Radio. "Minister Levin will not teach us what support for Israel is."
In the wake of Kariv's urging, a meeting between Levin and several Reform Jewish leaders planned by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and scheduled for the US next week was canceled.
A source close to Levin quoted in the Army Radio report dismissed Kariv's attack as political, noting that the rabbi was a member of the Labor party and had even vied for a spot in the Knesset during last year's election.
Levin responded by saying it was "upsetting that at a time when [Israel is] fighting to explain to the world why a boycott is an illegitimate tool, a representative of Reform Judaism would take the unacceptable route of boycott. We cannot ignore the harsh reality of increasing assimilation. I will continue to say things clearly and work decisively to block this serious phenomena."
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned Levin's initial comments at the urging of several US Jewish groups, declaring "Reform and Conservative Jews are part and parcel of the Jewish people and should be treated with respect."
3. HOW THE US NAVY SAVED THE JEWS IN THE HOLY LAND 100 YEARS AGO
by Lenny Ben David
The above is the U.S. Navy receipt for emergency aid supplies destined for the Jews of Palestine from the Joint Distribution Committee 100 years ago, February 21, 1916. According to the JDC file, the supplies included matzot for Passover. (JDC Archives)
We have written previously how the United States Government rallied to save the Jews of the Holy Land from famine and expulsion by the Turkish army during World War I. But we are now adding an important historic document from that episode showing the vital involvement of American Jewry and the United States Navy exactly 100 years ago.
At the start of the war, Jewish men were forcibly conscripted into the Turkish Army, a devastating locust plague ravaged the land in 1915, Turkish troops were looting supplies in preparation for their attack on the Suez Canal, charitable funds from European Jewish communities for the Jews of Palestine were cut off, and plans were being drawn up by the Turks to expel the Jews from the land.
The United States Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, warned American Jewish leaders of the danger to the Jews of the Holy Land and appealed to them for funds.
The forced conscription and looting of Jerusalem homes. (1914, Ottoman Imperial Archives)
The American government had not yet entered the war and U.S. aid could still get through. But to ensure that the money and supplies would not be stolen by rapacious Turkish officials, the U.S. secretary of state approved the use of American warships for the deliveries. Thirteen U.S. ships were used for the deliveries and for providing passage to Jews expelled from the land by the Turks.
For history in pictures site, click here. More information and photographs on this historic episode will appear in the forthcoming book, American Interests in the Holy Land, Revealed in Early Photographs by Lenny Ben-David.
4. AUSTRIAN PROSECUTOR OKAYS CALLING HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS A 'PLAGUE'
by Cynthia Blank
Holocaust survivors expressed outrage Wednesday after an Austrian prosecutor appeared to justify an article in a far-right magazine calling people liberated from the Mauthausen concentration camp a criminal "plague."
An article in the July/August edition of Die Aula contended that a not insignificant number of camp inmates went on crime sprees after they were freed at the end of World War II.
"The fact that a non-negligible portion of freed prisoners became a plague on people is deemed by the judiciary to have been proven and is only disputed today by concentration camp fetishists," the article said.
According to Reuters, prosecutors in Graz initially opened criminal charges against the article's author for Holocaust denial and inciting hatred - but later dropped the case.
"It is plausible that the release of several thousand people from the Mauthausen concentration camp presented a burden for the affected areas of Austria," the prosecutor's office said in a recent statement.
"It cannot be ruled out that, in the context of the liberation, criminal activities...were engaged in by those freed," it added. "Criminals were among those imprisoned (in the camps)."
The International Mauthausen Committee (CIM), an umbrella group of Holocaust survivor organizations, denounced the Graz prosecutors' statement, blasting it as "a lumping-together plucked out of thin air."
"It is not disputed that food necessary for survival was procured in a few cases against the will of the affected local population," the CIM explained. "But to describe the term 'plague' as appropriate as a result not only flies in the face of historical fact but also ridicules concentration camp victims who are still alive."
Almost 200,000 people were sent to Mauthausen during the course of the Holocaust. Half of the camp's prisoners perished there.
5. ISRAEL MAKES HISTORY WITH FIRST MUSLIM POLICE COMMISSIONER
by Raphael Poch
Israeli history is about to be made once again, and this time by Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud).
Erdan intends to establish an executive administration that will be tasked with enforcing law within the Arab sector and to do that the executive will need to enlist Arab police officers into the Israeli police force.
At the head of the executive will be Assistant Commissioner Jamal Hakroush, who will be promoted to the rank of Deputy Commissioner for the appointment.
Hakroush's appointment, which has been agreed upon by Erdan as well as Police Commisioner Roni Alsheikh, will send a message to the Arab population as well as endowing the new executive with the authority he will need to gather new officers and establish the new police stations and branches needed to fulfill the task he has been given, one of which is to get more Muslims to enlist in the Israeli police force.
The initiative is currently awaiting approval by the Finance Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office. Erdan recently submitted a proposal which requires the enlistment of an additional 1,300 police officers for the establishment of this new branch, which will take approximately three years to be established.
Hakroush currently serves as the Deputy Chief Officer of the Coastal police district. He is the first Arab-Muslim to receive the rank of Assistant Commissioner, and also the first to serve as a deputy chief officer. He joined the Israeli police force in 1978 and served in numerous roles throughout his time on the force, among which were commander of the Afula and Nahariya police stations. Hakroush served as the deputy commander of the Coastal District from 2010, and was in that position during the Carmel forest fire.
During a special committee meeting in the Knesset which took place on February 9th as part of "Salute the Police Day" Alsheikh presented the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee with statistics on Arab crime in Israel.
According to the statistics, 21 percent of the population is Arab, however 59% of the murders carried out in the country are perpetrated by Arabs, while 58 percent of Arson is perpetrated by Arabs and attempted murder ranks in at 55 percent. Other troubling statistics for the sector in include 47 percent of burglary's are perpetrated by Arabs and 32 percent of drug related infractions are carried out by Arabs.
Alsheikh told the committee that the situation is "unprecedented and cannot continue. Those who suffer the most are the Arab citizens of Israel. There is a deep desire among the Arab population to increase the amount of police activity and protection."
6. 'PALESTINIAN INCITEMENT CAN BE STOPPED'
by Eliran Baruch
Head of the Israeli news agency "Makor Yisraeli", David Bedein, fiercely attacked the IDF Civil Administration as well as the Ministry of Education for allowing the distribution of schoolbooks that contain incitement against Jews.
[youtube:2012454]
"For the past twenty years what has characterized the Palestinian Authority media and their education system is clear incitement to war," Bedein told Arutz Sheva.
Bedein, who used to head the Sderot Media Center, knows what war feels like having lived under constant rocket fire from Gaza for almost 15 consecutive years.
"We have received assurances from the US State Department that Palestinian schoolbooks, especially for the UNRWA schools would be okay now, and would meet standards of peace and reconciliation with Israel. We went out and purchased 150 of their new schools books and found that the opposite is true."
Bedein outlined that this problem has been going on for some time, since before the Six Day War, and suggested that Israel confiscate the schoolbooks when they arrive at the Erez Junction near Gaza, or other checkpoints before they cross over into Judea and Samaria.
Bedein suggested that the same be done to the media outlets and that Israel should cut the broadcast frequencies of radio channels that espouse incitement and hatred towards Jews. Bedin said that the incitement can be stopped if Israel maintains a sense of pride.
7. FORECAST: HEAT WAVE HEADED TO ISRAEL
by Cynthia Blank
After three straight weekends of rain and cold, Israelis finally have some sun to look forward to as the week ends.
Thursday morning's forecast will see light rain in the north and along the coastal areas. Skies will clear up slightly later in the day, remaining partly cloudy.
From Friday through to Sunday, skies will be clear and sunny and temperatures will begin to rise above seasonal averages.
A heat wave will strike Israel on Monday as temperatures jump to nearly 80°F along the coastal plan and in the Shfela region. The rest of the country is also anticipated to be unseasonably warm.
Temperatures Thursday will reach 13°C (55°F) in the Golan Heights, 18° (64°) at the Sea of Galilee, 15° (59°) in Haifa, 17° (63°) in Tel Aviv, 12° (54°) in Jerusalem, 16° (61°) in Be'er Sheva, 15° at the Dead Sea and 21° (70°) in Eilat.
8. SPRINT AND STAB: FOOTAGE SHOWS ARAB ATTACK ON ISRAELI JOGGER
by Ari Soffer
[youtube:2012424]
Police have released footage showing the moment an Arab terrorist stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli jogger in Gush Etzion, and then fled from the scene.
His victim, a Jewish man in his 30s, had been running outside the town of Neve Daniel when he was stabbed and seriously injured. He managed to reach the gate of the town, where security guards called an ambulance and initiated a manhunt.
Following the attack, security forces closed off the Arab village of Nahalin, where the attacker is believed to have come from and fled to, as part of efforts to track him down.
In the video, the jogger can be seen dressed in red, unaware that his attacker - seen dressed in black - is rapidly closing in on him.
The terrorist then stabs his victim from behind, and following a short struggle sprints away on foot in the direction of Nahalin.
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