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Friday, Mar. 11 '16, Adar Bet 1, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. WOMEN OF THE WALL BREAK THEIR PROMISES
2. STABBING AT JERUSALEM'S JAFFA GATE
3. OBAMA BACKTRACKS CAMERON CRITICISM, BUT NOT FOR NETANYAHU
4. TERRORIST'S FAMILY EXPELLED FROM JERUSALEM
5. PA 'INTEL BASE' OVERLOOKING SENSITIVE IDF BASE
6. REVEALED: HOW HAMAS EXPLOITS GAZA TO HARM ISRAEL
7. ARAB TERRORIST HURLS BOMB AT ISRAELI CAR
8. WATCH: YOUR INVITATION TO DEFEAT THE BOYCOTT
1. WOMEN OF THE WALL BREAK THEIR PROMISES
by Arutz Sheva Staff
The Women of the Wall (WoW) group held a Rosh Hodesh prayer session at the Western Wall (Kotel) on Friday morning, and once again smuggled a Torah scroll into the women's section of the Kotel Plaza in breach of their agreements with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.
During the negotiations over the establishment of a second Reform prayer space at the Kotel, which was approved by the government but faces stiff opposition, it was agreed between WoW and Mandelblit that the Reform group would stop smuggling in Torah scrolls and causing provocations in the Kotel Plaza.
Kotel Chief Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz said in response to the latest Torah smuggling that "this act once again testifies that the goal is only provocation and defiance, strife and quarrel and a desecration of the holy, and no gesture or appeasement proposed to them will help against this intention."
"In pain I view before me this small group that set as its goal to disrupt the gentle fabric that exists at the Western Wall Plaza, and to turn the Western Wall Plaza into lands of strife," added the rabbi.
Rabbi Rabinowitz called on Religious Affairs Minister David Azulai (Shas) to change the regulations on the preservation of holy sites and determine that prayer at the Kotel will only be conducted according to the instructions of the Chief Rabbinate, without connection to the government plan for a new Reform prayer space and recognition of the Reform movement.
Regarding WoW's goals which the rabbi raised, back in July 2013 WoW head Anat Hoffman wrote an article on the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism website entitled "support our rally to end the chief rabbinate," in which she called "to throw out the whole rabbinate."
While the Reform movement has obtained several political victories in recent weeks, a Pew poll this week found the movement is not gaining traction in Israel.
The decision on the new prayer space, which comes in addition to the Ezrat Yisrael section established in 2013 by the government, has raised concerns as it remove an area in the southern part of the Kotel from the authority of the rabbinate, transferring it to the control of the Prime Minister's Office. Such a move is a breach of the status quo, by which the rabbinate maintains authority over holy sites.
2. STABBING AT JERUSALEM'S JAFFA GATE
by Arutz Sheva Staff
A 29-year-old haredi man was attacked and given treatment by Magen David Adom (MDA) in Jerusalem on Friday afternoon, suffering stab wounds to the upper body.
The victim, who was light wounded, was attacked by an Arab terrorist at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City, a popular tourist site in the capital.
Security forces set off in pursuit after the attacker, and caught him soon afterwards in an Old City alley. The 19-year-old terrorist, who is a resident of Qabalan north of Ramallah in Samaria, was brought in for investigation. An official said the terrorist did not seem to have a permit to be in sovereign Israeli territory.
MDA evacuated the victim to Shaare Tzedek Hospital in the city for medical treatment. The hospital later reported he was stable and suffering a superficial stab wound to the shoulder, and was undergoing checks for internal bleeding.
Senior MDA medic Amjad Mazaro who treated the victim said, "I saw a haredi man around 30 years old sitting fully conscious, he suffered wounds to the upper body."
"He communicated with me and said that as he walked he suddenly felt a stab. I gave him initial treatment to stop the bleeding" before an MDA ambulance arrived. Mazaro classified the victim as being moderately wounded and in stable condition, although a later MDA report said the injuries were light.
A number of attacks have taken place this week as part of the ongoing terror wave. On Friday morning an Arab terrorist threw a pipe bomb at a female Israeli motorist near Otniel in southern Judea. Light damage was caused to the vehicle but the driver managed to flee the scene.
On Wednesday morning there was a two-front shooting attack in Jerusalem in which two Arab terrorists driving in their car shot and seriously wounded an Arab resident of the capital, mistaking him for a Jew.
The uptick in attacks began on Tuesday, when a series of attacks took place including a stabbing spree in Jaffa (Yafo) in which ten were wounded and US tourist Taylor Force was murdered, a stabbing in Petah Tikva in which a Jew was moderately wounded but managed to kill his attacker, and a shooting attack in Jerusalem in which two officers were seriously wounded.
In response to the surge in attacks, in a Security Cabinet meeting on Thursday night it was decided to patch breaches in the Jerusalem security barrier and to build an additional security fence near Hevron - but no additional significant decisions to crush the current wave of terror were made by the Cabinet.
3. OBAMA BACKTRACKS CAMERON CRITICISM, BUT NOT FOR NETANYAHU
by Ari Yashar
Responding to the apparent anger of the UK, the White House on Friday backtracked from US President Barack Obama's comments in a recent interview with the Atlantic magazine's Jeffrey Goldberg.
In the same interview Obama recalled berating Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for being "condescending" - but no similar statement to minimize the damage has been issued regarding the comments against Netanyahu.
Speaking to Goldberg, Obama reflected on "what went wrong" after Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya was overthrown by the UK and France.
"There's room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya's proximity, being invested in the follow-up," Obama said.
He accused UK Prime Minister David Cameron of soon becoming "distracted by a range of other things."
"We averted large-scale civilian casualties, we prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict. And despite all that, Libya is a mess," he said.
The chaos in Libya since 2011 has recently led to Islamic State (ISIS) gaining ground in the North African country.
Obama also condemned "free riders," saying European and Gulf states called for action against Gaddafi, but the "habit" for several decades had been "people pushing us to act but then showing an unwillingness to put any skin in the game."
"Fairly rich coming from Obama"
In an apparent attempt at damage control, the White House issued a statement cited by the BBC on Friday, in which it said, "Prime Minister Cameron has been as close a partner as the president has had, and we deeply value the UK's contributions on our shared national security and foreign policy objectives which reflect our special and essential relationship."
"With respect to Libya, the president has long said that all of us - including the United States - could have done more in the aftermath of the Libyan intervention."
The statement said the UK had "stepped up on a range of issues," noting a pledge to spend 2% of national income on defense.
According to the Atlantic interview, that promise came after Obama threatened Cameron, saying the UK must pay its "fair share" if it wanted to continue to have a "special relationship" with the US.
BBC North America editor Jon Sopel analyzed the statement, suggesting the British government likely reacted with anger to the interview and in response the White House issued the statement as an attempt at damage control.
"It's like we've seen a curtain drawn back on the unspun thoughts of President Obama, complete with frustration as well, and what we've seen...is the White House trying to close the curtain as quickly as it can," said Sopel.
Obama's criticism over Libya was met with disdain by former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, who said, "to be frank, it's pretty rich coming from President Obama, because the Americans did far less than either France or the United Kingdom in helping get rid of that dictatorship."
4. TERRORIST'S FAMILY EXPELLED FROM JERUSALEM
by Ido Ben Porat
The family members of a terrorist who wounded two Border Police officers in an attack in eastern Jerusalem earlier this week were expelled from Jerusalem on Thursday and sent to Palestinian Authority-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria.
Following the attack, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan ordered that the legal status of members of the terrorist's family, who lived in the village of Issawiya, be examined.
Upon investigation, the police found out that the parents and sisters of the terrorist had applied for family reunification but their application had not yet been approved, and that therefore they did not have resident status and in fact were illegally living in Issawiya.
Following the discovery of this information, it was decided to expel them to Judea and Samaria.
The Jerusalem attack took place on a day in which three different attacks took place, the other two being in Petah Tikva and Jaffa.
Earlier on Thursday, the Security Cabinet decided to begin work on fences around Jerusalem and near Hevron.
The Cabinet decided to start work closing the breaches in the security barrier around Jerusalem, and to construct an additional fence near Tarqumiyah, a Palestinian Arab town located near Hevron in Judea.
5. PA 'INTEL BASE' OVERLOOKING SENSITIVE IDF BASE
by Ido Ben-Porat
The Beit El regional council in the Binyamin region of Samaria, together with the Regavim movement, submitted their opposition this week to the IDF Civil Administration over plans to build a new Palestinian Authority (PA) governmental building.
The huge PA complex is to be established just a short distance from the town of Beit El and the Judea-Samaria district IDF base.
Around two months ago the PA submitted its plans for the complex to the Civil Administration. It intends to construct a huge multi-storey structure spanning 10,000 meters, inside part of the region classified as Area C by the 1994 Oslo Accords which are to be under full Israeli authority.
The complex is just 350 meters (around 1,150 feet) from homes in Beit El and the district IDF base.
In making the request, the PA is asking for building permits in an area under full Israeli control on nine dunams of land which are under the ownership of the Islamic Waqf.
Making the request all the more questionable is the fact that in the same area there are another 30 dunams of land that lie on land classified as Areas A and B, which according to the Oslo Accords are under PA control, and where the PA can build as it pleases without requiring Israeli permission.
The Regavim movement pointed out that the request fits in to a clear and systematic strategic effort by the PA in recent years to build governmental institutions precisely in regions classified as Area C, even though it has access to wide territories in Areas A and B, as part of a land grab initiative changing the facts on the ground.
Security dangers
Beit El regional council head Shai Alon warned of the dangers inherent if the building permit is approved.
"It cannot be that in a period in which we experience gunfire on the homes of residents of Beit El every few days the construction of a megalomaniacal building will be approved, which overlooks the town and its sole access road," said Alon.
He emphasized that "we will not agree to be sitting ducks and give the Palestinians the ability to 'improve their posts' to shoot at our homes."
Regavim added that the planned building is located on a hill overlooking the Judea-Samaria district IDF base just roughly 300 meters away.
"This is security foolishness of the highest degree," said Oved Arad, direction of Regavim's ground division. "The innocent description of 'a school for government clerks' is an innocent and laundered name for allowing the establishment of a huge intelligence base for the Palestinian Authority."
"This is a huge and strategic site located on an overlooking position above one of the most important bases of the state of Israel, which includes sensitive security facilities," he emphasized.
"The Judea-Samaria division will be spread out at the feet of the (PA) site, and will be completely exposed to a gathering of intelligence information about the troop formations and other sensitive information."
6. REVEALED: HOW HAMAS EXPLOITS GAZA TO HARM ISRAEL
by Ari Yashar
Aside from siphoning off international aid for its missile and tunnel programs, Hamas has been cynically manipulating its residents in Gaza by imposing unreasonable taxes to prop up its terror activities, even while deceiving the world into blaming Israel for the bleak situation.
Hamas continues to complain of the "Israeli blockade" in the international press and accuse it for Gaza's economic crisis, but meanwhile the terrorist organization is fleecing its residents in various forms of taxes and funneling tens of millions of dollars into its "military arm" every month. Meanwhile the international community continues to ignore the duplicity of Hamas and condemns Israel's legal naval blockade.
Several of Hamas' methods of ripping off Gaza residents were exposed by Walla on Friday, which reported that nearly 100,000 residents in the coastal enclave remain homeless since Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014, Hamas' third war against Israel.
Qatar has been donating enormous funds to rebuild Gaza, and slowly new homes are being built for the 17,000 families whose homes were completely destroyed.
Recently Hamas held a raffle for 1,040 housing units built by Qatar in Gaza, promising Gazan homeless who signed up that they would receive the homes for free.
However, Walla reports that those who won in the housing lottery found that Hamas demanded that they pay $40,000 for each "free" house. The terror group claimed the expenses were required to hook up the houses to the various infrastructure systems such as water and electricity.
In this way, Hamas required those who lost their homes in a war started by the terror group to pay for homes that were paid for by Qatar, and did not cost Hamas at all. Hamas is to see a benefit of nearly $40 million in the coming years thanks to the taxes on the homes.
Showing the widespread corruption, sources in Gaza revealed that around 150 of those who won in the lottery actually did receive their homes for free - because they had ties to Hamas.
Tax schemes
The housing lottery is far from the only example of Hamas' exploitation of Gaza residents.
Another case arises from the fact that Israel prevents ships from Gaza from straying too far into the Mediterranean Sea so as to block weapons smuggling. The boats of fishermen who breach the line are seized, and if the fishermen are found not to be involved in smuggling, they are returned.
But when the boats are returned, Hamas demands that the fishermen pay a tax for the return of their own property, seized due to Hamas' weapons smuggling efforts.
Another tax is seen when residents require the services of Hamas' police force due to a disagreement or a criminal incident - in such cases they must pay a tax for calling a policeman.
Hamas also tries to manipulate residents who receive exit permits from Israel so as to establish terror infrastructures in Judea and Samaria.
For a certain price, Gazans can get a permit from a senior doctor saying they need urgent medical treatment in Judea and Samaria, or in sovereign Israeli territory. Often Hamas uses those who obtain the permits in order to transfer funds or messages to its terrorists in Judea and Samaria.
Smuggling has likewise been a huge issue as nearly every week the terrorists try to sneak materials for producing rockets or digging attack tunnels through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Every day between 650 and 700 trucks loaded with goods pass into Gaza from Israel through the crossing.
Huge quantities of materials for the nefarious terrorist programs are hid among the goods, including one case in which electrodes were found inside margarine.
Terror wages courtesy of Iran
Even as Hamas capitalizes on the plight of its residents and likewise delays the payment of salaries for its workers, the 40,000 terrorists in the group's Al-Qassam Brigades "military wing" continue to be paid.
Their wages are funded by Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism.
While Tehran has somewhat limited its financial aid to Hamas, it makes special efforts to maintain its funds for the Al-Qassam Brigades to continue the terror war against Israel.
Aside from Iran, the taxes exploited by Gazans also help to fuel the wages of the Hamas terrorists.
According to Israeli estimates, every year Hamas invests nearly 100 million shekels (around $25.7 million) into smuggling in materials to produce weapons and dig attack tunnels.
7. ARAB TERRORIST HURLS BOMB AT ISRAELI CAR
by Uzi Baruch
Early on Friday morning an Arab terrorist threw an explosive at an Israeli car driving near Otniel in the southern Hevron hills region of Judea.
The terrorist waited by the road with a mask on his face and threw the improvised pipe bomb, which exploded just a second after a female Israeli motorist drove by.
Fortunately the driver was unharmed, although her car was lightly damaged by the bomb.
[youtube:2013370]
Shrapnel from the explosive flew into the car engine, but the driver was able to continue driving and fled the site.
Security forces began a search of the area to try and locate the terrorist.
Friday's attack is one of a recent uptick in terror assaults this week since US Vice President Joe Biden arrived for a visit on Tuesday.
Those attacks included a stabbing spree in Jaffa (Yafo) on Tuesday in which ten were wounded and US tourist Taylor Force was murdered, which came after a stabbing in Petah Tikva and a shooting attack in Jerusalem in which two officers were seriously wounded.
Then on Wednesday morning there was a two-front shooting attack in Jerusalem in which two Arab terrorists driving in their car shot and seriously wounded an Arab resident of the capital, mistaking him for a Jew.
8. WATCH: YOUR INVITATION TO DEFEAT THE BOYCOTT
by Eliran Aharon
In a new video published Wednesday, craftsmen in Judea and Samaria who are working with Lev Haolam to defeat the international BDS boycott movement presented their goods and thanked their customers worldwide.
[youtube:2013360]
The video featuring the local small business owners was put together by Lev Haolam, an organization that buys products from producers in the region and ships them to customers worldwide. The purchase itself is a statement against the boycotters.
Every month the organization sends packages of quality goods from Judea and Samaria to customers in Norway, Sweden, Italy, the US, Germany, and many more locations. Those interested can visit Lev Haolam's website here.
Lev Haolam is constantly growing, and currently has over 1,000 active participants in the region. It is led by attorney Nati Rom and Ze'ev Epstein.
"Three months have passed since the European Union declaration to boycott goods from settlements, a sweeping decision that casts a shadow on small and large business owners," said Rom.
Presenting the new video, Rom said, "today we are happy to have you meet with the talented people - unique in their fields and great visionaries - who stand behind the chain of products produced in the state of Israel at the highest level of quality."
"We must not continue ignoring the warped reality in which world states exclude and harm Israel in different aspects," he said. "We must wake up and strengthen the economic ties between the state of Israel and world states so as to torpedo the ridiculous initiatives of radical organizations, who try to damage the international ties and trade between world states and Israel."
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