Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Thursday, Apr. 21 '16, Nissan 13, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. FORMER SANDERS ADVISER: 'ISRAEL WILL BE ELIMINATED'
2. ATTORNEY GENERAL NIXES FEMALE 'PRIESTLY BLESSING' AT KOTEL
3. OFFICIALS RECOUNT 'UNPRECEDENTED' BIBI-BENNETT CABINET CLASH
4. UK JEWISH STUDENTS LOCK HORNS WITH ANTI-SEMITES AT CONFERENCE
5. BUS BOMBER THREATENED JEWS AHEAD OF ATTACK: 'YOUR DAY WILL COME'
6. ALL TOGETHER - 93% OF ISRAELI JEWS TO JOIN IN PESACH SEDER
7. HIS BROTHER MURDERED JEWISH CHILDREN - HE FIGHTS ISLAMISM
8. KIPPALIVE'S LATEST SINGLE: VEHI SHE'AMDA
1. FORMER SANDERS ADVISER: 'ISRAEL WILL BE ELIMINATED'
by David Rosenberg
Retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson is no stranger to controversy, with a legacy of questionable statements on Israel and the US government.
In 2013 the former chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that Israel was responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
In 2007 Wilkerson appeared in a Dutch documentary, claiming that American foreign policy was dominated by "the Jewish lobby".
Despite his history of inflammatory rhetoric and frequent conspiracy theories, Wilkerson was tapped to serve as a military and foreign policy adviser for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2015.
In the wake of yet another controversial interview, however, it appears that the Sanders campaign dropped Wilkerson, a point Wilkerson noted while speaking earlier this month to The Real News Network.
"The last time I spoke this way on your show, I compromised my ability to work for the Bernie Sanders Campaign. So now I've probably foreclosed my ability to work for anyone."
True to form, the former Sanders adviser made yet another series of over-the-top claims during the interview, asserting among other things that Israel had "captured" the US government, a common claim employed by fringe elements and white supremacists.
"[T]he ultra-right wing of Israel has captured AIPAC, and AIPAC has captured the United States Congress. And to a certain extent the oval office as well."
While Wilkerson dedicated much of his criticism to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, he also claimed that Zionism per se sought to dominate much of the Middle East, with designs on Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
"So the future for Israel, as contemplated by Netanyahu, is a greater Israel. Having secured the West Bank. Jerusalem as its capital, perhaps gotten Gaza back, parts of Lebanon, parts of Syria that's now looking like it's falling apart. And parts if not all of Jordan. This is Netanyahu's ultimate goal. This is the Zionist ultimate goal. And so, that's very dangerous because it's not tenable. What you're going to have is you're going to have a one state solution. That state is going to be increasingly apartheid as the West Bank and Jerusalem are now."
Wilkerson frequently invoked comparisons to apartheid-ridden South Africa, and asserted that Israel was doomed to annihilation by either the international community or its Arab neighbors.
"And as Israel proper is becoming more and more alike, that state's going to be apartheid, it's going to be untenable, it's going to be eliminated by the international community if not the 350 to 400 million people around it who are opposed to it."
Wilkerson went on to offer his views on internal Israeli politics, blaming Binyamin Netanyahu and the Likud party for the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
"The current ultra-right wing leadership in Israel under Bibi Netanyahu - to give a historical context - actually probably contributed to the tension and the incredible shift in political momentum in Israel that lead to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It's not going too far to say that Netanyahu and his group created the circumstances that produced the assassin."
Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by Yigal Amir, an opponent of the nascent Oslo Accords unaffiliated with the Likud party.
2. ATTORNEY GENERAL NIXES FEMALE 'PRIESTLY BLESSING' AT KOTEL
by David Rosenberg
Twice a year, during the Pesach and Sukkot holidays, tens of thousands of Jews gather in the Old City of Jerusalem for the mass Birkat Kohanim ("Priestly Blessing") ceremony at the Kotel.
This year, however, the radical feminist group "Women of the Wall", planned to crash the ceremony with a "Birkat Kohanot" ritual alongside the traditional event.
In Judaism, Kohanim, the descendants of the priestly caste who maintained the Temple in Jerusalem, perform a ritual blessing of the congregation each day during morning prayers. The daughters of Kohanim do not perform the ritual blessing.
The planned Women of the Wall event sparked anger among organizers of the Birkat Kohanim ceremony, the Rabbi of the Kotel Shmuel Rabinovitch, and the religious community at large.
A mass prayer rally of Orthodox women was planned for Sunday to protest the Women of the Wall event.
On Thursday, however, Israel's Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit nixed the alternative ceremony, ruling that no tradition for Birkat Kohanot exists, and is thus counter to the traditions of the venue.
The Attorney General's office said that Mandelblit earlier had held "a hearing on the issue, with representatives of the Prime Minister's Office, the Religious Ministry, the Rabbi of the Kotel, and officials from the Justice Ministry".
"During the meeting the Rabbi of the Kotel and the Religious Ministry presented their positions, arguing that the 'Birkat Kohanot' ceremony was not in keeping with the traditions established at the Kotel."
The Attorney General's ruling noted that 'Birkat Kohanot' was not a recognized Jewish tradition, and that such an event had never been held at the Kotel in the past.
3. OFFICIALS RECOUNT 'UNPRECEDENTED' BIBI-BENNETT CABINET CLASH
by David Rosenberg
A fiery debate which erupted during Wednesday's cabinet meeting revealed a widening gulf between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home).
The two locked horns over a planned discussion on the proposal to withdraw IDF forces from major Palestinian Authority cities, a moved opposed by Bennett and other senior cabinet members.
Officials present at the closed door security meeting told Yediot Ahronot that the incident began when Bennett lashed out Netanyahu for apparently neglecting his promise to open the withdrawal plan up to discussion and a cabinet vote.
Referring to a pledge made by the Prime Minister on Sunday to bring the matter to a cabinet vote on Wednesday, Bennett told Netanyahu "keep your promise".
Netanyahu reportedly erupted, yelling back at Bennett saying "you don't decide anything here."
The shouting match continued between the two, with Netanyahu threatening to fire the Jewish Home leader from his cabinet.
"Calm down or I'll fire you," Netanyahu reportedly told Bennett.
Officials speaking on condition of anonymity reported that the Netanyahu-Bennett relationship had reached a new low.
"We've seen rounds of arguments and clashing between Bennett and Netanyahu before," one official said. "But what happened today in the cabinet was a new record. We've never seen a fight like this before. The tone and content were abnormally fierce. Netanyahu was absolutely furious. This was unlike anything we've seen till today."
A second official present at the meeting noted that despite his anger, the Prime Minister acceded to Bennett's request.
"Netanyahu didn't like what Bennett had said or the way he said it, and he answered him sharply – 'you don't decide things here'. In spite of that, in the end he gave into Bennett's demand and raised the issue during the meeting."
"After Netanyahu yelled [at Bennett] and threatened to blow up the meeting, he recanted because everybody knows, including Netanyahu, what firing Bennett would mean. That seems to be why the two of them calmed down and let the meeting continue."
While Bennett's office declined to comment on the incident, Jewish Home chairperson Shuli Muallem ridiculed Netanyahu's threat to fire Bennett. Referring to Netanyahu's election-day claim that Arabs were being bused into polling places en masse, Muallem suggested the Prime Minister could only lose by bringing on early elections.
"It's a basic thing for a government minister and senior coalition partner to demand information and answers on security issues, especially when terror is running rampant in the streets. If Netanyahu wants to break up the coalition over this, fine, let him go and try to explain to people a second time about how Arabs are flooding to the polls. But this time the public will know who cares about the state's security."
4. UK JEWISH STUDENTS LOCK HORNS WITH ANTI-SEMITES AT CONFERENCE
by Ari Soffer
The vote by Britain's National Union of Students (NUS) to appoint an openly anti-Semitic student who proudly supports acts of terrorism against Israelis as its president overshadowed another, equally disturbing vote by the NUS on Wednesday.
At the NUS annual conference in Brighton, Jewish students were left aghast at having to defend a motion to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.
The motion - which did eventually pass - was fiercely opposed by many students, prompting angry responses from Jewish students in return, who say the unwillingness to commemorate the Holocaust is merely a symptom of a wider pervasive anti-Semitism growing among the British student Left.
One of the most loudly-applauded speeches was indeed one delivered by a student opposed to the motion, who contended that commemorating the Holocaust would show that "some lives are worth more than others" - a reference to Jews.
[youtube:2014730]
Jewish students, however, repeatedly observed that marking the greatest genocide in modern European history in no way negated the option of marking other genocides as well, and noted that Jews are alone among minority students in receiving no support - and often only mockery and hostility - when protesting anti-Semitism or seeking to commemorate injustices committed against their people.
Izzy Lenga, a leading Jewish student activist and co-chair of NUS's Anti-Racism, Anti-Fascism (ARAF) campaign, took to the stage to berate fellow students for the "deep-rooted, institutional problem within the movement, that can only go away when students wake up to the fact that NUS has a problem with Jewish students."
[youtube:2014729]
"This movement fails year after year to take the abuse and hatred towards Jewish students seriously," Lenga said, describing the "serious reality where Jewish students are targeted on campuses and signalled out in the movement for just being Jewish."
Taking aim directly at many of her fellow students, she challenged:
"If you're accused of anti-Semitism and your first thought is 'oh, just another smear campaign', you're probably anti-Semitic. If when I walked up on stage... your first thought was "here comes the 'Zio'," that's anti-Semitic. And if you believe that providing a context justifies an attack on a Jewish student - that's anti-Semitism."
Lenga further protested the decision to annul the one position within the NUS - one which she currently holds at ARAF - which is reserved for a Jewish student.
In her final speech as NUS President before Malia Bouattia - who branded Jewish Societies as "Zionist outposts" - takes over, outgoing president Megan Dunn voiced her shock at the very fact that a motion to commemorate the Holocaust was even being debated:
[youtube:2014728]
Although, as mentioned, the motion did pass in spite of the opposition, many students who spoke to Arutz Sheva - all of whom, notably, asked for anonymity - expressed their shock and fear over the course that the NUS is likely to take under Bouattia.
The sound of hundreds of students applauding attempts to erase the memory of the Holocaust is unlikely to convince them otherwise.
5. BUS BOMBER THREATENED JEWS AHEAD OF ATTACK: 'YOUR DAY WILL COME'
by David Rosenberg
A day after a man wounded in Monday's bus bombing in Jerusalem died from his injuries, new details have emerged regarding the alleged terrorist.
Immediately following the attack, which left at least 16 people wounded, Israeli police suspected that the most severely wounded passenger on the bus was the bomber responsible for the attack. The explosive device had been placed on the bus floor between his feet, suggesting that he was in fact the bomber, and that the device had exploded prematurely.
On Wednesday the Hamas terror organization claimed responsibility for the attack, telling Al-Jazeera that the alleged bomber was a member of the group.
New details emerged on Thursday regarding the suspected bomber, who has been identified as Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour, a 19-year-old from the Bethlehem area.
Israeli police have yet to confirm the identity of the young man, who was carrying no identification on the day of the attack.
Arab media sources claimed on Thursday that Abu Srour's father had been taken into custody by Israeli security forces in order to conduct a DNA test to verify the man's identity.
Evidence confirming Hamas' allegation that Abu Srour was acting on their behalf has mounted in the days following the attack. Abu Srour's mother released a picture of her son wearing a Hamas scarf, claiming that he requested she distribute the image after his death.
On Abu Srour's Facebook account, the suspected bomber left several messages threatening Jews in revenge for the killing of terrorists by the IDF.
In response to a video of terrorist being gunned down by Israeli soldiers, Abu Srour wrote "Don't worry, their day will come, with the help of Allah." Similar messages were left in response to other such videos.
6. ALL TOGETHER - 93% OF ISRAELI JEWS TO JOIN IN PESACH SEDER
by Arutz Sheva Staff
The Passover Seder, the retelling of the story of the exodus from Egypt and accompanying festive holiday meal, remains enormously popular in Israel – even among irreligious Jews.
According to a Pew Research Center study released last month, 93% of Israeli Jews are likely to participate in a Seder this Friday evening, the first night of the Passover holiday.
Passover remains one of the most widely observed Jewish traditions, with an overwhelming majority of even secular Jews participating in a Seder. According to the Pew study, 87% of secular Jews attended a Seder in 2015, compared to 97% of traditional Jews, 99% of religious Jews, and 100% of haredim.
Passover Seder attendance is higher among secular Israeli Jews (87%) than American Jews as a whole (70%). Among secular Jews, only 47% said they attended a Seder, according to a 2014 Pew study.
An in depth look at this year's Pew survey reveals that non-observance of Passover was highest among recent Russian immigrants (many of whom are not, however, halakhically Jewish). Among those living in households where the primary language is Russian, only 70% attended a Seder in 2015. By contrast, among those living in Hebrew-speaking homes, 95% participated in a Seder.
Despite the enduring popularity of the Passover Seder, more than a quarter of Israelis opted for "non-traditional" Seders last year. While 67% of Israelis attended a traditional Seder, 26% participated in an "alternative" Seder.
Nearly all haredi, religious, and traditional Jews attended traditional Seders, compared to only 41% of secular Jews. Some 46% of secular Jews said they had participated in a "non-traditional" Seder.
7. HIS BROTHER MURDERED JEWISH CHILDREN - HE FIGHTS ISLAMISM
by Sandra Laffont
(AFP) He is the brother of jihadist Mohamed Merah, who four years ago killed three soldiers and four Jews, but in his extremist, anti-Semitic family it is Abdelghani who is seen as the black sheep.
Abdelghani Merah has light brown eyes, a shaven head and a surname immediately associated with terror in France, but after losing everything because of his brother's acts he has found a calling: de-radicalizing youngsters drawn to jihad.
In an interview with AFP, he says he will never forget the morning in March 2012 when he turned on the television and recognized the street where his brother lived, now crawling with security forces.
It hit him that the man who had been riding around on a scooter, shooting soldiers in the southern French city of Toulouse and nearby Montauban, and then a rabbi and three Jewish children in Toulouse a few days later, was his younger brother Mohamed.
"I rushed to the scene, in a panic. The police thought I wanted to attack them - but I wanted to help them negotiate with Mohamed," he said.
Mohamed was killed in a firefight with the police after a stand-off lasting about 30 hours.
None of these events took Abdelghani, who is around 40, by surprise.
He accuses his Algerian parents of sowing "fertile ground" for radicalization and anti-Semitism among his brothers and his sister Souad.
"My mother always said that Arabs are born to hate Jews. And my father thought that Palestinians were right to carry out suicide bombings and that the Israelis got what they deserved."
In 2003 he said he warned police that "my other brother Kader was calling himself Bin Laden."
A known Salafist, Abdelkader Merah had been under closer scrutiny by intelligence services than Mohamed and is now facing charges of complicity in his brother's attack, which he denies.
Black sheep
Abdelghani cannot quite say why he never absorbed his parents' hatred like his siblings did.
"I was quite a good goalkeeper, and sought after by reputable football clubs, maybe that is where my openness comes from," says the man who later lost the use of one of his arms in a motorbike accident.
He endured a series of painful clashes with his family.
First he fell in love with a woman who had a Jewish grandfather, which so revolted his brother Abdelkader that he stabbed him seven times during an argument.
In another incident he secretly filmed his sister saying she was "proud" of what Mohamed had done, for a television documentary.
Abdelghani also wrote a book titled "My Brother, the Terrorist", to denounce the climate of hatred in his family and to counter growing hero-worship of his brother by young Muslims.
"To them, I did the worst thing possible ... I lost all my friends overnight," Abdelghani said.
"I thought I was relieved after writing my book, but in fact I was depressed. My family was angrier at me than at Mohamed.
"I felt so much pain for them, they didn't realize what they were doing by idolizing him like that. (To them) he didn't kill children, but Jews."
Sinking into despair, Abdelghani broke up with his girlfriend and found himself homeless and jobless as his surname increasingly poisoned his life.
'Breaking the myth'
Then one day, Mohamed Sifaoui, the journalist who helped him write his book, invited him to a meeting in Paris on de-radicalization where he met with the association Entr'autres (Among Others) working with youngsters drawn to jihad.
He decided to join them.
"Abdelghani brings the truth about his brother's character. He breaks the hero-worship. He shows that political religious extremism comes from within the family, like in Nazism," said Patrick Amoyel, a professor in psychopathology and founding member of Entr'autres.
"I have something to offer, I can break the myth around Mohamed, tell youngsters that my brother was weak (and) his mind was stolen," Abdelghani said.
As for the mothers of these lost teens: "I try to comfort them, tell them that what they are doing is essential. If Mohamed had had their love, he would never have become Mohamed Merah.
"I also warn them: if there is a Salafist in the family, you must separate him from the others, because the attacks in Brussels and Paris show clearly the role brothers can play in jihad."
8. KIPPALIVE'S LATEST SINGLE: VEHI SHE'AMDA
by Arutz Sheva Staff
[youtube:2014736]
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