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Tuesday, Nov. 08 '16, ז' בחשון תשע"ז
HEADLINES:
1. "ABOLISH WESTERN WALL ARRANGEMENT"
2. SENIOR MINISTER ATTACKS NETANYAHU
3. ILANA DAYAN: "I'M AN EXTREME LEFTIST?"
4. HAREDI NEWSPAPER:YIGAL AMIR ACTED FROM 'REFORM' MOTIVES
5. NAOR IS TRAMPLING REAL DEMOCRACY
6. RABBI KANIEVSKY'S MEDICAL MIRACLE
7. HORROR ON INTERNAL MEXICAN FLIGHT
8. WATCH: ACTIVISTS DEBATE US ELECTIONS
1. "ABOLISH WESTERN WALL ARRANGEMENT"
by Hezki Baruch
Knesset Interior Committee head David Amsalem (Likud) called today on the Prime Minister to cancel the "Western Wall arrangement" and to return to former prayer arrangements which existed until now.
Amsalem wrote that cancelling the agreement would "Lower the flames and reduce disputes. The potential for dispute is there when the subject is raised. If American Jews will be insulted, it's OK."
The arrangement which was agreed in the cabinet last January required Women of the Wall to refrain from worshiping in the women's section and a new prayer area will be prepared for them at the Southern Wall, north of Robinson Arch and south of the Mugrabi Gate. Mixed prayers for women and men will take place there without a partition.
The members of the Knesset Interior Committee visited the Western Wall Plaza this morning and then returned to the Knesset where they discussed the reform demands to implement the arrangement approved in the government.
The haredi members of the committee did not take part in the visit as it included representatives of the Reform Movement in Israel.
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2. SENIOR MINISTER ATTACKS NETANYAHU
by Uzi Baruch
A senior member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet criticized him on Tuesday for slamming journalist Ilana Dayan's televised expose of his inner sanctum.
"Netanyahu's routine branding of anyone who argues with him as a 'leftist' doesn't work anymore," the minister said, a first reaction to the controversy by a member of Israel's government.
"Likud members no longer buy the attempt to turn Erdan, Katz, Saar, Lieberman, Bennett and Shaked into leftists because they don't agree with his (Netanyahu's) whims," the minister said.
Culture Minister Miri Regev came to Netanyahu's defense, writing on her Facebook page "the prime minister yesterday redefined the rules of the game with journalists acting out of political and personal motives."
She praised Netanyahu's spouse, Sara, for pursuing public service"despite the ugly smear campaign she's going through."
3. ILANA DAYAN: "I'M AN EXTREME LEFTIST?"
by Arutz Sheva Staff
Journalist Ilana Dayan responded this morning on Army Radio to Netanyahu's strong reaction to her investigation into the conduct of the Prime Minister's office.
Dayan's investigation, her first show of the season, was an hour-long feature broadcast last night on Channel 2, and included interviews with dozens of former senior officials and aides to Benjamin Netanyahu who had had disagreements with him and left his employ. Some of the details were already known, but Dayan presented them as part of a whole picture.
Most striking, though, was Netanyahu's response, which Dayan read aloud in its entirety at the end of her program, standing outside the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. It took her six minutes.
Among other things, the response referred to Dayan as an extreme leftist and backed it up with examples of statements she has made in the past.
Dayan said that Netanyahu's response helps illustrate what she wanted to present in her investigation of Netanyahu's decision-making and management style. "The Prime Minister is not my enemy and I'm not his enemy. I'm not Ahmadinejad, or Gideon Saar, or Yisrael Katz. We don't operate in the same arena. Netanyahu is part of my job as a journalist. I want to and am obligated to cover him."
"If I could sit in front of Netanyahu, I would say to him, "You are such a strong and talented Prime Minister, how is it that you are afraid of me?"
Referring to Netanyahu's charge that she was an extreme leftist, Dayan responded, "Was I an extreme leftist when we broadcast the investigation into Ezra Nawi? Did I turn into one overnight?"
Ezra Nawi is the Israeli left-wing "human-rights activist" who was secretly recorded bragging that he had helped identify Palestinians who were willing to sell land to Israelis and get them killed. Dayan's "Uvda" program on Channel 2 broadcast the secret recordings of Nawi this last January. Dayan did not mention that she apologized for that broadcast and did not air the second part of it after she was attacked for it by the left.
A popular rightist radio show broadcaster Tuesday morning wondered aloud how it is that Dayan has never seen fit to investigate Breaking the Silence, The New Israel Fund, B'Tselem and other topics the right would like to know more about - nor decide to have her first show of the season investigate the decision process on serious issues that Netanyahu has to deal with, such as the Gaza tunnels and BDS. Instead, he said, she stooped to gossip and yellow journalism.
4. HAREDI NEWSPAPER:YIGAL AMIR ACTED FROM 'REFORM' MOTIVES
by Arutz Sheva Staff
The editor of the haredi newspaper Yated Neeman, Yisrael Friedman, claims that the basis for the dastardly assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin z'l stemmed from a warped understanding of Judaism which is reminiscent of the behavior of Reform Jews.
"Yigal Amir may not be a member of the Reform movement," wrote Friedman in an article published Tuesday, "But if he found a way to uphold his act based on Jewish sources, this is a Reform Movement way of thinking. What is the Reform Movement? An attempt to adapt the Torah to fit the reality that 'I can understand'. To subordinate an immutable Torah to what 'I think is right'. If it doesn't fit in with the value system I have created, it should just be erased! This is the basis of Reform and if Amir acted as he understood Judaism and murdered Rabin, that in itself is reform-type behavior."
Friedman compared the two approaches and maintained that any deviation from the accepted path stems from one common denominator. "It is the same distortion which caused those who wish to change and trample halakha to enter the women's section and to desecrate the sanctity of the Western Wall, the same logic which causes them to adapt the principles of conversion to their own needs and interpretations - if he relied on the Torah and distorted it for his own needs, that too is reformist behavior.
"Obviously one cannot compare the severity of the two actions. The Reform movement is not murder and they do not condone murder but the thought process is similarly warped. If one wantonly misinterprets an immutable Torah, you know where it begins but you never know where it will end. If it is 'permitted' for you to distort the Torah for your own needs, don't complain when someone else does the same thing for his own motives and finds alternative interpretations.
"The head of the coalition (David Bitan) was right, this was not a political assassination. It was an assassination based on reformist principles by one who had been brainwashed by his nationalism into believing that one can abandon eternal values and adopt foreign values when necessary and place them 'above everything', that one can twist the Torah according to his needs and personal interpretation, G-d forbid," concluded Friedman.
5. NAOR IS TRAMPLING REAL DEMOCRACY
by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen
The "Cosmopolitan" Judaism of the Supreme Court
Everyone uses the slogan "Jewish and democratic," but in effect, the "democratic" side in Israel has increasingly prevailed in recent years, while the "Jewish" side has weakened to point of insignificance. The great bastion of official "democracy" is the judiciary system.
The champion of this arrangement was the former President of the Supreme Court – Aharon Barak – who effectively eliminated the "Jewish" side of the equation. He did so by detaching it from Halacha and from tradition and turning the word "Jewish" into another expression of "democratic." His interpretation of "Jewish" relied exclusively on the prophetic moral injunctions against, for example, oppression and bribery, and ignored everything else.
Barak's "offspring" on the Supreme Court have prevailed such that not one of them supports legislation containing Jewish components that are not in alignment with their "pure democracy."
Based on this, I've been thinking that it's time to change the phrase, "Jewish and democratic," to one that is more consistent with actual policy, such as "national and democratic."
The proposal to help correct this situation and to declare Israel to be a "Jewish state" as a Basic Law has been on the table for some time now, waiting for the Israeli government that is not as intimidated by the Supreme Court and by the US President.
Democracy vs Self-Serving Interests
We now turn to the current conflict between the Justice Minister and Chief Justice Miriam Naor. As of 2008, the committee to appoint new judges required only simple majority, but this year a law was passed – claiming to be democratic – which requires a supermajority of 7 members. The change in effect gives veto power to the Judiciary establishment.
Justice Minister Shaked supports a bill that would restore the previous status quo.
I admit, there are political considerations to take into account in the appointment of judges, but the furious battle of the current Chief Justice against this sensible and democratic proposal flies in the face of her avowed allegiance to democracy and instead promotes just the opposite.
6. RABBI KANIEVSKY'S MEDICAL MIRACLE
by Arutz Sheva Staff
In recent days Rabbi Kanievsky's medical miracle has become the talk of the Jerusalem Torah world. The miracle came to light through a Torah scholar in the community of Maalot Dafna, a neighborhood in northern Jerusalem.
According to the story, when the scholar's wife was five months pregnant, she underwent a comprehensive medical examination during which it was discovered that the foetus had a severe heart defect. The couple were beside themselves over this news, and consulted with many other doctors, all of whom concurred that the defect was fatal and untreatable. There was no way the baby could be born and live.
One of Israel's most prominent medical consultants said that perhaps the problem could be fixed via a complex operation at a hospital in Boston, but the chances of success were slim.
In their distress, the couple consulted with Rabbi Kanievsky, who listened intently to the heartfelt distress of the couple and said emphatically that "There is no defect. It's a healthy child." And so it was.
7. HORROR ON INTERNAL MEXICAN FLIGHT
by Yoel Domb
[youtube:2020781]
8. WATCH: ACTIVISTS DEBATE US ELECTIONS
by ILTV
[brightcove:2020773]
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