Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com
------------------------------------------------
Delivered Daily via Email, Sunday thru Friday
Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/
Tuesday, Nov. 29 '16, כ"ח בחשון תשע"ז
HEADLINES:
1. 'ONE WHO IS MERCIFUL TO BEDOUINS WILL BE CRUEL TO JEWS'
2. PRESIDENT HOSTS INTERFAITH MEETING ON MUEZZIN ISSUE
3. PRIME MINISTER CONTRACTS FLU, POSTPONES MEETINGS
4. GOLAN HEIGHTS SIRENS RAISED BUT NO HITS DETECTED
5. THE RETURN OF PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
6. A-G APPROVES 'ABSENTEE PROPERTY' SOLUTION FOR AMONA
7. ANTI-U.S. FACEBOOK RANT MAY BE LINKED TO OHIO STABBER
8. INTERNATIONAL LAW AGAINST OFFICERS - WHAT CAN BE DONE?
1. 'ONE WHO IS MERCIFUL TO BEDOUINS WILL BE CRUEL TO JEWS'
by Eliran Aharon
In an Arutz Sheva interview Tuesday, Tzfat Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu dismissed the prime minister's warning that if the Regulation Law is approved in the Knesset, it will cause international petitions against Israel at the Hague international criminal court. "Israel is not obligated to the Hague and this threat should not faze us. Russia has announces that it is disassociating from this court... which always seems to find reasons why we are guilty.
"We should remember that this community is a fulfillment of the covenant G-d made to our forefathers. Who is more important to us- a biased judge in the Hague or our forefather Avraham? What is more important- G-d who promised us this land or some court in Europe whose positions are known beforehand?"
What should Amona residents do?
"They should gather as many Jews as possible in Amona since in the end the court rules based on pressure. When it is discussing Bedouins it can postpone ten times the evacuations even when it is an illegal settlement since the court is scared of the Bedouin reaction. Maybe it's time we showed some might and strength and then they will understand that it won't be easy."
After the previous time when Olmert tried to forcibly remove Jews he realized that it wasn't so simple and he held back (from further evacuations). Maybe the government needs to see that there is strength and resilience here and it is impossible to evacuate Amona.
When the Rabbi speaks about a show of strength, how should people conduct themselves towards soldiers and police?
Nobody intends to promote violence. I hope that the soldiers will not promote violence. It is unthinkable that in this country there will be one law for Bedouins and one for Jews. Our sages say that one who has mercy on Bedouins will be cruel to his Jewish compatriots in Judea and Samaria.
2. PRESIDENT HOSTS INTERFAITH MEETING ON MUEZZIN ISSUE
by Ido ben Porat
President Reuven (Ruby) Rivlin today hosted a meeting between Jewish and Muslim leaders seeking to promote dialogue between the religious groups regarding the conduct of the muezzins across the country.
The meeting was called in the wake of new "Muezzin Law" that has been drafted and is making its way through the Knesset legislative process. The new law would prohibit houses of worship, specifically mosques, from using loudspeakers which disturb the sleep of nearby residents when the Muezzin calls worshipers to prayer in the early hours of the morning.
The President opened the meeting by saying that "There are issues that are extremely sensitive to many residents of this country. Jerusalem always melds our many voices together – the prayers of the Jews along with the calls of muezzins and the church bells. I am the son of the translator of the Koran, who kept the 613 commandments, and I recognize the need to walk 'between the seams.'"
"I wanted to sit and speak with you and to see if there is a path we can walk together despite our differences. I thought that perhaps such a meeting would have an impact on the public and give us some direction."
Rabbi Aryeh Stern, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Jerusalem, told the meeting: "I see the need for dialogue between the Jewish and Muslim religious leadership that might possibly eliminate the need for such a law. I think there should be a joint decision that will, on the one hand, ensure that the places where the volume of the muezzin is a problem are properly dealt with and on the other hand, halt the current legislative process dealing with the issue."
President of the Islamic Court, Sheikh Abdel Hakim Samara stressed that "We can reach an agreement and a solution wherever the loudspeakers are a problem. The solutions should not include raising the sword of law. We all agree that there is need to lower the volume in problematic areas. We can do this without a law."
Rabbi Yosef Yashar, Chief Rabbi of Acre, which is a mixed Jewish and Arab city said, "I want to tell a bit about Acre's story. It's a city where Jews and Arabs living together is a fact. We have done years of work in the field promoting dialogue. This path has proven itself. It's not without problems. It's not easy. There is still hatred. But we're talking to one another. We're in contact."
"We have not turned the Muslims into Zionists or the Jews the other way around. But the dialogue has proven itself. We have also had provocations in which the muezzin volume was raised as an act of defiance. However, our dialogue has allowed us to find solutions to all the problems. We can overcome the problems with dialogue and I invite everyone to come and see how this operates in the field. Dialogue is stronger than the law."
Sheikh Mohammed Ciooan, head of a committee representing about 400 imams, told the meeting: "The dignity of man should guide us. We can protect one other. We are connected to each other, and we have no other choice than to reach agreements through dialogue, without such laws. We have already publicly requested the imams to lower the volume in all the communities involved."
"We have one destiny and one future," said the sheikh. "We will continue and we'll correct the problem. We will bring in engineers who will check everything that's needed, and we will issue a call to all worshipers to have some consideration and decrease the volume anywhere that it's a problem."
3. PRIME MINISTER CONTRACTS FLU, POSTPONES MEETINGS
by Nitzan Keidar
Prime Minister Netanyahu is suffering from a light flu infection and his doctor recommended that he not conduct his regular schedule and take the day off.
The security cabinet meeting which was scheduled to discuss today the issue of regulating the communities in Judea and Samaria was postponed to tomorrow morning.
Yesterday the Ha'aretz newspaper reported that the prime minister and Defense Minister Liberman are applying strong pressure behind the scenes to prevent the passing of the Regulation Law. According to the reports Netanyahu and Liberman concurred with the position of the Attorney-General at Sunday's cabinet meeting and expressed their concern that the law would encourage the international criminal court to investigate Israels' actions.
The cabinet meeting lasted a long time and was accompanied by various legal surveys from different levels of legal representatives as well as acting National Security Advisor Yaakov Nagel. The ministers were presented with all the considerations opposing the law and established among themselves that the Law is problematic in terms of international law.
4. GOLAN HEIGHTS SIRENS RAISED BUT NO HITS DETECTED
by Arutz Sheva Staff
Sirens were sounded in southern Golan Heights communities Tuesday morning and residents were told to enter protected enclaves. After a short time the army spokesman reported that there were no artillery hits detected in Israeli territory.
The sirens were heard in Avnei Eitan, Eliad, Afik, Benei Yehuda, Givat Yoav, Geshur, Hispin, Kfar Haruv, Mevo Hama, Meitzar, Neot Golan, Nov, Natur and Ramat Magshimim.
On Sunday a Golani Brigade unit was situated in ambush at the confluence of Israel's borders with Syria and Jordan and were attacked from the Syrian side by terrorists affiliated to ISIS. In response an IDF airplane eliminated the four terrorists who were firing heavy weapons from a military vehicle.
During the course of Sunday night, IDF airforce planes attacked an ISIS facility in the southern part of the Syrian Golan Heights. 10 bombs weighing a ton each were dropped on a military installation near the border which had been abandoned by the UN. The site was used by ISIS terrorists to attack IDF forces and to establish their presence near the border.
The IDF spokesman said that "this is a continuation of yesterday's attack which aimed at preventing the return of the terrorists to a facility constitutes a fundamental threat to the region," the statement said.
"The IDF will continue to act to protect the citizens of Israel while maintaining the IDF's freedom of action inside the sovereign territory of Israel, and will not hesitate to act against the terrorist organizations operating against it," it added.
5. THE RETURN OF PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Shimon Cohen
Arutz Sheva recently held an enlightening conversation with history buff Itamar Tzur on the topic of the "return" of Palestinian "refugees."
According to the UN, there originally were 710 thousand Arab refugees who left or were forced out of their homes as a result of the War of Independence. At about that time, right after World War II, there about 50 million other refugees in the world. They all eventually found new homes. However, the Palestinian refugee problem, with help from the UN, has gotten worse, and there are now about 5 million Palestinians claiming refugee status.
A special UN organization, UNRWA, was established in 1949 to deal with the Palestinian refugees separately from the UNHCR, which deals with all other refugees around the world. UNWRA was established, said Tzur, because no other nation was willing to take them and because their continued status as stateless refugees allows them to cast blame on Israel.
It's important to note, said Tzur, that the UN passed a resolution at the time, Resolution 174, urging that the Palestinian refugees "wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors" be allowed to do so. However, the Arabs themselves did not agree to this resolution because it included recognition of the Jewish state.
"The millions of refugees from the 40's and 50's were settled long ago, and none of them spoke about going back to their original homes. It's only the Palestinians who are promised this kind of solution, while they are in the meantime receiving the highest funding of any refugee group in the world."
According to Tzur, the solution will begin with the recognition by Israelis themselves of what actually happened historically "We must remember that the 'Nakba'(disaster) that supposedly occurred to the Palestinian Arabs is overshadowed by the 'Nakba' that was perpetrated against the Jews from Arab countries at the same time." This awareness must begin with us.
Tzur also noted that we need to be aware of the treatment of other expulsions from different nations. "We should be looking at the recent historical precedents. During the last century, there have been mass deportations all over the world. After World War II, 12 to 17 million Germans were expelled from Europe to East or West Germany. There were about 14.5 million expelled from India to Pakistan and vice versa. In the 1970's nearly 200,000 Greeks were expelled from their homes in Cyprus. In the 80's 300,000 Muslims were forced to leave Bulgaria and Turkey. Even in the 90's there were mass deportations. Kuwait expelled some 200,000 Palestinians after the first Iraq war. This is just the tip of the iceberg."
"During the 50's and 60's, the young State of Israel absorbed 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were forced to leave with no compensation for their property or possessions. Meanwhile, the 700,000 Palestinian refugees from 1949 have mushroomed to 5,000,000 who are knocking on the doors of the State of Israel under the delusion of a right of return that is supposedly recognized by International Law."
6. A-G APPROVES 'ABSENTEE PROPERTY' SOLUTION FOR AMONA
by Nitsan Keidar
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Monday submitted a legal opinion offering a temporary solution for the residents of Amona, which is slated for demolition by December 25.
The legal opinion relates to the possibility of moving the residents of Amona to temporary structures on three plots located north of the community.
The solution is a temporary one, for a period of about eight months, and will move the residents to property defined as "absentee property", meaning assets granted to the state of Israel which originally belonged to individuals who fled to the territory of a hostile nation during the 1948 War of Independence.
The solution is based on a 1998 legal opinion by then-Military Advocate General, Uri Shoham, who opined that absentee property may be used under circumstances of urgent public need.
Mandelblit stated that the temporary solution will only be valid until such a time that the Knesset passes the Regulation Law, at which point the situation will no longer be considered urgent and the Defense Ministry would be required to immediately vacate the plots.
The absentee property solution for Amona is the solution which is the preference of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been pushing for this solution and last week announced the creation of a special committee for this purpose.
Mandelblit's new legal opinion comes hours after it was reported that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman are pulling out all the stops to prevent the passage of the Regulation Law, which is supported by the Jewish Home party.
According to Haaretz, Netanyahu and Liberman expressed concern in a cabinet meeting Sunday that the passage of the Regulation Law could encourage the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to launch an investigation against Israel.
Netanyahu and Liberman reportedly attacked Jewish Home chairman, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who is one of the bill's primary proponents.
They also said that passing the bill could encourage U.S. President Barack Obama to take action against Israel at the UN during his final days in office.
Bennett, for his part, said that he would be willing to compromise if real alternatives which can be implemented are found.
7. ANTI-U.S. FACEBOOK RANT MAY BE LINKED TO OHIO STABBER
by Ben Ariel
Authorities are investigating an anti-U.S. rant posted on Facebook just minutes before Monday's attack at the Ohio State University that is believed to be linked to the suspect in the attack, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, ABC News reports.
Appearing three minutes before the beginning of the rampage that left 11 people injured, the post reads, according to the report, "I can't take it anymore. America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that."
The post also invokes the name of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical American-born Al-Qaeda cleric, describing him as a "hero."
Al-Awlaki was killed in 2011 but his propaganda has been linked to several domestic terrorist attacks in the years after his death.
"If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace," the post reads, according to ABC News. "We will not let you sleep unless you give peace to the Muslims."
The post, which was on a page that appears to have since been disabled, takes the form of a photo of a computer screen displaying a text document.
Authorities identified Artan as the attacker in a press conference earlier on Monday, but said they have not determined a motive and the investigation is ongoing.
Sources told ABC News that he is of Somali descent and is a legal permanent resident in the United States.
Artan, who reportedly was a student at the university, left his homeland with his family in 2007, lived in Pakistan and then came to the United States in 2014.
In Monday's attack, he plowed a car into a campus crowd, then jumped out and stabbed people with a butcher knife before being shot dead by police.
The attack comes as the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group has been urging its followers in recent weeks to copy the vehicle attack that took place in Nice, France, when 85 people were killed by a terrorist driving a semi-truck through a Bastille Day celebration.
It also comes two days after the terror group published a video instructing its followers on how to use a knife to attack non-believers. ISIS is not mentioned in the Facebook post, however, according to ABC News.
Just three months ago, an OSU student named Abdul Razak Artan was quoted in the college newspaper, The Lantern, as he discussed his troubles finding a place to pray on his new campus, the report said.
"I wanted to pray in the open, but I was kind of scared with everything going on in the media. I'm a Muslim, it's not what the media portrays me to be," he is quoted in the paper as saying. "If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don't know what they're going to think, what's going to happen. But I don't blame them. It's the media that put that picture in their heads, so they're just going to have it, and it — it's going to make them feel uncomfortable."
Asked about Artan, the vice president of marketing and communications at Columbus State told ABC News in a statement, "Abdul Razak Ali Artan was enrolled at Columbus State Community College from autumn semester 2014 through summer semester 2016. He graduated with an associate of arts degree in spring of 2016 and then continued taking additional noncredit classes through summer semester 2016."
If the attack is indeed a jihadist-inspired terrorist attack, it would not be the first such attack in the United States in recent years.
Just a year ago, in December of 2015, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik carried out a massacre in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and injuring 22 others.
The FBI later said that Farook and Malik were both radicalized "for quite some time". It is believed Farook had contact with people from at least two terrorist organizations overseas, and investigators have also said Malik had pledged allegiance to ISIS in a Facebook posting.
In another incident, Faisal Mohammad, a California college student who stabbed four people late last year was reported to have been carrying an image of the black flag of ISIS as well as a handwritten manifesto with instructions to behead a student and multiple reminders to pray to Allah.
8. INTERNATIONAL LAW AGAINST OFFICERS - WHAT CAN BE DONE?
by ILTV
[brightcove:2021543]
------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/
