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/
Wednesday, Mar. 15 '17, י"ז באדר תשע"ז
HEADLINES:
1. SIGN WARNS LONDONERS TO 'BEWARE OF JEWS'
2. STATE SECRETS REVEALED: BUSH AGREED TO SETTLEMENT CONSTRUCTION
3. 'NETANYAHU REMAINED TRUE TO HIS WORD TO AMONA EVICTEES'
4. ERITREAN INDICTED FOR REPEATED RAPE ATTEMPTS, HOME INVASIONS
5. 'IF YOU DON'T APPROVE RABBIS' DEMAND, WE WON'T SUPPORT BUDGET'
6. IRAN VOWS TO 'LIBERATE' GOLAN HEIGHTS
7. TWO LIFE SENTENCES FOR MURDER OF RABBI MICHAEL MARK
8. REMAINS OF ISIS MURDER VICTIMS DISCOVERED
1. SIGN WARNS LONDONERS TO 'BEWARE OF JEWS'
by David Rosenberg
Members of the Jewish community in London say they have found what appears to be an anti-Semitic sign placed on a lamp post near a synagogue in the Stamford Hill neighborhood.
The sign was first reported by the neighborhood watch group, Shomrim NE London, which called the discovery alarming.
Designed in the style of a triangular red-and-white warning sign, the image includes the silhouette of an Orthodox Jewish man.
While some locals brushed off the sign as a prank, Shomrim member Barry Bard said the sign was offensive and caused "alarm and distress" among Jewish residents.
Bard said the placement of the sign was simply the latest in a long string of anti-Semitic vandalism and harassment in the area.
"The people of Stamford Hill are very sadly used to instances of anti-Semitic hate crime, but most of those times it will be verbal abuse or even assault. The person who planned [the sign] has obviously gone to an effort to cause alarm and distress to local people."
MP Diane Abbot (Labour), who represents the district including Stamford Hill, took to Twitter to condemn the sign, calling it "Disgusting. Unacceptable."
2. STATE SECRETS REVEALED: BUSH AGREED TO SETTLEMENT CONSTRUCTION
by Shimon Cohen
Did Prime Minister Ariel Sharon conceal an agreement with the Bush administration permitting Israel to build across all of Judea and Samaria?
Following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Trump last month and his meeting with White House special envoy Jason Greenblatt on Monday, speculation has grown that Trump may renew the understandings on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria forged more than a decade ago between then-President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Sharon.
That arrangement, worked out during a series of private conversations between White House officials and members of the Prime Minister's Office, was ultimately expressed by an exchange of letters of understanding in April 2004.
The Bush-Sharon letters of understanding were widely believed as permitting construction within the so-called "settlement blocs" – those large population centers close to the Green Line which would likely be retained by Israel even if a Palestinian state were to be established.
But according to the Independent Media Review Analysis (IMRA) organization, the Bush administration never limited construction to "settlement blocs".
In a message circulated by IMRA on Monday, Dr. Aaron Lerner, a veteran member of the Likud's Central Committee, noted that the 2004 Bush-Sharon agreement made no provision barring construction in what are widely referred to as "isolated settlements" – Jewish communities deeper in Judea and Samaria.
The text of the April 14th, 2004 from President Bush to Prime Minister Sharon reads in part:
"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949… It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities."
A follow-up letter, however, from the Prime Minister's Office to then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice suggests that the Bush administration had accepted continued building within the existing "construction line" of Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria – with no reference to their being located in the "settlement blocs":
"Restrictions on settlement growth: within the agreed principles of settlement activities, an effort will be made in the next few days to have a better definition of the construction line of settlements in Judea and Samaria. An Israeli team, in conjunction with Ambassador Kurtzer, will review aerial photos of settlements and will jointly define the construction line of each of the settlements."
The author of the PMO's letter to Rice, Dov Weisglass, told IMRA explicitly that the understanding reached between the White House and Israel provided for continued building within all Israeli communities over the Green Line, so long as construction did not expand the existing boundaries of the towns in question.
President Trump, Lerner argues, appears to be proposing a similar approach, whereby construction would be limited to within the exiting boundaries of towns in Judea and Samaria, but not be restricted to major blocs.
"Perhaps people in Israel don't remember this story, but the person in the White House who drafted the statement to journalists remembers," said Lerner, referring to a recent press statement by the Trump administration.
Lerner, who spoke with Weisglass regarding his findings, says the claim that the Bush-Sharon understanding limited construction to the major settlement blocs was perpetuated by Sharon himself, who sought to gain support from residents of the blocs for his planned 2005 evacuation of Gush Katif.
According to Lerner, Sharon wished to present the Bush-Sharon understanding as a green light, achieved through careful negotiation, for unlimited construction in the blocs in exchange for restrictions outside the blocs and the evacuation of Gush Katif.
Follow-up negotiations planned between the Bush administration and Sharon government for the precise delineation of construction in towns outside of the blocs were abandoned, with a subsequent sharp decline in building in those same areas.
When asked why subsequent governments, including the three Netanyahu governments formed since 2009, never sought construction outside of the major blocs along the lines established in the Bush-Sharon agreement, Lerner said Israeli leaders were largely unaware of the actual parameters of the understanding.
"It's very sad, but to put it delicately, if you would ask ministers and MKs and all the people who think they know everything about the Weisglass letter, you'll find that they don't know anything."
Another reason is that President Obama, acting against normative presidential policy, refused to commit his administration to the arrangements agreed upon in the letters by his predecessor in the White House. It is not known whether the former president realized that they allowed for more than settlement bloc construction, but his reaction to building new homes even in Jerusalem makes that point irrelevant.
3. 'NETANYAHU REMAINED TRUE TO HIS WORD TO AMONA EVICTEES'
by Hezki Baruch
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not shy away from raising the subject of a planned replacement town in Samaria, to be built for the 42 families evicted from Amona last month, during a five-hour meeting with special White House envoy Jason Greenblatt, sources close to the Prime Minister said.
Greenblatt met with the Prime Minister Monday night as part of a special fact-finding mission while the Trump White House mulls its policies vis-à-vis Israel, the peace process, and Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria in particular.
Insiders say the Prime Minister has remained true to his pledge to the evicted residents of Amona, and intends to make good on his promise to build a replacement community in the Shilo bloc of Samaria.
Officials close to Netanyahu say he outlined his plans to build the town during the meeting with Greenblatt, though the Prime Minister said little publicly about the content of the talks.
"In connection with my talks with Greenblatt," the Prime Minister said during a question and answer session with the press Tuesday, "I have to say we had a good, substantive talk. I can't say that we finished or reached any agreements; this is a process, but it's a process of mutual communication, honest and sincere in the best sense of the word."
The content of the meeting, he said, "was still not open to the press."
4. ERITREAN INDICTED FOR REPEATED RAPE ATTEMPTS, HOME INVASIONS
by David Rosenberg
Prosecutors filed an indictment in a Tel Aviv district court Wednesday morning against an illegal immigrant from Eritrea accused of a string of home invasions and planned rapes.
Ewat Nagos, a 25-year old Eritrean man who infiltrated into Israel, was first arrested two weeks ago after two attempted home invasions in Jerusalem.
According to the indictment, Nagos targeted two haredi women living in the same building in the capital. In two different incidents, Nagos trailed them, following them into their building and up the stairs to their apartments.
In each case, as the intended victim entered her apartment, Nagos attempted to force his way in.
After the second break-in attempt, police arrested Nagos, but released him shortly thereafter.
A third incident took place last Thursday, in which Nagos successfully broke into a woman's apartment.
At approximately 8:30 p.m., Nagos broke into the home of a Ramat Gan woman in her 20s, who was at the time resting in bed.
Nagos entered the woman's bedroom, waking his intended victim.
When the woman demanded to know what Nagos was doing in her apartment, he replied "I'm looking for a girl," before proceeding to remove his clothes.
When police arrived they found Nagos lying naked on the woman's bed. When asked by police to explain his presence there, Nagos claimed he lived in the building.
After authorities arrested Nagos, they sent him for psychiatric observation. During the assessment interview, Nagos told the police psychiatrist that he had broken into the woman's apartment because he was "looking for a girl for wedding [sic]."
When asked what he planned to do after he broke into the woman's apartment, the man simply replied "sex".
Following the interview, the psychiatrist warned police the man is a danger to women.
Based on the psychiatrist's assessment and Nagos' repeated offenses, police have requested that he be held in custody until the end of his trial.
5. 'IF YOU DON'T APPROVE RABBIS' DEMAND, WE WON'T SUPPORT BUDGET'
by Arutz Sheva Staff
Members of the Agudat Yisrael political party gathered on Tuesday in the party's Jerusalem offices, together with the party's representatives in the Jerusalem to discuss the desecration of Shabbat (Sabbath) and the upcoming vote on the Jerusalem municipal budget.
Party member Yaakov Halperin said, "In the center of the city, there are places of entertainment which use the loopholes in the law in order to do what they want. It's a problem."
Jerusalem Council member Shlomo Rosenstein said, "They claim there are clear laws stating that places of entertainment are allowed to remain open, and there are laws regarding how they are allowed to function on Shabbat. But they are trying to go to the extreme, and with every day that passes, the Shabbat desecration gets worse, and the law defends it."
Deputy Mayor Yosef Deitsch said, "There is no question that even the secular Jews admit the Shabbat is being desecrated in our city. First they opened supermarkets on Shabbat - which is illegal. Then they opened the First Station, And then the municipality found ways to keep it open by going around the councilmen.
"We have told the municipality we won't vote in favor of the budget unless the rabbis' demands to stop Shabbat desecration are met."
According to Kikar News, the rabbis' demands are firstly, not to pass the budget via the Committee, and instead pass it through the City Council, and allow haredi council members to vote. Secondly, to ensure restaurants and places of entertainment which are open on Shabbat do not place tables outdoors.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat told Kikar Hashabat that the second demand was illegal. However, haredi rabbis and representatives claim there is a legal basis for prohibiting tables to be placed outside and are seeking external legal aid.
6. IRAN VOWS TO 'LIBERATE' GOLAN HEIGHTS
by Chana Roberts
A new Iran-funded Iraqi Hezbollah "brigade" aims to "liberate" the Golan Heights from Israel, spokesman Seyed Hashem Moussavi last week said last week at a news conference in Iran.
According to Iranian news agency Tasnim, Moussavi, who heads the Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba terror sub-group, said, "After the latest victories [in Syria and Iraq], we established the 'Golan Liberation Brigade'.
"This is a trained army with specific plans. If the government of Syria requests, we and our allies are ready to take action to liberate Golan. We will not permit Arab and Islamic countries in the region to remain in the grasps of the occupiers."
According to Moussavi, the new terror group is well-trained and equipped with Iranian rockets and Russian-made T-90 tanks.
Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba Secretary-General Akram al-Kabi said, "The declaration regarding the formation of the Liberation of the Golan Brigade is not only a media campaign, but the real goal of the movement."
In their promotional video, terrorists wave a banner which reads, "Israel will be destroyed."
Israel's Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) warned, "If Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah dares to fire at the Israel homefront or at its national infrastructure, all of Lebanon will be hit."
7. TWO LIFE SENTENCES FOR MURDER OF RABBI MICHAEL MARK
by Uzi Baruch
An IDF court in Judea handed down two life sentences on Wednesday to an Arab terrorist responsible for the murder of a Hevron-area rabbi last summer.
Muhammad Al-Ameira, the terrorist gunman responsible for the murder of Rabbi Michael Mark in a drive-by shooting attack on Route 60 last July, was also ordered to pay a quarter of a million shekels ($68,300) in damages to Rabbi Mark's family.
Rabbi Mark's wife, Chavi Mark, was seriously injured in the attack, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Two of the couple's children were also injured.
Al-Ameira's accomplice in the attack, Muhammad Al-Pakia, was eliminated when security forces attempted to arrest him.
Last August, IDF forces demolished AL-Ameira's house after the Supreme Court rejected a petition by the far-left Hamoked organization against the demolition order.
[youtube:2016739]
8. REMAINS OF ISIS MURDER VICTIMS DISCOVERED
[twittervideo:2025881]
------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/
