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Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com ------------------------------------------------ Delivered Daily via Email, Sunday thru Friday Tuesday, Apr. 04 '17, ח' בניסן תשע"ז HEADLINES: 1. CHEMICAL ATTACK IN SYRIA 2. 'IT'S HEARTBREAKING - BUT THE SUPREME COURT IS RIGHT' 3. NETANYAHU: STRENGTH WILL LEAD TO PEACE 4. ARIZONA PROFESSOR PENALIZES STUDENT FOR USING THE WORD 'MANKIND' 5. REGEV TO BREAKING THE SILENCE: YOU HAVE NO PLACE IN ISRAEL 6. BEIT SHEMESH TO DOUBLE IN SIZE 7. BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA AT THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL? 8. DEATH TOLL IN RUSSIAN METRO ATTACK RISES TO 14 1. CHEMICAL ATTACK IN SYRIA by David Rosenberg An attack involving chemical weapons in the northern Syrian city of Idlib Tuesday morning killed roughly 100 people and left hundreds more injured. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that fighter jets struck the town of Khan Sheikhoun, a suburb of the city of Idlib in northwest Syria. The attacks, say the Observatory, included use of chemical agents which killed dozens of civilians, including women and children. Social media sites including Twitter were inundated with pictures of people reportedly killed or wounded by the chemical attack. The rebel-controlled Idlib district has a Sunni majority as well as a significant Christian minority. According to the Observatory, victims of the chemical attack Tuesday are suffering from symptoms including vomiting, fainting, and foaming at the mouth. Those killed, say the Observatory, died of asphyxiation. In August 2013, the Syrian regime killed approximately 1,300 people with sarin nerve gas. They have been used by the Assad regime, the rebels, and ISIS. [twittervideo:2026617] 2. 'IT'S HEARTBREAKING - BUT THE SUPREME COURT IS RIGHT' by Uzi Baruch The Israeli Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal filed by the parents of a fallen soldier to reopen the case regarding the future of frozen sperm samples which could allow their son to posthumously father a child and provide them with a grandchild. While the court’s decision drew bitter outcries from the soldier’s parents and their supporters, one prominent Israeli rabbi claims the ruling has the backing of Jewish law. Shaked Meiri was a 27-year old reserve soldier when he was killed in an army training accident in the Golan Heights in 2004. Meiri was a newlywed, married just three months before the fatal accident, and had no children with his wife, Shela. Immediately after the accident, Meiri’s widow accepted an offer by the IDF to extract sperm samples from Meiri and to preserve them for later use, though it is unclear whether they remained viable. Ownership of the 19 preserved samples became a point of contention between Meiri’s parents – Hadarat and Roni - and his widow. While Meiri’s widow has since remarried and had two children, the fallen soldier’s parents wished to use the samples to produce a grandchild with a surrogate mother. But Meiri’s widow refused to use them herself prior to getting remarried, and has since insisted that no one else make use of the samples. A 2015 ruling by Judge Miriam Kraus of the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court divided the 19 samples between Meiri’s widow and his parents, a decision which would have enabled his parents to produce grandchildren with the samples. Judge Kraus ruled that the wishes of the deceased should be considered in the case, and the fact that he would have wanted to father children was grounds for enabling him to do so, even if posthumously. In December 2016, however, the Supreme Court overruled the lower court’s decision, ruling that the parents may not use the sperm samples without the widow’s approval. According to the 4-1 split decision, parents have no standing to clarify what their deceased child’s wishes might be in a hypothetical situation, nor do potential grandparents have rights to grandchildren. On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the parents to reconsider the ruling, effectively closing the case. "The court has decided that I won’t have any grandchildren from my son, Shaked," said Hadarat Meiri, Shaked’s mother. But Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, dean of the Amit Orot Shaul Hesder Yeshiva and founding member of the Tzohar rabbinical organization, says the court’s ruling was in accordance with Jewish law. "It’s heartbreaking, but the Supreme Court was right in its decision," said Rabbi Cherlow, "because in a dispute between a widow and bereaved parents, [in this case] on the use of the husband’s sperm, the widow comes first, and her choice prevails." Rabbi Cherlow explained the logic behind the preference for a widow’s opinion over that of a man’s bereaved parents. "From the moment a man makes a covenant with his wife and she with him, that relationship is binding above all others. This idea is conveyed in the description of Creation [in the Book of Genesis]: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.’ That’s the proper, ethical way to approach [this case]." "This choice [to marry] is made of their own free will, and it includes in it the joint decision to bring children into the world. Even if you would say – in my opinion, incorrectly – in a case where there is no widow that the parents have a right to bring children into the world with their son’s sperm, when his widow opposes it we must obey her decision and view her as the one empowered to make the choice what to do." 3. NETANYAHU: STRENGTH WILL LEAD TO PEACE by Tal Polon This morning, a special state ceremony took place in Tzrifin in central Israel during which the new name of Assaf Harofeh Medical Center was introduced. The hospital will renaimed the Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center, after Israel's seventh Prime Minister. The ceremony saw the participation of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, as well as Health Minister Yaakov Litzman. During the name-changing ceremony, the Prime Minister related the prowess of the Hospital to the role of Israel's strength in all areas in Israel’s political life. "The nurturing of our economic and technological, military and intelligence strength is what gives us the strength to develop political power and political flowering unprecedented since the establishment of the State," he said during a speech at the ceremony. "I think that, at the end of the day, this is what will ensure our ability to arrive at peace with the rest of our neighbors, because peace is not made with the weak, and it also doesn’t hold up for a minute if you don’t have the strength to maintain it," he said. 4. ARIZONA PROFESSOR PENALIZES STUDENT FOR USING THE WORD 'MANKIND' by Hillel Fendel Campus Reform, a college-news website, reports that a Northern Arizona University student was recently docked a point on an essay because she used the word "mankind." Instead, her English professor told the student to use "gender-neutral" language. Cailin Jeffers, an English major at NAU, told Campus Reform that she received an email from one of her professors, Dr. Anne Scott, informing her that she had been docked one point – giving her a total grade of 39 out of a possible 50 - on a recent paper for "problems with diction (word choice)." Specifically, Dr. Scott explained at length, the word "mankind" should not be used as a synonym for "humanity" because it is not "in the letter or spirit of this particular class, which is all about having you and other students looking beneath your assumptions and understanding that ‘mankind’ does not mean ‘all people’ to all people. It positively does not." Campus Reform, a project of the Leadership Institute, says it is "America's leading site for college news" and "exposes bias and abuse on the nation's college campuses." The teacher further explained, "I would be negligent, as a professor who is running a class about the human condition and the assumptions we make about being ‘human,’ if I did not also raise this issue of gendered language and ask my students to respect the need for gender-neutral language." Using teleogical doubletalk to explain herself, she continued, "The words we use matter very much, or else teachers would not be making an issue of this at all…" The professor had previously given some examples of words not to be used, such as "mankind," which should be replaced by "humankind." The student decided to test the policy on her next paper by including two instances of the word "mankind," leading to the deduction of a point. Student Jeffers said that her teacher told her, "‘mankind’ does not refer to all people, only males. I refuted, stating that it does refer to all people, [but] she proceeded to tell me that I was wrong, ‘mankind’ is sexist, and I should make an effort to look beyond my preset positions and ideologies, as is the focus of the class." Jeffers was invited to speak about her loss of a point with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who asked her, "If a student wore a burka to Scott’s class because her family told her she wasn’t allowed to show her hair around men, would Scott declare that sexist, too?" Jeffers confidently answered in the negative, and then added, "I have no idea why feminists are obsessing over tiny, little microaggressions such as issues like how the word ‘mankind’ is used when there are women living under Sharia law who are actually oppressed by an actual patriarchy." 5. REGEV TO BREAKING THE SILENCE: YOU HAVE NO PLACE IN ISRAEL by Ido Ben Porat Mifal Hapayis, Israel’s national lottery, cancelled a convention of the radical-left Breaking the Silence group that was to have taken place tonight at the Kiryat Ono’s city library, built with funds donateed by Mifal Hapayis. The convention, organized at the initiative of MK Michal Rozin (Meretz), also met with opposition from Kiryat Ono’s Mayor Yisrael Gal. Breaking the Silence slammed the cancellation, and said they would be protesting this evening outside the library. "We couldn’t believe that, in our city, there would be calls for violence and the silencing of voices, only because several soldiers soldiers are coming to talk about where we sent them, what they saw, and what impressions they came out with," they said. "Although Mifal Hapayis and the Mayor are not allowing us to hold the event in the library, that doesn’t mean that we’re giving up and relinquishing our freedom of expression. We will demonstrate together against the attack of ‘Minister of Censorship’ Regev and Mifal Hapayis, which works in her service." Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev (Likud) said that "the demonstration of Michal Rozin from Meretz and the Breaking the Silence organization outside the library in Kiryat Ono is an exact implementation of my vision and policy: freedom of expression and freedom to protest - but not at the expense of the public’s money." "I will fight so that you can protest outside the library. Inside the library, but, in fact, there is no place and will be no place for Breaking the Silence and those like you - not in Israel. Maybe in the Palestinian Authority. Try there," she suggested. 6. BEIT SHEMESH TO DOUBLE IN SIZE by Haim Lev As part of the efforts to relieve Israel's housing crisis, a ceremony was held on Monday celebrating government approval to construct thousands of housing units in Ramat Beit Shemesh D and E. The new agreement approves 17,000 new apartments and sets aside 530 dunams of land for businesses, companies, and hotels. In addition, the city will receive the budgets necessary to construct infrastructure and improve the city's parks and public transportation. Beit Shemesh is expected to double in size in the coming years, and the new construction will provide housing solutions for the haredi and general populations. Participating in the ceremony were Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu), Construction Minister Yoav Gallant (Kulanu), Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas), Beit Shemesh Mayor Moshe Abutbul, and Beit Shemesh Construction Head Moshe Montag, as well as several other mayors and public figures. Currently, Beit Shemesh is home to 104,000 residents and 21,000 families. The new agreement will double the city's size, so it becomes one of Israel's largest cities and nearly as large as Be'er Sheva. Beit Shemesh was first recognized as a city thirty years ago, and is currently Israel's fifteenth-largest city. "This new plan will double Beit Shemesh's size. That's a huge accomplishment," Netanyahu said. "I see this city as becoming one of the largest cities in Israel. It's developing at a very fast rate, and it is home to haredi, secular, traditional, Ashkenazic, and Sephardic Jews, as well as to new immigrants. "In all areas of Israel, we must keep to the Torah's ideal of building a united community. "I'm aware of the problems inherent in the new plan, and so are my ministers, but we will solve these problems by working together. This land, and this city, belong to all of us, and there is room here for everyone. "We are working to create an amazing future. I can already envision Beit Shemesh reaching half a million residents - and we need to invest in it together." Abutbul said, "Beit Shemesh is going to become Israel's next metropolis. In addition to the thousands of housing units we are building, we are also creating workplaces and commercial centers for he residents." "Beit Shemesh is the first city in which we are actively integrating the general population with the haredi population," Gallant said. "We are working together with the understanding that integration is essential. We are working to find what we have in common, not from a place of extremism and estrangement." "Much time and thought must be invested into finding a unique solution which will benefit all of Beit Shemesh's residents. This case will show how well the haredi and general populations interact in so many places in Israel. I hope this model will succeed in showing how we can work together and compromise." "The greatest challenge Beit Shemesh faces is to keep the city's various sectors united," Interior Minister Deri added. Beit Shemesh made headlines several years ago because of confrontations between religious Zionists and a small group of extremist haredi residents who attacked women they felt were immodestly attired. The tension was reflected in the acrimonious atmosphere during 2014 elections for mayor of the city, but is not in evidence today. 7. BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA AT THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL? by David Rosenberg The United Nations Security Council has a new Council President this month. United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley will preside as President of the Council, a position which rotates within the 15-member body each month. Haley assumed control of the council from Matthew Rycroft of Great Britain, and is slated to hand off the position to the representative of Uruguay in May. Upon assuming the position, Ambassador Haley made clear at a press conference Monday evening that the US would no longer allow the UN Security Council agenda to be dominated by the Israeli-Arab conflict. "So much has been put towards Israel and the Palestinian Authority and not enough has been put towards some of these other issues," Haley said. "That is our goal for the Middle East open debate." Haley also revealed that she had warned Palestinian Authority representative Riyad Mansour that the US would block Arab-backed motions at the UN Security Council directed at Israel and called upon the Palestinian Authority to show "genuine willingness" to return to the negotiating table. "My conversations with the representative of the Palestinian Authority was very much that... we want them to move towards coming to the table. I told him that... we weren't going to support the Palestinians' actions here at the UN until they came to the table. We need to see some genuine willingness to come to the table." "We don't want to see any additional measures brought at the UN that would bash Israel or lift up the Palestinian Authority until we can get these negotiations to happen. And I do think that the discussions that have happened at the UN have been more of a hindrance towards the peace process than it’s been a help, because it’s caused defensiveness to happen." While the Trump administration has already committed itself to using America’s veto power at the UN Security Council to block lopsided anti-Israel resolutions, the Ambassador to the UN says the US will also work to change the body’s agenda, ending the decades-long focus on Israel. During Monday’s presser Haley also discussed the Trump White House’s efforts to reach a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, including special envoy Jason Greenblatt’s recent trip to the region and meetings with both Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders. Haley said the special White House envoy was "exploring" all options, but that the administration was hoping to extract compromises from both sides. The Ambassador also said that President Trump’s son-in-law and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner was already involved in the process and had done "great work". "I've been in communication with Jason [Greenblatt] a good bit in terms of his workings and dealings in Israel and also visiting with the Palestinians. I know that we are strongly working towards a peace agreement between the two areas." "But Jason is exploring everything. This is all with open eyes to see what can we do, how can we get things done, and trying to get both sides to bend a little bit. That's the key; how do we get both sides to bend towards the common good. And Jason has done great work with that. I think you've seen Jared [Kushner] do great work with that, and I think you're going to see that the president's involvement in that as well." Regarding the Israeli Security Cabinet’s decision on Thursday to approve construction of a replacement town for Amona evictees in Samaria, Haley criticized the move and suggested Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu himself was distancing himself from the decision. "We have said that we do not think it’s helpful to continue with settlement expansion. I did read something where Netanyahu is trying to roll that back so that that's not an issue. My hope is that we have willingness from both sides coming together to really allow for that conversation to take place, but we've been very clear that we don't think it’s helpful at this time and we'd like to see a pause on that." 8. DEATH TOLL IN RUSSIAN METRO ATTACK RISES TO 14 by Nitsan Keidar [youtube:2026609] The number of murdered in the attack on Monday in the St. Petersburg, Russia metro is up to 14. Some 50 people were wounded in the suicide attack, which was perpetrated by a terrorist from Kyrgyzstan. Following the attack, US President Donald Trump offered condolences to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "President Trump offered the full support of the United States government in responding to the attack and bringing those responsible to justice," the White House said in a statement. Prime Minister Netanyahu sent a message of condolence to Russia, saying "the citizens of Israel stand alongside the Russian people at this difficult time." No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. The administration of St. Petersburg has declared three days of mourning starting from Tuesday. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said victims would be provided with "all necessary assistance." He said in a message: "My most sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the explosion. The pain is shared by us all." ------------------------------------------------ Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/ | |
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