1. Enticement to Abandon Yesha by Hillel Fendel  Today's weekly Cabinet meeting features two controversial items: The offer to compensate Jews for abandoning their homes in Judea and Samaria, and a proposal to restrict Supreme Court powers. The first item will center around a proposal by Vice Premier Chaim Ramon to offer compensation to Jews who wish to leave their homes in "isolated" Yesha communities. Ramon, formerly of Labor and now of Kadima, has been accused of adopting policies of the far-left Meretz party. Many ministers have expressed opposition to the very discussion of voluntary evacuation, and criticism has been raised that this is the beginning of "Disengagement II." Shas leader Eli Yishai, Minister of Industry and Trade, said last week, "The proposal lacks public, legal and humane legitimacy." No vote is scheduled for the proposal today. Yesha Chief to Ministers: Watch Out for Meretz Data The data was compiled by Ruby Nathanson, a member of the Meretz party directorate, Dayan says. "Ramon granted Nathanson the contract to carry out this poll without a public tender," Dayan said. "Nathanson is well known for his hostility towards the Jewish settelment enterprise in Yesha, and has publicized in the past exaggerated and baseless figures regarding the cost of Israel's presence in Yesha." The daily Yediot Acharonot newspaper reported that Ramon's plan offers one million shekels ($280,000) to each family that agrees to leave - plus more for agricultural or commercial land, and more if it moves to the Negev or the Galilee. Only some 62,000 residents of the 290,000 Jews living in Judea and Samaria (not including greater Jerusalem, which boasts another 250,000) are included in Ramon's proposal. No Basis in Reality  2. Muslims Defile Patriarchs' Caveby Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Muslims converged on the Cave of Patriarchs in Hevron Friday for Ramadan prayers, urinated next to Torah scrolls and left behind Hamas flags. The Cave of the Patriarchs is the tomb of the biblical founders of the Jewish faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their wives, Sarah, Rivka, and Leah. The desecration occurred on one of the 10 days during the year that the holy site is open only to Muslims and is closed to Jews. The same arrangement also is accorded to Jews on 10 holy Jewish days. Uri Karzen, a Hevron resident, reported that a Kohen, who recites the priestly blessings during the Sabbath morning service, told him he smelled urine next to the Holy Ark containing Torah scrolls. Karzen and other worshippers moved the table, where the Torah scrolls are placed during the reciting of the portion of the week, in order to avoid the foul smell. The Hamas flags were discovered in the windows that mark the burial sites of Abraham and Isaac and the matriarchs, Sarah, Rivka and Leah. Hevron resident Asher Horowitz explained that he and others spotted the flags when they were returning holy books, which had been taken into safe storage before the prohibition from Jews entering the Cave of the Patriarchs went into effect. He used a stick to pull one of the flags from the marker of the burial site of Avraham and friends told him they found flags at other markers. Ever since Muslims destroyed Torah scrolls in the Cave of the Patriarchs in the 1980s, Jews always remove holy books and lock the Holy Ark when they are prohibited from entering. Noam Arnon, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hevron, said there is always some sort of damage discovered upon their return every time Jews are prohibited from entering the holy site. He added that two policemen are always on guard when Jews pray, especially when Arabs are prohibited from entering, but there are no policemen present when Jews are excluded. Surveillance cameras are mounted, but Karzen said the place where urine was smelled may have been out of range of the cameras. The cameras should have caught on film the placement of Hamas flags, according to Horowitz. Hevron police said they know nothing about the incidents and that an official complaint may not have been filed yet out of respect for the Sabbath. 3. More Jewish Law to Civil Courts by Hillel Fendel  A law school dean and Justice Ministry official agree: More Jewish Law is needed in Israel's civil courts. Dr. Aviad HaCohen, of the Shaarei Mishpat (Gates of Law) Law School in Hod HaSharon, and Dr. Michael Wigoda, who heads the Justice Ministry's Jewish Law section, both bemoan the declining citations of Jewish Law in civil law cases in Israeli courts. "In the last few years," Dr. Wigoda says, "Misphat Ivri (traditional Jewish Law) has not been receiving the status it deserves, and most of the courts do not rely on it or cite it." The law school and the Justice Ministry are therefore collaborating on a project in which weekly articles on Jewish Law, based on the weekly Torah portion, are emailed to judges, law professors, lawyers, and others. "In addition to the dozens of sheets that are published every week ," Dr. HaCohen says, "it would be good to tell those who do not necessarily frequent synagogues what Jewish Law has to say about the weekly Torah portion." Parenting, Promises, Silence and More The goal is to "incorporate Jewish sources in the courts' rulings," Dr. HaCohen adds. The articles have acquired a measure of popularity, with dozens of recent court rulings having quoted them. Among the writers are judges in the Supreme, District and Magistrates Courts, judges in Rabbinical and Labor courts, lawyers, researchers, and others. Time, Ignorance, and Ideology The Shaarei Mishpat College states on its website that it "seeks to encourage and foster teaching and research activity in the field of Hebrew law, and to disseminate knowledge of Hebrew law within the legal system. Accordingly, preference will be given to candidates with a background in Jewish studies."
4. 'Supreme Court is Too Powerful'by Hillel Fendel  Controversy in the Cabinet abounds. In addition to the proposal to attempt to entice Jews to leave Judea and Samaria, the government will also discuss this morning (Sunday) an attempt by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann to restrict the Supreme Court's authorities. Friedmann wishes to allow the Court to void only Knesset laws that, in the opinion of a two-thirds majority of the nine Court justices considering the matter, negate a Basic Law. The Knesset would then be able to re-pass the law with an absolute majority of the legislature (61 MKs). The Court would then be able to re-consider the law only five years later. Sentiments on both sides of the issue are running high. The Supreme Court has often been accused of runnning a judicial dictatorship, especially in light of former Chief Justice Aharon Barak's determination that "the land is filled with the law," implying that everything is justiciable. Columnist Evelyn Gordon summed up much of the public criticism heaped upon Barak over the years by writing two years ago that he makes decisions "not by interpreting the law, but by creating new laws in the Knesset's stead." "The question is whether every issue has to be in the purview of the Supreme Court," Minister Friedmann has explained. "I believe that for everything to be justiciable, with no oversight, is destructive." On the other hand, Labor Party ministers Yitzchak Herzog and Shalom Simchon have asked that Friedmann's proposal be removed from the Cabinet agenda. At least two Kadima Party ministers - Bar-On and Sheetrit - also oppose the debate, saying that it should not be raised at this juncture. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed guarded support for Friedmann's proposal. 5. Shaky Olmert May Hurt Economyby Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has survived one political and corruption crisis after another, but his shaky government worries the Standard & Poor's financial assessment firm. The firm is studying whether to downgrade Israel's debt rating, as fears of a recession grow. Finance Minister Roni Bar-On (Kadima) tried to convince S&P analysts that everything is coming up roses, if not shekels, for the economy, which until last year was praised as one of the most stable and impressive in the world. Soaring economic growth, for which most economists credit former Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, continued for several years and reached six percent without the long-standing tradition of accompanying inflation and devaluation of the shekel. Of late, however, the shekel-dollar rate plummeted from 4.70 less than three years ago to 3.20 several weeks ago. The impact on the Israeli psyche has been huge, with consumers and investors slowly getting used to the idea of quoting prices in shekels and not in dollars. The zero inflation rate that dominated the economy until last year represented an unprecedented reversal in the inflationary mindset that had previously always caused Israelis to run out and spend before prices rise. Olmert's political troubles have not caused the current slowdown in growth, but if they cause S&P to lower Israel's bond rating, it will make it more expensive for Israel to borrow money and could have a domino effect on the sagging economy. "We have forgotten that the rating companies also know how to downgrade, especially in times of economic and financial instability, and in the case of Israel, political instability as well," a senior Bank of Israel official told Globes. Last year, S&P was so impressed by political and economic stability that it raised Israel's credit rating in November, exactly when the current financial thunderbolt struck American financial markets, causing a tidal wave of worries around the world. Consumer confidence polls have showed that a recession is not on the horizon, but they also show gloomy prospects into the beginning of 2009. Israeli analysts until recently were confident that the country could weather the storm, but the current political crisis, with the guillotine of indictments hanging over Prime Minister Olmert's head possibly the straw that breaks the economy's back. 6. Drug Bust at Lebanese Borderby Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Israeli police charged three Bedouins with smuggling 110 pounds of heroin from Lebanon. Hizbullah was not mentioned, but it rules the drug routes. Together with the heroin, the Israeli Bedouins were also charged with tossing 22 pounds of hashish over the Lebanese border into Israel. The arrests comprised one of the largest drug busts in Israel since the Jewish State was re-established in 1948. Police did not directly link the drugs, worth more than $600,000, with Hizbullah, but the terrorist party frequently has been cited as ruling drug routes in Lebanon and using them as a major source of income. The United States has expressed fears that growing Hizbullah links with Venezuela also are fueling drug traffic in South America. The heroin route begins in Turkey and Syria and runs through the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, where Hizbullah is dominant and where purification plants refine the substance into white heroin. Reports dating back several years have shown that Hizbullah uses its drug connections to help finance terrorist attacks and circulate counterfeit currency, often with the intention of destabilizing local economies. Interpol has listed Lebanon as a world center for marketing a component it uses to purify heroin. Exports of heroin from Lebanon are valued in the billions of dollars, with Hizbullah and Syria reaping large profits. Syria, in an effort to control Hizbullah, has decided to prop up Sheikh Subhi al-Tufaili, a deposed Hizbullah leader who later became a spokesman for drug growers in southern Lebanon, according to Stratfor, a private geopolitical intelligence company. A major force behind the Hizbullah drug business is Iran, whose Muslim clerics have allowed distributing hard drugs if the purpose is to weaken Western societies. The Yemen Times reported last April, "Hizbullah has been trading Lebanese-produced heroin and cocaine for Israeli military secrets." In March, Israeli authorities busted a drug ring involving IDF soldier Louai Balut, an Arab Catholic. He was charged with telling Hizbullah by telephone where Israeli troops were stationed along the Lebanese border. 7. ‘Israel Unrepared for Next War' by Zeev Ben-Yechiel  A former top Israel Defense Forces officer blasted the IDF’s top brass Thursday, laying the blame on them for botching the "embarrassing" war in Lebanon in 2006, and said that due to a low level of training the army is unprepared to for the next one. Major-General (res.) Moshe Ivri-Sukenik was most recently commander of the IDF’s Northern Corps until he resigned earlier this year, and also held the post of commander of the IDF’s ground forces several years ago. In a Thursday conference on the ground war in Lebanon, Ivri-Sukenik, who chaired an internal probe into one of the battles of the war, condemned what he called a flawed training program. "We are not training enough," said Sukenik Thursday, in the first comments he has made in public since he opened the investigation into the performance of the IDF infantry’s Division 162 in Lebanon. Suk After he retired from service as the head of the IDF’s infantry, the army asked the general to return to command the Northern Corps. Sukenik, who also served as Israel’s military attaché to the United States, resigned from the Northern Corps post last January, partly in protest of what he believes to be insufficient funding for training infantry soldiers. "After a year at the Corps, I told a forum of the most senior ranks in the army [the General Staff] that it is not taking things seriously. We are not training sufficiently. We are not giving people the minimal means to succeed," said Sukenik. Sukenik took part in the overhaul of the IDF that was promised after the intelligence and operationa "I did what I could to restore knowledge. It will take time for the IDF to recover from the wounds of the war,” he said. “Now they are once more talking about cuts in the defense budget. The easiest thing to do is to cut training budgets, because that is where the big money is. The result is that next year, after the cut, the readiness level will once more be low." Sukenik indignantly recounted the predicament of one division as an example. "Would you believe they did not have maps of the Golan Heights? They had no operational plans on a critical front. Their plans were for an entirely different front. This is the sort of vertigo the IDF found itself in,” he charged. The confusion caused by conflicting orders, according to Sukenik, permeated the highest levels of command. "The soldiers in the field heard in the media and in the Knesset that there would not be a ground offensive. 'We can end this with the air force,' they said.” The retired general placed the ultimate blame of Israel’s failure in the war squarely on the soldiers of the IDF top brass. “In the end it trickles down and has an effect. I say with authority: 70 to 80 percent of responsibility for the results [of the Second Lebanon war] lay with the command and the General Staff. The gaps in readiness are not a pleasant thing, but in the end these led to only 10 to 15 percent of the final results." 8. Black Rabbi in Obama's Familyby Aryeh Haffner  Barack Obama's wife’s cousin is a Rabbi, according to the Jewish magazine Forward. Michelle Obama's first cousin once removed, Capers Funnye, shepherds the flock at a mostly black Israelite synagogue on Chicago’s South Side, the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew synagogue. Forward reports that Rabbi Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY), and Mrs. Obama's paternal grandfather, Frasier Robinson Jr., were sister and brother. Rabbi Funnye converted to Judaism in a ceremony supervised by the Black Israelite rabbis. He later underwent another conversion procedure, reportedly supervised by Orthodox and Conservative rabbis. He has a Black Israelite ordination. Black Jewish congregations, often called Black Hebrews, are a very small and mostly separate stream from mainstream Judaism. Rabbi Funnye works to bridge those gaps. Although Rabbi Funnye's congregation refers to itself as Ethiopian Hebrew, it is not connected to the Ethiopian Jews who have come home to Israel en masse in past decades. Those call their communities Beta Israel. 9. Audio: Barak Shocker!  A7 Radio's "The Tovia Singer Show"
or
Barak Shocker! Jerusalem 'Could Become Palestinian Capital'
For more A7 Radio visit IsraelNationalRadio.com
Rabbi Tovia Singer is the director of Outreach Judaism and a frequent lecturer on Israeli political issues. He hosts the Tovia Singer Show live every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10:00 p.m. – 12 midnight New York time on Israel National Radio. |
Israeli Salad 175: Archeology, Music and Video (Sep. 4, 08’) 
Government Stops Protest 
Posts
