Jan 17, 2016 (Part 1) (1) Hilltoppers plan Jews-only state with a King (2) Hilltoppers, Revolt Group, "Givonim", "Kingdom of Evil," "Moshe Orbach" (3) Shin Bet suspect confesses, re-enacts firebombing of Dawabsha family in West Bank village of Duma (4) Jewish "Revolt" terror group plan to install a King, build the Temple, & kill non-Jews (5) Shin Bet arrests Kahane's grandson; Hilltoppers depict President Rivlin as a Jew-hating Nazi (like Rabin) (6) Police investigate incitement against President Rivlin, calling him a "traitor" (7) Hilltoppers manual tells how to set fire to a Palestinian house (8) Arson Suspect charged in Galilee Church Burning (9) Duma arson attack - "Long live King Messiah" (10) West Bank close to boiling point (11) Kahane's grandson's plan to spark a revolt, build Temple, expel Arabs (12) Israel struggles to crack down on Jewish extremists (13) Rabbi Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza. Says OK to kill non-Jews to save Jews (14) Demolition policy — only for houses of Arab terrorists, not Jewish terrorists (1) Hilltoppers plan Jews-only state with a King http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/hilltop-youth-givonim-jewish-terror-shin-bet-investigation.html Shin Bet uncovers Jewish extremist plot to destroy state Author Ben Caspit Posted January 4, 2016 Translator Sandy Bloom For the first time since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Shin Bet has used what it calls "special methods" for investigating Jews. Some in the extreme right argue that these tools include torture. This is the first time such a group has been exposed in Israeli history. This religious/ultranationalist underground group's main purpose is the elimination of the State of Israel, putting an end to Zionism and fomenting regional chaos that would facilitate the establishment of a messianic Jewish kingdom in the place of Israel. The means for destroying the Jewish state, according to the doctrine of this group, is killing Arabs. The goal was to pit the Arab world and the international community against Israel, undermine the authority of the central government and create chaos that would lead to a revolt. Then, during the revolt, the reins of government would be placed in the hands of those believing in the supremacy of the Torah over democracy. Their first acts after the coup were supposed to be to appoint a king and re-establish the biblical Judean kingdom that would conduct itself according to Jewish religious law alone. In the first stage, all the Arabs and other non-Jews would be warned to leave the territory of the kingdom immediately. In the second stage, all those refusing to leave, including women and children, would be put to death immediately. There is no place for non-Jews on Jewish holy land. Anyone who identifies a striking similarity to the rules applied by the Islamic State's caliphate does according to his own judgment. Still, at the end of the day, when religion is taken to extremes and becomes a messianic tool, this is exactly what religious extremism looks like. An extensive investigation by the Shin Bet and police finally cracked the case and led to the disclosure of what is now called the "Revolt Group." Its members, numbering a few dozen youths ages 15-24, call themselves the "Givonim" ("Hilltoppers"). They are responsible for the shocking murder of the Dawabsha family in the West Bank village of Douma on July 31, 2015, in the course of which three family members were burned to death in their sleep: 18-month-old Ali and his parents, Riham and Saad. Their son Mohammed, 4, was the only one to survive the inferno. On Jan. 3, Amiram Ben Uliel, 21, from Jerusalem was indicted on three counts of murder. According to the indictment, Ben Uliel hurled a Molotov cocktail into the family home after he spray-painted the house with graffiti. Then he escaped into the darkness and walked 10 kilometers (6 miles), the same distance he had walked to get there that night. Another youngster was also indicted for his involvement in the attack. Together with these two, another six suspects were arrested, leading to the solving of a number of violent acts against Arabs that were carried out in the last two years by members of the cell. The murder in Douma was the first attack in the series that led to a loss of human life. In its wake, the penny dropped in the Shin Bet. The attorney general authorized the security services to use "special methods" of interrogation for the first time against Jews, to conduct administrative detentions and to adopt a heavy hand against Jewish terrorists. Before this, investigations of Israeli Jews were done according to Israeli law that does not permit such measures to be used, while Arab terror is investigated according to completely different laws. In a previous article for Al-Monitor, I gave an overview of the illegal outposts in the Shiloh Valley. My assessment was that such outposts might have spawned the murderers of the Dawabsha family in Douma. This assessment has been proven true. The source of the hard-core Givonim group lies in the unruly hilltop youth scattered throughout the Shiloh Valley and the nearby Baladim Hill (another illegal outpost), all of which serve as breeding grounds for malignant religious extremism that extends its shoots throughout Judea and Samaria. The Shin Bet seized "documents of the revolt" and others outlining the theology of the members of this sect, who were organized in compartmentalized terror cells of three to five members each. The cells operated secretly and independently of one another, and each knew nothing about the activities of other cells. Infiltrating this gang with Shin Bet agents is almost impossible, reminiscent of attempts to insert agents into extremist Islamic terror organizations. These group members share an extremist messianic ideology. They are closely familiar with one another, grew up together and became radicalized together. They hold the rest of the world in suspicion and are well versed in interrogation and efforts to track them. They live in West Bank outposts, know how to survive in nature and find refuge in caves and abandoned structures. They are able to exist in wild territory, disconnected from civilization for many long days. Ben Uliel grew up in the Etzion settlement bloc, the son of a Karmei Zur settlement rabbi who is viewed as moderate and statesmanlike. He lived for a period in the illegal outpost Geulat Tzion. Ben Uliel was interrogated over several weeks until he confessed to the murder of the Dawabsha family, and even reconstructed the act in front of Shin Bet interrogators in the middle of the night, in the same spot where the murder took place. Now his family and friends claim that his confession was extricated from him under torture and is therefore not admissible. Thus, the Shin Bet faces a complicated legal battle to authorize this confession and add additional testimony such as hidden details that Ben Uliel supplied regarding the terror site and the testimony of a minor who worked with him to plan the attack. The cracking of the "revolt cell" has sparked a fierce political controversy in Israel. The extremist right calls for making a distinction between Arab terror and Jews who perpetrate crimes and holds that torture must not be used against citizens of the state. But the vast majority of the political map supports the decision to use torture against such suspects. Even Education Minister Naftali Bennett and most of his colleagues in HaBayit HaYehudi say that "terror is terror." They are keenly aware that these poisonous weeds who grew up in their garden plots endanger the State of Israel no less (and maybe even more) than the Arab enemy. The group's staggering ideological doctrine is laid out in detail in a number of documents that were seized by the Shin Bet. According to them, the State of Israel — which it calls the "kingdom of malice" — "has no right to exist and we must operate to destroy it, then build a Jewish kingdom." Members of the cell commit themselves to appoint a king who will rule over the nation and force it to obey the harshest of religious precepts. The documents contain detailed instructions on how to burn down mosques or churches and how to shift from inflicting damage and burning down Arab possessions to burning down homes with Arabs living inside. The Shin Bet identified the moment in which the group transitioned from inflicting property damage to inflicting physical harm, to create as much chaos as possible on the ground and promote their agenda. The General Security Service assesses that there are between 30 and 40 hard-core members involved in actual acts of terror. The second tier numbers approximately 100 youths who support the ideological doctrine and are part of the terror cells scattered on the outposts and hills of Judea and Samaria. Surrounding them is another tier of several hundreds, maybe thousands, who support the general idea of replacing the State of Israel with a Judean kingdom. These members serve as a logistical network providing support to the members of the active cells. As a result of intensive investigations by the Shin Bet over the last two years, some of the acts of violence and property damage have been solved, including the firebombing of mosques and churches, and 23 suspects detained. It is believed that the group has not been entirely apprehended and dismantled, and there are still a number of operatives at large who are willing to give their lives for the cause. After the murder in Douma, the Shin Bet focused on averting additional similar events. The security services reckon that the incident in Douma was one of the formative causes for the eruption of the Palestinian terror wave that broke out in October, about two months later. The perception that Israel hurries to solve Arab acts of terror but is not capable of subduing Jewish terror aroused much agitation among the Palestinians and also internal criticism in Israel. The Shin Bet has removed this burden from its shoulders by using all the means at its disposal. In doing so, Israel has reached a dramatic watershed in understanding the existential threats it faces — not only from its surroundings, but also from within. COMMENTS Congratulations are in order to the Shin Bet for FINALLY moving against these Jewish thugs. But if I were a Palestinian, this would be too little, too late to placate me. If I were a Palestinian I would be saying: "We've had to deal with these terrorists for years, and you did nothing. You only moved when you discovered that the terrorists were beyond your control. You only moved once you saw that the monster had metastasized and now threatened the State of Israel. Yes, moving against these terrorists does help us and will reduce violence against us and our property. But that is just the happy side-effect of your move to protect the state of Israel. Protecting us Palestinians for the sake of protecting us, protecting us because under the Geneva Convention you have an obligation to protect the people you are occupying, protecting us because it is the right thing to do, is not on your radar. Protecting Palestinians was not the goal of the arrests, and had these terrorists not threatened the state of Israel, you would have let them continue to destroy our property, our livelihood, and our lives." Israel's apologists will argue that the above assessment is unfair. They can argue this all they want. And maybe a neutral third party would buy their argument. But they will never convince a Palestinian who has been the subject of repression. And if Israel truly wants peace--if Israel wants to significantly reduce attacks against their people--they need to convince Palestinians that their lives do indeed matter. Philip Andrews o 10 hours ago given that there is a large constituency among the Israeli religious right that sees the rebuilding of the Temple and the reinstating of Temple sacrifice as 'normal', it should not be surprising that out of say 600,000 West Bank Jewish religious settlers about maybe 10% become sympathetic to violence as espoused in the Torah against the 'pagans' of that era, while maybe 1% actually carry out the violence. The Sicarii did the same during the Roman occupation. Its amazing its taken so long for this to happen, no doubt thank to ISIS excesses, but its also significant that Israeli Security cracked it open so successfully. what's important now is to prevent recurrence. a much more difficult nut to crack, given how extreme violence is becoming endemic among the Palestinians and with ISIS everywhere in the media. (2) Hilltoppers, Revolt Group, "Givonim", "Kingdom of Evil," "Moshe Orbach" http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=30875 Shin Bet: Suspected Jewish terrorists belong to radical group Security agency says two men indicted in Duma arson are part of "Givonim," a hard-line group seeking to overthrow the government, replace it with a Jewish monarchy, build the Temple o Group has no organized leadership or hierarchy, agency says. Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff The radical group to which the two suspects in the Duma arson belong espouses an ideology that seeks to "overthrow the government, as it hinders the goal of rebuilding the Temple, thus preventing true redemption," the Shin Bet security agency revealed Sunday. According to the agency, the suspects are not only members of the "hilltop youth," an extremist group that carries out "price-tag" acts against Palestinians, but also members of the "Givonim," a hard-line faction with views even more radical than those of the hilltop youth. The Shin Bet believes the group numbers several dozen men ages 15 to 24, most of whom were expelled from the education system and none of whom has served in the military. They are believed to reside in illegal outposts across Judea and Samaria. The group's ideology was revealed, in what one defense official called "chilling detail," in documents seized in the suspects' homes. It entails violently overthrowing the government and replacing it with the "Kingdom of Judea," a halachic monarchy that would not permit non-Jews to live within its borders. The Shin Bet noted that this radical fringe group lacks an organized leadership or hierarchy, and that operatives are free to carry out actions in the name of the "cause" as they see fit. A source privy to the investigation said much of the Givonim's ideology was inspired by longtime far-right activists, including Meir Ettinger, who was a person of interest in the Duma investigation and was placed under administrative detention during most of it. The Shin Bet said much of the Givonim's actions were taken from the "Kingdom of Evil," a manifest penned by radical right-wing activist Moshe Orbach, indicted in July for incitement to violence. The manifest includes operational directives, such as detailing that a Givonim "cell" cannot comprise more than five operatives, instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails and carry out attacks "safely," and how to evade Shin Bet wiretaps and surveillance. (3) Shin Bet suspect confesses, re-enacts firebombing of Dawabsha family in West Bank village of Duma http://www.timesofisrael.com/two-suspected-jewish-extremists-indicted-for-duma-murders/ Tuesday, January 5, 2016 Tevet 24, 5776 10:18 pm IST Shin Bet: Prime suspect confessed, re-enacted fatal West Bank firebombing Jewish man charged with July murders of Palestinian family in Duma Amiram Ben-Uliel, 21, allegedly firebombed home, killing Ali, Saad, Riham Dawabsha; second suspect, a minor, charged as an accessory; 5 other Jewish terror suspects indicted for anti-Arab attacks By Times of Israel staff January 3, 2016, 10:42 am Prosecutors filed indictments Sunday against two Jewish suspects, 21-year old Amiram Ben-Uliel of Jerusalem and an unnamed minor, in a July terror attack that killed three members of a Palestinian family. On July 31, a firebomb attack on the home of the Dawabsha family in the West Bank village of Duma led to the immediate death of toddler Ali Saad Dawabsha. Parents Riham and Saad succumbed to their wounds in the hospital within weeks of the attack. Five-year-old Ahmed, Ali’s brother, remains hospitalized in Israel and faces a long rehabilitation. The indictments mark a key breakthrough in the case, which shocked Israelis and led to unprecedented measures against Jewish terror suspects, including a cabinet vote to extend to Israeli citizens counter-terrorism practices such as detention without trial. A court-imposed gag order that has been in place for months was lifted Sunday, allowing for the first time the publication of the chief suspect’s name. Ben-Uliel is charged with murder in the Duma attack. The minor — who cannot be named under rules protecting minors suspected of criminal acts — faces charges of accessory to the murder. According to investigators, Ben-Uliel, who is married with a baby girl, admitted to carrying out the Duma firebombing, and said he did it to avenge the killing of Malachy Rosenfeld by a Palestinian terrorist in June. His parents said he was innocent, and his wife said he had been tortured and that the entire case was "lies." The minor, identified only as Aleph Aleph, confessed to helping to plan the firebombing, security officials said. The Israel Police on Sunday released a statement revealing that the suspects not only confessed to the firebombing, among other "nationalistic" crimes, but that Ben Uliel reenacted the attack for investigators. Sources quoted on Israel TV Sunday night said he revealed details of the attack during the re-enactment that only the perpetrator could have known. Saad and Riham Dawabsha, with baby Ali. All three died when the Dawabsha home in the West Bank village of Duma was firebombed, by suspected Jewish extremists, on July 31, 2015 (Channel 2 screenshot) Saad and Riham Dawabsha, with baby Ali. All three died when the Dawabsha home in the West Bank village of Duma was firebombed, by suspected Jewish extremists, on July 31, 2015 (Channel 2 screenshot) Citing the investment of "considerable resources and cooperation between various law enforcement agencies in Israel," the statement said that several suspects were also being investigated for attempting to obstruct the investigation. Five other suspected Jewish terrorists were charged Sunday over six other attacks against Arab persons or property. Yinon Reuveni, Hanoch Ganiram and three unnamed minors were indicted for an arson attack against Jerusalem’s Dormition Abbey, the burning of a Palestinian taxi in the West Bank village of Yasuf, setting fire to a grain silo in the West Bank village of Akraba, two instances of tire-slashing in the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa, and an assault on a Palestinian shepherd near the West Bank settlement of Kochav Hashahar. The indictments of all five suspects were filed in the Lod District Court Sunday. During the investigation, twenty-three other suspected extremists were implicated in attacks and acts of vandalism against Palestinians and could be indicted in the future, the Shin Bet said. Prosecutors sought to remand the suspects for the duration of the investigation. The defendants’ attorneys said the court should release them to house arrest, saying close oversight of the security services would ensure they could not pose a danger to the public. Some of the suspects have been released to house arrest. An attorney for several of the suspects, Itamar Ben Gvir, himself a well-known extremist activist, said the suspects’ confessions were obtained through illegal torture. "The indictment is not the end of the story, but the opening of a Pandora’s box for the Shin Bet… My clients are innocent. My client only confessed because he was broken in the Shin Bet interrogation," which Ben Gvir insisted included "severe abuse." The Shin Bet has stridently rejected criticism of its methods, saying in recent weeks that its interrogations were conducted with the full approval and oversight of the attorney general and High Court of Justice, as well as political leaders. The suspects faced "moderate physical pressure" legal in such terror investigations, the agency said, but were never subjected to the beatings, sexual assaults and other extreme measures alleged by Ben Gvir and other supporters. Israel’s Channel 10 said Sunday night that Ben-Uliel was subjected to several hours of "physical pressure," approved by the attorney general, at a crucial point of the investigation. Other criticism on Sunday, including from the far right, focused on the suspects themselves. While noting that the Duma case is "unique," Jewish Home lawmaker Moti Yogev insisted the suspects indicted Sunday hold "a twisted worldview according to which the murder of children will destabilize and destroy the state and bring about redemption. This is a view that does not come from the Torah, a view that has abandoned faith, the nation and the state." Yogev defended the Shin Bet, saying that "the pain of the interrogations flows from the perpetrators themselves, who sadly have thrown off all legal, parental or rabbinic authority. This case has only pain and sadness. Sadness for the murdered Dawabsha family; sadness for the parents of the perpetrators, who did not raise their sons to this, felt the pain of their interrogations and lost any hope for their future; and sadness and pain for our religious-Zionist community, which didn’t know how to lead these sons of ours [toward a better outcome]," Yogev said in a statement. Following the Duma attack, authorities launched a massive arrest operation against radical right-wing activists. According to a list maintained by a group of supporters on Facebook, almost 100 alleged far-right Jewish extremists are currently either being questioned by the Shin Bet security service, facing legal action, in jail, or subject to IDF orders restricting their access to the West Bank. (4) Jewish "Revolt" terror group plan to install a King, build the Temple, & kill non-Jews http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4747848,00.html A revolt and a king: The ideology behind Jewish terrorism Jewish terror group believes the State of Israel has no right to exist, and is working to overthrow the government; Arabs, they say, have no place in Israel, and it is therefore permissible to kill them. Yoav Zitun  Published: 01.03.16, 17:43 / Israel News  Members of the Jewish "Revolt" terror group believe that the State of Israel has no right to exist and that there is no place for Arabs in the Jewish kingdom they will establish, so it is permissible to kill them. Several of the members of this group were indicted on Sunday morning for the murder of the Dawabsheh family, including 21-year-old Amiram Ben-Uliel and a 17-year-old Israeli-American teenager, as well as for other acts of violence perpetrated against Palestinians. The Shin Bet said Ben-Uliel admitted to planning and perpetrating the attack, and recounted it last month during a reconstruction of the crime. His version supported concealed evidence and other investigative details. The Shin Bet has arrested 23 members of the "Revolt" group since November 25, when the investigation into the arson in Duma became known. The group's hardcore element numbers at 30-40 people, most of whom are between the ages of 15-24, though there are some as young as 13. Most of the group's members reside in the Shiloh bloc and other areas in the Samaria region of the West Bank. They have come to the area from all over the country, and not just from the territories. The Shin Bet says there has been an increase in the number of youths who want to join the group in its actions since the Duma arson attack. According to the Shin Bet, the "Revolt" group's ideology started taking shape in October 2013. Since that time and until the Duma attack, its members committed 11 arson attacks against Palestinians or churches. Since the beginning of the investigation, some of the members of the group have been indicted. Many have received administrative orders barring them from entering the West Bank, Jerusalem, or other areas and the Shin Bet has conducted night-time raids to arrest suspects. In addition, several of the youth have been put under administrative house arrest and four of them were put under administrative detention. The Judea and Samaria District Police also established a special force to aid the IDF in its military operations. "Starting in October 2013, a new anti-Zionist ideology has begun taking shape among the hilltop youth, with the objective of changing the government 'that stops us from building the Temple, and prevents us from reaching the true redemption,'" the Shin Bet said. This ideology was formulated by veteran hilltop youth, including Rabbi Meir Kahane's grandson, Meir Ettinger, who is currently under administrative detention. A timeline of the development and activities of the "Revolt" group A timeline of the development and activities of the "Revolt" group The "Revolt" group seeks to overthrow the democratic government and establish "Jewish rule" in the land of Israel. The Jewish state envisioned by the "Revolt" group is a monarchy that would include religious coercion and a king who would eradicate idol worship, build the third Temple and expel all gentiles. The Shin Bet seized manifestos detailing the "Revolt" group's ideology:     The State of Israel has no right to exist, and we are therefore not bound by the rules of the game.     Destroy everything first, and then rebuild.     A king must be crowned after the overthrow of the government.     Under the current foreign rule, we must set up cells in every settlement, hill, city and yeshiva, made of 3-5 members who decide to act.     The cell can begin with small acts. There must be no contact between the cells.     Don't tell, don't investigate, and don't make inquiries.     There is no room for gentiles, particularly Arabs, to live inside the borders of the state, and if they do not leave here it is permissible to kill them indiscriminately - women, men and children.     The blood of those who are not Jews will always be cheaper than the blood of Jews. These manifestos also detail how to commit terror attacks: "Simply break a glass door or window, pour gasoline inside or light a Molotov cocktail and throw it in however possible. Of course the first thing you do is spray (graffiti) after deciding on a home to target, so as to not delay the escape." The Shin Bet was unable to identify a set hierarchy within the "Revolt" group or terror cells organized by any higher authority. "There's no need for authorization, coordination and synchronization between the groups, and they hold their meetings all over the country, not just in Judea and Samaria. The people who came to set fire to a house with people inside knew they were not going to commit an arson attack or an attempted murder - they were there to commit murder," the Shin Bet said. The Shin Bet also said that in recent weeks, members of the group have been trying to find out where officials from the defense and legal system, who are involved in the investigation, live and where their children go to school, "in order to send a message." "There are dozens of members who are still out there and could commit an attack even tonight, and that is why our operations continue," the Shin Bet said. "There's an intelligence difficulty in identifying people who leave their homes, march for 700 meters, and decide to commit an attack in a village using simple measures." "Some of these people have cut ties with their families, and are living a simple life in outposts, herding sheep and doing agricultural work. They learned how not to cooperate in interrogations and pray instead of cooperating," the Shin Bet added. The Shin Bet responded to claims that they have not invested sufficient effort in combating nationally-motivated crimes committed by Jews: "We don't drag our feet; we used all the tools at our disposal. The legal system doesn't always treat violations of administrative orders with enough severity, and the suspects are released over and over again. But now there's a process to rectify the legislation, which will allow the use of electronic bracelets inside the State of Israel." The agency also responded to claims about the lack of transparency in the investigation: "We appeared in court over 120 times since the end of November to present the materials and suspicions being examined, for supervision and approval. The claims of torture, such as sexual harassment or the use of a Procrustean bed, are false and baseless. We acted in our investigation out of the understanding that another attack will lead to further escalation in the security situation." (5) Shin Bet arrests Kahane's grandson; Hilltoppers depict President Rivlin as a Jew-hating Nazi (like Rabin) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4687169,00.html Shin Bet arrests Kahane's grandson, online incitement continues Far-right activist Meir Ettinger suspected of involvement with extremist Jewish organization; police opens investigation into videos of Netanyahu, Rivlin wearing Nazi uniform. Yoav Zitun, Itay Blumental Published: 08.04.15, 00:05 / Israel News Far-right activist Meir Ettinger was arrested on Monday on suspicion of involvement with an extremist Jewish organization, while police opened an investigation into videos posted on YouTube of President Rivlin and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Nazi uniform. Ettinger, who was barred from entering the West Bank or Jerusalem for a year, was arrested by the Judea and Samaria Police and transferred to the Shin Bet for questioning. He is the grandson of far-right late US-born rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated expelling Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian territories. In a blog he runs, Ettinger wrote on Thursday, a day before the terror attack in Duma in which a Palestinian baby was murdered, that "the truth must be told - there is no terror organization, but there are a whole lot of Jews, a lot more than people think, whose value-system is completely different than that of the High Court or the Shin Bet, and who are not bound by the laws of the state, but by much more eternal laws, true laws." Under the blog post titled "Terror organization," he went on to say that "as part of the boastful statement by the Shin Bet about the organization it 'exposed,' things I wrote in this blog several weeks ago were quoted as things from 'the head of the organization.' To tell you the truth, I don't know what they in the Shin Bet wanted me to organize, and they should definitely look for other people to cast for the roles they need in their show for the media, but this urge of the Shin Bet to create an atmosphere, to put up appearances as if there is some 'organization' it exposed, clearly illustrates to us what those in the Shin Bet understand and are so afraid of." Under a veil of secrecy, new cells of "hilltop youth" have been formed across the West Bank over the past few months. These groups seek to commit "price tag" attacks, which they say will inflame the situation in the Middle East, and bring redemption and the coming of the Messiah closer. The "hilltop youth," which the Shin Bet's Jewish division nicknamed "happy Jews," believe that exacting a price from the establishment will allow them to form a Jewish state based on Jewish moral values that appear in Jewish holy and literary sources. The Israel Police has opened a criminal investigation against a man who calls himself "Asheriko from Facebook" who posted videos on YouTube that portray Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin in Nazi uniform and supposedly talking in German. The State Attorney's Office authorized the investigation "on suspicion of insulting a public official." The video shows Rivlin in Gestapo uniform giving the Hitler salute and saying: "I am a bootlicking president and a self-hating hypocrite. When Jews are murdered, I don't really care. I love licking Muslims'… I am a Jew-hating Nazi. Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!" A caption at the end of the video declares: "Protest!!! Jewish blood is not cheap. Asheriko from Facebook." The man, who also calls himself Oshri, uploaded the videos from his home in New York, and admitted in a conversation with Ynet that he created them. "No one told me I'm being investigated. There is no crime in this," he said. "I made the videos and Rivlin's photo with the kaffiyeh and Hamas' logo." What are you? A Kahane supporter? "No, I'm just a secular man who has had enough of Jewish blood being treated as cheap. There hasn't been such a fuss when the Fogel family was slaughtered. Some Muslim was burned, probably a future terrorist, so there's a big fuss, and our president accuses the entire Jewish nation of the crime. It doesn't make sense. Where is the president when Jews are murdered every other day?" Last year, he admitted, he uploaded photos of Rivlin, then-justice minister Tzipi Livni, then-finance minister Yair Lapid and other Israeli officials in SS uniform, in protest of their objection to the nationality bill. He uploaded the photos under the name "Natan Zoabi" and accompanied them with the text: "The anti-Semites who oppose a Jewish state in the Land of Israel." Police also arrested Gilad Kleiner from Kiryat Malachi on Monday after he incited against the LGBT community on Facebook on Friday, and praised Yishai Shlissel, who is suspected of murdering 16-year-old Shira Banki during the Jerusalem Pride Parade. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Monday that "we intend on waging an uncompromising battle against Jewish terrorism. This is a fight for the state's image, and we have no intention of giving up on this fight." He talked about the cabinet's decision to allow administrative arrests for Jewish suspects. "This is a drastic measure we will use sparingly," he vowed. Tova Tzimuki, Roi Yanovsky and Ahiya Raved contributed to this report. (6) Police investigate incitement against President Rivlin, calling him a "traitor" http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4686712,00.html Police investigate social media incitement against President Rivlin Rivlin suffers backlash on social media after speaking against the growing incitement in Israeli society and condemning recent attacks perpetrated by Jews. Roi Yanovsky Published: 08.02.15, 19:20 / Israel News  Police opened an investigation Sunday into death threats against President Reuven Rivlin, who has been suffering severe backlash on social media for a speech he made condemning two recent attacks allegedly perpetrated by Jews. The president's remarks put him in deep water with many people, who took to social media to express their anger at his comments. A photoshopped image appeared on social media showing Rivlin wearing a keffiyeh, alongside a photo with the caption "You are not my President." Rivlin's Facebook page has since become a battleground between his detractors and supporters. The photo of Rivlin in a Keffiyeh with Palestinian symbols (Photo: screengrab) The photo of Rivlin in a Keffiyeh with Palestinian symbols (Photo: screengrab) As a result of the complaint filed by the president's office with the Jerusalem police, the police's national cyber unit in Lahav 443 launched an investigation into the threats. Rivlin received more than 11,000 likes on a status he posted Saturday night in which he wrote, "Flames are spreading in our land, flames of violence, flames of hatred, flames of false, distorted and twisted beliefs." He continued to say, "We must put out the flames, the incitement, before they destroy us all." Not everyone agreed with the statement, "You are a terrorist in the government," one user posted in a comment. He later added, "Go live in Gaza." Another poster asserted that, "You are not my president, you are an enemy of Judaism!!!" Among other comments were: "You are a traitor to your people"; "I wish all of the world's suffering on you"; "Wow Ahmed Rivlin, you make me sick!!"; "You have become a total Arab, huh?" In the face of the harsh comments, there were many posters who supported Rivlin's message. "I'm proud that you are my president, and ashamed to read these incitements against you," one poster commented. Rivlin visiting the victims in the hosptial (Photo: Moti Kimchi) Rivlin visiting the victims in the hosptial (Photo: Moti Kimchi) During Saturday's rally in Jerusalem Rivlin said: "We cannot extinguish the fire through denial. In order to truly extinguish the flames we need to be much more focused and assertive. We must be thorough and clear, starting with the education system, to law enforcement, and all the way up to the leadership of the state, and the nation. We must choke the fire, the incitement, before it catches us." Rivlin said he visited slain Palestinian baby Ali Dawabsheh's four-year-old brother, hospitalized at Tel HaShomer with burns on 60 percent of his body, and felt "ashamed." "I was horrified by the power of hate. I was embarrassed that a nation which knew the murders of Shalhevet Pass, the Fogel family, Adele Biton, Eyal, Gil-ad, Naftali, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, there are still those whose hands do not hesitate to light fire to the flesh of a baby, and to increase the hatred and terror." (7) Hilltoppers manual tells how to set fire to a Palestinian house http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/world/middleeast/israeli-justice-is-seen-to-be-often-uneven-among-palestinian-cases.html?_r=0 Israeli Justice in West Bank Is Seen as Often Uneven By ISABEL KERSHNERAUG. 2, 2015 JERUSALEM — The how-to manual in Hebrew reads like a chilling premonition. Among its recommendations, how to set fire to a Palestinian house: "Stock up with a petrol bomb, preferably of a liter and a half; a lighter; gloves; a mask; a crowbar/hammer; a bag to carry it all. When you get to the village, search for a house with an open door or window without bars." The instructions were recently found stored on a mobile device in the car of a Jewish extremist. The text was publicized by Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, on July 29 — two days before the deadly arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma that killed a Palestinian toddler, Ali Dawabsheh, and severely burned his parents and his 4-year-old brother. The extremist, Moshe Orbach, who is accused of writing the manual, has been charged with incitement to violence and terrorism. Yet after a court hearing on Sunday, Mr. Orbach, 24, was released to house arrest pending a ruling on a request by state prosecutors to keep him detained until trial. He is home on bail, under parental supervision and barred from using the Internet. Israeli leaders have condemned the firebombing of the Dawabsheh home, believed to be the work of Jewish extremists who left behind Hebrew graffiti, as an act of terrorism, and it has stirred a rare outpouring of self-reproach and soul-searching among Israelis across the political spectrum. But it has also reinforced the sense that Israeli law-enforcement authorities have for years acted with laxness and leniency toward Israeli citizens. The arson came on the heels of an attack by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who stabbed six participants in Jerusalem’s annual Gay Pride Parade, a month after he was released from prison after finishing a sentence for stabbing three participants during the same event in 2005. Shira Banki, 16, the most severely wounded victim in this year’s attack, died on Sunday. Israeli and Palestinian critics have long contended that the Israeli authorities treat Jewish perpetrators of violence with kid gloves compared with the harsh measures taken against Palestinians suspected of similar crimes against Israelis. The recent events may serve as a watershed for Israel as it faces the quandary that much of the West has dealt with since Sept. 11, 2001: how a state can maintain democratic values while effectively fighting anti-democratic forces and terrorism within its own population. Gadi Shamni, a former military commander for Israel in the West Bank, is calling for a "root canal" treatment. He told Israel Radio on Sunday that Israel’s battle against extremists like those who set fire to the Dawabsheh house should be the same as that against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In an initial step toward change, the security cabinet on Sunday approved the use by the security services of "all means at their disposal" to bring the Duma perpetrators to justice and to prevent similar acts. The cabinet also instructed that "draft legislation on the fight against terrorism be urgently advanced" in Parliament. Years of sporadic attacks by Jewish extremists against Palestinians and their property — known as "price tag," a doctrine meant to deter Israeli authorities from taking action against settlements — have resulted in few convictions. Security officials have cited as obstacles a lack of legal tools for dealing with Jewish suspects; their silence in interrogations — one detainee refused to do anything but sing for two weeks, an official said; and the difficulty of gathering evidence that will hold up in court. "I ask myself all the time: Where are the teachers, where are the educators, where are the parents, where are the rabbis?" said Menachem Landau, a former deputy chief of Shin Bet, in an interview on Sunday with Israel Radio, denouncing the lack of cooperation on the ground. "Nobody will convince me that the two or three or four or whoever who carried out the Duma attack — that nobody around them knows about it," Mr. Landau added. "The moment they declare this a terror organization," he said, referring to price tag perpetrators, "all the rules of the game change. They can deal with them the way they deal with Palestinian terrorism." Israel has made wide use of administrative detention without charge or trial — a draconian measure — against Palestinian suspects in the occupied West Bank, who are subject to Israeli military law and emergency regulations left over from the British Mandate. Israel’s security services closely monitor Palestinian activities in what Alex Fishman, the military affairs analyst of the popular newspaper Yediot Aharonot, describes as " ‘basic coverage,’ which involves collecting information about schools, mosques and entire communities." But when it comes to the Jewish sector, Mr. Fishman said, the Shin Bet "doesn’t want to spy on Jews, and the political echelon would never dream of allowing it to build ‘basic coverage’ about yeshivas, rabbis, religious and cultural institutions, regional councils." Traditionally, the Shin Bet has typically acted with constraint in dealing with Jewish citizens. In a rare briefing last year, an Israeli security official said that preventing price tag-type attacks entirely was not possible in a democracy because "it really means getting into people’s thoughts." Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research center, said in an interview that with Jewish terrorism becoming more common and more lethal, "We need to come up with a different set of legal tools that will help us deal with this new situation, and a new enforcement policy." He listed administrative detention, surveillance and more widely available use of electronic handcuffing as examples. "We do not want to live in a police state," Mr. Plesner said. "The caution is respected and understood. But the government also has a responsibility toward all the citizens under its jurisdiction. We need to change the balance between these two values." The Israel Religious Action Center, a legal advocacy arm of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, said that the attorney general had so far adopted "an extremely restrictive policy" when it comes to ordering investigations or filing charges in cases of potentially inciting statements made by Orthodox rabbis that they claim are based on religious law. The group said it had been arguing a petition in Israel’s High Court of Justice since 2012 demanding the prosecution of the rabbis who wrote "The King’s Torah," a book that condones the killing of non-Jews, including babies — so far to no avail. The manual found in Mr. Orbach’s car, titled "Kingdom of Evil," offers detailed advice about how to attack mosques, churches and Palestinian homes, as well as how to beat Arabs and render them unconscious. The Shin Bet revealed the manual’s existence when it announced the arrest of Mr. Orbach and four other members of a Messianic Jewish network suspected of having carried out an arson attack in June that severely damaged the Church of the Multiplication at a revered Christian holy site near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. The agency said that the shadowy network had been operating since 2013 and "holds to an extremist ideology that aspires to change the regime and bring about the redemption via various stages of action." A version of this article appears in print on August 3, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Israeli Justice Is Seen to Be Often Uneven . (8) Arson Suspect charged in Galilee Church Burning http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.671187 Arson Suspect in Galilee Church Torching Charged With Sedition Rishon Letzion court adds new charge against Moshe Orbach, who allegedly set fire to the Church of the Loaves and Fishes. Noa Shpigel Aug 14, 2015 2:56 PM The Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes, following the June, 2015 arson attack.Gil Eliyahu The Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s Court added new charges to an indictment, including the charge of sedition, against a right-wing extremist initially arrested in connection with the arson attack on the Church of the Loaves and Fishes on the Sea of Galilee last month. The suspect, Moshe Orbach, 24, from Bnai Brak, was arrested after a document was found in his possession, which he wrote, detailing ways to harm Arabs. He was indicted in the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court on charges of possession of material inciting violence and terror. However, after it emerged that the Nazareth court had no jurisdiction over Orbach because the offenses with which he was charged were committed in central Israel, he was released to house arrest. The amended indictment now includes a charge of possession of racist materials and the relatively rare charge – acts of sedition – punishable by five years in prison. The court remanded Orbach Thursday until the end of proceedings against him. Judge Menahem Mizrahi ruled that there was "a reasonable concern that if freed the respondent would endanger public safety," adding that the document Orbach wrote calling for harm to Arabs "was not written by a person expressing his inner thoughts, musing with hopes for the future, but rather a clear concrete prescription how to commit extreme violence." The indictment contains new details about the document Orbach wrote, which is called "The Kingdom of Evil." The indictment notes that the document was "created to give rise to conflict and enmity between the Jewish and the Muslim and Christian Arab public in Israel." The indictment states that the document’s content shows it was directed at a Jewish audience, "seeking, in an extremist religious context, to carry out acts of violent terror against the members of other religions. The suspect created the document to distribute it among this target audience." The indictment notes that considering the intended audience and its content, the document’s publication could have led "to the real possibility that the acts might indeed be carried out." Orbach’s lawyer, Yuval Zemer, commented Thursday that the decision to stiffen the indictment contained a number of legal mistakes, "both in the matter of the quality of the evidence and the legal issues in principle." Zemer said he would appeal to the District Court. (9) Duma arson attack - "Long live King Messiah" Noa Shpigel Haaretz Correspondent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duma_arson_attack The Israeli investigators and international observers immediately suspected Jewish extremists of committing the attack.[9][17][18][19][20] Several young men alleged to have been instigators were not native-born Israelis but came from American immigrant families.[21] A manual of incitement written by Moshe Orbach, an Israeli from Bnai Brak, entitled "Kingdom of Evil," which provides details on how to set fire to mosques, churches and Palestinian homes, has also been mentioned in connection with the Duma attack.[22] Israeli police initially suspected that the arson was a price tag attack by "extremist Israeli settlers"; some speculated that it might have been undertaken in retaliation for the demolition by the IDF of Jewish settlement structures in Beit El, 'the flagship of the ideological settler movement,'[18] some time earlier.[23] In the Hebrew graffiti, the usual signature of "price tag" (Heb: "Tag Mechir") is lacking, and in its stead the slogans "Revenge," and "Long live King Messiah," (Heb: "Yechi Hamelech Hamashiach ") were scrawled. The latter is the motto of the messianist wing of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.[18][24] In addition, a resident told a reporter that he saw attackers fleeing towards the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Efrayim.[25] Police requested information from the public as they sought to identify the arsonists.[24] When suspicion fell on West Bank Jewish extremists, Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America alleged that Jews were being "falsely accused" of carrying out the attack, and he instead accused it as being the work of other Palestinians, as part of "an 18-year-old feud between Arab clans" in the village.[20] Israeli Knesset member Oren Hazan, referencing a later separate fire at the house of a brother of Saad Dawabsheh that the Israeli and Palestinian authorities have reported to be unrelated to the arson attack, called for an investigation as he believed that the second fire may indicate that the arson was not committed by Israeli extremists.[26] Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu claimed on 30 August 2015 on Ynet that "The way of terror is not our [Jews] way". Later he claimed; "only someone who lacks knowledge in the nuances of the religious community would make such a mistake and assume that "Tag Mechir" activists will write "Yechi Hamelech Hamashiach" ("Long live King Messiah").[27] On 8 September 2015, a senior Israel Defense Forces officer told the media, that Israel "know[s] unequivocally that this is an act of Jewish terror."[28] On 9 September 2015, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon issued a statement that said "there is a high probability that those responsible for the attack in Duma are part of a very extreme group of Jews" but that there is not yet enough evidence to arrest any suspects.[2][29] Ya'alon also told a group of Likud activists that the identities of the arsonists are known to the defense establishment but that charges would not yet be brought to protect the identity of their sources.[30] Later Ya’alon clarified that security forces have only a "general idea" of who is responsible for the deadly firebombing attack ... calling on reporters to take a wait and see approach to the case".[31] Ya'alon said the attack hurt the state of Israel and the settlement movement specifically and mentioned that "It is necessary to know that most of those extreme right wing activists are not residents of Judea and Samaria and they definitely don't represent the settler-communities over there."[32] According to Sara Hirschhorn, settler rabbis and the leaders of American immigrant communities in the West Bank have been muted in their responses to the detention of suspects associated with their communities.[21] On 3 December 2015, it was cleared for publication that a number of Jewish suspects had been arrested in connection with the attack.[33][34] The UN envoy criticized the "slow progress" in Israel's investigation.[35] Haaretz reported that the suspects were subjected to harsh interrogation methods after the investigation hit a dead end. According to unnamed sources, Israeli Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein approved the use of these methods, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not informed of this until after the fact. In response to the allegations, Deputy Attorney-General Raz Nizri met with the detainees.[36] On 11 December 2015, one of the suspects was released to house arrest.[37] Despite acknowledging that the attack was "clearly a Jewish" one, and that Israeli authorities knew "who is responsible" for it, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that there is "not enough evidence" to detain or prosecute the suspects.[38] The comments were decried by Palestinian rights groups, who noticed the swiftness of Israeli military actions against Palestinian suspects of attacks against Israeli targets, and accused the Israeli government of condoning settler violence.[39] On December 15, the Israeli High Court of Justice denied a petition that the government take immediate "legal steps against the Dawabsheh family's murders".[39] On the evening of the 17'th of December 2015, Mako reported [40] about a petition to leak the names of arrested people, within a few hours "????? ?? ????? ????" (in other sources '???? ????' Duma-Youth ) leaked 100 names that had been allegedly held by security services giving three categories ( administrative detention, custody and under active integration by the Shabak). rotter news reported that the list is not credible as they believe the names are not connected to the investigation.[41] On January 3, 2016, two suspects were indicted. One of them, 21-year-old Amiram Ben-Uliel, was charged with murder. The second, a minor whose identity was withheld due to regulations exempting minors suspected of criminal acts from being publicly named, was charged as an accessory.[42] The motive was the revenge for the of murder of Malachi Rosenfeld by Palestinians, near Duma, in June 2015[43][44]The indictments also included charges of membership in the "Revolt" group, who reportedly was founded in October 2013, and aimed to carry out terror acts against Palestinians, stir chaos in Israel, and bring about war betwen Arabs and Jews. The purpose was to cause the collapse of Israel's democracy to make way for a state ruled by a Jewish King according to Halachaic law.[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] [...] (10) West Bank close to boiling point http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4688706,00.html West Bank inches closer to boiling point The rising tensions are evident everywhere. In Meir Ettinger's fanaticism; in Palestinian villages where night watchmen groups are formed; in Givat Ronen outpost where 'the most hotheaded guys are drawn,' and in the police, where investigators are trying to solve the arson in Duma and prepare for possible Jewish retaliation. Oded Shalom and Elior Levy Published: 08.08.15, 12:33 / Israel News Huda Kumail was very emotional as she led us to the door that saved her life and the life of her daughters. Nine months have passed since that night. The house has been renovated since, the soot and the traces of the fire have been erased, the hateful graffiti cleaned from the wall. And only the trauma, the heart that beats fast, and the anxiety pills that accompany Kumail everywhere in a white nylon bag, are left as evidence. Kumail lives in a stone house with a fig tree in the yard, rich with fruit, at the northwest end of the village where she was born, Khirbet Abu Falah. There are two more houses nearby, but they are not populated. She's 54 years old and a widow, a mother of seven children, most of which have married and left home, while three daughters still live with her. It was raining that night and a small light came from Kumail's house. "I woke up because of noise in the yard," she says, and even though the house is cool and the fan is pointed in her direction, she starts sweating. "I woke the girls up because I thought it's burglars, but we didn't see anything. We went back to bed to sleep, but several minutes later I heard noise again. All of a sudden, I heard blows on the window and front door. I yelled 'who's there?' and no one answered. I ran to the girls and woke them up again and we went to the living room to lock the door separating us and the porch. We heard the sound of breaking glass and started panicking. I thought it might be the army and I yelled 'who is it? Who is it?' but no one answered. "We ran inside the room. I turned off the electricity and it became dark. They tried to break the living room's iron door and we started crying. We were terrified. We heard people talking in Hebrew but we couldn't understand a word because we don't understand Hebrew. We cried for help and suffocating black smoke started coming from the entrance. My daughter called the neighbors and one of them came running, yelling to us that the Jews escaped, and that he was calling the Fire Department. I was so stressed I didn't know what to do. We started coughing and then I remembered there is a door in the kitchen that leads outside. We went out with shirts covering our faces. Follow me, here in the kitchen, do you see the door? This is the door we used to escape the burning house." Photos taken after the fire was put out show only soot and destruction. The fire got hold of every part of the porch, including the walls and flooring, and it was fortunate it did not spread into the house. The army and Israel Police files list the date of the arson: November 23, 2014. Three months later, in early March, Meir Ettinger was arrested at the Sha'ar Binyamin Industrial Zone by detectives from the nationalistic crime unit in the police's Judea and Samaria district. The official reason was that he was suspected of being involved in the arson at the Kumail family home in Khirbet Abu Falah, and he was taken for questioning at the Ma'ale Adumim police station. There was no evidence against him, only intelligence. At the end of the short interrogation, during which he was asked questions but refused to answer, he received an administrative restraining order barring him from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. What differentiate the arson in Khirbet Abu Falah and the horrifying results of the arson at the Dawabsheh family home in Duma last Friday is a back door and the fact the arsonists made noise in the yard. The murder of baby Ali and his father Saed and the critical wounding of his mother and big brother were just the latest in a series of many other cases of arson at Palestinian homes, which only miraculously ended without casualties. This week, as we followed in the footsteps of the attack in Duma, we also visited the home of Khaled Dar-Khalil from the village of Sinjil north of Ramallah, which was also set on fire a year and a half ago. Dar-Khalil told us about the minutes of horror he, his wife, and their five children endured until they were rescued from the burning house by Palestinian firefighters from Birzeit. After that night, Dar-Khalil erected a high iron fence that makes the house look like a cage. Abed, his youngest son, barely four years old, who suffered paralyzing fear that night, became mute. [...] 'The 'caliphates' are fighting us' After the state issued an administrative restraining order against Ettinger in March, attorney Adi Kedar from Honenu appealed the order to the High Court of Justice. Eventually, the appeal was rejected and the order remained in place, but even before the judges made their decision, they received a letter from Ettinger. "Two weeks ago, I received a restraining order barring me from my home in Givat Sneh Ya'akov near the holy city of Nablus. This order forces me to leave my home, the righteous Jacob's land, my parents’ house in the holy city of Jerusalem, the city of the Temple, and my in-laws' house in Shiloh, where the Tabernacle resided thousands of years before the strange and bizarre laws that this court adheres to were made," he wrote. "Unfortunately, the Land of Israel is dominated by a government that is not loyal to the laws of Torah and the commandments, to whom the sanctity of the Land of Israel is foreign, and the fact it is called a Jewish state is merely lip service. This is the situation that brought me to stand here, in front of this court, that in my eyes is the same as those who are barring me from my home and the land of my ancestors, whose goal is to promote assimilation and erase the unique nature of the people of Israel, and to whom the state's security is not the same as the security of Jews... "This court calls itself a high court of justice, but to us it is the symbol of the injustice and the theft of the name 'Israel'... the order I received cites 'reasons of state security and public safety.' This is the time to say - it is not I who destroyed Israel, but you who sit here, and your predecessors, who endanger the Jews' security over and over again..." Three days after receiving the restraining order, Ettinger gave an interview to "HaKol HaYehudi" website. "I didn't get this order because I'm suspected of murder or robbing banks, but because we all want to see the Kingdom of Israel rise here as soon as possible," he said, and then elaborated: "We don't recognize the authority of the government that controls the Land of Israel today, to tell us what to do and how to do it... We shouldn't even pay heed to the persecution and the restrictions they put on us. We must act with all of our might to change the situation and do everything we can to form the Kingdom of Israel." [...] The Shin Bet said in response that "Meir Ettinger's interrogation is done according to law and under legal supervision. His claims are fictitious and baseless." (11) Kahane's grandson's plan to spark a revolt, build Temple, expel Arabs http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4687342,00.html Kahane's grandson's plan to spark a revolt and bring down Israel Far-right activist Meir Ettinger was arrested by the Shin Bet, which says he developed a plan called 'the revolt', designed to inflame tensions and cause anarchy in order to hasten the end of days. Itay Blumenthal Published: 08.04.15, 12:00 / Israel News  Meir Ettinger, who was arrested on Monday by the Shin Bet, was accused by the security service of heading a cell planning to commit a series of violent acts against Palestinians as part of a plan he branded "the revolt". Ettinger, considered the Shin Bet's Jewish division's number one target, was arrested at his apartment in Safed. He is the grandson of far-right late US-born rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated expelling Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian territories. According to his worldview, violence must be committed in order to light the flames of conflict and cause the Israeli government to collapse. Anarchy would follow, and then a new order could be created. "The meaning of bringing down the state is toppling the structure of the state and its ability to rule, and to build a new institution," wrote Ettinger in a document outlining his plan. "To this end, we must work outside of the rules of the institution we want to bring down. "If the 'contractor' sees there is a regime and keeps him from carrying out the mission, and the mission must be carried out, he must think now how to topple the regime that's stopping him from building the Temple, which is preventing us from attaining full and true salvation," read the document. "The idea of the revolt is very simple," continued Ettinger. "Israel has many 'weak points', subjects people tiptoe around so as not to cause riots. What we will do is simply 'spark' all these powder kegs, all the questions and the contradictions between Judaism and democracy. Between the Jewish character and the secular character, without fearing the results. Disturbing the ability to rule the country. That's the main part of the revolt's 'vort' (word) to break the rules and the entire status quo." The document went on: "When you do this, you have to pay attention to the difference between 'breaking' the state, which is an action that doesn't pay enough attention to what is left of the fragments, and 'dismantling', which is the same action, only gentler and particularly careful. That is, ultimately the goal is disturbing the foundations of the state until the point where the Jews are forced to decide whether they want to take part in the revolution or in suppressing the revolt, because it will not be possible to ignore it or continue to sit and do nothing, because in practice the revolt will not permit the state's existence in the same way." Ettinger was born in Jerusalem to Mordechai Ettinger, a rabbi at the Har Hamor and Ateret Kohanim yeshivas in Jerusalem, and Tova, the daughter of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the outlawed Kach movement. He got married in October 2014. "I've lost the energy for it," Tova Ettinger told Ynet on Monday following her son's arrest. Ettinger embarked on this path six years ago in the outpost of Ramat Magron, which was eventually evacuated, and with time became a well-known figure. He has previously encountered security forces in several incidents, such as when he entered Joseph's Tombin Nablus despite not being approved, and involvement in collecting information on security forces planning to evacuate West Bank outposts, which led to more than six months of detention for Ettinger. At this point, he met friends from the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in Yitzhar, and began to be drawn to Hasidic-messianic ideas about hastening salvation through deeds. The president of the yeshiva is Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, a controversial figure who has been arrested for a series of publications about Arabs, including pamphlets stating that Arabs have no right to live in Israel. According to the Shin Bet, Ettinger has continued to radicalize since then, and is at the head of a new organization, which was responsible for the arson at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish in June. Ettinger denied in a blog post that he was the chief of a Jewish terror organization: "To tell you the truth, I don't know what they in the Shin Bet wanted me to organize, and they should definitely look for other people to cast for the roles they need in their show for the media, but this urge of the Shin Bet to create an atmosphere, to put up appearances as if there is some 'organization' it exposed, clearly illustrates to us what those in the Shin Bet understand and are so afraid of," he wrote. Attorney Yuval Zemer, who represents Ettinger, said he felt the arrest was more a matter of public relations than a true investigation. (12) Israel struggles to crack down on Jewish extremists http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/07/middleeast/israel-right-wing-jewish-extremism/ By Oren Liebermann Updated 0853 GMT (1553 HKT) September 8, 2015 Palestinians guard against extremist attacks (CNN)On an exposed hill outside of Qusra, a small Palestinian village in the West Bank, a dozen volunteers huddle around a fire, passing around hot coffee and tea. Their homes are a short walk away, but the men will not leave this hill until dawn. From here, they can see their village and its surroundings. It is the best place to spot an attack. And the most recent attacks, carried out by suspected Jewish extremists, have come in the middle of the night. Armed with flashlights and sticks, men in small teams patrol the roads and the outskirts of town, looking for people or vehicles they don't recognize. If they spot something suspicious, they will alert the town through the mosque speakers. "We coordinate together when we see suspicious people walking around or a suspicious car driving in the village, so we can wake up the people," says Abdulhakim Wade, one of the men who volunteers as a lookout. They have reason to worry. In late July, just a short drive away, suspected Jewish extremists firebombed a Palestinian home in Duma, killing an 18-month-old toddler. Both his parents later died from their injuries, and their 4-year-old son remains in critical condition at the hospital. 'Price tag' attacks It was part of a series of attacks on Palestinians and Christians, often in response to what Jewish extremists view as events that go against Jewish settlers in the West Bank. They are called "price tag" attacks, because the attackers spray paint the words "price tag" or "revenge" in Hebrew at the site of the attack. Just days before the firebombing, the Israeli government bulldozed an illegal building in the Jewish settlement of Bet El, not far from Duma. Yaakov Perry, a lawmaker and the former head of the Israel Security Agency, says it is difficult for the country's security establishment to stop "price tag" attacks. He wants the government to treat "price tag" attacks as terrorism. "Then the whole system -- gathering the intelligence, interrogating them, spotting them, and the punishment -- would be much more effective," he argues. While the Israeli government has not defined "price tag" attacks as terror, it did crack down on Jewish extremists, many of whom are from West Bank settlements, after the firebombing. In an extraordinary step, authorities arrested and held several Jewish extremists without charge, a move regularly used against Palestinians, but very rarely against Israelis. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the attack on Duma an "act of terrorism." The Revolt One of those detainees is Meir Ettinger, the grandson of Meir Kahane, a Brooklyn rabbi who moved to Israel and founded the ultra-right-wing Kach party. The party was banned as a terrorist organization after one of its followers, Baruch Goldstein, killed 29 Muslim worshippers and wounded 150 more in Hebron in 1994. Ettinger, 23, wrote a manifesto called "The Revolt," in which he called for overthrowing the Israeli government and replacing it with Jewish law, called halakhah. "The state of Israel has many weak points, topics which you walk on the edge of a tight rope in order not to cause a disturbance. What we will do is simply ignite all those barrels of explosives, all the questions and the contradictions between Judaism and democracy, between Judaism and secularism, and not be afraid of the results," wrote Ettinger. Israel's Defense Minister, Moshe Ya'alon, signed an order holding Ettinger on administrative detention, without charge or trial, for six months. 'If he is a terrorist, indict him' But bringing Ettinger and other Jewish extremists to trial has not been easy. "The system has no evidence that Meir Ettinger preached to use violence for the revolt," says Itzhak Bam, an attorney representing one of the men detained with Ettinger. "And therefore, no law prohibits Meir Ettinger's activities." Bam often works for Honenu, an Israeli organization that has provided legal aid to those accused of Jewish extremist attacks. Bam is currently representing Mordechai Meyer, an extremist held on administrative detention, like Ettinger. "They are either unable or unwilling to prove all those arguments in the court. They say, 'Well, he is a terrorist.' OK, if he is a terrorist, indict him. They are unwilling or unable to indict. They don't want to argue the case in the open court. They don't want to allow him all the defenses Israeli citizens have in criminal procedures," Bam charges. 'Kingdom of Evil' In June, Jewish extremists torched the Benedictine Church of Multiplication in Northern Israel, near the site where the New Testament says Jesus walked on water. The Israel Security Agency charged a number of extremists over the arson, including Moshe Orbach. The ISA says Orbach, 24, wrote a manual called "Kingdom of Evil" in which he explained how to create a firebomb and the difference between setting a home on fire and setting a mosque on fire. "Bring a lot of petrol," he wrote. But for authorities, stopping the attacks is a challenge. The extremists are loosely organized, according to Perry, and there may be no more than a few dozen of them. They work in small teams and are only vaguely connected, making it hard to gather intelligence about all of the extremists at once. "You cannot define it as an organization," Perry says, "and that's one of the main difficulties of the Israeli defense system, the Israeli security system, to catch them." Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to catch the people responsible for these latest attacks, but his promises ring hollow in villages like Qusra, where the villages say another attack is more likely than another arrest. This page was last modified on 5 January 2016, at 20:47. (13) Rabbi Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza. Says OK to kill http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Eliyahu-advocates-carpet-bombing-Gaza Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza Says there is no moral prohibition against killing civilians to save Jews. Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza (photo credit:Courtesy) All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings. The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision. According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets. The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza. Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life. "If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop." In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them." Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses." (14) Demolition policy — only for houses of Arab terrorists, not Jewish terrorists http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/demolition-palestinian-terrorists-jewish-undeground.html Why isn't IDF razing homes of Jewish terrorists? "Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin." (Deuteronomy 24:16) Summary Family members of Jewish terrorists can rest assured that the Israeli government won't subject them to the same policy of demolitions as punishment it uses against Palestinians. Author Akiva Eldar Posted January 7, 2016 TranslatorRuti Sinai Amiram Ben-Uliel was charged this week with the July murder of the Dawabsha family in the West Bank village of Douma. If convicted, Ben-Uliel, 21, who is married and a new father, will likely spend the coming years behind bars. If he is granted furloughs, he will be able to visit his Jerusalem apartment and his parents’ home in the settlement of Karmei Tsur. The Ben-Uliel family’s neighbors needn’t fear that explosives experts will come to their neighborhood or that the force of a blast will crack their walls and shatter their windows. The neighbors of Yosef Haim Ben-David, accused of killing Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir in July 2014, needn’t worry, either. If Ben-David is convicted, he can expect life imprisonment, but his family home will remain intact. And that’s for the best. These two vicious terror attacks set off waves of violence that have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Israelis and Palestinians. And we have not seen the end of it. On Jan. 4, the prime minister declared on the Knesset podium that "Terror is terror is terror." It stands to reason, then, that the law is the law is the law. And the law says that a punishment shall be a punishment shall be a punishment. But that is not the case in the West Bank's Areas B and C, under Israel’s military control, and in Area A, under Palestinian Authority control. Also, despite Jerusalem being under Israeli law (and not military law), only the families of Palestinian attackers are losing their homes in the eastern part of the city. The families of Jewish perpetrators are not. Last November, the Israel Defense Forces blew up four houses in the Palestinian city of Nablus and in the village of Silwad. They were the residences of the four men charged with the Oct. 1 murder of the Henkins near the settlement of Itamar, and the June 29 murder of Malachi Rosenfeld in the Binyamin region (none of them, just like Ben-Uliel and Ben-David, have been convicted yet). Old people and babies were thrown out of their homes into the rain and cold. The parents paid for the sins of their sons. In a December 2014 ruling on home demolitions, Supreme Court Justice Noam Solberg discussed the claim that the government practices discrimination on the grounds of nationality in its use of Emergency Regulations, a legacy of the British Mandate in Palestine, to demolish these homes. "While one cannot deny that there are, indeed, incidents of attacks by Jews against Arabs," the judge wrote. Solberg cited the "terrible murder of Mohammed Abu-Khdeir, not to mention the shocking murder of the Dawabsha family members." Nonetheless, Solberg argued that there is no justification for equal rulings against an Arab terrorist and a Jewish terrorist, saying that whereas Jews aren’t incited to attack Arabs and condemn such acts "across the board" and in a determined and assertive manner, the same cannot be said of the other side. Therefore, the judge explained, "In the Jewish sector there is no need for such broad deterrence, which is the purpose of house demolitions." Does the Jewish population, unlike the Palestinian one, indeed firmly and assertively denounce Jewish terrorists, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu often says? Is it true that Jews don't incite? They would do well to peek occasionally at the social networks and glance at the online commentary, which daily calls for "death to Arabs," encourages revenge attacks, curses the name of the Prophet Muhammad and incites against Arab soccer players. Let's not forget the prime minister’s unforgettable words on the last election day that "Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls." It would be interesting to hear what the honorable justice and the prime minister would say if a Palestinian terrorist had gotten his own national television show, been appointed editor of a newspaper or become a columnist for important newspapers. Human rights activists and members of watchdog organizations will soon be required to wear a badge identifying themselves when visiting the Knesset. But absent a similar law requiring convicted terrorists to wear a badge, few viewers of the Knesset Channel and readers of the newspapers Makor Rishon and Maariv will remember that the TV anchor and opinion writer Haggai Segal (Makor Rishon's editor-in-chief) is a terrorist convicted of causing grievous harm, illegal weapons possession and membership in a terror organization. Segal was arrested in 1984 with other members of the Jewish Underground and sentenced to five years in prison, two of them suspended. He ended up serving two years. The Jewish zealots embarking on arson sprees in Palestinian villages are inspired by the legends of the Jewish Underground active in the 1980s. They remember that then-President Chaim Herzog couldn't withstand the political and public pressure exerted on him and granted clemency to the Jewish Underground prisoners, including those sentenced to life in prison for murdering three Palestinian students and for maiming two West Bank mayors. Herzog commuted their sentences three times. With their time further shortened for good behavior, they were released from prison after seven years. Along with the moral issue of punishing parents (and often neighbors as well) for the sins of their grown children, discrimination in punishments for nationalist crimes and the questionable legality of demolition as a punishment, there is disagreement over its effectiveness as a deterrence. Haaretz military analyst Amos Harel wrote in 2005 that the IDF presents cases of families turning in their sons before they headed out to commit attacks, explaining that they were motivated by fear that the army would demolish their homes. But, he noted, there have apparently been no more than 20 such cases throughout the years of conflict. Harel also wrote that an internal IDF study published at the end of 2003, after 1,000 days of clashes in the second intifada, concluded, "To date, there is no proof of the deterrent effect of house demolitions." According to the study, several months after the IDF started razing homes, the number of terror attacks increased. Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Eitan, who served as head of the Central Command at the height of the intifada, said that home demolitions provide an incentive for revenge attacks. A military commission headed by Maj. Gen. Udi Shani that studied the demolition policy in 2005 recommended the practice be stopped because the damage from the hatred it promotes outweighs the benefits. The recommendations were presented to Moshe Ya’alon, then the IDF chief of staff. Today, Defense Minister Ya’alon is one of the leading proponents of the demolition policy — only for houses of Arab terrorists, of course. As his coalition colleague Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich said, "Jews cannot be terrorists." ----------------------------- Jan 18, 2016 (Part 2) (1) Video clip shows far-right wedding-goers celebrating Duma killings; watch it on Youtube (2) The Radical New Face of the Jewish Settler Movement (3) Jewish terrorists "like savages, sang a hymn of vengeance and gleefully danced" - Isi Leibler (4) Palestinian master degree program "Master in Peace studies" (5) Obama got NSA to spy on Netanyahu (6) NSA taps of Israeli leaders included private conversations with U.S. Congress (7) Hillary swears Fealty to Israel (8) Gilad - The Judaic universe is ruled by ‘mitzvoth’ (commandment), a set of 613 precepts (9) Turkish Jews' public celebration of Hanukkah (10) Harperland: The defeated Ogre finds little comfort from his hawkish "best friend" (11) Christmas Trees banned in Israel (12) Russian secular "Christmas" holiday is gaining acceptance in Israel (1) Video clip shows far-right wedding-goers celebrating Duma killings; watch it on Youtube Watch it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/t3h8FEvGNQg http://www.timesofisrael.com/clip-shows-far-right-wedding-goers-celebrating-dawabsha-killings/ Clip shows far-right wedding-goers celebrating Duma killings Israeli youngsters, said to be friends of detainees in deadly firebombing, stab photo of 18-month-old victim; wave firebombs, rifles and knives at Jerusalem event BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF December 23, 2015, 10:07 pm {photo} Screenshot from a video showing extremist Israeli Jewish wedding-goers celebrating the killing of the Dawabsha family. (screen capture: Channel 10) {end} Footage released on Wednesday showed dozens of young Israeli right-wing extremists, said to be linked to the suspected perpetrators of the Dawabsha family murder, celebrating the killing at a wedding last week. The images in the clip immediately sparked wide condemnation. The video, aired by Channel 10, shows revelers at the Jerusalem celebration waving knives, rifles, pistols and a Molotov cocktail during the wedding. Amid the festivities, a photo of baby Ali Dawabsha, who was burned to death in the July 31 firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma, is shown being repeatedly stabbed. The crowd in the video chants the lyrics of a song which include a verse from Judges 16:28, quoting Samson, blinded in Gaza, saying "let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes" — but changing the word Philistines to Palestine. The couple whose wedding was being celebrated was said to be friends of Jewish extremists detained in connection with the firebombing attack. The attack in Duma on July 31 killed three members of a Palestinian family. Only one member of the Dawabsha family — Ahmed, now 5 — survived the attack, and remains hospitalized in Israel. The 18-month-old baby Ali was killed on the night of the attack, while parents Riham and Saad succumbed to their injuries in the succeeding weeks. {photo} Far-right Israeli wedding-goers stab a photo of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsha, killed in a deadly firebombing attack, allegedly by Jewish extremists, in July 2015 (screen capture: Channel 10) {end} According to the TV report, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon broadcast the clip to settler leaders a few days ago, to underline that dozens of young extremists are passionately supportive of the alleged Jewish terrorists. The TV report said the footage was a factor in the stream of statements of support from right-wing leaders for the Shin Bet security service in its battle against Jewish terrorism in the last few days. According to Haaretz reporter Chaim Levinson on Twitter, the bride was arrested in the past for carrying out an attack against Palestinians, along with the wife of one of the main suspects in the Duma case. She received 350 hours of community service for the crime. The video was met with harsh condemnation from across the political spectrum. Minutes after the clip was aired, Zionist Union MK and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni got up before the Knesset and railed against the youngsters in the film, saying "this is the group that wants to destroy the Jewish Israel, to destroy this state from within, to destroy the government from within and sow hate." {photo} Far-right Israeli wedding-goers celebrate the killings of the Dawabsha family (screen capture: Channel 10) {end} Pointing at Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich, Livni said: "These are the people you protest being interrogated by the Shin Bet." "My Judaism is not the Judaism of those dancing on the blood of babies," she added on Twitter. Smotrich condemned the "evil price tag ideology," referring to right-wing attacks against Palestinians, but attempted to disassociate himself from the extremists, saying it "is not the way of religious Zionism, period." "The demonic dance with the picture of the murdered baby represents a dangerous ideology and the loss of humanity," he said, according the Israel National News website. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog termed the revelers "maniacs." "Lowlifes, you forgot what it is to be Jewish. You disgrace the kippah, the prayer shawl, and the name of God. Those who dance at a wedding and celebrate the death of a baby in his sleep are not Jews and not Israeli. They should be locked up as soon as possible," he said in a tweet. In a statement, the Joint List of Arab parties said the Israeli government and defense minister, "who let the settlers attack Palestinians without facing punishment, are the first ones to blame for this terror network." The party urged Israeli society to "wake up" and see that "the hatred and terror are the inevitable result of military control and occupation of a civilian population." {photo} A far-right Israeli wedding-goer celebrates the murder of the Dawabsha family (screen capture: Channel 10) {end} Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home), an outspoken supporter of the settlement movement, condemned the participants at the wedding. "The clip published by Channel 10 news this evening is shocking and one cannot allow the activity of radical groups fueled by hate," Ariel wrote on Facebook. "Violence and support of violence deserve only condemnation. This is not the path of Zionism and this is not the path of the settlement movement," wrote Ariel, who a day earlier had called for the Shin Bet to close down its division that deals with Jewish terror cases. The video clip was also denounced by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau, who said it went against Jewish tradition. Other religious figures also spoke out against it. The video comes as the Shin Bet has faced criticism from some right-wing activists over claims that it has tortured suspects detained in connection with the Duma attack. An unspecified number of Jewish suspects have been arrested in connection with the attack, which is being investigated as an act of terrorism. Details of the investigation, and the identity of the suspects, have been withheld from publication by a court-imposed gag order. Earlier Wednesday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett doubled down on his criticism of figures in the religious Zionist community for their condemnation of the Shin Bet, calling them hypocrites. {photo} Saad and Riham Dawabsha, with baby Ali. All three died when the Dawabsha home in the West Bank village of Duma was firebombed, by suspected Jewish extremists, on July 31, 2015 (Channel 2 screenshot) {end} Speaking at a conference of the right-wing weekly B’sheva, the Jewish Home party leader reiterated comments he made a day earlier denouncing right-wing extremists as "terrorists," and said it was hypocritical to oppose interrogation methods considered acceptable against Palestinians. "What was done to the Duma detainees is for certain not more, and probably less, than what is done regularly to Palestinian terror suspects," he said. (2) The Radical New Face of the Jewish Settler Movement http://forward.com/news/328981/the-radical-new-face-of-the-jewish-settler-movement/ Naomi Zeveloff The Forward January 11, 2016 When Eliezer Shekhtman moved to Israel from Chicago, he chose to live in Tapuach, a hardcore settlement deep inside the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He had family friends there; his father had been an associate of Meir Kahane, the virulently anti-Arab rabbi. But after a year, Shekhtman wanted more privacy and moved to a trailer on a hill outside the settlement. Though Israel considers such trailer outposts illegal, Shekhtman’s was hooked up to running water and electricity through Tapuach. The newcomer befriended other boys in the area, including some living even more austerely in tents on nearby hillsides. He spent the Sabbath with these boys and gave them rides in his car, once helping them move a tent. Shekhtman’s friends were part of the so-called hilltop youth, a loosely affiliated group of Jewish settlers in their teens and 20s who live away from their parents on the hilltops surrounding established settlements. Members of the group have perpetrated so-called "price tag" attacks, using firebombs and spray paint to damage Palestinian property in retribution for Palestinian violence, or as a way of lashing out against the Israeli military. {photo} Their Livelihoods in Flames: Palestinian protesters stand amid blazes set by settlers to their olive groves last October near Yitzhar, a West Bank settlement known as a bastion for extremists. {end} With friends like these, it wasn’t long before a member of the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service, caught up with Shekhtman, a chubby-cheeked 23-year-old, as he was driving one evening in his car. "You are hanging out with dangerous people," Shekhtman recalled the security agent telling him. "I said, ‘Okay, thank you for the warning.’" Now, Shekhtman’s friends are at the center of a national firestorm. Several hilltop youth members claim the Shin Bet tortured them as suspects in a murderous arson attack against a Palestinian family. The state has charged two of them. And protests against the alleged torture have spread across the country, including outside the home of Naftali Bennett, the settlers’ biggest advocate in the Knesset. Bennett justified the Shin Bet’s methods as necessary to prevent young men like them from striking again. Meanwhile, at Tapuach Junction, a militarized intersection leading to Shekhtman’s old settlement, posters plastered on bus stops and concrete blocks declare: "Jews don’t torture other Jews. Stop the inquisition." The hilltop youth have always had power, which they wielded through violent acts, often under the cover of night. But for most Israelis, these were distant events perpetrated by extremists in the West Bank, a kind of Wild West they rarely think about or visit. Now, ironically, the efforts of Israel’s security services to suppress the hilltop youth have brought this cohort into the daylight — and given them a voice. {photo} Gaining a Voice: Demonstrators at a Petah Tikva courthouse in December protest the alleged torture of suspected Jewish extremists. Israeli security forces deny the charge. The sign reads: "Enough with abuse and persecution, don’t abandon our children." {end} Their breakthrough into mainstream discourse may seem sudden to many Israelis. But the hilltop youth is a phenomenon long in the making. Their roots go back to Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza, the Palestinian territory that Israel occupied and today blockades on the Mediterranean coast. Israeli troops forcefully evacuated some 8,600 Jewish settlers, most of whom resisted nonviolently. In taking this action, the state provoked a generational rupture in the settler movement with implications few understood at the time. Settler elders had promised that God himself would ensure that the Jewish state’s army would never force them to forsake their settlement, known as Gush Katif, in what they saw as the biblical Land of Israel. But God failed to intervene, and a generation of young people lost trust in their parents. Their mentality was: "Why should I listen to you? You didn’t succeed in your big project. So if you didn’t succeed, it means I can try as well as you can try," said Shimi Friedman, an anthropologist at Ariel University, in the settlement of the same name. Now, 10 years on, the hilltop youth are an established entity. Several hundred adolescents from both sides of the Green Line — including some girls — roam the West Bank hills. Some are yeshiva dropouts. Others are students of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh of Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, in Yitzhar. Ginsburgh, a prominent scholar of Kabbalah and a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, has concocted a potent ideological brew for this new generation of Jewish radicals, spouting mystical admonitions to live in nature and Kabbalah-based rationales for Jewish racial superiority and violence against Arabs. Meanwhile, two other prominent rabbis at Od Yosef Chai have given the hilltop youths’ penchant for attacking Arabs even stronger religious legitimacy. In their 2010 book, "The King’s Torah (Torat Hamelech), Part One: Laws of Life and Death Between Israel and the Nations," Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur declared, "The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’" applies only "to a Jew who kills a Jew." Non-Jews, they wrote, are "uncompassionate by nature" and assaults on them "curb their evil inclination," while infants and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed, since "it is clear that they will grow to harm us." Up until 2013, Od Yosef Chai yeshiva received government funding and support. It has also received money from American donors. While "The King’s Torah" sparked a scandal in the mainstream press, the book’s wide dissemination in Israeli bookstores, and its enthusiastic endorsement by several prominent rabbis gave the authors’ ideas currency. Still, some scholars say that the hilltop youth are acting not on any religious authority but on their own violent convictions. For years, its members have been committing vigilante acts against Palestinians, torching olive groves and defacing mosques. But until recently, Israeli leaders in the mainstream have been reluctant to label them terrorists — a term usually reserved for Arabs. Israeli courts have also done little to punish this kind of behavior. In 2013, Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Ya’alon, defined price tag activity as "illegal organizing." And according to a report by the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, just 7.4% of complaints filed by Palestinians from 2005 to 2014 have ended in indictments against Israeli civilians. Now, the arson attack in the Palestinian village of Duma last July, which killed an 18-month-old infant and his parents, appears to show that the hilltop youth are capable of not only destruction, but murder, too. {photo} Terrorist Victims: A relative stands inside the burnt-out home of Saad Dawabsha, who was killed alongside his infant and wife when Jewish extremists firebombed their house in the West Bank village of Duma last July. {end} It also turns out that several of those detained as part of the Duma investigation have U.S. citizenship. That may reflect the disproportionate presence of Americans among settlers overall. According to Sara Yael Hirschhorn, an Oxford University scholar, some 15% of all settlers are Americans, compared with 2% to 3% of all Israeli citizens. The prominence of Americans among those detained echoes the historic leadership roles Americans have played in Israel’s contemporary right-wing radicalism, from Kahane, a native New Yorker, to Ginsburgh, who was born in St. Louis and spent much of his youth in Philadelphia, and Baruch Goldstein, the Brooklyn born-and-raised physician who in 1994 murdered 29 Muslims at prayer at the Cave of the Patriarchs, a site in Hebron holy to Muslims and Jews. According to Shekhtman, the hilltop youth are frustrated that members of the national religious mainstream, like Bennett, have failed to support them. Sitting in a squat office building in Yitzhar, where he now lives, Shekhtman counted off Jewish figures whose one-time radical acts are now celebrated in the Israeli mainstream. He pointed to the Lehi, a pre-state Zionist group in the 1940s that launched terrorist attacks against British civilian officials and Arab civilians in Mandate Palestine. Today, streets in Israel are named for members of the Lehi. In Shekhtman’s view, Bennett’s support for the Shin Bet’s investigation against Jewish extremism smacks of hypocrisy. "Kids see that something is not clear here," he said. In 2013, the Israeli government initiated an outreach program, known as the Hebrew Shepherd, to rein in the hilltop youth. But according to those involved, it has failed to make headway with the most radical youngsters. Avia Azulay, a brawny 36-year-old with a bushy black beard, worked for the program for three months. Sitting inside a makeshift pizza parlor in the Itamar settlement while a pair of teenage boys lounged on a dingy yellow couch outside, he explained that he quit the government program when he came to believe that the Shin Bet was involved. "I said, this is going to be a problem, because if I come to youth at risk and I say I am working for the police, then I lose the trust," he said. The Education Ministry, which runs the program, turned down a request for comment. Azulay stakes his credibility with the hilltop youth on the fact that he was an early adopter of the lifestyle. He was born in Yamit, a settlement in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula that Israel evacuated in 1982.  From there his parents went to Kiryat Arba, a settlement of ideologically motivated Israeli Jews near the Palestinian city of Hebron. Azulay left his family for high school in Itamar, but dropped out and made his way to Od Yosef Chai yeshiva. There he met likeminded teens who lived on the fringes. "We decided we wanted to do something with more meaning," he said. "We were going to expand the yishuv," or body of Jewish settlements. At the age of 15, Azulay moved with his friends to a hill next to Yitzhar. But soon, he said, the Civil Administration, the Israeli military’s administrative arm in the West Bank, ordered them to leave. Azulay sought advice from Gilad Zahr, a security officer with the Samaria Regional Council. He learned that it was more difficult for Israeli authorities to order the destruction of a facility once it had already been fully built. So he and his friends set about constructing a home inside a tent. Only when the home was finished did they take down the tent, surprising the Civil Administration. Later, Yitzhar paved a road to the outpost. Today, the hilltop settlement, called Lehava, or Flame, is still standing, even as it is considered illegal construction by Israel. "Our techniques worked," Azulay said. "The houses are still there today." Azulay’s hilltop activities, however, got him into trouble with the Shin Bet. He said that he was passed over for the army — many hilltop youth are considered too dangerous to serve in the Israel Defense Forces — but later convinced a Shin Bet agent to reconsider him. Eventually he became the head of security in Itamar. "I went from a situation in which they didn’t want me to have a gun to where I became a commander in the army, and then here I was, in charge of the guns in Itamar, and I had 150, 160 guns here," he said. While Azulay considers the work of settling hilltops heroic, he wants to help the hilltop youth stay out of trouble so that they can join the military and go on to lead productive adult lives. "The hilltop youth say, ‘One should kill all the Arabs.’ And I say I am also in favor. I am in favor of killing the enemies, and if you go to the army you will kill terrorists." But Shekhtman believes that Jewish civilian violence has a place in the greater political scheme. Echoing Ginsburgh, who cites the Torah, he said that "Jewish revenge" is a "value," even though ideally a military should be exacting it instead of Jewish teens. During Hanukkah, Shekhtman was a guest at a Jewish wedding at which a group of young men danced while waving guns in the air. One thrust a knife through a photograph of Ali Saad Dawabsheh, the infant killed in the Duma fire. Video footage of the wedding was leaked to the press, causing mainstream Israelis to recoil at the radicalism in their midst. Shekhtman said he did not see the man stabbing the photo. But the idea did not scandalize him. "It doesn’t bother me. I don’t know if the father threw stones or if he didn’t, or if the baby would have thrown stones or wouldn’t have if he lived till the age of 15 or 20. Come on, it’s a picture." Shekhtman called the video a "smokescreen" to distract from the torture allegations. He believes that the Duma case and the torture claims are forcing the tension between Israel’s secular democracy and its Jewish character to come to a head. The Shin Bet, he said, is prosecuting not murder, but ideology. When Jews in Israel see the security establishment torturing other Jews, he believes, they will realize that Israel is operating outside a Jewish value system, and be moved to create a truly Jewish state. "They are saying, ‘These are crazy kids, radicals who want to form a Jewish state and have state government by Torah and Jewish law," Shekhtman said. But he doesn’t see the mission as crazy at all: "A lot of people want that." Among the hardcore settlers, debate is now raging over whether hilltop youth are violent delinquents or young visionaries. For years, radical settlers have moved to the hills beyond the borders of existing settlements to establish new neighborhoods. Though the Israeli government considers these outposts unauthorized, it provides them with electricity, running water and security. (The international community, meanwhile, considers all the exclusively Jewish settlements Israel has established in the territories it conquered in the 1967 Six Day War to be illegal.) Hilltop Social Worker: Avia Azulay, 36, was an early hilltop youth adherent, but worked more recently for a government program to draw hilltop youth back into mainstream society. Azulay told them they could better fulfill their desire to kill Arabs by serving in the Israeli army and killing terrorists. The hilltop youth live in remote areas, too, but their project is much more anarchic than just constructing unauthorized outposts. They engage in an epic cat-and-mouse game with the IDF and lash out at Palestinians to exact a "price" when the government dismantles an illegal outpost. According to the Duma indictment, the two boys accused of the murders there sought to spark an intra-religious war that would undermine the State of Israel. Part of the Duma investigation has focused on a group called "The Revolt" which seeks to overthrow the state and create a Jewish monarchy in its place. "There is no doubt that the hilltop youth today are outside the boundaries of normal life. That is the way it is perceived in Israel," said Tzvi Sukkot, a former member who now lives in a one-story home in Yitzhar with his wife and three children. On the wall in his living room is a large Technicolor canvas painted by his grandfather. It depicts King David, the prophet Elijah and the Messiah as a young child. A stone foundation of the Third Temple is visible in the background. "Some people feel threatened by their lifestyle," he continued. "And they say that these people live on the fringe of society or that they were thrown out of their homes. From what I know, these young people are the best students in their schools, and they believe in what they are doing." Indeed, while some of the hilltop youth come from troubled homes, others represent elite Israeli families. Elisha Odess, who was detained in connection with the Duma attack, is the son of Moshe Odess, the rabbi of Tzofim, a mixed secular-religious settlement in the northern West Bank. Odess has dual American-Israeli citizenship. And Amiram Ben Ulliel, who was indicted in the Duma affair, is the son of Rueven ben Ulliel, a rabbi in a preparatory program for religious army recruits, according to Haaretz. David Ha’Ivri, a political activist from Tapuach, said that when teens decamp for the hilltops, that should be a "red light" to parents. "Their families have lost that bond and that connection," he said, noting that his own son nearly missed his opportunity to serve in the IDF after he was arrested during a protest at Tapuach Junction. "[The family connection] stops being relevant in these kids’ lives, and that has led to a very sad result all around." Ha’Ivri should know: An American immigrant whose birth name is Jason David Axelrod, he’s seen settler radicalism from both sides of the generational divide, having been arrested for celebrating the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and later serving six months in jail in connection with the desecration of a mosque. The mosque episode occurred 20 years ago, Ha’Ivri said, when he accompanied a group of minors as they tore through an Arab village, vandalizing homes and the house of worship. He was the only adult in the group, and was arrested. In hindsight, he said that it "wasn’t a smart thing to do. I guess I was in a different place at that time and I grew out of that." (3) Jewish terrorists "like savages, sang a hymn of vengeance and gleefully danced" - Isi Leibler http://wordfromjerusalem.com/jewish-terrorism-must-be-cauterized-like-a-cancer/ Jewish terrorism must be cauterized like a cancer Isi Leibler December 30, 2015 Israelis shuddered when viewing the widely publicized extracts of the wedding video in which youngsters in large white knitted kippot brandished knives like savages, sang a hymn of vengeance and gleefully danced around photographs of the victims of the fatal Duma arson attack. That such a barbaric and ghoulish spectacle could occur in a Jewish state sickened the vast majority of the population. This incident caused me to recall a conversation I had with the late Dr. Yosef Burg, a prominent cabinet minister and leader of Habayit Hayehudi’s more centrist religious Zionist antecedent, Hapoel Hamizrahi. At a time of euphoria with Gush Emunim’s expansion of settlements, Burg expressed profound concern about Jews living in outlying areas surrounded by Arabs. He warned, prophetically, that the vicious hatred radiated by the Arabs against the isolated Jews would impact negatively and undermine their humanity. Alas, this is precisely what has happened. Despite the appalling disgrace and besmirching of our name by such demonic behavior, this pales in significance to the impact that such horrific acts can have on our society if not ruthlessly expunged. Yes, those involved are an insignificant number and utterly unrepresentative of any segment of the community. It is also quite unprecedented for every sector of Israel society -- from the prime minister and ranging from the right-wing Habayit Hayehudi through to left-wing Meretz, and including settler organizations and national religious rabbis -- to unequivocally condemn these acts and urge that those involved be treated no differently from Palestinian terrorists. Indeed, the fury it has ignited has led to authorizing the Shin Bet security agency to take such measures against Jewish terror suspects previously restricted to Palestinian "ticking bomb" captives, on the grounds that unconventional pressures could apply if that might lead to saving lives. This and administrative detention are highly unpalatable in a democracy but are justifiable during a state of war or when under siege. During World War II, the Allies took infinitely harsher steps, suspending civil rights. The ultra-Right -- including initially some individuals from Tkuma, the radical extremist element of Habayit Hayehudi -- launched a hysterical campaign against the Shin Bet. However, many backed down after viewing the video. Ironically, some of the delusional far-left civil libertarians associated with Haaretz, who seek to nullify all administrative measures associated with security in relation to Palestinian terrorists, joined forces with the radical right elements in condemning the Shin Bet for using torture to extract confessions from suspects. Taking into account Israel’s current overriding security requirements, there are inevitably occasional mistakes and instances of abuse, but overall the state must do whatever is necessary to identify and prosecute those engaged in such barbaric inhuman behavior. In the prevailing circumstances, especially with a right-wing government, most Israelis have confidence in the prime minister, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett when they unequivocally insist that the Shin Bet is acting in accordance with the law and government directives. Until now, many Israelis have dismissed this phenomenon as mere hooliganism by wild "hilltop youth." That is belittling the case. We are breeding, albeit now only a small number, of "religious lunatics" who could be described as post-religious Zionists. They have imbibed dangerous notions about the need to dismantle the secular state, get rid of the Arabs and set up what they describe as a Torah state. These fanatics are harbingers of great peril to Israeli society unless they are now ruthlessly targeted and delegitimized. The abomination began initially with the so called "price-tag" desecrations of mosques, cemeteries and Arab property. Many of us warned that these despicable acts should be considered within the rubric of terrorism rather than criminal acts. We warned that they would ultimately lead to violence and possibly killings and unfortunately that is precisely what happened. There are too many who, while disgusted with the murders, tend to understate the damage that these fanatical thugs -- often understated as misdirected youngsters -- can inflict on our society. And in some cases, the parents who failed to prevent their children from engaging in purportedly nonviolent price-tag operations must also bear responsibility. This applies especially now, during this period of suicidal Muslim terrorism as anger and fear pervades civilians throughout the country, making them less tolerant toward Arabs. What makes these fanatics even more dangerous is that most of them consider that they are carrying out God’s will. They could easily morph into equivalents of the jihadis. It would seem that one of their main sources of inspiration emanates from a handful of charismatic extremist rabbis who turn a blind eye or even encourage their followers to engage in acts of violence. The state and successive governments until now have tolerated such deviants. It is disgraceful that in our dysfunctional political system, a religious fanatic like Kiryat Arba’s Chief Rabbi, Dov Lior, retains a state-funded rabbinical role when he publicly and unapologetically refers to the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein as being "holier than all the martyrs of the Holocaust" and has instructed the synagogue under his authority to exclude the prayer for the government. It should hardly be surprising that if the state continues to fund even a small number of rabbis with such views, that some of our hilltop youngsters fall under their spell and decide to expand their war against the Arabs. This situation is currently limited to fringe splinter groups of primarily young religious deviants. The government should be applauded for using an iron fist in its determination to indict and neutralize these miscreants. But the few radical rabbis who stand aside or implicitly endorse these actions must be dismissed forthwith and investigated for possible incitement. Naftali Bennett, as education minister, should issue appropriate directives to ensure that the curriculum, especially that of the national religious stream, imparts the necessary message to children in relation to this issue. All rabbis should speak out and condemn any colleague who remains silent or ambivalent. In addition, the settlement movement must move beyond mere condemnation of these deviants. The extremists should be made aware that aside from facing indictments from law enforcement officials, their own communities will excommunicate and report them to the authorities. At the same time, outraged as we are by such abominations, we must not become masochists or accept the distortions about us being promoted in the global media. Yes, we have a tiny fringe element of fanatical Jewish extremists who can be deemed terrorists. But that does not warrant equating us with our neighbors. The definition of a healthy society is not determined by acts of terror but by how the society responds. In the Palestinian arena, the terror is preceded by vile campaigns inciting Muslims to kill Jews and become martyrs. Every murder is sanctified and glorified at the national level from PA head Mahmoud Abbas and extended by the mullahs in the mosques, through to the schools and the media. Every murder results in joyful street celebrations with scenes of the proud parents of the "martyrs." Soon thereafter, streets, city squares and even football clubs will be named after the murderers. Compare that with Israel, where the entire nation, including every party in the Knesset, is horrified and shocked that even isolated barbaric behavior of this nature could occur in this country and where draconian steps are taken to identify and indict the Jewish terrorists. We should give full backing to the government to act with uncompromising discipline and eradicate these home-grown aberrations who reject the sanctity of human life as well as investigating the behavior of a handful of fringe extremist rabbis. These are early days and the situation can be rectified but there must be a recognition that, like cancer in a body, these elements must be completely cauterized or they could revive and cause us immeasurable damage, shaking the very moral foundations of the nation. (4) Palestinian master degree program "Master in Peace studies" Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 09:54:51 +0200 From: Mazin Qumsiyeh <mazin@qumsiyeh.org> Subject: [HumanRights] Coaching in Palestine I am responsible for two courses in Bethlehem Bible College (BBC) program "Master in Peace studies" I do not say teaching or lecturing because I believe our role is more as facilitators or coaches in a student-centered learning environment (I am also learning through the process). Below is one (Muslim) student reflection on this master program and its goals. One course I facilitate deals with basics of research, reading, and writing and the second is in theory and practice of peace-making (including how do we make peace, actions including popular resistance in its many forms as methods to arrive at peace with justice). My classes at BBC, Bethlehem University or Birzeit University are interactive. In our first session at BBC we focused on definitions and modalities of doing research including how, what, and why we read etc. With massive resources on the internet, the right question becomes even more important than the answer. One question raised in our class was: "why is there so little reading in the Arab countries compared to Europe?" (this was assigned as a "homework" :-). The next session we will delve deeper into critical and analytical reading of texts including those retrieved to answer the last question. We may start with evaluating this "qualitative" article with discusses pros and cons of "targeted killing" (some call it extrajudicial execution): Waldron, Jeremy, Can Targeted Killing Work as a Neutral Principle? (March 16, 2011). NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 11-20. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1788226 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1788226 Since I encourage students to learn from each other and work in teams, I also ask you as readers to join us in contributing ideas to any of the courses or modules that I couch. I also welcome guest facilitators/coaches (again I do not say guest lecturers). These include many areas where you can contribute (even remotely): research and writing, critical thinking, conflict resolution, popular resistance, anthropology, Fertile Crescent history, biodiversity, Environmental issues, museology, etc. In other news, we have several new local and international volunteers at the museum. Even the group from Gaza that is doing a two-week workshop on aquaponics have decided to volunteer around the garden. Two of our research papers were also accepted for publication (one on butterflies, other on reptiles). The garden is blooming and we welcome you to visit and/or help. ‘I carried the camera instead of carrying arms’. A student reflection on Bethlehem Bible College’s new MA in Peace Studies http://www.bethbc.org/news/%E2%80%98i-carried-camera-instead-carrying-arms%E2%80%99 Bad news: The Radical New Face of the Jewish Settler Movement By Naomi Zeveloff, The Forward. "Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur declared, "The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’" applies only "to a Jew who kills a Jew." Non-Jews, they wrote, are "uncompassionate by nature" and assaults on them "curb their evil inclination," while infants and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed, since "it is clear that they will grow to harm us." More here: http://forward.com/news/328981/the-radical-new-face-of-the-jewish-settler-movement/ Really good news: U.S. Church puts 5 banks from Israel on a blacklist http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/world/middleeast/us-church-puts-5-banks-from-israel-on-a-blacklist.html?_r=0 (5) Obama got NSA to spy on Netanyahu http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/30/us-spying-netanyahu-israel-iran-nuclear-deal-obama-nsa US 'spied on Binyamin Netanyahu during Iran nuclear deal talks' NSA surveillance of Israeli officials and US congressmen revealed that prime minister and advisers leaked negotiation details, the Wall Street Journal reported David Smith in Washington Thursday 31 December 2015 03.37 AEDT The US spied on the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, because of concerns he would derail the Iran nuclear deal, according to a new account of surveillance operations. Despite Barack Obama’s promise to curtail eavesdropping on allies in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations about the scale and scope of US activities, the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance included phone conversations between top Israeli officials, US congressmen and American-Jewish groups, according to the Wall Street Journal.  The White House did not confirm or deny the report. Ned Price, spokesman for the National Security Council, said on Wednesday: "We are not going to comment on any specific alleged intelligence activities. As a general matter, and as we have said previously, we do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike." A House of Representatives committee has written to the NSA for more information about the report. In a letter to NSA director Michael Rogers, House oversight committee chairman Jason Chaffetz and subcommittee chairman Ron DeSantis said the story raised "questions concerning the processes NSA employees follow in determining whether intercepted communications involved Members of Congress". Relations between Obama and Netanyahu have often been described as strained. The NSA reports allowed Obama administration officials to peer inside Israeli efforts to turn Congress against the Iran deal, the Wall Street Journal said. The surveillance allegedly revealed how Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the US-Iran negotiations, which they learned through Israeli spying operations. Last March, Israel denied reports that its security forces spied on the negotiations between Tehran and major powers over Iran’s nuclear capacities. Israel’s ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, was described as coaching unnamed Jewish-American groups on lines of argument to use on Capitol Hill, and Israeli officials were pressuring legislators to oppose the deal, the newspaper said. The revelations came despite Obama’s promise two years ago to curb spying on US allies following intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s exposure of the vast extent of the NSA’s online surveillance. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel had been embarrassed by the revelation that her mobile phone had been monitored and other allies expressed private concerns about the breadth of NSA monitoring. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, Obama decided there was a "compelling national security purpose" in continuing to monitor some leaders, including Netanyahu and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdog?an. The US administration decided not to remove or disable the "cyber-implants" it had embedded in foreign communications systems, as they would be hard to replace. Instead, the report said, Obama ordered that some of the hacked systems used by close allies would not be routinely monitored by the NSA, while others would continue to be mined for intelligence. "Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that," one unnamed senior US official told the paper, which claimed that one tool was a cyber implant in Israeli networks that gave the NSA access to communications within the Israel prime minister’s office. In addition, after Israel’s lobbying campaign against the Iran nuclear deal went into full swing on Capitol Hill, administration and intelligence officials realised that the NSA was sweeping up the content of conversations with members of Congress, the newspaper said. One unnamed US official described that realisation as "an ‘oh shit’ moment". A 2011 NSA directive said direct communications between foreign intelligence targets and members of Congress should be destroyed when they are intercepted. But the NSA director can issue a waiver if he determines the communications contain "significant foreign intelligence", the Journal said. During Israel’s lobbying campaign in the months before the deal was passed by Congress in September, the NSA removed the names of legislators from intelligence reports and weeded out personal information, the newspaper said. Price of the National Security Council said on Wednesday: "When it comes to Israel, President Obama has said repeatedly that the US commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct. This message has always been backed by concrete actions that demonstrate the depth of US support for Israel." He added: "Our support for Israel was an important element in deterring Iran from ever seeking a nuclear weapon, and remains a critical part of our efforts to push back against Iran’s destabilising actions in the region." John Kirby, spokesman for the State Department, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe: "Without getting into intelligence matters, the president made it clear that we’re not going to collect intelligence on national leaders unless there’s some strong compelling national security case. So I’m not going to talk about the specifics in that article. I’m just not going to address the intelligence aspects here." He added: "The secretary [of state] enjoys a very strong relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu and they speak frequently. We don’t always agree, of course, with Israeli leaders about everything that’s going on there or in the region, but he has a very, very healthy relationship with the prime minister and works at that relationship very hard." But Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate intelligence committee and Republican presidential candidate, told Fox News: "Obviously people read this report, they have a right to be concerned this morning about it. They have a right to be concerned about the fact that while some leaders around the world are no longer being targeted, one of our strongest allies in the Middle East – Israel – is." He continued: "I actually think it might be worse than what some people might think, but this is an issue that we’ll keep a close eye on, and the role that I have in the intelligence committee. But I’m not trying to be evasive, but I want to be very careful in a national broadcast like this how we discuss these sorts of issues." (6) NSA taps of Israeli leaders included private conversations with U.S. Congress http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-spy-net-on-israel-snares-congress-1451425210>. U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress NSA’s targeting of Israeli leaders swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers By Adam Entous and Danny Yadron Dec. 29, 2015 4:40 p.m. ET http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.694471 Wall Street Journal: U.S. Spied on Netanyahu During Iran Deal Talks Obama reportedly maintained NSA monitoring of Netanyahu on 'national security' grounds, with congressional blessing, long after Snowden leaks; Israeli military intelligence gave NSA tech later discovered to be spyware. Haaretz Dec 30, 2015 4:34 AM The U.S. maintained National Security Agency surveillance on Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during nuclear negotiations with Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday in an exclusive that exposes the extent of cooperation and mistrust between the two allies. According to the report, despite vowing to freeze surveillance on allies in 2013 following the Edward Snowden leaks, the U.S. continued to eavesdrop on Netanyahu and his aides, citing what U.S. President Obama reportedly called a "compelling national security purpose." The article quoted unnamed current and former U.S. officials and focused largely on the events preceding and surrounding the nuclear accord with Iran. It reported that the surveillance received congressional support. The Journal's investigation also revealed how Israel's military intelligence Unit 8200 and the NSA, described as its counterpart, shared information and technology, but also spied on one another, in what the report said stoked mutual suspicions and fostered what a U.S. official described as "the most combustible mixture of intimacy and caution that we [the U.S.] have." According to the explosive report, even before the U.S was openly pursuing a nuclear accord with Iran, it decided that despite the fallout from the Snowden leaks – which revealed the U.S was also spying on Germany's German Chancellor Angela Merkel – it would maintain its surveillance on the Israeli administration. "Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that," a senior U.S. official was quoted as saying. At first, convinced Netanyahu was planning to attack Iran without prior warning to U.S., the NSA "ramped up" their eavesdropping efforts, the report said, claiming the move enjoyed the support of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers serving on the relevant congressional committees. But by 2013, intelligence officials maintained that Netanyahu had no real intention of striking Iran, but wanted to know if Israel was in the know regarding talks between the U.S. and Iran, and wanted to preempt any attempts to derail the talks by leaking information about their existence. Though the White House later knew Netanyahu had objected to the deal, the article explained that they had no idea how he planned to fight it. According to the report, admiration officials believed the intercepted information would be valuable, but they also recognized that requesting it directly was "politically risky," the report said, citing legal concerns and restriction on surveillance of U.S. groups and nationals. Thus, the NSA was given free rein to decide what information to pass on and what to withhold. This issue became even more politically charged when U.S. lawmakers and Jewish American officials were also caught in the web. That raised concerns of what one U.S. official called an "Oh-s*** moment," in which the executive would be accused of spying on legislative. The report went on to claim that through the surveillance, the White House learned that Netanyahu and his aides had leaked information on the talks between the U.S. and Iran – information Israel had gained through its own spying operations – in their attempt to undermine the deal. They also discovered how Jerusalem was coordinating talking points with Jewish-American organizations vis-a-vis the deal and how it was lobbying U.S. lawmakers to vote against it, even asking them "what it would take to win their votes," the report said, citing current and former officials familiar with the intercepts. For example, in one set of intercepts, Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., was described as coaching U.S. groups whose names were withheld for legal reasons on how to argue with lawmakers against the deals. The allegations were dubbed "total nonsense" by the Israeli embassy in Washington. Spy vs spy One of the most interesting parts of the reports are the light it sheds on the intelligence ties between Israel and the U.S. — ties it describes as both close and extremely suspect. The NSA helped Israel expand its electronic spy operations — known as signals intelligence — in the late 70s and even gave Israel access to intercepts of regional foes. However, both Israel and the U.S. suspected one another of using the guise of cooperation to spy on one another. When Obama assumed office, the NSA and IDF intelligence Unit 8200 worked together against shared threats, sharing information on the likes of Iran’s nuclear program, but this was a double-edge sword: for example, 8200 gave their U.S. counterpart a "hacking tool" which was later discovered to have passed on information to Israel about its usage. This was not the only instance of such an incursion, officials told the WSJ, saying that when Israel was confronted with the claims, and would respond that they were accidental, the NSA would half-jokingly respond that the U.S. "make[s] mistakes, too." (7) Hillary swears Fealty to Israel From: "frank scott fpscott@gmail.com [shamireaders]" <shamireaders-noreply@yahoogroups.com> Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2016 18:04:48 -0800 Subject: [shamireaders] Hillary Clinton: Taking the U.S.-Israel relationship to the next level | Opinion | Jewish Journal http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/hillary_clinton_taking_the_u.s._israel_relationship_to_the_next_level Hillary Clinton: Taking the U.S.-Israel relationship to the next level by Hillary Clinton Posted on Jan. 6, 2016 at 11:49 am In this time of terrorism and turmoil, the alliance between the United States and Israel is more important than ever. To meet the many challenges we face, we have to take our relationship to the next level. Israel needs a strong America by its side, and America needs a strong and secure Israel by our side. It’s in our national interest to have an Israel that remains a bastion of stability and a core ally in a region in chaos, and an Israel strong enough to deter its enemies and strong enough to take steps in the pursuit of peace. I’m especially concerned about the new wave of violence inside Israel itself – brutal stabbings, shootings, and vehicle attacks that seek to sow fear among the innocent. Recently, terrorists murdered an American Yeshiva student named Ezra Schwartz in a drive-by shooting. These attacks must stop immediately, and Palestinian leaders should condemn and combat incitement in all of its forms. More broadly, the United States and Israel need to work together to address three converging trends: the rise of ISIS and the struggle against radical jihadism, Iran’s increasingly aggressive regional ambitions, and the growing effort around the world to isolate and delegitimize Israel. First, we must work with our friends and partners to deny ISIS territory in the Middle East, dismantle the global infrastructure of terror, and toughen our defenses at home. We can’t just contain ISIS – we must defeat ISIS. Second, we have to send Iran an unequivocal message. There can be no doubt in Tehran that if Iran’s leaders violate their commitments not to seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons, the United States will stop them. They will test our resolve with actions like their provocative ballistic missile test, for which we should impose new sanctions designations. They need to understand that America will act decisively if Iran violates the nuclear agreement, including taking military action if necessary. Third, we must continue to fight against global efforts to delegitimize Israel. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, known as BDS, is the latest front in this battle. BDS demonizes Israeli scientists and intellectuals—even young students—and compares Israel to South African apartheid. That’s wrong and this campaign should end. Some of the BDS movement’s proponents may hope pressuring Israel will lead to peace, but no outside force is going to resolve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Only a two-state solution negotiated between the parties can provide Palestinians independence, sovereignty, and dignity, and provide Israelis the secure and recognized borders of a democratic Jewish state. As difficult as it is, everyone has to do their part to rebuild trust and create the conditions for progress. Israelis and Palestinians should demand their leaders seek every opportunity to demonstrate commitment to peace. With radical jihadism on the rise, Iran seeking to extend its reach, and growing efforts to delegitimize Israel, the United States and Israel need to stand together more than ever. Israel’s search for security, stability and peace goes hand in hand with the broader effort of the United States to secure and stabilize the Middle East. It’s time to take our alliance to the next level. As part of this effort, we need to ensure that Israel continues to maintain its qualitative military edge. The United States should further bolster Israeli air defenses and help develop better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms smuggling and kidnapping. We should also expand high level U.S.-Israel strategic consultations. If we present a united front to the region and the world, I’m confident we can meet the threats and challenges we face today. For me, this is more than policy – it’s personal. I was born just a few months before Israel declared independence. My generation came of age admiring the talent and tenacity of the Israeli people, who coaxed a dream into reality out of the harsh desert soil. We watched a small nation fight fearlessly for its right to exist and build a thriving, raucous democracy. And, through it all, Israel’s pursuit of peace was as inspiring as its prowess in war. That’s why, like many Americans, I feel a deep emotional connection with Israel. We are two nations woven together, lands built by immigrants and exiles seeking to live and worship in freedom, given life by democratic principles and sustained by the service and sacrifice of generations of patriots. Yet even with all this history, with all our common interests and shared values, we can’t take this relationship for granted. With every passing year, we must tie the bonds tighter and do the hard, necessary work of friendship. Because there is a new generation in both countries today that does not remember our shared past; young Americans who didn’t see Israel in a fight for survival again and again, and young Israelis who didn’t see the United States broker peace at Camp David or kindle hope at Oslo or stand behind Israel when it was attacked. They are growing up in a different world. The future of our relationship depends on building new ties for a new time. (8) Gilad - The Judaic universe is ruled by ‘mitzvoth’ (commandment), a set of 613 precepts http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2015/12/31/jewish-religions-and-the-prospect-of-dissent http://arabnyheter.info/sv/2016/01/02/jewish-religions-and-the-prospect-of-dissent/ Jewish Religions and The Prospect of Dissent December 31, 2015 By Gilad Atzmon "The Jewish religion is a religion of Mitzvoth (commandments) and without this religious idiom, the Jewish religion doesn’t exist at all."   Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz While Islam and Christianity can be easily understood as belief systems, Judaism actually defies the notion of belief all together. Judaism is an obedience regulative system. The Judaic universe is ruled by ‘mitzvoth’ (commandment), a set of 613 precepts and directives ordered by God. In opposition to Christianity and Islam that build from spiritual and heavenly precepts in worship to a transcendental God, the Judaic subject subscribes to strict earthly and material observance. While the Islamo-Christian is wrapped in God’s loving and the spirituality of the sublime and divinity, the follower of Judaism is judged by his or her ability to adhere to hundreds of rigorous earthly orders. A brief look at the Judaic Sabbath common prayer reveals the nature of Judaism as an obedience regulatory system. As we can see below, in Judaism, even God-loving is not an involuntary act: "You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. …Thus you shall remember to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God. I am Adonai, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am Adonai your God." (Common Prayers for Shabbat Evening From Deuteronomy and Numbers) For the Jew, belief and God-loving are not subject to either rational discretion or spiritual impulse. God loving, as we read above, is a strict "charge", an order. But if Judaism is not a belief system, what kind of system is it? Does the Judaic subject believe in anything at all? The answer is yes: the Jew believes in ‘The Jews’ and the Jews believe in ‘The Jew.’ This mode of mutual affirmation establishes a solid and forceful tribal continuum that serves the collective as well as the singular subject. Accordingly, the subject adheres to the collective and vice versa. In pragmatic terms, the Jew sticks to the ‘chosen people’ and, together the ‘chosenites’ uphold a collective sense of choseness. In Judaism, ‘choseness’ is the belief that the Jewish people were singularly chosen to enter into a covenant with God. For religious Jews, being chosen is realised as a duty. According to Judaic belief, the Jews have been placed on earth to fulfill a certain purpose. This purpose is bestowed upon the Jews and they pass it from father to son.[1] In reality, the first Jews invented a God who chose them over all other people. For some reason this God is occasionally cruel, often non-ethical and as if this were not enough, not exactly a nice father. The Jewish God doesn’t even allow his people to call him by name. One may wonder what led the first Jews to invent such a horrid father figure. One may further question what led the Jews to sustain their ‘relationship’ with such an obnoxious father. The answer is surprisingly simple. They don’t. The Jews don’t believe in God, they are observant of God. They believe in themselves- the Jews believe in ‘The Jew’ and vice versa. Within this peculiar troubled family affair, the Jew is free to dump God, as an author can freely re-write or at least re-shape his or her own narrative. But the Jew can never dump the Jews as much as the Jews can’t allow ‘The Jew’ to go free. And what about God, can he be emancipated, can he choose another people? Certainly not. Unlike the Jew who is free to dump God while clinging to a Jewish identity, the Jewish God is merely a Jewish protagonist, he can’t go anywhere, he is stuck with ‘his’ chosen people forever. Choseness, so it seems, is hardly a heavenly gift, it is in fact a curse. It confines the Jew in a realm of self-imposed commandment and materiality. Instead of beauty, holiness and the pursuit of the divine and the sublime, the rabbinical Jew is left with an earthly obedience scheme that is sustained by a rigid tribal setting. ‘The Jew’ and ‘The Jews’ are bound in a set of mutual affirmations in which God serves an instrumental role. Some may rightly argue that this spectacular bond between the Jews and ‘The Jew’ is essential for an understanding of the dichotomy between Judaic tribalism and the universal appeal of Islamo-Christian beliefs. The Judaic crude intolerance towards dissent serves as an example of the above. Throughout their history, Jews have proven themselves hostile toward their nonconformists; now we are ready to grasp why. For the Islamo-Christian, secularization, for instance, entails a rejection of a transcendental affair. But for the rabbinical Judaic subject, failure to conform constitutes a rejection of the Jews. It interferes crudely with the fragile relationship between ‘The Jew’ and the Jews. It shatters the self-affirmation mechanism. While in the case of Christianity and Islam dumping God suggests turning one’s back on a remote supernatural entity, in the case of Judaism, such an act is interpreted as a disbelief in the tribe. This interpretation may help illuminate Jesus’ plight. It may explain the reasoning behind the brutal Rabbinical Herem (excommunication) against Spinoza and Uriel Da Costa. And it also explains why the secular and the so-called ‘progressive’ Jew is equally obnoxious towards dissent or any form of criticism from within. If Judaism is not a belief system but rather a system of obedience regulation, then Jewish identity politics is merely an extension of the above regulatory philosophy. Jews often drop their God, simply to invent a different God who ‘facilitates’  subscription to a new regulatory system. The new system, like the old outlines a new set of strict commandments, a manner of speech and rigorous boundaries of ‘kosher’ conduct. In the beginning of the 20th century, for instance, Bolshevism appealed to many Eastern European Jews. It provided a sense of self-righteousness in addition to regulating a strict form of obedience. As we know, it didn’t take long for Bolshevism to mature into a genocidal doctrine that made Old Testament barbarism look like a juvenile fairytale. The Holocaust, that seems to be the most popular Jewish religion at present, may be the ultimate and final stage in Jewish historical development. According to the Holocaust religion, ‘God died in Auschwitz.’ Within the context of the Holocaust religion, ‘The Jew’ is the new Jewish God. The Holocaust religion has finally united ‘The Jew’ and the Jews into a self-sufficient comprehensive and independent ‘God-less’ religious narrative. Both were about to be eradicated. But, not only were they both saved: they have prevailed and each did so independently. In the Holocaust religion, Jews are both victims and oppressors – they have transformed slavery into empowerment and they did it all alone, in spite of being dumped by their treacherous God.  The Holocaust religion, like Judaism, prescribes a manner of speech and a strict set of commandments. Most crucially, like more traditional Judaism, it is totally and disgracefully intolerant toward dissent. Due to the lack of a divine transcendental entity, Jewish religions have always regarded criticism as rejection of the tribe. Jewish religions, whether Judaism, Bolshevism or Holocaust, are equally intolerant towards criticism and dissent. Jewish religions treat opposition as a vile attempt at ‘delegitimization’ on the verge of genocidal inclination. Jewish religions can be defined as different templates that facilitate a sense of choseness. They affirm a bond between an imaginary marginal ‘collective’ and a phantasmal ‘archetype’: the Bolshevists and ‘The Bolshevik’, the Survivours and ‘The Survivour’, the Jews and ‘The Jew,’ and so on. The bond between the collective and the idea of an archetypical singularity is always maintained by a set of rigid commandments, a correct manner of speech, some strict regulatory guidelines for behavior and vile opposition to dissent. Tragically enough, intolerance of dissent has become a universal Western political symptom. Incidentally, Christianity, Islam, religion and divinity in general are also under attack within the context of contemporary Western discourse. Is this a symptom of the Jerusalemification of our Western universe? Is the emergence of the tyranny of political correctness a coincidence? And if we are becoming Jews, is there any room for the hope that our universe may, at some stage, embrace a universal ethos once again? Can we once again believe in something?  Or do we have to wait for a new Jesus figure to resurrect our trust in the human spirit and humanity in general? Or have we been re-designed to self-destruct as soon as we come close to such a lucid awareness?  [1] As God himself suggests in the Book of Genesis: "And I (God) will establish My covenant between Me and you (the Jews) and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you." (Book of Genesis, Chapter 17). (9) Turkish Jews' public celebration of Hanukkah http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/turkey-jewish-community-hanukkah-marks-milestone.html Turkey-Israel dialogue works 'miracle' for Istanbul’s Jews Turkey’s Jews marked a milestone Dec. 13 with a public celebration of the Hanukkah holiday, said to be the first in the republic's history after decades of Hanukkahs marked behind closed doors in synagogues or homes. Members of the tiny community took to the streets for the ceremony, as the tradition requires, lighting thousands of candles at Istanbul’s Ortakoy Square. Author Sibel Hurtas Posted December 30, 2015 Translator Sibel Utku Bila The call for the public celebration had come from Ivo Molinas, the editor-in-chief of Shalom, the newspaper of Turkey’s Jewish community. In remarks to Al-Monitor, Molinas said how he would look yearningly at images of Hanukkah celebrations held in city squares across Europe and the United States. "I shared those pictures on Twitter and asked why we shouldn’t do the same in Istanbul," he said. "The reactions were positive, and then we had talks with the mayor. Due to reservations about security, we did not make an announcement [in advance] and instead sent SMS [text] messages to community members shortly before the celebration." The crowd gathered at a symbolic venue — a street between the Ortakoy Synagogue and Istanbul’s iconic seafront Ortakoy Mosque. After children performed Hanukkah songs, the rabbi of the Ortakoy Synagogue lit the candles of a huge candelabra, together with the imam of the Ortakoy Mosque. "We are experiencing a miracle here," the head of Turkey’s Jewish community, Ishak Ibrahimzadeh, exclaimed in his address to the crowd. Molinas said the sentiment of stupefaction was overwhelming. "There were about 1,000 people of all ages — old, young, children. They were lighting up candles and singing in the street. The elderly Turkish Jews were crying, shedding tears of joy. Some would not believe it. ‘We are out in freezing weather, celebrating our holiday in the street. Is this for real?’ they would ask. Then, they would go to the candelabra and touch it, and would go ‘Oh, it’s really real.’" Molinas stressed it was the first Hanukkah ceremony held at a public venue in a Muslim-majority country. Ibrahimzadeh hailed the event as a step forward in breaking prejudices and building intercommunal trust. "The fears that minorities have inherited from past traumas are still alive today. On the other hand, the society at large has prejudices against minorities — confirmed by independent research — due to lack of knowledge or misconceptions about them," he told Al-Monitor. "We believe those fears and prejudices can be overcome only through joint efforts on the basis of mutual respect and understanding. The reopening of the Edirne Synagogue and the latest Hanukkah celebration are examples of these efforts, which we should strive to enhance together." Asked whether the Hanukkah celebration was a step forward for religious freedoms in Turkey, Ibrahimzadeh said, "The event should be seen more as a societal gain in terms of equal and dignified citizenship than as a gain in terms of individual faith and worship freedoms. As such, we should see it as a contribution to efforts to bring our country to the level of democratically advanced, modern nations." Along with the applause, however, the Hanukkah event stirred also indignation, mainly in Islamist quarters. The imam, who lit candles together with the rabbi, faced a character assassination campaign on social media. The Felicity Party, the successor of the Islamist party in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began his political career, was also incensed. Milli Gazete, a newspaper close to the party, decried the event as an affront to the memory of "martyrs massacred by Zionist Israel," while Islamist young people held protests. The protesting groups, however, were representative only of a tiny segment on the political spectrum. Mehmet Gormez, the head of the government-run Religious Affairs Directorate, told Al-Monitor that "what is actually odd is to find such occasions in Istanbul odd." Gormez pointed to Istanbul’s long history of religious cohabitation: "Ever since Muslims conquered Istanbul, it has been a city of civilizations, where different religions, cultures and faiths have coexisted in peace. Nowhere in the West are mosques, churches and synagogues to be found together. Istanbul, however, is a city where these three edifices have coexisted together in any neighborhood populated by Muslims. Mehmed the Conqueror himself protected Orthodox Christianity. And when Europe banished all its Jews, Istanbul was the place where they took refuge. Jewish scholars wrote their doctrine books in Istanbul." Representatives of the Religious Affairs Directorate and the Foreign Ministry also attended the Hanukkah ceremony, along with diplomats from the Israeli, Spanish and US consulates and members of Turkey’s Christian communities. Erdogan, for his part, issued a congratulation message. No doubt, the presence of state officials at the celebration had to do with renewed diplomatic efforts to normalize Turkish-Israeli relations. The bilateral crisis, sparked by the killing of 10 Turks on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara ferry in 2010, had nothing to with Turkey’s Jews, but they, too, bore the impact of diplomatic tensions. The deadly Israeli raid fueled a wave of anti-Semitism in Turkey, which saw threats to synagogues and a rise in discriminatory and openly anti-Semitic rhetoric, including by public officials. And beyond the Mavi Marmara crisis, Turkey’s Jews have always found themselves as an addressee to reactions from any spat or political move in Turkish-Israeli relations. Earlier in December, Turkey and Israel were reported to have reached a tentative deal to normalize relations. The agreement, which is yet to be finalized, is said to include a number of mutual conditions, including Israeli compensation for the Mavi Marmara victims. How the talks will wind up remains to be seen, but their positive impact on Turkey’s Jews is already visible in domestic politics, even if on a symbolic level. The fact remains, however, that the Jews living in this country are citizens of the Republic of Turkey. As such, they are supposed to be treated equally on the basis of national laws and not according to policies defined by the shifting and slippery ground of diplomacy. (10) Harperland: The defeated Ogre finds little comfort from his hawkish "best friend" http://www.palestinechronicle.com/canadian-legend-chapter-iv-goodbye-canada-hello-harperland/ Canadian Legend Chapter IV: Goodbye Canada, Hello Harperland By Eric Walberg Jan 2 2016 / 4:48 am The defeated ogre, licking his wounds, finds little comfort from his hawkish "best friend", despite his love for Israeli birds for whom he helped raise more than ten million Canadian dollars to build a bird sanctuary in the Promised Land. This was in preference to Canadian birds, who along with almost all other Canadians, had their funding slashed. He did this with the help of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an innocuous sounding organization, one which operates worldwide, but one which was founded to ‘disappear’ Palestinians and their homes, building bland pine forests (though not indigenous, they grow quickly and help us forget), where villagers once grew olives and tended sheep. His JNF friends decided to honour him by naming the park, the Stephen J. Harper Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary Visitor and Education Centre. Harperland is near the Golan Heights, on land confiscated from 30,000 Bedouin in 1948. Lake Hula was vital, not only to the Bedouin, but to Nature, as a wetland. But as part of the plan to "make the desert bloom", the lake was drained, creating a dust bowl, and the new kibbutz soon abandoned. (I’m not kidding.) In the ogre’s favour, Harperland at least tries to provide migrant birds with refuge, if not the original occupants. In a slick promo JNF video advertising the park and lauding Harper as the new messiah (I’m still not kidding), DJ Schneeweiss, Toronto’s Israel consul general enthuses, "The birds know no borders." Ogre’s Mask Hard to Shed Is there any advice from Trudeau Sr on how Justin should deal with the prickly beast occupying the Holy Land? Like his predecessors, Pierre Trudeau followed the US-led script, opposing the Arab boycotts of Israel during much of the 1970s, abstaining from United Nations resolutions that were critical, but increasing relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization and opening embassies in Arab countries. PET’s only (timid) public criticisms were of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, and the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. In 2003, then-Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to join the attack on Iraq, much to the anger of our Israel Lobby. In 2006, after ex-Liberal leader Michael Ignatief condemned Israel’s bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana as a "war crime", the Israel Lobby went into high gear, switching to support Harper, helping him get his majority in 2011 with the help of turncoat (Liberal) Jewish voters. Chastened, Trudeau Jr distanced himself from Ignatief and campaigned zealously in synagogues during the 2015 election, bringing these ridings back into the fold. There is no question that Trudeau is a vast improvement over Harper on the domestic front. But is his foreign policy just going to be a facelift of Harper’s? The Liberal nay on Palestine last month at the UN (voting with the US and Palau against "the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination") is not surprising. It is part of the ogre’s legacy. His denunciation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is disappointing. In a recent interview in Canadian Jewish News, Trudeau called BDS "an example of the new form of anti-Semitism in the world," and worried that "when Canadian university students are feeling unsafe on their way to classes because of BDS or Israel Apartheid Week, that just goes against Canadian values." Who wrote that nonsense for him? Are ‘they’ now whispering in his ear to pass Harper’s draft law outlawing all public protest of Israeli crimes? Wake up, Justin! Those students are your own past and our future. Some of them are your personal friends. Quebeckers are the backbone of BDS in Canada. There are many more Muslim Canadians (3.2% of the population vs 1% Jews), including 50,000 Palestinian. And their cause is just. BDS will survive and prosper. The fact that Harper couldn’t kill BDS makes it unlikely that the nice Justin will be able to (or willing to, once he thinks about it for a nanosecond). Justin will be sure to have his mailbox flooded with plaints from thousands of idealistic students, his nature constituency, the very ones he writes about inspiring in his autobiography Common Ground. New-old Liberal Face? In Common Ground, Justin tells how he enjoys math puzzles, but he doesn’t seem very good at sums. As MP, during the invasion of Gaza in July 2014 (2,200 Palestinians vs 66 IDF troops killed), Justin stated: "Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Hamas is a terrorist organization and must cease its rocket attacks immediately." He acknowledged "the suffering of Israelis", but had nothing to say about the suffering of Gazans. Are these "the very values and ideals that define Canada: values of openness, respect, compassion, that seek for justice," as he opined in synagogues during the election campaign? There are some hints of a new face. Trudeau has pledged to normalize Canada’s relations with Iran, ties that Harper cut in 2012 to Netanyahu’s loud applause. He will embrace the P5 +1 nuclear deal (it’s Obama’s baby). He has pledged to stop bombing Syria and Iraq, neighbours of our ‘friend’. The beanstalk was slippery, and Justin is just getting his feet on the ground. Liberal principles include "the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state". The only way to achieve that is to make sure Palestinians get aid to prepare to run their own state. That is the objective of dozens of NGOs at work in the occupied territories–agencies which were all slashed by Harper, including Kairos and Rights and Democracy. Even the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees was not exempt. There is room here to restore justice without too much squawking from Israeli hawks. There are Liberal wisemen who Justin can listen to. Top of the list is Robert Fowler, Canada’s ex-UN ambassador, who was kidnapped by al-Qaeda types and spent a harrowing 130 days with them in the Sahara (My Season in Hell, 2011). Fowler caused a furor at the March 2015 Liberal Party conference, castigating Harper for destroying Canada’s reputation in the Middle East as a result of domestic pandering to Jewish voters. He told the squirming delegates (including Justin) that while Canada condemned the 1956 British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt and established the first UN peacekeeping force (Sinai), it was wrong to support aggressor Israel during the 1967 war. Let’s hope that Justin has a copy of My Season in Hell on his bookshelf beside Common Ground. Then there’s his brother Alexandre. In 2012, filmmaker Sasha produced the documentary "The New Great Game" which was balanced on both Iran and Israel, and of course much criticized by Zionist media hawks. Justin is lucky to have such a brother. He can help him chart a truly liberal course in the Middle East, void of hype. The major challenge left by the ogre, one that will define Justin in the world as a man of the people, a legend, is shaping up to be Israel, the ogre’s "best friend". So far, we’re stuck with the ogre’s epithet–the ‘f’ word, so to speak. In a call to Netanyahu, Trudeau explained there would be "a shift in tone, but Canada would continue to be a friend of Israel’s". All three parties are now ‘friends’, a term which applies to no other country, and wasn’t used before Harper about Israel. It’s as if there is some doubt about whether a country as prickly as Israel could ever befriend anyone. Note, Mr Netanyahu: "The lady doth protest too much." Harperian semantics are still being parsed. In his first press conference, after the obligatory ‘f’ word, Justin’s Foreign Minister Stephane Dion added: "But for us to be an effective ally we need also to strengthen our relationship with the other legitimate partners in the region." Perhaps Harper’s term of endearment for Israel will be his only legacy in Canadian Middle East policy. (11) Christmas Trees banned in Israel http://hiddush.org/article-16768-0-Israels_Rabbinate_coerces_and_discriminates_in_hotels.aspx Israel's Rabbinate coerces and discriminates in hotels Despite officially and publicly updating its kashrut regulations for hotels this year, in order to be in compliance with the law, Israel's Rabbinate continues to coerce hotels to enforce Shabbat restrictions and its illegal ban against all Christian holiday symbols. 21/12/2015 18:39 You may recall our sense of progress and achievement over the historic changes in the Rabbinate's kashrut regulations that Hiddush brought about [link]. The Chief Rabbinate had been in violation of the Kosher Fraud Law for decades, abusing its authority over kashrut certification to coerce hotels into implementing Shabbat restrictions and banning Christian holiday decorations. What we now realize in monitoring the implementation of the Rabbinate's official new policy, is that there is just as great an additional challenge, which we are presently confronting. Namely, the Rabbinate disregards their own public acknowledgement that the prior regulations were illegal. This raises the larger matter of the rule of law! The Rabbinate, in effect, maintains that it is above the law, and intimidates and imposes its will as if ruling over their own state within the State of Israel. In the course of our investigation, we contacted hotels in a number of communities. Our tapings of these conversations revealed that the hotels remain under pressure from their local rabbinic authorities and kashrut supervisors who maintain that "it's business as usual," and that as far as they are concerned – the old rules are in affect and binding. Following are some examples:     * Herzilya Daniel Hotel: "On Friday nights, since we are a hotel, you cannot turn on electrical appliances here. We are under the Herzilya Rabbinate's supervision, and this hotel keeps kosher. According to the Rabbinate [this means] it is forbidden to play music, or use projectors or microphones."    * The Mamilla Hotel in Jerusalem: "This hotel observes Shabbat. If you want to hold an event, that's not a problem, but it will be without a projector screen, without a DJ, and without other [such] things. We cannot desecrate Shabbat on hotel property."  * The Crowne Plaza in Tel Aviv: "We wouldn't let you hold an event with microphones and music. Due to the desecration of Shabbat. Shabbat desecration would lead to the cancellation of our kashrut certificate. They have a kashrut supervisor and he can monitor [everything], and afterwards [we’ll] end up having issues with the kashrut [certification]."    * The Prima Kings Hotel in Jerusalem: Our hotel functions in accordance with religious [Jewish] law, and according to the Jewish faith, we cannot put up Christmas trees or other such symbols [out of respect for a visiting Christian group – U.R.]. They won't allow us. The Rabbinate. If there is rabbinical [kashrut – U.R.] certification, we cannot be engaged here in things that are unrelated to the Jewish religion. This the Rabbinate's policy. I cannot put up a Christmas tree or things of that nature."    * The City Tower Hotel in Tel Aviv: "There is a problem with the Rabbinate on the matter of a Christmas tree. They will cause problems here [for us] at the hotel. It's not the kashrut supervisor, it's the Rabbinate, the organization that he works for. In relation to the Christmas tree, this is problematic. It will create a messy situation with the Rabbinate."    * Ruth Rimonim Hotel, Tzfat: "No way, we're a kosher hotel. [Putting up Christmas trees] is forbidden to us. We cannot put up a Christmas tree in the hotel. There is no such thing as putting up a Christmas tree at our hotel. It's the Rabbinate. They won't give us permission to put up a Christmas tree in the cafeteria or anywhere in the hotel." Hiddush has been discussing this state of affairs with the Israel Hotel Association (IHA), and it is obvious that they are caught between a rock and a hard place. IHA Director Noaz Bar Nir was interviewed on this matter in a (Hebrew) radio interview [link], explaining that:     "Kashrut costs a lot of money, and at the end of the day, the guests are the ones who pay it... hotel manager(s) are not willing to be interviewed about kashrut … they [the Rabbinate – U.R.] retaliate against the hotels if they don't toe the lines of the local religious councils. This results in great economic loss because at the end of the day, this raises our prices, gives Israelis incentive to go abroad, and fewer tourists come to Israel..." This situation once again highlights the critical role of advocacy organizations such as Hiddush who are neither politically dependent nor subject to business extortion. We intend to pursue this matter and take all legal measure to enforce the law! It not only impacts drastically on tourists and visiting groups (like congregational groups who are denied the ability to celebrate oneg Shabbat or shacharit bar mitzvah services accompanied by musical instruments, as they can do at home, or hold educational programming over the weekends that uses video projection and the like), but also threatens the very core democratic principle of the rule of law. This is a fundamental threat that we have had other occasions to refer to, such as our pending Supreme Court case [link], representing a Haredi family against the all too frequent phenomenon of rabbinic courts illegally threatening excommunication to block access to the civil courts of law and the remedies that were entrusted to them under Israeli law. It is impossible to exaggerate the looming danger of tolerating this, and Hiddush will continue to pursue it relentlessly. (12) Russian secular "Christmas" holiday is gaining acceptance in Israel http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2015/1224/Just-don-t-call-it-Christmas-In-Israel-Russian-holiday-coming-out-of-closet Just don't call it Christmas: In Israel, Russian holiday coming out of closet Novy God, a Soviet-created secular holiday that borrowed from Christmas and New Year's, was embraced by Russian Jews and is gaining acceptance in Israel. By Joshua Mitnick, Correspondent December 24, 2015 Tel Aviv — Growing up the son of immigrants in the Israeli city of Ashdod, Alex Miller never told non-Russian speaking friends about his grandmother’s fir tree that he and his cousins would decorate in honor of the New Year. Though many of the 1 million newcomers from the former Soviet Union who arrived in the 1990s clung to the traditions of "Novy God" – a secular holiday invented by the Soviets who borrowed symbols from Christmas – the celebrations were shunned by most Israelis who mistakenly saw a Christian observance. For the immigrants, the holiday marked a cultural barrier. "We knew how they didn’t accept it. When I was a kid, it was something not good, something strange, something not Jewish," says Mr. Miller, a 23-year-old education student. "It was just a family thing." In recent years, however, an increasingly self-assured second generation of Russian-speaking young adults is inviting non-Russian Israelis to the festivities and even pushing for public recognition of the holiday. The openness reflects an embrace of their parents' traditions by children more confident of their Israeli identity. This year a freshman member of parliament, Ksenia Svetlova, started an initiative to have Israeli school children learn about the holiday. In recent years, Israeli youth groups in cities with a large Russian population have been holding celebrations. A Facebook group, "Israeli Novy God," recently opened up calling on Russian-speaking Israelis to volunteer to host native Israelis for traditional Novy God celebrations. Russian Israelis say the initiative comes at a time when many in the Israeli mainstream have become more receptive to the winter holidays. Though Dec. 31 merry-making was once frowned upon because it was confused with the Catholic Feast of Pope Sylvester on the same day, Tel Aviv is now flooded with party-goers who stream to the city’s bars and clubs to ring in the New Year. A circular by the Israeli army’s education department on Novy God from last year encouraged commanders to be open to the holiday and be flexible on vacation requests. Russian Israelis can now buy decorations and trees nearby instead of having to travel to Christian Arab towns. For this year’s party at his home, Miller says he’s planning a gathering in which Russian immigrants will be in the minority. "Things have changed," he says. "People understand it’s a Russian tradition that people have of being with their family." A holiday without flags and slogans In Communist Russia of the last century, the Soviets outlawed religious observances but crafted their own New Year’s celebration, Novy God, that appropriated the Christmas tree – known in Russian as a "yolka" tree – as well as Santa Claus, who became Ded Moroz, or Father Frost. The tradition of gift-giving was also preserved. Russian Jews, forbidden to openly mark their own religious holy days and marginalized by the government, embraced the holiday as a rare opportunity to celebrate something that was not steeped in Soviet ideology. "It was the holiday," wrote Arik Elman, a Russian Israeli columnist whose parents immigrated from the former Soviet Union but stopped celebrating in Israel. "Even the general population was grateful to celebrate something without parading with flags and slogans." For Russian Israelis, opening up now about Novy God is also a way to dispel stereotypes about Russian Jews and the culture that they brought to Israel. A video on the "Israeli Novy God" Facebook website about the holiday pokes fun at misconceptions that Russian immigrants are secretly Christian. "If you go to Russian Jewish homes who are not religious, you can see a menorah and a fir tree in the same room, and people see no conflict," said Roman Yanushevsky, a contributing editor at Israel’s Channel 9 Russian language television news. To be sure, there is still resistance to public manifestations of the holiday, which for now remain mostly confined to Arab areas. Parliament Member Svetlova complained of a rabbi who said those who celebrated Novy God couldn’t be considered Jewish. A Jewish nationalist organization protested the public lighting of a Christmas tree at the YMCA in Jerusalem this month. 'Why not a Russian tradition?' Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi says the tension experienced by the Russian speakers has been a fixture in the absorption process of several waves of Jewish immigrant from diverse locations. Striking a balance between the old country and new takes between one and two generations, he says. "Most Russians are secular, and the traditions that they are bringing from the former Soviet Union are far more secular than Christian, but many Israelis with long historical memories still feel uneasy," he says. "It’s a measure of the maturation of Israeli society that Russian immigrants feel confident enough to go public with rituals that make other Israelis uneasy. More power to them." Mr. Elman, who will be celebrating with his two young daughters this year, says that while the openness is a good sign, it’s unlikely that Israeli society will ever be able to make the distinction between Santa Claus and Father Frost. Others, like parliament member Svetlova and Miller, think Novy God, like other immigrant imports, can be integrated into Israeli culture as well. "Why not a Russian tradition?" Miller says. "We’re all part of this country, I think it’s something worthwhile." -- Peter Myers Australia website: http://mailstar.net/index.html |
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