facility:western wall

Trump se dit prêt à reconnaître la souveraineté d’Israël sur le plateau du Golan — RT en français
▻https://francais.rt.com/international/60253-trump-se-dit-pret-reconnaitre-souverainete-israel-plateau-golan

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Battle brews between French and ultra-Orthodox over Jerusalem archaeology site

Ultra-Orthodox demands to pray at the Tomb of the Kings – the grandest burial compound in Jerusalem – have kindled fears among the French of an Israeli land grab under their flag in East Jerusalem

Nir Hasson SendSend me email alerts
Dec 21, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-france-orthodox-jews-archaeologists-battle-over-e-j-lem-s-tomb-of-

In recent weeks, a small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews has been gathering alongside a locked iron gate on Nablus Road in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. They pray and protest alongside the shuttered gate, periodically squabbling with the Palestinian guard, demanding to be allowed inside to pray. The guard refuses, and refers them to the body that owns and administers the site – the French Consulate of Jerusalem.
These protests are yet another round in a long-standing historic struggle over control of one of the most beautiful archaeological sites in Jerusalem, which has been closed to the public for years. On the one side stands the government of France and on the other, Haredi and right-wing Israeli factions. Israel’s Antiquities Authority is in favor of opening the site to the public, but does share the French concerns that the site might befall the same fate of many other archaeological sites in the city, which were transformed from mere archaeology and tourism sites into holy sites and then appropriated from the public’s domain.
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The Tomb of the Kings, situated between the Jerusalem District Court and the American Colony Hotel, is considered the grandest burial compound in Jerusalem. The site includes a sophisticated burial cave that has a mechanism for sealing the entrance by means of a stone that rotates on a hinge. It includes a mammoth courtyard carved into the bedrock, a staircase carved into the bedrock that is the second largest in Jerusalem – the only one larger is on the Temple Mount – stone-inscribed ornamentation, an ancient mikveh (Jewish ritual bath) and cisterns.
The site has been dated to the Second Temple period, and there are various traditions and theories regarding who is actually buried there. According to one tradition, it was the place of burial of Kalba Savua, the father-in-law of Rabbi Akiva, or of Nicodemus ben Guryon – two of the wealthier residents of Jerusalem at the start of the 1st millennium CE.
The historian Josephus Flavius wrote that this was the burial place of Queen Helena of Adiabene, who converted to Judaism around the year 30 C.E., and some of the site’s investigators say it is reasonable to believe that this is indeed her tomb. An ornamented sarcophagus found here was inscribed with the legend, “Tzadan Malkata,” which is believed to refer to Queen (Malka) Helena. This reinforces the notion that buried on this site were other members of her royal family. The site gained fame in the late 19th century, and among its visitors were the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Theodore Herzl.

The Tomb of Kings site in Jerusalem, December, 2018. Emil Salman

The Tomb of Kings site in Jerusalem, December, 2018. Emil Salman

The Tomb of Kings site in Jerusalem, December, 2018. Emil Salman
The Tomb of the Kings is interwoven into the history of archaeology in Israel. The excavation conducted by Félicien de Saulcy in 1863 is considered the first modern archaeological dig in the country. It is also the first excavation to receive a digging permit from the Turkish sultan.
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Pressure worked

The Tomb of Kings archaeological site in Jerusalem, December, 2018. Emil Salman
But along with modern archaeology, the protest against it was also born here. “This was the first official archaeological excavation, and also the first time in which the Jews of Jerusalem rose up against the excavation of ancestral graves,” writes a scholar who has studied the site, Dr. Dotan Goren.
In the wake of the Orthodox Jews’ public protests in the city and pressure from the Jews on the sultan, those excavations were suspended. To the dismay of the city’s Jews, de Saulcy managed to load the queen’s sarcophagus onto a ship anchored in Jaffa port, and it is to this day displayed at the Louvre Museum. Several years ago, it appeared as part of a temporary exhibition in the Israel Museum.
The basis for the current demand by religious and Haredi circles that the Jews ought to be granted rights over the site has to do with events that occurred following the excavation. In 1878, a woman named Berta Amalia Bertrand, a French Jew who was related to the Pereire brothers, a famous Jewish banking family, purchased the burial compound from its Arab owners. At the time of the purchase, Bertrand dedicated the site in the presence of the chief rabbi of Paris, declaring that it “will become the land in perpetuity of the Jewish community, to be preserved from desecration and abomination, and will never again be damaged by foreigners..”

The Tomb of Kings site in Jerusalem, December, 2018. Emil Salman
Eight years later, however, one of Bertrand’s heirs granted the site as a gift to the government of France. At the time of the conferral of the gift, an agreement was signed between the French government and the family, under which France committed to meet several conditions. One was to erect a sign in Hebrew, French and Arabic saying that these are the Tombs of the Kings of Judah. The large sign, made of copper, can still be found set into the wall of the building.
A few testimonies describe how the site served for prayer and pilgrimage, although it is altogether clear that it was secondary in importance to the neighboring holy site, the cave of Shimon Hatzadik. But in any event, following the battles of 1948, the site was left behind the enemy lines, within the territory of the Jordanian kingdom. “This site was forgotten or made to be forgotten, and there was no one to tell about it,” says Goren.

An inscription at the Tomb of Kings in Jerusalem, December, 2018. Emil Salman
Following 1967’s Six-Day War, the site continued to be administered by the French consulate in Jerusalem. Most of the time, it was open to visitors, for a token entry fee. Ten years ago the consulate held a concert there, together with the Palestinian cultural organization Yabous, which advocates a boycott of Israel.
Apparently that is what has sparked a renewed interest in the site. In 2014, the rabbinical court for “hekdesh” (sacred property) affairs appointed Yitzhak Mamo and Yaakov Saltzman as emissaries of the court in the matter of the Tomb of the Kings sacred property. Mamo is a well-known right-wing activist in East Jerusalem who for years has been engaged in the evacuation of Palestinian families and the resettlement of Jews in Sheikh Jarrah. In 2015, the two men filed a suit in the rabbinical court against the government of France, with a plea to gain possession of the site.
The lawsuit sparked outrage in Paris and in the French consulate in Jerusalem, as well as in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A letter sent to the court by David Goldfarb of the ministry’s legal department stated that according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, to which Israel is a signatory, consulate employees are not subject to the rulings of a rabbinical court. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also wishes to inform the honorable court that in response to bringing the lawsuit in this case, our office has received a sharply worded letter from the government of France,” Goldfarb wrote.
The Israeli attorney general also sided with the French, and in a legal opinion submitted to the court, he argued that it was not at all clear that the site can be considered a hekdesh, since the hekdesh was created by the chief rabbi of Paris and not by the Sharia court in Jerusalem, which had been entrusted with the authority to rule on sacred property issues in the city during the period of Ottoman rule. In the wake of these developments, the religious court in Jerusalem rejected the suit.

FILE Photo: The Tomb of Kings site in Jerusalem. American Colony

FILE Photo: The Tomb of Kings site in Jerusalem. American Colony
The French subsequently announced the closure of the site for renovations. In recent years, there has been practically no opportunity to visit the site. According to parties involved in the matter, the French consulate has invested about 900,000 euros (about $790,000) in a renovation that included construction of a steel apparatus to reinforce the central structure in the event of earthquake, construction of a new stairway, and preservation work.
In September 2018, the consulate informed the Israeli Foreign Ministry that the work had been completed and that it was now possible to reopen the site. However, the French imposed two conditions: one, that Israel officially recognize French ownership of the site, and two, that they be assured no new lawsuits would be brought against them. Foreign Ministry officials have reported that discussions on the matter are now underway. In the meantime, the place remains closed and the protests have begun again.
This time around, it was a group of Haredim led by Rabbi Zalman Grossman of Jerusalem that began to arrive on site twice a week and protest its closure by means of prayers and demonstrations. The protest has gained the support of the rabbi of the Western Wall and the holy sites, Shmuel Rabinovich, and of the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, Shlomo Amar, as well as the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
The demonstrations and the demands to be able to pray on the site have kindled fears among the French that if the site is reopened, it will take on a religious nature and essentially become an Israeli land grab under the French flag in East Jerusalem. As far as France is concerned, this would engender serious political complications with the Palestinians.
The concerns of the French in this matter are shared by the Antiquities Authority’s Jerusalem district archaeologist, Dr. Yuval Baruch. “There is a trend of archaeological sites taking on a status of holiness, and the problem is if and when that happens, archaeology always loses out,” says Baruch.
He is concerned about other sites, mainly in the Old City, archaeological-tourism sites that have in the past few years been converted into religious sites, where visitors not coming for ritual purposes do not always feel welcome.
The phenomenon, incidentally, is not exclusive to Orthodox Jews. This has happened, for instance, in a large section of the Jerusalem Archaeological Park-Davidson Center, south of the Western Wall, which has been turned into the “Ezrat Israel,” a prayer section earmarked for the non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. It is happening on the Hulda steps that ascend to the Temple Mount from the south, which have become a popular prayer site among evangelical Christians. The evangelicals have also adopted the Siloam Pool in Silwan. The plaza just outside Tanner’s Gate, not far from the Western Wall, has become the province of bar mitzvah organizers, and the archaeological site at Nebi Samuel in northern Jerusalem has become a site for prayer and pilgrimage.
“When all is said and done, there is freedom of religion and the authorities have no ability to control it, but there has to be some regulation,” says Baruch. d”As excavations in Jerusalem continue to proliferate, the more assured it is that there will be continued attempts by religious bodies, and this can be Orthodox, Conservative or Reform rabbis, or evangelicals, it matters not who, to try and take them over. The appeal of sites whose character is becoming more emphatically religious will change. I appeal to the rabbinical establishment and to the leadership of the Christian communities to show more responsibility and greater recognition of the importance of the archaeological values, as well.”
The official response from the office of the rabbi of the Western Wall in regard to the Tomb of the Kings: “In truth, the site is a holy place for Jews. To that end, the rabbi is acting with all due sensitivity in order that the site also provide free access for Jewish prayer and that its character and its holiness be preserved.”

Nir Hasson
Haaretz Correspondent

Israel. Q&A With Naftali Bennett – The Forward

▻https://forward.com/opinion/415199/can-the-leader-of-a-nationalist-party-talk-to-the-diaspora-qa-with-naftali

It’s no secret that American Jews and their Israeli counterparts have less in common with every passing day. But where you locate the source of that chasm depends on which side of the Atlantic you’re standing on.

For American Jews, Israel’s dispossession of Palestinian civil rights, the monopoly of the ultra-Orthodox over religious matters, and the increasing commitment to ethno-nationalism over civil rights have chipped away at erstwhile unconditional support for the Jewish State.

Not so for Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett. “Israel-Diaspora relations are in an unprecedented crisis,” he said recently. “We’re often told this is because of the Western Wall and because of the Palestinian issue and because of other ideological disagreements. That’s not true. There’s a dire assimilation crisis and growing apathy among Jews in the Diaspora toward their Judaism and toward Israel.”

The tactic of disparaging Diaspora Jews in order to fend off criticism is by now routine among Israeli politicians. Bennett’s analysis seems wrong to me on two counts. Not only are two-thirds of intermarried couples raising their children Jewish, but young Jews are far from apathetic about Israel; they are passionate in their criticism of its failures to ensure religious liberty and civil rights, a passion that stems directly from what they see as their Jewish values.

But Bennett, the head of the national religious Jewish Home party, was always a curious choice for Diaspora Affairs Minister. With his us-versus-them attitude to Palestinians, he epitomizes the kind of ethno-nationalist view of Judaism that American Jews have moved away from — and are increasingly eager to criticize.

Naftali Bennett Is Face of Israel’s New Right Wing
Nathan JeffayJanuary 14, 2013
“My formula is the maximum amount of land with the minimum amount of Palestinians,” Bennett told me when we spoke in late November. As for the value of liberal democracy that American Jews hold so dear, “This is not a philosophy class in some Ivy League college in the United States.”

Our meeting took place on a Tuesday evening in Jerusalem. Wearing his trademark coin-sized knitted yarmulka and a navy suit, Bennett was friendly, even patient as I asked him the same questions over and over, living up to his reputation as a “bro” and setting aside his usual approach of belittling Diaspora Jews in favor of a more conciliatory one.

00:39/00:52

It brought home the fact that his two roles — as head of the Jewish Home and Diaspora Affairs Minister — were in tension with each other; those of Bennett’s views which were most anathema to me are the very ones most likely to help him politically at home, something I was keenly aware of throughout our interview.

The following transcript has been very slightly edited for clarity. You can find a key to some of the terms at the bottom.

Are Jared and Ivanka Good for the Jews? - The New York Times

Jewish communities stand more divided than ever on whether to embrace or denounce Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

By Amy Chozick and Hannah Seligson
Nov. 17, 2018

▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/style/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner.html

On election night in Beverly Hills, Jason Blum, the hot shot horror-movie producer, was accepting an award at the Israel Film Festival. The polls in a string of midterm contests were closing, and Mr. Blum, a vocal critic of President Trump, was talking about how much was at stake.

“The past two years have been hard for all of us who cherish the freedoms we enjoy as citizens of this country,” Mr. Blum said.

That’s when the crowd of mostly Jewish producers and power brokers started to chant, “We like Trump!” An Israeli man stepped onto the stage to try to pull Mr. Blum away from the microphone as the crowd at the Saban Theater Steve Tisch Cinema Center cheered.

“As you can see from this auditorium, it’s the end of civil discourse,” Mr. Blum said, as security rushed the stage to help him. “Thanks to our president, anti-Semitism is on the rise.”
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In the weeks after a gunman killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, in one of the most horrific acts of anti-Semitism in years, debates about the president’s role in stoking extremism have roiled American Jews — and forced an uncomfortable reckoning between Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and his daughter and son-in-law’s Jewish faith.
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers greets Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump near the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Credit
Doug Mills/The New York Times

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Rabbi Jeffrey Myers greets Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump near the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
Rabbis and Jewish leaders have raged on Twitter and in op-eds, in sermons and over shabbat dinners, over how to reconcile the paradox of Jared Kushner, the descendant of Holocaust survivors, and Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism to marry Mr. Kushner.

To some Jews, the couple serves as a bulwark pushing the Trump administration toward pro-Israel policies, most notably the decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To many others, they are the wolves in sheep’s clothing, allowing Mr. Trump to brush aside criticism that his words have fueled the uptick in violent attacks against Jews.

“For Jews who are deeply opposed to Donald Trump and truly believe he is an anti-Semite, it’s deeply problematic that he’s got a Jewish son-in-law and daughter. How can that be?” said Dr. Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University.
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Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump serve as senior advisers in the White House. At a time when Judaism is under assault — the F.B.I. said this week that anti-Semitic attacks have increased in each of the last three years — they are unabashedly Orthodox, observing shabbat each week, walking to an Orthodox Chabad shul near their Kalorama home in Washington, D.C., dropping their children off at Jewish day school and hanging mezuzas on the doors of their West Wing offices.

After the Pittsburgh attack, Mr. Kushner played a key role in Mr. Trump (eventually) decrying “the scourge of anti-Semitism.” And Mr. Kushner helped arrange the president’s visit to the Squirrel Hill synagogue, including inviting Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States to accompany them. There, in Pittsburgh, thousands marched to protest what one organizer described as the insult of the Mr. Trump’s visit.
Arabella Kushner lights the menorah as her parents look on during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in 2017.
Credit
Olivier Douliery/Getty Images

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Arabella Kushner lights the menorah as her parents look on during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in 2017.CreditOlivier Douliery/Getty Images
The White House has referenced Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump’s religion to dismiss accusations that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened anti-Semites. “The president is the grandfather of several Jewish grandchildren,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, told reporters.

Using the couple in this way has unnerved many Jews who oppose the president and say Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump violated the sacred, if sometimes unspoken, communal code that mandates Jews take care of each other during times of struggle. “I’m more offended by Jared than I am by President Trump,” said Eric Reimer, a lawyer in New York who was on Mr. Kushner’s trivia team at The Frisch School, a modern Orthodox yeshiva in New Jersey that they both attended.

“We, as Jews, are forced to grapple with the fact that Jared and his wife are Jewish, but Jared is participating in acts of Chillul Hashem,” said Mr. Reimer, using the Hebrew term for when a Jew behaves immorally while in the presence of others.
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For Mr. Reimer, who hasn’t spoken to Mr. Kushner since high school, one of those incidents was the administration’s Muslim ban, which prompted members of the Frisch community to sign an open letter to Mr. Kushner imploring him “to exercise the influence and access you have to annals of power to ensure others don’t suffer the same fate as millions of our co-religionists.”

Leah Pisar, president of the Aladdin Project, a Paris-based group that works to counter Holocaust denial, and whose late father, Samuel Pisar, escaped Auschwitz and advised John F. Kennedy, said she found it “inconceivable that Jared could stay affiliated with the administration after Pittsburgh” and called Mr. Kushner the president’s “fig leaf.”

Those kinds of accusations are anathema to other Jews, particularly a subset of Orthodox Jews who accused liberal Jews of politicizing the Pittsburgh attack and who say that any policies that would weaken Israel are the ultimate act of anti-Semitism.
Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in May.
Credit
Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press

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Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in May.CreditSebastian Scheiner/Associated Press
“Jared and Ivanka are one of us as traditional Jews who care deeply about Israel,” said Ronn Torossian, a New York publicist whose children attend the Ramaz School, the same Upper East Side yeshiva where Mr. Kushner’s eldest daughter Arabella was once enrolled. “I look at them as part of our extended family.”

Even some Jews who dislike Mr. Trump’s policies and recoil at his political style may feel a reluctance to criticize the country’s most prominent Orthodox Jewish couple, grappling with the age-old question that has haunted the Jewish psyche for generations: Yes, but is it good for the Jews?
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To that end, even as liberal New York Jews suggest the couple would be snubbed when they eventually return to the city, many in the Orthodox community would likely embrace them. “They certainly won’t be banned, but I don’t think most synagogues would give them an aliyah,” said Ethan Tucker, a rabbi and president of the Hadar yeshiva in New York, referring to the relatively limited honor of being called to make a blessing before and after the reading of the Torah. (Mr. Tucker is also the stepson of Joe Lieberman, the first Jewish candidate to run on a major party ticket in the U.S.) “I don’t think people generally honor people they feel were accomplices to politics and policies they abhor,” Mr. Tucker said.

Haskel Lookstein, who serves as rabbi emeritus of the Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, the modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side that Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump attended, wrote in an open letter to Mr. Trump that he was “deeply troubled” by the president saying “You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” in response to the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va.

When reached last week to comment about the president’s daughter and son-in-law days after the Pittsburgh attack, Mr. Lookstein said simply, “I love them and that’s one of the reasons I don’t talk about them.”

Talk to enough Jews about Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump, and you begin to realize that the couple has become a sort of Rorschach test, with defenders and detractors seeing what they want to see as it relates to larger rifts about Jewish identity.

“It’s not about Jared and Ivanka,” said Matthew Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “People look at them through the prism of their own worldviews.”
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From left to right on front row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara Netanyahu, Mr. Kushner, Ms. Trump, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
Credit
Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press

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From left to right on front row, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara Netanyahu, Mr. Kushner, Ms. Trump, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at the opening ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.CreditSebastian Scheiner/Associated Press
Those worldviews are rapidly changing. One in five American Jews now describes themselves as having no religion and identifying as Jews based only on ancestry, ethnicity or culture, according to Pew. By contrast, in the 1950s, 93 percent of American Jews identified as Jews based on religion.
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As Jews retreat from membership to reform synagogues, historically made up of political liberals who were at the forefront of the fight for Civil Rights and other progressive issues, Chabad-Lubavitch, the Orthodox Hasidic group with which Mr. Kushner is affiliated, has become a rapidly-growing Jewish movement. The growth of Chabad correlates with fierce divisions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a small but growing contingent of American Jews who prioritize Israel above any other political or social issue.

Mr. Kushner, in particular, has become a sort of proxy for these larger schisms about faith and Israel, according to Jewish experts. “There is a great deal of anxiety around the coming of the Orthodox,” said Dr. Sarna, the Brandeis professor. “Jared in every way — his Orthodoxy, his Chabad ties, his views on Israel — symbolizes those changes.”

Mr. Kushner is the scion of wealthy real-estate developers and his family has donated millions of dollars to the Jewish community, including through a foundation that gives to settlements in the West Bank. Mr. Kushner influenced the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy, to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and to shutter a Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a better supporter of Israel than Donald Trump and Jared plays a role in that,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. Mr. Kushner is currently working on a Middle East peace plan expected to be rolled out in the coming months.

Haim Saban, an entertainment magnate and pro-Israel Democrat, is optimistic about Mr. Kushner’s efforts. He said in an interview from his hotel in Israel that although he disagrees with some of Mr. Trump’s policies, “Jared and by extension the president understand the importance of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel on multiple levels — security, intelligence, but most of all, shared values.”
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That embrace has only exacerbated tensions with secular Jews who overwhelmingly vote Democratic and oppose Mr. Trump. According to a 2018 survey by the American Jewish Committee, 41 percent of Jews said they strongly disagree with Mr. Trump’s handling of U.S.-Israeli relations and 71 percent had an overall unfavorable opinion of Mr. Trump. (In response to questions for this story, a White House press aide referred reporters to an Ami magazine poll of 263 Orthodox Jews in the tristate area published in August. Eighty-two percent said they would vote for President Trump in 2020.)

“To wave a flag and say ‘Oh, he’s obviously pro-Jewish because he moved the embassy’ just absolutely ignores what we know to be a deeply alarming rise of anti-Semitism and all sorts of dog-whistling and enabling of the alt-right,” said Andy Bachman, a prominent progressive rabbi in New York.
President Trump praying at the Western Wall.
Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

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President Trump praying at the Western Wall.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times
In September, Mr. Kushner and his top advisers, Jason D. Greenblatt and Avi Berkowitz, hosted a private dinner at the Pierre Hotel on the Upper East Side. Over a kosher meal, Mr. Kushner, aware of concerns within the Jewish community that Israel policy had become an overly partisan issue, fielded the advice of a range of Jewish leaders, including hedge-fund billionaire and Republican donor Paul Singer and Mr. Saban, to craft his Middle East peace plan. “He called and said ’I’ll bring 10 Republicans and you bring 10 Democrats,’” Mr. Saban said.

The undertaking will only bring more kvetching about Mr. Kushner. Indeed, some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent Jewish supporters have already expressed their displeasure at any deal that would require Israel to give up land.

“I’m not happy with Jared promoting a peace deal that’s sending a message that we’re ready to ignore the horrors of the Palestinian regime,” said Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America and a friend of Republican megadonor Sheldon G. Adelson.

“But …” Mr. Klein added, as if self-aware of how other Jews will view his position, “I am a fanatical, pro-Israel Zionist.”
Amy Chozick is a New York-based writer-at-large and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, writing about the personalities and power struggles in business, politics and media.

79 percent of right-wingers believe Jews are the chosen people. Are you for real ?
Whereas belief in God is a private matter, the belief in a chosen people provides the outlines of policy that explains a great deal about Israel’s actions. When they say that they are the chosen people, it reveals their psychosis
Gideon Levy - Sep 15, 2018 11:28 PM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-79-percent-of-right-wingers-believe-jews-are-the-chosen-people-are

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6471910.1537036805!/image/3179163753.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3179163753.jpg

I would like to meet representatives of that absolute, decisive, arrogant and patronizing majority reflected in a recent Haaretz poll and ask them: Are you guys for real? How did you come up with that? On whose say-so? Are you, the absolute majority, so sure that we are the chosen, the very best, that we are the champions, head and shoulders above the rest?

How did you come to this conclusion? I’d like to ask you, dear majority: On what basis are you convinced that we are the chosen people, that we know everything better than all the other nations; that we deserve more than everyone else; that what applies to them does not apply to us, because we are superior.

This is how a majority of Israeli Jews responded in the Haaretz-Dialog poll published last week: We are a chosen people. A majority, 56 percent, are sure of this. The figure rises to 79 percent, an overwhelming majority, among self-identified right-wingers. In a country where 76 percent of people believe in God or another higher power, perhaps that is obvious. But whereas belief in God is a private matter, the belief in a chosen people provides the outlines of policy that explains a great deal about Israel’s actions.

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6464669.1536439566!/image/791522148.png_gen/derivatives/size_1496xAuto/791522148.png

Credit : Haaretz

Let’s turn from theology to pathology. The Israeli Jews who think they belong to a chosen and select people owe an accounting to themselves and to others. It’s easy to declare that God does or doesn’t exist. No one is expecting evidence, but when the majority of a nation is convinced that it is superior to all other nations, some evidence is necessary. In Israel’s case, it’s easy to prove that it’s a case of detachment from reality, a dangerous delusion. In any event, a people that is convinced that it is chosen poses a danger to itself and its surroundings.

The Jewish people is indeed special, with a glorious and bloody history. Israeli Jews, too, have cause for pride. But when they say that they are the chosen people, it reveals their psychosis. It’s doubtful that any other nation thinks that of itself today. Israeli Jews have no grounds to think this either. In what way are we chosen? In what way are we better? And what is the Swede, the French person, the American, the Briton or the Arab supposed to think about this insufferable arrogance?

There’s no need to elaborate on Israel’s questionable morality as an occupier. Any Israeli with even a modicum of self-awareness recognizes that an occupying nation cannot be the chosen people. Nor would a bit of humility hurt when it comes to a few other characteristics of the people of Israel, before it crowns itself a light unto the nations. I recommend, for example, reading the comprehensive, horrifying analysis in Haaretz by Dan Ben-David of the country’s education system, which did not prompt the necessary outcry. Half of Israel’s children receive a Third World education.

A little modesty would also become the citizens of a state that ranks 87th in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index, below Togo and the Ivory Coast. Nor is No. 32 on Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index something to celebrate. Health care is yet another area where Israel’s self-esteem should be curbed: The country ranks 28th in health-care spending, of the 36 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states, and 30th in the number of hospital beds.

The behavior of Israeli tourists abroad is also not always befitting a chosen people. Perhaps Israel ranks high on an index of German submarine purchases, and maybe that’s the key to understanding the sense of superiority.

Basking in self-glorification has recently become a salient characteristic of Israel’s national character. Just regularly read the Israel Hayom daily or listen to the prime minister: How lovely we are from morning to night.

The right spreads this lie, for its own purposes. Sycophantic populism thrives not only in Israel, but it is only here that the disparity between dream and reality is so great. A chosen people? If only it were finally like all the other nations.

Teen On Birthright Trip Hadn’t Expected To See So Many Dead Palestinians
▻https://www.theonion.com/teen-on-birthright-trip-hadn-t-expected-to-see-so-many-1824265633

“It was cool to see the Western Wall, and we all got to ride camels in the desert, but we still saw a couple bodies there, too. At first you think it’s just this one-time thing and you don’t worry about it, but pretty soon, you realize they are kind of everywhere. They didn’t really mention anything about this during the orientation.” Caplan was also surprised that there were so many people her age in the Israeli Defense Forces killing Palestinians.

(Ah la vache! Ze Onion tout de même!)

How a small group of Israelis made the Western Wall Jewish again
▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.792857

On Saturday, June 10, 1967, the fifth day of the Six-Day War, Yosef Schwartz, a contractor, entered the bomb shelter in the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood in western Jerusalem and found his daughter and grandchildren. “It was quite normal to see us and bring bread and milk,” says his daughter Zehava Fuchs. “But this time he was very tense, he hugged me and the children and he looked different than usual.”

Schwartz, who was wearing the uniform of the old Haganah police force, left without saying where he was going. “I went up to the apartment to call my mother, she told me he didn’t want to say where he wast going,” said Fuchs.

“The next day he came back crying. My brother was a pilot then and I was very worried something had happened, but then he told me that he had been in the Old City and touched the Kotel. He told how at night they demolished all the Mughrabi neighborhood. He was completely secular, but he said that when they worked there was a mystical feeling, they felt they were on a mission,” she added.

Schwartz was one of 15 older contractors from the Jeruslaem contractors association who were called on by then Mayor Teddy Kollek that night to come to the Western Wall, which had just been captured. The task was to demolish the houses in the Mughrabi (Moroccan) Quarter that was built right next to the Kotel and create the Western Wall Plaza.

Sasson Levy, one of the two contractors who is still alive, remembers the excitement very well: “I was sky-high, it was a pleasure.”

Kollek enlisted the contractors for the work, but to this day it is still not clear who made the decision about the demolition. It is clear Kollek was involved, as well as Shlomo Lahat, who was the new military governor of East Jerusalem (and later mayor of Tel Aviv), and the head of the IDF’s Central Command, Maj. Gen. Uzi Narkiss. It is clear they intentionally made the decision without asking for – or receiving permission. No written documents remain concerning the decision, except for a hand-drawn map on a piece of paper that marked the boundaries of the area to be demolished.

The contractors association was the most readily available source of manpower, but that was not the only reason that Kollek turned to them. The fear of an international protest made it necessary to use an unofficial civilian body to take on the job. The demolition work was given to the Jerusalem contractors and builders organization to distance any involvement of official bodies in the demolition as much as possible, wrote Uzi Benziman in Haaretz Magazine last week (in Hebrew).

Kollek explained the urgency of clearing the plaza stemmed from the Shavuot holiday in a few days, when tens of thousands of Israelis were expected to flock to the Kotel. Leaving the old buildings standing could be dangerous, said Kollek. But the contractors, who were not called up to the reserves because of their age, saw it as much more than just another engineering project: That night remained engraved in their memories as a historic moment. So much so that after the war they established the “Order of the Kotel,” a sort of imitation of an order of knights for those who “purified the Kotel plaza for the people of Israel,” as they wrote about themselves.

A coincidence led researchers from Yad Ben Zvi, the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem named after former President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, to study the Order of the Kotel story. Next week an exhibition will go on display at the Institute about the Order and the creation of the Western Wall Plaza.

The work began about 11 P.M. The first job was to demolish a toilet that was built up against the Western Wall. A day earlier, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion visited the Kotel and reprimanded Yaakov Yannai, the head of the National Parks Authority, about the bathroom. “You come to place like this and you see a stench in the wall, we were surprised by it,” Levy remembers. “It made us angry in all the joy. At first we worked with hoes, pickaxes, cultivators and hammers. After that Zalman [Broshi, one of the largest builders in Jerusalem] brought in the tractor.”

Two bulldozers worked to demolish the houses. They ran into difficulties when the rooms underground collapsed suddenly under the bulldozers, but the collapse also provided them with space to bury the rubble and flatten the ground. 135 houses were demolished, and in the end the demolition exceeded the area drawn on the map.

Levy does not remember the residents of the houses or whether anyone was evacuated from them. Fuchs says that when she asked her father about them, “he said they went with a megaphone and asked the people to gather, and they went out through the Zion Gate, because through this gat they took out the refugees of the Jewish Quarter [in 1948].”

Bruria Shiloni, the daughter of Yosef Zaban, and who was there that night, does not remember the residents. “I didn’t have the impression that people lived there, that there was life,” says Shiloni. “Later I heard that they smuggled them out of there. The feeling was that they were demolishing empty and piled up huts, I didn’t see movement of people.”

Benziman tells how in one case the residents refused to leave the house and left only after the bulldozer rammed the wall. In one house, an elderly woman named Haja Ali Taba’aki was found dead in her bed. In one of the pictures a bulldozer can be seen demolishing a house with furniture, curtains and a vase with flowers inside.

Zaban was the father of Yair Tsaban, who became a member of Knesset for the left-wing Mapam party. Shiloni went to the Kotel with her father and remembers the trip and Kollek standing on a crate or step, speaking to those present. During the demolition she was not there, after two officers accompanied her to find her husband, a platoon commander who had been wounded in the fighting.

The Order of the Western Wall was founded that same night and the members continued to meet regularly until the 1990s, when most of them passed away. In 1967 they enlisted in another task from Kollek and built the structure near the windmill in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood of the capital that housed the original carriage used by Moses Montefiore in his travels. In 1983 they published album with almost prophetic predictions by Itamar Ben-Avi, a journalist and son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, about the creation of the Kotel Plaza. Ben-Avi died in 1943. In 1987 the members of the Oder attended a ceremony in their honor in the Knesset, and received the “Defender of the Kotel” decoration.

The founder of the order was Baruch Barkai, who became the secretary of the group and a rather unusual figure. Barkai was born in Latvia, studied law, was a journalist, art collector and a member of the Lehi pre-state underground, also known as the Stern Gang. He was even arrested on suspicions of being involved in the murder of Chaim Arlosoroff. Barkai later wrote a number of books, two of which are etiquette guides, and founded the most polite Knesset member competition.

“It was a difficult day for him,” says Barkai’s son Itamar, who was named after Ben-Avi, who his father admired. The 1983 album says the Order was founded on Sunday, the third day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, June 11, 1967 at 3 A.M. in the Kotel Plaza, with the 15 members who had answered the call of the engineering officer, Capt. Eitan Ben Moshe, to purify the Kotel Plaza. “In doing so they fulfilled the vision of Itamar Ben-Avi: ‘The Kotel with space on the right and space on the left too, the Kotel with a broad courtyard in front of it.”

The Yad Ben- Zvi researchers discovered the story by accident, through a person who participated in the demolition, but not a member of the Order.

Ze’ev Ben Gal was born to a Samaritan family, fled his parent’s home, enlisted in the Palmah and lived on Kibbuts Rosh Hanikra. During the Six-Day War he served as a bulldozer driver in the reserves and was called to the Mughrabi neighborhood. During his work he noticed a large iron lock, it seems the lock on the gate to the neighborhood, and kept it. After he died last year, the lock made its way to the kibbutz archive, where they decided to give it, and the story behind it, to Yad Ben-Zvi.

Fuchs was photographed for the movie that was part of the “50 Faces, 50 years” project created by the Tower of David Museum in the Old City. She said about her father, Schwartz, that he was so proud of every house he built, and suddenly he was proud of demolishing houses, “but he felt that he was carrying out a great mission for the Jewish people.”

Anyone who knew the Kotel before the demolition was amazed by the plaza that was born overnight. “I read in the newspaper that they demolished the houses and straightened the plaza in front of the Kotel, but I didn’t imagine they made a stadium,” an “elderly Yemenite” Jew was quoted in the Davar newspaper. The quote appears in an article that appeared recently by Shmuel Bahat in the journal Et-mol, published by Yad Ben Zvi. Kollek too is quoted justifying the demolitions: “It ws the greatest thing we could do and it is good we did it immediately.”

The Jerusalem obsession - Opinion -

Of all of Israel’s whims, this is the craziest of all. A country trying look secular, Western and modern is going nuts over a wall

Gideon Levy May 18, 2017
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.789919

The sky has fallen. America is stuttering about the Western Wall. Where is it located? Whom does it belong to? It’s the end of the world, the Zionist enterprise is finished. It’s a good thing we have a Habayit Hayehudi representative in the United Nations (in the guise of the American ambassador), Nikki Haley. She hastened on Tuesday to prevent another emotional holocaust by stating that in her personal opinion, the Kotel is ours. What a relief! The Temple Mount is (again) in our hands.
Of all of Israel’s whims, this is the craziest of all. A country trying look secular, Western and modern is going nuts over a wall. It’s a fetish. You can live with it, of course, but like any obsession it can drive you insane.
But the obsession with the Kotel is part of a wider syndrome, the Jerusalem obsession. There’s no more divided city than united Jerusalem, and we’ve devised no greater self-deception than thinking there can be a solution without justice in Jerusalem. You can of course love Jerusalem, which was a lovely city until its last occupation, with an amazing history and holy places. You can pray toward it a dozen times a day, to a city that Jews lived in for generations and also longed for. It is truly an exciting and recommended tourist destination, just check out TripAdvisor.
But a country that wakes up in terror because some American official avoided saying that the Kotel is part of Israel, proves not only that its discourse is delusional, but that it isn’t at all sure that the Kotel really belongs to it, and how uncertain it is about its borders, sovereignty and justness. When it comes to talking about Jerusalem, it loses its moorings; when it comes to the Kotel, it loses consciousness. In both instances we’re talking about detachment from reality.

#Israël #Jérusalem

On his first visit to the Middle East, Trump’s envoy Jason Greenblatt surprises everyone

Greenblatt leaped effortlessly from a Palestinian refugee camp to meeting settler leaders, making positive impressions on all, along with a clear message: Trump’s serious about peace, and Israel ought to be too.

Barak Ravid Mar 17, 2017
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.777881

Jason Greenblatt’s Twitter account was the best show in town this week. Anyone following his tweets might have thought he wasn’t the U.S. envoy for the peace process, but the Energizer bunny. 
Greenblatt didn’t rest for a moment during his four days here. He bounced from Jerusalem, to Ramallah, to Jericho, to Bethlehem, to Amman and back to Jerusalem. After every meeting, he tweeted pictures and updates.
On the eve of his visit, the New York Times published an article describing him scornfully as a man with no diplomatic experience who landed his job almost by chance. But Greenblatt proved this week that even if he lacks the experience of veterans of the peace industry in America, he is blessed with sharp instincts, seriousness, common sense and a great deal of personal charm and emotional intelligence. Everyone on the Israeli side who met with Greenblatt this week, on both the right and the left, as well as everyone on the Palestinian side, had a positive impression.
“Greenblatt is a serious, honest envoy,” tweeted MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) after meeting him. “There’s no doubt President Trump is committed to peace, and that’s good news. It won’t be easy – but there’s hope.”
On his first visit to the region as Trump’s envoy, Greenblatt came mainly to listen and learn. Alongside his meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he held a great many meetings with segments of the population that until now most U.S. envoys had passed over. 
He surprised many on the Palestinian side by meeting with residents of the Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah, and surprised others on the Israeli side by meeting with two mayors of settlements, Oded Revivi and Yossi Dagan. He met with Palestinian and Israeli students, with residents of the Gaza Strip, with senior Jewish, Christian and Muslim clerics.
skip - blattjalazone

Wednesday night, Greenblatt took a tour of Jerusalem’s Old City. One stop on the tour was Yeshivat HaKotel, from which he tweeted a picture of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. Five minutes later, he visited the house of a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem and tweeted a picture of the same holy sites from a different angle.
“Peace and coexistence are not just possible in this extraordinary city, they exist already and have for centuries,” he added in a follow-up tweet.
The message Greenblatt reiterated against and again, to both Israelis and Palestinians, was that President Donald Trump is very serious when he talks about his desire to make “the ultimate deal” and that Israeli-Palestinian peace is very high on his priority list. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) said after meeting with Greenblatt that he got the impression Trump was very committed to this issue and plans to launch a serious diplomatic process. A senior minister in the ruling Likud party got the same impression.

Almost famous: Israel recruits D-list celebrities to counter BDS
Why should the government pay for flights and stays of Hollywood actors in order to combat the boycott movement?
By Itamar Zohar | Jan. 3, 2017 | 12:30 AM
▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.762642

If in the next few days you come across social media photos of minor American actors who are in Israel, either at the Western Wall or the Jordan River, you should know that they are the guests of Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. As part of his roles as information minister and strategic affairs minister, and as part of the cabinet’s efforts to block the campaign calling to boycott Israel, Erdan invited actors Daniel Dae Kim (“Lost” and “Hawaii-Five-O”), Meagan Good (“Deception”), Sonequa Martin-Green and Kenric Green (“The Walking Dead”) and Mark Pellegrino (“Dexter” and “Supernatural”) to Israel.

You don’t recognize these names? You’re not alone. On their Instagram pages you’ll at least be able to find out what they did here – visit the Western Wall and the Dead Sea, while making sure to stay away from politics. Daniel Dae Kim stressed on Instagram that his visit to Jerusalem was apolitical. Of course it was. But coming on a government-sponsored visit posed no problem for him.

The visit of this delegation of minor Hollywood actors was the initiative of America’s Voices in Israel, an organization that strives to promote Israel’s image in the United States. It has already sponsored similar visits in the past. It now appears that the government wishes to join this initiative.

The question is, why should the government pay for flights and stays of Hollywood actors, well-known or less-known, in order to combat the boycott movement? This money could have been used to help people who live here, not for casual visitors who will forget what they saw here by next week.

Even if, as the official description of their visit contends, “they will document their visit for 50 million of their followers on social media,” their ability to impact anything here is marginal. For them it’s a freebie, an opportunity to collect yet another country’s stamp in their passports while touring it at someone else’s expense.

Erdan writes that the aim of the visit is “to expose the complex reality of Israel without any biased mediation,” but this is precisely what he’s doing. He’s a cabinet member trying to further its policies. What could be more biased than that? At the end of his announcement he writes “we see great importance in bringing influential people from diverse areas here, in order to show them the truth about Israel. We’re building bridges between Israel and communities around the world in all spheres of life.” (...)

#BDS

Israel still outraged by new ’softened’ version of UNESCO resolution
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=773732
Oct. 26, 2016 5:08 P.M. (Updated: Oct. 26, 2016 5:08 P.M.)

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BETHLEHEM — A new version of a UNESCO resolution that strongly condemned Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinians territory was approved on Wednesday after widespread uproar from Israel and its supporters claimed that the previous text denied Jewish ties to the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem’s Old City.

The resolution was backed by ten World Heritage Committee members states, opposed by two, with eight abstaining.

However, Israeli media sites reported that the revised version continued to “ignore Judaism’s connection” to the holy site, as the text still only referred to the compound by its Arabic and Muslim names — Al-Aqsa or al-Haram al-Sharif — and not as the Temple Mount as it is known to Jews.

Amid the uproar, the issues raised in the resolution itself regarding several Israeli policies against Palestinians at the holy site have largely fallen to the wayside.

As a Palestinian representative to UNESCO put it after the initial text was approved, the resolution was “about occupation, not about a name,” asserting that the Geneva Conventions required the site be referred to by the name that predated Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

The wording of the new resolution was “softened,” according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, removing the term “occupying” force in regards to Israel, and now refers to the Western Wall by its Jewish name and not in quotations as it had been previously.

However, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, reportedly said after the vote: “This is yet another absurd resolution against the State of Israel, the Jewish people and historical truth.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, also slammed the new resolution, saying, “UNESCO embarrassed itself by marching to the tune of the Palestinian pipers. All attempts to deny our heritage, distort history and disconnect the Jewish people from our capital and our homeland, are doomed to fail.”

#UNESCO

UNSECO resolution: A fight over the ownership of Jerusalem - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com
Where does Israel get the audacity to demand eternal ownership? One can understand the longing that Jerusalem no longer change hands, but to demand ownership is historic rudeness, which the world sees as arrogance, even hubris.

Carolina Landsmann Oct 14, 2016 1:
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.747419

Jerusalem’s history teaches that the aspiration for the city to be the Jewish nation’s eternal capital reflects a desire to effect a fundamental change in its status – from a city that changed hands many times over thousands of years to one that will remain forever in Jewish hands.
Benjamin Netanyahu wants the world to understand the declaration “Jerusalem the eternal capital of the Jewish people” not only as a historic or religious-spiritual affiliation, and not only as a geopolitical description, but as a statement of real-estate ownership. Netanyahu wants Jerusalem to be registered in the world’s land registry bureau as property of the Jewish nation.
In this respect, the UNESCO resolution that casts doubt on the ties between the Western Wall and the Jewish Temple is like a warning note in the registry in favor of the Muslims. By Netanyahu’s standards, this is a failure no less dramatic than having a foreign army conquer Jerusalem.
The Six-Day War was a landmark event not only in Israel’s history, but in Jewish history. In 1967, after 2,000 years, the heart of Jerusalem – the Old City – returned to Jewish hands. At the same time, since it’s a city that is holy to Christianity and Islam as well, not only to Judaism, as the UNESCO resolution reaffirms yet again how it was also a landmark event in the history of Christianity and Islam. It sounds trivial – but the historic and religious weight of conquering Jerusalem is by no means trivial.
Israel’s demand of eternal ownership of the city, the expectation that Islam will renounce the city only because it was conquered by military force, as just as the war was, even the expectation that Christianity will agree to the Jews’ eternal ownership of the city are anything but trivial.
Israel acts like it’s another historic “real estate deal.” It may recognize that taking over property is not enough and that it must obtain international recognition for its ownership of Jerusalem. But on the other hand Israel is ignoring the fact that Jerusalem is not like any other piece of property.

Where, then does Israel get the audacity to demand eternal ownership? One can understand the longing that Jerusalem no longer change hands, but to demand ownership of it is historic rudeness, which the world sees as arrogance, even hubris.
In his speech at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Netanyahu claimed that what “prepared the way for the Holocaust” was “the lie.” 
“The slander preceded the annihilation,” he explained. Today, too, millions of people are hearing awful falsehoods about the Jews, he said.
Then he focused his warnings on a specific lie – the demand that UNESCO determine that the Temple Mount has no affiliation with the Jewish people.
The incitement today stems from radical Islam, he said, and wondered about the “strange pairings” that anti-Semitism creates. “Elites pretending to represent human progress join the darkest barbaric zealots, the decapitators, oppressors of women, gay persecutors, destroyers of cultural treasures.” 
Translation: dear Christians, have you gone mad? Do you really want to entrust Christianity’s treasures in the hands of those treasure-destroying Muslims?
“Many of our people are already doing so in Israel and the world and I call on you too, representatives of enlightened humanity, mobilize to thwart the lies,” shouted Netanyahu. That is to say, dear Christians, representatives of enlightened humanity, mobilize to the Jews’ side – have you lost your senses to let ISIS’ representatives get close to Jerusalem?
Perhaps instead of blaming others for the historic-diplomatic blow to the Jewish people, Netanyahu should ask himself if perhaps something in the abusiveness with which Israel rules the holy city and its claim to eternal ownership have contributed to creating the climate in which the contemporary tendency of Islam to negate pre-Islamic history wins the sympathy of our enlightened western friends.
Perhaps there’s a link connecting Israel’s rejectionist diplomacy, appalling discrimination against the city’s Arab residents, Jerusalem’s construction beneath the Western Wall, Silwan, Muslim quarter, and the warning note inscribed in history’s land registry.

A step change in the evolution of the emerging Palestinian state | News | Architectural Review

▻http://www.architectural-review.com/newsletter/rethink/a-step-change-in-the-evolution-of-the-emerging-palestinian-state/10001422.article?WT.tsrc=email&WT.mc_id=Newsletter310

http://www.architectural-review.com/pictures/2000x2000fit/6/2/2/3005622_Rawabi_amphitheatre02.jpg

A move away from the traditional use of stone as cladding, and from the villa model, in Palestine

In his book Peasant Life in the Holy Land, published in 1906, Charles Thomas Wilson describes the different kinds of stone that the Palestinian can use in construction. He writes, for example, of ‘Kakuleh, a fine white freestone which cuts readily, and yet is hard and strong, and is much used for angles, cornices, mullions etc.’ He doesn’t mention the Meleke stone, which is the kingly or royal stone, a coarse, apparently crumbling, bleached white stone from which the Western Wall was built. There are subtle gradations in Jerusalem stone, the name collectively given to the limestone quarried and used in this region. However, when the sun shines on the different grades they always glow the same warm and honeyed colour.

#palestine #architecture

Young Israeli Jew at Western Wall calls for ’another war and another war and another war and another war’
▻http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/watch-israeli-western.html
Dan Cohen

Throughout the evening, I wondered if I might be attacked for being perceived as smolinim — the Hebrew word for “leftist” — a dangerous label in Israel today. Never in my life had I felt so threatened for being a politically-minded Jew as I was that evening.

Le prince Turki al Faisal a un rêve: Peace would be possible with the Arab Peace Initiative at its core
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-peace-conference/1.599067

Let us dream for a moment of how this troubled land might look after an agreement between those two people... Let me dream, too ... Imagine if I could get on a plane in Riyadh, fly directly to Jerusalem, get on a bus or taxi, go to the Dome of the Rock Mosque or the Al-Aqsa Mosque, perform the Friday prayers, and then visit the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. If, the next day, I could visit the tomb of Abraham in Al-Khalil, Hebron, and the tombs of the other prophets, peace be upon them all. I could then drive to, and visit Bethlehem, the site of the Nativity. I could go on to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust center and museum as I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, when I was ambassador there.

And what a pleasure it would be to be able to invite not just the Palestinians but also the Israelis I would meet to come and visit me in Riyadh, where they can visit my ancestral home in Dir’iyyah, which suffered at the hands of Ibrahim Pasha the same fate as Jerusalem did at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and the Romans.

’Cash-strapped’ Israeli army pressing #US for $3 billion military aid deal
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/cash-strapped-israeli-army-pressing-us-3-billion-military-aid-dea

http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/4cols/leading_images/867290-01-08.jpg

An honor guard of Israeli soldiers stands to attention at the start of Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers during a state ceremony at the Western Wall of the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s Old City on May 4, 2014.(Photo: AFP - Gali Tibbon)

Budget-strapped #Israel is pressing the United States to conclude a deal extending military aid beyond 2017, when Washington’s current $3 billion annual payouts to its Middle East ally expire, officials said on Friday. They said a swift agreement on future US grants would help Israel’s military draft a five-year austerity plan accommodating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative government. “It’s difficult to budget into 2018 and 2019 without knowing what funds will be available,” an Israeli military official (...)

#Palestine #Top_News

Pas bonne nouvelle du tout :

Settler group getting management of Western Wall area - National Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.576207

The right-wing settlement group Elad-City of David Foundation is on the verge of assuming the management of the Jerusalem Archaeological Park and the Davidson Center, which includes the entire southern section of the Western Wall.

A draft agreement has been drawn up between the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem (the JQDC), which owns the area, and Elad.

The agreement came after the government company received a legal opinion that it could sign such a pact without publishing a tender.

Elad already manages the City of David National Park just outside the Old City walls and works to settle Jews in the Palestinian village of Silwan. If the deal goes through, it would significantly expand Elad’s economic and tourism interests in the area, and give it the unprecedented opportunity to tighten the link between Silwan, the City of David and the Western Wall.

Left-wing groups are expected to fight the decision, since it would expand Elad’s foothold in East Jerusalem and further solidify its relationship with state authorities.

Elad is heavily involved in settling Jews in Palestinian homes purchased in Silwan through front men and foreign companies. In addition to running the City of David National Park, Elad conducts activities at the Armon Hanatziv promenade and on the Mount of Olives.

The Jerusalem Archeological Garden, which would come under Elad’s management, includes about two-thirds of the exposed part of the Western Wall and some of Jerusalem’s most important archeological sites, including Robinson’s Arch, stones from the Temples’ destruction, a Herodian street, and the “place of trumpeting” (the corner of the Temple Mount on which the trumpet-blowers stood during the time of the Temple), as well as structural remains from the Islamic period. This is also where a platform was erected several months ago for non-Orthodox groups wishing to hold prayer services and ceremonies within view of the Western Wall.

The site also includes the Davidson Center, a visitors’ center dedicated to exhibits related to the archeological park, including a virtual reconstruction of the Herodian-era Temple Mount.

The possible handover to Elad is the result of a financial dispute between East Jerusalem Development Ltd., which manages the archeological site and the Davidson Center, and the JQDC, which owns the land. The JQDC claimed that East Jerusalem Development had not paid it the rent it owed on the site for several years. In December, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ruled in favor of the JQDC and ordered East Jerusalem Development to pay its debt and hand over the site to the JQDC by the end of 2014. As a result, the JQDC began deliberating over new management of the park.

At this point, say sources involved in the discussions, Elad chairman David Be’eri suggested that Elad cover the debts of East Jerusalem Development in exchange for being given control of the site, a proposal that was readily accepted by the JQDC. According to these sources, Elad was an obvious favorite to manage the site because of its experience managing the popular City of David site, as well as the underground tunnel that had been dug between the City of David and the Davidson park in recent years. These archeological excavations, conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and funded by Elad, involved digging a tunnel along a Herodian-era street that runs from the Siloam Pool to the Western Wall. The tunnel was opened to the public three years ago.

The JQDC has also received a legal opinion that it did not need to publish a tender soliciting bids from anyone else to run the site. A draft agreement has been written and is expected to be signed shortly, pending various legal approvals.

The Jerusalem Archeological Garden includes areas outside the Old City walls, in the Ophel area. These lands, which are controlled by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, are apparently not going to be transferred to Elad’s control.

Neither the JQDC nor Elad would comment for this report.

Jewish Israeli man killed by guard near Western Wall… The guard heard him shout “Allahu Akbar” - he drew his weapon and fired several shots. Paranoid xenophobic lunacy ? No, business as usual in #Israel.
▻http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22998915

23/4/2013,
Israel and Palestinians Reach Deal on Unesco - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/world/europe/israel-and-palestinians-reach-deal-on-unesco.html?_r=0

The deal concerns the Old City and its walls, including the Western Wall and an ascent to the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif. It was brokered in an unusual partnership between the United States and Russia, with the help of Jordan, Brazil and the director general of Unesco, Irina Bokova. As part of the arrangement, the Palestinians agreed to postpone five resolutions critical of Israel that were pending before the agency.

Ce jour,
Israël annule une mission de l’Unesco à Jérusalem-Est
▻http://www.romandie.com/news/n/_Israel_annule_une_mission_de_l_Unesco_a_Jerusalem_Est30200520131412.asp ?

JERUSALEM - Israël a annoncé lundi l’annulation d’une mission de l’Unesco pour expertiser l’état du patrimoine dans la Vieille ville de Jérusalem-Est occupée et annexée, accusant les Palestiniens d’avoir politisé cette mission.

Standoff at Western Wall Over Praying by Women - NYTimes.com

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/world/middleeast/3-ultra-orthodox-men-arrested-in-western-wall-standoff.html?nl=todaysheadli

JERUSALEM — Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews tried to block a liberal women’s group from praying at the Western Wall on Friday morning, creating a tense standoff in the latest flash point of a broader battle over religion and identity that has engulfed Israel.

#droit_des_femmes #discrimination #israël #ultra_orthodoxes

Jerusalem police detain woman at Western Wall for wearing prayer shawl “incorrectly”
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/jerusalem-police-detain-woman-at-western-wall-for-wearing-prayer-shawl-inco

Jerusalem Police detained a woman for nearly four hours on Thursday for wearing a tallit, or prayer shawl, “incorrectly” at the Western Wall.

Deb Houben, a native of Boston, was taken aside by police after concluding a prayer service celebrating the beginning of the Hebrew month with 65 other people from Women of the Wall, an organization that campaigns for the equal right to pray publicly at Judaism’s most holy site.

Many of the women participating in the service were also wearing prayer shawls, but Houben was detained for wearing hers “incorrectly” – meaning wrapped around her shoulders, rather than draped across her neck like a scarf.