Sabah

Routes de la discrimination à Hebron : fin temporaire de la séparation entre juifs et Arabes. Mais il ne faut pas se faire d’illusion, c’est loin d’être fini.
IDF nixes Hebron road separation policy - Israel News, Ynetnews
▻http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4643811,00.html

Israeli security forces on Wednesday cancelled a policy of ethnic separation in Hebron for the second time.
 

 
A Ynet exclusive two years ago revealed that the IDF divided the main road leading to the Cave of the Patriarchs: The main section of the road limited entry exclusively to Jews, while a fenced side path was the only way for Palestinians to pass through. This policy was cancelled, but reinstated about two months ago.
A video attained by Ynet shows a Palestinian who works for the B’Tselem human rights organization attempting to use the main road and being halted by Border Police officers, who instruct him to go to the other side, which they said was meant for Muslims. “Only Jews come through here,” an officer tells the Palestinian. When he asks why, she replies: “The captain decided. Jews here, only Jews, and only Muslims over there.” When asked again why, the officer says, “Because.”

The video shows the Palestinian insisting on using the road, but the officers prevent him. The officers explain that the two ways reach the same exact place, and at one point say that only elderly Muslims may use the main road, while children and adults must use the side path. When the Palestinian attempts to challenge them and continue walking down the road, they threaten to arrest him if he continues.

Nabila Jabri, a 45-year-old resident of Hebron, said she feels “humiliated when I walk on a path that is behind the fence and see the settlers walk through the main entrance; a screen separates us that has no justification for its existence.”

Iman Abu Armaila, also from Hebron, said that over the past two years, the crossing has almost never been blocked. “The fact that we could walk on the wide side of the road slightly lessened our general suffering,” she said. But now, she said, border guards force her to use the narrower path behind the fence.

Until the policy’s renewal, security forces allowed Palestinian pedestrians and cyclists to use the road. In order to transport cargo, Palestinians had to use a horse-drawn cart or handcarts. Israeli citizens were and are permitted to use the road in cars or by foot.

B’Tselem said that “the situation at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron is an allegory for the entire occupation – the settlers use a convenient road, while Palestinians who live in the area are allowed only to look at it from behind a fence, from the narrow and defective road they were forced into.”

“The closure of the route is not in line with procedures in the area,” an IDF spokesperson said.

“As soon as commanders were made aware of the incident, they handled it and opened the route. The IDF always works to enforce the law in Judea and Samaria, and to ensure normal life for all area residents.”

▻http://my.ynet.co.il/pic/news/IranDealParameters04022015.pdf

L’accord avec les Iraniens signé cette semaine

Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program
Below are the key parameters of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program that were decided in Lausanne, Switzerland. These elements form the foundation upon which the final text of the JCPOA will be written between now and June 30, and reflect the significant progress that has been made in discussions between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran. Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. We will work to conclude the JCPOA based on these parameters over the coming months.
Enrichment
• Iran has agreed to reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges. Iran will go from having about 19,000 installed today to 6,104 installed under the deal, with only 5,060 of these enriching uranium for 10 years. All 6,104 centrifuges will be IR-1s, Iran’s first-generation centrifuge.
• Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for at least 15 years.
• Iran has agreed to reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched
uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU for 15 years.
• All excess centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure will be placed in IAEA monitored storage and will be used only as replacements for operating centrifuges and equipment.
• Iran has agreed to not build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years.
• Iran’s breakout timeline – the time that it would take for Iran to acquire enough fissile material for one weapon – is currently assessed to be 2 to 3 months. That timeline will be extended to at least one year, for a duration of at least ten years, under this framework.
Iran will convert its facility at Fordow so that it is no longer used to enrich uranium
• Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium at its Fordow facility for at least 15 years.
• Iran has agreed to convert its Fordow facility so that it is used for peaceful purposes only
– into a nuclear, physics, technology, research center.
• Iran has agreed to not conduct research and development associated with uranium enrichment at Fordow for 15 years.
• Iran will not have any fissile material at Fordow for 15 years.
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• Almost two-thirds of Fordow’s centrifuges and infrastructure will be removed. The remaining centrifuges will not enrich uranium. All centrifuges and related infrastructure will be placed under IAEA monitoring.
Iran will only enrich uranium at the Natanz facility, with only 5,060 IR-1 first-generation centrifuges for ten years.
• Iran has agreed to only enrich uranium using its first generation (IR-1 models) centrifuges at Natanz for ten years, removing its more advanced centrifuges.
• Iran will remove the 1,000 IR-2M centrifuges currently installed at Natanz and place them in IAEA monitored storage for ten years.
• Iran will not use its IR-2, IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, or IR-8 models to produce enriched uranium for at least ten years. Iran will engage in limited research and development with its advanced centrifuges, according to a schedule and parameters which have been agreed to by the P5+1.
• For ten years, enrichment and enrichment research and development will be limited to ensure a breakout timeline of at least 1 year. Beyond 10 years, Iran will abide by its enrichment and enrichment R&D plan submitted to the IAEA, and pursuant to the JCPOA, under the Additional Protocol resulting in certain limitations on enrichment capacity.
Inspections and Transparency
• The IAEA will have regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including to Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz and its former enrichment facility at Fordow, and including the use of the most up-to-date, modern monitoring technologies.
• Inspectors will have access to the supply chain that supports Iran’s nuclear program. The new transparency and inspections mechanisms will closely monitor materials and/or components to prevent diversion to a secret program.
• Inspectors will have access to uranium mines and continuous surveillance at uranium mills, where Iran produces yellowcake, for 25 years.
• Inspectors will have continuous surveillance of Iran’s centrifuge rotors and bellows production and storage facilities for 20 years. Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing base will be frozen and under continuous surveillance.
• All centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure removed from Fordow and Natanz will be placed under continuous monitoring by the IAEA.
• A dedicated procurement channel for Iran’s nuclear program will be established to monitor and approve, on a case by case basis, the supply, sale, or transfer to Iran of
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certain nuclear-related and dual use materials and technology – an additional transparency measure.
• Iran has agreed to implement the Additional Protocol of the IAEA, providing the IAEA much greater access and information regarding Iran’s nuclear program, including both declared and undeclared facilities.
• Iran will be required to grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country.
• Iran has agreed to implement Modified Code 3.1 requiring early notification of construction of new facilities.
• Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program.
Reactors and Reprocessing
• Iran has agreed to redesign and rebuild a heavy water research reactor in Arak, based on a design that is agreed to by the P5+1, which will not produce weapons grade plutonium, and which will support peaceful nuclear research and radioisotope production.
• The original core of the reactor, which would have enabled the production of significant quantities of weapons-grade plutonium, will be destroyed or removed from the country.
• Iran will ship all of its spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the reactor’s lifetime.
• Iran has committed indefinitely to not conduct reprocessing or reprocessing research and development on spent nuclear fuel.
• Iran will not accumulate heavy water in excess of the needs of the modified Arak reactor, and will sell any remaining heavy water on the international market for 15 years.
• Iran will not build any additional heavy water reactors for 15 years. Sanctions
• Iran will receive sanctions relief, if it verifiably abides by its commitments.
• U.S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place.
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• The architecture of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of the deal and allow for snap-back of sanctions in the event of significant non-performance.
• All past UN Security Council resolutions on the Iran nuclear issue will be lifted simultaneous with the completion, by Iran, of nuclear-related actions addressing all key concerns (enrichment, Fordow, Arak, PMD, and transparency).
• However, core provisions in the UN Security Council resolutions – those that deal with transfers of sensitive technologies and activities – will be re-established by a new UN Security Council resolution that will endorse the JCPOA and urge its full implementation. It will also create the procurement channel mentioned above, which will serve as a key transparency measure. Important restrictions on conventional arms and ballistic missiles, as well as provisions that allow for related cargo inspections and asset freezes, will also be incorporated by this new resolution.
• A dispute resolution process will be specified, which enables any JCPOA participant, to seek to resolve disagreements about the performance of JCPOA commitments.
• If an issue of significant non-performance cannot be resolved through that process, then all previous UN sanctions could be re-imposed.
• U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal.
Phasing
• For ten years, Iran will limit domestic enrichment capacity and research and development – ensuring a breakout timeline of at least one year. Beyond that, Iran will be bound by its longer-term enrichment and enrichment research and development plan it shared with the P5+1.
• For fifteen years, Iran will limit additional elements of its program. For instance, Iran will not build new enrichment facilities or heavy water reactors and will limit its stockpile of enriched uranium and accept enhanced transparency procedures.
• Important inspections and transparency measures will continue well beyond 15 years. Iran’s adherence to the Additional Protocol of the IAEA is permanent, including its significant access and transparency obligations. The robust inspections of Iran’s uranium supply chain will last for 25 years.
• Even after the period of the most stringent limitations on Iran’s nuclear program, Iran will remain a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits Iran’s development or acquisition of nuclear weapons and requires IAEA safeguards on its nuclear program.
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#nucléaire iranien#accord nucléaire iranien#iran
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Security forces find Israeli presumed missing in West Bank - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.650305

Security forces find Israeli presumed missing in West Bank
The case was initially being treated as a kidnapping, but it later emerged that the circumstances were linked to criminal activity. The army described the incident as a ’prank.’

Sommet de la Ligue arabe : Forcing égyptien et saoudien pour une force militaire arabe
par Yazid Alilat►http://www.lequotidien-oran.com

La mise en place d’une force militaire arabe conjointe, la menace de la déstabilisation du Yémen et la prise de pouvoir des Houtis, dans ce pays, ont constitué le principal sujet à l’ordre du jour de la 26ème session du sommet des chefs d’Etat de la Ligue arabe, hier, dans la station balnéaire égyptienne de Charm Echeikh.

Ce sommet a, en fait, débuté sans préambule, puisque l’ordre du jour était déjà connu : mettre en place une force militaire arabe conjointe pour faire face aux défis qui menacent la région.

Le forcing de l’Egypte et, particulièrement, du Président Al Sissi pour la création de cette coalition militaire arabe a éclipsé les autres points, au menu de cette session, dont celui de la lutte contre le terrorisme, alors que ce sommet s’est ouvert, en pleine intervention militaire contre les positions des Houtis, au Yémen. Une réunion tripartite entre les présidents égyptien Al Sissi et yéménite Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi et le monarque saoudien Salmane Ben Abdel Aziz al Saoud, s’est tenue juste avant l’ouverture de ce sommet. Les trois chefs d’Etat avaient, notamment, discuté de la nécessité de la création d’une force arabe commune pour faire face aux défis qui se posent aux pays de la région, dont le terrorisme, l’avancée des Houtis, au Yémen, et l’Etat islamique (Daech) en Irak et en Syrie.

C’est, en fait, sur cet ordre du jour que le sommet des chefs d’Etat des pays arabes s’est ouvert, avec en toile de fond les bombardements aériens menés, au Yémen, par une coalition de dix pays conduite par l’Arabie Saoudite, qui ont déjà fait de nombreuses victimes. Une opération militaire contre les positions des Houtis, entamée, mercredi soir, qui est perçue par les observateurs au sommet de Charm Echeikh comme un sérieux test pour les pays arabes dans leur lutte contre la menace du terrorisme et de Daech. Dès le début du sommet, l’Egypte et l’Arabie saoudite, à travers leurs chefs d’Etat, ont réitéré cet objectif de la création d’une telle force militaire arabe conjointe d’intervention ou pour lutter contre les groupes terroristes, en particulier Daech, en Syrie, en Irak, et qui progresse en Egypte et en Libye.

Pour Ryadh, cependant, le plus urgent est de mettre un terme à l’avancée des Houtis, au Yémen et les empêcher de prendre le pouvoir dans ce pays, qui, à l’évidence, est à l’origine de la mise en place rapide d’une coalition composée de dix pays arabes. Et, dès le début des travaux de ce sommet de deux jours, le président égyptien Al Sissi qui préside pour un an la Ligue arabe, a insisté pour la création rapide de cette force arabe pour « faire face aux menaces, sans précédent, pour l’identité arabe » que constituent « les groupes terroristes » et la multiplication des conflits. Avant l’ouverture de ce sommet, l’Egypte avait, même, abordé la possibilité d’envoyer au Yémen des troupes au sol, si nécessaire. Le roi Salmane Ben Abdel Aziz al Saoud d’Arabie saoudite, en faisant référence à l’intervention militaire conjointe que son pays dirige au Yémen, a affirmé que cette opération durerait jusqu’au rétablissement de la sécurité dans ce pays.

Le président yéménite a estimé, lui, que cette opération aérienne devrait continuer jusqu’à la « reddition » des Houtis. « J’appelle à la poursuite de cette opération jusqu’à ce que ce gang (les Houthis, ndlr) se rende et se retire de toutes les terres qu’il occupe, dans toutes les provinces », a lancé M. Hadi. Il ajoute que l’intervention de la coalition « est un test pratique pour une force arabe unie, devenue une exigence, afin de protéger durablement la sécurité des Arabes », a ajouté le président yéménite, et autant, elle doit aussi constituer un « test pratique » pour une future force arabe, ajoute t-il.

Sur la table de ce sommet, il y a donc un projet de résolution égyptien, déjà entériné par les ministres arabes des Affaires étrangères, jeudi, qui mentionne que cette force militaire conjointe, regroupant des troupes des Etats membres, sera chargée de mener « des interventions militaires rapides » pour parer aux menaces sécuritaires.

Les chefs d’Etat devraient, donc, adopter ce projet de résolution égyptien à la fin de leurs travaux. Mais les divergences entre les 22 pays composant la Ligue arabe, pourraient faire capoter ce projet, sinon le retarder. Un diplomate yéménite relève en particulier qu’il est important « que cette force ait des objectifs spécifiques, ainsi qu’un plan et un programme clairs ». En outre, il y a une grande divergence d’objectifs entre les états membres de la Ligue arabe, car si Ryadh veut lutter contre l’influence dans la région de l’Iran, à travers les Houtis, au Yémen, l’Egypte, la Jordanie et d’autres pays arabes veulent, en priorité, éliminer la menace terroriste et Daech, même si la situation au Yémen retient le plus l’attention de par ses conséquences sur l’équilibre politique dans la péninsule arabique.

Pour autant, seule l’Algérie s’est clairement exprimée sur cette force arabe d’intervention. Ramtane Lamamra, chef de la diplomatie algérienne, avait, jeudi, expliqué que « l’Algérie n’autorisera aucune participation de ses troupes armées à des opérations militaires, en dehors de ses frontières », a-t-il affirmé. Il précise, cependant que l’Algérie « pourrait, toutefois, apporter un soutien en logistique au-delà de ses frontières, sans pour autant impliquer ses troupes armées ».
De son côté, l’ancien président de la Ligue arabe Amr Moussa, a estimé que la création d’une force arabe commune est « importante » dans les circonstances actuelles. Les travaux de la 1re journée, centrée sur les interventions des chefs de délégations, ont été levés vers 16h, et devaient reprendre vers 19 h locales, à huis-clos. L’Algérie est représentée à ce sommet par le président du Conseil de la Nation, Abdelkader Bensalah, représentant du président Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Les djihadistes chiites, l’autre menace pour l’avenir de la Syrie et des Syriens (2/3) | Un oeil sur la Syrie
►http://syrie.blog.lemonde.fr/2015/04/01/les-djihadistes-chiites-lautre-menace-pour-lavenir-de-la-syrie-et

Les perles sont trop nombreuses pour être toutes citées dans cette nouvelle contribution de « Leverrier » qui explique, en gros, que les « djihadistes chiites » sont « l’autre menace pour l’avenir de la Syrie »... Dès les premières lignes, celle-ci me plait bien :

C’est en particulier grâce à des experts iraniens que les services de renseignements syriens, en captant les appels à manifester échangés sur Internet par les activistes et les opposants, ont été en mesure durant des mois de prévenir les rassemblements et de repousser l’explosion populaire tant redoutée.

C’est sûr, il faut de grands « experts » pour capter des appels publics à la manifestation ! (Leverrier fait d’ailleurs semblant de ne pas savoir qu’ils étaient lancés pour l’essentiel sur des pages Facebook de militants naïfs/crédules...)

Deux remarques sur ce billet que je n’ai pas envie de commenter en détail :
– Leverrier joue (depuis longtemps) sur les mots en taxant le Hezbollah et les individus chiites qui (de fait) combattent pour le régime syrien de « djihadistes ». Les seconds sont des mercenaires, comme on en trouve (en plus grand nombre je pense) du côté des « rebelles » ; les seconds sont des militants, éventuellement des « résistants » si l’on accepte la rhétorique du Hezbollah. Néanmoins, les premiers n’ont pas d’idéologie, et ne peuvent à ce titre être traités de « djihadistes », quant aux seconds, ils sont autant « djihadistes » que l’étaient les combattants de l’armée algérienne qu’on appelait les « moudjahidins ». Si je suis bien l’assimilation des termes que nous propose cet expert, la guerre de libération de l’Algérie était un « djihad » (avant l’heure) ? Il y a une différence entre, d’un côté, la présence d’un référent religieux (éventuellement confessionnel) dans un engagement politique, et, de l’autre, le type d’engagement dont se réclament les sujets du calife Al-Baghdadi. Le passer sous silence me semble être le signe d’une passion aveugle.
– En fait, Leverrier parle de trois dangers pour les « partisans du changement » (qui ne sont plus des « révolutionnaires » apparemment) : celui que représentent les « djihadistes chiites » donc, les deux premiers étant la barbarie de Bachar al-Assad et celle d’al-Baghdadi... Mais, sur le terrain (des opérations militaires, s’entend), où sont donc les « partisans du changement » ? Pourquoi tellement stigmatiser les « djihadistes chiites » puisqu’ils ne luttent plus guère contre les « vrais révolutionnaires » syriens mais, pour l’essentiel, contre la « barbarie d’al-Baghdadi » ? Permettre au peuple syrien de retrouver un peu d’espoir, ne serait-ce pas, éventuellement, souhaiter qu’on arrive à imposer une solution négociée dès lors que les « partisans du changement » ont perdu la guerre ? (Ce qu’avaient prédit d’ailleurs, dès le début, des militants syriens tels que Haytham Mannaa, mais c’est un nom honni, qu’il ne faut jamais mentionner, sans doute parce qu’il dit des choses qui dérangent...)

Head of Arab party only Arab lawmaker to stay for national anthem - Israel News, Ynetnews
▻http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4643586,00.html

Head of Arab party only Arab lawmaker to stay for national anthem
The majority of Israel’s Arab lawmakers walked out of the Knesset inauguration ceremony when the national anthem was played – except Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint Arab List.

Kahlon trop gourmand parce que décidé à infléchir la politique sociale en Israël ? Si je ne m’abuse, le Likoud ne peut pas faire sans Kahlon. Les tractations en vue de former une coalition en Israël empêchent toute réforme

Likud threatens coalition deal with ultra-Orthodox first if Kulanu isn’t flexible - National - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.650140

Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party has stiffened its demands in the coalition negotiations with Likud and its unwillingness to be show flexibility could well lead Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign coalition agreements with other parties first.

“We wanted Kulanu to be the first party with which we signed,” said a senior Likud official. “It is only natural that Moshe Kahlon, who is expected to be Finance Minister, would be involved in our economic agreements with other parties. But Kulanu’s negotiating team does not understand this and is not being flexible in its demands.

"In such a situation, we certainly do not intend to wait for them and will sign agreements with the Haredi parties and Yisrael Beiteinu. That means Kahlon will discover only after the fact what financial commitments we are making [to the other parties] — and they are numerous.”

IDF soldier charged with aiding enemy in ’Facebook spy’ affair - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.650242

An Israel Defense Forces soldier has been charged with assisting an enemy, following a probe into his role in the “Facebook spy” affair, it was revealed Thursday following the lifting of a gag order.

Sudki Makat, a Druze supporter of the Assad regime in Syria and resident of the Golan town of Majdal Shams, was indicted last week with espionage and assisting the enemy during wartime, by means of image and posts on his Facebook page. Much of the affair is still under gag order.

IDF, police looking for Israeli missing in the West Bank - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.650305

The Israel Defense Forces and police were verifying a report on Thursday that an Israeli went missing in the West Bank, and that he may have been kidnapped by Palestinians.

Security forces were combing the area in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, where the man from Be’er Sheva was feared missing.

According to reports, the man entered the village of Beit Anun, and did not come out again. A friend of the missing person phoned the police at 4:17 P.M. and told them that they had a flat tire between Kiryat Arba and Beit Anun. He told the police that his friend had entered the village to get tools for changing the tire, but never returned.

The IDF is looking into the report, and combing the area.

ISIS takes over much of Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus - Middle East - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.650112

A leading Syrian human rights NGO as well as eyewitnesses said that by Wednesday afternoon, ISIS fighters had taken over large parts of a Damascus camp for Palestinian refugees and were threatening to assume full control of it.

The Al-Yarmouk camp lies eight kilometers south of the center of the Syrian capital. If ISIS takes charge there, it would mark the closest the jihadist organization has gotten to the heart of its target, the Assad regime.

Syrian jets were reported bombing near the camp to stop ISIS’s advance.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting broke out between ISIS and the Palestinian jihadist group Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis.

The camp, besieged by Assad regime forces for the last year, had fallen under the control of the Syrian rebel jihadist group Nusra Front. NBC-TV quoted an eyewitness saying Nusra Front was fighting alongside ISIS, which stormed the camp from the Hajar Aswad neighborhood immediately south of it.

ISIS “pushed from the Hajar Aswad area and Nusra fighters have joined them. They have pledged loyalty to Daesh,” said the witness, using an Arabic term for ISIS.

Witnesses in the camp said ISIS made its move after several of its fighters were recently captured inside Al-Yarmouk by Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis and other groups.

Al-Yarmouk has become a focus of the humanitarian crisis in Syria, with many Palestinian refugees dying from the severe food and medicine shortages there.

Before the Syrian civil war, the camp had a population of 160,000; now it stands at 18,000, with former residents settling in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and others in Syria.

Oh oh, Israël accepte un plan de construction de milliers de logements pour les Palestiniens à Jérusalem Est. A suivre de près...

Israel okays plan for thousands of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem - National - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.650035

The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee this week approved what will be the largest construction project of housing for Palestinian families in Jerusalem since 1967. The plan to build 2,500 housing units in Jabal Mukkaber in the southern part of East Jerusalem, was approved despite fierce opposition from right-wing politicians and organizations.

According to the plan’s architect, Senan Abdelkader, the opposition stalled the project for at least four years.

The plan to build 2,500 housing units as well as numerous playgrounds, parks and other public spaces near schools in Arab as-Sawahra, a neighborhood of Jabal Mukkaber, was approved years ago, and has won support from many officials within the Jerusalem Municipality. Mayor Nir Barkat, who tried to get the plan approved during his previous term as mayor, sees the step as an important means of improving the lives of East Jerusalem residents. Jabal Mukkaber borders the Jewish neighborhood of East Talpiot.

During an earlier stage of the approval process, Barkat said “planning in the neighborhoods in the Eastern part of the city by the municipality is a quintessential expression of Israeli sovereignty on all parts of the city, and strengthens a united Jerusalem. Without Jerusalem Municipality planning, a harsh, dangerous reality could arise in which individual planning projects would be approved by the courts, without any kind of systematic vision or consideration being given to the various issues facing the neighborhood in terms of building the public institutions lacking there.”

Barkat also noted that “the alternative to regulated planning is illegal construction of thousands of housing units and taking over large open spaces, which would harm the area as well as Israeli sovereignty over a unified Jerusalem.”

Members of various right-wing and settler organizations, however, worked against the plan and succeeded in causing significant delays. Former Interior Minister Eli Yishai refused to grant approval to the overall urban plan for Jerusalem due to right-wing claims that it allowed for construction of the Arab as-Sawahra neighborhood. In the end, neighborhood residents filed a petition with the courts that forced the authorities to reconsider and continue discussing the plan.

According to architect Abdelkader, the project is important not only because it will alleviate the housing crisis for the Arab population in East Jerusalem, but also because it will establish a precedent of cooperation among Palestinian landowners in advancing a large, joint construction project.

“I had doubts about accepting this project. I didn’t want to become a pawn for politicians, but the residents gave me a mandate. The public understood that it could act collectively in order to improve its situation,” said Abdelkader.

The hearing that took place on Monday in the district committee was attended by dozens of neighborhood residents who will be granted building permits as a result of the approval of the plan. The hearing was also attended by activists from various right-wing groups, as well as city councillor Aryeh King, who asked that the plan be postponed amid claims that it was advanced without sufficient research into the actual construction needs in East Jerusalem.

Despite the approval of the plan, it will be a long time until the neighborhood is built, as residents now need to organize into groups and submit detailed requests for building permits. The plan does allow, however, for relatively small groups of landowners to join forces for the approval of small-scale individual construction plans.

“The discussions revealed the extent to which opposition to the plan was political, as on one side there were the landowners, for whom the plan is like their last loaf of bread, and on the other side there were many powerful settler organizations,” read a statement released by the Ir Amim non-profit organization, which advocates for a more equitable distribution of land and resources in Jerusalem. The organization called on the planning authorities “to act with professional consideration and make decisions that lead to the most effective implementation of the plan.”

Is Israel ready for the new Arab leader Ayman Odeh? - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.649978

The rise of Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List of Arab parties – which became the third-largest faction in the Knesset when it garnered 13 seats in this month’s elections – presents a unique opportunity to improve Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.

This week, Odeh led a four-day march by Bedouin of the Negev and their supporters to the Jerusalem residence of President Reuven Rivlin. In the president’s absence (he was attending the funeral of the first prime minister of Singapore) Odeh presented an alternative plan for Bedouin resettlement in the Negev to Mrs. Rivlin.

In making the issue of unrecognized Bedouin villages his first priority since the elections, Odeh’s message was not just that he cares about Bedouin children who have no plumbing or electricity, but that under his leadership Arab Knesset members will put social issues and the needs of their constituents at the top of their agenda, rather than waving the flag of Palestinian statehood or anti-Zionist posturing. In choosing an issue involving competing land claims, Odeh also signaled that he is not afraid to tackle politically loaded subjects.

But the transformation Odeh seeks to catalyze goes further than reprioritizing. Odeh wants genuine engagement with and by Israel’s Arab citizens in determining the course of this country and its policies. When Odeh says he will fight for equality for immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union as well as for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, and that he is willing to cross any party lines to find allies for this cause, he is arguing that a Knesset member is responsible for all Israelis, not just his ethnic camp. Implied in this discourse is a critique not only of Jewish hegemony in the Knesset, but of the longstanding practices of Arab Knesset members.

Odeh appears to be counting on broad – if dormant – Jewish support for equality for Israel’s Arab citizens. He will have to navigate between Palestinian nationalists in Israel’s Arab communities and Jewish nationalist charges – whether stated overtly or implied – that Israel’s Arabs are a Fifth Column.

But, like author and screenwriter Sayed Kashua, Odeh seems singularly attuned to the complexities of both Arab and Jewish identity in Israel; he gets it. Leading the Bedouin march in his baseball cap and middle-aged paunch, Odeh looked like nothing so much as a typical (Jewish) Israeli father out on a nature hike. He comes across the small screen as thoughtful and affable.

In the Knesset, Odeh will have to overcome a history of anti-Israel grandstanding that has become a shortcut to re-election for Arab parliamentarians. Among the public, he will have to overcome the low expectations Arab voters have of their representatives’ ability to deliver tangible benefits and to transform the perceptions among many Jewish Israelis of his faction, shaped by the reputations of some of his Joint List partners. Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al), for example, is an effective parliamentarian, but one that is identified with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Haneen Zoabi of the separatist Balad party, who famously took part in the Mavi Marmara flotilla to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza in an act some here consider treasonous, seems committed to outraging Jewish sensibilities.

Jewish parliamentarians will also have to play a role, by permitting progress in their ties with their Arab counterparts. They will have to set aside the catcalls and race-baiting (means they use to rally the right-wing base), and recognize that Odeh is offering something new: genuine discourse without demagoguery. Honest engagement and discussion about the future of Jewish and Arab Israelis would benefit both populations.

The hopes of Israel’s Arab voters were raised in this election, and while there was never an expectation that the Joint List would be a coalition partner, or even act as a cohesive unit after the election, there were expectations that voting might produce some concrete change for our Arab citizens. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really wants to apologize for his Election Day anti-Arab incitement, he can engage Odeh and his colleagues in genuine policy discourse, addressing social services for sure, but also issues of state and identity.

If our new government fails to seize this unique opportunity, the confidence of Israel’s Arab citizens in our democracy will be eroded and Jewish-Arab relations will sour.

Don Futterman is the program director for Israel of the Moriah Fund, a private American Foundation working to strengthen civil society in Israel. He can be heard weekly on TLV1’s The Promised Podcast.

Le tam tam de la guerre aver le Hezbollah commence dans la presse

IDF : Thousands of rockets, high casualties in future Hezbollah attack - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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Hundreds or even thousands of rockets could be fired at Israel every day in a future war with Hezbollah, causing large-scale casualties, according to a new assessment by the Home Front Command.

That scenario was revealed Tuesday by outgoing Home Front commander Maj. Gen. Eyal Eizenberg, who said that the population of Israel needed to be prepared to face the challenge of hundreds of fatalities from rocket barrages.

“We need to prepare for the possibility of a ’blitz’ which could lead to between 1,000 to 1,500 rockets falling on Israel daily,” Eizenberg said.

However, appropriate behavior by the civilian population will limit the number of casualties, Eizenberg added.

The Home Front Command recently updated its assessment of a possible attack by Hezbollah and has begun distributing it to local authorities throughout the country.

In light of the assessment, the command is preparing for the possibility of massive civilian evacuations. Official plans for civilian evacuations are being drawn up, though they won’t be made public.

In the event of a confrontation, the Home Front Command will be ready to either evacuate civilians temporarily to army camps or to implement a wide-scale national plan for the evacuation of entire communities.

According to the Home Front’s data, 27 percent of the population doesn’t have any protection at all, Eizenberg said.

The scenario of an attack on Kiryat Bialik, for example, assumes dozens of rocket landings on an average day, hundreds of civilians evacuated, a small number of fatalities, dozens of moderately to seriously wounded and hundreds of cases of panic.

Asked whether it would not have been better to evacuate the settlements on the Gaza border during last year’s war, Eizenberg said that he didn’t think it was the “place to discuss what might have been, but we learn from every operational event.”

Eizenberg is due to be replaced shortly by Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick.

Israel charges Palestinian with fighting with ISIS in Syria - National - Israel News | Haaretz
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A Jerusalem district court has indicted a Palestinian from East Jerusalem on charges of traveling to Syria to join and fight with the Islamic State militant group.

The Shin Bet security service said Khalil Khalil, born in 1990, had joined a gym at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to physically prepare for the mission.

The agency said he told his family he was going on a religious pilgrimage to Mecca, but instead, he and a friend flew to Istanbul in January and then traveled to a safe house in southern Turkey. From there, smugglers brought them to Syria.

Khalil returned after a few weeks and was later arrested by the Shin Bet.

It said about 40 Palestinians and Arab-Israeli citizens have gone to fight with militant groups in Syria.

Second refugee baby dies in two days at Tel Aviv day-care center - National - Israel News | Haaretz
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Another baby has died in a South Tel Aviv day-care center for children of asylum seekers. The cause of death remains unknown.

The baby, about four months old, died on Sunday, less than 48 hours after doctors declared the death of another baby in a nearby center in the city’s Hatikva neighborhood. The latest victim was found lying on his stomach, after several hours during which he had apparently been neglected by caregivers.

Three infants died in South Tel Aviv day-care centers in February, in addition to the dozens who have reportedly died under similar circumstances over the past two years. The latest casualty, like many of the other victims, was the child of Eritrean refugees.

Israel seeks to demolish Palestinian village on ‘archaeological’ grounds - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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The state has asked the High Court of Justice for permission to demolish the ancient Palestinian village of Sussia and relocate its residents to Yatta, near Hebron, allowing for more archaeological work at the site.

The government’s intent was noted in a response to the High Court of Justice regarding a petition filled by Sussia residents and human rights organizations about a year ago.

Before this petition was filed, an additional petition was filed by the Regavim organization, funded by settler-group Amana and regional authorities in the West Bank, calling for Palestinian “illegal outposts” in Sussia to be demolished.

The state opposed the court’s temporary injunction against demolition, despite the fact it often supports such temporary injunctions when they are made against illegal Jewish outposts.

Just last month, the government approved such a temporary injunction against the demolition of two structures in the Beit El settlement, after the High Court had already made a ruling.

The petition criticizes decisions made by the Civil Administration’s planning committee to reject an alternate plan suggested by Sussia residents, stating that the relocation to Yatta is in their best interest. The residents’ petition also seeks to cancel 64 separate demolition orders against all of the 100-or-so structures in the village. Alternatively, the residents ask that the Civil Administration offer a different solution that would allow them to continue living on the land, which they own.

Attorney Kamar Mishraki-Asad, representing the Sussia residents, told Haaretz, “It’s incredible, but with the settlements, it was already ruled that Sussia land is privately owned and thousands of dunams of land in the area are privately owned by Palestinians. Despite this, for many years the army has prohibited residents from setting up their homes in the area, and has rejected any request for construction or planning permits, in order to keep them away from the Sussia settlement and to allow the settlers to continue seizing the agricultural lands, and expel the residents to Areas A and B.

IDF playing war games, but with real Palestinians - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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A new eruption of violence could be triggered by a local incident of a religious character (involving the Temple Mount again, or a serious attack by Jewish extremists on a West Bank mosque); exacerbation of the political crisis between Israel and the PA; an economic crunch in the West Bank; or a combination of all of the above.

Israel has discerned growing difficulty on the part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – who celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday – to control the Tanzim (the Fatah movement’s grassroots groups). Tanzim activists are bearing arms more openly than in the past, and challenging the PA’s authority in the refugee camps. Israeli Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino said recently, in a private forum, that the defense establishment is concerned about a possible renewal of terrorist activity by the Tanzim – a phenomenon that disappeared in the past decade.

The IDF set the end of March as the target date for completing its preparations, ahead of a possible new eruption of violence in the West Bank. The confrontation could come later, or not happen at all at present, as the Palestinians focus their efforts on the international diplomatic arena.

The three terms that are most in use in internal IDF briefings are containment; restraint in the use of force; and avoidance of large-scale Palestinian casualties. But even such well-intentioned planning does not take into account the fact that it is the blue – Israeli – side that is initiating in the confrontation against the adversary, which is marked in red on the briefing maps.

The current danger of possible escalation is attributable to the actions of both sides: the Palestinians’ request, last December, to join the International Criminal Court in The Hague; Israel’s subsequent decision to freeze the transfer of 1.5 billion shekels ($380 million) of tax revenues collected for the Palestinians; and Likud’s victory in the election last week, which has aggravated the sense of pessimism in the territories.

The military effort to prepare an effective but not exaggerated response is akin to the promise of the Waze navigation application to bring a driver to his destination by the quickest possible route. What happens is that, as the app directs more and more drivers using Waze to that same quick route, it causes it to become jammed – which is to say, the behavior of the system itself wields considerable influence on the course of events and the final results.

Dress rehearsal under coercion

This week, during a visit to nighttime maneuvers by the IDF’s Territorial Brigade in the Ramallah (Binyamin) region, in preparation for a possible escalation on the ground, one could discern an effort by the commanding officers to delineate for the troops the character of the expected confrontation.

Only the brigade commander and, to a lesser degree, the battalion commanders still remember what a genuine West Bank intifada looks like. The company commanders may have fought in Gaza, but not in the West Bank. The exercise was predicated on a mix of possible events: violent mass demonstrations; shooting attacks; and use of live fire by members of the Palestinian security forces.

In practice, the sector was quiet. As the soldiers advanced on foot toward the town of Bir Zeit, next to Ramallah, the antennae of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi were visible behind them, to the north. Late last month, after multiple bureaucratic delays, Israel finally agreed to allow the city to be connected to the water-supply infrastructure. IDF officers say they are impressed by the high level of construction in the meticulously planned city, which will eventually house some 40,000 Palestinians. A four-room apartment will cost $120,000. It’s 45 minutes (and one checkpoint) by car from Tel Aviv, but at this stage Israeli investors aren’t showing an interest.

The Israeli forces raid Bir Zeit at points chosen in advance. The soldiers climb up a hill to the town through groves and fields, and then spread out on the empty streets. In one house, a drowsy male student in pajamas – a Jenin resident studying at Bir Zeit University – converses in English with a female soldier from a Home Front Command battalion. A superficial search turns up a poster in memory of the two East Jerusalem terrorists who murdered four worshipers and a policeman at a Jerusalem synagogue last November.

In the Home Front battalions, which carry out missions in the territories very similar to those of the infantry (policing, routine security, arrest of Palestinian suspects), women are full-fledged combatants, executing the same tasks as the men in mixed units. What no one on the Israeli side seems to be taking into consideration is that by sending women out on night missions into the homes of a society that remains quite conservative, Israel is sticking another finger in the eye of the Palestinians.

The exercise was planned with the goal of causing relatively little disruption to the routine of Palestinian life. The only complaint that reached the Israeli media came from the head of the regional council in the (Jewish) Beit Arye settlement: his PR man fired off an angry email about an attack helicopter landing in the settlement without prior warning. The helicopter, he wrote, “woke up children and caused panic among the inhabitants.” The army apologized and explained that the helicopter was supposed to have landed next to a nearby Palestinian village.

Still, after almost 48 years of occupation, it seems that only an outsider is taken aback by situations the IDF blithely accepts. It’s the duty of commanders to collect intelligence and prepare their troops ahead of a possible confrontation. However, within the framework of the maneuvers – and with no immediate security need – the Palestinian residents become extras who are not asked whether they want to take part in the dress rehearsal, and receive no warning of what is about to take place. Their homes are targets for night visits, searches and the family’s coerced awakening.

At best, the PA can preserve order and protect the citizens of the West Bank from manifestations of anarchy. But when the IDF enters, the PA steps aside and the inhabitants are left on their own. Shortly before the exercise began, the Israeli brigade commander phoned his Palestinian counterpart to inform him about the planned entry of the troops. According to the regular procedure, which is also applied in real operations to arrest suspects, the Palestinian commanders ordered police officers to remain inside the camps and police stations.

The first stage of the exercise ended at 3 A.M., the dark hour when prime ministers fear phone calls bearing bad news. The brigade’s units had completed the task of locating the targets.

The rest of the night also passed without any unusual drama. The events reported via radio communication – firebombs being thrown, sniper fire, an attempted suicide bombing attack – didn’t go beyond the scenarios invented by the leaders of the exercise. Bir Zeit would soon awaken to a new day.

Today and every day, about 160,000 Palestinians from the West Bank – some 40,000 of them illegally – make their living from working in Israel, the settlements and Israeli industrial zones in the West Bank. These are the same people, of course, who are theoretically carrying out acts of terror in the aforementioned scenarios. The Israeli security forces recently issued 10,000 new work permits, in an effort to offset the economic damage being caused by the freeze on tax transfers. Besides, someone has to go on building the settlements.

Autre conséquence positive des dernières élections israéliennes : Israël libère les fonds qui reviennent à l’Autorité palestinienne
Des proches de Netanyahu affirment qu’il lui était plus facile de libérer ces fonds après les élections.

Israel releases withheld tax revenues to Palestinian Authority - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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Israel will allow the transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels in tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, the prime minister’s bureau announced on Friday.

The revenues, which Israel collects on behalf of the authority, have been withheld for the past four months following the authority’s referral of Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for possible war crimes.

The bureau said in its statement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted the recommendation of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, the Israel Defense Forces, and the Shin Bet security service that the revenues be transferred.

Israel will transfer tax revenues that have accumulated since February, less payments for services provided by Israeli entities, including the Israel Electricity Corporation, the water authority and hospitals.

“The decision was made, among other things, for humanitarian reasons and out of an overall assessment of Israel’s interests at this time,” according to the statement.

In recent months, Israel has been under intense pressure from the United States and the European Union to transfer the funds, due to the precarious economic situation in the Palestinian territories and out of concern that economic collapse could lead to anarchy in the West Bank.

That same concern motivated Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, his predecessor Lt. Gen. (ret.) Benny Gantz, Shin Bet head Yossi Cohen, the coordinator of government activities in the territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai and other senior security officials to pressure for the transfer of the funds.

Netanyahu hesitated to do so during the election campaign, primarily out of concern that it would harm him politically among right-wing voters and enable attacks on him by his political rivals, such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett.

The prime minister’s associates indicated to several international visitors in recent weeks that releasing the funds would be easier for Netanyahu to do after the elections.

The people were wrong - Israel Opinion, Ynetnews
▻http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4641368,00.html
Susie Becher is a member of the Meretz National Executive.

Simply put, the people were wrong. They were wrong in not recognizing that the fastest road to affordable housing and a lower cost of living is an end to the occupation. They were wrong in choosing the path of isolation over acceptance of the Arab Peace Initiative, with its promise of normalization with the member states of the Arab League. They were wrong in not calculating the boost to the economy that would come from a reduced defense budget and from an end to the funds squandered on building and maintaining settlements.

They were wrong in thinking that there can be any advancement in the education of the next generation as long as our children are being desensitized to the suffering of others. They were wrong in buying into the fear-mongering around the consolidation of the Arab vote instead of welcoming the Arabs’ readiness to join the establishment and seek reforms by working within the system. They were wrong in reelecting a leader who took a huge bite out of the hand that feeds us, and they matched his arrogance with their belief that there will be no day of reckoning for the affront to the president of the United States.

The signs of a downturn in relations with the United States were visible in the delay of the traditional congratulatory phone call, and on Sunday the public statements coming from the Oval Office left no doubt that Bibi’s days as a verbal acrobat are over. If we are lucky, the price will be paid only at the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, but the demand for accountability is unlikely to end there. Calls for economic sanctions are gaining popularity, and the European countries may well give in to the pressure.

But the biggest concern is the sense of despair among the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s “no” to a Palestinian state took peace talks off the table, extinguishing all hope for a negotiated settlement. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas still speaks of nonviolent resistance, but he isn’t going to live forever and the pressure cooker that is the Palestinian territories may well boil over into violent conflict.

The Israeli people went to the polls with their eyes wide shut, thinking that the status quo is sustainable. It isn’t. Israel is on its way to becoming an international pariah, and the people – who once again chose might over right – have only themselves to blame.

This is not the time for the left to beat its breast and temper its message. On the contrary, it must raise the alarm louder and clearer and focus all its efforts on the root of all evil: The occupation. Any progress made in any other area will be short-lived unless this fundamental issue is resolved.

Netanyahu won the election by convincing the public that disaster will befall us if the left were to win. It now falls to the left to convince them that the true disaster awaits us if it doesn’t. A prophet is never welcome in his own land, but it falls to the left to assume this unpopular role because our future hangs in the balance.

Amnesty International: Hamas, other Palestinian groups committed war crimes ... - Israel News, Ynetnews
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Amnesty International: Hamas, other Palestinian groups committed war crimes during Gaza conflict
Rights group cites deaths of six Israeli, 13 Palestinian civilians in ’indiscriminate’ rocket attacks, Hamas use of civilian buildings to store arms.

#Amnesty

Abbas to host Arab list lawmakers to discuss Knesset agenda - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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Some members of Arab party alliance Joint List are not pleased Palestinian Authority has publicized the meeting.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is planning to host a reception for Joint List MKs after they are sworn in and hold discussions with them on political developments in Israel and the lawmakers’ Knesset activity, an official in Abbas’ office said Wednesday.

The official said the PA does not expect the MKs to focus solely on the Palestinian issue, but said it was important for discussions of peace and ending the occupation to have a prominent place in Israeli political discourse.

Joint List officials confirmed plans for the reception, but some of the 13 MKs on the ticket, an alliance between Israel’s Arab parties and the Arab-Jewish Hadash party, were not pleased the PA had publicized the meeting. Some of the MKs are concerned that close public ties with the PA could have a negative effect on the party in Israel.

Abbas meets Joint List delegation in Ramallah HQ | Maan News Agency
▻http://www.maannews.com/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=760085

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — President Mahmoud Abbas received a delegation from the Arab Joint List in the presidency headquarters in Ramallah Tuesday evening.

The delegation included head of Arab Joint List Ayman Odeh, and members Masoud Ghanayim, Jamal Zahalqa, and Usama al-Saadi.

Member of the Fatah movement’s central committee, Muhammad al-Madani, also attended the meeting.

Abbas congratulated the delegation on their 14-seat win in the 20th Israeli Knesset elections that took place earlier this month, and the delegation applauded the President’s efforts and his persistence to national rights.

The Joint List, an alliance formed by four Arab parties — United Arab List, Ta’al, Balad and Hadash — was the first time parties representing Palestinian citizens in Israel have joined forces.

Autre résultat immédiat des dernières élections israéliennes : gel de la construction de 1500 unités d’habitations à Jérusalem Est.

Israel freezing construction in East Jerusalem neighborhood - Israel News, Ynetnews
▻http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4640852,00.html

Israel freezing construction in East Jerusalem neighborhood
EXCLUSIVE: Some 1,500 new housing units Har Homa on hold due to political sensitivity, Netanyahu’s office presses pause on discussions.

Israel is freezing construction of 1,500 new housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, beyond the Green Line, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election eve declaration that building in Jerusalem would continue regardless of international pressure.

Les résultats des élections en Israël ont ouvert la voie à une autocritique très sévère de la société israélienne dans ses médias (mais peut-être moins au sein de la population…). La parole se libère

Première tare : le racisme polymorphe de la société israélienne

Racism in Israel cuts much deeper than black and white - Routine Emergencies - Israel News | Haaretz
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You might think that the creation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition and the sniping between Israel’s government and the White House would be at the forefront of post-election public discussion in Israel today.

But no - across social media, on radio talk shows, on the street and around water-coolers - the conversation has been overwhelmingly about race.

Deep-seated prejudices and resentments, always simmering below the surface, exploded into view during the hard-fought election campaign. And over the week since the polls closed, it has proven impossible to put the racial genie back into the bottle.

Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, like many overseas pundits, missed the many layers of Israel’s race issue in his post-election analysis. Comparing Netanyahu’s warning that “droves of Arabs” were voting to get out the right-wing vote to racist Republican scare tactics aimed at white voters in the U.S., Meyerson joked that “perhaps Likud and the Republicans can open an Institute for the Prevention of Dark-Skinned People Voting.”

Would that racism in Israel was as simple as skin color: it is a far more complicated mix of nationalism, religion and culture.

For example, it’s hard to find skin fairer than that on the wounded, tearful countenance of Lucy Aharish, a successful television anchor who also happens to be a Muslim citizen of Israel and who was the first to publicly demand that Netanyahu apologized for his remarks. Aharish hosts a mainstream “The View”-style program in Hebrew on Israel’s highest-rated station, Channel 2, and also broadcasts news in English on i24 News, a Tel Aviv-based international news channel. Raised in the southern Jewish town of Dimona, she straddles two worlds and cultures, and takes flak from both sides. In the midst of the election campaign, Aharish was chosen as one of the torch-lighters in the annual Independence Day ceremony. To many right-wing Jewish Israelis, she is an unwelcome interloper. To others on the far left - including Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy - she is considered something of an Uncle Tom, or as the locals put it disparagingly, a “pet Arab.”

Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Saturday, Aharish didn’t hesitate to show the Israeli audience the personal pain Netanyahu’s remarks caused her. On the brink of tears, her voice was quavering and she shook her head in disbelief: “It’s horrifying, because hell - I am a citizen of this state. I’m a citizen who just can’t believe that their prime minister stood up and spoke that way … the prime minister of Israel who is supposed to be the prime minister of all of the citizens of Israel cannot allow himself to speak the way he spoke. It just can’t be that he would incite against 20 percent of his population.”

Netanyahu seems to have forgotten, she chided, that “only months ago” Jewish yeshiva students were killed because they were Jews, and shortly afterward a Palestinian boy was murdered because he was Arab. “The next time an Arab is murdered, it’s going to be as if the prime minister gave that murder a kosher stamp” of legitimacy,” Aharish said.

One doubts that Netanyahu’s subsequent half-hearted expression of “regret” to Israel’s “minorities” (in the remarks described as an apology, he neither used the word “apology” nor the word “Arab”) has done much to mollify Aharish. It will be interesting to see how she uses her torch-lighting platform during the Independence Day ceremony next month.

But Netanyahu was not the only face of racism in Israel this week - in fact, he wasn’t even the front-runner. That honor belonged to one Yoram Hetzroni - a communications professor who looks more like an aging refugee from an 80’s heavy metal band than an academic.

Hetzroni is no stranger to controversy - he was removed from his position at Ariel University for remarks he made against female victims of sexual assault, which he claims represent a political vendetta against his left-wing views. The fact that he has little to lose professionally must have played into his choice to toss lighter fluid on the flames of post-election ethnic tensions, insulting Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent who make up Netanyahu’s core supporters in a fiery appearance on a morning chat show.

“It wouldn’t have been terrible if your parents had been left to rot in Morocco,” he told fellow guest Amira Bouzaglo. It must be noted that Bouzaglo had just called him a fascist and a racist for his stand against Israel’s Law of Return and policy of encouraging Jewish immigration, which he suggested was ultimately responsible for the ingathering of the riff-raff whose votes had kept Netanyahu in power.

Even in the no-holds-barred world of Israeli political debate, his remarks were judged by the host of the show to have crossed the line - and Hetzroni was summarily dismissed from the television studio after declining an opportunity to apologize.

The Hetzroni incident added to the existing fury of the anger sparked during the campaign when artist Yair Garbuz, a speaker at a pre-election anti-Netanyahu rally, railed against “amulet-kissers, idol-worshippers and people who prostrate themselves at the graves of saints” whom he charged were controlling the State of Israel.

Both Garbuz and Hetzroni touched on historic sensitivity of Moroccan, Iraqi, Yemenite and other “dark-skinned” groups who feel that their pride, culture and religious beliefs have been trampled for decades by a condescending, secular, “white” Israeli Ashkenazi elite. This resentment has long been politicized, with lighter-skinned Israelis identified with leftist Labor, and darker-skinned Israelis with right-wing Likud.

Usually, the members of the left-leaning elite who do, in fact, scorn their counterparts are too polite or politically savvy to express their disdain openly. But the high stakes and strong emotions of this election season pulled sentiments which most Israelis would rather bury above ground. Some libertarian types defended Hetzroni’s right to express his politically incorrect views - but in mainstream Israel, it created such a furious backlash that the police announced that they were “examining his statements” to see if they “constituted a crime.”

Where will Hetzroni be when Aharish lights her torch? Far away, presuming there are no actual charges filed against him. Unrepentant, Hetzroni announced on television that he is packing his bags and “leaving all this garbage behind and getting out of here” after concluding that “I’m too logical, intelligent and successful for this place: this is an emotional, hot-tempered and Levantine country.”

And, it can be added, one that won’t miss him very much.

La société française Safege (Suez Environnement) se retire du projet de « cable car » à Jérusalem, après l’intervention des ministres des Finances et des Affaires étrangères français, et suite aux plaintes de Saeb Erekat.

French firm pulls out of controversial Jerusalem cable car project - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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Safege of France, which was slated to play a key planning role in the Jerusalem cable car project, has canceled its participation after being warned against it by the French finance and foreign ministries, a Wednesday media report said.

To “avoid giving any political interpretation,” Suez Environnement “has decided not to continue,” Le Figaro on Wednesday quoted a spokesman for Safege’s parent as saying.

Another French company that was mentioned in connection with the Jerusalem cable car has also declined to get involved.

The project, described in detail in Haaretz three weeks ago, is expected to encounter much opposition for its political as well as environmental and urban-planning implications. Many observers are skeptical that the plan will ever come to fruition.

Erekat’s initiative

Le Figaro reported that on March 10, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, contacted French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to complain about the French company’s willingness to take part in building the cable car in East Jerusalem.

“The plan will lead to the illegal expropriation of private property, some of which belongs to the Waqf,” Erekat wrote to Fabius. The Waqf controls the major Islamic sites around the Old City, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Subsequently, the French administration secretly called a meeting with Safege’s directors. On March 12, the French Finance Ministry warned Safege’s board about the legal risks the project entailed, and the company says it sought a legal opinion on the matter.

Another French company that had expressed interest in the project, Puma, has since declined to get involved, too. On March 10, Puma, a prominent company in cable transportation, said it “did not sign any contract and did not conduct preliminary feasibility inspection for the construction project in Jerusalem,” according to Le Figaro.

Goal: reducing traffic

The Jerusalem plan envisions a cable car system that would substitute for other transport modes to the Western Wall area and other sites in Jerusalem’s historic basin.

A presentation prepared by the planners, and seen by Haaretz, shows four planned cable car stations: at the First Train Station at the end of Emek Refaim Street; next to Dung Gate by the Western Wall; next to the Seven Arches Hotel on the Mount of Olives; and near Gethsemane.

The cost is estimated at NIS 125 million ($31.7 million). Supporters of the project expect the new system to significantly reduce vehicle traffic around the Old City.

The project has yet to be submitted to the planning committees for approval, but it is being energetically promoted by the municipality and the Jerusalem Development Authority (a part-government, part-municipal body).

The right-wing organization Elad, which operates the City of David National Park, is also promoting the project.

Budget items

Documents from the JDA’s tenders committee show that in the past year, a budget of more than 1 million shekels was allotted to promote the project. Correspondence with Safege, at a cost of 87,400 euros, was done to advance the detailed planning of the project.

The JDA also approved correspondence with nine Israeli companies, including a management company, building consultants, electrical engineers, land consultants, accessibility consultants, architects and more.

Some 55,000 shekels was allotted for consultations with Seter Security Consulting about securing the cable car machinery, and 412,000 shekels was allotted to the project’s planners, the firm of Rosenfeld Arens.

At the meetings of the tenders committee, some who were present sought to reduce the costs, since if the planning committees do not approve the plans, this money will have been wasted.