Israel- Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper

10,000 March in Largest-ever Animal Rights Parade in Israel - Israel - Haaretz
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Organizers call for jail sentences for perpetrators who recently torched dog shelter in northern Israel.

Palestinian Women, Children Stop IDF Soldier Detaining a Minor - Diplomacy and Defense - Haaretz
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http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.673470!/image/3122644660.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_474/3122644660.jpg

L’armée israélienne en concurrence avec #Gorafi:

According to the army, the youth was throwing stones at the troops, who did not realize he was a minor.

#mineurs #Palestine #Israël #impunité #Israel

Actu israélienne : « Quand la satire devient la réalité » (The Onion équivalent du Gorafi)

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Reality and satire often correspond with each other. But sometimes they actually intersect.

Consider the report that appeared in Haaretz on July 15. According to the report, which quoted a senior U.S. official, U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone and, in the wake of the deal on Iran’s nuclear program, had offered to begin immediate talks about upgrading the Israel Defense Forces’ offensive and defensive capabilities.

Haaretz’s headline: “After Iran deal, Obama offers military upgrade to help Israel swallow bitter Iranian deal.”

Now consider the report from online satirical newspaper The Onion, published just a day before: “Following Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s heated objections to the nuclear deal struck between the United States and Iran,” the report wrote, “American officials announced Tuesday that they were calming the upset head of government by treating him to a nice, big shipment of ballistic missiles.”

The Onion’s headline: “U.S. Soothes Upset Netanyahu With Shipment Of Ballistic Missiles.”

Anti-Arab racism up after Gaza war and election campaign, report says Survey by Coalition Against Racism also shows increase in racist comments by elected officials.
By Jack Khoury | Jul. 14, 2015 | Haaretz
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The summer Gaza war and winter election campaign increased the incidence of racism in Israel, including anti-Arab acts, the group the Coalition Against Racism said Tuesday.

The report was due to be presented at the Knesset at an event launching a parliamentary caucus against racism.

Facebook and the Internet in general have been a locus for racism, but the report discusses both physical and verbal incidents, including racism in Knesset bills and comments by elected officials.

Over the past year there have been 237 racist incidents, 160 of them during the war, the report states. It cites 192 anti-Arab incidents, compared with 113 in 2013. The report discusses both physical and verbal incidents.

“We are living in this country and are aware of the increase in racist violent incidents, but the report uses statistics to confirm the deep sense and danger,” said MK Aida Touma-Suliman (Joint Arab List), who with Michal Biran (Zionist Union) heads the new Knesset caucus.

“The report shows a disturbing increase in incidents of incitement and expressions of racism by elected officials and decision makers,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Religious Action Center of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism has unveiled a report on incitement against Israeli Arabs on the web. According to the survey, conducted between July and October last year, 30 percent of racist incitement called for violence against Arabs or expressed support for such violence.

Forty percent of the cases called for a boycott of businesses employing Arabs, or for Jewish-only labor. Despite efforts during the war to act against people running racist Facebook pages, law-enforcement officials don’t appear to have taken a cohesive long-term position on how to curb incitement on the Internet, the report says.

#Israel #racisme

Jerusalem proceeding with plan to build on old Muslim cemetery
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The Jerusalem municipality is moving ahead with construction plans at a site that for many centuries housed a Muslim cemetery.

Last week, the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee approved a massive construction project to be built over the current location of the Experimental School in Independence Park, in the city center. It has been known for years that this location was once a large cemetery that served the city’s Muslim residents.

Israel to shut Palestinian TV station broadcasting from Nazareth -
Public Security Ministry says activity of Palestinian Authority backed-station breaches Israeli ’sovereignty.’
By Yaniv Kubovich | Jul. 9, 2015 | Haaretz Daily
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Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan signed, on Thursday, an order shutting down a Palestinian TV channel geared toward Israel’s Arab citizens, which started broadcasting a few days ago.

“I will not allow any breach of the sovereignty of the State Israel and give the Palestinian Authority in Israeli territory,” Erdan said.

The channel, F48 - Palestine 48, began broadcasting in Nazareth from two trucks parked outside a restaurant, which functioned as the station’s studio.

The decision to shut down the TV station wasn’t due to questionable content, but rather due to reasons of “sovereignty,” as the ministry described it. According to the ministry, the channel was working for and under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority within the State of Israel, without it having been given a permit in writing as required by clause 3(a) of the law on implementation of the interim agreement regarding the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (restriction of activity) 1994.

According to the order, the station will not be allowed to operate “anywhere within the state of Israel” for six months.

Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken: Israel’s settlers have won Haaretz Daily Newspaper |
In a wide-ranging interview with the student newspaper of Ariel University, Schocken discusses how the Israeli right has redefined Zionism, how Israel isn’t interested in peace, how the future of Israel is cause for concern – and how, despite all this, peace is still possible.
By Almog Ben Zikri Jun. 24, 2015
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t’s not easy being Amos Schocken, the publisher of Haaretz, in present-day Israel. The Israeli bon ton is distancing itself from him, and he and his newspaper have become a target for the barbs of right-wing organizations, who portray the newspaper as anti-Zionist and as a fifth column. And those are some of the milder descriptions.

For Schocken, 70, everything began with family. His German-born grandfather, Zalman Schocken, began his career as an uneducated shopkeeper and became an economic phenomenon. Along with his varied business interests and the chain of department stores that he built and managed, he was an impressive autodidact who read books on philosophy, history, the humanities and Judaism. He provided financial support for quite a number of Jewish philosophers and intellectuals, and was the patron of Israel’s Nobel laureate for literature, S.Y. Agnon.

In 1934, when the Nazi party came to power, Zalman Schocken, an ardent Zionist, decided to immigrate to Palestine. There he became a member of the board of the Jewish National Fund, and helped to purchase land in Haifa Bay. In 1935, he added to his publishing empire a local newspaper that he purchased for 23,000 pounds sterling. It was called Haaretz.

“My father told me a story,” says Amos Schocken. "My grandfather participated in meetings of the JNF board of directors. The representatives of the ’settlers’ of that time, the settlement movement that wanted to establish kibbutzim and moshavim, would come to ask for money for their projects. Some of the requests were approved, some rejected. Suddenly my grandfather realized that what had been rejected at one meeting would reappear at the next one.

Dr. Arthur Ruppin, one of the leaders of German Zionist who emigrated to Palestine in 1908, sat next to him at the time. So my grandfather asked: ’Dr. Ruppin, I don’t understand. At the previous meeting we decided not to approve that settlement. Why is it coming up again?’ And Ruppin replied, ’Mr. Schocken, you don’t understand. In Palestine there’s no such thing as ‘no.’ ‘No’ is only a postponement until the next meeting.’

“Dr. Arthur Ruppin (a leader of the Jewish settlement movement in Palestine) was sitting beside him. So my grandfather asks: ’Dr. Ruppin, I don’t understand. At the last meeting we decided we were not approving this settlement. Why has it come up again?’ And Ruppin answered: ’Schocken, you don’t understand. In Palestine thee’s no such thing as no. No just means it’s been put off until the next meeting.’” Some might say that Amos Schocken also doesn’t understand that there’s no such thing as ’no,’ especially when it comes to peace plans and withdrawals.

Grandfather Zalman gave the newspaper to Amos’ father, Gershom Schocken, who was chief editor and publisher from 1939. After his death, in 1990, Amos became the publisher. The paper’s guiding principles have remained clearly leftist. (Amos Schocken told me he only once vote for Likud – in 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, because he felt Prime Minister Golda Meir had unleashed a catastrophe.)

Haaretz opposes Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank. It is critical of official bodies in Israel – including the Israel Defense Forces. This often elicits anger from the Israeli public, as happened last year during Operation Protective Edge, when Haaretz published a piece by Gideon Levy ("Lowest deeds from the loftiest heights") that called the Israel Air Force a “death squadron.”

I met Schocken, who is also one of Israel’s most important art collectors, at the Haaretz offices in south Tel Aviv.

Des Druzes attaquent une ambulance de l’armée
▻http://fr.timesofisrael.com/des-druzes-attaquent-une-ambulance-de-larmee-transportant-des-bles

Les assaillants pensaient que le véhicule transportait des rebelles syriens blessés...

Alors que le véhicule ne transportait que...

... des victimes des retombées de la guerre civile syrienne...

You live in Ramallah? Do you want me to help get you out? -
Amira Hass received an unusual phone call on her Palestinian cellphone the other day.
By Amira Hass | Jun. 16, 2015 |Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
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Last Tuesday, my Palestinian cell phone rings. Caller ID shows it’s from an Israeli number. “Hello, this is Yad L’achim,” the young voice on the other end says. Excuse me? I respond.

I’m speaking from Yad L’achim. We’ve heard that you live in Ramallah. Is that true? Are you interested in our assistance?

Assistance with what? I say. If you want to leave, comes the response. Why would I want to leave? I ask. Just asking, the caller says. Just asking if everything is OK. If everything is OK, then stay there.

His name is Yitzhak, and I ask him: And if I do want to leave, how will you get me out of Ramallah? Do you go into Ramallah? Or set a place to meet?

“I’m just a volunteer,” he says diplomatically, “but the minute that you say you need to get out, I will tell the call center, the management at the office. They will know what to do.”

No, he has not yet had the chance to get someone out of the West Bank, but he has prepared for it. He hasn’t been volunteering for very long, he explains, but he “tries to help, just volunteering here for his national civilian service. Anything that Jews and Arabs need help with, I try to help.”

“You also help Arabs?” I ask.

“I help everyone. I try. I am not officially doing national service. It’s like picking up hitchhikers at every hitchhiking post.”

Israeli government approves bill to force feed prisoners on hunger strike - Israel - Israel News | Haaretz
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“Security prisoners are interested in turning a hunger strike into a new type of suicide terrorist attack through which they will threaten the State of Israel. We will not allow anyone to threaten us and we will not allow prisoners to die in our prisons,” said Erdan.

Une nouvelle entrée dans la définition de l’#attentat_suicide #Israël #Israel #orwell

Tel Aviv U. academics hold first-ever discussion about BDS - Israel - - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
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About 30 Tel Aviv University students, mostly graduates and Ph.D. candidates, took part on Monday in a discussion about the boycott movement against Israel, particularly the academic boycott. The very fact that a discussion was held that did not completely condemn the BDS movement and included some expressions of support, is considered unusual.

The discussion was held under the auspices of the university’s sociology and anthropology department. It was the first such event held by the department, and apparently the first at Tel Aviv University.

One of the speakers was Dr. Hila Dayan of Amsterdam University College in Amsterdam, one of a group of about 40 anthropologists who oppose the attempt by the Israeli Anthropological Association to ban discussion on Israel at an upcoming international conference. The association is due to discuss the issue on Thursday.

Dayan drew a connection between what she said was the failure of Israel’s universities to deal with inequality in education and “their indifference to what is happening in the occupied territories.” She said that she did not support an academic boycott “because I think that Israel will be saved from itself only thanks to the enlightened world.” But she said she supported an “inner boycott.”

According to Dayan, “sanctimoniousness reigns” among leftists who oppose a boycott. “Many of them think that an economic boycott, like the pressure on Orange and boycotting the settlements is legitimate, but an academic boycott is not. Why, though?” Dayan criticized the universities for “on the one hand claiming that they are for dialogue and an exchange of views and on the other, vehemently opposing any demand to take a stand on the occupation. So what kind of an exchange of opinions is that?” she asked.

Professor Dan Rabinowitz of the university’s sociology department and head of its Porter School of Environmental Studies pointed to a petition signed by some 1,300 anthropologists worldwide calling on universities in Israel to persuade the government to withdraw from the territories as one of the conditions for lifting the boycott. 

“That is a condition that cannot be met,” he said. “The universities are not in a position to make an institutional stand on political issues. We don’t know the opinion of Tel Aviv University on the occupation and refugees, just as we don’t know the opinion of UCLA Berkeley on climate change, Guantanamo or the war on terror.”

According to Rabinovitz, BDS is led by people who “never believed in a two-state solution, or who gave up on it,” while in the Israeli academic world there are still many people who believe in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. For people who believe that it is better for Israel as a political entity to stop existing, “the presence of Israelis who can show an enlightened face and arouse empathy is an obstacle. Therefore Israeli academic and cultural institutions are a nuisance. The universities are more dangerous to the post-Zionist vision than Netanyahu, Bennett, and Shaked,” he added.

Benny Begin viré parce que inutile pour Netanyahou et sa minable politique politicienne

Long-time Likud official Benny Begin expected to leave cabinet - Israel - - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
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Less than three weeks after being appointed to the cabinet, Benny Begin is set to be ousted to make way for another Likud minister, Gilad Erdan. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Facebook post Friday that while he would “make every effort to incorporate MK Benny Begin into the cabinet later,” Likud’s coalition partners had objected to changing the agreed-on number of portfolios per faction, making it impossible to keep both Begin and Erdan.

Who cares if she’s beautiful? Ayelet Shaked is dangerous
Because the sexist attacks on Israel’s new justice minister have been so vile, the public debate has been hijacked by gender politics, and Shaked has been spared much of the criticism she rightly deserves.
By Asher Schechter | May 14, 2015 Haaretz
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The Justice Ministry doesn’t usually garner much interest among Israelis. It is, after all, a mid-level prize, modest compared to more lucrative ministerial posts like Defense, Finance and Foreign Affairs. However the announcement last week that Ayelet Shaked of Habayit Hayehudi would be Israel’s new justice minister seems to have struck a raw nerve.

Reactions to her appointment were extreme, to say the least. Many responded with shock and fear, voicing concerns that a right-wing extremist who in the past has entertained quasi-genocidal thoughts will now be in charge of Israel’s entire justice system. A great many others chose to rebuke Shaked for her looks, instead of her politics.

“Finally, we have a Justice Minister worthy of being featured on calendars in auto repair shops,” cracked former cabinet minister and Knesset member Joseph Paritsky on Facebook. In a later interview, Paritsky quipped that she was “as beautiful as the women of the Reich.”

Paritsky’s comments, sadly, were not the only ones referring to Shaked’s looks. A gossip item in Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot told of a visit Shaked and her husband made to a hotel pool during a family outing. “Unfortunately for the others holiday makers,” the item concluded, Shaked remained clothed.”

The sexist attacks on Shaked eventually led Meretz leader Zehava Galon and Meretz MK Michal Rozin to uncharacteristically rush to Shaked’s defense, forsaking for a short while their vehement criticism of her extremist ideology for a vehement defense of her as a woman.

“I am fed up with all of the sexist and misogynist comments regarding Ayelet Shaked,” wrote Galon in a hugely viral Facebook post that also described the incoming minister as an “intelligent and hard-working politician with nationalist anti-democratic views.|”

The problem is, in the great hullabaloo over Shaked’s sexist detractors, her “nationalist anti-democratic views” have been glossed over to a great extent. Because the sexist attacks regarding her looks have been so vile, the public debate has been hijacked by gender politics, and in the process, Shaked has been spared much of the criticism she rightly deserves.

Indeed, to many Israelis, the idea of Shaked as justice minister is downright frightening. And it has nothing to do with her looks. It’s got everything to do, however, with her unyielding extremism.

A rather obscure (but combative) right-wing activist up until a few years ago and the only secular woman in the otherwise religious Zionist party led by Naftali Bennett, Shaked has entered politics with the outspokenness and indignation of an activist. Among other things, she is one of the originators of the so-called “nation-state bill” that aims to turn Israel’s democratic values into unwanted subordinates of its Jewish identity. One of the major pieces of legislation she intends to promote as minister is her own so-called “NGO bill,” which limits the donations received by human rights groups and other left-wing organizations.

In July, Shaked made international headlines when she took to Facebook to share an inflammatory article by the late right-wing journalist Uri Elitzur that called for the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians “including the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses” — and referred to Palestinian children as “little snakes.”

Distorted views

To have a person who entertains, however briefly, thoughts of indiscriminate killing, that promotes Jewishness over democracy, thereby admitting the two are mutually exclusive, in charge of the Israeli judicial system? That’s a scary thought indeed.

But her extremism is not the only reason the prospect of her as justice minister is worrisome to many. It is also her distorted, dangerous views regarding the Israeli justice system, her repeated promises to act on those views and her new capacity as chair of the powerful and secretive Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which decides which bills are allowed onto the Knesset floor and is a perfect graveyard to bury unwanted bills. As chair of the committee, she won’t be able to make or break a bill on her own, but she’ll have enormous influence on the fate of legislation, and therefore on the actual functioning of Israeli democracy. What this means for gay rights legislation, some of which Shaked spoke against before, is anyone’s guess.

She also harbors an intense dislike of Israel’s judiciary, specifically the Supreme Court. Shaked has never hidden her views on the Israeli legal system, or her intention of curbing its power and independence. Shaked and her party leader, incoming Education Minister Naftali Bennet, have repeatedly said in the past that Israel’s judges are too powerful and too left-wing and have to be reined in. One of Shaked’s major pieces of legislation during the last Knesset term was a bill aimed at allowing the Knesset to override the Supreme Court and reenact laws that the court disqualified. As justice minister, she is expected to push for a reform that would change the process by which judges are selected and move as much of the decision-making as possible to the Knesset.

This Tuesday Shaked sounded a conciliatory tone, saying “we are proud of our Supreme Court. It is among the world’s leading high courts, and its justices are outstanding.” Between judicial activism and judicial restraint, Shaked said she prefers “the conservative approach.” That’s as incendiary as she got, but it’s hard to imagine her detractors, who fear she will turn out to be a zealous minister persecuting human rights and religious freedoms and irreparably politicizing the justice system to suit her (and the right wing’s) needs, will be appeased by this.

The real damage?

Of course, as extreme as Shaked is, her views regarding the Supreme Court and her plans for it are not very new, and little is likely to actually change in this respect any time soon. The right wing has been trying to erode the Supreme Court’s independence and reform the judge-selection process for its own purposes for many years now, and so far its success can been measured in small increments. Daniel Friedman, Ehud Olmert’s justice minister, shared many of Shaked’s views regarding the justice system, yet the judicial selection process hasn’t changed.

The truth is, it’s much harder to change the Israeli justice system than it may seem, and with designated Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon resisting many of the proposed changes to the Supreme Court, Shaked likely lacks the political muscle to force radical reforms.

What’s more, the truth is, Israel’s Supreme Court is not the bastion of left-wing elitism Shaked makes it out to be. The image of the interventionist, ultra-left Supreme Court is one of the most enduring myths of Israeli politics. In fact, it regularly rules in favor of the government on security matters, and is a great enabler of Jewish ethnocracy in Israel.

That doesn’t mean Shaked as justice minister is not a worrying prospect, or that she is not dangerous, just that she will most likely not lead a vast revolution of the Israeli justice system.

Most likely, like her predecessors, she’ll just bring the system closer to the extreme right by another small increment. That small increment, though, might be slightly bigger than the rest.

What does Israel’s new justice minister really think about Arabs? - Ayelet Shaked has quickly become one of the country’s most controversial and talked-about politicians. A guide to separate the fact from the f(r)iction.
| Haaretz
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Does Israel’s new justice minister truly believe that a good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian, as some of her detractors would argue?

For those convinced that MK Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) is a flaming racist and, therefore, entirely unsuitable for her new job, one particular Facebook status update from last summer is providing potent ammunition. Written on June 30, as tensions were escalating between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, it cited an article authored by the late settler leader Uri Elitzur, which included the following passage, widely interpreted as a call by Shaked to murder innocent Palestinians:

“Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. Actors in the war are those who incite in mosques, who write the murderous curricula for schools, who give shelter, who provide vehicles, and all those who honor and give them their moral support. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

The post was picked up around the world, with the Turkish prime minister (and now president) Recep Tayyip Erdogan – not a great fan of Israel in the best of times – famously comparing Shaked to Hitler. Shaked published this post a day before Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem, was beaten and burned to death by Jews, in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens in the West Bank. The update was then rather mysteriously deleted.

Responding to the huge backlash that ensued, Shaked explained that her words had been taken out of context and mistranslated from the Hebrew. In a column published in The Jerusalem Post on July 16, under the title “Exposing Militant Leftist Propaganda,” the young lawmaker wrote, “A call for the indiscriminate killing of children is a terrible thing. But what if the statement was that any time you kill our children, you’re exposing your own children to the same fate? Still unsettling, but rational when you consider that they purposely use their kids as human shields. It’s not a call for indiscriminate murder.”

As for mistranslations of the English version of the post, the Jerusalem Post column provides no concrete evidence. Indeed, a screenshot of the original Hebrew post taken before it was deleted shows that the English translation was, indeed, very accurate.

Following the murder of Abu Khdeir, Israel’s justice minister-designate appeared to show some remorse. In a status update on her Facebook page a few days later, she wrote that whoever killed the Palestinian teen deserved the same punishment as any other “cold-blooded” murderer of innocents: life in prison with no pardon.

Shaked, a 39-year-old mother of two, is both the only woman and only non-Orthodox member of the right-wing Habayit Hayehudi party to sit in this Knesset. She rejects assertions that she is an extremist, defining herself as “mainstream right.”

How mainstream is she? The following quotes, culled from interviews she’s given in recent years, offer some clues:

• In March 2011, terrorists brutally murdered five members of the Fogel family from the Jewish settlement of Itamar in their sleep. At the time, Shaked was running a right-wing advocacy group called My Israel (Yisrael Sheli) and had convinced relatives of the family to hand over graphic photos of the victims to be distributed to the international media. After commenting on this highly controversial PR ploy in an interview with Haaretz Magazine in June 2012, she said, “The soldiers who arrested the murderers of the Fogel family − I admire them for not shooting them in the head. I admire them.”

• In a Channel 2 interview program broadcast in January 2012, she was asked the following question: “When your husband the pilot, when he’s up in the air, do you hope he’ll be pounding the Arabs hard with bombs?” Shaked responded first with a laugh and then said, “Yes.”

• While she was running My Israel, Shaked learned that Bank Leumi was promoting the sale of a real estate company in Jerusalem to a consortium that included a Palestinian investor. Here’s how she described what ensued in an interview with Haaretz in April 2011, “In order to prevent the sale of the neighborhood to Arab hands, all members of the group [My Israel] were instructed to call senior executives at the bank and protest, and those with accounts at Bank Leumi were instructed to call their branch managers and notify them of their desire to leave the bank.” The campaign ultimately paid off.

• In an interview with the nrg website in March 2013, Shaked was asked to address the issue of Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount – a key flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I’m not saying that now, de facto, we should get up and change the status quo. But we do need to talk about it, and we do need to allow Jews to go up there more and pray,” she said.

On most issues, Shaked does not keep her views a secret. She is, in fact, quite outspoken. She was a driving force behind the highly controversial “nation-state” bill, which puts Israel’s Jewishness above its democratic aspirations. She has lobbied incessantly for legislation that would outlaw foreign contributions to left-wing NGOs. She has railed against the government for not cracking down more forcefully on asylum seekers from Africa.

But on matters of religion and state, she tends to keep uncharacteristically mum. The reason, it would seem, is to avoid offending her party’s overwhelmingly Orthodox voters. So when Jewish Pluralism Watch, an organization founded by The Masorti Foundation for Conservative Judaism in Israel, recently surveyed Knesset members about their views on matters of religion of state, the woman poised to take control of Israel’s legal system pleaded the Fifth on the following queries:

• How do you feel about recognizing and providing equal status to all the various streams of Judaism [non-Orthodox movements]?

• Would you support legislation that allows religious services (marriage, divorce, conversion, burial, etc.) to be provided through all the various streams of Judaism [non-Orthodox movements]?

• Do you believe that equal rights for the LGBT community should be legislated? Including the possibility of marrying and setting up a family?

Avant même que son government soit officiellement nommé, Netanyahu veut changer la Loi fondamentale d’Israël afin d’élargir son cabinet et de nommer des ministres sans portefeuille et vices ministres. Il faut contenter tout le monde…

Les petits partis de la coalition sont les premiers servis, et reçoivent la part du lion. Sans eux, Netanyahou ne peut conserver son poste de premier ministre.

Foyer juif : ministères de la justice, de l’Education, de l’agriculture et de la diaspora,
Kulanu : ministères des Finances, du logement et de l’environnement,
Shas : ministères de l’Economie, des affaires religieuses, du développement de la Galilée et du Negev,
United Torah Judaism : ministère de la Santé ;

Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) veut saisir la Haute Cour de justice si la demande de Netanyahou est approuvée par l’actuel cabinet ministériel, au motif qu’un government de transition ne peut proposer des amendements à la Loi fondamentale.

Par ailleurs, si cet amendement passe, il doit être également approuvé par la Knesset (en session plénière) . Tout doit se faire à une vitesse éclair. Si l’amendement n’est pas approuvé, la coalition peut s’effondrer, et un autre député peut être nommé afin de former une nouvelle coalition.

Netanyahou s’est bien gardé de distribuer des portefeuilles aux membres du Likoud avant ce vote fatidique, afin d’éliminer tout scénario dans lequel des députés déçus du Likoud pourraient s’abstenir.

Merveilleux scénario digne d’une série tv américaine.

With coalition on the line, Netanyahu’s cabinet approves proposal to expand government - Israel - Israel News | Haaretz
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Amendment to Basic Law would enable Netanyahu to appoint ministers without portfolio and increase the number of deputy ministers in the next coalition ; if Knesset rejects bill, coalition likely to dissolve.

Former MK Azmi Bishara wants to return to Israel, but fears unfair trial - Israel - Israel News | Haaretz
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Bishara, who fled to Qatar and is suspected of treason and espionage, gave a rare interview to local media.

Azmi Bishara, the former Knesset member who fled to Qatar amid allegations that he had passed information to Hezbollah in Lebanon, says he will not be returning to Israel in the near future because he will not get a fair trial here and he still feels persecuted by the defense establishment.

Speaking yesterday on Radio Ashams, which broadcasts from Nazareth, Bishara said that if it depended on him personally he would return to his homeland, friends and family but he does not see this happening in the foreseeable future. The program was aired to mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the political party Balad, which Bishara founded, and which is today part of the Joint Arab List.

Lately, Bishara has rarely spoken to the media in Israel, including the Arab media, instead conveying his messages in articles or interviews to Al-Jazeera. Until the Arab Spring, Bishara was considered a senior commentator in the Arab world. Residing in Qatar, he toed the Qatari line in support of the Syrian rebels, which brought him into conflict with pro-Syrian-regime elements.

Bishara explained that his opposition to the regime stems from his support for the democratic camp and the Syrian people, who initially came out, as was the case in Tunisia and Egypt, with a call for democracy and freedom. “I never supported radical and Salafi groups who view anyone different from them as infidels. But I explained even at the beginning of the events in Syria that the conduct of the regime and opening fire on people calling non-violently for change and freedom would lead to the arming and strengthening of those radical groups,” he said. According to the former MK, the situation in Syria today requires a political solution that would include the basis of the regime, to maintain the state institutions, “otherwise Syria will break apart like Somalia,” he said.

Bishara said it is clear that Israel’s new coalition is not heading for peace and that the continued closure of Gaza will lead to another conflict, with the Palestinian Authority keeping a lid on protest in the West Bank.

Bishara, who founded and runs a research institute in Doha, Qatar, is considered close to that country’s rulers, which also allows him to send funding to social affairs and sports associations, including the Nazareth soccer team Ahi Nazrat, which recently received a grant of half a million dollars from the Qataris.

Israel’s attorney general to block coalition deals aimed at funding settlements - Israel - Israel News | Haaretz
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Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is expected to oppose any distribution of funds as part of Likud’s coalition agreements with Habayit Hayehudi and United Torah Judaism, particularly those earmarked for the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division.

In an opinion published in February, Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber wrote that the government must stop funding the Settlement Division, either through the general budget or directly to the department. Consequently, the 2015 budget will not include funding of the division.

Weinstein approved the opinion and is therefore expected to oppose its contravention in the coalition agreements.

Under the coalition agreement signed between Habayit Hayehudi and Likud late last week, 50 million shekels (around $13 million) will be added to the budget of the WZO’s Settlement Division, which funds infrastructure for West Bank settlements and which Agriculture Minister-designate Uri Ariel will control.

According to a directive issued by the attorney general in April with regard to political agreements with funding ramifications, money is not to be earmarked in a way that gives the sense that it “belongs” to parties or factions, and a political agreement is not to be implemented at all if it earmarks funding to a specific entity.

The directive was issued out of concern that such earmarking of funds could make the receiving entities dependent on the parties that wrote the agreement “to their benefit,” and could also often constitute a cover for personal or political gain. The directive requires professionals in the various ministries to weigh in on any such political agreements before they are signed.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government faces its first challenge even before being sworn in later this week. Netanyahu will have to ensure that all 61 members of the coalition vote to amend the Basic Law on the Government tomorrow, in order to enable an increase in the size of the cabinet. Only then will Likud begin to hand out portfolios.

This morning, the outgoing cabinet will be asked to approve Netanyahu’s request to postpone implementation of the clause restricting the cabinet to 18 members. Netanyahu will also ask the cabinet to allow him to renew the controversial tradition of appointing ministers without portfolio to his new cabinet, along with increasing the number of deputy ministers.

The outgoing cabinet is expected to ask the Knesset to move these amendments ahead by expedited legislation, and to vote on the second and third readings as early as Monday. MK Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) said Saturday that his faction would petition the High Court of Justice against the move.

As part of the coalition agreement, Likud and Habayit Hayehudi also agreed on the appointment of a team to review ways to legalize unauthorized settlement outposts and unauthorized buildings within settlements. The government has not promised to renew construction in West Bank settlements and in Jerusalem, despite Habayit Hayehudi’s demand for such a commitment.

The outposts team – which is likely to include the cabinet secretary, a representative of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and two representatives of Justice Minister-designate Ayelet Shaked and Ariel – will only have three months to formulate its recommendations.

The coalition agreement features a special arrangement whose purpose is to prevent Shaked from obtaining total control of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation (the body that determines which bills the coalition will advance and which will be blocked). As justice minister, Shaked will chair the committee.

Likud took action to curb her power out of fear she will delay legislation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports, or accelerate the passage of controversial draft laws behind his back. Under the coalition agreement, Netanyahu will appoint a deputy to Shaked, with whom she must coordinate the committee’s agenda. “If the deputy requests that a vote be delayed, it shall be delayed until a new arrangement is agreed between the deputy and the chairwoman of the committee, or until the prime minister decides otherwise,” the agreement states.

Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett requested a billion-shekel addition to the budget of the Education Ministry, which he will head, but in the end his party will be allotted 630 million shekels to support its goals in the areas of education, welfare, settlement, culture, religion and agriculture. The money will come out of coalition funds that, prior to the 2013 election, Bennett referred to as “pocket change.”

The coalition agreement also stipulates that the government is “to examine claims of a rise in illegal missionary activities in Israel and the steps to deal with them, as needed.” Likud and Habayit Hayehudi also agreed to establish a forum for communication among the parties in the coalition on the issue of religious services.

The Gush Katif Heritage Center, meanwhile, will be allotted a three-year budget of 15 million shekels that will also cover the costs of commemorating the 10-year anniversary, later this year, of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

Les manifestants éthiopiens arrêtés suite aux manifestations ont été victimes de violences et d’humiliation.
Par exemple, Nebo Ari Bako, 25 ans. Après s’être fait fracasser la mâchoire, il a été retenu dans un car de police toute une nuit et n’a été transporté à l’hôpital que le lendemain. Après avoir vomi dans le car, les policiers lui ont promis qu’il allait nettoyer..

Ethiopian Israelis say police abused them after arrest - Israel - Israel News | Haaretz
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Several protesters who were arrested Sunday at the Tel Aviv demonstration held by Israelis of Ethiopian descent say they were mistreated by the police following their arrest.

According to them, they were kept overnight in a police van and, despite being badly beaten, were denied medical treatment and not allowed out to relieve themselves.

The detainees accuse the police of brutal, contemptuous conduct and say they wouldn’t have been treated this way had their skin color been different.

Nebo Ari Bako, 25, of Bnei Brak, had his jaw and teeth broken by policemen’s blows. He was arrested after blocking the traffic on the Ayalon Highway before the protest heated up on Rabin Square later that night.

Bako says he did not resist arrest when officers took him to the police van, but other demonstrators tried to pull him out. At this stage a policeman pulled his hair, choked him, twisted his arm and held him while another hit him in the face and back of the head with a police radio, breaking his jaw and several of his teeth.

Bako says he vomited as a result, and the policemen told him he would have to clean up the car. Only at 6 P.M., about three hours later, was he taken to Meir Hospital for treatment. He lost consciousness a few times on the way, he recalls. At the hospital, where he was bound to the bed part of the time, Bako was given a C.T. scan and told to see a jaw specialist. Since the doctor was absent, the police were told to bring him back the next morning.

Construction to begin on controversial East Jerusalem housing project - Israel - Israel News | Haaretz
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The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee on Thursday removed the last obstacle to the commencement of construction on a controversial plan to build new homes in Ramat Shlomo, a Haredi neighborhood in the eastern part of the capital.

The plan became notorious in 2010, when it was announced during a visit to Israel by United States Vice President Joe Biden, leading to a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Though the plan was approved in November 2013, construction was put on hold until the completion of a new traffic interchange at the entrance to the neighborhood.

On Thursday, the committee acceded to a request by the lead contractor to begin the construction of 900 homes (of the 1,600 in the plan) without completion of the interchange.

Construction is likely to begin in the near future in the wake of the committee’s decision.

On Wednesday, a group of Israeli settlers took over a disputed building in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, in East Jerusalem.

Residents of Silwan said that some 20 Jewish youths moved in around 1 A.M. while the Palestinian family residing there wasn’t home.

The house, knowns as Abu Nab, is adjacent to another building, known as Beit Dvash, which is owned by settlers. Nearby is Beit Yonatan, another disputed apartment building inhabited by settlers.

According to some accounts, the residents of Abu Nab sold it and left it willingly. The settler group Ateret Cohanim has waged a lengthy legal battle over the building, which early in the 20th century was a synagogue that served the small Jewish Yemenite community that lived in Silwan.

The Jerusalem municipality said it wasn’t dealing with the case since as far as it is known the building was empty and is owned by the settlers.

Israeli Arabs planning ‘day of rage’ protests against demolition of Bedouin town for Jewish one
New protests planned prompted by Supreme Court’s ruling allowing state to demolish Umm al-Hiran in the northern Negev.
By Shirly Seidler and Jack Khoury | May 7, 2015 | Haaretz
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