person:reuven rivlin

Until I Came to Live in Israel, I Was Sure That Jews Were Smart -
Detaining the Washington Post for ’incitement’: Unable to stem the terror attacks that now number as many as eight per day, the government has clearly decided that incitement, its declared mortal enemy, can now be its best friend.

Bradley Burston Feb 16, 2016

Opinion - Haaretz - Israeli News Source Haaretz.com

▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.703808

Until I came to live in Israel, years and years and years ago, I was sure that Jews were smart.
I thought that if Jews ever had a country of their own, these people – with their passion for learning, their tragic heritage of persecution and oppression and exile and mass murder, their openness to new ideas, their appreciation of the values of democratic freedoms and of minority rights, and their demonstrated talents for international relations – would run their country accordingly.
Instead of running it into the ground.
CAVEAT: Over time, I’ve learned that, by and large, the Israeli on the street is a person of considerable acumen, who would support efforts by the government – if those efforts actually existed at all – to honestly pursue peace through diplomacy, reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, widening of rights to minorities, and moderation over extremism. 
For proof, you need look no further than the popularity of Israel’s formal head of state Reuven Rivlin, a rightist who champions these values.

Don’t Shoot Down Breaking the Silence, It’s Just the Messenger - Israel News - Haaretz -
Amos Harel Dec 19, 2015
▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.692603

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.692605!/image/2003421558.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/2003421558.jpg

Breaking the Silence was founded in the spring of 2004. Four freshly released soldiers from the Nahal Brigade, who served long tours in Hebron during the height of the second intifada, organized an exhibition that documented their experiences, which was displayed at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Although some people were outraged by the exhibition, the discussion about the soldiers’ claims was conducted far more calmly than it is today – despite the fact that, back then, suicide bombers were still blowing themselves up on buses in Israeli cities.

The current Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, was the commander of all IDF forces in the West Bank at the time, and he raised a concern: Why did the founders of the organization not oppose the army actions while they were serving, or at least report on them in real time? His argument was unconvincing. In most cases, a corporal will have a hard time going before the company or battalion commander in real time and saying, “That’s not allowed.” They are not equals. Few soldiers – particularly during regular service – have the ability to make such complaints, especially at a time when military casualties are high and the atmosphere is charged.

As the years went on, the IDF made two other, more substantial claims. The first regarded the difficulty in translating the soldiers’ testimonies into legal or disciplinary proceedings. Breaking the Silence has always maintained the testifiers’ anonymity, in order to protect them. And during cases where the military prosecutor was interested in investigating, such probes generally ended without results. IDF officials got the impression that publishing the testimonies was more important to Breaking the Silence than any legal proceedings. The IDF’s second claim pertains to the organization’s activities abroad. One can assume that this activity is mostly done for fundraising purposes, but holding exhibitions abroad and making claims about Israeli war crimes certainly offended many.

This week, there was a new low point in the public campaign against the organization. This combined two trends, only one of which was open and obvious. The first is the direct attack on Breaking the Silence by the right, comprised mostly of McCarthyesque attempts to silence it. These attacks have a sanctimonious air to them. In the eyes of the attackers, the international community is ganging up on Israel, and Breaking the Silence is the source of all our troubles – everything would be fine if it weren’t for this group of despicable liars slandering Israel’s reputation.

It is hard to shake the suspicion that the attacks against Breaking the Silence aren’t the act of an extensive network operating with at least a degree of coordination. What began as some accusations on Channel 20 continued with a venomous video published by the Im Tirtzu movement, which was immediately followed by demands from the My Israel group (founded by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked) to prohibit Breaking the Silence representatives from visiting schools. Somehow, Education Minister Bennett succumbed to their demands within a day. In the background, there was also a blatant attack on President Reuven Rivlin. At first, they tried to link him to Breaking the Silence. That failed, because the president made sure to defend the IDF’s moral standing at the HaaretzQ conference in New York. And then the “flag affair” happened, involving Rivlin, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and the Israeli flag.

As usual, Im Tirtzu delivered the most extreme elements of the assault. Its ubiquitous video showed the word “Shtulim” – Hebrew for implanted, or mole – above pictures of four left-wing activists who looked like they’d been plucked from a “Wanted” list. The video didn’t leave much room for the imagination: “Shtulim” is another way of saying “traitors.”

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02u_J2C-Lso

When one of the four featured activists, Dr. Ishai Menuchin – executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel – says he felt as if the spilling of his blood was being permitted, you can understand why he reached that conclusion. (By the way, Menuchin did reserve duty until an advanced age – in the Givati Brigade, of all places.) The claims that these four organizations are “collaborating with the enemy” have been rejected by the two previous military advocate generals, Avichai Mendelblit and Danny Efroni. Indeed, the two told Haaretz that they are often assisted by these human rights organizations.

The mainstream media has provided the complementary side of the trend by airing Im Tirtzu’s videos. As journalists, they cluck their tongues and mock the style of the videos, but reap higher ratings. This approach works well in conjunction with media coverage of the current terror outbreak, which is treated relatively superficially and is often an attempt to tackle these issues without providing any broader context. Here, the goal is not to damage the left-wing organizations, but rather marketing a slant on the current reality for Israelis – as if we have the exclusive capability to both maintain the occupation indefinitely and remain the most moral army in the world. But the truth is, it’s impossible to do both. Also, there’s no empirical proof that the IDF is the most moral army in the world (a cliché Rivlin himself employed earlier this week).

In many cases, the IDF makes an effort – and sometimes a tremendous effort. But it is still a giant war machine. When it is forced to act to defend Israeli civilians and advance into crowded, urban Palestinian territory – as it did last year in Gaza – it causes lots of casualties, which will include innocent civilians. And its control of the occupied territories involves, by its very nature, many unjust acts: limiting movement, entering civilians’ homes, making arrests and humiliating people.

It is a reality that every combat solider in the West Bank, regular or reservist, rightist or leftist, is aware of. I can attest to it myself: For more than 10 years I was called up to serve in the West Bank many times, as a junior commander in a reserve infantry battalion – before and during the second intifada. I didn’t witness anything I considered to be a war crime. And more than once, I saw commanders going to great lengths to maintain human dignity while carrying out complex missions, which they saw as essential for security. Even so, many aspects of our operations seemed to me, and to many others, to fall into some kind of gray area, morally speaking. In my battalion, there were also cases of inhuman treatment and abuse of Palestinian civilians.

Those who believe, like I do, that much of the blame for the lack of a peace agreement in recent years stems from Palestinian unwillingness to compromise; and those who think, like I do, that at the moment there is no horizon for an arrangement that guarantees safety for Israelis in exchange for most of the West Bank, because of the possibility that the arrangement would collapse and the vacuum be filled by Hamas or even ISIS, must admit: There is no such thing as a rose-tinted occupation.

Breaking the Silence offers an unpleasant voice to many Israeli ears, but it speaks a lot of truth. I’ve interviewed many of its testifiers over the years. What they told me wasn’t the stuff of fantasy but rather, descriptions from below – from the perspective of the corporal or lieutenant, voices that are important and should be heard, even if they don’t present the whole picture. There is a price that comes with maintaining this abnormal situation for 48 years. Covering your ears or blaming the messenger won’t achieve anything.

The interesting thing is that when you meet high-ranking IDF officers, you don’t hear about illusions or clichés. The senior officers don’t like Breaking the Silence, but they also don’t attack it with righteous indignation (although it’s possible that sentiments for the organization are harsher among lower ranks). In recent months, I’ve been privy to closed talks with most of the chain of command in the West Bank: The chief of staff, head of Central Command, IDF commander in the West Bank, and nine brigade chiefs. As I’ve written here numerous times recently, these officers speak in similar tones. They don’t get worked up, they aren’t trying to get their subordinates to kill Palestinians when there is no essential security need, and they aren’t looking for traitors in every corner.

Last Tuesday, when Im Tirtzu’s despicable campaign was launched, I had a prescheduled meeting with the commander of a regular infantry brigade. In a few weeks, some of his soldiers will be stationed in the West Bank. Last year, he fought with them in Gaza. What troubles him now, he says, is how to sufficiently prepare his soldiers for their task, to ensure that they’ll protect themselves and Israeli civilians from the knife attacks, but also to ensure that they won’t recklessly shoot innocent people, or kill someone lying on the ground after the threat has been nullified.

The picture painted by the brigade commander is entirely different to the one painted by Channel 20 (which posted on Facebook this week that “the presidency has lost its shame” following Rivlin’s appearance in New York). But it is also much more complex than the daily dose of drama being supplied by the mainstream media.

Another victory for Ya’alon

Last Sunday, the cabinet approved the appointment of Nir Ben Moshe as director of security for the defense establishment. The appointment was another bureaucratic victory for Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, part of a series of such appointments over the past year. The pattern remains the same: Ya’alon consults with Eisenkot; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reservations, delays the process or even opposes outright; Ya’alon insists, but takes care not to let the rift become public; and in the end Ya’alon gets what he wants.

Ya’alon isn’t generally considered a sophisticated bureaucrat. His political power is also rather limited. He has almost no sources of power within the Likud Central Committee. The fact that he remains in his position, despite the close coordination with Netanyahu and the joint positions they held during the war in Gaza last year and during the current strife in the West Bank, seems to hinge only upon Netanyahu’s complex political considerations. Still, through great patience it seems the defense minister ultimately gets what he desires.

Ben Moshe’s appointment was first approved by a committee within the Defense Ministry last month. Ya’alon asked that the appointment be immediately submitted to the cabinet for approval, but Netanyahu postponed the decision for weeks before ultimately accepting it. This is partly because of the prime minister’s tendency to procrastinate, which also played a part in the late appointment of Yossi Cohen as the next Mossad chief. But in many cases, there are other considerations behind such hesitations, with the appointment of the current IDF chief of staff a prime example: Ya’alon formulated his position on Eisenkot months before the decision was announced. Eisenkot’s appointment was brought before Netanyahu numerous times, but the prime minister constantly examined other candidates and postponed the decision until last December – only two and a half months before Benny Gantz’s term was set to end.

Even the appointment of the new military advocate general, Brig. Gen. Sharon Afek, which had been agreed by Ya’alon and Eisenkot, was delayed for months by Netanyahu’s reservations – which, formally speaking, should not be part of the process. Here, it seems the stalling was due to claims from settlers about Afek’s “left-leaning” tendencies, not to mention the incriminating fact that Afek’s cousin is Michal Herzog – the wife of opposition leader Isaac Herzog.

Over the next month, numerous other appointments to the IDF’s General Staff are expected, but Eisenkot will call the shots and Ya’alon needs to approve his nominations. The chief of staff is expected to appoint a new naval commander; a new ground forces commander; new head of the technology and logistics directorate; new head of the communications directorate; and new military attaché to Washington. In most cases, generals will make way for younger brigadier generals. Eisenkot will likely want to see a more seasoned general assume command of the ground forces, though, and could give it to a current general as a second position under that rank. However, this creates another problem – any general given this job would see it as being denied a regional command post, which is considered an essential stop for any budding chief of staff.

#Breaking_the_Silence #Briser_le_silence

Brésil:des militants israéliens ont demandé le rejet de l’ambassadeur à Brasilia | i24news - 21 Septembre 2015
▻http://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/israel/diplomatie-defense/86511-150921-bresil-des-militants-israeliens-ont-demande-le-rejet-de-l-ambas

Un groupe de militants de gauche, dont trois anciens ambassadeurs israéliens, ont demandé au gouvernement brésilien de ne pas approuver la nomination de Dani Dayan au poste d’ambassadeur au Brésil, rapporte lundi le site israélien Haaretz.

La demande a semble-t-il été entendue puisque samedi, la présidente brésilienne Dilma Rousseff s’opposait publiquement à la nomination au poste d’ambassadeur d’Israël dans son pays de Dayan qui a présidé de 2007 à 2013 le Conseil de Yesha, une organisation liée au Conseil des implantations en Cisjordanie.

Lors d’une réunion il y a deux semaines avec les ambassadeurs du Brésil en Israël et dans l’Autorité palestinienne, les militants ont affirmé qu’accepter la nomination de Dayan reviendrait à légitimer « l’entreprise de colonisation ».

Cette campagne est menée par des membres du comité diplomatique du Forum des ONG pour la paix, une organisation qui coordonne les activités entre les ONG israéliennes et palestiniennes qui soutiennent une solution à deux Etats, présidé par Mossi Raz, ancien député du Meretz (gauche).

Les trois diplomates qui ont fait campagne contre Dayan (l’ex-directeur général du ministrère des Affaires étrangères Alon Liel, l’ancien ambassadeur en Afrique du Sud Ilan Baruch, et l’ancien ambassadeur en France Eli Bar-Navi) ont rencontré les ambassadeurs du Brésil peu après l’approbation par le Cabinet israélien de la nomination de Dayan.

Les écoles chrétiennes d’Israël n’ont pas fait leur rentrée - L’Orient-Le Jour
▻http://www.lorientlejour.com/article/942002/les-ecoles-chretiennes-disrael-nont-pas-fait-leur-rentree.html
AFP | 01/09/2015

L’enseignement chrétien et les autorités israéliennes se livrent depuis plusieurs mois un bras de fer autour du budget alloué par l’Etat aux écoles chrétiennes et à leurs 3.000 employés.
« Depuis un an et demi, nous sommes en discussions avec les autorités israéliennes et de nombreuses voix sont intervenues, même le Vatican. Il y a une semaine, le président Reuven Rivlin et le ministre de l’Education Naftali Bennett nous ont fait des déclarations très positives », a-t-il expliqué à l’AFP.
« Mais au-delà des belles déclarations politiques, une semaine plus tard, nous n’avons toujours vu aucune proposition sérieuse. Nous avons tout tenté et il ne nous reste plus que l’option de la grève », a-t-il poursuivi.

Israël reconnaît les écoles chrétiennes mais ne les considère pas comme publiques et, à ce titre, a baissé ses financements au cours des deux dernières années de « 45% », expliquent les écoles chrétiennes.
Actuellement, l’Etat ne prend en charge que « 29% du coût total d’une école primaire », assure ainsi un communiqué de ces écoles, et faire assumer le reste du financement par les seuls parents d’élève n’est pas tenable, affirment les responsables chrétiens.

« C’est une question d’égalité, un enfant israélien juif a droit à (une scolarité financée à) 100% (par l’Etat) et pas ceux de nos écoles, alors que notre enseignement est l’un des meilleurs en Israël », déplorait récemment le père franciscain Abdel Massih Fahim, directeur des écoles de la Custodie de Terre sainte.

IsraelValley News : Nikos Kotzias (Ministre Grec) à Netanyahou : « Israël est un ami proche du peuple grec »
7 juillet
▻http://www.israelvalley.com/news/2015/07/07/47191/nikos-kotzias-ministre-grec-a-netanyahou-israel-est-un-ami-proche-du-p

Bizarre, Bizarre. Pourquoi donc, alors qu’une crise exceptionnelle secoue le pays, le Premier Ministre Grec (photo) a donné son feu vert à ce que son Ministre des affaires étrangères Nikos Kotzias visite Israël ? On le saura bien un jour. Pour l’instant la version officielle est la suivante :

IsraePresse : "Netanyahou s’est entretenu lundi avec le ministre grec des Affaires étrangères, Nikos Kotzias. Les deux hommes ont évoqué la crise économique qui frappe la Grèce depuis de nombreux mois. « Votre visite dans le pays intervient à un moment critique de votre histoire et je tiens à l’apprécier à sa juste valeur », a déclaré le chef du gouvernement israélien.

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Le chef de la diplomatie grecque se rendra demain en Israël
Publié 05 Juillet 2015
▻http://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/europe/77278-150705-le-chef-de-la-diplomatie-grec-bientot-en-israel

Le cabinet israélien a tenu une réunion spéciale sur la crise grecque et ses implications

Au moment où l’avenir de la Grèce et son gouvernement sont suspendus à un fil, le ministre grec des Affaires étrangères Nikos Kotzias est attendu demain, lundi, en Israël, la première visite de haut rang depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir de Syriza en janvier.

Le gouvernement grec actuel est considéré comme critique envers la politique israélienne ; des membres importants de Syriza ont participé à la flottille Mavi Marmara en 2010 au cours de laquelle des activistes ont tenté de briser le blocus sécuritaire israélien sur la bande de Gaza. Le mois dernier, Kotzias a donné l’ordre au ministère des Affaires étrangères de commencer officiellement à utiliser le terme « Palestine » en se référant aux territoires contrôlés par l’Autorité palestinienne.

Lors de sa visite, qui a été organisée il y a quelques semaines, Kotzias rencontrera le Premier ministre israélien Benyamin Netanyahou ainsi que le président Reuven Rivlin, mais aussi le ministre de l’Énergie Yuval Steinitz et de l’Intérieur Silvan Shalom, chargé des contacts entre Israël et les Palestiniens.

Il doit également s’entretenir avec le chef de l’opposition, Yitzhak Herzog, avant de conclure sa visite mercredi à Ramallah, où il s’entretiendra avec la direction palestinienne.

Le président d’Israël qualifie les BDS de “menace stratégique”
Dimanche, 31 Mai 2015 14:07 Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man Le Boycott (#BDS)
▻http://www.pourlapalestine.be/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1996:-le-president-disr

Jeudi, le président israélien Reuven Rivlin a mis sur pied une réunion « urgente » avec les hauts responsables des universités et collèges israéliens afin de discuter du boycott académique, qu’il a qualifié de « menace stratégique ».

Ces toutes dernières années, les institutions et officiels israéliens ont fini par prendre plus au sérieux le mouvement BDS dirigé depuis la Palestine et à investir davantage de ressources pour le combattre.

Le nouveau ministre des Affaires stratégiques et de la Diplomatie publique, dit-on, a posé comme condition à sa participation au gouvernement l’allocation de fonds adéquats pour combattre les BDS.

Lors de la réunion de jeudi avec le président Rivlin, le président de la Technion University, Peretz Lavie, qui est également doyen du conseil des présidents d’universités, a émis la mise en garde suivante : « Il est toujours possible d’arrêter le boule de neige [des BDS], mais nous sommes déjà à la onzième heure. »

Rivlin a déclaré aux présidents des universités qu’il avait été pris par surprise par l’ampleur soudaine acquise par le mouvement de boycott académique.

« Je ne pensais pas que cela coinstituerait un danger réel pour les universités israéliennes, mais l’atmosphère change, dans le monde », a expliqué Rivlin. Dans la nouvelle réalité, a poursuivi le président, Israël doit traiter les BDS « comme une menace stratégique du plus haut niveau ».

Discussions secrètes entre Netanyahu et Herzog sur une union nationale : les militants du Camp sioniste sont stupéfaits et angoissés, les ténors ne seraient pas contre. Quelle que soit la solution trouvée, elle suscitera de fortes déceptions et tensions dans certains secteurs de la population

Likud official : Netanyahu mulling unity government with Herzog - National - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.651679

Although there have been no coalition talks between Likud and Zionist Union as yet and members of both parties believe that the chances of them forming a government together are slim, there are increasing signs that the parties are considering such a possibility.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told a senior Likud figure in recent days that he does not reject the idea of a unity government with Zionist Union.

“Netanyahu understands the importance of a centrist coalition, both domestically and abroad,” the senior figure said. Nevertheless, since the election Netanyahu has consistently denied he would form a coalition with Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog.

Meanwhile, Zionist Union sources claim that senior Labor faction officials, led by Herzog, have spoken with President Reuven Rivlin about joining a Netanyahu-led government. As far as is known, Rivlin is not dealing with the matter, having decided to avoid getting involved in political processes. Herzog denied having the discussion with Rivlin.

According to a report on Channel 1, Netanyahu and Herzog met several days ago outside the framework of the routine briefings between the premier and the head of the opposition. According to the report, even their close associates and aides didn’t know about the meeting.

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.

As an Israeli, I am ashamed that my prime minister is a racist - A Special Place in Hell - Israel News | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.647564

This week, push came to shove.

This week, we saw how things really work. How our prime minister really thinks. What he’s willing to do, how far he’s willing to go, how many of us he’s willing to sell out, slander, abuse, for the sake of hanging on to the thing that matters to him more than anything: his job.

After this week, we can never again say that we didn’t quite know who Benjamin Netanyahu is.

As an Israeli, I am ashamed that my prime minister is a racist.

On Election Day, knowing that the whole country would see it or hear about it, he warned on a range of social media, “The rule of the Right is in danger. The Arab voters are moving in droves toward the polling places. The NGOs of the Left are bringing them in buses.”

How should Jews respond to the threat of Arab hordes advancing on ballot boxes? The posts were explicit: Rush to the polling places, grab your loved ones and get them there as well, to vote Likud.

“With your help, and with God’s help, we will put up a nationalist government which will safeguard the state of Israel,” my prime minister wrote.

Lest there be any question of how we should view this, when he took the stage for his victory speech lateTuesdaynight, Netanyahu invited singer Amir Benayoun to come up and join him. The prime minister’s message was clear: If you are religious and write a racist song ("Ahmed Loves Israel," which refers to Arabs as scum and murderers), a song so incendiary that President Reuven Rivlin feels he must revoke your invitation to the President’s Residence, your place is right here, right now, by my side.

I am ashamed to know that the prime minister of Israel is either a racist, which is a horrible thought, or that he incites racism in others for the sake of votes - which is worse.

I am ashamed that my prime minister is a cheat. I am angry that in order to win, on the eve of the election, his campaign defied a judge’s ruling and knowingly defrauded thousands of Israelis into thinking that rival Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon was messaging them to switch their vote to Netanyahu.

I am ashamed that my prime minister can humiliate and exploit Moshe Kahlon, an earnest and honorable man, and get away with it.

As an Israeli, I am ashamed that my prime minister is a liar, a huckster, a calculating, desperate coward, a schmaltz merchant.

Now we finally know what he meant, just last October, when he told President Obama that he remained “committed to the vision of peace of two states for two peoples.”

He explained it allon Mondaynight, when, standing behind bulletproof glass in the square where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, he addressed a rally of thousands of right wing Jews, many of them bused in from the West Bank at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer.

Just after telling the crowd that they should avoid incitement, that he was prime minister even of Israelis who don’t agree with him, and that “We pride ourselves on upholding the unity of Israel,” he made it all clear:

There are already two states for two peoples. There are the People of Us - that is Zionists, which is to say Jews who are right-wing, who prize settlements above all else, and who resist all compromise, forswear any concession, oppose all negotiation, and who will vote for Benjamin Netanyahu when he declares that there will be not one settler uprooted, even from outposts which Israel itself has declared illegal.

And then there are the People of Them. All of the rest of us. People he calls anti-Zionist. People whom he describes as haters of Israel. Dark forces, treacherous, in league with foreigners.

“Yes,” the uber-secular prime minister told the crowd, suddenly putting himself forward as the pious, commandment-keeping, mezuzah-kissing SuperJew, explaining who “We” are: “We keep the traditions of Israel.”

Then the man who is bought and paid for by a gambling billionaire took it up a notch. "They have V 15, but we have the People." They have the money, but we have something more important, he concluded.

“It won’t be money that decides this. Rather, it will be heart, soul, belief.”

We’re all going to need it.

I am ashamed that my prime minister believes - and is quietly pleased - that many young people who love their country, have served their country, have endangered their lives for our sake, but who are not part of Us - not settlers, not ultra-Orthodox, not right-wing, and in many cases, not Jewish - will solve their own problems of housing and providing for a new family, by leaving Israel.

I am ashamed that my prime minister perceives, and accepts, that many people who are indigent, elderly, chronically ill, will meet the challenges of a neglected and failing health care system, by dying.

I am ashamed that my prime minister is declaring that millions of Palestinians are unentitled to rights, beginning with the right to have a say as to the kind of government and country they want to live in.

Most of all, I am ashamed that what my prime minister does, works. I am ashamed that racism works here, with my people. As a Jew, I believe that if all we are left with, is bigotry and fear, it will be the end of us.

All this week, Benjamin Netanyahu made us one consistent promise: In his coming term as prime minister, there will be no hope.

It is one promise that we have all come to believe he can keep.

58 ans après, le président israélien commémore le massacre de Kfar Qassem, qu’il qualifie de « crime terrible ». Environ 49 Arabes avaient été tués par des soldats israéliens. Il a rendu hommage aux victimes et commémoré l’événement en tant que « membre de la communauté juive et président d’Israël » - LA Times

▻http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-president-arab-massacre-20141026-story.html

In a landmark gesture to the country’s Arab minority, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the town of Kafr Qasim to pay tribute to victims killed by Israeli troops in an incident that remains a gaping wound for Israel’s Arab citizens nearly six decades later.

Six decades later, Israel president commemorates massacre of Arabs by Israeli troops
’A terrible crime was done here’ — Israeli president on 1956 massacre of Arabs by Israeli soldiers
Israeli president says Arabs and Jews must get over ’difficult and deep-rooted hatred’
In a landmark gesture to the country’s Arab minority, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the town of Kafr Qasim to pay tribute to victims killed by Israeli troops in an incident that remains a gaping wound for Israel’s Arab citizens nearly six decades later.

The first Israeli president to do so, Rivlin attended the annual memorial ceremony held for what has long been called the “Kafr Qasim massacre,” laying flowers at a monument engraved with the victims’ names.

“I have come here today as a member of the Jewish people and the president of the state of Israel to stand before you, the families of the slain and injured, to mourn and remember,” Rivlin said. “The brutal killing in Kafr Qasim is an anomalous and sorrowful chapter in the history of relations between Arabs and Jews living here,” said the president.

“The state of Israel has recognized the crime committed here. And rightly, and justly, has apologized for it,” said the president. “I too am here today to say a terrible crime was done here … the murder of innocents,” said Rivlin, who said future generations must be educated about the tragic events and the lessons that must be learned.

His predecessor Shimon Peres apologized during a 2007 visit to the town.

Like other Palestinian communities that became part of the state of Israel in 1948, Kafr Qasim was under military rule until 1966, with a nightly curfew starting at 9 p.m.

Fearing a surprise move by Jordan on the first day of the Sinai campaign in October 1956, Israel’s military moved up the curfew in eight communities near the border with Jordan to 5 p.m. but word was late in reaching local leaders and didn’t make it to villagers working the fields.

In seven villages, the matter was resolved peacefully. In Kafr Qasim, the results were tragic. Acting on a commander’s orders, troops shot dead dozens of civilians who unknowingly violated the curfew. As many as 49 people were killed, including women and children. Several soldiers disobeyed the orders and refused to shoot.

The prime minister at the time, David Ben-Gurion, used military censorship to hush up the bloodbath but two lawmakers used their parliamentary immunity to disclose it in a debate in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, and the case was investigated and brought to court.

I have come here today as a member of the Jewish people and the president of the state of Israel to stand before you, the families of the slain and injured, to mourn and remember.
– Israeli President Reuven Rivlin
Two years later, eight commanders and soldiers were sentenced to jail for periods of between seven and 17 years. Coining a phrase that would become a guiding principle in military and legal doctrine, Judge Binyamin Halevy called the order an “expressly illegal command,” one marked with a “black flag” that soldiers must refuse to follow.

Despite the harshly worded ruling, those sentenced were pardoned after a year by the state’s president.

In his remarks Sunday, Rivlin did not confine his words to the past but also spoke of the troubled present, saying that Jews and Arabs are destined to live together, even if this is the choice of neither.

Israel is the “national home of the Jewish people, who returned to their land” but also will always be the homeland of its Arab citizens, who are “part and parcel of this land,” Rivlin said.

“I am not naive. There is no point in denying or ignoring the reality of relations between the communities,” Rivlin said. Still, despite what he called “difficult and deep-rooted hatred,” Rivlin said he believes it possible to establish trust between Arabs and Jews in Israel “for the simple reason that none of us … have any other choice.”

The affable Rivlin, a former lawmaker for decades, became Israel’s 10th president in July. Despite lifelong membership in right-wing parties and objection to a Palestinian state, Rivlin has emerged as a strong voice for civic equality and against racism in Israeli society.

Recently, he teamed up with 11-year-old George Amireh, a Christian Arab boy from Jaffa to make a joint video urging mutual tolerance and empathy, after seeing the boy’s own video protesting bullying peers that went viral.

The president also referred to continuing friction in Jerusalem and urged Arab citizens and leaders to take a strong stand against violence. “All that live here today must stand up and speak out against … those who try to plunge us into the abyss,” he said.

Israel’s Arabs await equality, not apologies -
President Rivlin’s soothing words during Kafr Qasem visit should be translated into deeds aimed at closing gaps and improving life of beleaguered population.
By Jack Khoury | Oct. 27, 2014 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.622956

A few men of various ages were sitting in a coffee shop near the municipal square in Kafr Qasem, watching the police prepare for the arrival of President Reuven Rivlin. There was no excitement, only indifference. The president’s arrival Sunday did not shut down the city or change the residents’ daily routine. There were neither celebrations nor protests. Nor were there decorations. Just a few black flags of mourning to mark the anniversary of the massacre.

Abdel Rahman Taha was 16 when he lost his mother on that fateful day, October 29, 1956. And he too was sitting at the entrance to the coffee shop yesterday, trying to decide whether to go to the reception for the president.

“The visit is a positive step," he said, "but like every visit of a senior Israeli figure before this – it won’t change much. As a person who lost his mother, I feel no solace; as a citizen, I have no expectations. Whether or not there is an apology [from him] doesn’t matter anymore. What is important to me is that the story of Kafr Qasem appear in schoolbooks: that all the schoolchildren in Israel, Jews and Arabs, read, take it to heart and not forget.”

Taha’s words reflect the general understanding and the pain of the people in Kafr Qasem, located some 20 kilometers east of Tel Aviv, vis-a-vis the commemoration of the massacre: It has become a private event of the inhabitants of the city only, and not part of the collective memory of Arab society in Israel, certainly not part of the national memory of the state and the establishment, which would prefer to forget that day and not to talk about its significance in terms of the country’s relationship to its Arab citizens.

#Shimon_Peres steps down, says world peace a “guiding principle” of #Israel
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/shimon-peres-steps-down-president-says-world-peace-guiding-princi

Israel’s elder statesman Shimon Peres bowed out of active political life on Thursday with an ardent defense of the assault in #Gaza and a defiant prediction that peace will come “one day” to the region. At a ceremony overshadowed by the 17-day Gaza conflict in which nearly 800 people have died, Peres, 90, relinquished his largely ceremonial post as Israeli president to #Reuven_Rivlin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. read more

The propaganda war over the Gaza crisis | Al Jazeera America

▻http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/gaza-war-israel-palestinianspropaganda.html

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/gzbh4om2qyjs2r7/gazaaljezira.png

In response to the Israeli military attack against Hamas, the dominant narrative formulated by the United States and the main Western European governments has combined two elements: first, unquestioning support for the core Israeli claim that it is legal and reasonable to attack Hamas in Gaza as a response to the launch from Gaza of rockets directed at Israel’s cities and towns and, second, that the violence unleashed is tragic, since it makes innocent civilians on both sides bear the burden of Hamas wrongdoing.

#gaza

#Israel chooses extreme right #Likud candidate for presidency
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israel-chooses-extreme-right-likud-candidate-presidency

Reuven Rivlin, a far-right member of Israel’s ruling Likud, was elected Tuesday by Parliament to be its 10th president when Shimon Peres steps down in July, parliamentary speaker Yuri Edelstein said. Announcing the results of a run-off vote, Edelstein said Rivlin had defeated his challenger Meir Sheetrit by 63 to 53 votes in a secret ballot of the Knesset’s 120 members of parliament. (AFP)

#News

Les heures les plus sombres, blah blah blah…
▻http://www.fpif.org/blog/the_sunday_times_of_londons_odd_timing_on_controversial_netanyahu_cartoon

▻http://www.fpif.org/files/5759/Netanyahu%20Cartoon.gif?width=500

Britain’s The Sunday Times featured a controversial cartoon this past Sunday depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a bloody brick wall on the bodies of trapped, screaming Palestinians with the caption: “Israel elections. Will cementing the peace continue?”

The cartoon—drawn by veteran cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, who often utilizes blood in his work—has garnered the attention of Israeli officials and international Jewish groups who have declared the cartoon “sickening,” “anti-Semitic,” and “grotesque.” 

[…] Other Israeli officials have also spoken out against the cartoon, such as Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, who wrote, “For me and for other Israelis, this cartoon was reminiscent of the vicious journalism during one of the darkest periods in human history,” and that he was “shocked that such cartoons can be published in such a respectable newspaper in the Great Britain of today.”

Je ne vois qu’une seule solution : interdire Pink Floyd The Wall en Israël.

Pendant qu’on supprime le mot Nakba des livres d’histoire en France, au même moment en Israël :

Rivlin, deputies reject Tibi bill... JPost - Diplomacy & Politics
►http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=227876

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and his deputies rejected on Monday a bill proposed by MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al) to forbid government funding of any organization that denies the “Nakba,” the catastrophe, what the Arab world calls the founding of the State of Israel.

Les arguments des israéliens sont vraiment intéressants :

“This bill is clearly defiant and provokes the State of Israel, and therefore, its place is not on the Knesset’s table,” Rivlin explained, adding that he voted against the bill because it rejects the State of Israel as a Jewish state.

“This bill says the State of Israel is the reason for the Palestinian tragedy,” Rivlin said. “If the Nakba is a tragedy, then the establishment of the State of Israel is a tragedy. The Palestinians experienced a catastrophe that was brought on by their leaders, but the establishment of the State of Israel is not the reason for it.”

De fait, ils reconnaissent explicitement que le négationnisme de la Nakba est un élément central de l’identité israélienne.

Israel pushes on with settlement plans on annexed land | Reuters
►http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/07/04/idINIndia-58079820110704

Israel’s Jerusalem municipality approved a plan on Monday to build hundreds of new homes for Jews on annexed land in the occupied West Bank, a council member said.

Elisha Peleg told Reuters that the city planning commission had approved building plans for 900 new units in Gilo, an urban settlement built on land Israel captured in a 1967 war and unilaterally annexed to Jerusalem.