ISRAEL JEWISH STATE
Netanyahu rejects Palestinian right of return to Israel
The unity of Jerusalem is important and Palestinians can not have a right of return into Israel in any final-status agreement for a two-state solution, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday morning.
“We ascribe importance to the unity of Jerusalem and, of course, to the cancellation of the right of return,” Netanyahu said.
Israeli Holocaust survivors condemn Nazi garb
At gender segregation rally, ultra-Orthodox protesters don symbols Jews were forced to wear by the Germans.
Israeli Holocaust survivors and political leaders have expressed outrage over a Jerusalem demonstration in which ultra-Orthodox Jews donned yellow Star of David patches and uniforms similar to those Nazi Germany forced Jews to wear.
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews had gathered on Saturday night to protest what they say is a nationwide campaign directed against their lifestyle, implicitly comparing the current Israeli government to the Nazis.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/201211143238621501.html
Kadima lawmakers retract support for bill scrapping Arabic as official language in Israel
The bill would have made democratic rule subservient to the state's definition as "the national home for the Jewish people."
A number of Kadima lawmakers say they are reconsidering the bill they submitted on Wednesday calling for a new Basic Law that changes Israel's definition as a "Jewish and democratic state" to "the national home for the Jewish people." The bill also proposes that Hebrew be the country's only official language, removing Arabic from the list.
A day earlier, 40 lawmakers, including 20 from the opposition Kadima party, submitted the bill, which would make democratic rule subservient to the state's definition as "the national home for the Jewish people."
Israelis Feel Tug of Protests, Reviving the Left’s Spirits
For years Israelis told themselves they had to suppress major domestic difficulties to deal first with their existential challenge.
The real threats, it was widely asserted, remained those from Iran, radical Islam andPalestinian violence. Little else mattered.
In the space of two weeks, that conventional wisdom has softened with the rise of a huge protest movement over the cost of living and the sense that, despite soaring national wealth, the paycheck of the average Israeli does not cover family expenses. What started as a modest Facebook-driven protest by young people over housing prices has mushroomed into what many analysts suspect could be one of the more significant political developments here in years — and a possible opening for the defeated left.
On Saturday night, 150,000 people took to the streets across the country demanding “social justice,” one of the biggest demonstrations in Israel’s history and its largest protest ever over social and economic issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/world/middleeast/01israel.html
Obama agrees to cover up Israel's nukes: report
Israel has reportedly received an assurance by US President Barack Obama that it would not be pressured into accounting for its alleged nuclear arsenal or signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=107678§ionid=351020202
Biden: There is an int'l attempt to isolate Israel right now
“There is an international attempt to isolate Israel right now and sometimes we’re our own worst enemy by playing into the hands of those who wish to do that,” US Vice President Joe Biden said after a meeting with President Shimon Peres on Tuesday morning.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=170549
Rabbis say 'no housing for Arabs'
Hundreds of Israeli rabbis have signed a religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling homes to Arabs.
Hundreds of Israeli rabbis have signed a religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling homes or land to Arabs and other non-Jews. The public letter instructs Jews to "ostracise" those who disobey the order, which is widely viewed as an attack on the country's Palestinian citizens.
It is the latest battle in the ongoing religious campaign against non-Jews.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/2010121015160984116.html
Israeli Nazism, not anti-Semitism, is the real issue
Israel's fanatical supporters insist on behaving and acting like mad dogs by disregarding any consideration for honesty, rectitude and moral consistency.
Israel's fanatical supporters insist on behaving and acting like mad dogs by disregarding any consideration for honesty, rectitude and moral consistency.
They nearly completely overlook Israel's Nazi-like behavior as if such behavior were taking place in a distant galaxy, not in this world.
Instead, they constantly focus on essentially mundane matters such as anti-Semitism and try desperately to link such secondary issues with the growing rejection in many countries of Israel's decidedly fascist and criminal conduct in Occupied Palestine.
In fact, it is manifestly clear that Israel uses, or more correctly, misuses the issue of anti-Semitism as its ultimate red herring to distract attention from its affronting criminality in occupied Palestine.
http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=27109
Israel approves loyalty oath
Cabinet adopts controversial bill that requires non-Jewish immigrants to swear loyalty to "Jewish, democratic state".
The Israeli cabinet has approved a proposal requiring new immigrants to pledge loyalty to the "Jewish and democratic" state.
The language has triggered charges of racism from Arab politicians who see it as undermining the rights of the country's Arab minority.
It has raised tensions with Palestinians at a time when peace talks are deadlocked over Israel's refusal to extend a moratorium on new building in West Bank Jewish settlements.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/10/2010101013028364300.html
Israel plans 'Jewish' loyalty oath
Controversial phrase added to citizenship law in move seen by some as attempt to get support for new settlement freeze
Right-wing politicians have welcomed plans to introduce an oath of loyalty to Israel as a "Jewish" state for anyone wanting to become a citizen, a move likely to further jeopardise direct peace talks with the Palestinians.
The controversial move would amend the current citizenship law to include the phrase: "I swear to respect the laws of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said on Wednesday.
Some commentators have suggested that the proposal, which will be put to a vote in cabinet on Sunday, is designed to persuade Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's ultra-nationalist foreign minister, to agree to an extension of a moratorium on new settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, are currently facing collapse due to a refusal by Israel to extend the 10-month freeze.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11505738
Loyalty oath splits Israeli press
Proposals to introduce a law compelling non-Jews seeking Israeli citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a ''Jewish and democratic state'' have generated a lively debate in Israeli papers.
One commentator defends the proposal as something which chimes with Israel's aspirations as a Jewish and democratic state, as expressed in its declaration of independence.
Another writer condemns the proposal as "racist", while another criticises it for obliging aspirant citizens to sign up to religious beliefs they might not hold. One commentator says that by re-introducing the proposal Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has bowed to pressure from ultra-nationalists, who may end up toppling him anyway.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11500762
Israeli hypocrisy this Holocaust Remembrance Day
Today is Holocaust Remembrance day, the worst genocide in history.
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2010/04/12/israeli-hypocrisy-holocaust-remembrance-day
French Jewish leaders decry Shoah comparisons
The French Jewish umbrella group spoke out against recurring comparisons between Nazi treatment of Jews and France’s current policy to rapidly expel Roma migrants.
In a statement this week, the CRIF said it was troubled by the repeated parallels made between the Nazi extermination of Jews and French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s controversial program to quickly send back hundreds of Roma, also known as Gypsy, migrants to Romania or Bulgaria, the native land for most of them.
“The differences are of such a great extent that the simple comparison demonstrates a large ignorance or great dishonesty,” said the statement published Tuesday on the CRIF website.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/09/02/2740773/french-jewish-leaders-decry-shoah-comparisons
Israeli academics boycott West Bank settlements
More than 150 Israeli academics say they will no longer lecture or work in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
In a letter, they said they supported the recent decision by a group of actors and others not to take part in cultural activity there.
The academics said that acceptance of the settlements caused "critical" damage to Israel's chances of achieving peace with the Palestinians.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11141774
Israel to co-operate with UN probe into Gaza flotilla
Israel has announced it will co-operate with a UN investigation into its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May.
"Israel has nothing to hide, the opposite is true," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
The four-member panel, announced by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, will include an Israeli and a Turkish member.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10842505
Livni raps Israel’s cooperation with U.N. flotilla probe
Israel's opposition leader criticized the Netanyahu government for agreeing to cooperate with a United Nations probe of the Turkish flotilla incident.
Tzipi Livni of the Kadima Party said Israel's participation in the international inquiry will expose the Israel Defense Forces and its soldiers.
"On the day of the flotilla, even before the international condemnations, I publicly called on the defense minister [Ehud Barak] to set up a credible and serious Israeli inquiry, in order to relieve the global pressure on the soldiers of the IDF," Livni told the Israeli daily Haaretz on Tuesday. "[Instead] the government hesitated, stuttered, searched, prevaricated, obstructed, obfuscated and altered [its inquiry], bringing in outside observers to placate world opinion.
Is Israel a liability for the US?
Satloff made the case that Israel has greatly served US interests in the region - making it not only an asset but a strategic bargain, even bonanza, to the US. Freeman for his part, expressed scepticism about Israel's strategic utility making the argument that Israel is a liability.
The almost 90 minute-long discussion underlined the two opposing views in the US about Israel: A majority that reckons US-Israeli relations are the bedrock of US interests and the pursuit of peace in the Middle East and a minority view that sees Israel as a strategic liability and a hindrance to peace that is being financed and armed by Washington thanks to its US assets - the Israeli lobby and its friends in Congress and the US establishment.
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/imperium/2010/07/28/israel-liability-us
Conversion bill debate heats up
Prominent Sepharadic leaders responded harshly to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's announcement that he would oppose the conversion bill proposed by Israel Beiteinu MK David Rotem.
"If you fear the Reform [Jews], you won't have a state," Amar said in comments addressing Netanyahu on a haredi radio station.
Shas leader and Interior Minister Eli Yishai also criticized Netanyahu's comments and said, "If there is no conversion law, the matter will tear the nation apart. The lack of a conversion law is a grave spiritual danger to the Jewish nation."
"Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is impressionable, and in the end he'll fold in this case, too," Rotem said. "This law has nothing to do with American Jewry. The law will pass, in the end the prime minister will support it and even vote for it."
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=181809
Israel jails Arab for 'deceit rape'
An Arab living in Israel has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for having consensual sex with an Israeli woman who apparently believed he was Jewish.
Sabbar Kashur was sentenced on Monday after being convicted of "rape by deception".
According to the court, Kashur met a Jewish woman in Jerusalem in 2008 and introduced himself as a single Jew looking for a serious relationship. The two had sex in a nearby building.
The woman filed a criminal complaint after learning Kashur was Arab, not Jewish.
Prosecutors acknowledged that the sex was consensual, but accused him of misrepresenting himself.
The court agreed, sentencing Kashur despite acknowledging that his case was not "a classical rape by force".
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/201072191017847251.html