Israel News for 7-3-2019
Ethiopian Crisis
On Sunday an off duty police officer shot a 19 year old Ethiopian man, Solomon Tekah, in a Haifa suburb. The officer said he opened fire while walking with his family, in order to break up a fight that he felt was endangering his family’s safety. The officer’s conduct is being investigated and is under house arrest.
Yesterday, hundreds turned out for Tekah’s funeral. Later that evening thousands of protesters blocked several major highways throughout the country to protest what they consider to be racism against the Ethiopian community. Some protesters burned tires and smashed car windows. A total of 83 people were injured in the protests, including 47 police officers, and 60 protesters were arrested.
The PM called on protesters to stop blocking roads, while promising to work on solving the communities problems. He said, “We all mourn the tragic death of the teen Solomon Tekah, ” said Netanyahu. “We embrace the family. We embrace the Ethiopian community. These are not empty words. We know there are problems that need solving, and we need to work hard to solve them, but I ask one thing of you — stop blocking roads. We are a country with a rule of law. We won’t tolerate the blocking of roads. I ask of you, let us solve problems together while respecting the law.”
President Rivlin said,“We must exhaust the investigation into Solomon’s death and we must prevent the next death. The next hit. The next humiliation. We are all committed to this.”
He added, “The rage, it must not be expressed violently. The handful of protesters who chose violence is not the face of the protest. Let us sit together… Only in this way, in an open and piercing discourse, will we reach a change. We are brothers and sisters. We came here, all of us, to our homeland, which is home for every one of us, and we are all equal in it.”
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Election Updates
Avigdor Lieberman strongly criticized the religious zionist pre-army prep schools, calling them hotbeds of extremism and private militias. He also said that the entire religious zionist sector was becoming much more extremist. Finally, he said that the Haredi parties should be kept out of the next government.
Ehud Barak said that he would not join in a government led by PM Netanyahu. And the granddaughter of former PM Yitzhak Rabin announced that she is joining Barak’s new party.
MK Amir Peretz won the Labor party primaries on Tuesday and will lead the party in the elections. It’s still unclear whether Labor will join together with any of the other left leaning parties in order to make sure they pass the threshold and make it into the Knesset.
Cyprus Hit
One of the missiles fired by the Syrian army to fend off the alleged Israeli attack earlier this week ended up hitting just outside of a village in northern Cyprus. Oops.
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