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Israel News for October 22, 2015

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Soldiers Kill Jewish Man
Last night, in another tragic case of mistaken identity, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Jewish man at a bus stop in Jerusalem.

Background
According to police, two soldiers were waiting to get on the bus when a man getting off the bus asked them to show him their identification. They got suspicious and asked him for his ID. An argument ensued and he allegedly attacked them and tried to grab one of their guns. A civilian security guard in the area saw the scuffle, wrongly identified the man as a terrorist and shot at him. Then the soldiers opened fire, killing the man.

The victim was an immigrant from Russia who had served in the IDF in the Nahal Haredi (Ultra Orthodox) Brigade and had worked as a security guard in a school. He was currently studying at a yeshiva in Har Nof, Jerusalem. The rabbis at the yeshiva interviewed by Walla News couldn’t believe how something like this could have occurred. They all described the victim as a quiet, well mannered person who evidently made a bad mistake by arguing with the soldiers.

Police and IDF investigators are sorting through numerous testimonies that include very different facts. In one account the man shouted, “I am ISIS!” (could it have been like, “what, you think I’m ISIS?”). In another, a girl screamed, “Terrorist! Shoot him!”

Upshot
So many factors in this case point to a very tragic and deadly mistake. The soldiers were part of the reinforcements sent to bolster security on buses. They weren’t trained to do police work and handle this kind of situation. The security guard shot before positively identifying who he was shooting at. He probably should have let the soldiers handle the situation. Fear and hysteria took over. In a culture where arguing is commonplace and can often turn violent, this seems to be a case where mistakes were made and shots were fired when they shouldn’t have been. And a man is dead.

For further reading click here.

Terror Continues
This morning two terrorists tried to board a school bus in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. When people nearby shouted at them they got off. When police arrived they found them stabbing an 18 yr. old Haredi man. Police shot and killed one of terrorists and wounded the other. Both of the terrorists were 20 yr. olds from a village near Hebron who were working at a construction site in Beit Shemesh. They were wearing Hamas t-shirts beneath their clothing.The victim was “moderately” wounded.

A vehicle carrying five Israeli soldiers was stoned in Gush Etzion (West Bank) yesterday. When the soldiers got out they were hit by a Palestinian car. One of the soldiers was seriously wounded, 2 moderately and 2 lightly. The terrorist was shot and seriously wounded.

Earlier in the day a 20 yr. old female soldier was stabbed and seriously wounded, near the settlement of Adam. The terrorist then tried to stab another female soldier from the same unit, but she shot and killed him. Another terrorist who took part in the attack was arrested.

For further reading click here.

UNESCO Vote
We’ve got good news and bad news about yesterday’s UNESCO vote to declare Jewish holy sites to be Muslim holy sites. The good news is that the Western Wall was removed from the resolution after strong protests from UNESCO’s director general and many countries. They also removed the part about Jerusalem being the “occupied capital of Palestine.”

Here’s the bad news. They did vote to declare the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron (where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried) and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem as being Muslim sites. They also condemned Israel for a bunch of things, as usual.

The resolution passed by 26 votes to 6, with 25 abstentions. The countries that voted against the resolution were the US, UK, Germany, Holland, Estonia and the Czech Republic. France was one of the countries that abstained. Hmm.

For further reading click here.

PM Backpedals
After making the outrageous statement in a speech on Tuesday that blamed the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem for giving Hitler the idea to exterminate the Jews, PM Netanyahu backpedaled, a little.

In a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the PM clarified that the mufti’s role during the Holocaust was to “call on the Nazis to prevent Jews from fleeing Europe and support the Final Solution.”

Even Merkel was taken aback by Netanyahu’s initial statement so much so that she felt compelled to place responsibility for the Holocaust squarely on Germany. She added, “We stand behind our responsibility and I don’t see any need to change our relation to history.”

So now we’re all clear on this. Hitler was responsible for killing the Jews but the Mufti certainly supported and encouraged his evil plans. Now what about all that Arab rhetoric about pushing us into the sea? Sounds like Jewish destruction to me.

For further reading click here.

Temple Mount Visits
Yesterday Walla News reported from Arab sources that Israeli diplomats told Jordan’s King Abdullah that Israel would reduce the number of Jewish and non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount. Both the King and PA President Abbas rejected the offer, claiming that it was insufficient.

They weren’t the only ones unsatisfied with the proposal. Knesset members from the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party called on the PM to clarify whether he instructed the diplomats to make the offer.

Education Minister and head of the Bayit Yehudi party Naftali Bennett said, “I don’t believe that the PM would offer such a proposal.” He added that if the terrorists gain concessions from their terror, then their next wave of terror will be even worse, and that in the Middle East, displays of weakness are not effective diplomacy.

The PM’s office responded that no such proposal ever existed. Good to know.

For further reading click here.

Kurdistan and Jews
Sherzad Omer Mamsani was recently appointed Jewish affairs representative for the government of the semi autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. It shouldn’t be a very taxing job, since there are no Jews in the region (also known as Kurdistan). Mamsani’s main role will be to foster relations with the 200,000 to 300,000 Kurdish Jews, most of whom live in Israel.

Kurdish officials say that there are some 200 to 300 families in Iraqi Kurdistan who outwardly converted to Islam over the last decades but who continue to secretly observe certain Jewish traditions. Mamsani is one of those who claim to have Jewish roots. He’s visited Israel several times and has written about Kurdish – Israeli ties. That cost him a hand, lost in a bombing attack against him by Muslim radicals.

His goal is to reconnect Iraqi Kurds to Jewish culture and to relatives they may have abroad. “We work with the government to reunite families, and to help those Kurds who want to find out about their Jewish roots.” Another longer term goal is to rebuild destroyed synagogues in the region.

Upshot
The Kurds seem to really like Israel. Could be because Israel reportedly purchased a large portion of Kurdish oil exports and because they’ve supplied the Kurds with military assistance, secretly of course. Maybe it’s also because there are no Jews in the country, which makes it a lot easier to be a Jew lover (although it didn’t seem to have worked in Poland).

Hey, anyone fighting ISIS is a friend.

For further reading click here.

High Rent
If you think New York City rents are high, wait until you hear what they’re charging in Tel Aviv. According to the Israeli branch of Sotheby’s International Realty, a Russian (non Israeli) just rented an apartment for $45,000 per month (that’s US dollars, not shekels).

The 3,444 sq.ft. apartment takes up a full floor at the top of the Remez Tower, a high end building in the city’s popular “old north” neighborhood. The rent doesn’t include the $1,000 per month management fee.

According to Isidora Fridman, an executive director at Sotheby’s Israel, a similar sized apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City rents for $50,000 per month. But why would you want to live on Fifth Avenue if you could live in Tel Aviv?

For further reading click here.

Israel News for September 2, 2015

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ISIS and the Israeli
In a totally unexpected turn of events, an Israeli 21 yr old male was apprehended by Turkish police for allegedly attempting to join ISIS forces in Syria.

The man flew from Israel to Crete, then to Izmir, Turkey and then to the Turkish city of Adana. From there he traveled overland to Iskenderun, near the Turkish-Syrian border.

The man’s family, who had been in contact with him throughout his journey, figured out that something was very wrong with their boy and contacted the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) for help. The MFA alerted the Israeli embassy and consulate in Turkey, who then asked the Turkish authorities for help. The Turks found the man and returned him to his family, who had flown to Turkey. The man and his family returned to Israel on Monday.

Upshot
Why in the world would an Israeli Jew want to join ISIS? The MFA has implied that the man was mentally imbalanced, which is really the only answer that makes any sense. The good news in all of this is that Turkish and Israeli authorities worked together, which is a hopeful sign that relations between the two countries are warming up again.

Flags at the UN
Last week we reported about a resolution drafted by the Palestinian mission to the UN permitting observer states to fly their flags alongside member nations at the UN headquarters in New York City. The Palestinians had explicitly included the Vatican, the only other observer state, in their resolution hoping that doing so would pressure the General Assembly to approve it.

The Vatican protested their inclusion in the resolution, even though they recognize the State of Palestine. So the Palestinians rewrote their resolution, removing the Vatican, and are now seeking General Assembly approval to allow non-member observer states to raise their flags.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor is urging UN leaders to reject the resolution. He wrote letters to the UN secretary-general and the General Assembly president accusing the Palestinians of “attempting to swiftly change longstanding U.N. tradition in order to score political points.”

The United States is on Israel’s side. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, “We continue to believe that Palestinian efforts to pursue statehood or endorsements of statehood claims through the U.N. system that are outside of a negotiated settlement … (are) counterproductive,” adding that this includes raising the flag.

A spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters yesterday that the U.N. will abide by whatever the General Assembly decides.

Upshot
Despite the usual support the Palestinians get at the UN, in this case the UN leadership doesn’t seem too eager to anger their host nation, the US, by raising the flag of a state that it doesn’t recognize, in its largest city, which also happens to have the largest Jewish population and be very pro Israel. That might be going too far, even for them.

Gay Pride Report
The special committee investigating the gay pride parade stabbings last month submitted their final report to Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan yesterday. The report recommended reprimanding the police commander of the Jerusalem district, Moshe Edri, and dismissing three senior officers.

Erdan accepted the committees recommendations and will decide whether to take even harsher steps and dismiss additional officers.

Charedi vs. Charedi
For the first time ever, the state prosecutor has indicted a charedi man for assaulting a charedi soldier. The incident took place two weeks ago when a soldier serving in one of the charedi integration programs in the IDF went to a shul with his father in a charedi neighborhood of Jerusalem.

The soldier, in his army uniform, ran into 34 year old Ahron Tavi Korlansky, who proceeded to yell derogatory phrases at him. He also began inciting the other men praying in the synagogue. When several of them joined him in his verbal assault, Korlansly approached the soldier and began punching him in the chest and trying to grab his beret from his shoulder. When the soldier’s father tried to help his son, the men punched him too.
Korlansky also shouted threats and derogatory remarks at police officers who arrived at the scene and at the officers who questioned him at the police station.

Quite a piece of work. Hopefully he only represents a tiny fringe of extremists in the charedi community. Unfortunately, many in the community share his views, although they would not express them violently.

PM’s Dietary Dilema
Officials from the Charedi UTJ party are furious at the PM’s alleged dietary habits.They claim that Netanyahu ate at a non-kosher restaurant on his recent visit to Italy, which is totally unacceptable for the leader of the Jewish state. The established tradition is that Israeli ministers and diplomats do not eat non-kosher food at official or public events.

An official in the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Netanyahu “was invited to a restaurant by the Italian prime minister (Matteo Renzi), but he did not eat forbidden foods.”

This isn’t the first time that the PM has caught flack over his kosher dining habits. Last year he was accused of eating at a non kosher restaurant with billionaire supporter Sheldon Adelson in New York City and at an exclusive seafood restaurant in New Jersey.

But in Netanyahu’s case, walking and talking like a duck doesn’t necessarily make him a duck. Several Orthodox Israeli officials were also at the Seafood restaurant with the PM, and no one is claiming that they ate non-kosher. So just being in a non-kosher venue doesn’t mean that he actually ate there. Maybe he just had a salad.

Let’s give the PM the benefit of the doubt. That seems like the kosher thing to do.

Shops Get Smashed
Running a retail business is hard enough as is. Getting your shop smashed by oncoming traffic makes it almost impossible. In three separate incidents over the past couple of days, drivers have lost control and smashed their vehicles into store fronts.

In the latest incident, yesterday in Hadera, a bus hit several cars before plowing into a store on a main street. The day before that, in two separate incidents, cars ended up crashing into a restaurant and retail shop.

Are Israeli drivers that bad, or are they just a tad too eager to get their shopping done? It might just be a bit of both.