ISRAEL MUSINGS
ISRAEL MUSINGS: OP-EDS & ARTICLES
US-Israel crisis reactions: Obama official calls Netanyahu coward, chickenshit
- Government
- October 29, 2014
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Official Israel Election Results @ Israel Votes 19th Knesset --
ועדת הבחירות המרכזית לכנסת ה-19
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JBUZZ MUSINGS: ISRAEL/JEWISH CULTURAL BUZZ JEWISH ACADEMIC & UNIVERSITY NEWS By Bonnie K. Goodman Judaism October 26, 2014 They finally did it, feminist Jewish prayer group Women of the Wall (WoW) smuggled in a tiny Torah scroll on Rosh Hodesh Chesvan Friday, Oct. 24, 2014 for a bat mitzvah torah reading to the women’s section….READ MORE
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JBUZZ FEATURES: ISRAEL/JEWISH CULTURAL BUZZ JEWISH ACADEMIC & UNIVERSITY NEWS Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) Guide for the Perplexed, 2014 Source: Algemeiner, 10-8-14 Sukkot starts on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, the construction of the Holy Tabernacle, and the 40 year wandering in the Sinai Desert. Sukkot (סכות), and […]
Posted by bonniekgoodman on October 29, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/israel-musings-october-29-2014-us-israel-crisis-reactions-obama-official-calls-netanyahu-coward-chickenshit/
Source: PMO, 10-29-14
29/10/2014
Photo: Haim Zach, GPO
Translation
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your important and moving words. I believe they reflect the feelings of a great many Israeli citizens. When Israel is pressured to make concessions regarding its security, it is easiest to give in. We receive applause and attend ceremonies on lawns, but later the rockets and tunnels come.
As Prime Minister, I stand firm with regard to Israel’s security. I care about the lives of each and every citizen and each and every soldier. I have been on battlefields many times. I risked my life for this country, and I am not prepared to make concessions that will endanger it. And it must be understood, our supreme interests, first and foremost security and the unity of Jerusalem, are not the top priority of those same anonymous sources that attack us and me personally. I am being attacked only because I am protecting the State of Israel. If I did not protect the State of Israel, if I did not stand up decisively for our national and security interests, they would not attack me. And despite the attacks I face, I will continue to protect our country; I will continue to protect the citizens of Israel.
I would also like to add that I respect and appreciate our deep connection with the United States. Since the establishment of the country, we have had disagreements with the US and we will have disagreements in the future as well. However, they are not at the expense of the close relationship between our peoples and our countries. We have seen time and again, this year as well, that support for the State of Israel is ever increasing among the American public, and this support reached an all-time high. The strategic alliance and the moral covenant between our countries continues and will continue.
Dear Ze’evi family, my colleagues, Members of Knesset,
It is the way of the world that after a person’s death, as the years pass the lines of their personality fade from our memories and their presence dims in public opinion and public consciousness. This did not happen in the case of Gandhi, Rehavam Ze’evi. In the 13 years that have passed since his horrendous murder here in the heart of Jerusalem, the special figure he represented has become sharper.
Gandhi was a fighter and a man of letters. He walked the length and breadth of the country. Nothing undermined his confidence in the justness of Zionism’s path. He was consumed with a fire to complete his mission – to share his love for the Land of Israel, to contribute to the strength of the State of Israel and to ensure the well-being and security of the people of Israel.
Gandhi dedicated the best years of his life to defending the country and protecting its borders. He knew that the fight against our enemies was not only a security-military campaign, but also a fight to prove the rightness of our path and the justness of our historic rights to the Land of Israel and in the Land of Israel. These two challenges still concern us today, just as they did in the past. Even in the sixty-seventh year of our independence, we still have to deal with significant threats to the security of Israel in a changing Middle East, a Middle East in which radical Islam has raised it head and its proxies compete to see which of them can be the most extreme. It is enough to look at an updated map of Iraq and Syria to see the chaos that is raging there, instigated by the followers of the idea of a caliphate. The black flags are flying and the crimson blood is spilling like water.
In the face of the multitude of threats that surround us, we are determined to protect ourselves as necessary, first and foremost by defending our borders, and of course within our borders. Gandhi contributed significantly to this security doctrine. The more veteran members among us remember the years after the Six Day War. We remember the attacks that came from the Jordanian border, and we came to conclusions. Just recently we built a fence along a different border, our border with the Sinai Peninsula, a fence more than 200 kilometers long, a tremendous engineering wonder that helps us stop terror attacks from Sinai and the penetration of illegal infiltrators to the State of Israel. We are working diligently to strengthen our other borders similarly.
Gandhi was a pioneer in creating a security doctrine and implementing it. When he was Head of the Central Command, he led IDF soldiers in a joint engineering and operational campaign to prevent penetration from the Jordan River. He led IDF fighters in dozens of pursuits of terrorists who sought to break through our eastern defensive line. “In Israel, the commanders led the charge in pursuits; they adhered to their mission, charged forward, sometimes at the cost of their own lives.” And indeed within a few years quiet was restored to the Jordan Valley, which was and remains the State of Israel’s eastern security border.
As to the second challenge, Israel has long faced attacks on its right to exist. Some people deny the strong affinity of the people of Israel for its land, an affinity that was formed 4,000 years ago in the Land of Israel and 3,000 years ago with Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Some people are not willing to recognize the right of our people to a nation-state of their own, who are not willing to recognize the right of the people of Israel to a nation-state for the Jewish people. This was and remains the root of the conflict. There are also quite a few people who accuse IDF soldiers of war crimes, even when we defend ourselves – when we defend ourselves with the highest morality against rocket attacks and terror tunnels, against a blood-thirsty enemy that uses its own children as human shields and does not care that these victims pile up. Or perhaps the opposite is true – the enemy does care and wants more and more victims, and more victims from among its own people. When we defend ourselves against such an enemy, we still face unbelievable hypocrisy and disrespect and baseless accusations.
Quite a bit of this slanderous propaganda was discredited by Gandhi, using his knowledge and expertise which were matchless. He knew very well that the light of Israel had never been extinguished in the Land of Israel, and even when we were exiled from our land we yearned to return of the land of our forefathers. Zionism led to an unbelievable change: It ingathered the exiles back to our homeland; it transformed us into a strong and independent people; and it transformed Israel into a flourishing and prosperous country.
Gandhi said, “The IDF is the only army in history that conquered the Temple Mount and did not destroy or loot the houses of worship on it.” This is a proven fact – only under Israeli sovereignty was the freedom of access to the holy places of all religions upheld. Only under Israeli sovereignty.
So at this session in memory of Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, we will honor his great contribution, a dual contribution: First, his contribution to Israel’s security; and second, his contribution to deepening our national consciousness and proving our justness.
May Gandhi’s memory be blessed.
Posted by bonniekgoodman on October 29, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/full-text-israel-political-brief-october-29-2014-pm-benjamin-netanyahus-speech-at-the-special-knesset-session-in-memory-of-rehavam-zeevi-responding-to-obama-officials-insults-name-calling/
Posted by bonniekgoodman on October 8, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/israel-musings-october-8-2014-netanyahu-obama-administration-fight-over-jerusalem-building-american-values/
Posted by bonniekgoodman on October 1, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/israel-musings-october-1-2014-obama-netanyahu-discuss-iran-palestinians-in-friendlier-white-house-meeting/
“Today, the Cabinet will approve a NIS 1.3 billion supplement for Sderot and the communities in the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip. This is the largest investment that the State of Israel has ever made in this area. This is in addition to the NIS 417 million that we transferred during Operation Protective Edge (<. We are developing a new industrial zone in Sderot, transportation infrastructure in the area and are encouraging young people and students to move to the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip.
We came to this country to build and to be built. We came to this part of our land in order to build and be built in it and nobody will uproot us. We will strengthen our hold and our development of this area just as in other areas. I say ‘as in other areas’ because on Tuesday we will submit for Cabinet approval a supplement regarding an approximately NIS 2 billion in additional funds for the communities and cities of the south . In the framework of this decision, we will build a new hospital in Be’er Sheva, in addition to the hundreds of additional beds for the existing Soroka Medical Center.
We will connect new natural gas infrastructures for the benefit of factories in the south. We will invest in initiatives to connect the Negev in the framework of the Digital Israel program. We will encourage small and mid-size businesses. We will develop tourism and all aspects of life including the important cyber aspect for all residents of the Negev, including Bedouin. This is a deep commitment on our part. I think that it has found expression.
I mentioned the word ‘cyber’. I would like to update the public and the Cabinet that I decided last week to develop a national authority on the cyber issue to arrange and see to defending the entire State of Israel on the cyber issue. That is, defending not only important facilities and security agencies, but how to defend Israeli citizens against these attacks. This is the establishment of a new authority. It is, in effect, the creation of an air force against new threats and not rely on this being carried out by existing agencies. We are in a new world; we are preparing with new forces. This has very major significance for the defense of the State of Israel in the future.
Standard and Poor’s has maintained Israel’s A+ credit rating , but it must be noted that they said that this is based on the assumption that Israel will continue the responsible economic policy that we have led in recent years and not deviate from it. I think that this obligates us to an even greater effort that we have not yet completed in order to maintain security needs alongside the necessary economic responsibility, as well as the other needs of the State of Israel. In the end we are standing here with several clear components and the effort is yet before us.
I would also like to announce that, as of now, according to very interesting statistics, most of which are positive, the State of Israel in 2013 (there is always a one year lag), officially, I can tell Israelis on the eve of Rosh Hashanah , that Israel’s population has passed eight million. No less important, for the first time in the history of the State of Israel, more than six million Jews live here. This number has great significance in light of our people’s history in the previous century as well as in the current one.
While we never lack constant challenges from all sides I think that we proved over the past year that we can overcome them. Our strongest quality is the unity of the people and the heroism of our soldiers in repelling one of these threats and dealing a severe blow to our enemies on the southern border, of course.
On the eve of our holiday, I would like to send our best wishes for a full and rapid recovery to the wounded IDF soldiers and citizens and at the same time send our deepest condolences to the families of the fallen.
I would also like to commend the entire people of Israel for the determination and unity that they showed during Operation Protective Edge. I would like to send them greetings from the ministers and myself that they should now have the vacation that was denied them during the summer. Be with your families and above all, have a happy, quiet and safe year.”
Posted by bonniekgoodman on September 21, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/full-text-israel-political-brief-september-21-2014-pm-netanyahus-remarks-at-the-start-of-the-weekly-cabinet-meeting-on-the-economy-rebuilding-up-the-south-and-cyber-security/
Source: JTA, 8-31-14
The Israel Defense Forces Civil Administration announced that it would appropriate nearly 1,000 acres in the Gush Etzion bloc and convert it in to state land…READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on August 31, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/israel-political-brief-august-31-2014-israel-moves-to-appropriate-west-bank-land/
Source: MFA, 6-13-14
MFASummaryNew
Contact lost with three teenagers in the Gush Etzion area. Israel holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the well-being of the missing.
The names of the missing yeshiva students have been released for publication. They are: Gilad Sha’er (16), Naftali Frankel (16), and Eyal Yifrah (19).
At approximately 17:30 Israel time (June 13, 2014), the IDF Spokesman released a special announcement:
“During the night, contact was lost with three teenagers in the Gush Etzion area [of the West Bank]. The security forces are acting to locate the missing youths and extensive searches are being conducted at this time in the area.”
The three Israeli teenagers, all yeshiva students, were last seen late Thursday night in the area of Gush Etzion. Forces are conducting a widespread operation in order to locate them.
IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz said the current mission is to bring the three Israeli teenagers home safely and as soon as possible. “We are concentrating all of our intelligence efforts on trying to track down the missing individuals.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hold a security assessment of the situation, at his Tel Aviv office, at the Defense Ministry, with the participation of Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz and the ISA. The Prime Minister previously held a security consultation at his Jerusalem office with the participation of Defense Minister Yaalon and Public Security Minister Aharonovitch.
Israel holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the well-being of the missing.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry and told him that Abu Mazen was responsible for the well-being of the missing. The Prime Minister added that what has been happening on the ground since Hamas’ entry into the Palestinian government is destructive and the result of the entry of a murderous terrorist organization into the government.
Posted by bonniekgoodman on June 13, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/full-text-israel-brief-june-15-2014-three-teens-kidnapped-by-hamas-terror-organization-in-gush-etzion/
Posted by bonniekgoodman on January 22, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/israel-musings-january-22-2014-harper-and-netanyahu-hold-joint-cabinet-meeting-and-press-conference/
Posted by bonniekgoodman on January 11, 2014
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/israel-musings-january-11-2013-netanyahu-opposes-any-peace-deal-framework-dividing-jerusalem/
Posted by bonniekgoodman on August 23, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/israel-musings-august-23-2013-ban-ki-moon-backtracks-on-admission-that-the-un-is-biased-against-israel/
Posted by bonniekgoodman on August 13, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/israel-musings-august-13-2013-secretary-of-state-john-kerry-speaks-with-pm-benjamin-netanyahu-about-settlement-building-announcement/
Posted by bonniekgoodman on August 12, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/israel-musings-august-12-2013-israel-approves-new-housing-and-prisoner-release-days-before-peace-talks-begin/
Source: JTA, 6-27-13
Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the state to halt construction of 40 homes in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim….READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on June 27, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/israel-political-brief-june-27-2013-israeli-supreme-court-orders-halt-to-construction-in-west-bank-settlement/
Source: JTA, 6-26-13
The Jerusalem municipality issued construction permits to build 69 new housing units in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa….READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on June 26, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/israel-political-brief-june-26-2013-new-eastern-jerusalem-housing-approved-on-eve-of-us-secretary-john-kerrys-visit/
Source: Jerusalem Post, 5-25-13
Is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu nearing his second declaration in four years on a building freeze in the West Bank in order to facilitate the renewal of peace talks with the Palestinians?…READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on May 25, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/israel-political-brief-may-25-2013-pm-benjamin-netanyahu-will-not-freeze-west-bank-settlements/
Source: Globes, 5-23-13
Finance Minister Yair Lapid: We have a housing emergency, which threatens an entire generation of young people….READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on May 23, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/israel-political-brief-may-23-2013-housing-cabinet-approves-150000-rental-apartments/
Source: JTA, 5-7-13
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that he would put a hold on construction in West Bank settlements until mid-June….READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on May 7, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/israel-political-brief-may-7-2013-pm-benjamin-netanyahu-promised-us-secretary-of-state-john-kerry-to-put-hold-on-settlement-construction/
Source: JTA, 2-27-13
European Union diplomats in eastern Jerusalem have recommended economic sanctions against Jewish settlements in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem….READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on February 27, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/israel-political-brief-february-27-2013-european-union-diplomats-recommend-economic-sanctions-against-settlements/
Source: JTA, 2-11-13
Israel’s Defense Ministry approved the construction of 90 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beit El….READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on February 11, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/israel-political-brief-february-11-2013-israel-approves-housing-units-for-west-bank-settlement/
Source: Ynetnews, 2-11-13
The Defense Ministry has granted the final approval needed for the construction of 90 new housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beit El, Ynet learned Monday….READ MORE
Posted by bonniekgoodman on February 11, 2013
https://togetherwithisrael.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/israel-political-brief-february-11-2013-beit-el-to-get-90-new-homes/