Iyar 17, 5769 / Monday, May. 11 '09
1. Pope Benedict XVI Arrives in Israel
by Hillel Fendel
Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Israel at 11 AM as scheduled, on a direct flight from neighboring Jordan. On hand to greet him were President Peres and most of the government; the Chief Rabbis were not there.
The pope had said his visit was a personal pilgrimage, and Voice of Israel goverment radio talk show host Yaron Dekel said that the pope requested that the Israeli flag and anthem not be in evidence. However, the Jordanian plane carrying the pope to Israel flew flags of both Israel and the Vatican, and the anthems of both were played upon his arrival.
Footage of the pope's arrival was aired around the world, including in Jordan and Iran.
Herzog, Hershkovitz
The only yarmulke-wearing Jew to greet the pope was Science Minister Prof. Rabbi Daniel Hershkovitz of the Jewish Home party. Welfare Minister Yitzchak Herzog was there and exchanged a few words with the Pope; his grandfather, Israel's first Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevy Herzog, had asked to meet with Pope Pius XII during and after the Holocaust, but was rebuffed.
The Shas Party ministers did not arrive, and neither did Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin or the Chief Rabbis. The latter do not plan to meet the visitor during his visit to the Western Wall on Tuesday, but rather only later in the day at the Chief Rabbinate's formal headquarters in the Heichal Shlomo building. A spokesman for Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar said, "When the Chief Rabbis visited the Vatican, he met them in his office, and the Rabbis will meet him in their office as well."
In the background of this decision still lurks the tension of 45 years ago, when Pope Paul VI made the first-ever papal visit to Israel – and refused to meet the Chief Rabbis in Jerusalem. In response, then-Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Nissim refused to meet the pope altogether.
Against Israel
In addition, Prof. Yitzchak Minerbi, an expert on Catholic-Jewish relations, said, "During an 8-day period during Israel's Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza a few months ago, I counted five statements made by the Pope against Israel's offensive - yet I did not find any parallel regarding the Hamas rocket attacks on Sderot. He definitely sides more with the Palestinian side and not the Israeli side."
Peres and the Pope
President Peres and the pope delivered short remarks at the airport. Peres spoke of the "ongoing dialogue in the spirit of the Prophets between Judaism and Christianity,' and emphasized the freedom of religion and access to religious sites that Israel grants.
The pope mentioned the "State of Israel" in his opening sentence, as opposed to Pope Paul VI, who refrained from doing so during his entire 11-hour visit. Benedict XVI emphasized his "pilgrimage of peace" and criticized anti-Semitism around the world. He said that the Jews had tragically suffered the consequences of destructive ideologies, and that he would go to Yad Vashem to "honor the memory of the six millions Jewish victims of the Shoah." His German nationality and his membership in the Hitler Youth and German Army of World War II weighed heavily in the background, though not mentioned.
Finally, the pope spoke of his wish for a "just and lasting solution" to the current conflict, expressing his hope for "both nations to live in secure and recognized boundaries."
Meeting with Shalit
The pope's next stop, after an afternoon break, will be at the President's Residence in Jerusalem, at 4:00 p.m. At the initiative of President Shimon Peres, the pope will also meet there with Noam Shalit, father of Hamas terrorist-kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Shalit was abducted nearly three years ago, and Hamas has released barely any sign of his life since.
2. PA Tries to Use Pope's Visit for Control in Eastern Jerusalem
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Palestinian Authority attempted to seize control of the "Bridge for Peace" visit by Pope Benedict XVI by claiming authority over media coverage of his tour in Jerusalem. It arranged a meeting in the Ambassador Hotel in eastern Jerusalem for journalists covering the visit, but Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch (Yisrael Beiteinu) promptly issued an order to close the hotel.
A police order to the hotel was based on the law that prohibits the PA from operating in the capital. Law enforcement officers confiscated documents at the hotel, and no violence or serious resistance was reported.
PA officials maintained that the government order will not stop it from taking responsibility for welcoming the Pope and supervising media coverage in Jerusalem's Old City, arguing that arrangements for the tour are its responsibility.
"Eastern Jerusalem is our responsibility, and we are supposed to take care of all matters there, including the Pope's visit," officials told the Hebrew-language web site of the Yediot Acharonot newspaper.
The PA is expecting the Pope to encourage a resumption of talks between Israel and the PA, which wants the discussions to be based on Israel's accepting in principle a new PA country on all of Judea, Gaza and Samaria, with its capital in eastern Jerusalem.
The Pope's visit is highly politicized, partly because of his plan to visit Arabs in eastern Jerusalem and in Bethlehem who are living near the separation barrier, which the PA and most international media call the Apartheid Wall.
He also will arrive in Sakhnin, the Arab city in the Galilee whose mayor earlier this year led massive demonstrations highlighted by anti-Israeli incitement during the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign.
3. Netanyahu Prepares for Obama: Israel to Be Left Alone in World?
by Hillel Fendel
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu prepares for his visit to the United States next week, warnings abound that the Obama Administration's policies will leave Israel to face Iran and Hamas alone.
The warnings are summed up in recent articles by the West's two main pro-Israel female commentators: Melanie Phillips and Caroline Glick. Writing in the Spectator (United Kingdom) last week, Philips warns that "Obama is attempting to throw Israel under the Islamist bus." She cites the report that Obama's National Security Adviser told a European foreign minister that Obama will be 'forceful' with Israel, and plans to impose, with the EU and moderate Arab states, "a satisfactory endgame solution" upon Israel.
PA State: Evil and Stupid
"This is all not only evil," Phillips says, "but exceptionally stupid… The Arab states are beside themselves with anxiety about Iran. They want it to be attacked and its nuclear programme stopped. They are desperately fearful that the Obama administration might have decided that it can live with a nuclear Iran… A Palestine state will be Iran, in the sense that it will be run by Hamas as a proxy for the Islamic Republic. The idea that a Palestine state will not compromise Israel's security is ludicrous."
American Jewry: Spineless
After expressing incredulity at the American demands for further Israeli concessions in the light of the utter failure of the Disengagement, Phillips writes that U.S. Jews are reacting "with a total absence of spine… Almost eighty per cent of American Jews voted for Obama despite the clear and present danger he posed to Israel. They did so because their liberal self-image was and is more important to them than the Jewish state whose existence and security cannot be allowed to jeopardise their standing with America's elite."
Netanyahu must therefore take Israel's message to "the ordinary American people," she concludes: "They do value and support Israel. They do understand that if Israel is thrown under that bus, the west is next. And it is they to whom Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu must now appeal, over the heads of the politicians and the media and certainly America's Jews and everyone else. He must tell the American people the terrible truth, that America is now run by a man who is intent on sacrificing Israel for a reckless and amoral political strategy which will put America and the rest of the free world at risk."
Glick: Obama Forcing Israel into Corner
Caroline Glick, writing in The Jerusalem Post, states that ahead of Netanyahu's visit to Washington, "the Obama administration is ratcheting up its anti-Israel rhetoric and working feverishly to force Israel into a corner."
She notes that quartet mediator Tony Blair has announced that within six weeks the US, EU, UN and Russia will unveil a new framework for establishing a Palestinian state, and that it is "being worked on at the highest level in the American administration."
Obama Humiliates Peres
Yet another milestone in the U.S. path towards abandoning Israel is the "humiliating reception" President Shimon Peres received from Obama. Visiting in Washington last week, "Peres was tasked with calming the waters ahead of Netanyahu's visit. It was hoped that he could introduce a more collegial tone to US-Israel relations." However, the Obama government barred all media from covering the event, thus "transform[ing] what was supposed to be a friendly visit with a respected and friendly head of state into a back-door encounter with an unwanted guest, who was shooed in and shooed out of the White House without a sound."
Abrogating 40 Years of Understanding
Another point raised by Glick and Eli Lake of The Washington Times: US Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller told the UN that Israel and others must adhere to the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), thus effectively abrogating a 40-year-old US-Israeli understanding that the US would remain silent about Israel's nuclear program because it understood that it is defensive, not offensive in nature. The statement also erases "any distinction between nuclear weapons in the hands of US allies and democratic states and nuclear weapons in the hands of US enemies and terror states," Glick wrote.
"The fact that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, all chance of peace between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and the Arab world will disappear," Glick continues, "is of no interest to Obama and his advisers. They do not care that the day after [Hamas said it was] suspending its attacks against Israel from Gaza, the Iranian-controlled terror regime took credit for several volleys of rockets shot against Israeli civilian targets from Gaza."
"The operational significance of the administration's anti-Israel positions is that Israel will not be well served by adopting a more accommodating posture toward the Palestinians and Iran," Glick concludes.
4. Abbas Rejects Talks with Israel; Abdullah Warns: War or Peace
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has rejected talks with Israel at this time, according to the Hebrew-language Maariv newspaper, apparently waiting for the outcome of next week's meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Last week, the Prime Minister offered to return to the negotiating table immediately and without any pre-conditions.
The Arab world is expecting the U.S. to pressure Israel into specifically accepting the "two-state solution" and halting all construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The discussions in Washington are being billed as crucial to the future of the Middle East.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has maintained the PA must become more stable economically and politically before a new Arab state can be created alongside the Jewish State, a concept that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has rejected.
Israel fears that the objective of the Arab world is to allow the return of several million Arabs who claim to be descendants of former residents in the country. The result would be the domination of Arabs in Israel.
Abbas has conducted a determined single-minded four-year campaign to win international backing for a new PA state based on the Saudi Arabian 2002 Peace Plan that calls for Arab immigration and a new Arab country to be established on all of the land of Judea, Gaza and Samaria, including the Old City of Jerusalem,
The PA includes 250,000 Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods which were restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967. The municipality annexed the neighborhoods, including Gilo, Talpiot, Ramot and French Hill, into the capital more than 20 years ago, but the international community has not accepted the change.
Abdullah: Peace or War
Meanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah II continued a worldwide campaign to pressure Israel into accepting the Saudi Arabian 2002 Peace Plan or face war in 18 months. He told the London Times, "If the call [decision] is in May that this is not the right time or we are not interested, then the world is going to be sucked into another conflict in the Middle East."
King Abdullah issued a similar warning during his visit to the United States three weeks ago and repeated his claim that the Jewish state faces war if it does not accept Arab demands.
The newspaper confirmed a report published last week in Israel National News that he and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed a plan for 57 Arab countries to recognize Israel in return for the Jewish State's acceptance of the Saudi Arabia 2002 Peace Plan.
King Abdullah did not directly respond to the report last week that President Obama suggested that the United Nations take responsibility for Jerusalem's holy sites. However, he stated that Jerusalem is an "international solution" as opposed to a problem. He did not respond to a report that President Obama suggested the United Nations flag fly over religious sites in the capital.
In his interview with the Times, King Abdullah recalled that his first – and last - meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu 10 years ago was the "least pleasant" during his reign. The Prime Minister is flying to Sharm El-Sheikh Monday morning for talks with Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak in what is expected to be a frank exchange of views without any dramatic results.
King Abdullah will continue his "peace campaign" Monday with a visit to Syrian President Bashar Assad, two days after President Obama ordered the extension of sanctions against the country for supporting terror.
The intense American-led pressure on Israel is expected to receive an additional voice this week with the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. "It is all part of one major effort," King Abdullah told the Times.
5. Chief Rabbi Protests Proposal to Cut Ethiopian Aliyah
by Hillel Fendel
With budget preparations well underway for the fiscal years 2009-2010, the Finance Ministry's proposed Arrangements Law is under scrutiny. One of its clauses – calling for an end to Ethiopian-Jewish immigration – has aroused the protest of the Rishon LeTzion, Rabbi Shlomo Amar.
"It is hard to conceive that the Government of Israel would refrain from bringing Jews because of economic calculations," Rabbi Amar wrote to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. So reports Yitzchak Hildesheimer in Makor Rishon.
The Finance Ministry proposes to save 400 million shekels a year by ending the immigration to Israel of the Falash Mura community. The Cabinet voted just last September to continue bringing in Falash Mura Jews, at the rate of approximately 100 each month. The Finance Ministry now proposes to nullify that decision.
Though the Jewishness of the Falash Mura has long been an issue of contention, Rabbi Amar has ruled that the community is Jewish and should be aided in coming to Israel. Rabbi Amar visited Ethiopia himself to investigate the matter, and relies on the ruling of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as well.
Jews, With a Minority of Christians
Rabbi Amar wrote to Netanyahu: "The leading Halakhic [Jewish legal] authority, our master Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has already ruled that the Jews of Ethiopia are Jews in every sense. I, too, small in stature, have found and ruled that the Falash Mura, too, are kosher Jews who were forced to accept Christianity. However, because some non-Jews married into them and we cannot ascertain the precise status of every single one, they should undergo formal conversion. But in any event, there is a definitive obligation to bring them to the Land of Israel and save them."
Minister Yishai
Interior Minister Eli Yishai's comment: "If we were talking about potential immigrants from the former Soviet Union, would their Aliyah be stopped because of budgetary considerations? This proposal must be opposed totally."
The United Jewish Communities (UJC), as well, which represents 157 local Jewish Federations and 400 independent communities across North America, has also come out against an end to aid for Ethiopian Aliyah. "UJC/Jewish Federations of North America has long supported efforts to definitively resolve the immigration status of Falash Mura remaining in Ethiopia," a UJC letter to Netanyahu states. "For that reason, the UJC applauded the 2008 cabinet decision, urging that adjudication and immigration of those found eligible should be completed in as short a time as possible."
Background
The number of remaining Falash Mura in Ethiopia is estimated at between 1,500 and several thousand, of which not all are eligible for Aliyah to Israel. Last year's Cabinet vote took place just a month after what was thought to be the last official airlift of Ethiopian Jews landed in Israel. A total of 120,000 Ethiopian Jews had been brought to Israel over a 30-year period.
6. Austrian Hotel: No Jews Allowed
by Yehudah Lev Kay
A hotel in Austria has refused a request by a Jewish family of seven from Vienna to lodge. The hotel owner told the family by email that the room was available, but she did not want to host Jewish guests because of "bad experiences in the past."
The incident occurred at the Haus Sonnenhof apartment hotel in the village of Serfaus. The surrounding region is popular with Orthodox Jewish tourists. Local hotel owners said the incident would be bad for the tourist industry in the area.
The story was reported by the local daily newspaper Tiroler Tagezeitung on Sunday. Owner of the Alpenruh-Micheluzzi hotel, Petra Micheluzzi, told the paper that the incident would be "bad for the image" of Serfaus. Irmgard Monz, the owner of the Hans Sonnenhof hotel, refused to comment.
Esther Fritsch, president of the local Jewish community said that the rejection was "terrible" but said it was the first incident of its kind.
The Jewish family decided to vacation elsewhere. "I don't want to spend my vacation in such a racist nest, and I will inform all my friends about what is going on," the father said.
7. Promoting Agrotourism
by IsraelNN TV Staff
In addition to all the stands at Agritech 2009, the expo where various types of technological developments in the field of farming make their debut each year, the Ministry of Agriculture's "agro tourism" department added a stand to promote tourism in farms.
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Can't see the video player? Click here to view the entire Israeli Salad report.
8. Bassi: Evictees were 'Calf that Does Not Want to Suckle'
by Gil Ronen
Yonatan Bassi, the man who headed the SELA Administration for the resettlement of families who were forcibly evicted from their homes in Gush Katif and northern Samaria in 2005, testified Sunday before the official commission of inquiry established to look into the delays in their resettlement and compensation. Bassi was emotional and spoke in a shaky voice, but maintained that the Sela Authority was not to blame for the problems with resttlement. Rather, he said, it was the evictees who refused to cooperate with the Authority.
"As time went by and the Disengagement got nearer, a disconnection formed between the Authority and the community of evacuees," Bassi said. However, he said that he disagreed with the criticism leveled at the Authority by the State Comptroller and Ombudsman. "I think that the State Comptroller did not see things as we did," Bassi stated. "We made a great effort to help all of the evacuee communities." Bassi quoted the idiom: "The cow wants to give milk but the calf does not want to suckle."
The commission's head, Judge (ret.) Eliyahu Matza, asked Bassi if his statements regarding the Disengagement caused the rupturing relations between him and the evictees. Bassi said that "a process of grief is always accompanied by anger. People were angry at Ariel Sharon and at Yonatan Bassi… If the Administration was headed by a person without a kippah, there would be less anger."
Commission members Bar-Ilan University law Prof. Yedidya Stern (R), retired justice Eliyahu Matza (C) and Dr. Shimon Ravid (Israel News photo: Flash 90)
Regarding the slow pace of resettlement of the evictees, Bassi did not take the blame on himself or the Sela Authority: "One can evict by force but we could not [re]settle by force. With a lot of soldiers one can evict but we were not able to forcefully [re]settle," he explained.
"We thought at first that there would be 50 percent who would get by on their own and 50 percent in which we would have to intervene. In the end it was 80 percent who did not get by and 20 percent who did. We thought that it would not be right to build the alternative communities and only then carry out the plan, but I knew that the rehabilitation would take more than three years.," Bassi said.
"We did everything to meet with the people, both people on the ground and leaders… meetings in hotels, in basements… we held many meetings with individuals and groups. We put up an internet website, we sent letters and they burned the letters we sent," he complained.
The uprooting of the cemetery was "hard, painful and sensitive," he said.
Nevertheless, Bassi also said, "The state owes this to those evicted, it has to bring them back to living productive lives. Regardless of the debate on whether the disengagement was the right thing or not, they made the greatest sacrifice."
Bassi 'lost all shame'
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel accused Bassi of "losing all sense of shame" following his initial testimony. "Bassi was a senior associate to the greatest failure in Israel in the last generation, to a moral crime against basic human rights and to an unpardonable sin," the Forum stated. "His blaming the evacuees for the situation that he and his masters led them [into] is the height of cynicism," it added.
"The Legal Forum struggled, fought and begged to stop the evacuation until a communal solution was found for the evacuess, but Bassi and the Administration ran a false campaign that stated that there is 'a solution for every resident' – something that was proven to be a lie," the Forum went on to state. "Had Mr.Bassi cooperated with the Legal Forum's suggestions, he would not now be sitting as the first person to be questioned by the Committee of Inquiry."
Judge Matza said that Bassi would appear again before the commission of inquiry.
