Currently the fight against [Arab-Jewish] intermarriage is spearheaded by the Yad L’Achim organization . Not long ago its chairman, Rabbi Shalom Dov Lipschitz, wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, warning of “a fundamental failure in the Jewish education and values in the secular education system in Israel.”
IOA Editor: This is Jewish racism at its very best. While not uniquely Jewish, and not terribly new, such racist behavior – the separation of couples on racial grounds – is well known in European and North American history, and elsewhere. This news story is important because in the “advanced” countries that Israel would like to associate with and be treated as an ally by, such behavior would be rejected, and is generally outlawed. One would think that such blatantly racist practices are not in Israel’s self-interest, yet it involves organizations which benefit from government support, and it may possibly involve high level government officials. Read more »
Thus the excuses are running out one after another and the naked truth is being revealed: Netanyahu’s promise – “if they give they’ll get, if they don’t give they won’t get” – was based on the assumption that we would continue to be on the receiving end of Palestinian terror, which would release us from the need to allow them to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital. If even U.S. President Barack Obama does not ensure that they get what they deserve, we will all get what we deserve. Read more »
Israel’s character is it’s own business. It is not up to the Palestinians to define it, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Thursday, when asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Read more »
Human rights groups in the European Union are reportedly preparing to launch a public campaign lobbying EU governments as well as the European Commission to stop funding Israeli non-governmental organizations. Read more »
[T]he IMF says that if Israel does not continue to remove the restrictions on internal trade, the gross domestic product per capita will decline later in the year. Incidentally, according to the report the unemployment rate still stands at an extremely high 20 percent (less than Gaza’s 34 percent). Read more »
Instead of paying the political price for the changes in the government’s positions, [Netanyahu] is passing the burden of proof onto the Arab side and is demanding that they alter their position. When terrorism is at a low, they raise the issue of a Jewish state; when the Americans demand that the Jews cease construction in the settlements, he demands that the Arabs embark on normalization. Read more »
America’s best Jewish minds are wracking their brains, trying to find a magic formula that will put the settlements close to the hearts of Israel’s supporters, not to mention its critics. A new guide to the perplexed, disseminated by the leadership of the Israel Project, the organization spearheading Israel’s public relations efforts in the United States, offers a glimpse into its very own internal confusion Read more »
If I were Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas I would be deeply insulted by the negotiations U.S. President Barack Obama is conducting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over building permits in the settlements. Who authorized the Americans – this administration or the previous one – to do business with Palestinian land? Read more »
Activists for Bimkom association, which works for justice and human rights in planning and knows a thing or two about the situation in the territories, have discovered that Barak recently authorized the Civil Administration to submit a plan for the construction of 300 housing units in the unauthorized outpost of Givat Habrecha, near the community of Talmon… The new construction is located around 13 kilometers east of the Green Line, on the “Palestinian” side of the separation barrier. Read more »
The prime minister’s speech last night returned the Middle East to the days of George W. Bush’s “axis of evil.” Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a patriarchal, colonialist address in the best neoconservative tradition: The Arabs are the bad guys, or at best ungrateful terrorists; the Jews, of course, are the good guys, rational people who need to raise and care for their children. Read more »