Author: AFSI Staff

Constitution, Law, and Judiciary Committee Chairman MK Simcha Rothman on Monday morning convened a surprise meeting on “the roadblocking policy of the Israel Police and how it has been applied in recent demonstrations.” The meeting was called against the background of the protests and roadblocks throughout the country, mainly concerning the protests against the judicial reform, on the request of the Im Tirtzu and Regavim movements as well as right-wing MKs.

Likud MK Ariel Kallner insisted “there must be one law for all,” and presented photos from right- and left-wing demonstrations that prove different treatment by the Israel Police – water hoses at a right-wing demonstration and letting left-wing demonstrators take over Ayalon Highway, Tel Aviv’s major artery, with no police presence at all.

Regavim Attorney Boaz Erzi suggested, “It seems that the policy is being enforced according to the public relations of the given demonstration.”

A police representative did concede that “Ayalon is an essential evacuation route in an emergency.” So, let’s get with the program and stop the double standard of treatment before people get hurt!

Source:
Rothman Convenes Emergency Session on Police Selective Dealing with Road Blocks, by David Israel/Jewish Press, June 26, 2023

Arab rioters overnight last Thursday arrived at the Binyamin crossing road near Ateret and Neve Tsuf and blocked it for more than three hours by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.

Binyamin Regional Council Head Israel Ganz
responded on Friday: “A sovereign country and an army cannot allow enemies and rioters to cut off a main road like that. The message sent tonight to the Arabs of the region is dangerous and encourages rioters and terrorists.”

Ganz has been recently crusading to bring back the IDF checkpoints to these areas. “You don’t need to be a great security expert to understand that the current security concept does not match the threats.”

Free and easy movement for the terrorists must come to an end. If the PA cannot prevent terrorists from entering Israel, then it is mandatory to bring back the checkpoints so Israel can do the job, especially now with the increased rate of terror attacks.

Source:
With Arab Murders and Riots, Settlers Demand IDF Checkpoints in Judea and Samaria, by David Israel/Jewish Press, June 23, 2023

On Tuesday afternoon four people were murdered, and multiple others injured in a terrorist shooting attack at a gas station and restaurant at the entrance to the community of Eli in the Binyamin region.

The IDF stated that two terrorists approached the gas station in a vehicle and opened fire, moderately injuring a security guard. The terrorists then opened fire at a restaurant and shot at five other people. One terrorist was shot on the scene and the second was eliminated after a 2-hour manhunt.

The four victims identified are: Nachman Shmuel Mordoff (17) from Ahiya; Elisha Antman (18) a resident of Eli; Harel Masoud (21) from Yad Binyamin; and Ofer Feirman (60) from Eli. All four were eating in a hummus restaurant adjacent to the gas station when the two Palestinian terrorists began shooting.

Just one day after this latest terror carnage, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich yesterday agreed on the immediate promotion of the planning of approximately 1,000 new housing units in Eli. It is the “Zionist response” but why did a terror attack have to be the catalyst?

Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that building new homes is “our response to terror.” The problem with this declaration is that so far it has not eliminated the terror attacks that prompted the government to announce it will authorize more building. Even worse, is that when the terrorists see more building in response to their attacks against Israel, their terror attacks escalate. Saying they will build in response to terror should not be the norm that it is. It can be one response, but Israel legally owns the land. Israel has the right and should build on the land whenever and however she sees fit. Got it?

Some young Jews have protested very strongly in neighboring areas, not the one these terrorists are from. Binyamin Regional Counsel Israel Ganz has called for an end to these disturbances. A more creative response came from Yitzhar, where they were able to cut the power lines to Kafr Urif, the village the terrorists came from saying “Their electricity will not pass through us.”

Sources:
1,000 new housing units to be built in Eli in response to deadly shooting attack, by Israel National News, June 21, 2023

4 murdered in terrorist shooting attack in Eli, by Israel National News, June 20, 2023

4 Israeli terror victims identified, youngest 17; officials demand military operation to defeat ‘evil beasts’, by World Israel News Staff, June 21, 203

Hundreds of religious Zionist youth and families, joined by several coalition MKs, encamped earlier this week overnight at an area in Samaria that previous governments had promised to recognize. Evyatar residents said the proper answer to the terrorist murders at Eli is to re-establish the community.

Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan said in a statement, “The return to Evyatar is the proper Zionist response to the barbaric murder of four beloved sons of this nation. Anyone who tries to kick us off our land will get a thousand Evyatars. The noble families of Evyatar have waited long enough. Neither [U.S. President Joe] Biden, the EU, nor the terrorist Palestinian Authority will distance us from our land. We’re here to stay.”

With that said, more than 1,000 Israelis have been reported to have made their way to Evyatar. Unlike previous attempts to repopulate the village, security forces have allowed the residents to enter the village itself, take up residence in the buildings, and conduct community activities there. Channel 13 News reports that the move to repopulate Evyatar was done with the knowledge and consent of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant.

The pioneering spirit of the residents of Evyatar is inspiring and AFSI stands with them every step of the way!

Sources:
‘We’ve returned home to Evyatar’: Hundreds camp out in evacuated Samaria settlement, demanding to rebuild, by Batya Jerenberg/World Israel News, June 21, 2023

Netanyahu ordered Jewish Samaria village repopulated after attack, by Israel National News, June 22, 2023

Watch and listen to the message from Lital Slonim of Nachala Public Relations

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated a warning Sunday that Israel will do whatever it must to defend its people from Iranian aggression, regardless of whatever agreements are signed between Tehran and other nations — including the United States.

Speaking Sunday during a visit to Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the prime minister said, “We are determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. We have also made it clear to our American friends that more limited agreements are also unacceptable to us.”

In his speech, Netanyahu firmly reiterated, “We will do whatever we need to do in order to defend ourselves, with our own forces, against any threat.”

While Netanyahu remains firm on his stance against any deal with Iran, Ariel Kahana in his Israel Hayom piece yesterday points out the prime minister’s deafening silence in calling out the US on this, as he has in the past. In the past, Israel’s ” vigorous opposition to returning to the original nuclear agreement contributed to the American decision not to do so.” Why has Netanyahu not yet confronted the US this time around?

Last week we commented that the US is playing nice hoping for an agreement that will never come and if it does it won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. We don’t know what the outcome will be of the recent and clearly desperate negotiations with Iran that the US keeps pushing, hoping to keep the two state delusion viable. We remain concerned about any deal that may be signed. Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI says, “The Best Deal With Iran is NO Deal!!”

Sources:
Netanyahu: Limited US-Iran Nuke Deal Not Acceptable, Either, by Hana Levi Julian/Jewish Press, June 18, 2023

As Biden moves forward with Iran, PM’s relative silence is deafening, by Ariel Kahana/Israel Hayom, June 18, 2023

US Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield rightly condemned in a recent speech Palestinian Authority President Mahmood Abbas’ anti-Semitic Statement that equated Israelis to the Nazis.

With no sense of the irony, she then called for foreign aid to the very same PA he continues to lead, 18 years into his four-year term.

An even more distressing irony: President Joe Biden recently launched a first-ever National Strategy To Counter Anti-Semitism amid a spike in Jew-hatred, yet at the same time — in defiance of Congress’ intent — his team continues to provide material support for the PA, even as it not only spouts ant-Semitic speech but funds anti-Jewish terrorism through its “pay-for-slay” program.

This New York Post article sourced here is extremely important because it highlights the disgraceful, weak, and pathetic Biden administration’s actions regarding the horrific and ongoing PA pay-to-slay program. His UN ambassador talks nice at the United Nations while Biden continues to stab Israel in the back.

Source:
Biden & Co. keep funding Palestinian terror — in defiance of Congress, by Sander Gerber/New York Post, June 16, 2023

Members of the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus toured the Binyamin Region last Thursday. Their mission was a fact-finding tour to survey recent government action to remedy years of damage to the environment by local Arabs.

MK Simcha Rothman said after the tour: “All of us had an opportunity to see the void of governance in real-time today. Illegal garbage dumps and illegal incinerators are polluting the environment we all share. Enforcement of environmental protection laws in Judea and Samaria is non-existent, and the fact is that what lies behind these ‘random incidents’ is a systematic, well-planned Palestinian Authority program to annex more and more of the territory of Judea and Samaria, to squash the Jewish communities and make life unlivable for Jews in this region, and to harm our ability to provide equal services and rights to all citizens.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is committed to improving law enforcement and moving forward with building new Jewish communities. Let’s not forget that Sovereignty is the only way to fully stop illegal Arab land grabs. When Sovereignty is applied throughout Judea and Samaria, building up the land advances the region.

Source:
Knesset Eretz Israel Caucus in Binyamin: Environmental Damage Means Failure to Govern, by David Israel/Jewish Press, June 16, 2023

The Knesset on Wednesday voted to approve opposition Yesh Atid MK Karine Elharrar to the Judicial Selections Committee. With 58 votes in favor and 56 votes against, Elharrar’s win marks a triumph for the opposition, which had hinged the continuation of judicial overhaul talks on the selection of its candidate to the committee.

Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to use a legal technicality to delay the vote by 30 days, it backfired.

Noted Israeli writer Rabbi Chaim Navon posted a comment on his Facebook page about the state of the judicial reforms. “For now, we are left with a broken judicial system. Tomorrow the court can announce that it is canceling a law, or a basic law, or the Declaration of Independence itself, because that is what it feels like doing. We must not give up the ambition to correct this, and the other weaknesses of the system. But it may be worth using the only tactic that managed to bring about a certain correction in the system – the tactic that Levin’s associates often underestimated,” Navon wrote.

Navon also praised the success of the former Minister of Justice, Ayelet Shaked. “The subtle and sophisticated way of Ayelet Shaked; the only one who managed to appoint many conservative judges and start some necessary reforms, without having a quarrel with the heads of the system.

Comparing the success of Shaked with the current state of the judicial reforms process is like night and day. It also goes to show how badly the process is being threatened and undermined by those who seek to bring down Israel’s current right-wing government. While the negotiations are worse than a tug of war, and despite this, judicial reforms can, must, and will advance.

Sources:
Netanyahu’s plan backfires: Opposition candidate wins spot on judicial selection panel, by World Israel News Staff and JNS, June 14, 2023

Rabbi Chaim Navon: We lost this judicial reform fight, not the end of the world, by Rabbi Chaim Navon/Israel National News, June 15, 2023

In May, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, head of the IDF Central Command, signed an order allowing Israelis to reenter Homesh under a directive from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The Homesh Yeshiva is the only permanent structure currently in Homesh which was moved a short while ago down the hill to undisputed Israeli land. They now have 5 structures, electricity and running water. What luxury!! Now they are looking for sources to fund what they had to take the opportunity to accomplish.

The Yeshiva was established in 2006 by former Homesh residents and others from Jewish communities in the area, looking to undo what they felt was an unjust government decision taken the previous year. For years a small group of them lugged tables, chairs, and books to the caves of Homesh to keep Jewish learning alive in the town.

Rabbi Menachem Ben Shachar of the Yeshiva said, “We are calling on the government to make this area 100% official, to pave roads, and go back to the way it was before the expulsion. “If the Jewish nation does what it should do, build in the Land of Israel, learn Torah, things will be good. We must proceed with confidence and not stammer, even it doesn’t please the other nations of the world.”

Source:
Homesh Yeshivah foresees a full return to the once-abandoned community, by Josh Hasten/JNS, June 14, 2023

Shai Glick, the CEO of the B’Tslamo rights group, wrote a letter on Wednesday to the Kan Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation urging it to have its journalists stop using the term “West Bank” for Judea and Samaria.

In the letter to Kan CEO Golan Yochpaz, Glick noted that the official term in Israel for the land captured in the Six-Day War is Judea and Samaria.

“The term ‘West Bank’ damages public diplomacy since it connects the region to the Jordanian kingdom and does not reflect the ancient connection of the Jewish people with Judea and Samaria,” Glick added.

Glick demanded in his letter that Kan “clarify procedures so that Kan in English will only use the official term that is used in the State of Israel: Judea and Samaria.”

Source:
Israeli rights group urges public broadcaster to stop referring to ‘West Bank’, by JNS Update Desk, June 15, 2023