New 'Master Race'? - Pt 2: Israeli City Routinely Rejects Ethiopian-Israelis Registering for Marriage

At least 30 Ethiopian-Israeli couples have been denied marriage licenses in Petah Tikva in the last nine months, Army Radio reports. 

Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir greets new immigrants from Ethiopia, 1991.
(Photo by Government Press Office)

(

By JTA
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.704821
Ethiopian-Israelis registering for marriage licenses in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva reportedly are routinely rejected and forced to register elsewhere.

At least 30 Ethiopian-Israeli couples have been denied marriage licenses in Petah Tikva in the last nine months, Army Radio first reported Monday, when it interviewed an Ethiopian-Israeli woman identified as Shega, a Petah Tikva resident who is scheduled to be married in April.

In a conversation last week with the registrar that was secretly recorded, Shega said that despite presenting the paperwork proving she had converted to Judaism, the registrar asked her to provide a letter from a rabbi attesting to the fact that she was a practicing Orthodox Jew. He then suggested the couple register in her groom-to-be’s home community.

“I don’t understand,” the woman told The Jerusalem Post later on Monday. “I presented the forms and approvals from the rabbinate of Jerusalem, and that’s not enough for the rabbi of Petah Tikva, but approval from a rabbi of my ethnicity will satisfy him? They know that my wedding date is imminent, and in any event they are trying to make it difficult for me.

“Would a secular woman have received the same barrage of questions, or is it because of the color of my skin that I am subject to this embarrassing mask of questions?”

Platiel Eisenthal, the supervisor of the Petah Tikva religious council, told The Jerusalem Post when asked about the questions, “What is permitted and required in every other city is also permitted and required in Petah Tikva.” Eisenthal said the issue would be investigated.

Tzohar, an organization made up of religious Zionist rabbis who aim to bridge the gaps between religious and secular Jews in Israel, condemned the rejections.

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Donald Trump Claims American Muslims in New Jersey Celebrated the Collapse of Buildings On 9/11: He's Right, There WERE Celebrants — But They Were Israelis

The Mysterious Case of the 'Dancing Israelis'

“There is a taboo on telling the truth about Palestine and the great destructive force behind Israel.  Only when this truth is out can any of us be free.”—Edward Said

By Ronald David Jackson
A resident living in an apartment building in New Jersey directly across the river from Manhattan's World Trade Center witnessed several men in a nearby parking lot taking photographs, video taping and celebrating as they watched the twin towers tumble to the ground on September 11, 2001.  The police were called and a dragnet was put in place for a white van driven by "Arabs seen celebrating the demise of the World Trade Center." At the time it was assumed the celebrants might be somehow connected to the terror attack — after all, they were seen celebrating the attack.

From Left: The Five 'Dancing Israelis' - Yaron Schmuel, Paul Kurzberg, Sivan Kurzberg, Omer Marmari, and Oded Ellner.
Last Photo - Dominick Suter, owner of Urban Moving Systems, which owned all of the moving vans Israelis were arrested driving in the immediate aftermath of the 911 terror attacks. Urban Moving Systems was later identified as a Mossad front.

The five individuals pictured above were subsequently arrested. The van they were driving was reportedly found to have traces of explosives, they had maps highlighting the World Trade Center as well as the location where they were seen celebrating, and the arresting officers said they were behaving suspiciously.  Later, a police report showed the van's occupants lied about where they were when the jets hit the twin towers. The van they were driving was owned by New Jersey-based Urban Moving Systems, later identified as a front company for Israel's intelligence service, Mossad. The owner of Urban Moving Systems, Dominick Suter, fled back to Israel before he could be apprehended, and the FBI confiscated computers and other items in a raid on his offices.  The materials captured in the raid have been "classified."

Other white trucks and vans were intercepted that day, including one reportedly "packed with  explosives" which was stopped near the George Washington Bridge, and one with a mural depicting the World Trade Center under attack by an airliner. It was speculated that the van with the twin tower attack mural was a "decoy" designed to draw attention.

During FBI interrogations all five of the "Dancing Israelis" failed polygraph tests. But after much behind-the-scenes pressure by the Israeli government they were released after 71 days, reportedly under orders of Michael Chertoff who was then head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.

Upon their return to Israel, some of the "Dancing Israelis" appeared on an Israeli talk show. During the show, which has been posted on YouTube, one of them said, "The fact of the matter is, we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event."  Was this a slip of the tongue or a merely bad translation of what he really meant?

An FBI document indicates the film taken from one of the Israeli's cameras confirms the Israelis were "visibly happy" about the attack on the World Trade Center.

If witnesses and FBI documents are to be believed, the "Dancing Israelis" shed no tears for the people who died in the twins towers that day — instead they celebrated it. Strange behavior indeed for agents in the employ of a country the U.S. has supported and defended through thick and thin. Shouldn't they have been at least as shocked and heartbroken over the events of 911 as most other citizens of the world?

The clear implication regarding the behavior of the "Dancing Israelis" is that elements within the Israeli government—and/or elements within the U.S. government—had foreknowledge of the 911 attacks and did not provide a warning to the people who went to work at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. That would make them culpable in that war crime, whether they planned, funded, or designed the operation themselves or simply detected it and let it happen.

[...]

Included In the Videos Below: 1) A person who witnessed the Israelis "photographing, video taping, and celebrating" as the twin towers burned and collapsed is interviewed, 2) Some of the 'Dancing Israelis" are interviewed on a television talk show after their return to Israel and one of them says, "We were there to witness the event",  3) A police officer involved in the arrest of the "Dancing Israelis" is interviewed, 4) A police radio call regarding the interception of a white van with a mural depicting the attack on the World Trade Center, 5) Television reports of police intercepting a van full of explosives near the George Washington Bridge, and a report of an FBI nation-wide all points bulletin for a white van with "Urban Moving Systems" written on the back.

Left: A witness to the "Dancing Israelis," an arresting officer interviewed, and an on-air "confession."
Right: Police radio recordings, newscasts of interception of truck or van "packed with explosives" near
the George Washington Bridge, the FBI announces search for "Urban Moving Systems" van.
Footage Source: Left and Right

NOTE: So when you hear CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, FoxNews, the New York Times, all of today's news people and pundits, etc. pretend they have no idea or memory of what Donald Trump is talking about when it comes to "people celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center in New Jersey"...  They are all lying.

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The Silence of Israel on ISIS: Are They Silent Partners?

A curious silence in the U.S.-led battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is coming from Israel, which has advocated the overthrow of Iran’s ally in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad, but has had little to say about the brutal Islamists seeking to oust Assad.

Launched by journalists Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek, the #JSIL hashtag has become extremely popular
on Twitter among critics of Israeli policies, reaching more than 5,200 retweets a day at its peak.

By Stephen J. Sniegoski
In the war on the Islamic State, the alleged scourge of humanity, little is heard about the position of America’s much-ballyhooed greatest ally in the Middle East, if not the world, Israel. Now the Islamic State has been conquering territory in very close proximity to the border of Israel. But Israel does not seem to be fearful and it is not taking any action.

And the Obama administration and American media pundits do not seem to be the least bit disturbed. This is quite in contrast to the complaints about other Middle East countries such as Turkey that are being harshly criticized for their failure to become actively involved in fighting the Islamic State.

[...]

In response to Internet queries as to why the militant group wasn’t fighting Israel instead of killing Muslims in Iraq and Syria, its representatives responded: “We haven’t given orders to kill the Israelis and the Jews. The war against the nearer enemy, those who rebel against the faith, is more important. Allah commands us in the Koran to fight the hypocrites, because they are much more dangerous than those who are fundamentally heretics.”

As justification for this stance, the group cited the position of the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who began his caliphate by fighting against those he deemed apostates who still professed to be followers of Islam. (Shiites hold a negative view of Abu Bakr and his policies). Also cited was Saladin, who fought the Shiites in Egypt before conquering Christian-controlled Jerusalem.

Considering the Islamic State is targeting Muslims, the Israeli government does not see it as a significant enemy at this time. And it is reasonable for Israeli leaders to believe that the Islamic State would never move on to attack their country because it will never be able to conquer its major Islamic foes, though American military involvement would further secure Israel from any possible threat from the Islamic State.

Moreover, the fact of the matter is that the Islamic State actually benefits Israel by causing problems for those very states that do actively oppose Israel and support the Palestinians, such as Syria. What the Islamic State is causing in the Middle East is perfectly attuned with the view of the Israeli Right — as best articulated by Oded Yinon in 1982 — which sought to have Israel’s Middle East enemies fragmented and fighting among themselves in order to weaken the external threat to Israel.

The Oded Yinon Plan: Zionist Plan for the Middle East

Currently, these divisions are not only plaguing Syria and Iraq, but also Turkey, where ethnic Kurds are rioting because of the government’s unwillingness to help their brethren in Syria, and Lebanon, where the Shiite group Hezbollah — allied with Iran, Israel’s foremost enemy — is being assailed by the radical jihadist Nusra Front, which has the support of many Lebanese Sunnis. [See Jonathan Spyer, “The Shia-Sunni War Reaches Lebanon,” Jerusalem Post, Middle East Forum, Oct. 17, 2014.]

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"Violence an epidemic in Israeli society" Says Israel's President: Tensions Between Jews and Arabs at Record Heights

Video said to show Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian woman and trying to remove
her hijab. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

By JTA
The epidemic of violence permeates every sector of Israel, the country’s president, Reuven Rivlin, said in an address.

“It is time to honestly admit that Israeli society is ill – and it is our duty to treat this disease,” Rivlin told the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities on Sunday at a conference titled “From Xenophobia to Accepting the Other.”

“The tension between Jews and Arabs within the State of Israel has risen to record heights, and the relationship between all parties has reached a new low,” he said. “We have all witnessed the shocking sequence of incidents and violence taking place by both sides. The epidemic of violence is not limited to one sector or another, it permeates every area and doesn’t skip any arena. There is violence in soccer stadiums as well as in the academia. There is violence in the social media and in everyday discourse, in hospitals and in schools.”

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US Police Get 'Anti-Terror' Training in Israel on Privately Funded Trips — Observers Say Brutal US Police Tactics Now Mirror Israel's

Photo by Rady Onabanjo. (Taken during the march for police murder victim  Eric Garner)

By Ali Winston
The clouds of tear gas, flurries of projectiles and images of police officers outfitted in military-grade hardware in Ferguson, Missouri, have reignited concerns about the militarization of domestic law enforcement in the United States.

But there has been another, little-discussed change in the training of American police since the 9/11 attacks: At least 300 high-ranking sheriffs and police from agencies large and small – from New York and Maine to Orange County and Oakland, California – have traveled to Israel for privately funded seminars in what is described as counter-terrorism techniques.

For some, dispatching American police to train in a foreign country battered by decades of war, terror attacks and strife highlights how dramatically U.S. law enforcement has changed in the 13 years since al-Qaida airplane hijackers crashed into New York’s World Trade Center. In many places, the image of the friendly cop on the beat has been replaced by intimidating, fully armed military-style troops. And Israel has played part in that transition.

As these trips to Israel became more commonplace, the militarization of U.S. law enforcement also was driven by the creation of various homeland security initiatives and billions of dollars of surplus military-grade equipment donated to local departments through the 1033 program after 9/11.

Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, described the tactics he sees American police use today as “a near replica” of their Israeli counterparts.

“Whether it is in Ferguson or L.A., we see a similar response all the time in the form of a disproportionate number of combat-ready police with military gear who are ready to use tear gas at short notice,” Syed said. “Whenever you find 50 people at a demonstration, there is always a SWAT team in sight or right around the corner.”

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Gaza Carnage: 'Why Does American TV News Look Like a Netanyahu Ad?' — A Question from Europe

An analysis by Punditfact of CNN coverage during the first two weeks of the latest Gaza crisis showed that appearances by Israeli officials outnumbered Palestinian officials by more than four-to-one.

Many people agree with and sympathise with your determination to stop these attacks
on your people,’ Bob Schieffer told Netanyahu. Meanwhile, on Fox: ‘What part of this
can’t you get through your thick head?’ Video stills via CBSNews.com, FoxNews.com

American media's new pro-Israel bias: the same party line at the wrong time

By Chris McGreal
Here are a few questions you won’t hear asked of the parade of Israeli officials crossing US television screens during the current crisis in Gaza:

• What would you do if a foreign country was occupying your land?
• What does it mean that Israeli cabinet ministers deny Palestine’s right to exist?
• What should we make of a prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who as opposition leader in the 1990s addressed a rally under a banner reading “Death to Arafat” a year after the Palestinian leader signed a peace accord with Israel?

These are contentious questions, to be sure, and with complicated answers. But they are relevant to understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today. They also parallel the issues routinely raised by American journalists with Palestinian officials, pressing to consider how the US would react if it were under rocket fire from Mexico, to explain why Hamas won’t recognise Israel and to repudiate Palestinian anti-Semitism.

But it’s a feature of much mainstream journalism in the US, not just an issue of coverage during the last three weeks of the Gaza crisis, that while one set of questions gets asked all the time, the other is heard hardly at all.

In years of reporting from and about Israel, I’ve followed the frequently robust debate in its press about whether Netanyahu really wants a peace deal, about the growing power of right-wing members inside the Israeli cabinet opposed to a Palestinian state, about the creeping air of permanence to the occupation.

So it has been all the more striking to discover a far narrower discourse in Washington and the notoriously pro-Israel mainstream media in the US at a time when difficult questions are more important than ever. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and a crop of foreign leaders have ratcheted up warnings that the door for the two-state solution is closing, in no small part because of Israel’s actions. But still the difficult questions go unasked.

Take Netanyahu’s appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. The host, Bob Schieffer, permitted the Israeli leader to make a lengthy case for the his military’s ground attack, guiding him along with one sympathetic question after another. Finally, after describing Netanyahu’s position as “very understandable”, Schieffer asked about dead Palestinian civilians – but only to wonder if they presented a public relations problem in “the battle for world opinion”.

As if Schieffer’s position wasn’t already blindingly clear, he went on to quote former prime minister Golda Meir’s line that Israelis can never forgive Arabs “for forcing us to kill their children”.

As way of balance, CBS followed with a short clip of an interview by Charlie Rose with the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, who was pressed on his willingness to recognise Israel.

There has been fine reporting from on the ground in Gaza by courageous American journalists who have laid bare the price being paid by ordinary Palestinians. That, in turn, has prompted some stiff questioning in American TV studios of Israeli officials about the scale of civilian deaths and shelling of schools and hospitals. Some pro-Israel American pundits admit to have becoming “less pro-Israel”.

But the broader framework of how the conflict is presented in the US is more troubling.

We have a media scandal that we need to expose,’ says Rula Jebreal. Still via CNN

Former MSNBC contributor Rula Jebreal drew widespread attention to the media divide when she condemned NBC News on air, on MSNBC, for pulling its only Arab-American correspondent, Ayman Mohyeldin, out of Gaza, only to reinstate him because of the backlash. “We are disgustingly biased on this issue,” she said.

She has a point.

An analysis by Punditfact of CNN coverage during the first two weeks of the latest Gaza crisis showed that appearances by Israeli officials outnumbered Palestinian officials by more than four-to-one. There were substantially more interviews with what Punditfact called Palestinian “laymen”, but they included the relatives of a Palestinian-American beaten by Israeli soldiers that offered little insight into the bigger picture.

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Missing Israeli Teens Found Dead in West Bank

By Ben Wedeman and Dana Ford
Tensions between Israel and Hamas ratcheted up Monday after the bodies of three Israeli teenagers, kidnapped this month, were found in the West Bank.

Israel, in no uncertain terms, blames the disappearances and deaths on Hamas.

"Hamas will pay," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri warned against escalation, saying that if Netanyahu "brings a war on Gaza, the gates of hell will open to him."

The three bodies were found northwest of Hebron, according to the Israeli military, which said they were still in the process of being identified.

The three teens -- Eyal Yifrach, 19; Gilad Shaar, 16; and Naftali Frenkel, a 16-year-old dual U.S.-Israeli citizen -- disappeared late June 12 or early June 13 from the Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion in the West Bank, the military said.

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'So long, Israel, and Thanks for Nothing': Palestinian Couple Leaves Israel Because They Couldn't Get A Permit to Live Together After 15 Years

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski.

By Carol Daniel Kasbari
After fifteen years of waiting, my husband and I have finally begun our life together. We have left Jerusalem for good.

I am a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, raised in Nazareth. My husband is also a Palestinian, but unlike me, he is not a citizen of Israel. In fact, he is not a citizen of any country.

I met my husband, Osama Kasbari, in Ramallah in 1997 when I was a student at the Hebrew University, and the connection was immediate. After that first meeting, we spent three hours talking on the phone - about life, identity, language, home - and within a year, we were married.

We began the process of building a normal life, applying for "family unification," a process under which non-citizens married to Israelis could gain temporary residency status and further on down the line become permanent residents or citizens. At the Interior Ministry office in Nazareth, we were told that the process would be quite simple: We were to live inside of Israel’s borders, pay taxes, obey the laws and within four years, my husband would be granted permanent residency. This is what we were told, and this is what we believed, so this is what we did.

My husband was granted an Aleph/5 permit, a temporary status which enabled us to live together. He was one of those “good Arabs," according to the Shin Bet, who reviewed our application to renew his permit. Every year, before the permit expired, I would spend an entire week on the phone, until I finally reached the clerk who would schedule an appointment for us at the Interior Ministry. The grilling would begin on the phone, and end in a day-long visit to an office where we submitted a pile of papers that revealed every detail of our life: Three months of a protracted, demanding and exhausting process. It involved explaining every move and every payment we made. We felt we were at the mercy of clerks and strangers who passed judgment on our life choices. My husband couldn’t leave the country, buy a house and or even open a bank account or pay his own cellphone bill.

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Israel Government Plan for 'Jewish' Negev Town Called 'Racist' by Israeli Rights Organizations

Israeli plan for Jewish Negev town 'racist' (via AFP)

An Israeli human rights organisation on Monday accused the government of promoting "racist" policies in its decision to establish a Jewish town in the place of a Bedouin village. The cabinet on Sunday approved the establishment of "two new communities…