Friday, October 28, 2005

"If it is crazy to be Jewish and to prefer Jewish law, then lock us all up in mental institutions"

After more than two months of media censorship and silence, the shameful story of the Israeli government prosecution and persecution of a 16-year-girl for her political and religious beliefs has broken through the media ban. The story of Tziviya Sariel of Elon Moreh finally hit the papers and her uncle was about to be interviewed on Israeli Channel 2, when an Israeli court issued a gag order against any publicity concerning her case.

Tziviya has been languishing in an Israeli jail for women, without bail for more than 60 days charged with involvment in anti government protests following the expulsion of Jews from Northern Shomron. She has angered the Israeli authorities by refusing to recognize the secular Israeli legal system, demanding to be tried before a Rabbinic court. This new trend of Jews demanding trials according to Torah law has caused absolute hysteria among many Israeli judges. The judge presiding over Tziviya's trial actually ordered Tziviyah to be sent for psychiatric evaluation because of her insistance to be tried in a Torah court.

The fact that Tziviya's case has now broken through government censorship has embarrassed the prosecutor and the courts to bring forward her next trial date to this coming Monday October 31, 05. Tziviya's family is urging the public to attend a protest outside the Kfar Saba courthouse, Monday 8:00 AM. The family will be holding signs that read: "If it is crazy to be Jewish and to prefer Jewish law, then lock us all up in mental institutions."

"The use of psychological repression against political rivals with opposing ideological beliefs is a tactic used by repressive regimes and has no place in the land of Israel. We hope to deliver thousands of signed petitions to the President of Israel against this insanity," said Yekutiel Ben Yaakov of Mishalot Yisrael.

To sign the petition visit http://www.voiceofjudea.com/eng/petition.asp

send contributions for campaign to Mishalot Yisrael - Jaffa Rd 210/14 Jerusalem, Israel


http://www.voiceofjudea.com

Mike - 0544876709

A Star of Israel State-owned TV lobbying for Palestine and Peace Now

A Star of Israel State-owned TV lobbying for Palestine and Peace Now on a
Jewish Holiday

Monday, 24 October, 2005
Susie Dym, spokesperson - Mattot Arim sddym@bezeqint.net
sent to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OhaveiEretzYisrael/

Chaim Yavin, state-owned Israel TV's prime-time news show host, will give a
Peace Now-funded virulently anti-settlement presentation for a Palestinian
lobby group, the ATFP, in Washington DC. The event was scheduled&nb;
sp;for Tuesday 25 October - although this date is a Jewish and Israeli national
holiday (Shmini Atzeret abroad - Simchat Torah in Israel).

The ATFP -- American Task Force on Palestine -- is a Palestinian lobby group
endorsed by Abu Mazen and others. Information characterizing this
Palestinian lobby group appears below -- along with a reproduction of the
email sent out by the group to its distribution list regarding Y avin.

The Yavin presentation, which has been shown here in Israel, consists of a
film about the Jews of Yesha. Billed by Yavin as a "documentary", the film is in
fact partisan and one-sided, having been described even by the liberal New
York Times as "angry" and "intensely personal". Israel's Yediot Achronot,
hardly a friend of the settlement movement, described the film as being crafted
to inspire viewers to "get up next S aturday, go to the settlement nearest to his
place of residence, and drag its inhabitants, kicking and screaming, across
the road".

Israel State TV broadcasts news nightly on Channel 1. Yavin has been the
anchor for decades. Yavin's salary comes not from the private sector but from
the budget of the State of Israel - and from a tax levied by the State on all
Israeli television set owners. Therefore, most newsmen working under and
with Yavin are strict ly prohibited from publicly promoting contraversial
positions. How then, could Yavin be entitled to do this? We are informed by
Israel's Media Watch (www.imw.org.il) that technically, Yavin is not an
employee of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He has circumvented this
status by establishing a "company" which employs one person only - himself.
He has a contract to supply services to the Israel Broadcasting Authori ty in
the form of Yavin. The contract between this company and the Israel
Broadcasting Authority is such as to allow Yavin to work for anyone he wants
to -- whereas all other IBA workers are contractually prohibited for working for
anyone else without IBA's express permission.

Minister Ehud Olmert is responsible for Israel State TV. Is there anything
specific t hat Minister Olmert can do -- since after all the contract between the
Israel Broadcasting Authority and Yavin is a fait accompli? The answer is
YES:
a. Olmert can take official note of the fact that Yavin's behavior, even if legal, is
unprofessional. He can state that Yavin's contract will not be renewed. He can
embarrass Yavin by publicly asking him to resign.
b. A minimalistic alternative to (a) is that Olmert can clarify to Yavin that if he
chooses to continue appearing on behalf of contraversial, pro-Palestinian
concerns, his contract will, as a result, not be renewed.
c. Olmert can close the Yavin loophole by issuing the following obvious
instruction to the IBA's legal advisor: that all contracts with "companies" like
Yavin's must in future include clauses prohibiting Israel TV stars from taking
unfair advantage of the publicity they receive to promote causes which are
objected to by Yavin's captive audience -- the Israeli taxpayer.

If you would like to encourage Minister Olmert, the Israel Broadcasting
Authority and Israel TV to stop Yavin's unprofessional behavior, please simply
forward this email to the followi ng email addresses (click "forward", then color
all addresses below with your mouse and paste into the "to" field):

lishka@moital@gov.il, sar@moit@gov.il, mabat@iba.org.il, dover@iba.org.il,
ombudsmann@iba.org.il, ombudsman@iba.org.il, webmaster@iba.org.il

sshalom@knesset.gov.il, zhanegbi@knesset.gov.il, yiskatz@knesset.gov.il,
llivnat@knesset.gov.il, dnaveh@knesset.gov.il, sar@mfa.gov.il,
sar@moag.gov.il, sar@education.gov.il, sar@matat.gov.il,

The above address groups&nb; sp;belong to, respectively, Minister Olmert,
the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and several possibly sympathetic Likud
ministers.

Below, please find:
* Facts about the Palestinian lobby group (ATFP) which Yavin has chosen to
work with (Appendix A);
* The email sent out by ATFP regarding Yavin's presentation (Appendix B)


APPENDIX A: Facts about the "American Task Force on Palestine" lobby
group (www.atfp.com)

* Israel blamed for 9-11: The American Ta sk Force on Palestine lobbies
against Israeli "conquests", a euphemism for Israeli presence beyond the
1967 cease-firelines, going so far as to blame this presence for the 9/11 terror
attack at the World Trade Center ("The ill will directed at the United States by
its perceived support for Israeli conquests ... has created serious security risks
for our country, as demonstrated so horrifically on 9-11."

* Israel is not on the map: Israel is not marked on at least one map appearing
in the ATFP website (in contrast, so-called "Palestine", which is not a state, is
marked); instead, Israel's entire land area is shaded brown on the map to
indicate that Israel's land area is considered part of the Arab World (in
contrast, Western Sahara, for example, is not< /U> shaded brown in the same
map).

* Violence OK while Israel remains east of Green Line: The ATFP's
understanding of the Roadmap's "central feature" is "a simple quid pro quo:
an end to Palestinian violence against Israelis in exchange for an end to
Israeli settlement of Palestinian lands."

* Veiled threats r e renewed Arab boycott: "The Arab world: 2.2 Arab
countries, 300 million people, $1.2 trillion. Palestinian statehood will ... open
the door to a trillion dollar market. ", the ATFP website promises. The flip side
of this glowing conditional statement, however, is that failure to set up a
Palestinian state might cause the United States to forfeit that trillion dollar
market - a subtle ATFP threat that the Arab boycott might just return.

* Fatal bus attacks by suicide bombers downgraded (compared to accidental
deaths in combat areas):
One day after a double suicide bombing in Beer-Sheva left 16 dead Israeli
civilians including 10 women and a three year old child, the ATFP had this to
say: "[Y]esterdayís bombings .... along with the deaths of hundreds of
Palestinian civilians over the course of the past several months... stand in the
way of peaceful coexistence between the two peoples".

* Lack of credibility?? The ATFP does not give a source for the above claim t
hat "hundreds of Palestinian civilians" were killed within a few months. We
fact-checked and found that even the extreme left affiliated B'tselem
organization puts the total number of Palestinians killed by the IDF in the
months preceding the ATFP statement, including combatants, at a few
hundred. B'tselem's website makes no claim whatever that this number
includes substantial numbers of civilians (as opposed to combatants), as
implied by the vague ATFP state ment.

**** The ATFP has six "principles". These principles or positions, plainly put,
include:
* Another terror state endangering Israel's population centers: Establishment,
with no pre-conditions, of yet another Arab state, bordering with Israel on the old, dangerous 1967 cease-fire lines, situated just opposite Israel's narrow
waistline where most of Israel's population resides. The ATFP's position
favoring (unconditional) establishment of a Palestinian state is NOT in
accordance with the official positions of the Government of Israel. The Israeli
Government has never agreed to the unconditional establishment of a
Palestinian state. The opposite is the case: The GOI (Gov't of Israel) agreed to accept establishment of an other Palestinian state, only conditional on 14
preconditions, chief among them the full and complete cessation of
Palestinian terrorism. The huge fleet of bulletproof buses serving Israeli
schoolchildren and other citizens daily, is mute evidence to the vast distance
between this precondition and Middle East reality.
* No Jewish minority tolerated in Palestine: Forced deportation (euphemism:
"evacuation") of the hundreds of tho usands of Israelis and Jews resident in
Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. At the same time, it goes without saying
that a sizeable Arab minority is entitled to continue residing in Israel.
* Independent of demand for Palestinian statehood -- continued pestering of
Israel re "Palestinian refugee problem": Over and above the demand for a
new Palestinian State in Principle 1, Principle 3 contains a separate demand
regarding the Palestinian refugees, whose situation is to be changed "in
accordance with "international legality and the relevant UN resolutions" --
forums in which Israeli vital interests are automatically discounted.


APPENDIX B: Text of email sent out by ATFP regarding Yavin's presentation

The American Task Force on Palestine invites you to a luncheon
briefing with 'The Land of the Settlers' documentary star and
director Chaim Yavin, to be held at the Palestine Center in
Washington, DC. Mr. Yavin is a founder of Israeli television and
the anchor of Israeli TV 's Channel 1 broadcast since 1968.

'The Land of the Settlers' is an explosive Israeli documentary
series th at deals with Israeli settlements in the West Bank and
their impact on Palestinians and Israelis alike. Mr. Yavin will
begin his briefing with a screening of 30 minutes of excerpts from
the 5-part documentary series. The series is a personal production
in which Mr. Yavin visited the occupied territories over a period
of two years as a private individual. His critics cross the entire
spectrum of Israeli politics, from those who say he abandoned his
objectivity, to others who complain that he kept silent for too
long.

Mr. Yavin's DC appearance is part of a speaking tour
encompassing Washington, New York, and Chicago and is sponsored
by Americans For Peace Now. The tour is made possible through a
generous contribution from the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
The Washington portion of his tour is being co-sponsored by the
American Task Force on Palestine.

When:
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
12:30 - 2:00 p.m.

Where:
The Palestine Cente r
Potomac Plaza Building, 2425 Virginia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20037

Registration required.

RSVP by 3:00 p.m. Monday, October 24.

Call 202-887-0177 or email rdajani@atfp.net

News Media on 'The Land of the Settlers':

" A documentary about Israel's settlements in the
West Bank that is pessimistic, angry and intensely personal."
New York Times

"The breath becomes short, the heart is choked wi th
angerÖAfter watching 'The Land of the Settlers,' every caring
Israeli, every humane Israeli, should get up next Saturday, go to
the settlement nearest to his place of residence, and drag its
inhabitants, kicking and screaming, across the road to the side of
sanity." Yedioth Ahronoth

"As a journalistic television product, what can one say about
Yavin's personal journey between roadblocks, in front of the
soldiers who are hardhearted because those are the
orders, next to the chilling Daniela Weiss and in the living room
of the denizens of the settlement outposts, who are so friendly
(until reminded that there are, even fairly close to us, such
beings called 'Palestinians.')?" Ma'ariv

--------------------------------------------------------------

The ATFP is a not-for-profit organization that aims to educate the
American people about the national security interests of the United
States in establishing a Palestinian state. Specifically, ATF P seeks to
promote the awareness of the far-reaching benefits that Palestinian
statehood will have for the United States in the following areas: (1)
enhancing national security, (2) proliferation of American values of
freedom and democracy, and (3) expansion of economic opportunities
throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.

American Task Force on Palestine
815 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20006
HYPERLINK "http://www.americantaskforce.org"


REMINDER: PLEASE forward this email to the following email addresses
(click "forward", then color all addresses below with your mouse and paste
into the "to" field):
lishka@moital@gov.il; sar@moit@gov.il; mabat@iba.org.il; dover@iba.org.il;
ombudsmann@iba.org.il;ombudsman@iba.org.il;webmaster@
sshalom@knesset.gov.il;
zhanegbi@knesset.gov.il;yiskatz@knesset
.gov.il;llivnat@knesset.gov.il;dnaveh@knesset.gov.il; sar@mfa.gov.il;
sar@moag.gov.il; sar@education.gov.il; sar@matat.gov.il;

NOTE: IF YOU RECEIVED THIS EMAIL FROM A FRIEND, YOU CAN
SUBSCRIBE FOR MATTOT ARIM UPDATES DIRECTLY BY SENDING A
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WHETHER YOU RESIDE IN ISRAEL OR ABROAD.

Thank you for your concern and assistance.

Susie Dym, spokesperson
Mattot Arim
an Israeli grassroots organizat ion
working toward peace-for-peace since 1992