The first class of an army preparatory program for members of the Bedouin community graduated this week, with its 15 members bound for enlistment better equipped to handle the challenges awaiting them, participants said.
Up until last year, Israel had 55 pre-army programs, known in Hebrew as mechinot (mechina, in the singular), geared toward Jewish Israelis and three for the Druze community, but none for the country’s Bedouin population, according to Tal Galin, the head of the new Academy for Bedouin Leadership in the Galilee.
TORA, the umbrella organization of traditional Orthodox American rabbis, joins with many others who know of the integrity and competence of David Friedman, President Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel. We share his core values of respect for human life, for the importance of Israel in the lives of Jews, and his dedication to the United States as a world leader. We are offended by those who imply that there is any white space between his values and those traditionally of the Jewish people.
Israel, the only Jewish nation in the world, is a small country on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. For its relatively small size, the country has played a large role in global affairs. The country has a strong economy, landmarks of significance to several religions and strained relationships with many of its Arab neighbors.
The founding of modern Israel can be traced back to World War I, when Zionists lobbied the British for recognition of a Jewish state in Palestine. After World War II, the British withdrew from their mandate of Palestine, and the United Nations proposed dividing the area into Arab and Jewish states, an idea opposed by the Arabs. Nonetheless, Israelis declared independence in 1948 and the new country then defeated the Arabs in a series of wars.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley on Tuesday discussed reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations during her first meeting with the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations.
Haley tweeted after her talks with Ambassador Riyad Mansour that the Palestinians should “meet with Israel in direct negotiations rather than looking to the UN to deliver results that can only be achieved through the two parties.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s planned upcoming trip to Israel will represent a diplomatic shift that “should have been carried out many years ago,” the Hindustan Times said in an editorial on Monday.
“Whatever the outcome of the visit, the very act of visiting Israel will be historic,” it noted. “No serving Indian prime minister has ever visited Israel. There are also increasing signals that Modi will break the traditional diplomatic hyphen New Delhi has maintained between Israel and Palestine and will not include a stopover in Palestine in his itinerary. Such a decision would fit in with Modi’s general attitude that Indian foreign policy should reflect the rising global profile of India, adhere strictly to the national interest and be less concerned about ideological and symbolic actions.”
“More fundamental is that such a trip would reflect the sea-change that has taken place between India and Israel since the former normalised diplomatic relations in 1992,” the New Delhi-based English-language paper went on to say. “Israel is now one of the three largest suppliers of arms and weapons to India, a major source of assistance in the country’s counterterrorism programmes and, uniquely in the world, a partner in the development of India’s nuclear arsenal. The last fact alone would indicate Israel has become strategically more trusted by India than any other country in the world.”
Much of the criticism of attorney David Friedman — President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next US ambassador to Israel — has been “beyond outrageous and really quite wrong,” the president of the World Jewish Congress said in a recent letter, seen by The Algemeiner, to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, which is set to vote on the Friedman appointment later this week.
“One might disagree with him [Friedman] on a political point, but that doesn’t mean he is not extremely capable, upstanding, and that the president should have the absolute right to nominate whomever he desires,” Ronald S. Lauder wrote to Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee last Tuesday.
Israel enacted a law banning entry to foreigners who publicly call for boycotting the Jewish state or its settlements.
The Knesset passed the law by a vote of 46-28 on Monday, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
The ban applies to any foreigner “who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel that, given the content of the call and the circumstances in which it was issued, has a reasonable possibility of leading to the imposition of a boycott – if the issuer was aware of this possibility.” It includes those who urge boycotting areas under Israeli control, such as the West Bank settlements.
Zev Brenner of TCN Interviews Netzach Yisrael’s Heshey Zelcer. Listen to Zev Brenner of TCN interview Heshey Zelcer. They discuss Netzach Yisrael and the need — like never before — for Orthodox Jews to advocate politically for the State of Israel.
Visiting Jerusalem, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday decried the recent wave of anti-Semitic acts in the United States as “reprehensible” and vowed his state was employing “extraordinary measures” to combat the phenomenon.
During his quick trip to Israel, Cuomo made his first comments following the toppling of headstones at a Jewish cemetery this weekend in Brooklyn.
It followed a series of vandalism attacks at Jewish cemeteries, including one in Rochester, New York, and more than 120 bomb threats to Jewish organizations in three dozen states since early January. In New York City alone, ant-Semitic hate crimes nearly doubled in the past year.
Likud MK Yehuda Glick, second left, Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis of Florida, center, and their staffs, March 5, 2017
A group of American lawmakers visited Israel Sunday to examine a possible transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, taking a tentative first step toward the measure despite indications from the Trump administration that the controversial move may no longer be a priority.
The delegation, made up of members of the Subcommittee for National Security of the House Oversight Committee, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israel officials on Sunday morning.
Led by Representative Ron DeSantis of Florida, the group was set to visit possible sites for the American Embassy during its one-day trip.
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