254 Britain expels Israeli diplomat. Knesset member: Brits worse than dogs

Britain expels Israeli diplomat. Knesset member: Brits worse than dogs

(1) & (2) Britain expels Israeli diplomat over passport/identity theft in Dubai assassination
(3) Knesset member: Brits worse than dogs "since some dogs are utterly loyal"
(4) Who Is The British Dog? - Gilad Atzmon
(5) Netanyahu approved Dubai assassination in January: “The people of Israel count on you"
(6) Israel defies Obama: Mayor of Jerusalem says Jewish settlements will go ahead
(7) Netanyahu 1-year block on peace talks. "Jerusalem is not a settlement, it's our capital"
(8) Prince Charles  (wearing a yarmulke) and Camilla light a menorah during Hanukkah
(9) New FBI Files allege AIPAC theft of Government property, & Israeli Espionage - Forbes
(10) Israel’s 'No renting to Arabs' policy: Jewish couple can't rent home to Bedouin friends

(1) Britain expels Israeli diplomat over passport/identity theft in Dubai assassination
From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 24.03.2010 03:37 PM

Britain expelled Israeli diplomat over fake passports used in Dubai

Israeli diplomat expelled in fake passports row

By Sam Marsden

March 23  2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/israeli-diplomat-expelled-in-fake-passports-row-1925653.html

(Independent) Britain has expelled an Israeli diplomat over the use of fake UK passports by suspected Mossad agents in the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai, it was announced today.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said an investigation had discovered "compelling" evidence that Tel Aviv's secret service was responsible for cloning the ID documents.

He told MPs it was "intolerable" for a foreign country to behave in such a way, and the fact that Israel was a close ally added "insult to injury".

"Given that this was a very sophisticated operation, in which high-quality forgeries were made, the Government judges it is highly likely that the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service.

"Taking this together with other inquiries, and the link with Israel established by Soca (the Serious and Organised Crime Agency), we have concluded that there are compelling reasons to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of the British passports.

"The Government takes this matter extremely seriously. Such misuse of British passports is intolerable."

He added: "I have asked that a member of the embassy of Israel be withdrawn, and this is taking place."

Mr Miliband said the misuse of passports presented a "hazard for the safety of British nationals in the region".

"It also represents a profound disregard for the sovereignty of the United Kingdom," he said. "The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury.

"No country or government could stand by in such a situation."

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the founder of Hamas's military wing, was assassinated in his luxury hotel room in Dubai on January 19 by a team of killers wearing fake beards, wigs and other disguises.

Dubai officials said they were "99% certain" that Mossad agents were behind the murder but Israel has refused to confirm or deny the link.

At the time Mr Miliband branded the abuse of British passports "outrageous" and demanded that Tel Aviv co-operate fully with the UK's investigation.

Israel's ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, was summoned to the Foreign Office last month to discuss the situation, but he flatly denied there was any "additional information" to give.

Investigators from Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) looked into the use of cloned passports of innocent British citizens in the attack.

Mr Miliband said 11 of the 12 had now been given biometric passports which would be harder to counterfeit.

He also said the Foreign Office's travel advice for Israel would be amended to highlight the risk of papers being cloned, and how it can be minimised.

Other members of the hit squad travelled on fake Irish, French and Australian travel documents.

Gordon Brown's spokesman told reporters: "The Prime Minister was consulted on this decision and supports it."

The spokesman said the diplomat had technically been "asked to withdraw" from the UK, rather than expelled, and was being given two weeks to leave the country.

Mr Miliband met Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday and handed him a letter seeking formal assurance that in future Israel will never be party to the misuse of British passports, said the spokesman.

Also yesterday, the head of the UK diplomatic service, Sir Peter Ricketts, met Israeli Ambassador to London Ron Prosor.

(2) UK expels Israeli diplomat over Dubai passports

By Adrian Croft

March 23 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/israeli-diplomat-expelled-in-fake-passports-row-1925653.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it was expelling an Israeli diplomat from London after concluding that Israel had forged British passports used by the suspected killers of a Hamas commander in Dubai."I've asked that a member of the Embassy of Israel be withdrawn from the UK as a result of this affair and this is taking place," Foreign Secretary David Miliband told parliament.

Miliband said there were "compelling reasons" to believe Israel was responsible for the misuse of British passports in the case and said he had sought assurances from Israel that it would not misuse them again.

"Such misuse of British passports is intolerable ... It also represents a profound disregard for the sovereignty of the United Kingdom," he said.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied a role in the January killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a military commander from the Palestinian organization Hamas, in a Dubai hotel room.

Dubai authorities have given names for 27 alleged members of the team that tracked and killed the Palestinian, and said they used fraudulent British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports to enter and depart from Dubai.

Dubai's police chief says he is almost certain Israeli agents were involved and has accused the intelligence agency Mossad of insulting Dubai.

"COMPELLING REASONS"

After an investigation by a specialized police unit, Miliband said Britain had concluded "there are compelling reasons to believe Israel was responsible for the misuse" of the 12 British passports involved.

"Given that this was a very sophisticated operation in which high-quality forgeries were made, the government judges it is highly likely the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service," he said.

Miliband did not accuse Israel of being responsible for the killing.

Israeli Ambassador to London Ron Prosor said he was disappointed by the British decision.

"It is our clear intention to strengthen the firm foundation of our relationship which is both vital and beneficiary to both our countries," he told reporters.

Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat in 1988 in an espionage row. The man, Arie Regev, was described at the time by informed British sources as a Mossad agent.

Relations between Britain and Israel have been strained recently by a number of issues, including the threat of arrest for alleged war crimes faced by senior Israeli officials visiting Britain.

The latest spat comes at a time of friction between Israel and its key ally, the United States, since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government announced plans to build 1,600 homes for Jews near East Jerusalem.

(Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon, Kylie Maclellan, Keith Weir and Tim Castle in London and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

(3) Knesset member: Brits worse than dogs "since some dogs are utterly loyal"

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 24.03.2010 07:40 PM

Member of Knesset Aryeh Eldad: "I think [the] British are behaving hypocritically and I don't want to offend dogs on this issue, since some dogs are utterly loyal, who are they to judge us on the war on terror?"

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1158393.html

Last update - 22:45 23/03/2010

Lieberman 'regrets' U.K. decision to expel Israeli diplomat

By Haaretz Service

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday said Israel "regretted" Britain's decision to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of forged British passports by suspected killers of a Hamas commander in Dubai.

"We attribute great importance to our relations with Britain," Lieberman said in a statement from Brussels, where he was meeting with senior European Union officials.

"We hold a number of different and sensitive dialogues with them, and regret the British decision," Lieberman added. "We have never been given proof that Israel was involved in this affair."

Officials in Jerusalem expressed disappointed with Britain's public response to the matter, with some saying off the record that they saw it as a negative step in the war on terror.

The assumption in Jerusalem is that the matter will pass in a few days as both Israel and Britain want to continue the strategic dialogue between the two nations.

After Britain announced its decision, MK Aryeh Eldad said that Israel should do the same in turn.

"The natural reaction should be to expel one of the senior diplomats in the British Embassy, maybe the military attache or someone on his level," the National Religious Party lawmaker told Sky News.

"I think [the] British are behaving hypocritically and I don't want to offend dog on this issue, since some dog are utterly loyal, who are they to judge us on the war on terror?"

"We are now cornered into this position and we are accused of doing the wrong things during our war on terrorism," added Eldad.

But an Israeli official said there would be no tit-for-tat reaction.

"There will be no retaliatory measures by Israel and no British diplomats will be expelled," said the official, who declined to be named.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband told parliament there were compelling reasons to believe Israel was responsible for the misuse of British passports in the case and said he had sought assurances that Israel would not misuse them again.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in January in what Dubai police have said they are 99 percent certain was a hit by Israel's Mossad spy agency. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied a role in the killing of Mabhouh.

Dubai authorities named 27 alleged members of the team that tracked and killed the Palestinian, and said they used fraudulent British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports to enter and depart from Dubai. More than half of the people identified as responsible for the killing share the names of foreign-born Israeli nationals.

(4) Who Is The British Dog? - Gilad Atzmon

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 24.03.2010 11:00 AM

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/who-is-the-british-Dog-by-gilad-atzmon.html

WHO IS THE BRITISH DOG?

BY GILAD ATZMON

TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010 AT 11:45PM GILAD ATZMON

Israeli officials and politicians sharply criticized the intention of the UK government to expel an ‘unnamed’ Israeli ‘diplomat’ in response to its passports being used in the Dubai assassination of Hamas Freedom Fighter Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

MK Aryeh Eldad (Israel National Union) doesn’t show much respect to the Brits whom he compares to dogs:  "I think [the] British are behaving hypocritically and I don't want to offend dogs on this issue, since some dogs are utterly loyal," Eldad told Sky News.

MK Michael Ben-Ari took it one step further. "The British may be dog, but they are not loyal to us, but rather to an anti-Semitic system..” 

Both Israeli Parliament members Eldad and Ben-Ari seem to agree that Britons are dogs, yet they are somehow annoyed by their dogs’ disloyalty to the Jewish state. One may wonder why do the Israelis expect their ‘British dogs’ to be loyal. The answer is simple. Because British politicians have been very ‘loyal’ and for more than a while.

 For years, the Labour government was maintained financially by Zionist fundraisers led by Lord Levy. In return the Labour Government launched an illegal Israeli war (Iraq). It supported Israeli barbarism all the way through, includingTony Blair’s shameful support of Israeli crimes in Lebanon (2006). Tony Blair is "A true friend of the State of Israel," affirmed the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

But it may also be possible that Ben-Ari and Eldad do not refer to the Britons in general. They may not even refer to the Labour party. They may just refer to a very specific person, who, for some reason, failed to comply with the strict demand for obedience.

As my readers know, for a while I've insisted that some serious measures must be taken to verify and scrutinise David Miliband’s ties with Israel. Foreign Secretary Miliband is listed on an official Israeli Propaganda site as an Israeli Hasbara author. The same Miliband was until very recently investing an enormous effort intochanging British Universal Jurisdiction just to make it easy for  Israeli war criminals to make it to Oxford Street early on Boxing Day. Just a few weeks before the IDF launched its genocidal attempt against the people of Gaza, the same Miliband visited Sderot to ‘show solidarity’ with the Israeli people. Here is what he had to say "It's very important that countries like mine and others show their solidarity with the people of Sderot.” This idiotic statement made by a senior loyal minister was obviously interpreted  by the Israelis as a green light to reduce Gaza into a pile of rubble.

 David Miliband who has been very loyal to Israel may start to feel the heat. He had to drop a political trophy. In accordance with Labour spin culture he expelled an ‘unnamed’ Israeli diplomat.  Miliband  may have managed to fool Ben-Ari and Eldad but he wouldn’t fool me. Being a progressive interventionist,  Miliband is still loyal to the darkest ideology around namely Zionism.

Britons better grasp that Israel was using no less than 15 forged British passports. The Israelis were obviously confident  that they could get away with it. With a listed Hasbara author running the foreign office and half of the shadow ministers being members of the ‘Conservative Friends of Israel’, the Mossad had a good reason to believe that Britain’s  politics is in its pockets.

If Miliband wants to convince us that he is loyal to this kingdom and its citizens,  he may as well name the ‘unnamed’ diplomat he just decided to expel. He better  also provide us with the list of Sayanim (collaborators)  within British Home Office, those who made this forgery possible.

(5) Netanyahu approved Dubai assassination in January: “The people of Israel count on you"

Report: PM approved Dubai assassination in early January

February 23 2010

By Yossi Melman, Ofer Aderet, Liel Kyzer, Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff

Last update - 04:12 02/03/2010

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1151245.html

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized in early January the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, according to a report published in the Sunday Times.

Based on information obtained from “sources with knowledge of Mossad,” the paper reported that Netanyahu gave Mossad chief Meir Dagan the green light for the Dubai operation during a meeting at the Midrasha – the intelligence agency’s headquarters, in the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv.

The sources also said that the Mossad hit squad trained for the Dubai mission by secretly rehearsing in a Tel Aviv hotel.

Netanyahu reportedly told the Mossad agents, “The people of Israel count on you. Good luck.”

Meanwhile, Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said that an internal Hamas source leaked information to Mabhouh’s assassins that led to his killing, Israel Radio reported.

Speaking to Persian newspaper Gulf News, Tamim said that the aide, whose identity was not revealed, was the only person who knew about Mabhouh’s visit to the emirate. ...

(6) Israel defies Obama: Mayor of Jerusalem says Jewish settlements will go ahead

Israel defies Obama over Jerusalem settlements

March 23, 2010

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7071927.ece

Israel will defy American pressure to halt the construction of controversial Jewish housing in Arab east Jerusalem, when President Obama meets Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, in the White House today.

Fresh from his historic victory to reform American healthcare, the US leader is to be confronted, within hours, with a foreign policy crisis. This time Mr Obama must resolve the worst breakdown in relations in decades between America and its closest regional ally, Israel, and try to get the Arab-Israeli peace process moving again.

But any hopes of a compromise were dashed yesterday when Nir Barkat, the Mayor of Jerusalem, insisted that Jewish settlements would go ahead in spite of US objections.

Mr Barkat said that Israel had not intended to insult America, when it announced a 1,600-home plan in Ramat Shlomo during a peace mission by Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, earlier this month. He remained adamant that the project would go ahead.

“I do not think anybody intended, naturally, to try to insult,” he said in an interview at the Israeli Embassy in London. “But let us not get mixed up. Planning in the city of Jerusalem has to, should and will continue. We want to be sensitive to the American Administration but I want to make sure people realise there is no [housing] freeze in the city of Jerusalem.”

The former paratrooper added that not only would the development proceed, but he also revealed details for another housing project in east Jerusalem. The “King’s Garden” project in the flashpoint Arab area of Silwan, the scene of regular disturbances beween Palestinians and Jewish settlers, envisages the demolition of 80 Palestinian homes to make way for a park.

The status of the holy city is supposed to be negotiated as part of a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, who want the Arab side of the city to become the future capital of their state. Mr Barkat said that Jerusalem would remain the capital of the Jewish state. It is believed that Israel may be prepared to hold off for a matter of weeks to enable talks to resume with the Palestinians, but has ruled out a permanent freeze.

His remarks were in sharp contrast to the views expressed by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, yesterday in an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful Israel lobby meeting in Washington. She said: “New construction in east Jerusalem or the West Bank undermines mutual trust and endangers the proximity talks that are the first step toward the full negotiations that both sides want and need,” she said.

Mr Barkat said that the city was planning 50,000 apartments, two thirds for Jewish neighbourhoods and a third for Arabs, in proportion to the existing size of the two communities.

(7) Netanyahu 1-year block on peace talks. "Jerusalem is not a settlement, it's our capital"
From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 24.03.2010 01:43 AM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7073332.ece

From The Times - UK

March 24, 2010

Israel threatens to block peace talks for year as links with US hit new low

Giles Whittell, Washington

Binyamin Netanyahu told the pro-Israel lobby dinner: "Jerusalem is not a settlement, it's our capital"

Israel’s relations with the US reached a crisis point yesterday as Binyamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, threatened a year-long delay in the resumption of Middle East peace talks hours before a tense meeting with President Obama at the White House.

Mr Netanyahu, who laid claim to parts of east Jerusalem in a defiant speech in Washington on Monday night, warned that if Palestinian leaders maintained their demand for a full freeze on new Israeli settlements “it could put the peace negotiations on hold for another year”.

For the second time in less than six months Mr Obama and the Israeli Prime Minister met out of sight of the press — a clear signal, officials admitted, that one of America’s most important bilateral relationships has reached a state of critical disrepair.

Analysts speculated that Mr Netanyahu might be ready to offer private concessions such as a promise to slow the planning process for the construction project, whose announcement last week wrecked a visit to Israel by Vice-President Joe Biden. Yet there was little sign of conciliation as the Israeli delegation toured Congress drumming up support for a position on settlements that is diametrically opposed to that of the US Administration.

Efforts to repair the relationship were not helped by reports last night in the Israeli media that approval was being given to build 20 apartments for Jewish settlers at the site of a former Palestinian hotel in east Jerusalem.

In a speech to America’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby on Monday night, Mr Netanyahu ridiculed opposition to Israeli construction in east Jerusalem even though it has been a central plank of the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy since last year. “Jerusalem is not a settlement, it’s our capital,” he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) gala dinner. “Almost half the Jewish population of Jerusalem lives just beyond the 1949 armistice line, five minutes from the Knesset.”

Referring to districts considered part of east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim for their capital, Mr Netanyahu said “everyone knows that these neighbourhoods will be part of Israel in any settlement, therefore building in them in no way precludes a two-state solution”.

Hillary Clinton had warned the same audience that new construction undermined mutual trust between Israelis and Palestinians and “exposes daylight between Israel and the US that others in the region hope to exploit”. When the Secretary of State met Mr Netanyahu afterwards, the venue was switched at the last minute to his hotel suite, where the press could be excluded. Mr Netanyahu later had a “productive, candid discussion” over dinner with Mr Biden — diplomatic language for a conversation that may have brought their relationship back from the nadir it reached in Jerusalem but has still left the US and Israel farther apart than in decades.

The spectacle of drift in the peace process and longstanding allies unable to be seen together was seized on by Republicans. “The President should be taking every opportunity to stand up publicly and reaffirm that we stand with our ally Israel,” said Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican member of the House of Representatives.

Martin Indyk, a former US Ambassador to Israel, held out hope that Israel and the White House would find common ground on Iran and calm frayed tempers over east Jerusalem. “You have to read between the lines. When \ beats his chest he’s talking about the Jewish suburbs of east Jerusalem, not the Arab ones,” Mr Indyk said.

The path to last night’s meeting was not smoothed by Mr Netanyahu’s brother-in-law, Hagai Ben-Artzi, who called Mr Obama an anti-Semite on Israeli radio last week; nor by reports that the Prime Minister himself has referred to David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, both senior White House staff, as “self-hating Jews”. He has denied the reports.

The Aipac annual dinner traditionally gives pro-Israel hawks their most sympathetic US audience. but it does not speak for the whole Jewish lobby. J Street, a liberal Jewish think-tank established last year, took out a full-page advertisement in Monday’s New York Times to declare: “It’s time for Israel to stop allowing extremist settlers and their sympathisers to endanger not only the friendship of the United States but also the very future of Israel.”

(8) Prince Charles  (wearing a yarmulke) and Camilla light a menorah during Hanukkah

Charles & Camilla Converting?

Posted Dec 13th 2007 6:34PM by TMZ Staff

http://www.tmz.com/2007/12/13/charles-and-camilla-coverting/

Prince Charles and his second wife,Camilla Parker-Bowles, tapped into their Jewish side -- by lighting a menorah on the last night of Hanukkah. It's ovah already?!

Sporting a yarmulke and an uncomfortable smile, Chuck and Cammie celebrated the Festival of Lights at Hendon Hall in London on Wednesday. Mazel tov!

There's finally something kosher about their relationship! ==

See the photo at http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tmz.com/media/2007/12/1213_charles_camilla_wi.jpg

(9) New FBI Files allege AIPAC theft of Government property, & Israeli Espionage - Forbes

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 23.03.2010 11:46 PM

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/prnewswire/2010/03/10/prnewswire201003101051PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC68258.html 

New FBI Files Alleging AIPAC Theft of Government Property and Israeli Espionage Released

03.10.10, 10:59 AM EST

WASHINGTON, March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Declassified files detailing an FBI investigation targeting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are now available on the Internet. AIPAC was investigated after it acquired and circulated classified government information provided in strict confidence by US industry and worker groups opposed to AIPAC sponsored economic legislation.

The 50 pages now available as portable document files (PDF) include:

FBI reports of Israelis circulating classified documents in the US Congress, "compromising" the authority of the U.S. President. http://irmep.org/ila/economy/06201984.pdf

US Trade Representative concerns that AIPAC was tactically "divulging" classified information supplied by US industries opposed to AIPAC lobbying initiatives. http://irmep.org/ila/economy/06211984.pdf

Reports from the International Trade Commission that AIPAC and Israeli operatives "usurped" US government authority and that an Israeli intelligence service operative was working undercover on AIPAC's staff: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/08131984r.pdf

Internal Department of Justice prosecutorial opinions that "theft of government property" had occurred: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/08301984.pdf

Read All Comments

An FBI director order that the Washington Field office give the AIPAC investigation top priority after Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was caught on video surveillance stealing classified US national defense information: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/11151985.pdf

FBI special agent interviews of Israeli minister of economics Dan Halpern who claimed diplomatic immunity. Halpern admitted passing classified US documents to AIPAC but refused to name his source: http://irmep.org/ila/economy/03071986DHALERN.pdf

FBI special agent interviews of AIPAC's former director of legislative affairs detailing how he made copies of the classified documents for AIPAC's lobbying use after being ordered to return them to the US government. http://irmep.org/ila/economy/02131986DB.pdf

FBI interviews of key AIPAC employees involved in handling the classified US government information (full document listing): http://irmep.org/ila/economy/

According to research director Grant F. Smith, the newly released files present startling new insights into AIPAC's activities in the United States. "These files, available on the Internet for the first time, reveal activities that undermined rule of law and governance. They have wrought massive economic harm to American businesses and workers. We urge all concerned Americans to carefully review and ponder the implications of these FBI files and other documents now available from the Israel Lobby Archive."

The Israel Lobby Archive, http://IRmep.org/ila is a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington. The Archive digitizes declassified documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act filings with law enforcement, economic, diplomatic and intelligence agencies. IRmep is a Washington-based nonprofit that studies U.S. Middle East policy formulation.

SOURCE Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy
Copyright 2009 PR Newswire All rights reserved

(10) Israel’s 'No renting to Arabs' policy: Jewish couple can't rent home to Bedouin friends

From: Sami Joseph <sajoseph2005@yahoo.com> Date: 23.03.2010 12:51 AM

The article pasted below reminded me of the lying mayor of Jerusalem, the despicable Nir Barkat, when interviewed on BBC Radio 4 yesterday morning. Of course, he was let off lightly and was not challenged. Listen to the 4-minute interview at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8579000/8579443.stm

The listener was left with the impression that it is the Palestinians who discriminate against Jews!!!

Sami Joseph

Israel’s ‘No renting to Arabs’ policy

Jewish couple lose court battle to help Bedouin friends

By Jonathan Cook in Nevatim

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25047.htm

March 22, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- The Zakai and Tarabin families should be a picture of happy coexistence across the ethnic divide, a model for others to emulate in Israel.

But Natalie and Weisman Zakai say the past three years -- since the Jewish couple offered to rent their home to Bedouin friends, Ahmed and Khalas Tarabin -- have been a living hell.

“I have always loved Israel,” said Mrs Zakai, 43. “But to see the depth of the racism of our neighbours has made me question why we live in this country.”

Three of the couple’s six dogs have been mysteriously poisoned; Mrs Zakai’s car has been sprayed with the words ”Arab lover” and the windows smashed; her three children in school are regularly taunted and bullied by other pupils; and a collection of vintage cars in the family’s yard has been set on fire in what police say was an arson attack.

To add to these indignities, the Zakais have spent three years and thousands of dollars battling through the courts against the elected officials of their community of Nevatim, in Israel’s southern Negev desert, who have said they are determined to keep the Tarabins from moving in.

Last week the Zakais’ legal struggle looked like it had run out of steam. The supreme court told the two families the Tarabins should submit to a vetting committee of local officials to assess their suitability – a requirement that has never been made before by the Negev community in the case of a family seeking to rent a home.

“The decision of the committee is a foregone conclusion,” Mr Tarabin said.

Chances for Jews and Arabs to live together -- outside of a handful of cities -- are all but impossible because Israel’s rural communities are strictly segregated, said Alaa Mahajneh, a lawyer representing the Zakais.

Israel has nationalised 93 per cent of the country’s territory, confining most of its 1.3 million Arab citizens, one-fifth of the population, to 120 or so communities that existed at the time of the state’s creation in 1948.

Meanwhile, more than 700 rural communities, including Nevatim, have remained exclusively Jewish by requiring that anyone who wants to buy a home applies to local vetting committees, which have been used to weed out Arab applicants.

But Mr Mahajneh, from the Adalah legal centre for the Arab minority, noted that legal sanction for such segregation was supposed to have ended a decade ago, when the supreme court backed an Arab couple, the Kaadans, who had been barred by a committee from the community of Katzir in northern Israel.

Although the Kaadans were eventually allowed to move into Katzir, the case has had little wider effect.

In fact, Mr Mahajneh said, the decision in the Zakais’ case suggests “we’re going backwards”. The Kaadans won the right to buy a home in a Jewish community, whereas the Tarabin family were seeking only a short-term rental of the Zakais’ home.

The Zakais said they had been told by the officials of Nevatim, a community of 650 Jews a few kilometres from the city of Beersheva, that it would not be a problem to rent out their home.

Mrs Zakai brought the Tarabins’ ID cards to the community’s offices for routine paperwork. “When I handed in the IDs, the staff looked at the card and said, ‘But they’re Muslims’.” Later, according to Mrs Zakai, the council head, Avraham Orr, rang to say he Arabs would be accepted in Nevatim “over my dead body”.

Several weeks later, Mrs Zakai said, two threatening men came to their door and warned them off renting to Arabs. Soon afterwards 36 cars belonging to Mr Zakai, who has a used car business, were set on fire.

Then behind the Zakais’ back, Nevatim went to a local magistrate’s court to get an order preventing them from renting their home. The couple have been battling the decision ever since.

Mr Mahajneh said the Tarabins had accommodated a series of “extraordinary conditions” imposed by Nevatim on the rental agreement, including certificates of good conduct from the police, a commitment to leave after a year, and limited access to the house’s extensive grounds.

But still Nevatim officials were dissatisfied, insisting in addition that the Tarabins submit to questioning by a vetting committee to assess their suitability. Although 40 other homes in Nevatim are rented, Mr Mahajneh said testimonies from past members of the vetting committee showed that this was the first time such a demand had been made.

“It is true that anyone buying a property in Nevatim is supposed to be vetted by the committee, but there is no reference in the community’s bylaws to this condition for renters,” Mr Mahajneh said.

In 2008, a district court judge in Beersheva overruled Nevatim’s new condition, arguing that the vetting requirement would be “unreasonable and not objective”. The supreme court judges, however, sided with Nevatim in their concluding statements on March 10.

Mrs Zakai said they had offered to rent their home to the Tarabins after the Bedouin couple’s home burnt down in their village in early 2007, killing one of their 10 children. The Tarabins have been living with relatives ever since, unable to afford a new home and keen to move away from the site of the tragedy.

Mr Tarabin, 54, said: “I want Khalas to rest and heal and this place would have been perfect for her. The house has large grounds and we could have kept to ourselves. No one in Nevatim needs to have anything to do with us if they don’t want.”

A Nevatim resident who spoke anonymously to the Haaretz newspaper last week suggested reasons for the community’s opposition: “If tomorrow the entire Tarabin tribe wants to live here and we don’t agree, what will people say? The problem will start after the first one comes because then dozens more families will want to move here.”

The close friendship forged between the Zakais and Tarabins is rare in Israel. The privileged status of Jews legally and economically, communal segregation and the hostility provoked by a larger national conflict between Israel and the Palestinians ensure that Jewish and Arab citizens usually remain at arm’s length.

But Mr Zakai, 53, whose parents emigrated from Iraq and who speaks fluent Arabic, befriended Mr Tarabin in the late 1960s when they were teenagers in Beersheva. Later they served together in the Israeli army as mechanical engineers.

Mrs Zakai said: “If Jews were being denied the right to live somewhere, it would be a scandal, but because our friends are Arabs no one cares.”

Avraham Orr, the Nevatim council head, denied that he was opposing the Tarabins’ admission because they are Arab. “There are rules,” he said. “Every family that wants to buy or rent a property must first go through the committee.”

Fearful of the implications of the Kaadan ruling, Jewish communities in the Galilee unveiled a new approach to barring Arab applicants last year. They introduced bylaws amounting to loyalty oaths that require applicants to pledge to support “Zionism, Jewish heritage and settlement of the land”.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.