If you’d believe that, you’d be wrong.
I’m on a trip home, and so Occidental Israeli will be updated rather sparsely over the next month. In the mean time, some reading:
The latest Haveil Havalim is up at Jewschool.
A recent bill proposal is being promoted by Netanyahu, and would drastically alter the status of lands in Israel. The legal status of land in Israel is not simple matter. In a nutshell, 93% of the land in Israel is not privately owned (owned either by the state or JNF), but is leased by the state for 49-year leases. Administered by the Israel Land Administration (ILA), these leases are renewed nearly automatically.
Proponents of the bill say the ILA is a monopolistic, ineffective bureaucracy and hampers economic growth. Privatization, they claim, will make housing more affordable and promote overall transparency with regards to land use.
by zeevveez
Critics, on the other hand, say that housing costs will actually rise. The most convincing argument against the proposed bill is a Zionist-ideological one. If land is simply sold to the highest bidder, Israeli law would allow enemies of Israel to purchase large swaths of Israel, essentially buying out Israel from under her.
As anyone who has had the misfortune of applying for an Israeli passport knows, Israeli bureaucracy is not customer friendly, to put it lightly. Reform is necessary, and in that respect Netanyahu’s plan is not all bad. However, the current bill, if approved, would cause a great deal of long-term harm to Israel.
That is not the only problem. Netanyahu has announced that any minister who votes against the bill will be fired. Bibi has experience in this matter, and his declaration should not be viewed as an idle threat.
Firing ministers in order to secure artificial majorities has , in the past, preceded horrendous decisions. Israel has already paid a high price for Sharon’s error, and cannot afford any additional mistakes.
This week’s Haveil Havalim at Jack’s, and KCC at Leora’s.
The arrest of an allegedly abusive mother. That is the excuse for the continued Haredi summer riots in Jerusalem, following the ones over a parking lot.
The mother, a member of the anti-Israel Neturei Karta faction, was released from custody today, and placed under house arrest. This decision was made by the Jerusalem Magistrate Court, despite the prosecution’s request for remand.
These riots show a complete disregard for Jewish commandments that are not ritual in nature, but they are fairly successful. This is not the first group to have learned that it is not very difficult to bend the will of the Israeli government.
There is a world of difference between these rioters and wholesale murderers of Jews. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, capitulation is capitulation, and the message is clear: Terrorism is a rewarding venture in Israel.
Clarification: I am well aware that the rioters represent a minority within the diverse Haredi community. Nevertheless, the silence coming from the Haredi leadership is deafeaning.
And this week’s Haveil Havalim.
Israel is in the Middle East. The Middle East is largely an Arabophone region. These two facts are undisputed. However, Israel insists on behaving like a western outpost in the Orient. While it does so with regards to its foreign policy, it is equally true, and just as foolhardy, with regards to domestic issues.
While many Israelis would like to be European or American, they are not. Modern Israeli culture and behavior is derived from numerous sources, and has morphed into something new.
The current level of language instruction in Israel has a lot of room for improvement. Though not as bad as English, Hebrew language instruction in Israel is poor, to say the least. Instead of improving, Israel’s Ministry of Education has decided that regional language skills are unimportant. As of last year, Arabic has been completely dropped from the mandatory core curriculum.
This was not in order to invest more in to Hebrew or English instruction. There was no pedagogical reason for this decision. This step down in Israeli education was “motivated by an effort to create a curriculum acceptable to ultra-Orthodox schools.” This capitulation to narrow political interests is corruption, pure and simple.
Things are different on the other side of the ocean. Instead of imparting the language of the Jewish people to the next generation, some Jewish day schools are expanding their language departments to include Arabic.
This is the right move in the wrong place. I am not saying Jewish students should not learn Arabic. They should – in Israel. The problem is prioritization. Adding another language to the mix will only serve to dilute the already lacking Hebrew instruction offered by the Jewish educational system in America. In other words, first Hebrew, and only then Arabic.
Israeli education needs to strive for nothing less than excellence. Excellence in today’s Middle East requires the knowledge of Arabic. Instead of eliminating three years of Arabic study from the curriculum, language instruction in Israel needs to be placed front and center. Along with Hebrew and English, students should begin Arabic studies in first grade, if not beforehand.
I am in no way advocating forgoing Hebrew in favor of Arabic. Nor do I think Arabic is more important than English. The three languages are not mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, understanding, and playing by “house rules” in the Middle East requires knowing the language. That language is Arabic.
Moment Magazine on Israeli blogs (including yours truly), and of course, Haveil Havalim.
The level of violent crime in Israel is much lower than in most cities in the West, but it is quickly becoming a serious problem. Teenagers kill each other. Organized crime is on the rise. And the authorities are nowhere to be found. Regular police patrols in crime-ridden areas are few and far between, and if someone is actually arrested and convicted, the odds are the sentence will be hardly more than a slap on the wrist.
Last week violent crime struck again. Enjoying their time by the Kinneret, visiting American college students were inexplicably attacked. Although having suffered serious injuries, one is still planning on leading a birthright-Israel trip after graduation. Nevertheless, he is concerned regarding the investigation of this incident. “If nothing happens, I don’t know how I’ll feel safe,” he said from his hospital bed. Most likely little will happen, unfortunately. All but one of the suspects fled the crime scene.
Safety has become a rare commodity in too many places. Bialik’s threshold for becoming a normal state has long since been passed – no one is pining for the first Hebrew criminal. Israel does not have a culture of law and order, partly because people know they can get away with so much. The courts are no help, handing down meager sentences that do not serve as real deterrents, not even for the convicts themselves.
Furthermore, this case specifically would be a PR nightmare. Thankfully for the inept state authorities, it seems all of the major Hebrew-language papers have decided this attack was not newsworthy. American Jews constitute the largest diaspora Jewish community. Setting aside the issue political support, if they are in danger of other Jews in the Jewish state, how will they ever believe aliyah is the right move?
Israel Police needs to start doing its job. Judges need to start sentencing violent criminals to long sentences, with no incomprehensible furloughs. Not just for tourists, but for Israelis. Israel needs to be more than a haven for Jews but sadly, from (some) Jews, as well.