1050 Days to the Israeli Blockade of Gaza:
Somebody tell O’Bummer!
Help to stop the next war! Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of the Israeli regime
Support Palestinian universities – spread the BDS campaign – it is what people under the Israeli jackboot ask you to do
Any army fighting against children, has already lost!
Israeli War Criminals – to the International Criminal Court, NOW!
Make Zionism History!
One year since the Gaza Carnage by Israel’s murderers! We shall
not forget!
Demand the destruction of Israeli WMDs NOW!
EDITOR: Killing, stealing and lying – the perfect combination
Apart from all the other violent crimes committed against Palestine and Palestinians in the last six decades, Israel has also fought against the Palestinian economy without respite. Until the 90’s, it was not even allowed to operate a bank in the OPT, and since then Israel has been delaying or canceling many of the payments due to the PNA, making life impossible for all Palestinians. The added offence is the fact that much of this funding comes from donors, intending it for Palestine, and then it ends in Israeli hands. Does this way of fighting a weak and disenfranchised people remind you of anything else in recent history? No prizes for the right answer. This the way that money destined for Palestine has been financing the occupation for decades. It may be international piracy, but it is not even commented upon in the democratic, liberal western world, so keen on ‘peace’.
Israel seizing hundreds of millions of shekels meant for Palestinian services: Haaretz
For the past 15 years, Israel has been channeling hundreds of millions of shekels it had collected in the West Bank into its state coffers. The move is considered illegal, since international law prohibits an occupying power from appropriating the fruit of economic activity in an occupied territory.
Following protests by military lawyers, the deputy attorney general has ruled that the practice should be stopped and ordered an inquiry into whether the Civil Administration in the West Bank should be compensated retroactively.
“Following staff work by an interministerial team composed of representatives of the Finance Ministry, Justice Ministry and Civil Administration, it has been agreed that the … said fees will be entered into the Civil Administration’s budget. The technical aspects of the affair will be sorted out in the coming weeks.”
The funds in question are collected by the Civil Administration, overwhelmingly from Israelis. They include fees and levies for various activities such as royalties from quarries and levies on public auctions. The sums are estimated in the hundreds of millions of shekels, sometimes reaching as much as NIS 80 million a year.
Until the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, the funds were transferred to the Civil Administration to be used for operational expenses as well as for infrastructure and welfare services for Palestinians in the territories. The Oslo Accords dictated the closing down of the administration, the funds in question were reclassified as income to the Israel Lands Administration and were redirected to state coffers.
The Civil Administration, however, continued to operate in Area C of the West Bank, working on infrastructure, planning and construction. The funds are still channeled to the state, although international law prohibits an occupying power from appropriating the fruit of economic activity in an occupied territory. Funds collected in American-occupied areas of Iraq, for example, are channeled to the United States, and, except for 5 percent that goes to Kuwait, are returned for direct investment in Iraq.
Budget ramifications
Recently, a lawyer at the Military Advocate General’s Office said the transfer of such funds to the state was improper. Because the issue is complex and has budget ramifications far beyond the military, the authorities entrusted the inquiry to Deputy Attorney General Malchiel Blas.
He ruled that the direct transfer of the funds to the state budget should cease. A team that includes officials from the treasury, Justice Ministry and Civil Administration is now examining the implications of Blas’ decision.
At the team’s meetings, the Civil Administration has requested that the money again be directly channeled to its coffers. The Finance Ministry, by contrast, proposed that a fund be set up for the money, which would be divided among various ministries investing in the territories, such the transportation, agriculture and industry, trade and labor ministries.
Another question facing the team is whether the Civil Administration should be compensated for the funds it lost to the state. The Finance Ministry is strongly opposed, and claims that in the past 15 years the state has invested in the West Bank, apart from the settlements, more than double the amount it has collected. The government will make the final decision.
“This income was registered as part of state income, and the Finance Ministry budgeted all the activities of the Civil Administration and the military in the area out of the state budget,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
“Recently … it turned out that the issue should be arranged in a way that would make it obvious that the income should be registered as part of the Civil Administration’s budget, as authorized by the Knesset.”
The Finance Ministry said: “It should be noted the question of whether the funds are registered as state income or Civil Administration income is a technical question, because at the end of the day the State of Israel invests in the area amounts considerably larger than the fees it collects.
Israelis must integrate to survive: The Guardian CiF
The increase in ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arabs is a social timebomb that threatens the Jewish state’s long-term survival
If you’re interested in Israel’s future, all you need to know is one statistic: among Israeli kids in their first year at primary school, about half are Arabs or ultra-Orthodox Jews. And their portion is expanding. Looking forward, a very different Israeli society is emerging, with its Jewish secular core shrinking. Alas, as this scenario matures the country is going to face growing difficulties in defending itself and sustaining its economy.
Israeli Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempt from military service, and are under-represented in the workforce. As their relative weight in society keeps growing, Israel risks security and economic implosion, since fewer and fewer soldiers and employees will protect and provide for an expanding population of welfare recipients. The Jewish state’s long-term survival depends on reversing the trend of non-participation among its Arab and ultra-Orthodox citizens.
The country’s leaders are aware of the social timebomb on their hands. General Gabi Ashkenazi, the IDF chief of staff, warned that given the demographic trends, “within a decade or two, only few will be drafted”. The finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, argued that tradition and fear lead Arab women and ultra-Orthodox men to stay at home or study the Torah, respectively. “We must expand employment in these populations,” he said. A senior government economist puts it more bluntly: “We carry an elephant on our backs, and it’s getting heavier. We have perhaps 15 years to deal with this problem, or the elephant will bury us under its weight.”
Throughout its 61-year history, Israel went through several phases of social change fuelled by successive waves of Jewish immigration – Holocaust survivors, Sephardic Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union, tens of thousands from Ethiopia. But the pool of new immigrants has dried, and the current change is purely domestic, stemming from the high birthrates of Muslim Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, designed a melting-pot society that brought Jews from many diasporas and turned them into Hebrew-speaking Israelis. Ben-Gurion promoted an ideology of “statehood”, putting national symbols and organs – and the IDF in particular – above tradition and religion. But he left out the non-Zionist groups: the Arabs, suspected of disloyalty and spared of conscription, and the ultra-Orthodox, who sought to preserve their peculiar way of life through educational autonomy and draft exemption.
Over time, both groups’ weight and influence have grown. The ultra-Orthodox lobbied successfully for child-support incentives and for exemption from teaching “core curriculum” – math and English – in religious schools. The Arab community has demanded more equality, but unlike their ultra-Orthodox counterparts, Arab parties have never been part of the governing coalition.
But special treatment comes with a price. At the personal level, freedom from military service extends your youth, but also bars opportunity. In Israel, the military serves as the basis of networking. Our Oxford and Cambridge are the elite army and air force units. (Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his key political ally, defence minister Ehud Barak, served together in the special forces.) An Arab or ultra-Orthodox seeking a job, even with an academic degree, stays out of the club and often faces prejudice and discrimination in the workplace.
At the national level, the growing influence of previously marginal groups fuels social tension and calls for oppression, especially during quiet periods in the external Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel’s third-largest political party, Israel Beitenu – led by the foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman – campaigned for imposing loyalty oaths as precondition for citizenship, aiming at Israeli Arabs. Lieberman had previously suggested transferring Arab-populated parts of Israel to a future Palestinian state.
Anti-Orthodox activists seek to curb their adversaries’ birthrate through cutting child support incentives. It works: a recent Bank of Israel study found that expanding child-support incentives in the 1990s influenced a higher birthrate among Arab and ultra-Orthodox families. Subsequent cuts when Netanyahu was finance minister have reduced it. The anti-Orthodox also demand to impose the “core curriculum” in all state-funded schools, arguing that ignorance of math and English sentences you to unemployment, or to low-level jobs.
Netanyahu agrees. Speaking at a recent business conference, he called to teach math, English, and even Chinese in all Israeli schools, in order to prepare kids for the modern job market. “We should tap the great talents among the ultra-Orthodox and minorities (Arabs), who are currently not partners in our knowledge industry,” he said. How? The key is education and get-a-job incentives, Netanyahu told me recently. “I already gave them sticks” – welfare cuts – “and now it’s time for carrots,” he said.
But Netayahu’s politics interfere with his economics. The ultra-Orthodox parties are his loyal coalition partners. Their price for making him a second-time prime minister was more child-support incentives. Netanyahu rightly wants them to study the “core curriculum”, but he would not risk his job by confronting them. And the Arab community would not trust a right-wing government where its nemesis, Lieberman, is a key player.
What can be done? Coercing the Arabs and ultra-Orthodox into military service and employment is not going to work. It will only increase social tension. Recognising it, Israeli politicians, economists, and public policy experts are confused. They have little to offer beyond small steps to encourage integration and workforce participation, noting the difference between Arabs – who want to work, but find it hard to land jobs – and the ultra-Orthodox, whose cultural norms prefer Torah study to employment.
There are encouraging signs, however, driven by economic necessity. Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox at draft age volunteer to technical jobs in the military, which they view as a route for future careers. They receive Glatt Kosher food and serve in men-only units. And Arabic accents are heard more often in previously “Jewish” workplaces (noted examples are drugstores and call centres). In the recent Israeli Big Brother production, an Arab contestant has made it to the finals.
But Israel can’t wait until these humble beginnings develop into a wider social revolution. Saving the country from implosion demands a sea change in perceptions and elimination of inter-“tribal” hatred and prejudice. We at the mainstream must change our view of the growing minorities and treat them as the next frontier of economic opportunity and growth. If they prosper, we will all prosper. Therefore, we must change our habits too: recruit Arab and ultra-Orthodox employees; buy from minority businesses; and make personal acquaintances to overcome group stereotypes. Our leaders should transcend petty politics and focus on social integration as a key domestic goal. If we want Israel to survive and prosper, we have no other choice.