Oops. Mossad needs to drill, baby, drill

Espionage requires skullduggery, at least enough to avoid drawing the attention of casual passers-by. Certainly in Tel Aviv, urban pedestrians tend to be on the alert.
The BBC reports about how a blundering trainee spook managed to close down the entire port of Tel Aviv on a training day gone wrong.(This coincided with a tourist helicopter crashing downin the Med outside Netanya. What's surprising is how quickly the chaos was righted)

A trainee spy for Israel's secret service agency Mossad was arrested by Tel Aviv police while taking part in a training operation, media reports say.

The young trainee was spotted by a female passer-by as he planted a fake bomb under a vehicle in the capital.

He was only able to persuade police he was a spy after being taken in by an officer for questioning on Monday.

The authorities have refused to comment on the story although Israeli media outlets have expressed their surprise.

'Just a drill'

Mossad does not tell local uniformed police about its training exercises.

The country's commercial Channel 10 said it hoped the agent's operatives were "more effective abroad", AFP news agency reported.

Niva Ben-Harush, the woman who reported the novice's suspicious behaviour to police, told Ynet News that 15 minutes after she made the call, Tel Aviv's port was closed and people evacuated.

She said police initially asked her to come with them and identify the suspect.

"But after a few minutes, they told me it was just a drill," she said.

Up to three agency employees were believed to have been suspended following the incident, Ynet reported.

It quoted the prime minister's office as saying it did "not respond to information about such activities undertaken by security agencies or attributed to them".

Ethiopian Israelis celebrate

Sigd Day pomp in Jerusalem draws Ethiopian leaders in full regalia to the Old City, to celebrate their day of fasting and prayer.
Nearly all of the Ethiopian Beta Israel community, comprising more than 119,300 people, now live in Israel under its Law of Return, which gives Jews and those with Jewish parents or grandparents, and all of their spouses, the right to settle in Israel and obtain citizenship. (Not to be confused with the Right of Return, the Palestinian notion that refugee families who were nudged out by fighting during the creation of the Israeli state should be welcomed back.) The Israeli government has mounted rescue operations, most notably during Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991) when civil war and famine threatened Jewish populations within Ethiopia. Immigration continues. Today 81,000 Ethiopian Israelis were born in Ethiopia, while 38,500 or 32% of the community are native born Israelis. An estimated half live below the poverty line.

Falasha Mura people are the descendants of Beta Israel who converted to Christianity. Some are returning to the practices of Judaism by living in Falash Mura communities and observing halakha. Beta Israel spiritual leaders, including Chief Kes Raphael Hadane, urge the acceptance of these Falasha Mura as full-fledged Jews. Israeli society plays a statistical demographic shell game - the goal is to keep the headcount of new immigrants high to counteract the Palestinian birthrate. More than a million Russian economic immigrants, many of whom came of age in a Godless Soviet society and have not inculcated many Jewish traditions, complicate the equation.
Inside Israel, Ethiopians usually rank lower in status than Russians because the melting pot philosphy is tricky amid the in-grown skin-tone snobbery. Ask a Misrahi or Sephardic Jew. Descent goes white, brown, black, and finally Arab.

Hat tip to the Beeb for this photo.

High Court Orders Military to Allow Student to Challenge Forced Removal to Gaza

This just out from GISHA, the Israeli activists. Perhaps it can be worthwhile to stand up against injustices. Let's see if the student's status can be resolved quickly enough for her to finish her degree:

· High Court justices criticized the violation of due process that led to Berlanty Azzam, a 21-year old student at Bethlehem University, being blindfolded, handcuffed, and removed by force to the Gaza Strip.
· Court ordered the military to conduct an administrative hearing next week in which Berlanty and her attorney can challenge the removal.
· Berlanty, who was to complete her BA in Business Management in just two months, is missing her studies with every day that passes.

Thursday, November 12, 2009 – At a High Court hearing today in the case of a Bethlehem University student who was detained and forcibly removed to the Gaza Strip, the justices ordered the military to give the student, Berlanty Azzam, an opportunity to challenge her removal at an administrative hearing to be held next week. The court rejected the State's request to prevent her attorney, Gisha's Yadin Elam from being present at the hearing, affirming Berlanty's right to legal counsel. However, the court declined Gisha's request to allow Berlanty to return to her studies in the West Bank in the meantime. Berlanty has already missed two weeks of classes toward her BA in Business Management. She was to graduate in less than two months.

The military forcibly removed Berlanty to Gaza on Oct. 28, based solely on the fact that her address in the Israeli-controlled Population Registry is listed in Gaza. Berlanty had been living in the West Bank since beginning her studies in 2005 at the Vatican-sponsored university. The military makes no claim that she poses any security threat whatsoever.

In today's hearing, the justices criticized the procedure that led to Berlanty's removal to Gaza: despite an explicit promise by the Office of the Military Legal Advisor to Gisha that Berlanty would not be removed pending a meeting with her lawyer and an opportunity to file an emergency court petition, she was removed that very same night, after being blindfolded and handcuffed.

The State claims that Berlanty was present in the West Bank "illegally" and has refused to allow her to return. In the court petition written on her behalf, Gisha claims that her passage to the West Bank was done legally, via a permit issued by the military commander that attached no conditions or limitations.

Berlanty is one of an estimated 25,000 people, including those who have been living in the West Bank for decades, in danger of being forcibly removed to Gaza, just because their addresses are registered there. Israel controls the Palestinian Population Registry and since 2000 has not permitted address changes from Gaza to the West Bank. The Israeli Supreme Court has yet to rule on the larger question of the rights of Palestinian residents, originally from Gaza, to live in the West Bank.

According to Berlanty Azzam: “I had hoped that I could return to my studies after today's court hearing. Each day that passes is critical for my chances of completing my degree.”

According to Gisha Attorney Yadin Elam: "It is not clear what Israel gains by preventing this young woman from completing her degree. Israel must end this policy of tearing people away from their homes, jobs, schools and families – and preventing Palestinians from exercising their right to live in the West Bank."

Student Blindfolded, Handcuffed, and Taken to Gaza by Force

This young Palestinian business student, pictured left, is not smiling anymore. Berlanty Azzam had a rough day yesterday, getting stopped at a military checkpoint on the way home from a job interview and then locked up. Wrong place, wrong time, no redress. She was not inside Israel at any time and posed no threat.

Sari Bashi, from GISHA, an Israel-based Legal Center for the Freedom of Movement which filed a petition on her behalf, guest-posts on Israelity Bites. Sari recounts how a military lawyer gave false promises to this Bethlehem University Student. Sadly, banishment to Gaza and denial of higher education is not an isolated incident.

Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement is filing an urgent petition to the Israeli Supreme Court today demanding the immediate return to her studies of Berlanty Azzam, 21, a student at Bethlehem University who was arrested and removed to Gaza last night by the Israeli military. The removal took place even as the Military Legal Adviser's office promised Gisha's attorney that Berlanty would not be removed to Gaza pending an opportunity to seek judicial review.

Israel bans Palestinian residents of Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank, and it claims that Palestinians like Berlanty, originally from the Gaza Strip, have no right to remain in the West Bank. In recent weeks and months, the military has begun a campaign to search the West Bank for Palestinians whose ID cards are registered in Gaza and to remove them to Gaza by force.

Berlanty has been living in Bethlehem since 2005, after requesting and receiving a permit from the Israeli military authorizing her to travel through Israel to reach the West Bank. She is in her last semester of a Bachelor's Degree program in Business Administration, with a minor in Translation. She is due to complete her studies in just two months.

Yesterday afternoon, as she was returning to her home in Bethlehem from a job interview in Ramallah, the car in which Berlanty rode was stopped at a checkpoint. Seeing that her address was registered in Gaza, the soldiers detained her. Gisha Attorney Yadin Elam contacted the Military Legal Adviser's office and was told that the military intended to remove her and another Palestinian resident to Gaza. However, the military attorney promised that both individuals would be held in detention and not removed to Gaza until Gisha had an opportunity to petition the Supreme Court this morning, challenging the removal.

Despite that promise, Berlanty was blindfolded, handcuffed, and loaded onto a military jeep. The soldiers told her she would be taken to a detention facility in the West Bank, but instead – they brought her to Gaza late last night. The military now refuses to allow her to return to the West Bank. The second Gaza resident arrested remains in detention.

"Since 2005, I refrained from visiting my family in Gaza for fear that I would not be permitted to return to my studies in the West Bank", says Berlanty Azzam. "Now, just two months before graduation, I was arrested and taken to Gaza in the middle of the night, with no way to finish my degree."

"For years, Israel has prevented Palestinian residents of Gaza from studying in Palestinian universities in the West Bank", says Gisha Legal Director Yadin Elam. "Now, the military is arresting those already studying and removing them to Gaza by force – violating their right to freedom of movement and to access education."

Can this be what Israelis want done in their name?

Provocative Digs undermine conflict resolution in the 'City of David' aka Silwan

Check out this editorial in today's Boston Globe. It has caused a furore:

As a dispute over land and statehood, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is combustible enough. But recent clashes over the site in Jerusalem that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al-Sharif are injecting religious passions into one of the world’s most dangerous confrontations. Extremists on both sides are playing with fire. But since Israel is the dominant power, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears primary responsibility for smothering that fire before it erupts into a much larger conflagration.

The current crisis originates in Palestinian fear and anger over archaeological excavations near, but not underneath, the Al Aqsa mosque. The digs are under the control of an ultra-nationalist Israeli group intent on justifying a Jewish claim to Jerusalem by locating remnants of what is called the City of David. Those excavations have weakened the foundations of nearby Arab houses and led critics across the Muslim world to warn of a plot to cause the collapse of the Al Aqsa mosque.

The furor over the excavations has given new force to Palestinian demands that Israel stop settling Jews in East Jerusalem, which would make it much harder to divide the ancient city between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel maintains that the influx of Jews into East Jerusalem is a simple matter of families buying homes in a neighborhood that appeals to them. But that’s not the whole story. The Israeli government knows that at least some of the people behind the purchases of Palestinian homes have a political motive.

Jordan, the Arab state most friendly to Israel, has called on the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to halt the excavations and to stop efforts to change the population balance between Arabs and Israelis in East Jerusalem. If President Obama wants to preserve hope of a two-state peace agreement, he must persuade Netanyahu to suspend the influx of Israeli Jews into East Jerusalem and put a stop to recklessly provocative excavations. The surest way to scuttle peace talks before they get started is for one side to give extremists on the other side a reason to call for martyrdom and holy war.

Izzy Bee agrees. Scientific archaeological excavations funded by academic institutes are preferable to these hasty digs, which are financed and carried out with a political and religious agenda. Shovelling shit along with the rubble does not advance anyone's historic understanding. The residents of Silwan are trapped in the trenches of Holy War if this is allowed to continue... and this dispute keeps simmering. Elad, the radical settler NGO, should not be given free rein to relabel the city and befuddle the past just because it has plenty of money!
The world expects higher academic standards from the Jews of Jerusalem.

Stoned in the Old City - a woman, a rock and a hard place to take cover

This past Sunday, 24 October, radio reporter Irris Makler went to cover some riots in Jerusalem's Old City. From a hospital bed, she recounts what happened in this guest post. Irris cannot work for the moment, because she cannot speak until she heals:

The riots over access to the Temple Mount /Al Haram al Sharif were only sporadic, but I thought it was best to go and see for myself. It was a slow morning and Canadian Broadcasting said they needed something -- which is often how these things go...

As I was driving down, top of the local radio bulletin was the Israeli chief of police saying that both extremist Jewish and Muslim groups were inciting their followers to defend the holy site. The closest I could get was an alley near the Lion's Gate where Palestinian boys were burning rubbish and throwing stones. There were lots of Israeli police, but it didn't seem particularly dangerous - I've been to lots of these which were at a much higher temperature.

I needed [to record] some sound , but did not go all the way up to the end of the alley where the rubbish was burning. There were journalists about 20 meters back from the boys and I was about 20 metres back from them, standing under a small balcony to protect me from the stones. As I was getting some sound of the stones being thrown I became aware they were getting larger, more like fist sized rocks, so I decided not to go any further and to turn back. My small balcony did not feel like sufficient protection any more. As I turned to go one rock caught me in the face.

It was a head snapping blow, coming I now think from someone on a nearby roof, since it came in from above, under the awning. It was incredibly fortunate that I had turned -- it hit me in the lower left jaw, and not in the eye. I never lost consciousness, never felt nauseous, was able to walk to the ambulance. No brain damage, no broken cheek bones or vision problems. That and the localised blow is all part of the good news. The bad news is my jaw is broken in two places, some of my teeth have been forced out of alighment and one of my facial nerves may have been severed. We won't know for sure about the nerve for a while.

One definite plus about being injured here is the high standard of the health care. I am writing to you from [Jerusalem's] Hadassah hospital where I have had the wound in my cheek stitched and an operation to wire my jaw closed so that the bones will knit and the teeth realign.

I look horribly like a werewolf, and will have to stay like this, for six (¡) weeks.

I am quite happy about the enforced diet, less so about the enforced silence, since I am talkative even by journalist standards...

Still my friends have rallied round, supplying me with clothes, magazines books, ipods, laptops. But most of all they have given me support and love, reminding me how lucky I am. This hospital is an amazing melting pot, Palestinians and Orthodox Jews in adjoining beds, kind, fierce Russian nurses, doctors from every nation in the world. It is an appropriately strange environment from which to reflect on this strange life we lead as correspondents...

I have been to so many dangerous places, for so long, and nothing bad has happened to me before... my friend Margaret who has been in plenty of dangerous situations herself says there is no point in brooding on fate and chance, but I find that I can't help myself...... if I come up with some answers I'll let you know. :-)

More bulletins from the Land of Silence soon.

and best wishes for rapid recovery!

Rabin's Widow Called Netanyahu a "Nightmare"

Leah Rabin, the late widow of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, harshly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu won the election held the spring after Rabin's death in 1995 and became prime minister again earlier this year. "Netanyahu is a corrupt individual," she wrote three years after her husband's assassination, "a contentious liar who is ruining everything that is good about our society. He is breaking it to bits, and in the future, we will have to rebuild it all over." A few months later she returned to the same theme: "We all want this nightmare to end, that this monstrosity called Netanyahu will get lost, because he exhausted our patience a long time ago." In her letters, Leah Rabin, who died in 2000, also emphasized that her husband opposed the settlements and supported giving up the West Bank.

Read original story in Haaretz