Oct 21: Barak attacks Netanyahu on Peace Process

Oct 21: Barak attacks Netanyahu on Peace ProcessThe Headlines: Most Palestinian are (still) Willing to Recognize a Jewish State

>Surveys continue to show that a (diminishing) plurality of Palestinians is willing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state if all other outstanding issues are resolved (Yedioth).

> Defense Minister Barak (Labor) criticized Netanyahu, for not pushing forward the negotiations with the Palestinians (Yedioth). Barak is quoted on the front page of Yedioth claiming Israeli shouldn’t insist that the Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state now. “We don’t need an aggressive Churchill now, we need De-Gaulle,” said Baak, refering to the French president who ended the war in Algeria.

> World Jewish leaders also pressured the Prime Minister to renew the settlement freeze (Ma’ariv).

The Sidelines: The Settlers’ Rampage

> Settlers torch and vandalize a Palestinian school, in a continuing rampage of violence and destruction.

> An infantry colonel who justified violence against Palestinian detainees in a court-martial hearing will probably not be indicted (Ha’aretz).

> Two more boys were injured by IDF fire in Gaza, while rummaging for building materials (made scarce by the Israeli siege) in the ruins of evacuated settlements, near the strip’s border with Israel. 12 boys have been injured so far this year (Ha’aretz).

> An extreme right-wing rabbi calls upon soldiers to use Palestinians as human shields, despite a Supreme Court ruling that forbids the practice. He just warns them not to get caught.

> A rabbinical forum, set up to handle sexual harassment cases in the national-religious community, is torn over an escalating dispute with a prominent right-wing rabbi, accused by the forum of harassing his students.

> The government devotes 80% of the resources allocated to fighting violence against Arab women to enforcement, and only 20% to prevention. Of 50 social workers in the mixed city of Lod, only two are Arabic speakers. Thousands in the city plan [Heb] a major protest against their neglect.

> Tens of thousands in the city of Be’er Sheva were left without water for two days during a heat wave – another sign of the neglect of Israel’s peripheral areas.

> A dispute has erupted between the director of Mossad and his legal advisor, over her intervention in operational matters to ensure they are legal.

The Bottom Lines: Authorities Neglect the Issue of Violence against Women, Particularly in the Arab Sector

> A new report uncovers worrying data about high levels of violence against women in Israel, and official neglect and mishandling of this issue, particularly in the Arab sector (Ma’ariv, Hamagazin).