A7News: 'Gantz and Lapid will expel thousands of Jews from their homes'

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Tuesday, Mar. 19 '19, י"ב באדר ב תשע"ט





HEADLINES:
1. 'GANTZ AND LAPID WILL EXPEL THOUSANDS OF JEWS FROM THEIR HOMES'
2. OLD BATTERIES SPARK FIRE IN JERUSALEM APARTMENT
3. WILL MURDERED RABBI'S STUDENT BECOME KNESSET MEMBER FOR OTZMA?
4. LEBANON ARRESTS CANADIAN CITIZEN FOR 'SPYING FOR ISRAEL'
5. WILL AG OKAY DEAL RESTORING OTZMA YEHUDIT'S 'SAFE' KNESSET SEAT?
6. ARAB PARTIES IN, OTZMA YEHUDIT CANDIDATE OUT
7. RABBI SHOT DURING SAMARIA ATTACK DIES
8. 'GANTZ IS CRAWLING TO NETANYAHU LIKE HE CRAWLED TO HAMAS'


1. 'GANTZ AND LAPID WILL EXPEL THOUSANDS OF JEWS FROM THEIR HOMES'
by Ido Ben Porat

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu blasted the Blue and White party on Tuesday during a visit to the ruins of the biblical city of Shilo, warning that if the center-left party wins next month's elections, the next government will expel thousands of Jews from Judea and Samaria.

"We are in the territory of our homeland," said Netanyahu during his visit to the site of the ancient city of Shilo, near the modern Israeli town of the same name. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee joined Netanyahu at the event, which was attended by local settlement leaders.

"This speaks to us, this is in our soul, and it is reflected in our policies and the work we do together. I think there is a real danger here, however. Lapid and Gantz are still held captive to the idea that the only way to secure the future of the State of Israel is to shrink it, to uproot 80,000 to 90,000 Jews, keep our heads down, and home that the Arabs will recognize Israel."

"I'm working in exactly the opposite direction, towards strengthening Israel in terms of security, economically, and in foreign relations. We developing ties around the world, including with the Arab world. This will take time, it will be a struggle, but it is the opposite approach [to Gantz and Lapid's]. They want a future based on vulnerability, we want a future based on strength. The choice here is very clear."

During his visit to the Shilo area, roughly 20 dozen women from Shilo and nearby Israeli towns gathered to protest against the ongoing investigation of settlement security guards in connection with their response to an attack near the town of Adei Ad in January.

"The security teams are our bullet proof vest," said one sign held up by a protester. "Soldiers - not criminals", read another sign."

On Saturday, January 26th, a mob of Arab rioters attacked an Israeli man who went out for a walk near the Israeli town of Adei Ad, near Shilo. The victim was beaten and stabbed during the attack, but eventually managed to escape and call for help.

When local security guards headed to the scene of the attack in response, they were attacked by dozens of Arabs who hurled stones and pieces of metal.

After the guards opened fire in self-defense, one of the attackers, Hamdi Nasan, was killed. Nasan, a Fatah terrorist who had been jailed by Israel in 2000 for his involvement in a series of terror attacks, was granted early release in 2007 as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority.

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260584



2. OLD BATTERIES SPARK FIRE IN JERUSALEM APARTMENT
by Eliran Aharon

Firefighting teams were called to extinguish a fire which had broken out in a Jerusalem home early Tuesday morning.

Several teams of firefighters arrived at the team and shortly thereafter succeeded in breaking through the apartment's front door, searching for victims while working to extinguish the flames and ventilate the apartment and building.

A search of the apartment revealed that no one was present at the time of the fire.

Initial investigations revealed that the fire started due to a pile of old toys stored in bags together with a large number of old batteries and placed near the entrance to the apartment.

At some point, the tips of the batteries touched each other, causing sparks and heat and eventually sparking a fire near the door.

Fire chief Eli Edri, who commanded the operation, said, "We were called during the morning hours to the Ma'alot Dafna neighborhood, after someone reported a significant fire in an apartment in the neighborhood. We arrived at the scene and saw a thick plume of smoke rising from an apartment on the second floor of a four-story building. We were also concerned people might be trapped in the apartment."

"We broke into the apartment, and behind the door we saw a huge fire. A search of the apartment revealed that no one was trapped. Luckily, the parents and their eight children were spending the night at their grandmother's. The source of the fire was near the door and the flames blocked the entrance, so if they had not spent the night at their grandmother's, they would have been trapped in the burning apartment.

"We are happy that this fire ended with no injuries and a Purim miracle for the family."

The burned apartment Jerusalem Fire and Rescue Services



3. WILL MURDERED RABBI'S STUDENT BECOME KNESSET MEMBER FOR OTZMA?
by David Rosenberg

When the Jewish Home, National Union, and Otzma Yehudit submitted a joint list for the 21st Knesset on February 21st, Yitzhak Vaserlof seemed like a token candidate.

Placed 40th on the list of a party which is averaging about seven seats in the polls, Vaserlof was the third candidate for Otzma Yehudit on the Union of Right-Wing Parties' joint slate, behind former MK Michael Ben-Ari, and attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir, who were placed on the fifth and eighth slots respectively.

Following Ben-Ari's disqualification from the election, however, Vaserlof could potentially find himself in the realistic eighth slot – and possibly enter the 21st Knesset.

On Sunday, the Supreme Court overturned the Central Elections Committee's decision to permit Ben-Ari to run for the 21st Knesset – marking the first time in history the Israeli Supreme Court has disqualified a candidate who had been approved by the committee.

Citing comments made by Ben-Ari in videos shared via social media, the court accepted the petition filed by the Reform Movement and the far-left Meretz party to disqualify Ben-Ari on the grounds of incitement to racism.

In response, Otzma Yehudit has demanded that the Central Elections Committee allow the party to rearrange the joint Knesset list, bumping up its two other candidates – pushing Itamar Ben-Gvir from eighth to fifth, and Vaserlof from 40th to eighth.

On Tuesday, the committee said that it would weigh the request, and asked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit for his opinion as to whether the committee may permit changes to the order of the list after the February 21st deadline.

If approved, the change would make Vaserlof a realistic, albeit not guaranteed, candidate for the 21st Knesset in next month's election.

A married father of two, Vaserlof was raised in the Old City of Jerusalem, but moved to south Tel Aviv after serving in the IDF's Golani Brigade.

If elected, at 26 years old Vaserlof would be the second youngest person ever to serve in the Knesset, after Moshe Nissim, the former Likud MK who first entered the Knesset as a member of the General Zionists party at the age of 24.

After serving in the IDF, Vaserlof, an alumnus of Maalot Yeshiva, enrolled in the Oz V'Emunah yeshiva, Srugim reported, where for the past four years he was a student of the dean – Rabbi Ahiad Ettinger, who as murdered in an Arab terrorist attack this week in Samaria.

Vaserlof, who had previously served as the chairman of the National Union party's youth wing, joined the Otzma Yehudit faction after he worked with then-MK Michael Ben-Ari during Ben-Ari's term in the Knesset from 2009-2013.

"That's how I first met Michael [Ben-Ari], who is an absolutely honest guy, a straight-shooter – as opposed to all of the backroom dealings that go on in politics, and that led me to work with him," Vaserlof told Srugim.

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260582


4. LEBANON ARRESTS CANADIAN CITIZEN FOR 'SPYING FOR ISRAEL'
by AFP

Lebanese intelligence said Tuesday a Lebanese-Canadian dual national had been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel.

"In the framework of pursuing operations to combat Israeli espionage... the directorate of General Security arrested a Lebanese-Canadian (F.G)," the General Security service said in a statement.

There were no details on exactly when or where he was detained.

The statement said the 40-year-old man confessed to being recruited in 2013 by a Lebanese fugitive it said belongs to an Israeli spying network described as "unit 504".

He was ordered to recruit Lebanese agents to spy on the Hezbollah movement and collect information on missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, a navigator whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and was thought to have been handed over to the Shiite group, the statement said.

Lebanon and Israel remain technically in a state of war, with occasional skirmishes along their shared ceasefire line.

In 2006, Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah terrorist organization launched a month-long war with
the Jewish state that devastated parts of Lebanon.

Hezbollah, which holds sway over much of Lebanon's southern border region, is funded and armed by Israel's archfoe Iran.

Between April 2009 and 2014, Lebanese authorities detained more than 100 people accused of spying for Israel, most of them members of the military or telecom employees.

Such arrests have been less frequent recently.


5. WILL AG OKAY DEAL RESTORING OTZMA YEHUDIT'S 'SAFE' KNESSET SEAT?
by Ido Ben Porat

Will the Otzma Yehudit faction be permitted to make last-minute changes to its list of candidates on the Union of Right-Wing Parties joint ticket?

On Sunday, the Supreme Court made the unprecedented move of banning a Knesset candidate who had been approved by the Knesset's own Central Elections Committee, disqualifying former MK Michael Ben-Ari from running for the 21st Knesset.

The ruling, which overturned the Central Election Committee's narrow 16 to 15 decision earlier this month to permit Ben-Ari to run, deprives the Otzma Yehudit faction of its "safe" seat in the next Knesset.

Otzma Yehudit, which is led by students of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, is running on a joint ticket with the Jewish Home and National Union factions, and received the fifth and seventh slots on the joint slate.

The party is currently polling at an average of about seven seats, guaranteeing that Ben-Ari, who had been placed fifth on the ticket, would enter the Knesset. Ben-Gvir, who had been placed eight on the ticket, would likely not have made it into the Knesset, recent polls show, had the list remained as originally submitted on February 21st.

With Ben-Ari's disqualification, however, every candidate on the joint slate after Ben-Ari was automatically bumped up one place, pushing Ben-Gvir into the realistic, but still not guaranteed, seventh spot on the list.

The third Otzma candidate, Yitzhak Vaserlof, was given a largely symbolic slot on the Knesset list, placed 40th on the joint list.

Ben-Ari's removal from the list has placed the alliance between the Jewish Home, National Union, and Otzma in jeopardy, as Otzma now will not be guaranteed representation in the Knesset – a fact that could drive away its voter base.

Now, however, the Central Elections Committee is weighing the possibility of altering the order of candidates on the Union of Right-Wing Parties' list, so as to allow Ben-Gvir to take Ben-Ari's spot in the fifth slot, while Vaserlof takes Ben-Gvir's spot as the seventh candidate on the joint list.

Ordinarily, parties are prohibited from making changes to their Knesset slates after the deadline for submitting lists – which passed on February 21st.

Given the unusual circumstances, however, the chairman of the Central Elections Committeee, Justice Hanan Meltzer, has asked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit whether the committee can approve the last-minute reshuffling of candidates.


6. ARAB PARTIES IN, OTZMA YEHUDIT CANDIDATE OUT
by David Rosenberg

The Israeli Supreme Court issued a ruling against Otzma Yehudit Sunday evening, barring one of its candidates, Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, from running for the 21st Knesset.

In so doing, the court overturned a decision earlier this month by the Central Elections Committee to permit Ben-Ari to participate in next month's election.

The court also ruled Sunday to overturn the Central Elections Committee's decision to bar the radical anti-Zionist Arab parties Balad and the United Arab List from running for the Knesset. The two parties, which are running on a joint ticket, had been barred by the committee for their support for terrorism and opposition to Israel as a Jewish state.

In addition, the court also moved to overturn the Central Election Committee's order that Ofer Cassif, the sole Jewish candidate on the joint list of the predominantly Arab Hadash party and the Ta'al faction be banned from the Knesset. Cassif, a Hebrew University lecturer, had been banned over comments he had made comparing the State of Israel to Nazi Germany.

Ben-Ari, 55, had been the Otzma Yehudit faction's first candidate on a joint ticket with the Jewish Home and National Union parties, receiving the fifth slot on the joint slate.

A former Knesset Member who served in the National Union part from 2009 to 2013, Ben-Ari was a student of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the Kach party and served as the party's sole Knesset Member, from 1984 to 1988.

While previous candidates have been barred from running for the Knesset – including Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was banned in 1988 – this marks the first time in the history of Israel that the court has banned a candidate over the objections of the Central Elections Committee.

The petition to bar Ben-Ari had been submitted by Meretz chief MK Tamar Zandberg, Labor MK Stav Shaffir, and representatives of the Reform Movement. Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir, Otzma Yehudit's second candidate for the Knesset, was also included in the petition, but will be permitted to run.

Ben-Ari's critics had accused him of incitement to racism, pointing to a number of videos shared on Facebook in which Ben-Ari called for a tough line against terrorism. The former MK denied that he was hostile towards Arabs as Arabs, and had only spoken out against Arabs who oppose the State of Israel.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit had recommended to the Central Elections Committee to ban Ben-Ari, while permitting Ben-Gvir, the United Arab List-Balad, and Ofer Cassif.

With Ben-Ari barred from the election, the candidates below him on the joint Jewish Home – National Union – Otzma list will be bumped up one spot, pushing Itamar Ben-Gvir into the seventh slot.

The decision strips Otzma Yehudit of its "safe seat", with polls showing the party winning between six to eight seats.


7. RABBI SHOT DURING SAMARIA ATTACK DIES
by David Rosenberg

Rabbi Ahiad Ettinger, one of the three Israeli victims in a pair of terror attacks in Samaria on Sunday, succumbed to his wounds on Monday.

Ettinger, 47, a resident of the Israeli town of Eli in Samaria, is survived by his wife and 12 children, ages one to 20.

A prominent educator in the national-religious sector, Rabbi Ettinger served as the dean of the Oz V'Emunah hesder yeshiva in the Neve Sha'anan neighborhood of south Tel Aviv.

On Sunday, a Palestinian Arab terrorist carried out a pair of attacks in Samaria, including a combination stabbing and shooting attack at Ariel Junction in central Samaria, then a shooting attack in western Samaria at Gitai Avisar Junction.

During the first attack, at Ariel Junction, the terrorist, armed with a knife, hid in an illegal Arab shop near the junction, waiting for an opportune time to attack two IDF soldiers deployed nearby.

The terrorist managed to sneak up on the soldiers, stabbing one of them and stealing his firearm. The terrorist then shot the soldier, killing him.

The soldier was later identified as 19-year-old Gal Keidan of Beer Sheva.

After he murdered Keidan, the terrorist was shot by the commander of the IDF unit deployed at the junction, but was not seriously wounded, and managed to steal a car and flee the scene.

The terrorist later shot a second IDF soldier and Rabbi Ettinger, who had attempted to gun down the terrorist with his personal firearm.

Rabbi Ettinger was shot during the attack, suffering a head wound which left him in critical condition. Despite the efforts of doctors at Beilinson Medical Center in Petah Tikva, Rabbi Ettinger succumbed to his wounds Monday morning and was declared dead.

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/260517


8. 'GANTZ IS CRAWLING TO NETANYAHU LIKE HE CRAWLED TO HAMAS'
by Arutz Sheva Staff

The New Right party, led by Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, responded on Tuesday to the recordings a conversation in which Blue and White leader Benny Gantz can be heard contemplating sitting in a government led by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

"Gantz is crawling towards Netanyahu like he crawled towards Hamas," they said. "As we said a while ago, a moment after the elections, Gantz will crawl into Netanyahu's government, on the silver platter of US President Donald Trump's 'deal of the century.'"

"Now it's clear: Either Bennett and Shaked, with a revolution in the Supreme Court and a victory over Hamas. Or, a soft leftist government made of Bibi (Netanyahu - ed.), [MK Yair] Lapid, and [Benny] Gantz, with Lapid as Justice Minister and Gantz as Defense Minister."

Lapid and Gantz have agreed that if their Blue and White party wins the elections, they will take turns being prime minister.