The New York Times Q&A: The Gaza Withdrawal

What are Israel’s plans for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip?

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud Party-led government are proceeding with plans to unilaterally withdraw all troops and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. The process of removing settlers is scheduled to begin in mid-August and will take up to a month, experts say. Israel has controlled the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since it won the territory during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Six-Day War. However, sections of Gaza and the West Bank are now under Palestinian control.

Which settlements will be evacuated?

All of the 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza, and four–Ganim, Kadim, Homesh, and Sanur–of some 125 settlements in the West Bank. In all, about 7,000 to 9,000 settlers will be moved, says Geoffrey Aronson, director of research and publications and an expert on Israeli settlements at the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington.

Jewish Groups In Bind On Subway Profiling

Notion of race-based searches has centrist groups stymied in replay of Guantanamo silence.

As civil libertarians head to court to halt police searches of subway commuters, insisting it will lead to racial profiling, Jewish organizations here are struggling to reconcile their strong support of civil rights and civil liberties with concern about preventing terror attacks.

While illegal, some say racial profiling — among the tactics regularly used in Israel — is a necessary evil if police are to concentrate limited resources on apprehending terror suspects.

And major Jewish groups, seldom shy about weighing in on matters of the moment, have been publicly silent in the debate.

“It’s a very complicated question and can’t be dismissed, or accepted, out of hand,” said Marc Stern, legal affairs expert for the American Jewish Congress.

Bus Attack Highlighting Links
Of Israeli Extremists and Americans

Last week’s terrorist killing of four Israeli Arabs has cast light on a network of ties linking mainstream American Jewish groups to an extremist fringe in Israel that nurtured the Jewish gunman.

The killer, Eden Natan-Zada, was a 19-year-old Israeli army conscript who had gone AWOL with his weapon after refusing to participate in the upcoming evacuation of Gaza. His attack on a busload of Israeli Arabs was described by top Israeli officials as a terrorist act aimed at inciting Arab-Jewish violence and derailing the Gaza withdrawal.

Israel’s defense minister this week told a Knesset committee that at least nine other soldiers were AWOL with their weapons, and defense sources told the daily Ha’aretz that several of the missing soldiers appeared to match Natan-Zada’s psycho-social “profile.”

Jewish group denounces video on Auschwitz

Israel begins collecting West Bank weapons

Jerusalem — Security officials on Wednesday began collecting army-issued weapons from residents of two West Bank settlements slated for evacuation in an effort to prevent violence during Israel’s upcoming withdrawal from the area, according to officials and media reports.

The weapons collection came as thousands of soldiers participated in their final dress rehearsal for the withdrawal at a dusty farming community in southern Israel.

Beginning next Wednesday, Israel plans on withdrawing from all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four small enclaves in the West Bank. About 9,000 settlers will be uprooted from their homes.

New York seeks to stop Sunday worship in schools

As most of you probably know that the Rebbe started an outreach program to the NYC public schools. On Sundays groups of “Rabbi’s” would go to these public schools after school hours and have different activities and Frum Jewish studies, it is completely voluntary.

Now the churches decided to take a swing with it just like us, and now New York State is evicting them, and in the process they are saying “hay they are doing it why cant we?”

NEW YORK — Dozens of volunteers show up at 7 a.m. on Sundays at Christ Tabernacle to haul screens, banners and musical instruments to a school two miles away.

The evangelical, charismatic church on bustling Myrtle Avenue near several strip malls, brick row houses and cemeteries is growing so fast that there is no place to put its 2,500 members.

The resulting spillover into a local school mirrors what booming churches in New York’s five boroughs do every Sunday morning. But a hearing slated for tomorrow could change that.

Federal District Court Judge Loretta A. Preska will hear arguments in Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, which could lead to the eviction of all churches from New York schools.

UPDATE: CH Resident to be deported

Israel’s attorney general has ordered an Israeli-American deported to the United States due to fears by security forces that he could carry out acts meant to derail Israel’s planned evacuation of 25 Jewish settlements, the Haaretz daily reported Wednesday.

The American, Saadia Hirschkop, 18 from Crown Heights, N.Y., agreed to be deported for 40 days instead of serving jail time for the period, the daily said.

NYPD: “Lonewolf Terrorists” A Concern

Slumping in his prison clothes and pallid from a year behind bars, Shahawar Matin Siraj didn’t look like much of a threat as he silently endured a routine hearing in federal court this month.

But the 23-year-old Pakistani immigrant stands accused of a scheme to attack a busy New York subway station with bombs hidden in backpacks.

Solidarity stance

Crown Hts. unites to cool racial tension

It’s been a hot summer in Crown Heights.

After years of relative quiet, a recent string of alleged bias incidents and an uptick in robberies have sparked concern among both black and Jewish community leaders in the historically emotion-charged neighborhood.

“My concern right now is that there is a powder keg out there,” said Robert Matthews, chairman of Community Board 8, which covers the neighborhood. “We need to get to the source of it and eradicate it.”

Leaders from the two groups have held a series of meetings lately to discuss ways to dissolve the feared increase in racial tensions.

They also joined forces to march through the neighborhood last week to send a message of solidarity.

‘BURGLAR’ BEATEN AFTER CHILLING ENCOUNTER

Residents of a Crown Heights building beat up a serial burglar after he broke into an apartment, then held him for the cops, police said yesterday.

Dale Shields — whose long criminal record includes at least seven prior arrests and several convictions for burglary-related offenses — was roughed up by the residents of 881 Eastern Parkway. He was treated at Kings County Hospital for bruises and a minor head wound.

Shields, 39, is charged with burglary, attempted assault, menacing, trespass, possession of burglars’ tools, criminal mischief and harassment, a law-enforcement source said.

Jewish academy in Palm Desert vandalized

A Jewish academy in Palm Desert was vandalized Monday. Officials described it as a hate crime.

The back and west sides of the Torah Academy on Santa Rosa Way were defaced by swastikas, cartoon characters and the word “trouble,” according to Assistant Police Chief Lt. Steve Thetford.

Riverside County Sheriff’s forensic technicians collected several items from the scene and have several leads, Thetford said.

Ukrainian party seeks action against Jews

The Ukrainian Nationalist Party has called for a criminal investigation into “judo-fascists.”

The party was founded earlier this year and recently accused Jews of being behind the July 7 London subway bombings.

Interfax News Agency reported that in an open letter to President Viktor Yushchenko the party called for an investigation into the activities of several Hassidic rabbis. It accused them of disseminating “Judeo-Nazi teachings” in its schools and indoctrinating children with a “misanthropic religious doctrine.”

Churches gang up on Israel

The Presbyterian Church USA has adopted get-tough policies toward Israel ostensibly designed to force peace with the Palestinians, but they are more likely to sabotage peace than to advance it.

The church has threatened four U.S. companies that if they don’t stop doing business with Israel, the church will divest the stock it holds in them. The companies provide heavy construction machinery, helicopters and communications equipment, all of which, the Presbyterians contend, can be, and sometimes is, used in supporting the occupation of Palestinian territories.

No group holds patent on terrorism

In resigning Sunday, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he feared Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip would leave the area “a base of Islamic terror.” His words came just days after a rampage by a Jewish army deserter brought to the fore another issue that has received relatively scant attention – Jewish extremism.

Thursday evening, 19-year-old Eden Natan-Zada, a right-wing extremist who had been AWOL for months, shot and killed four Israeli Arabs on a bus in northern Israel before being beaten to death by an angry crowd.

Crown Heights Resident Jailed in Israel

Three Right-Wing Radicals Jailed
Defense minister signs adminstration detention order for three Kach members suspected of anti-Arab violence; Kach spokesman: ‘Witch hunt has begun’

Click here to watch a part of the funeral

Following harsh criticism following last week’s shooting attack in Shfaram, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz took action Sunday and ordered the administrative detention of three extreme right-wing activists.

Two were arrested Sunday during the funeral procession of Shfaram terrorist Eden Natan Zada, and the third detained on his way to visit Zada’s family.

The order calls for two months in jail, but could be extended.

The trio are Kach members Efraim Hirshkovitz, 22, of Jerusalem; Gilad Shochat, 19, of the Maon outpost south of Hebron, and 18-year-old Saadia Hirshkop, a U.S. citizen who currently lives in Kfar Chabad.

Shochat’s father, Tiran Polack, is a veteran far-right activist.

According to the charge sheet signed by Mofaz, the trio is charged with violent behavior against Arabs. They are also believed to be dangerous.

Senator Lieberman at Chabad of Aspen

SNS has learned that Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut spent this past Shabbos in Aspen, Colorado where Rabbi & Mrs. Mendel Mintz are the Shluchim.

The Senator, who is currently in the year of mourning, following the recent passing of his dear mother Marcia, davened all the Tefillos @ Chabad and recited mourners Kaddish.

After davening on Shabbos day, the Senator addressed the crowd for about 10 minutes touching on his connection with the Rebbe and Chabad and remarking that it was only because of Chabad’s presence in Aspen and that fact that they had a Minyan that he was able to make the trip.

Police Investigate New Hate Crimes

NEW YORK, NY, August 08, 2005 — Police are investigating another bias attack in the city.

A 29-year-old black man was beaten and robbed in Brooklyn Sunday by a group of whites armed with bats and pipes. Police are labeling it a bias crime.

Police said the victim was assaulted around 1:30 in the morning by a group of six to eight men who were yelling racial slurs. The attackers fled when two passers-by stopped their car and got out.

The man is in serious but stable condition at Brookdale Hospital. Two months ago, in June, 22-year-old Glen Moore was assaulted in the Howard Beach section of Queens in a baseball bat attack that left him with a fractured skull. Two white men were charged with a hate crime for that attack.

The NYPD is investigating two other suspected bias attacks in the city, one in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and one in Chelsea. Since 2000, hate crimes have dropped by forty-four percent in the city. This mirrors the drop in overall crime.