Sderot parents declare strike
High schools in the Kassam-stricken city of Sderot launched an open strike on Tuesday, Sept. 4 in protest of ongoing rocket attacks from the northern Gaza Strip.
Parents, as well as many Sderot residents, want the government to launch a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip against terror groups responsible for the rocket fire.
The decision not to send their children to school was sparked by a Kassam attack on a kindergarten in the city on Monday. A rocket landed near the child care facility, leaving 12 children in need of treatment for shock.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak put Sderot under 24-hour emergency status and said he is considering military action in Gaza where the Kassam rockets are being launched. — ynetnews.com
Court: Israel must re-route barrier
In an embarrassing blow to Israel, the Supreme Court this week ordered the state to redraw the route of its West Bank separation barrier near a Palestinian village that has come to symbolize opposition to the enclosure.
Residents of the village of Bilin went to court arguing that the current route, built on village land, kept them from their fields and orchards, which remained on the other side of the barrier.
The Israeli government argued that the route was necessary to protect residents of the nearby settlement of Modiin Illit, and completed the section of fence that cut through Bilin’s lands despite the protests.
A three-judge Supreme Court panel unanimously rejected the government’s argument, ordering defense planners to change the barrier’s route so it causes less harm to the village’s residents. The Israeli Defense Ministry said in a statement that it would “study the ruling and respect it.” — ap
Austrian chancellor first to visit Israel in decade
Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer became the first Austrian head of state to visit Israel in nearly a decade.
His two-day visit that began Monday, Sept. 3 was aimed at repairing an often tense relationship between his country and the Jewish state.
“It’s true that the relationship between Austria and Israel not always has been an easy one, but I think we are embarking on a new initiative,” Gusenbauer said at the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. “We are opening up a new chapter in our relationship, a chapter of friendship and cooperation.”
Austrians, including political leaders, for many decades saw themselves as Hitler’s first victims during World War II instead of as collaborators with the Nazis’ murderous regime. Recently, however, Austria has made an effort politically to acknowledge its role in the Holocaust and its responsibilities to its former Jewish citizens and their heirs. — jta
Jerusalem holy site dig questioned
Israeli archaeologists charged that digging overseen by Islamic religious leaders at a hotly disputed Jerusalem holy site damaged a wall that might date back to the Bible.
Islamic authorities responsible for Haram as-Sharif, known to Jews as Temple Mount, said digging a trench was necessary to replace 40-year-old electrical cables. They called the Israeli group’s charges “sheer propaganda.”
The hilltop compound is a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Home to the silver-domed Al Aqsa Mosque and gold-capped Dome of the Rock, it is Islam’s third-holiest shrine. Jews revere it as the location of the two biblical Jewish temples, making it the holiest site in Judaism.
Israeli archaeologist Zachi Zweig said a tractor used to dig the trench damaged the foundation of a seven-yard-wide wall that might have been a remnant of the Second Temple. — ap
Consular marriage
in Israel approved
Israeli officials have decided to resume consular marriages for Israeli residents provided that at least one of them has foreign nationality.
The decision, which recognizes marriages performed at foreign consulates, will apply when neither partner belongs to a recognized religious community in Israel, and one or both of them are nationals of the country of the consulate in question.
Consular marriages were customary during the British Mandate. A 1995 decision disallowed such marriages for Israeli citizens. The Sunday, Sept. 2 decision provides for the resumption of such marriages and thus expands the right of marriage in Israel.
However, some believe the new decision will do nothing to change the problematic issue of marriage in the country. Irit Rosenblum, director-general of the New Family organization, explained that the decision does not provide a solution for the hundreds of thousands of people who do not meet the requirements of the new resolution, and forces them to marry in other countries. — ynetnews.com
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California