Slippery Slope

According to the Environmental Protection Ministry’s deputy director general for enforcement, the IDF is preventing investigation of pollution in West Bank army bases. Eighteen months ago, on a tour of IDF bases in the West Bank, Itzhak Ben-David observed that fuel and oil were leaking into the ground. He submitted a complaint on the issue but was unable to receive a satisfactory answer.

Tel-Aviv District Court Judge Michal Agmon-Gonen presided in two cases involving her close personal friend Yaacov Luxenburg. In the first case, she was forced to disqualify herself after making several judicial decisions. In the second case she avoided disqualification so far without revealing her personal connections to the other side.

(Hebrew)

A booklet distributed to officers by the IDF’s Chief Rabbi, Brigadier General Rafi Peretz, contains political views. The booklet presents the thought of Rabbi Eli Sadan who discusses the limits of “governmental morality”, explains the cause of “Price Tag” pogroms and claims that the IDF does not discriminate against women.

(Hebrew)

Non-Haredi religious Zionists serve in the Shahar program, a special IDF track for the integration of Haredi men. The program allows Haredi men who have not matriculated in English and mathematics to acquire basic skills and improve their employment options after their release. Many of them are now rejected in favour of religious Zionists.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud), speaking on the one year anniversary of the murder of the Fogel family, called to accelerate Jewish construction on the West Bank.

The head of the Israel Prison Service, Aharon Franco, signed an order for the early release of 600 prisoners, due to lack of room in Israeli prisons.

Over 20% of social workers employed by nonprofit organizations or who provide services to government ministries have not received the wage increases agreed upon as a result of their three-week strike last year.

The secretariat of Haredi[?] settlement Haresha in the south Hebron hills rejected an IDF force of female soldiers sent as guards. Residents of Haresha will guard the area until the IDF sends a force of male soldiers only.

(Hebrew)

Unknown individuals vandalized an agricultural field near the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, destroying a quarter of its crops. Israeli/settler right-wing website “HaKol Hayehudi” claimed that this could be a “Price Tag” action in response to Palestinians blockading a nearby road with rocks.

(Hebrew)

MK Aryeh Bibi (Kadima) proposed an ammendment to the “Basic Law: Jerusalem the Capital of Israel” that sought to prevent gay pride parades from being held in Jerusalem, so as not to offend religious sensibilities. He withdrew the proposal a day after the media published it.