Free Republic

Video Police had shown the committee video footage of recent Arab rioting in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, and Committee Chair MK Miri Regev (Likud) asked him why police did not close off the Temple Mount to both Jews and Muslims, instead of just Jews. MK Zahalka began shouting that police have no business entering the Mount - the holiest place in Judaism - claiming that it is "occupied territory". He then told Lt. Gen. Danino that he has blood on his hands, prompting a furious reaction by Regev. The exchange was extreme even by the extreme standards set by...

Over the weekend a memorial was held at the Treblinka concentration camp to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1943 uprising at the camp. Roughly 875,000 people were murdered in Treblinka during the Holocaust, nearly all of them Jews. In 1943 prisoners rebelled. While most were killed, several hundred managed to escape, and the uprising damaged the camp badly enough to slow the mass murder at the site. Deputy Minister of Education Avi Wortzman represented Israel at the ceremony. In his speech, he spoke about the horror of the Holocaust, and also replied to an Arab-Israeli MK’s recent claim, in...

The government took another step toward solving the housing crisis on Sunday, as Minister of the Interior Eli Yishai signed off on a building plan for the city of Harish that will include 8,800 new housing units, which are to be marketed to young couples in the hareidi-religious community. Construction on some housing units will begin within weeks. The plan also includes space for businesses, public buildings and schools. One Member of Knesset was not pleased with the new plan. MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) accused the government of “widening the city of Harish and suffocating Arab towns in Wadi Ara.”...