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1. Bride, Father Arrested for Crime of Moving Lips on Temple Mountby Hana Levi Julian 
A Jewish bride and her father were arrested on the Temple Mount the day before her wedding, after an Arab policeman claimed he saw the father muttering prayers and the bride nodding her head.
The father and daughter were being taken around the site on Wednesday morning by her brother Eli, a volunteer who conducts regular tours at the Temple Mount, when suddenly they were accosted by the Jerusalem policeman.
"We were in the northern part, and I was showing them the archaeological evidence when suddenly a police officer came over to us, Mahmoud Hativ was his name, and h claimed that my father had muttered prayers. "We tried to argue with him and said it wasn't true, but he said, 'You can't fool me,' and insisted that my father had prayed," Eli told Israel National News.
"My sister was just standing there silently, not moving at all. She didn't say a word. It was her first time at the Mount. Other cops came over, Mahmoud said that she had also been involved, and they decided to arrest them both," he continued. "He let me go right away, because he couldn't make any claim against me." His sister and father were taken to the Kishla police station near the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.
'Lack of Will to Exercise Israeli Sovereignty'
"The fact that a father comes to the holiest place of the Jewish people and can be arrested simply for allegedly moving his lips is an outrage," Eli said.
"The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the holy sites of all religions have to be protected and respected – that explicitly includes the rights of Jews on the Temple Mount. Jerusalem police continue to ignore that ruling."
Asked if he believes U.S. pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority had anything to do with the incident, Eli said, 'No. It is a result of the lack of will of the Jerusalem police to exercise Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish holy places in Jerusalem, not U.S. pressure on Israel. It is unheard of to arrest someone just for praying in their own religion. In the U.S. that wouldn't fly. There is no public place in the U.S. where a Jew could not pray. It is unfortunate, and sad."
The family, which immigrated to Israel from New York in 1996, lives in Beit Shemesh.
'Police Misled Them to Sign Confession'
The two were held for several hours. At approximately 11:30 a.m., the two were ordered to sign a declaration which they were told said they would promise not to return to the Temple Mount for 15 days.
However, the father, who spoke with Israel National News from the courtyard of the police station while waiting to be questioned by the police commander, said that further examination of the paper showed they had been misinformed. The declaration actually said that they were confessing to have violated a law about disturbing the public order.
It was also made equally clear that if they did not sign the paper, they might not be freed for hours – perhaps not even in time for the young woman to make it to her own wedding.
Officers at Jaffa Gate Station Mocked the Bride
"The police officers talked very improperly to my daughter. She was very upset – in tears – and they ridiculed her. 'What's the matter, are you baby?' they mocked her." Her father immediately fired back, "That's how you talk to someone?"
The father said that the officer in charge threatened to keep them longer in response. "Be careful," the cop warned. "If you talk to me that way, I can keep you here for a few more hours."
"So I asked them: 'How would it be if we arrested a young lady for praying anywhere else in the State of Israel? Or maybe a Muslim woman for praying in Mecca? This is about police enforcement – so enforce the law! And they answered me, 'It's a very sensitive issue. This is the law.' That's what they answered me," said the father. "So I shut up, because I wanted to get out of there, and he would have kept us for hours. We signed the paper, and we will deal with it in the court of public opinion."
The father was not praying although he was, in fact, moving his lips. "They asked me if my daughter was nodding her head. I said I didn't know – but if she can now be arrested for nodding her head… well, anyway, in the end, that's what they got her for. Nodding her head. That's the nature of the public order." Comment on this story
2. Government Okays Jerusalem / Golan Referendum Billby Gil Ronen 
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation decided Tuesday to give the government's backing to a bill proposed by MK Yariv Levin (Likud) requiring that a national referendum be held if the government ever intends to cede land under Israeli sovereignty.
The law is seen as being primarily relevant with regard to the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which are under full Israeli sovereignty. The Knesset passed laws annexing eastern Jerusalem and the Golan in 1980 and 1981, respectively.
If the government wishes to make a deal to surrender these areas, according to the proposed law, a referendum must be called within 180 days of the initial agreement – and any deal would be contingent on its passing the referendum. In order to avoid the referendum, 80 MKs would have to approve the deal.
Meridor petition struck down
The ministerial committee also struck down an appeal against a similar decision it had made in the past. The appeal was filed by Minister Dan Meridor, who is a proponent of a Golan retreat in return for a peace deal with Syria.
Minister Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz (Jewish Home), who opposed Meridor's appeal, was happy with the vote. "The territories of the Land of Israel must be safeguarded," he stated, "and the processes of legislation must be accelerated in order to prevent a future possibility of retreats against the will of the people."
Meridor said in the past that passage of a referendum law such as this could "send a problematic message to the Syrians" and make it difficult for the government to advance diplomatic processes in the future.
The proposed referendum law is now expected to come up for a vote in the Knesset with the backing of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the coalition. Bills with coalition backing usually pass into law. Comment on this story
3. Nationalist Women: Police Conducted Humiliating Searches by Gil Ronen 
The Knesset's Committee for the Advancement of Women heard testimony Tuesday from young women who said that police conducted humiliating searches on them in order to break their spirits.
The session was chaired by MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) and attended by MKs Michael Ben-Ari (National Union), Shlomo Mula (Kadima) and Hanin Zuabi (Balad).
The committee heard the testimony of a young woman, identified as A. B., who was arrested in a demonstration against the expulsion from Gush Katif when she was 17.5 years old.
"A policewoman took me to the public restroom, closed the door and did not lock it, and told me to take off the outer clothes," she said. "After arguing, when I realized I had no choice I stripped and remained with the underclothes. Then I was transferred to the police station at the Russian Compound where I was placed in a small room and told to strip completely. After I refused the policewoman told me that in that case she would have to call in a male policeman to help her. In order to prevent this situation I agreed to strip completely."
Orit Strook, Chairwoman of the Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria, told the committee that the humiliating searches of nationalist demonstrators are part of a pattern: "In most cases the search is carried out as a means of punishment, and the purpose is clear – to defeat the detained women, to deter them, to break their spirit." Strook said that some police stations were respectful of female detainees' rights while others consistently violated them.
All of the young women and girls who testified said that they had not been informed of their legal rights.
MK Ben-Ari said that the events described were "very grave" ones. "These things caused a very serious emotional trauma and we must make sure that they do not happen again."
MK Hotovely said that "the things we heard here are evidence of an unbearable reality and it appears that the search was conducted for the sake of punishment and was not necessitated by reality. This is a means of striking fear into hearts and it does not advance the rule of law... The police stations and those who work in them have to undergo a complete revision with respect to this matter and there must be greater sensitivity in the matter of searches on a woman's body." Comment on this story
4. Knesset Bill to Force Courts to 'Return to Zion'by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 
The Basic Law of Israel, which provides a basis for court rulings, will define Israel as a Zionist and Jewish state that is democratic, and not vice-versa, if the Knesset approves a new bill proposed by two Knesset Members.
"The High Court has turned the Basic Law, that recognizes the values and freedom of mankind, into a tool to justify rulings that ignore the Jewish identity of the State of Israel," said MK Yariv Levin, a Likud legislator and chairman of the Knesset House Committee. This new bill will return Zionism to a basis for judicial rulings and determine…that Israel is first and foremost a Jewish State."
 The bill is co-sponsored by Knesset Law Committee chairman MK David Rotem of Israel Our Home (Yisrael Beiteinu). The proposed change to the Basic Law, which requires an absolute majority of MKs to become law, would make democracy a part of a Jewish State instead of the current situation that he said places democracy above and beyond Zionism.
The language of the Basic Law today specifies that Israel is a "Jewish and democratic" country, and the new bill would state that it is "a Jewish State that is democratic."
The proposed bill comes less than two days after Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman told a conference of rabbis that there must be a return to Torah values in the government. He later said his remarks were misinterpreted and that he did not mean that court decision should be based only on Jewish law.
"Minister Ne'eman spoke in broad and general terms about restoring the stature of Jewish law and about the importance of Jewish law to the life of the country," his spokesman said after several secular MKs and legal advisors called for his resignation. Comment on this story
5. The Myth of the Gaza Blockadeby Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 
Statistics provided by the Palestinian Authority show that the so-called blockade of Gaza is far from a blockade. The PA Interior Ministry this week stated that nearly 3,000 Arabs left Gaza for medical care in the last three months.
Only 214 traveled to Jordan and 563 to Egypt, while the others received medical care in various locations throughout Israel, including 588 who were hospitalized within the 1948-1967 'Green Line" borders. The bill for the medical care amounts to NIS 25 million ($6.5 million).
Hospitals near Gaza frequently accept patients from Gaza, some of whom are married to foreign Arabs, including one cancer patient from Gaza who was caught in recent years preparing to stage a suicide attack at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.
The Ramallah-based PA Health Ministry blamed Hamas for trying to enforce the blockade by preventing 87 patients from leaving the Erez Crossing into Israel.
In addition to the medical care, Israel routinely transfers hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza and this week shipped 10,000 doses of vaccinations against the H1N1 swine flu. Israel also has allowed pro-Hamas activist, British Member of Parliament George Galloway, to ship medical equipment to Gaza. A third shipment left Britain this week and will stop in Syria before reaching Gaza at the end of the month.
His Viva Palestina organization is also shipping 15 ambulances, although Hamas previously has confiscated many of the vehicles for its army.
The "blockade" also has allowed thousands of Gaza Arabs to cross back and forth to Egypt through the city of Rafiah, which straddles the border and also is the center of smuggling of weapons, explosives, terrorists, drugs and merchandise. Comment on this story
6. Knesset Speaker: Human Rights Not Just for 'Bleeding Hearts'by Gil Ronen 
The discourse of human rights must not be allowed to remain within the exclusive realm of the political left wing, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) said Tuesday at a special Knesset panel for Human Rights Day.
The human rights discourse "should placed back in its proper zone, and a proper balance between different rights needs to be hammered out," he explained. "We need to preserve this discourse and keep it from becoming one-dimensional, from being perceived as a detached discourse of 'bleeding hearts,' of leftists; let it not be prejudicial and let it not be limited only to certain groups."
The panel was held with the participation of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which is funded by the New Israel Fund and generally associated with radical leftist causes.
Rivlin said that ACRI's report on the Cast Lead campaign in Gaza was one-sided but added that he does not reject it, and that he is bothered by phenomena of discrimination and inequality in Israeli society. He said that the UN's Goldstone report on the Gaza campaign was similarly skewed and contained a "twisted discourse of human rights." The report, named after its author, Judge Richard Goldstone, "succeeded in institutionalizing the willful and rude blindness to the suffering and blood of the women and children in the Gaza Belt, and of creating a one-dimensional perception of reality in the debate that developed over 'Cast Lead,'" Rivlin added.
The ACRI report was similarly one-sided, he said: "I regret the fact that the present report by the Association was also swept up into this absurd trend, and that alongside detailed accounts of the death and destruction in the [Ga Strip, it mumbles some opening lines about undiscerning fire – and alternately, of rocket and missile fire – by Hamas into southern Israel." Comment on this story
7. IDF Returns to Shechem to Replace 'Dayton's PA Army' by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 
The IDF returned to Shechem and carried out a major counterterrorist maneuver that the Palestinian Authority's fledgling army, trained by U.S. military officers, was supposed to have been responsible for. The Tuesday night counterterrorist operation nabbed an Islamic Jihad operative wanted for several years for planning two suicide attacks and for attacking soldiers.
The suspect, Zalach Mahmad Zalach Buchari, was responsible for planning a suicide bombing in the Tel Aviv central bus station in January 2002, in which 28 people were wounded. A second suicide attack was foiled by security forces at the last minute. He also planned to abduct soldiers and has been hiding in Shechem for seven years.
According to its agreements with Israel, the PA is responsible for eliminating the terrorist infrastructure in Shechem, as well as other large Arab cities in Judea and Samaria. The IDF action Tuesday night bore out frequent military officers' statements that the success of the PA forces in maintaining law and order is dependent on the IDF.
They have warned that if the IDF were to totally abandon the area, terrorists would regain the upper hand. "We see progress, but we won't give them full control of the cities. They're not capable of fighting Hamas and Islamic Jihad," a senior IDF officer, coordinating between General Keith Dayton and the PA, recently told TIME magazine.
Dayton admonished
The United States has frequently showcased Shechem as an example of the ability of the PA forces to overcome terror. The PA army, termed "police" by the U.S. government, was trained by Dayton. The US general was reportedly recently admonished by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and told to lower his profile concerning the American-trained forces.
Dayton earlier this year said that the PA police-military unit will fall apart if progress is not made towards establishing the PA as a country. A deeper threat is the possibility of the PA itself collapsing if and when PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas carries out his vow to leave office. "The collapse of the Palestinian Authority could spell the end of Dayton's painstaking efforts to create a security force that can enforce law in the West Bank and stop militants from launching attacks on Israel and its settlers, TIME recently reported. Comment on this story
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