(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a sharp response Sunday to United States pressure to stop Jews from building in parts of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem is “not up for debate,” Netanyahu said, and Jews are permitted to build in any part of the capital city, as are Arabs.
Netanyahu implied that the U.S. request was racist, saying before the weekly Cabinet meeting, “Imagine what would happen if Jews were forbidden to live or to buy apartments in certain parts of London, New York, Paris or Rome. There would be an international outcry.”
(IsraelNN.com) With the Obama administration turning the corkscrews upon Israeli sovereignty in its capital, the spotlight focuses once again on the growing Jewish presence in neighborhoods such as Shimon HaTzaddik. Arab squatters face eviction this week.
The U.S. State Department has made an unprecedented demand upon its ally Israel to stop lawful construction in its capital – specifically, at a property owned by activist Dr. Irving Moskowitz in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The municipal housing plan calls for the site of the Shepherd Hotel to become a 20-unit apartment complex. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other government ministers have categorically rebuffed the American ultimatum, as did Ambassador Michael Oren when he was called to the State Department to hear the U.S. demand.
As he relates it, Adul’s entry into the insurgent movement was an almost seamless extension of his religious studies and his search for perfection in faith and practice. His origins are humble enough. His family are rubber farmers, and he is the first in his family to enter higher religious studies, for which his parents are very proud.
A studious boy, he entered the prestigious Samphanwitthaya religious school in neighbouring Cho Airong district, and from there gained a scholarship to study at the famous Thammawithaya school in Yala province, where he gained a diploma, reaching the 14th level of Islamic studies.
He wanted to continue his studies in Egypt, but his path was interrupted by events.
Adul recalls that he entered the “movement” in 1994 at the time he was studying at Samphanwitthaya school. His recruiter was a religious teacher at the school, but all communication with this teacher was private, taking place outside official class time. Read more >