"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Tuesday, December 03, 2019

2 members of Lieberman's party want a right-wing government

Avigdor Lieberman's facing pressures within his own party to cut out undermining the formation of a government:
Lawmakers from the secular rightist Yisrael Beytenu party are pressing party chairman Avidgor Liberman to help Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu form a narrow right-wing government if talks for a unity government fail, Channel 12 reported Tuesday afternoon.

According to the Channel 12 report, senior Yisrael Beytenu members, including MK Oded Forer and MK Hamad Amar, are pressuring party chairman Avidgor Liberman to join a narrow rightist government led by Binyamin Netanyahu, rather than let Israel go to its third general election in a year, if unity talks between the Likud and the Blue and White party fail to achieve a breakthrough.

“The State of Israel cannot bear a third election in one year,” the two MKs are reported as saying to Liberman. “There is a country here to run. Blue and White said that they’d put ‘Israel ahead of everything else’, but they are turning down every offer.”

“The time has come to make them pay a price. Blue and White and Yair Lapid need to know that if they continue to refuse [offers for a unity government], then the alternative will be a narrow right-wing government in order to prevent new elections.”
Well that's pretty amazing somebody's willing to talk the sense that should've been brought up before. I don't think Blue & White even cares if there's to be a 3rd election, and Lieberman probably doesn't either. They're just undermining stability, much like attorney-general Avichai Mendelblit is, and if these members of Lieberman's party really care, they'll break off from what's clearly a party centered around one man only, and join up with the rest of the right instead. This whole charade's gone too far already. It's time for it to stop.

Bennett, as defense minister, approves new Jewish neighborhood in Hebron

This is amazing. In his new role as defense minister, Naftali Bennett's taken a positive step for enabling Jews to live in more of Hebron again:
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday ordered the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria to notify the Hevron municipality of the planning a new Jewish neighborhood in the historic Jewish marketplace.

In accordance with the Minister's directive, the Civil Administration will send a letter on the matter to the Hevron municipality.

The decision is expected to end years of legal and political battles over the fate of the marketplace, which has sat abandoned for decades even after Jews began to return to Hevron following the 1967 Six-Day War.

The new neighborhood will create a territorial continuum from the Cave of the Patriarchs to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood and double the number of Jewish residents in the city.
This is certainly a step in the right direction. Ayelet Shaked followed up with this:
New Right chairman MK Ayelet Shaked praised Defense Minister Naftali Bennett's decision on Sunday to approve Jewish construction in Hebron and spoke about efforts to prevent a third election campaign. [...]

Regarding Defense Minister Naftali Bennett's decision to approve Jewish construction in Hebron, Shaked said. "I spent two years of my life as justice minister, together with Liberman as defense minister. We presented a professional legal opinion, the Attorney General approved it and Naftali Bennett made a courageous decision and sent a letter to the Hevron municipality, informing them that the protected housing has expired."

"Attorney General Mandelblit is an expert on international law and this was the joint work of the Defense and Justice Ministries. In light of the strong legal opinions of the Defense and Justice Ministries. I believe the matter will pass in court. We carried out very serious legal work. There is no reason for the Supreme Court to invalidate it. The Supreme Court today is more diverse and conservative and it's indisputable that this is private Jewish land."

Shaked explained that Jewish construction in Hebron's wholesale market complex is the closing of a circle. "The land of those killed during the Hevron massacre in 1929 has been in the hands of the mayor of Hevron, a murderer, until now." [The mayor of Hevron, Tayseer Abu Shneineh, is one of four Palestinian terrorists who was convicted for killing six Jews in a Hevron alley in 1980, including 2 US citizens and one Canadian. He was sentenced to life in prison but released in a subsequent prisoner exchange.]

"Now Bennett took this land from the hands of a terrorist and will establish a Jewish neighborhood there," Shaked concluded.
On this, she's hit some positive stride. This is real justice for Israel.

British prison and legal system released terrorist who went on to murder 2 people at London Bridge

The disastrous justice system in the UK struck again, and allowed an ostensibly convicted terrorist to exit prison, where he soon went and murdered at least two people by the London Bridge:
Details are emerging on London Bridge killer Usman Khan, a convicted terrorist who was freed from prison on an electronic tag and apparently attending a prisoner rehabilitation event when he struck, killing two.

Khan was imprisoned for his part in a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange and pubs in Stoke, as well as planning to establish a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, in 2012, and originally serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP) — meaning he could have been kept behind bars as long as the relevant authorities deemed him too dangerous to release.

However, Court of Appeal judges led by Lord Leveson quashed his IPP in 2013 and swapped it for a fixed term of 16 years, with eligibility for release on licence at the halfway point — as is standard in the British criminal justice system.
The culprit was tackled with a narwhal tusk by a nearby chef, but it still doesn't change the fact that more defenseless victims lost their lives, and the UK doesn't look to be changing their ban on firearms for self-defense either. If they don't change the laws soon, chances are they never will.

French prosecution pathetically drops murder charge against Sarah Halimi's murderer

The prosecutor in charge of the Sarah Halimi murder has demonstrated just how bad people like him are for the job:
A French prosecutor has dropped charges against the killer of Jewish kindergarten teacher Sarah Halimi after experts ruled he had suffered a massive psychotic episode by smoking cannabis.

Ms Halimi, who was Orthodox, was killed after Kobili Traoré broke into her council flat in eastern Paris on April 4 2017.

Witnesses said the 65-year-old was beaten and called a “demon” by her attacker, who recited Koranic verses as he threw her off her balcony.

In an appeals court hearing on Wednesday Traoré admitted killing Ms Halimi, saying he was not aware of his actions on the night of the murder and did not recognise when he broke in.

“I felt persecuted. When I saw the Torah and a chandelier in her home I felt oppressed. I saw her face transforming,” he said.

But in a rare turn of events, French prosecutors were divided on how to proceed.

Local prosecutors in Paris initially argued that Kobili Traoré should be put on trial for his actions. But they were opposed by the more senior procureur général, which argued Traoré should be hospitalised.
This is telling something too. Atop that, they even buy into his "defense" at complete face value, and clearly because they planned it.
Francis Szpiner, another Halimi family lawyer, said the case was setting a historic precedent: “You’re saying that people can walk free after carrying out criminal action just because they were allegedly not aware of the effects of drugs or other substances?

“Will this also apply to drunk drivers who kill children on the road?”

The court will rule on December 19 on whether Traoré should face trial.
If they fail even that, they've only perpetuated the French justice system as one of the poorest on earth. They've also let rapists off the hook over these shoddy excuses, and this case too sets a most horrific precedent.