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Jun. 10, 2021 1:07 PM
Thirty years ago, in May 1991, thousands of Ethiopian Jews came to Israel over the course of two days, in an airlift called Operation Solomon. In general, commemorations of such symbolic moments in the immigration of Ethiopian Jewry are full of yearning, collective sentiment in the spirit of Zionism and the mythos of the ingathering of the exiles and salvation, while provoking nearly no questions.
The purpose of this essay is to shed light on questions that could create discomfort, to deflate the myth. Now is the time to attack the monopoly of the “Israeli melting pot,” on how we understand our lives and shape our Israeliness and how we seek to be present in Israel’s social fabric.
The police and the Shin Bet security service consider the incident a terrorist act, and say the suspects sought to throw firebombs into the homes of Jews in order to avenge the clashes in Jerusalem and Lod
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May. 31, 2021 11:25 AM
The Justice Ministry department that investigates allegations of police misconduct will not be probing the shooting of Abdel-Afo Bassam and his injury: even though it happened in the heart of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound; even though the young Jerusalemite was clearly taking pictures; even though police shot him twice; even though he was one of five Palestinian photographers who were shot by the police at the holy site that day, Friday May 7. About a dozen more photographers were attacked by police officers in other places in Jerusalem that day.
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On Tuesday last week four police officers were standing across from the gate that leads to the home of the Kiswani family in the East Jerusalem neighborhood when Mohammed Kiswani and his 16-year-old daughter Jana emerged to see what was happening.
Told to return inside by the police, they had turned and reentered their courtyard when one of the police officers fired his weapon at them without aiming, hitting Jana in the back with a sponge-tipped bullet.
Seconds later, after the gate is closed, the police fired another bullet that hit Mohammed in the leg, and also threw a stun grenade through the bars of the gate. The grenade fell right near the wounded Jana and Mohammed. Jana was evacuated to a hospital, where she was found to have a spinal fracture and possible damage to a kidney. Doctors say she will need lengthy rehabilitation.
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May. 10, 2021
The police on Monday arrested the safety engineer who gave the green light for the traditional Lag Ba’omer celebration at Mount Meron that ended in 45 people being fatally suffocated and 150 people injured. His assistant, a retired police superintendent, was also arrested.
Investigators are also saying that the police Northern District commander and other officers should be questioned as suspects for their alleged involvement in causing the casualties.
From the investigation to date, it appears that the main reason for the crowding and pressure at the Toldot Aharon bonfire compound, outside which the disaster occurred, was that police gave the Hasidic court permission to hold its bonfire at a different time than the other bonfires at the compound. This meant that the crowd was not dispersed among several bonfires, as usually happens, but that additional thousands crowded in to see the Toldot Aharon blaze. Moreover, no policemen were stationed at the compoun