Israel: PA inciting riots ahead of Obama’s visit
(JNS.org) Further riots and possible calls for violence erupted on Monday following the death of a Palestinian man in an Israeli prison over the weekend.
Hundreds of Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli security forces during the funeral procession of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat, who died in an Israeli prison over the weekend. More than 25,000 were estimated to have attended the funeral near Hebron.
Palestinians accuse Israel of torturing Jaradat, leading to his death. Israel, however, says that Jaradat died of a heart attack and his injuries were caused by efforts to revive him, according to an official autopsy carried out in Tel Aviv in the presence of a Palestinian coroner.
“The death of young Arafat Jadarat shall not pass easily,” Israeli Army Radio quoted Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas as saying, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Another Palestinian official, Abbas Zaki, called Jaradat’s death an Israeli crime and hinted at further violence.
“I am telling Fatah members that our enemy only understands the language of force,” he told the crowd, the Associated Press reported.
On Israeli radio, Amos Gilad, a director in the Defense Ministry, accused the PA of stoking unrest ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit in March.
“The PA is walking a thin line: also inciting violence and also not wanting things to get out of control. The problem is that they’re aiming for controlled violence, but it can get out of control. They want to project strength ahead of the Obama visit, so they’re lighting a fire under the prisoner issue—which is a popular issue on the Palestinian street,” Gilad said, according to Israel Hayom.
Gilad also cautioned against the Palestinians starting a Third Intifada.
“A major terror attack is not in their interest. They know that the damage they would incur would be devastating,” he said.
*
Knesset archives go digital
(JNS.org) What did first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion say in the Knesset in 1952 on the issue of reparations from Germany? How surprised was the Knesset when it was announced that Adolf Eichmann was captured? What exact words did late Prime Minister Levi Eshkol use when he requested confirmation for the appointment of Moshe Dayan as defense minister on the eve of the Six-Day War?
In recent years, the Knesset has invested in scanning and storing those historic speeches and many more in its databases.
Dr. Rebecca Marcus, the Knesset archive manager, sits in a small room on the fifth floor of the Knesset. It is possible to almost immediately extract and locate Knesset speeches or plenary hearings from 30 or 40 years ago, she tells Israel Hayom. According to Marcus, the speech most asked for by the public is the one Ben-Gurion made to the Knesset on May 23, 1960, two days after the Mossad succeeded in capturing Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.
Marcus began working in the Knesset in 1972, as a parliamentary archivist.
“The computer era began only in 1980,” she says. “In those years [before computers], stenographers recorded the [Knesset] committees’ discussions and would usually type out the minutes in their homes, each with a different program. We received help from an external company and now all of the archives, from 1980 onward, have been scanned and put in our databases, about 700,000 documents.”
Currently, archive employees are engaged in gathering all of the photographs that have accumulated in the Knesset since its inception. Photos include images of heads of state who visited Israel and ministers and MKs having heated debates in the cafeteria and hallways. All of these photographs will be transferred to a digital system.
*
Study: Gaza rocket attacks increase miscarriage risk for Israeli women
(JNS.org) A research team in the Health Sciences Faculty at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba has revealed a significant correlation between preconception and pregnancy stress in the southern Israeli city of Sderot and spontaneous abortion (SA), also known as miscarriage.
The research team from BGU is calling on the Israeli government to draft a policy that will help to reduce the effects of stress on reproductive health, Israel Hayom reported.
Sderot has long suffered Gazan terrorists’ rocket attacks. Research compared the miscarriage rates of residents of Sderot and Kiryat Gat, the latter city not being strongly affected by rocket attacks until Operation Cast Lead broke out in December