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Newsletter : 1fax0306.txt
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>JN March 6, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 40
Purim Websites
By Arutz-7 News
Purim will be celebrated this year from Thursday night until Friday night. The joyous holiday commemorates the salvation of the Jews from Haman's decree of destruction some 2,350 years ago. A list of websites related to Purim can be accessed at http://www.jr.co.il/hotsites/j-hdaypu.htm.
Israeli Troops on Alert After Suicide Bombing
By VOA News and Reuters
Israeli forces remain on high alert across the country, trying to prevent further bombings after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and three Israelis Sunday.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in the coastal town of Netanya. The blast also wounded at least 60 people near a bus station during the morning rush hour.
Israeli security forces were deployed Monday along the boundary separating Israel from the West Bank, as well as at bus stops and shopping centers across the Jewish state.
The bombing is the fourth such attack since Israeli hardliner Ariel Sharon became Israel's Prime Minister-elect after Israeli voting early last month.
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat says the unrest will continue until Palestinian flags are flying over the walls, mosques and churches of Jerusalem.
Referring to the Israeli economic blockade that has clamped a strangle-hold over the Palestinian economy in an effort to choke off unrest, Arafat told reporters outside a Gaza mosque:
"Despite the closure, this dangerous military escalation, the pursuit and the starvation, the Palestinian people are continuing our way until we raise the Palestinian flag over the walls of Jerusalem, the minarets of Jerusalem and the churches."
For his part, Sharon is putting the finishing touches on a new coalition government, and is expected to present his list to parliament this week for approval.
Meanwhile, Palestinians demanded revenge at the funeral for a Palestinian man whose body was found near the West Bank town of Jenin hours after Israeli troops and Palestinians battled there late Sunday. At least 420 people, mostly Palestinians, have died in clashes and attacks since late September.
Sharon was elected in a landslide victory last month, pledging to end the violence that has killed at least 420 people, mostly Palestinians, since last September.
Israel Evicts Christian Monks
By VOA News
Israeli court officials have forcibly evicted a group of Christian monks from a monastery near Jerusalem, after a long-running legal battle between two Christian orders. Court bailiffs near Even Sapir forced seven Greek-Catholic Melkite monks from the monastery of St. John in the Desert, which overlooks Jerusalem.
The evictions occurred after another Catholic order, the Franciscan Custodian of the Holy Land, won a court case to evict the Melkites, who leased the facility in 1978.
The Franciscans filed suit in 1994, claiming the Melkite lease had expired and had not been renewed. The evicted Melkites said the lease dispute should have been settled by the Vatican, rather than an Israeli court. Reuters said the seven Melkites had locked themselves in a chapel and had to be carried out one at a time by authorities.
First Non-Jewish Israeli Minister by Mazal Mualem, Courtesy of Ha'aretz
Knesset member Salah Tarif, who was nominated by the Labor Party on Friday to serve as a minister without portfolio in the government of Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, will be the first non-Jewish minister in the history of the State of Israel.
The Arab population responded to Tarif's appointment with mixed emotions, with reactions ranging from happiness for his personal achievement to criticism of the fact that the Druze parliamentarian would have to sit in a cabinet that included extreme right-wing politicians such as Avigdor Lieberman and Rehavam Ze'evi.
Tarif admitted after securing the nomination that if he had not been chosen he would have resigned from the party. Tarif, 47, a resident of the village of Julis in the Galilee, is the grandson of Sheikh Amin Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze community who died some six years ago.
On Sunday, Tarif went to the grave of his grandfather and vowed to work toward more cooperation between the Druze population and the state, achieving peace in the region and turning Israel into a "country of all its citizens."
Tarif retired from the Israel Defense Forces in the early 1980s and was elected mayor of Julis at the age of 28. In 1992, he was chosen as a lawmaker on behalf of the Labor Party, fulfilling a series of roles, including deputy speaker of the Knesset, member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and chair of the Knesset House Committee.
Following his nomination, Tarif received hundreds of cables of congratulations as well as calls from Sharon, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat and various Arab leaders.
Despite the criticism voiced by heads of the Arab sector, Tarif said, he was sure that most of the Arab public wanted to see him in the cabinet, rejecting claims that he was merely "Sharon's fig-leaf" minister.
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