i24 News’ anchor Lucy Aharish, an Israeli Arab, lashed out against a Gazan journalist who was a guest on her show last week, telling him that Hamas were to blame for the crisis in Gaza. The journalist, Alaa al-Mashehrwi, was asked about the current situation in Gaza. He began lamenting about the reality there, accusing Israel of war crimes, of occupying Gaza and of generating a humanitarian crisis, which he defined as ‘very bad, very strong and very dangerous’.

Lucy Aharish did not sit silent and allow the lies to be aired and cut him off, saying that Hamas leaders use civilians as human shields, hide weapons caches and launchers in civilians homes, and therefore they are responsible for the civilian casualties.

She called on al-Mashehrwi to go out together with other journalists and civilians, face Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and demonstrate against their use of the civilian population. She urged them to demand from Hamas that they stop firing into Israel, assuring him that once they stopped the suffering on both sides would stop.

A resident of the Israeli Arab village of Abu Ghosh has been indicted on charges of starting a forest fire in the area west of Jerusalem.

Abu Ghosh, friendly to Israelis for decades, is comprised mostly of Christian Arabs and is extremely popular both locally and abroad for its world-famous hummus.

Apparently one of its residents is not nearly as friendly to Israel, however. An indictment was filed in Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday against 19 year old Sa’id Abd al-Rahman, charging him with arson.

Rahman was accused of igniting a fire, using a lighter, last Sunday at a grove on HaTamar Street. He allegedly lit the blaze after a number of other fires were already burning in the area, according to the indictment.

Firefighters succeeded in extinguishing the blaze within 15 minutes – though not before half a dunam (1/8 acre) of forested land had already been destroyed.

The crime may indicate that Rahman intended to participate in an act of arson terror, a relatively new recent type of terrorism being perpetrated against Israeli by Palestinian Authority and Israeli Arabs especially in forested areas.

Bedouin villagers attacked a group of Israeli soldiers Sunday as the soldiers tried to issue demolition orders for their illegal encampment near Beer Sheva.

The attack was not the first time villagers from the encampment have attacked Israeli officials: Several people were injured last August when Bedouins demanded Israel rescind the demolition orders and cancel the Prawer Plan to settle Bedouins in recognised towns around the Negev.

About 1,500 people live in the village, near the Bedouin town of Khoura. All the structures in the town are illegal, meaning Israel does not collect national or local taxes on the land.

In 2007 the encampment was declared a closed military zone, but families refused to vacate the land. Since then, residents have waged a legal battle against Israeli authorities and have consistently rejected Israeli offers help villagers find substitute residences in exchange for the homes they will have to move.

An Israeli held for 14 years in an Egyptian prison accused Israel’s prime minister of not doing enough to secure his release.

The prisoner, Ouda Tarabin, is a former resident of the Bedouin city of Rahat, in the Negev Desert. He was arrested in 2000 while visiting Egypt, charged with being an Israeli spy and given a 15-year prison term. In a letter addressed to Benjamin Netanyahu and shared with Israeli media, Tarabin accuses the prime minister of a lackluster effort to secure his freedom because Tarabin is an Arab.

“If I were a Jew or a Druze, the government would be fighting for me and my freedom, and I wouldn’t have been sitting in an Egyptian prison for 14 years,” the letter says, according to Ynet News. ”Mr. Prime Minister, this is the truth that everyone knows. Mr. Prime Minister, this government is a tragedy for my country, that’s supposed to be a democracy in the Middle East.”

Tarabin called on the government “to act immediately to put an end to my suffering and the suffering of my family, to engage the Egyptian government, and act quickly to ensure my release.”

There was no immediate response from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Dear Abir

I read with interest your blogpost objecting to having been included in Haaretz’s list of 66 Israeli Women You Should Know, published by that newspaper ahead of Yom HaAtzma’ut. Of course, respect your right to self-definition, and your desire to be known as a Palestinian, not as an Israeli (although I would point out that to the best of my knowledge, you have not renounced your Israeli citizenship. Why not? Would that not seem to be the strongest possible statement of affirmation for your feelings that you are “not an ‘Israeli woman’, not an ‘Israeli Arab’”)?

To a large degree, I understand where you’re coming from: As a Jew who grew up in a non-Jewish atmosphere in southern California, I well understand your desire to maintain your national identity while surrounded by a non-Palestinian majority culture. It is a tough, but ultimately worthwhile struggle to find the common ground between your Arab ethnic nationality and your Israeli political one.

But that issue is yours, not Israel’s. Like it or not, with an Arab minority that makes up 20 percent of our country, you and your community are most definitely part of our society, and we Jewish Israelis must not fall into the trap of ignoring the Arab community. In a way, it would have been very convenient for you had Haaretz published its list with no Arab names: You would certainly have pointed to that decision as “proof” of Israel’s “racist” nature. Sorry to tell you, Abir, but it just isn’t true. The Arab community in Israel is not invisible.

Furthermore, as an Israeli woman who enjoys voting rights in Israel while also serving as a senior spokeswoman for the Palestinian Authority, you are most definitely an Israeli woman that Israelis should know about. ,

No, Israel is not perfect: One need only travel five minutes, from the unpaved roads of the town of Furedis to the magnificent Jewish town of Zichron Yaakov to illustrate the gap in conditions in the Arab sector in Israel in comparison to those in the Jewish community. Nor do Israeli government officials turn  blind eye to this inequality. To quote Natan Sharansky, former Prisoner of Zion and Minister of Industry and Trade, “Israel is not tough enough with the elements of the Arab community that wish this country ill, but we are not generous enough with the overwhelming majority of Arab Israelis who just want to live their lives and to ensure a future for their children.”

But nor the situation of Arab Israelis completely black. Arabs shop freely on HaMeyasdim and Herzl Streets in Zichron Yaakov, on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, in the Renanim Mall in Ranana and around the country. There is virtually no area of Israel that an Arab woman would think twice about wearing traditional hijab clothing. As the hot summer approaches, Arab and Jewish families will swim (simultaneously, if not exactly “together”) at the pool at Kibbutz Shoresh and at natural springs around the area of Bet Shean. They will play at public parks together and will benefit from Israel’s health care system together.  Unfortunately, these facts don’t play so well for your BDS campaign, so you choose to ignore them, in favor of proclaiming your “non-Israeliness” to the world. But they are objective facts, nonetheless

Sorry, Abir, but Haaretz was 100 percent correct to include you on their list of 66 Israeli Women You Should Know About. Your inclusion on that list is a statement about the openness of Israeli society, not about your self-definition. It is too bad that you have chosen to throw your lot with the Palestinian sector that yearns for the destruction of Israel instead of utilizing your considerable abilities to maximise opportunities and civil rights for Arab citizens in Israel  

Six Arab lawyers, including one woman, have been arrested in recent weeks for receiving money from Hamas and Islamic terrorist cells in return for handing over money and information to jailed terrorists in Israel and outside the country.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) lifted a gag order on the arrests Wednesday.

The suspects include two brothers who set up and managed legal offices in the Arab neighborhood of Issawi in Jerusalem in the name of “Al Quds.” They collected their “wages” from other lawyers living in various areas of the capital.

The suspects received $150-$200 for every visit to a terrorist in jail, where they handed over information.

The suspects, like all Arabs in Jerusalem, receive the same social and welfare benefits from the State of Israel that every other citizen receives, regardless of race, religion or nationalist.

The difference is that they are traitors who work for terrorist groups that have dug deeper into the heart of Jerusalem, where the Palestinian Authority wants to establish its capital in a future state.

If they are convicted and jailed, Israel can consider releasing them next year in exchange for continuing peace talks with the Palestinian Authority.

For a second time this week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry abruptly cancelled a scheduled meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Reporters were told late Tuesday evening that Kerry’s meeting today (Wednesday) with Abbas was cancelled, with few details added. “We are no longer traveling tomorrow,” a senior State Department official said simply.

Abbas breached the conditions of his agreement with Israel – and the United States – by signing a PA application for membership in 15 United Nations agencies and organizations. “The demands (for membership) will be sent immediately,” Abbas announced at a briefing. “This is not a move against America or any other party. It is our right and we agreed to suspend it for nine months.”

The deadline for completion of the framework agreement talks was set for April 29. But Abbas has not actively participated in direct talks for months, according to reports quoting government minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua). Nor has the PA made any “good will gestures” towards Israel comparable to those forced upon the Jewish States by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, the PA’s unilateral move is one that turns the clock back more than a year, dialing back efforts by John Kerry to keep the entity from attempting to unilaterally gain recognition in the U.N. as an independent sovereign nation. It also is a return to its attempt to evade the agreement it signed in the internationally-recognized Oslo Accords in 1993.

Two days earlier the PA chairman was have met with Kerry in Ramallah following talks between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Secretary of State. But the meeting in Jerusalem ran longer than expected and John Kerry had to race for his flight to make a two-day meeting in Brussels.

The Israeli-PA negotiations over a “framework agreement” have been limping along for months now, with Israel making what appears to be all of the concessions. As a ‘good will gesture’ to bring Abbas to the table and keep him there, Israel agreed to free 104 PA terrorist prisoners in four separate tranches linked to the PA leader’s active participation in the talks. Three of the four have already been made, with some 78 terrorists freed.

The fourth and final group of terrorists scheduled to be released last week, however, included 20 Israeli Arab citizens – and at that point both government ministers and the entire Israeli population balked.