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The PM is failing in his duties The government once again made a foolhardy, unnecessary and damaging mistake, with the announcement that the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee has given the go-ahead to build 1,600 new housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, which sits beyond the Green Line, on the same day that U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in the capital for a visit.
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Broken glass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handed U.S. Vice President Joe Biden broken glass. Netanyahu had not intended to do so, of course. He wanted to give Biden a tree-planting certificate in honor of Biden's mother. But his need to lean on the podium while addressing his guest caused the certificate's glass frame to shatter silently. When the festive moment arrived to proffer the gift to Israel's greatest friend, it turned out it was broken to pieces. The only thing the prime minister could offer the vice president was broken glass.
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From 'Ajami' to 'Beaufort' Just hours before Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, Scandar Copti, one of the co-directors of "Ajami," announced that the film does not represent Israel. At around the same time, MK Jamal Zahalka was taking part in an Israeli Apartheid Week event at McGill University in Montreal, pouring oil on the flames of the Arab-Jewish rift. At a special Knesset session to honor the 12 members of the pre-state Jewish underground militias who were hanged by the British during the Mandate era (known as the olei hagardom in Hebrew), MKs Ahmed Tibi and Talab al-Sana called these men terrorists.
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A home or a tombstone Last week, at an event at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds, hundreds of young people joined a new "purchasing group" set to build high-rise apartment buildings in that city. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, a storm was brewing over a plan to demolish homes in Silwan. Ostensibly, these are the two extremes of Israeli life: Glittering towers in the big city on the one hand, and confrontations between settlers and Palestinians on the other. But actually, those extremes have a common element: the centrality of the home as a symbol in Israeli society.
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