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Comments (0)The top Palestinian trade union says it does not support a boycott of Israeli goods.
Shaher Saeed, general secretary of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, told British counterparts at a conference that his organization is not campaigning for a general ban on products made in Israel, Britain’s Jewish Chronicle reported last Friday.
“The only area where the PGFTU did have a boycott policy was with regard to produce from West Bank settlements,” Steve Scott, director of Trade Union Friends of Israel, told the Jewish Chronicle. “Even then, there was concern about whether that boycott could do more harm than good for the 30,000 Palestinians employed there.”
Scott added that “Both [the Israeli union federation] Histadrut and the PGFTU are working hard to improve relations. It is very important that UK unionists see and hear for themselves the views of people on the ground rather than the one-sided rhetoric of some of the organizations in Britain.”
Ninety Percent of Ethiopian Jews Marry In
About 90 percent of Ethiopian Jews marry within their community, according to a new report.
The report by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, which was released Sunday, found that 93 percent of Ethiopian men and 85 percent of Ethiopian women marry other Ethiopians.
The report was released on the eve of the Ethiopian’s Sigd holiday, which commemorates the community’s acceptance of the Torah.
Some 119,000 Ethiopians—81,000 of whom were born in Ethiopia—live in Israel, mostly in the center and south. Fewer than 0.5 percent of Ethiopians live in Tel Aviv.
Gaza Disengagement Authority to be Renamed
Israel’s Cabinet agreed to rename the Gaza disengagement authority.
The Sela Authority, as it has been known for its more than four years, was renamed the Tenufa Authority at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting. Tenufa in Hebrew means momentum.
The name change is part of an effort to effect a conceptual change in how the government deals with the Gush Katif evacuees, according to a statement from the Government Press Office.
“At this stage, such a change will—for the Government, the evacuees and the public at large—signal the beginning of a new phase in dealing with, and rehabilitating, the evacuees, in which all sides will do their utmost in order to bring this process to a rapid end,” the statement said.
The State Commission of Inquiry into the issue of how the authorities have dealt with the evacuees from Gush Katif and the northern West Bank, in its Sept. 16 interim report, called for a conceptual change in dealing with the evacuees.