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corruption that rocked Chile in 2019 and 2020.

His rival, meanwhile, stood on a platform of law and order, pledging cuts to tax and social spending. Kast also defended the legacy of Gen Pinochet, who took power in a coup and ruled the country from 1973 to 1990. Under his leadership more than 3,000 people were murdered by the state or disappeared.

In his concession, Kast congratulated Boric on “his great triumph.”

From his campaign headquarters on Sunday night, President-elect Boric said, “I want to begin this historical moment, which is tremendously exciting and that the eyes of Chile and the world are watching, thanking all Chileans who went to vote, honoring their commitment to democracy.”

He added, “It doesn’t matter if you did it for me or my opponent; the important thing is that you did it, you were present, you showed your commitment to this country that belongs to each of you.”

Outgoing Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said, “Chileans have given an example of democracy, you were part of that, I congratulate you.”

The Jewish Community of Chile, a nonprofit representing communal interests, congratulated Boric in a short statement, wishing him and his government “much success” and praising the transparency of the country’s elections. It concluded, “We will continue to work for a democratic, diverse Chile where minorities are respected. “

The official group representing Chile’s roughly 18,000 Jews has a complicated relationship with Boric. In 2019, it sent him a Rosh Hashanah gift along with a note expressing a desire for a “more inclusive, respectful society with more solidarity.”

“I appreciate the gesture but they could start by asking Israel to return the illegally occupied Palestinian territory,” Boric wrote after posting a picture of the gift to Twitter.

Boric’s criticism of Israel is longstanding. As a lawmaker, he supported a bill proposing to boycott Israeli goods from the Golan, West Bank settlements, and areas of Jerusalem that came under Israeli control in 1967.

During the campaign, many members of the community expressed concern over that, along with what they said was a pattern of demanding that local Jews condemn Israeli policy.

“We are of course willing to accept reasonable criticism about Israel, but what we hear from Boric is that Israel is a ‘genocidal’ and ‘murderous’ state,” Gabriel Zaliasnik, a prominent member of Chile’s Jewish community, told Israel’s Haaretz daily last week. “To make matters worse, he blames our Jewish community for Israel’s actions.”

On November 21, Chile held a general election, which ended with Kast garnering 28% of the vote and Boric nabbing 25% of the vote. With neither candidate winning over 50% of the vote, the two were forced to hold a runoff.

Once the most stable economy in Latin America, Chile has one of the world’s largest income gaps, with 1% of the population owning 25% of the country’s wealth, according to the United Nations.

Prison Officer Stabbed

An Israel Prisons Service staff member was stabbed on Monday afternoon in the Nafkha Prison.

The stabbing coincides with Hamas’ threat to respond to alleged mistreatment of female terrorists, Arab reports said.

According to the Prisons Service, the staff member was lightly wounded by a prisoner in the Hamas wing. The wing is under control.

The Jerusalem Post quoted Arab media as saying that several Hamas prisoners were sent into isolation after the incident.

Hamas praised the stabbing, claiming it was a “natural response” to the “escalation” faced by female terrorists. Hamas also warned Israel not to “continue its crimes” against female terrorists.

heart

ד״סב

“Yehuda was only nine when that happened,” recalled Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan about the Disengagement from Gaza. “As a young boy he chose to carry the banner of that struggle so he could bring us home.”

Yehuda, he said, came to the Homesh Yeshiva “in rain, in the cold, in the scorching heat of summer. When time and time again they [the IDF] came to evacuate them – he sat and studied Torah, and prayed that the people of Israel would recover, that we would all return together to our homes, to our land, without fear.”

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Yehuda Dimentman, HY”D

A shooting attack in Samaria left one dead and two others injured in an attack last week.

Yehuda Dimentman, 25, lived in Shavei Shomron and studied at the Homesh Yeshiva. He was traveling home with two friends when his vehi-

cle was ambushed by Arab terrorists, who fired over 15 bullets at the vehicle.

12/15/21 2:41 PM

Avia Entman and Neria Shlomo Feldman, the two who were wounded in the shooting, suffered moderate and light injuries.

Preliminary investigations showed that the terror attack had been carried out by two terrorists, who were captured on Sunday. The IDF is now preparing to demolish the terrorists’ homes.

“Don’t let Yehuda’s blood be spilled in vain,” Yehuda’s brother Shlomi told the broken crowd at the levaya on Friday.

Six Arrested in Terror Attack

Israeli security forces arrested the terror cell suspected of carrying out a deadly shooting attack, Shabak (Israel Security Agency) said on Sunday morning.

The arrests were carried out at approximately at 2:30a.m. Sunday morning.

Six suspects were arrested by the IDF and Israel Police in the raid on the village of Silat al-Harithiya, near Jenin. The six were transferred to Shabak for interrogation.

Two of the terrorists are believed to have carried out the shooting attack in which Yehuda Dimentman, HY”D, was killed, while the other four are suspected of having assisted in the attack or otherwise involved themselves, an IDF spokesperson said. He added that he could not comment on the terrorists’ connection to any specific groups.

No terror group has taken responsibility for the attack.

Shabak said that weapons suspected of having been used in the attack were also recovered and included a locally produced submachine gun and two M-16 rifles.

“Security forces will continue to work to bring those involved in terror activities to justice,” Shabak vowed.

Authorities Want to Dismantle Homesh Yeshiva

The political echelon has decided to evacuate the Homesh Yeshiva, days after one of its students was murdered in a terror attack.

Ettya Dimentman, the widow of Yehuda Dimentman, 25, who was killed in Thursday’s shooting attack, said, “Unfortunately, the rabbi learned that they are going to destroy Homesh. They are toying with a family which is sitting shiva as if we don’t have feelings.”

Turning to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, she said, “You grew up on the values of Torah and morality, and Yehuda was a man of justice. It seems a small thing to ask that the yeshiva remain in Homesh, but it is a big step towards the redemption. On Thursday, we will go up to the grave and from there we will walk back to Homesh.

“We invite all the people of Israel to march with us, come and march with me and with David and with the whole family. Whoever builds Homesh will not regret it,” the young widow added.

Yehuda’s father, Rabbi Mordechai Dimentman, said, “Yehuda will not return to us. Our only consolation is if his blood is not spilled in vain. If, G-d forbid, the yeshiva is evacuated, then his blood will have been spilled in vain. From the cemetery we will not return to our house. We will go to the place of the murder and to the yeshiva where Yehuda was in his last hours. I call on the general public: come with us.”

Rabbi Elishama Cohen, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Homesh Yeshiva, said, “We know from senior officials that a decision was made to destroy Homesh, including assessments by the military echelon and security forces there…

“Yehudah loved Homesh with all his soul. Yehuda was full of light and goodness. We are at this time shocked and dismayed by the decision to demolish the yeshiva and uproot it and give a reward to the murderers and give a reward to terrorism.”

Ukraine to Open Diplomatic Office in Jerusalem

Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniichuk said last week that his country is in the final stages of planning the opening of a diplomatic office in Jerusalem.

“My country recognizes the one and only capital of Israel, and that is Jerusalem,” Korniichuk said at an event marking 30 years of relations between Ukraine and Israel.

Korniichuk added that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to visit Israel next year, opening an embassy branch in Jerusalem dedicated to promoting economic and technological cooperation.

He added that the decision to open the embassy office is not yet final but that he discussed it in October with Zelensky and it is likely “a matter of months” before it opens.

Korniichuk noted that Zelensky “has certain preconditions in the security and defense relationship between the countries before that can happen.”

Soldiers Can Shoot at Fleeing Rock Throwers

The Israeli military has revised its open-fire policies for the West Bank, officially allowing troops to shoot at Palestinians who had thrown rocks or firebombs at cars, even if the assailants no longer present an immediate threat.

The policy change was first reported by Israel’s Kan broadcaster on Sunday night and was later confirmed to The Times of Israel by a military spokesperson, who said it had been in effect for the past month or so.

The spokesperson described the change as a corrective to a situation that allowed suspects to evade justice.

The military spokesperson said that, even under the new policy, regarding what is formally known as a suspect arrest protocol – a multi-step process that begins with calls to halt, moves to verbal threats, then shots fired into the air, and ends with the use of deadly force – the military’s preferred outcome is still an arrest, not shots being fired. He also stressed that this policy refers only to rocks and firebombs that are being thrown at civilians, not those thrown at military personnel during riots.

Until now, the Israel Defense Forces’ official policy has been to allow soldiers to open fire only while trying to arrest a suspect if that person was still in the act of throwing rocks or Molotov cocktails at cars, but not after the fact. The spokesperson said this allowed suspects to flee the scene after such an attack with impunity.

Under the new policy, if soldiers see a Palestinian person throwing a rock or firebomb at cars, they are permitted to go through the arrest protocol in its entirety, including the use of deadly force, if necessary, even if, by that stage in the process, the suspects no longer have firebombs or rocks in their hands.

Highways throughout the West Bank, particularly around Israeli settlements, are often attacked by Palestinian youths, who throw rocks, Molotov cocktails, or paint at the passing vehicles. These attacks have caused injuries, including last month when a bus driver was hit by broken glass after his vehicle was pelted with stones outside Jerusalem and last January when an Israeli woman was seriously injured when a rock hit her in the head near the settlement of Neve Tzuf.

Human Rights Watch: Israel Topped the News

Want to guess what was the most-read report of Human Rights Watch in 2021?

If you answered, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” you were right.

This report, released in April, detailed by HRW how Israeli authorities are committing crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. Unlike the other reports listed as most-read in 2021, the Israeli one was not a current event – written rather as an overview on the greater Israel-Palestine conflict.

HRW’s report on Israel’s conduct ranked higher than reports on topics including violence against women in India, extra-judicial killings in the Philippines, mass detention of Uyghur Muslims in China, restrictions on women’s rights in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and massacres in Ethiopia.

“Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy,” the report reads. “In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. These deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

The report further describes instances of alleged “inhumane acts” by the Israeli side, such as the construction of barriers between Israeli and Palestinian lands, restrictions on travel, excessive force used in policing and a “suspension of civil rights,” ending with a series of recommendations for relevant United States government bodies, the International Criminal Court (ICC), UN member and non-member states, businesses active in Israel, the State of Israel itself, and even the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Israel was given a 15-point list of recommendations, whereas the PA was merely asked to “cease all security coordination with the Israeli army” and “incorporate crimes against humanity, including the crimes of persecution and apartheid, into national criminal law.” HRW had just one recommendation for the PLO – to “adopt an advocacy strategy centered on the immediate attainment of the full human rights of Palestinians.” The PLO was recognized as a terrorist organization until 1993 and has written that “Palestine...is an indivisible territorial unit” in its charter.

Human Rights Watch has previously been accused of bias, lax fact-checking, collusion with the U.S. government, and accepting donations from foreign governments. In 2020, The Intercept discovered that HRW accepted a $470,000 donation from a Saudi real estate magnate they “had previously identified as complicit in labor rights abuse.”

AIPAC Will Fundraise for Politicians

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) announced last week that it will now have a political action committee (PAC) to fundraise for politicians.

The PAC will funnel $5,000 maximum donations to designated candidates per race; a super PAC can raise unlimited money for a candidate.

AIPAC PAC will be the name of the regular PAC, while the super PAC has yet to be named.

“The creation of a PAC and a super PAC is an opportunity to significantly deepen and strengthen the involvement of the pro-Israel community in politics,” AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittmann said. “The PACs will work in a bipartisan way.”

The regular PAC will be headed by Marilyn Rosenthal; the super PAC will be helmed by Rob Bassin, AIPAC’s longtime political director.

According to an AIPAC official, the launch of the PACs was part of an effort to modernize the organization.

“The DC political environment has been undergoing profound