Montgomery County Chooses Ethiopia Over Bet Shemesh!

A couple of weeks ago I pointed out a letter to the editor in a newspaper in the United States concerning a resident who was opposed to the possible twinning of Montgomery County with Bet Shemesh. It seemed like the project was already in the final stages and was going to move ahead.

Turns out that Montgomery changed direction and decided to cancel the twinning plan with Bet Shemesh. Instead, they are moving down their list of possibilities and choosing Gondar in Ethiopia over us in Bet Shemesh.

From the Washington Post:

This is not what Montgomery County officials expected when they started signing sister-city agreements.


After arranging the first one last year, county officials have been busy finalizing another pact, this one with Beit Shemesh in Israel.


The efforts of Salvadoran immigrants in Montgomery County to reach out to their home country have inspired a sister city agreement with a region in the northeastern part of El Salvador that borders with Honduras.


But recent controversies in the city, which is west of Jerusalem, have put the agreement with the county on hold.­­


In recent months, news reports of the city’s ultra-Orthodox population skirmishing with Israeli police and assaulting some Israeli women have made their way around the world and into living rooms around Washington.

The confrontations followed the posting of a sign outside a row of Beit Shemesh synagogues directing women to walk on the other side of the street. In one ensuing incident, an 8-year-old girl was spit on and called a prostitute, according to Israeli news reports. In another, a woman was surrounded and pelted with stones, according to the reports.
[...]


But now Montgomery Sister Cities, the nonprofit group that was set up by Leggett after his 2007 visit to coordinate the partnerships, is turning its attention elsewhere and looking to the historic Ethio­pian city of Gondar as the county’s next prospective sister city.


The sister-city program, which in this case is more of a sister-county program, encourages cooperation between municipalities through educational, cultural, social, economic, humanitarian and charitable exchanges. Montgomery’s first partnership, with Morazan, El Salvador, was signed in July.


Beit Shemesh, and the surrounding county of Mateh Yahuda, was expected to be second in line.


Instead, it has become a hot-button issue in Montgomery. Susan Kerin, a Derwood resident and a human rights activist, said the county has “dodged a bullet” by delaying the process.


Kerin said the city has had a “systemic” issue with segregation and hate violence. She said that since 2009, she has been telling the county of her concerns. In October, however, she was told by members of the Montgomery Sister Cities board that the agreement with Beit Shemesh was a “done deal.”


Bruce Adams, one of the board members contacted by Kerin, said she is “misrepresenting basically everything” about the meeting. He said he told her that the board was intending to finalize the agreement, but “it was not over till it’s over.” Adams said Kerin told board members that human rights violations were occurring in the city but she could not provide any specifics.


“And then in December,” Adams said, “some things happened that, you know, raised concerns, and so we were able to get a better understanding of what she was talking about.”


Kerin said that she and fellow activists met with Leggett on Jan. 10 and that he told the group the decision was “not a done deal.”


Leggett said that he makes the final decision and that the nonprofit board has not yet issued a recommendation to him concerning Beit Shemesh.


Adams, a political ally of Leggett’s, said the nonprofit board has proposed a public meeting on Beit Shemesh in late March. The board is also inviting the Middle Eastern American Advisory Group, a county committee that was contacted by Kerin’s group and expressed concerns in December about the sister-city agreement.


Meanwhile, the county’s Commission for Women and the Commission on Human Rights are meeting in upcoming weeks to discuss the sister-city agreement. On Wednesday, the county’s Committee on Hate/Violence, of which Kerin is a member, held a conference call on the issue.


The Rockville-based Jewish Federation of Greater Washington has pushed the county to forge the sister-city agreement.


In an interview, Ron Halber, a spokesman for the organization and the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said Leggett and the nonprofit board are right in taking more time to hear public opinion as a result of the recent attention.


County Council member George L. Leventhal (D-At Large) said “good judgment is prevailing.”


“I really support efforts to build bridges, but we have to be practical . . . ,” said Leventhal, who is Jewish and visited Beit Shemesh in 2001. “The deeper you get into issues like this, the greater risk you run of getting your own constituents really mad.”


Council President Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda), who is also Jewish, said people would never imagine something like this happening with a prospective sister city — “or else you wouldn’t enter into these discussions.”

Thoughts:

1. Amazing that we have sunk so low that even Ethiopia is more attractive than Bet Shemesh!
2. Their decision is actually very appropriate, considering the special relationship Mayor Moshe Abutbol has with the Ethiopian community...

To his credit, Mayor Moshe Abutbol responded to inquiries on the municipal Facebook page as to his response to this issue.

Here is the original in Hebrew, translation will follow below:

בניגוד לשמועות, לא בוטלה כריתת ברית עיר תאומה עם מחוז מונטגומרי. לעיר בית שמש יש שיתופי פעולה עם הקהילה היהודית במחוז אשר פעלה למסד את הקשר באמצעות העירייה המקומית. פעילות זו נתקלה בהתנגדויות של גורמים פרו-פליסטינאיים אשר מנהלים מאבק כללי נגד מדינת ישראל ופועלים לחרם על תוצרת ישראל, להימנע מהשקעות בכלכלה הישראלית ולהטיל סנקציות על מדינת ישראל. חבל מאוד שגורמים אינטרסנטיים מקוממים מבית שמש חוברים במעשיהם לאותם גורמים פרו פליסטנאיים בהפצת דיבתה של העיר בית שמש, אשר רובם המוחלט של תושביה חיים יחדיו בהרמוניה מלאה.

My translation: Contrary to rumors, the twinning arrangement with Montgomery County was not cancelled. The City of Bet Shemesh has active cooperation with the jewish community of the county that tried to institutionalize the connection via the local municipality. This was met with opposition by pro Palestinian elements that are waging general struggle against the State of Israel, attempt to create boycotts of Israeli products, effect divestment from Israeli companies and place sanctions on Israel. It is a shame that local people with agendas in Bet Shemesh join together with those pro-Palestinian elements in spreading slander against the city of Bet Shemesh, whose decisive majority of residents live together in complete harmony.

My thoughts on the mayor's response:

• His story is completely different than that of the Montgomery County council-people. Strange. 
• He blames local people, yet nowhere have I seen that local people were involved in influencing Montgomery County's decision. If he is going to accuse people, he should at least show what he is talking about.
• Mayor Abutbol himself has joined groups, both locally and abroad, to meet with Palestinians to discuss working together and peace. He is now accusing others of working with pro-Palestinian elements. Interesting.