“A Dramatic Mistake or a Scandalous Deception”

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UPDATES 9 am Israel time, Monday, October 7 2013:

**The nine year old girl who was wounded Saturday evening at Psagot has been identified as Noam Glick–and she is being hailed by her father as a hero this morning for warning the community of a terrorist infiltration.

Noam’s father Yisrael had this to say: “Noam’s scream prevented a grave disaster. We feel lucky this morning. The terrorist came well prepared and was planning on infiltrating our house.” 

It turns out that the Glick home is the Psagot home closest to the edge of the hilltop (and hence closest to the security fence) that overlooks Ramallah. Noam had just walked through the front yard and was beginning to walk down a staircase in the rear of the home when she spotted the terrorist at the foot of the steps.

According to reports, the terrorist then fired 3 shots at her as she yelled “Save me”.  She was wounded in the shoulder near her neck.

Even today, however, the nature of Noam’s wound is unclear. Initial reports were that she had a gunshot wound though at least one doctor says this morning that Noam was stabbed in the chest. The good news is that Noam is now out of the ICU at Sha’are Zedek after undergoing surgery last night. She is expected to make a full recovery.

By last night, an official PLO facebook page was already singing the praises of the terrorist who attacked Noam: “The sniper of Palestine was here. He greeted Hebron, and he greeted Noam. Between parts of the homeland, he left a signature of men. He saluted and left and went elsewhere with a new signature, as he tells the stories of the patriots.”

The place where the terrorist cut the hole in the Psagot fence. Note Ramallah on the other side (photo: JPost).

Noam’s terrorist attacker remains at large despite an extensive sweep of the area by Israeli security personnel. Forces did find the hole that he had cut in the perimeter fence as well as a weapon between in the area between Psagot and the Palestinian settlement of al-Bireh.

**Speaking of Palestinian terrorists . . . As was previously reported on israelstreet, Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO have adamantly rejected Israel’s return of 285 unidentified bodies of Palestinian terrorists that have been buried in Israel for decades. It was reported yesterday, that Israel has now agreed–at Israeli taxpayer expense–to perform DNA testing on each body in an attempt to help the PLO identify the bodies.

Unbelievable. These are bodies that should just continue to rot.

**Massive demonstrations have taken place over the last 24 hours in Egypt commemorating the Egyptian “victory” in the 1973 Yom Kippur War–a “victorious” war that ended with Israeli forces across the Suez Canal and the Egyptian Third Army surrounded. Of course, in the current political context, any demonstration quickly becomes one of pro-Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood supporters against the Army.

Hi ho hi ho, it’s off to prison we go. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood are taken away by Egyptian police yesterday (photo: BBC).

Thus far 44 Yom Kippur celebrants/demonstrators have been shot and killed.

**The annual “Israeli Democracy Index“, compiled from data taken from a survey commissioned by the Israel Democracy Institute, appeared yesterday. Supposedly the survey is meant to give a detailed picture of Israeli public opinion regarding democratic values–including Israel’s method of government.

In response to “What do you think the pre-eminent value of the state of Israel should be?” 37% of Jewish Israelis would prefer a “Jewish democratic” state, 32.3% would prefer a Jewish state, and 29.2% would prefer a democratic state.

This finding has the media all aflutter because it represents a continuing decline in those who want a “Jewish and democratic” state.  On Israel’s channel 10 news last night, a representative of the Israel Democracy Institute bemoaned the fact that more and more Israelis are opting for “Jewish” values. Even more disturbing to this representative is that the shift is coming about because of young people embracing Jewish values.

Can you even believe this?

**PM Netanyahu’s cabinet approved the new railway to Eilat yesterday–with Environmental Minister Amir Peretz of Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party being the only person opposed.

The project, which will be built by the Chinese at a currently projected cost of 20 billion shekels, will result in two rail lines stretching from Beersheva to Eilat–one a cargo line, and the other a passenger line that will transport passengers 350 km at a speed of 250 kph. The route will require 63 short bridges covering a total of 4.5 km.

Get out your magnifying glass…here’s the route of the new railway.

Here is what the project entails:

–the construction of a 35 km passenger rail line between Beersheva and Dimona (a cargo line already exists)
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–the construction of a 65 km passenger line from Dimona to Hatzeva (a cargo line as far as Nahal Tzin already exists)–but a double line including 9.2 km of tunnels will need to be constructed

–the construction of a double line of 160 km from Hatzeva to the northern entrance of Eilat–where a new port channel will be built.

**The Netanyahu government continues to send out mixed signals about talks with the Palestinians. Yesterday we had Netanyahu declaring at another speech in Bar-Ilan University that the key to any peace between Israel and the Palestinians is “ending the refusal to recognize the right of the Jews to a homeland of their own in the land of their fathers.”

Less than 24 hours prior to the speech, Netanyahu’s close confidante Tzachi Hanegbi was on a J Street panel making these unbelievable remarks:  “I think we will be able to give a good answer, a win-win answer, to almost every issue including the Jerusalem issue, including the settlement issue — every issue has a compromise that can be relevant to both sides . . . We do know the two-state solution is the only relevant solution, even to those right-wing members of Knesset. I think they understand the alternative — escalation and bloodshed, or one state — is not an option if you want to keep a Jewish, Zionist state.” Hanegbi went on to say that in essence Jerusalem would be divided again with PLO sovereignty over “Arab neighborhoods” of the city.

Can you even believe this? Why in the world has the Netanyahu government put Jerusalem “on the table”?

TODAY’S BLOG:

But it is not just Hanegbi’s remarks about Jerusalem that are appalling, it is his repeating of the tired canard about keeping a “Jewish Zionist state” that infuriates your humble servant this morning. 

I wonder if you too, dear reader, are sick of hearing that we must have two states in order for Israel to remain “Jewish and Zionist” or “Jewish and democratic”?

It is simply not true. 

Yoram Ettinger has long been a sharp thorn in the side of the Israeli and international movement to create a two-state solution west of the Jordan River. A former Minister for Congressional Affairs at the Israel Embassy in Washington (with the rank of Ambassador) and former Director of Israel’s Government Press Office, Ettinger has increasingly focused on what he believes is crucially flawed demographic information about Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem.

In another piece, published yesterday in Israel Hayom, Ettinger makes the following points:

*There are 6.3 million Jews now living west of the Jordan River. This includes 300,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union which the Israel Rabbinate still does not recognize as being Jewish. It does not include Israeli Jews who have lived outside of Israel for more than one year (except for those in the foreign service).

*There are 1.7 million Israeli Arabs living in Israel.

*There are 1.65 million Arabs living in Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank). This number does not include some 400,000 Palestinians always included in Palestinian “estimated censuses” who have lived outside of Judea and Samaria for more than one year (in most cases for decades). It also does not include at least 100,000 Jerusalem Arabs included in Palestinian censuses who married Israel-Arabs and moved to Israel–and are now counted as “Israeli-Arabs”.

To put these statistics in a different way, Jews outnumber Arabs west of the Jordan River by almost 2 to 1–and it is gap that is increasing as the Jewish birthrate surges and the Arab birthrate drops.  

Ettinger concludes his article by saying: “The claim that Jews are doomed to become a minority west of the Jordan, and that we have to give up Judea and Samaria for the sake of demographics is either a dramatic mistake or a scandalous deception.” 

Addendums:

1. Note that Ettinger’s statistics do not include Gaza. And why should they? After all, Gaza is not a part of  Judea and Samaria.

2. As your humble servant has stated on numerous occasions, he thinks the best solution is for Israel to annex Area C of Judea and Samaria, and to let the Palestinians continue to govern Areas A and B–where they already have a de facto “State of Palestine.”