UPDATES 6 pm Israel time, Wednesday, February 5 2014:
*The municipality of Jerusalem has approved the construction of new apartments in various parts of the city today. Different sources are reporting different numbers, but the most definitive ones are 102 in Neve Yaakov, 223 in Har Homa, and 24 in Pisgat Ze’ev. All of these Jerusalem neighborhoods are huge, well established, and under complete Israeli sovereignty, but that hasn’t stopped an outcry from the European Union, United Nations, and the White House.
The irony of course is that today’s approval is merely the beginning of a process that will drag on for years. Most of the apartments that were approved today will take at least seven years to be built.
**It is sickening how politicians and journalists continue to encourage boycotts and attacks against Israel–through implication. We all know how John Kerry operates. He never says that “There should be a boycott against Israel.” But on the other hand, he never overtly condemns such boycotts, and uses the threat of such boycotts to try to coerce Israel into more concessions to the Palestinians.
This morning, it was New York Times‘ so-called journalist Thomas Friedman engaging in much of the same. Writing from Ramallah, Friedman begins his opinion piece by wistfully musing: “For a while now I’ve wondered why there’s been no Third Intifada. That is, no third Palestinian uprising in the West Bank, the first of which helped to spur the Oslo peace process and the second of which — with more live ammunition from the Israeli side and suicide bombings from the Palestinian side [can you believe this outrageous juxtapostion of live ammunition and suicide bombers?] — led to the breakdown of Oslo.
Then Friedman, who apparently spent many hours asking Palestinians the question: “Why aren’t you fighting against Israel?” offers this sentence: “You get many explanations from Palestinians: they’re too poor, too divided, too tired or that they realize these uprisings, in the end, did them more harm than good, especially the second.” Substitute “excuses” for “explanations” in the previous sentence, and you immediately arrive at Friedman encouraging attacks on Israel–by implication.
TODAY’S BLOG:
However, as readers of israelstreet are constantly reminded, there has been a Palestinian intifada underway in Judea and Samaria for more than a year.
Today has been no different. Palestinian terrorist “rock” throwers have taken their bloody toll with a Border Guard at a checkpoint near Shechem being seriously wounded with a “rock” to the face and numerous Israeli motorists being attacked on roads throughout the region.
Nevertheless, while these “rock” have been taking place in Judea and Samaria, what have the Civil Administration and IDF been focused on? Destroying 4 buildings in the fledgling Jewish community of Gush Shilo with a contingent of security personnel large enough to defend Tel Aviv.
Photographs from the scene tell a small part of the story:
Note the Israeli “security personnel” guarding the home that is being destroyed by an Israeli crane (photo: Observation Agency).
A close-up of the wreckage from another building:
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More destruction (picture: Observation Agency).
And what happened to the residents and their belongings? Unceremoniously dumped on the ground:
Not only are buildings destroyed, families made homeless (Picture: Observation Agency).
Given such incidents as that which occurred at Gush Shilo and statements emanating from Netanyahu and Livni, it is not surprising that an emergency meeting of the heads of the communities of Samaria was held today to discuss what is happening in Samaria–and what the impact of the so-called “peace negotiations” are having and will have on the area.
The conclusion of the meeting was that the Netanyahu has already agreed in principle to the forced evacuation of more than 100,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria.
To respond to this, the leaders called for a “war for the land of Israel.” For the moment, they are calling on Israelis to peacefully take to the streets to demonstrate that the transfer of Israeli civilians would be immoral and would cause irreparable damage to the state of Israel.
Yossi Dagan, a Samarian mayor, issued the battle cry: “It’s time for us to fight, for our children’s future and for the state of Israel.”
Indeed it is.
TODAY’S BLOG:
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.