UPDATES 6 pm Israel time, Friday, October 17 2014:
**Good news today: Turkey has been thwarted from gaining a seat on the U.N. Security Council. You might ask how such a close friend of the Barack Obama and the United States ended up being pushed aside in favor of Spain.
The answer? Egypt and Saudi Arabia mounted a concerted campaign against the Islamist government of Taycip Erdogan.
**It may seem like a small point unless you live in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Parking Police confirmed this afternoon that Arabs are allowed to park illegally during Muslim prayer hours. But Jews are handed out tickets if they park illegally while praying at the Kotel (Western Wall).
**The leftist Haaretz newspaper confirmed what we already knew today. The only reason that the IDF focused on tunnels during the recent war with Hamas was because of Security Cabinet member Naftali Bennett.
As has already been reported on israelstreet, it was Bennett who went to the front lines when he discovered that Defense Minister Ya’alon was giving false and incomplete infomation to the Security Cabinet.
Apparently, Bennett was the only in that Cabinet who grasped the seriousness of the situation.
**Interesting data from the IDF Manpower Division today concerning the level of integration of Ethiopian-Israelis into the IDF:
Currently there are 6,600 Ethiopian-Israeli soldiers, including 330 officers. A quarter of them are in combat positions.
All of this is good; however, the Manpower Division indicates that there remains work to be done: 25% of such soldiers are imprisoned at least once during their service for offenses such as absenteeism and desertion (the percentage in the rest of the IDF is about 5%). As the Manpower Division points out, this is more of a societal problem of assimilation than an IDF problem.
TODAY’S BLOG:
John Kerry in a loving embrace in Cairo this week.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement at the White House yesterday marks a new low.
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Speaking at a White House ceremony for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, Kerry expanded his usual rant that Israel is an obstacle to peace by declaring that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is at the core of recruitment for Islamic State (ISIS/DAAS):
“As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL (Islamic State) coalition, the truth is we – there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt.”
Say what?
Here we are back again in the twisted universe of Barack Obama and John Kerry, a universe in which every problem is traceable to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
But more than this, it is always the Jews who must make concessions to mollify the Arabs because it is always the Jews who bear the ultimate blame for the world’s problems.
Naftali Bennett was quick to respond to Kerry this afternoon:
“Asserting that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reinforces ISIS gives a boost to global terrorism. It turns out that even when a British Muslim beheads a British Christian, there will always be those who blame the Jews.”
Kerry’s comments are truly amazing but are indicative of man and an American Administration who have no clue whatsoever about the motivations of Islamic State or its fighters.
At some point, one must begin to wonder about the motivation of John Kerry who never misses an opportunity to attack the Jewish state of Israel.
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.