UPDATES
6:00 am Israel time, Thursday, February 12 2015
32 Days Until The Election
***Israel continues to be buffeted by high winds with gusts reaching up to 140 kph. It is now snowing on the Golan Heights which is expected to extend to Jerusalem tonight, with heavy rains occurring in the rest of the country. As of the moment, the sandy haze remains here in the south–a haze that shut down the Suez Canal yesterday.
***There is the bad news today that PM Netanyahu is “exploring other options” concerning his scheduled March 3 address to the U.S. Congress concerning Iran and Islamic terrorism. Among the options he is said to be considering: a closed-door address to Congress, or an expansion of his speech to AIPAC.
What he seems to be paying attention to, unfortunately, is a recent poll in Israel in which only 35% of respondents thought it was a good idea for him to speak. That poll, conducted by a leftist survey group, has been notoriously biased on other issues in the past.
***Speaking of Iran, yesterday was the 36th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. There were the usual marches of hundreds of thousands through the streets of Tehran chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
The battle on the Syrian side of the southern Golan Heights mentioned in yesterday’s blog has begun in earnest with Iranian forces fighting in tandem with Hezbollah and Assad’s military to oust “the rebels” from their positions around Quneitra.
***10 alleged Mossad and Egyptian spies were beheaded yesterday in the northern Sinai by a group loyal to IS. In their particularly gruesome death video, they were forced to “confess” to their crimes before being slowly decapitated with blunt knives.
***Speaking of being killed by IS, it turns out that Kayla Mueller, the self-proclaimed American “humanitarian” worker who was killed by IS this week (the IS claim that she was killed by Jordanian bombs can readily be discounted), was a significant “activist” for the the International Solidarity Movement in Israel.
The Palestinian social media is abuzz today with pictures of how she tried to stop Israeli security forces from carrying out court-ordered evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, and tried to protect Palestinian schoolchildren from alleged “attacks by settlers”, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Your humble servant has about as much sympathy over her demise as he had for that of Rachel Corrie.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Speaking of having little sympathy for someone, your humble servant feels the same way about the latest Palestinian cause celebre, 14 year old female Malak al-Khatib.
Let’s see what you think, and please pardon your humble servant’s cynical description.
About a week ago, little Malak’s parents sent her out beside Route 60 near Bitin–which is beside Ramallah.
Her loving parents sent her out there to play with the other children.
Don’t cialis without prescription overnight rush to pick the cheapest prices medicines. Make sure that only the desired amount is taken that is 100mg viagra price the amount given by the product. Another benefit http://www.icks.org/data/ijks/1482456658_ij_file.pdf levitra samples to taking the super antioxidant Acai berry is also commonly known as an effective anti-bacterial and anti-viral agent. 5. It filters and flushes out toxins, toxic online viagra http://www.icks.org/html/04_publication.php?cate=FALL%2FWINTER+2007 substances and wastes from the blood.
Their “play”, as usual, consisted of throwing “rocks” at passing Israeli cars in the hopes of making one crash and of killing its passengers.
On this particular day, IDF soldiers happened to be in the area and captured a number of “rock” throwers, among them the lovely little Malak.
When they stopped her from throwing “rocks”, the soldiers discovered that Malak was armed with a butcher knife. By her own admission, she had intended to stab soldiers if she were arrested but had been unable to do so.
She confessed to all of this in open court, accompanied by her lawyer and her parents (who apparently supplied the knife). As part of a plea deal, the judge sentenced her to two months in juvenile detention.
Now, here’s a simple question for you, dear reader: if your 14 year old daughter was out on the side of the road trying to hit cars for the express purpose of wounding the drivers and passengers, and was armed with a knife to attack the police, what do you think her punishment should be?
If you ask your humble servant, not only should “little” Malak be punished, but also her parents should be put in jail for negligence.
But instead, they too, are being made into martyrs by the Palestinian and international press. Here’s what Khawla Al-Khatib said in an interview with Agence France Press:
“My heart broke when I saw her in court . . . I brought in a coat for her to wear because it was cold, but the judge refused to let her have it.”
How sad. Your humble servant is about to lose his breakfast.
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.