UPDATES
8:00 am Israel time, Friday, February 20 2015
24 Days Until The Election
Downtown Tzfat (Safed) this morning (picture: walla).
***It has been a crazy weather night here in Israel. Heavy snow (by Israeli standards) has piled up in the Negev Highlands, Mitzpe Ramon, Karmiel, Kiryat Shmona, Metulla, the Hula Valley, Dimona, and in Jerusalem.
A snow plow on the Golan this morning (note the “wolf” sign: wolves are now back on the Golan in numbers).
Here in Ashdod we were awake all night with storm after storm rolling in from the Mediterranean including brilliant lightning displays and rolling thunder. From 3:15 am until 4 am, Ashdod was hit by golfball-sized hail. At this moment, it is sleeting outside my window.
Obviously, schools and other institutions are closed throughout Israel.
***Nevertheless, the storm has not been without its benefits.
Palestinian Ma’an News reported yesterday that two Hamas terrorists were electrocuted while “working” in a water filled tunnel. In a curious bit of reportage, Ma’an revealed that at first the Al-Qassam Brigades announced that one of the terrorists had died “in action in Gaza”, but the Gaza Interior Ministry denied the announcement and said he was merely “electrocuted in the tunnel.”
***Meanwhile yesterday, the United Nations Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, began giving Hamas its justification for the next war with Israel.
Remarking on the fact that most of the money pledged for the terrorists in Gaza at the Cairo Conference four months ago has not been “paid”, Feltman said: “This is frankly unacceptable, and cannot continue if we hope to avoid another escalation in Gaza. We see the circumstances in Gaza as becoming increasingly worrisome as we approach the six-month mark since the end of last summer’s conflict.”
Feltman is nothing more than a front man for Hamas. His message stated in other words: “Show us the money or we start firing again.”
***The situation in southern Syria has become, if possible, even more chaotic. You may recall that israelstreet reported some days ago that pro-Assad Iranian Revolutionary Guards had carried out executions of Syrian soldiers whom they accused of desertion under fire. Yesterday, one of a group of Syrian soldiers who were acting as a rear guard for Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces, opened fire on the Hezbollah men from behind killing 13 and wounding another 5.
What appears to have happened over the past few days is that an Iranian-Hezbollah-Syrian surge against the “rebels” in the Quneitra area has been halted, at least for the moment.
***Equally chaotic is the situation along the Egyptian-Libyan border where the Egyptian air force has been pounding IS targets in retaliation for the beheading of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians earlier in the week. The Egyptian action is being taken despite the express disapproval of the United States which has refused to provide Egypt with satellite intelligence concerning the location of IS fighters.
Here is what Pentagon spokesman Adm. John Kirby told a press briefing: “We discourage other nations from taking part in Libya’s issues through violence. We want the issues solved in Libya to be done peacefully and through good governance and politics and not violence.”
Say what? President Obama refuses to help Egypt fight IS?
Unbelievable.
***Because of your humble servant’s intimate involvement with the University of California-Davis, he is happy to report that by a vote of 5-0, the Student Judicial Court last night overturned the recent Student Senate Divestment vote against Israel. The Court’s reasoning was that all resolutions passed by the Student Senate must have a demonstrable student benefit. The Court decided that the divestment resolution had no such benefit and was purely political.
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TODAY’S BLOG:
It’s Friday again, and time for another election update.
The latest polls are out, and again, your humble servant will focus on the Maariv-Jerusalem Post poll which is always biased somewhat to the center-left. The margin of error in the poll–as for most Israeli polls–is an astonishingly high 4.5%.
“Zionist Camp” party (Herzog and Livni): 24–holding steady
Likud (Netanyahu): 22–trending down
Beit Yehudi (Bennett): 13–trending up
Yesh Atid (Lapid): 12–trending up
United Arab List: 12–holding steady
Koolanu (Kahlon): 8–trending up
United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi orthodox): 7–holding steady
Shas (Sephardic orthodox): 7–holding steady
Meretz (ultra left): 6–trending up
Yisrael Beiteinu (Lieberman): 5–holding steady
Yachad (Eli Ishai): 4–holding steady
In short, it has been a bad week for Netanyahu. While initial polling after the release of the State Comptroller’s report seemed to show no shift in votes, the poll today shows a definite effect. Apparently Netanyahu is losing seats to Bennett–which means that the total number of votes on the “Right” has remained unchanged.
By the way, the next few weeks will not be any easier on Netanyahu. The well-coordinated attack on him from the Left will continue with the Attorney General deciding on whether to open a criminal investigation into the Bottlegate and Garden Furnituregate, the State Comptroller issuing another pre-election hit piece against Netanyahu on housing, and the media continuously pummeling Netanyahu.
Finally, it is important to note that the road to a Herzog-Livni coalition remains virtually impossible because to reach 61, the religious parties would have to join forces with Yesh Atid which they have declared they will never do (though as we all know, never say “never” in Israeli politics!).
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.