UPDATES
8:00 am Israel time, Sunday, February 22 2015
22 Days Until The Election
***The strongest storm to hit Israel in the last 15 years has come and gone, but not without leaving destruction in its wake. Many roads remain impassable, particularly in the Negev where flash floods simply carried parts of highways away.
In the Negev yesterday, a common sight after this past storm.
Virtually every location in the country now has a rainfall total for the year that exceeds its annual average. The good news is that it is only February, and guess what is predicted for Tuesday? More rain–though not with the accompanying stormy conditions of the past few days.
***A survey published yesterday reveals that the residents of the northern and northeastern borders with Lebanon and Syria are now beginning to feel particularly vulnerable to cross-border attacks.
In the case of the border with Syria that runs across the Golan, there is virtually nothing to stop infiltrators coming through individually or en masse. And the war inside Syria is literally right on Israel’s doorstep.
Anyone traveling on the Israel-Syria border these days has a birds-eye view of the fighting taking place as little as a hundred meters away. This picture is from an overlook near Quneitra, the scene of intense fighting during the last week.
In a comment that hits close to home, many northerners expressed the feeling that they now “understand what southern Israelis feel.”
***Speaking of southern uncertainty, your humble servant and family went on a flower-gazing expedition along the Gaza border yesterday to see the famed Israeli red poppies. Despite the fact that height of the season was about a week ago, there were still many to be seen.
And what do you think happened while we were in the Kfar Aza-Nahal Oz area, literally a stone’s throw from Gaza?
If you guessed “an incoming missile alarm went off”, you win the prize. No one was physically injured, but it was a grim reminder of the events of last summer, as well as a grim reminder of what will soon come again.
***The election campaign is becoming even dirtier by the day. And most of the dirt being “slung” is being thrown by the “Left”.
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Two days ago, the joking-called “Zionist Camp” of Herzog and Livni released a picture of on of their new attack ads on social media. This particular one was aimed at Naftali Bennett of Beit Yehudi (Jewish Home):
The sign depicts a smiling Naftali Bennett behind Yigal Amir–the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin. Amir is saying in the ad that he and his family support Beit Yehudi.
After Bennett publicized the new ad and embarrassed Herzog and Livni, the party withdrew plans to plaster it on billboards throughout the country.
***In other election news, it is interesting to see how different parties are turning on the parties which are taking away most of their votes–and not merely focusing on Netanyahu. In the last 24 hours, for example, we have seen the far-left Meretz party attacking Herzog-Livni calling them nothing but “faded Likud”. Similarly, we see Moshe Kahlon of center-right Koolanu attacking Yair Lapid of center-left Yesh Atid.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The headline of the Jerusalem Post blares this morning:
“Obama, Biden, and Kerry to skip AIPAC”
Of course, the reason for the article is to underscore, yet again, that PM Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to the U.S. Congress has soured U.S.-Israel relations to the point that President Obama and his minions have turned their backs on AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).
In other words, we are to believe that President Obama’s love affair with AIPAC is over.
The truth is that President Obama has spent six years doing little except demeaning AIPAC and dissembling from its stage.
Let’s begin back in 2008 when President Obama was merely Senator and presidential candidate Obama.
At the AIPAC meeting that year, Obama took the microphone and declared to a cheering crowd that Jerusalem would become the site of the U.S. Embassy in Israel and that “Jerusalem must remain undivided.”
24 hours Obama withdrew those pledges.
Then it was in 2009 that newly elected President Obama invited “Jewish leaders” to the White House, and in a slap in the face to AIPAC and the Zionist Organization of America (the latter of which was not even invited), he invited AIPAC adversary J Street to take center stage.
By 2010, in the midst of an Administration effort to publicize its anger with Netanyahu over construction of Jewish homes in Jerusalem, President Obama reportedly became enraged that AIPAC circulated a letter to Congressmen asking that they pressure Obama express his anger “behind closed doors” and not in public.
Skipping ahead to 2013, we had Obama throwing AIPAC under the bus by first asking the group to lobby for a potential strike on Syria and then, after they did so, announcing that he had no intention of striking Syria.
And the list goes on and on.
Obama, Biden, and Kerry to skip AIPAC? AIPAC is better off without them.
One last thought: what does it say about the sheer pettiness of President Obama that he would forego speaking at AIPAC just to spite Netanyahu–who is doing nothing but trying to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Your humble servant leaves it to you, dear reader, to answer that question.
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.