UPDATES
8:00 am Israel time, Friday, February 27 2015
17 Days Until The Election
By the numbers:
**$0.00: the amount of money that Hanan Ashrawi says that the PLO has to pay the families of the victims of Palestinian terror who just won a $655.5 million dollar award in New York. Ashrawi declared that the PLO has been facing a severe monetary shortfall since Israel began withholding tax monies in retaliation for Palestinian actions at the International Criminal Court and elsewhere.
Ashrawi added (and please get out your handkerchiefs to cry on): “All the money in the world won’t be sufficient to compensate the Palestinians for what they have been subjected to as a result of the Israeli occupation.”
**4.4: the number of children now born to Palestinian mothers according to the Central Bureau of Palestinian Statistics. This number represents a steady decline of almost 2 children per mother over the last 10 years. The Bureau also points out that the size of an average household in Gaza has declined from 6.9 in 1997 to 5.2 in 2014.
**5: the number of election polls that have appeared in the last 24 hours. None of them show significant movement in any direction. 2 polls have Likud tied with Herzog/Livni (remarkable given the avalanche of attacks on Netanyahu), 2 polls have Herzog/Livni ahead by 1 seat, 1 more has Herzog/Livni ahead by 2. Interestingly, both Likud and Herzog/Livni numbers are down by 2 or 3 seats. Again, the smaller parties will determine who the next prime minister will be.
**8: the number of party leaders that took part in a heated debate last night on Israeli Channel 2 television. The overwhelming winner according to post-debate polls: Naftali Bennett who commented during the debate that “We are the only ones who say clearly that we will not allow a centimeter of land to be given to Arabs. We will apply sovereignty to Ariel and Ma’aleh Adumim.”
By the way, the only three main candidates not participating in the debate were Isaac Herzog, Tzipi Livni, and Benjamin Netanyahu.
**100: the number of years that the absurdly called “humanitarian” NGO Oxfam says it will take to rebuild Palestinian state of Gaza if Israel continues “its blockade.” Oxfam estimates that it will take 800,000 trucks of construction materials to complete the task. Just imagine how many tunnels Hamas could build with 800,000 trucks of construction materials?
Of course, Israel to Gaza by land is the only way that is NOT blockaded.
**200: the number of olive “trees” that the absurdly called “humanitarian” NGO B’Tselem claimed were uprooted yesterday by “right wing settlers” near the Jewish community of Sussiya in the south Hebron hills. However, an investigation by security forces revealed that fewer than 50 6-inch “saplings” had been uprooted, and there was no evidence of who did it. Remember that we have numerous photographs over the past 10 years of international “activists”, Israeli leftists, and Palestinians chopping down or uprooting Palestinian trees for the public relations effect.
**65: the number of rabbis who took out a full-page advertisement in the Jerusalem Post this morning to deliver an open letter to PM Netanyahu. The letter reads:
“We support your determination. On your brave and resolved stand to speak before the Congress of the United States to arouse them from their passivity and apathy towards the conspiracies of Iran, Israel’s enemy and enemy of all the progressive states in the world. This important initiative is supported by many in the world, both Jews and other nations, who are concerned about world peace. Be strong and of good courage. Do not give in to various pressures since the G-d of the Armies of Israel is with you!”
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Kineret, known to most of the world as the Sea of Galilee.
All media outlets in Israel are waxing metaphorically about a plan signed yesterday by the governments of Israel and Jordan to save the Dead Sea.
“Historic”, “a landmark”, and “a new era” are just a few of the terms being used to describe the agreement.
Let your humble servant give you the details of the agreement, and you tell me, dear reader, what you think:
1. A huge new desalination plant will be built on the Red Sea in Aqaba (Jordan)–across from the Israeli port of Eilat.
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2. According to the agreement, Israel and Jordan will share the potable water produced by the plant.
3. Actually, however, Jordan is not “sharing” anything. Israel has agreed to buy 35 million cu meters of water annually for use in the South. What is worse, Israel will pay a hefty premium per unit of desalinated water.
4. In return, Jordan will buy, at roughly half the cost for per unit of water, 50 million cu meters of water annually from Israel’s Kineret (Sea of Galilee). As all readers of israelstreet already know, the Kineret has faced major water level problems in recent years.
5. Because of the Jordanian water buy from the Kineret, Israel will be forced to build more desalination plants along the Mediterranean (at a high cost to Israeli taxpayers) to compensate for the loss of Kineret water. In essence, Israel will need to drastically reduce water piped out of the Kineret for Israeli consumption.
6. The brine effluent from the Aqaba desalination plant will be piped 200 km to the Dead Sea.
So let’s review.
The reasons the deal is a good one:
*The Dead Sea will not go dry (though environmentalists point out that the briny desalinated water will change the marine life in the Sea forever).
*Israel and Jordan are working together.
The reasons the deal is a bad one:
*All of the desalination facilities and pipelines are in Jordan. They can be cut off at a moment’s notice by Jordan. Why is Israel putting communities in the Negev at the mercy of the Jordanians?
*Jordan cannot be trusted. It was merely 2 months ago that Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel after accusing Israel of trying to take over the Temple Mount.
*Israeli taxpayers will be footing two huge new bills: one for the cost of the desalinated water, and two for the construction of more desalination plants. This comes at a time when Israeli taxpayers have already made this country self-sufficient in terms of water by building huge new desalination plants up and down the Mediterranean coast.
*More than this, Israeli taxpayers are getting scammed because of the outrageously low per unit price of water that the Jordanians will be paying for Kineret water.
*The Kineret, our national and historic treasure, will find itself in short order facing the same problem as the Dead Sea–a lack of water.
So, your humble servant leaves it for you to make the call: is it a good deal or a bad one?
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.