UPDATES
9 am Israel time, Tuesday, March 31 2015
**What is going on with the Iranian negotiations this morning?
No one seems to know.
The New York Times is reporting that the Iranians have backed out of an agreement to ship their nuclear fuel out of the country. The White House, pathetically, is desperately denying the story.
What everyone does know, however, is that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry will move heaven and earth (read “make endless concessions”) so that a framework agreement can be reached by tomorrow.
**Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert will be going to prison. Convicted of more crimes yesterday such as obstructing justice, tampering with witnesses, and taking money under the table, Olmert’s days as a free man are over.
Your humble servant only has two words for Olmert: “Good riddance.”
But rest assured of one thing. Olmert will remain the darling of the “Left” and will soon hit the “virtual” lecture circuit making regular appearances at such places at J Street conventions and on leftist Israeli television from his prison cell.
**As you may or may not know, dear reader, the minimum hourly wage in Israel is 25 shekels per hour. At the rate of exchange as of this moment this morning (3.97 shekels = $1 ), this equals $6.30 per hour.
In a country where high prices on consumer goods are the norm, this is a woefully inadequate amount of money to be making and was one of the sources of discontent with Netanyahu in the recent election–particularly among young people.
Tomorrow morning, the minimum wage for Israeli workers will begin a painfully slow increase, but even after a year and half the minimum wage will still be low–in fact it will probably not even keep pace with the consumer price index.
Currently set at 4,300 shekels per month ($1,083), the minimum wage will increase tomorrow to 4,650 shekels a month ($1,171). Following this increase, the schedule of further increases is:
4,825 shekels ($1,216) in August 2016
5,000 shekels ($1,259) on January 1, 2017
5,300 shekels ($1,336) on December 1, 2017
**It will not come as a surprise to regular readers of israelstreet, that full-blown preparations for building the Third Temple on the Temple Mount have been going on for at least the last decade. Of course, in reality, this building will go nowhere as long as Israeli governments kowtow to international opinion.
But that does not stop those making the preparations.
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Ritual instruments have been created and priests have been trained. Even more, animals sacrifices are now being carried out at various locations. At one such location yesterday, Kiryat Moshe Maimon, more than 1000 Jews gathered to celebrate the coming of Passover.
TODAY’S BLOG:
**The sheer idiocy of Israeli government policy in Judea and Samaria has been on display once again in the last 24 hours.
Late yesterday, following a day of Palestinian attacks against Israeli security personnel in “celebration” of “Land Day”, the Deputy Commander of the Gush Etzion Brigade, Lt. Col. Dotan Rovner, was wounded when a Palestinian terrorist hit him in the head with a “rock”. Fortunately for Rovner, he was able to be treated on the spot by IDF medics and did not have to be hospitalized.
This morning, in retaliation for the attacks yesterday, the Israeli Civil Administration and Israelis police forces raided a Jewish community in Gush Etzion and began destroying Jewish homes and buildings there–including a synagogue that was under construction.
Yes, you read that correctly.
But let me repeat it: as a reward to the Palestinians for their terrorist assaults on Israeli soldiers yesterday in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli Civil Administration and police destroyed Jewish homes and a synagogue today in Samaria.
The scene near the community in Gush Etzion early this morning. Jewish security personnel ready themselves to destroy part of a Jewish community there (picture Avraham Weiss: Observation Agency).
Judea and Samaria is a world turned upside down.
The Palestinians have long since figured out that they will be rewarded for terrorism. However, the Israeli government seems utterly incapable of understanding that rewarding the terrorists just leads to more terrorism.
Now that Benjamin Netanyahu has been re-elected, his campaign words of support for the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria are once again being shown to be meaningless, and we can expect the Netanyahu pattern of Palestinian terrorism-Israeli reward to resume forthwith.
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.