UPDATES
7 pm Israel time, Monday, May 25 2015
**Incoming missile sirens sounded in areas around Ben Gurion airport just after 4 pm this afternoon.
In the last hour has come the strange report of an armored personnel carrier blocking the road between Latrun and Ben Gurion on Highway 1.
No other information has been forthcoming.
**The violence in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Judea continues unabated.
Two more Israeli teenagers were stabbed in the back at the Damascus Gate yesterday and are in “moderate” condition at Hadassah in Jerusalem. The terrorist has been captured in the Old City.
This incident follows the stabbing of two other Israeli teenagers at the Damascus Gate several days ago and the IED attack on Israeli troops in Silwan on Friday.
**The war just across the Egyptian border in the Sinai continues unabated.
Another Egyptian policeman was murdered in a terrorist attack this morning. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Army reports that in the last six months 521 tunnels leading from Gaza into Egypt were discovered and 500 were destroyed.
Egyptian soldiers today at the site of yet another terrorist tunnel coming from Palestinian Gaza.
Moreover, 2,350 kilograms of explosives have been seized, and 6,097 weapons have been captured.
**The war just across the Syrian border continues unabated.
Hezbollah has gone all in–pouring hundreds of soldiers into the battle for the Qalamoun Mountains along the Lebanese border. Reports this morning are that numerous Hezbollah fighters have been killed, but that Hezbollah has captured two key hilltops.
Elsewhere, the battle in Syria has been going poorly for Hezbollah, Iran, and the forces of Assad. IS and the Syrian rebels have captured Palmyra and have their sights set on Damascus itself.
**The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is finally set (except for the Foreign Ministry which remains in Netanyahu’s hands).
Gilad Erdan, the number 2 person on the Likud list, has ended his holdout and accepted the positions of Minister of Public Security, Minister of Strategic Affairs, and Minister of Information.
Who was dumped on in order to provide Erdan with these plums? Ze’ev Elkin was sacked as Minister of Strategic Affairs, and Benny Begin may now be out of the government.
Insofar as the Foreign Ministry is concerned, former U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold has been appointed “Director General”.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Perhaps the behavior of Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin was to be expected. After all, Rivlin went to great lengths this week to tell reporters that he can easily see why Israeli’s Arab citizens feel turned off when they hear Israel’s National Anthem “Hatikvah”–and even supports their not singing it at all.
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This coming Thursday night, Givat Haviva is holding its 3rd Annual Conference, a gala event which will take place on its “campus”. Entitled “Developing a Joint Vision for a Shared Society in Israel”, the conference’s keynote speaker will be none other than President Rivlin.
If you have never heard of Givat Haviva before, here is a statement of their strategy from their website:
Givat Haviva’s activities are a concrete response to the urgent challenge of constructing a socially cohesive society in Israel. Ever-deepening social divides and increased alienation among diverse sub-sections of Israeli society threaten to unravel the democratic fabric on which its future stability and legitimacy depends. As such, the organization’s mission is based on the understanding that building and maintaining a shared society characterized by mutual responsibility, full participation and equal opportunity among all citizens is essential to peaceful, democratic and prosperous development. With the belief that change on a societal scale begins with the socio-political unit closest to the people, the organization carries out its activities on the community level, aiming to build shared communities.
At first glance, this statement seems all well and good, but if we look more closely we see that Givat Haviva sees an Israel which is “socially disintegrating” because of rampant “alienation.”
To believe Givat Haviva, Israel’s democratic character is at stake as is the country’s legitimacy.
And by the way, who exactly is alienated? If we read further down Givat Haviva’s website, we discover that it is Israeli-Arabs.
If all of this sounds familiar, it should. It is also the theme song of the New Israel Fund—-perhaps the one group that does more to fund delegitimization of Israel than any other (see “What Anti-Israel NGO is the Worst of All?”).
And guess who is one of the main funders of Givat Haviva?
Yes, the New Israel Fund.
Obviously Givat Haviva is an organization affiliated with all of the political parties on the “left” in Israel. To this end, it should come as no surprise that two of the main guests on Thursday will be Isaac Herzog of the recently defeated Herzog-Livni party, and Ayman Odeh of the United Arab List.
But let’s return to Thursday night. It turns out that not only is President Rivlin delivering the keynote speech, he is also receiving an award from Givat Haviva for his meritorious actions in bringing people together.
Just like he did with his comments about Hatikvah.
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.