UPDATES
7:00 am Israel time, Wednesday, June 17 2015
**Will he or will he not join the Netanyahu government?
Avigdor Lieberman in his home Judean community of Nokdim last year. He is trying to become the champion of the Jewish community movement throughout Judea and Samaria (photo: Times of Israel).
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Avigdor Lieberman announced last night that his Yisrael Beiteinu party will join the coalition if and only if PM Netanyahu agrees to build 1000 new apartments in Ma’aleh Adumim.
This comes after almost three months of Lieberman blasting Netanyahu for every conceivable weakness with the Palestinians. Nevertheless, if Lieberman joined Netanyahu, the coalition would have 67 seats instead of 61. And remember, that the Foreign Minister’s job is still open.
**Will they or won’t they resign? Last night, the unelected PLO government of Mahmoud Abbas was on the verge of resigning. Declaring reconciliating with Hamas a failure–because Hamas will not relinquish control over border crossings into Israel and Egypt, and because Israel is now making a deal with Hamas for an extended truce–the government was set to resign.
This morning, they have pulled back from that threat.
**Was he or wasn’t he invited? News reports circulating yesterday had President Obama inviting PM Netanyahu to the White House in July.
And why would Obama do such a thing after having shunned Netanyahu on his most recent visit to Washington? According to the reports, the meeting would come after the U.S. signs a nuclear deal with Iran–but before the U.S. Congress has reviewed the deal.
In short, Obama would be using Netanyahu to get Congress to go along.
Fortunately, both sides are denying this morning that Obama has issued an invitation.
**Are they or are they not the laughing stock of the world?
On the move again toward an Iranian nuclear deal despite his broken leg, John Kerry had this to say yesterday about Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria: “I think everybody’s patience is wearing thin with respect to the extraordinary depravity of the weaponry and mechanisms for delivery, which Assad has used against his own people.”
This coming from the same Obama Administration that set a red line about Syrians using chemical weapons, then pulled back at the last moment from a French-U.S. strike against those weapons, and then claimed that the Syrians were not using chemical weapons at all.
Pictures like this one of children killed by chemical weapons have been coming out of Syria for years now (picture: NY Post).
Now, after untold thousands have been killed by Assad’s chemical weapons, “everybody’s patience is wearing thin?”
President Obama and John Kerry are a bad joke.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Is he or is he not insane?
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Following in the footsteps of his disastrous predecessor “do-nothing Benny Gantz”, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot announced a series of steps that the Defense Ministry will undertake over the coming Ramadan holiday (that begins tomorrow) to “improve the quality of life for the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza”.
Say what?
At a time when violence in Judea and Samaria is raging out of control and missiles are again being fired out of Gaza at southern Israel, the Defense Ministry wants to “improve the quality of life” for Palestinians?
Maybe the Defense Ministry should think about improving the quality of life for Israelis.
Here’s the list of Eizenkot’s concessions to the Palestinians:
1. For the first time ever, the IDF will permit buses from Palestinian urban centers such as Jenin and Shechem (Nablus) to travel directly–without any checks–to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
2. The IDF will allow all Palestinians, men and women, to enter Israel without a permit (except for continuing to require that 30 to 40-year-old men have one).
3. 500 Palestinians from Judea and Samaria have been given permission to leave Israel via Ben Gurion Airport.
4. 500 “families” (who knows how many people) from Gaza have been approved to visit Judea and Samaria.
5. 800 Palestinians from Hamas Gaza have been given permission to go to the Temple Mount.
6. 300 Palestinians living abroad have been given approval to visit relatives in Hamas Gaza.
7. And all of this comes on top of the “gestures” extended to Palestinians in Hebron announced yesterday (the opening of roads and shops that have been closed for 15 years because of Palestinian terrorism).
8. And all of that comes on top of the “gestures” apparently being made to Hamas to build a floating seaport.
The funny thing is that our Israeli government has failed to internalize the old saying that “if you give the Arabs a finger, they will want your whole hand.” All the gestures in the world will not make the Palestinians, nor the Israeli “left”, nor the international “left” like us.
The Arab world simply and correctly sees “gestures for peace” as “signs of weakness.”
You know the joke about the lunatics running the asylum?
Your humble servant leaves it to you, dear reader, to form the appropriate analogy today with the IDF and the Israel government.
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.