UPDATES
8:00 am Israel time, Friday, June 26 2015
**The Medusa invasion is on:
Thousands of jellyfish are besieging Israeli beaches this week and attacking water intake valves at power plants and desalination plants in the process. Everyone is being warned to stay out of the water for fear of jellyfish stings.
A worker here in Ashdod reporting on the situation in the water intake canal at the Ashdod power plant.
Another picture from the same plant:
The jellyfish are filtered out but the remaining gunk is a mess.
By the way, a “jellyfish” is known as a “Medusa” here in Israel.
**Hapoel Jerusalem cruises to victory:
All of Israel was glued to the television last night as Hapoel Jerusalem won the Israeli basketball championship defeating your humble servant’s favorite team Hapoel Eilat by a score of 88-68.
The scene in Jerusalem last night:
Jerusalem fans were ecstatic! (photo: walla).
This was the first championship ever for Hapoel Jerusalem.
**You never know what you’re going to find underground here:
In an effort to increase the arable land near Kibbutz Magen in the northwestern Negev, workers began digging a water line last year to supply more irrigation water to farmers there. In the process they stumbled upon a Byzantine village that dates to about 400 BCE.
So far, archaeologists have uncovered streets paved with stone tiles, walls of large buildings, ovens, and cisterns.
And . . . the 42 cm remains of what was once a “man-sized” marble sculpture of a predator-looking dolphin.
This dolphin seems only interested in eating a fish (photo: Israel Antiquities Commission).
Because dolphins figure prominently in the Poseidon and Aphrodite stories from Greek mythology, archaeologists assume that the sculpture belonged to a religious cult in the area (both Poseidon and Aphrodite cults are known to have existed in the Ashkelon area which is close to Kibbutz Magen).
**On the Palestinian front:
The Palestinians filed information in The Hague yesterday at the International Criminal Court accusing Israel of “war crimes”. In doing so, they have of course opened the door to themselves being hauled before the Court.
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The PLO has informed Israel that it does not accept the lessening of restrictions on Palestinians visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The PLO is insisting that Palestinians traveling to Jerusalem be held up and forced to go through security checks at checkpoints. Apparently PLO head Mahmoud Abbas is afraid that “Israel will look good” by making life easy for the Palestinians.
As reported in the breaking news scroll, Egyptian Army sources have informed Israel that Hamas has now completed 3 new “mega-tunnels”–one of which runs under the border into Israel.
What will the Netanyahu government do with the information? Based on previous experience, absolutely nothing.
**Can you believe this?
At midnight last night, the home of an IDF soldier in Nazareth was attacked for the second time in the last month by Muslim “rock” throwers. Police were called to the scene–not to catch the terrorists, but instead to restrain the IDF soldier from going after the terrorists.
What is unusual about this incident is the fact that the IDF soldier is an Israeli-Arab Christian.
Why were the police trying to restrain the soldier? The first time his home was attacked, he threw 3 stun grenades at the “rock” throwers which sent them running.
What is hard to believe is that after the first incident, the IDF sentenced the soldier to 4 months in prison for throwing the stun grenades. To date, none of the “rock” throwers have been arrested.
In your humble servant’s opinion, the soldier should be applauded not punished. If you think it is a walk in the park for an Arab-Israeli Christian in a predominantly Muslim town to be an IDF soldier, it is not. Throwing stun grenades was an act of self-defense.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The nauseating way that our own Israeli government supports “left-wing” organizations which openly seek to demean and delegitimize Israel both here and abroad is mind-numbing.
For example, how did we ever get to a point in this country at which:
*anti-Israel NGOs are invited into IDF organizations to give lectures and seminars?
*anti-Israel plays are funded by the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Culture and Sport?
*Israeli teenagers are offered a national service option at age 18 to serve in anti-Israel NGOs?
Perhaps by looking at the events of the last 24 hours concerning “the national service option” we can get a small glimpse into what goes on here in Israel.
Two days ago, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel–who is also in charge of the Authority for National Civic Service–directed the head of the National Service to remove all NGOs that testified against Israel before the United Nations Human Rights Council concerning last summer’s Gaza War from the list of national service possibilities for 18 year olds.
Three of those NGOs were B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and the Association of Civil Rights in Israel.
As Ariel so aptly stated:
“The whole essence of National Service is service for the State of Israel and its citizens. I will not allow under any circumstances a delusional reality in which Israel finances services for young people to act against its soldiers.”
Bravo to Ariel for stating the obvious, and so far so good.
Until 24 hours later, yesterday, when Deputy Attorney-General Dina Zilber–herself a well-known “leftie”–sent Ariel a letter saying that Ariel’s order has no legal basis, and is therefore void.
And who worked with Zilber to produce that letter? None other than Knesset Representative Tamar Zandberg of the far-left Meretz party.
And therein lies the tale.
Entities like the Israel Attorney General’s Office are supposed to be neutral government bodies. However, they are far from it. They are intimately connected by shared ideology with “leftist” parties such as Meretz. What happened with Zandberg and Zilber has happened countless times before.
For his part, Ariel is vowing this morning to not accept Zilber’s dictate:
“The State of Israel will not fund those who work against it – plain and simple. I suggest that MK Tamar Zandberg and her colleagues not celebrate too much. I am determined not to allow funding for national-service slots to go to extremist organizations that work against the State of Israel and its soldiers. In the coming few days I will work toward defining the new criteria to regulate the matter as required and no legal acrobatics will prevent this.”
Let’s hope Ariel succeeds . . . but remember the final hurdle will be the Israel Supreme Court which generally has the same ideology as the Attorney General’s Office and Meretz.
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.