UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Tuesday, July 21 2015
**Three cheers for the Weizmann Institute!
The famed walkway into the Weizmann.
Your humble servant was in Rehovot last night attending a concert by the Rishon Symphony orchestra playing Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4. The symphonies were conducted by visiting conductor Aziz Shokhakimov from Uzbekistan.
To get to the wonderfully appointed Rehovot Music Hall, we had to pass by the renowned Weizmann Institute of Science–which is even more renowned as of yesterday. The CWTS Leiden Ranking System has named the Weizmann as the 10th ranked institution in the world based on the quality of its research.
The CWTS evaluators found that between 2010-2013, Weizmann scientists published 2,414 articles that were cited 27,859 times. 460 of these academic publications were among the top 10% in terms of impact of all the articles published in the world.
By the way, the Weizmann was the only non-U.S. university to make the top 10.
If you are in Rehovot on Thursday night, you might want to attend “Music and Astrophysics in a Journey Among the Stars”–a stunning audio and visual program open to the public. It begins at 7:30 pm in Wix Auditorium. Your humble servant will be there.
**A hero of Israel died yesterday:
A dashing Lou Lenart in 1948. A U.S. Marine Corps pilot who flew missions in the Pacific during WW2, Lenart came to Israel when he found out that members of his Hungarian family had died in the Holocaust.
Lou Lenart, the U.S. pilot who came to Israel and helped found the Israel Air Force by recruiting 3 other pilots passed away in Los Angeles. He was 94.
Lenart is best known for his incredible daring in 1948 and his exploits just outside of Ashdod where he almost singlehandedly stopped the advance of the Egyptian Army–at a place now called Ad Halom.
Click on this link to read his amazing story.
May Lenart’s memory be forever blessed.
**The Knesset passes a new law to combat Palestinian terrorism:
Think about what happened in Israel during a five hour period yesterday: at 5:02 pm, Palestinian terrorists threw “rocks” and burned tires at Kiryat Arba; at 5:13 pm, Palestinian terrorists set fire to the Karmi Tzur perimeter security fence by throwing Molotov cocktails; at 5:55 pm, IDF soldiers were stoned by “rock throwers near the Palestinian settlement of Beit Ummar; at 7:52 pm, terrorists attacked Bus 1 at the Dung Gate in Jerusalem in a brazen “rock” attack; at 9:33 pm, terrorists attacked the Jerusalem Light Rail train with “rocks”.
It might be of interest for you to know that prosecutors have indicted more than 1000 “rock” and Molotov cocktail throwers in the last 12 months, but virtually none of them served any time in jail because prosecutors could not prove “intent to harm”.
Yesterday, the Knesset remedied this absurd situation. The new law states that a person who throws “objects” (“rocks” or Molotov cocktails) can be sentenced to 10 years in jail–even without proof of intention to harm. If intent to harm is proved or if the attack is against vehicles, the punishment goes up to a maximum of 20 years.
**Back to the release of murderers in the 2011 Gilad Shalit exchange:
You recall that in yesterday’s blog, your humble servant discussed how six Israelis have now been murdered by Palestinian murderers who were released in the Gilad Shalit exchange back in 2011.
The IDF military prosecutor’s office announced yesterday that 47 (of the 1,027 murderers released) will be returning to Israeli prison for violating the terms of their release. This includes 13 murderers who will be returned to life sentences; 13 prisoners who will return to 10-20 year sentences; and 15 prisoners who will be returned to 1-10 year sentences.
47 is only a drop in the bucket, but hopefully the rearrest of others will follow soon.
**Terrorists fighting terrorists for turf in Gaza:
As you may not have heard, six cars belonging to terrorist members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were blown up at six different locations in Gaza yesterday by the Salafist/IS terror organization. More explosions were heard early this morning in two more attacks.
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In the meantime, Hamas has continued its widespread arrests of anyone affiliated with the Salafists/IS–in return for which, the Salafists/IS–with a burst of illogic–have promised to fire “numerous missiles” at southern Israel in the coming days.
While Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been focused on attacking Israel, the Salafists/IS have established a strong following among Gazan Palestinians and have been focused on taking over parts of Gaza.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Village idiots.
Take a good look at the picture above. It is hard to imagine that you will ever see a more sordid group of diplomatic buffoons. This group of European Union foreign ministers set new standards yesterday for arrogant hypocrisy and utter vacuity.
Led by the head European Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini (she’s the laughing one in the middle of the picture–and the one who has posted 25 year old pictures of herself wearing a Palestinian scarf with Yasser Arafat), this motley collection of nobodies decided to viciously attack Israel yesterday.
Never mind that immigrants from Africa are drowning off the coasts of European countries; never mind that the Russian invasion of the Ukrainian Crimea is complete and Russian bombers are routinely violating European airspace; never mind that the financial fiasco in Greece nearly blew the European Union apart; never mind that Belgian soccer fans less than one hour from where these idiots are standing raised their hands in Nazi salutes a few days ago and told Israeli soccer players and fans to go to the gas chambers; and never mind that Jews are murdered in France and synagogues torched in the United Kingdom.
And never mind that Yazidis continue being slaughtered in Iraq and Yazidi women sold into slavery, and never mind that another 200+ civilians were killed in Syria yesterday, and never mind that the Chinese are appropriating land in the South China Sea and persecuting religious minorities, and never mind that Iran hung two more gay men yesterday and perpetrated terrorism in untold places around the world, and never mind that Nigerian Boko Haram murdered 23 people in a Cameroon village yesterday . . . never mind any of this.
None of the above apparently matters at all.
The only thing that matters is condemning Israel.
And what did this moronic group scathingly condemn Israel for yesterday?
*the building of the separation fence–a security structure that has saved hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children from being blown to pieces by Palestinian suicide bombers.
*”forced transfers of populations”–in reference to the Israel Supreme Court ruling that Bedouin squatters can be moved off of state land near Sussiya.
*”settlements”–never mind that no new Jewish communities have been built for years and construction has been frozen since 2009.
What is more, the Europeans now want to push the French plan recently and ludicrously outlined by French FM Fabius to the Arab League (an Arab League that has bigger fish to fry and could care less about the Palestinians). That plan calls on the United Nations to establish parameters for a Palestinian state, and if Israel doesn’t agree within 18 months, France will announce its official recognition of “Palestine”.
Read this piece of jargon issued by the group at the conclusion of the meeting yesterday:
“The EU, notably through the action of its recently appointed Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process, will work actively on a renewed multilateral approach to the peace process in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, including partners in the Quartet, notably the US, in the region and the United Nations Security Council.”
In other words, the European Union wants to create a coalition to screw Israel to the wall.
Sometimes your humble servant just wants to scream at the world.
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.