UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Saturday, September 5 2015
**The daily Palestinian terror report . . .
At 1:30 am this morning, terrorists mounted an attack involving gunfire, Molotov cocktails, and “rocks” at the A-Ram Border Police checkpoint in eastern Jerusalem. No one was wounded, and the terrorists escaped, as usual.
Yesterday afternoon, Palestinians, international “activists”, and Israeli leftists attacked IDF soldiers at Nabi Saleh. Two Israelis were wounded: an IDF officer was hit in the head by a “rock”, and a Border Guard was struck in the stomach. Both had to be airlifted to a nearby hospital for medical treatment–where they remain.
Also in the afternoon, Palestinian arsonists started fires in the fields around Kiryat Arba, and a carload of terrorists was captured at the Tapuach Junction with automatic weapons including M16s.
Just after 10:00 am yesterday morning, there was another drive-by shooting near the Jewish community of Gush Talmonim Nachliel. After searching the area, the police found nothing.
**The fallout from the Hebron incident yesterday . . .
. . . has begun to focus on the police. It turns out that one of the five American tourists who took a wrong turn and ended up in Hebron actually called police to report the dangerous situation immediately.
The police operator put him “on hold” presumably because the tourist spoke English, and the operator couldn’t understand him.
When the operator never came back on the line, the American urgently called a friend in Jerusalem who contacted the police in Hebrew and explained the situation.
Still the police did nothing for 40 minutes–their explanation being that because the incident took place in Area A, they could not enter without confirmation by the PLO police.
The only reason the police and IDF finally showed up at all was because the Palestinian man who saved the five Americans contacted the Israeli police himself and explained the situation in Arabic.
This unbelievable sequence of events has become less unbelievable. As you may recall, when the three Israeli boys were kidnapped and murdered last year, one of them also called the police immediately–and got no response.
**Natalie Portman showed her true colors . . .
. . . in Jerusalem yesterday. Portman is in Israel to direct and star in the movie “A Tale of Love and Darkness” based on the book by Amos Oz.
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Portman in Jerusalem yesterday with Israeli leftist fawner-in-chief Shimon Peres.
Since she has been here, the leftist Israeli media and political establishment has fawned over her as if she were a returning goddess (Portman was born in Jerusalem). Officials on the “right” have done the same affording Portman every possible perk to facilitate her filming–even though she insisted that no filming take place on what she described as “Palestinian land” in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem.
Yesterday, Portman was interviewed and asked if her film was pro-Israel. Her angry answer was:
“Absolutely not … I actually find it surprising to hear it described as a patriotic film because, for me, much of it has to do with the disappointment of the dream.”
As far as your humble servant is concerned, Portman can pack her bags and go back to France–the country where she now resides.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The sprawling new SodaStream factory near Rahat beside Beersheva.
It has not been a particularly good year for the carbonated drink industry. The two industry giants, Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, have seen sales decline. On the Israeli front and on a much smaller scale, SodaStream has also seen downturn in sales. We all know the warnings by now: such drinks can cause obesity, tooth decay, and numerous other health problems.
However, SodaStream has had the added disadvantage of becoming the focus of the BDS movement, targeted because one of its plants was in Ma’aleh Adumim in Area C of Judea. It was targeted in spite of the fact that half of its 1200 workers were extremely well-paid Palestinians, and most of the other half were Israeli-Arabs.
But never mind if Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs were going to lose their employment–the BDSers made SodaStream the centerpiece of their boycott campaign. And, even though the BDS effort only had a marginal impact on sales, SodaStream finally succumbed to the pressure and announced last year that it was closing its Ma’aleh Adumim plant and moving to Beersheva.
Many of the Palestinian workers were (and are) outraged at BDS. One Palestinian manager at the plant recently commented that: “All the people who wanted to close our SodaStream factory are mistaken . . . They didn’t take into consideration the families.”
The last six months have seen the gigantic new SodaStream plant go up and begin operation (your humble servant passed it on his recent trip to Eilat). Next week, the Ma’aleh Adumim facility closes its doors for good.
Remarkably, SodaStream has attempted, with limited success, to get security clearances for the 600 Palestinians to work in the new plant–the government has only approved 130 so far. Those 130 are being bused from Judea to Beersheva everyday at SodaStream expense (a 2 hour ride each way).
But most of the workers at the new plant will be Israelis who live in the area: 300 Bedouins and about an equal number of Ethiopian-Israelis.
However, guess what?
BDS has now announced that it will attempt to close the Beersheva plant down and throw all of these workers out of a job too.
Here’s what Omar Barghouti, the founder of BDS said this week:
“Closing down the SodaStream Ma’aleh Adumim plant is a clear-cut BDS victory against an odiously complicit Israeli company. BDS will continue to target SodaStream because its Beersheva factory is located in an area where Israel has in the past proposed to resettle Bedouin Arabs.”
Actually, Barghouti’s statement is no surprise. For BDS, all of Israel is “occupied territory”, and all of “Jewish Israel” must disappear.
To put it another way, Israel must be ethnically cleansed of all Jews. That is the bottom line position of BDS and bottom line position of those who support BDS.
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.