21 Tishrei 5780
20 October 2019
Chag Sameach (again)!
From Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur to Sukkot, the months of September and October are an endless series of holidays. At sundown tonight, we have the final one in this series: Simchat Torah!
If you are not familiar with this holiday, it involves dancing with the Torah to celebrate the conclusion of the yearly cycle of Torah readings and the beginning of a new cycle.
To all of you who celebrate the holiday, OneIsrael wishes you a very merry celebration!
The News on the Israeli Street
Another horrific highway accident . . .
The car in which the mother and daughter were killed. It is still unclear at this hour how this accident occurred.
All Israel is mourning the latest gruesome vehicle accident. This one occurred out on Highway 6 this morning. A car and a large van collided resulting in the deaths of a 12-year-old girl and her mother.
The mother was eight months pregnant, and emergency crews rushed her lifeless body to a nearby hospital where the baby was delivered. He had no pulse upon delivery but was resuscitated by doctors.
Unfortunately, the prospects for his survival are extremely poor.
And so, the carnage on the roads here continues–with every day bringing another more deaths.
A terrible day for Israelis yesterday . . .
As if the road accident above is not enough, an 8-year-old Israeli boy drowned in a river in New York, a 69-year-old Israeli slipped down a mountain in Switzerland and died when he hit the rocks below, and a 1-year-old infant traveling on an Aeroflot flight from Thailand to Moscow (and then back to Israel) died of respiratory failure despite the pilot making an emergency landing in the Russian city of Kazan.
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
*A knife-wielding terrorist was captured and arrested at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron. Another attempted stabbing was thwarted at the checkpoint just outside Tulkarm two days ago. In that attack, the terrorist was shot and killed by Border Guards.
*A Hamas drone was shot down as it crossed over the Gaza border into Israel yesterday. Hamas is producing increasingly sophisticated drones which have already been used to drop bombs on IDF vehicles and soldiers.
When is a terrorist not a terrorist? . . .
As regular readers of OneIsrael know, the IDF judiciary as well as the Israel State Prosecutor’s Office will go to extreme lengths to avoid calling a terrorist a terrorist.
Most recently, we saw how ridiculous this was in the case of Nirit Zamora who was brutally stabbed in the neck and back by a terrorist yelling “Allayu Akbar.” In that case, the military tribunal outrageously decided it was not an terrorist attack because the knife eventually broke off in Nirit’s back.
Fortunately, this absurd decision was overturned last month.
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Today comes news that the State Prosecutor’s Office does not believe that the brutal rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher earlier this year was a terrorist act despite the fact that the murderer who was captured said he killed Ori because she was a Jew.
Even more than this, the Prosecutor is now questioning those who questioned the murderer to begin with–suggesting that they “induced” him to say it was a “nationalist” attack.
Unbelievable . . . but not surprising.
Egypt leads the Arabs against Turkey . . .
As you undoubtedly know by now, the so-called “ceasefire” quickly concocted by U.S. Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo is no ceasefire at all.
Turkish artillery and aircraft continue pummeling Kurdish positions in northern Syria. There is no indication that they have any intent on stopping any time soon.
To counter Erdogan, Egypt has called an emergency meeting of the Arab League to discuss measures that can be taken against the Turks. The only countries not on board with Egypt are “West Libya”, Somalia, and Qatar–all of which have close connections with Erdogan.
The Egyptian proposal is three part: to implement a tourist boycott of Turkey, to lower diplomatic and economic relations with Ankara, and to actively attempt to support the Kurds.
TODAY’S BLOG
Unity Talks Remain At A Standstill
With no negotiations going on and no flexibility being shown by either Likud or Kahol Levan, there is every reason to believe that PM Netanyahu will return the mandate to President Rivlin today who will, in turn, give Benny Gantz a shot at forming a government.
So here is a breakdown of the future timeline of events (recognizing full well that this could change at any moment):
23 October: Wednesday night at midnight is the last moment for Netanyahu to hold on to the government formation mandate. He could ask for a 3-week extension, but there is no indication that Rivlin would go along.
24 October (could happen sooner if Netanyahu returns the mandate before Wednesday): Rivlin will summon the heads of the political parties back to his residence, and ask for advice on how to proceed. Almost certainly, he will give Gantz the mandate.
25 October: Gantz receives the mandate. However, it is impossible for Gantz to form a 61-seat majority government. It is being speculated that he will try to form a minority government instead: one scenario would have Kahol Levan, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Labor (totaling 47 seats) forming a so-called “coalition” on the basis of an agreement with Joint Arab List that it will remain on the outside but will not vote against the Kahol Levan proposals. Obviously, this scenario seems shaky at best.
5 pm, December 12: This is the day that Attorney General Mandelblit has set as the deadline for announcing whether he will indict PM Netanyahu or not regarding Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000.
11:59 pm, December 12: This would be the moment at which Gantz would have to return the mandate to Rivlin if he is unable to form a government.
And so the beat goes on with no government in sight.
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.