25 Cheshvan 5780
23 November 2019
Photo of the Day
A Border Policewoman stands guard at the steps to the Machpelah (Cave of the Patriarchs) in Hevron yesterday.
Last night was the beginning of the annual “Hevron Shabbat” with tens of thousands of Jews flooding into Kiryat Arba and the Jewish section of Hevron to celebrate Abraham’s purchase of a burial place for his wife Sarah (Genesis 23:1–25:18).
The visitors to the city (approximately 50,000 came last year) are invited into the homes of residents and pitch tents in open areas. Hundreds of Border Police and IDF soldiers have redeployed into Hevron to provide security.
The News on the Israeli Street
Further updates about the Netanyahu indictments . . .
*The Supreme Court is taking up the case of police investigatory methods in Case 4000 over the next few days. This is the most serious of the cases against Netanyahu because it involves alleged bribery. As we have repeatedly reported here, the only witness against Netanyahu in Case 4000, Nir Hefetz, changed his testimony to implicate Netanyahu after the police threatened Hefetz’s family.
*There is a report this morning that a rebellion of sorts is taking place in the Likud Party with an attempt to be made to submit the name of another Likud member (probably Gideon Sa’ar) to the Knesset with 61 signatures to form a new government.
*Numerous politicians have indicated support for Netanyahu in the wake of indictments. Not surprisingly, Avigdor Lieberman has refused to jump on the “bash-Netanyahu” bandwagon, saying that Netanyahu deserves his day in court. In doing so, he is echoing Netanyahu’s support for him when he was under investigation for some ten years.
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists attacked our soldiers along the Gaza Border fence with Molotovs, grenades, and IEDs, and burned tires in the area near Khan Younis.
Palestinian terrorists attacked a Border Police station in Abu Dis with pipe bombs.
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli men, women, and children with “rocks” and Molotovs in Silwan, and at numerous locations in Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley.
Breaking Shabbat . . .
Proudly breaking Shabbat, Mayor of Tel Aviv Ron Huldai poses with one of the new Shabbat buses (photo: Times of Israel).
The cities of Tel Aviv, Givatayim, Kiryat Ono, and Ramat Hasharon have decided to initiate their own free public bus service on Shabbat. The buses will operate every half hour on Fridays between 6 pm and 2 am, and on Saturdays between 9 am and 5 pm.
Consisting of minibuses (capacity of 20 each) running over six lines, the service will reach more than 500 neighborhood centers. An effort will apparently be made to avoid “religious neighborhoods.”
Traditionally, there has been no public transport on Shabbat–though sherut (special) taxis operate between cities.
In your humble servant’s opinion, this is just one more step being taken to undermine Judaism in the country—and to drive a wedge between the religious and non-religious sectors of the population.
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The Lesson That Israel Has Never Learned
Yesterday, the “little King, Jr.” (aka King Abdullah of Jordan) was speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy doing what he always does in international venues–bashing Israel.
In a show of crocodile tears, Abdullah bemoaned the fact that things are just no longer like they were back in the day of his father and Yitzhak Rabin.
In fact, he said that the relationship between Jordan and Israel is “the worst it has ever been.” All of the blame, the little king said, is Israel’s.
In point of fact, he is right.
Let’s explore why.
First of all, things are not the same because the slippery path that Yitzhak Rabin began in signing the so-called “peace treaty” with Jordan has accelerated into a full fledged flood of Israeli concessions.
Just think about what Israel has given in the last year:
*Israel acquiesced when Jordan changed the status quo on the Temple Mount to include the PLO on the ruling Wakf Council.
*Israel has just permitted Jordan to begin refurbishing the mosque in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem that is right beside the Hurva Synagogue–the same synagogue that was dynamited into ruin when the Jordanians took over the Old City and ethnically cleansed it of all Jews back in 1948. By the way, Jordan is actively fighting against Israel refurbishing the Tifereth Synagogue which is located between the Hurva and the Kotel in the Jewish Quarter (it was also dynamited by the Jordanians in 1948). Believe it or not, Jordan is accusing Israel of Judaizing the Jewish Quarter.
*Israel has quietly allowed Abdullah to subvert the spirit of the 1994 peace treaty by kicking out Israeli farmers from Naharayim and Tzofar and exerting Jordanian sovereignty over the area.
*Israel has provided Jordanian farmers and citizens with hundreds of thousands of liters of water from the Kineret to alleviate drought conditions in Jordan.
*Israel has provided Jordan with unspecified military support to prop up Abdullah and suppress “extremists” in the country.
*Israel has given employment to thousands of Jordanians now working in Eilat.
*Israel sustains the Jordanian economy by allowing Jordan to transport its products overland to Haifa where they are then shipped (primarily) to Turkey and Iraq.
*Israel has agreed to provide 45 billion cubic meters of natural gas from its new offshore rigs to Jordan at a huge discount.
So how is Israel to blame?
For being stupid.
How many times does Israel have to get slapped in the face before it realizes that no amount of concessions to Jordan will ever make Jordan happy?
It is the old truism that giving people things does not make them love you; it just makes them hate you more.
Israel has never learned that lesson—not with Abdullah and Jordanians, and not with the Palestinians.
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.