24 Kislev 5780
22 December 2019
Image courtesy of rotter.net.
Chag Chanukah Sameach!! Happy Chanukah!! The first candle has already already been lit in Israel. OneIsrael wishes all of our readers a very happy holiday full of latkes and souvganiot!
Quote of the Day
“Whoever controls the Temple Mount controls Israel.”
Gilad Erdan speaking at the Chanukah candle lighting at the Western Wall tonight.
How true.
The News on the Israeli Street
Chanukah is in full swing. Here are some photos:
A young Israeli lights the first candle! Note the souvganiot in the plastic container.
The first candle lit at the Western Wall in Jerusalem:
High above the Western Wall Plaza, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon lights the first “candle”.
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon lit the first candle at the Kotel (Western Wall) with representatives from Almagor, the Bereaved Families Organization. Rabbi of the Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz said: “I’m excited to light this first candle with the bereaved families. You are the symbol of valor who have lost the most precious of all for the sake of the country.”
A beautiful sight:
The wonderful Chanukiyot atop the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron tonight.
Five tidbits from around Israel and the neighborhood . . .
*Egyptian officials announced yesterday that Egypt will begin importing natural gas from Israel next month. The goal is to reach 7 billion cu meters by 2022.
*20 F-35 stealth aircraft have already been delivered to the Israel Air Force. Next month, a second squadron will begin to be shipped with the target of all 50 currently on order being delivered by 2024. Lockheed Martin revealed yesterday that it wants the IAF to bring the total order to 100.
*In a rare admission, Russian military sources admitted that the U.S. has successfully intercepted and decoded the operating frequencies of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system. According to the Russians, the Americans accomplished this by flying a P-8 Poseidon airplane over a Russian military base in Syria.
*Israir Airlines’ annual “White December” 72 hour sale began a few hours ago. Round trip tickets will cost $72 to numerous European locations. You can even carry an 8 kg bag with you at no additional cost. However, there are only 72 such tickets available to each location.
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*On the subject of airlines, El Al has just received its 14th Dreamliner from Boeing, but only the second 787-8 aircraft. It comes with 238 seats: Business-20, Premium Economy-35, and Economy 183.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Khan Al Ahmar: A Netanyahu Fraud From The Beginning
Khan Al Ahmar: a hodgepodge of buildings put up by the European Union to create an illegal settlement for Bedouins. It has grown considerably since this photo was taken.
If there was ever a statement that more exemplified the absolute mendacity and cowardice of the Netanyahu government–and at the same time is utterly symbolic of the futile attempt of that government to court the favor of world opinion, it was this statement of FM Israel Katz yesterday to Israel Channel 11 news:
“We are afraid to take action against Khan Al Ahmar because it would be the last straw for the International Criminal Court.”
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane today.
Khan Al Ahmar is an illegal Bedouin settlement located on the north side of Highway 1 as it runs from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea in Area C. It is on territory that legally belongs to Ma’aleh Adumim.
The settlement began as a collection of a few Bedouin tents back in the 1990s. Almost immediately, however, the PLO and the European Union saw a chance to establish facts on the ground and gradually began to “improve” the site in order to attract more Palestinians.
Supplied permanent buildings and other infrastructure–all brazenly imprinted with EU logos, the settlement gradually enlarged until today it is comprised of 257 buildings and about 200 Bedouin–including about 100 children. More Bedouin children from the surrounding area come to Khan Al Ahmar each day to attend a school that was illegally built by a European Union NGO based in Italy.
Immediately after the school was built in 2009, the Netanyahu government announced plans to demolish it and the illegal settlement. The case went to the Israel Supreme Court which ruled that Khan Al Ahmar should be razed.
Endless petitions to the government against the demolition of the settlement have continued since then, with the Supreme Court reaffirming its ruling each time. In the process of all of these legalities, the Netanyahu government spent millions of shekels to build a new site down the road to move the Bedouins to.
And every six months, PM Netanyahu announced that Khan Al Ahmar would be demolished immediately.
But immediately never came.
Today, Katz’s statement shows that Netanyahu’s words were nothing but a fraud. A fraud perpetrated in an idiotic attempt to appease the International Criminal Court so that it wouldn’t charge Israel with the “war crime” of demolishing the illegal settlement.
If experience has shown us nothing else over the years, it is that the more Israel tries to mollify entities such as the International Criminal Court, the European Union, and the United Nations, the more they act against us.
And now we see it again. All of the delays in demolishing Khan Al Ahmar had no bearing whatsoever on the decision of Chief ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to charge war crimes against Israel (still dependent on a decision on ICC jurisdiction).
The entire Khan Al Ahmar situation is absolutely pathetic. The Netanyahu government continues to raze fledgling Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria, but it trembles in fear at the prospect of demolishing an illegal Palestinian settlement.
Where are the Maccabees when we need them?
*This blog was published at 9:00 pm IST/11:00 am PST.
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.