4 Tivet 5780
1 January 2020
Happy New Year From Israel!
The Photo of the Day:
Take a close look at this slightly blurry photograph of a marcher in Ramallah yesterday.
The marcher was part of a parade celebrating the anniversary of the formation of the PLO. You will notice an imprint of Yasser Arafat on the man’s sweatshirt. More importantly, note the thumb on his right hand. It is ready to detonate the suicide belt that the man is supposedly wearing.
This is the New Year’s message from the PLO: “Get ready for suicide bombers.”
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours in Judea and Samaria . . .
Shavei Shomron, Al Fawwar, Tekoa, Mt. Hevron, Adam, Hizma, Beit El, Halhul, Einav, and Luban a-Sharqiya: these were but 10 of some two dozen locations at which Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis yesterday with Molotovs, “rocks”, and IEDs.
Israeli-Arabs consort with terrorists . . .
Note the source of this photo in the upper right hand: Adalah.
What are we looking at?
The infamous Adalah organization, which in the past has been funded by such entities as the New Israel Fund, actually arranged for uber-terrorist PFLP leader Abd al-Razak Farage to meet with Israeli-Arab students. Those students and Farage are who you see in the picture above.
You might remember that Farage is currently under indictment and awaiting trial for coordinating the murder of 17-year-old Rina Schnerb last summer at the Dolev Spring while her family was on a picnic.
At the time she was murdered, the PFLP praised the murderers for a “heroic operation” that eliminated a “Zionist soldier” (Rina) and wounded “Zionist settlers” (her brother and father).
The new IDF multi-strike unit . . .
IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi revealed a new unit in the IDF yesterday–an elite “multi-dimensional” unit that is culled from all branches of the IDF.
Division 98 paratrooper soldiers combined with armored personnel and engineers will be the heart of the unit which will use newly developed battlefield weapons.
According to Kochavi, this new unit is unique and cannot be found in any other army.
If IDF estimates are correct, the first place where this unit is likely to see action is on the northern front.
Iran’s economy is in the toilet . . .
This according to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani who said in a speech that the U.S. sanctions on Iran have cost the country around $200 billion in lost oil revenues.
The fact that the economy continues to go south is probably one of the reasons for the attack on American forces in Iraq this past week.
If you saw the television images streaming out of Baghdad yesterday from the American Embassy there, you surely noted that most of the flags being waved by “protesters” were the yellow flags of Iranian proxy Hezbollah.
Bad news at Ben Gurion Airport . . .
This morning, McDonalds returned to the airport after a nine year absence.
There will actually be two McDonalds–one in Terminal 3 which is open 24 hours a day and one in Terminal 1 which cannot sell hamburgers.
All of this is bad news.
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As your humble servant has previously written, the owner of the McDonalds franchise in Israel supports the boycott against Judea and Samaria. For this reason, I refuse to eat at McDonalds.
Wind turbines come to the Golan . . .
The Energy, Security, and Finance Ministries have signed an agreement with the Israel Electricity Company to build hundreds of wind turbines in the Golan at a cost of 250 million shekels.
Is this a good development?
Your humble servant is not so sure. The amount of energy produced by the windmills will be, relatively speaking, miniscule, and the danger to the eagle population in the area will likely be catastrophic. And this does not even take into account how the beautiful views in the Golan will be distorted.
Also on the environmental front . . .
Israel’s Merkerot Water Company has received approval to embark on a project to supply desalinated water to the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). This project will take years to complete as it involves building a desalination plant along the Mediterranean and then piping the water to the lake.
While this may all seem like a wonderful development, the actual result will be that more water will be drained out of the Kineret for agriculture in Jordan and in Israel.
The U.N. results are in . . .
What countries had resolutions passed against them by the U.N. General Assembly in 2019?
Iran had 1, Myanmar 1, Iraq 1, Syria 1, North Korea 1, the U.S. 1, and Russia 2.
Oh yes, we forgot to mention Israel which had 18.
Nothing changes at the violently anti-Israel United Nations.
TODAY’S BLOG
Immunity For Netanyahu? Not A Chance
So the question was finally answered this evening–about 4 hours before the deadline.
PM Netanyahu has officially asked for immunity from prosecution on the three indictments filed against him in Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000. The immunity he seeks is a “temporary immunity”; should he receive it, it would be immediately removed when the Knesset dissolves.
But there’s the rub.
The Knesset is not exactly in session, and as we have written previously, the next step is for the Knesset’s House Committee to take up the immunity request.
But guess what?
There is no House Committee, and no prospect for creating one in the near future. In the first place, Speaker Yuli Edelstein would have to be the one to create it, and he is traveling outside of Israel. In the second place, who would be on such a committee would be subject to intense debate.
Assuming that at some point a House Committee is formed, the next step would be for the Committee to decide whether to approve Netanyahu’s request or not. In the current political climate in Israel, such approval would probably not happen.
However, if the House Committee approved the request, then it must be approved by the entire Knesset–where there is no way that Netanyahu could possibly get 61 votes for approval.
So where does all of this leave us?
It seems to your humble servant that all Netanyahu is doing now is engaging in gamesmanship by hoping to delay things at least until the election on March 2. He must know that he will never receive immunity.
One last note. In Israel, there is always an unknown variable called the Israel Supreme Court. At any moment, it can step in and declare that Netanyahu cannot form a coalition after a new election because he has been indicted. It could even decide that Netanyahu cannot run in the election. The fact is that the justices on the Court believe they can do anything they want to.
Meanwhile, we all wait.
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.