Yom Shishee
Friday
12 Shevat 5782
January 14, 2022
Photos of the Day and Night
Israel once again has been the scene of some wild and crazy weather with thunderstorms along the coast and snow on Mt. Hermon. One of the more unusual photos you are likely to ever see of lightning:
Lightning bolts appearing to come out of the sun amidst dark clouds and a patch of blue sky! This photo was taken at Haifa University yesterday (photo credit: Gur Ben Kfir).
In the evening in Haifa, the lightning became more conventional:
Two large strikes in the city.
The Revolting “Israeli” Food of the Day
This is what Golani soldiers in Unit 51 were served for lunch today: uncooked and semi-frozen kebabs and hamburgers.
Needless to say the soldiers refused to eat this–the soldier who posted the photo said that he wouldn’t feed it to his dog.
The Protest of the Evening
A protest against the government last night in support of the holdouts at Chomesh. This is in front of the PM Bennett’s residence in Jerusalem.
The News on the Israeli Street
The daily Corona update . . .
Another 48,311 Israelis were verified with Corona yesterday bringing to 259,223 active cases in the country. In other words, 3% of the population of Israel has Corona.
289 Israelis are in serious condition; 72 are in critical condition on ventilators.
8,293 Israelis have died (continuing at a pace of about 10 per day).
Palestinian terror in the last 36 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with Molotovs and “rocks” at Hizma, on Road 55 between Azzun and Karnei Shomron, between Tapuach and Migdalim, Tekoa, Road 446 near Shivatin, Road 60 near La’saviyya, Road 60 near Tel Sheva, and at two dozen other locations.
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli buses at Tekoa, near Peduel, and at Luban a-Sharqiya.
Thank you to Josh at Rescue without Borders SSF/Rescue Judea and Samaria for the above reports.
A plea deal for Netanyahu? . . .
By many accounts, PM Netanyahu has approached Attorney General Mandelblit about the possibility of a plea deal.
According to the same accounts, Netanyahu would agree to be found guilty of breach of trust in Case 1000, but other charges including bribery would be dropped.
The sticking points are the punishment (Mandelblit wants Netanyahu to participate in community service), whether Netanyahu will be forced to leave the Knesset, and when Netanyahu would be able to reenter the politics.
If these reports are true, it would be a dramatic end to the whole Netanyahu saga, and might potentially shake up the government.
But this is a big if. Netanyahu’s family is adamantly opposed to any such deal.
Today’s Blog
A Tale of Two Countries
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
As you know from the special notice posted on Wednesday, your humble servant and his wife traveled from Israel to the United States early Thursday morning (12:55 am Israel time) and arrived in San Francisco also early Thursday morning (6:00 am Pacific Standard Time) after a 15 hour flight on United Airlines.
For the blog today, I want to recount to you the difference between arriving in Israel and arriving in the U.S.
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To begin with, back in May of last year, I wrote a post about arriving in Israel. In it, I noted that once on the ground at Ben Gurion Airport we had to go through a series of checkpoints in the airport that concluded with our getting a PCR test in the airport and going to our home in Ashdod to await, in isolation, the result.
Once that result came, I was supposed to remain in isolation for another 10 days until I could take another PCR test confirming the negative result on the first one. This was because Israel refused to acknowledge the vaccinations I had received in the U.S. The only way to shorten the 10 day quarantine was to take a serological test which I did and by doing so was able to exit quarantine after only 7 days.
Fast forward to this past Wednesday morning.
United Airlines had informed us that the United States requires that all passengers coming to the U.S. produce a negative result on a PCR test taken within 24 hours of takeoff. They sent a link to the CDC website confirming this. They also noted that we would have to produce “proof of vaccination” upon arriving in the U.S.
In Israel, there are basically 3 types of PCR testing locations: one in which you receive a result “in a few days”, one in which you receive a result “in 24 hours”, and one in which you receive a result in 4 hours. Because our flight was departing at 12:55 am and the 24 hour rule, we had to opt for the 4 hour result location.
And the only one available was at Ben Gurion Airport. So on Wednesday morning, we drove from our home in Ashdod to Ben Gurion, had the test and then returned home to Ashdod. By 2:00 in the afternoon, we had the result, and then took a taxi back to the airport at 9:00 pm for the flight. At the check-in counter, we showed the test results, got our boarding passes and boarded the plane.
Once on the plane, we discovered that most of the folks sitting around us had not gotten a PCR test at all–but instead an antigen test–and not necessarily within 24 hours of the flight. To say we were flabbergasted and infuriated was an understatement.
About an hour before arriving at SFO, we got all of our documents together–proof of vaccinations and boosters, and the negative results from our PCR test, and readied ourselves for what we thought would be a grueling ordeal similar to what we experienced when we arrived in Israel last May.
So, we rushed off the plane and were in fact almost the first ones to get to immigration. The conversation went like this:
The smiling young Immigration officer: Where are you coming from?
Our answer: Israel.
Immigration officer: What was the purpose of your stay in Israel?
Our answer: Being with family.
Immigration officer (after scanning our passports and returning them): Please stand in front of the camera (he took each of our photos).
Immigration officer: Welcome back to the States.
And that was it. Not one word about Covid-19, Corona, PCR tests, vaccination proof, or masks.
So after retrieving our 2 suitcases from baggage claim, we headed to the Customs Area thinking that maybe there would be some questions about something. This is the exact conversation we had with the smiling Customs lady:
Customs Lady: Can I ask you a few questions?
Our answer: Of course.
Customs Lady: Are you bringing in any food in your suitcases?
Our answer: Yes, we have some hawaij spice that is a mixture of ginger and cardamom.
Customs Lady: Oh, I’ve eaten that before–it’s really good. Ok. You are good to go.
And through the exit we went, out to meet our son who was there to pick us up.
I’m not really sure what the point of this story is.
We have two countries: one of them is chockful of restrictions and regulations and isolation periods and quarantines. And the other has apparently no restrictions, regulations, isolation periods, and quarantines.
And both of them are overrun with Covid-19.
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.