Yom Reva’ee
Wednesday
3 Shvat 5783
January 25 2023
The Quote of the Day
“We all care about the State of Israel. We are all committed to the State of Israel. Discover responsibility . . . Take the time necessary for this critical discourse [about legal reform]. Turn to the talks – with an open heart and a willing soul. The lack of communication – is tearing us apart from the inside, and I tell you clearly: this barrel of explosives is on the verge of exploding. This is an emergency time, and the responsibility – lies with us.”
The last paragraph of a speech given yesterday by President Herzog.
As well meaning as the speech was, it absolutely describes the problem. Who is it that is tearing us apart from the inside? Who is it that is wielding the barrel of explosives? Who is it that is unwilling to engage in critical discourse?
Does anyone see conservative protesters in the street waving signs calling those on the “left” Nazis?
Does anyone see conservative protesters in the street flanked by PLO flags?
In fact, does anyone see conservative protesters in the street at all?
Funded by such entities as the New Israel Fund, it is the “left”, the ideological home of President Herzog, that is doing all it can to explode our democratically elected government even as PM Netanyahu and Justice Minister Levin repeatedly call on its leaders to engage in critical discourse about legal reform–a call that they ignore because it is not legal reform that they want to eradicate, it is the Netanyahu coalition.
The News on the Israeli Street
The U.S. State Department launches another missile . . .
No day passes without another blast against Israel from the podium at Biden’s State Department. Yesterday it was: We call on Israel to refrain from any unilateral measures, including land annexation and house demolition.
Lest we forget (because the Biden Administration obviously has), house demolitions are not unilateral measures, they are measures taken in response to Palestinian terrorists murdering and trying to murder Israelis. As for annexation of land in Area C of Judea and Samaria, that land is our ancestral homeland.
Ben Gvir acts to empower the police . . .
As we all know, the crime situation in the Arab-Israeli towns and cities grew completely out of control during term of the Bennett-Lapid-Gantz government. Hardly a week went by that the mayors and town councils of those localities did not plead with the government to do something–especially to increase the number of police on the streets.
Yesterday, Minister of National Security, Itaman Ben Gvir did exactly that as he announded an increase in police officers’ salaries and the recruitment of 4000 new officers.
As he noted in doing so, it will take time to turn the crime situation around, but these steps are a beginning.
TODAY’S BLOG
King Abdullah’s Outrageous “Request” Yesterday
The Al Fakhariyya minaret on the Temple Mount.
As you have probably read, PM Netanyahu made an unannounced visit to Amman yesterday to meet with King Abdullah.
The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to discuss regional stability especially in regard to Iran. However, the real reason for the meeting may have been to discuss the utter lack of stability of King Abdullah’s Hashemite regime.
Abdullah apparently said that he did not want to see Itamar Ben Gvir on the Temple Mount again so that anti-Abdullah forces would not be aroused in Jordan.
Say what? Our own Minister of National Security cannot visit a part of Israel for fear of civil unrest in Jordan?
Then, Abdullah declared that he wants to maintain the status quo on the Mount; however, he then unbelievably asked Netanyahu if Jordan could build a 5th minaret–the King Hussein Minaret–on the Mount. Here is a despot who has trashed Israel in every conceivable venue asking if he can make the most dramatic change in the status quo on the Mount in six centuries.
Perhaps a short history lesson is in order.
As you may not know, the first minaret ever built on the Temple Mount was the Al-Fakhariyya minaret (pictured above) at the junction of the western and southern walls of the Mount. It was not built when the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Kipat HaSela (Dome of the Rock) were constructed in 690 CE. That minaret was built by the Mamluk Sultan Lajin in 1278 almost 600 years later.
Likewise, Sultan Lajin ordered the building of the Bani Ghanim Minaret in the same year. In 1329, the Mamluk governor of Syria, Tankiz ordered the construction of the 3rd minaret, the one at the Chain Gate. The 4th and last minaret was built in 1367 at the Tribes Gate.
Now 694 years later, King Abdullah wants to build a 5th one–one that he has already said would be the highest one on the Mount.
Why is Abdullah bringing this outrageous proposal back again now (he made a similar proposal over a decade ago).
Simply put, in the face of a disastrous economic situation in Jordan, daily demonstrations against the government, protests from the Bedouin tribes, Abdullah is desperate for some achievement–similar to what happened when Abdullah’s father Hussein sold his mansion in London and took the money to replace the gold in the dome of the Kipat HaSela. That replacement was met with wild celebrations in Jordan.
Abdullah may need celebrations–but certainly not at our expense on our Mount.
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.