UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Wednesday, September 9 2015
**The daily Palestinian terror report . . .
Palestinian terrorists sprayed two buses with gunfire near Maale Adumim at 8:38 pm last night. The driver of one bus was wounded but managed to continue driving to a hospital.
The front windshield of one of the buses hit by gunfire last night at Maale Adumim. Note the bullet hole just under the light of the oncoming vehicle and all of the pockmarks in the windshield.
Severe “rock” throwing incidents occurred all day yesterday including terrorists throwing “rocks” at vehicles near Gilad (11:29 am), the Hussan bypass road (1:48 pm), near Ma’ale Adumim (5:13 pm), and at Havat Gilad (6:18 pm).
Do you ever wonder why your humble servant always puts “rock” in quotation marks? Simply so you won’t think we are talking about “pebbles” or “small stones”. If you see the word “rock”, it could refer to “concrete blocks” or even something larger, such as what was rolled onto Route 60 near Hizma yesterday in an effort by Palestinian terrorists to crush Israelis in a passing car:
A “rock” attack yesterday.
**Hi ho hi ho, it’s blindly over the cliff we go . . .
Led by a President and Secretary of State hell-bent on embracing a terrorist Iran and making it a terror superpower, the Democratic party cannot even muster 4 senators out of its 44 to oppose Obama.
The count of U.S. Democratic lemmings (aka Senators) who support the “Democratic Iranian Appeasement Agreement” has now reached 41 virtually ensuring that the anti-Agreement resolution will not pass the Senate. In other words, Democrats will now have the 40 votes necessary to talk the resolution against the Agreement to death.
That is fitting and pathetic epitaph to this part of the Agreement story.
What history will remember is how virtually no Democratic senator had the courage to stand up for what is right.
**Doesn’t this picture say it all?
The rush to Tehran continues. The Austrian President and his wife arrived in Iran yesterday to explore ways to increase the ties between the two countries.
What can you say?
How long will it be until the President of Austria and wife actually are Muslims?
Your humble servant predicts it will happen in a generation or less.
**And the population of Israel is . . .
As the new year approaches this weekend (Sunday night is Rosh Hashana), Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported yesterday that there are now 8.412 million people living in Israel–having grown by 158,000 in the last twelve months.
Some interesting facts:
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–168,000 babies were born in Israel in the past 12 months, and 42,000 people died.
–32,000 new people came to Israel including 28,000 new citizens. Of the 28,000, 26% were from the Ukraine, 25% from France, 21% from Russia, and 9% from the United States.
Most interestingly, Jews now make up 6.3 million of the total population (74.9%) while Arabs make up 1.746 million (20.7%). “Other residents” make up 366,000 residents (4.4%). Of these three groups, the only group that grew percentage-wise since last year is “other residents”.
The percentage of Arabs in the country has now stabilized and will begin decreasing. Why?
A picture posted on Facebook yesterday. The caption reads: “A religious family of 16 boys in Israel (two sets of twins, and one set of triplets). By the way, the mother of these 16 boys is pregnant again.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The big news yesterday and today in Israel has been weather and taxes.
Where is Israel? Under a massive cloud of dust (picture: NASA).
This is the worst dust storm coming out the Syrian and Iraqi deserts in the last 75 years. All domestic air travel has been halted. Older and younger people are advised to stay indoors as is anyone who has trouble breathing.
Your humble servant’s daughter took this picture in south Tel Aviv yesterday afternoon:
Where is the Tel Aviv skyline? Somewhere in the background.
Here’s a picture taken by one of my friends here in Ashdod at noon yesterday:
The caption reads: “I don’t know what G-d is cooking for us but he used too much turmeric!” Note that cars have their lights so they can be seen through the yellow haze.
The problem is that the sandstorm is being accompanied by high temperatures (in the 90s F) and high humidity (between 60% and 70%).
Meanwhile, the push by the Netanyahu government to reduce taxes was ramped up yesterday. Following reduction in the VAT tax and corporate taxes last week, huge cuts were made at midnight last night in the cost of beer, wine, and liquor.
The tax on beer has decreased by 46% while that on liquor has decreased by 21%.
All of this is the work of the Finance Minister, Moshe Kahlon, who promised to lighten the tax load on ordinary Israelis when he took office.
By the way, the alcohol tax reductions are particularly welcome today. Everyone is shopping for the Rosh Hashana holiday, and everyone is stocking up on wine and spirits.
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.