19 Tevet 5778
6 January 2018
The News on the Israel Street
A huge winter storm hits Israel . . .
There is flooding throughout the country; these numbers are from the Israel Water Authority:
*between 70 and 90 ml of rain have fallen so far in the Carmel and Western Galilee.
*around 50 ml has fallen in the Upper Galilee and Golan.
*the Kineret has risen by 3 cm to a height of 214.31 meters.
*There has been heavy snow on Mt. Hermon, and the ski resort there is open for business.
The rain is continuing. And it is all good–especially the rain that hits drought-stricken northern Israel.
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
There have been multiple incidents on the Gaza border today.
A Palestinian terrorist is believed to have breached the border fence and is currently loose in the Eshkol region. A manhunt is underway.
Two more terrorists were captured as they attempted to cross the fence, and another terrorist was shot as he was throwing an IED at our soldiers.
There are ongoing riots along the fence in the area of Khan Younis.
More Palestinian destruction of Jewish antiquities . . .
Channel 2 in Israel has published a report documenting the wholesale destruction of ancient Jewish sites in Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria. There are an estimated 3000 sites across the green line, and the report details how these site are being systematically looted–and destroyed.
In addition to making money from antiquities sales, the Palestinians are attempting to bolster their fraudulent narrative that there were never any Jewish sites there to begin with.
The investigations of PM Netanyahu drag on . . .
It became excruciatingly true over the last year that the police are feeding the news media accusations against the prime minister, one by one by one. No accusation has been proved, but it is just a steady drip, drip, drip of accusations.
The latest accusation yesterday was that Netanyahu “may” have received $50,000 worth of Italian suits from Jewish financier Spencer Partridge. Again there is no proof whatsoever, but the Israeli media is all too happy to report each accusation as if there were.
To top all of this off, the investigations, which were supposedly reaching their end, have now been extended another four months.
They will never end.
The dollar continues to drop . . .
The exchange rate today of 3.4345 shekels to the dollar is the strongest the shekel has been in nearly 7 years.
At some point, the Bank of Israel will be forced to intervene; if not, Israeli exports will grind to a halt.
TODAY’S BLOG
Lorde Brings Out All the Anti-Semites
Trust him when your humble servant says that he didn’t want to write about this today. In the great scheme of things, who cares if a two-bit singer from New Zealand decides to back out of a June concert engagement in Israel because of threats from BDS?
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, aka Lorde, is a dual citizen of New Zealand and Croatia. In canceling the concert, Lorde wrote that she was responding to many of her fans (read “BDS”): “Noted! Been speaking w many people about this and considering all options. Thank u for educating me i am learning all the time too.”
Later, the “uneducated” Lorde issued this statement: “I’ve received an overwhelming number of messages & letters and have had a lot of discussions with people holding many views, and I think the right decision at this time is to cancel the show. I pride myself on being an informed young citizen, and I had done a lot of reading and sought a lot of opinions before deciding to book a show in Tel Aviv, but I’m not too proud to admit I didn’t make the right call on this one.”
What unadulterated horse manure.
Here you have a 21-year-old spineless person with an obvious tendency toward anti-Semitism who didn’t have the inclination or the courage to stand up to BDS threats.
And so it would have remained unreported here had not a letter appeared today supporting Lorde signed by 150 self-proclaimed “artists.” The letter was written after an ad was taken out in the Washington Post by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach which expressed the sentiment of many supporters of Israel.
Here’s what the “artists” had to say:
“We write in support of Lorde, who made public her decision not to perform in Israel and has now been branded a bigot in a full page advertisement in the Washington Post.
Shmuley Boteach, the author and promoter of the advert, supports Israel’s illegal settlements and wrote last month on Breitbart to thank Donald Trump for “electrifying the world” with his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in defiance of international law.
He has nothing to teach artists about human rights. We deplore the bullying tactics being used to defend injustice against Palestinians and to suppress an artist’s freedom of conscience. We support Lorde’s right to take a stand.”
Here are a few of the 150 signers whose names you might recognize:
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Julie Christie, John Cusack, Angela Davis, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Ken Loach, Viggo Mortensen, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Walker, Roger Waters
(You might remember these names the next time you attend a concert or watch a movie featuring one of these.)
But back to the letter.
Note how the letter ostensibly supporting Lorde quickly turns into a diatribe against what the letter writers term “illegal settlements,” . . . “recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in defiance of international law” . . . and “injustice against Palestinians.” It is textbook BDS.
Lorde is indeed a bigot as are her supporters.
No doubt, all of this attention will only increase the sales of Lorde’s music and attendance at her concerts, but as for your humble servant, you can count on the fact that I will be out in Sacramento on March 12, protesting her concert.
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.