15 Adar 5778
2 March 2018
Picture of the Day:
American soldiers landing at Ben Gurion airport late last night as part of Operation Juniper Cobra–a joint U.S.-Israel missile defense exercise. Pardon the slightly blurry telephone picture.
The News on the Israel Street
Palestinian terror in the last 48 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with “rocks” and Molotovs on Route 458 near Mevo Shilo, at the entrance to Karmei Tzur, at Hizma, Tekoa and elsewhere in Gush Etzion, on the Hevron-Gush Etzion Road near Havat Yehuda, and numerous other places.
Elsewhere, terrorists attacked IDF soldiers with an IED near Al-Mu’ayyir, and fired on soldiers near Qalqilya.
Palestinians fighting in Syria . . .
The Palestinian Al Aqsa Brigades leaving Aleppo on their way to Rota. Along with the “Palestinian Liberation Army”, these two groups are being used by Assad on the front lines.
Isn’t it amazing how the Palestinians in Syria, who have been blasted to smithereens by Assad’s forces in their Yarmuk neighborhood of Damascus, are still allowing themselves to be used as cannon fodder by Assad?
They must be waiting for the day when they “return” to Israel. Can you imagine groups like the above on the loose in Judea and Samaria?
The Turkish Navy in the Mediterranean . . .
Turkish PM Erdogan is going all-out to spread his military throughout the Middle East. Of course, things are not going so well for the Turkish Army in Syria where Turkish soldiers have been killed at the rate of 15 per day for the last week.
But it is not merely the Turkish Army that is expanding. The Turkish Navy is trying to establish naval bases from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Just how heavily invested the Turks are in naval power can be seen in the following graphic about the number of attack submarines operated by Mediterranean countries in the Mediterranean Sea:
Note that Turkey has more submarines than Israel and Egypt combined.
No surprise: the overloaded Israel emergency room situation . . .
The Ministry of Health’s annual report describes a situation that we all knew existed–all of us who have been in an Israeli hospital’s emergency room in the last year. On several occasions, your humble servant has blogged about the disastrous emergency room situations involving his mother-in-law.
To summarize the report in one sentence: once a patient arrives in the emergency room, the waiting time to see a doctor is longer, the “space” in which to put the patient more scarce than ever, and the percentage of patients who die in the ERs is increasing (.o7%).
The most overcrowded and understaffed hospital in Israel is Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot—where my mother-in-law is always taken.
TODAY’S BLOG:
A Miscellany of Strange and Important Numbers
Your humble servant has been struck today by the number of numbers in the news–some strange and some important–and none of them really connected.
Here is a list of some of them:
33,000,000: The number of sterile male flies scattered into farmland surrounding Gaza every week by the Israel Agriculture Ministry in an effort to stop the spread the Mediterranean fruit fly–and other flies coming from Gaza.
The dreaded Mediterranean fruit fly which causes millions of dollars of damage each year.
10 shekels: The amount of money that the Palestinian municipality of Beit Lahiya in Gaza is paying people in the town to kill stray dogs: the bounty is 10 shekels per dog.
6 hours: The number of hours that Sarah Netanyahu was interrogated by the police in Case 4000 today; she has now been ludicrously interrogated for nearly 100 hours in various cases, and never charged with anything.
2.5 degrees Celsius: How much hotter February 2018 was in Israel than any other February in the last 100 years except for the years 1941, 1955, and 2010–according to the Israel Meteorological Service.
Prison 4: This is the prison in which our Hevron soldier, Elor Azariya, is being ridiculously held for killing a Palestinian terrorist; today the prison staff published their opinion that Azariya meets the criteria for an “early release.”
16 years ago today: On March 2, 2002, a Palestinian suicide bomber affiliated with the PLO detonated himself outside of a Jerusalem synagogue; 11 Israelis, including an 18-month-old girl were blown to pieces.
15 Adar (1982): 36 years ago today on the Jewish calendar, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook died; Rabbi Kook was a leader of religious Zionism, and his teachings propelled the Jewish community movement in Judea and Samaria where memorial services are being held for him today.
The iconic picture of Rabbi Kook at the Kotel after Israeli paratroopers captured the Old City in 1967. It has been written that Rabbi Kook was responsible for the decision of General Gur to take the Old City and the Temple Mount. Once on the Temple Mount, Kook gave an Israeli flag to paratroopers to put on the Kipat HaSela (Dome of the Rock). Unfortunately, it was almost immediately ordered taken down by Moshe Dayan.
5: The number of members of the European Parliament who attended an event at the Parliament today honoring BDS and its founder Omar Barghouti who repeatedly called Israel an “apartheid state”; the organizer of the event Ana Gomes of Portugal said she was glad the event took place despite the “perverse Israel lobby.”
36: The number of seats that the Likud Party would receive if elections were held today–according to a poll commissioned by the Likud Party; during the last election cycle, an internal Likud poll suggested Likud would win 45 seats–it only won 29.
$350,000,000: The value of the stake in Teva Pharmaceuticals that Warren Buffet has just bought; at the same time, Buffet urged investors to buy $200 million dollars of Israel bonds.
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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.