8 Sivan 5778
22 May 2018
Quote of the Day:
“The world powers have abandoned us. China of seven years ago is not the China of today. China played the Iranian card in its recent trade talks with the United States. Russia played its Iranian card in Syria. Our only supporters now are the Europeans because they are blinded by money. They will forgive anything as long as they have a fistful of dollars.”
Ali Khorram, former Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations, as quoted in the publication Faruk.
They will forgive anything as long as they have a fistful dollars. Even the Iranians know that the Europeans are morally bankrupt.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
*There was a major breach of the Gaza border fence. A group of Palestinian terrorists made it into Israel and destroyed an IDF sniper position which was empty at the time. The IDF responded by destroying a Hamas observation post with tank fire.
*Immanuel, Beit Ummar, Deir Istiya, Funduk, Karnei Shomron, El Aruv, Silwad, the Uzi Narkiss Junction, Kiryat Arba, Curve 160 outside of Hevron, and Tekoa: these were a few of the locations where “rock” and Molotov attacks were carried out by Palestinian terrorists yesterday.
A number of Israelis were wounded in the above attacks, most seriously in the attack at Uzi Narkiss where a bus passenger was badly wounded by a “rock” and shattered glass which struck her in the face.
*The Farsa Junction, Talmonim: in these locations, Palestinian terrorists carried out shooting attacks on Israeli motorists. Miraculously no Israelis were wounded.
No love for Americans . . .
An American delegation in Bethlehem was assaulted by Palestinians who attempted to destroy the vehicle they were riding in, and failing that, jumped up and down on the car and smashed eggs all over it.
So why hasn’t Israel severed all ties with Turkey? . . .
Your humble servant has wondered about this recently on israelstreet. The answer became crystal clear today.
It was revealed this morning that 75% of Israel’s crude oil is supplied from Turkey, and 27% of Israel’s jet fuel in 2018 has been supplied from Turkey.
Take a look at the following which illustrates how clandestine this Turkish-Israel oil supply line has become:
Note that the ship Poliegos, sailing under flag of the Marshall Islands, left the Turkish port on May 19, and offloaded in Ashkelon.
This morning, Turkish prime minister and world class anti-Semite Taycip Erdogan, said that he is considering cutting all economic ties with Israel.
Whether he will do so is debatable. Obviously, he is using the money he gets from oil sales to further his meglomaniacal intentions in such places as Bosnia (see this previous israelstreet blog).
The water situation worsens in Israel, again . . .
Just when we all thought that Israel’s water problems were solved, the Israel Water Authority began a public campaign today to save water. Specifically, all Israelis are being urged to take shorter showers and dramatically reduce watering of lawns. Cities are being ordered to cut watering of public landscaping.
So what happened?
Jordan.
For the last few years, your humble servant has been lambasting the government for selling Israeli water to Jordan at cut-rate prices. Israel is now supplying 50 million cubic meters of water per year to Jordan. Even with our world class desalination facilities, a five year drought has rendered Israel incapable of meeting all of its water needs because of the supply line to the Jordanians.
More desalination plants are in the works, the largest of which will produce 100 million cubic meters of water per year–but they will not be built and go into operation until several years from now at the earliest.
Meanwhile, we will shower less and watch our yards and parks turn brown.
Israel receives world condemnation while Egypt gets a pass . . .
In yesterday’s blog we discussed how the Egyptian Army has just completed a 13 km long, 3.5 mter high barbed wire fence around the Egyptian city of Rafah on the Gaza Border.
Nobody in the world has said a word.
Today comes a satellite photo/graph that shows what is really going on in Rafah. As you can see, the city is being systematically destroyed:
Note that the above map is of the northeastern Sinai. Where the words “Northern Sinai” appear above is actually the Mediterranean Sea.
So, what are you looking at? The gray area is the Egyptian buffer zone in which every house, building, apartment building, and shelter is being destroyed.
The units in “black” are what were destroyed between July 2013 and January 14, 2018. The units in “red” are the 3600 residences that have been destroyed between January 15, 2018 and today.
Note the Rafah Gate Crossing which has now been opened by the Egyptians for Ramadan. What does a Palestinian from Gaza see when he or she walks through the crossing into Egypt?
Utter destruction.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Israeli Stealth F-35 Has Become Operational!
Amazing Revelations by Israel Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin
An Israeli F 35 stealth aircraft.
The F 35 fact sheet:
The F-35 fact sheet (picture source on photo).
In an amazing speech today, Israel Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin made several startling revelations:
“The F-35 squadron has become an operational squadron. We are flying the F-35 all over the Middle East.”
In the process of revealing this, Norkin remarked that Israeli F-35s now fly over Beirut “in broad daylight.”
Norkin went on to describe what happened recently in Syria:
“After that [the Iranian attack] we attacked over 20 Iranian targets in Syria. Unfortunately, Syrian air defense systems fired over 100 antiaircraft missiles at our planes and in response we destroyed their antiaircraft batteries.”
Yes, “unfortunately” for them.
As for ongoing operations, Norkin declared:
“We are continuing with our operational mission against the arming of Hezbollah and Iranian moves to establish themselves in Syria. As far as we are concerned, anywhere we identify consolidation [of Iranian forces] or the introduction of weapons, we act.”
Norkin concluded: For the first time, we are starting to realize the full potential of this [F-35] platform.
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.