6 Tishrei 5779
15 September 2018
Picture and Quote of the Day:
Hezbollah fighters pledging allegiance to their leader Hassan Nasrallah. Does this scene remind you of anything?
“We have placed enough explosives to pave all of southern Lebanon with a layer of TNT 10 cm thick.”
A senior Hezbollah commander discussing yesterday how Hezbollah has placed explosive booby traps throughout southern Lebanon to thwart any Israeli ground invasion when the next war breaks out–a war the commander called “inevitable.”
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
It was a day of intense violence along the Gaza Border with repeated attempts by Palestinian terrorists to breach the border fence and kill our soldiers.
In one instance, a group of nine terrorists did break through and destroy IDF equipment in Israel before being pushed back into Gaza.
In another incident, an IDF officer was wounded by shrapnel from an IED and had to be evacuated. Numerous IEDs were placed along the fence all day and had to be neutralized by IDF sappers.
All told, three terrorists were killed.
By the end of the day, Israeli aircraft and tanks were back to striking empty sand dunes and unmanned Hamas observation posts.
Numerous launches of incendiary balloons from Gaza resulted in fires in two kibbutzim in the Eshkol Region. More balloons sailed as far as Kiryat Gat (about 25 km) where they crashed onto a children’s playground.
Good news from Iran . . .
Iran’s Kharg Oil Terminal from which most of its oil is exported.
Especially good news given Iran’s continuing support for terror groups like Hezbollah.
Iran is suddenly having a very difficult time selling its oil. Until two Chinese tankers left Iran loaded with oil on Wednesday, no oil had left Iran for 18 days. Sales have plummeted from an average of 3 million barrels a day to only 1.3 million.
The fact is that American sanctions are hitting the ayatollahs where it hurts–and even those still doing business with Tehran are taking advantage of the situation. Insofar as China is concerned, it has cut back its purchases in order to get a better price from an Iran desperate to sell.
In an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen, Iran is now storing unsold oil on tankers floating beside Iranian terminals in the Persian Gulf.
More good news . . . this time from Turkey . . .
As the Turkish lira continues to plunge in value against the dollar, PM Erdogan announced yesterday that he was suspending all of the major infrastructure projects he recently announced. He also announced that he is considering taking over the Turkish National Bank because of what he says is its “ineptitude.”
Why is this good news? In the same way that Iran uses its oil revenues to fund its terrorism around the globe, so does Turkey use its economic wherewithal to fund its “Erdoganic” Islamism in places such as Gaza, the Sudan, and Syria.
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More good news . . . this time from here in Israel . . .
An architect’s sketch of the new “Sun View” apartment buildings to be built in Beit Shemesh.
For the first time since 2007, housing prices have dropped by half a percent. This may seem minuscule but in a superheated housing market which has seen prices for apartments skyrocket annually by double digits, that half of a percent is a dramatic decline.
By the way, in the Beit Shemesh apartments above (located away from the pricier locations in Jerusalem and along the coast), the cost of apartments ranges from 1,000,000 shekels ($278,000) for a 52 sq meter 1.5 bedroom apartment, to 1,330,000 shekels for a 111 sq meter 3 bedroom apartment to 2,300,000 ($639,000) for a 173 sq meter 3 bedroom duplex.
TODAY’S BLOG:
No Next Year in Jerusalem: The Eurovision Debacle
It was a mere 4 months ago that Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai stood on stage, thanked those who voted for her, and proudly declared:
“Thank you so much for choosing difference, thank you so much for accepting differences between us . . . I love my country, next time in Jerusalem!”
And so we all thought it would be “next time in Jerusalem.”
It is not to be.
In as cowardly a move as we have seen in recent years, Israel has utterly caved in to the Europeans and decided that next May’s extravaganza will be held in Tel Aviv.
Why Tel Aviv? Because it is not “controversial”.
Translated, this means that our eternal capital of Jerusalem is not recognized by the Europeans as our capital.
Apparently, we are too afraid to proclaim it ourselves.
Oh sure, we will see statements like “Tel Aviv is a better choice because it is so cosmopolitan” and “Tel Aviv has better facilities for such an event’ and “Tel Aviv is better because of its reputation for gay rights” (actually a statement uttered this morning), and on and on.
And we will have statements from Eurovision itself saying that Tel Aviv was chosen because the Jerusalem municipality would not guarantee that that rehearsals could take place on Shabbat (isn’t this supposed to be a Jewish country?).
But the bottom line is that our gutless politicians did not stand up for Jerusalem.
It is just plain pathetic.
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.