22 Tishrei 5779
1 October 2018
Chag Sameach (Happy Holiday!)
Today the long holiday period that began last month with Rosh HaShana comes to an end with Simchat Torah, the day that marks the end of the annual cycle of Torah readings and the beginning of the new year’s cycle.
Continuing Announcement
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The News On The Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
On the Gaza border:
Another fire caused by an incendiary balloon launched by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. This fire yesterday was one of two just outside Sderot.
The fire above was one 5 reported; the others were at Kissufim, Ein Hashlosha, and Kibbutz Saad.
It should be noted that the balloons drift wherever the wind takes them, and not all start fires–some are now carrying shrapnel-laden explosives. Yesterday the road between Kiryat Gat and Ashkelon was closed while police sappers defused the explosives on a balloon that landed there.
Meanwhile it was another night of violence with more explosives hurled by terrorists at our soldiers manning the Gaza border fence.
In Judea and Samaria:
One IDF soldier was seriously wounded by Palestinian terrorists in the Palestinian settlement of Nahalin. While on a mission to detain a suspected terrorist in a house there, a male IDF officer and two female soldiers entered the house with medical supplies after someone called out that a person in the house needed medical help.
It was an ambush. Several terrorists jumped on the officer and began to strangle him while several more dragged one of the female soldiers to another room. Fortunately, the officer and the soldier were able to escape when the other female soldier opened fire on the terrorists.
Eventually, the terrorists were captured by a second IDF force.
Will it finally happen tomorrow? . . .
Will the illegal Palestinian encampment of Khan al-Ahmar be razed to the ground as ordered by the Israel High Court? Or will Israel somehow cave in again to the European Union and the chorus of self-professed “human rights” activists around the world.
How many more legal petitions do the NGOs operating in Israel and EU lawyers have up their sleeves? How many more threats can they issue? How many more times do we have to hear that our laws and our justice system have no right to determine what happens on our land?
One good sign this morning is that the PLO is reporting that IDF engineering tools (read: bulldozers) have been deployed around the settlement.
Congratulations to Asya Yohani! . . .
Miss Israel and Miss World, Asya Yohani!
Deaf from birth, Ms. Yohani, Miss “Deaf” Israel, won the Miss “Deaf” World Contest held Saturday night in Prague. She lives in Tel Aviv, works at the Nalaga’at Center in Yaffo for the blind and deaf, and at the Children’s Museum in Holon.
Bravo Asya!
A disaster and disgrace . . .
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The shoreline of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) after the most recent Passover holiday. 275 tons of garbage were eventually picked up (photo: Haaretz)..
An ongoing disaster in Israel is the sheer amount of garbage that is littered by Israelis on the streets, on the seashore, and in our national parks.
There is no real explanation for this lack of care about the environment except for a lack of parental education. How many times has your humble servant and wife stopped a mother and father just after their child has thrown garbage on the sidewalk or elsewhere, and told them to tell their children to pick it up?
Too many times to count.
But of course, the main culprits are adults. And the main times that the garbage piles up is after holidays when hundreds of thousands of Israelis go out in nature.
Today comes a report from one of our favorite nature areas at Mitzpe Ramon. If you have ever traveled there, you know that there is a herd of ibexes that wander around the town and on the nearby cliffs–eating everything in sight: paper wrappers, plastic bottles, tossed away clothes–in short everything.
In the last six years, 21 of these beautiful animals have died from intestinal blockages caused by eating garbage thrown on the ground.
It is way past time for the government to crack down on the continuing garbage plague.
A very bad sign . . .
For the second time in the last six months a U.S. federal judge has struck down a law which forbids boycotts against Israel.
This time it was a federal court in Arizona that ruled that boycotting is a protected form of freedom of expression. This ruling follows a previous such ruling in Kansas.
Eventually, one of these cases will arrive at the U.S. Supreme Court which will have to decide on the limits of freedom of speech especially insofar as it intersects with anti-Semitic acts.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Amazing Story Of Israel’s Humanitarian Outreach In Syria
By now, we all surely know that while the Syrian civil war has raged, the IDF medical corps has been busy treating Syrians on the Golan Heights.
Yesterday the extent of the IDF’s help became even more known via an interview with IDF Dr. Lt. Col. Sergey Kotikov with the Maariv newspaper in which he described the “Good Neighbor Program” that ended last month.
Here is part of what he said:
“With few doctors and nurses, limited equipment, the lack of regular water and electricity supplies, and the heavy bombardment, a clinic and maternity hospital was established in southern Syria . . .
[We had] two general surgeons, a gynecologist, two surgical specialists, two midwives, . . . and one manager; hundreds of births were performed in this maternity ward.
This project, which was our largest, has provided a response to 60,000 residents and saved them all sorts of hardships . . . more than 1,300 children were treated and dozens were treated in hospitals in Israel. The IDF’s extensive assistance efforts included food, medical equipment, logistic equipment, clothing and more.
The help we gave over time . . . was not only to instill hope, but also . . . to improve ties.
In the maternity ward, two operating rooms were set up . . . With us, after a child was born, the family received a social security grant and left with a “package”: . . . 400 bags with diapers, pacifiers and hygiene products and food.
At the end of the day, though it’s over, what I’m taking with me is the knowledge that there are several hundred children in Syria who have been born and live on our behalf, and I assume their parents will tell them that . . . [I hope] in the coming years Syrians will talk about the country that was considered an enemy state which decided to reach out to people in trouble.”
Though your humble servant has his doubts about Syrians praising Israelis now or in the future, israelstreet says kolakevod to the IDF for its efforts on our Syrian border.
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.