19 Cheshvan 5779
28 October 2018
Special Notice:
All of Israel was transfixed yesterday by the tragic reports coming out of Pittsburgh. Hours before the final death toll was announced on American television stations or at the White House, Israeli reporters on the scene were reporting that eleven Jews had been murdered.
Israelstreet sends its condolences to the families of the killed, and prays that their memory will be for a blessing.
Pictures of the Day:
The Israeli judo team in Abu Dhabi on Friday with Israel Sports Minister Miri Regev (3rd from left).
Obviously, what is unusual about the above photograph is the unfurling of the Israeli flag in Abu Dhabi. For the first time, Israeli athletes are being permitted to participate with our flag.
Last night, judoka Gili Cohen won a bronze medal–we are looking forward to seeing the Israeli flag raised at the awards ceremony tonight.
PM Netanyahu in Oman meeting with Sultan Qaboos on Friday. Almost as striking as the meeting itself was the fact that Netanyahu was given permission by the Saudis to fly through Saudi airspace to get to Oman.
After the events of the last few days on the Gaza border, many have wondered aloud what would happen if Netanyahu spent as much time in southern Israel as he does gallivanting around the globe.
The News on the Israeli Street and Today’s Blog
“Why doesn’t Israel just say NO!”
Spontaneous anti-government demonstrations erupted across the Gaza border communities last night in such places as Yad Mordechai and at the Nir Am Junction outside of Sderot.
What the people of the south cannot understand is how our government abandoned them once again. What your humble servant cannot understand is how they cannot understand this when it happens every two months or so.
Think back for a moment to the events of Friday and Saturday:
—Hundreds of incendiary balloons were flown into southern Israel causing tens of fires.
—More than 200 grenades and IEDs were thrown at our soldiers on the border on Friday afternoon, evening, and night.
–91 missiles and mortars were fired at the citizens of our border communities in little more than 12 hours.
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This morning Islamic Jihad published a graph detailing what it alone had used attacking Israel:
Just Islamic Jihad, in just 12 hours: 10 Grad missiles, 33 107 mm (Qassam) missiles, and 8 mortar shells.
What would you call all the violence perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists?
A disturbance? An incident? A war? In your humble servant’s opinion, what we just experienced was obviously a “mini-war” which is part of long war of attrition being waged by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
But this is not the way the Netanyahu cabinet sees things. It ludicrously announced yesterday that “quiet” has been restored to the south “without deterioration into war.”
Tell that to the people of Sderot. And Nir Am. And Mefalisim. And Nahal Oz. And all the other communities of the border.
Throughout the events of the weekend, the government and the IDF went to extraordinary lengths once again not to blame Hamas for missiles, border attacks, and balloons. This time, however, they did not blame “lightning” for the missile attacks, but rather Iran and Syria through its proxy in Gaza, Islamic Jihad.
Last night, however, Hamas issued the following ultimatum to Israel: “Send us $15 million dollars by Thursday or we will escalate the attacks on Friday.”
Guess what our security cabinet’s response was?
“We will decide in the coming days.”
Even long time analysts on Israel’s television channels were aghast at this last night–with one of them, Roni Daniel, shaking his head in anger and saying “Why doesn’t Israel just say NO!”
Indeed, why not? How have we let ourselves get into a position where we are willing to be blackmailed?
By the way, two more missiles were launched at southern Israel from Gaza last night: one exploded on launch, and the other exploded in the air–and Israel opened the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Gaza this morning for all “goods.”
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.