12 Kislev 5779
20 November 2018
Quote of the Day:
“I firmly state that the excess of legalization ties the hands of IDF fighters and endangers the lives of Israeli citizens.”
Naftali Bennett, writing on Twitter this morning
Bennett was responding to a tsunami of criticism he faced yesterday for saying that IDF soldiers are more afraid of the IDF Military Advocate’s Office than they are of the enemy.
Of course, Bennett is absolutely correct.
But his statement yesterday highlights the paralysis that now infects the IDF. This paralysis was most readily seen last week during the 25-hour war with Hamas during which the firing of each artillery shell, the dropping of each bomb, and the firing of each gun had to be approved of in advance by IDF lawyers.
As appalling as this is, you would never believe it reading the attacks on Bennett this morning. One senior IDF official had this to say: Bennett needs to know that Military Advocate General Sharon Afek is doing a lot of things that save IDF soldiers and commanders from a series of unpleasant things in the world.”
Which is precisely the point. The IDF these days is less concerned about waging wars against our enemies than it is about catering to world opinion.
Not surprisingly, our IDF “Caterer In Chief”, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, blathered this absolutely false statement: “The Military Advocate General’s Office is part of the strength of the IDF and helps it shoulder to shoulder with the commanders and fighters to realize its operational mission and win the war.”
The fact is that the Military Advocate General’s Office is making it less likely that we will win the future wars that we will surely face.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
In Judea and Samaria:
One stabbing was thwarted at the Qalandiya Crossing yesterday when alert Border Police spotted a woman moving suspiciously. Yet another stabbing was stopped this morning when Border Guards captured a knife-carrying terrorist at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron.
Elsewhere, Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with “rocks” and Molotovs at Deir Abu Mash’al, El Aruv, Nebi Elias, Abud, near the Tapuach Junction, on Road 443, and at Tekoa among other places.
On the Gaza border:
Thousands of Hamas terrorists attacked the border fence at Zikim yesterday throwing grenades and IEDs at our soldiers.
Quiet has not returned to the South . . .
A disturbing report in the Maariv newspaper from the Gaza Border yesterday.
From a resident of Kibbutz Nirim who is still sleeping with her children in their bomb shelter: “It infuriates me to hear politicians and the army say that quiet has returned to the residents of the south. We have not returned to a normal routine or normal life. Fear still reigns here.”
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From the article: “Many families still suffer from anxiety and sleep in the shelter, elementary school students wet every night in bed, mothers are forced to cut from work at noon because their children are not willing to be alone at home after school – these are just a few examples of what the residents of the South are going through on routine days.”
No more Air B & B . . .
Your humble servant will stop using the Air B & B website as of this morning.
Yesterday, Air B & B succumbed to BDS pressure and removed all 200 apartments in Judea and Samaria from its website with the statement:
“We reached the conclusion that we should remove the apartments that are registered in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which is at the heart of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.”
“Israeli settlements”, “occupied West Bank” . . . the script of this statement was either written in Ramallah or at BDS headquarters.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Thankfully, The Government Coalition Survives For Now
Not surprisingly, Naftali Bennett climbed down out of his tree yesterday (as we predicted several days ago on israelstreet) and said that his Beit Yehudi Party will remain in the government–giving it 61 votes in the Knesset.
As much as your humble servant disagrees with actions taken in the recent war with Hamas, the prospect of a left-wing government is profoundly disturbing. Beit Yehudi should remain in the government if for no other reason than to give Ayelet Shaked one more year as Justice Minister.
Also a bomb is about to drop on Israel.
By all accounts, the Trump Peace Plan is now finished and ready to be published, and it will be the foot that we have been waiting to drop since Trump recognized Jerusalem and moved the Embassy there.
Reports out of Washington yesterday are that the Plan will come in January and when it does it will cause “a political earthquake” in Israel.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the Plan will probably call for (or recognize):
*A Palestinian state in Areas A and B of Judea and Samaria–and also a significant portion of Area C.
*The acknowledgement that eastern Jerusalem is the capital of “Palestine.”
*The internationalization of the Old City of Jerusalem–which would remove the Jewish Quarter, Western Wall, and Temple Mount from Israeli sovereignty.
These three items alone would indeed cause a political earthquake here and necessitates the current government to resist them.
If, as reported, the Plan also calls for no “right of return” for the 5,000,000+ so-called Palestinian “refugees”, there will be a political earthquake in Ramallah as well–and the Plan will go nowhere.
So for now, we are thankful that the government remains intact though we hope that Netanyahu steps aside in the not too distant future and allows some of the young blood in Likud to rise to the top.
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.