18 Shevat 5779
24 January 2019
The News On The Israeli Street
The 16-year-old is absurdly indicted in Samaria . . .
Try to wrap your mind around this dear reader. Every month there are approximately 1,000 Palestinian “rock” attacks against Israeli motorists. Dozens of Israelis are wounded in these attacks, and as we have seen in the last few weeks, some are killed.
Except in the most egregious cases, virtually no attempt is ever made to arrest the terrorists who perpetrate these attacks. Even when a “rock” thrower is arrested, he is usually released in short order because the courts invariably rule that there is no way to prove who threw what “rock”. The Shin Bet security service itself has often remarked that no DNA from a terrorist can be found on a “rock” that he throws.
Yesterday, the Shin Bet working in conjunction with an Israeli court indicted a 16-year-old young man in the case of the death of the Palestinian woman who was killed last October when a rock hit her while she was in her car. This young man was the only remaining person in jail (without a warrant) from the dozen or so Israeli youth who were rounded up by Shin Bet, held in isolation, and interrogated for days without a lawyer being present.
According to the indictment, what is the evidence against the 16-year-old? His DNA is supposedly on the rock (we won’t discuss the absurdity of this claim here).
And what is he being indicted for? Everything under the sun: manslaughter under circumstances of terror, throwing stones at vehicles in aggravated circumstances, and intentionally sabotaging a vehicle in circumstances of terror.
Unbelievable.
What is more, Shin Bet came out this morning and declared that the suspect is absolutely guilty—despite the fact that the indictment has just been filed, and a trial is months away. Here was the Shin Bet statement: “In view of the manipulative claims currently being made by interested parties, and according to the indictment, it should be said that this is a terrorist attack in every respect.”
Such is the sad state of the Israeli justice system these days. Every Jew accused of anything in Judea and Samaria is tried and found guilty before they ever have a chance to defend themselves in a court of law.
Speaking of indictments . . .
There is every reason to believe that PM Netanyahu will soon be indicted in Case 4000–the one in which he is accused of giving government favors in return for favorable media coverage.
A gofundme page has been opened by a Likud party member for Netanyahu’s defense. In the first few days, about 60,000 shekels have been raised toward a goal of 1,000,000 shekels.
One wonders if that goal will be reached.
The Red Sea to Dead Sea project runs into extreme turbulence . . .
The way it was supposed to be.
From the outset, what seemed like a wonderful idea also seemed highly problematical to your humble servant. On the one hand, creating a canal/pipeline from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea along with a major desalination plant would apparently have great benefits: the Jordanians would get badly needed water; the Israeli Negev might also receive badly needed water; and the Dead Sea might also be replenished.
However, as the map above abundantly shows, the main problem is that the entire pipeline-canal would be in Jordan from the moment the water is first pumped out of the Red Sea at Aqaba to the moment that the briny effluent is pumped into the Dead Sea. This fact alone put the entire project at the whim and control of the Jordanians, and as we have seen in recent months, Jordan can abrogate a treaty with Israel or treaty options at any time it desires.
More than this, the entire financial arrangement was skewed: Israel would pay an exorbitant price for the desalinated water (twice what it pays for water from our own desalination plants) that would flow to the Negev whereas Jordan would get a cutrate discount on water pumped out of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee).
What has happened is that Israel has finally realized all of this–and has come to the conclusion that the price for this giveaway to Jordan is not worth the estimated $1 billion dollars it will cost us.
Nevertheless, in order to maintain regional stability (read “prop up King Abdullah”), Israel has apparently decided to support the project with the outrageous caveat that should Jordan decide to withdraw from the project, Israel will double the amount of water that Jordan can take from the Kineret.
Yes, you read that correctly.
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Our government has agreed to supply Jordan double the amount of water from our national lake which is already at historic lows.
Incredible.
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Slimy Hamas Blackmail Fiasco Just Got Slimier
“We decided to try again to prevent confrontation. The government’s policy has proven itself: keeping the border quiet while avoiding large-scale military operations.”
Yariv Levin, member of Netanyahu’s cabinet, absurdly attempting to explain to reporters why the government decided to go ahead with paying another $15 million dollars in blackmail money to Hamas
Of course, the government’s policy has proven to be nothing but appeasement to Hamas–never more illustrated than by this Cabinet decision to pay the blackmail. There is no quiet on the border, just a never ending series of violent attacks orchestrated and perpetrated by Hamas.
After Levin made his statement this morning, another statement was issued saying that the money was being turned over today because Hamas had been “quiet” in the last 24 hours.
Let’s review the last 36 hours for a moment.
1. A Hamas sniper fired at IDF troops on the border. One IDF officer was hit in the head. Miraculously, his helmet saved him–though he remains in the hospital.
2. The IDF responded by destroying a Hamas outpost located in the sand dunes along the border fence. One Hamas terrorist was killed because he ignored the IDF’s warning that the outpost was going to be hit and stayed while all the other terrorists got out.
3. Hamas threatened retaliation for the terrorist’s death, but has not shot any missiles at southern Israel yet.
This lack of shooting is what the IDF General Command and Netanyahu government call “quiet.” It is a “quiet” that could explode at any moment–and, indeed, the IDF is rushing to position more Iron Domes all over the South and around Tel Aviv at this very moment.
All of the above became even more bizarre this morning when the Qatari Ambassador arrived in Gaza without a suitcase full of $15 million dollars in cash. According to one report, he had agreed with Israeli officials that all payments to Hamas will now be directly funneled through the Israel Ministry of Finance. In other words, Qatar will turn the $15 million dollars over to Israel, and Israel will turn over the money to Hamas.
Hamas immediately rejected being paid the $15 million dollars in this way saying that it will not take money from the “Zionist occupier” and will not get paid at the whims of Netanyahu who will pay or not pay money according to what is better for him in the current electoral process.
Aside from all of that, Hamas now claims that Qatar was supposed to pay $30 million dollars in this third round of payments instead of $15 million dollars.
Hamas finished off its statements today by claiming that Israel is violating the “truce” agreement, and therefore it will resume all of its activities which were taking place before the “truce” came into force (attacking the fence and shooting missiles). The reality, as we all know, is that those activities never stopped.
As we titled today’s blog, the entire situation is an utter fiasco. Israel should have never gone along with this slimy process to begin with, and with each passing day, we seem to be sliding further into the blackmail abyss.
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.