13 Nissan 5779
18 April 2019
Picture of the Day
U.S. Ambassador David Friedman at Kfar Chabad in Israel this morning cooking matzot for Passover which begins at sundown tomorrow.
The News On the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours in Judea and Samaria . . .
Palestinian terrorists carried out numerous terror attacks ranging from throwing “rocks” and Molotovs at soldiers manning the north Efrat intersection to riots at Tekoa to an attack on a bus at Yehuda Farm on Route 60 and cars on Road 443 near Beit Horon.
About that peace treaty with Jordan . . .
Once again, internationally described “moderate Jordan” reveals that it is anything but.
This morning, around 200 Israeli tourists who intended to holiday in Aqaba were blocked from entering the country at the border crossing just north of Eilat. According to the Jordanians, any Israeli entering the country must now be accompanied by an official Jordanian guide.
Stop and think about the sheer ludicrousness of the fact that Jordan will not allow Israeli tourists into the country except under severe restrictions while at the same time Israel allows hundreds of Jordanians to come to Eilat to work in hotels, restaurants, and other places. Once in Eilat, those Jordanians can wander around as they please.
If all of this is not enough, here is a picture from a Jordanian Airlines map that was taken yesterday during a flight:
Notice anything missing?
Here we are decades after a peace treaty was signed between Israel and Jordan–and decades after Jordanian Airlines began flying daily into Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, and Jordanian Airlines–the official airlines of the Kingdom of Jordan–will not put Israel on its in-flight airline map.
Just plain disgusting.
No global warming this Spring in Israel . . .
According to the Israel Meteorological Service, March and April (so far) have been nearly 3 degrees C. cooler than average.
In fact, this is the coolest early Spring in Israel since 1997.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Israel’s Increasing Population Density: More Than 9 Million People!
According to statistics just released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel now has 9,020,000 people living in the country.
Not 9 million Jews and not 9 million citizens–9 million people living in the country.
Actually more than 9,000,000.
Here is the breakdown:
6.8 million Jews (75%)
1.9 million Israeli-Arabs (21%)
300,000 “others” (those without “ethnic status”)
The Bureau notes that in addition to the above, there are:
114,000 legal foreign workers
100,000 infiltrators, refugees, and migrant workers
67,000 “tourists” who have overstayed their visas
The Bureau concludes its report by saying that Israel’s population will reach 10,000,000 by the end of 2024.
Think about that for a moment. Ten million people in a tiny country.
Israel has always welcomed new citizens to the country; however, in the last few years, Israel has begun feeling the pressure of intense population density. According to a World Bank report at the beginning of 2018, Israel was at that time the 27th most dense “territory/country” in the world with 402.606 people per square mile.
It is absolutely imperative that the Israeli government actively attempt to spread our population out into peripheral areas such as the Galilee and the Negev.
Interestingly, the Chairman of the Jewish National Fund, Danny Atar, commented yesterday that the goal of the JNF is to have 500,000 Jews in the Galilee and 1,000,000 Jews in the Negev in the coming years.
We sincerely hope that the JNF is successful.
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.