18 Shevat 5780
13 February 2020
The Telling Comment of the Day
“We have no contact with Israel. We are standing alongside Palestine with all of our might.”
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir
For all the talk about a moderate Saudi Arabia and for all the talk about warming ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem, we get comments like this one which show that nothing has changed.
It should be also noted that Saudi Arabia was conspicuously absent at the rollout of the Trump Peace Plan in Washington last month. Representatives from Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates were there, but none from Saudi Arabia.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Along the Gaza border:
The morning began with reports that Hamas and Islamic Jihad had agreed to stop launching explosive balloons into southern Israel.
What has followed has been a day-long barrage of explosive balloons.
As usual, the hardest hit area has been in and around Sderot where balloons have exploded over schools, in the courtyards of schools, and among municipal buildings, apartment buildings and houses.
Here is a 9 second video in which you can hear the sound of the explosion as an explosive balloon cluster was detonated by a police sapper at the Seamet School in Sderot.
At another Sderot school, students were rushed into a bomb shelter when the explosive balloon cluster exploded over the school. They ran to the bomb shelter because they thought the explosion was a missile explosion.
Explosive balloons landed beside Highway 4 blocking traffic in both directions, throughout the Eshkol Region, in Ashkelon, at the Shoket Junction, at Sdot Negev, and near Sha’ar Hanagev.
In Judea and Samaria:
Luban a-Sharqiya, Ofra, the T-Junction in Gush Etzion, Deir Kadis, Tekoa, El Muayyir, and Marta were a few of the places where Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with “rocks” and Molotovs.
The sovereignty struggle continues . . .
In the political arena, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced yesterday that his Yamina Party would not enter into a coalition after the coming election without the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, Judea, and Samaria.
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A major rally is being held tonight at 9:00 in Paris Square in Jerusalem to support sovereignty.
That rally is being co-sponsored by the Yesha Council of Judea and Samaria, and the Sovereignty Now organization–both of which issued the following statement this afternoon:
“We were pleased to see that there is a widespread demand to stand with us tonight on the stage and support the application of sovereignty. We politely refused all important candidates, and all Knesset members and ministers who wanted to make a speech this evening. Sovereignty is an important move for everyone. We asked them that despite the upcoming elections, they should not use party or political signs at the rally.”
TODAY’S BLOG
What’s Behind The Lack of IDF Response To Gaza Terror?
As you can see from the information above regarding the increased balloon terror today, the terrorists in Gaza are continuing to launch balloons into southern Israel with complete impunity.
In response to why this is happening comes an extremely disturbing, but utterly unsurprising piece of news from soldiers in the Kfir Brigade.
To begin with, we all know that the IDF possesses extremely sophisticated ways of detecting launches in real time. Those launches that cannot simply be seen with the naked eye by IDF soldiers on the ground are easily picked up in real time by advanced sensors on the ground, drones flying overhead, or even manned aircraft in the sky.
In fact, according to the report, all of these methods are being used to detect pre-launch preparations. Once again, the IDF almost always knows beforehand when an explosive balloon launch will occur.
But it does nothing.
Why?
Because no action can be taken unless first approved by a unit’s legal officer who in turn must receive permission from a senior officer in the Southern IDF command. And neither the legal officer nor the senior officer will authorize an attack on the launchers unless the launch is an “immediate life-threatening event.”
And according to the legal officer and senior officer, it never is. For them, the explosive balloon is not an immediate life-threatening event unless it is about to explode on top of a kindergarten in Sderot.
And by that time, it is too late to do anything about it.
The simple fact is that the IDF political division has come to wholeheartedly embrace this insane regulatory process that not only prohibits taking out terror balloon launching squads but also largely excludes missile launching squads from IDF attack.
It is a regulatory process that has completely neutered our army and only shows sign of increasing in use.
Finally, you might be interested, dear readers, in knowing how the IDF has responded to this report. The IDF spokesman had this to say yesterday: “The IDF is conducting periodic assessments, and is acting in accordance with the directive and according to the fire operation policy, which is determined by varying parameters.”
What horse manure! In other words, the IDF is acting in accordance with the politically correct rules laid down by the IDF senior command and will continue doing so–and the men, women, and children of southern Israel just have to suffer the consequences.
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.