25 Iyar 5780
19 May 2020
Photo of the Day:
The look of a elementary school classroom in Israel today. A look that is about to change.
Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s new Health Minister, announced yesterday that as of this weekend, Israelis will no longer be required to wear a mask in schools or public places. According to Edelstein: “The defense against Corona must be taken seriously. But wearing a mask during a heat wave like we have now can be dangerous in itself.”
The News on the Israeli Street
The daily Corona update . . .
5 am Tuesday: There are now 16,643 confirmed cases of Corona in Israel. 42 people are on ventilators. 276 Israelis have died. 13,253 have recovered.
It’s the same sad story that we have seen in recent weeks: 4 people came off ventilators yesterday, 4 people died. The good news is that as the number of those who have recovered increases, the number of active Corona cases continues to decrease. There are now “only” 3,390 active cases in Israel.
*The number of airlines serving Israel is beginning to increase with 4 more returning before the end of the month. Nearly 100 more have indicated that they will return in June depending on quarantine requirements for incoming passengers.
The heat wave continues and fires surge . . .
With temperatures soaring into the 90s (we woke up at 4 am this morning in Ashdod with the temperature outside at 86F), fires are popping up all over the country. One of the worst yesterday and last night was at Rosh Ha’Ayin:
A raging inferno sweeping across the hills outside of Rosh Ha’Ayin.
In the past two days, Israeli firefighters have extinguished 685 fires.
TODAY’S BLOG:
An Unmitigated Disaster: Gantz Takes Over As Defense Minister
An unmitigated disaster: Gantz (right) takes over the Defense Ministry from Bennett two days ago.
Two days ago, Naftali Bennett was the Defense Minister of Israel.
Everyone knew where Bennett stood on each issue:
*He ardently supported our soldiers.
*He wanted to turn the IDF General Command away from its passivity and into an aggressive fighting force.
*He heavily supported Jewish rights at our holy places including on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron.
*He heavily supported Jewish community members in Judea and Samaria issuing orders to heavily expand construction around Efrat, in Hevron, and other locations.
*He adamantly supported declaring sovereignty over and annexing Area C.
*He adamantly opposed the creation of a Palestinian state.
We could go on but you get the idea: Bennett is a hard-line, right-wing combat veteran of the IDF special forces who sees Judea and Samaria as the ancestral home of the Jewish people.
And poof! Just like that he was gone on Sunday as Benny Gantz took over as Defense Minister.
Everyone knows where Gantz stands on each issue:
*He is perfectly willing to throw our soldiers under the bus as he proved time and again in Gaza (2014) and elsewhere.
*He sees the IDF as a passive reactive entity whose overarching mantra is political correctness.
*He could care less about Jewish rights in Judea and Samaria (watch how quickly he tries to reverse Bennett’s orders in Hevron, Efrat, Jerusalem, and elsewhere).
*He sees himself as a “regionalist” who believes that the Arab countries surrounding us (as well as Hamas and the PLO) are entities who really want to be our friends.
*He adamantly supports the creation of a Palestinian state.
We could go on but you get the idea.
Gantz summed up his feelings yesterday:
“I am committed to striving for peace and promoting Trump’s century deal in its entirety. I will promote all components of that plan including the establishing of a Palestinian state alongside the application of sovereignty. We will maintain our strength to seize regional opportunities.”
The bottom line is that everyone supports peace, but one does not gain peace in the Middle East by being passive and one does not gain peace by being weak.
Unfortunately that is what we now have for a Defense Minister: a passive, weak, failed, former IDF Chief of Staff who is obsessed with embracing the enemy. A person who was capable of making this speech encouraging residents of the South to return to their homes when the 2o14 war not yet over:
“We have a hot summer. Fall will soon come. The rain will wash away the dust left by the tanks. The fields will turn green, and the south will be awash in red – in the positive sense of the word.”
Some people listened to Gantz’s poetic words, some came home, and some of them were killed by Hamas missile and mortar attacks.
This is whom we now have as Defense Minister: a person who has no problem exposing all of us to extreme danger.
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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.