29 Av 5780
19 August 2020
Photo of the Night
The iconic fins in Sailor’s Circle here in south Ashdod (about 1 mile north of our house) were lit up in red last night to show solidarity with our neighbors further south who have been suffering from incessant explosive balloon and missile terror.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Where the terrorists targeted last night.
At 8:52 pm last night, sirens for incoming missiles screeched throughout the Chof Ashkelon region, both south and north of Ashkelon. We could hear the sirens here at our home in far south Ashdod which is only about 4 miles north of the red area you see on the map above.
Three people were moderately injured while running to their bomb shelters and had to be hospitalized: a 7-year-old girl, a 10-year-old girl, and a 55-year-old woman. Residents in Zikim and Ashkelon reported hearing two explosions which apparently took place in “open areas.”
During the day, southern Israel was struck by 41 fires, mostly in the Sha’ar Hanegev and Eshkol Regional Councils. Some of the fires were huge:
If we could pan left, you would see how this fire near Sha’ar Hanegev extended for miles.
As we reported yesterday, IDF units are now out in the fields trying to put out the fires:
Here a local person directs IDF soldiers toward a hotspot yesterday afternoon.
Those heroes fighting the fires include IDF soldiers, KKL and RTG teams, Rabash Zim, “orange” firefighters from the Home Front Command, and local volunteers.
So what did the government do about the missile fire and fires last night? The same thing that it has done for the last 8 nights: it ordered the IAF to bomb empty buildings and sand dunes.
And guess what? Finally, after more than a week of fiddling, reading poetry, and blathering idle threats while southern Israel has burned, our so-called “Defense” Minister Benny Gantz has decided to convene an emergency meeting of defense officials this morning to discuss the crisis.
Unbelievable.
The brave people who live along the Gaza border are truly nothing but fire and missile fodder for our government.
The daily Corona (Covid-19) update as of 8 am this morning:
There are 96,409 confirmed cases—an increase of 1,658 since this time yesterday
71,990 of these confirmed cases have recovered—an increase of 1,709
404 are in critical condition–an increase of 5
117 of the most critically ill are on ventilators—an increase of 6
708 have died–an increase of 16
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There are 24,419 active cases.
Aside from the fact that we passed 700 dead with 16 more people dying in the past 24 hours, there are two more pieces of bad news this morning.
First, it appears that the death total is incorrect; according to the Health Ministry, between 40-100 more people have died but because of lack of data entry and non-reporting of hospitals their deaths were not properly recorded.
Second, as the number of critically ill rises, a number of hospitals are now over 100% capacity in their Corona wards; for example, Laniado Hospital is 117% and the Galilee Medical Center is at 127%.
What is really 0n Israelis’ minds? . . .
Not terror in the south and not Corona. All anyone seems to be able to think about is traveling to Dubai.
Israeli television is running program after program about what to see in the UAE with emphasis on the luxurious hotels, crazy amusement areas (like the snow skiing inside one mall), the amazing aquariums, and on and on.
Israeli companies are already putting together Dubai flight and hotel packages for the upcoming Sukkot holiday and telling Israelis that there is not much difference between going to Eilat and going to the UAE.
Which of course is not really true. The amusement areas in Dubai cost an arm and a leg as do the first class hotels.
But who cares? Israelis just want to get out of the country, and this apparently became easier this morning with news that Saudi Arabia is going to give Israeli airlines overflight privileges which will make the Tel Aviv-Dubai flight only about 3 hours.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Has It Or Hasn’t It? Did Netanyahu Know Or Not?
An F35 in flight.
Another hot topic in Israel this morning is what we reported yesterday: the apparent deal that the U.S. has made to sell F-35 airplanes and drones to the UAE.
In the first place, has the deal been finalized?
Who knows. One source is the White House says yes, another says no but that President Trump is trying to get Israel to agree to the sale. President Trump himself has said yesterday that he would like to see such a deal. Another report says there is a clause in the peace agreement that would allow the U.S. to sell “arms” to the UAE.
In the second place, assuming that there is an arms deal or at least a proposed one, is that arms deal part of the UAE-Israel peace deal?
Though it is somewhat conceivable that that the U.S. made or would make the arms deal with the UAE separately, the obvious answer is yes. The UAE would certainly have been more likely to sign on if it knew that F35s were in the pipeline.
For his part, PM Netanyahu said yesterday that he never agreed to such an arms deal with the UAE and has actively resisted it, while the UAE insists today that Netanyahu absolutely signed off on it. Whether this disagreement will be enough to scuttle the peace agreement is anyone’s guess.
The bottom line from your humble servant’s standpoint is that we cannot believe anything that Netanyahu says.
He disingenuously uses words to get what he wants as we have seen about the sovereignty issue. Is sovereignty canceled, postponed, off the table, on the table? It is undoubtedly canceled and off the table, but Netanyahu disingenuously insists it is still on the table and postponed.
In the case of the F35s, Netanyahu would have probably agreed to the arms sale as long as he had plausible deniability.
Finally, the debate over the F-35 underscores what an amazing plane it is. It supplies Israel with a qualitative advantage in the skies of the Middle East; if the UAE is now going to have the plane, that advantage will be short-lived.
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.