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16 September 2020
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The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
At precisely the moment when the Emirati representative was speaking in Washington (8:14 pm Israel time), screaming sirens warning of incoming missiles sounded here in Ashdod and sent your humble servant’s family and 275,000 other residents of Ashdod and Ashkelon running for our bomb shelters.
Here were the targets:
As you can see, we were in the direct line of fire last night.
The skies over our house as Iron Dome interceptors went into action:
Note the 5 lines emanating from the left margin and another 5 from a building just to the right–these are the 10 tracers of Iron Dome interceptors. You can then see where the interceptors exploded in the sky and intercepted some of the incoming missiles.
But not all of them. One of them got through and struck just outside the Lev Ashdod Mall which is about 1.5 miles north of our house. To see a video of the moment of impact, click here.
In that explosion, a 62-year-old man was critically wounded by missile shrapnel in the upper torso, a 28-year-old man was badly cut by glass shards, and at least 5 people had to be taken for treatment for trauma.
The rest of the night was a sleepless one as we heard booms coming from the Gaza border area.
More missiles were fired at border communities at 12:15 am, 4:30 am, 4:38 am, 4:53 am, 5:01 am, and 5:07 am.
As of this hour (8 am), between 15 and 20 missiles have been fired at southern Israel since the ones that hit Ashkelon and Ashdod.
By the way, what has been the Israeli response to these attacks?
The same old same old: we have eliminated several sand dunes and empty buildings. No terrorists have been wounded or killed.
It is simply outrageous that the terrorists in Gaza can target Israeli children, women, and men with impunity. The IDF has been completely neutered: it is bad enough that we cannot act proactively–it has now gotten to the point that we do not act “reactively”.
The daily Corona (Covid-19) update as of 8 am this morning . . .
There are 164,402 confirmed cases—an increase of 4,034 since this time yesterday
120,727 of these confirmed cases have recovered—an increase of 2,157
534 are in critical condition—an increase of 10
138 of the most critically ill are on ventilators—a decrease of 5
1,147 have died–an increase of 11
There are 43,675 active cases.
The percentage of those who were tested yesterday who tested positive was 10.8%.
More in an endless series of new guidelines were issued and clarified yesterday regarding kindergartens and beaches.
This is the absurd kindergarten situation: all kindergartens will be divided into groups of 5 children. Each child will then interact in one session involving all kindergarten children for 20 to 30 minutes. Then, at some point later in the day, the child will interact with his or her group for another 20-30 minutes via zoom. To top off this chaos, each student will have a personal conversation with the kindergarten teacher once a week via telephone or computer.
Did you follow all of that? Remember that we are talking about 4-5 year old children.
This is the absurd beach situation: each person who lives within 500 meters of a beach can walk to the beach. However, once at the beach, she or he cannot sit down on the beach, cannot walk on the beach, and cannot swim at the beach. The only thing a person can do is stand there.
How ridiculous is this?
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More news emerged yesterday about just how widespread will be the coming purchase of the country.
To begin with, a group of Emirati investors led by giant corporation Dubai DPWorld have made it known that they are interested in purchasing the port of Haifa.
Yes, you read that correctly. The port of Haifa.
If that was not enough, Israel’s iconic Beitar Jerusalem issued a gleeful statement about how it is on the verge of being bought by Emiratis:
We are pleased to confirm that negotiations are underway between Betar Jerusalem and a group of entrepreneurs from Abu Dhabi regarding investment in the club. This is an opportunity to make Betar Jerusalem a dominant club in Israel and around the world . . . In the near future, Moshe Hogg, the club’s owner, is scheduled to take off for Abu Dhabi to advance negotiations.
More on the “peace agreement” . . .
First we had this absurd statement from Likud Minister Gila Gamliel:
“The agreements are peace for peace and not peace for territories . . . What does it matter what is written in the agreement? I trust the prime minister.”
Sheer, unadulterated lunacy. Not only is the Agreement land for peace, but also there is no reason we should trust PM Netanyahu.
On the other hand, we had this from Yossi Dagan, the head of the Samaria Regional Council:
“Reveal the hidden part of the agreement with the UAE . . . Unfortunately at the moment it seems that the prime minister wants to bring a picture of achievement at any cost, even at prices that the public will not be willing to accept. It is unprecedented that no one knows what has been agreed to.”
Dagan is absolutely correct.
The Israeli “left” in action . . .
To celebrate the UAE-Israel agreement, the city of Netanya decided to festoon its main street on Monday with flags of the UAE and Bahrain.
But take a look at what happened:
Flags in Netanya.
Self-proclaimed “peace activists” swooped in and replaced most of the Emirati and Bahraini flags with PLO ones.
TODAY’S BLOG:
So What’s In the “Peace Agreement” and What’s Not?
You can read the agreements that were signed in Washington yesterday by clicking here.
But they only half tell the story, or less.
As we noted yesterday, no one knows what secret codicils were also signed away from the cameras.
More than that, the timetable for implementation leaves many questions unanswered.
According to a leak obtained by Bloomberg, the Agreement will be implemented in three different phases that may play out over an unspecified number of years. The UAE insisted on this amorphous period of time to ensure that it actually receives the F35 airplanes from the U.S. and to ensure that PM Netanyahu does not declare sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
In short, the UAE is already looking for reasons to back out.
However, going forward:
The first phase will be economic (see the signed Agreement for the areas under discussion).
The second phase will be related to security and intelligence.
The third phase will be political–the exchange of ambassadors and opening of embassies. Again, this might not happen to 2021 or beyond.
The order of these phases obviously informs us as to what is important to the UAE. Business and trade take precedence over any security/intelligence sharing by Israel, and any political considerations. This is surprising because the official line we have been fed is that the UAE wanted the Agreement because they want Israel on its side against Iran.
Has a new day dawned in the Middle East?
As we were sitting in our bomb shelter last night listening to explosions overhead and around us, it didn’t seem so.
Have the Emirates and Bahrain fully embraced Israel?
Your humble servant hopes so, but thinks not.
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.