Yom Shleshee, Tuesday
14 Tevet, 5781
December 29, 2020
Video of the Afternoon
Click here to see what was happening at a spring in Ein Gedi yesterday. The park is closed because of Corona (except for park rangers who recorded the video).
Gaffe of the Week
Photo courtesy of Dr. Eddie Cohen.
It has just come to light that the Moroccans are furious because when PM Netanyahu announced normalization with Morocco, he did so in front of map which does not show that the Western Sahara region is part of Morocco. You will recall that U.S. recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara was a key component of the normalization agreement.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
On the Gaza border:
The location of the missile attack last night.
Another night, another missile attack– this one at 12:05 am at Kerem Shalom. The sirens blared, people ran to their shelter, an explosion was heard, and the IDF spokesman said that nothing happened–that the missile exploded on the Gaza side of the border.
It was a false alarm, no missile was fired, the missile fell on the Gaza side of the border, the missile fell in an open space, the missile . . . you get the idea: the IDF has a fake description for every missile attack.
In Judea and Samaria:
Palestinian terrorists attacked IDF forces at Beit Fajjar in Gush Etzion, in Al-Mu’ayyir, at Kfar Kedum, near Salfit, and beside Hazor (an IDF officer was wounded).
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli motorists with Molotovs and “rocks” at Givat Assaf, on the Alon Road near Hatzor, at Beit Omer, and at least a dozen other locations.
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli buses at Mevo Dotan, at Ateret on Road 465 and near Beit Anun north of Kiryat Arba.
The daily Corona (Covid-19) update . . .
Here are the numbers over the last 24 hours (from 8 am yesterday until 8 am today):
407,285 Israelis have been confirmed with the virus since the pandemic began last March.
There are 5,815 newly confirmed cases.
592 are in critical condition—an increase of 5
134 of the most critically ill are on ventilators—a decrease of 5
3,256 have died–an increase of 30
There are currently 37,510 active Corona cases in Israel.
Notice the explosion in newly confirmed cases–now approaching 6,000 a day.
Israel leading in vaccinations . . .
115,000 Israelis were vaccinated yesterday.
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As of 2 days ago, these were the percentages of the eight countries in the world that have vaccinated the greatest percentage of their population:
Israel: 4.37%, Bahrain: 3.23%, England: 1.18%, U.S.: 0.64%, Canada: 0.16%, Denmark: 0.08%, Lithuania: o.08%, China: 0.07%.
A major story on the Israeli news this morning is that a 45-year-old man died yesterday one hour after receiving a vaccination. He apparently had an allergic reaction and went into anaphylactic shock.
Protests against the murder of Ahuvya Sandak continue . . .
The police involvement in the tragic death of Ahuvya Sandak continues to cause outrage with protests all over the country.
This is a photo from Tel Aviv last night:
Protesters with placards and face masks remembering their friend.
This is a video of police brutality against protesters in Jerusalem two nights ago:
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Misplaced Police Obsession With The “Hilltop Youth”
The above video of the police attack in Jerusalem brings us to Today’s Blog–the Israeli Police obsession with the erroneously called “Hilltop Youth”.
We have written about this numerous times in the past–about how this tiny group (around 2500) of young people living out in Jewish outposts and communities have been singled out for detention and even torture.
Even more so, the group has become the “whipping boy” of the Israeli left–to be hauled out for harsh criticism whenever things go awry in Judea and Samaria. Essentially the “Hilltop Youth” have become every leftist’s favorite scapegoat.
Let’s take a moment today and review how and when the Hilltop Youth movement started and what its members believe.
On November 16, 1998, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon issued this urgent call to Jews living in Judea and Samaria to stop a Palestinian takeover of the area:
“Everyone that’s there should move, should run, should grab more hills, expand the territory. Everything that’s grabbed will be in our hands. Everything we don’t grab will be in their hands.”
A number of young people–actually not primarily teenagers but young married couples–answered Sharon’s call and established fledgling communities out on remote hilltops.
It’s always dangerous to generalize, but we can safely say that these are their guiding principles:
1. They are religious Zionists which is to say that they believe that Judea and Samaria is the Jewish ancestral home and that their lives should be based on developing the land and studying Torah. Unlike those in other Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, they will not use Palestinian labor to construct their homes nor use Palestinian labor to tend their crops.
2. They have a basic distrust of Israeli democratic government and long for the day that a Kingdom of Israel is established along the lines of the time of King David.
3. They have no tolerance for people of any stripe who want to harm the Jewish people. If they are attacked, they take matters into their own hands and immediately respond–not waiting for the police or IDF to respond. For this latter reason they are often (falsely I believe) called lawless anarchists and terrorists.
It is because of Point 3 that the police have become obsessed with the group. At the moment, the Police are terrified that members of the group will retaliate for the recent shooting attack on the Temple Mount, for Esther Horgan’s brutal murder, and for Ahuvya Sandak’s death as a result of police chase.
And so we have the news over the last few days that the IDF and the Border Police are rushing to reinforce forces in Judea and Samaria in order to “calm the area” to “avoid explosive events that might ignite the area.”
Avoid explosive events that might ignite the area? The “Hilltop Youth” and your humble servant would say that the Temple Mount, Esther Horgan, and Ahuvya Sandak incidents are explosive events that have ignited the area.
What should the Police and IDF be obsessively focusing on? Rooting out Palestinian terror and police corruption, not those trying to defend Jewish lives.
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.