Yom Shnee
Monday
21 Tishrei 5782
September 27 2021
Quote of the Day
“Security forces acted in Judea and Samaria against Hamas terrorists who were about to carry out attacks. The soldiers and commanders in the field acted as expected of them, and we fully support them.”
PM Naftali Bennett, commenting on the 4 raids carried out against Hamas in Judea and Samaria (in Bruqin, Kabatiya, Har Adar) on Saturday night. Those raids resulted in 4 Hamas terrorists killed and two members of the IDF elite Duvdevan Unit wounded (perhaps by friendly fire).
The two soldiers are in extremely serious but stable condition at Rambam Hospital in Haifa. One of the fighters was born into an extremist Muslim family, educated in a mosque in Gaza, and converted to Judaism.
Another 20 Hamasniks were captured. According to all accounts, the Hamas cell was about to carry out “massive attacks” in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem.
All of which begs the question: why in the world is Israel cozying up to Hamas in Gaza–even to the point of providing it material for construction than can be used against us?
The News on the Israeli Street
The daily Corona update . . .
3,208 more Israelis were confirmed “yesterday” as having Covid-19. There are now 57,724 active cases in the country.
1,267,188 Israelis have contracted Corona since the pandemic began.
The positive test rate yesterday was 4.26%.
671 Israelis are in serious condition with another 222 in critical condition on ventilators.
7,684 Israelis have died–an increase of 35 since yesterday.
Vaccinations:
6,091,647 Israelis have received 1 dose.
5,617,090 Israelis have received 2 doses.
3,223,563 Israelis have received 3 doses.
Available in various strengths of dosages, Kamagra tablets help a man achieving harder and longer cialis on line australia erections for pleasurable sexual experience in the bed. One of the smart and online cialis pills cost effective drugs is kamagra polo. In the case of erectile dysfunction, there is a medicine of same drug class, this medication starts working within 30 – 45 minutes purchase viagra from india to supply harder erection. So you see, there are many side effects of conventional antidepressants on both the order viagra cheap seniors and young people.
An unusually small number of people were tested yesterday; hence the low number of new cases and the low positive test rate. The information from the hospitals (serious and critical condition) has remained stable. However, the number of dead per day continues to exceed 30.
A supply of the Astra-Zenica vaccine (not based on mrna technology) arrived in Israel today. It will be used to vaccine those who have refused the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
On Sunday, the “green passport” that Israelis receive to allow them to enter public facilities will be updated. No longer will 2 doses be sufficient for the passport; the 3rd vaccination must have been received. Take a look at the vaccinations above: nearly 2.5 million Israelis are not going to qualify.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!
If the information above about our wounded Duvdevan soldier was not surprising enough, every once in a while a news story comes across the wires that you have to shake your head in amazement over. In the past few days, two such stories were reported. Let’s see if these stories have that effect on you, dear reader.
First, we have the story of the large Palestinian wedding last week in the Palestinian settlement of Yatta south of Hevron. As you may not know, Yatta has been known to be home to many a Palestinian terrorist.
In any case, the family hosting the wedding celebration decided to employ locally famous singer “Sharif” to provide the evening’s entertainment.
Sharif, who happens to be an Israeli Druze, proceeded to sing songs in Arabic and Hebrew. Given the background of the town, one might have expected the crowd to erupt in outrage about Hebrew being sung.
But no, the crowd not only did not object, the enthusiastic audience actually began singing in Hebrew and dancing along with Sharif.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The entire performance was filmed and posted on Palestinian social media. Of course, a number of comments were negative, berating the family and Yatta for encouraging “normalization” with Jews and Israelis.
However, a greater number of comments were positive such as this one: “I do not see anything problematic here. A Druze singer sings in Arabic and Hebrew. Two days ago, an Israeli delegation visited Ramallah; Abu Mazen attended the funerals of senior Israeli officials. The attack on Yatta is not acceptable.”
So . . . if that did not surprise you, let’s move on to story number two.
It turns out that a conference was held this past week in Arbil, Iraq and was attended by some 300 local Shiite and Sunni leaders.
What was the theme of the conference?
The leaders were calling on Iraq to follow in the example of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and establish relations with Israel.
But there was more.
A number of speakers lamented that their economic and social structure had deteriorated since Jews were thrown out of the country. A “glorious tradition” of working with Jews had disappeared, they said, and they wanted it to return.
To that end, and despite the criminalization of any contact with Israel, the leaders said that they were going to initiate contact in order to try to have the Iraqi government begin to establish diplomatic relations.
So, were you surprised by the stories today?
Your humble servant is rarely surprised by anything any more, but in these two cases and that of the soldier . . .
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.