Yom Chamishee
Thursday
20 Nisan 5782
April 21 2022
The Quote of the Day
“Fear has returned to our lives. Mansour Abbas and the Islamist Ra’am Party set the conditions on the Temple Mount. The Bennett-Lapid-Gantz Coalition government defines the hoisting of an Israeli flag “a provocation” in Jerusalem. It is no wonder that we in Sderot are held hostage by Hamas.”
Alon Davidi, Mayor of Sderot, following missile attacks on his city yesterday.
The News on the Israeli Street
The gallivanting continues and expands . . .
If all the junkets of Bennett, Lapid, and Gantz are not enough, we now have 27 Directors of government ministries taking a 5 day junket to Austria and Hungary to celebrate Holocaust Memorial Day.
Why they need to go to Austria and Hungary to celebrate this solemn day is unknown, especially since the junket is going to cost Israeli taxpayers like your humble servant an estimated 250 million shekels.
Diversifying the country’s portfolio . . .
At a time when currencies, particularly the U.S. dollar, are increasingly unstable, the Bank of Israel has decided to diversify its portfolio in what it describes as “a fundamental change of investment philosophy.”
The Bank currently has a foreign currency balance of $206 billion dollars (42.8% of Israel’s GDP)–up from $30 billion 2007. As you know the bank has continually bought dollars every time the shekel strengthens against the greenback.
Prior to now, Israel’s foreign reserves consisted of 66.5% U.S. dollars, 30.8% euros and 2.8% British pounds (even though the total amount is expressed in dollars). The new mix will be: 61% U.S. dollars, 20% euros, 5% British pounds, 5% Japanese yen, 3.5% Australian dollars, 3.5% Canadian dollars, and 2% Chinese Yuan.
The idea is for Israel to get a higher return on its reserves.
TODAY’S BLOG
The Egregious Events of Yesterday and Today
First we had the humiliating events in Jerusalem yesterday.
Our cowardly government kowtowed to the terrorists in Gaza by stopping a Flag Parade through our capital city of Jerusalem because of the threats from Hamas and Islamic Jihad that they would shoot missiles at Israel if the Parade was allowed to go near the Nablus Gate of the Old City.
A very small part of the Flag Parade stopped in their tracks yesterday by the Israel Police before they could get to the Nablus Gate.
So what happened after the government bowed to the terrorists?
They fired missiles at Sderot and surrounding areas.
Not even Israeli cowardice will deter the terrorists from attacking.
Then we had the IDF insulting our intelligence this morning by claiming that the missile attacks on the south were just a delusion. According to the IDF spokesman, only 1 missile was fired and it was intercepted by the Iron Dome. The spokesman said that other firings of the Iron Dome were in fact misfirings and are being investigated this morning.
The main problem with lying in this day and age is that everyone has a camera.
We know that at the very least, 10 missiles were fired in two groups of five alone:
If you look closely, you can count 10 missiles in this launch–from hydraulic launchers.
Click here to see the video of another missile launch.
And we know that in all likelihood, the following video shot last night shows Iron Dome interceptors going up to intercept those 10:
Click here to see Iron Dome interceptors being launched.
Moreover, there there were launches at three other times.
And we also know that some missiles got through. One Qassam crashed into the garage area of a home in Sderot–and miraculously did not explode:
Obviously a Qassam because of the size.
To top off the insults to us, we had our abominable “Defense” Minister Gantz tweeting this today after all that has happened: “We want to expand the policy of civilian loosening of restrictions towards Eid al-Fitr, and call on the Palestinian leadership to act responsibly.”
No matter what the terrorists do, this government is determined to reward them.
It is absolutely infuriating and sickening.
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.