Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
8 Sivan 5782
June 7 2022
Photo of the Day
Soldiers in the IDF Blanam Unit after a 25 km hike at the conclusion of which they received their red beret.
This is the unit in the IDF that specializes in driving every type of IDF vehicle. Before they completed their final hike, they had spent 11 months driving every conceivable vehicle both off and on-road.
Kolakevod!
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
2 Palestinian terrorists from Shechem were captured in south Tel Aviv just as they were about to carry out an attack.
Palestinian terrorists attacked buses with “rocks” and Molotovs south of Givat Assaf and at Hizma.
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli motorists with “rocks” and Molotovs at Ofra (Israeli wounded), Luban a-Sharqiya, on Road 465, on Road 55 between Azzun and Nabi Elias, Huwara, between the T-Junction and Efrat, and on Road 446 south of Nili Square among other places.
Palestinian terrorists on a motorcycle threw an IED at an IDF patrol near Shechem.
Another attack in Syria . . .
IAF planes carried out attacks on Iranian militia and Hezbollah sites south of Damascus overnight. There is no word about what was hit.
A Corona update . . .
We have not reported on Corona here in Israel for almost a month because the government has ceased reporting statistics in a timely way and because the entire country has resigned itself to the idea of “herd immunity’.
However, there are some worrisome numbers today:
The coefficient of infection rate has climbed to 1.1 the highest it has been for some time.
The average number of new daily positive tests rose to 2,313 last week compared to 1,892 the week before. This means that more than 16,000 Israelis tested positive last week.
95 Israeli patients are hospitalized–36 are in critical condition with 13 of these on ventilators.
The total number of deaths in Israel due to Corona has risen to 10,864 since the pandemic began.
TODAY’S BLOG
The Day After
The Coalition went down to defeat in two votes last night in the Knesset–two votes of no confidence within hours of each other.
To begin with, the Coalition lost the vote to renew the Judea and Samaria Regulations Law by a vote of 58-52. This means that unless the Knesset votes again in the next three weeks to renew the Law, 450000 Israelis living in Judean and Samaria will be hung out to dry.
Second, a vote to approve Matan Kahana as Minister of Religion also went down to defeat. The failure has no real bearing on Israeli policy, but it was a second slap in the face to the Coalition as a member of Bennett’s own party voted against Kahana.
These two votes concluded a bad day for Naftali Bennett, as another of his trusted advisors announced his resignation. Matan Sidi, Bennett’s personal spokesman and the manager of all the Prime Minister’s Office Communications, said he was leaving to enter the private sector. Bennett has now lost his personal spokesman, his chief of staff, his personal assistant, and his diplomatic advisor.
In most countries based on a parliamentary democracy, the loss of two no-confidence votes would mean the end of the government and the calling of new elections. But this is Israel, where politicians will do anything to hang on to power. This morning, Bennett declared his intention to continue to “move forward.”
Bennett’s decision to carry on should come as no surprise especially given his absurd letter addressed to “Silent Zionist Majority” last week. In that seemingly frantic letter in which he cast himself as the messiah, he encouraged his supporters to take to the streets in order to avoid save his “national salvation” government.
Bennett even seemed to question whether Israel can survive: “We are all being tested whether we will be smart enough to make it through the eighth decade as a untied, sovereign state, or will we again fail . . .” These words are already being used by the leaders of the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah to urge their followers to increase terror attacks on Israel because “Israel is on the verge of collapse.”
Of course this is nothing but narcissistic rot. Israel is not on the verge of collapse; however, the longer Bennett and friends stay in power the longer it will take to undo the terrible things they have done to the country during this past year.
One last note. What about Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s Minister of Justice who precipitated last night’s drama by saying that if the bill for Judea and Samaria did not pass, he and his party would leave the Coalition? Today he is singing a different tune, blithely proclaiming that “you win some and you lose some.” The thought that he might join the opposition seems as far away as ever.
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.