Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
22 Sivan 5782
June 21 2022
The News on the Israeli Street
The daily Corona update . . .
No one wants to talk about Covid-19 anymore, but the numbers here in Israel are astonishing:
10,235 Israelis tested positive yesterday (out of only 26,261 tested) bringing to 57,769 the number of active patients in the country.
The positive test rate was 38.97%; the coefficient of infection was 1.32%.
173 Israelis are seriously ill; 38 are critically ill—34 of these are on ventilators.
10,911 have died, 7 since 24 hours ago.
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists opened fire on our soldiers in Jenin. 4 terrorists were wounded, 1 critically. No Israelis were physically wounded.
Palestinian terrorists attacked buses with Molotovs west of the British Police Junction and at Burqa.
Palestinian terrorists tried to murder Israeli motorists with Molotovs and “rocks” at Beitar, on the Jerusalem-Gush Etzion Road south of Al-Khader, near Al Aruv, on Road 60 near Mizra a-Sharqiya and at a dozen other places.
Palestinian terrorists tried to burn down the security fence at Beit El.
On the Iranian front . . .
Another senior engineer who worked in Iran’s military industries and his assistant were shot dead overnight.
TODAY’S BLOG
From Savior to Messiah to Mother: Bennett Exits the Stage
Back in January, PM Bennett made one of many speeches in which he cast himself as the savior of the nation:
“If we had not succeeded, the state would have fallen into the abyss . . . I jumped on a grenade.”
“The state would have fallen into the abyss”; “I saved Israeli democracy”; “we brought unity to Israel, etc.,etc, etc.” : these were Bennett’s mantras of the last year.
Last night we had yet another narcissistic speech from Bennett announcing the end of the government that droned on for some 20 minutes.
Here are a few snippets:
“We are facing you today in a difficult moment, understanding that we have made the best decision for Israel.”
[No matter what decision Bennett, Lapid, and Gantz made during the last year, it was always arrogantly described at “the best decision for Israel.” Ironically, this time Bennett is right: dissolving his Coalition is indeed the best decision.]
“. . . in Israel a year ago there was mass unemployment, deficits . . . and missiles on Jerusalem and there was severe government paralysis . . .”
[Lest we forget, when Bennett took over, Israel was emerging from the 2 year Corona nightmare which had brought about mass unemployment as businesses closed, deficits caused by payouts to those unemployed, and paralysis primarily caused by nonstop attacks on Netanyahu. Missiles on Jerusalem? On May 10 2021, six missiles were fired toward Jerusalem, one landed near a house on the far outskirts of the city.]
“In contrast to the opposition, at no stage of my tenure did I agree that political consideration would in any way affect Israel’s security.”
[An amazingly false statement: every step Bennett has taken has been with political considerations in mind. Why did he throw his constituency under the bus and form a coalition with an anti-Israel Islamist party? So that he could further his political career by becoming Prime Minister.]
“We chose to be the mother who preserves the life of the child even at a heavy personal cost.”
[This one sentence sums it up. From savior to messiah to mother, Bennett always plays the “at a heavy personal cost” victim card. In reality, there has been no cost whatsoever to Bennett in this entire Coalition fiasco, the cost has been to the Israeli public that paid for Coalition junkets around the world, paid for improvements to Bennett’s home in Raanana, and did not get the right-wing government they voted for overwhelmingly last year because of Bennett’s duplicity.]
So where do we go from here? Likud will probably introduce a Knesset dissolution motion on Wednesday–though this may come next Monday. When the Knesset dissolves, the emergency law for Judea and Samaria will be automatically extended.
The new prime minister will be Yair Lapid–thereby denying Bennett the iconic photo with Biden on July 13th that he so desperately wanted (he craved a shirt sleeve shot with Biden cooking at a barbecue in his backyard in Raanana). Lapid will remain prime minister until the elections scheduled for October 25th.
And we will have poll after poll after poll to the tune of 3 or 4 per day–the first one is already out this morning from FM103.
“If the election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?”
Likud (Netanyahu): 36
Yesh Atid (Lapid): 20
Religious Zionism (Smotrich): 10
Blue and white (Gantz): 8
Shas (Sephardic Orthodox): 7
Right (Bennett): 7
Labor (Michaeli): 7
Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi Orthodox): 6
Arab Joint List: 6
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman): 5
New hope (Sa’ar): 4
Ra’am (Islamist): 4
Meretz (Horowitz-uber left): 0
The Netanyahu “Opposition” would receive 59 seats (Likud, Religious Zionism, Shas, Torah Judaism) bringing us back to the same old question. Where will Netanyahu find two more seats to get to 61?
Of course, these numbers will change a million times during the next 4 months, but at least the process has begun.
Finally, it is highly unlikely, but it is still possible for Netanyahu to form a coalition government without the need for elections.
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.