Yom Shishee
Friday
2 Tammuz 5782
July 1 2022
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Photos of the Day
Photo 1:
The PLO news reporter in the Knesset yesterday reporting live on its dissolution. Note the upper left hand corner.
In that corner is a PLO flag which reads “Direct from Occupied Jerusalem.”
Why in the world does Israel permit the PLO to broadcast live from anywhere in Israel much less the Knesset and much less under a PLO flag and much less with the statement “Direct from Occupied Jerusalem.”
By the way, notice that it reads “Occupied Jerusalem”. In English, the PLO always refers to how it demands the return of “East Jerusalem”; in Arabic, it’s all of Jerusalem, and all of Israel.
Photo 2:
Long lines at gasoline stations last night.
As we previously reported, the price of gasoline jumped 60 agorot per liter at midnight to 8.02 shekels per liter–the highest price in the last 10 years. Gasoline stations were clogged with motorists filling up.
The News on the Israeli Street
The daily Corona update . . .
11,154 Israelis tested positive yesterday (out of 36,632 tested) bringing to 78,869 the number of active patients in the country.
The positive test rate was 30.45%; the coefficient of infection was 1.12%.
283 Israelis are seriously ill; 51 are critically ill—45 of these are on ventilators.
10,958 have died.
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists using Molotovs, IEDs, and “rocks” tried to murder Israelis in Huwara near Einbus Square, between Tapuach and Ariel in the vicinity of Marda, at Luban a-Sharqiya, at numerous locations along the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road, and at another dozen locations.
TODAY’S BLOG
Holding Our Collective Breath For The Next 123 Days
Yair Lapid, Israel’s new Prime Minister and a man with a checkered past (photo Marc Israel Sellem).
The prime minister’s baton was passed from Naftali Bennett to Yair Lapid at midnight last night marking the second time in 12 months that we have a prime minister whose Party received less than 15% of the popular vote. Bennett’s Yamina Party received 6.21% of the vote in the last election; Lapid’s Yesh Atid received 13.93%.
What can we expect of a person who made numerous flubs during his last 12 months as Foreign Minister, who spent much of that 12 months gallivanting back and forth to Europe, Africa, and the U.S., and who ducked and weaved when any major decision came his way?
Of course, ducking and weaving comes naturally to a guy who is a former boxer and former television personality. He also spent part of his life writing dime store poetry and suspense novels.
The simple fact is that we should not expect too much from a person who failed to graduate from high school, failed miserably in the IDF (there are different stories about how he dropped out of the Armored Corps because of a supposed asthma attack produced by either a smoke grenade or a particularly “dusty and hazy” day), and received a fake bachelor’s degree in 2012.
Though the media likes to describe Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party as “centrist”, Lapid has always been on the left politically which is part of the reason he was so warmly congratulated by U.S. President Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Blinken this morning. Both of them obviously want to soften Lapid up in advance of Biden’s visit on July 13–a visit during which they will, as always, demand “concessions for peace” on the part of Israel.
Unfortunately, Lapid is just the one to make those concessions.
The only good news is that Lapid will only serve for 123 days (until November 1) + however many days it takes after that election for someone to form a government.
We will all have to hold our collective breaths for the next few months.
Israel is most assuredly not in safe hands.
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.