Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
20 Tammuz 5782
July 19 2022
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The Photo of the Day
Haran Revital Velach. Just named the winner of the World Academic Olympics in physics.
Kolakevod to Haran–what an achievement!
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Two Palestinian terrorists were wounded in a firefight with IDF troops in the Palestinian settlement of Askar near Shechem last night.
Palestinian terrorists opened fire on IDF troops and Border Police near the Palestinian settlement of Akev. All the terrorists were captured–these were a few of the weapons and ammunition clips seized:
A few of the weapons seized last night. Note the sniper rifle.
Today’s Corona update . . .
7,982 Israelis tested positive yesterday (out of 25,573 tested) bringing to 63,979 the number of active patients in the country.
The positive test rate was 31.21%; the coefficient of infection was 0.87%.
432 Israelis are seriously ill; 108 are critically ill—92 of these are on ventilators.
11,181 have died–13 since yesterday.
In sum, the positive test rate remains over 30% while the coefficient of infection continues its incremental drop. Most worrisome (aside from the 13 deaths yesterday) is that the number of seriously and critically ill seems to be rising.
The new road into Jerusalem . . .
An artist’s rendering of the first tunnel near Abu Ghosh off of Highway 1 which leads into Jerusalem (graphic attribution on lower left).
An amazing engineering feat is nearing completion. In an effort to reduce traffic problems entering Jerusalem a new six kilometer road is almost ready to use.
You would think that six kilometers, just over 3.7 miles, is no big deal, but it includes four tunnels, seven bridges and three interchanges and actually runs far under Ramat Motza, Har Nof and the Yaffa Nof neighborhoods. It even passes (deep undergound) under the Shaare Zedek Medical Center and is composed of 200,000 square meters of paving and 250,000 cubic meters of concrete.
TODAY’S BLOG
“The Longed-For Tidal Wave Of Justice”
“The capital of Israel is Jerusalem. The president said it, I said it, it is the position of the U.S. The president’s trip to the Augusta Victoria Hospital was a healthcare event; [it had] nothing to do with politics.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides dissembling in an interview yesterday with The Jerusalem Post
By the way, Nides was “unsure” about the change in flags on Biden’s car on that visit to the hospital (the Israeli flag was removed before the visit).
Perhaps someone should remind Nides that “actions speak louder than words”.
But now, in addition to Biden’s actions, more has emerged about his actual words at Augusta Victoria. Specifically, he compared the Palestinians to the Irish who Biden said suffered “under British occupation for 400 years.”
And then he followed up that up by quoting an Irish poem which hopes for a “tidal wave of justice.”
This is the entire poem from which Biden quoted:
The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured
History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
It does not take a poetry critic to see that Biden was alluding to alleged Palestinian “suffering” and “torture” at the hands of Israelis, or that their “right was wronged”, or that he–Biden–“is hearing the outcry.”
Remember Biden’s words in his joint press conference with PLO Chairman Abbas shortly afterward: “The Palestinian people are in pain now; the frustration and helplessness we feel in Washington.
A healthcare event that had nothing to do with politics?
What do you think?
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.