Yom Shishee
Friday
1 Av 5782
July 29 2022
The Friday Poll
(this week from News 12)
According to the News 12 poll, this would be the result in the election were held tomorrow:
33 Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu
23 Yesh Atid led by Yair Lapid
11 Blue and White/The New Hope led by Benny Gantz
9 Religious Zionism led by Bezalel Smotritz and Itamar Ben Gvir of Jewish Power
8 Shas led by Aryeh Deri
7 Torah Judaism led by Moshe Gafni
6 The Joint Arab List (Had, Tel, Balad) led by Ayman Odeh
5 Israel Beiteinu led by Avigdor Lieberman
5 Labor led by Merav Michaeli
4 The Zionist Spirit led by Ayelet Shaked with Yoez Handel
4 Ra’am Islamic Party led by Mansour Abbas
Apparently, Likud has begun to drop as the number of parties to the right of Likud increase. This week marks the first appearance of The Zionist Spirit.
Interestingly, a separate poll by the same organization asked “what if Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir ran separately?” In that case Ben Gvir would get 7 seats and Smotrich 4; however, Likud would lose 2.
Either way, the Netanyahu bloc would get 61 seats.
Photo of the Day
Today is the first of Av. These were rosh chodesh prayers at the Kotel (Western Wall) early this morning (photo Oz Faber).
Quote of the Day
“I am staying in the air conditioning this weekend.”
Nir Stav, Director of an Israeli meteorological service
Stav went on to say that we should expect extreme heat stress and high radiation this weekend. He said that people–especially the elderly–should avoid exposure to the sun and drink lots of water.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
(See Today’s Blog below for a description of what happened near Shechem last night).
Palestinian terrorists attacking with Molotovs, “rocks”, and IEDs struck Israelis at the Yakir-El Hodalah Junction, Turmus’Aya northeast of Ramallah, on the Hossain Bypass, on Road 458 near El Muayyir, on Road 55 at Pondok, near Baruchin Square, Singil, near Tekoa, on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road, at Al-Abud, and at many other places.
The daily Corona update . . .
4,364 Israelis tested positive yesterday (out of 21,434 tested) bringing to 50,233 the number of active patients in the country.
The positive test rate was 20.36%; the coefficient of infection was 0.79%.
338 Israelis are seriously ill; 102 are critically ill—87 of these are on ventilators.
11,349 have died–2 since yesterday.
Tragedy on the roads . . .
Two young Israelis were killed and 4 more badly injured in an accident in the Sinai yesterday. Apparently a van carrying the Israelis being driven by an Egyptian at a high speed veered into the lane of an oncoming car. The dead are Yuval Keshet (24) and Moshe Luzon (25)–both were counselors at the unique Boyer School in Jerusalem.
Last night a horrific accident again involving a car going into an oncoming lane took place on Highway 6 at the Kiryat Gat exit. 3 more Israelis were killed and 2 more were injured. The dead are Anat Tal-Katelev (49) and Nitzan Moshe (50)–both senior managers at ICL (Israel Chemicals), and Ali Al Atrash. Since January 1, 195 Israelis have been killed in car accidents.
Apple is hiring . . .
Apple is opening a new development site in Jerusalem. According to a job posting, Apple is “recruiting engineers for the fields of hardware horification – chip development. The development center will take part in the flagship projects we are leading from Israel, chief among them the development of future Mac processors.”
Specifically, Apple is looking for “hardware people – design, reification, bake-off – for the hardware projects that define each of the categories in which Apple operates, the iPhone/iPad/Mac/AirPods.”
TODAY’S BLOG:
The Sour Fruit of Oslo
A Palestinian terror cell was cut down by snipers of the 636th Chameleon Company yesterday. The force was staked out in a position 300 meters from the Hava 5 IDF post. It spotted a terrorist vehicle coming from Shechem.
The first terrorist got out and opened fire at the IDF post. He was immediately killed by a shot to the neck. The next two terrorists who got out of the car were also shot but unfortunately survived.
It turns out that the terrorist who was shot and killed was a Palestinian (aka PLO) “policeman.” How many times since the Oslo Accords have we seen PLO “policemen” carry out or try to carry out terror attacks against Israelis?
Your humble servant is old enough to remember attacks like the one on September 29, 2000 when 27-year-old police inspector Yossi Tabaja was murdered by a PLO policeman, and the 2010 Tapuach Junction stabbing that was carried out by the PLO police chief in Ramallah. And on and on.
The point is that the Oslo Accords and their creation of a PLO police was dangerously flawed. Handing over land willy-nilly to a terror organization and creating a heavily armed PLO police force most assuredly did not serve the interests of peace–and only served to put Israel and Israelis into greater danger.
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.