Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
9 Tishrei 5783
October 4 2022
Yom Kippur
Israelis are bustling about in all directions this morning in advance of Yom Kippur which begins tonight at sundown. Whether you are at the supermarket, bakery, or gasoline station, you face long lines.
Please note that there will no OneIsrael blog tomorrow as your humble servant fasts on this holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
To all of you who celebrate Yom Kippur, we wish you a:
Tsom Kal! (Have An Easy Fast!)
G’mar Chatima Tovah (May You Be Sealed For Good In The Book Of Life)
The Outrageous Lebanon Agreement Is Egregiously Outrageous
Details about the Lebanon “Agreement” continue to pour out–all of which underscore what a ludicrously dangerous “Agreement” it is.
It turns out that there is no “Agreement” with Lebanon at all—the Agreement we are supposed to sign is with the U.S. Not only does Lebanon refuse to recognize Israel, it even refuses to hold “a signing ceremony” with us.
The sequence of events that took place over the last month is mind-numbing.
Two weeks ago, Benny Gantz’s Ministry of Defense suddenly came up with the proposal to completely give up on all of the demands Israel has made for the last decade and give all of the disputed maritime area and the Qana field to the Lebanese. In regard to Qana, the Defense Ministry also decided to give up the Israel demand for joint management of the Qana natural gas platform.
When this outrageous proposal was made, the leader of the Israeli negotiating team Udi Adiri strongly opposed it. After Lapid and Gantz accepted it, Adiri resigned and was replaced as lead negotiator by Lapid’s right-hand man Eyal Hulta.
Can you believe all of this?
In short, the Lebanon “Agreement” is an unmitigated disaster for Israel.
We can only hope and pray that it will not go forward.
The News on the Israeli Street
The war in Judea and Samaria: Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists opened fire on IDF forces at the Beitot Junction south of Shechcm, at Beta, and on the Gilad Highway near the Yitzhar Junction, and at the barrier between Itamar and Hetmar Shomron.
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli men, women, and children at Shimsha, Hizma Nazim, at the Yitzhar Haggadah Junction, on Road 55 in the Nabi Elias Bypass, Huwara, east of the Baal Hazor Base, on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road near Omer, south of Givat Assaf, Al Abud, Hawara, between Ponduk and Kedumim, and north of the British Police Station, and at two dozen other places.
Palestinian terrorists once again tried to burn down the security fences of Beit El and Psagot with Molotovs.
IDF forces intercepted an attempt to smuggle weapons into Israel at the Bekaa Border Fence:
More than 60 weapons seized yesterday from smugglers.
The PLO openly calls for assassination of an Israeli . . .
The PLO’s Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade—which is under the direct control of PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, proclaimed yesterday that it wants Samaria Council Head Yossi Dagan to be assassinated.
How PM Yair Lapid and “Defense” Minister Benny Gantz continue to support engagement with Abbas and the PLO is beyond comprehension.
There is something very very rotten in the government.
More and more expensive . . .
The Bank of Israel has raised the interest rate by another 0.75 percent meaning that it will now be 2.75 percent. Everyone with a variable rate mortgage–almost everyone with a mortgage will now have their monthly budget stretched even thinner.
Since the last adjustment in August, the shekel has weakened by 8% against the dollar. The exchange rate this morning stands at 3.52 shekels per dollar (it was 3.61 yesterday evening).
TODAY’S BLOG:
Joe Biden’s Role in the Yom Kippur War
In January 1973, Joe Biden was sworn in as Senator from Delaware.
September of that year found him in the Middle East on a trip to Egypt. Shortly thereafter, Biden was in Israel in a meeting with Israeli PM Golda Meir.
In that meeting, Biden convinced Meir that Egypt would not attack Israel by convincing her that Egypt thought that Israel had absolute military superiority.
The meeting was documented on October 2, 1973 in a secret letter (below) written by Israel Foreign Ministry official Gideon Jordan. Four days later Egypt attacked Israel.
Foreign Ministry official Gideon Jordan summed up Biden’s words as follows: “Of all the personalities (in Egypt) he (Biden) met, he heard that there was not one of them who disbelieved in Israel’s perfect military superiority and therefore stated that it is not possible for Egypt to go to war against Israel now. According to the people he spoke to Egyptians, time will take its course and when God wills, he will find the solution.”
What this letter calls into question is Joe Biden’s extreme misreading of Arab “personalities” and their intentions. His misreading–and that of Israeli intelligence–had disastrous consequences in the Yom Kippur War. One cannot help but think of similar Biden misreadings when it comes to Iran, Lebanon, and elsewhere.
Gideon Jordan later notes in the secret document that Biden was interested in more than Egypt: “The senator repeatedly said that Israel should do a unilateral act, that is to withdraw from some territories, of course not from those territories of strategic importance such as the Golan Heights, Sharm el-Sheikh and the Gaza Strip–but to withdraw without even any negotiations or an agreement with the Arabs.”
Jordan remarks that Meir immediately disagreed with Biden about unilateral withdrawals without achieving true peace. Again, one cannot help but think about the disastrous Biden unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the unilateral concessions that the U.S. has demanded from Israel in the current Lebanon “agreement” talks.
The secret letter is below for those of you who read Hebrew:
And so it goes in Israel as Yom Kippur 5783 approaches.
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.