Yom Rishon
Sunday
11 Cheshvan 5783
November 6 2022
The Startling Quote of the Day
“The main reason that Balad did not pass the threshold and is not in the new Knesset is that Ra’am and Tal-Hadash received a lot of money from American Jews who wanted to prevent Netanyahu from winning the election. You will be able to verify this in the campaign financial disclosures.”
Sami Abu Shahada, Balad Party member on Channel 13 yesterday.
Of course, this astonishing assertion needs to be verified, but if it is true that American Jews poured money into the Islamist Ra’am Party and the old Joint Arab List in order to bolster Yair Lapid’s chances, it marks a new low in Israel-U.S. relations.
The Photos Of The Day
Because of the ongoing war in Judea and Samaria (see below), an increasing number of orthodox women are now getting licenses to carry guns and instruction on how to use them. The above photo from a gun range in Kiryat Arba shows four women in a course organized by Rina Arbel, the mother of 13-year-old Hillel Ariel Arbel who was murdered in her bed by a terrorist in 2016.
The largest cruise ship ever to dock in Israel (photo Geodrones).
The German-based AIDACosma, with lips painted on the bow, arrived in Haifa yesterday. The boat is 337 meters long with 20 floors, 17 restaurants, and 23 bars. It is carries up to 6,654 passengers.
The War in Judea and Samaria:
Palestinian Terror in the Last 24 Hours
382 Palestinian terror attacks involving shootings, stabbings, attempted run-overs, and IEDs were recorded in Judea and Samaria last month. There were 46 shooting attacks alone.
Yesterday:
In Judea and Samaria.
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with Molotovs, IEDs, and “rocks” on Road 60 near the British Police Junction, at the large Yakir Junction, on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road south of the Karmi Tzur Junction, Luban a-Sharqiya, Singil, Al-Aruv, Tekoa, and at two dozen other locations.
Palestinian terrorists carried out a shooting attack near the Ateret Junction.
Palestinian terrorists detonated explosives at the Nabi Saleh pillbox on Road 465.
Palestinian terrorists attacked an IDF patrol and civilian motorists north of the British Police Junction. One terrorist was killed; another was wounded.
Palestinian terrorists attempted to set fire to the Jewish community at Esh Kodesh.
On the Gaza border.
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza opened fire with high-powered machine guns on homes in Sderot. A number of houses were hit, but there were no physical casualties.
Update from Kiryat Arba.
Tamar Aharon, the 14-year-old who was shot in the head by a Palestinian terrorist at her home in Kiryat Arba four days ago, has been upgraded from very critical to critical at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. She still needs your prayers.
Where is the international outcry? Where is the Biden Administration? Every time a Palestinian teenager engaging in terrorism gets shot, the Bidenites and Europeans rush to condemn Israel.
Here we have a 14-year-old Israeli girl who was shot while walking around her house, and the world says nothing.
The News on the Israeli Street
The new government begins to form . . .
PM-elect Netanyahu is already beginning to form his new cabinet with heads of his three coalition partners (National Zionism, Shas, and United Torah Judaism) meeting him today and tomorrow to go over possible roles in the government.
Apparently, Aryeh Deri of Shas has first choice because of his unceasing loyalty to Netanyahu, but his situation is clouded by legal impediments. Then comes Itamar Ben Gvir who will apparently become the Minister of Public Security, a post that has been held by the abominable leftist Omer Bar-Lev. Ben Gvir’s appointment would mark a welcome sea change on the ground in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and in the rest of Israel.
Other probable appointees will be Yoav Galant as Defense Minister (a wonderful choice) and Amir Ohana as Foreign Minister (also excellent). Close Netanyahu confidant Yariv Levin will also receive his pick of ministries.
Interestingly, United Torah Judaism announced today that it does not want to receive a Ministry and would prefer to head the Knesset Finance Committee.
TODAY’S BLOG:
No, Thomas Friedman. The Israel we knew is not gone. It has returned.
Two days ago, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist who has focused his waning career on castigating Israel, published his latest rant “The Israel We Knew Is Gone.” The simple fact is that over the last decade, Friedman has become irrelevant with repeated misguided opinion pieces that resonate with none but his fellow “progressive leftists” in the U.S. and Israel.
After extoling the supposed bi-partisanship of the current Bennett-Lapid-Gantz government (of course it was anything but bi-partisan with nothing but leftist parties included), he proceeds to label Netanyahu’s incoming government as “the most far-far-right coalition in Israel’s history.”
He throws the kitchen sink at the new “nightmare” coalition by describing it as “a rowdy alliance of ultra-Orthodox leaders and ultranationalist politicians, including some outright racist, anti-Arab Jewish extremists once deemed completely outside the norms and boundaries of Israeli politics.”
In a non-leftist non-progressive world, Netanyahu’s coalition would be precisely described as a democratically elected alliance of religiously conservative leaders and Zionist politicians, including some who believe that Palestinian terrorists should be severely dealt with.
Is this coalition completely outside the norms and boundaries of Israeli politics? Only if you know nothing about Israeli politics. One only has to think back to Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir to understand Friedman’s historical fallacy.
Friedman continues with this whopper: “As that previously unthinkable reality takes hold, a fundamental question will roil synagogues in America and across the globe: ‘Do I support this Israel or not support it?'”
One wonders what rock Friedman has been living under.
Reform synagogues around the world have for the most part given up supporting Israel preferring instead to pursue what they believe are liberal, humanitarian values. The question of ‘do I support this Israel or not support it’ was answered long ago.
Friedman continues his litany by saying that the new government “will haunt pro-Israel students on college campuses.”
Again one wonders where Friedman has been for the last few decades as U.S. and international college campuses have been taken over by anti-Israel students supported by “progressives” like Friedman. What few pro-Israel students remain on those campuses have been in many cases intimidated into silence.
Friedman continues that the new government “will challenge Arab allies of Israel in the Abraham Accords, who just wanted to trade with Israel and never signed up for defending a government there that is anti-Israeli Arab.”
Anti-Israeli Arab? Friedman might want to take a look (as we will tomorrow) at how Israeli-Arab communities voted in this election. He undoubtedly would be surprised to see how many votes Likud and National Zionism received there.
And Friedman labors on: “It will stress those U.S. diplomats who have reflexively defended Israel as a Jewish democracy that shares America’s values, and it will send friends of Israel in Congress fleeing from any reporter asking if America should continue sending billions of dollars in aid to such a religious-extremist-inspired government.”
Nothing that happened in the Israeli election even remotely suggests that Israel is not a Jewish democracy. Your humble servant would suggest that Israel shares America’s values just not Friedman’s liberal progressive values.
We could go on with more quotes from Friedman’s hackneyed writing as he quotes his good friend Israeli uber-leftist Nahum Barnea, berates Ben Gvir for proclaiming there should be “death to terrorists”, and praises Mansour Abbas of the Islamist Ra’am Party–all the while stating that new government will go on the attack against Israeli-Arabs.
Friedman only sees Israel from afar; not living here on the front lines precludes him from having any understanding of the daily threats facing all Israelis including Israeli-Arabs. Terror is surging in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem; missiles continue to be shot from Gaza; Lebanon and Iran threaten us everyday. Domestically, crime is rampant in Israeli-Arab cities and communities that cry out for a government that will do something to stop it.
Israel has not entered “a dark tunnel” as Friedman concludes.
Instead, we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel with our new government. That new government is not the end of Israel as we knew it, but hopefully the return to an Israel that we once knew.
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.