Yom Reva’ee
Wednesday
18 Tevet 5783
January 11 2023
The Quotes of the Day
“Set fire to the streets. Just set them on fire.”
Michal Shir, a Knesset member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party, speaking in the Knesset yesterday.
“In a democratic country, you don’t arrest the leaders of the opposition just as you don’t call the ministers of the government Nazis; you don’t call a Jewish government the Fourth Reich, and you don’t call on the citizens to go to civil riots.”
PM Benjamin Netanyahu in remarks made to President Herzog yesterday.
The level of inflammatory rhetoric begun by Lapid and Gantz after the formation of the new government has reached extremely dangerous proportions. Reportage last night revealed that as in the past, the push for civil unrest is being funded by the New Israel Fund.
The News on the Israeli Street
The war in Judea and Samaria.
Shooting attacks:
Palestinian terrorists fired at our soldiers operating in Shechem overnight. A terrorist was badly wounded in the exchange of gunfire.
Palestinian terrorists opened fire at IDF soldiers in Yavd.
Molotov, IED, and “rock” attacks:
Palestinian terrorists attacked on Road 55 between Karni Shomron and Kedumim at the Jinspot Junction, Anta, on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road near Al Aruv, near the Halhol Junction, on Road 55 near the Ma’ale Shomron Junction, on Road 55 near the Azzun Junction, in the vicinity of Tekoa, at Luban a-Sharqiya, beside Sinjil, and at numerous other locations.
A Palestinian terrorist was captured in in the northern part of the community of Rochin by an IDF alert squad and the Samaria security division.
IDF and Shin Bet forces captured 16 wanted terrorists in Sara and Hizma.
Holding the visa exemption over our heads . . .
Tom Nides, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, said yesterday that a decision on whether to give Israelis a visa exemption to enter the U.S. will be made “within weeks.”
Nides said the question remains as to whether Israel will meet the conditions set by the Biden Administration.
As to what those conditions are, Nides commented: “. . . Arab-Palestinian Americans must be able to travel freely . . .”
It is no surprise that Nides made these comments in advance of the arrival of Biden National Security Advisor Sullivan next week and Secretary of State Blinken in two weeks: visa exemption will be based on Israeli concessions to the Palestinians demanded by the two.
TODAY’S BLOG
The IDF: Increasingly Unprepared For War
A significant change has occurred in the air over our home here in Ashdod over the past six months.
Unlike in previous years, virtually no aircraft have flown over the house. Because we are in the takeoff path of airplanes based at an IAF base near us, we used to get regular squadrons of F15s and F16s flying over home at least 3 or 4 times a day.
No longer.
At first, we thought the reason for the change was that the planes had been repositioned to another IAF base further south. But that appears not to be the case.
This morning comes a report that the IAF has expanded its “Flight Simulation Training Center.” At first glance this would seem to be a positive development. After all, the more training that pilots receive in simulators, the better they will be.
But no.
According to the Defense Ministry, the expanded facility at Hatzor AFB “serves as infrastructure for future training platforms, will allow double the amount of flight training hours while reducing in-air flight costs . . . It will yield multi-year savings amounting to hundreds of millions of shekels.”
The bottom line is that pilots now have dramatically less time training in the air and dramatically more time training in simulators.
This cannot be a good development.
Moreover, this report comes on the heels of another report last week in which an unnamed military official said that IDF ground combat soldiers are being “willfully unprepared” by an IDF General Command which is obsessed with creating an IDF technology and innovation hub.
That unnamed official continued on to say: “We are on the brink of having minimal troops facing more complex threats than anything we have experienced in recent years,” Israel may face a heavy campaign combined with internal challenges in which every combat soldier will be relevant and his shortcomings will be felt. The focus on hi-tech and innovation has all come at the expense of the ground forces, which will determine the outcome on the battlefield.”
How true.
The push for innovation in air and ground combat cannot be made in the absence of actual in-air and on-ground training.
Unfortunately, it would appear that Israel is becoming increasingly unprepared for war.
*Thanks to Jpost for elements of today’s blog.
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.