Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
9 Shvat 5783
January 31 2023
The Quote of the Day
“Dear Mr. Blinken, I understand that you have decided to give our Prime Minister a lesson in democracy. Well, democracy is first of all the duty of a country to determine its course according to the vote of its citizens, each of which is given equal weight, and without foreign involvement. And demonstrations, however legitimate they may be, are not equivalent to a ballot.”
Minister of National Missions Orit Strook, responding to the unseemly mini-lecture on democracy that U.S. Secretary of State Blinken gave PM Netanyahu yesterday during their joint press conference in Jerusalem.
In that mini-lecture, Blinken lauded the “democracy” demonstrations, but said nothing about our democratically elected government.
The News on the Israeli Street
Who is a terrorist? . . .
Amos Schocken, the editor of the far-left Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, responded to criticism that a recent article in the paper merely referred to a heavily armed terrorist who entered a Jewish community with the intention of killing Jews as “a Palestinian.”
The article reported that “a security man in the settlement shot dead a Palestinian.”
According to Schocken, the description was correct because “the Palestinian was not yet a terrorist when he was shot dead.”
Hmm. Infiltrating into a Jewish community . . . heavily armed with weapons . . . with the intent to kill Jews . . . and not a terrorist?
Speaking of Palestinians . . .
Pro-PLO students demonstrating at Tel Aviv University yesterday.
Yesterday saw another egregious demonstration in support of the PLO at Tel Aviv University. With PLO flags waving in the background, speakers alternately declared:
“We will not stop even if there are a thousand [Palestinian] funerals.”
“The Al-Aqsa gate is made of steel; no one will open it.”
“With spirit and blood we will redeem Palestine.”
When they were finished, they marched back into class to sit beside Israeli students who never know where the next murderous attack might come from.
In your humble servant’s opinion, students at a university who support terrorists and terrorism should be expelled immediately.
Speaking of terrorists . . .
By a large majority of 89 Knesset members, the Knesset approved the first reading of a new law that would revoke the citizenship of a terrorist who receives payment for his crime from the PLO.
As we all know, the PLO pays to slay. Israeli-Arabs who murder or attempt to murder Israelis actually receive a larger monthly stipend while in prison than Palestinians who do so.
Moreover, the law would send the terrorist from Israel to either Ramallah or Gaza upon the completion of his or her sentence.
A former Supreme Court Justice shocks the Left . . .
Former Justice Yaakov Turkel said yesterday that he would not change anything in the proposed legal reform legislation: “I would pass the reform and see how it works.”
He went on to say: “I don’t see this as a danger to democracy. We have to do things carefully and hope for the best.”
As for current justices using “reasonableness” to make decisions instead of the law, Turkel said: “The use of reasonableness is very problematic, and it should have been reduced a long time ago.”
Finally a voice of sanity in the wilderness.
TODAY’S BLOG
Rationalizing Murder
Your humble servant has been infuriated by recent publications and statements that juxtapose what happened in Jenin with what happened in Jerusalem.
Take for example the opening paragraph of an otherwise wonderful statement from the Jewish Federation of the Sacramento region which condemned the terrorism in Jerusalem and expressed solidarity with Israelis:
Friends,
Reports out of Israel indicate that at least seven people have been murdered in a shooting attack on a synagogue in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, it comes a day after an Israeli raid in the West Bank led Palestinian militant groups to vow retaliation . . .
Leaving aside the “Haaretz-like” western desire to call terrorist organizations “militant groups” and Samaria “the West Bank”, the paragraph seemingly links two events together which should not be linked. The linkage is, in the case of the Sacramento statement, an apparently inadvertent rationalization of murder.
Not so inadvertent in many other cases.
What happened in Jenin? Israeli intelligence assets discovered that terrorists in Jenin were a “ticking” bomb–they were on the verge of carrying out a major terror attack in Israel. Our brave soldiers were sent in and immediately were faced with a hail of gunfire, IEDs, and other explosives.
Numerous videos–recorded by Palestinians–showed the heavily armed Palestinians firing assault weapons at the soldiers. In the ensuing firefight, 10 Palestinians were killed (1 more has died since). The imminent Palestinian terror attack was thwarted and Israeli lives were saved.
What happened in Jerusalem? A Palestinian terrorist (apparently affiliated with Fatah) got into a car, drove to a location beside a synagogue, got out of the car and began shooting men, women, and children on the street.
He murdered 7 people.
These 7 were unarmed civilians most of whom were only there to worship.
These 7 people should not be mentioned in the same breath as the Palestinian terrorists in Jenin.
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.