Yom Shnee
Monday
29 Shvat 5783
February 20 2023
The Ludicrous Quote of the Day
“Officially there is freedom of speech in Israel, but people are afraid to express their opinion if it is not a right wing populist opinion.”
Merav Michaeli, Labor Party Head, speaking at a conference in Munich
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Leftists are afraid to express their opinion?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
What a joke! What have the 100,000 people been doing in Habima Square every Saturday for the last 7 weeks? What are they doing this morning in Jerusalem where they are trying to block Knesset legislators from entering the building? What are they doing in front of Simcha Rothman’s house this morning trying to stop Rothman from even walking to his car?
Afraid to express their opinion?
What is egregiously reprehensible about Michaeli is that she is going abroad to deliberately spreading false information about Israel.
The Farcical Video of the Morning
As mentioned above, leftists are trying to block Knesset legislators from getting out of their homes and getting into the Knesset because today is the day on which the first two pieces of judicial reform are going to have their first reading.
When two of them refused to move, they were arrested.
Another Absurd “Attorney General” Pronouncement
The “legal advisor to the government” (as the “Attorney General” likes to call herself) issued another decree yesterday. After informing PM Netanyahu several weeks ago that he is not permitted to discuss the legal reforms in any way, she backtracked yesterday and said that it is all right for him to “try to calm the nation.”
Can you imagine the utter chutzpah of her now telling Netanyahu that he has permission to calm the nation?
As if Netanyahu needed her permission.
Netanyahu had this to say yesterday about the whole situation at a meeting with Jewish leaders at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem:
“You may not have noticed, but Israel is now in the midst of a legal reform. I wanted to talk to you at length about this issue, and explain to you why you don’t need to worry. For now, I am prevented from doing so, because I am forbidden to talk about it. I’m not making this up, I’m not allowed to talk about it. After all, who am I? I am only the Prime Minister of Israel . . . It’s ridiculous. I hope you see the absurdity of the situation . . .”
Speaking of Netanyahu and Absurdities
The trial of PM Netanyahu has degenerated into its own farce.
As you may not realize, 337 witnesses are scheduled to give testimony in Cases 1000, 2000, and 4000. So far only 4o have done so.
Commentator Moshik Kovarsky wrote this on Friday:
“Understand the magnitude of the farce/tragedy in the Jerusalem court. 3 district judges, countless attorneys, gossipers, security guards: money flows like water into their accounts. Witnesses number 274 (Kobi Levi) and 273 (Boaz Assayag), drivers in the Prime Minister’s office, gave testimony today.
Prosecutor: What were you asked to buy?
Driver: We were once asked to buy toothpaste with our money. Netanyahu paid us back.
Prosecutor: Were you ever asked to buy swimming goggles?
Driver: They cost 200 shekels and Netanyahu paid us back. I was also asked to change the strap in his watch. It cost 70 NIS and I got the money back.
Prosecutor: Anything else?
Driver: A friend sent Netanyahu 2 shirts as a gift. He refused to accept them. Said he shouldn’t.
Prosecutor: What about cigars and champagne?
Driver: I have not heard of seen anything about those.
Can you imagine the absurdity? An absurdity that will continue for years.
Yesterday someone in the Prosecutor’s office leaked the notion that the Prosecutor would be willing to accept a plea deal with Netanyahu in which Cases 2000 and 4000 would be dropped, if Netanyahu would agree to a “breach of trust” in Case 1000 about the cigars and champagne.
Netanyahu let it be known that he has refused the deal.
Another Farce in the U.N. Security Council
As you may not know, the U.A.E.–Israel’s supposed new friend–is the country leading the charge against Israel in the Security Council by drafting a resolution opposing Israeli “settlement”.
It had appeared until last night that the U.S. was prepared to veto the U.A.E. proposal despite having criticized Israel severely over our announcement of the legalization of 10 Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and the approval of some 9,500 new apartments there.
But not so.
It turns out that the U.S. has apparently made a deal in which Israel would freeze the 9,500 new homes in exchange for the PLO/UAE withdrawing or at least rewriting the draft resolution.
Can you believe this? Of course you can. As we wrote when the 9,500 new apartments were announced, one can never trust PM Netanyahu to go through with it. In this case however, we can expect a storm of protest from Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir if the reports of the deal are accurate.
TODAY’S BLOG
84%: Iran On The Brink
As you undoubtedly know dear readers, in order to make a nuclear bomb, uranium needs to be enriched to 90% purity (except in the case of a “dirty bomb” which requires less.
The IAEA revealed yesterday that its representatives in Iran have found uranium enriched to 84%.
84%.
To say that Iran is on the verge of making a nuclear bomb is an understatement. As regular readers of OneIsrael know, we have often expressed the belief here that Iran reached the 90% threshhold long ago, but the fact that the ayatollahs are permitting the IAEA to find out that they are at 84% is striking.
Couple this information with U.S. Secretary of State Blinken’s comment yesterday that “Israel has the U.S.’s back to do everything possible to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons”, and you have to wonder what kind of action Israel is now contemplating.
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.