Yom Reva’ee
Wednesday
7 Nisan 5783
March 29 2023
TODAY’S BLOG
Ofek 13 Launch Successful, Biden Meddles Again,
“Protests” Continue, Negotiations Begin, The Chametz Law
The Photo and Video of the Day
Ofek 13, an Israeli military satellite, was successfully launched into space from a launch site in central Israel early this morning. It has already begun transmitting data.
Click here to watch the launch.
The Statement of the Morning (emphasis mine)
“I have known President Biden for over 40 years, and I appreciate his longstanding commitment to Israel. The alliance between Israel and the United States is unbreakable and always overcomes the occasional disagreements between us. My administration is committed to strengthening democracy by restoring the proper balance between the three branches of government, which we are striving to achieve via a broad consensus. Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Netanyahu was responding to President Biden’s statement yesterday in which Biden said: “I am not inviting Netanyahu to the White House in the near future. I am very worried like many supporters of Israel about the laws against the justice system. They can’t go on like this. I made that clear.”
Interestingly, Biden’s comments came after U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides announced that Netanyahu was being invited to the White House.
By the way, National Security Minister Ben Gvir had the best line on the Biden statement:
“Israel is an independent country and not another star on the American flag.”
The War in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria
In Jerusalem, security forces are now on the Temple Mount attempting to remove Palestinians who have barricaded themselves inside the Al Aksa Mosque in violation of agreements.
A bizarre incident in Hawara last night. A car carrying 5 Jewish community members was attacked by Palestinians as IDF soldiers watched and did nothing:
The car after the attack.
After the attack, the 5 community members were arrested, and some were beaten so badly by our security forces that they had to be hospitalized.
Yes you read that correctly.
There is still no explanation from the IDF about what happened.
IED, Molotov, and “rock” attacks.
Palestinian terrorists attacked IDF forces at the Salem IDF post and soldiers returned fire, at Singil northeast of Ramallah, between Al Khader and Beitar, on the Hosan Bypass (an ambulance was attacked), in Hawara, on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road, between Ojah and the Junction of Road 90, and at other locations.
No End to the “Protests”
As we have written continuously for the last three months, the anarchist/demonstrators in the street are not protesting legal reforms; they are protesting the existence of PM Netanyahu and our coalition government. What’s more, “protesting” has become a big business and the “protesters” are apparently well paid.
Yesterday, even as Histadrut and many other entities called off their strikes (those one day strikes cost business owners an estimated 2 billion shekels) because of Netanyahu’s freezing of the legislative process, many of the 130 protest organizations led by “Black Flag” and “Krime Minister” vowed to intensify the demonstrations:
“Yesterday we witnessed another attempt to smear and deceive the public by a leader who has lost his brakes and is unfit to lead the country. Netanyahu intends to pass the dictatorship laws immediately after the recess. We will not fall for this deception, and will continue the fight with all our might. The negotiations on behalf of Lapid and Gantz do not represent us, and we call on them to stop it immediately.”
The First Round of Talks
. . . took place for about one hour last night at the President’s home. Afterwards, Herzog said the meeting went well, and would be followed by another meeting tonight.
By the way, those talks at the moment include Herzog, 4 Yesh Atid (Lapid), and 4 State Camp (Gantz) representatives on the Left—and only 4 representatives on the Right. The deck will soon become even more stacked against the Coalition because Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, Michaeli’s Labor Party, and even Mansour Abbas’ Ram Party also want to send representatives.
The Chametz Law passes the Knesset
Your humble servant cannot understand why anyone is upset with the Chametz law. Passed yesterday, it simply specifies that hospital administrators can decide whether or not to allow non-kosher foods into the hospital during Passover.
After all, this is a Jewish country, and Muslims and Christian patients and staff can certainly survive Jewish dietary restrictions during the 7-day Passover holiday.
But if you can believe this, the organizers of the 700 Reserve Army refuseniks announced this yesterday: “we will introduce chametz into the hospitals in a variety of ways, take pictures and upload them to the networks.”
Why is there such an effort to be non-Jewish? And don’t they have anything better to do with their time? Like serve in the army?
More on the Gallant Decision
Is Gallant fired or not?
There’s no way of knowing this morning. Yesterday, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant joined security talks in the Ministry of Defense.
There is talk today that Gallant may stay after all, or that Netanyahu will appoint a temporary Minister of Defense to replace him. Temporary because Netanyahu is saving the position for Benny Gantz to take it if he joins the Coalition.
Let’s earnestly hope the latter is not true. The abominable Gantz is a destructive, incompetent fool who terrorized Judea and Samaria during his term in office.
And so it goes this morning in Israel.
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.