Yom Shishee
Friday
22 Av 5782
August 19 2022
The Friday Poll: from Maariv newspaper (compared to last week)
32 (-1): Likud (Netanyahu)
25 (unchanged): Yesh Atid (Lapid)
12 (+2): Kahol Levan/New Hope–renamed “State Camp (Gantz/Saar/Eizenkot)
8 (-1): Shas (Sephardic Orthodox)
7 (separated from National Zionism this week) Otzma (Ben Gvir)
7 (unchanged): United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi Orthodox)
5 (-2) : Labor
5 National Zionism (separated from National Zionism this week) (Smotrich)
6 (unchanged): Joint Arab List
5 (unchanged): Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman)
4 (unchanged): Ra’am Islamic Party (Abbas)
0 (-4): Zionist Spirit (Shaked)
4 (+4): Meretz
Netanyahu bloc: 59
Lapid bloc: 55
Not affiliated: 5 (Joint Arab List)
The summary: Eizenkot adds 2 seats to newly named State Camp Party; the Lapid bloc jumps 4 seats because Meretz passes the threshhold; the Netanyahu bloc drops 4 seats because Zionist Spirit drops below. Everything else stays almost the same.
The most interesting news of the morning. Itamar Ben Gvir of Otzma (Jewish Power) has been in negotiations with Jonathan Pollard for the past week and is considering offering him a protected place on the Otzma list if Pollard will run.
There are now 74 days until the election.
The Friday Corona Update
1,316 Israelis tested positive yesterday (out of 11,835 tested).
The positive test rate was 11.12%; the coefficient of infection was 0.75%.
194 Israelis are seriously ill; 85 are critically ill—70 of these are on ventilators.
11,525 have died–42 since last Friday.
The summary: almost no one is getting tested; the positive test rate and coefficient of infection are virtually the same as last week; the number of seriously and critically ill has dropped, and most importantly, we are under double digits (6) in the number of daily dead.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
A few of the weapons seized in raids in Hevron last night:
Palestinian terrorists fired at Israeli motorists on Road 465, and at Dotan in northern Samaria.
Palestinian terrorists attacked with IEDs, Molotovs, and “rocks” at numerous places on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road, south of the Karmi Tzur Junction, at Luban a-Sharqiya, Marda, and at Al-Abud.
Another call for violence by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas . . .
Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO Fatah Movement has opened a summer military camp for Palestinian teenagers.
It is named for Ibrahim Al-Nabalsi, the terrorist who was killed by our security forces two weeks ago.
A flight follow-up . . .
Yesterday, we pointed out the restrictions that Saudi Arabia has placed on Israeli passenger jets flying through its airspace and noted that Oman has still not given permission for its airspace to be used.
This morning comes news that following pressure from Iran, Oman has declared that Israeli aircraft may not fly over Oman.
Speaking of Iran . . .
We all knew in the end that the Biden Administration would do anything possible to restart the Iranian Nuclear Weapons Appeasement Agreement.
This morning, Iranian media has released a new series of concessions that Biden has made:
*the removal of economic sanctions on 17 banks
*the immediate release of 7 billion dollars worth of Iranian assets in South Korea
*the sale of 50 million barrels of oil in the first 12o days after the agreement is signed
*the immediate cancellation of three executive orders of former President Trump
And on and on.
The Iranian media further reports that the Agreement will be signed within the next three months and will include a prisoner exchange.
Is anyone surprised?
TODAY’S BLOG
The Disastrous Secularization of Israeli Public Education
Education Minister Yifat Sasha Biton. She always likes be photographed with the Israeli flag but her education reforms tell a different story.
Next week, Israeli schools will reopen after the summer break (if the teachers do not go on strike).
Those students will find a vastly changed curriculum being instituted by Education Minister Yifat Shasha Biton. Biton is a member of the New Hope Party whose secular humanitarian agenda aligns with that of PM Lapid, “Defense” Minister Gantz, and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman.
The curriculum will eliminate all study of Kings David and Solomon, the First Temple, the Babylonian exile, the return of Jews to Jerusalem, the building of our Second Temple, the Hasmoneans and Maccabees, King Herod, the three Jewish wars against the Romans, and the destruction of the Second Temple among other critical moments in Jewish history in our country.
A generation of students will be taught that we have no connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem or the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron, and that we only came to Israel in 1948.
No longer will there be matriculation exams in history, literature, Bible, and citizenship. Instead, students will receive final yearly grades based on such things as written assignments and creative podcasts.
It is an appalling curriculum specifically designed to downplay Jewish history in Israel and to downplay Judaism.
It is a curriculum which would find favor with Reform Jews everywhere which now de-prioritize Israel and Judaism in favor of more “liberal humanitarian” concerns.
It is precisely the kind of “no Jewish history in Israel” curriculum that is taught in Palestinian schools.
On that very unhappy note, we wish you:
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.