Yom Shishee
Friday
20 Tevet 5783
January 13 2023
Quote of the Day
“No external party is allowed to interfere in the decision-making and values of the army.”
Former IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi upon leaving the IDF yesterday and welcoming Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi as the new Chief of Staff.
Of course, what Kohavi says is not true. External parties interfere in army decision making all the time. It was just last month that the Biden Administration demanded that the elite Netzah Yehuda Battalion be transferred out of Judea and Samaria, and the IDF General Command complied.
Photo of the Day
Sgt. Miriam Cohen and Sgt. Naama Itamari receive certificates for reaching the final stage of the IDF Manpower Division’s annual quiz on Israel’ heritage, Jewish history, and knowledge of the country. Kolakevod to them!
Upon awarding the certificates, the head of the Personnel Department, Gen. Yaniv Asor commented: “There is no equal to our love for our heritage and our country; we must continue to protect it and be united.”
The News on the Israeli Street
The war in Judea and Samaria in the last 24 hours.
Shooting attacks:
Palestinian terrorists opened fire on IDF soldiers in the Shechem casbah last night during the capture of a member of the Lions’ Den terror organization. No Israelis were wounded. 3 other terrorists were also captured.
Palestinian terrorists opened fire on IDF soldiers in Kabatia–again during the arrest operation of a terrorist.
IED, “rock”, and Molotov attacks:
Palestinian terrorists attacked at Hawara, the large Yitzhar Junction, near Einbus Square, on the Al Abud curve, on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road, outside of Luban a-Sharqiya, and in at least a dozen other locations.
Kolakevod to Minister Smotrich! . . .
Following through on his decision, Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich had 139 million shekels ($40 million dollars) transferred yesterday to a representative of the families of victims of terrorism. The money came from the seizure of tax funds collected by Israel for the PLO. Smotrich made the decision after the PLO had the U.N. refer Israel’s “occupation” to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
What gives them the right? . . .
Yesterday we had the spectacle of British Minister of State for the Middle East, Lord Tariq Ahmad, prancing around Jerusalem, Hevron, and the south Hevron hills.
After a visit to the Temple Mount he tweeted: “I emphasized the UK’s unwavering support for Jordanian Custodianship of Jerusalem’s Holy Sites . . .”
By the way, Israel has never recognized Jordanian “custodianship” of anything in Jerusalem, merely (in the 1994 treaty) that Jordan has a special role to play.
In Hevron, he visited an UNRWA school of the type that specialize in incitement against Israel.
In the Hevron hills, he visited illegal sites that the U.K. and E.U. have built and funded in order to change facts on the ground in Area C of Judea and Samaria. Tariq’s disingenuous comment: “I visited the site of a European and U.K. donor-funded school facing demolition in Masafer Yatta . . . the UK continues to urge Israel to desist demolitions and evictions that cause unnecessary suffering and are illegal . . .”
Why is it that visitors from other countries think they have the right to come to Israel and make political pronouncements and statements that undermine this country?
TODAY’S BLOG
Supreme Court President Esther Hayut’s Unseemly Demagoguery
Supreme Court President Esther Hayut held an unprecedented press conference last night in which she lambasted Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s proposed judicial reforms.
Not merely lambasted but lambasted with extreme prejudice meant to incite those coming to protest in Tel Aviv tomorrow night:
“Unfortunately, if the people who have made up this plan have their way, [this] year will be remembered as the year in which Israel’s democracy suffered a fatal blow.”
Unbelievable exaggeration. Leveling the playing field between the Court and the Knesset will be the end of democracy?
She went on to deride the idea of an override clause and to trumpet the importance of “unreasonableness” as a judicial tool.
And on and on.
All in all, Hayut came across as an arrogant demagogue trying to defend her territory.
Even the Movement for Governance and Democracy had this to say afterwards: “We are sorry that the President of the Supreme Court chose to act contrary to the law and the regulations of the civil service, and to directly attack the decisions of the elected government. We are even more sorry that the President chose to spread unfounded ignorance and fear, instead of being an example of state conduct that is expected of the President of the Supreme Court.”
Hayut’s unseemly tirade illustrates the importance of passing Levin’s reforms, and passing them soon.
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.