Wednesday
Yom Reva’ee
8 Shevat 5785
February 5 2025
SPECIAL NOTICE
From January 30-February 19 your humble servant will be traveling in some places in the world where internet service is spotty or nonexistent. This OneIsrael blog will be published as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
UPDATE 4:00 AM ISRAEL TIME
The View from Ashdod
(even though your humble servant is in Ho Chi Minh City at the moment)
The news out of Washington last night was astonishing as President Trump revealed his vision for what would essentially be an American enclave where Gaza is.
As best we can understand it, Trump would like to move people out of Gaza, raze what buildings remain, and rebuild it. Only by doing this he said, can the endless cycle of war be stopped.
PM Netanyahu at the same press conference lauded Trump for “thinking out of the box.”
Thinking out of the box or just a pipedream? One can imagine that what Trump envisions are Trump hotels dotting the Gaza coastline–probably build with Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari money. But . . . and it is a big but, would Hamas ever go along with such a plan?
In any case, Netanyahu’s meetings with Trump and his Cabinet and advisors have gone extraordinarily well–and we’ll see what more comes out of the visit between now and Friday (Netanyahu apparently leaves on Saturday night when Shabbat is over).
Aside from Gaza . . . Iran
Trump’s statement:
“I would love to make a great deal with Iran. They are a great people, enterprising, beautiful. I have a lot of friends from Iran and they are very proud of Iran. I hate that I had to impose sanctions on them. I really want peace, they must not have nuclear weapons.”
What are we to make of this? Will the U.S. help Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear program or not?
And so it goes thus far today . . .
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.