ISRAEL (IINO)
Has the Israeli left lost its mind? Jack Engelhard
The world watches and enjoys. As do the NY Times and Haaretz. You would think Israel doesn’t have enough enemies. Op-ed.
Feb 21, 2023, 1:23 PM (GMT+2) – Leftist madness
Apparently, these protesters are Leftists first, Israelis second.
Here in America you’re thinking… they’re like that over there, too? Impossible. Yes, Leftists are Leftists, the same everywhere.
“Happy families are all alike,” is how Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina.
So imagine Liberals as one happy family when it’s going good for them, and implacably miserable when they don’t get their way.
In that instance, you will be hearing from them, full throttle, as of the moment in Israel.
That, as if Israel doesn’t have enough enemies, to cite the latest Biden betrayal at the UN, a time when Israel should rally as one and indivisible.
Did you really think all Israel is in it together?
Home at last. After 2,000 years. How thrilled, how grateful for this. Politics be damned.
I did. For a long time, I kvelled upon the belief that Israel was united, one nation under the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Yes, I know about the Altalena and more such business.)
4 years after destruction: New homes approved in Gush Etzion neighborhood
Over 400 housing units approved by Civil Admin in Netiv Ha’Avot, where court ordered homes built on 98% undisputed land destroyed.
Feb 22, 2023, 3:49 PM (GMT+2) – Four-and-a-half years after the destruction of 15 homes in Elazar’s Netiv Ha’avot neighborhood, this morning (Wednesday) the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Committee greenlighted 433 housing units in the neighborhood.
In addition, over 1,000 units were approved throughout Gush Etzion, while the eastern Gush community of Pnei Kedem was officially registered within the Israel Land Registry (Tabu).
Back in 2018, Israel’s Suprme Court ordered the demolition of 15 Netiv Ha’avot homes, which was carried out in June of that year. The court ordered the entire houses destroyed despite the fact that only a tiny part of the buildings, about two percent, was built on land where the ownership was disputed.
After being evicted, the fifteen families were allotted a sum of money to build equivalent homes elsewhere and meanwhile, provided with temporary housing. The families were supposed to receive the lump sum of money within a few months of the eviction, along with a portion of land on which to build – a similar settlement to that reached with the families of the destroyed community of Amona in Binyamin, who rebuilt their community in Amichai.
However, the funds were withheld for four years, until the government decided to release them in May 2022 at the initiative of former MK Nir Orbach (Yamina).
At the time Gush Etzion Regional Council Head Shlomo Ne’eman drafted an official resolution stating that hundreds of housing units would be built in the exact location of the 15 homes.
Related articles:
- Civil War? Don’t threaten us
- Evicted families of Netiv Ha’avot to receive promised govt funds
- The paradoxical blessings of oppression: Amona, Netiv Ha’avot, Tapuach
- The unique request of the Netiv Ha’avot expellees
Watch: Helmet footage from battles against terrorists in Shechem
IDF publishes further documentation of fierce battles during operation to arrest wanted terrorists in Shechem.
Feb 22, 2023, 7:34 PM (GMT+2) – The IDF published further documentation of the firefights which occurred between Israeli security forces in the city of Shechem (Nablus) Wednesday morning. Nine terrorists were killed in the battles.
An IDF spokesperson said: “Starting in the morning, Yamam operators, Shin Bet forces, Border Police companies, and IDF forces operated in the Kasbah of Nablus to apprehend three wanted terrorist who were involved in terrorist activities and who were planning to carry out additional attacks in the immediate time frame.”
“As can be seen in the documentation, under “heavy fire”, the soldiers move through the alleys of the Kasbah of Nablus towards the building where the wanted terrorist were staying. In the process of the operation live fire was directed at the Israeli forces who responded to this life-threatening danger by shooting and neutralizing the three wanted terrorists.”
Related articles:
- IDF soldier: There’s a child behind the gunman, I’m not shooting
- Terrorists who murdered Ido Baruch arrested
- Needed: A return to a Jewish presence in Jericho and Shechem
- Shots fired towards military posts near Shechem
Jerusalem counter-terror operation continues at Ben-Gvir’s order
4 guns, 11 toy guns modified to use live bullets seized and 72 suspects arrested in Jerusalem in first half of the week.
The law enforcement and counter-terrorism operation in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem ordered by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir continued this week.
Between Sunday and Tuesday, four illegal weapons and 11 toy pistols which had been modified to use live ammunition were seized. 72 suspects were arrested in 18 special enforcement operations in the city. Two illegal buildings were demolished. Illegal funds were seized on 39 occasions, and 113 traffic reports were given.
The police set up 232 checkpoints and 12,451 citizens and 8,349 vehicles were checked during this three-day period.
Minister Ben-Gvir said: “Our governance in the eastern part of the city should be clear to everyone. I thank the security forces and the police who operate in the area all the time. We need to significantly increase our activity and our war on terrorism, and I am working non-stop to see this carried out. To do this we must significantly increase the police budget and the police’s operational abilities and add more police officers to restore our governance.”
Biden Admin. ‘extremely concerned’ after Shechem battle
State Department spokesman Ned Price says US recognizes Israel’s security needs, but is concerned by large number of casualties in battle.
Feb 22, 2023 – US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that the Biden Administration is “extremely concerned” by the battle between the IDF and terrorist forces in the city of Shechem (Nablus) in which at least nine terrorists were killed and 102 people were reportedly injured.
Price said that “10 Palestinians, including both militants and civilian bystanders, were killed and over 100 were injured.”
“We wish a speedy recovery to those injured and our hearts go out to the families of the innocent bystanders who were killed today,” Price said. “We recognize the very real security concerns facing Israel. At the same time, we are deeply concerned by the large number of injuries and the loss of civilian lives.”
[Ed.: Apparently, the State Department doesn’t get it. While the American government attacks and kills its own population all day every day, and while the American government kills innocent Ukraine civilians for two years day after day, the American government ‘doesn’t have any standing’ (read: they don’t have a leg to stand on,) when it comes to saying anything about Israel killing off as many musloid terrorists as possible. (Read: the more, the merrier.) The State Department needs to just shut-up, and take their ‘concern’ and stick it where the sun don’t shine.]
Moving Forward: Two Parts of Judicial Reform Pass First Reading by AFSI Staff
February 22, 2023 – The Knesset passed the first two pieces of legislation relating to the government’s judicial reform plan. This followed a noisy six-hour-plus debate that ended after midnight Tuesday. Both bills passed by a vote of 63 to 47. This is the first of three readings.
The first bill amends Basic Law: The Judiciary so that the Supreme Court can’t invalidate basic laws, which are considered to have quasi-constitutional status in Israel. The second bill changes the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee to give elected officials a majority in choosing judges both for the Supreme Court and lower courts.
MK Simcha Rothman stated: “The Supreme Court is the one that harmed judicial authority. Only those who ‘have the right stuff,’ only those who ‘are part of the family’ are eligible to become a judge in the Supreme Court.”
Throughout the evening, opposition and coalition MKs traded barbs as they mounted the Knesset podium. To date, the opposing side has not come forward with their list of suggested reforms. Opposition leaders have refused to answer President Isaac Herzog’s request that the two sides come together to work out their differences. What is their answer to combat the 28 year abuses of judicial power? Silence so far.
IDF counterterrorism raid: 10 killed, 102 wounded in Nablus; no Israeli casualties
February 22, 2023 – “I am not surrendering. My brother and I are under siege. God will not forgive those who sold us out,” one of the terrorists said in a voice recording.
At least 10 Palestinian terrorists were killed and 102 were wounded during clashes which began with an intense gun battle between IDF soldiers and two men wanted on terror charges in the Old City of Nablus (Shechem) on Wednesday morning.
The IDF said in a statement that no Israeli security forces were wounded in the clashes.
According to Hebrew-language media reports, the clashes occurred during an arrest operation targeting two Lions’ Den operatives, Hussam Aslim and Muhammad Janaydi Abu-Bakar. Both men were part of a squad that launched a deadly shooting attack on IDF troops in October 2022, which killed Sgt. Ido Baruch.
Troops from the Golani Brigade, the elite counter-terror Yamam unit, and the Border Police surrounded a home where Abu-Bakar and Aslim had barricaded themselves inside.
Bedlam at Western Wall: Israeli Reform rabbi blamed for ‘provocation’ By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
February 22, 2023 – “We regret that this group saw fit to turn the Western Wall into a site of provocation without taking into account the consequences, the harm to the public’s feelings and the sanctity of the place,” the Western Wall Foundation stated.
It was bedlam at the Western Wall plaza Wednesday morning as Reform rabbis and a women’s group held a prayer service-cum-demonstration there, with police trying to break it up and charges of violence flying from all sides.
Wednesday was the first day of the Hebrew month of Adar, and as is their usual practice on the quasi-festive day, called Rosh Chodesh in Hebrew, the feminist Women of the Wall (WoW) organization prayed at the site while donning, as religious Jewish men do, prayer shawls and phylacteries and publicly reading from the Torah, in defiance of Orthodox custom.
They were joined this time by hundreds of Reform rabbis from around the world who marched with Torah scrolls to the holy site, led by Labor MK Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism.
Their motto was, “A woman with a prayer shawl is not a criminal,” referring to a bill put forward earlier this month by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party requiring six months in jail or a NIS 10,000 fine for those who acted in violation of the Orthodox status quo at the Western Wall.
CEO of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) Hara Person said the march was part of the movement’s “fight to protect pluralism, equality, and democracy” in Israel, and to “proudly hold the Torah for all the women who are told they cannot worship freely and openly at the Kotel [Western Wall].”
[Ed.: ‘WoW’ describes it! Israel’s erev rav (mixed multitudes) are still building golden calves. They can also summarize the Torah while standing on one leg! This is the same group that was shooting at us at the Altalena. WoW!]
