Two days ago ”Jerusalem Day” was celebrated in Jerusalem, 45 years after our Holy City was reunited during the Six-Day-War. Jerusalem is Zion, and without the main parts of our Holy City there can be no Zionism, no home for the Jewish people. In 1948 when Israel was established and attacked by all the surrounding Arab countries, Jordan with its foreign legion, captured the whole West Bank and a very great part of Jerusalem including the Old City and Jewish quarters. They destroyed many historical places and buildings, and even plundered the ancient grave yard, breaking up and taking grave stones to use for building. During their occupation, no Jews were allowed to visit and pray at their most holy of places (the Temple Mount and the Western Wall). When the Six-Day-War began, and Egypt published the (untrue) fact that they were winning, Jordan also entered the war, evidently wanting “part of the pie”, but lost all, and our Holy City was reunited. Now they want it all back and many in the world support them. If only we could hold Peace talks with the Arabs, I am sure we could come to an agreed solution, but these talks still seem far away. In the meanwhile parts of Jeruslem are being built, and on Sunday thousands celebrated the reuniting of the city.
The Iranian nuclear threat is still a major problem for Israel. Only a few days ago the Iranian Chief-of-staff, Maj,-Gen Hassan Firouzabadi said the following words ,” The Iranian nation is standing for its cause, which is the full annihlation of Israel”, and these words should be taken seriously. Prime Minister Natanyahu said that Iran’s goals were clear. They want to annihilate Israel and are developing nuclear weapons to realize this goal. He added that Iran was threatening not only Israel, but the whole world, and the world’s powers should show determination in stopping them - and not only use words in the face of this malicious design.
Posted in Observations
Maybe there will be peace talks after all.
Israel and the Palestinian authority pledged their commitment for peace after Natanyahu’s envoy, Yitzhak Molcho went to Ramallah on Saturday evening to deliver a letter on his behalf to President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
After the meeting a statement was issued which said,”Israel and the Palestinians are committed to achieving peace and the sides hope that the exchange of letters between President Abbas and Prime Minister Natanyahu will further this goal.”
The letter from Natanyahu was in response to one Abbas had sent a month ago (which making certain conditions).
Now we’ll have to wait and see if there really will be any results though most of the people I talk to are rather pessimistic.
Posted in Life in Israel, Observations, Palestinian conflict, Peace talks, State of Israel, anti-semitism | 
Tags: earthquake, free speech, Mahmud Abbass, Nakba Day, Natanyahu, Palestine
A political drama is taking place in Israel. Only yesterday and for the last few weeks, there has been serious talk about coming elections (due mostly to the “Tal Bill” which is about equal service - army and/or social by all sectors of the population), and what date they were supposed to take place (instead of in another one and a half years) and Prime Minister Natanyahu had seriously talked about another four months. And now suddenly this morning we heard that a larger co-elition government will be formed, together with the “Kadima” party led by Shaul Mopaz, who was recently elected to head “Kadima” and consists of 28 Members of Knesset (our parliament - which has only 120 members), making the coeliton an unheard number - 94 members! What is also strange is the fact that Mopaz had spoken badly about Natanyahu only a month or two ago. But that is apparently politics - short memories.Now something quite different. Bavaria in Germany is reprinting Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” (My battle). The copyright of this terrible book evidently expires in 2015, when anyone will be allowed to reprint it, and in Bavaria they say they want to prevent irresponsible publishers from doing so. They say the state version will underscore the book’s vileness and make readers understand the brutality of Hitler’s thinking. This is hard to believe from reading his words, but hopefully it will do so.The State’s version of Mein Kampf will also be distributed in schools.
Fallen Soldiers’ and Independence Day passed peacefully, and there was even an amusing incident at one of the latter ceremonies, when our President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu, Minister of Foreign affairs Ehud Barak, and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces Ganz who were sitting in the same row, all burst into song - we saw this on TV and it gave us a good feeling (although their singing of course wasn’t the “best”
Another pleasant subject to write about (there aren’t so many these days) is sport. An Israeli by the name of Arik Ze’evi won the gold medal at the 2012 European Judo Championships, defeating Geogia’s Levan Jorjoliani in the finals of the under 100 kilogram competition which took place in Russia. This was the 4th time Ze’evi won a gold medal in European championships during his carreer and has insured him taking part in the coming 2012 London Olympics. He is now 35 years old and is the oldest champion in history. He is now ranked 8th in judo rankings in the world.There is much talk these days, that parliamentary elections will take place in the coming months, instead of next year. One reason for this is evidently what is called the “Tal Bill” which is to be passed in the Knesset, which calls for equal service for all sectors of the population. Up till now the ultra-religious have been exempted from military service - the bill wants equality for all, is willing to have social services done instead of army service, but unfortunately most of the religious parties which are part of the government coelition object to this, and this will force their resignation.
The Egyptians have cancelled the contract for selling natural gas to Israel. The contract was part of normalizations in the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt signed in 1979. Our minister of Finance said that he viewed with deep concern this announcement terminating the gas deal because of both diplomatic and economic aspects, that this is a dangerous precedent that diminishes the peace treaty between the two neighbouring countries. Actually for the last year the gas supply hasn’t been steady because of 14 different gas pipe explosions in Sinai and we are preparing for other sources. The Electric Company will manage, but electricity prices will surely go up.
Egypt is trying to peruade us that this is not a political decision, but one of economics. and even Prime Minister Natanyahu played down this “cut-off of Egyptian gas” saying it was the result of a commercial dispute. But what should we really believe? I sincerely hope the reason is not political. Since the take-over from President Mubarak by the Muslim Brotherhood, the relations between our two countries have declined.
This evening what we call “Fallen Soldiers’ Day” begins and lasts till tomorrow evening when “Israel Independence Day” begins. Many people feel that these dates, the day of joy which follows directly after a day of mourning, are not suitable, but the explanation given, is that if it were not for those who had given their lives, we would have no independence to celebrate and the two days should be linked.
Posted in Observations
Our President, Shimon Peresm recently sent a message to President Obama, asking him to pardon agent Jonathan Pollard who has spent 26 years in prison for supplying Israel, a friendly country, with much then needed information concerning Iraq. He caused no damage to the U.S.A. but his sentence was much harsher than that of anyone else ever convicted for a similar crime. On the eve of Passover Pollard was taken very sick and sent to hospital, where he spent 10 days and is still very weak. So Shimon Peres’ request for a pardon is also for humane purposes, but so far no answer from President Obama has been forthcoming.On Sunday a large group of pro-Palestinians from many countries had planned to arrive in Israel and make provocative demonstrations with their Palestinian supporters (this has happened before in a most unruly way) and as we did not want a repeat performance, it was decided to forbid them to enter Israel. The different foreign airlines were given known names and they cancelled their tickets “by order of Israel”, but even so, a relatively large number of these activists managed to arrive at the Israeli airport. Some were sent back to their respective countries at once, others for whom no places were found, had to wait longer till suitable planes could take them back.Prime Minister Natanyahu said if these activists wanted to demonstrate for human rights, they should do so for what is happening in Syria, Iran, Sudan and many other countries where brutality rules, and not against democratic Israel where everyone has legal rights for speech, work, opinion and such.I expect many have seen on TV, the very unpleasant picture of an Israeli officer hitting with a rifle a Danish demonstrator and we are ashamed of this behaviour. He was immediately suspended and the incident is being investigated. It is true there has been much provocation against Israel lately as I have mentioned, and the specific officer mentioned having two fingers broken by a demonstrator, but I believe it can not be proved that this particular Danish man was the one responsible for that. Both President Peres and and Prime Minister Natanyahu have strongly condemned his behaviour.This coming Thursday is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, and there will be different commemorations and services held on that day. We can not, must not, forget those 6,000,000 innocent victims. I myself lost both parents, my brother and sister and others during the holocaust, and for me this is a day of tragic memories.Shalom from Irene
Posted in Observations