Archive for the ‘Observations’ Category
Last Friday, most of the Arab Muslim countries held demonstrations for their usual annual “Land Day” which is meant against Israel holding land. Protesters gathered in Israel’s neighbouring countries to demonstrate and also pro-Palestinian activists planned a Global March to Jerusalem. There was fear here that demonstrators would try to cross the borders forcibly and the local protestors would cause much violence on their way to Jerusalem. Alert level was raised and thousands of police officers were on stand-by around and in Jerusalem to prevent this, whilst military forces were stationed around the country’s borders, and luckily there was no attempt at crossing them, and the day passed more or less quietly.In Syria, despite the brutal year-long conflict, where thousands have been killed by government troops, Israel is still on their agenda and protesters rallied in Damascus in solidarity for the Palestinians. They even seem to blame Israel for Assad’s crimes. How they can connect Israel for the senseless murdering going on there is impossible to understand.And in Egypt, the fanatic Muslim Brotherhood has nominated its deputy leader as candidate for the coming presidential elections, although they had previously said they would not contest the elections. This can leave this Islamist group in control of all branches of Egypt’s new government, - not a happy thought for Israel.Posted in Observations
Last week when I wrote about the shooting of a teacher and three young children in a Jewish school in Toulouse in France, I made an assumption that it was a Nazi group behind it, because that is what the news media also guessed at. But a day later it turned out to be an El-Qaida terrorist, a French-born young man with Algerian background. And he declared this was revenge for Israeli shooting of children in Gaza. This is of course ridiculous, Israel has never, and never will shoot deliberately at children like the Muslims do, who constantly hide behind children when carrying out their evil deeds, which sometimes cause their death when we respond. They even send kids with explosive belts tied to them to do the work for them, telling them it is God’s wish.So why, when the Muslim Arabs in Israel attack a school bus full of children, a restaurant, a Passover Seder, private houses and much more, is the world so still? And I wonder if, apart from in France and Israel, much is written about this latest terrorist act?And what do you say to this? From Gaza they’re still shooting at us, and yet we feel sorry for them and provide them with fuel !!!!!Israel allowed nine fuel tankers to cross into the Gaza Strip on Friday to ease a severe power shortage triggered by a dispute over supplies between Egypt and Hamas.The delivery of around 450,000 liters of industrial diesel was the first to Gaza’s only power station coming via Israel in almost a year “after Hamas softened on its resistance ” to accepting supplies from its Jewish neighbor.The UN Human Rights Council is establishing a “fact-finding missiom to probe the effect of settllements on Palestinian human rights.They’ve again found something they want to use against Israel, and there is a chance we will not cooperate in this.This same fact-finding mission made by the council also approved four other resolutions against Israel. Only the US called the resolution biased and voted against it. It also rejected the other four resolutions.Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reacted to the “fact finding” decision on Thursday, saying the council is “hypocritical” and should be “ashamed of itself.” He added, “Until today, the council has made altogether 91 decisions, 39 of which dealt with Israel, three with Syria and one with Iran.This is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel. One only had to listen to the Syrian representative speak about human rights at the council on Thursday to understand how detached from reality it is. (We all know what is going on in Syria these days - tens of innocent civillians shot every day, including women and children). Another proof of its distance from reality, Netanyahu added, was the fact that this week it facilitated the lecture of an activist from Hamas at an NGO side event in its building. “Hamas is an organization whose ideology is based on “the murder of innocents,” he said. That surely goes to show for something!!The Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that the resolution was “yet another surrealistic decision” from the council that is more interested in promoting a one-sided political agenda than in human rights. “While all over the Middle East human rights are violated in an unprecedented scale, the HRC ridicules itself by dedicating its time and resources to establish a superfluous and extravagant body whose sole purpose is to satisfy the Palestinians’ whims and to harm future chances to reach an agreement through peaceful means,” the statement said. “The Palestinians must understand that they cannot have it both ways: they cannot enjoy cooperation with Israel and at the same time initiate political clashes in international forums.” And with these words I end today’s blog. Shalom from Irene
Posted in Observations
I usually begin my blog with news about Israel or the Middle East, but today I feel I must begin with events that happened in France yesterday. Maybe many of my readers have already heard about the murder of four Jews in Toulouse, a town in southern France, but even so I think I must mention it.
An unknown assailant, wearing a black helmet drove up on a scoooter to the entrance of a Jewish school and started shooting at the people inside, killing four - a man (one of the teachers) his two sons aged six and three, and an eight year old girl, who was the daughter of the school ’s principle. Some others were wounded too. The murderer manage to leave and the French police are looking for him, although they have very few details about him. One thing is probably sure and that is that he belongs to the new Nazi believing generation and this is an anti-semitic act. Evidently the gun he used was the same one also used to kill three French soldiers of North African origin some days ago,which seems to show he has no love for Muslims either. I hope they’ll catch him. I heard that many in France are mourning, and the president and the other man standing for the coming election, went especially to Toulouse to express their condolences.
Although it has been a relatively quiet week in the south of Israel, and the children returned to school, yesterday another Grad missile was fired from the Gaza Strip, this time luckily causing no damage. But who knows when this rocket firing will begin again on a larger scale and what it will lead to.
Posted in Observations
It is lucky the school children were kept at home because on Sunday a rocket hit a school in Beer Sheva, exploding in its courtyard and damaging is outer wall. A kindergarden building was also hit and one rocket even fell in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, damaging a great number of homes, and many residents suffered from shock. About 200 rockets have been fired into Israel so far, and we see no end. Cease-fire negotiations, through Egypt, have so far come to nothing.The Gazans (Hamas and other terrorist organisations) want us to stop retaliating, before they stop firing !
Although all the rocket firing is only happening in the south of the country, it is clear that this is an intended war on the whole of Israel, and if they had the power, the attacks would go north. They want to kill all of us. They have no problem strapping bombs on their own people, even children, if this causes the killing of Jews.
Posted in Observations
Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahu met US president Obama and they spent about 3 hours together, mostly discussing Iran and the nuclear developement in that country. Natanyahu said that the world and the Jewish peple can not “accept a world in which the Ayatollahs have atomic bombs”. He expressed appreciation for Obama’s efforts to impose tougher sanctions, but said that these seemed to have had no affect so far, and who knows how much longer we can afford to wait before they have nuclear arms, and this at a time when Iranian leaders openly say that they want to destroy Israel.
I now quote some more of Natanyahu’s words after his meeting:” I appreciate the fact that President Obama repeated his position that Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and that all the options are on the table. I also appreciate the fact that he said that in the Iranian issue, containment is not an option. But most of all, I appreciate that he said that Israel must be able to defend itself against any threat.”
He added that the Jewish state will not allow those seeking our destruction to possess the means to achieve their goal and Israel has the right to defend itself . Natanyahu also mentioned the upcoming Purim festival, (Book of Ester in the Bible) which also concerns Iran which in those days was called Persia, and whose king and adviser Haman desired to kill all Jews. History seems to be repeating itself.
Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahu met US president Obama and they spent about 3 hours together, mostly discussing Iran and the nuclear developement in that country. Natanyahu said that the world and the Jewish peple can not “accept a world in which the Ayatollahs have atomic bombs”. He expressed appreciation for Obama’s efforts to impose tougher sanctions, but said that these seemed to have had no affect so far, and who knows how much longer we can afford to wait before they have nuclear arms, and this at a time when Iranian leaders openly say that they want to destroy Israel.
I now quote some more of Natanyahu’s words after his meeting:” I appreciate the fact that President Obama repeated his position that Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and that all the options are on the table. I also appreciate the fact that he said that in the Iranian issue, containment is not an option. But most of all, I appreciate that he said that Israel must be able to defend itself against any threat.”
He added that the Jewish state will not allow those seeking our destruction to possess the means to achieve their goal and Israel has the right to defend itself . Natanyahu also mentioned the upcoming Purim festival, (Book of Ester in the Bible) which also concerns Iran which in those days was called Persia, and whose king and adviser Haman desired to kill all Jews. History seems to be repeating itself.
Posted in Observations
During the last week, much of the local news has been about what is called the “Tal Law”, which is a law exempting Haredi (ultra religious) men who are studying Tora in yeshivot from compulsory military service. There should be equality amongst all, but unfortunatelythis is not so. This coming August, the law is to expire, and there is talk of continuing it with minor changes, but so far nothing is clear.If the truth be told, many of the exemptions for presumed yeshiva students are bogus, because a great number of them aren’t scholars,but indoctrinated to reject military service. They can do “social” services in the community instead, but they don’t want to do that either.On Friday there was much unrest on the Temple Mount. This is the holiest site for Jews, because it is the place where the ancient Temple had stood, and all that is left of it today is the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) below it. But like in so many places of different religions in different countries, the Muslims built a mosque in its place, the El Aksa, which of course we did not destroy, and on their special day of prayer, on Fridays, many come to pray there. There were evidently untrue rumours spread by those wanting to incite, that Israel will take down the mosque, and hundreds of Muslim worshippers began rioting and throwing stones onto the Western Wall plaza below where Jews were praying. Security forces had to use force to disperse the rioters, and there were lightly wounded on both sides. Some arrests were also made. And while I am still on the subject of the Temple Mount, I must tell that the destruction of its Jewish roots by the Muslims is still going on. The WAQF (Muslim religious authority) is continuing its long standing project of erasing all traces of Jewish history there and destroying evidence of ancient Jewish artifacts.Tractors are being used on the Temple Mount and construction materials are constantly brought in, in violation to pledges. We all know that Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Muslim holy book, the Koran, - but is mentioned so many times in the Hebrew Bible which appeared thousands of years earlier.