On Sunday this week, according to the agreement with the Hammas terrorist group for letting Gilad Shalit go free, the second group of 550 Arab prisoners were released. There were some real murderers in this group, although most of them had been arrested for “milder” crimes. But an agreement is an agreement and we kept our part of it however much it hurt. But, believe it or not, Hamas has already said they would kidnap more Israeli soldiers, in order to free the remaining prisoners, and although they are hinting to the Western World that they will stop all violence, to their tens of thousands of supporters they said the opposite, that they are going to form an Arab army and will launch an “Intefada” to liberate all Palestine, (as if Palestine ever belonged to them). Hamas also said how proud they were of so far having killed 1,365 Israelis.
A small group of fanatic Jewish religious youths have been causing much trouble and damage here lately.They have not only been attacking and vandalizing Arab property, including an unused mosque, writing grafiti, but also forcibly entering an Israeli army camp, throwing rocks, causing bodily harm to our soldiers. and sabotaging military equipment. And what was apparently the reason for this? Hard to believe, but it seems to be the response to demolitions of illegally built outposts in the West Bank. Prime Minister Natanyahu said,”We won’t let them attack our soldiers, start religious war, attack Jews or non-Jews. The government will act with a strong hand, and make sure they are prosecuted.” Many have already been arrested and will shortly be brought to trial, but only yesterday we heard that others who are still about, set fire to some Arab vehicles. Hope they’ll be apprehended soon, they must be punished. And all the people I talk to, think the same.
A new eco-village has been planned in the Negev desert for the Beduin community, which is to combine Beduin values with modern renewable technology and farming expertise. The site will also include organic farms, modern herding techniques and such, and even an education center and a program for women. The corner stone ceremony will take place today. Work on the site will begin in January and will continue for about three years until completed. There will be a visitors’ center run in cooperation with the Education Ministry.
Posted in Observations
Today I’ll begin with something that makes us Israelis proud again, and that is the fact that the Nobel Prize for Chemistry this year (2011) has again been awarded to an Israeli. This year it is Professor Dan Schechtman of the Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology in Haifa who won the prize. He is the tenth Israeli or Israeli-born scientist to win a Nobel Prize, the third to win for chemistry. I won’t go into details about his discovery concerning quasicrystal, because I myself don’t understand it.During the weekend over 20 rockets were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip, and this is still continuing, although our airforce is retaliating, but trying only to hit known terrorist areas is not easy, as they usually hide amongst civilian population.The day before yesterday there was even a rocket fired from Lebanon, which luckily for us fell on their side of the border into a Lebanese village. Of course so far no one there has taken responsibility for that shooting - and hopefully it won’t continue.Maybe because of this, the threats from Iran,and/or because of the election results in Egypt, and the unrest in Syria, the Home-guard held air-raid siren practice in different places over the country. It was publicized, and details of when and where the sirens would be heard for one and a half minute were given on the media. In case of a real attack, another siren would have gone off.
The election results in Egypt are out, and as expected, the Muslim Brotherhood party has won the most seats - about 45%. And another even more fanatic Muslim group has received about 20% of the votes. So what will happen to Egyptian politics in the future we can only guess at, and here in Israel we really worry. The Islamist rule in Egypt might threaten Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel. We are building a security wall on our southern border next to the Sinai desert, but it will surely take over a year till it’s finished. In the meantime not only infiltrators from African countries cross our borders, but lately also potential terrorists. I also wish to add, that the gas pipe line from Sinai supplying gas to Israel and Jordan, has been blown up 9 times since President Mubarak was removed from power. We can no longer depend on it.We were informed yesterday that a terrorist group is evidently planning to attack near our southern border or even in Eilat, and our security forces are on alert. Two main roads near the border have been closed to civilian traffic, and all planned school trips in the south have been cancelled.Also yesterday there was an earthquake in northern Israel, apparently 3.8 on the Richter scale. Although it was felt mostly in the Tiberias area, it luckily caused little damage, although residents there said that their furniture and and other belongings were shaking for about thirty seconds, and also some cracks were found on walls of old buildings.
Tags: Although we in Israel are used to rockets being fired from Gaza, it was a surprise to have four Katjusha rockets fired into our country in the north from Lebanon last night. They caused property damage, and a fire, but luckily no person was hurt. We presume it was fired by someone in the Hizbulla, an organisation which is gaining strength all the time.Elections took place yesterday in Egypt, the results are not yet out, but we believe that the fanatic Muslim Brotherhood will get a majority vote, which spells no good for us. The Muslim Brotherhood held a rally on Friday, which turned into a call for genocide, pledging “one day to kill all Jews”.There had been violent demonstrations going on lately in Cairo and other large Egyptian towns, which were mostly aimed at the military regime which had taken over after President Mubarak was dismissed. According to several news sources, the Egyptian military had been using a banned chemical agent to deal with the thousands of protestors, a gas called CR which could cause blindness and even death by asphyxiation and this has caused even more anger at the armed forces.On Monday a mysterious explosion rocked the Iranian city of Isfahan, which is home to a key facility in Teheran’s nuclear program. Something similar happened in Iran two weeks ago at another place and was called by them “an accident”. This time they said it happened at a gas station, so far no real accusations have been made to any specific source.
There is much unrest in two of Israel’s neighbouring countries these days. In Egypt there are demonstrations against the military regime ruling there, till elections take place (which may have to be put off because of this - they should be taking place in another week), much violence and even shooting is taking place. It seems that the Muslim brotherhood is behind much of this discord. And in Syria, President Assad’s regime is still putting down calm demonstrations by strong military means, and a day doesn’t pass without a number of deaths, including children and women. The Arab League has at last woken up to this terrorism, and recalled all their diplomatic representatives from Syria, trying to boycott that country. Even the Western World is at last taking notice, trying to put some sanctions on Syria. Who knows how long Assad will stay in power?But of course the greatest danger in the Muslim world these days is Iran, who are rapidly moving forward in their aim of developing nuclear weapons. The mild sanctions different countries in the world are so far putting on that country, are not stopping them at all - and theyMUST BE STOPPED,In Israel we’ve been having blessed rain during the last week - rain which we really need after a number of drought years. The rain has so far fallen mostly in the center of the country, but where it is desperately needed, in the Lake Kinneret, there has not been enough. The lake is now almost 68 centimeters under the bottom red line. Well, it is only the beginning of winter, so let’s hope there’ll be much rain therein the days to come.
Last week I wrote about the two boats which were stopped on their way to Gaza, and today I would like to add a few words on that subject. Those people on the boats said that Israel prevents needed goods from entering Gaza, but this is not true. The residents of Gaza are drowning in international charity. Any humanitarian aid can easily reach them. Large volumes of aid of all kinds pass daily through Israeli and Egyptian check-points (and tunnels) into Gaza, and there is no need for these “private flotillas” which may contain weapons.Since UNESCO (having a majority pro-muslim vote) accepted “Palestine” as a country into their organisation, America, Canada and Israel have lessened their financial contribution to that organisation. So, as they say they have less money (the USA usually gives 20% of their annual expenses), they have to cut down on outlays. They are an organisation for culture, history, education and such, so guess what is being taken of their programs?This is what I read - yes, maybe it is easy to guess - Holocaust studies, translations of Jewish material and the like!! Looks a bit like revenge.The Egyptian Sinai gas line leading to Israel and Jordan, has again been sabotaged, evidently by Beduins - this is the 7th time since the overthrow of Mubarak’s reign - we’ll have to find alternative sources. It seems we can’t depend on the new regime.