In order to help “protect” PLO PA President Abbas, Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz have transferred over to Abbas yet even more weapons and ammunition.

Luckily Abbas knew what to do with his gift. He immediately hired a senior terrorist (on Israel’s wanted list) as head of his personal PLO army (Force 17).

Great going Olmert.

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Olmert says he plans to kick out 70,000 Jews from their homes in one fell swoop. Peres is protesting. He feels it should be done in phases.

The argument?
Peres doesn't think Israel has the capability to expel 70,000 people in one shot and Olmert thinks it will be easier to do it all at once (nothing at all that Israel doesn't even have the capability to rehouse a mere 8000 after a year) .

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Israel plans to let PA ambulances have free access to drive all over Israel. I don't even need to add the comment to this one.

(To be updated further)

"What did you say about Betar Yerushalayim ? Y'Maniyak. Ani Ereh licha mi ze Eli Ochana"

Everyone is probably aware that some British academic organization (who actually cares which one) has announced a boycott of Israeli academia and research. There of course is the Arab boycott of Israeli products, and then there is Olmert’s inspiration to label products from Israel by city so the Europeans can know what products to boycott.

But what’s the great idea behind the boycott?

After all, it also hurts and limits the boycotters (and makes them hypocrites when they secretly buy the products they are boycotting) as much as it hurts the boycotted.

The general idea is that it is supposed to isolate Israel from the rest of the world community. It is supposed to hurt Israeli financially until we want to leave Israel. It is supposed to dry up our markets, resources, and connections. It is supposed to make us aware of the financial advantages and incentives of simply abandoning Israel.

Basically it is to make living in Israel so financially uncomfortable and unviable we will leave on our own to the point where the last supermarket won’t have enough clients in the country to support it.


Now consider Brig. General (Retired) Eival Giladi, the architect and coordinator of the Gaza Strip disengagement and his plan to ‘dry up’ the settlements.

Notice the similarity?


(For another Israel boycott story read this Naomi Ragen article).

Gee, how nice.

Olmert has promised us settlers that if we let him peacefully destroy 24 “illegal” outposts he’ll give us a 'temporary stay in execution' for all our other towns until he destroys them too.

Yup, that deal just won me over. But that isn’t the main story today.

The main story is that we are now really seeing the fruits of the Left's manic retreat from Israel’s defense.

I’m not talking about Haaretz’s front page article revealing that Hizbollah definitely has missiles that can hit Tel Aviv. That we all knew would happen soon enough, and who really cares, right?

No, I am talking about the YNET article describing how not only has Israel given up the offensive, it’s also given up on the defensive.

The article exposes how the State and the Ministry of Defense have abandoned the defense of its citizens. Ever since Barak’s rapid retreat from Lebanon they’ve decided that peace must have broken out, so they never put any money into maintaining the automated shelter systems.

Unfortunately that meant that hundred of Northern citizens could not enter their bomb shelters yesterday as Hizbollah missiles fell from overhead.

I’m sure that when Peretz goes up North to visit he’ll share with them his experiences in Sderot where the children aren’t allowed to use the top floors of their schools.

Yup, this state is collapsing and it is only a matter of time before we’ll be able to reclassify our ‘illegal’ settlement as the villages they will be.

Last night, at around 11:00 pm, on Route 55, near Kvar Sava, on the pre67 side of the imaginary Green Line, a pigua did not happen.

A hitchhiking post was not sprayed with bullets (and thankfully no one was hurt) in what wasn’t a drive-by shooting by Arab terrorists.

(Good Morning Israel)

Obviously such an even could never occur on the “protected” Israeli side of the security fence, so it would be pointless to report such a repercussionless story if it did occur (repercussionless as long as no one got hurt).

Though with all the missiles that hit the south who would actually care about another terrorist strike – oh, except that the terrorists were driving while physically on the wrong side of the "impenetrable" barrier.

Meanwhile the big news is that Hizbullah hit an army base with a Katyusha missile (which is actually an early warning base against Hizbollah Katyusha missile attacks) and injured a soldier. The base is near Tzfat around 10 kilometers from the Lebanon border.

This entire post is completely unconfirmed so just ignore it until the censor allows someone to write about it in a few months when it won't make any difference anymore.

I previously wrote about how US non-military financial aid to Israel was to be phased out this year thanks to Bibi Netanyahu, and suddenly today I came across this initially disturbing news update which states that the United States Congress approved the transfer of USD 2.4 billion in aid money to Israel in the framework of its aid program to nations committed to democracy.

Now the YNET article doesn’t state the details (but you can expect the anti-Semites to start commenting there soon enough), but unless this falls under the scope of the existing military aid package, the only thing I see is backsliding and regression.

Luckily, I did some more research which led me here, and then to here where I learned that this bill

“provides an $83 million increase for Foreign Military Financing for Israel to assist in their security and counter-terror efforts. Total funding is $2.3 billion, the same as the President’s request. Also fully funds the President's $120 million request for economic assistance to Israel.”

Now while I also don’t approve of the continued military financing to Israel due to how it restricts us, at least we didn’t regress regarding economic aid.

I did notice the $120 million for “economic assistance”, and either that is the last payment of the economic aid package, or Bush’s last gift to Sharon for the deportations.

This has been done to death already and I saw it coming, but the wife is upset so I have to write about it.

We were in a Home Center today and the wife picked out something she liked and went to find out how much it would cost to ship to our town.

As I already knew the pending response I wasn’t surprised by the “we don’t ship to the territories!”

The wife though, she wasn’t ready for that answer.

“You’ll ship stuff over an hour away to the middle of nowhere, but 3 minutes down the road from you is off limits!” she started off (loudly).

(She was referring to the secular settlement of Har Gilo (not where we live) which is 3 minutes from the Home Center in Malcha Mall (not where we were at), but alas it is over the imaginary Green Line so they won’t ship there).

Anyway, needless to say, we no longer buy at Home Center. I really hope Ace has what she wants, but more importantly that they deliver.

But isn’t it incredible how self-immolating Israelis can be at times, isn’t it?

Jameel feels that I didn’t make myself clear enough when explaining the reasoning behind the Galus Rabbi Certification in my comments on the previous post, so I decided to make an entire posting about it.

Let me start with an analogy.

These days (actually for around the past decade) if an Oleh wants an Israeli driver’s license and already has a foreign one he is now required to take a driving test - but it didn’t used to be that way.

After a noteworthy number of Olim came over from a particular region, the DMV finally realized that a rather significant number of them were showing the DMV fake driver’s licenses (and somehow almost everyone was an engineer or doctor! :)

People with no driving experience (or valid licenses) were getting valid licenses in Israel with fake ids!

Not having access to foreign records, or an easy/quick method of determining which licenses where actually genuine (many of the fakes were printed on the same machines as the genuine articles, just so you understand the extent of the problem), the DMV made a decision that all Olim that present a preexisting license must take a driving test.

Not fair to the other Oleh groups that wouldn’t pull that trick, but no one was going to profile a specific Oleh group and say only they had to take the test despite showing a license.


Moving on, any Oleh that has gone through the Rabbinate and Misrad Hapnim knows that when it comes to foreign documentation they just don’t know how to handle it.

It’s not that there is a specific problem with the documents, or that the clerks aren’t particularly bright, it’s just that there are so many potential formats, and so many types of documents, not to mention no one really knows who anyone is (and I’m not even discussing forgeries). Some Rabbi signed the Get? Well who is he? How do we even know he’s a Rabbi, or if it was done properly (or if he/it is even real)?

Everywhere in the world marriages (and divorces) are registered by the government. And just like everywhere in the world (especially when foreigners are involved) there is a lot of paperwork (even in the U.S.). It’s a bureaucracy. Period.

This new rule will make it much easier for the potential Oleh to go through the various processes he needs to go through when making Aliyah and getting married. With standardized paperwork, and authorized (recognized) processors (the Galus Rabbis), unrecognized, unfamiliar, and unacceptable paperwork will eventually be a thing of the past (or at least a rarity).


Is this a power grab?

Let me ask you.

If you were a potential Ger who wanted to come to Israel. Would you rather go to an authorized/certified Rabbi so that when you make Aliyah the process has its bumps minimized, or would you rather come to Israel and spend a year or two trying to prove that you are Jewish because no one ever heard of this Rabbi from Kalamazoo?

And if you were a Rabbi, wouldn’t you want to be certified, knowing that if you give a Get to someone, if they decided to make Aliya (to Israel, the country with the largest Jewish population) they could quickly get on with their life there without a hassle?


Eretz Yisrael is being revitalized in its role as part of the nucleus of Judaism, and Rav Amar is trying to smooth out a lot of the more serious problems that have up to now existed in the bureaucratic process. He’s doing this the same way Microsoft, Sun and John Bryce do it: Standardization, Authorization, and Certification (respectively).

Is that a power grab?

No. It’s simply inevitable.


Oh, and that it expands the Orthodox Torah-based monopoly on conversions, marriage and divorce beyond the borders of Israel? Well, that’s just an added bonus.

A long time ago, during the periods after our Expulsions from the Land the center of Judaism began to move, to refocus to where the action was. It was the battle between the Babylonian and Yerushalmi Talmuds. Who would reign supreme? Where was the center of power? Which Rabbis had the final say?

As we all know, despite the limitations of Judaism in Galus, eventually Bavel won and Eretz Yisroel was relegated to the backwaters of Jewish vitality.

But as to be expected (and desired I must add) that eventually would change.

Eretz Yisroel has returned to being the center of Jewish vitality.

There’s the obvious, with this year more Jews living in Eretz Yisroel than in Galus.

Then there’s the less obvious, such as Rabbis in Israel attempting to reinstate the Sanhedrin, and others running Yeshivot that are learning how to reinstitute and develop the national and Temple-based aspects of Judaism that we had to temporary put on hold.

On the other side of the Yarden we have the RCA announcing what I can only describe as pointless, toothless, and certainly positionless resolutions.

But the most obvious example of Eretz Yisrael reasserting its centrality is the new declaration (which will be enforced) by the Israeli Rabbinate, which will require Israeli Rabbinate testing and certification for any Galus Rabbi who wishes to perform conversions or divorce.

There is no doubt that the Rabbinate will uphold this rule, and despite the soon to be heard complaints, and arguments (and name-calling?) at the affront to their authority we will see Galus Rabbis beginning to abide by the ruling because they will have no choice (though preferably because they will realize that Eretz Yisrael is where the action is at).

The center has returned.

But one thing can be sure, whatever the RCA has to say about this – it will be equivocal.

Arutz-7 had a link to this ad.

Doesn't it seem to blame Israel for the spread of the terrorist networks in the Middle East?

(I've taken down the inline video as I was getting really annoyed hearing it each time I refreshed the page.)

http://erdb1.eresources.com/cspvideo/Insanity_30TV_2.mov

If you thought so, then you are right, because that is the exact result of these Leftwing government policies. (Of course, everyone else who is pressuring Israel is also responsible).