Once again my disappointment with Cellcom shines through.

Less than a year ago I upgraded my phones and signed on to a new payment plan. It wasn’t a great plan, and my wife’s plan was even better (my original plan was better, too good in fact, so they canceled it), but the new plan was good enough.

But go know.

Meanwhile my phone bill has been creeping up and up and my wife and I couldn’t figure it out – well we could have if we had bothered to do the math, but we were lazy and assumed I was talking too much.

The other day my wife gets a call from Cellcom to join a fixed monthly price plan (up to a certain amount of minutes). She could do that because her monthly talk time was pretty fixed, whereas mine jumped up and down by hundreds of minutes depending on the month – so they couldn’t make me that offer.

It was during this discussion that we discovered that Cellcom has been incrementing our per-minute fees and that is why my bills were rising so high (and my wife’s too, but not as high as mine).

What was NIS 0.36 per minute just 10 months ago on my plan (and even less for my wife) was now at NIS 0.43 per minute – a 20% increase over what I signed on with less than a year ago.

We complained to Cellcom. One person said the contract allows them to increase the per minute fees by 7% annually. Another said those are the new rates and that’s that.

Huh?! How do you even answer bold-faced statements like that?

Anyway, my wife took the fixed plan (which wasn’t as cheap as her old plan, but cheaper than what we are paying now) and I went into the Cellcom office to have a chat with them.

Obviously arguing with them was pointless.

Unlike what their phone rep said, it turns out they could offer me the fixed plan, but doing the math, it didn’t make sense for me.

Instead they offered me a new plan that lowered my per minute fees to NIS 0.39 and knocked off the NIS 50 monthly fee for insurance (the equivalent of around 120 minutes/month).

I had to agree to stay on the plan for 6 months and add on 10 months to my 3 year commitment to Cellcom (basically where I was 10 months ago).

But I don’t see them guaranteeing to keep me at those prices for the next 3 years.

This is a scam, plain and simple.

They bump you up as soon as your plan ends (or even before) and then you sign up for a new more expensive plan, and extend your commitment.

This has got to be illegal – but I doubt it is.

At a minimum, this country needs legislation that will require the cellphone companies to inform you every time they change your rates or change your plan.

If only the issue was that the secular Neturei Karta - the left wing of Israel, wanted a fair division of burden in Israel, then at least I could understand their calls to draft Chareidi Jews into the army.

But unfortunately that isn't the case, after all, can the far left really expect the Chareidi populace to join the armed forces, while completely and utterly not only disregarding their needs, but attempting to force secular coercion down their throats?

I mean, it would certainly appear to the Chareidim that the goal is not to share the military burden, but to inculcate their youth with non-Jewish values (to say the least).

And they would be right.

Let's ignore for a minute the self-righteous left wing attacks against the IDF Rabbinate and IDF Chief Rabbi Ronsky (a former Special Forces officer) for daring to provide Jewish motivations to our Jewish soldiers in a Jewish army during the war.

Let's instead look at the recent attacks on the religious Ben"nish (Bnei Yeshiva) soldiers.

Recently, the IDF provided musical entertainment to various units in the form of secular singers and music.

The religious soldiers, yeshiva students all, stepped out of the show for the female singers, feeling that it was religiously inappropriate for them to be there.

And the Left blasted them.

No one thought, from the IDF entertainment manager, to the far left kvetchers, that maybe the venue was inappropriate for religious soldiers, instead they attacked religious soldiers for not participating in their party.

Is it any wonder the Chareidi citizen doesn't want any part of the army if all they see are attempts at secular coercion and hypocrisy?

(Oh, and if you are thinking of responding by discussing Chareidi motivations for not joining - don't. The point of this post is the demand for Chareidim to join the IDF, but then using the army as a club in an overt attempt at secular coercion as well as attacking the religious in the army because they won't conform to the secular's mores).

This goes beyond entrapment. This new police tactic is simply dangerous.

As you may recall, 2 policemen were killed 2 weeks ago by terrorists when they went to assist a car pulled over at the side of the road that appeared to be in need of assistance.

In turned out to be an Arab ambush.

Last Thursday at the Havat Gilad farm in the Shomron a car with Arab license plates pulled into the perimeter of the farm. Jews in the area noticed something was wrong, because while the Arabs appeared to be changing their tires, they had no flat tires that needed changing.

Some people on the farm assumed it was an ambush being set up.

Some of the Jewish residents went over to check out the Arab car when a fight ensued and the "Arabs" came out throwing tear gas at everybody in the area, and attacking people.

It turns out the "Arabs" were Israeli police in disguise,trying to ambush the Jewish residents. They beat them and then arrested the Jewish residents.


This event was so obvious an attempt to entrap the Jewish residents that on Friday, even Kfar Saba Magistrates Court Judge David Gadol voiced strong criticism of the police, and ordered the immediate release of the detainees.

The judge added:
“For the police to again endanger its men in this way” is unacceptable, the judge said. He noted that the entire incident was an unreasonable provocation in order to create an artificial incident of violence, and was irresponsible from a security standpoint. “The police were liable to have been considered terrorists,” Judge Gadol said, adding that the police request for extension of custody was “unreasonable and disproportionate.”

Of course, the Left-wing media reported all this as settler violence.

It's time somewhat put the police house in order.

Every now and then you hear these ridiculous arguments that the Gazan Arabs don't really want Hamas and didn't overwhelmingly vote for them, and other shtuyot.

In the latest Gazan election, for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) union in Gaza, Hamas won 17 out of the 27 seats. Of those 17 seats, 11 are specifically reserved for (the fundamentalist) teachers.

But before you assume that if they aren't Hamas then they must be moderate, just wait for the next piece of news.

In a rare event, an Israeli-Arab music conductor, 50-year-old Wafa Younis brought her Palestinian Youth orchestra to play peace music to Holocaust survivors in Holon.

Upon hearing about this, the Palestinian Authority (you know, the moderate ones) blasted the event and barred conductor Younis from the city of Jenin where she maintains an apartment.

So much for the moderates.

The comment you won’t see posted on the Manhigut Yehudit site.


Dear Moshe,

I know I tried to kick you out of the party and prevented you from entering the Knesset, but I owe you a much bigger thank you than I do the National Union.

You see, even after I kicked you out, you still worked tirelessly and naively to increase the size of my party, the Likud party, for me at the expense of the National Union and Bayit Yehudi.

In fact, the party which received the most votes in Judea and Samaria went to me, the Likud - all because of you and your efforts.

You gift-wrapped those religious and right-wing voters for me.

What better present could I ask from anybody?

Moshe, you personally prevented me from having to negotiate with a strong right wing and having to deal with their positions.

I know you think the National Union is hypocritical for endorsing me as Prime Minister and wanting to be in the coalition, but if I had kept you in seat 20, you would also be calling me your Prime Minister and sitting in my coalition. As another famous Likud leader said, things look different from here than there.

I know you think you opposed me, but all you did is strengthen me to be in the position to do what I wanted to do. I’m laughing my head off, because all I continue to do is spit on you, and all you had to do was keep your mouth shut and not, so convincingly, tell your fellow right-wingers to vote Likud.

I know you imagine you are forming a formidable opposition against me in the Likud, but Moshe, how many Likud MKs were not afraid to be seen with you in public at your conventions and other events before the elections?

How many now have been publicly seen with you since, while I hold the keys to their ministerial positions?

So thank you Moshe for working so tirelessly in pulling away votes from the right wing parties and giving them to me, Bibi Netanyahu, oh, and to the Likud party.

Thanks to you, I have no opposition and all of my plans should move very quickly. Let’s drink a L’Chaim at the upcoming Knesset Pesach party - oops, sorry, you're not invited. I could have never done it without you.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Netanyahu.

One of the ideas touted out by those searching for Peace in our Time is the Red-Dead plan.

The idea is to redirect part of the water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea via a water canal or pipe.

The concepts driving this is that the cooperation on this plan would help create peace. The second is that it would help create hydroelectric energy and desalinated water for the region, and the third is that it would refill the Dead Sea.



Of course this plan has some major drawbacks, and let's discuss them (from last to first).

While true it would (probably) refill the Dead Sea, at first glance there is a much higher chance of regional ecological/environmental damage (assuming you want to keep the ecology the same as it is today) from water coming from the Red Sea than if you instead brought in the water from the Mediterranean.

But of course if the water is filtered and desalinated in both cases, than that won't matter and the damage is unlikely, so that is a moot argument.

(Where do they dump the brine?)

And of course there is the real estate issue, that this will turn the Red-Dead Canal into a hotel and real estate zone. It will bring development into the region.

Personally I'm not against that, and that wouldn't happen with a Med-Dead Canal.

But only if you are one of those anti-development environmentalists can this be seen as a bad thing. So that argument in moot in my book too.

Of course, on whose side of the canal would the hotels and real estate development be? Would Israel get any development from it?

If you look at the map, the entire canal is deep within Jordanian territory, there is no real estate advantages to Israel that I can see. (Will Jordan change their law and allow Yitzchak Tshuva, a Jew, to own land in Jordan?)


In terms of hydroelectric energy and desalination, both plans should have a benefit, but I suspect that generating electricity from a 1250 foot elevation drop-off from the closer Mediterranean (80 kilometer) would be much cheaper than the 200 kilometer trip from the Red Sea.

In terms of net electrical production, the Med-Dead would produce more electricity and cheaper (remember desalination and transport costs) than the Red-Dead.

In terms of desalinated water, if Israel is to get any of it, it is much easier (closer) and cheaper to get it transported to our water system from the Med than from the Red, where it would have to be transported back up the incline to Jerusalem and central Israel.

In short, in terms of net energy generation, and water for Israel, the Red-Dead makes absolutely no sense at all, while the Med-Dead makes all the sense.

But now last but not least is the Peace factor.

There are two groups pushing this, the developers and the True Believers.

The idea for this post came up because there is concern that Egypt may scuttle their natural gas sales to Israel.

And if you look at it, there are almost no real (large-scale) joint projects between Israel and it's neighbors with who we have peace treaties (well, we already unilaterally supply a tremendous amount of water to Jordan).

And the projects we do have are always under threat of Arab withdrawal and boycott.

Do we really need yet another project dependent on their good will and political dispositions when we can do this independently, create self-sufficiency, and not be constantly under threat? (Unless that is the goal of the True Believers).

Have any of those other projects brought or helped maintain peace? I'm hard-pressed to say yes (besides US military aid to Egypt, which has its own major set of problems).

In terms of developers, I am sure they will make tremendous amounts of money, just like the Jericho casino did until the PA decided that murder was more important than money.

But regardless, the developers will continue to push this, using "peace" as the emotional motivator (and to get UN and other donor countries money to build it and their expense), though everyone involved knows ultimately its just about the dollars.

In terms of the True Believers, I suspect it is only Peres and Co. that are pushing for it for that reason.

After all, there are no real benefits to Israel that couldn't be had more cheaply, quickly, and profitably by a Med-Dead Canal instead.

In fact, (besides elevating the Dead Sea) in terms of water and electricity there is no benefit to Israel at all - except for "Peace", and we already have a shaky, useless peace treaty with Jordan - this project won't strengthen that.

Personally, I'm not even sure how this project will bring peace as after all, as it all occurs in Arab territory.

In fact, I don't think Israel is even needed to make it happen. Would it relieve long-term water issues for Jordan? For sure, but again, they don't need Israel for that.

So where's the peace dividend?

And finally, as I'm writing this I realize that the Red-Med may actually be counterproductive to Peace.

One idea touted is that there will be a war in the future due to lack of water resources in the region, and this will resolve that pressure.

But at the moment, Israel supplies Jordan with a tremendous amount of water.

Imagine if we no longer had to. Would Jordan continue to need to be semi-cordial with us now that they no longer need us? Or would they revert back to their natural state of undisguised enmity?

Now imagine if instead of yet another peace plan that makes Israel dependent on our neighbors, a peace plan that makes our neighbors more dependent on being nice to us.

If Israel were to build the Med-Dead plan (or the less practical Med-Kinneret plan), and then used that system to sell even more (needed) water to the Jordanians - wouldn't that make much more sense and peace more likely by simply requiring them to continue to be peaceful (nonbelligerent) to us for their own continued benefit, whether they liked it or not?

There would even still be cooperation, but this time Israel benefits too, for real.

Conclusions: Red-Dead - Dead End.

Sorry, but the argument that more people should have voted Likud and we wouldn't be in this boat just doesn't hold water.

The argument goes that a stronger Likud would not have been forced to give such key positions to the Left-wing parties.

And their mistake in the argument is exactly in that answer.

From the beginning, Bibi said he will not form a Right-Wing government, and he wanted to bring the Left in.

So bigger or not, Bibi planned on setting up a Left-leaning government. And if he was bigger than Kadima, then Kadima would have joined him in the end as they wouldn't have the whole "I'm bigger than you" issue to deal with.

And Bibi still would have had to give them key positions.

And like I said in the beginning, if only more people had voted Right, then Bibi would not have had a choice but to include Right-wing parties in the coalition and offered them key seats.

Unfortunately Feiglin and others convinced far too many people to vote Likud and now we are all paying for it.

I sleep well at night knowing I voted the right way, and in the coalition or not my representatives will be fighting for what I believe in.

But I'm sure Feiglin also sleeps well at night, because he still doesn't understand that he made a mistake pushing his fellow settlers and right-wingers to vote for a party that simply won't represent or implement their views.

No matter how many Likud MKs Bibi has spurned and insulted, as Bibi forms his government, Feiglin's call for Bibi to quit (for not bringing in more seats) just sound like sour grapes.

New UN report indicates that Israel is the world leader in water recycling.

Israel recycles approximately 70% of its waste water. The next closest is Spain at just 12%.

What is amazing is how much more we could be doing in terms of desalination and of course the Med-Dead plan (which was of course shelved in favor of the Red-Dead plan, which is of course shelved due to a lack of real peace to ever make it happen).

JoeSettler here.

Shas just joined the coalitions. In continuation of seeing which earlier predictions came true, let's check how thinks are shaping up.

I said:
Religious Affairs: /Shas
They did:
Religious Affairs: /Shas

I said:
Interior Minister: Eli Yishai/Shas
They did:
Interior Minister: Eli Yishai/Shas

I said:
Building and Construction: Katzaleh/Ichud Leumi
They did:
Building and Construction: /Shas

I said:
Education: Hershowitz/Bayit Yehudi or Shas
They did:
Education: Not Shas (still open)

I said:
Communications: Ariel Attias/Shas
They did:
Communications: Not Shas (still open)


Some of the Positions/Predictions that are still open:
Finance: Bennie Begin/Likud
Deputy Prime Minister: Lieberman/Yisrael Beiteinu
Finance: Bennie Begin/Likud
Social Affairs: UTJ
Education
Communications

Yup, Haaretz is on the warpath. Nope, not about the rumors (coming from the left-leaning Yitzchak Rabin Military Academy which ingrains a certain political agenda in their graduates) of IDF atrocities in Gaza (you know, vandalism, nasty graffiti, and targeting civilians), but more importantly, because of (what they deem) tasteless, aggressive, offensive and anti-Arab t-shirts.

Purple Parrot won't be surprised to learn that I also have my own t-shirts, and that I have no problem with these shirts either.

They all depict the soldiers killing the ENEMY. And if it isn't clear enough, the enemy is quite often ARMED - including the little boy with the gun and the pregnant woman with the grenade and AK-47.

That the enemy sends children and pregnant women to attack Jews is a problem with the Arab enemy - not with us.


Is it in bad taste in politically correct, civil company? You bet.

But these guys are soldiers, and their job is to KILL to defend us - and you know what, to be proud of it when they do a good job - even if the job is forced on them by the enemy - and even if the enemy isn't the stereotypical battle-scarred terrorist, because a significant number of the terrorists sent to attack us don't look the part.

Seriously, what is offensive with the phrase, "We won't be still until we confirm the kill."

Is the problem because confirming your kill might be illegal according to international law, or that it simply makes good military sense and thus sends a message of politically incorrect self defense violence?






The fact is, unlike what Ha'aretz wants to believe (or have you believe), the IDF does not go around targeting innocent civilians. That is what the Arabs do (like they tried to do today at the Haifa Mall).

And not only is there no shame in killing your enemy, in fact in general it makes you a hero for saving Jewish lives.

Should the soldiers be guilt-burdened if they are forced to kill a child. No again.

They should only be bothered by the fact that Arab society has dropped so far down on the barbarity scale that they proudly send women and children to commit mass murder and acts of genocide.

So if these guys want to express themselves by making t-shirts that depict themselves neutralizing enemy targets who are coming to kill us, then who cares.

It's a variation of Gallows Humor and it is a valid way for them to deal with the very difficult job they have against a very evil enemy, while trying to keep the rest of us safe and alive.

A t-shirt is a long way off (and not even in the same direction) as a Kassam rocket launched at a kindergarten, a suicide bomber at a Pesach Seder, or a car bomb in a Haifa shopping mall.

It does not make the IDF or IDF soldiers immoral, just politically incorrect, and who cares what the Lefties of the world think. They hate us either way.