The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they unfold.
After deadly terror attack, Gallant orders security bolstered across the country
60,000 end noon prayers at Temple Mount; hundreds hail West Bank attack, wave Hamas flags
Hamas hails Jordan Valley shooting as ‘natural response’ to Al-Aqsa clashes
Police, Shin Bet arrest six Bedouin suspects for throwing rocks at buses in Negev
By Malcolm Dash
It’s still too soon to declare Netanyahu’s governing coalition doomed, though some might argue it’s on life support. Or that the much-needed judicial reforms are dead on arrival; legislation that was demanded by and pledged to the voters during the election campaigns. What’s more, this is a democratically elected, homogeneous government with a convincing majority. So, one may wonder why this crucial legislation has so far not been enacted.
There is a lot riding on the success of the diplomatic agreement inked in Beijing between Saudi Arabia and Iran. While some optimists are hopeful that the accord will bear fruit, skeptics are worried that the Iranian regime will only pay lip service to the agreement, using it as a tactical ploy to navigate through current challenges before resuming their hegemonic ambitions in the region – a strategy they have spent a fortune on.
EXCELLENT
By Elliott Abrams, JSTRIBUNE April 2023
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv, Israel show support for US President Biden, for not inviting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the White House, March 30, 2023. Photo credit: REUTERS
The streets are seething. Police have clashed with demonstrators and there have been not only arrests but some violence. Hundreds of thousands and likely millions have protested proposed government actions. Unions have called for nationwide strikes. Government reactions have elicited even more fierce opposition.
The basic idea of liberalism is a positive thing – as long as there are guard rails that go along with it. Yoram Hazony explains clearly that the essential idea of a liberal and free society will not last for many generations if there are no red lines and clarity as to the dangers of doing whatever one feels like doing.
Marxism is simply more attractive to many of the younger Western children than old liberal ideas are. Woke morality looks at all of the old traditional aspects of life such as religion and family, and a loyalty to a national framework, and says that they are all irrelevant and outdated concepts.
By
The Romans said of 1st century B.C. general Sulla that there was no better friend, and no worse enemy. Epitomized in this saying is the ancient ideas of what comprises the just treatment of the gods and other people, expressed by the phrase do ut des, “I give so that you give.” “Friends” are those, humans or gods, from whom you have received, and to whom you owe benefits. “Enemies” are those who seek to injure you, and whom you may justly injure in return. In antiquity this principle of reciprocity defined all relationships.
We are in a Jacobin Revolution of the sort that in 1793-94 nearly destroyed France. And things are getting scary.
The Democratic Party vanished sometime in 2020.
It was absorbed by hard-left ideologues. They were bent on radically altering, or hijacking, existing institutions to force radical, equality-of-result agendas that otherwise do not earn majority support.
T. Belman. I gave this talk in Jerusalem, early in Obama’s presidency. When he was campaigning prior to the his election, I followed him very closely and thus knew a great deal about him. I believe that his alleged father was not his father and that he was not born in the US and therefor not eligible to be President. Plus I believed him to be a Muslim. These details and many more details of interest are set out in this talk.
T. Belman. We all know how dependant Israel is on the US veto in the UNSC. But even more important is Israel’s reliance on US resupply in the event of a protracted war. The year-long Ukraine War show’s how important resupply is. Israel has no one else to turn to for resupply unless a deal has been made with India for resupply of some things.
5 April 2023, 7:49 pm
This handout photo from March 3, 2023, shows IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, left, meeting with visiting Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Israel Defense Forces)
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Wednesday that while security cooperation with the US is beneficial, it is not “essential” and Israel knows how to act on its own.
“Israel knows how to work alone in the face of any security challenge, but it is good to see the US by our side,” Halevi told Army Radio in a relatively rare interview.
There’s no doubt that antisemitism is increasing in the United States while prejudice and hate crimes against other minorities are generally on the decline. This trend is reflected by US law enforcement statistics, but is also apparent to those of us who have witnessed or experienced it personally. Rioters have harassed Jews and vandalized their property in urban areas and suburbs, Orthodox Jews are assaulted in New York with impunity, Jewish students are attacked on college campuses, and conspiracy theories regarding Israel and the Jews are spewed in university classrooms by leftist professors.<
>
T. Belman. Please Bibi , stop calling for calm. Take a more assertive stand.
Today, 3:30 pm
The Arab League was set to meet for an emergency session Wednesday after Israeli forces entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque overnight and clashed with Palestinians inside.
By Naveh Dromi, YNET NEWS 4.4.23
The right-wing protests have yielded many positive outcomes. They have spared us of more national “days of disruption,” “paralysis,” and “resistance”; women dressed as characters from the Netflix show “The Handmaid’s Tale” have given us a short breather from their hysteria; right-wing elected officials now understand that they are obligated to pass the reforms, and not let it fall between the cracks; and maybe the most important outcome of all – we can finally rebut the demagogic, childish, and manipulative claim that the ongoing affairs are “not a matter of left or right.”
T. Belman. Yes it has but it did so long before Trump was indicted.
Yesterday was doubtlessly among the darkest days in the history of the nation. It was the day that the inglorious tradition of using government agencies to target political opponents achieved another ignominious low in the United States of America.
President Donald Trump was formally processed and arraigned in a Manhattan courthouse on 34 charges related to allegedly ‘hush payments’ to former porn actor Stormy Daniels and another woman during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Daniel Greenfield, 04 Apr .23
In the early days of March, a small crowd of leftists gathered outside the U.S. consulate in Tel Aviv holding up signs reading, “Biden help!” and “Biden, Blinken, Our democracy is sinking”.
A speaker at the rally appealed to Biden to “save us from ourselves”.
By
A man holds a local newspaper reporting on the China-brokered deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore ties, in the Iranian capital Tehran on March 11, 2023. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)[/caption]
Communist China’s apparent efforts to broker peace in the Middle East are part of a larger campaign to undermine global U.S. influence, according to one expert.
The regime’s role in brokering a diplomatic detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March was just as much an attempt to gain an advantage over the United States as it was to stabilize the region, said Alex Vatenka, founding Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute think tank.
T. Belman. How can she be so confident when as she said, “We have not yet heard what the other side is proposing.”? I remain pessimistic.
MK Kathrin Shitrit, who represents the Likud in the negotiations taking place at the President’s Residence in an attempt to reach compromises regarding the judicial reform, told Israel National News on Tuesday that she feels very optimistic about the possibility of reaching agreements.
THIS DISCUSSION IS INDESPENSABLE
By Lauren Marcus, WorldIsraelNews.com 4.4.23
Arnon Bar David, chairman of the Histadrut, calls a nationwide general strike in protest against the judicial overhaul proposed by he government, March 27, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered his office to sue the Histadrut, Israel’s largest labor union, after the body called a seemingly illegal strike last week that paralyzed the country.
According to a Mako report, Smotrich’s ministry is currently attempting to calculate the economic damage caused by the strike, and plans to sue the Histadrut for that amount.
Reuters and ILH Staff 04-04-2023
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with President Joe Biden and Arab leaders at the Jeddah Security and Development Summit, July 16, 2022 | Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP
Saudi Arabia’s unpredictable crown prince is pushing hard to realign Middle East dynamics, engaging with old foes and orchestrating OPEC oil cuts like the ones on Sunday which took the global market by surprise.
