The problem isn't that they hitchhiked, the problem is that they had to
Living in Jerusalem and owning a car, I have the luxury of telling my children never to accept rides from strangers. But for people living in Judea and Samaria hitchhiking - which I did myself when I was in yeshiva there in the late 70's and early 80's - has become a way of life. The reality is that in many parts of Judea and Samaria, it's almost a necessity.
Two of the three boys who were kidnapped last Thursday night finished their yeshiva week in a typical yeshiva high school (with a dormitory) at 9:30 pm. They each lived more than an hour away by car (assuming a parent had a car and had both the time and the money - gas is double what it is in the US - to come to get them). The only remaining buses (I checked) would have required them to get to different villages in the Etzion bloc... by hitchhiking (one village is fairly close, the other - practically a city - is further away). Those buses go to Jerusalem from which they would have had to get an additional bus home... if one was available.
While hitchhiking from the security gate of a Jewish town in Judea and Samaria is relatively safe (everyone who is admitted is supposed to be screened, so as long as you're inside the fence, the drivers should be okay), once you're outside those gates, especially at night, things become dicey. 'Palestinians' know how to dress as Jews and to talk as little as possible so you'll believe they're Jews. Sometimes you don't even realize that the driver is a 'Palestinian' even if the car has Israeli license plates (I've gotten into taxis driven by Arabs myself without realizing it). That's how people get kidnapped. In Jerusalem, there are taxi companies that advertise that they only employ Jewish drivers.
Personally, I don't usually pick up people I don't know. Nothing makes a driver any more immune to being attacked by a passenger, God forbid, than a passenger is to being kidnapped by a driver. But then, I have more choice than a resident of Judea and Samaria who doesn't own a car.
The reality is that 47 years after the supposed liberation of Judea and Samaria, we have yet to take control. The roads in Judea and Samaria are mostly still narrow and inadequate. The bus service is worse. In response to popular outcry over the kidnapping, the Netanyahu government has allocated money for shuttle buses to yeshiva high schools and girls' high schools in Judea and Samaria... but that's treating the symptom rather than the problem.
It's long past time for the government to acknowledge the reality that peace isn't happening in our time, that there isn't going to be a 'Palestinian' state alongside Israel in our time, and that we'd be fools to start giving away territory with or without a 'Palestinian state.' It's long past time to fix the roads by bringing them into the 21st century, and to provide adequate bus service to all Jewish communities in Israel (including Judea and Samaria) regardless of politics.
It's also long past time to lower taxes on cars and gas by making our government accountable, and to stop letting it overtax us to pay for its inability to curb its spending except at the expense of the weakest groups in society... but that's a separate issue.
For Lapid, it's all about Haredim and not about their army service
Some of you might recall this post, in which I reported that Finance Minister Yair Lapid wants to exempt first-time home buyers from our 18% value added tax, unless they are Haredim. Some of you actually thought this was fair - after all, why shouldn't the government give a break to those who serve in the army?
It turns out that Lapid's proposal isn't just designed to get Haredim who don't serve in the army. It's also designed to ensure that those Haredim who do serve in the army still have to pay the tax if they buy a new home. Many Haredim who serve in the army do so through the Shachar program, to which one cannot be admitted after age 22. The Shachar program only includes 16 months of active duty. Lapid's VAT concession requires 18 months of active duty (link in Hebrew).
Lapid wants to exempt first-time homebuyers from 18% VAT...except Haredim
Finance Minister Yair Lapid wants to lower the cost of housing for first-time buyers by exempting them from 18% VAT on new home purchases. Except for Haredim. Lapid says that Haredim 'don't need a discount.'
According to the proposal by Finance Minister Yair Lapid, value-added
tax (VAT) would be eliminated for first-time apartment buyers.
According to Lapid's plan, families who get the discount would have to
hold onto the apartment for at least five years. This measure is
intended to prevent couples from buying apartments for the purpose of
trading in them. VAT is currently 18%.
Lapid's plan would provide the discount to Israelis who had at least
one family member who served in the IDF – excluding most hareidi and
Arab families, both groups that generally do not serve. Hareidi groups
and several ministers, including Housing Minister Uri Ariel,
have urged Lapid to make the plan inclusive. Ariel said he supported
the plan, providing it was inclusive – adding that he himself had made a
similar proposal several months ago.
It is not clear if Lapid's condition would stand up to examination by
the High Court. In the past, National Insurance child allowance
payments were given only to families who had a member serving in the
IDF, or who had received exemptions from service. Arab and leftist
groups sued, and after several decisions by the High Court in the
mid-1990s, the government eliminated the requirement.
However, the Finance Ministry on Thursday said there would be no
issue of discrimination, at least in the hareidi sector – because home
prices there were already discounted, compared to the price of homes in
secular communities. A typical four room apartment that went for NIS
1,235,000 in Bnei Brak, for example, would cost 30% more in neighboring
Ramat Gan – and as much as 86% more in Tel Aviv. The apartments, the
Ministry said, were of similar size, age, and in areas with populations
with similar demographics.
Location, location, location.... That apartment in Tel Aviv is in a fancy new tower in Ramat Aviv or Tzahala. The one in Ramat Gan is in the nicer part that doesn't border Bnei Brak. The one in Bnei Brak is on a dingy, dark street. In Jerusalem, a four-room apartment goes for NIS 1.6 million - if you're willing to wait 2-5 years for it to be built. I wonder if they tried comparing Ramat Beit Shemesh Beit to one of the National Religious neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh....
There's no way this stands up to Supreme Court scrutiny anyway (the Supreme Court could care less about the Haredim but they won't allow discrimination against the Arabs). It just shows again Lapid's visceral hatred for Haredim. Like father, like son.
Bank of Israel implementing FATCA rather than waiting for data exchange agreement
Last week, I reportd that the Bank of Israel was going to enter into a data exchange agreement with the US Internal Revenue Service to spare the banks having to report information on US citizen accounts in Israel to the American authorities. Now, apparently stung by US investigations into the activities of the Swiss branches of Israeli banks, the Bank of Israel has decided to implement FATCA immediately.
The banks must apply FATCA by mapping their US customers and having
them sign the appropriate forms. The Bank of Israel is ordering the
banks to appoint an officer responsible for the matter, establish work
procedures, and reporting processes to management. The banks will also
examine the need to sign an agreement with the US authorities and to set
procedures for handling uncooperative customers - including "the option
of refusing to provide banking services to a customer who does not
cooperate with the implementation of the provisions."
Most, if
not all, of Israel banks are ready to implement FATCA and have signed
their US customers on the forms. As a consequence, the banks have lost
quite a few customers, who decided to withdraw their money and close
their accounts. "Globes" has estimated that more than $4 billion have
been withdrawn from accounts in Israeli banks.
Last week, "Globes" reported that the Ministry of Finance
is in advanced talks with the US Department of the Treasury on an
agreement for the sharing of information on bank accounts held by
foreign residents, and that the economic social cabinet will discuss the
agreement soon.
The agreement will supersede the US government's
demand that Israeli banks will report directly to the US authorities.
Instead, the banks will send the information about US customers to the
Israel Tax Authority, which will send it to the IRS. Despite the
advanced stage of the talks, it is unclear whether an agreement will be
signed before FATCA comes into effect in July.
The Bank of Israel is
demanding that the banks prepare to implement FATCA whether or not the
agreement is signed. "A financial institution that does not cooperate
with the US authorities is liable to various sanctions, including a 30%
deduction from payments originating in the US," it says.
For the record, if you're a US citizen, you're a US customer. And that's making a lot of Americans give up their US citizenship.
Facing an increasingly out-of-control federal government
in Washington, D.C., record numbers of Americans are giving up their
U.S. citizenship in an effort to escape onerous requirements enforced by
the IRS — which apply no matter where in the world a citizen lives.
Because the IRS requirements have already become so bad, a growing
number of banks around the world are refusing to even accept American
customers in an effort to avoid U.S. government bullying and mountains
of regulations. Following a trend in recent times, with citizenship
renunciations continuing to hit new records, some members of Congress
are slowly starting to take notice.
According to official figures and experts cited by the Wall Street Journal,
almost 2,400 people so far this year have either given up their U.S.
citizenship or turned in their green cards. That means the numbers thus
far are up by at least 33 percent over 2011, when 1,781 did so, more
than twice as many as in preceding years. In 2012, meanwhile, almost
2,000 people reportedly decided to permanently sever Uncle Sam’s grip,
and experts say the real numbers are even higher. By comparison, just
742 renounced their citizenship in 2009.
The exodus is widely expected to continue or even accelerate —
especially among the wealthy and mobile — unless and until Congress
takes action to rein in the IRS and reduce the draconian burdens imposed
on Americans abroad. The U.S. government, of course, is almost unique
in the world in that it demands that citizens pay U.S. taxes and file
massive amounts of complex paperwork no matter where on the planet they
reside and work. According to reports, the only other government in the
world to seek tribute from citizens abroad is the one ruling Eritrea.
Does the American government want us to give up our citizenship? It sure feels that way.
The agreement will be an alternative to the provisions of the US
Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which requires non-US
financial institutions to sign the agreement directly with the US
authorities to send them information about American customers.
As
"Globes" has reported, the new agreement will be reciprocal. "The
agreement will include an option under which, subject to certain
conditions, information will be sent from the US tax authorities to the
Israeli tax authorities about the income of Israeli residents in the
US," states the document.
The document predicts that the
agreement will boost Israel's tax revenues, because the Tax Authority
will obtain information about Israelis' financial assets in the US. It
cautions, however, that the amount of these revenues cannot be
estimated.
It seems, however, that the sharing of information between Israel and
the US is not equitable. While the Israeli authorities will
automatically send the US all information about US persons, the US
authorities will only send information to Israel in special cases.
Israel is not the first country to sign such an agreement: the US has
similar agreements with the UK, Denmark, France, Japan, and Spain, and
more countries have expressed a willingness to sign such agreements in
the future. The agreement with Israel will include provisions for
protecting the information's confidentiality and for restricting its use
by the IRS, due to privacy concerns.
If you're a US citizen living in Israel, you have a choice. You can give up your American citizenship. There's been a lot of that since President Hussein Obama took office. But if you need to travel to the US for any reason, you may not want to give up that citizenship after all. There's recently been an 80% increase in rejections of applications from Israelis for US tourist visas.
Any organization wishing to operate in Israel has to find some office
space, right? So, some USD and EUR goes to renting/buying an office. And
yes, the Israeli government gets a share of that money [in the form of
taxes].
Ok, you’ve got the office, now you need furnishings. Where will you buy
them? Well, at the nearest store, of course. So, some of that money goes
to buying furniture. And yes, the Israeli government gets a share of
that money.
Now you need some electronic instruments and supplies, like a computer, a
fax, a printer, paper, and so on. Where will they buy them? Well, as
you would expect, at the nearest store. So, some money goes to buying
instruments and office supplies. And yes, the Israeli government gets a
share of that money.
Now, you need some employees - someone to take phone calls, someone to
write ads, someone to push your ideas to the Israeli public. So, you
need hire some people. So you help Israel in reducing unemployment. And
yes, the Israeli government gets a share of that money.
I think you’re starting to get the picture…
Israel’s economy is actually assisted by the Human Rights groups’ activities.
Sick: Israeli government paying 'acclimation stipends' to released terrorists
I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable consumer of Israeli news, but it never would have occurred to me that this is going on, and I doubt it would have occurred to most of you either.
Israel's National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi), which takes about 15% of every Israeli's monthly income up to an amount that most of us never reach (if you're an employee, you only see half of what they take on your pay stub), has been paying 'acclimation stipends' to released terrorists. That's right, in addition to the 'salary' they draw from the 'Palestinian Authority,' which we finance along with the international community, the Israeli taxpayer via the NII is giving each released terrorist an 'acclimation stipend.'
Now, MK Yariv Levin (Likud) has introduced a bill to stop the stipend... but only for terrorists who are released 'early.' They would continue to get the stipend - and other NII benefits - once their original prison terms would have expired.
Terrorists prisoners released before the end of their jail terms in
diplomatic deals and exchanges like the Schalit deal will not receive
“acclimation stipends” from the National Insurance Institute (NII), and
their eligibility for other NII payments will be limited, according to a
bill proposed by MK Yariv Levin (Likud-Beytenu).
Levin told Arutz Sheva that the proposed law will make
released terrorists ineligible for any NII payments for the duration of
the term that they were sentenced to, so that terrorists who had
received life sentences would never be eligible for payments. The freed
terrorists would only begin receiving NII rights when their original
jail term is over, so that a terrorist released at age 40 with ten years
remaining to serve would only become eligible for benefits at age 50,
for instance.
Levin noted that five of the terrorist murderers released from jail
in the last installment of the Israeli “gestures” toward the Palestinian
Authority are Israeli citizens. This makes them eligible for an
“acclimation stipend” upon their release from jail, and they may also
request an additional sum of money if they fail to find employment
within 2 months of their release.
This money, at least, would be denied the terrorists who are Israeli
citizens and who are released in exchanges and “gestures,” explained
Levin.
So why not do the sensible thing and just deny them NII money altogether? You'll love this.
Levin explained that if it were up to him, he would pass a law simply
denying terrorists all NII payments and stipends, forever. However, he
explained to Arutz Sheva, the current coalition can be expected
to shoot down any such legislation, especially with dovish Minister
Tzipi Livni heading the key Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which
decides the fate of bills.
Levin isn't just whistling Dixie. In the previous Knesset a bill to do the same thing was watered down to cut the stipends by around 50% due to Leftist opposition.
Yes, fellow Israelis, this is how our government is spending our tax money. It's simply outrageous.
We got our arnona (municipal property tax) bill for 2014 today and we are suffering from sticker shock.
Last year's payment was NIS 593.68 per month (11 payments because they never know the amounts in time for you to make a payment in January). This year's should be NIS 657.69. Just a couple of years ago, the monthly payment was below NIS 500.
We're not even considered to be in the largest category apartment or the most expensive category of neighborhood.
And as the sign says, while municipal property taxes are like Manhattan, municipal services are like Damascus.
Turkish Airlines is being accused of tax fraud to the tune of NIS 1.5 million, and the tax authorities are contemplating criminal action against the local branch manager.
Turkish Airlines' Israeli
office is currently being investigated for alleged tax evasion amounting
to over 1.5 million shekels ($418,000), a statement by the Justice
Ministry said Monday.
According to the statement, the Tel Aviv
District Prosecution's Taxes and Economics Department is considering
pressing criminal charges against the company as well as the head of its
local office, Fatih Dogan, for failing to meet Israel's Tax Authority
guidelines for foreign companies operating in Israel. The decision is
pending a hearing before the head of the Taxes and Economics Department,
attorney Mina Zamir.
...
The Tel Aviv District
Prosecution believes that between 2006 and 2010 the airline filed false
tax reports in Israel, and that the wages paid to the company's Turkish
employees, which were deposited in their bank accounts in Istanbul, were
higher than the wages declared in Israel for taxation purposes.
This method allegedly allowed Turkish
Airlines' Israeli office to pay its employees "under the table" and
avoid deducting taxes that should have been paid to the Israeli
authorities.
...
A statement by Turkish Airlines, carried by the
financial daily Globes, said that the airline "is in compliance with the
tax laws and regulation of every country it operates in, including
Israel. The company employs the services of Israeli tax advisers and it
relied on their advice, which proved wrong. Once we were alerted to the
situation, the company made sure to pay the missing taxes. Turkish
Airlines will present its case before the [Tel Aviv District]
Prosecution and we are sure that our explanation will fall on
sympathetic ears."
I'll tell you what. You drop all the Mavi Marmara nonsense and restore relations and we'll drop the investigation and let you keep operating in Israel.
Waze's 100 employees to split an average of $1.2 million each
Haaretz is reporting that each of Waze's 100 employees will receive an average of $1.2 million as a result of the deal announced with Google earlier this week. Waze was founded in 2009, and that's quite an impressive haul for four years (if you're a Waze employee, don't get angry and please read through to the end).
Of the $1.15 billion that Google transferred into the account of
Waze’s shareholders’ trustee, $1.03 billion will be going to the
company’s owners, which include institutional investors, funds and other
investors.
The
remaining $120 million will be going to workers over the next four
years. This includes $45 million they’ll be receiving in exchange for
options and shares they hold, and another $75 million to be paid as
compensation. These figures were hashed out between Waze’s management,
shareholders and Google’s representatives.
Waze
has many newer employees who don’t own options, so the compensation
structure − which includes cash payouts − is intended to serve them as
well. The money will be divided up by management based on employees’
contributions, and not necessarily seniority.
But employees will receive an average of $1.2 million each before taxes.
In
addition, Waze’s employees will be benefiting from Google’s employee
retention plan, as part of the deal hashed out. This means that Waze
employees who are still with the company four years after the
acquisition will be eligible for another payout.
Waze
is a relatively young company, with many workers in their 20s and 30s,
as is typical of companies that develop applications for mobile
platforms. In contrast to many larger software companies, a large
proportion of Waze employees are just starting out in their careers. The
company employs programmers as well as graphic artists who developed
its interface, and customer service representatives who speak various
languages. Employees earn salaries that are above the Israeli average
but relatively low compared to those at other high-tech companies.
Don't be too impressed. If you're making $300,000 per year in this country, you're probably paying 60-70% in taxes, before you go shopping and pay 18% VAT on everything you buy.
But I give management and the employees a lot of credit. Four years to this kind of mammoth exit is quite impressive. I'm sure many of the employees could have worked at one of those established high tech companies and made more salary and taken less risk. They didn't. I would guess that many of them were making around $50,000 per year until now.
Kudos to management for taking care of the employees and making sure that they'd be well-compensated and would be able to remain in Israel with the company if they choose to do so.
And finally, when you're ready to do your next start-up, please drop me an email :-)
None dare call it a tax: Israelis to pay 'Palestinian' electric bill?
No one will dare to call this a tax, but it really is one. The government-controlled Israel Electric Company is seeking a 3% rate hike to cover the 'Palestinian Authority's NIS 730 million debt for electricity, which is now once again unsecured because Prime Minister Netanyahu gave the money that was to pay the debt to the 'Palestinian Authority' as a 'goodwill gesture.' In plain English, Israeli consumers are to be forced to pay the 'Palestinian Authority's debt to an Israeli government company. Sounds like a tax to me.
Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22)
is considering raising electricity rates to Israeli consumers to cover
the debts of Palestinians, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
decided to release tax money owed to the Palestinian Authority, which
Israel had withheld, in part to pay its debt to the IEC.
Israel
currently supplies all electricity needs to the West Bank. Palestinian
customers receive the electricity through the Palestinian Authority and
the Jerusalem District Electricity Company Ltd., each of which operate
in different cities in the territories. The two entities' aggregate debt
to IEC currently totals NIS 730 million. Each month, IEC sends a
warning letter about the debt, and it is in talks with the Palestinian
Authority and the Jerusalem District Electricity Company, but no
agreement has been reached on payment.
In late 2012, former
Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz halted the transfer of tax revenues
collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in response
to the UN General Assembly's recognition of the State of Palestine. The
withheld funds were due, in part, to pay the Palestinians' debt to IEC.
However, following US President Barack Obama's visit to Israel last
week, Netanyahu decided to release the withheld funds as a goodwill
gesture to the Palestinian Authority. Under a decision by the political
security cabinet, Minister of Finance Yair Lapid will order the Ministry of Finance to transfer the funds to the Palestinian Authority immediately.
Electricity
industry sources told "Globes" that the decision greatly reduces the
chances that IEC will collect the Palestinians' debt. If there is no
alternative, the utility will have to record the debt in its books as
lost debt and ask the Public Utilities Authority (Electricity) to
recognize it as an expense to be covered by electricity tariffs.
A
rough calculation estimates that a 3% electricity rate hike for one
year is needed to cover the current debt in full, but this is not a
long-term solution to the non-payment of the Palestinian Authority's
debts.
Where is Daphne Leef when we need her? Oops - sorry. She loves to raise our taxes and she loves the 'Palestinians.' What could go wrong?
Europe financing 'Palestinian' building in Area C... with Israeli cooperation?
While we Israelis were not always smart enough to build in Judea and Samaria when we had the chance, we used to at least be smart enough not to let anyone else build in close proximity to where we had built already. No more. The ever-generous Europeans with their failing economies are putting up 7 million euros to 'develop' 'Palestinian villages' in Area C - the area of Judea and Samaria that is under total Israeli control and in which Jewish cities and towns are located - and Israel is cooperating with the Europeans.
All
Israeli settlements are located in Area C. Israeli and Palestinian activists
believe that all development in the area is part of the ongoing battle for final
sovereignty.
However, the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria says
that it has a responsibility to help Palestinians in Area C develop their
communities.
Earlier this week, the European Union approved an action
plan that sets out its relations for the next five years with the Palestinian
Authority.
Although the text of the plan has yet to be published, the EU
has already reported that part of it focuses on helping Palestinians development
of Area C. To that end, it has this week allocated 7 million euros to the PA,
through a technical agreements signed with Prime Minister Salam
Fayyad.
“This agreement is aimed at supporting the Palestinian presence
and promoting social and economic development in Area C, which we all know is of
crucial importance for the economic viability of Palestine,” EU foreign policy
chief Catherine Ashton said.
According to an EU official, the push to
develop Area C is in line with the May 2012 conclusion of its External Relations
Council, composed of member states’ foreign ministers, which said that
socioeconomic development had to be advanced there to preserve the two-state
solution.
According to the same official, the money will help in the
construction of basic infrastructure for water and sanitation, as well as to
increase agriculture production.
The official said the funds will also
allow the Palestinian communities in Area C to develop master plans to cover
their demographic and socioeconomic needs.
I am so glad that my tax shekels are going to support such a worthy cause as funding development for those who spend their time plotting to murder me and my children and grandchildren, God forbid, while not doing anything productive themselves. I cannot think of a more noble way to spend the 70% or so of every shekel I earn that goes to my government in one way or another.
And in the meanwhile, my government is also spending money to expel Jews from places like Migron and Givat HaUlpana.
Schakowsky: In Israel when the doctors went on strike, the outcomes were actually better'
I don't know where she gets her information, but here's a video that discusses the possibility of doctors unionizing after Obamacare in which Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Il) (also known as "J Street Jan") claims that the outcomes were actually better in Israel as a result of doctors' strikes.
Let's go to the videotape. More after the fold (Hat Tip: Sunlight) (Sorry about the autoplay, I cannot resolve it, but it's short).
This will completely end any chance that doctors will care about patients. They will instead become just another uncaring, slipshod union hack that won’t much care about the excellence of his work because he’s protected by union rules. Patients will no longer matter.
Doctors will be just like officious DMV employees. Just like lazy Streets and Sans guys. Like all those little bored, arrogant placemen that work for government.
You, the patient, will no longer matter at all.
Welcome to Obamacare, folks. We’re all the victim of a death panel now.
I don't know where she gets her information, but it's complete and utter nonsense. Yes, we have compulsory health insurance, for which we pay about 5% of our income, and we have had it since 1995 or thereabouts. There's a three-tier system here: Basic health fund insurance provided by the health funds and paid for by the government with our 5% tax, enhanced health insurance provided by the health funds for an extra fee, and real health insurance provided by insurance companies.
Some of the health funds - which used to exclude people who were likely risks - are now going broke. The government mandates the services they have to provide but does not necessarily provide them with the funding to do so.
All in all, our socialized medicine system is better than England's or Canada's but that's because if you can afford to pay, you can still get things privately. But we're definitely paying more than we did in 1995.
Here's a new way to tour Jerusalem. It's called a Segway.
Let's go to the videotape.
This is kind of neat, but I don't understand why they cost $9,000 apiece. Actually, I do understand because I live here. But that doesn't make it right.
What if they held a 'milllion man march' and only 100,000 came?
What do you do when you call a 'million man march' and only about 100,000 people show up? If you're in Israel, you rely on the media to hype it for you of course. Israel Radio reported at 10:00 that there were 200,000 people in Tel Aviv and 20,000 each in Jerusalem and Haifa. Those numbers are well above those being reported by JPost (102,000 at 9:00 and 153,000 at 10:00 - by the way, that link keeps changing), but Israel Radio is treating this as if it's the biggest event of the year. They've interrupted all their broadcasting and are doing non-stop demonstration as if (God forbid) it were a terror attack. My radio is off.
This is probably the only country in the world where the 'Supreme Court' would issue an emergency ruling on Friday ordering the trains to run on Saturday night for the rallies. Yes, really.
The High Court of Justice ruled on Friday that the Transport Ministry would run increased numbers of trains and replacement bus services on Saturday night, to allow people to travel to Tel Aviv to take part in the "March of the Million" protest.
The emergency hearing was the result of a petition filed by attorney Shraga Biran of the 'Awakening In Jerusalem' social movement, after Israel Railways announced plans to close the Jerusalem - Tel Aviv and Beersheba - Tel Aviv lines on Saturday night.
The petition argued that the rail line closures made it impossible for those without private transport to travel to Tel Aviv to attend Saturday night's social justice protest march.
As part of the judgment, made by Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melzar, Israel Railways have placed a notice on their website stating that extra trains will run on the Tel Aviv coastal line and that the Transport Ministry will run replacement bus lines on the Tel Aviv-Beersheba and Tel Aviv-Jerusalem routes.
Pretty funny. What the Israelis will pick up is that Shraga Biran is one of the wealthiest lawyers in the country....
But then this whole 'demonstration' is really just a massive rock concert, isn't it?
Speakers at the rally include protest organizer Daphne Leif and Sherry Tanenbaum. Performing acts included Eyal Golan, Hadag Nachash and stars of the television show Eretz Nehederet.
You remember Daphne Leef, don't you? The poor little rich girl from Kfar Shmaryahu....
Please forgive my utter contempt, but I recall too many anti-Oslo demonstrations in which the media claimed that the number of people attending was less than the number of seats on the chartered buses. I also recall too many times (mostly in 2005) when police stopped demonstrators from reaching the demonstrations and the 'Supreme Court' was silent.
There are problems with the way our economy is run but the leadership of this protest movement sure isn't going to fix them.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, September 2:
1) Darth Friedman
Lando: Lord Vader, what about Leia and the Wookiee?
Darth Vader : They must never again leave this city.
Lando : [outraged] That was never a condition of our agreement, nor was giving Han to this bounty hunter!
Darth Vader : Perhaps you think you're being treated unfairly?
Lando : [after a pause; nervous tone] No.
Darth Vader : Good. You know it would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison here.
Lando : [to himself] This deal is getting worse all the time!
Darth Vader: Calrissian. Take the princess and the Wookie to my ship.
Lando: You said they'd be left at the city under my supervision!
Darth Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further
For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.
It was an outrageous judgment then; the recent terror attacks from Egypt exposed the perniciousness of this viewpoint. Just as Darth Vader expected Lando Calrissian to accept his changing circumstances with equanimity, so does Thomas Friedman expect Israel to act. By Friedman's logic, Israel must keep Egypt happy, but Egypt need not reciprocate.
While Israel paid with hard, irreversible currency when it handed over land to the Arab side, the Arabs paid with soft, completely reversible currency - that is, words and agreements. Now we are hearing claims that these deals were made with the regimes rather than with the “people”; that is, they lack any legitimacy.
In Egypt there are many voices, including among presidential candidates, declaring that the Camp David Accord with Israel must be annulled or at least changed. That is, change the aspects that pertain to “peace” with Israel. Yet if the Egyptians wish to annul the Camp David Accord, will they return the Sinai desert to Israel? After all, they received this territory through the peace treaty between the two states, after failing to secure it through war. Yet for some reason, this is unthinkable for them.
Why is Israel responsible to make everyone else happy for there to be peace?
Syria will be his real test. The arguments for supporting Syrian protesters are easily as strong as those mustered to save the people of Benghazi. After months facing the regime snipers’ machine guns, tanks and torture, demonstrators are openly calling for foreign intervention. And the regime’s strategic sins against the United States are far greater than those committed by the Libyan Nero. Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah — the two terrorist powerhouses of the Middle East — are Damascus’s closest friends. Almost every Arab terrorist group, spawned in the hothouses of Islamic militancy and Arab nationalism, has had a presence in Damascus. The ruling Assad family has been the great enabler of terrorism against the United States — from the 1983 Beirut bombings to the 1996 attack on Khobar Towers, and quite possibly to Sept. 11 via the operational carte blanche given to Imad Mughniya and Hezbollah. Mughniya, Iran’s dark Arab prince who served as Tehran’s liaison with Arab terrorists, and Hezbollah likely aided al-Qaeda in the 1990s. More so than any Sunni-led Arab state, the Assad regime has reveled in its “front-line” hostility toward Israel.
For decades foreign policy “realists” dreamed of severing the Assads and Syria’s ruling Shiite Alawite clan from Iran and marrying them to the peace process. This delusional aspiration — it ignored the sectarian and religious reality of Syrian politics — appears dead. Addicted to viewing the region through a Palestinian-Israeli lens, Obama may finally look strategically at Syria.
Gerecht clearly believes that the United States needs to get involved because the Syrian government isn't just turning its guns against its own people but has been an enemy in war to the United States and its allies.
After six weeks of tent encampments and rallies featuring popular singers that drew as many as 300,000 people into the streets on the first Saturday in August, the Sept. 3 rally has been described by its promoters as a million-person march.
But for now the movement is in a kind of hiatus, with nagging questions about where it will go. The mid-August attack by Palestinian militants that killed eight Israelis near the southern city of Eilat, close to the Egyptian border, followed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza, proved to be a major interruption, abruptly changing the public discourse back to the more familiar mode of Israeli security in hostile surroundings.
In addition, disagreements have emerged among the groups that make up the leadership of the protest movement, along with increasing grumbling about some of the higher-profile leaders themselves. The giddy festival atmosphere that first enveloped the social protest has dissipated. The rows of tents at the flagship encampment lining Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv are gradually emptying.
I wish that Kershner had provided more details about the dissatisfaction with the leadership of the protests. Of course the emptying of the tents may just be a sign that summer's over and that protesters no longer have the time.
Despite Kershner's generally positive portrayal of the protests, Challah Hu Akbar pointed out that a feeder demonstration did not go well.
Some 20 activists from southern Israel marched to Jerusalem from the south and are protesting against the cost of living in front of the prime minister's residence.
The new editor of the Jerusalem Post, Steven Linde defends his decision to fire Larry Derfner:
By trying to rationalize the murder of his fellow Jews by terrorists, Derfner – who has always been the consummate journalist for the Post – went beyond the pale. Consequently we terminated his employment.
The move, I stress, had nothing to do with threats to cancel subscriptions or advertisements; it was an editorial decision taken on moral grounds. While politically independent, the Post is a quintessentially Zionist newspaper priding itself on its patriotism and credibility, as well as its balanced reporting and diverse commentaries.
If I'm understanding Linde he's arguing that Derfner's post was similar to yelling "fire" in crowded movie theater. So he, in turn said, "you're fired." A rabbi was recently arrested for incitement, so I wonder if there may have been a legal concern too.
5) Followup
Yesterday I wrote that Ehud Olmert was Netanyahu's successor, which is technically correct, since Netanyahu served as PM from 1996-1999 (I didn't write "immediate"), given the context, I meant "predecessor." Thank to Carl for pointing it out!
Poor little rich girl coming into conflict with more sensible protesters
For six weeks, the media has done its darnedest to keep a lid on a simmering conflict between Kfar Shmaryahu poor little rich girl Daphne Leef and her friends, on the one hand, and the real social protesters who have something at stake aside from a Tel Aviv luxury apartment rental on the other hand. The real social protesters seem to be quite sensible and don't believe that the country's budget has to be busted and its defenses gutted to fix what's wrong. But Israel's Leftist media (much of which is controlled by the 'tycoons') is only interested in Leef and her friends.
Nonetheless, 44-year-old Attorney Yaniv Moyal of Tel Aviv said that the social issues movement has suffered because of the emphasis placed upon 26-year-old Daphni Leef and her friends, after Leef started the protest with a call she put out on Facebook group she created on July 14th.
One of the founders of an alternative tent protest leadership group called “Protest Tents: The National Leadership,” Moyal said the group was founded in the second week of the protests because "we felt that there should be some sort of sane voice to the protests. Other people in the movement are saying that they won't talk to the government t they just want to yell slogans like 'social justice', but how do you calibrate that? They need to speak logically and with more content to what they're saying. We believe that the way is to talk with decision makers and not to say that we won't talk to them."
Though as the member of a rival protest group Moyal would have a vested interest in criticizing the Leef-led core of protesters, his criticism is based largely on what he says has been the media's anointing of Leef and her close circle of friends as some sort of protest royalty in spite of what he says is their lack of experience or clearly defined goals or demands.
"Ever since week 2 of the protests we've had a set of concrete steps laid out and the media has decided to ignore us because they thought we'd ruin the momentum by coming out against the people who started the protests."
"They've [the media] made her [Leef] out to be some sort of god and then this movement broke out all over the country dealing with the government decisions affecting the entire country. The problems we're dealing with are about a worldview in regard to society."
In regard to whether or not Leef and others are inexperienced for the task at hand, he said "just because a child can yell that the emperor is naked doesn't mean that same child has the ability to sew the emperor a new set of clothes."
He also said that he didn't trust the decision-making process or motivations of Stav Shafir and Regev Kuntas two members of Leef's inner circle, saying "I have no idea what their interests are but I think they're just to bring down the government and if we do that, we'll have elections again and woe unto us."
When asked about Leef's announcement that the Trajtenberg committee should resign, he said "this is the approach of a little girl who wants all of these people to resign. The Trajtenberg committee said they won't recommend breaking the national budget, and you can try to influence them or talk to them, but not just call for them to be dissolved."
He added that while it has been his experience in Israel that founding a committee is typically a way for the government to shut up an issue, he does not believe that is the case with the Trajtenberg committee.
Moyal said he and his organization do not stand alone in their dissatisfaction with Leef and her inner circle, saying "no one supports the fact that we are in the sixth week of these protests and haven’t demanded anything or achieved anything and laid out any real demands."
"There are more than a thousand sources of money in this country that we don’t implement because of the financial interests of the wealthy. We are being run by oligarchs. There is NIS 32 billion that we could raise each year by changing the tax code for the w3ealthy. We don’t need to break the budget.
The government and the Finance Ministry should be talking to these people and not to the poor little rich girl, the New Israel Fund filmmaker Daphne Leef. There's probably a deal to be had and it may even be for the good of the country.
Isn't it amazing what happens when you put this sort of thing into a perspective that these kids can understand (Hat Tip: Debbie R).
Oliver Darcy, a recent college graduate, proposes that students with good grades contribute their GPA to their academically sluggish friends. He argues that this is how the federal government takes wealth from the country’s high wage earners and distributes it to the low income earners.
“They all earn their GPA,” said Darcy in an interview with "Fox and Friends." “So we asked them if they’d be interested in redistributing the GPA points that they earned to students who may be having trouble getting a high GPA.”
Darcy, who films his encounters with teachers and fellow students, doesn’t have much luck selling this theory.
He said many students on college campuses support high taxes on the rich, but when put into relative terms, cringed at the thought of spreading around their academic wealth.
In a video posted on Exposingleftists.com, one student said, “If I do give GPA points to students that don’t deserve it, it isn’t fair, I work for what I have.”
By the way, Israel Radio's Keren Neubach went all out on Thursday morning, interviewing 'social protesters' all over southern Israel. We wouldn't want the 'Palestinians' to distract us, would we?
'Palestinians' distract Israelis from social protesters all night long
The 'Palestinians' made sure Israelis wouldn't think about those social protesters by shooting rockets in the middle of the night - around 3:30 am - to keep Israelis' minds on other matters. That was around the time that - having fallen asleep in front of the computer - I pulled myself out of my chair and lay down in bed....
"During a night air assault weapons a storage site in northern Gaza and tunnel used for smuggling and weapons manufacturing in the southern Gaza Strip" were struck, the statement said, adding that a direct hits were identitified.
Palestinian sources claimed an Israeli air strike targeted an Islamic Jihad sports facility, and killed two people there.
'Sports facility'? In the middle of the night? I'd guess that it was an Islamic Jihad training center....
Earlier, the Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted a rocket that was fired toward Beersheba and two rockets that were fired toward Ashkelon.
A nine-month-old girl was lightly wounded in the hand when a Grad-type rocket scored a direct hit on an empty car south of Ashkelon.
The baby was outdoors with a parent when the rocket struck an empty vehicle nearby, causing the injury. The vehicle caught fire and the baby was taken for medical treatment.
The late evening salvo of more than 10 rockets came after three days of quiet, since Hamas declared Gazan groups would stop launching rockets at Israel on Sunday night.
Earlier Wednesday, at least seven rockets hit near Ashkelon and in Ofakim. The rockets were believed to be fired by Islamic Jihad, supposedly in response to an Israel Air Force air strike earlier in the day that killed a senior operative who the IDF said was planning attacks against Israel from the Sinai Peninsula.
Four rockets struck in the Eshkol Regional Council and another two hit open land near Ofakim shortly after another rocket fell in an open field north of the Gaza Strip near Ashkelon. No one was injured in the strikes.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
