In Tel Aviv today, Haaretz held a 'peace conference.' The picture above is of the yefei ha'nefesh (beautiful people - but it loses something in translation) attending the conference fleeing for their lives upon the announcement that Hamas has just shot a rocket at Tel Aviv (Hat Tip: Dan F).
InMyBackYard: Iron Dome intercepts rocket near Tel Aviv
Hello again from the Holy City of Jerusalem.
I have written many times on this blog with respect to the NotInMyBackYard syndrome that permeates this country with respect to rockets on Israel's south. Now it's InMyBackYard. Iron Dome intercepted a rocket about an hour ago over a suburb of Tel Aviv. Sirens sounded in alarm in the city of the 'beautiful people' (yefei ha'nefesh) who support 'peace' with the savages known as the 'Palestinians.' Will anything change? This is from the second link.
The Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted a projectile near Tel
Aviv over the city of Rishon Lezion on Tuesday evening, as air raid
sirens sounded in central Israeli cities for the first time amid recent escalations.
No injuries or damage were reported in the attack.
Israeli television showed a double-burst of smoke in skies above Tel
Aviv after air raid sirens sounded, sending residents running for
shelter.
Air raid sirens sounded in all of Gush Dan, including Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, Lod and Givatayim.
It was the first Gaza rocket that reached Tel Aviv since Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012.
Following the attack over central Israel, the Home Front Command instructed the Tel Aviv Municipality to open public bomb shelters in the city.
"Color Red" rocket warning sirens were sounded in the coastal region
on Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Kfar Shmaryahu, Rishon Letzion,
Nes Tziona, Beit Shemesh and its environs, Rehovot, Gadera, as well as
southern communities of the coastal region, the Gezer Regional Council
area, Yavne and additional communities.
According to reports in the area, several rockets were shot down by
the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system, and no damage has yet been
reported by the missiles.
The rockets apparently are of the M75 model, a domestic creation produced by Hamas in Gaza which features a long range.
The barrage of rockets towards Tel Aviv apparently was launched from
Beit Hanoun in Gaza; at least one of those rockets was intercepted by
Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.
In the latest escalation, over 170 rockets were reportedly fired at
Israel as of Tuesday morning in the preceding 24 hour period.
About to go out of existence, Newsweek suddenly concerned about religious soldiers in IDF
With Newsweek about to merge with the Daily Beast and go out of existence, it has finally awoken to the reality that the demographics of the IDF officer corps are not from groups that are likely to want to surrender land to 'Palestinians' unnecessarily.
But if a peace deal is ever achieved, it would undoubtedly require the evacuation of at least some settlements—a job for the Army. Some defense analysts and former officers worry that the military’s new religiosity could lead to mass insubordination. “If soldiers decide they don’t want to participate, that’s one thing,” says Mikhael Manekin, a reserve lieutenant who co-chairs the left-wing group Breaking the Silence. “If commanders don’t want to participate, that would be much more worrying.” (Manekin says all his commanding officers were settlers during his four years of active duty.)
The threat isn’t as farfetched as it sounds. Ever since the government demolished the West Bank settlement of Homesh in 2005, former residents have kept trying to establish an illegal outpost there, and authorities have kept sending troops to evict them. A year ago, during swearing-in ceremonies for new recruits of the Shimshon Battalion in Jerusalem, several soldiers unfurled a banner proclaiming: SHIMSHON DOES NOT EVACUATE HOMESH. The military court-martialed the perpetrators, sentenced them to the brig, and expelled them from their unit. But in the weeks that followed, similar signs were displayed at two other units’ training bases.
Although the military publishes little information about the backgrounds of its enlistees, a recent issue of the defense journal Maarachot reported that in recent years some 30 percent of graduates from the infantry officers’ course have defined themselves as “Zionist-religious,” up from only 2.5 percent 20 years ago. (About 12 percent of Israelis in general choose that label.) Many of those fledgling lieutenants, along with a number of higher-ranking combat officers, were drawn from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and some are residents of outposts—smaller, makeshift settlements—established without authorization from the government.
The mere specter of widespread refusal is enough to make the government think twice before ordering evacuations, whether of settlements or of outposts, says sociologist Yagil Levy, who specializes in military trends. (The threat might explain why most outposts remain standing despite Israel’s promise to dismantle dozens of them under a U.S. initiative back in 2003.) Some analysts have suggested that the police should handle future evacuations, rather than the Army.
The rise within the military of the “knitted skullcaps” has been building for years. In the 1990s, after the controversial first Lebanon war, many liberal Israelis stopped encouraging their kids to go beyond the mandatory three years of national service. “We secular people can only blame ourselves for no longer being able to convince our kids to spend as many years in the military as in the past,” says Avshalom Vilan, a former member of Parliament from the left-wing Meretz Party and a kibbutznik.
At about the same time, more religious Israelis were concluding that their community should have played a larger role in building the country’s secular institutions decades earlier. Embracing military service more fervently was a way to make up for lost time. “The religious community has to be involved in all public institutions, not just the Army,” says Rabbi Eli Sadan, 62, at his home in the settlement of Eli, deep in the West Bank. “That’s the revolution we’re creating.” Sadan oversees one of a string of West Bank pre-military academies where rabbis teach Torah and Jewish philosophy for up to two years while preparing students for military service and imbuing them (this is where some secular Israelis get nervous) with a religious sense of mission. Most graduates forgo the option of serving in strictly religious units, mixing instead with the general population.
Name me another country in the world where the army or police was told to expel people from their homes (in which they were not squatters) so that the homes could be given over to people who wanted to kill them. It's insane.
Yes, the country has shifted right. There are two factors behind that. One is that the new immigrants have been mostly from the Right (both the Russians and the Americans among others), while those who leave are mostly the yefei ha'nefesh (a contemptuous way of saying 'beautiful people' in Hebrew) from the Left. Second, the people have seen what we got for Oslo and the 'withdrawals' from southern Lebanon and Gaza. We have decided we don't want anymore of that.
You won't hear most Israelis worrying too much about the army carrying out its orders. It's a concern of the Leftists - just look whom Newsweek interviewed.
The picture at the top is Rabbi Avichai Ronski, who was the IDF chief rabbi until he was forced out in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead. He had the gall to encourage soldiers to believe they were on a mission from God (which they were).
LATMA tribal update: Dire consequences if Israel refuses freeze
LATMA explains to us what's going to happen if Israel refuses to accept the 'settlement freeze' extension. We'll also see what happens when Jamil wants an education and when an Israeli Leftist tries to be nice to a 'Palestinian.'
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