Its time for Fancy Dress and parties
Purim is a week away ! It is always welcome, as it not only signals the end of winter in Israel but the kids have a week off school, and parties abound for both kids and adults. The shops are full of fancy dress costumes and the children usually start donning their outfits a few days before, so the streets look very bright and “Chagigi”. It is nice a Chag, as it celebrates survival though courage, which it seems we are still fighting for even today. Miracles are always welcome !
The government is still pressing forward with its planned changes to the justice system despite the massive protests. Already, a first reading has passed, that will enable the elected government to choose the judges for the supreme court. This is in many people’s opinion is where the changes should stop. Most democratic countries allow their government or the people to elect those who sit in the higher chambers. Presently, in Israel the judges elect themselves, so it is not really democratic and it leaves the court with a political sway. If each successive government elected judges (with perhaps a time limit), we would hope we could have a balanced Supreme Court that will oversee the legislation that the government of the day wishes to pass into law.
Another change is proposed for its first reading and this has much more noxious smell about it, as it would prevent the court from striking out proposed laws, even if they went against what we call “Basic Law”, (which is an unwritten constitution) .
The protests will only increase as governments must have checks and balances, and cannot have a free hand without references to a higher chamber. We see all around the world the type of leaders who are attracted to absolute power, often elected democratically, and then change the laws in order to plant themselves permanently as dictators. Turkey is prime example of a thriving multicultural democracy that was hijacked by the elected leader and is now a dictatorship.
The IDF went into Nablus in the West Bank in search of a terror cell. 10 people were killed, which included militants, and 2 civilians who were caught in the cross fire. The IDF came under attack from armed mopeds and cars. It is reported 100 people were injured in the raid. Sadly, it sounds like a real life “Fauda” (which means chaos in Arabic) situation. But we must remember that not only had this cell already committed murder, there was credible intelligence that they were planning more deadly attacks.
Israel expects retaliation from Hamas as some of the operatives were members of the Gaza based terror group. We no longer have Hamas solely confined to the Gaza strip , so operations like this may become more necessary as the terrorists become better at infiltrating Israel, and setting up terror cells to carry out attacks.
Security level has been raised to high and there was a red alert around the Gaza envelope and Ashkelon industrial zone last night when rockets were fired into Israel.
A female terrorist was neutralised when she tried to carry out a stabbing attack at the check point of Ma’ale Adumim.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is refusing to support the passage of the budget, if he is not passed the powers of civil administration in Judea and Samaria as promised in the coalition deal. Bibi was dragging his feet. He is well aware that Israel’s standing diplomatically is not as good as it should be, due to the Judicial reforms, and appointing a self proclaimed “fascist”, who could be termed an ideological extremist, in charge of what is an already explosive situation will sink her standing further. In order to pass the budget a deal with limited powers has been agreed. The shekel has fallen by around 10%.
Oman has agreed to allow its airspace to be open to all flights leaving Israel, thereby shortening flight times for those travelling east. There were also lovely scenes from the newly inaugurated Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue in Abu Dhabi this week. The Abraham Accords are thankfully still standing strong.
So at this time, it’s “losing on the swings and gaining on the roundabouts”. Israel’s standing among her Arab neighbours is higher than it has been since her birth, as they also recognise the imminent threat of nuclear break out from Iran, and their new best friend is now the Jewish State.
Shabbat Shalom