Busy day in the election-watch, as the deadline nears for parties to register for the elections...

comments:

 * Netanyahu surprises at the last minute with somehow convincing Benny Begin to return to politics and sticking him in the 11th slot on the Likud list. Good move. Even if I did not agree with everything Benny Begin promoted, I appreciate his integrity and wisdom, and know we need more like him in the Knesset.

 * Didn't Netanyahu give away the 11th and 23rd slot yesterday to two female security experts? I don't know what happened, but I'd like to hear if he just tossed one of them like yesterday's news or what happened.

 * Suddenly Yoni Chetboun is threatening to abandon Yishai's party, due to the possible merger (technical block, if you may) with Otzma Yehudit. For the past two weeks they have been negotiating a merger, and now he gets upset about it? at the last minute? If he does not like them, why did this go on for him so long with Chetboun saying nothing, and why now is it suddenly not ok?

 * If Chetboun does leave Yachad, will that put an end to the more "chardali" supporters of Habayit Hayehudi leaving for Yachad - as maybe now Yachad is too extreme for them and less chardali?

 * they may not even exist anymore, as rumors are spreading that the entire thing might fall apart. Yishai might not even register as a party in the elections. We'll know for sure one way or the other by 10pm tonight, the official deadline.

 * Danny Dayan does not like his spot in Habayit Hayehudi and has announced that he is leaving the party. He was there for all of about 10 minutes, so no big deal. I'm not quite sure what any of this means about Danny Dayan, but it looks like he was just another of these opportunistic politicians jumping around looking for a sure ticket into the Knesset.
 

Crazy story out of Rehovot I thought you would enjoy..

A couple of kids broke into a car to steal some loose change. In the process they smashed the window of the car.

While I don't understand exactly what happened, it seems th eowner of the car showed up while the burglary was in process. He grabbed the phones off these kids (to make up for the damage they had done) and jumped in the car and drove away.

The two kids went to the police to report the theft of their phones by the driver. They wanted the police to help track down their phones. In the process they admitted to the crime they had committed. The police opened a file on them for the burglary, and at the same time is trying to locate the owner of the car and the two phones.
source: BE106

Darwin award nominees?

wow. they are really scratching the bottom of the barrel.

The latest attack on Sara Netanyahu is that she recycled bottles from the Prime Ministers residence and pocketed the money.
source: Walla News

Even if it is true (and I am not saying it is), and even if it is wrong, that is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, as an attack on a prime minister.

Merkel-Gate a few weeks ago set off a stream of scorn, mockery, ridicule, humor, criticism and anger at the Orthodox newspaper (Hamevasser) for editing out the women (most notably Angela Merkel) from the picture of the anti-terror rally in France.

Michelle Obama just went with her husband to Saudi Arabia to pay condolences after the death of King Abdullah. They could not edit her out of the images and video, so they blurred her out completely.

See the video..


I think they need to hire the Haredi graphic artists in Saudi Arabia who seem to be more talented than the Saudi Arabian graphic artists. The Merkel-gate picture did not look like anything was missing or altered (unless you gave it a close inspection), while clearly Saudi Arabia's work is noticeable.

Will news media around the world make spoofs and comments about this scene?

only one right now..

Hamachane Hatzioni:

the residents of southern Israel..



this is actually a pretty good video, I think. At least, until they compare politics and the voters of Netanyahu to battered wife  syndrome... besides for that, I like the cute videos and messages, but at some point I'd really like to hear some plans. What do Herzog and Livni plan to do differently, both in security and in economics? For that matter, all the aprties should be explaining what they want to do, what they would do in the next government, especially if their plan is different from what has been until now...

Jewish visits to Temple Mount increase by 92% since 2009

  -- Jpost

Yesterday Bet Shemesh was in a bit of a tizzy. Rumors were swirling, and it turns out that there was a possibility that Moshe Abutbol, mayor of Bet Shemesh, was being considered for a realistic spot on the Shas list for Knesset.

The opportunity supposedly came to Abutbol as a result of the arrangement in which Rav Reuven Elbaz was moved into a central spot in Shas, with him being added to the rabbinic council of Shas and his efforts to bring peace and quiet and unity among the ranks, and calm the Shas-voting public. Abutbol, being close to Rav Elbaz, was named as a possibility for the Knesset list.

If Abutbol would take the spot, on the one hand it would be an honor and great for Bet Shemesh to have a[nother] MK and possible minister, while on the other hand Abutbol leaving Bet Shemesh for the Knesset would throw Bet Shemesh into another, probably bitter and divisive, elections for mayor, third in 3 years.

The rumors and wonder were quelled relatively quickly. Last night Moshe Abutbol released a statement in which he said that he has decided to not leave Bet Shemesh for the Knesset. Abutbol explained that after receiving the trust of the residents of the city, twice in a short period of time, it would not be right to leave the city and send it into another election season, with the wounds from the previous ones still not yet healed.

Abutbol says that in the coming period he will help Shas in whatever way possible to succeed in the elections, but only from outside the ranks of the party list for Knesset.

That out an end to the question.

It seems like Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem, is in a similar, but different, situation.

Recently Netanyahu approached Barkat with the possibility of appointing him Minister of Jerusalem Issues. The issue has remained open, and nothing will happen in that regards until after the upcoming elections, and then only if Netanyahu and the Likud win the elections.

However, Barkat has said he is open to the idea of being a minister for the benefit of Jerusalem, but only if it can be done in a way that would not require him to give up his position as mayor. Legal council has already said this is possible.
source: Mynet

I cannot imagine someone being able to juggle the position of minister and mayor of such a major city like Jerusalem at the same time. I am sure both positions would take up so much of his time and I cannot fathom one person being able to do both, even though there might be some overlap in the issues of the jobs.

Same situation with Abutbol. I cannot imagine how he'd be able to manage the city and work in the Knesset at the same time, though I doubt it has the legal issues as Barkat's situation - meaning, he probably would not be allowed to keep the mayorship while serving in knesset.

This is a picture of 86 year old Joseph Kaufman kissing the feet of Daniel Gillespie, 89 years old. Gillespie was a US Army soldier who saved Kaufman's life in 1945 upon liberation of Dachau.

An absolutely amazing story.. from the Daily Mail:

This is the poignant moment when a man rescued from the hell he endured at the hands of the Nazis met his saviour and gave him a salute almost 70 years later.Joshua Kaufman first saluted his rescuer Daniel Gillespie. Then he kissed his hand and finally, he fell to his feet, exclaiming: 'I have wanted to do this for 70 years. I love you, I love you so much...'.Kaufman, now 87, was a 'walking corpse' on April 29 1945 when U.S. Army soldier Gillespie, 89, marched in with his comrades to liberate the charnel house that was the Dachau concentration camp near Munich.Gillespie, a machine gunner with the 42nd 'Rainbow Division,' moved to block 11 of the infamous complex which was the first camp built by the Nazis to house its enemies in 1933. 
By the time it was liberated more than 35,000 people had been murdered there - in executions, in cruel medical experiments, starved, worked and beaten to death.The first person he saw was Hungarian Jew Kaufman. He was hiding in the latrines with other prisoners, uncertain if the soldiers who arrived were liberators or a Nazi death squad sent to liquidate the camp.
'We were confined to barracks by the guards. This meant most of us were marked for death,' Mr Kaufman said. 'Then I saw the white flag flying from the watchtower and I realised then that the torture was at an end. When the Americans smashed in the door, my heart did somersaults.'Gillespie helped the emaciated prisoner into the daylight and back into the land of the living. Both parted with tears in their eyes - both believed they would never see one another again.
Kaufman, who lost most of his family in the Holocaust, made it to Israel where he became a soldier who fought in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. He later emigrated to America where he married, fathered three daughters and became a self employed plumber.Gillespie married, fathered eight children and built a career for himself as a successful salesman. Amazingly, neither knew that they lived within an hour's drive of each other until a German documentary crew arranged their moving reunion on the sand at Hungtington Beach, California.Accompanied by his youngest daughter Alexandra, 34, to the meeting, Joshua said: 'I came out of hell into the light. For that, and to him, I am eternally grateful.'Gillespie, who had fought with his comrades through Europe to reach the gates of the Dachau camp, said: 'It was the most profound shock of my life. Its liberation changed my life forever.'We could not understand it. I grew up in California where we had everything in abundance. 'We didn't get how people could let other people starve. They murdered them or just let them die. Again and again the questions moved through my head. And at the same time I was just incredibly angry.'
When they were reunited, Gillespie asked Kaufman: 'How did you survive? What kept you alive?' An emotional and overwhelmed Kaufman replied: 'Dying would have been easier. In Dachau we had to tote around 50 kilo cement sacks. The whole day long.'Whoever broke down was immediately shot. I turned me into an animal. And animals want to survive. I wanted to live.' He described how, to this day, he still sleeps on a thin mattress close to a window so he can gaze out at green grass every day.The meeting, and their stories, will be told in a special for the History Channel Deutschland to be screened on May 31. Kaufman had the last word on the beach when he said: 'I have everything I wanted in life through him. That is the reason for my thankfulness.'Both men are old, both realise they will probably never see one another again. But both said they were humbled by their meeting so many years after Nazism was crushed.

Drone video shows the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as it is today - 70 years after it was liberated by Soviet troops. The camp in Poland is now maintained as a World Heritage Site and is visited by thousands of tourists and survivors every year. Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Germans during World War II. More than a million people - the vast majority of them Jews - died there between 1940, when it was built, and 1945, when it was liberated by the Soviet army.

Railway tracks into Auschwitz-Birkenau - Trains filled with victims from throughout occupied Europe arrived at the camp almost every day between 1942 and the summer of 1944.

Ruins of wooden huts at Birkenau - Birkenau (or Auschwitz II) was erected in 1941 solely as a death camp, the wooden huts are now in ruins with only brick fireplaces and chimneys remaining.

Entrance to Auschwitz I -The wrought-iron sign over the entrance bears the words Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work sets you free".

Auschwitz I - The brick-built buildings were the former cavalry barracks of the Polish Army.

Courtyard between blocks 10 and 11 at Auschwitz I - Block 11 was called "the Block of Death" by prisoners. Executions took place between Block 10 and Block 11 and posts in the yard were used to string up prisoners by their wrists.

Auschwitz Birkenau is now a museum run by the Polish Culture Ministry, and a Unesco world heritage site.




and here are  the words of PM Netanyahu at Yad Vashem for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

this is cool.. the employees of Israel Aircraft Industries took a "selfie" using a satellite.. that must have required a very long selfie stick..