אז למה התדמית של ישראל כלכך שלילית בעולם המערבי?

הנה אחת הסיבות המרכזיות לכך:
בישראל פועל קומץ מצומצם של כתבים מסוכנויות זרות.
הקומץ הזה (שמונה קצת למעלה מ 100 איש) מפרנס את כל גופי התקשורת בעולם.
הוא מכתיב את הידיעות על ישראל ומשפיע על דעת הקהל של מאות מליוני צופים באירופה… pic.twitter.com/VxbEk6n7nt

— Galit Distel Atbaryan - גלית דיסטל אטבריאן (@GalitDistel) June 29, 2023

Minister of Information (aka Minister of Public Diplomacy, aka in Hebrew for clarity שרת ההסברה) tweeted:

So Why is Israel's image so negative out in the Western world?

Here is one of the main reasons:

In Israel a limited handful of writers of foreign agencies are active.

This handful, numbering a little more than 100 people, finances all the media outlets in the world.

They dictate the news about Israel and influence the public opinion of hundreds of millions of viewers in Europe

Maybe Distel should be called Minister of DIsinformation of Minister of Consipracy Theories.

Maybe she, as part of her job, should stop worrying about judicial reform and the like and let the judicial and legal people responsible for that worry about while she worries about her responsibilities and get our good name out there. I wish all the ministers would focus a bit on their areas of responsibility and get things done. Not all of them are needed to worry about judicial reform and bringing Deri back into office. Let the Communications Minister worry about communications, let the Health Minister worry about improving the health system, let the minister of culture and sport worry about promoting culture and Israeli athletes, and they can all do what they were appointed to do. Judicial Reform isnt the end all of Israeli politics, and they dont need to treat it as if it is. Galit Distel should be doing her job and working on hasbara and then maybe our reputation wouldnt take such a beating

Israelis love Coke Zero so this is big news. I wonder if it will make anyone think twice about drinking it.

Definitely a successful operation to help ease the passport burden of many people. Hopefully we will see that it frees up appointments in the various Ministry of Interior offices for people who also need other services.

Some of these young Shas politicians are looking really good, including this Moshe Arbel. This wasn't anything fancy or complicated, but he put it together and came through. Arbel probably has a long and promising career in politics ahead of him...

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According to the government's logic, the Chief Rabbis are appointed byt he people because they are appointed by people who were voted in by the people - ie, the politicians were voted in by the people and they choose the Chief Rabbis, so the people basically chose the Chief Rabbis. On the other hand, the judges choose themselves and were not selected by people voted in by the people (which is not accurate, but not the point) so the judges are not chosen by the people. 

Alshich was appointed by Netanyahu and his government in 2015, so by extension that means he was chosen by the people. So if Alshich is against Netanyahu (which isnt clear) does that mean the people, and especially the Likudniks, are against Netanyahu, and maybe even Netanyahu is against Netanyahu? I am scratching my head over this.

Regardless, they are turning Alshich's words into something very dramatic. What he actually said is far less so. Alshich did not say that Netanyahu was framed or that he should have done this or that or that they tried to push him out. All Alshich said was that when they served the indictment nobody expected him not to resign. That is not a big deal. Everyone, and not just the legal word of Israel, but many citizens as well, expected him to resign. Let's not forget, Netanyahu himself said in the time of Olmert that a PM under indictment must resign. Most reasonable people expected Bibi to resign on indictment. That does not mean he was or was not framed. 

Alshich's words are not nearly as dramatic as they are being made out to be.

The carcass of a Mako Shark washed up last night and was discovered on the Maayan Tzvi beach, near Chof Dor (near Zichron Yaakov)...

The Mako Shark is one of the fastest sharks in the waters, and while aggressive and a carnivore it does not normally attack humans.

My mind is blown that a Mako washed up on the beaches of Israel! I wonder what else might be out there...

Sharks in the waters of Eilat and Sinai, now off the Mediterranean coast as well. We do get the sharks every year near Hadera for the warm water in the winter because of the power plant as well. The waters of Israel are starting to get interesting! We just need some sharks in the Kinneret at this point...

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That being said, I do believe that political parties like Shas perpetuate racism rather than try to put an end to it. A party like Shas can only continue to exist as long as their is blatant racism against Sefardim - once our society would be mostly not racist against Sefardim, Shas would have no more reason to exist. They need the racism in order to survive.

Yesterday the head of Shas's municipal party in Jerusalem said something interesting. It seems that Shas as a party has decided to no longer help Sefardi young women find places in Ashkenazi seminaries. They will only assist getting these young women into Sefardi seminaries.

When Chaim Cohen, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem from the Shas party, was asked yesterday about discrimination of Sefardi girls trying to get into seminaries, Cohen said "It does not interest me any longer. We have succeeded in getting to a place where we have seminaries some of which are at a very high level even better than those of the existing ones. Until now it hurt me when I heard girls werent being accepted, but today there are other options no less quality than those. If there is discrimination in some places, that is a defect of those places and not a problem I need to solve....Today a student who wants to go to an excellent educational framework - has a Sefardi seminary available... we are here to assist in getting girls into our own systems, seminaries have been established..."

It is great that more seminaries, of all types are opening up, offering more options to the young women looking for places to study. That being said, having Ashkenazi seminaries and Sefardi seminaries, with Sefardi girls being directed to the Sefardi seminaries and Ashkenazi girls to the Ashkenazi seminaries, is basically de facto segregation which is based on racism. There should not be Ashkenazi schools and Sefardi schools. They should be desegregated. The young women graduating form schools should find the best school available to them and Sefardi or Ashkenazi should not be a consideration.  And yes, the Ashkenazi Haredim are equally responsible for this segregation, not just Shas but Shas was created to perpetuate this. "Elite" schools will still be snobby and exclusive but girls should be able to go to any school and where her grandfather was born should not be a consideration. The young generation of Israelis, yes, even Israeli Haredim, have such minor differences, if any at all, between Sefardi girls and boys and Ashkenazi girls and boys that none of this should matter any longer. They have all grown up together by now in Israel, not in Morocco or Tunisia or Krakow or Warsaw.

 -- PM Benjamin Netanyahu, in an emergency session to discuss the increasing violence

Netanyahu is hostage to his more extreme coalition members, and there is nothing he can do about it. While he says we have to act against the Settler violence they say no emergency session was called when Jews were being killed and if it is ok for Arabs to rampage it is ok for Jews as well...and there seems to be, so far, nothing he can do about it.

interesting interview, and Motka Bloi can always be counted on to be provocatve!

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looks like it was bring your baby to work day today in the Knesset, as MK Sharren Haskel tried to say her speech from the podium while carrying her baby in a baby carrier... it seems this does not meet Knesset protocol...

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  -- MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ)

I think he is right about some of that - the Right does not seem to know how to govern, but I do not think the Left would have fired her within five minutes. When the "Left" parties (at least the ones Gafni and his friends are calling Left) were in government, they could not even fire an Ambassador that had been appointed by a previous Netanyahu government. That was a nothing appointment but they couldn't get rid of her and bring in their own ambassador to replace her, I doubt they would have fought with the Legal Counsel of the government.

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A New Hospital for Beit Shemesh! The Jerusalem District Committee has decided to promote a plan for the establishment of a hospital in the city.
The plan includes approximately 770 beds to accommodate the population of approximately 360,000 residents of Beit Shemesh and the surrounding area.
In addition to the hospital itself, the plan includes departments for hospitalization, emergency services, medical services, clinics, medical equipment, laboratories, buildings for laboratories and medical research, medical staff training, a hotel, helicopter landing pads, and more.
The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee, headed by Shira Talmi-Babay, has decided today (Monday, June 26, 2023) to initiate a plan for the establishment of a public hospital in Beit Shemesh.
The plan, submitted by the Beit Shemesh Municipality under the leadership of Mayor Dr. Aliza Bloch encompasses a total area of 180 dunams and is located in the Rama D and Neve Shamir areas.
As part of the plan, five seven-story buildings will be constructed to accommodate the hospital itself, hospitalization departments, emergency services, medical services, conference and lecture halls, clinics, medical equipment, laboratories, buildings for laboratories and medical research, medical staff training, a hotel, and more. Overall, the plan includes construction rights totaling approximately 194,000 square meters, as well as approximately 7,200 square meters of commercial space.
Mayor of Beit Shemesh, Dr. Aliza Bloch: "Upon taking office, I made the decision that as a city, we seek to take responsibility for the health of our residents. We initiated discussions with the Ministry of Health during the tenure of Minister Litzman and the current Director-General, Moshe Bar Siman Tov, as well as with the Hadassah leadership, to establish a hospital in the city. The hospital will serve the entire population of the city, given its exceptional rate of development. The establishment of a hospital branch will allow all residents of the city to access healthcare services without leaving the city. We did it for special education, we did it for culture, and now we're doing it for health. I would like to thank the Ministry of Housing and Health, the District Committee, and the Deputy Mayor of Beit Shemesh, Rabbi Shimon Goldberg. The announcement is a significant step towards one of the historical events in the history of Beit Shemesh. I have no doubt that we all envision the placement of the mezuzah and the inauguration of the hospital."
Chair of the Jerusalem District Committee, Shira Talmi-Babay: "In addition to the establishment of another public hospital in Israel, which is of significant importance to the city and the region's residents, the establishment of the hospital will accelerate the economic development of the city and strengthen Beit Shemesh's status and size to accommodate a population of 360,000 residents."

Just today such demands were made by, at least, MKs Lapid, Gantz and Biton.

  -- Minister Orit Struk

sure you are against it. uh huh. really sounds like it. instead of loudly criticizing the people burning down Arab villages you are loudly criticizing the heads of the security forcers who are trying to calm the region before it explodes into a full military action deteriorating on both sides.

After the criticism started pouring in from all over, Struk apologized for comparing them to the Wagner forces of rebellion but stuck to her guns about the rest.

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  -- Minister of Public Diplomacy Galit Distal Abtaryan

lol

sure, because the doorman sets USA policy. And she wasnt able to find another doorman, or a plumber or a computer programmer or a lawyer, who is anti-Israel to tell her otherwise...

The Dead Sea is drying up. He says 600 Olympic pools worth of water disappear from the Dead Sea daily, without being replenished. The Dead Sea factories are one of the causes, but they are the minor players. The Jordan River no longer dumps into the Dead Sea in any significant way due to farmers (on both sides of the border) diverting the water for their own use, along with other problems. The northern section of the Dead Sea is closed off to the public due to dangers such as sinkholes, caused by the underground fresh water springs combined with the erosion of the area.

We went at sunrise (it gets too got to start any later). The group was not large, but it did include a German tv crew filming different interesting sites in Israel for some show they are working on to be shown in Germany. They normally film in Europe but in honor of Israel's 75th birthday/anniversary they have been shooting sites in Israel this year.

We met at Ovnat Junction and traveled to a site just a few minutes further south and hiked to the Dead Sea from the parking area. We were able to see tracks of wildlife in the sand and muddier areas while we hiked towards the sinkholes and sea.

The trip was fascinating. If you have an opportunity to go on a similar trip you should definitely do so. 

Here are some of the pictures I took on the trip:

Kahane qualified his statement saying he doesnt mean right now but after the next elections when they would be coming to the table with more mandates and more power, they would be able to set the tone of the government and establish the foundational structure of the government, and then they would open it to anyone else who can live with that and want to join - no more bans on any party.

That is a big change in policy. The question is if Kahane is influential enough in his party and among the other Opposition parties to get others to agree. Besides for that, I think he is wrong - that might be the reason Gantz has not been willing to sit with Netanyahu. The others who have vetoed Netanyahu have done so for other reasons, saying they believe it is immoral to sit with someone who is under indictment. Kahane might have a harder time selling this to them than to Gantz.

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At the ceremony some young Haredim catcalled them and got into arguments and said things like this country is ours, you leftists are traitors, we dont want you here. While some of the arguments are not easy to hear clearly as they all talk, nay scream, over each other, I also heard one say "I dont hate Arabs, but I hate you and your type that love Arabs more than us"

wow. what hubris they have because the Haredi parties have some political power right now. Yeah, sure, they are kids, maybe stupid kids, but in this time of extreme divisiveness this type of attitude seems to be more and more common

Way back when Pindrus said he would take a D9 bulldozer and bulldoze the Supreme Court. In an interview now with Channel 12 Pindrus said  "The most dangerous thing for the State of Israel, more than ISIS and Hezbollah is the" LGBTQ+ community. If it were up to me, I would prevent not just the pride march but also the whole movement."

That is a bad thing for a government member to say in a liberal democracy. So bad that Netanyahu had to denounce it saying that what Pindrus said is not acceptable and the government headed by PM Netanyahu is committed to safeguarding the freedom of the individual and protecting the rights of minorities

Pindrus needs to calm down a bit, stop being so angry.

This is a race I did not pay attention to or care about. I do not know the significance of the Israel Bar (other than their rep gets a slot on the judicial selection committee, which now gives, supposedly, the Opposition a de facto second candidate), and I do not know the personalities involved, and dont really have any interest in this.

However, I do find it funny that now that the coalition backed candidate lost the Likud wants to dismantle the Israel Bar and by law make it defunct or insignificant at best (though possibly only starting form the next Israel Bar chairman election).

They lost, they cant control it any longer, so dismantle it. The other guy won but in the long run he will have lost if this goes through.

I was going to give it to MK Pindrus but then Minister Orit Struk opened her mouth and stole the award at the last minute..

  -- Minister Orit Strk, when asked if the government has failed from a security perspective

6 months in and they are still blaming the previous government. Her government did not put the IDF back in Shechem and Jenin either. To be fair, no government is at fault for terror attacks, and terror attacks have been happening for decades, but the current government is responsible for dealing with the terror attacks happening now....

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very cool

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  -- Minister of Jerusalem and of Jewish Affairs Meir Porush, when asked about the issue of some reservists threatening to not appear for duty

Porush might be right on the money, but the irony of him saying this while pushing an agenda (and regularly threatening to collapse governments that do not go along with it) to exempt tens, or maybe hundreds, of thousands of people from army service is rich.

Shas recently decided it wanted to push off the elections for the Chief Rabbinate so it prepared a law to enable that. The law passed its first reading yesterday and Otzma did not vote for it. Otzma criticized Shas for changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. Elections are underway, candidates have announced and have been campaigning and now is not the time to make changes. Shas claims they have to push it off to keep the elections kosher. While I do not understand it, the issue is the proximity of the Chief Rabbinate elections to the upcoming municipal elections and somehow one affects the other with mayors possibly supporting rabbinic candidates when they themselves might not be re-elected. 

So, Otzma did not support the bill presented by Shas to postpone the Chief Rabbinate elections. Shas then accused Otzma of having "interests" and those interests being behind their opposition. What are their interests? Minister Amichai Eliyahu is the son of Rav Shmuel Eliyahu and according to Shas, Otzma is making this trouble because they want Rav Shmuel Eliyahu to be appointed Chief Rabbi. Shas says they tried to push his candidacy and tried to make a deal in exchange for supporting postponing the bill. Shas accused Otzma of being willing to forgo election purity if they would have been able to get some positions for their people.

source: Kikar

The funny part is that the Chief Rabbinate elections require no purity or anything at all. they are not even actually elections, more like selections, with Shas almost completely controlling the entire process. Whether Otzma wanted Rav Eliyahu appointed or not, is that any worse than Shas trying to decide between supporting Aryeh Deri's brother or Rav Yizchak Yosef's brother? Is only Otzma not allowed to prefer a family member (if they actually did)?

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American Airlines pilot spotted deplaning flight from Los Angeles to New York while wearing Tefillin. #PeaceAndLove pic.twitter.com/oacuphZNQv

— Eretz Israel (@EretzIsrael) June 19, 2023

yes, a Chabadnik was involved...

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Honestly, all that defense of the Haredi for having served and for having served well is missing the point.

This fellow does not have the right to dress how he wants because he served in the army. This fellow does not have the right to ride the bus because he served in the army. This fellow has the right to dress how he wants, to associate with whatever community he wants, to ride whatever bus he wants, because he lives in Israel, a [relatively] free society. She has more of a right to wear a tank top or jeans or a red blouse or yellow blouse or brown skirt or gray slacks than he has to wear a white shirt? he can dress how he wants, he can ride whatever bus he wants because that is part of living in a free society. Not because he served in the army. 

Whether he served or not, and I am happy he served though he doesnt need my validation, he can dress how he wants and ride whatever bus he wants.

According to Ilouz, holding secret ballot votes in the Knesset means the elected officials are not able to be held responsible to the voters - nobody knows what they actually voted on the issue. MKs like to say they represent the people (even there is no direct voting for any specific candidate), but when voting in secret in Knesset, the public has no way to know if their representatives are actually voting their interests.

Obviously this comes at the heels of the recent vote for representatives of the judicial appointment committee in which it seems to be clear that some Coalition MKs voted in favor of the Opposition candidate due to the secret ballot used.

Ilouz says that as representatives of the public the actions of MKs should be transparent to the public so the public has the tools and ability to decide whether or not to vote again "for us" in the future. Secret ballot votes in Knesset damage democracy and should become extinct.

source: Hamechadesh

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We are watching with interest. 

The main characters in this little incident are Shas and Otzma Yehudit, Deri and Ben Gvir. Basically agreements are being broken all around, with Ben Gvir mostly being on the losing end. Shas is pushing off the elections for Chief Rabbi, and Otzma is upset about that. Otzma (via Minister Amichai Eliyahu) let it out on the Governor of the Bank of Israel today calling him names and saying he should be tossed out for "working against the government", and Otzma caught an earful from pretty much everyone else in the government. Otzma, according to the coalition agreements, is supposed to have the government representative in the selection committee for justices, and it looks like the coalition will snub them and appoint someone from Shas instead - because he is easier to work with.

The verbal attacks and accusations are flying in every direction each calling the other anything from leftists to motivated by self-interests to failed ministers and failed party, weak links, etc.

This is not going to end well. All we can do is sit by the side and watch with interest. Will this lead to an implosion or will Bibi work his magic after everyone gets everything off their chests and calm everyone down and pay them off with more money for their ministries and projects to be quiet?

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while I havent seen the Jewish Matchmaking show, all the reviews I have seen or heard until now were extremely positive. Even Shapiro seems to think most of it is fine and just some of the participants are weird or not real

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As reported by Kikar, the racism law, until now, has been directed to protect from incitement based on race, color, nationality, ethnicity, but "Haredi" never fit into any of those categories. Asher says because of that it has basically been open season on Haredim with incitement against Haredim going unchecked, because Haredim are not any different than anyone else from ethnic or race or color  or nationality perspectives.

Because of that Asher has seen it necessary to add Haredim to the list of those protected against racism and incitement. It is time, MK Asher says, to put an end to the incitement against Haredim and set a red line - there is no other group in Israel incited against as much as the Haredi community. This law, Asher says, will clarify that the blood of Haredim is not hefker.

This is all nice and good, and maybe even somewhat necessary - the Haredi community seems to consider any criticism of it to be incitement and anti-haredi hatred, but there is definitely some, way more than there should be - but how can it possibly be enforced? Can anybody claim they are Haredi and call the police on someone or sue someone for incitement if they say something not ice about them? Only people wearing black hats? What would be the criteria for a female to say she is Haredi and incited against? As necessary and justified as this may be, how, in law, can they define who this applies to and to whom it does not?

From Meitav Hachadashot Bet Shemesh:

With ball in hand and a lot of ambition yesterday tens of Haredi women residents of RBS S gathered to play basketball for the first time in the new sports field in the neighborhood. Women can play basketball without violating the boundaries of halacha, they said resolutely. We call on every person who is interested in playing basketball to join us.