-- President of the USA Donald J Trump

he is popular here but not quite as popular as he used to be.... definitely not 99%

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So this extreme leftist, Kaplanist even according to some, is also an extreme messianic (though without the qualifying long unkempt peyos) rightist, maybe even a Bengvirist. I will note, one of the reaosns I went today is because my daughter who serves in Mishmar Hagvul (which is why I said maybe even a Bengvirist), aka Magav, is stationed this week on Har Habayit. 

Obviously I have heard of the changes on Har Habayit over the past few years. I still have sort of kept up and stayed in My Har Habayit whatsapp groups and I always follow Har Habayit in the news, so none of it was a surprise to me, but seeing the changes with my own eyes, and all at once after a period of time rather than seeing it incrementally as it happens, was significant.

Going in had a minimal security check, just the metal detector - no iterrogation and body search for a siddur or other religious materials.

Being that I did not go up with a group, the police gathered the several individuals going at that time together on the Mugrabim Bridge and turned us into a group. On the bridge was a box with a sheaf of laminated papers of prayers. During the police instructions he told us that we cannot use our own siddurim or anything else other than the sheet of tefillot prepared and available. He also said we can daven openly on the eastern side and only on the eastern side. While I am not sure what the  difference is, if they are letting people pray publicly there and even with a source sheet, why nto also allow siddurim? but ok, they used to arrest people for moving their lips silently on Har Habayit, so offering a limited prayer sheet that you can hold and walk around with is a massive change.

Also, some people were wearing colorful shawls turned into a tallis, and one person from Yeshivat Har Habayit and had turned his jacked into a begged of tztzis. There are some black shawl tallitot that have become popular recently by Yeshivat Har Habayit people that I have seen pictures of but nobody in my group today was wearing them.

Once we went up it was pretty basic for the first section, but what was noticeably different was no Waqf guards following us around - just the police and Magav.

Once we hit the eastern side, pretty much everyone did hishtachavaya, full prostration. Right there, out in the open, not hiding behind other people or trying to catch the moment the plice office is looking in the other direction...Continuing on we went to the center of the eastern side where the path directly to the mikdash area is and everyone did prostration again, and people settled in and davened, each doing their own thing. The police did not rush anyone or try to move us along. Interestingly enough, a few people sat down theer at one point and started learning somethign (I think hilchot har habayit but not sure). At some point the police asked who wants to continue on and who wants to stay with the kollel.

Just then another group approached us, which also would have never happened before - it used to be only one group at a time, and if you took too long you were holding up other people waiting to go up. Also, it turned out one of the kids there (ascending with his father) was just turning bar miztva, so at that point many joined in to sing and dance with the bar mitzva boy. Also somethign that would never have been allowed before.

The rest of the way around was uneventful. Near the end I saw my daughter as she came over for a moment from where she was stationed, we exited the Har, and I walked over to Shaar Kutna where she was stationed to see her for a few minutes (Jewish exit off Har Habayit is Shaar Hashalshelet) and then headed out for my car.

Crossing the Kotel plaza I thought for a moment to go down and pray but then caught myself and thought that this would be sacreligious after praying on Har Habayit on the other side of the wall. What do you think - is it appropriate to pray at the Kotel after praying on Har Habayit or is it sacrilegious and maybe a bizayon to Har Habayit?

Due to the recent [global] sharp increases in the price of gasoline, along with it coinciding with Smotritch's electoral campaign, the Finance Minister cut the "blu tax" on gasoline by 1nis per liter. Smotritch did this in October after the month had already begun (which was one of the other few times in history the price changed mid-month).

On the night of November 5, as it turns to November 6 at midnight, that tax discount will expire so the price will automatically adjust upward. The FInance Ministry announced though that the discount will be lessened to 50ag per liter and extended until the end of November. Meaning, the tax discount partially expires on november 6 so will go up at the pump by 50ag per liter, and the balance will expire at the end of the month when it will go up by another 50ag per liter (along with whatever else happens to the price at the end of the month, up or down).

Living in historic times is getting both expensive and tiring...

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  -- Lali Deri, former candidate for Knesset on the Amcha Yisrael slate

A moment after they annoucned their plan to recommend Netanyahu for PM after the elections I said exactly the above and called it a fatal mistake that would lose them support. They copuld not withstand the pressure coming from Netanyahu to drop out and they thought publicly saying they support him would get him off their backs...

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MK Eisenkot's bloc, aka the Change Bloc, has 67 mandates but no clear path to a government. Of the 67 seats, 19 are held by Arab parties that will be difficult to form a government with. Netanyahu is working hard to delegitimize forming a government with the Arab parties, even though it looks like the big scandal of voter fraud will come to almost nothing (actual results still pending but it looks like this was just a planned Netanyahu head fake). There are a couple other options for Eisenkot such as bringing in the Haredim who have expressed conditional interest. One little part of me wants to see this happen just so we can see people on the Right (eg Yinon Magal, among plenty of others) go ballistic about the Haredim and call them traitors to the Right and all sorts of other things.

Another option being floated is a unity government of sorts. I have supported this option for a long time and wanted to support a party running on this platform in the elections but other than Hendel they all dropped out. That being said, a unity government will not be easy to put together either. Netanyahu's people are saying they want a unity government but only Netanyahu will be Prime Minister with no rotation, and Eisenkot's people are saying he won't sit under Netanyahu. If this is going to work and avoid new elections (election fraud will probably not bring us to new elections right now), it is going to take a lot of work and compromise.

Until any of that happens, The Change Bloc has the numbers and are sayibng that in the meantime until the government stuation can be figured out, they will start by working on using their majority in Knesset. To start, if they can work it out among the various parties, they will put up their own candidate as Speaker of Knesset and remove outgoing Speaker MK Amir Ohanyon of the Likud. The Haredim say they will likely support this move as well, considering they regret, in hindsight, supporting his candidacy (because he is a homosexual and suddenly it is a chilul hashem that he was appointed to this position).

After that move, they say they will try to pass some basic legislation they campaigned on. Again, in Knesset they have the straightforward numbers for this right now. There are various ideas for legislation and decisions they are floating to pass quickly, such as appointing a State Commission of Inquiry, among others. One I already discussed, being a law to disqualify anyone indicted from running for Prime Minister.   

I saw a new idea floated last night in the Change Bloc. That is, they would pass a law that would change the method of our elections. Theyw ould set it to be two separate ballots, one voting directly for Prime Minister and the second being a vote for Parliamentary representation. There is reasonable logic to this, considering the Executive and Legislative branches are meant to be two separate branches of government. This was tried before and abandoned after one election (when it did not help Netanyahu the way he thought it would when he passed the law). That would mean whichever candidate for PM wins the most votes would become Prime Minister and would not need a Knesset majority for forming a government but could form it with however few or many MKs he wants. Netanyahu himself has spoken about this idea in recent years as well, but there is no way he would agree to it right now.

Personally, I am in favor of electoral reform, but it has to come as part of a comprehensive set of reforms designed to improve our electoral system, not just to help this or that candidate at a specific time and place.. I am not a fan of gerrymandering, and this is just a form of that. I am in favor of term limits as well, but we need mroe electoral reform than just term limits and it should come as part of a bigger package of reforms, not on its own as a way to exclude a specific candidate. 

Also, Eisenkot might support making such a change for direct election of Prime Minister but I can totally see it coming back to bite him. Just like polls were wrong regarding the results of the elections, perhaps polls were wrong showing him as the favored candidate for PM. 

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