Today’s image, video and links are dedicated to this evening’s performances at the Eurovision Song Competition. There were dress rehearsals yesterday, and many in the audience loudly booed while she was performing, never done before in this competition. Here is an article about what happened and a video. The second stage of semifinals are tonight, starting at 20:00 Swedish time, or 15:00 Eastern Standard Time. You can view the event live at this location on YouTube or better here on the actual web site. Eden Golan is performing in spot #14 out of 16 total in the semi-finals. So their performance is likely to come near the end. The way voting is done, you can only vote for countries other than your own. Based on either mobile numbers (you can vote by texting) or IP addresses (you can vote online). During the performance there are massive demonstrations planned - you can see/read more about that here, here and here , Despite all the booing inside the venue and the rioting outside the venue, Eden managed to put on a performance thought good enough by the “bookies” that they raised her ranking from 8th to 4th. If you are so inclined, those of you in the USA will be allowed to vote in the competition. If you are thinking, “why is Eric spending so much time on a song competition?” You are right for raising eyebrows, but the reality is WE COULD USE SOME GOOD NEWS OVER HERE …. You can vote here online . For those of you unable to watch on YouTube live, you can see her music video here.
No rockets fired from Gaza reached Israel today. The IDF reports one casualty in the past 24 hours. During operations along the Lebanese border, St.-Sgt. Haim Sabach, 20 (Z’’L) was killed in action.
Operations are continuing throughout much of Gaza. While exploring one of the tunnels found in eastern Rafah, three IDF soldiers were injured due to a booby trapped door. Before destroying tunnels they are generally explored using either robots or a specially trained dog with a camera mounted to its head. This is because the IDF wants to be sure that no hostages are being kept in the tunnel before blowing it up. When the troops were being brought to a hospital I could see and hear the IDF rescue helicopter landing on the helipad on top of the Sourousky Hospital here in Tel Aviv. The IDF announced that since it started its eastern Rafah Operation early this week, more than 50 terrorists have been eliminated there during infantry sweeping operations. The infantry uncovered more than 10 tunnel entrances. One of them was the cause of the serious injuries reported above. Also, the IDF estimates that since it blanketed the area with its flyers telling the civilians where the humanitarian aid camps have been set up, more than 150,000 civilians have evacuated eastern Rafah. That is faster than I had expected. That means the vast majority of civilians in this specific area of Rafah have cooperated and left the combat zone. Of course, many terrorists escaped with them. The IDF has made no announcement about expanding the Rafah Operation. But this is encouraging, as evacuating civilians from the main part of Rafah would have to start before the infantry could enter. More about that later…
And IDF operations continue elsewhere in Gaza. In a largely untouched neighborhood of Gaza City, the IDF launched a raid against Hamas operatives and infrastructure still existing there. Several tunnels were uncovered and will soon be destroyed.
This afternoon, Hezbollah fired two rocket barrages and launched two kamikaze drones at Israel. The drones were downed by Israeli fighter jets. One of the rockets landed in a populated area and triggered a large fire, but no injuries. The IAF conducted more than 15 missile attacks at Hezbollah positions, including an assassination of Hezbollah operatives traveling by automobile.
And Syrian state media reports that someone’s fighter jets struck a building south of Damascus, a military facility. No details were provided.
The Houthis insist that they are now extending the range of attacks on commercial shipping to include ships traversing the Indian Ocean, bypassing the Red Sea and going around the South African Cape of Good Hope. That is a lot of ships.
On the subject of aid, the Rafah border crossing has been closed because the IDF is actively engaged in fighting terrorists in and around the area. But the Kerem Shalom crossing that bridges Egypt to Israel to Gaza has been reopened after the rocket attack earlier in the week left four IDF soldiers dead. And the Erez Crossing between Israel and Gaza is fulling open and operating. It was the main border crossing for aid prior to October 7. There has been a noticeable drop in the number of trucks entering Gaza this week. Less than 50 trucks entered today, for example. The Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas, issued a request for an end to the air drops of aid. Apparently, yesterday two people were killed when a parachute failed to open and the aid dropped onto a building. Meanwhile, the US built pier has come under mortar fire by Hamas and other terrorist organizations, even before fully operational. The IDF has deployed troops to help secure the pier, but they cannot defend against rocket and mortar attack. Once they identify the origin of the fire the IDF can deal with their elimination. That works OK with rocket launches but mortars and RPGs can be strapped to a terrorist’s back then fired with ease.
Meanwhile, demonstrators from a movement calling themselves Tzav 9 continue to try and block aid trucks from reaching Gaza. These demonstrators, numbering about 1,000, are insisting that no aid should be provided until the hostages are released - one humanitarian gesture deserves another. The IDF removed the hostages so the aid could proceed.
Israel’s War Cabinet has been meeting much of the day, nominally to discuss the Biden Administration’s decision to hold up shipment of certain types of weapons, mostly precision aerial missiles, like those used to target Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, Iranian/Hezbollah operatives in Syria and specific types of attacks in Gaza. The Biden Administration announced that it was holding up this shipment because it feared they would be used in a Rafah Operation that it is requesting Israel to refrain from. The Rafah Operation that has been conducted so far by Israel, according to the White House Spokesman, does not “cross President Biden’s red line”. But, it is feared by the US Administration that this move is needed to prevent Israel from moving ahead with a more expansive operation. Needless to say, people here are pretty upset… angry would be a more apt description. From our view, there is no way we can crush Hamas’ military capabilities while leaving its brigades and leadership in the Rafah area in tact. And the current hostage/ceasefire negotiations are going nowhere fast since Hamas continues to demand that any agreement must result in a near term retreat of IDF forces from Gaza, without returning as well as a full permanent ceasefire. And the “media bomb” that the Biden Administration announced yesterday is only going to encourage Hamas to be obstinate in its demands, if not increase them. In Jihadi terms a permanent ceasefire means, you are prohibited from firing on the Jihadis, but when the Jihadis feel like it they can launch rockets, missiles or a brigade of fighters to initiate another round of fighting.
Going into the Cabinet meeting, high ranking government officials were insisting that the IDF will proceed forward, at a time of its choosing, to expand its operations in Rafah for the purpose of completing the war goals set out by the government at the outset of the war. But, discussions over the next day or so will deliberate on this decision. By the way, this is not the first time that the USA has asserted an aggressive stance vis-a-vis IDF operations. The first time was by President Eisenhower in 1956 that demanded the IDF return the captured Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. Eisenhower, later in his memoirs, stated that this decision was a mistake on his part and he should have permitted the IDF complete its operation. Then prior to the 1967 six day war the Johnson Administration threatened Israel and told them that they could not launch a war after Egypt and Syria violated the armistice agreements. The Israeli Cabinet met and could not decide what to do until the Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan, and his staff, that included Yitzhak Rabin and Arik Sharon, demanded that the army proceed. And we all know what happened that time. The next time was in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This time the USA, under President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger absolutely demanded that Israel not pre-empt any attack after both Egypt and Syria were making clear threats. This time Israel listened, refrained from initiating anything and both Egypt and Syria attacked. Israel lost many, many soldiers in the first week. Also, the USA placed an arms embargo on Israel that first week as well. It was only after nearly 10 days that the US agreed to start shipping badly needed arms to Israel.
Then at the beginning of this war Biden dispatched leading US military staff that led combat in Iraq and Afghanistan to advise generals in the IDF. All the US generals told the Israelis that it was an absolute mistake to send troops into Gaza and confront an embedded terrorist organization with all the tunnels. The IDF said thank you, then went on to ignore the advice. The US commanders told the Israelis that their casualties would be about 30X higher than what has turned out to be the reality. and the Gaza civilian casualty rates are significantly lower than what the US perpetrated in either Iraq or Afghanistan, but many orders of magnitude.
I am saying all this, NOT to say that Israel is better off ignoring advice from the USA. I am only providing an historical perspective so everything can be judged in a less panicked fashion. While we are all quite angry here, I do keep the perspective that the USA continues to stand by Israel’s side and I, for one, am very grateful for this. But we also understand that the Biden Administration is making decisions not necessarily based on what is best for Israel or, even the USA. But, instead, in the middle of an election year, decisions are being made for other reasons. And the Biden Administration is not the only one playing this game. There have been quite a few instances, through the conduct of this war, when this Israeli government has made decisions that were not necessarily in the best interest of the country, but were political in nature. So there is a lot of blame to spread here. But, for us, the bottom line is that we have no choice but to go into Rafah, with or without US weapons, and remove the military capability of the Hamas leadership and its remaining brigades. There is no way our more than 150,000 citizens can return to any kind of normal life in the towns and settlements surrounding Gaza. Hamas has made it clear that they intend to repeat October 7 over, and over and over again. No country could ask its citizens to live under such circumstances. But, we will see what the War Cabinet decides.
What is very, very unfortunate is that the actions of the USA play right into the welcoming hands of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. There is NO WAY that Hamas is going to moderate its positions regarding the hostages now. They are getting exactly what they want, an highly visible argument between the USA and Israel, along with an arms hold up. And there is no way that Israel can pause the Rafah Operation at this point. It postponed it by more than 2 months, from before the beginning of Ramadan, in order to give the negotiations a chance to succeed. Two months is more than enough for two parties, negotiating in good faith, to come up with some form of agreement.
And what is a truly major positive change here in Israel is that the Border Police, different from the IDF but qualifies as a means for doing military service, has drafted more than 30 volunteers from the ultra orthodox community. This is a great sign and very positive development. Only 29,970 more to go.
Each year, in advance of our Independence Day, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics publishes the census of the country. As now the population of Israel stands at 9.9 million -7.3M Jews, 2.1M Arabs and 0,57M “other”. By the Jewish High Holidays, the next time numbers will be announced, the population will exceed 10M. Most of those coming under the “other'“ category actually would fall under the definition of Jewish most anywhere else in the world. For the most part they consist of Jews that came from the former Soviet Union, and their descendents, who cannot prove that their mother was fully Jewish. That is the ultra orthodox definition of “who is a Jew” and the definition used in the census. In the USA, for example, much of the population defining themselves as Jewish would not fit this definition.
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vRQgyDhIjZupO2H-2rIDXLy_zkf76RoM-_ZIYsOfn9FkI7TETgRtOfXK9VobMvGh6iEZfDPgALXJTCR/pub
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjh2jvym0
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/rafah-gaza-map-israel-hamas-war-8db0f38e?mod=hp_lead_pos2
https://www.ynetnews.com/culture/article/rkklej5ga#autoplay