Archive for category: Israel in the News

Legitimate protest in Israel is normal, like in any democratic country. But, the recent spike in ‘Price Tag’ violence is of great concern for the Israeli government. How should we interpret this phenomenon?

To be able to understand the seemingly radicalization of the settler youth, we need to go back to the disengagement from Gush Katif (Gaza) in 2005. The coherent leadership, in Gush Katif prevented extreme violence during the withdrawal process in 2005.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of a well-planned post-disengagement strategy people became disillusioned. The people evacuated from Gush Katif had to stay in caravans for 6 years. Many people, and certainly the settlers in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) took note of these developments. Apart from the above, Hamas became the government in Gaza and created it in a launce-pad for the firing of rockets on Israel.

It seems that people in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) areas realized that a future disengagement would take place to establish a Palestinian state. International pressure in this regard will be immense.

As talks of a possible disengagement from areas in the West Bank increases, violent incidents like the arson attack last week will likely increase. It is a signal to the government that this time they will not leave without a fight. The sort of coherent leadership we saw in Gush Katif during the Gaza disengagement is lacking in the West Bank, due to various reasons.

In a comprehensive study, “Between Legitimate Protest and ‘Price Tag’ Violence, Drs Chanan Mozes, Moshe Hellinger and Jonathan Rynhold came to the following conclusion: “It is vitally important to establish a mechanism to find a solution for evacuees in advance. Failure to do so will lead some religious-Zionist settlers to despair and people with nothing to lose will be open to mobilization by the most radical elements.”

May the government of Israel seek Godly wisdom in handling this potentially dangerous situation.

The mainstream media is in a constant mode of delegitimisation of Israel.

A case in point is the continual twisting of facts to paint Israel as the demon in the Middle East while positive and life-changing developments to humankind are flatly ignored. Let’s take note of the positive and what Israel offers to the world, and distribute the facts as wide as possible:

Israel Invests in Arab Hi-Tech 

Israel sent a delegation of Israeli Arab start-up entrepreneurs on a groundbreaking trip abroad to open doors and create business opportunities, and along the way to strengthen the image of a nation that seeks the welfare of its minorities.

Over the course of a week the representatives travelled across France, meeting with entrepreneurs, technology companies, potential investors, and even a group of French Muslim journalists and intellectuals.

“For the first time we received real international exposure enabling us to make connections with European investors and international companies,” said Fadi Swidan, director of the Nazareth Business Incubator Center. He explained that the trip provided the Israeli Arab start-ups with “an opportunity to directly introduce our technology to an international audience. Thanks to this exposure, we concluded deals with several technology incubators in France. We also learned about available funding from both Israel and France.”

The delegation praised the Israel government for financing the trip.

With these cross-culture initiatives and with the right tools, traditional innovation can coexist. Instead of concentrating on the negatives, and sometimes fabricating negative news, the media should rather play a positive role in building and strengthening relationships between people.

On Wednesday, 6 May 2015 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to form the new coalition government with a one seat majority after signing a deal with the Bayit Yehudi party of Naftali Bennett. The last minute decision by Avigdor Liberman to resign as Minister of Foreign Affairs and leading his party to join the opposition dealt Netanyahu a devastating blow.

Liberman’s announcement forced Netanyahu to form a coalition with ultra-orthodox parties which will make it a very costly government. Many media analysts in Israel is of the opinion that such a coalition will not last very long. On Friday Benyamin Netanyahu indicated that he will work towards a broader based coalition before the swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday, 13 May 2015.

Dov Lipman, an MK (member of Israeli Parliament, the Knesset) for the Yesh Atid party in the last Knesset, described the new government as a sad week for Israel and elaborates: “Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s new ultra-orthodox-led government is on course to cause significant damage to the internal soul of Israel.”

With the raging conflicts in the neighbouring countries, Israel is in need of a strong government and we need to pray that wisdom will prevail in the days ahead. We know that Israel is in good hands when they put their trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The world is in turmoil, but it seems that a tiny nation in the sea of nations, albeit experiencing the same problems like any other nation, succeeds in leading the world on so many levels. So much so, that the world would have been poorer without this nation.

Israel is only 1/6 of 1% of the land mass of the Middle East, 20,770 sq km (154 on the world rankings) and the size of the Kruger National Park in South Africa. The population is 7,821,850 (99 on the world rankings) and is only 2% of the population in the Middle East. Israel’s population is half the size of Metropolitan New York City and yet, has the highest ratio of university degrees per capita in the world. Israel’s unemployment rate is 5.8%. Compare that with South Africa’s unemployment rate of close to 25%.

Due to external and internal threats, Israel spends more money per capita on its own protection than any country in the world. Without the hate-mongering against them, the money could have been used on the economy and would eventually benefit the Palestinian economy as well.

Israel is a country with many achievements. Tel Aviv has been named as one of the ten most technologically influential cities in the world. Since 2000, Israel has been a member of EUREKA, the pan-European research and development funding and coordination organisation.

Among the host of scientific advancements in Israel are:

Ø   Discovery of Quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman of the Technion. The discovery led him to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Ø  Discovery of the role of protein Ubiquitin by Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion Institute (together with the American biologist Irwin Rose). The discovery led them to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Ø  World’s smallest video camera – a camera with a 0.99 mm diameter, designed to fit in a tiny endoscope designed by Medigus.

Ø  Development of the “Pillcam” by Given Imaging, the first Capsule endoscopy solution to record images of the digestive tract. The capsule is the size and shape of a pill and contains a tiny camera.

Ø  Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation – a notation system for recording movement on paper that has been used in many fields, including dance, physical therapy, animal behavior and early diagnosis of autism.

Ø  Development of the Copaxone immunomodulator drug for treating multiple sclerosis. It was developed in the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel by Michael Sela, Ruth Arnon and Deborah Teitelbaum.

Ø  Development of the Interferon proteins by Michel Revel from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Ø  Development of taliglucerase alfa (Elelyso), a recombinant glucocerebrosidase enzyme produced from transgenic carrot cell cultures. Taliglucerase alfa won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May 2012 as an orphan drug for the treatment of Type 1 Gaucher’s disease.

Ø  Nanowire – a conductive wire made of a string of tiny particles of silver, a thousand times thinner than a human hair, developed by Uri Sivan, Erez Braun and Yoav Eichen from the Technion.

Ø  World’s smallest DNA computing machine system – “the smallest biological computing device” ever constructed, according to Guinness Book of Records, which is composed of enzymes and DNA molecules capable of performing simple mathematical calculations and which uses its input DNA molecule as its sole source of energy it was developed in 2003 in the Weizmann Institute of Science by professor Ehud Shapiro and his team.

Ø  Amir Pnueli introduced temporal logic into computing science.

Ø  A mechanical voice system run by the Intel Core i7 Processor developed by the Israeli division of Intel.

The above are only a few examples of impressive achievements in science which benefits the world. And yet, Israel is made out to be the problem while nations are struggeling with their own problems. It is hipocracy of the highest level.

The tragedy is that so many South Africans are ill informed about the modus operandi of anti-Israel organisations and groups and are negatively influenced by their propaganda. For example, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign branded Israel as an Apartheid state and ask the world to boycott Israel – a gross travesty of justice.

Why is it that majority Christian nations like the US, Europe and even South Africa are confronted with so many challenges. I believe the answer could be found in the fact that they departed from their Judeo-Christian values.

Israel experienced the deadliest month in two years. Sergeant Almog Shiloni, 20, from Modi’in, killed in Tel Aviv, and Dalia Lemkus, 26, who was stabbed to death at the entrance to Alon Shvut on Monday 10 November 2014, were the tenth and eleventh Israelis to be murdered in the past six months.

Dalia Lemkus escaped with her life from a stabbing attack in Gush Etzion in 2006, but fell prey to a different terrorist in the West Bank on Monday night. Dalia’s family made aliyah to Israel from South Africa over 20 years ago and has become a prominently active family in the community.

This is how she described the attack in 2006:

“I stood on February 28, 2006 at Gush Etzion Junction when a terrorist came and began to stab those standing at a hitchhiking station,” Lemkus said at the time of the incident. “I was one of two people stabbed. Luckily I was not badly wounded, and with the help of God, the other wounded victim will recover.”

In response to an article she had read, about restraining orders being issued to right-wing activists, Lemkus wrote:

“Instead of fighting the settlers, the IDF and the state have to fight the terrorists in Gaza. Instead of evacuating settlers defending the country and serving in the army, the state should evacuate terrorists who fire on the IDF and kidnap soldiers and civilians.”

“Expel and punish the people who endanger us,” Lemkus said, “no matter what the price, on their part, is. They must pay the price for their terror. It is the only way to stop terrorism.”

Unfortunately, 8 years later Dalia Lemkus and many others had to pay the heavy price by losing their lives because of a lack of a coherent strategy by politicians to fight terrorism. The question should also be asked if Operation Protective Edge was not stopped too soon. It seems that Hamas is using the calm in Gaza to attack Israeli citizens by other means. The IDF lost its deterrence and Hamas took the initiative. It is imperative that deterrence should be restored as soon as possible.

Israel’s leaders should understand that Western leaders do not understand the Islamic ideology. This is the reason for the poor suggestions and decisions made on Israel by leaders of Western countries. They only make matters worse. It is delusional to think that peace will come to the Middle East just by negotiating with the Palestinians. History shows that Palestinian leaders only use negotiations to extract more concessions.

Unfortunately, Moshe Dayan was a great military leader, but his compromise to allow the government of Jordan to administer the Temple Mount lead to the current situation in Jerusalem. The sovereignty of Jerusalem is under attack.

It is time for Israel as a nation to turn to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for advice and leadership as the sages of Israel does. It is also time for Israel to honour their part of the covenant with God and to settle the land and not divide it to please the world. Today we all know that such a gesture motivates terrorists to expand their borders of evil even further.

Although we live in prophetic times and could expect these things to happen, we also need to boldly resist evil. The duty for us as gentiles is not to only pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but also to obtain knowledge and speak out against the false narrative created to attack Israel.

Dark days are coming, but God chose Israel to be the light to the world. I pray that the nation of Israel will realise in these trying times that God will never forsake them if they trust Him with their whole heart.

Zechariah 12:2-3 says, “I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.”

Israel’s BIGGEST and true ally has the following promise:

“The Lord also will roar from Zion,

And utter His voice from Jerusalem;

The heavens and earth will shake;

But the Lord will be a shelter for His people,

And the strength of the children of Israel.” Joel 3:16