Bahrain declares its Ambassador to Israel, 13 Yemenite Jews are exiled & you can take off your mask in Israeli open air!

Israel Daily News Wrap,165

Knowledge is the best weapon!

1. Post election drama is continuing to unfold with new reports saying Naftali Bennet of the Yamina party is refusing to join a coalition with Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party unless he can become Prime Minister in the new government. Bennet’s anti-Bibi right wing party Yamina earned only seven seats in last week’s election compared to Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party that gained seventeen. If Lapid is able to secure Yamina’s seven seats, it could potentially be the deciding factor in successfully creating an anti-Netanyahu coalition with enough seats to form a government. Bennet’s ambitious demand does not come as a surprise considering prior to the election he signed a pledge on TV stating that he would not allow Yair Lapid to become Prime Minister. A coalition with Lapid in charge is beginning to look like the anti-Bibi bloc’s best chance at up-seating the current prime minister with Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman indicating he would support Lapid to form a new government. Liberman is a former Bibi ally who’s party gained a crucial 5 seats in the election.
2. Bahrain has officially put an ambassador in place! Khaled Yosuif Al-Jalahma has been approved by the Kingdom of Bahrain’s foreign minister,Abdullatif al-Zayani. Bahrain’s official news agency released the info. Al-Jalahma has worked with the US embassy in the past and the department says they are excited in making this move toward peace. There has been no word about where they will put their embassy within Israel.
3. 13 Jews from Yemen have been pushed out of the country and relocated to Cairo. The community, which had 50,000 Jews in the 1940s now, after their family of 13 has been expelled, has 6 Jews left. You see, Yemen is Houthi backed and the Houthi group was started in the 1990s with its militant leader coming from a tribe known as the Houthis. Today it is an armed group that uses violence and force to control the area. In a deal with Egypt, this Houthi faction moved the group to Cairo Egypt where the Yemen jewish family has relatives. This was apparently in part for the release of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi who has been imprisoned in Yemen since he was caught and arrested for smuggling an ancient Torah scroll out of Yemen and into Israeli where it could be properly cared for. That was in 2016 and there’s a photo of the family with Netanyahu. The Houthis, however believe the torah scroll is a national artifact and should have remained in the country. Marhabi has not been officially released yet, despite former Sec of State Mike Pompeo calling for his release.
4. Israel’s National Security Council is warning citizens that Iran may try to attack Israelis while they are vacationing or travelling overseas. The NSC said that Iranian officials have threatened to attack Israeli targets over the last few months. Iran has already been linked to a bombing at the Israeli embassy in India in January. The warning is especially prevalent due to Israelis beginning to travel abroad again after gaining a sense of protection from Israel’s massive vaccination campaign. The NSC went on to single out Israel’s new Gulf partners, the UAE and Bahrain as especially risky. Israel also warned citizens back in December to avoid travel to the gulf countries due to fear that Iran may seek revenge for the death of its Chief Nuclear scientist who was believed to be assassinated by US-Israeli cooperation.
5. Israeli Police will no longer enforce mask-wearing in outdoor spaces, despite the law still mandating masks in public. Before this unofficial ordinance, it was commonplace to receive a ticket from law enforcement for not wearing a mask or wearing a mask improperly. Now, police are shifting their focus to cracking down on those who violate government mandated quarantines. Coronavirus czar Nachman Ash stressed that mask wearing is still vital for battling Covid, and people should still wear them in closed spaces. So that’s something to look forward to! Going mask-less in the open air.