Israel Daily News, Tues. Feb. 2, 2021

Knowledge is the best weapon!

Israel’s first-ever Orthodox female minister has quit the government. Should essential stores be allowed to carry non-essential items? And an olive factory has been uncovered under water.

Join the community on Instagram & Facebook @israeldaily.news & israeldailynew

Send us a note & subscribe to our newsletter: https://israeldaily.news/

Support the show $ — https://anchor.fm/israeldailynews/support

1. According to a new poll, the right-wing will likely win 61 seats in the Knesset in the upcoming national election, which would be enough to give current Prime Minister Netanyahu a majority. Netanyahu’s coalition will ultimately be contingent upon parties other than his own Likud agreeing to sit with the current Prime Minister. Politicians like Gideon Sa’ar, leader of the New Hope party, have already declared that they would not participate in forming a coalition with Netanyahu. However, Naftali Bennett, leader of the Yamina party, has not publicly stated whether or not he would choose to sit with Netanyahu and Likud. Meanwhile, in the left-wing bloc, Netanyahu’s opposition grows and seems to be leading some to call for unity against the right-wing. Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai of the Israelis party believes the only way to effectively change the government and the future of Israel is for the parties on the left to put aside their differences and come together to form a single list of representatives.
2. Israel has opened a new hotline to assist new immigrants in the Holy Land while they adjust and deal with the Coronavirus pandemic. The announcement came out today from the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption.. The hotline is meant to offer emotional support to immigrants starting at 4 o’clock in the afternoon up to 9 pm 5 days a week. The hotline is available in five languages including Russian, Spanish, French, English and Amharic — which is the language of Ethiopians. I’ll list the phone numbers in the show notes so you can have access to it if you should need want to call up and get some support over the phone. 04–7702648 Russian; 04–7702649 Spanish; 04–7702650 French; 04–7702651 English; 04–8258081 Amharic
3. In an interesting high court ruling that just came out, essential businesses are officially not allowed to sell non essential products. A lawsuit filed during Israel’s second lockdown came from small businesses being prevnted from selling items like clothing or toys. Those stores were shut down while stores carrying essential items like food or drugs were kept open and they had some of those non-essential items for sale as well. Small businesses said it just wasn’t fair and they’re fighting for their livelihood. The presdient of the Israe chamber of commerce says “It is no longer acceptable that the big stores become bigger while the small ones are left to their own device and pile up debts.” Police will be enforcing these rules.
4. A group of what appears to be Israeli Jewish Antifa has hacked into a Ku Klux Klan affiliate website and posted images saying “SHABBAT SHALOM! GOODNIGHT WHITE PRIDE ;)”along with “JEWISH SOLIDARITY WITH ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLES,” “NEVER AGAIN” and the Hebrew phrases “Od Avinu Chai!!! Am Yisraeil Chai”. The hack not only added text and images to the site, but it also made public the name and personal data of the Ku Klux Klan website leader. The hack named Kevin James Smith as the leader of the brigade. He’s apparently the official owner and operator of the KKK website and a registered sex offender in Texas, where he lives. According to the registry, he raped a 14 year old girl. The hack left these words on the website: “Any Klansmen reading this, we know who you are, and we are coming for you.”
5. We have another strong figure in Israeli politics who has quit government. Omer Yankelvich, the Diaspora affairs minister — who is Israel’s first ever Orthodox female minister says she is leaving the Blue and white party of Benny Gantz and will not run in the march 23rd election. She’s considered to be one of Gantz’ closest allies. Yankelvich made a statement saying she had paid a heavy price for being in government with baseless lies published about her. She says she ignored them and focused on her mission. In 2019 Yankelvich realized she was being followed by private investigators, which allegedly was officiated by a member of her own party.
6. An innocent bystander was killed Monday night in an Arab city called Tamra in the north of Israel. The nursing student, Ahmed Hijazi aged 22, had come out of his home to hear what the fuss was about when he was shot and its not known whether he was killed by a stray police bullet or was hit by a bullet from the feuding gunmen on the street. Police had come to interfere with three men who were allegedly shooting toward a house on the residential block. Cops opened fire and were then attacked with rounds of bullets from an automatic M-16 that one of the men were carrying. 1 man was killed by officers, another was wounded and the third man involved ran away. Arab lawmakers are saying that incidents like this raise the Arab’s already low level of trust for police officers. The city has been protesting and lighting tires on fire.
7. Haaretz has a great piece about one of the earliest olive pickling factories that was found off of the coast of Israel. It’s 6500 years old and was found when archaeologists uncovered stone circles with thousands of pits in it. Research shows Israel was the epicenter of olive tree cultivation and that at first people didn’t know they could eat olives. They were simply squeezing the oil out of them and using that. What a shame! The specific site mentioned in the recent article that’s out from the Nature scientific report journal is located south of Haifa in a place called Hishuley Carmel and was first exposed in 2011 when a storm washed away layers of sand that had covered the factory up. Investigations showed the stone circles with a paved inside that had thousands of olive pits in there covered by a thin layer of clay and stone. Archaeologists from the University of Haifa say since there weren’t any signs of permanent habitation, they believe this site was industrial only and that people came just to make products and then went home.