View source for Blog/March 2015/Mar 20th

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{{bheadernew|March 20th|http://ronware.org/devar/vayiqra5772.pdf}}

What a week, what a week! You might be forgiven for thinking it was ''Purim'' again, what with the topsy-turvy events here in Israel.  But no, it was just another normal week in the Holy Land.  Full of action and suspense.

I’m referring, of course, to the Israeli elections.  After a rather intense and fractious period of campaigning, during which foreign governments (including, sadly, the US) poured money into propaganda campaigns aimed at toppling Netanyahu, [http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-claims-victory-as-vote-count-shows-likud-further-ahead/ King Bibi came out a clear victor].  This, even though the “polls” showed him losing.  The supposed “leader of the free world”, Obama, [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/18/obama-netanyahu-israel-election-white-house acted like a petulant child] by refusing to congratulate Bibi on his victory.  

The great sages of the Left have all come out to condemn the Israeli people and Israel’s democracy.  It should be pointed out to them that fully [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Israel#2015_elections 72 percent of voters participated] — a higher number than any election in Israel since 1999.  For that matter, it’s a vastly higher number than the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections paltry 55 percent] who participated in the last US election.  So you can’t blame the results on an “uninformed” and “apathetic” electorate, as the pundits seem to want to say. Nor can you reasonably say that the results were not the “will of the people” or “undemocratic”.  More women were elected to Knesset seats than ever before.  Even [http://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-arabs-flock-to-the-polls/ Israeli Arabs] came out in droves to vote and took an impressive third-place in terms of Knesset seats.  So “apartheid” can’t be claimed either, though predictably they will. Indeed, the results are easy to understand, and were even predictable (though I didn’t predict them — hindsight being 20/20 and all that, I’ll continue as if I had…).

You see, it’s like this: Israelis don’t like to be told what to do.  They don’t like to be pushed around.  They ''especially'' don’t like to be “suckers”.  The more it became obvious that Obama and his fellow travelers in the EU were trying to stack the decks against Netanyahu and topple his government, the more Israelis resented it — and even people who dislike Bibi voted for him, [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=davka ''davka''].  That’s a very Israeli reaction, and because the Obamanation has no clue what makes Israelis tick, he made a serious misstep.  Now Bibi’s in, and is consolidating the next government; and Israelis’ opinion of the US administration has taken a nose-dive (though to be fair, it was already extremely low, so not sure how much further it could possibly plummet). You might say the results of the Israeli election were a firmly extended middle-finger to Obama and the other meddlers in Israel’s internal affairs.

Obama’s many missteps are bringing the world closer to the brink of all-out war.  Who would have thought that decades after the fall of the “Evil Empire”, a new Russian dictator would be on the ascendant?  Who thought that after the declarations that “al-Qaeda is finished” we would see militant Islam claiming large swaths of the world?  Indeed, Netanyahu gave notice in front of the US Congress that allowing Iran’s nuclear program to proceed would lead to an arms-race, and the Left’s pundits came out in droves to deride him.  [http://www.timesofisrael.com/saudis-warn-iran-deal-may-spur-middle-east-nuclear-race/ Guess who agrees with Bibi?]

On a humorous note, the Hamas terror organization launched a “Twitter campaign” using the hashtag “#AskHamas”.  Their intention was to get an English-language propaganda campaign rolling.  It turned into a major fiasco, as their Twitter feed filled up with thousands of sarcastic comments from around the world.  Even I posted a comment, asking if Hamas “has a cross-platform programming solution”.  Sadly, they removed my post for being, in their words: “again the #AskHamas session knows how to snap back at Zionist troll camp”.  Whatever, they could’a been a contenda… instead, they were a laughingstock.

In other news: we released a new version of 8th this week, which has a number of efficiency improvements as well as some important bug-fixes.  I’m on the verge of releasing a sample game written in 8th (as a proof-of-concept), but I’m cracking my head on some silly code-signing issue in iOS, nothing to do with 8th — but I can’t release to the Apple Store until I’ve figured out this (very irritating and probably trivial though apparently quite common) issue.  In this regard, Android is much, much easier to deal with.

Looking forward to a ''shabbat'' without the jackhammers hammering next-door!  B”H!!!

The nuclear family together again this week. Our two-weeks to ''pesaḥ'' menu includes:<br>
turkey of some kind,
rice,
vegetable soup,
tuna salad,
pasta salad,
and some kind of dessert, maybe.


Until next time,<br>
''shabbat shalom'' !

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