Steve Kramer

Here is my latest update about Operation Guardian of the Wall. Luckily, our city, Kfar Saba, has been spared any damage. But because (3,000) rockets are still being launched  into Israel from Gaza, Israelis of all types have had to contend with ethnoreligious rioting in mixed Arab-Jewish towns, even to an actual pogrom in Lod, a city near Ben Gurion Airport, where synagogues, houses, stores, and cars were torched and residents attacked. [Steve Kramer]

Here’s a quick response to those of you who are concerned about what’s going on in Israel right now. Among a number of emails/messages regarding the current warfare in Israel, we received this one from our friend Ann in Arizona. {Steve Kramer]

Israel has held four elections in the last two years. Prime Minister Netanyahu set the stage for this farcical and unprecedented cycle of elections by dissolving his government with the mistaken idea that he could gain more members for his coalition if an election were held sooner rather than later. He couldn’t.  [Steve Kramer]

Israel recently announced its fourth election in two years, following three dysfunctional governments in a row. Unlike in the US, if the state budget is not passed within a certain amount of time (it wasn’t), the government falls. This is but one way of several that the government can dissolve itself before its 4-year term finishes. [Steve Kramer]

It was only in the past year that a number of Arab countries decided that the failure of the Palestinian Arabs to come to an agreement with Israel was dangerous for those selfsame countries. With an expansionist Shia-Muslim Iran threatening them, two Sunni-Muslim Arab states decided to put their citizens first and ally themselves with the most powerful state in the neighborhood, Israel. No longer would the security of the Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain (by “allying” with Israel) be vetoed by Palestinian Arabs, whose demand is NO normalization with Israelis. [Steve Kramer]