Irish Entrance And The Honduras Hustle - The Flip-Flop Holyland Update

"Damn you, New Israel Fund!" (Cartoon: Noam Rabinovich )

I wrote a whole post, then it got deleted because of Steemit's dumbass CMS (and my forgetting to periodically ctrl-A, ctrl-S in my frenzied writing and formatting and all, fine), but that's OK because fresh developments have made the story even funnier! Step this way, mind the burning tires, and beware the leprechauns. Let's get to it:

LUCK OF THE IRISH

You may have heard the phrase "Irish Exit" - the practice of leaving a party or other event without saying goodbye, but just slipping out the door when you've decided it's time to go. Well, turns out the Irish are equally stealthy upon entry!

See, Israel's nationalist government has had enough of people badmouthing it, and suggesting that perhaps people around the world shouldn't encourage the blatantly colonialist settlements enterprise with their consumer cash, and has decided to bar all who dare express such opinions from entry, even if they only want to visit the Paltustinian Authority's territory, all access to which is solely through Israel's borders.

Thus, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri boasted that he denied entry to the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mícheál Éamonn Mac Donncha, because the latter promotes the boycott of settlement-made goods and in general voices sympathy for our dread enemies, the occupied Palestinian people. Homeland Security Minister Gilead Erdan chimed in, pointing out demurely that his ministry, too, deserves some of the credit.

But alas! The dastardly Dubliner managed to trick our fine boys, because he has a funnily-spelled name, which the geniuses mis-spelled, and hence no red lights flashed when Mac Donncha waltzed through passport control, and no sirens sounded, warning a plucky nation that just wants to live in peace! of the insidious infiltrator's self-insertion into our fair and just land.

The scoundrel, posing as an innocent traveler, was then able to be met at arrivals by local collaborators and transported safely to Ramallah, where he will participate in an act of mass verbal and academic terrorism - namely, a conference on the status of Jerusalem, organized by the Palestinian Authority. Wonder if the intellectual giants running my sorely-put-upon homeland will be fucking dumb enough to harass the man upon exit.
Haaretz

You dared ewade uth, Irith Rapthcallion! (Photo: Wikipedia)

HON-DO-WHAAA?!

This rousing success comes fast on the heels of yet another diplomatic triumph - the cancellation of a visit by the illegitimate President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was bizarrely invited to light a torch in the traditional ceremony opening the independence Day festivities - an honor hitherto bestowed on notable Israelis, or rarely really famous Jews from abroad, and considered one of the highest civic distinctions we have. There are 12 torch bearers, symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel.

However, just as in our big-brother role model lately, "hitherto", norms and tradition don't mean shit no more over here. Last time, I told you how Vulture Minister (not a typo) Miri Regev decided that contrary to almost all previous incarnations of the torch-lighting ceremony, this time the PM will also speak. This, of course, was immediately seen for what it is - a crass attempt to drape Bibi in the mantle of celebratory bipartisan officialdom, as an antidote to all the corruption scandals he's mired in.

In addition, this occasion is the one time a year the Speaker of the Knesset has to shine in his role as deputy to the ceremonial post of President - i.e. titular "Head of State." Traditionally, the Speaker is the only politician to, well, speak at the torch-lighting ceremony, representing all of the Knesset rather than one faction thereof, and thus all of the country. So despite being from Bibi's own party, Speaker Yuli Edelstein was not about to give up his big night without a fight, and a whole drama ensued over who would buckle first.

Ironically, it was Israel's public broadcasting corporation, aka Channel 1, which Bibi and Regev loath and have tried to shut down numerous times, that dug deep in its archives and came up with footage from the torch-lighting ceremony on Israel's 50th birthday, in which the same Bibi, then in his first term in office (now in his fourth) is seen speaking! Admittedly, it was a short, anodyne speech, consisting mostly of Ben Gurion quotes, but still - precedent.

But before this, Regev, who runs the ceremony as Chair of the Committee on Ceremonies and Symbols, thought she came up with a killer ploy. She tried to find all sorts of world leaders to (unprecedentedly) grace this ceremony, with the idea that if there was a foreign head of government on the stage, protocol would necessitate the presence of the equal-rank host, and... take that, lefty sourpusses! Eventually, the only world "leader" she could find was the aforementioned Mr. Hernandez, last "elected" not just amid serious charges of fraud, but having run despite a constitutional term limit barring him from doing so, and who shortly thereafter had 22 people who dared protest his usurpation of power shot to death.

Regev tried to justify this decision by the fact that Hernandez is a graduate of some cadet program run by our Minstry of Foreign Affairs and thus is a shining example of... something. The fact that said luminary recently purchased a metric fuckton of death machines from Israel's weapons industry might have had something to do with it as well, but can't be sure.

Anyway, that was before Channel 1 came up with the precedent, leaving Speaker Edelstein no choice but to compromise that Bibi would give "a short greeting" AND light a torch. Since that leaves only 11 torches for non-politician Israelis to be honored, the Honduras Hombre was demoted to "assistant torch-lighter". I shit you not. This (maybe in addition to three days of me tweeting at him in English and google-translated Spanish that he shouldn't come, and if he does he'll get mucho huevo on his ugly face) was enough for the proud graduate of our cadet program, and he canceled. Independence Day is in precisely one week, and it remains to be seen if Minister Regev can find any more ways to turn it into a pig circus by then.
Jerusalem Post

Hernandez. Did my twitter threats of embarrassment keep him home? That's my story and I'm sticking to it! (Photo: Honduras.com

REFUGEE RETREAT

Remember the ~40K African asylum-seekers still in Israel, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, whom Bibi's government and the volkist mob it has nurtured desperately want to deport, but pesky things like an international treaty (which Israel not only signed but proposed and promoted) won't let them? The ones that Israel, in over a decade, has checked the asylum applications of only a tiny fraction of? The ones that were rounded up and sent to an "open" concentration camp in the desert, and who more recently the government began deporting to "third countries" in Africa (Uganda and Rwanda) whose governments ostensibly agreed to take them in for $7500 a head, on top of the $3500 Israel was giving to the deportees themselves?

So this whole "third country" thing fell through, for two main reasons:

1. Because the organizations helping the asylum-seekers petitioned the court with proof that while these countries may be allowing the people deported by Israel off the plane, they aren't giving them any sort of official status, which means that they are subject to arrest, abuse and expulsion at any time, and can't legally work to provide for themselves and their families.
2. Because Uganda and Rwanda agreed to "accept" asylum seekers who came to them willingly. Funnily enough, they don't seem to consider "on pain of indefinite detention," which was the choice Israel was giving these poor bastards, to be synonymous with "willingly."

So last Sunday, out of the blue, it was announced that finally a serious, long-term solution has been found, with the kind help of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees: Half the asylum-seekers currently in Israel, some 18,000, mostly single young men who cause the most disturbance in the communities where they live, would be deported to Western countries, where they would receive asylum and be able to live normally until such time as they can safely return to their countries of origin. The rest, 16,250 in total, would be given temporary residence status in Israel for five years and be dispersed from their concentration in the poor areas of a few cities, to stronger communities throughout the country. And while the initial reports online were met with skepticism, soon there was a press conference, with Bibi (who hadn't been seen in public since being released from the hospital five days prior) and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, confirming the details and defending the deal to their base.

Even lefties were cautiously praising the government, but the caution proved to be well-founded. The announcement was immediately met with fury by said base, proving that there is line Bibi may not cross for them. Within less than 24 hours, following a meeting with the shrill minority of south Tel Aviv residents who think people who crossed hell to mop floors in Israel are their real enemy, Netanyahu abrubtly announced that the deal was canceled. The UNHCR learned of the cancellation not from the PM's office, but through social media, and expressed "disappointment."

I'm not sure I'm doing a good enough job of conveying just how bizarre it is to call a special press conference to announce a sweeping solution to a major political issue, one on which hundreds of millions have previously been spent in vain, in conjunction with the U fucking N, and then just cancel it 24 hours later because you met with a vociferous interest group (one you apparently didn't see fit to consult BEFORE announcing the plan) - but I don't think I've EVER seen anything like it. Bibi and Regev blamed the cancellation of the Uganda and Rwanda deals on the New Israel Fund - an umbrella NGO that funds all sorts of orgs, from those that help victims of domestic abuse and sex assault, to those protecting labor rights, to - yes - those resisting and documenting the crimes of the occupation. The NIF is a long-time bogeyman for the right wing, but this was particularly ridiculous. Immediately after this baseless accusation, an insanely vicious incitement video against NIF President Talia Sasson was released on social media. This, I fear, will not end well.

The psychoanaltical school of political analysis tends to think Bibi did it because he can't afford to alienate the base with all the legal crap he's wading through, and he freaked out when he realized the force of the base's fury, both at said meeting and on social media. Subscribers to the inside baseball school have a more complicated explanation: See, the deal with the UNHCR was supposed to be accompanied with a massive half-billion shekel (~$140M) "urban renewal fund" for south Tel Aviv. Apparently, the main reason Interior Minister Deri - a notorious xenophobe - went along with the plan, was because Bibi promised him and his party Shas control of this giant slush fund. When Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of Jewish Home (even more nationalist, slightly less religious than Shas) heard about this - he knew beforehand about the deal with the UN, not about the sole control of the renewal fund bit - he demanded control of half or he'd blow the coalition up. Deri wouldn't share, and Bibi had no choice but to cancel, cause he wasn't calling early elections on this, not with how his base took to it.

Now, instead of massive alleviation of the presence of asylum-seekers straining their resources, and an even more massive urban renewal project, the poor people of south Tel Aviv and other places are left with all the asylum-seekers, plus more whom the Supreme Court ordered to be freed from detention now that the deportation to Africa scheme crashed, and no money. Funny how hate always shoots itself in the foot.
TheConversation.com

"South Tel Aviv Against The Deportation" (Photo: Omdim B'Yachad - Standing Together)

Of course, all these together, combined with the weekly mass-protest at the Gaza fence*, just means almost two weeks in which Netanyahu's corruption investigations haven't dominated the headlines. It's been announced that he, the missus and their brat will be questioned again, but that the police are not looking for any more witnesses - meaning the cases are considered air-tight as is.

(*)The weekly Gaza wrap-up: lower body count, higher wounded total, though dozens upon dozens of those might be just smoke inhalation injuries, from the thousands of tires burned on the "Friday of Fire" - Burning tires are unfortunately a ubiquitous feature of Palestinian protests, and may have been used in part to obscure the sight of the snipers, which didn't seem to do much good. as a sniper picked off Yasser Murtaja, 30, a freelance press photographer clearly fucking marked as such, flack jacket and all who was far away from the fence and not endangering a damn soul when shot. At first Israel said it was "unfamiliar" with the incident of his shooting. Upon further reflection, the story changed to "yeah we shot him and he was a senior Hamas officer." Uh huh.

Then another video was released of a sniper shooting someone also not touching the fence or threatening anyone (although, unlike Murtaja, standing very close to it). That turned out to be from 3.5 months ago, and the real brouhaha was more over the sound of the sniper and the dumbass who took the video gloating over the hit and cursing the victim. IDF's excuse was that the guy they shot was the "ringleader" of that "disturbance", and that while the shooting was fine, the filming and language were not. OK then.
Times of Israel

Yasser Murtaja. Dreamed of flying out of Gaza one day, so he could take pictures of his ancestral homeland from the air. (Photo: PressTV.com)

Hope they don't shoot these guys (gals?) next. They're too cute. (Photo: Found on Twitter. If you took it, lemme know and I'll credit or take it down, as you choose.)

Will Emperor Nutandyahoo, First of his name, manage to make it to Independence Day without his corruption cases storming back to the top of the pops? Either way, it'll make for a grimly funny story in the chronicle of Israel's crumbling. Until then, I hope you're not dicked around like some two-bit Central American dictator, or the UNHCR, and that you find better avenues for the expression of rage than burning goddamn tires, and I wish you a very good week (or so).