Author: Ben Packer

Originally from Petersburg, Virginia, Ben Packer moved to Israel in 1999, where he served in the IDF's Givati Brigade in the Gaza Strip. Ben served as a Rabbi on campus at Univ. of North Carolina and at Duke Univ. Ben now serves as Director of the Jerusalem Heritage House (www.heritagehouse.org.il) and Co-Director of Young Jewish Conservatives (www.youngjewishconservatives.org). He lives in the Old City of Jerusalem with his wife and 6 children.
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PACKERS CORNER: Trouble Brewing on the Israeli-Syrian border

We join the entire (normal) world in praying for the rescue of the boys in Thailand. And like good Jews, we humbly point out that it was donated Israeli technology that allowed them to be found in the first place.
Things are still quite hot along the Syrian border with Israel. Russian continues to destroy the rebel resistance to Bashar Assad’s rule in Syria. To be clear, Assad’s army had ZERO chance of ever being able to retake all these areas by themselves. This is totally Russia, and specifically their air force. Tens of thousands of Sunni Syrians have evacuated their villages. Both Israel and Jordan have said that they won’t allow them to enter their countries. Although, Israel has continued to help Syrians in need of medical attention.
Trouble is brewing in the Israeli coalition government. However, it is difficult to know how serious it is and how much is just political posturing. Since the previous law was deemed illegal by the supreme court, the Government must now pass a new law dealing with ultra-orthodox yeshiva student enlistment in the army. Its a bit of a complicated issue, but in short, nothing will change, regardless of any of this. Actually, more ultra-orthodox would go to the army if the issue was just ignored, but that’s the last thing the “proponents” of the draft actually want. Its a great political/vote-getting issue for them, but in reality, hundreds or thousands of ultra-orthodox with machine guns would probably scare the hell out of them.
This could cause national elections to be moved up from the currently scheduled end of 2019. This could potentially have an effect on the Jerusalem mayoral race as the current mayor would probably need to resign to run for the Knesset, as he has said he wants. This would make one of the deputy mayors the mayor and it would be quite weird for the then current mayor not to run for “re-election”. This is exactly how the last ultra-orthodox mayor was elected.
As was mentioned the past few weeks here, the Israeli government has been enforcing demolition rulings from the supreme court for Jews, but not for arabs. Now it finally looks like an illegally built arab/bedouin encampment, located right next to a major highway, will be demolished in the near future. The hundred or so residents have already been allocated separate;plots to build houses in a legal arab village, closer to Jerusalem. Should take all of 15 minutes to knock the place down completely. We will wait and see. Another illegal arab encampment next to Susiya has also been ruled to be demolished. Maybe we’ll make it a double-header.
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PACKERS CORNER: Gaza Situation is Intolerable

With all the fake news in America right now about the family separating thing, its a good time to take a break and read about current events in Israel!
Two nights ago, 45 projectiles were shot from Hamas-controlled Gaza at Israel. The Iron Dome rocked the house and no one was injured. However, clearly an intolerable situation. Alot of warnings coming from Israeli leaders about the threat of escalation and possible Israeli attempt to end the Hamas rule in Gaza once and for all. Keep in mind, the burning kites keep coming as well and setting fires causing widespread damage. Situation not at all sustainable. All logic/good judgement would lead Hamas to quickly deescalate the situation – probably won’t happen. On the Israeli side of things, every time the Government considers/threatens to disrupt the Yeshiva students and their studies with threats of drafting them to the army, there is a war. So let’s hope they back off…and soon.
This week also saw the demolition of Jewish houses and property in Kfar Tapuach Maarav (West Tapuach). Situation contains many “legal” similarities to the recent very unfortunate destruction in Netiv Ha-Avot in the Gush Etzion region, south of Jerusalem – Supreme Court ruling, no actual arab owners of the land, houses destroyed and the (VERY IMPORTANTLY!!) area now being developed LEGALLY into a large and thriving Jewish community and a serious strengthening of the Jewish Presence in the area. Surveys conducted as a result of the lawsuit from left-wing agitators have determined enough state land for the potential construction of thousands of residential units.
Unlike Netiv Ha-Avot, West Tapuach is fantastically strategic for both the State of Israel and particularly for the “settlement enterprise”. It physically connects the city of Ariel (with its University) to the community of Kfar Tapuach and the crucial Tapuach traffic junction. Without control of the junction, the fledgling Jewish communities to the north (Itamar, Elon Moreh, Har Bracha) and east (Migdalim) would be cut off from the rest of the country and most likely be unsustainable.
In short, as in Netiv Ha-Avot, despite very sad and unnecessary scenes, the future in West Tapuach is quite bright.
Finally, some decisions were handed down by an Israeli court this week about the use of torture to extract confessions. The case involved the firebombing killing of an arab family in the village of Duma almost 3 years ago. Two Jewish suspects are accused of participating – one adult actively and a minor supposedly involved in the planning. They have been held in jail for years and repeatedly tortured. Both have subsequently confessed to involvement. In Israel, the rule is that confessions obtained through torture are not admissible in court. However, when religious Jews are accused and arabs are the victims, that rule doesn’t apply, apparently. So the court ruled that the minor’s confessions will be tossed, but the adults will be used against him. There can’t be a soul in the world who thinks this is actually a form of justice, but everyone has their own political agenda, so no real surprises here. The trial is upcoming. As of now, there doesn’t appear to be any other evidence linking the suspects to the crime. Bizarre? If you think so, you are clearly not paying attention. There’s much more reason to doubt the case against the defendants, but suffice it to say – its quite weak.
Before the houses in Netiv Ha-Avot were destroyed and the same for Amona and now West Tapuach, the “right-wing” government claimed that they were obligated to adhere to the rulings of the Supreme Court and there was no way around it. This week, Prime Minister Netanyahu indefinitely pushed off the the destruction of 2 illegal arab encampments that HAVE BEEN ORDERED BY THE SUPREME COURT!!! So…..yeah.
The reason given for the delay is the scheduled arrival of Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt later this week to push their peace plan. This is most likely why no building in Jerusalem has been announced either. Let’s wait and see what happens after they leave.
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PACKER’S CORNER: More Housing Approvals in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria

As promised in last week’s update (you can check), this week was much more exciting!!!
For starters, over 100 missiles/mortars were shot from Gaza at Israel. That might seem crazy, but for years, it used to be normal. Before that, Jews lived in Gaza and rockets were NEVER shot into Israel. Just sayin’.
Of course Israel retaliated for these attacks and claims to have destroyed all kinds of terror infrastructure in Gaza. Oddly, there don’t seem to be very many terrorist casualties from these strikes. Makes you wonder. Thankfully, the missiles from Gaza only caused slight damage, a few injuries and no deaths!!! The Iron Dome system worked very well and a few open miracles as well!
For now, things seem to have calmed down, with both sides publicly expressing their lack of desire for escalation. The short story is: the arabs/hamas don’t really have a solution for the Iron Dome and Israel doesn’t really have a solution for what to do if they reconquer Gaza. So nothing has really changed.
Very unfortunately, prior to the Gaza drama, an Israeli soldier from the elite Duvdevan unit was killed in a village outside of Ramallah during an arrest mission. The arab terrorist threw a marble slab down from a building and hit the soldier in the helmet. The original terrorists sought during the raid have all been captured and now the search is on for the murderer.
So let’s hear some good news, shall we?!! Yes, we shall!
Today, the Israeli government approved construction for roughly 700 new houses in Judea and Samaria. Additionally, about 1200 houses received preliminary approval. Plus another 1000 or so houses will be marketed to builders in the near future, so they will be built soon as well.
The numbers are not so striking – they could be so much higher! Nonetheless, let’s examine the impact of the decisions made today:
-Kfar Eldad (eastern Gush Etzion) – 84 new houses (60% increase in the overall size of the community)
-Ateret (central Binyamin, right next to Rawabi)  -70 new houses (50% increase in the size of the community
-In the Har Hevron Area (southern Judea) – where my fingers are on the attached map
Negohot – 102 new houses (50% increase)
Tene Omarim – 136 new houses (100% increase)
Clearly, “isolated” Jewish communities are being significantly strengthened. More construction in the Hevron area, in places like Kiryat Arba and Pnei Hever, is also coming. Why that area? Let’s hear from the head of the local government:
“The South Hebron Hills regional council chairman Yochai Damari thanked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in a Wednesday statement. “In recent years, we have been working with the help of government ministers to build and develop the communities of the South Hebron Hills into a strong and well-established settlement bloc that maintains thousands of acres of state land and constitutes a security buffer protecting southern Israel,” Damari said.
“Settlment Bloc” – that’s the name of the game. Once an area is a “settlement bloc” it means the Jewish population is high enough that it can never be evacuated/ethnically cleansed of Jews.  Examples of such places are Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion, Modiin Illit, Ariel and a few others. The magic number generally needed to attain this status is 20,000 residents. Although Ariel had slightly less when they were designated a bloc. Now they have much more, and so will everyone else if they can hit their numbers’ population targets.
Expect much more to come! Probably something in Jerusalem next!!!
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PACKER’S CORNER: President Trump Does It Again

He has done it again! Just yesterday, President Trump officially announced that he is withdrawing from the agreement reached between the obama administration, Europe and Iran concerning their nuclear weapons program. The idea of the agreement, more or less, was to pay Iran tons of money so that they wouldn’t try to make a nuclear bomb. All the while they can continue with terrorism and all that stuff, just no nuclear weapon. Also, this is being done on the honor system. Iran’s 2nd favorite system! (Honor killing system is a consistent #1)

Reactions have been swift and predictable:

For withdrawing: America, Israel, Saudi Arabia
Against withdrawing: Iran, Europe
(its kind of like World War 2 all over again)

This all comes at a time when Iran is threatening to retaliate against a bunch of very successful recent Israeli attacks (including last night) against Iranian targets in Syria. Israel has made preparations for the possibility of an Iranian/Hezbollah attack, but mostly life goes on pretty routine. Most folks focused on next week.

What’s next week?

  • Jerusalem Day (51st anniversary of Jewish victory in the Six Day War and return of Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem and other historical/biblical cities, like Hevron, Shiloh, Shechem, Jericho, etc.)
  • Moving of American Embassy to Jerusalem
  • Ramadan (muslim month of fasting and violence)
  • Shavuos (anniversary of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai)

That’s alot going on, even for here.

And finally, yesterday the soldier, Elor Azarya, was released from jail. This is wonderful news and way, way overdue. His brother is getting married tonight and for sure Elor will be celebrated there as a hero. This will likely continue for the rest of his life. He can thank the thoughtless, immoral Israeli left for his lifetime hero status. He’s a cool guy, but they are the ones who made him a hero.

After next week, expect some excitement in the Knesset, strategic building in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem and more clarity as to who is running in the Jerusalem mayor elections.

In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the show!

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PACKER’S CORNER: There are Fires Burning All Around Us

Last night we celebrated Lag B’Omer all over Israel by lighting bonfires (background: http://www.aish.com/h/o/33o/48971681.html?s=rab). They are oodles of fun, and only slightly dangerous. However there are other fires burning in the region, so let’s talk about those.
Iran.
Over the past week or so, Israel has seriously bombed Iranian targets in Syria. How many? Not clear. All the info comes from Syria, so that’s worth about as much as their currency and integrity combined. Nonetheless, its safe to say that Israel is putting the hurt on them pretty good. So far, Iran hasn’t been able to muster much of a response other than a solid mix of redundant threats and pre-school style whining.
In addition to these attacks, probably the biggest news of the week: The Mossad, the Israeli Intelligence Agency, known for daring overseas missions, has captured and brought to Israel something like 110,000 documents about Iran’s “secret” nuclear program. This week, the Prime Minister did a live presentation on Israeli TV about some of that information. Some critics are claiming that there is nothing new in the info. That is pure idiocy. How about that there is literally a half-ton of documents on all kinds of things. This is without speaking about how incredible it is that they found and got these documents to Israel in the first place. In short, major coup for the Mossad, Israel and Netanyahu.
And how about the timing?!!! Just 2 weeks before President Trump has to decide if the US will stay in Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran or pull out. Shocker alert: this info ain’t great for the deal. Can’t ever predict what Trump will do, but not even Obama would waste his time praying to allah on this one.
This one is far from over, but its not like it just started either. In the meantime, Iran is shooting ballistic missiles from Yemen on Saudi Arabia. So they got alot going on.
Gaza.
The Arab attacks on the border between Israel and Gaza continue. Mostly on Fridays, but on other days as well. On the whole, these violent pep rallies have been abysmal failures. The only “bright” spots for the terrorists are their “success” in flying burning kites – some with swastikas on them for effect, and honesty – into Israel and setting fields on fire. The biggest such fire was today and burned an otherwise pretty field. Let’s hope and pray this continues to be their greatest “success”.
In President Trump news:
-Good chance he’ll free Jonathan Pollard in the near future
-Good chance he might come for the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem or soon thereafter
It is becoming harder and harder for loyal Jews to complain about him. When they do, they appear more and more like that skank comedienne “lady” from the fake news prom this past Sat. night = SAD.
But we aren’t supposed be sad today – Happy Lag B’Omer!