Pages

Monday, May 31, 2021

Precious Lives of USA and Israel and How They Are Remembered in May

 Nadene Goldfoot     

   U.S. soldiers and Israeli soldiers pose for a photo during Austere      Challenge 12 in Hazor, Israel

The 2012 US-Israel military defense drill, codenamed Austere Challenge 12, was a military exercise between the United StatesIsraeli militaryGermany and U.K., that took place in late October 2012.

The joint exercises were expected to test Israeli and American air defense systems, particularly Israel's ballistic missile defense against incoming missiles and rockets. A EUCOM commander would be responsible for approving Israeli requests to deploy US missile defense systems in Israel.

Senior American and Israeli defense officials discussed the possibility of postponing the exercise to late 2012. On January 13, 2012, it was postponed to October. Israeli military officials said the U.S government requested to delay the drill so as "not to heighten tensions" with Iran. A day prior to the cancellation, senior IAF officers said the drill was scheduled for Spring. The exercise is also expected to be the first time the EUCOM commander James Stavridis will participate in a multilateral drill with Israel.

Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said "diplomatic and regional reasons, the tensions and instability" were factors in delaying the exercise. Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel and the United States made the decision to delay the exercise "because it was not the right time.”

Although a report in August alleged that the number of troops involved was being reduced from 5,000 to about 1,000, in order to reduce the perception that the exercise was a cover for an attack on Iran, it was later reported that the size of the drill and the number of troops participating had not changed. Brigadier General Nitzan Nuriel, said that the matter was one "of logistics," and that the number of troops had hardly changed."  

This was to practice together to save their lives.  

                                

                                 Visiting soldier's graves at a cemetery 
     

Today is Memorial Day in the USA.  Most all stores close in remembrance.Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties. 

                                               

The holiday is observed on the last Monday of May. The holiday was observed on May 30 from 1868 to 1970.Since the Revolutionary War of 1776 ended, 646,596 American troops have died in battle and more than 539,000 died from other, non-combat related causes.                                          

IDF Military Uniform 35 by Guy 191484

In Israel, they have Yom HaZikaron from May 3rd to May  4th..  Yom HaZikaron is the national remembrance day observed in Israel for all Israeli military personnel who lost their lives in the struggle that led to the establishment of the State of Israel and for those who have been killed subsequently while on active duty in Israel's armed forces. Enacted into law in 1963. While Yom HaZikaron has been traditionally dedicated to fallen soldiers, commemoration has also been extended to civilian victims of terrorism.Yom HaZikaron  As of Yom HaZikaron 2021, that number was 23,928.

                                                            

The day opens with a siren the preceding evening at 20:00 (8:00 pm), given that in the Hebrew calendar system, a day begins at sunset. The siren is heard all over the country and lasts for one minute, during which Israelis stop everything, including driving on highways, and stand in silence, commemorating the fallen and showing respect.

By law, all places of entertainment are closed on the eve of Yom HaZikaron, and broadcasting and educational bodies note the solemnity of the day. Regular television programs cease for the day, and the names and ranks of every soldier who died for Israel are displayed in a 24-hour television broadcast.                  

Since the founding of the state, Israel has chosen the Dam Hamaccabim flower (Hebrew: דם המכבים, "Blood of the Maccabees") as the national memorial flower. The flower is depicted in many memorial sites and can be seen worn as stickers on shirts and jackets throughout Yom HaZikaron. Since 2019, the non-profit organization Dam HaMaccabim has been distributing pins with the real Red Everlasting flower throughout Israel and the United States.

Between 1948 and 1997, 20,093 Israeli soldiers were killed in combat, 75,000 Israelis were wounded, and nearly 100,000 Israelis were considered disabled army veterans.

In the White Paper of 1939 the British government limited Jewish immigration to Palestine to 75,000 over the following five years. European Jews were anxious for ways to leave Europe, but for the most part there were few options. No countries were willing to take Jewish immigrants. However, some Eastern European states were willing to give transit visas. During World War II, many countries denied or severely limited Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, and Palestine was one of the few destinations available.

In post-Holocaust Europe, the 1,000,000 Jewish survivors were classified as "non-repatrifiable" by the Austrian and German government. In other words, Jews were not "officially allowed to leave the countries of Central and East Europe" by the allied powers, nor were they permitted to settle in Palestine by the British.

An unknown number of Jewish refugees perished en route from European ports to Palestine, and over 30,000 holocaust survivors who successfully immigrated were interned by the British in POW camps. Many immigrant ships were sunk during the British blockade.




Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_casualties_of_war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_US-Israel_military_exercise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_HaZikaron#:~:text=Yom%20HaZikaron%20is%20the%20national,duty%20in%20Israel's%20armed%20forces.
...

Conservation of Land in Israel Meant Land and Trees Had a Sabbath and More

 Nadene Goldfoot        

Dedicated to my son, Steve.                                      

Why does it matter about how mankind plants their crops?  What have farmers learned?  Why does it matter? Different plants have different nutritional needs and are susceptible to different pathogens and pests. If a farmer plants the exact same crop in the same place every year, as is common in conventional farming, she continually draws the same nutrients out of the soil.

If the same crop is grown continuously, the plant drains the same nutrients from the soil every year. This eventually leads to nutrient depletion and soil infertility. A farmer can, at his own risk, grow the same crop for several years in a row, as he saw that this field provides a good yield.

Moses came along and turned off lots of people with laws about how to plant and how to harvest.  It didn't make sense to people  3,332years ago but it does now.  Moses was born in about 1391 BCE.  These laws were from G-d.  

Every 7th year is a Sabbath year, called the Shmita year.  The land is to lie fallow.  It is not to be planted.  It is the sabbath for the land. This is an over 3,000 rule for letting land replenish.  Why didn't people know that in the early 1900's in the USA?  They wouldn't have had a Dust Bowl out of their land.               

While Israel is not a natural nor seemingly sensible place for agriculture – two thirds of the land is semi-arid or arid and much of the soil is of poor quality –  they have incorporated technical tricks and now aid people to grow food in Africa.  

According to the Mosaic law, grains, fruits, legumes and vegetables are permitted to be eaten in the Seventh Year, yet must they be harvested in an irregular fashion, and only as much as a person might need for his sustenance, without the necessity of hoarding the fruits in granaries and storehouses.

Shmita is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Bet HaMikdash in the Land of Israel and is observed in contemporary Judaism.

During shmita, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting, is forbidden by halakha (Jewish law). Other cultivation techniques (such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, trimming and mowing) may be performed as a preventive measure only, not to improve the growth of trees or other plants (during this year). Additionally, any fruits or herbs which grow of their own accord and where no watch is kept over them are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone. A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption and disposal of shmita produce. All debts, except those of foreigners, were to be remitted.

Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus promises bountiful harvests to those who observe the shmita, and describes its observance as a test of religious faith. There is little notice of the observance of this year in biblical history and it appears to have been much neglected.

The next Shmita year is 2021-2022 which is the year (5782) of the Jewish calendar.

According to the laws of shmita, land owned by Jews in the Land of Israel is left unfarmed. The law does not apply to land in the Diaspora. Any naturally growing produce was not to be formally harvested, but could have been eaten by its owners, as well as left to be taken by poor people, passing strangers, and beasts of the field. While naturally growing produce such as grapes growing on existing vines can be harvested, it cannot be sold or used for commercial purposes; it must be given away or consumed. Personal debts are considered forgiven at sunset on 29 Elul. Since this aspect of shmita is not dependent on the land, it applies to Jews both in Israel and elsewhere.

                                            

    Fields in Jezreel Valley, Israel 

As produce grown on land in Israel owned by Jewish farmers cannot be sold or consumed, fruits and vegetables sold in a shmita year may be derived from five sources:

  • Produce grown during the sixth year, to which the laws of the seventh year do not apply.
  • Produce grown on land owned by non-Jewish (typically, Arab) farmers in Israel.
  • Produce grown on land outside the halakhic boundaries of Israel (chutz la'aretz).
  • Produce (mainly fruits) distributed through the otzar beit din.
  • Produce grown in greenhouses.   
  •                                             

  • More than forty types of fruit are grown in Israel
  • In addition to citrus, these include avocados, bananas, apples, cherries, plums, nectarines, grapes, dates, strawberries, prickly pear (tzabbar), persimmon, loquat and pomegranates.

There is a requirement that shevi'it produce be consumed for personal use and cannot be sold or put in trash. For this reason, there are various special rules regarding the religious use of products that are normally made from agricultural produce. Some authorities hold that Hanukkah candles cannot be made from shevi'it oils because the light of Hanukkah candles is not supposed to be used for personal use, while Shabbat candles can be because their light can be used for personal use. For similar reasons, some authorities hold that if the Havdalah ceremony is performed using wine made from shevi'it grapes, the cup should be drunk completely and the candle should not be dipped into the wine to extinguish the flame as is normally done.

The otzar beit din system is structured in such a way that biur remains the responsibility of members of individual households and hence warehoused produce does not have to be moved to a public place or reclaimed at the biur time. Households only have to perform biur on produce they receive before the biur time, not on produce they receive after it.

Because the Orthodox rules of Kashrut have strictures requiring certain products, such as wine, to be produced by Jews, the leniency of selling one's land to non-Jews is unavailable for these products, since these strictures would render the wine non-Kosher. Accordingly, wine made from grapes grown in the land of Israel during the Shmita year is subject to the full strictures of Shmita. New vines cannot be planted. Although grapes from existing vines can be harvested, they and their products cannot be sold.

While obligatory to the Orthodox as a matter of religious observance, observance of the rules of Shmita is voluntary so far as the civil government is concerned in the contemporary State of Israel. Civil courts do not enforce the rules. A debt would be transferred to a religious court for a document of prosbul only if both parties voluntarily agreed to do so. Many non-religious Israeli Jews do not observe these rules, although some non-religious farmers participate in the symbolic sale of land to non-Jews to permit their produce to be considered kosher and sellable to Orthodox Jews who permit the leniency. Despite this, during Shmita, crop yields in Israel fall short of requirements so importation is employed from abroad.

Once the Jewish people came to the Land of Israel, all fruits grown on newly planted trees could not be consumed, sold, gifted, or used for any form of pleasure for the first three years. At the conclusion of the third year, the fruits are considered holy and can only be consumed in Yerushalayim/Jerusalem.     

    Pomegranate Orchard in Israel

                                                

    Is the Cosmic Crisp apple kosher?  Read on...

Needing an expert opinion, I turned to those more knowledgeable than I. The conclusion was that it was kosher, for several reasons:  Some trees must be older than three years, which means that every individual fruit may very well not be from a non orlah tree, which is sufficient to permit it outside of Israel. In fact quality, commercial-grade fruit are always beyond the orlah stage.  Also, grafting a stem onto a rootstock of the same species is permitted and doesn’t usually affect the orlah count since we generally follow the age of the rootstock (unless the rootstock was extremely short).

The apple orchards in Israel cover an area of 4.2 thousand hectares, and 95% of the fruit is grown along the northern border, in the Galilee and the north of Israel. When there are fruit surpluses the apples grown in the orchards belonging to the Druze farmers are transferred to the Syrian market.  This success in the north was explained by the reduction of 25% in the irrigation water and thinning out the small fruit following the guidelines issued by the researchers at the Northern Research and Development center, to attain an optimal fruit load on the trees. Furthermore, this summer's prevailing temperatures were relatively low, a factor which helped impart the fruit with its fine purple color in the colored apple varieties.Nov 9, 2014          

           Washingon's Cosmic Crisp 

It’s Erev Rosh Hashanah and the table is set beautifully, with the tray of apples and honey prominently in the center. Of course, everyone has their personal favorite type of apple – the Gala, the Honey Crisp, the famous Red Delicious… But, there is a new variety of apple on the market that has taken the United States by storm with its instant popularity. The Cosmic Crisp (scientific name WA-38) is an apple with dark red skin, like the color of wine, creamy white flesh, a pleasant flavor and an extended shelf life. It is so dense that the apple feels heavy when held.

Like all apples, the Cosmic Crisp consumes oxygen through what the consumer might think of as spots or freckles, but which are really tiny pores in the skin, called lenticels. The Cosmic Crisp apple’s lenticels look exceptionally bright against its inky skin, reminiscent of stars in the night sky, an observation that was branded into the trademarked “Cosmic Crisp” name.

The apple tested so well that Washington State University (where the variety was developed), in collaboration with commercial nurseries, began producing apple saplings as fast as possible; the plan was to start with 300,000 trees, but growers requested 4 million, leading to a lottery for divvying up the first available trees. Within three years, the industry had planted 13 million Cosmic Crisp trees.

The variety was first planted for commercial use in Spring 2017, with 12 million trees
pre-ordered by Washington orchards. Cosmic Crisp apple trees were initially only available to Washington-based growers, and will remain limited to them for at least ten years.

Once the Jewish people came to the Land of Israel, all fruits grown on newly planted trees could not be consumed, sold, gifted, or used for any form of pleasure for the first three years. At the conclusion of the third year, the fruits are considered holy and can only be consumed in Yerushalayim. Only at the beginning of the fifth year are the fruits considered “mundane” and can be sold and consumed in a regular manner.The Torah only speaks explicitly about fruits that grow in the Land of Israel, but the prohibition against orlah fruits includes those which grow outside of Eretz Yisroel , as well. The source of this prohibition isn’t learned plainly from the Torah, rather it’s a law passed down from generation to generation beginning with Moshe Rabbeinu – Halacha l’Moshe miSinai.

                                          

   I went to a seder for fruit, and we ate nothing but different fruit in an orderly fashion of its phylum in Safed, Israel.  Fantastic learning experience for Tu'bi'Shvat.  

Jews have a holiday for trees.  Tu BiShvat (Hebrew: ט״ו בשבט‎; tú bish'vat) is a Jewish holiday occurring on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat (in 2021, Tu BiShvat begins at sunset on January 27 and ends in the evening of January 28). It is also called Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot (Hebrew: ראש השנה לאילנות‎), literally 'New Year of the Trees'.  Of course, it is celebrated by planting a tree.  How far back does this holiday go?  The rabbis ruled in favor of Hillel on this issue and the 15th of Shevat became the date for calculating the beginning of the agricultural cycle for the purpose of biblical tithes,   Hillel goes back to the 1st century BCE.  

                                             

       Date harvest in Israel

Agriculture in Israel is a highly developed industry. Israel is a major exporter of fresh produce and a world-leader in agricultural technologies despite the fact that the geography of the country is not naturally conducive to agriculture. More than half of the land area is desert, and the climate and lack of water resources do not favor farming. Only 20% of the land area is naturally arable. In 2008 agriculture represented 2.5% of total GDP and 3.6% of exports. While farmworkers made up only 3.7% of the work force, Israel produced 95% of its own food requirements, supplementing this with imports of grain, oilseeds, meat, coffee, cocoa and sugar.

"Israel is home to two unique types of agricultural communities, the kibbutz and moshav, which developed as Jews from all over the world made aliyah to the country and embarked on rural settlement."That's pretty good for a people who were kept from owning land ever

 since 70 CE.  They were kept from becoming farmers.  

It amazes me that our ancestors so very long ago had access to this knowledge.  Yet it took today's civilization a long time to realize these same benefits such as crop rotation or having a fallow season.   People in Sweden centuries ago were eating bark off of trees for lack of food whose people were either just Vikings and didn't do farming or just plain didn't know about such facts.  

Why have so many laws been added to plain old conservation facts?  Don't ask me; ask G-d.  Maybe we'll find out in the future, 3,000 years from today.  To me, it is part of a plan to condition us to be very aware of these conservation laws and carry them out.  We'd follow them more so by being so aware of all that goes with them.  It's a mind-set thing.  


Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmita#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Mosaic%20law,fruits%20in%20granaries%20and%20storehouses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_BiShvat#:~:text=Tu%20BiShvat%20(Hebrew%3A%20%D7%98%D7%B4,New%20Year%20of%20the%20Trees'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Israel

https://www.ok.org/article/first-fruits-overview-laws-orlah/#:~:text=Once%20the%20Jewish%20people%20came,only%20be%20consumed%20in%20Yerushalayim.

https://www.israeltrees.org/news/?a=yw-adgrant-blessing&gclid=Cj0KCQjwktKFBhCkARIsAJeDT0jtWELgaQA0C5aEdxU09RfRbBfrA4tfVz-Sk4W6CX06JUHdH5jgo40aAsQTEALw_wcB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_BiShvat#:~:text=Tu%20BiShvat%20(Hebrew%3A%20%D7%98%D7%B4,New%20Year%20of%20the%20Trees'.

https://institute.global/advisory/how-israel-transformed-its-agriculture-sector-five-insights-africa

https://www.ok.org/article/first-fruits-overview-laws-orlah/#:~:text=Once%20the%20Jewish%20people%20came,only%20be%20consumed%20in%20Yerushalayim.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4621697/jewish/Is-the-Cosmic-Crisp-Apple-Kosher.htm

Benjamin Netanyahu, Outstanding Prime Minister''s Past of Trials and Tribulations

 Nadene Goldfoot

Dedicated to my daughter, Deborah, who joins my concern about Netanyahu being ousted.  

  Benjamin Netanyahu b: October 21, 1949 in Tel Aviv 

Benjamin Netanyahu is an Israeli politician serving as the prime minister of Israel since 2009, for a total of the past 12 years.   He is the longest-serving Israeli prime minister in history and the first to be born in Israel after its Declaration of Independence.                                   

Which is Benjamin?  Yonaton was born first, then Benjamin and Iddo.   

 His parents were  Prof. Benzion Netanyahu (original name Mileikowsky) and Tzila (Cela; née Segal). His mother was born in 1912 in Petah Tikva, then in Ottoman Palestine, now Israel. Though all his grandparents were born in the Russian Empire (now Belarus, Lithuania and Poland), his mother's parents emigrated to Minneapolis in the United States. He is related to Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (the Vilna Gaon) on his paternal side.

Netanyahu's father, Benzion, was a professor of Jewish history at Cornell University, editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica, and a senior aide to Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who remained active in research and writing into his nineties. Regarding the Palestinian people, he stated: "That they won't be able to face [anymore] the war with us, which will include withholding food from Arab cities, preventing education, terminating electrical power and more. They won't be able to exist, and they will run away from here. But it all depends on the war, and whether we will win the battles with them." If his father could only see what Netanyahu has had to face!

                                                

After graduating from high school in Pennsylvania 1967, Netanyahu returned to Israel to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. He trained as a combat soldier and served for five years in an elite special forces unit of the IDF, Sayeret Matkal. He took part in numerous cross-border assault raids during the 1967–70 War of Attrition, rising to become a team-leader in the unit. He was wounded in combat on multiple occasions. He was involved in many other missions, including the 1968 Israeli raid on Lebanon and the rescue of the hijacked Sabena Flight 571 in May 1972, in which he was shot in the shoulder. He was discharged from active service in 1972 but remained in the Sayeret Matkal reserves. Following his discharge, he left to study in the United States but returned in October 1973 to serve in the Yom Kippur War. He took part in special forces raids along the Suez Canal against Egyptian forces before leading a commando attack deep inside Syrian territory, the details of which remain classified today.

Netanyahu's paternal grandfather was Nathan Mileikowsky, a leading Zionist rabbi and JNF fundraiser. Netanyahu's older brother, Yonatan, was killed in Uganda during Operation Entebbe in 1976. His younger brother, Iddo, is a radiologist and writer. All three brothers served in the Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit of the Israel Defense Forces.  He has a 1st cousin, Nathan Netanyahu, born in 1951, a computer scientist.  

Having previously served in that role from 1996 to 1999 actually makes him Prime Minister of Israel for 15 years.  . Netanyahu is also the chairman of the Likud; Israel's National Liberal Movement, which is a right-wing political party.  This is a different meaning from the USA's Democratic party which is also very liberal, but is on the left. 

                                             

      That day at the UN when he told a scant audience of the red line that Iran was close to achieving nuclear development for weapons.  Netanyahu draws a red line on a graphic of a bomb as he addresses the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, September 27, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
 

His 12-year service may be coming to an end this year at age 72.  "The attempt to put an end to Netanyahu's rule, publicly announced Sunday night by hard-right party leader, Naftali Bennett, has been welcomed by a surprising cross-section of left-wing and right-wing Israelis, as Netanyahu and his allies fight fiercely to keep him in power ahead of a looming Wednesday deadline for a new coalition to be reached."  "

Israeli opposition leader Naftali Bennett says he's ready to join parties on the Left to form a new unity coalition government that could unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. CNN's Hadas Gold reports.
Source: CNNCompared to Netanyahu, I just heard on TV that they consider Bennett a 3rd rate politician.  Netyanhu would be a formidable contender, all right, with plenty of experience.
                                                 

Indeed, the one thing Netanyahu has going for him is his ability to speak in English, actually better than most Americans.  Not only his vocabulary, but his ability to defend Israel when caught off-guard.  The man's intelligence and ability to communicate is amazing.  I'll never forget when he was on TV and speaking with Obama who wanted Israel to go back to the 67 lines, and Netanyahu spoke so eloquently.  It was amazing to behold.  
                                              

It was during Netanyahu's service that the Abraham Accords came to fruition.   This was on September 15,2020.  

We have many budding politicians who can't get a break, they feel, with Netanyahu in the main seat.  So a few have another method other than elections to get him out which it true all over the world  Pin something on them.
                                             
Credit...Pool photo by Abir Sultan, December 2, 2018.  

Since January 2017, Netanyahu has been investigated and questioned by Israeli police in two cases, "Case 1000" and "Case 2000". The two cases are connected. In Case 1000, Netanyahu is suspected of having obtained inappropriate favors from businessmen, including James Packer and Hollywood producer Arnon MilchanThis case concerns the prime minister's relationship with two businessmen: Arnon Milchan, an Israeli Hollywood film producer, and James Packer, an Australian billionaire. In a document summarising the indictment, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit alleged that Mr Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, received various goods from the businessmen, "mainly cigar boxes and cases of champagne".  They were allegedly given in a continuous manner, "such that they became a sort of 'supply channel'". The value of the goods was approximately 700,000 shekels ($198,000; £162,000).

Given the connections between them, Mr Netanyahu "should have refrained from dealing with Mr Milchan's affairs", the attorney general said. Despite this, he claimed, Mr Netanyahu "acted for the benefit of Mr Milchan as part of his official roles" between 2011 and 2016. Mr Netanyahu has insisted they were merely tokens of friendship and that he did not act inappropriately in exchange for them.  Mr Milchan and Mr Packer are not facing any charges, but like the prime minister they have denied any wrongdoing.

Case 2000 involves alleged attempts to strike a deal with the publisher of the Yedioth Ahronot newspaper group, Arnon Mozes, to promote legislation to weaken Yedioth's main competitor, Israel Hayom, in exchange for more favorable coverage of Netanyahu.

On 3 August 2017, Israeli police confirmed for the first time that Netanyahu was suspected of crimes involving fraud, breach of trust, and bribes in cases "1000" and "2000". The next day, it was reported that the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Ari Harow, had signed a deal with prosecutors to testify against Netanyahu in these cases.

Israelis protest against Netanyahu outside his official residence in Jerusalem on 30 July 2020

On 13 February 2018, Israeli police recommended that Netanyahu be charged with corruption. According to a police statement, sufficient evidence exists to indict the prime minister on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in the two cases. Netanyahu responded that the allegations were baseless and that he would continue as prime minister. On 25 November 2018, it was reported that Economic Crimes Division Director Liat Ben-Ari recommended indictment for both cases.

On 28 February 2019, the Israeli attorney general announced his intent to file indictments against Netanyahu on bribe and fraud charges in three different cases. Netanyahu was formally indicted on 21 November 2019. If Netanyahu is convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison for bribery and a maximum of three years for fraud and breach of trust. He is the first sitting prime minister in Israel's history to be charged with a crime. On 23 November 2019, it was announced that Netanyahu, in compliance with legal precedent set by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, would relinquish his agriculture, health, social affairs and diaspora affairs portfolios. The matter of forcing a prime minister to resign due to an indictment has yet to be tested in court. He was officially charged on 28 January 2020.

Netanyahu's criminal trial is set to begin on 24 May 2020, having been initially scheduled for March of that year but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Yet, on 17 May 2020, Netanyahu was sworn-in for a fifth term as prime minister in a coalition with Benny Gantz. This occurred after the 2019–20 Israeli political crisis.

Against a background of the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel and Netanyahu's criminal trial, extensive demonstrations broke out against him in front of the Prime Minister's residence. Following this, Netanyahu ordered to disperse the demonstrations using COVID-19 special regulations, limiting them to 20 people and at a distance of 1,000 meters from their homes. However, the exact opposite was achieved; the demonstrations were enlarged and dispersed to over 1,000 centers. By March 2021, Israel became the country with the highest vaccinated population per capita in the world against COVID-19.

"TEL AVIV — The leaders of two of Israel's main opposition parties said they would work together to form a coalition government on Sunday, in a move that could see Benjamin Netanyahu unseated as prime minister for the first time in 12 years."In the last two years, Israel has been in a circle of elections, internal fighting with no leadership," Bennett said Sunday in a televised announcement. "This will not happen again. We can stop this and take control. There is no option for a right-wing government lead by Netanyahu — it’s either a change government or new elections.""No one believes Netanyahu anymore," Bennett added. "In this critical moment, I’m saying I intend to form a national unity government with Lapid."

Naftali Bennett, head of the small religious and nationalist Yamina party, and opposition leader Yair Lapid, of the centrist Yesh Atid party, said they had joined forces.

Today, shown on TV IL, they have everything open, and a wonderful way to keep the virus from returning.  They are way ahead of the rest of the world in this, and tourists are flying in.  They can thank Netanyahu.  

if Netanyahu is ousted, he most likely will make a come-back later on.  He's still relatively young for a politician, and is one of the most capable men on the planet.  


Resource:

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/31/1001876644/unlikely-israeli-political-coalition-threatens-to-oust-netanyahu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-assembly-israel-iran/netanyahu-draws-red-line-on-irans-nuclear-program-idUSBRE88Q0GI20120927

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2021/05/30/israel-coalition-government-benjamin-netanyahu-gold-sot-vpx-nr.cnn

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47409739

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/opposition-parties-unite-israel-bid-unseat-netanyahu-prime-minister-n1269085

https://childhoodbiography.com/benjamin-netanyahu-childhood-story-plus-untold-biography-facts/