April 9, 2019, Israel is going to hold its 21st national elections, seven months before they would have happened anyway. In a parliamentary democracy such as England or Israel, it is the right of a ruling coalition to decide to schedule elections early if they think they cannot continue to function or if they think the timing is good for “producing a new first down,” to borrow an expression from football. If by holding the elections now they think they might win, with favorable results, and waiting seven months for the scheduled time, they might lose, they will sometimes hold the elections early.

Under the present circumstances, Netanyahu decided to hold elections early for any of the following reasons: 1) There is pressure right now from the Supreme Court to pass laws that will make army deferments for chareidi Torah learners a smidgeon harder to attain. Netanyahu wanted to avoid that through elections, this being the main type of protection Netanyahu offers the chareidim in exchange for their voting with the coalition on other issues. 2) Netanyahu has criminal charges hanging in the air, charges he denies, and he wants to try to squeeze in elections before possible indictments make him less popular. 3) In April, Netanyahu will still be under 70 years old, and 69 sounds younger than 70.

In its first 70 years, Israel has not produced a constitution. Because the Jewish People possess a Torah, many in Israel view that as our ideal constitution and would oppose the authoring of another. Hence the issue has remained in abeyance.

As a compromise, going back to 1950, the Israeli Knesset occasionally produces “basic laws,” laws meant to take precedence over, and override, other laws already in existence, with the secondary hope that a growing corpus of these basic laws will fill the vacuum deriving from the absence of a constitution.

Thus, back in July, the Israeli Knesset, whose present constellation is

If you’re reading this article, you probably live somewhere in the Baltimore area and you probably like it, and I can understand that. I grew up in Baltimore before moving to Israel, and I have only pleasant memories of that town.

Some people want to come to Israel and come, and some want to but don’t. I would like to suggest a third possibility, whereby you keep your options open and do yourself some good in the meantime. I’m talking about buying a home in Israel.

In plain, realistic terms, I think buying in Israel is a good idea. Whatever your reasons, it makes financial sense. It’s a good investment. The fact is this: The Jewish population is growing, through births and immigration, and sometimes immigrations are large and unexpected. This growth increases demand, raising prices. Likewise, as the country grows, as mass-transit improves, new areas of the country are constantly becoming more attractive. With today’s excellent trains running north-south along the entire coast, the south and north are not as far from the center as they used to be. Jerusalem is about to be 25 minutes from Tel Aviv, thanks to the high-speed train that is nearing completion. The country is getting smaller. The same is true in Judea and Samaria, where I live, which is gradually becoming an accepted part of the country. So prices are rising there as well, but they are still relatively low.

“Today a nine-year-old Palestinian boy on a school trip to the West Bank’s only municipal zoo [in Qalqiliya] had his arm bitten off by a bear that he had apparently tried to feed. The UK’s Daily Mail reported that the animal had eaten the severed limb. The Palestinian Ministry of Local Governance has closed the zoo until further notice and has set up a committee to investigate the incident and deliver its findings within a week.... It was not immediately clear if any action was taken against the bear.” (The Times of Israel, April 25, 2017)

*  *  *Qalqiliya has been in the news over the past two weeks. Until then, had you asked me what I knew about that town of 50,000 under the Palestinian Authority, I would have said, “Isn’t that the place where they sneak across the border to Kfar Saba and steal bicycles and laundry?”

Then I heard that they’ve got a zoo as well, so I thought it could provide a human interest story – you know – a chance to say something positive. Yet as you can see from the tragic event described above, not every zoo is a safe place to take children.

Actually, the most recent news about Qalqiliya comes “closer to home,” literally. It seems that back in September of last year, two months before the U.S. presidential election – and presumably under pressure from Barack Obama, whose politically-correct female clone was expected to win – the Israeli government’s cabinet agreed in principle to transfer enough land to Qalqiliya from Jewish “Area C” of Judea and Samaria to enable the Arabs there to more than double the size of their town (via permission to build 14,000 homes).

Before the Oslo “peace” accords, there were no hilltop outposts. When a group of Jews wanted to start a new town in Judea and Samaria, on empty government land, they did so, and the town immediately received governmental recognition.

       After Oslo, in order not to raise the ire of the Western powers, Israel stopped building new towns in Judea and Samaria but continued expanding old ones. Threats from such initiatives as Oslo, Wye, Annapolis, Camp David Two, etc, etc., led to the creation of “outposts,” new towns built from scratch outside the boundaries of the established towns of Judea and Samaria. The thinking was this: If we don’t use it, we’ll lose it.

This is not the sort of article I normally write. It’s an opinion piece. I’ve got something to say and there’s not a lot of time, so I’m just going to say it: Vote Trump and feel good about it.

For me, living as I do in Israel, there is only one issue. I judge an American presidential candidate based on how I think he will behave towards Israel. (For those who think that is a parochial view, hang on until this article’s conclusion.) As far as I am concerned, America has not done too well on that score for quite a while. Today, when Israel builds five new buildings for Jews in Jerusalem, the American secretary of state calls up Israel’s prime minister and yells at him for 45 minutes. I want that to change.