I spent 7 months in Jerusalem in 1987. There was an article in the Jerusalem Post at the time that I really wish I'd kept, I can't find it online. Social workers were talking about the biggest problem facing ordinary Israelis living in Jerusalem. The answer was unanimous: JEWS.
By this, they meant "haredi" or Orthodox Jews, who were throwing rocks at people who drove cars on Friday night and calling women wearing jeans whores and so on. They breed like rabbits (Israelis told me this often) and were taking over the city, block by block. If one religious family moved into a street, people would sell their apartments in panic. Where there's one, the horde will follow. It was affecting more and more of the city. The JEWS are coming. Again, these are ordinary Israelis we're talking about.
I wonder what Netanyahu really thought about Trump moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. This is an enemy-occupied city for the Zionist state, make no mistake. Over 30% of the population of the city are haredi, and an astonishing 55% of young people are ultra-Orthodox. The average birth rate in that community has gone down, it's only about 7 per family now. You would regularly see 11 or 12 children trailing after their mother on the bus.
Like rabbits, I was told.
So the state is trying to conscript them into the army now. Watch this video, showing some street action against this. I came across a new word the other day, "hafganos", plural of "hafganah", Israeli term for protest. Not been used on this forum before. The rabbis send their troops onto the street to block the traffic and cause absolute chaos. Believe me, people are stressed enough in Israel without some idiots blocking your road. There was another video in which a bus driver took a baseball bat out and had to be restrained.
This riveting footage from – um – Yeshiva World shows just how much fun this is for the yeshiva kids, and what an absolute nightmare for the Israeli cops. At 1:18 or so, you'll hear chants of "Nazi Nazi" – this is common, there is much worse.
For all the hype about krav maga, three hefty cops cannot budge one weedy little yeshiva bocher.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Trump knows exactly how explosive the city is, the place is completely nuts. Moving the Embassy has been his boldest move so far, in my opinion. This was a Biblical moment and with this step he sealed the deal forever with a large proportion of his electorate.
The haredi know: time is on their side. They are breeding like a horde of black rabbits, and sheer demographics will one day give them total power over Jerusalem. They actually hate the Zionists more than they hate the Palestinians, it's quite inspiring. It's going to get really ugly on those streets, judging by the preview.