The papers reported that two rockets fired from Gaza on Dec. 18 had landed in the Israeli border town of Sderot and in a community south of the coastal city of Ashkelon, “causing damage but no casualties.” The next item read that Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said while touring the Gaza border region the following day that the government had known there would be a cost for US President Donald Trump’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “Such things appear to have a price that’s worth paying,” the minister said, not forgetting to praise the “optimism and high spirits” of area residents.
The same day, Liberman declared his “full backing” for the soldiers who displayed restraint when a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, Ahed Tamimi, slapped them recently in what some quarters claim was an effort to provoke a response. The soldiers proved that the Israel Defense Forces are “an ethical army guided by moral values,” he said.
