RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/message-to-iran-the-era-of-lies-is-over/91542/

As Israel’s new government settles in, President Biden and Prime Minister Bennett agree to disagree on Iran — which means we could be at the start of a geopolitical game of good-cop-bad-cop.

Addressing the Knesset before the Sunday vote that made him premier, Mr. Bennett said that “as the greatest threat to Israel, the Iranian nuclear project is reaching a critical point.” The Mideast, he added, “is yet to recover from the effects of the first nuclear deal, which emboldened Iran to the tune of billions of dollars, and with international legitimacy.”

Renewing it “is a mistake that will once again lend legitimacy to one of the most discriminatory and violent regimes in the world,” Mr. Bennett said. Then he made clear that “Israel will not allow Iran to be equipped with nuclear weapons. Israel is not a party to the agreement, and will maintain full freedom to act.”

Freedom to act is key to the new government’s Iran policy, as it was for Benjamin Netanyahu when he was prime minister.

Yes, Yair Lapid — the new foreign minister and alternate prime minister — said one of his top goals is to repair relations with America’s Democrats. Addressing the foreign ministry staff, he said that Israel must prepare for renewal of the JCPOA. Yet he insisted that “this is a bad deal” and that “Israel will use every option at its disposal to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon.”

In an interview last week, outgoing chief of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, detailed some secrets behind the Israeli methods — sabotage of Iran’s nuclear facilities, assassinations of top nuclear scientists, and, most glaringly, taking an entire nuclear archive from a warehouse at the heart of Tehran and safely smuggling it to Israel.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/mark_levin_provides_insight_about_what_happened_in_israel.html

Those who long for a parliamentary system in America, instead of our “winner take all” system, would do well to look at what’s been happening in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, after 12 years as Prime Minister is now out and, in his place, there’s an unstable coalition made of people whose only common bond is that they, like the Israeli equivalent of America’s Deep State, wanted Bibi out. Mark Levin does a good job explaining how what happened.

In parliamentary systems, the people do not vote directly for the Prime Minister. Instead, parliament itself chooses its leader. If there’s a clear majority and a single minority, it’s simple. If there’s a clear majority and several minorities, all of which are too small to combine against the majority, it’s still simple.

It starts being a problem when there isn’t a majority but is, instead, only a plurality. A plurality means that one party received more votes than each of the other parties received. However, the first party nevertheless failed to receive more than half of the total votes. Dictionary.com offers a good example:

For example, Gabriel won the plurality for school vice president with 40 percent of votes while Kiara came in with 35 percent and Carl with 25 percent. If Gabriel had received 54%, he would have received both the majority and plurality. 

In that situation, all the various parties start making deals – building coalitions – in the hope that their coalition will have a majority of members in the parliament. When the coalitions fall apart (as they often do), elections begin all over again. It’s an unstable system, especially in times of war – and Israel is always in a time of war.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/oppressed_palestinians_or_potentially_oppressive_terrorists_.html

Why do Palestinians, who present themselves as victims of land-grabbing Israeli oppressors, extol and find inspiration in the land-grabbing oppressors of history? 

On April 16, 2021, Al Jazeera published an article by ‘Adnan Abu ‘Amar, “head of the Political Science Department at the University of the Ummah in Gaza,” on the topic of jihad during the month of Ramadan. In it, he explains how Palestinians find “inspiration” in various jihads throughout Islamic history, “prominent among them the raid of Badr, the opening of Mecca, the opening of al-Andalus, and the battle of the pavement of martyrs [the Battle of Tours].”

Interestingly, in all these battles, the Muslims were the aggressors.  They invaded non-Muslim territory, butchered and enslaved its inhabitants and appropriated their lands — and for no other reason than that they were “infidels,” non-Muslims. 

The battle of Badr was occasioned by Muhammad’s raids on non-Muslim caravans; the “opening” of Mecca — in Muslim historiography, the euphemistic word “opening [to the light of Islam]” is always used in place of “conquest” — was simply that, the conquest of a non-Muslim city; the opening/conquest of al-Andalus is a reference to the years 711-716, when Muslims invaded and slaughtered countless thousands of Christians in Spain and torched their churches; and the battle of Tours is, of course, where the Muslim invasions into the heart of Europe were finally halted in 732.

In fact, Palestinian elements are constantly praising the unjustified conquests of others.  On May 29, Hizb al-Tahrir — the “Liberation Party” — often holds large outdoor events near al-Aqsa mosque to commemorate the anniversary of the Islamic conquest of Constantinople (May 29, 1453).   During one of these, after all the takbirs (chants of “Allahu Akbar”) had subsided, Palestinian cleric Nidhal Siam spoke:

Oh Muslims, the anniversary of the opening [that is, conquest] of Constantinople brings tidings of things to come. It brings tidings that Rome will be conquered in the near future, Allah willing….   [Moreover,] Islam will throw its neighbors to the ground, and its reach will span across the east and the west of this Earth. This is Allah’s promise, and Allah does not renege on his promises.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/lessons-yom-kippur-war-pre-emptive-strikes-and-hugh-fitzgerald/

The Yom Kippur War was a war Israel almost lost. The accepted story is that Israel was taken by surprise; that Egypt and Syria managed to launch simultaneous attacks against an unprepared IDF. It turns out that the true story was more disturbing than that: Israel knew in advance, thanks to American intelligence, of the Arabs’ plans, but refused to engage in a pre-emptive strike because of its leaders’ fear of world condemnation. They were willing, that is, to sacrifice Israeli lives in order to limit the diplomatic damage that would likely result from a pre-emptive strike. This was not a wise decision. The story is here: “Israel Knew of Imminent Attack Before Yom Kippur War, Did Not Strike for Fear of International Reaction: Documents,” by Benjamin Kerstein, Algemeiner, June 6, 2021:

Newly released documents reveal that the Israeli government knew that Syria and Egypt were set to attack Israel on Yom Kippur 1973, but chose not to make a preemptive strike, fearing international condemnation.

The Egyptian and Syrian surprise attack on Israel’s southern and northern borders set off the Yom Kippur War, which proved to be one of Israel’s most traumatic conflicts — with over 3,000 dead, thousands wounded, and enormous economic damage to the Jewish state.

Israeli news site Walla reported Sunday that the newly revealed documents include protocols of the Israeli security cabinet, which met on Yom Kippur just before the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack to discuss newly arrived intelligence that war was about to break out.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told the assembled ministers, “The assumption is that this evening, at dusk, or shortly before dark, a full-scale attack will begin on both fronts.”

There was still time to order airstrikes that day, or the next, on both Egyptian and Syrian forces, and to move more IDF troops into the Sinai (which in 1973 Israel still held), and further south, as well as call up the reserves on which the IDF must depend. But Israel did none of those things before Egypt and Syria attacked. It didn’t want to be seen as the aggressor.

There is a phrase to describe this Israeli attitude: the “galut mentality.” This refers to the attitude of Diaspora Jews of bowing and scraping and being quiet for fear of offending the Christians; thank goodness there was no such attitude in June 1967, when Israel attacked first, putting aside any worries about what the world might think, and consequently was able to destroy the Egyptian Air Force within the first day of the Six-Day War.

This information [about a full-scale attack by Egypt and Syria], he said, had come from American intelligence, which had “credible information” that an attack was imminent and had informed the Israelis a few days before.

Since the intelligence about Egyptian and Syrian plans came from the Americans, they would understand fully – and certainly not condemn – Israel for striking first. They could even testify that they had been the ones to furnish that information to Israel. It’s unclear what “condemnation” Israel was worried about. Did it fear condemnation by the Europeans? By the U.N.? As long as the Americans could exercise their veto power in the U.N. Security Council, the U.N. could no nothing except issue its usual anti-Israel resolutions at the General Assembly, which unlike Security Council resolutions, are non-binding.