RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-latest-yad-vashem-fiasco/

 When Effi Eitam was tapped in 2020 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the new chairman of Yad Vashem—to replace Avner Shalev, who had held the position for nearly three decades—all hell broke loose on the left. The religious-Zionist retired brigadier general and former Knesset member and Cabinet minister was falsely accused by most of the media and academia, both in Israel and among Jews across the ocean, of being a right-wing fanatical racist.

The controversy was filled with the customary falsehoods, though mud-slinging would be a more apt depiction of the vilification of one of Israel’s best and brightest. The politicians, Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivors who opposed the appointment pointed to Eitam’s comments on Palestinians and Arab Israelis, on the grounds that such criticism is not fitting for an institution commemorating the mass slaughter of innocents.

What they really meant is that Eitam would never go along with the effort to universalize the Shoah.

The carry-on was so intense that he didn’t stand a chance. In his stead, Dani Dayan was selected and approved for the job. Dayan, a member of the Yad Vashem Council, had just returned to Israel after completing a four-year stint as the country’s consul general in New York.

During his tenure in the Big Apple, he managed to shake his own “dubious right-wing” reputation—as a previous chairman of the “far-right-wing” umbrella organization of settlements, the Yesha Council—and become palatable to liberal circles at home and abroad.

Unfortunately, since taking the reins, he has demonstrated the ability to accomplish this by toeing a politically correct line.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18841/palestinians-arrests-torture

Abbas was obviously not thinking about these prisoners when he expressed concern over the conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. He seems uncomfortable discussing the fact that his security forces are arresting and torturing Palestinians.

Instead, Abbas would like the world to focus only on the prisoners held by Israel and ignore the protests against the “political detentions” that take place every week not far from his office and residence in Ramallah.

Hours before Abbas’s remarks about the prisoners in Israel, the mother of Ahmad Hreash, a Palestinian man arrested by the Palestinian security forces more than 80 days ago, was rushed to hospital. She has been on hunger strike for 10 days to demand the release of her son from the Palestinians’ notorious Jericho Prison. The prison is infamously referred to by Palestinians as the “Jericho Slaughterhouse” because of brutal torture Palestinians say they have undergone while being held there by Abbas’s security forces.

“They keep extending his detention without us, or even the lawyer, knowing what the charges are.” — Mukaram Qurt, mother of Ahmad Hreash, Al Jazeera, August 25, 2022.

Palestinian Lawyers for Justice, a human rights group, said that it has documented 117 cases of “political detentions” by the Palestinian security forces since the beginning of June 2022.

The detainees include six Palestinians who had previously served time in Israeli prison for anti-Israeli activities and are currently being held in the “Jericho Slaughterhouse.” The group noted that the Palestinian security forces were continuing to imprison Palestinians because of their political affiliation of for criticizing and opposing the Palestinian Authority.

“They hit me with their legs and hands. They beat me with rubber hoses. They put me in a tiny cell with no mattresses or pillows. I had to use my shoe as a pillow while sleeping on the floor.” — Mujahed Tabanjah, Palestinian journalist, Facebook, August 16, 2022.

Alarmed by the ongoing crackdown on political opponents and other Palestinians, several Palestinian activists launched an online campaign titled “Political Detention is a Crime,” in protest of the arrests and torture in Palestinian prisons.

When Palestinians arrest or brutally torture other Palestinians, it does not appear to be “news that’s fit to print.” Palestinians who go on hunger strikes in Palestinian prisons are often ignored by the media, while those who protest against Israel receive wide coverage.

By ignoring the horrific human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority, the international community and media expose their hypocrisy in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are also doing an incalculable disservice to the Palestinian people, many of whom have been victimized by their own leaders.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on August 27 that he is concerned about the condition of Palestinians who are being held in Israeli prisons. He described the prisoners, many of whom have been convicted of carrying out or involvement in attacks against Israel and Israeli citizens, as “freedom fighters” and announced that the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people will continue to support them “until they gain their freedom.”

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/how-human-rights-believers-fund-evil?utm_source=email

This week’s Jewish Chronicle features a major story by David Rose, which reveals that Britain has been investing millions of pounds in training the Palestinian Authority in human rights even while the PA has been perpetrating torture and beating a prominent Palestinian democracy and human rights campaigner to death.

David’s story can be read here, here and here.

The opinion piece that I wrote for the JC to accompany the story follows below.

***

For many in the west, it has long been an article of faith that peace will only come to the Middle East when the Palestinians gain a state of their own.

Along with the EU and America, successive British governments have promoted a “two-state solution” to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

Central to this thinking is a key distinction. Hamas is considered beyond the pale as Islamist extremists who throw gay Palestinians off rooftops to their death and make no bones about their aim to destroy Israel. But the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas is deemed “moderate” and entitled to run a future state of Palestine that would be part of the community of nations.

The JC has now exposed this faith in the PA as an excruciating misjudgment.

For while Britain has been investing millions in it in the arrogant belief that it can teach it western values, Palestinian officers have been murdering and torturing dissenters who campaign for their human rights.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/mahmoud-abbas-holocaust-inversion-richard-l-cravatts/

When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke at a news conference in Berlin with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Aug. 17, he publicly revealed, perhaps inadvertently, that while he has a long-standing record of Holocaust denial, he still felt perfectly willing to draw a comparison between the lethal actions of the Third Reich toward Jews and Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians.

“From 1947 to the present day,” Abbas said, “Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities—in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim, and many others—50 massacres, 50 Holocausts. And until today, and every day, there are casualties killed by the Israeli military.” 

It was Abbas’ use of the word “Holocaust” that drew such a fierce blowback, not only because it was recklessly uttered in Germany, but that it suggested that the deaths of Palestinians by Israel exceeded the extermination of Jews by the Nazis—in fact, absurdly, fifty times as many deaths.

Abbas, of course, is well known for his crude Holocaust denial, having written his doctoral dissertation that cast doubt on the number of Jewish fatalities in the Final Solution. In 1984, that dissertation was published as a book, The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, and laid out the fantasy that Zionists themselves were complicit in supporting the Nazi genocide, that they told the Nazis “to do as they wish to the Jews, as long as it guarantees individual immigration to Palestine . . . This was because it [the Zionist leaders] thought that raising the number of victims would increase its rights at the end of the war, when the bounty is divided.”

In Abbas’ hallucinatory worldview, Zionists were so inhumane, so rapacious and murderous in their zeal to create a Jewish homeland, that they willingly sacrificed millions of their brethren in order to achieve that statehood, not to mention reaping reparations as a result of inflated fatality numbers.

And even if Jews are to be believed when they recount the Holocaust, Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians is inexcusable since they should understand suffering and death by a murderous regime “If they [Jews] say that they made sacrifices in World War II, and we respect what they say, they should not treat us the way they were treated,” Abbas told Polish journalists in 2015. “We must not be a victim of the victim.” 

https://bit.ly/3R5Uzh5

*Has Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea & Samaria enhanced or injured US interests?

Will the proposed Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria boost or undermine US interests?

*During the October 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony, top Jordanian military officers warned their Israeli counterparts that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, transforming Jordan into a uncontrollable terrorist heaven, haunting the highly vulnerable pro-US regimes of the oil-producing Arab Gulf states, as well as the pro-US Egypt.

*In June 1967, Israel gained control over the topographically-dominant mountain ridges of the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria, in a preemptive war against Egypt-Syria-Jordan, which dramatically enhanced its posture of deterrence. 

Israel was transformed from a violence-inducing national security-consumer to a violence-deterring national security-producer, evolving into a unique force-multiplier for the US, constraining the maneuverability of anti-US rogue entities.

*The mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – 3,000 ft. above the Jordan Valley and 2,000 ft. above pre-1967 Israel – play a major role in determining the survival of Israel, the pro-US Hashemite regime in Jordan and Jordan’s neighbors in the Arabian Peninsula.

*Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria has eliminated much of the threat (to Jordan) of a Judea and Samaria-based Palestinian terrorism and has deterred domestic and regional anti-Hashemite elements.

*For example, in 2022, the Iranian-inspired tension along the Syria-Jordan border – from the Golan Heights to Iraq – is intensifying.  It features Iranian-made drones and cyberattacks on Jordan, as well as an increasing infiltration by Syria-based Iranian terrorists, arms smugglers and drug traffickers. Iran’s Ayatollahs aim at toppling the Hashemite regime, extending their reach toward the Mediterranean, undermining the US’ strategic posture in the Middle East, and intensifying the lethal threat to Israel and Saudi Arabia (Jordan’s southern neighbor).

*Jordan may not be able to face the escalated Iranian threat on its own. While it does not rely on an effective US or Arab military deployment, it perceives Israel as its only proven ally, which has systematically flexed its military muscle against Iran. Moreover, Israel’s posture of deterrence emboldens Jordan, in the face of the Iranian threat, as it did in prior threats posed to the Hashemite regime from the Syrian front.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/israeli-high-tech-foils-hamas-and-islamic-jihad-ari-lieberman/

Israel’s successful conclusion of Operation Breaking Dawn capped several achievements for the Israel Defense Forces that highlighted its technical prowess and vaunted intelligence capabilities. The clash also underscored the extent to which terror entities in Gaza have lost political capital in the two years since the signing of the Abraham Accords. During the conflict, the IDF excelled both offensively and defensively and Israel’s nemesis to the north, Hezbollah, has taken notice. The Iranian proxy militia has engaged in some saber rattling recently but it is keenly aware of Israel’s military capabilities and its own military and political limitations.

When it was first deployed just over a decade ago, Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense system maintained a success rate of between 75 to 78 percent. Continuous software and hardware improvements to Iron Dome have made the system 97 percent effective.

According to information released by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, in 66 hours between August 5, and August 7, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired some 1,175 rockets at Israel and 990 of these landed in Israeli territory. Iron Dome intercepted 450 rockets. The remaining rockets landed in open areas. Iron Dome is programmed to launch only if the system determines that the rocket’s flight path poses a danger to civilians or critical infrastructure, thus increasing its efficiency and cost effectiveness.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/prager-u-video-israel-apartheid-state-prager-u/

Does Israel discriminate against Arabs? Is it today’s version of apartheid South Africa? Olga Meshoe, herself a South African whose family experienced apartheid, settles the question once and for all.

Don’t miss this must-watch short video below:

(The Palestinian Authority’s stealth attempt to take over Judea and Samaria – JNS.org)

“The illegal building that’s taking place by the Arabs has increased so dramatically in the last year that it’s out of control. If we judge according to where these activities are happening, they’re definitely in places which you can see they’re trying to create facts on the ground,” says Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi. Diligently following a master plan worked out over 10 years ago, the Palestinian Authority is laying claim to large tracts of Israeli state land through illegal building. Resembling Potemkin villages, many structures stand empty, hollow, windowless, alone or clumped together. The land grab has been hugely successful because Israeli countermeasures have been so feeble, Jews living in the area tell JNS.

“Their side is focused, determined and has a well-developed plan. Our side is unfocused, indecisive and in many cases not even aware of what’s going on,” said Michael Sperber, a family lawyer who lives in Efrat, a city of 15,000 about a half-hour’s drive south of Jerusalem in the Judean hills.

Sperber, a long-time resident of Efrat (he served as deputy mayor 15 years ago) has taken it upon himself to document illegal Arab construction in the area. From Dagan, the city’s northernmost neighborhood, Sperber has a window seat onto Arab buildings advancing from Bethlehem across the narrow valley below and up toward Efrat.

Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi told JNS that, “The illegal building that’s taking place by the Arabs has increased so dramatically in the last year that it’s out of control. If we judge according to where these activities are happening, they’re definitely in places which you can see they’re trying to create facts on the ground.”

Revivi noted that if the illegal structures are not hooked up to the sewage system this could lead to pollution of underground reservoirs, and if they are erected too close to roads then this could prevent the widening of lanes in the future.