RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/talk-about-a-mixture-of-irony-and-idiocy-in-israeli-covid-policy-679607

When Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz was caught on a hot mic on Sunday admitting that the “green pass” system is a necessary means of pressuring the public to get vaccinated — and not based on epidemiology — his remarks were treated by Channel 12 as a big scoop. His words were also held up by anti-vaxxers as evidence of the government’s allegedly unjustified coercion.

“We don’t want to do things that have no medical justification,” Horowitz was heard telling Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, in response to her saying that the restriction on outdoor dining should be lifted. “But I’m telling you that we have a problem. The ‘green pass’ isn’t even being enforced; certainly not in the Arab sector, where it doesn’t exist at all. And I’m seeing the effect on the hospitals.”

At this moment, Intelligence Minister Elazar Stern approached the pair and chimed in, “It’s annoying that they’re taking up the [hospital] beds,” he said.
“Those in intensive care, yes,” added Horowitz.

It’s pretty funny that the exchange caused such a stir. Anyone exposed to the changing regulations as much as to the virus itself knows that his revelation contained both truth and inherent contradictions.

Indeed, Israelis have come to grasp that the only real consensus among health officials these days surrounds the efficacy of inoculation – though some doctors have been questioning the need for or wisdom of a third jab. The rest of the incessant discussions and debates to which we are treated on a daily basis sound like background noise.

We also realize by now that the frequently incomprehensible rules were put in place for those who were likely to follow them. Knocking on an open door is always easier than trying to bang down a closed one, after all.

HOROWITZ IS probably kicking himself while wiping egg off his face for having his honesty aired unwittingly. But the “green pass” and “traffic light” systems are and have been pointless, particularly in a state like Israel.
Let’s not forget that it’s a country whose citizens – Jewish, Arab, haredi, National-Religious or secular – are used to and adept at finding loopholes. This is especially the case when directives appear illogical. Yet even when they make sense, the populace is perfectly content to ignore them.

Israelis of all stripes can be seen puffing away next to “no smoking” signs, for example, or playing Frisbee under “keep off the grass” placards. Ditto for picnickers who leave behind garbage on beaches and in parks, despite admonitions and an abundance of trash cans.

Nevertheless, most of the public rushed to receive the first and second doses of the vaccine, and nearly a third of the population has already been treated to No. 3. It’s not for nothing that Israel is noted for its impressive inoculation drive.

https://jewishlink.news/features/46007-lawfare-a-cynical-manipulation-of-the-rule-of-law

Having failed to destroy Israel militarily, economically and through terrorism, the Palestinian Arabs have restored to using “political warfare and legal warfare,” said former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. “Today the trenches are in Geneva in the Council of Human Rights, or in New York in the General Assembly, or in the Security Council, or in The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to damage our foreign relations with other nations.”

Lawfare is a weapon in the political war used by NGOs to delegitimize the Jewish state, demonize her leaders and limit the dissemination of public information about radical Islam. Israel’s enemies exploit U.S. and European courts by initiating civil lawsuits and criminal investigations to thwart Israel’s ability to fight terror by accusing her of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” he affirmed.

Captured Al-Qaeda terrorists were ordered to file spurious claims of being abused and tortured in order for the media, the public and the courts to see them as the true victims. As attorney Brooke Goldstein, director of the Lawfare Project maintains, “The object is as much to win a public relations victory as a court case.” This has not stopped them from overtly ignoring basic human rights when they brainwash children to become homicide bombers or use them as human shields.

Anne Herzberg, legal adviser for NGO Monitor, points out the prominent role NGOs have assumed in this process, due to their resources and mostly unrestrained power. Political scientist James McGann explains: “NGOs or civil society organizations (CSOs) have moved from backstage to center stage in world politics and are exerting their power and influence in every aspect of international relations and policymaking … ”

Furthermore, NGOs are “not neutral on issues of policy formation.” This “dual role of providing information and acting as an agent of political pressure on the government, leading to potential conflicts of interest.” This becomes important with regards to the expansion of “universal jurisdiction” and the establishment of international legal institutions.”

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313549

You are probably wondering what comes next for the man who’s done everything wrong since he became president.

Wait no more. Biden has set his sights on Jerusalem so far as his next blunder following Afghanistan.Biden is prepared to fix everything that ain’t broke.

Robert Gates, defense secretary under Obama, put it like this: “Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”Say this about that, he is consistent, and to remain consistently wrong, Biden seems determined to reopen the US special consulate in Jerusalem.

(That is totally separate from the US Embassy in Jerusalem.)
Accordingly, the Taliban are now people we trust, and the Palestinian Authority are Israel’s partners in peace…among other such fantasies.
Trump had the consulate shut down, largely because he was clear-eyed and knew that it was designated to do business with the PA—terrorists.

That has never been a bother to Biden and fellow Democrat lawmakers, who view the term terrorist differently from Monday to Thursday.

Accordingly, the Taliban are now people we trust, and the Palestinian Authority are Israel’s partners in peace…among other such fantasies.

Re-opening the consulate amounts to a reward for terrorism…terrorism aimed specifically against Jews through the Palestinian Authority’s Martyrs Fund.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trial-over-killing-of-activist-drives-dissent-against-palestinian-leadership-11631629137?mod=world_major_2_pos1

RAMALLAH, West Bank—A Palestinian military court began the trial of 14 members of its security forces who are accused of beating to death a critic of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a case that has highlighted what activists say is the growing reach of paramilitary troops in the West Bank and a creeping culture of authoritarianism.

Nizar Banat’s death in June sparked widespread protests in Ramallah and Hebron, where he lived.

The 42-year-old was well known for his videos on Facebook and YouTube, where he frequently berated Mr. Abbas and a government that had increasingly become unaccountable in the eyes of many Palestinians. Earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority that runs the West Bank canceled elections after opinion polls suggested the ruling Fatah Party would lose.

Other videos veered into attacks on Israel and what Mr. Banat called Western-style feminism. Many of the videos drew thousands of views.

Mr. Banat’s death, allegedly at the hands of security forces, was caught on security cameras outside the house where he was staying and went viral, further inflaming the antigovernment mood in the territory and triggering a short-lived protest movement before a brutal clampdown. Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza and is regarded as a terror group by the U.S. and Israel, tried to expand its own influence in the West Bank during the chaos, though with limited success.

The current trial appears unlikely to assuage the anger over Mr. Banat’s death. His family didn’t appear at the courthouse in Ramallah where proceedings took place. They said their absence was a protest against a trial they said was meant to lay the blame on low-level officers and protect senior Palestinian Authority officials who had allegedly issued orders to drag Mr. Banat out into the street and beat him.

“We can’t be under the same roof with the killers of Nizar but moreover the proceedings are incomplete without those who actually issued the officers; those on trial are only scapegoats,” said Ghassan Banat, the victim’s brother.

Before the hearing began, 14 men accused of the killing were led into a black-barred cage in the courtroom. They stated their names when asked—the first time they had been publicly identified—but proceedings were cut short when their lawyer failed to appear. The next hearing was set for Sept. 21.

The lawyer for Mr. Banat’s family said the family could withdraw from the judicial process entirely if the defense for the accused drags out the trial.

Palestinian officials have presented Mr. Banat’s death, and the crackdown on protesters, as isolated incidents and said that they are committed to civil liberties. Critics say the events are part of a worrisome trend that has eroded trust in the Palestinian Authority.

Besides canceling the elections, authorities are struggling to address the economic fallout from successive Covid-19 lockdowns and are facing growing political pressure from the U.S. and European Union over the arrest of opposition activists.

Ghassan Khatib, the founder of the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, a polling agency, and a vice president at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said the Fatah Party has been reluctant to offer up senior officials to public questioning over Mr. Banat’s killing because of the party’s internal divisions under the weakening leadership of Mr. Abbas, who is now 85.

Some Palestinians fear dissatisfaction with the leadership in the West Bank is turning into a crisis.

“The Palestinian public believes the deterioration in legitimacy and the split between Gaza and West Bank weakens the Palestinians vis-à-vis Israel,” said Mr. Khatib.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/israel-tries-lighten-burden-palestinians-gaza-and-hugh-fitzgerald/

At the end of August and beginning of September, Israel did what it could to ease the lives of Palestinians both in Gaza and in the PA-run territories in the West Bank. First, it expanded the Gaza Strip’s fishing zone to 15 nautical miles – the most since 2007.

Then Israel announced that many more goods and construction materials would be allowed into Gaza from Israel at the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Especially notable was Israel’s decision to allow in “dual-use” items such as cement, which can be used for civilian purposes, to help in the rebuilding of Gaza after the 11-day war, but can also be used to fortify rocket launching pads and artillery emplacements and, even more worrisome, can be used to rebuild the extensive network of underground tunnels — about 100 kilometers of which were destroyed by the IAF airstrikes in May – that enable Hamas to move fighters and weapons underground on “the Metro,” undetected by Israel.

In addition, Israel has promised to supply Gaza with an extra five million cubic meters (1.3 billion gallons) of water.

Israel has also agreed to allow 5000 more workers from Gaza into the Jewish state, to help relieve unemployment in the Strip.

Finally, Israel has been collaborating with Qatar in making it possible to distribute directly to the 100,000 poorest families in Gaza the $10 million that Qatar, partly at Israel’s urging, has committed to send every month.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/theyre-terrorists-not-security-prisoners/

 How do news outlets love to portray the recent “great escape” from Israel’s Gilboa Prison? Let us count the ways.
The first is to refer to the six Palestinian terrorists who plotted and carried out the most egregious jailbreak in Israel’s history as “security prisoners.”

The second is to downplay the rap sheets of the four who were apprehended and the remaining two fugitives still on the loose.

The third is to take a pause from the above to blame Israel for the lax conditions that enabled the men to spend months digging the tunnel—from the floor of the shower cubicle in their cell—through which they fled from behind bars. Oh, and, of course, for failing to catch them as soon as they managed to pull off the daring stunt.

It’s a neat trick. Simultaneously sanitizing the terrorists’ blood-stained hands and magnifying Israel’s role in the debacle is precisely how the Palestinian Authority runs its propaganda campaign: at once denying the Holocaust, for instance, while accusing the Jewish state of emulating the Nazis.

The same ostensible paradox applies to Palestinians’ rioting on behalf of the escapees by hurling fire bombs at the “occupation forces” and threatening terrorist attacks if those of their brethren who were captured, or the ones on the run and those still in jail are treated poorly by the Shin Bet, Israel Police and Israel Prison Service. Meanwhile, inmates left behind are warning that if their cushy conditions are altered one iota, they’ll launch a hunger strike.
Israel’s grown so used to the scenario that all its new leaders can do is pat themselves on the back for playing catch-up and vowing to rectify the dereliction of their predecessors. You know, the Cabinet led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

https://jewishlink.news/features/45878-the-underlying-objective-of-the-academic-boycott-of-israeli-institutions

Why does the BDS movement target Israeli academic institutions? One reason is spoken; the other is not.

The basic assumption is that the boycott is a response to Israel’s alleged egregious polices toward Palestinian Arabs in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. By distorting the image of Israel as an apartheid nation that colonized another people’s land and Jews as an imperious oppressor, the movement accuses Israel of being the leading antagonists in the clash between the West and the rest of humanity. Anti-Jewish and anti-Israel canards once considered objectionable have been “repackaged and reintroduced in a more palatable form” by using more conventional terms of discontent with the West, asserts Aryeh K. Weinberg. In a number of ways, anti-Jewish hatred has shifted from the Jew being the “subversive outsider” to the Jew being seen “as the oppressive insider.”

Acquiescence to Bias

Weinberg argues that acquiescence to bias within the academy provides fertile ground for greater attacks on Jews and the West. Though being anti-American, anti-free market and anti-business don’t constitute a form of bigotry as such, they do suggest a tolerance for crude scapegoating that can effortlessly develop into more dangerous forms of behavior against Jews and other Americans. Antisemitism and hatred of Israel have acquired entrée on to the campus, in part, through manipulating this weakness.

The late Gary A, Tobin, who directed the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, said this anti-Israel ideology resonates throughout much of the academic world, even if only adopted by a comparatively small segment of faculty and students, because these individuals “dominate the campus culture.” Despite extensive talk on campus about social activism, supporting liberal agendas and crusading for the downtrodden, the community is rather “complacent” regarding genocide, abuse of women and children, slavery and other appalling transgressions throughout the world.

A War Against the West

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/palestinianism-and-new-anti-semitism-richard-l-cravatts/

A recent survey conducted by Alums for Campus Fairness, “A Growing Threat: Antisemitism on College Campuses,” asked some 500 Jewish-affiliated college students and recent alumni what their perceptions were regarding campus anti-Semitism. The findings of the survey were troubling, given that: “Nearly 100% of respondents said antisemitism is/was a problem on their campus,” “95% of respondents identified antisemitism as a problem on U.S. college campuses, with three out of four describing it as a ‘very serious problem,’” almost “half of current students say antisemitism is getting worse on their campus,” and “69% of students and grads say they have avoided certain places, events, or situations at school because they are Jewish.”

Anyone familiar with current state of affairs on university campuses knows that the root of much of this animus towards Jewish students is the ongoing university campaign against Israel and Zionism, and that Jewish students, whether they even support the Jewish state or not, regularly find themselves the target of derision, bigotry, and condemnation simply because they are Jewish.

In fact, research has demonstrated quite clearly that agitation against Israel—including the toxic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign—by such corrosive student activists as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) increase both the frequency and intensity of anti-Semitic speech and expression. A 2019 report by The AMCHA Initiative, a campus anti-Semitism watchdog organization, for example, revealed that “BDS’s mandate to boycott or suppress programs, collaborations, events, or expression that promote ‘the normalization of Israel in the global academy,’ as well as the academic BDS-compliant ‘common sense’ mandate to criticize, protest and boycott individuals who are deemed complicit with or supportive of Israel’s alleged crimes, appear to greatly encourage antisemitic behavior.”

An earlier AMCHA report had found similar connections between anti-Israel activism and the presence of anti-Semitism on those campuses with SJP chapters. That report concluded, shockingly, that the “presence of one or more anti-Zionist student groups is very strongly correlated with the overall number of antisemitic incidents. 99% of the schools with one or more active anti-Zionist student group had one or more incidents of antisemitic activity, whereas only 16% of schools with no active anti-Zionist student group had incidents of antisemitic activity.” Campuses with SJP or other anti-Zionist student groups, the report found, were “very strongly associated with the occurrence of antisemitic expression. 91% of the schools with one or more active anti-Zionist group showed evidence of antisemitic expression, whereas only 16% of schools with no active anti-Zionist student group showed evidence of antisemitic expression.”