RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-time-to-shut-down-the-jewish-nobel/

It’s time to shut down the Genesis Prize, what Time Magazine dubbed the “Jewish Nobel.”

The prize started out as silly, giving $1 million to people who don’t need it (the first recipient was multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg). It has become downright counter-productive by its own lights, as the prize purports to foster Jewish identity, inspire Jewish pride and strengthen “the bond between Israel and the Diaspora.”

This year’s winner, Steven Spielberg, is the last straw.

It’s not that Spielberg isn’t worthy of a specifically Jewish prize. His contribution to the collection of Holocaust survivor testimonies is reason enough.

The problem comes with the charities to which he’ll donate his prize money.

Can someone tell us how groups like Black Voters Matter, Justice for Migrant Women, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Native American Rights Fund and One Fair Wage strengthen the Israel-Diaspora bond? What do they have to do with Jews at all?

The few purportedly Jewish groups on the list aren’t any better. One of them, the Collaborative for Jewish Organizing, is intent on strengthening the alliance of Jews and “non-Jewish allies,” in their jargon, to work “in solidarity with communities of color.”

The group counts among its achievements “decarceration in numerous states and localities, reversing water shut-offs in Detroit, eviction and foreclosure moratoria, and expansion of healthcare and unemployment insurance benefits across the US.”

We’re delighted the water hasn’t been shut off in Detroit. But what does it have to do with building Israel-Diaspora ties?

https://unitedwithisrael.org/thousands-of-israelis-visit-holy-site-vandalized-by-palesti

Thousands of Israelis visited historic Mount Ebal in Samaria Monday, the holy site known as Joshua’s Altar that was seriously damaged last month by the Palestinian Authority, Israel National News reported.

The site is revered as the place where Joshua, the biblical prophet and political leader who led the Israelites out of the wilderness and into the Land of Israel, built an altar more than 3,000 years ago.

In a brazen desecration of the holy site, the Palestinian Authority deliberately removed and crushed stones from the ancient wall surrounding the altar to use them as gravel in a road-paving project.

The deliberate sabotage of the historic site by the Palestinians provoked outrage among Jewish and archaeological communities.

In response, the Samaria Regional Council, which is restoring the site, sponsored a huge event during the Passover holiday in which thousands of people took part at the archaeological site.

“We invite the general public to come and enjoy the national parks, heritage sites, wineries and nature sites, enjoy a breathtaking view,” said Samaria Regional Council chairman Yossi Dagan. “Samaria is open to everyone and is a 25-minute drive from Tel Aviv.”

Dagan praised the thousands who came to what is intended to be the first festival on Mount Ebal and the altar of Joshua.

“They [the Palestinians] are destroying and we are building,” Dagan said. “They are trying to erase history, and we are restoring and preserving world history and historical sites of the Jewish people.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17216/palestinian-elections-terrorists

[A]s far as most Palestinians are concerned, Barghouti is actually a “hero” who deserves to become president because of his convictions for terrorism.

The message the Palestinian leadership is sending to its people is: A Palestinian convicted of financial corruption is nowhere near as worthy of public office as one who murders Jews and masterminds terrorist attacks.

[I]t would be no surprise to see several Palestinian terrorists, including Barghouti and Sa’adat, in the next Palestinian parliament.

Hamas and the PFLP, whose members are planning to run in the parliamentary election, have, incidentally, been officially designated as terrorist organizations by the US, the European Union, Canada, Israel and Japan.

A terrorist convicted of murdering Jews is far more popular than a candidate who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, such as former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The US, EU, and other countries need to make financial aid to the Palestinian conditional on not electing terrorists. This condition should be presented to the Palestinians before, not after, the election.

This should not be a difficult task. All the international community has to do is remind the Palestinians of the three conditions set by the “Quartet” in 2006 for recognizing a Palestinian government: that all members of a future Palestinian government must be committed to non-violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and accept previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians.

By turning a blind eye to terrorists who plan to participate in the Palestinian elections, the international community is legitimizing terrorism as well as pulling the rug out from under all the Palestinians and other Arabs not affiliated with terrorist groups and who might be hoping that the US would lead them to better lives and peace in the region.

The Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) recently announced that any Palestinian who wants to run in the upcoming general elections “must not be convicted of a crime or felony against honor or integrity.”

That is, of course, unless the “crime” includes murdering a Jew or involvement in terrorism.

The announcement aims to prevent Mohammed Dahlan, an arch-rival of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, from presenting his candidacy for the presidential election, set to take place on July 31.

In 2016, a Palestinian court in the West Bank sentenced Dahlan in absentia to three years in prison on charges of embezzling millions of dollars of public money from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Dahlan, a former PA security commander, was expelled from the Palestinian faction that rules the West Bank in 2011 after a fallout with Abbas. Dahlan has since been living in the United Arab Emirates, where he heads a group called the Democratic Reform Current.

On March 8, 2021, Interpol declared Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, who participated in the August 9, 2001 suicide bomb attack at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, would no longer be a “subject to an Interpol notice.” This change was announced in a letter published in the Arabic-language media. Apparently, her name had also been deleted from the Interpol’s website. [1]

No mention was made as to why the Red Notice had been cancelled, which notifies law enforcement in all their member countries about fugitives who should be arrested until “extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.” Red Notices assist police in bringing criminals to justice who have committed murder, rape, child abuse or armed robbery, even when the initial crime had been committed many years before. [2]

The Sbarro bombing killed 15 people, including two US nationals. Four other US nationals were among the approximately 122 others injured in the attack. [3]

Accompanying a Suicide Bomber to the Target

On Aug. 9, 2001, Al-Tamimi met the suicide bomber, 23-year-old Izzedine al-Masri from Silat al-Harithiya, a member of the Hamas military wing Iz a Din al-Kassam, in Ramallah. Together, they went by car to Jerusalem. Having a young Arab woman dressed in a tight-fitting dress accompany a male suicide bomber to his target enabled the couple to seem part of the urban landscape, and less likely to arouse any suspicion. This is exactly how Al-Tamimi, at the time a 21-year-old journalism student at Birzeit University, guided the suicide bomber to the Sbarro pizza parlor in the heart of Jerusalem, without being detected.

As a resident of Ramallah, Al-Tamimi had been to Jerusalem on countless occasions, spoke fluent English with only a minor trace of an Arab accent, and possessed a Jordanian passport. If stopped, she would attempt to convince the police she was a Jordanian tourist on holiday.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/we-need-to-stop-stop-blaming-bibi-for-electoral-deadlock-663244

For the past two years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s detractors have claimed that if he would only get out of the way – resign, retire or expire – the problem of electoral impasse would instantly be solved. The bulk of the media and left-wing public began chanting the mantra after elections for the 21th Knesset on April 9, 2019. Yet it was actually Yisrael Beytenu Party leader Avigdor Liberman who created the first deadlock.

A member of the Right, Liberman had vowed to support Likud. As soon as the votes were in, however – and Netanyahu needed Yisrael Beytenu to secure a victory over the “anybody-but-Bibi” bloc led by Benny Gantz – Liberman suddenly reneged. Nor did he jump on Gantz’s Blue and White bandwagon.
With neither side able to form a government, a second round of Knesset elections was scheduled and subsequently held on September 17 of that year. This time, Blue and White garnered one seat more than Likud, but with no chance of cobbling together a coalition. Again, had Liberman joined his political camp, Netanyahu would have been able to form a government.

Three months later, on December 26, the Netanyahu naysayers claiming that his popularity had run its course were left with egg on their faces when he won the Likud primary by a landslide. This democratic reaffirmation of his party leadership took place just over two months before the third round of Knesset elections on March 2, 2020, which coincided with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

THIS TIME, voters (some of whom had contracted COVID-19 and were provided special polling stations in protective tents) gave Likud a greater number of mandates than Blue and White, but still not enough for Netanyahu or Gantz to form a coalition. After weeks of wrangling, Gantz finally agreed to enter into a national-unity government with Netanyahu.

The arrangement greatly angered the anybody-but-Bibi crew that he was selected to represent. Those most livid were not really his champions per se; they were a diverse bunch with different political affiliations who had come together for the sole purpose of defeating Netanyahu.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/when-cultural-appropriation-and-historical-caroline-glick/

Two weeks ago, a bus filled with veteran Israeli generals from the Bithonistim, a grassroots national security organization, slowly made its way up the slopes of Mt. Ebal in Northern Samaria to visit a biblical-era site that was severely damaged by a Palestinian Authority contractor in late January.

They came to draw the public’s attention to the strategic implications of the war the Palestinians are waging against Jewish history.

The site was excavated between 1980 and 1989 by the late Professor Adam Zertal, who identified it as Joshua’s Altar as described in the Books of Deuteronomy, (27; 1-9) and Joshua (8; 30-35). The animal remains at the site contained thousands of burnt bones of year-old male, exclusively kosher, animals. They were burned in an open flame 3,250 years ago—the time generally identified as the period of ancient Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel under Joshua. Other remains found at the site included earrings and scarabs made in Egypt at the time of Ramses II, the Egyptian pharaoh often associated with the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

As Zertal explained in a lecture in 2013, the altar was buried under a layer of rocks, in keeping with Jewish prescriptions for preventing the desecration of abandoned holy sites. In keeping with the biblical narrative, the altar is made of unhewn stones; instead of steps, there are two ramps for the priests to alight to the platform—blocks of plaster were found nearby. The altar at Mt. Ebal also matches a Talmudic description of an altar from the Second Temple period, around 900 years later, indicating a continuity of Jewish practices throughout the biblical period.

Although initially controversial, Zertal’s general finding that the site is around 3,300 years old and is a Jewish historical site, where sacrifices were carried out in keeping with biblical guidelines, has become widely accepted—although many continue to dispute the specific identification with Joshua.

In late January, the Palestinian Authority (PA) posted a video on its website of 60 meters of the ancient wall surrounding the altar being destroyed to pave a road connecting the Palestinian village of Asira ash-Shamaliya to Nablus. Nablus, built on the ruins of the biblical city of Shechem, is located in northern Samaria between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim.

Zertal was a fiercely secular son of hardcore socialists. Yet, he explained in a 2013 lecture, his scientific work compelled him to accept that the biblical narrative “from Deuteronomy through the Books of Kings was historically accurate.”