RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/05/18/the-unlearned-nakba-lesson-about-compromise/

Palestinian Arabs continue to learn the wrong history lesson. On May 15, as they do every year, they relive the sorrow of 1948, when they remind themselves of all the terrible things that happened to them as a result of the creation of modern-day Israel. Their narrative of a martyred people who were driven from their homes and made stateless victims is more than a political statement; it’s a faith that is integral to their identity. The yearly vow to “return” to all that they lost 72 years ago — to reverse the verdict of history — is so deeply embedded in their consciousness that it has made it impossible for any of their leaders to even consider formally giving it up.

This is an old story that has been retold so many times that even many of those who sympathize with the Palestinian cause have grown bored with it. Indeed, although talk of the nakba — the “disaster” or “catastrophe” of 1948 — is still enough to fire up radical foes of the Jewish state in the West, much of the Arab world has changed the channel and is more interested in cooperation with Israel than in relitigating the events of the war in which it won its independence.

But it is of particular importance in 2020 because with the debate about Israel extending its law to some settlements in the West Bank, the Palestinians are once repeating the mistakes that led to the nakba in the first place.

 https://bit.ly/2ZnY231

*Notwithstanding Saudi philo-Palestinian talk, Riyadh considers the Palestinian issue a low priority.  It ranks significantly lower than the clear and present lethal threat posed by Iran’s Ayatollahs; the potential tectonic eruption in Iraq; the lethal threat from volcanic Yemen; and the domestic powder keg in the oil-rich and Shia-dominated Qatif and al-Hasa areas. It is much lower than the imminent threats of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood; the potential threat of Turkey’s Erdogan; the regional implications of the domestic upheaval in Syria and Lebanon; the vulnerability of all pro-US Arab regimes (e.g., Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt), etc.

*The House of Saud does not forget, nor forgive, the Palestinian track record of intra-Arab terrorism and treachery, most notably the 1990 Palestinian collaboration with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, which was the most generous Arab host of Palestinians.

*Riyadh is convinced that the Palestinian track record would yield a Palestinian state, which would constitute another rogue anti-Saudi regime. They consider the Palestinians (the Palestinian Authority and Hamas) a role model of subversion and treachery, and active and potential allies of Turkey’s Erdogan, Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hezbollah and the Moslem Brotherhood, as well as rogue elements in Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Libya and Yemen, which aim to topple the House of Saud.

*At the same time, Saudi ties with Israel (as has been the case with all pro-US Arab countries) have expanded substantially – militarily, commercially, technologically, medically and agriculturally – despite the lack of progress on the Palestinian issue, and in the face of mutual threats and challenges.  

*Irrespective of the warm pro-Palestinian Saudi talk, which welcomes every Western dignitary to Saudi Arabia, the Saudi walk has always been cold.

*Saudi Arabia has never flexed its military muscle on behalf of the Palestinians (nor has any other Arab country), while flexing very limited diplomatic muscle.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/05/17/idf-troops-thwart-terrorist-attack-in-eastern-jerusalem/

Three Palestinians were wounded on Friday evening during an attempted attack on an Israeli military post in eastern Jerusalem, according to the Israel Defense Forces. The suspects are being treated by the Red Crescent.

According to the military, troops stationed at an outpost at the “Governor’s House” compound in Abu Dis spotted the three suspects preparing to throw lit firebombs at the post and opened fire, thwarting the attack. No Israeli soldiers were wounded in the incident, according to the IDF.

This was the latest in a series of violent attacks perpetrated by Palestinians against Israeli soldiers in recent weeks.

Last Tuesday, IDF Staff Sgt. Amit Ben-Yigal, 21, a member of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion, was killed by a rock to the head during a raid in a village in Judea and Samaria.

On Thursday, IDF soldier Shadi Ibrahim, 20, was wounded in a vehicular assault near Negohot, southwest of Hebron. As a result of his injuries, Ibrahim’s leg was amputated, and he remains in serious, but stable, condition, according to Ynet.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/05/17/colluding-with-terror-affiliated-ngos-icc-becomes-tool-of-war-against-israel/

International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is in the hot seat. In response to reports that her office is collaborating with anti-Israel NGOs affiliated with terror groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, she tweeted, “Misinformation and smear campaigns do not change facts about the conduct of my Office’s work concerning the situation in Palestine.”

As she is currently focused on bringing false charges of war crimes against Israel, Bensouda believes that the ICC should be able to adjudicate the case, calling the accusation that she is collaborating with terror-affiliated NGOs as “misled and unfounded.” However, a recent report published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), argues that the ICC is another tool being used by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority to delegitimize Israel.

According to Dan Diker, one of the authors of the JCPA report titled, “Legal Assault: How the ICC Has Been Weaponized Against the US and Israel,” the case against Israel at the ICC “is a successful continuation of the PLO-PA strategy of assaulting Israel in the international community.”

“What we decided to do here [in the report] is to expose the criminal terrorist-affiliated illegitimacy not only of the court but also of the complainants,” he told JNS. “It is one thing to fight against the court’s lack of credibility, but it is another thing to fight against a court that is cooperating with terror affiliates.”

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/anti-israel-crowd-misreads-outlook-for-annexing/91133/

Relax everyone. It turns out that Israel’s annexation of Judea and Samaria isn’t around the corner.

Even as Jerusalem edges toward concluding the two-year political crisis that deprived the country of an elected government, the entire world is aghast at the possibility of applying Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.

The Hashemite king, Abdullah II, threatens “massive conflict” with Israel. The European Union weighs sanctioning the Jewish state. Arabists predict an eruption of violence. The United Nations warns of an end to a peace process that expired a long time ago.

In America, Israelis and their supporters predict a rift between Jerusalem and a future Democratic-led administration.

All because of a promise, made by Prime Minister Netanyahu amid endless campaigning in three unresolved election cycles. Trying to lure right wing supporters, he vowed to extend Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and large Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/right-from-wrong-a-portrait-of-viral-antisemitism-628125

Nothing serves as a better Petri dish for the incubation of antisemitism than a global health crisis that causes economies to crash. It is no wonder, then, that the coronavirus pandemic has been an inspiration to Jew-haters and Israel-bashers of all strains.

Though COVID-19 may be novel, there is nothing new about blaming the People of the Book for the world’s ills. On the contrary, the phenomenon is as old and entrenched as the common cold.

But while quarantines were being imposed to “flatten the curve,” they simultaneously sparked an outbreak of antisemitic conspiracy theories about the ostensibly Jewish origin and spread of the infectious disease. Lockdowns also led to a burst of creative energy on the part of holed-up cartoonists whose work would have made the Third Reich proud.

Unlike the Nazi propaganda machine, however, today’s caricaturists have the weapon of social media at their disposal – one that has proven immune to vows by Facebook and Twitter to confront with “community standards” algorithms.

Yes, curbing anti-Jewish expression on the Internet by suspending individual posts is about as realistic a proposition as curing corona by donning a surgical mask – especially with the massive amount of web traffic that home isolation has wrought.

“A Little Piece of Ground,” by Elizabeth Laird, is a propagandist book available to all children in many libraries across the country.  It concerns 12-year-old Karim who lives in Ramallah, historically an Arab Christian town, now a Palestinian city in central West Bank (Judea and Samaria), 10 km north of Jerusalem, Israel.  He hears of nothing but violence and aspires to be the Liberator of Palestine.

Karim resides with his parents and three siblings on the fifth floor of an apartment building.  He hates living under the occupation, yet no one has told him that the Israelis ceased its occupation three years before he was born.  He knows that a Palestinian gunman shot two people in an Israeli café two weeks ago and, as a consequence, the next building was demolished.  His building is on lockdown, guarded by an Israeli tank to ensure that no one may enter or leave until further notice.  The residents may not go to work or shop for food, and his school was levelled, the computers confiscated.  

More recently, a Palestinian gunman opened fire in Jerusalem, gravely injuring five adults and three children.  Three days later, new curfew hours were announced for his area, allowing two hours for shopping and errands.   That evolved into free daytime hours, but confinement continues from evening through dawn.  Now his father may tend his store and inventory, his mother may take the baby to the doctor, and Karim and Joni meet a new friend, Hopper, with whom to play soccer – until dusk.