RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/palestinians-need-to-get-real-about-israel-11558391713

Jerusalem

As Palestinian officials nervously await the Trump administration’s peace plan, one fundamental reality shapes their long and bitter contest with Israel. Diplomatically, economically, militarily, Israel has never been stronger than it is today. By contrast, the Palestinian cause has never been in worse shape. Neither Hamas, which alternates between firing rockets and begging Israel to admit to Gaza the supplies it needs to stay in power, nor the Palestinian Authority, which is compromised by corruption and divided by factionalism, can find a viable policy either to defeat the Israelis or to make peace with them.

One result—as I saw on a recent visit sponsored by the Philos Project, a nonprofit Middle East engagement organization—is that Palestinians, especially young people, are increasingly giving up on having a state of their own. Instead they favor a “one-state solution”—a single, binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Yet in meetings with senior Palestinian Authority officials and political observers, it was clear that this is more a cry of despair than a serious political program. A Palestinian return to the policy of rejecting the two-state solution may spur American campus activists to new denunciations of “Israeli apartheid,” but it won’t help the Palestinian cause in the real world.

The argument for one state is straightforward. Israel is de facto in control of the West Bank and to a lesser extent the Gaza Strip; liberal principles say people should have a say in the government that rules them. Some Palestinians claim the situation is comparable to the South African system of “bantustans,” in which white South Africans created artificial “homelands” for the different tribes of black South Africans and used them as alibis to deny blacks citizenship rights in South Africa proper. The West Bank and Gaza are, some Palestinians argue, bantustans for Palestinians. Thus the solution, with no Palestinian statehood in sight, is to give Palestinians full voting and citizenship rights in the state that matters most in the neighborhood: Israel.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14247/hamas-islamic-jihad-terrorist-organizations

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) walked away from the negotiating table a long time ago and show no interest in returning. They have continually refused to do what the Trump administration has asked: stop funding terrorism. They have shown again and again that they do not want a state living peacefully alongside Israel; they want to displace Israel. They have rejected the most generous proposals made by Israeli prime ministers, such as one made by Ehud Olmert in 2008, which included a near-total withdrawal from West Bank and the end of Israeli control of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Middle East scholar, Daniel Pipes, observing that Israel’s leaders shy away from victory, writes: “The only way for the conflict to be resolved is for one side to give up.”

“[F]iring 600 rockets at civilian targets in a neighboring country is an act of war… and as such it grants the nation-state [Israel] the authority under the international law of armed conflict not just to disable the specific military assets used to carry it out but to destroy those who carried it out… It’s time for the world community to stop imposing these double standards on Israel, and start doing what international law requires: holding Hamas responsible for the devastation that results from Israel’s legal, necessary, and proper responses to its provocations. Only then will Hamas know that if it sows the wind, it could truly reap the whirlwind…” — David French, National Review, May 6, 2019.

On May 5 and 6, 700 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israeli territory in less than 48 hours. It was the most intensive rocket offensive on Israel to date. Four people were killed: three Israelis and one Palestinian Arab worker. One of the Israelis was hit in his car by an anti-tank missile. The Israeli military retaliated and resumed targeted killings. One was to a Hamas member, Hamed al-Khoudary, considered responsible for the transfer of Iranian funds to the armed factions in Gaza. On May 6, a spokesman from Islamic Jihad and Hamas announced a ceasefire and said they had got “what they wanted”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a short statement: “We struck a powerful blow against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The campaign is not finished, and it will require patience and careful judgment. We’re prepared for its continuation”.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-best-kept-secret-this-food-city-on-the-mediterranean-11557850111

““We don’t have Gucci Shmucci or any of those fashion shops [in Acre]. In fact, you won’t find one fashionable shop in the whole Old City market, because it’s just meant for all the locals who still come here to buy,” he said. “It’s all local food, with none of the plastic fantastic of the major global chains. And this is what makes Acre special.”

IT’S A STRETCH to call Maadali, a postage-stamp-size eatery in the northern Israeli city of Acre, a restaurant. This little stall, tucked inside the city’s Old Turkish Bazaar and featuring a single stovetop and three tightly packed tables, is no bigger than many home kitchens. You won’t find a set menu, or set operating hours, either.

But Adnan Daher, Maadali’s chef and owner, shrugs off the limitations of space and scope. A trip to Maadali is a trip to a mouthwatering one-man show, and Mr. Daher, who also serves as waiter, manager and short-order cook, turns out his own spins on hraime (spicy fish cooked in a simmering pickled mango sauce); fresh calamari with hyssop and tangy homemade yogurt; and roasted eggplant with smoky tahini and harissa.

Producing such big flavors in such a tiny space seems unlikely, but he does it. And in Acre (or Akko in Hebrew and pronounced Ah-koh), a 5,000-year-old port city that serves as the capital of Israel’s fertile Western Galilee, he is just one culinary magician among many.

Some of the best seafood in the Holy Land hides inside this creaking ancient town, where frothy, fish-packed waves beat against original Crusader-built sea walls and a Technicolor market teems with produce and spices. There’s Uri Buri, the now world-famous seafood restaurant beloved by Phil Rosenthal from the Netflix food series “Somebody Feed Phil”; there’s El Marsa, where homegrown chef Alaa Musa combines his Palestinian recipes with techniques he picked up in Sweden’s Michelin-starred kitchens; and there are endless hummus stands, fresh grills and salad bars. All anonymous and humble, they serve enough hyperlocal, slow food to wake up even the most jaded foodies.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/04/the-true-lies-of-zionophobia/

It was my mistake to post a piece on Facebook by the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies about Amnesty International having “lost its moral way with regard to Israel”. A social media friend fired back with alacrity: “Have you seen how evil Israel has been to Palestinians trying to survive—cut off all their water and cut down their olive trees. Not an ounce of humanity in their evil hearts.” Evil hearts, I reflected, is very strong language. It so commonly occurs that liberal-minded thinkers—of the armchair variety—believe themselves to be non-discriminatory and well-informed without reading critically or with the open mind they purportedly prize. There’s no incentive to read more broadly if you believe you already have “the truth” and, fortified with that truth, you can scorn any sympathy for Israel as heartless or stupid.

he expression “Zionophobia” was first coined by Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal journalist kidnapped and beheaded by Salafi jihadists in 2002. Judea Pearl agrees that classical anti-Semitism played a role in the slaying of his son. After all, the self-identified executioner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, while an inmate at Guantánamo Bay, made the following confession during a military tribunal hearing: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.” However, the enmity directed specifically at the Jewish state, rather than at Jewish people per se, requires a separate term:

Denying Jewish people the right for nationhood is straight racism, not anti-Semitism. Jews fight Zionophobia by labelling it anti-Semitism, which is a mistake. It is so easily deflected by saying “My best friends are Jewish” or “I’ll go to prison to defend a Jew’s right to wear a yarmulke or eat kosher food” but still want Israel abolished.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-reason-why-the-gaza-wars-continue/?fbclid=IwAR2TuleWPf_lOGlqg3kBpyqELHYeIBzpOPu8tJADF_OnbVI0tKOvRffO8TA

Fred Maroun, a Canadian of Arab origin who lived in Lebanon until 1984 (including during 10 years of civil war), says it in a nutshell…thanks to KRD Daily…..Pretty much all the mainstream reporting on Gaza’s conflict with Israel misses the most important fact, leading the general public that relies on the mainstream media to totally misunderstand the situation: The reason why the conflict continues is because Israel does not hit Gaza hard enough to end it. Once it is said, the statement sounds obvious, yet journalists rarely say it.

Israel withdrew its military and its settlements from Gaza in 2005, and left it 100% in the hands of the Palestinians. At first, there was no blockade. The blockade by Egypt and Israel developed later, after terrorists started attacking Israel from Gaza, as even the anti-Israel Al Jazeera recognizes. The only purpose of the blockade, which is backed by the United Nations, is to limit the supply of weapons to Gaza terrorists.

Yet Gaza terrorists keep attacking Israel, knowing that the attacks result in a blockade. The terrorists themselves tell us why they make that choice, by using expressions such as the “Great March of Return” and “Raising the banner of Allah on every inch of Palestine [Israel]”. Their clearly stated objective is to invade Israel.

The Gaza terrorists are not a resistance force because there is nothing for them to resist. Israel would gladly leave Gaza alone if it could. The Gaza terrorists are an invasion force, regardless of the fact that they are not capable of invading Israel at this time, and while they cannot invade, they can kill and terrorize, and they do it at will.

When Gaza terrorists attack Israel, they are attacking a sovereign nation that they have no legal right and no moral justification to attack, and Israel’s duty is to protect its citizens and the integrity of its borders. As was written in the National Review, “The actual law of war would allow Israel to invade Gaza, utterly destroy Hamas, and occupy Gaza City until Israel’s safety is ensured, even if it [Gaza City] burned in the fight”. Yet, Israel chooses to only manage the attacks and not to stop them. It chooses to not burn down Gaza City.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/international-law-backs-the-trump-golan-policy-11557875474

Mr. Pompeo is U.S. secretary of state. Mr. Friedman is U.S. ambassador to Israel.

President Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights was met with condemnation from the European Union and others. Leaders called the move “invalid,” “illegitimate” and “absolutely worthless.” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Israel’s 1981 annexation of the Golan “null and void and without international legal effect.” These assertions are baseless.

Virtually every nation cited U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which outlined a framework for achieving peace in the Middle East. The preamble speaks of “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Yet President Trump’s Golan proclamation is entirely consistent with Resolution 242.

Resolution 242 was heavily negotiated and agreed to in 1967 by all but one of the warring parties in the Six-Day War—Syria, which controlled the Golan before the conflict. Damascus stayed on the sidelines until 1973 when, with its Arab allies, it launched and lost the Yom Kippur War. After that defeat, Syria signed on to Resolution 338, which made 242 applicable to all—the only substantive resolution to which all combatants have agreed.