RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://freebeacon.com/blog/pa-intransigence-makes-peace-deal-unlikely/

The Trump administration rolled out the economic details of its peace plan on Sunday ahead of its “Peace To Prosperity” Workshop which opens in Bahrain this week. The problem is that the intended beneficiaries, the Palestinians, are having a meltdown.

“The Trump team is trying to restrict the Palestinian economy with the chains of occupation,” the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates declared Sunday, calling the plan “the obnoxious Trump Declaration.”

The PA had already decided to reject it before they knew what was in it. “The deal of the century, or the deal of disgrace, will go to hell,” PA president Mahmoud Abbas said on May 27 at a ceremony in Ramallah. “The economic project they are working on for next month will also go to hell.”

It has been fighting to wreck the Bahrain conference since it was announced (the fact that it’s now being called a “workshop” indicates the PA has enjoyed some success). And it has announced its rejection of any projects coming out of the conference, even if they are “painted in Arabic,” that is to say, initiatives funded by the Gulf States, not America.

Labeling the conference “a Holocaust against the Palestinian people,” Abbas’s Fatah movement has urged violence against Israel on the days it is to take place. Fatah deputy chairman Mahmoud Al-Alous, cited as possible heir to Abbas, (now in the 14th year of his 4-year term) describes the called-for violence as “national activities of rage.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/take-the-palestinians-no-for-an-answer-11561316980

This week’s U.S.-led Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain on the Palestinian economy will likely be attended by seven Arab states—a clear rebuke to foreign-policy experts who said that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory would alienate the Arab world. Sunni Arab states are lending legitimacy to the Trump administration’s plan, making it all the more notable that the Palestinian Authority itself refuses to participate.

The conference’s only agenda is improving the Palestinian economy. It isn’t tied to any diplomatic package, and the plan’s 40-page overview contains nothing at odds with the Palestinian’s purported diplomatic goals. Some aspects are even politically uncomfortable for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Given all that, the Palestinian Authority’s unwillingness to discuss economic opportunities for its own people, even with the Arab states, shows how far it is from discussing the concessions necessary for a diplomatic settlement. Instead it seeks to deepen Palestinian misfortune and use it as a cudgel against Israel in the theater of international opinion.

This isn’t the first time the Palestinians have said no. At a summit brokered by President Clinton in 2000, Israel offered them full statehood on territory that included roughly 92% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, along with a capital in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority rejected that offer, leading Israel to up it to 97% of the West Bank in 2001. Again, the answer was no. An even further-reaching offer in 2008 was rejected out of hand. And when President Obama pressured Israel into a 10-month settlement freeze in 2009 to renew negotiations, the Palestinians refused to come to the table.

After so many rejections, one might conclude that the Palestinian Authority’s leaders simply aren’t interested in peace. Had they accepted any of the peace offers, they would have immediately received the rarest of all geopolitical prizes: a new country, with full international recognition. To be sure, in each proposal they found something not quite to their liking. But the Palestinians are perhaps the only national independence movement in the modern era that has ever rejected a genuine offer of internationally recognized statehood, even if it falls short of all the territory the movement had sought.

https://bit.ly/2FmGedx
In 2019, the inherently unpredictable and violent Middle East has driven all pro-US Arab regimes – which face domestic and external lethal threats – to expand their strategic cooperation with Israel.

The substantial US-Israel strategic common denominator, the growing role of Israel as a unique geo-strategic ally of the US, and the enhanced mutually-beneficial nature of US-Israel and Israel-Arab cooperation, have been a by-product of the following critical developments:

*The recent Iranian offensive as demonstrated by the June 2019 attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, and the May 2019 assaults on vessels in the Persian Gulf port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates;

*The mushrooming anti-US, pro-Muslim Brotherhood, imperialistic Turkish military buildup in Iraq, Syria, Qatar and Somalia (the largest since the 1922 demise of the Ottoman Empire);

*The proliferation of Shiite (Iran-related) and Sunni (Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc.) terrorism and subversion;

*The Iranian military, terroristic and subversive entrenchment in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, the Al-Hasa oil region in Saudi Arabia, etc.

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-ambassador-james-mcdonald/

Following Harry Truman’s recognition of the Provisional Government of Israel in early 1949, James McDonald was appointed the first US ambassador to the nascent Jewish state. In his memoirs, McDonald discusses Israel-Diaspora relations, which are as central today as they were in the early days of the State. This topic continues to be a source of division: witness the slanderous attacks made by Muslim Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar regarding American Jews’ “dual loyalties” and the State of Israel.

After the slanderous assaults on American Jews and on Israel by Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, there was a slew of condemnations from many sectors of the American political establishment and the Jewish community. Eliot Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on Omar to apologize and said: “I welcome debate in Congress based on the merits of policy, but it’s unacceptable and deeply offensive to call into question the loyalty of fellow American citizens because of their political views, including support for the US-Israel relationship. We all take the same oath. Worse, Representative Omar’s comments leveled that charge by invoking a vile anti-Semitic slur.”

James McDonald, who was appointed the first US ambassador to Israel in 1951, understood the vulnerability of American Jews to such slurs. He wrote in that year:

Israel, it must be remembered, is not only a nation among the nations but also a Jewish community among Jewish communities. Unique though it is in being a community not scattered but together, not a minority but a majority, not a factor in the State but its author and raison d’être, it is still one Jewish community among others. Because of its special position it has special problems in its relationships with the other communities…Against the extreme Zionist (or anti-Zionist) logician who holds that the Jew has a clear-cut choice – complete assimilation or return to Israel – stands the stubborn experience of history, which suggests that here again reality thrives on apparent inconsistency. Every available indication is that the Diaspora will continue to exist and will continue to face many problems in relation to Israel. One of these problems grows out of the old bogy of dual allegiance. Can one be a Jew and an American, a Jew and an Englishman? This problem is inherent, I think in the very nature of man as a complex being with diverse ends. All men have not single but multiple allegiances. If a Jew has an emotional sympathy for another State because in that State live other Jews, his attitude is no different from that of an American of Irish descent who has an affection for Ireland and interest in its welfare.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Rape-of-7-year-old-Jewish-child-shocks-the-nation-Palestinian-suspected-592809

A rape of a seven-year-old Israeli girl by a Palestinian man earlier this year has turned into a political football, with right-wing politicians calling it a hate-motivated “terrorist attack.”

The suspect, a resident of the West Bank town of Deir Qaddis near Modi’in Illit who was employed as a school cleaner in a settlement, was charged on Sunday for the alleged rape, assault and abduction of the child.

Police claim that the man met the child during his work as a school cleaner, offered her candy to inspire her trust in him, and eventually led her forcibly to a house near the school to assault her. The suspect claimed he didn’t commit the crime, and police have been unable to track down two other men who were allegedly present at the time of the attack.

The Military Advocate-General reported on Monday that there is no indication that the rape was motivated by nationalistic ideology, Maariv reported. However, the attorney for the family – which lives in the Binyamin area of the West Bank – from the Honenu National legal defense organization told Ynet that the suspect attacked the girl because she was Jewish.

“Shooting in the halftrack,” an Israeli phrase connoting friendly fire, was the term used to describe the behavior of Israeli right-wing politicians and pundits, who spent last week sniping at one other. Israeli history is rife with examples of right-wing divisions leading to left-wing victory, a lesson its politicians struggle to learn.

One needn’t delve deeply into Israel’s past. In April, a multitude of parties split the right-wing pie into smaller pieces—the electoral threshold is set at 3.25 percent. Each party needs at least that percentage of the general vote to win four seats in Israel’s Knesset. If a party doesn’t make it, all its votes are lost.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw the danger, which is why he knocked heads together in February, convincing the Jewish Home and National Union parties, which had already made an alliance, to bring into the fold the more extreme Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Strength”) Party. They went into the election under the ticket “United Right.”

It wasn’t enough. A quarter-million votes were still lost due to the failure of two parties, the New Right and Zehut, to cross the threshold. This is what gave Avigdor Liberman of the Israel Beiteinu Party the ability to torpedo Netanyahu’s coalition efforts. Liberman withheld his party’s support over a law concerning military recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox. Netanyahu couldn’t muster a majority to govern. Back-to-back elections were called, a first in Israel’s history.

Liberman hopes to become the go-to address for anyone unhappy with religious influence in society. Although the other parties on the right would love to punish him by pushing him below the electoral threshold, current polls have him gaining three to four more seats over the five he won last time. That means he might again be the deciding factor—Netanyahu’s nightmare. The right needs a cushion to cancel out Liberman, so that they won’t need him to form a coalition.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-from-Wrong-Pride-and-left-wing-prejudice-592505

In an interview on Wednesday evening with Channel 12’s Amit Segal, newly sworn-in Justice Minister Amir Ohana explained his controversial view of the Supreme Court by referring to the horrifying ambush and slaughter of a pregnant woman and her four young daughters at the hands of Palestinian jihadists 15 years ago.

In 2004, Gush Katif resident Tali Hatuel and her children – Hila, 11; Hadar, 9; Roni, 7; and 2-year-old Merav – were gunned down at the Kissufim junction by terrorists who, it emerged, had managed to hide behind buildings that were identified by the IDF as security threats. Nevertheless, said Ohana, the Supreme Court, “despite its lack of expertise” in the matter, “prevented the demolition of the structures.”

So when asked by Segal if he – a lawyer, a major in the reserves, a veteran of the Shin Bet (Israel security agency) and now interim justice minister – would go so far as to suggest that certain High Court decisions not be honored, Ohana answered “yes.” “The supreme consideration,” he said, employing a play on the adjective, “must be to safeguard the lives of [Israeli] citizens.”

Nor did Ohana skip a beat when Segal challenged him to contradict himself in relation to the Supreme Court’s liberalism where the LGBTQ community is concerned. Ohana – a gay father of two – smiled and shook his head, while telling Segal that the most important strides in LGBTQ rights were made in the Knesset – the legislative body – not the judiciary. Which is as it should be in a democracy.

Following the interview, Ohana clarified on social media that he had not meant to propose disregarding all regular court rulings, but rather those surrounding “extreme” cases – such as the murder of the Hatuel family.

“The first responsibility of every country is the safety and well-being of its citizens, before anything that sounds good or photographs well,” he wrote. In a “necessary restatement of the obvious,” he added, “court decisions must be honored. I have always [followed this credo], and it is what I believe. Israel is a democracy under the banner of the rule of law, and such it will remain.”

The question of the courts’ overreach is only a fraction of what causes apoplexy among Ohana’s detractors, however. His staunch defense of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, for example – which he was instrumental in drafting – is another hot-button issue over which he is given the cold shoulder.

Yet another is his long-standing support for legislation that would grant immunity from prosecution for a sitting prime minister, which has elicited cynical claims of his being a “suck up to Bibi.”