RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://bit.ly/309eO3F

Defensible borders’ key feature, in the Middle East, must be the capability to confront the shifty, volcanic and violent reality of the region, which has been top heavy on worst-case scenarios, highlighting clear and present lethal threats.

Realistically, Israel’s defensible borders should not be based on well-meaning, peaceful coexistence (best-case) scenarios – cushioned by eloquent statements, agreements, assurances and guarantees – which have been detached from the blustery Middle East inter-Arab and inter-Muslim reality since the 7thcentury.

Defensible borders are not based on a state-of-peace; defensible borders, in the Middle East, should be able to overcome an abrupt military violation of a state-of-peace.The most critical feature/test of defensible borders in the Middle East is their capability to fend off realistic (worst-case) scenarios.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/05/09/the-first-thing-to-learn-from-the-700-rockets-fired-at-israel/

Terrorists from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired approximately 700 rockets at Israel in a coordinated May offensive. Tragically, four Israelis were killed. But how is that possible? One would think that 700 terrorist rockets would have caused much heavier Israeli losses.

When Israel fires missiles at enemy targets, they strike with deadly, pinpoint accuracy. For example, they have been known to hit a single terrorist in a vehicle, or one apartment in the middle of a dense neighborhood. Yet when Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire rockets into Israel, the vast majority of them land in empty fields, parking lots, or other uninhabited sites.

The difference is not that Israeli soldiers have better aim. The difference is that the Israeli army has the latest equipment and the most sophisticated computer systems necessary to ensure that their missiles hit the desired targets. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are actually trying to cause as much damage and death as possible — but their rockets still don’t make accurate landings. Why? Because the Palestinians don’t have that technology. And the reason they don’t is partly because of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

http://q4j-middle-east.com
Besides hundreds of Arab incendiary terror kites and balloons, rocket and mortar launchings, sniper attacks, and so forth Israel has previously been subjected to, the weekend of May 4th, 2019 saw about 700 rockets launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians causing death, injury, and destruction. Israel’s response, while probably materially costly to Hamas, was still far too predictable–certainly nothing to convince Hamas and Islamic Jihad to cease and desist http://www.mideasttruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=139. Allegedly important buildings, training facilities, and such were taken out.

What makes matters worse, is that an Israel, that can enter Iran and walk out with huge quantities of top secret information, can surely also catch wind of when Hamas & Co. are scheduled to strut their stuff for the locals and arrange a proper greeting for them as well https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2873608/Hamas-parades-2-000-armed-fighters-drones-vehicle-mounted-rockets-biggest-strength-end-summer-war-Israel.html.

This has been going on for far too long–which means that, for whatever reasons, it’s probably a deliberate decision on Israel’s part. Regardless, here’s some of my own thoughts about this untenable situation…

I heard a presentation years ago by one of those Israeli security experts that many are listening to these days.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14194/israel-pinkwashing

A secular government that uses religious law to suppress human rights is a sign of how deeply ingrained homophobia is in Muslim countries, most of them much more conservative than Tunisia.

How is it, then, that LGBT people who claim to love the Palestinians and care about their lives, pinning all blame for whatever suffering they undergo on the state of Israel, never say a word about the excesses against gays – and other extreme abuses — by of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority?

More perversely, why is nothing said about Aguda and the work it does to save and protect gay Palestinians?

Why are no gay rights activists boycotting any of those lowest-ranking countries or protesting outside their embassies? Why do they choose instead to condemn and act against one of the world’s most genuinely progressive and liberal states?

Early in April, the British gay newspaper Pink News ran a headline: “LGBT performers to boycott Eurovision in Israel with online broadcast”. The broadcast, known as Globalvision, will be part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which tries hard to delegitimize Israel economically and politically.

Referring to a letter which activists had written to the pop star Madonna, Pink News reported:

“We feel we must write to you to express our deep concern at the political use of the Eurovision that is being made by Israel this year, and to highlight in particular the issue of ‘Pinkwashing,'” the letter said.

The letter said that ‘pinkwashing’ is a “PR tactic used by Israel which cynically exploits support for LGBTQIA people to whitewash its oppression of the Palestinian people.”

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/waving-goodbye-to-the-jerusalem-waiver/90677/

Secretary of State Pompeo’s report that no further waivers are necessary in respect of the Jerusalem Embassy Act is a wonderful moment in these parlous times. It is a marker not only of principle but also of stick-to-it-ive-ness. And it puts paid to an account opened, so to speak, by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan when he was at the peak of his power in the Senate.

That was in the mid-1990s. We were editing the Jewish Forward at the time, and the senator had asked if he could stop by. He was then chairman of the finance committee and we wanted to talk about — naturally — the gold standard. He, it turned out, had no more interest in the gold standard than the man in the moon. Instead, he thrust at us a copy of the State Department telephone directory.

Moynihan handed the book to us even before he sat down. “Here,” he said once a few colleagues were seated at a round table. “Let’s talk about this.” We were stumped. So he riffed through State’s phone book, stopping at Jerusalem. It wasn’t listed under Israel, he pointed out, or any other country. Alone among capital cities, it was listed under Jerusalem — as if it were a separate nation altogether.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/442905-expecting-israelis-to-pay-to-be-killed-proves-abbas-isnt-interested-in-peace

Gazan terrorists launched hundreds of rockets into Israel in recent days to overwhelm its Iron Dome anti-missile system, killing four civilians and forcing untold numbers of others to take cover. And on the West Bank, the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority planted the seeds for more killing – albeit less flamboyantly.

That Israel is more focused on Gaza of late than the West Bank is hardly surprising. One can only imagine the U.S. reaction, and reprisals, if hundreds of rockets were flying in from Canada or Mexico.

In a televised address on April 29, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas conceded that his organization faces a financial crisis but insisted that it will continue to reject all Israeli payments because the Jewish state had the audacity to deduct the cost of stipends that go to terrorists and their families.

“Our position on this issue was, and still is, clear,” the 83-year-old Abbas told the Palestinian people, looking into a camera as he sat behind a desk. “We refuse to receive the money if any amount is missing from it, especially the amount [that we pay to the families of] the martyrs, or any other amount that they owe us.”

Indeed, his position is crystal clear. Abbas announced the policy in February after Israel declared that it would withhold $140 million over the course of the year, which it said was what Abbas’ government pays to the families of “martyrs” who died while trying to kill Jews or who were now held in Israel jails for the same reason.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/netanyahu-and-jewish-destiny-11557355547

After a resounding victory in the Israeli election, Benjamin Netanyahu is now free to continue forging the destiny of the Jewish people. A look at Mr. Netanyahu’s early political views offers revealing insights into his evolution from a fence-straddling moderate to the guardian of the right who promises to annex parts of the West Bank.

In January 1997, during his first term as prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu agreed to withdraw from 80% of Hebron, smothering the city’s tiny Jewish enclave. The following year, with President Clinton mired in the Lewinsky affair, Mr. Netanyahu was maneuvered into the Wye River Memorandum with Yasser Arafat, relinquishing further Israeli territorial control.

During parliamentary debate in 2004 over the Gaza disengagement, which uprooted 10,000 Jews, Mr. Netanyahu voted repeatedly in favor of withdrawal and refused to exercise his leverage as finance minister on a crucial budget vote that would have stalled the Gaza exit. His just-for-the-record resignation from the cabinet, a week before the withdrawal, was irrelevant.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14190/ilhan-omar-gaza-rockets

Does Ilhan Omar not realize that Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, when Israel removed every soldier and settler from that area?

The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee issued a statement condemning Israel for “targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, including children and infants.” Irresponsibly, it never once mentioned the firing of 698 rockets by the rules of Gaza that target Israeli civilians, and it never mentioned the sad reality that Hamas and Islamic Jihad deliberately use “Palestinian civilians, including children and infants” as human shields in order to increase the number of Palestinian civilians who are inadvertently killed or injured by Israel’s legitimate efforts to protect its civilians from unlawful rocket attacks.

Israel is also celebrating its 71st year of independence. No nation has contributed so much to humankind in so short a period of time. No nation faced with threats compared to those faced by Israel has ever had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law or concern with avoiding civilian casualties. The world should join Israel in celebrating its 71 years of statehood. The world should also recognize that if Israel’s enemies stopped attacking its citizens, there would be peace. But if Israel stopped defending its citizens, there would be genocide.

All decent people should be outraged at the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip that fired 698 rockets at Israeli civilians, killing four, injuring 234 and traumatizing thousands of innocent children. Imagine what other countries, including the United States, would do if lethal rockets targeted their civilians. Yet, Israel has responded with restraint. To be sure, 30 Palestinians were killed and 154 injured by Israeli efforts to stop the rocket rampage. Many of these were terrorists, but some were civilians who were put in harm’s way by the terrorists.