RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270400/egypts-baghdad-bob-dies-51st-anniversary-six-day-ari-lieberman

June 5, 2018 marked the 51st anniversary of the Six-Day War, which, as its name implies, was won by Israel in six days. This past Monday, one of Egypt’s chief propagandists during the conflict, Ahmed Said, died. Said worked for the Voice of the Arabs, a Cairo-based station used by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to stir up the masses and whip them into a frenzied state of base Jew-hatred. Ironically, his death occurred on the 51st anniversary of the day that Israel humiliated his country and the Arab world at large. In three pivotal hours of the first day of the war, Israel transformed the Egyptian air force into an expensive heap of scrap metal.

Said was Egypt’s equivalent of the notorious “Baghdad Bob,” the nickname given to Iraq’s comical minister of information during the Second Gulf War, whose amusing government propaganda evoked both laughter and derision. While Israeli fighter aircraft – Mirages, Super Mysteres and Vautours – were flying over Egypt bombing and strafing Egyptian airfields, and Israeli armored and mechanized columns were thrusting into Sinai, Said was claiming that Egypt had shot down dozens of Israeli planes and that its tanks were marching on Tel Aviv.

Said’s imaginary phantom victory claims along with general Egyptian obfuscation as to the extent of the military disaster befalling the Egyptian army had calamitous consequences not only for Egypt but for Jordan as well. Fed on a steady diet of lies and misleading Egyptian broadcasts and government communiques concerning imminent Israeli defeat and Arab victory, Jordan’s King Hussein ordered his troops into action. Israeli pleas to the Hussein to stay out of the war had no effect on the “Little King,” who was by now undoubtedly intoxicated by the prospect of expanding his kingdom and “liberating” pre-1967 “Palestine” from the infidels.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/israel-shows-what-alliances-are-for/

A residual rancor against America’s $3 billion military aid budget to Israel still can be detected in the corners of the conservative movement. Yes, Israel is the only democracy in the region, and yes, Israel is an American ally, but Israel is out for Israel’s interests just as America is out for America’s interest — so why should American taxpayers subsidize the powerful and prosperous Jewish state?

Never mind that the $3 billion in military aid amounts to a Pentagon subsidy for American arms manufacturers. Never mind also that Israeli military technology and intelligence make an enormous (and largely untold) contribution to American security.

There’s a reason to maintain alliances in the cold light of Realpolitik which conservative isolationists refuse to consider: Allies can do things that we want done at much less risk to us and at far lower cost than if we were to do them directly.

Israel has substantially reduced Iran’s military capacity in Syria, for example, and has done so without provoking a confrontation with Russia. If the United States were to use its own planes to bomb Iranian installations in Syria, that would constitute a direct challenge to Russia’s presence in the country, and lead to a strategic confrontation that we do not want (and the isolationists want least of anyone). But Israel can do so, because Israel is no threat to Russia, and Israeli bombing raids in Syria do not humiliate the Kremlin. Israeli action keeps the matter on the local level, rather than escalating it to a matter of global tension.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12467/palestinians-burn-the-jews

There are two important factors that the international community needs to notice regarding the fire kites that the Palestinians are sending to Israel from the Gaza Strip. First: those who are launching the kites are making it clear that their ultimate goal is to kill as many Jews as possible and bring about the obliteration of Israel. Second: the Palestinians see all Jews living in Israel as “settlers.

The Palestinians are now also telling us that the terror kites they are sending to Israel accord with what the Quran orders Muslims to do in the fight against the “infidels.” They apparently see the flaming kites as part of the jihad (holy war) against the enemies of Allah and Islam.

“We want to set fire to Israel so that the Jews will be burned or forced to leave their country.” — Abu Al-Majd, terrorist.

The jihad of the Palestinians against Israel is the same jihad that ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic jihadi groups have also been waging on the “infidels” and “enemies of Islam” in the US, EU and other non-Muslim countries. We are witnessing a well-organized campaign of terror orchestrated by terrorists and activists belonging to Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians, who have been sending flaming kites from the Gaza Strip into Israel the past few weeks, say that their real goal is to “burn the Jews” and destroy Israel. They see the kites as a new weapon to achieve their goal. They are disappointed, they say, that no Jew has been hurt yet as a result of the fires triggered by the flaming kites.

The kites have ignited dozens of fires in Israeli fields and forests adjacent to the border with the Gaza Strip, much to the satisfaction of the Palestinians and their supporters in the Arab and Islamic countries, who took to various social media platforms to celebrate the “success” of the Palestinian terror kites.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/gaza_and_palestinian_nihilism.html

“One can understand the meaning of Gaza only when one hears their words about building a state in the context of their efforts to destroy a state.”

Gaza is a case study in obfuscation. Ostensibly the ruckus is all about a march to reclaim property in Israel. But, unless one sees the background one does not comprehend the entire picture.

Do the Palestinians really want a state; a country of their own?

Political logic may support a two state solution. But, the cacophony of allegations, tirades and threats are orchestrated to prevent a serious discussion of how this state will come about. Unfortunately, all of this mayhem makes it very hard to believe in the genuineness of Palestinian desire for autonomy. Perhaps, as was the case with Germany in the twentieth century, their hatred for the Jews has become a self-destructive force. While a useful political instrument, hate hardly constitutes a political philosophy capable of promoting an independent democratic society.

The altruistic idea of a Palestinian state is a projection of American evangelism. We hold to the belief that all people should be free and equal. Americans believed that democracy could be transplanted to the Arab world. However, as Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington argued, we are witnessing a “clash of civilizations.” Western ideals forged out of consensus, such as democracy, may not be compatible with Islamic civilization built upon an ethos of violence.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12422/palestinians-gaza-human-rights

Samah Abu Ghayyath still has not been formally charged with committing any crime. Hamas will not say why the mother of five was held in detention for 23 days.

This is the real tragedy of the Palestinians: failed leadership that has deprived them of international aid and a good life in favor of hating and killing Jews. Their leaders have dragged their people from one disaster to another — from Black September in Jordan in the ’70s, to the civil war in Lebanon in the ’80s and ’90s, to the Second Intifada during the 2000s, and to wars in the Gaza Strip that have claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians.

Where are all those who claim to be “pro-Palestinian” and are spewing hatred against Israel and Jews at college campuses in the US and Canada? If they really want to help the Palestinians, let them stand up and shout about the rights of women and gays living under Hamas’s repressive regime, and journalists who are being harassed and arrested by Mahmoud Abbas’s security forces.

Yelling lies about Israel and Jews does not make one “pro-Palestinian.” It only makes one an Israel-hater. Hating Israel does not improve human rights conditions for Palestinians living under Hamas and Fatah. Instead, it serves as a distraction and even facilitates Fatah and Hamas in suppressing public freedoms and human rights.

A Palestinian mother of five just spent 23 days in prison. During her incarceration, she was held in unspeakable conditions and denied family visitations. She was also prohibited from consulting a lawyer.

This is a story that no one has heard in the West.

http://evelyncgordon.com/baby-layla-shows-whats

If there’s one thing Israel advocates agree on, it’s that Israel lost the PR war over May 14’s violent demonstrations in Gaza. Everybody from the U.N. Security Council to a New York public high schoolmourned the 62 Palestinians killed as innocent victims, even though 53 belonged to terrorist organizations. And with Hamas planning another demonstration on Tuesday, a battle has been raging over whether the PR war is inherently unwinnable or if Israel’s public diplomacy was simply incompetent.

The correct answer is both. And nothing better illustrates this than the story of the Palestinian baby allegedly killed by Israeli tear gas.

Israel’s critics immediately seized on the death of 8-month-old Layla Ghandour as proof of its malfeasance. As the New York Times wrote, “The story shot across the globe, providing an emotive focus for outrage at military tactics that Israel’s critics said were disproportionately violent.” The Times of Israel noted that “Her funeral was filmed and featured on global TV news broadcasts and newspaper front pages.”

Soon afterward, however, a Gazan doctor suggested that she most likely died of a congenital heart defect rather than anything Israel did (a theory later apparently accepted even by Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which last week removed Ghandour from its list of people killed by Israel).

What happened next was surreal: The doctor’s explanation was immediately seized on and disseminated worldwide by both official Israeli spokesmen and Israel supporters overseas as if it somehow mattered whether Ghandour was killed by tear gas or a congenital heart defect. In other words, Israel and its supporters implicitly accepted the view of the anti-Israel mob. Had the baby truly been killed by Israeli tear gas, presumably Israel could legitimately have been considered culpable.

FROM MY FRIEND AND E-PAL DPS

Ben Gurion Airport – Sun-Monday 24 hours arriving from 85 cities

Source: http://www.iaa.gov.il/en-US/airports/bengurion/Pages/OnlineFlights.aspx#

Sunday 3 June 2018

Arriving from 85 cities: Addis Ababa, Amman, Amsterdam, Antalya, Athens, Baku, Bangkok, Barcelona, Basel, Batumi, Beijing, Belgrade, Bergamo, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Cairo, Chisinau, Cluj, Craiova, Dnepropetrovsk, Dusseldorf, Eilat, Eindhoven, Frankfurt, Gdansk, Geneva, Hamburg, Heraklion, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Karpathos, Katowice, Kharkov, Kiev, Krakow, Larnaca, Lisbon, London, Los Angeles, Lyon, Madrid, Malaga, Malta, Manchester, Marseille, Milan, Minsk, Montreal, Moscow, Mumbai, Munich, Naples, New Delhi, New York, Newark, Nuremberg, Odessa, Palma, Paphos, Paris, Prague, Rhodes, Riga, Rome, Rostov, Rzeszow, S.Petersburg, San Francisco, Sochi, Sofia, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Thessaloniki, Tivat, Toronto, Varna, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Yerevan, Zurich

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270344/anti-semitism-full-display-ben-gurion-airport-ari-lieberman

Holocaust imagery depicting man’s inhumanity to man generally evokes emotive responses that make us question the possibility of a repetition of such bestial behavior in the 21st century. It also evokes questions on how humanity can transform ignorance, bigotry and intolerance into murder and mass genocide.

A particular disturbing Holocaust-era photo, among the many that I’ve seen, left an indelible impression on me. It depicts a barefoot orthodox Jewish man donning a pair of tefillin (phylacteries) and a tallit (prayer shawl). The man, who was almost certainly murdered shortly after the picture was taken, is surrounded by a group of amused German soldiers, possibly members of the notorious SS Einsatzgruppen, who appear to be reveling in the man’s misfortune and humiliation.

An occurrence at Ben-Gurion International Airport this past week rekindled my memory of this image. The scene initially unfolded rather benignly with Rabbi Meir Herzl, the director of a Chabad house in the Jerusalem suburb of Pisgat Zeev, approaching businessman Gad Kaufman, and asking Mr. Kaufman if he would like to don tefillin and recite a short prayer.

This is a rather common occurrence. Chabad routinely performs spiritual community outreach. Some of those who are approached waive them off with a polite smile while others just ignore them. On occasion, those approached respond positively and oblige, and this was the case with Rabbi Herzl’s interaction with Mr. Kaufman.

As Mr. Kaufman donned the tefillin, a crazed woman lurched forward and began berating both Rabbi Herzl and Mr. Kaufman. Her bizarre rant, where she is seen alternating between harassing the rabbi and screeching uncontrollably was caught on video and has since gone viral. “Why are you doing this here?” she barks in Hebrew. “You’re bothering me, why don’t you do it over there?” she demands. At one point Mr. Kaufman begins to address her and Rabbi Herzl, who remained calm and composed throughout, tells Mr. Kaufman not to pay her any mind.

The unhinged woman was later identified as Pnina Peri. Unsurprisingly, she is an academic in the humanities/social science field, and a visiting professor at the University of Maryland’s Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies. She is also listed as a faculty member of the sociology department at the American University in Washington D.C., though as of this writing, her name on the American University’s webpage connects to a broken link. Peri’s bio somewhat comically describes her as a “specialist on multicultural theory and cross-culture communication.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/the_israel_day_parade.html

With thirty thousand marchers in the Israel Day parade and one hundred thousand+ viewers, Sunday, June 3, was a glorious day. Jews and their well-wishers came from Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Israel, and colleges across the country to sing and dance their way up New York’s Fifth Avenue. It is an annual event that brings light and life to the Jews of the United States. Everyone was particularly happy because of the silly human tendency to prefer round numbers. This was Israel’s 70th birthday as a modern nation and was noticeably more rowdy and boisterous than last year’s 69th birthday celebration. Rain threatened but no one cared. More politicians came out and the amplified music had more bass notes and percussion. Marchers greeted bystanders and bystanders drew marchers to the side for hugs and good wishers. Baby carriages graced various groups as did some wheelchairs for the elders who insisted in participating. No one except the marching bands felt the need to move in lockstep. Some of the marchers danced their way up the avenue and then others took over. People who normally do not wear yarmulkes wore them proudly and no one was afraid — unlike Europe where Jewish leaders have urged Jews to wear hats to hide their identities.

Unadulterated happiness in the world is rather rare. The Israel Day parade was pure fun, full of politics, commercialism, national pride and universal values with only seconds of rancor and discord that you had to hunt and peck to find.

By the way, don’t bother trying to find coverage of the Israel Day parade in the MSM. No blood was spilled and so it was not a newsworthy event. Covering the joy of the Jews (or anyone) seems to be politically incorrect in this strange world we have fashioned.