RUTHFULLY YOURS

It’s been quite some time since I thought about this tragedy. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent comments brought it back onto my brain’s front burner…

YNet News reported on July 8, 2018 that seventy years after theAltalena Affair, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated “not only were the Etzel (Irgun) fallen not traitors, they were patriots of the first degree and acted in the benefit of the State of Israel, with immense effort and great sacrifice.”

The June 1948 confrontation was a nightmare which saw some twenty precious Jewish soldiers lost in patriot-on-patriot fighting for the heart and soul of the newly resurrected Jewish State.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s backtrack a bit…

Even though he’s been out of the picture since 2004, polluting the soil from Jerusalem sprinkled onto his coffin in Ramallah, nothing has really changed regarding the two peoples struggling over rights to this land.

The problem has always extended beyond Yasir Arafat himself. He was simply carrying yet another local banner for a wider, age-old Arabism which–as I like to remind readers–rejects the rights of any (i.e., not just Jews) of the scores of millions of non-Arab peoples who were conquered in a region Arabs call purely Arab patrimonyand the Dar ul-Islam… among other things, the Arab-Israeli conflict in a nutshell.

To expand on this important point (especially for those who specialize in singling Israel), Arabs have treated all would-be national competitors similarly–with, admittedly, a bit more disdain for Jews. The latter were subjected to additional vilification in the Qur’an and other religious teachings of Islam for rejecting, from the very beginning, Muhammad’s religio-political claims–despite his overtures to the Jews (like praying towards Jerusalem) in the date palm oasis founded by them in Medina to which he fled from enemies in Mecca (the Hijra)… Geez, now why does that sound somewhat familiar? Ponder that a bit.

http://jamieglazov.com/2018/07/19/glazov-gang-avi-jorisch-on-thou-shalt-innovate/

This new edition of The Glazov Gang features Avi Jorisch, the author of Thou Shalt Innovate.

Avi discusses Thou Shalt Innovate and unveils How Israeli Ingenuity Repairs the World.

Don’t miss it!

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12717/israel-iroquois

The nations of the world want to know what Israel knows and have what Israel has — whether they have formal diplomatic relations with Jerusalem or not.

Israel’s expansive sharing of water, solar and agricultural technology is legendary, as is Israel’s emergency rapid response team. But military cooperation underpins freedom of navigation in the air and on the seas — the source of international prosperity through trade — and secures people in their borders. Security makes everything else possible.

Israel and the Iroquois Nation came together this week — In Israel — at the Lacrosse World Championship. The Iroquois Nation team was subjected to enormous pressure to boycott, but they steadfastly refused to be swayed. The Iroquois, who invented Lacrosse in about 1100 CE, know a thing or two about indigenous peoples reclaiming their land. And they know a thing or two about Israel. Bravo to them.

There are those who insist that Israel is “isolated,” that it lacks friends and allies. Israel’s place in the larger world, however — except, perhaps, in the halls of the UN — is expanding, not only with the Iroquois Nation, but with the nations of the world that want to know what Israel knows and have what Israel has, whether they have formal diplomatic relations with Jerusalem or not.

Israel’s expansive sharing of water, solar and agricultural technology is legendary, as is Israel’s emergency rapid response team. But military cooperation underpins freedom of navigation in the air and on the seas – the source of international prosperity through trade – and secures people in their borders. Security makes everything else possible, and Israel is in the center of the universe of security cooperation.

Late last year, Israel hosted the largest aerial training exercise in its history – Blue Flag in the Negev Desert. There were 70 aircraft from around the world, hundreds of pilots, and air-support team members. Participants included the United States, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Germany and India. It was the first time French, German and Indian contingents trained in Israel.

I appeal to all who cherish nature and the protection of wildlife wherever it is.

That is why I must alert the world to the horrific and deliberate destruction by Palestinian Hamas of forests, nature reserves, bee hives, wheat fields, avocado groves and innocent wildlife in southern Israel adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

Gaza is suffering under Hamas occupation, which is the Palestinian junior branch of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood. Israel withdrew fully from Gaza in 2005 hoping that the Palestinian Arabs would live in peace. It was not to be.

Hamas has employed fire kites and helium filled balloons, which fly into Israel and explode creating raging firestorms in the fields, meadows, forests and nature reserves. It is a searing tragedy witnessing verdant forests lovingly planted so long ago in what was desert and wasteland now turned into blackened stumps. Once clean and fresh air is now filled with choking ash.

Wildlife, including deer, turtles and birds, have suffered in the most torturous way, burned alive in the terrible fires that have blackened and ruined over 8,500 acres of land in southern Israel. The costs are in the billions and the hapless farmers are trying desperately to bring in whatever produce they can salvage.

Here are pictures. The destruction is monstrous.

But where is the outrage from all the world’s environmental groups and from Peta? Their silence is deafening and reeks of hypocrisy and stark indifference to the destruction of wildlife and restored agriculture that generations of Israeli pioneers, farmers and ecologists have painstakingly redeemed from the desert and wilderness.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

He writes:

When I was a little child, I was fascinated by kites. Seeing the kites dancing with the wind with colorful structures in the blue sky was magical. I remember running in all directions on the sand trying to fly my kite like a butterfly, a bird, a happy heart. Like all the children of the world I played with kites on beaches.

Kites are normally children’s toys. Except in Gaza, where the population uses the kite as a weapon of terror against the Israeli civilian population.

For more than three months, hundreds of terror kites and incendiary balloons have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel, causing considerable fires and threatening the civilian population in southern Israel (where I live).

Reports indicate that thousands of dunams of crops and plants have been destroyed because of this form of terrorism: agricultural terror.

Since the beginning of Palestinian violence and attempts of incursions into Israeli territory, the damage to flora, crops and wildlife has been considerable, with estimates that losses amount to several millions dollars.

According to a JNS report, “officials of the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority have estimated that at least a third of the Carmia Nature Reserve has been destroyed, with significant damage to local plants and wildlife”.

Because Israel has the advanced technologies needed to fight terror kites and incendiary balloons.

It would only take a few hours for the IDF to completely raze Gaza and put an end to this problem.

Except that this problem is not technological, but purely political.

Indeed, to combat these terrorist incursions into Israeli territory, the IDF uses barely 1% of its military power.