RUTHFULLY YOURS

The outgoing secretary-general of the United Nations outdid himself this week. In his final briefing ‎to the U.N. Security Council on Friday, Ban Ki-moon said, “Over the last decade, I have argued that ‎we cannot have a bias against Israel at the U.N. Decades of political maneuvering have created a ‎disproportionate number of resolutions, reports and committees against Israel. In many cases, ‎instead of helping the Palestinian issue, this reality has foiled the ability of the U.N. to fulfill its role ‎effectively.”‎

Listening to the head of the international body that long ago ceased to fulfill any role other than that ‎of providing a platform for despots, one might have mistaken him for an innocent bystander whose ‎voice has been drowned out by the cacophony against the Jewish state.

In fact, Ban is a prominent ‎member of the Israel-bashing choir he has been conducting for the past 10 years, taking every ‎opportunity to equate the only democracy in the Middle East with the forces bent on its destruction ‎and on the subjugation of the West. ‎

Indeed, he even performed this feat in his farewell address, admonishing both Israel and the ‎terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip in the same breath. Israel, he warned, “needs to ‎understand the reality that a democratic state, which is run by the rule of the law, which continues to ‎militarily occupy the Palestinian people, will still generate criticism and calls to hold her accountable.” ‎Hamas, with its “anti-Semitic charter, which seeks to destroy Israel,” he said, should “condemn ‎violence once and for all and recognize Israel’s right to exist.”‎

He conveniently forgot to mention that Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, and that ‎Hamas — which took control over the enclave two years later — has no reason to “condemn” the ‎violence against Jews that it perpetrates and promotes.‎

But no matter. Ban, like the rest of his cohorts at the U.N., never lets facts get in the way of ‎ideology. Nor do his own contradictions in terms cause him to pause, which is why he had no ‎problem saying that though the Palestinian conflict is not at the root of the other wars in the Middle ‎East, “its resolution can create momentum in the region.” If he has some notion of how, exactly, the ‎mass murder of Syrians at the hands of the Russian- and Iranian-backed regime of President ‎Bashar Assad and rebel forces would be affected by some deal between Jerusalem and Ramallah, ‎he is keeping it under wraps.‎

Take that, Beyonce. Here’s a real feminist.

Captain Or Ben-Yehuda of the Israeli Defense Forces just put Generation Snowflake to shame.

While many American youth — male as well as female — cower in college safe spaces to protect themselves from microaggressions, this young female IDF Captain has just been decorated with the country’s highest honor, the Medal of Valor, for her leadership and bravery in the face of an ambush by nearly two dozen terrorists near the Egyptian border.

According to The Tribunist, Captain Ben-Yehuda was in charge of the Caracal Battalion which was stationed near the Israeli / Egyptian border. When three suspicious vehicles approached the battalion’s position, Captain Ben-Yehuda went with a driver to check them out.

As they approached the first vehicle, nearly two dozen armed men opened fire on their position in an ambush attack. Both Captain Ben-Yehuda and her driver were immediately shot in the volley of gunfire.

Despite suffering from a gunshot wound, Captain Ben-Yehuda managed to get on the radio and call for backup, administer first aid to her driver and return several magazines worth of gunfire back at her attackers.

Backup, in the form of several vehicles full of IDF soldiers, arrived on scene, the wounded Captain commanded the responding soldiers and positioned her men to effectively fight back the terrorists.

At this point it was obvious the IDF was going to be able to push back the armed group, and medical personnel wanted to evacuate Captain Ben-Yehuda to treat her gunshot wounds. However, she was unwilling to leave the battlefield until all of the fighting was done.

After she recovered from her injuries, Captain Ben-Yehuda’s own mother showed up to present the award to her daughter in a special awards ceremony.

Her mother, Emma Dina Ben-Yehuda, is no slouch either. A decorated IDF officer herself, she served in the Yom Kippur War and was also honored later for her work with grieving families of IDF soldiers killed in the line of duty.

Take that, Beyonce and Amy Schumer. This is what a feminist looks like:

Zionism has a story to tell that is not only about Jews or for Jews.
Zionism has a story to tell that, when properly understood, has the
power to inspire people and peoples to great acts of daring and
sacrifice. Zionism tells a simple story: Victimhood is not destiny. A
history of marginalization, humiliation, discrimination, persecution,
massacres, and even genocide can be transcended. A people, no matter
how downtrodden, can find within themselves the power to change their
future.

When the story of Zionism is told, continuity is often highlighted:
the continuous presence of Jews in the Land of Israel, the ongoing
yearning of a people in exile to return to their homeland, the
unrelenting hope for the ingathering of a people from all corners of
the earth to find redemption in an ancient land.

But Zionism is as much a revolution in Jewish life as a continuation
of it. In the immediate aftermath of the Roman exile, the Judeans
might have conceived of their return to Judea as a forthcoming
possibility. But by the 19th century, the idea of return was
sublimated into a Messianic wish, expressed in ritual and prayer. One
day, a descendant of King David would arise and lead the Jewish people
out of a fragile existence into a life of dignified sovereignty in a
land of their own. It was a passive hope that mandated no action.

Zionism was a rebellion against this Jewish passivity. To the Jewish
people, Zionism carried the message that they need not wait for the
Messiah. Rather, they should be their own Messiahs. Zionism, born of
the enlightenment, embodied the idea of human agency. Rather than wait
for God or Messiah to bring about their salvation, Zionism called upon
the Jewish people to be the vehicles of their own redemption. Zionism
demonstrated that, even when dealt some of the worst cards in history,
humans were active agents, capable of changing the course of their
private and collective futures.

Is the presence of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria an impediment to Israel’s ability to reach a settlement with the Arabs? “Just as terror is the greatest Palestinian threat to Middle East peace, so are settlements on territory captured in the 1967 war the greatest Israeli obstacle to peace,” complained The New York Times[1] The only solution is to evacuate them. This view became acceptable among some Israelis and American Jews, at least until the Jews were expelled (euphemistically called “unilateral disengagement”) from Gaza in August 2005. [2]

When the Al Aqsa Intifada began in late September 2000, The New York Times columnist Thomas Freidman visited Israel and Ramallah where he concluded, “This war is sick, but it has exposed some basic truths… to think that the Palestinians are only enraged about settlements is also fatuous nonsense. Talk to the 15-year-olds. Their grievance is not just with Israeli settlements, but with Israel. Most Palestinians simply do not accept that the Jews have any authentic right to be here. For this reason, any Palestinian state that comes into being should never be permitted to have any heavy weapons, because if the Palestinians had them today their extremists would be using them on Tel Aviv.” [3]

The Jewish population of Judea and Samaria is approximately 360,000 to 382,000. Jews living in Judea and Samaria during the 1948-1949 War of Independence were expelled. They did not return until after 1967. [4]

Israeli civilian settlement in Judea and Samaria began at the request of the Levi Eshkol government in response to political pressure to resettle the Gush Etzion Bloc and create a permanent presence on the Golan Heights. After the Six-Day War, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s government came under even greater pressure to allow settlements throughout the biblical Land of Israel. She responded by establishing a small number of security settlements in the Sinai, the Golan, and the Jordan Valley. [5]

Under the Eshkol, Meir, and Rabin governments there was significant settlement activity, yet by the time Menachem Begin and the Likud assumed power in 1977, there were only 3,200 settlers. By the end of Begin’s second term as Prime Minister in 1983, the number increased to 28,400. By 2004, there some 230,000. The IDF constructed roads that bypass Palestinian Arab towns and villages to protect the Jews from snipers, bombings, and drive-by shootings. [6]

Ardently pro-Israel American politician Alan D. Clemmons, Republican Representative in the South Carolina House of Representatives, was in Israel last week. He was there with a number of Texas state legislators whom he is helping draft and work on passing anti-BDS legislation, just as he did in South Carolina.http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/american-legislator-predicts-rosy-israeli-future-during-trump-era/2016/12/20/

Clemmons took time out of his trip to meet in Gush Etzion with American and Israeli leaders to discuss work he and others are currently doing to support the state of Israel and to find areas of future collaborations.

Clemmons was brought to Gush Etzion by the Yes! Israel Project for an event at the home of Project leader Ruth Jaffe Lieberman.

In addition to his recent work promoting anti-BDS legislation in state legislatures throughout the United States, the South Carolina legislator was instrumental in crafting the intensely pro-Israel plank for the Republican party’s platform last summer. Clemmons had tried to get similar language included in the 2012 platform but had not been successful.

The language of the plank which Clemmons helped to craft compares Israel’s vision to that of America’s, rejects dictating terms of any peace agreement by those not living in the region and calls for the termination of funding for any entity which attempts to do so. Clemmons introduced the language and shepherded it through the subcommittee and then the full committee. When the language was formally approved, the members present rose to give it a standing ovation.

Clemmons also introduced legislation into the South Carolina legislature to allow its states drivers to purchase special license plates emblazoned with the message: “South Carolina Stands With Israel,” and which contains entwined flags of South Carolina and Israel. That legislation was enacted in 2011.

Although not a member of President-Elect Trump’s transition team, Clemmons is well-connected and spoke plainly to those present about the rosy future he sees for Israel during the Trump administration.

The last many years of living under the thumb of the State Department mentality which treated peaceful Israelis and recalcitrant Arabs as equally culpable was over. During the Trump administration, Israel’s view about itself and its own sovereignty will be what sets the agenda.