RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/anti-netanyahu-protests-threaten-war-effort-hostage-deal-experts-say/

The demonstrations against Benjamin Netanyahu are back, this time wrapped in calls for the release of the hostages held by Hamas.

Analysts tell JNS that protest organizers, many of whom, like former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, were behind the anti-judicial reform protests, are obsessed with bringing down the Netanyahu government to the exclusion of all else, endangering the war effort and the possibility of a hostage deal.

Since the start of the war, anti-government protests had quieted, only to burst out fiercely in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. Tens of thousands turned out, according to estimates, with protesters blocking the Ayalon Highway and accusing the country’s leadership of purposefully torpedoing a hostage deal.

Some hostages’ families, who joined the protests on Saturday, urged War Cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot of the National Unity Party to leave the government and “replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately.”

Demonstrations shifted to Jerusalem on Sunday, turning violent on Tuesday night as a group, some bearing torches, evaded barricades and rushed Netanyahu’s official residence.

Police said the protest descended into “unrestrained disorder and street rioting” as “hundreds of rioters tried to break through by force the police barriers placed near the Prime Minister’s Residence.”

Some observers described speeches at the protest as “incitement.” Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held by Hamas, said of Netanyahu: “You are the traitor. You betrayed your people. You betrayed your voters. You betrayed the State of Israel.”

She labeled him a “Pharaoh who inflicts on us the plague of the firstborn.”

“We will continue to persecute you: we will burn the country down, we will shake the earth, you will not have a day and you will not have a night. As long as my Matan has no day and no night neither will you,” she said.

Not at any price

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20546/new-revitalized-palestinian-authority-same-as

The new Palestinian government… does not seem at all different from previous ones, especially regarding combating corruption and inciting violence against Israel.

According to AMAN, a Palestinian non-governmental organization that seeks to combat corruption and promote integrity, transparency and accountability in Palestinian society, 63% of Palestinians believe that the level of corruption in the PA institutions has increased. The most common forms of corruption: favoritism and nepotism, embezzlement of public funds, breach of trust, abuse of power, bribery and money laundering.

Abbas and his close aides, who have long had an opportunity to make changes in the PA, substantial or otherwise, also do not appear interested in doing so. They seem quite comfortable with the current structure of the PA: no elections, no transparency and no accountability.

The new “revitalized” Palestinian Authority (PA) government includes Minister for Religious Affairs Muhammad Mustafa Najem, who openly called for terror attacks in a sermon on official PA TV, and demonized the Jews as “characterized by conceit, pride, arrogance, rioting, disloyalty, and treachery,” adding that “Allah turned them into apes and pigs.”

As part of a US plan to “revitalize” the Palestinian Authority (PA), a new PA government headed by Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa was announced in late March. While the US administration has not clarified what it means by the “revitalization” of the PA, one can only assume that refers to the need to implement financial and administrative reforms in all PA institutions and see the emergence of new leaders in Ramallah who would work to improve the living conditions of their people and prepare them for peace with Israel.

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/04/04/hamas-founders-son-us-gaza-supporters-belong-in-insane-asylum-n4927917

The son of one of the terrorist group Hamas’s cofounders has a message for Americans and the world: most Palestinians support Hamas, the terrorists want to commit ethnic cleansing against Jews, and any Americans who support Gaza are insane.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas cofounder Shiehk Hassan Yousef, dropped some major truth bombs while on Dr. Phil’s show recently. He explained how there is “lots of hatred” against Jews in Islamic culture, according to a transcription by Breitbart, and stated “the vast majority” of Palestinians support Hamas, a fact confirmed by a recent poll. Indeed, Yousef argued, the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 were “an attempt for ethnic cleansing” and a “holy war” against Jews. While hatred for Israel binds different factions of Palestinians together now, in the absence of Israel, Yousef said, the Gazan Arabs “would kill each other” just as they would happily kill many of the foolish Westerners marching in support of their bloody cause.

He also mocked pro-Palestinian activists for “giving Hamas cover,” saying the terror group would “massacre them with no mercy” while accusing them of supporting “the enemy of civilization,” and insisting they belong in a “mental asylum.” 

The violence perpetrated by Hamas ended up disturbing Yousef so much that he not only broke with the jihad group but also helped Israeli intelligence, Breitbart explained. Yousef also converted to Christianity.

“There’s lots of hatred in [Muslim] culture against the Jewish people; it’s not a secret,” Yousef said. “In fact, the Muslim belief system has a fundamental problem with the Jewish people.” Muslim hatred for Jews is “ideological,” based on a belief in Muhammed’s negative view of Jews, he argued. While Yousef said that “Muhammad did not write a word that says anything against the Jewish people,” it is true that Islamic scriptures include verses that support killing Jews specifically and non-Muslims more generally.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/confronting-anti-israel-narrative-industrial-complex-210394

“Israel has become so demonized” in human rights organizations, says Danielle Haas, former senior editor at Human Rights Watch (HRW), that there’s “no space to see Israelis as victims, or to absorb nuance or voices that challenge their orthodoxies. In a conceptual universe where Israel is an occupier-colonizer-apartheid state, it is a priori the aggressor, regardless of the brutal human-rights abuses it suffers.”

Haas (no relation to me) edited HRW’s annual review of human rights around the world from 2010 to 2023. In a blistering piece for the journal SAPIR, she writes that in human rights organizations, “Israel has become their watchword of outrage, the focus of disproportionate attention, and the note to sound for signaling fealty to a human-rights movement that is increasingly hijacked by politics and dominated by groupthink.”

That’s why, she writes, these organizations have been so anodyne in their response to Hamas’ brutality of October 7, so disinterested in the tunnels it has built “beneath children’s beds,” so skeptical of the proven ties between Hamas and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, so eager to parrot false claims of Israeli brutality in response to October 7, and so reluctant to correct the record later.

From their perch as self-appointed human rights arbiters, these groups play a huge role in shaping public views of the Jewish state. Their reports, tweets, and other utterances are echoed at the United Nations and other global bodies, in leading capitals, through media, on campuses, and in Hollywood—all of it contributing to what one might call a “narrative-industrial complex” that sets and reinforces a narrative about Israel that’s driven by ideology, biased in its conclusions, and disproportionate in its focus.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/05/the-gaza-war-at-six-months-israel-increasingly-isolated-but-resilient/

In the aftermath of the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, the world united behind Israel. President Joe Biden pledged America’s rock-solid support, sent two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean, and visited Israel to express America’s support for the Israeli people. There was remarkable political unity in Israel as an Israeli war cabinet was formed on October 11, 2023, and divisive domestic political issues, such as reforming Israel’s Supreme Court, were set aside.

Six months later, Israel’s situation is very different. War fatigue has undermined support for Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas, especially in Western countries. Although most Israelis reportedly support the war, there have been growing protests to end it so the hostages taken by Hamas can be freed. There also have been efforts to undermine the Israeli government and how it has conducted the war in the United States and Israel.

The Israeli army has made significant progress in the war in Gaza, destroying 20 of Hamas’s original 24 battalions. It plans to soon destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. However, there is strong pressure from the West to end the war because Western leaders and audiences have succumbed to constant scenes of destroyed cities in Gaza, women and children digging themselves out of rubble, and reports of famine. Hamas and their supporters in the West have expertly manipulated press coverage of the war to blame this humanitarian catastrophe on Israel. Few mainstream media reports mention that Hamas started and is sustaining this conflict. The media will also not report that the reason Gazans are hungry is because heavily armed Hamas terrorists are stealing the aid sent into the enclave.

Growing demonstrations in Israel to end the war so hostages can be freed were part of Hamas’s original plan. Hamas knew Israelis value the lives of their citizens and that many would press to end the war early to secure the release of Israeli hostages, even if this meant not destroying Hamas or holding it accountable for the October 7 terrorist attacks.

Western nations and the United Nations condemning Israeli actions to defend themselves against Palestinian terrorists are not new. The UN has established itself as a stridently anti-Israel organization and has passed hundreds of resolutions in the UN Security Council and other UN bodies condemning Israel and questioning its right to exist. For decades, the United States used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block resolutions critical of Israel and its actions to defend itself. That changed on March 25, 2023, when the Biden administration abstained on a UN Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war without requiring Hamas to release any hostages.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-795247

Recognizing Jordan as a Palestinian state, while maintaining its status as a monarchy, reflects the national identity of a majority of its population.

The two-state solution calls for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state in all or most of what is called “the West Bank” (Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem) as well as the Gaza Strip. It would be controlled by terrorist organizations, however, so promoting it is a recipe for disaster.

This solution will also not solve the issue of self-determination for Palestinians and it will empower Israel’s enemies. Moreover, it makes no sense since a Palestinian state already exists: the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which was created in the eastern area of British Mandate Palestine and of which two-thirds of the population consider themselves Palestinians.

A new two-state solution – Jordan/Palestine and Israel – is more viable, reasonable, practical and realistic. It would save lives and offer Palestinians the opportunity of becoming productive and constructive, instead of living under the control of despotic terrorist organizations. That is the real “two-state solution.”

This plan would not require transferring all Arab Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, but would offer them a choice. Those who want to live under Israeli sovereignty and abide by its laws and ethos as a Jewish state should be allowed to remain, either as citizens or residents. Those who do not and present a security threat would have to move to Jordan/Palestine, or another country. The Palestinian Authority/PLO, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations would also no longer be tolerated or accepted.

All UNRWA facilities would be closed, and international organizations would be required to accept Israeli sovereignty.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20544/israel-palestine-two-state-solution

Curiously, like President Joe Biden and his top national security officials, the ambassador [Martin Indyk] ignores a crucial element: radical Islam does not tolerate the existence of a sovereign non-Islamic entity (such as Israel) on land that once was conquered by Muslims (dar al-Islam, “abode of Islam”). As most Palestinians have been creditably straightforward about, there is no place for an Israeli state.

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.” — Zuheir Mohsen, PLO official, Trouw, March 31, 1977.

Tangible land for intangible peace and billions of dollars will not change them — just buy them bigger weapons. Only re-education can hope to do that, if it would work…

“What is a ‘technocratic government’? It’s a front for the terrorists and composed of nonprofit executives, academics, economists and others… and extracting foreign aid from them. Hamas will not officially be part of the puppet regime, but will control the puppets…. [B]ut while Qatar is helping assemble a new ‘technocratic’ front for the terrorists, the Moscow summit made it clear that the real agenda of the new government would be terror against Israel and the U.S.” — Daniel Greenfield, Gatestone Institute, March 13, 2024.

“The ‘technocratic government’ will provide the Biden administration and other governments with the plausible deniability needed to go on funding terrorists. The Moscow summit revealed that a technocratic government will not end terrorism; it will disguise it, and it will not end the conflict, it will escalate it.” — Daniel Greenfield, Gatestone Institute, March 13, 2024.

How can Israeli Jews believe that the recognition of a Palestinian state by the United States and other countries… will bring peace? These countries have no means of enforcing any commitments undertaken by “Palestine” in a potential peace treaty, and even less will to do so.

Recognition of “Palestine” as a state, even if it were supposedly “demilitarized,” would enable it to enter into military alliances and “defense agreements” with whomever they chose — China, Russia, Iran, all of them? Why would such a state not be used as a base, as in the PLO’s 1974 “Ten Point Plan” of phases, from which to try to take “the rest”?

Equally alarmingly, the US has reportedly asked Qatar, Hamas’s main patron since 2007, to operate a supposedly temporary pier in Gaza, currently being planned, to deliver supposedly “humanitarian aid”… one has to ask: What else will come in with the humanitarian aid? With Qatar in charge, “demilitarization” will likely last less than a week.

Those who want to recognize or impose a Palestinian state, knowingly or unconsciously, aim at Israel’s destruction.

Peace will come when the Jews, the Americans and the Europeans support those fighting to preserve civilization, not to preserve terrorism.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/biden_s_feigned_rage_against_israel.html

In a world fraught with conflict and misunderstanding, the recent tragic incident involving the accidental killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers by an Israeli strike in Gaza has become a focal point of international attention. While President Joe Biden’s expression of outrage over these deaths is understandable, it’s crucial to contextualize the incident within the broader canvas of the Israel-Hamas conflict, a struggle marked by Hamas’s relentless aggression and Israel’s efforts to defend its citizens.

The Biden administration’s reaction, while fiery and seemingly indignant, overlooks a fundamental reality: the exceedingly rare nature of such tragic incidents in the context of Israeli operations. For every one innocent life lost in these regrettable circumstances, there are countless more saved by Israel’s diligent efforts to target only the threats posed by Hamas. This organization, designated as a terrorist group by multiple countries, including the United States, has a long history of using civilians as human shields and launching unprovoked attacks against Israel. This tactic not only endangers the lives of Palestinians but also complicates Israel’s self-defense measures.

Israel’s commitment to minimizing civilian casualties is unparalleled, especially when compared to the indiscriminate violence and terror perpetrated by Hamas. The Israeli military goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, including the use of warning shots and leaflets to evacuate areas before strikes against militant targets. Contrast this with Hamas’s strategy, which intentionally places military assets in densely populated civilian areas, thereby increasing the risk to innocent lives.

https://pdavidhornik.substack.com/p/biden-in-full-hypocrisy-mode-slams?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1319513&post_

On Monday night, in a tragic and painful incident, seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen charity organization were killed in an errant Israeli drone strike on their three-car convoy in Gaza.

The words “tragic and painful” are not de rigueur. WCK’s work, which involved providing food both to Israelis and to Palestinians displaced by the war, was much appreciated by Israelis—not least because WCK was filling the shoes of UNRWA, the UN’s “pro-Palestinian” organization whose work in Gaza has been suspended because of their systemic collusion with Hamas.

When Israelis say that painful things happen in the fog of war, we know what we’re talking about and we mean it. On December 15, three Israeli hostages, young men who had escaped Hamas captivity in Gaza, were errantly shot dead by Israeli forces who feared they were Hamas terrorists pretending to be escaped Israeli hostages. Considering that Hamas regularly uses such tactics, and, in general, manipulates human beings to protect itself at a level unprecedented in history, the fear was understandable even if it had a terrible result.

Meanwhile Israeli leaders have sincerely apologized for the aid-workers incident and the IDF is investigating it thoroughly. We know so far that it happened at night, and that whoever gave the order for the drone strike was convinced there were armed terrorists in the convoy. Of course, that doesn’t rule out poor judgment or malfeasance.

But nothing, in any case, will put a dent in the uproar of harsh criticism of Israel over the mishap—and not least from that place of special geopolitical significance for Israel, Washington.