RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/article/no-ramadan-ceasefire

As the March 10 start of Ramadan nears, international pressure has significantly increased on Israel to reach a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages. While the idea of advocating for a ceasefire with a genocidal terrorist organization is fundamentally misguided, the notion that Israel should halt its military efforts to respect Ramadan is even more perverse.

Historically, Palestinian terror groups have used Ramadan as a bargaining chip to pressure Israel into making concessions in exchange for calm—a ploy that the Biden administration has bought wholeheartedly. Those who support Israel’s making such concessions argue that failing to appease Palestinians during Ramadan might incite further terror.

The data, however, don’t align with that contention. As Hill Frisch from the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security wrote in 2023, “Almost none of the most tumultuous periods of Palestinian violence occurred during the month of Ramadan.” Frisch even argued that “A reading of the data strongly suggests that the dangers [of disproportionate violence during Ramadan] are grossly exaggerated, if not entirely false.” In other words, according to Frisch’s research, American and Israeli officials’ concerns about Palestinian terror during Ramadan are at least overstated.

While Frisch’s research suggests that Palestinians are not more likely to commit terror acts during Ramadan, that doesn’t mean that such attacks never happen. Historically, such Ramadan-tied incidents typically follow Palestinian leaders’ prolonged incitement efforts, which culminate in their exploiting the holiday for a preexisting political objective. This time, that objective would be Hamas’s survival.

https://www.jns.org/is-israel-taking-ramadan-restraint-too-far/

“Israel’s policy has always been, and always will be, to safeguard freedom of worship for all faiths,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday at the start of a special session with cabinet members and security chiefs to prepare for the imminent month-long Muslim holiday that begins this year on March 10-11. “This is what we have also done during Ramadan, and this is what we will do now.”

He went on: “We will do everything to safeguard freedom of worship on the Temple Mount, while appropriately taking into account security and safety needs, and will enable the Muslim public to mark the holiday.”

This was a reference to the location of the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a house of prayer that doubles as a base of violence. Because radical Islamists around the world have turned it into a dual symbol of victimhood at the hands of the “infidels” and victory over them, it is always an incendiary hotspot.
It is especially so during spikes in Palestinian terrorism and Ramadan, which usually go together. This is bad news for Muslims who treat the holiday—one of the Five Pillars of Islam—as a period for spiritual contemplation and self-discipline.
It’s far worse, however, for the Jews targeted by those who consider the 30 days of fasting and feasting an opportune time for waging jihad. Not that the latter need Ramadan or Al-Aqsa as an excuse.
Indeed, they’re just as happy to commit mass murder on Jewish and Christian holidays. Hamas’s genocidal Oct. 7 massacre on Simchat Torah and a Shabbat morning is only the most recent example.
But it was the casus belli of the current war in Gaza. Yes, Israel realized on that day five months ago that it had no choice but to destroy the terrorist organization that perpetrated the rape, immolation, decapitation, maiming, slaughter and abduction of hundreds of innocent men, women and children.

https://www.jns.org/palestinian-hate-crime-hoax/

Statistics show that antisemitism is on the rampage, while Islamophobia is minuscule. And that’s bad for the Palestinian cause.

The Vermont man charged with shooting three Palestinian-American college students on Nov. 25 was a defender of Hamas, The New York Times has belatedly acknowledged—and with it, the No. 1 example of an “anti-Palestinian hate crime” has completely crumbled.

For the past three months, the Times and other major news media have portrayed the incident in the city of Burlington as proof that Palestinians are victims of hate crimes in America. Whenever somebody points to the outsized number of recent antisemitic incidents, Arab advocates cite the Vermont shooting as evidence that Arabs and Muslims are just as much victims as the Jews.

It’s reached the point that when some universities announce they are forming a committee to investigate antisemitism, they also announce one to investigate Islamophobia—as Harvard recently did. Even the Biden administration, after unveiling its U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, then announced it is preparing a national strategy to counter Islamophobia, too.

But it turns out that Exhibit A of “anti-Palestinian hate” apparently was nothing of the sort.

As early as last December, local media in Vermont reported that the alleged shooter’s social-media accounts included pro-Hamas statements.

The major news media ignored this myth-busting news—until now. The New York Times Sunday Magazine, in its March 3 edition, included a long essay by Rozina Ali, formerly a Cairo-based journalist who now teaches adjunct at New York University. She is writing a book on “the recent history of Islamophobia in the United States.”

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-790620

While some advocates of a Palestinian state have been claiming that the state would be demilitarized, others are already making the case for building up a Palestinian army.

A feature in the Washington Post this week warned that the Palestinian Authority’s security forces are not yet big enough or powerful enough for the Palestinian state that the Biden Administration is now advocating. The PA forces are “underfunded and widely unpopular [and] ill-equipped to take on the massive responsibilities that their Western backers are envisioning.”
 
So what will the Palestine statehood crowd prescribe as the solution? Give them more funds and more weapons, of course. Build them into a full-fledged army, disguised as a “security force.”

The excuse will be that the PA needs the money and guns to fight terrorism. Everybody seems to have forgotten that the PA was supposed to have been fighting terrorism since it was created back in the 1990s by the Oslo Accords—but it never has done the job.

The first Oslo Agreement, in 1993, stipulated that the Palestinian Arabs would have “a strong police force.” (Article VII) It didn’t say anything about the formation of an army. But the Palestinian Authority quickly exploited the opportunity. The original 12,000 man “security force” ballooned to 60,000—and the international community didn’t say a word. 

Then came Oslo II, in 1995, which spelled out more specifically that the PA security forces are obligated to “apprehend, investigate and prosecute perpetrators and all other persons directly or indirectly involved in acts of terrorism, violence and incitement.” (Annex I, Article II, 3-c).