RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe/231127

Since October 7, 2023, everything has changed

The latest Hamas and Hezbollah aggression, unleashed against Israeli civilians by the mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, masks the growing and insidious myth that has metastasized in the West, namely the endlessly repeated lie by Arab propaganda that the Jewish state occupies a country called Palestine and that Israelis are colonists and occupiers. I first became aware of this baseless lie during the last two weeks of May 2003 when I spent time in England visiting family and friends.

My visit afforded me an opportunity to sense how the British media was treating Israel in its daily news coverage. I was already aware of the corrosive and institutionalized bias by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) towards Israel, but what I saw and heard exceeded my worst fears.

On one day alone, the BBC ran a program called “Correspondent” in which Israel’s construction of a security fence to protect Israeli citizens from Arab terror was roundly criticized. The BBC correspondent expressed no understanding of Israel’s basic needs of defense; instead, the program blamed Israel’s “occupation” for the Palestinian violence and denounced the fence as a “wall of apartheid.”

Of course, when Arabs use the word “occupation” they are not talking of Judea and Samaria (the so-called West Bank) or Gaza, they are talking about all of Israel. Thus, when they speak of peace once Israel withdraws from “occupied territory” what they really mean is that there will be peace once Israel no longer exists. That is also what they mean when they scream, “From the River to the Sea.”

The same day on British TV’s Channel 4, a bizarre opera called “The Death of Klinghoffer” was aired. This filmed opus, composed by a John Adams, dealt with the hijacking by Palestinian terrorists of the cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, in 1985 and the murder of the hapless wheelchair bound Jewish American, Leon Klinghoffer, who was subsequently tossed overboard by the Arab hijackers. The opera provided a misplaced dignity to the terrorists and attempted to excuse their actions in part because of the Israeli “occupation.”

Earlier in the week, BBC 1 was to have televised “Raid on Entebbe” and viewers tuned in only to be dismayed that the Beeb, as the BBC was once affectionately known, arbitrarily cancelled the program. The showing of the film, which cast Israeli commandos in a heroic light as they rescued hijacked Jewish passengers from a German/Palestinian gang in Idi Amin’s Uganda, was deemed by the BBC spokesperson as “insensitive at this time of terrorist alerts.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20178/arabs-betrayed-palestinians

The stance of the Arabs and Muslims is yet another indication of their disillusionment with the Palestinians in general and Iran’s proxies — Hamas, Hizballah and the Houthis — in particular.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan are as opposed to Hamas as they are to Israel. Hamas is another branch of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, which has long posed a threat to their national security.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut ties with Qatar after accusing it of providing support for Islamist terrorists, including Hamas and the Taliban, as well as Iran.

Now that their eyes have been once again forced open, the Palestinians should distance themselves from Hamas and other terrorist groups and join forces with those Arabs and Muslims who recognize that to create a better future for their people, it would benefit them immeasurably to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

The Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group and its supporters are once again disappointed that the Arab countries did not come to the rescue of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the current war which erupted after the October 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis. At least 1,200 Israelis were murdered and more than 4,500 wounded in the massacre. Another 240 Israelis, including toddlers, children, women and the elderly were kidnapped to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

This is not the first time that the Palestinians have voiced disappointment with their Arab brothers. In all previous rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinians have claimed that the Arab and Islamic states were not doing enough to help them. In fact, Palestinians have over the past few decades accused the Arabs of “betraying” them by signing normalization agreements with Israel and refusing to provide them with financial aid. The Palestinians receive lip service from the Arabs and Muslims, but that is all.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/11/video_amazing_israeli_women_saved_a_community.html

When you suddenly get innumerable emails from people wanting you to see the same story, you know it’s an important one. In this case, it’s the story of the young women who, with three tanks, fought a 17-hour-long furious battle against Hamas terrorists, saving an entire community through their actions. Their triumph is an important counterpoint to the women who were ignored in the lead-up to the October 7 attack. Some are blaming sexism, but I have another theory.

The tank battle took place at Yated, a community that sits near the Egyptian and Gaza borders at the southernmost end of the Gaza Strip. This video shows the women explaining how they responded to the attack and what they did. They are matter of fact, saying that they were completely focused on the task at hand, which was to fight the terrorists swarming into Israel:

It’s worth noting that, even as the women are getting the respect they deserve for their impressive military feat, there is a story emerging that part of the reason Israel was caught unprepared was that commanders ignored warnings from female “spotters,” many of whom died on October 7, saying that they saw unusual Hamas activity along the border.

The current narrative is that this failure resulted from command sexism. That’s possible. Israel is the most enlightened country in the Middle East, with full women’s rights and innumerable strong women. Still, many people in Israel are the descendants of the approximately 900,000 Jews expelled from Arab lands after Israel’s creation. Unlike the Zionist Europeans who moved to Israel before and after the modern state’s creation, all of whom were very modern in their attitudes towards women, these emigrants came from conservative countries and might have reflected those values and passed them to their children.