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.