RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/elise-stefaniks-un-debut-cant-come-soon-enough/

Whether the Biden administration is planning a last hurrah for the Jewish state at the United Nations—a lame-duck good riddance, à la Barack Obama, in the form of an abstention in a hostile Security Council vote—remains to be seen. The updated draft of a resolution relating to the war in Gaza and Lebanon is no better, if not worse, than its first anti-Israel version.

No surprise there. The only question is how Washington’s current dubious “ironclad commitment” to its key Mideast ally will stand up to scrutiny where the international vipers’ nest in Midtown Manhattan is concerned.

What’s certain is that President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to replace U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield can’t come soon enough.

To grasp the difference between Thomas-Greenfield and her soon-to-be-successor, Elise Stefanik, one need only compare their statements about Israel and the Iran-backed enemies bent on its annihilation.

Thomas-Greenfield opened her address last week to the UNSC by issuing a harsh rebuke. Not to Hamas, of course. No, instead, she began her Nov. 12 tirade by citing remarks by acting U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and relief coordinator Joyce Msuya.

 “There is no need to mince words here,” Thomas-Greenfield stated at the outset. “As we heard from our briefers, the situation in northern Gaza is dire. Catastrophic, as we heard from Ms. Msuya. An unconscionable number of Palestinian civilians, many women and children, have been killed.”

She proceeded to invoke a false Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report, according to which “nearly every civilian in Gaza is without adequate food, medication, clean drinking water or housing,” adding, “They simply cannot be left to suffer indefinitely.”

Paraphrasing Secretary of State Antony Blinken, she continued: “We need to end the armed conflict, bring the hostages home, including the seven Americans held by Hamas, and chart a path forward in the post-conflict period that provides governance, security and reconstruction in Gaza.”

Not a syllable about the monsters who make such a task impossible. Never mind, though, Thomas-Greenfield, like her boss Blinken and the rest of the outgoing administration, has been focused on currying favor with the world’s malign actors.

Constantly demanding of Israel that it end a war for its survival—one it neither initiated, wanted nor brought on itself—is one way of doing this. Another is to hold the Israel Defense Forces to a higher standard than any army around the globe. Ironically, the more the IDF lives up to this gargantuan task, by keeping civilian casualties at historically low levels, the greater the cries and lies about its behavior grow.

This is to be expected from its enemies. The finger-wagging by its self-professed friends is a different story, however.

The latter countries don’t understand that flooding Gaza with food and other supplies for Hamas to steal, with the help of UNRWA collaborators, has enabled the terrorists to maintain political power. Or perhaps they’re willfully blind to the fact that keeping the aid flowing has prolonged the war and prevented the release of the 101 captives who still remain in subterranean dungeons, as well as enslaved in the homes of “innocent” residents of the Strip.

Thomas-Greenfield is clearly among those who’ve been ignoring, and thus perpetuating, the very situation they bemoan at every opportunity.

“As we consider that future, we must immediately surge humanitarian aid to civilians throughout Gaza, or many of them may not survive the winter,” she said. “The IPC’s latest report on the prospect of imminent famine underscores the urgency of the situation. And it makes clear that such a surge is critical.”

Giving her government credit for pressuring the wrong party into compliance, she added, “Thanks to intervention by the United States, Israel has taken some important steps, including restoring aid deliveries to the north.”

Still, she warned, “Israel must ensure its actions are fully implemented and its improvements sustained over time. Only a sustained flow of assistance, coupled with restoration of basic services, including health and nutrition activities, health care, and water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure can alleviate the catastrophic levels of food insecurity found in the IPC report. And we continue to reiterate there must be no forcible displacement, nor policy of starvation in Gaza, which would have grave implications under U.S. and international law.”

Thomas-Greenfield followed her outrageous suggestion that Israel is guilty or on the verge of committing crimes by criticizing it for legislating a ban on UNRWA. In her view, the organization may have a few rotten apples in its employ, but that shouldn’t disqualify it as a whole.

Talk about living in an alternate universe. It’s the same la-la-land that led her to wind down her shameful speech with the following fantasy: “Colleagues, the work before us to forge a ceasefire is difficult. But it is necessary. The challenge of helping a revitalized Palestinian Authority rebuild Gaza without Hamas is immense. And the humanitarian crisis facing millions of Palestinian civilians is daunting. But these obstacles are not insurmountable and we cannot succumb to inaction.”

She ended with the usual lip service about Palestinians and Israelis living in peace and security—as though the P.A. doesn’t wish and work tirelessly for Israel’s destruction.

Which brings us to Stefanik. On Sept. 23, less than three weeks before the above appalling performance, the incoming envoy raked the U.N. over the coals over its “disgraceful antisemitic resolution to demand that Israel surrender to barbaric terrorists who seek the destruction of both Israel and America.”

Stefanik explained without apology, “Once again, the U.N.’s antisemitic rot is on full display as it punishes Israel for defending itself and rewards Iranian-backed terrorists. Instead of deplorably targeting the legitimacy of the State of Israel, the U.N. should be demanding that Hamas release every hostage and start enforcing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 to stop Hezbollah’s endless Iranian-backed terrorist attacks. As the U.N.’s General Assembly occurs this week in New York, the Biden-Harris administration must call out the U.N.’s extreme antisemitism and moral depravity and unequivocally support Israel’s right to defend itself against both brutal terrorists and biased international organizations.”

She was equally staunch in her defense of the Jewish state when she visited the Knesset in May.

“Today, I stand before you not just as a leader in the United States Congress, but as a lifelong admirer, supporter and true friend of Israel and the Jewish people,” Stefanik said. “You see, I am lucky enough to have had the privilege of traveling here many times before, but I must confess that this time feels different. The stakes are higher. Our sense of moral, patriotic duty feels heightened, renewed.

“226 days ago, we witnessed the most vicious, brutal attack on Israel and the Jewish people since the Holocaust, a barbaric terrorist attack that claimed more than 1,200 innocent lives. Civilian women, children and the elderly were ripped from their homes and massacred. Raped, beheaded, Jewish families were bound together and burned. Babies burned alive. Atrocities of humanity.

“We must never forget, and we must never relent.

“Israelis, Americans and others were savagely kidnapped from their homes, beaten, tortured and taken hostage to the terror tunnels beneath Gaza …, held by Hamas terrorist thugs.

“… This period calls to mind the many times forces of evil have tried to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. Since Israel’s first days of existence there have been those who have sought out its destruction. You see, we saw the same eliminationist goal in 1948, during the Fedayeen raids of the 1950s and ’60s, in the ’67 war, the ’73 war, the successive wars against Hamas in Gaza, and again, on that dark day, Oct. 7, 2023.

“What we are witnessing today is a story of the forces of good versus evil. The forces of civilization against the forces of barbarism, of humanity versus depravity.”

This wasn’t her only expression of moral clarity. Stefanik also hailed the concept of “total victory,” which she said “starts—but only starts—with wiping those responsible for Oct. 7 off the face of the earth.”

Every word of her address was pure gold, making it difficult to pluck out excerpts, such as these: “My country, and all countries, must stare truth in the face: This is not Israel’s fight alone. It is also our fight, the West’s fight. In truth, total victory is about more than responding to one attack; it’s about restoring a way of life. It is about securing the Jewish state so that it no longer faces threats of annihilation from any actor, whether from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas or any other. And it is the United States’ high honor and high responsibility to support Israel’s effort.

“I have been clear at home and I will be clear here: There is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel—aid that was duly passed by the Congress. There is no excuse to ease sanctions on Iran, paying a $6 billion ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, or to dither and hide while our friends fight for their lives. No excuse. Full stop.

“That’s why I’m proud to have sponsored, or backed, every measure to aid Israel that has come before the United States Congress. … And it’s why, for years, I have been a leading proponent and partner to President Trump in his historic support for Israeli independence and security, including: moving the U.S. embassy to its rightful place in Jerusalem; the negotiation of the historic Abraham Accords …; adopting the strategy to align the U.S. Central Command with Israel …; and finally, President Trump’s wise decision to call out UNRWA for what it is—a hive of antisemitism—and to eliminate every dollar of its U.S. funding.

“When the enemy is inside the gates of the United Nations, America must be the one to call it by its name and destroy it. President Trump understood that, and b’ezrat hashem [with God’s help], we will return to that strategy soon.

“But you know as well as I that the enemy is inside more than just the gates of the United Nations. It is also in powerful Western institutions in my country and beyond, where the virus, the vile virus of antisemitism is spreading. This is why total victory means not just physical self-defense but ideological self-defense.

“As chair of the House Republican Conference, I’m proud that House Republicans have passed bipartisan resolutions in support of Israel, called out antisemitism in the halls of Congress and brought transparency to the antisemitic propaganda pushed on American students and paid for by foreign adversaries. … I also serve as a senior member of the Education and Workforce Committee, where I led the charge to expose this moral rot of antisemitism infecting our supposed most ‘elite’ higher education institutions. When we heard from Jewish students, faculty members, and staff about antisemitic attacks taking place on their campuses, I demanded Congress host a public hearing to hold colleges and universities accountable for their failure to combat antisemitism and their failure to protect Jewish members of their community.

 “… I’ve been in a lot of high-profile committee hearings over the years, and I’ve never witnessed the moral bankruptcy and depravity of witnesses like I did in that hearing. … There is a reason that it is the most viewed testimony in the history of the U.S. Congress—because it exposed the moral rot at the highest levels of these so-called ‘elite’ universities.

“… We have put colleges and universities on notice and expanded this investigation to ensure every Jewish and Israeli student, faculty member and staff member is protected on campus. … The days of unchecked antisemitism, of anti-Jewish racism, must be over. We will hold the purveyors of the oldest hatred accountable.

Stefanik concluded with a heartening message for the good guys that won’t go down well in Turtle Bay.

“Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu recently said that if Israel must stand alone. I am here to tell you that it is our duty as Americans that Israel does not stand alone,” she emphasized. “Israel, keep fighting. We are with you.”