RUTHFULLY YOURS

The United States and Israel share a unique strategic partnership and friendship. This relationship started in the early years of the Jewish State when President Harry Truman proudly recognized the State of Israel. As Truman’s White House counsel Clark Clifford declared:

In an area as unstable as the Middle East, where there is not now and never has been any tradition of democratic government, it is important for the long-range security of our country, and indeed the world, that a nation committed to the democratic system be established there, one on which we can rely. The new Jewish state can be such a place. We should strengthen it in its infancy by prompt recognition.

This relationship blossomed during the Cold War, as the U.S. military relied on Israeli intelligence to gain the upper hand against the Soviet Union. And today, as the Middle East disintegrates into violent chaos, this relationship grows all the more important.

Today, the U.S. uses Israel’s expertise and ingenuity to help deter internal and external threats to our homeland. All levels of the U.S. military participate in joint exercises with Israel, from the Navy, to the Army, to the Air Force. U.S. police officers travel to Israel to train and learn new counter-terrorism techniques. Advanced military weaponry, such as the Iron Dome and the Arrow missile defense systems, benefit both countries. The U.S. repeatedly coordinates with Israel for intelligence support, advice on urban warfare and airport screening techniques, and the development of cutting-edge weaponry. It should come as no surprise that we employ many Israeli-made weapons, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have played a crucial role in America’s counter-terrorism activities.

The U.S.–Israel relationship goes beyond military cooperation. Israel may be a tiny country, but it is a leader in technology, medicine, business, agriculture, and many other fields. Every day, citizens of the globe benefit from Israeli inventions, including the cell phone, Internet phones, voicemail technology, the drip irrigation system, the first ingestible video camera, the most secure flight security system in the world, and countless other products and services. Israel has the second highest number of start-up companies in the world and the third largest number of NASDAQ companies listed.

U.S. companies manufacture many Israeli weapons, creating jobs here in America, while many major American companies have developed incubators in Israel to take advantage of its high-tech industry. Microsoft, Google, Apple, 3M, and GE all have research and development facilities in Israel.

In 2016, Israel is a major contributor to – and a global co-leader with – the U.S. in the areas of research, development, manufacturing and launching of micro (100 kg), mini (300 kg) and medium (1,000 kg) sized satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as joint space missions, space communications, and space exploration, sounding rocket and scientific balloon flights. According to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, “Israel is known for its innovation. The October 15, 2015 joint agreement gives us the opportunity to cooperate with Israel on the journey to Mars, [highlighting Israel’s extremely lightweight technologies, which conserve energy]….”

Israel is no longer a supplicant – as it was in its early years of independence – transformed from a net-national security and economic consumer to a net-national security and economic producer, generating substantial military and commercial dividends to the U.S., which exceed the highly appreciated $3.1 billion annual investment in Israel by the U.S.

The annual U.S. investment in Israel – erroneously defined as “foreign aid” (Foreign Military Financing) – has yielded one of the highest rates of return on U.S. investments overseas. But, Israel is neither “foreign” nor does it receive “aid.”
A Partnership

From a one-way street relationship, the U.S.-Israel connection has evolved into an exceptionally productive two- way mutually beneficial alliance. The U.S. is the senior partner, and Israel the junior partner, in a win-win, geo-strategic partnership, which transcends the 68-year-old tension between all American presidents (from Truman through Obama) and Israeli prime ministers (from Ben Gurion through Netanyahu) over the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue.

According to the former Supreme Commander of NATO forces and Secretary of State, the late General Alexander Haig: “Israel constitutes the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, which does not require a single U.S. boot on board, cannot be sunk, deployed in a most critical region to the U.S. economy and national security. And, if there were no Israel in the eastern flank of the Mediterranean, the U.S. would have to deploy to the region a few more real aircraft carriers and tens of thousands of troops, which would have cost the U.S. taxpayer some $15 billion annually. All of which is spared by the existence of Israel.”

Israel has been the most cost-effective, battle-tested laboratory of U.S. defense industries; the most reliable and practical beachhead/outpost of the U.S. defense forces; sharing with the U.S. unique intelligence, battle experience, and battle tactics. Thus, Israel extends the U.S. strategic hand at a time when the Pentagon is experiencing draconian cuts in its defense budget, curtailing the size of its military force and the global deployment of troops, while facing tough international industrial-defense competition and dramatically intensified threats of Islamic terrorism overseas and on the U.S. mainland.

Palestinian factions from across the political spectrum are celebrating the latest terrorist bombing of a bus in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. An explosive device planted on the bus wounded 21 people, including two in serious condition, and set fire to another bus and nearby vehicle.

An armed Fatah-affiliated group praised the attack, claiming that the bombing ushers in a new phase for the Palestinian terrorist uprising, reports journalist Khaled Abu Toameh.

Abu Toameh also tweeted a photo showing employees of Hamas’ al-Aqsa TV channel rejoicing over the terrorist attack and holding a tray of celebratory sweets. Other Palestinians in Gaza also celebrated the bombing, handing out candies and sweets in the streets.

Moreover, senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook glorified the attack on his official Facebook page, calling the bombing “a gift…for our heroic [Palestinian] prisoners,” according to a translation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

“A message to the usurpers, the occupiers, and the settlers, that you will have no security until our people are secure, that injustice will not last, that right will prevail, and that the day of victory is soon,” Abu Marzook wrote.

These are the words and threats from a leader of a designated terrorist organization that notorious U.S. Islamists – including Linda Sarsour – treat as a legitimate political party.

As we often say, imagine if the roles were reversed and Israeli political officials celebrated a terrorist attack targeting unarmed Palestinians. It would dominate the news for days on end and the international community would leap to condemn the bloodthirsty sentiment.

In the midst of the United Nations Security Council’s April 18th quarterly “open debate” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon interrupted the proceedings with news of an explosion on a Jerusalem bus. The explosion was subsequently confirmed by police to have been caused by a terrorist bomb. At least 21 people were injured in the attack. Debkafile cited medical sources in reporting that “nuts and bolts were found in the bodies of some of the wounded.” The Palestinian terrorist himself, a resident of East Jerusalem, did not die during his bombing, but was severely wounded.

Not surprisingly, Hamas praised the attack, although it did not immediately claim responsibility for it: “Hamas welcomes the Jerusalem operation, and considers it a natural reaction to Israeli crimes, especially field executions and the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Meanwhile, Hamas has been busy diverting materials intended for reconstruction of homes in Gaza to build more terror tunnels. On the same day as the Jerusalem bus bombing attack, the Israeli Defense Force announced that it had discovered a tunnel extending more than two kilometers from Gaza underneath an Israeli community near the Gaza border. According to a Debkafile report, the tunnel “appeared to be wide enough to enable Hamas fighters to infiltrate into Israel and return with Israeli prisoners.”

The Jerusalem district police commander, Deputy Commisioner Yoram Halevy, warned that “a large wave of attacks is ahead of us.”

The vaunted “97% consensus” on dangerous manmade global warming is just more malarkey

By now, virtually everyone has heard that “97% of scientists agree: Climate change is real, manmade and dangerous.” Even if you weren’t one of his 31 million followers who received this tweet from President Obama, you most assuredly have seen it repeated everywhere as scientific fact.

The correct representation is “yes,” “some,” and “no.” Yes, climate change is real. There has never been a period in Earth’s history when the climate has not changed somewhere, in one way or another.

People can and do have some influence on our climate. For example, downtown areas are warmer than the surrounding countryside, and large-scale human development can affect air and moisture flow. But humans are by no means the only source of climate change. The Pleistocene ice ages, Little Ice Age and monster hurricanes throughout history underscore our trivial influence compared to natural forces.

As for climate change being dangerous, this is pure hype based on little fact. Mile-high rivers of ice burying half of North America and Europe were disastrous for everything in their path, as they would be today. Likewise for the plummeting global temperatures that accompanied them. An era of more frequent and intense hurricanes would also be calamitous; but actual weather records do not show this.

It would be far more deadly to implement restrictive energy policies that condemn billions to continued life without affordable electricity – or to lower living standards in developed countries – in a vain attempt to control the world’s climate. In much of Europe, electricity prices have risen 50% or more over the past decade, leaving many unable to afford proper wintertime heat, and causing thousands to die.

It’s not easy to make one of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel companies a sympathetic victim, but a collection of state attorneys general, led by Eric Schneiderman of New York, has managed it.

They have launched a campaign against Exxon Mobil that is a transparent — nay, an explicit — attempt to punish dissent on climate change. The members of the self-described “Green 20” are demonstrating a banana-republic-worthy understanding of the law and their responsibilities. They shouldn’t be entrusted with the power of a meter maid, let alone a top position in law enforcement.

Schneiderman subpoenaed Exxon Mobil last year, in what purports to be a fraud investigation. The alleged offense is having less alarmist views on global warming over the years than the green clerisy deems acceptable. How this would constitute fraud is unclear.

Investors would have found Exxon Mobil alluring even if the company had maintained that the planet was in danger of becoming uninhabitable, for no other reason than oil is a miraculously efficient source of energy that we aren’t close to replacing. Consumers would have filled their cars with Exxon Mobil’s product regardless, and surely felt defrauded only if the gasoline didn’t get them to work or to their kids’ soccer practice as advertised.

Usually, officials charged with law enforcement at least try to obscure their political motivations. Not the attorneys general who stood with Schneiderman at a saber-rattling press conference a few weeks ago. Dispensing with any pretense of disinterestedness, they dubbed themselves “AGs United for Clean Power.” Al Gore appeared at the presser, not as a legal expert, but as a totem of the green Left. Schneiderman said that President Barack Obama’s climate agenda has been frustrated, so he and his colleagues would work “creatively” and “aggressively” to advance it.

At an open debate on the Middle East at the United Nations Security Council in New York on Monday — as a bus was being blown up in Jerusalem — Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon told his Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Mansour, that he ought to be ashamed for not denouncing terrorism and incitement.

Danon had brought Natan and Renana Meir to the session to personify the devastation that Palestinian Authority incitement to violence against Jews continues to wreak. Natan is the widower of Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old nurse who was murdered three months ago by a Palestinian teenager at the entrance to her home in Otniel, a settlement south of Hebron. Renana is Natan’s 17-year-old daughter, who not only witnessed her mother being stabbed to death, but tried to help fend off the assailant.

The 15-year-old terrorist later told Israeli interrogators that he had been inspired to commit his heinous act from broadcasts on PA television and social media.

Mansour did not condemn any of it, of course. Instead, he berated Israel for imprisoning and killing Palestinian children. No surprise there, which is why Danon — who should be lauded for standing alone in the hornets’ nest of hypocrisy and deceit that the Security Council occupies — was wasting his breath. As Natan Meir said later in a small press conference after the event, it hurt him to hear a diplomat referring to jailed Palestinian kids as victims, when one of those “kids” had slaughtered his wife in cold blood.

Danon already knows that the PA is a lost cause in every possible respect. So his finger-pointing at Mansour was a gesture aimed elsewhere — but hopefully not at the United States, which is just as deserving of a tongue-lashing as the PA that it morally equates with Israel.

Indeed, “disgraceful” doesn’t begin to describe the statement made by David Pressman, the U.S.’s “alternative representative to the U.N. for special political affairs,” at the session in question. Condemning terrorism and settlements in the same sentence, Pressman talked about America’s “steadfast” efforts to “advance dialogue and progress,” which, he said, “will be borne from hard choices made by both leaders to advance the cause of peace over parochial politics.”

Thus, he continued: “We remain very concerned by the wave of terrorism, violence and the utter lack of progress the parties have made toward a two-state solution. It is important that both sides demonstrate, with concrete policies and actions, a genuine commitment to achieving a two-state solution to reduce tensions and restore hope in the possibility of peace. What we have seen on the ground, and what families like the Meir family present here today have experienced first-hand, is absolutely unconscionable.”

According to a report dated April 16, 2016 in the sometimes reliable Debka Special Report, “Israel’s top political leaders and military commanders were stunned and shocked last weekend when they found out that US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to support the return of the Golan to Syria.”

If this is true, Barack Hussein Obama is plotting yet again a way to torment the Jewish state with yet another vile edict, one which clearly has nothing to do with enlightened statecraft but much more to do with evil witchcraft.

The occupant in the Oval Office cannot salivate enough at the prospect of harming Israel’s security and survivability. No doubt he is fulfilling a malevolent pact he has made with a cabal of Islamists and extreme leftists; both of which ideologies have satanic hatred for Israel.

With this threat hanging over the strategic territory known as the Golan Heights, it is time once again to learn its history and Biblical significance. Even as modern day Syria is convulsed in a murderous and bloody civil war with untold thousands dead and maimed; even as its tyrant, Bashir al-Assad, fights for his political and physical life; even with all this, he nevertheless spews forth his hatred of Israel and his call to take away the Golan Heights from the Jewish state.

But so do those “rebels” who are fighting him and thus remind us of the famous aphorism: “better the devil you know,” or better still, “a plague on all your houses.”

Those of us who have stood on the Golan’s 1,700 foot steep escarpment, are struck by its immense strategic value overlooking Israel’s fertile Hula Valley and the beautiful harp-shaped lake below, called in Hebrew, Kinneret (better known as the Sea of Galilee.)

But during Syria’s occupation of the territory, no agriculture of any significance took place and no restoration of its terrain was ever undertaken. Instead, the Golan was a giant Syrian army artillery encampment whose sole purpose was to deliberately rain down upon Israeli farmers, fishermen and villagers an endless barrage of shells.

TEL AVIV—A bomb exploded at the back of a bus and injured 21 people as it traveled through southeast Jerusalem on Monday, Israeli police said.“We confirm that a bomb went off. We are still examining all possibilities,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Police are investigating how the bomb was planted on the bus.

Few passengers were on the bus when it exploded before 6 p.m. local time, with two seriously wounded, he said. An initial police statement said the bus was empty.Most of the injured were riding in a bus that was driving alongside.

“It looked like a terror attack scene,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. “Two buses in flames, many people lying on the road and heavy presence of emergency services.”Many of those wounded suffered from burns, said Elad Pas, a paramedic at the scene. Emergency medical staff reported that others had suffered from smoke inhalation and cuts from shards of glass. “They were hurting, but were very much aware of the situation,” he said.

Police teams including a bomb disposal specialist combed the surrounding area.At the time of the blast the buses were driving between an industrial area and a mostly Jewish residential neighborhood.The attack comes amid one of the worst periods of violence in Israel in decades. Palestinians have carried out more than 300 stabbings, shootings and car rammings against Israelis since September. Some 30 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been killed by Palestinians, Israel’s Foreign Ministry says. CONTINUE AT SITE

During her formative years, Israel received significant support in Ireland. Having experienced religious persecution themselves, the Irish identified with Jews. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case, according to Professor James Bowen of the National University of Ireland at Cork.

Bowen, who serves as national chairman of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), says the initial sympathy expressed towards Israel disappeared when the Irish learned how the Arabs were “dispossessed” of their land in 1948 and then experienced the “horrors of the post-1967 occupation.”

Founded on November 29, 2001, the IPSC has no policy regarding the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, according to Bowen, it believes the decision to turn the area into two states, a federated state, or a single state should be made by the Palestinians and Israelis, who, the group says, have a legitimate interest in the outcome.

Promoting BDS

However, IPSC does not see itself as merely an interested party trying to support both sides. The group and its national chairman have taken a prominent role in promoting the Boycott-Divestment-and-Sanction (BDS) movement in Ireland against Israel. In fact, Irish academics have been particularly adamant in their efforts to have Israeli academic institutions boycotted.

In a letter to the Irish Times dated September 16, 2006, 61 Irish professors signed a petition urging academic institutions throughout the world to adopt a policy of boycotting Israeli institutions of higher education.

The date was no coincidence. The Irish professors, calling themselves Academics for Justice, published their letter on the anniversary of the 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon. In that incident, thousands of Arab civilians, mostly Lebanese Shiites and Palestinians, were killed by a militia controlled by the Philange, a predominantly Christian-Lebanese party. The Philange claimed the attack on Sabra and Shatila was retaliation for the assassination of then-newly elected Lebanese-Christian president Bachir Gemayel. Although Israeli soldiers did not participate in the massacre, the IDF, which was already in the area, did nothing to stop it.