RUTHFULLY YOURS

Visiting Israel at the wise and weathered age of 95, America’s 1980s secretary of state reaches into history to issue a call for decisive, clearheaded and credible leadership

In 1962, George Shultz, an ex-US Marine and Princeton- and MIT-educated economics high-flyer, was appointed dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he was a professor of industrial relations. Periodically, he’d hold a reception for the outstanding students who’d made the dean’s list. Every time, one of those outstanding students was a young Israeli named Joseph Levy.

Looking back over more than 50 years, Shultz — who would go on to serve in the Nixon administration as Labor and Treasury secretary, and most memorably as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state — still remembers Joseph Levy. And still mourns him.

Speaking to The Times of Israel on a visit to Israel last week, Shultz, a gracious, wise and weathered 95, recalls that all the kids on those dean’s lists were smart. But “there was something special” about Joseph Levy. “If you’ve been in the education business, you’ve seen this in some students right away,” says Shultz. “I could see this man was going to be a great leader. He’d got all the special attributes.”

But Levy did not go on to that anticipated greatness. As Shultz tells it, “Before I even realized that the Six Day War was on, he was dead. He came back to Israel and was killed in action.”

Levy was one of the members of the Jerusalem Brigade who died battling the Jordanians around Government House in Armon Hanatziv, southern Jerusalem, on June 5, 1967. Says the secretary, “My introduction to Israel was through Joseph Levy.” Now Shultz breaks into staccato sentences, keeping his emotions checked. “High talent. Tremendous patriotism. Tough neighborhood.”

Shultz was making this current visit to Israel as honorary chair of the Israel Democracy Institute’s International Advisory Council for four days of meetings, plus a dinner addressed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and devoted to grappling with the challenges faced by Israel’s democracy. But the IDI also reconnected him with Joseph Levy. The star Israeli graduate student had a wife and a son when he was killed, and the IDI tracked them down.

“We had a nice meeting. And then we went to the battlefield where he was killed. And there is on the hill above the battlefield a beautiful big monument … commemorating what he did.”

Again, the staccato sentences: “The monument has a great view. That’s where the field of battle was. That’s where he was killed. That was a long time ago. It initiated me to Israel.”

We all marvel, understandably, at Shimon Peres’s longevity, his indefatigability, his facility to keep moving with the times, to find the aphorism for every nuanced political shift, at 92 years of age. Shultz, three years Peres’s senior, comes across more as a rock of unshifting fundamentals — looking out on a dangerous world and lamenting, most of all, the absence of clearheaded, decisive leadership.

We talked in his room at the King David Hotel, at the tail end of his visit to a country he plainly much admires and cares for. He sat calmly, almost immobile, for our conversation, spoke in carefully formulated sentences, cherry-picking from more than two centuries of American diplomacy to make his points. But at the heart of the Shultz’s recipe for guiding the world, unsurprisingly, stood Ronald Reagan, whom he served as chief US diplomat for most of the 1980s.

Want to marginalize evil, and empower good? Take a page or three, says Shultz, from the Ronald Reagan playbook.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel for a two day visit on Tuesday, March 8. Shortly after Biden’s arrival in the region the day before, American graduate student Taylor Force was murdered by a Palestinian Arab terrorist in Jaffa, just blocks away from where Biden was meeting at the Peres Peace Center in Tel Aviv.

On Wednesday, Biden joined with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Jerusalem. Both politicians condemned the terrorist attacks that took place in Israel the day before, with a special emphasis on the brutal murder of Taylor Force, the Texas-born Vanderbilt business school student and U.S. Army vet and West Point graduate.

Biden called on Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian Arab leadership and the entire international community to denounce terrorist attacks against Israelis, including the one in which Force was murdered, his wife was badly injured, and 11 others were wounded, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“Let me say in no uncertain terms: The U.S. condemns these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts,” Biden said.

But when Biden met with Mahmoud Abbas, the acting head of the Palestinian Authority, later in the day, Abbas pointedly did not do what Biden had insisted he should have done: he did not condemn the murders that Biden had condemned only hours before.

Instead, Abas offered condolence over the death of the American — as if the man died of some cause having nothing to do with Abbas — and then slid into assigning blame for the outrage. Not surprisingly, the Arab leader’s blame finger pointed only at Israel.

On March 9, 2010, the headlines were chocked with outrage over Netanyahu’s “snub” to Obama. Six years later, almost to the day, the same rerun is playing on news networks across America.

The White House is outraged, shocked and infuriated by Netanyahu’s “snub.” Obama is depressed at the snub and gorging on a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Brownie Batter to get over the pain of a skipped meeting with the Israeli prime minister. Obama-Netanyahu meetups convey all the joy of a root canal and yet we’re supposed to believe that Obama was looking forward to this particular session with Netanyahu.

Obama and his media allies are assuming that everyone forgot the last time they put on the same production of “Fake Outrage Theater” on this same date for the same exact reasons. Like the PLO, Obama keeps picking fights with Israel while trying to make it look like he’s the real victim.

If you remember that Obama and Hillary Clinton put on their best fake outrage over a fake snub six years ago, then the latest fake snub headlines look ridiculously fake. Suddenly you can see that the actors on stage are just acting, the background is just cardboard, the puppets have strings and the magician is stuffing the colored handkerchiefs up his sleeve. It’s not Pallywood. It’s Obamawood.

Why do people use the expression “as of yet?”e.g. “A school spokesman told FoxNews.com that no action has been taken as of yet.” While it is not grammatically incorrect, it jars….especially when writing of education. “As of yet” is a windy and pretentious substitute for plain old English “yet” or “as yet.” rsk
Trustees and alumni of a liberal arts college in Ohio are calling on the school administration to conduct a review and report back to them after a professor posted a series of “anti-Semitic and abhorrent” commentary on social media. The Board of Trustees at ultra-liberal Oberlin College demanded answers in a statement posted on the school’s own website, blasting Professor Joy Karega’s bizarre posts and demanding that immediate action be taken.

“These postings are anti-Semitic and abhorrent,” Chairman Clyde McGregor said in the statement. “We deplore anti-Semitism and all other forms of bigotry. They have no place at Oberlin. These grave issues must be considered expeditiously,” he continued, adding that the school and faculty must “challenge the assertion that there is any justification for these repugnant postings and to report back to the Board.”

Marvin Krislov, the president of Oberlin, has stood by Karega and defended her freedom of speech since the controversy erupted late last month. The professor, who teaches rhetoric and composition, has been publishing offensive commentary since January 2015, when she posted “an image of an ISIS terrorist pulling off and Mask with the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the caption, ‘FRANCE WANTS TO FREE PALESTINE? TIME FOR A FALSE FLAG…’”

On Monday, Oberlin officials released a joint statement with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, AJC Cleveland, the Anti-Defamation League Cleveland Region and the Cleveland Hillel Foundation, which met with Oberlin College President Marvin Krislov and his senior staff.

“In a welcoming atmosphere, we discussed, openly and candidly, the potential implications of a professor’s personal views on classroom activity and student intimidation,” the statement reads. “We also discussed our shared respect for academic freedom.”

The groups also announced that college is following procedures already in place to deal with the matter.

A school spokesman told FoxNews.com that no action has been taken as of yet.

The Jesuit magazine America recently reported that Arab Christians are fleeing in droves from Bethlehem, the hallowed city of Jesus Christ’s birth. In 1990, Christians made up a majority of the city’s residents; today they make up only about 15%. “With thousands more fleeing the city every year,” reports America’s correspondent Jeremy Zipple, “you can’t help but wonder, will there be any Christians left here…in the not too distant future?”

Zipple’s question is rhetorical. He clearly believes that Christianity in Bethlehem may be nearing its end.

But why? Why are Christians fleeing?

At first Zipple says “it’s complicated.” But he goes on to list one reason, and one reason only: “Since 2003 Bethlehem has been circumscribed by a 26-foot military grade wall.”

Zipple is, of course, referring to the separation barrier that was constructed by Israel during the Second Intifada to keep out suicide bombers who tried to cross from the West Bank into Israel. Although the vast majority of the barrier is a chain link fence, in Bethlehem and a few other metropolitan areas it becomes a tremendous gray wall. Since its construction, the barrier has become the international symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israel.

“[T]he separation wall…cuts family from each other. People get humiliated at checkpoints. People do not have many opportunities to improve their living standards. So, therefore, Christians who can afford to, are trying to leave this country,” says interviewee Hanan Nasrallah, a Palestinian employee of Catholic Relief Services.

Nasrallah’s calculation is simple: Israel built a wall; the wall makes life difficult; therefore, Palestinian Christians are leaving.

According to Nasrallah, both Palestinian Christians and Muslims face the same challenges. It is only the Jewish occupation that is causing them both misery.

And yet the Muslim population of Bethlehem is growing. Muslims, in fact, are not fleeing. They are arriving—in large numbers.

A Palestinian terrorist stabbed and killed an American tourist and injured at least 10 others in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, marking the third Palestinian attack within hours of one another.

Israeli police said the terrorist started to stab civilians near the entrance to the Jaffa Port entrance – wounding multiple individuals – before escaping toward Tel Aviv and stabbing motorists idling in their vehicles on the road.

Four of the victims are in serious condition, including a pregnant woman.

The attack occurred about a mile from the Peres Center for Peace, coinciding with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s arrived at the facility to meet with former Israeli President Shimon Peres

“Terrorist acts against children, women, and innocent people are intolerable,” said Biden in a joint press conference with Peres.

Hours earlier, Palestinian terrorists stabbed and injured three Israelis in two separate, nearly simultaneous attacks.

In Petah Tikva, a Palestinian terrorist repeatedly stabbed a 40 year-old ultra-Orthodox Israeli man in a wine store. After fleeing the scene temporarily, the victim returned to the store, pulled the knife out of his own neck and mortally stabbed the terrorist.

Around the same time, a Palestinian terrorist shot two Border Police officers in the head outside Nablus Gate in eastern Jerusalem. The two police officers are in critical and serious condition. Israeli police chased down and neutralized the gun-wielding assailant.

State Dept. condemned three terrorist attacks Tuesday, but never mentioned they happened in Israel or that Arabs were the perpetrators.

The Assistant Secretary and State Department Spokesperson John Kirby issued a statement on Tuesday, March 8, condemning three terrorist attacks in Israel, in one of which an American tourist was killed.

The statement mentioned the American, Taylor Force, by name. Kirby named all three Israeli cities in which the terrorist attacks occurred, but neither mentioned that all three took place in Israel, nor that Palestinian Arabs were the perpetrators of each of the attacks.

The statement reads:

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s outrageous terrorist attacks in Jaffa, Petah Tikvah, and Jerusalem, which tragically claimed the life of U.S. citizen Taylor Allen Force and left many others severely injured. We offer our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Taylor and all those affected by these senseless attacks, and we wish a speedy recovery for the injured. As we have said many times, there is absolutely no justification for terrorism. We continue to encourage all parties to take affirmative steps to reduce tensions and restore calm.

AMERICAN MURDERED BY PALESTINIAN TERROR:

Taylor Force was murdered today by a Palestinian terrorist in Jaffa – just 1 mile from where VP Joe Biden was meeting with Israeli leaders.
Force was a US Army veteran who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a graduate of West Point and an Eagle scout. Force was currently a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. He and his wife were visiting Israel with the school to learn about Israeli tech, His wife was also stabbed and is in critical condition.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to his loved ones. We pray for the recovery of his wife.
Today, an American tourist was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist – only one mile away from where Vice President Joe Biden was meeting with Israeli leaders.

As Biden’s plane touched down, Israel was in the midst of a horrific terror wave across the country. In four separate attacks, 14 were wounded and one murdered – an America army vet traveling with his wife. An Israeli police officer is still fighting for his life after being shot in the head.

We mourn the loss of Taylor Force and echo the words of Vanderbilt’s chancellor where Force was a student: “This horrific act of violence has robbed our Vanderbilt family of a young hopeful life and all of the bright promise that he held for bettering our greater world,”

Force served America in Iraq and Afghanistan and graduated from West Point. He and his wife were visiting Israel with Vanderbilt to learn about Israeli tech, when he was brutally murdered near the beach in Jaffa. His wife was also stabbed and is in critical condition.

Hezbollah leaderNasrallah vehemently attacked Arab regimes for their decision to label Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, claiming that “the Lebanese resistance is the only one that regains Arab dignity and fights for the Palestinian people.”

Last week, the Gulf Cooperation Council voted to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization amid the Lebanese Shi’ite group’s involvement in various regional conflicts alongside Iran and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In a speech he delivered Sunday afternoon to commemorate the martyrdom of a senior Hezbollah commander, Ali Fayyad, Nasrallah mocked the contribution of Arab regimes to the struggle against Israel saying, “If we had waited for the Arabs and their armies, Israel would still be in our lands [South Lebanon].”

Responding to the GCC’s decision to label Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Nasrallah delivered a belligerent message to Arab states, saying, “We do not need your weapons; leave us alone.”

“Arab regimes led by Saudi Arabia side with Israel against our struggle. They do so because the defense of Israel is the guarantee to their survival,” Hezbollah’s chief further stated.

Hezbollah’s chief criticized the “Arab indifference” toward Israel’s alleged assassination of Omar al-Nayef, a former Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist who died under mysterious circumstances in Sofia, Bulgaria, on February 26.

Nasrallah also provided details about the fighting in Syria, claiming that Hezbollah does not receive orders from Iran instructing it how to operate in the country.

Leave it to the Middle East studies establishment to defend the vilest forms of conspiratorial anti-Semitic rhetoric, provided it’s in service of demonizing Israel. Jasbir Puar, the Rutgers University women’s and gender studies professor and Israel-boycott advocate who, in a controversial February 3 lecture at Vassar College, charged the IDF with the organ harvesting, deliberate maiming, and stunting of “Palestinian bodies,” can certainly count on support from its ranks.

Notorious Israel-bashers such as Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University), Joel Beinin (Stanford University), and Steven Salaita (American University of Beirut) are among the signatories to an open letter to Vassar College President Catharine Bond Hill defending Puar against an alleged campaign of “vilification and hatred” following her inflammatory lecture. Unlike the vast majority of academic jargon-filled apologias for bigotry that populate the lecture circuit, Puar’s talk was widely covered and rightly condemned by a disgusted public. In evoking “hate mail and other threats” against Puar, the authors allude to the specter of death threats — whether real or imagined — a time-honored tradition among academics unaccustomed to the twin horrors of criticism and accountability.

The letter inveighs against the particular evils of a February 17 Wall Street Journal op-ed by Mark G. Yudof, former University of California president, and Ken Waltzer, professor emeritus of history at Michigan State University, titled, “Majoring in Anti-Semitism at Vassar.” Yudof and Waltzer had the temerity to point out the obvious: by accusing Israel of extracting organs from Palestinians for medical research, Puar was “updating the medieval blood libel against Jews.”