RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thespectator.com/topic/why-netanyahu-is-right-about-israels-rogue-supreme-court/

Despite recent hyperbole, Israel is not on the verge of authoritarianism. The proposed reforms to the country’s judicial system, which have attracted so much controversy — usually under the assumption that they will turn Benjamin Netanyahu into an Israeli Viktor Orbán — are lacking in historical context.

The Israeli Supreme Court is one of the most activist courts in the world. It has assigned itself more authority and subverted the balance of power between Israel’s different branches of government. It has done all this while at the same time lacking any kind of serious accountability to the electorate.

In 1950, two years after Israel’s founding, the Knesset (parliament) agreed on what is called the Harari Resolution, whereby the state would not adopt a constitution immediately but instead craft one over time. The components of what will eventually become the constitution are called Basic Laws, though as of 2023 Israel has yet to follow through with this plan. The legal status of the Basic Laws is rather nebulous in the sense that they are not yet a true constitution but are also more than just typical legislation. Some have restrictions placed on how they can be amended, and some are very vague and broad. All of these factors play into the problems that Israel’s judicial system faces.

In the absence of a constitution, the Israeli Supreme Court did not immediately acquire the power of judicial review (when the court reviews the validity of laws). Without a constitution to appeal to, there is no higher legal authority against which to judge the validity of laws. This gave the Knesset, at least in theory, parliamentary supremacy.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19432/palestinians-killing-jews

Just last week, the head of [Fatah], Mahmoud Abbas, received a phone call from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who reportedly promised to put pressure on Israel to halt its “unilateral measures.” Needless to say, Blinken did not complain to Abbas about Fatah’s incitement or the celebration of terror attacks by many Palestinians.

What makes a human being say intentionally crushing an infant beneath the wheels of a car makes the perpetrator a “hero”? What makes them call the car-ramming murder of 8- and 6-year-old brothers a “heroic commando operation”?

This is the result of decades of anti-Israel incitement and brainwashing by Palestinian leaders, which their funders have never told them to stop. As far as most Palestinians are concerned: 1) All Jews are “settlers,” and 2) Israel is one big settlement that must be eliminated.

Furthermore, finding humor in a cartoon of a terror attack victim’s head on a platter about to be eaten as part of a traditional Palestinian feast is hard to comprehend. Why do we keep hearing Palestinians claim that terror and glorification of the murder of innocent civilians is a “natural response”?

There is nothing “natural” about murdering Jewish children waiting at a bus stop. There is nothing “natural” about murdering unarmed civilians outside a synagogue. There is nothing “natural” about dancing and handing out candy to celebrate terrorism and the murder of Jews, or of anyone.

The EU, the US, and other international funders of the Palestinians continue to finance a government that refuses not only to condemn terror, but that actually grows it like a lucrative slave-farm for terrorists. For some Palestinians, such as the leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that even includes sending women and children to blow themselves up and using babies as human shields. The leaders do not, of course, send out members of their own families for this “achievement.”

Sadly, these funders do not even ask the Palestinian leaders, as a condition of their funding, to stop calling for violence and to stop rewarding murder. One has to ask: Why not? If you go to a bank and request a mortgage, the bank will stipulate conditions. That is “natural.”

Considering the undisguised vitriol of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in support of terrorism — with both words and money — how could Israel seriously be expected to engage in any fruitful peace talks with the Palestinians?

After the recent wave of terror attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Palestinians again took to the streets to celebrate the murder of Jews. As part of the celebrations, the Palestinians danced, chanted slogans in support of the terrorists and handed out sweets to passersby.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-administration-funds-anti-netanyahu-protest-group/

Even while Israeli children were being murdered by terrorists, the only thing the media wanted to talk about were the leftist protests against the new Israeli government’s democratic judicial reforms. And the Biden administration has joined this campaign attacking the move.

Israel’s new conservative government under Prime Minister Netanyahu has finally initiated the long overdue process of restoring democratic checks and balances by limiting the unlimited power of Israel’s Supreme Court. And the Left has threatened everything up to civil war to protect its illegitimate power while its angry protests have been spun as grassroots opposition.

What none of the news reports, editorials, public letters by prominent figures or statements by officials have revealed is that the Biden administration is funding the group behind the protests.

As David Isaac at JNS reported, the first major rally against democratic judicial reform attended by leftist opposition politicians was organized by a group known as the Movement for Quality Government. MQG receives annual funding from the State Department to purportedly conduct “classes” on democracy in Israeli schools. The State Department is well aware that MQG has a long history of waging lawfare against the Israeli government because its work has been cited in its “human rights” reports. While State Department funding was not programmed for protests, money is fungible and the Biden administration knows it’s funding an anti-Netanyahu group.

https://www.jns.org/opposition-rhetoric-impedes-compromise-on-judicial-reform/

The opposition rhetoric being heaped on the Netanyahu government’s judicial reform plan kicked up a notch on Monday. Public figures spoke of fighting in the streets, moving to a new, warlike stage, and restoring Israel’s democracy through bloodshed. The extreme discourse is making it much harder to conduct a rational dialogue, analysts told JNS.

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai made headlines on Monday when he said that countries become dictatorships through the democratic process but “do not become democratic again except through bloodshed.” Vying with Huldai was former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Nodding toward the Knesset walls, he said, “It’s good to see 100,000 people here, but that’s not what will lead the real fight. The real fight will break through these fences and take us into a real war.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party told an estimated 60,000 protesters at the Knesset on Monday that “a corrupt extremist government wants to destroy the country at record speed.”

National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz told the crowd that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “destroying Israeli society from within.”

Noteworthy is that these are all mainstream leaders, not fringe elements.

Netanyahu on Monday called on the opposition to lower the flames following the protest outside the Knesset and a tempestuous Knesset committee meeting, in which opposition members jumped on tables and had to be forcibly expelled.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-731824

Most reports on the protests in Israel include the assertion that participants hail from “across the political spectrum,” with aerial shots of mass rallies to prove it. The implication is that the bulk of the public is united in opposition to Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s plan to clip the wings of the Supreme Court in favor of the legislature. 

Anyone pointing out that the demonstrators decrying the ostensible onset of a fascist dictatorship are in the minority – as the results of the November 1 Knesset elections illustrate – is met with two conflicting claims. 

One is that a growing number of those who cast their ballots for the parties in power are suffering from “buyers’ remorse.” The other is that “majority rule” is evil; or, as the ad plastered on the Azrieli mall in Tel Aviv reads, “Democracy doesn’t end with elections.”

The sophistry is impressive, but not surprising. After all, the movement to stage a coup against the new government in Jerusalem is rife with members of the educated elite who are well-versed in the art of turning a phrase.

The hypocrisy on display is also par for the course. Had the current coalition’s detractors garnered the lion’s share of the vote, they’d be lauding “majority rule” and insisting that their success at the polls was a sign of democracy in action. 

https://bit.ly/3lFI3tZ

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan believe that the expansion of the Abraham Accords, the enhancement of Israel-Saudi defense and commercial cooperation and the conclusion of an Israel-Saudi Arabia peace accord are preconditioned upon major Israeli concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

Is such a belief consistent with Middle East reality?

Arab interests

*The signing of the Abraham Accords, and the role played by Saudi Arabia as a critical engine of the accords, were driven by the national security, economic and diplomatic interests of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and the Sudan.

*The Arab interest in peace accords with Israel was not triggered by the realization that the Jewish State was genuinely seeking peaceful-coexistence, nor by a departure from the fundamental tenets of Islam. It was motivated by the assessment that critical concerns of the respective Arab countries would be effectively-served by Israel’s advanced military (Qualitative Military Edge), technological and diplomatic capabilities in the face of mutual and lethal enemies, such as Iran’s Ayatollahs and Muslim Brotherhood terrorism.

*Saudi Arabia and the six Arab peace partners of Israel (including Egypt and Jordan) are aware that the Middle East resembles a volcano, which occasionally releases explosive lava – domestically and/or regionally – in an unpredictable manner, as evidenced by the 1,400-year-old stormy intra-Arab/Muslim relations, and recently demonstrated by the Arab Tsunami, which erupted in 2011 and still rages.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19404/palestinian-lies-eu-biden

By turning a blind eye to Palestinian lies, fabrications and antisemitism, the Biden administration and the EU are sending a message to the Palestinians that it is perfectly fine to continue demonizing Israel and Jews.

Needless to say, the statement by France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the US totally ignored Abbas’s ongoing campaign to vilify Israel, demonize Jews, deny their history and rights to Israel and the Western Wall. In fact, the EU has even been working with the Palestinians to seize as much land as possible to create “facts on the ground” in the large region of “Area C” that officially belongs to Israel.

The statement also totally ignores Palestinian leaders’ glorification of terrorists and the Palestinian “pay-for-slay” jobs program that incentivizes Palestinians to murder Jews by rewarding the murderers and their families afterwards.

For the EU and the Biden administration, building new homes by Jewish families is more dangerous than the antisemitic remarks and genocidal rhetoric of Abbas and other Palestinians.

The representatives of France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the US are lying to everyone’s face when they claim that the construction of new homes for Jews would “exacerbate tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution.”

The representatives of Italy, Germany, France, Britain and the US know that the Israeli-Arab conflict started long before the construction of even one house for Jews in the West Bank. All they need to do is listen to what Abbas himself said in Cairo, where he made it clear that the Arab’s problem with Israel started already back in 1917, when the Jews were promised a homeland of their own. When Abbas states that the Arabs have exclusive rights to Jerusalem and Palestine, he is actually saying that Israel has no right to exist.

By ignoring Abbas’s remarks, those who issued the joint statement that denounces Israel for intending to build new housing units for Jewish families are complicit in the Palestinian campaign of lies and fabrications regarding Jewish history and rights.

By failing to call out the Palestinian leader for his lies, distortions and incitement, the officials from Italy, Germany, France, Britain and the Biden administration are again demonstrating their unbending bias against Israel.

It is time for the EU and the Biden administration to wake up to the fact that the Palestinian leaders are not interested in peace with Israel. They are interested in peace without Israel. The Palestinians do not distinguish between a Jew residing in the West Bank and a Jew residing in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

The Palestinian leaders are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The EU and the Biden administration’s double standards and failure to see reality as it is, instead of as they wish it to be, are also part of the problem. Only when the EU and the Biden administration take this in will it be possible to start talking about the prospects of a “negotiated solution” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, continue to twist, misrepresent and rewrite the history of the Jews as part of an ongoing campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The campaign aims to negate and reject the connection between the Jews and the Land of Israel and foster hatred for Israel and the Jews.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/after-biden-sent-1b-to-plo-israeli-deaths-rose-900/

When Secretary of State Blinken met with PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas, he boasted of the over billion dollars in aid that the Biden administration had programmed for the terrorist territories.

That aid has come with a very heavy price.

In Feb 2019, President Trump’s total cutoff of aid became official. That year, 10 Israelis or people in Israeli controlled areas were killed in stabbings, shootings, rocket and other attacks, down from 12 the previous year, and 15 in 2017, and 16 in 2016.

In 2020 however only three Israelis were killed.

These numbers reflected the diminished capacity of the Islamic terrorists. The reduction in numbers was not due to the pandemic. 2020 still saw attacks, including firebombings, rocket launches and stabbings, but the success and lethality rates for these attacks were lower.

The numbers turned around dramatically once again in 2021.

In April 2021, the Biden administration restored aid to the PLO. Terror incidents, reflecting attack attempts, shot up sharply from 91 in February and 89 in March to 130 in April.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/why-israelis-have-moved-to-the-political-right/

Western governments and media critical of the newly elected government coalition led by Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu failed to ask themselves how it happened that the likes of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir are now prominent ministers in Netanyahu’s government. The same critics in the west labeling Smotrich and Ben Gvir “extremists,” haven’t attached that title to Mahmoud Abbas.

Had the western critics of Israel bothered to consult history as it unfolded since the Oslo Accords of 1993, they could easily grasp the political shift that occurred in Israeli politics. In fact, the turn to the political right began in May 1977, when Menahem Begin became Israel’s first right-of-center Israeli prime minister. It was because of disillusionment with the socialist, center-left Labor party who led stagnant economies, and failed to bring the yearned-for peace. Menahem Begin, who like Smotrich and Ben Gvir was labeled an “extremist” and “terrorist” by some in the western media, made peace with Israel’s most important Arab foe – Egypt.

The Israeli public elected Itzhak Rabin in 1992. It was an endorsement of the peace platform with the Palestinians that the Labor coalition initiated. The Oslo negotiations were supposedly secret, hinted at by the Israeli media of a breakthrough and a final peaceful solution with the Palestinians. Earlier, at the 1991 Madrid conference initiated by the Bush Senior administration following the US triumph in the Gulf War, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was excluded from the negotiations that included a Syrian, Israeli, and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation comprised of Palestinian notables. Intimidated by Yasser Arafat and the PLO, little progress was made on the Israeli-Palestinian track.