RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/what_do_advocates_of_a_twostate_solution_actually_advocate_.html

There are approximately 13.5 million people in the current geographical nation of Israel – about 9 million Israeli nationals and 4.5 million others known as “Palestinians” (primarily ethnic Egyptians and other Arabs who moved into the area early in the 20th century).

Due to some very peculiar agreements that would be unimaginable anywhere else on earth, this tiny country is currently divided into parts in which this external third of the population has been granted almost complete self-rule as “The West Bank” (actually, the provinces of Judea and Samaria) and “The Gaza Strip.” While these two areas are governed completely separately and somewhat differently, the rest of the world, out of ease or ignorance, refers to them together as the Palestinian Authority (PA).

It doesn’t work.

For a number of reasons that have been analyzed to death already, this artificial construct, the Palestinian Authority, is already a failed state, long before it has even achieved statehood. 

In election after election, the residents elect the terrorist leaders of Hamas, Fatah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), as their representatives (and even when they aren’t elected, these terrorists just seize power anyway, as Hamas has done in Gaza, without serious objection from their subjects).

The area they control is governed exactly as one would expect places ruled by terrorists to be governed: with minimal emphasis on economic opportunity, living conditions and the rule of law, and instead, with primary emphasis on political power and a permanent state of war.

As the current conflict – a particularly hot moment within the constant conflict that has lasted the past century, to be honest – attracts more of the world’s attention than usual, the dream remedy known as “the two-state solution” returns to the fore.

Now, what all students of the Middle East should know already, though they often need to be reminded, is that the current map is already the result of a two-state solution.  The British Mandate for Palestine of a century ago was first promised to be all Israel, then was debated, derailed, and divided as the years went on, as statecraft was practiced in country clubs and far-off retreats.  The Mandate wound up split into an Arab state and a Jewish one, the Arab one substantially larger, with seaports in the Gulf of Aqaba, the Jewish one far smaller, but blessed at least with seaports on the Mediterranean.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/zionism-and-judaism-are-they-interdependent-67018

Judaism needs Zionism because it enabled Jews to return and to establish a state; this allows Jews to have a national identity and engage in fulfilling commandments that can only be done in Israel.

Although some people – such as those in the Reform and Reconstruction movements, “Progressives,” and some left-wing Israelis – claim to support Judaism and Zionism, in fact, they do not. For example, on May 15, 2021, a large group of students, mostly from Reform and Reconstructionist colleges, published a letter condemning Israel for “apartheid” and for “violating human rights” in its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. This explains why some Jews in America have turned their backs on Zionism, Israel and Judaism.

Zionism is connected to Judaism because it provides a text, the Jewish Bible, or Tanach (The Five Books of Moses, Prophets, and other writings), as well as libraries of theological and philosophical writing that define and mandate the Land of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

Judaism needs Zionism because it enabled Jews to return and to establish a state; this allows Jews to have a national identity and engage in fulfilling mitzvot (commandments) that can only be done in Eretz Yisrael. This is the basis for creating the Third Jewish Commonwealth/Civilization.

Although they need each other to become fulfilled, Zionism and Judaism can and do exist separately and independently in the Diaspora. One can practice Judaism without being a Zionist, just as one can be secular or a non-Jewish Zionist.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-israeli-raam-party-makes-history-by-joining-be

Ringed by flashing cameras in a luxury hotel in Ramat Gan, conservative Islamist Ra’am chief Mansour Abbas made history on Wednesday night as the first Arab Israeli party leader in half a century to sign a deal to sit in a coalition government.

“This is the first time that an Arab party is part of the process of forming a government. We of course hope that it works and that a government will rise after four rounds of elections,” Abbas said.

Even before Ra’am announced it was signing on, the nascent coalition was widely regarded as the widest in the country’s history, uniting parties from the left to the pro-settlement right aimed at deposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud faction.

To make it happen, Yamina chief Naftali Bennett and centrist Yesh Atid leader Yair Atid agreed to a rotation scheme, with Bennett becoming Prime Minister for the first two years.

Despite the wide spectrum of views in the so-called “change government,” Abbas said that he had agreed on numerous plans and budgets in Arab Israeli society with his counterparts in the constellation of parties seeking to topple Netanyahu.

“We have reached a critical mass of agreements in various fields that serves the interest of Arab society and that provide solutions for the burning issues in Arab society — planning, the housing crisis, and of course, fighting violence and organized crime,” Abbas said.

Abbas promised that many of the benefits would flow to the Negev region in southern Israel. Ra’am’s base is among the traditional Bedouin communities in the Negev desert.

Ra’am said that the so-called change bloc agreed to over NIS 53 billion ($16.3 billion) in budgets and government development plans for Arab society.

https://www.jns.org/analysis-what-does-a-bennett-lapid-government-mean/

“This looks to me like a car with four different wheels, and every wheel is going in a different direction,” said Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar. “The only thing they agree upon is the need to get rid of [Benjamin] Netanyahu. This objective will be achieved in the first minute of this government.”

(June 2, 2021 / JNS) Yesh Atid Party head Yair Lapid and Yamina Party head Naftali Bennett announced on Wednesday that they have secured an agreement to form Israel’s next government, thereby likely ending the 12-year consecutive term of Benjamin Netanyahu as the country’s prime minister.

The new government will be unprecedented in its composition, consisting of seven parties spanning the entire Israeli political spectrum, plus the backing of an Arab party for the first time. As such, questions remain over the ability to successfully govern such a disparate group of parties at a time when the country faces serious security threats stemming from Iran and its terror proxies, as well as internal social discord between Jews and Arabs.

Nevertheless, most analysts JNS spoke with were hopeful, especially when it comes to improving U.S.-Israel ties.

“It could certainly help the mood, initially,” Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, told JNS, saying that the United States will be pleased with a government that includes left-wing members. Though he cautions, “I could well see the Biden administration disappointed if the right-wing parties—which are, in fact, more right than Netanyahu—have their way.”

Pipes expects the right-wing coalition partners to dominate, noting that in the negotiations on forming the coalition, the three right-wing parties—Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beiteinu—“have been in the driver’s seat,” and Yamina, with only seven seats, has been given the premiership.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/a-message-for-president-elect-isaac-herzog-opinion-670080

Upon the election of Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog as Israel’s 11th president on Wednesday, letters of congratulations began to pour in from the leaders of organizations whose paths have frequently crossed with him in his current position, which he’s held for the past three years.

The heads of the American Jewish Committee, World Jewish Congress, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, American Jewish Congress and the Israeli-American Council all welcomed the news on the grounds that Herzog is just the right man for the job of unifying Israelis and strengthening bonds between the Jewish state and Jewish communities around the world.
Incumbent President Reuven Rivlin, too, extended felicitations. “I send you my warmest greetings, Mr. President,” Rivlin said in a phone call to his successor. “I can tell you that the responsibility of the role that you are about to assume is unlike anything you have done until now. The Jewish and democratic system we established here, in the land of our ancestors, has a body and soul. If the Knesset is a place of argument, as we have certainly seen recently, Beit Hanassi [the office and official residence of the president] is a place of discourse, partnership and statehood.”

Rivlin went on, “Beit HaNasi is the ‘neshama yetera,’ the additional soul of democracy. It is the home of the people, all the people of Israel. Its door is open and its ear is bent to all partners in building our home, their pains and their troubles, as well as to the fundamental issues of concern to Israeli society as a whole. The title of ‘first citizen’ and the task of guarding the character of the State of Israel, particularly at this point in time, are heavy responsibilities. I have no doubt that you will bear them superbly. I am proud to pass the baton on to you in a month’s time.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/refuting-disproportionality-libel-against-israel-richard-l-cravatts/

Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s observation that “Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence,” the world’s attention has turned once again to the clash between Hamas and Israel, as the Jewish state launched its defensive air offensive into Gaza to suppress a deadly barrage of 4360 rockets that killed 10 civilians in Israel and injured 330 others. And, predictably, as the body count rose on the Palestinian side, the moral arbiters of acceptable political behavior began condemning the Jewish state for its perceived abuses in executing its national self-defense.

Forgetting that Israel’s current campaign was necessitated by ceaseless rocket and mortar assaults on its southern towns from Hamas-controlled Gaza, international leaders and diplomats initiated their moral hectoring of Israel as it attempted to shield its citizens from harm.  Five so-called experts from The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), led by Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk, released a statement which suggested that “This most recent violence has a depressingly familiar pattern to it.” And what was the familiar tragedy? Not that Hamas had tried to murder Israeli civilians with no justification, but that “Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza exchange missiles and rockets following dispossession and the denial of rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, with Israel’s far greater firepower inflicting far higher death tolls and injuries and a much larger scale of property destruction.” [Emphasis added.]

In addressing a special session of the 47-member UN Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was similarly condemnatory of Israel’s military behavior. While begrudgingly admitting that Hamas’s “indiscriminate” firing of thousands of rockets constitutes “a clear violation of international humanitarian law,” Israel’s response was equally questionable, especially the targeted strikes on buildings that were said to house terrorists and armaments. “Despite Israel’s claims that many of these buildings were hosting armed groups or being used for military purposes,” Bachelet noted, “we have not seen evidence in this regard.” And then, in creating a moral equivalence that is unsurprising when Israel is involved, she solemnly announced that Israel, too, may be condemned for its military misbehavior, that “If found to be indiscriminate and disproportionate,” Israel’s defensive “attacks might constitute war crimes.”  [Emphasis added.]

The words “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate” are the most insidious refrains, uttered only when Israel’s enemies are killed (certainly not when Jews are murdered), and suggesting that Israel’s military response is too aggressive, that the force and effect of the sorties into Gaza are beyond what is permitted under human rights law and the rules of war.

https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/is-bibi-out-its-far-from-clear?token=

Yesterday, Israel got a new President (Isaac Herzog — more on whom in a later posting), and, more significantly, may have taken a step towards getting a new Prime Minister. We shall see. While Yair Lapid (on the right, above), who leads the centrist Yesh Atid [“There is a Future”] Party, has informed the (current) President that he can form a coalition, the actual vote on this coalition will probably not take place for twelve days. Bibi will use this time to do everything he can to undermine the fragile agreement. Netanyahu contends that as long as he is Prime Minister, he cannot be convicted in his corruption trial and sent to jail; if he’s out of office, he has no such protection. We should thus expect to see some very scorched earth as he desperately (and perhaps successfully) tries to cling to power.

While the question of who will be Israel’s “next” Prime Minister remains unresolved, what is clear is that some international coverage of what is unfolding here is so myopic as to be essentially wrong. According to the “all the news that’s fit to print” world (see screen shot below), Israel is lurching to the right under the leadership of a new “ultranationalist” leader. The real story is precisely the opposite.

So with a few quick bullet points, a brief illustration of how much more complex — and hopeful — the story really is.