RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/blind-eye-to-incitement?token=eyJ1c2VyX

Why do so many well-meaning people committed to ending abuses of power ignore the evidence of who is actually committing these abuses and blame their victims instead?

An official investigation funded by Britain and the European Union into textbooks used in Palestinian schools has descended into farce.

In April 2018, finally responding to concerns about anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian-Arab schools, the United Kingdom pushed the EU to commission a report on Palestinian textbooks from the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Germany.

In April last year, the Institute published as a preliminary what it called its “Inception Report.” This, it said, developed a framework for “an academically rigorous review” of “how peace, tolerance and an understanding of the other are incorporated into Palestinian textbooks.”

This report, however, was itself riddled with so many mistakes that the European Union ditched it. Bafflingly, however, the EU has continued to use the Georg Eckert Institute to finish the project.

Its final report is due out next month. But it has now produced an interim report, which the EU is choosing to keep secret.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16456/palestinian-tragedy

Unlike their leaders, however, the Palestinians living in Syria and Iraq do not appear to be worried about the Israel-UAE accord. These Palestinians have more existential concerns — such as providing shelter for their children and safe drinking water for their families. They are disturbed about the homes they have lost, and they are in a state of anguish about fate of their missing sons.

The Palestinian families complained that the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations, including the United Nations, have refused to assist them in their search for their beloved ones.

Palestinian writer Nabil Al-Sahli said that the 4,000 Palestinians who remain in Iraq are facing an “ongoing tragedy.” He said that according to some studies, at least 20,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Iraq to 40 countries around the world because of the “massacres” committed against them by sectarian militias.

By extreme contrast [to Syria and Iraq], the UAE and other Gulf states have long opened their doors to Palestinians and provided them with jobs and high living standards. Puzzlingly, Palestinian leaders have plenty of time to castigate the UAE, but no time at all to comment on the systematic abuse and killing of Palestinians in Syria and Iraq. For the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the true tragedy is when an Arab expresses willingness to make peace with Israel.

Palestinian leaders are so committed to condemning the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for its normalization agreement with Israel that they have no time left to notice the horrific suffering of their people in some Arab countries, particularly Syria and Iraq. Specifically, these leaders seem unperturbed that in some in Arab countries, Palestinians are mysteriously disappearing.

Unlike their leaders, however, Palestinians living in Syria and Iraq do not appear to be worried about the Israel-UAE accord. These Palestinians have more existential concerns — such as providing shelter for their children and safe drinking water for their families. They are disturbed about the homes they have lost, and they are in a state of anguish about fate of their missing sons.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/a-kobe-bryant-fan-and-the-concept-of-kavanah-opinion-641036

Shame on Israelis for elevating American hysteria to a higher plane than Jewish wisdom and, more importantly, common sense.The Jewish concept of kavanah – intention – refers to a worshiper’s sincerity during prayers and the fulfilling of commandments. Though scholars disagree on the extent to which certain rituals are meaningless without the necessary purity of heart and mind, the idea that a person’s intentions are often as relevant as his actions is pretty universal.

Even courts of law examine intent – such as “malice aforethought” – when determining a defendant’s guilt or innocence.

One exception among many at the moment – thanks to the cancel-culture climate in the US – concerns the use of “blackface,” dark makeup applied to white skin for theatrical or costume-party purposes. In the mid-19th century, minstrel shows popularized this custom, and by the early 20th century, it became its own art form. Al Jolson, the “king of blackface performers,” is the name most associated with the practice.

Today, any blackface is considered racist and therefore taboo, regardless of the kavanah of those accused of having violated it, even in the distant past – no matter what its aim. In a McCarthy-like sweep of self-censorship, Hollywood and Broadway not only have been removing all vestiges of blackface, but have been engaged in a kind of ongoing breast-beating far more intense than any Yom Kippur service.

David O. Selznick’s 1939 film, based on Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone with the Wind, and Disney’s 1946 partly animated musical movie, Song of the South, are examples of blockbusters that portray blacks in a cringe-worthy stereotypical fashion – something that is understandably offensive to African-Americans. Blackface, too, is and always has been an atrocious form of comedy.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/palestinians-never-miss-opportunity-miss-joseph-puder/

Israel’s legendary Foreign Minister Abba Eban had famously quipped that “the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” It is the most fitting attribute for the Palestinians. Historically, they have said no to the British Peel Commission of 1937, which promised them a state on 75% of mandatory Palestine. The Yishuv, Palestine’s Jews, who were originally called Palestinians during the British Mandate (1920-1948) said yes, despite of being offered a small piece of the second partition of Palestine. In the first partition of Mandatory Palestine, in 1922, Winston Churchill, then British Colonial Secretary, sliced off 34,495 miles originally slated to be part of the Balfour Declaration for a Jewish homeland, to create the Emirate of Trans Jordan. Of the remaining 10,309 miles, Jewish Palestine would be allocated a measly 2,577 miles.  

Instead of accepting self-determination for his people, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Arab-Palestinian leader also titled Mufti of Jerusalem, and Hitler’s ally, ordered the Arab Revolt (1936-1939). Arab-Palestinian violence was repaid by British appeasement in the form of the White Paper, which shut the doors of Palestine to European Jews in the face of the looming Holocaust. In 1947, the Palestinian Arabs said no once again when offered an independent state by the United Nations General Assembly. Instead, they launched a war of annihilation against the newly born Jewish state of Israel, which accepted partition, and declared statehood on May 14, 1948.

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-israels-supreme-court-cruel-to-the-kind-in-poli

Israel’s Supreme Court appears to be on a mission to erase any doubts within the Israeli public that it has been corrupted by politics.

In less than three weeks, Israel’s Supreme Court went from bleeding hearts to hard-hearted. After refusing to destroy the home of a confessed Arab terrorist, the High Court ruled on the destruction of 56 homes of innocent, law-abiding Jews.

Israel’s Supreme Court appears to be on a mission to erase any doubts within the Israeli public that it has been corrupted by politics. Not being lawyers, we won’t parse the rulings in too great detail, partly because it’s not necessary. The contrast is so stark.

In the first case, the court ruled that the home of a terrorist should not be destroyed (a punitive measure adopted by the IDF) because his wife and eight children live there and had nothing to do with the crime. In June, the terrorist had dropped a rock from a height, killing an IDF soldier.

Justice Manni Mazuz wrote, “The serious harm done to innocent family members cannot be ignored — those to whom no involvement in the attack is attributed.” Justice George Kara agreed: “Justice will come to the attacker when he gets his punishment. But the consequences of his actions should not be cast on those who have not sinned.

Jump ahead, and in under two and a half weeks, the court is arguing that 56 Jewish homes in Mitzpe Kramim, a Jewish settlement in the Binyamin region of southern Samaria, have got to go.

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-flight-path-to-hope?

In a momentous development, the first direct commercial flight between Israel and a Gulf state took place today. El Al flight 971, bearing a greeting of peace painted on its fuselage in Arabic, Hebrew and English and carrying White House adviser and First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner,  US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and Israel’s National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, flew from Ben Gurion airport to Abu Dhabi.

For those eagerly tracking the flight, there was a particularly emotional moment when the Israeli plane passed through Saudi Arabian airspace, at one point over Riyadh. 

For so long, Saudi Arabia has been the epicentre of Sunni Islamic hostility to Israel. Until now, Israeli aircraft were denied passage through its airspace. But the normalisation agreement with the UAE which gave rise to flight 971 could not have happened without  the Saudis’ approval. Might one now dare to hope that a new and positive chapter is now opening in the century-old war against Israel’s existence by the Arab world?

On the Ben Gurion tarmac, Kushner said:

I prayed yesterday at the Western Wall [in Jerusalem] that Muslims and Arabs from throughout the world will be watching this flight recognising that we are all children of God and that the future does not have to be predetermined by the past. 

Before the flight, the UAE repealed its 1972 law boycotting products from Israel and economic contacts with Israelis. The proposed full normalisation of diplomatic ties between the two countries is of course highly significant, opening up huge trading and diplomatic possibilities that could potentially transform Israel’s relationship with the Arab world. But the normalisation agreement has not yet been signed, and despite today’s celebrations the path ahead may not be without drama.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-emirates-usa/israeli-u-s-officials-arrive-in-uae-on-historic-trip-to-finalize-accord-idUSKBN25R0LX

ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Top aides to U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the United Arab Emirates on a historic flight from Tel Aviv on Monday to finalize a pact marking open relations between the Gulf power and Israel. Even before discussions start in Abu Dhabi, the delegates made aviation history when the Israeli commercial airliner flew over Saudi territory on the direct flight from Tel Aviv to the UAE capital.

“That’s what peace for peace looks like,” Netanyahu tweeted, describing a deal for formal ties with an Arab state that does not entail handover of land that Israel captured in a 1967 war.

Announced on Aug. 13, the normalization deal is the first such accommodation between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalyzed largely by shared fears of Iran.

Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE’s move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory – and acceptance of Palestinian statehood – in return for normal relations with Arab countries.

Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Robert O’Brien head the U.S. delegation. The Israeli team is led by O’Brien’s counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. Officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as commerce and tourism, and Israeli defense envoys are due to visit the UAE separately.

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/remembering-other-historic-flights/

While many critics of the Trump administration were focused laser-like on the second day of the Republican National Convention in their criticism of Secretary Mike Pompeo for speaking to the convention from Jerusalem, part of his own focus seemed to be on a different historical aspect of the day.

The secretary tweeted on August 25th that he was “Happy to announce that we are on the FIRST official NONSTOP flight from Israel to Sudan!”

The word that may have stood out to some readers of the tweet was “official.” When were there any “unofficial” flights? Were there any illegal flights?

The very popular and star-studded Netflix movie The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019) featured just such a Sudan to Israel flight at its dramatic conclusion.

The Chris Evans / Ben Kingsley film reveals the amazing true story of the 1984-1985 covert op when Mossad agents with members of the Israel Defense Forces rescued hundreds of Ethiopian Jews. The Ethiopian Jew had sought shelter in Sudan from both a devastating famine and a bloody Marxist insurgency that ravaged Ethiopia leaving over a million dead. Sudan itself was in the midst of a Civil War.