RUTHFULLY YOURS

..Happy  Birthday, President Truman!

While there’s other things for why Harry S. (“the buck stops here”) Truman is remembered, for many folks–of various nationalities and religions–he will also be recalled as the President who stood up to the perpetually  Big Oil-linked folks in the State Department (and others as well) who fought him all the way down to the finish line over his decision to recognize the resurrected nation of the Jews on May 14, 1948.

And about the State Department and its buddies above?

No…they were not “just” anti-Zionist. Many were unabashed antisemites as well. Think Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, and so forth.

I’ll never forget a prominent, non-Jewish professor of American history calling me over privately (so I won’t now reveal his name) to share what he discovered when the National Archives were allowed to be opened from that era: plain, old-fashioned antisemitism at work, along with the other excuses now offered for them.

Truman certainly was not perfect, and he had people in his own family who thought as the Foggy Folks did. Many still think this way today.

Indeed, much of the animus once reserved for the individual “killers of Prophets, sons of apes and pigs” dhimmi Jew of the “Arab”/Muslim world and the Christian West, has now–in a post-Auschwitz age–simply been transferred to the Jew of the Nations–Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/releasing-terrorists-doesnt-help-flatten-the-curve-627327

According to a report on Wednesday in German weekly Die Zeit, Israel is close to reaching an agreement with Hamas. Though the details of the deal are murky, the gist is clear. In exchange for the return of the bodies of soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul from Gaza – and the release from lengthy captivity of civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed – hundreds of Palestinian terrorists will be freed from Israeli jails.
To call this a “prisoner swap” is to obfuscate its true nature, by creating moral parity where it does not exist.

Goldin and Shaul were killed during Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists, terrorist tunnels infrastructure and rocket launchers in Gaza in the summer of 2014. Since that time, Hamas has refused to relinquish their remains, despite repeated heart-wrenching pleas on the part of the Goldin and Shaul families for mercy.
 
THE TERRORIST organization that rules the Gaza Strip is not as stupid as it is evil, after all. Indeed, Hamas honchos are well aware of the value that the Jewish state places on human life in general, and on that of its own populace in particular. They also know that the Jewish state does not abandon soldiers, dead or alive, in the battlefield.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-disinfectant-kills-100-percent-of-viruses-bacteria-627242

A state-of-the-art disinfectant developed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research and distributed by Tera Novel is capable of killing 100% of bacteria, viruses, molds and some fungi, including the novel coronavirus.

“Our disinfectant works in a very different way from many others,” Tera Novel chairwoman Karen Cohen Khazon told The Jerusalem Post. “We also use hypochlorite, but in a very high [concentration] and we add some [additional ingredients] so that anywhere the disinfectant is sprayed, it becomes a very white film of gel which keeps the [material] on the surface for a while.”
To clean it off, she explained, you simply need to rinse it off with water or clean it off with a towel or paper towel.

Hazon explained that the disinfectant works well on walls, ceilings, floors, toilets, restrooms, spas, airport bathrooms, and now, mikvaot (ritual baths).

The company began a test run in Bnei Brak as part of the effort to slowly ease the coronavirus restrictions in the region by using the disinfectant in mikvaot in the ultra-Orthodox city. The pilot is seemingly a success, as the town plans on reopening mikvaot in the coming days.

“Jabotinsky… The Man and His Vision” is the best short work on the Zionist leader Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky I’ve ever read. A monograph of 36 pages, it provides a perfect balance of essential details with brush strokes broad enough to capture the life of this seminal figure.

It was written by William Mehlman, who passed away on April 27 at the age of 91. His death was sudden. He was still lucid, writing up until the end. I always enjoyed my conversations with Bill, whose manner was two parts thoughtful intellectual and one part enthusiasm.

“He was passionate about his views. What he believed in he believed in very strongly,” his son Ira said.

Prominent for Ira, in remembering his father, was his sense of purpose. “He had a sense of purpose every day. He had it even after he retired from working,” Ira said.

That purpose may have come from the sense that time is fleeting, something Bill may have come to understand when he lost his own father, who was only 52 when he died. “He never said that, but I suspect it in retrospect, it does change your outlook. It has changed mine,” Ira said.

For Bill, the purpose that fueled him was defending Israel and the Jewish people. He was going to do whatever he could to make sure Jews would never again find themselves in a position of powerlessness. This worldview was likely the result of living through two seminal events during his formative years – the Holocaust and the foundation of Israel.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-high-court-clears-way-for-benjamin-netanyahu-to-form-next-government-11588804563

TEL AVIV—Israel’s top court ruled that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can form a government while under indictment, removing a final hurdle in the incumbent’s bid to remain in power as he goes on trial later this month on corruption charges.

The High Court this week reviewed eight separate petitions challenging a deal between Mr. Netanyahu and rival Benny Gantz to form a unity government after three inconclusive elections in a year. The two politicians said the coronavirus pandemic necessitated an end to continued political uncertainty.

But their deal was challenged by nongovernmental organizations, other political parties and advocacy groups who argued Mr. Netanyahu shouldn’t be leading a government while he faces bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges.

Late on Wednesday, the panel of 11 High Court judges decided not to intervene. “The legal decision we’ve reached is not meant to detract from the seriousness of the pending charges against MP Benjamin Netanyahu…nor from the difficulty of the tenure of a prime minister charged with criminal acts,” the justices wrote in their decision. “It is the result…of having the presumption of innocence.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/israel-wins-battle-against-covid-19-ari-lieberman/

During its brief history, the modern state of Israel has had to endure endless wars, terrorism, political, cultural and economic boycotts, and has triumphed decidedly over all these hardships. The Jewish State, with a population of just under 9 million and about the size of New Jersey routinely ranks among the most powerful nations in the world and its citizens enjoy a standard of living on par with Western nations, an astonishing achievement considering that Israel has been in existence for only 72 years and is surrounded by medieval, genocidal neighbors.

But in late February, it became readily apparent that Israel, indeed the world was facing a much more insidious enemy, an invisible foreign virus, which emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan. While China was lying to the world and spinning false narratives as to the nature and origins of the virus, Israel’s leaders understood that this was an enemy unlike any other they had faced before, and consequently took immediate and drastic measures to minimize the damage.

Fast-forward to May 1, 2020. Eighty percent of Israeli towns and villages have reported no new COVID-19 infections. Hospitals throughout Israel are reporting no new COVID-19 admissions. Of the nation’s 16,193 confirmed COVID-19 infected, nearly 10,000 have fully recovered. Israel’s mortality rate from COVID-19 is among the lowest in the world, only 231 deaths.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/scales-of-israeli-justice/

Israel’s High Court of Justice just spent two full days hearing petitions against the continued rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the national-unity deal that he signed last month with Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz. The only thing good about the proceedings was that they were broadcast live. This not only gave viewers a glimpse into the workings of judicial activism, as well as a better understanding of the arguments on both sides of the dispute, but hopefully served to keep the robed men and women on the illustrious bench somewhat in check.

After all, these self-anointed demigods of democracy may have been able to fend off coronavirus droplets with surgical masks and plastic seat dividers, but the rest of us need protecting from the political power that the High Court wields far beyond its purview.

Ironically, judicial reform was a key element of Netanyahu and his Likud Party’s platform during all three rounds of Knesset elections, the first two of which resulted in political deadlock. Though the outcome of the third initially appeared to be pointing in a similar direction, the stalemate was resolved (if you can call it that) by the very coalition deal whose legitimacy is being determined—you guessed it—by the court.

To put it simply, this means that a panel of 11 judges will decide later this week on whether the Israeli people made the right choice of parliamentarians at the ballot box. If it weren’t so outrageous, it would be funny that one of the petitioners against Netanyahu and the coalition-in-the-making is the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a self-described “non-partisan” NGO, whose president, Eliad Shraga, played a starring role in the High Court hearings on Sunday and Monday.