RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Right-from-wrong-Israels-battle-on-the-home-front-608659

Anyone following the political chaos of the past six months could have predicted it would take a miracle to prevent a third round of Knesset elections.

Blue and White Party chairman Benny Gantz’s announcement on Wednesday evening that he was returning his coalition-building mandate to President Reuven Rivlin came as little surprise. Anyone following the political chaos of the past six months, particularly that which ensued when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unable to cobble together a government, could have predicted that it would take a miracle to prevent a third round of Knesset elections.

This is chiefly due to Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, whose ill-deserved role as “king-maker” seems to have caused him such megalomaniacal pleasure that he’s decided to try to hold on to the title indefinitely.This, too, might have been anticipated.

Indeed, as nausea-inducing as all the above has been, none of it has elicited gasps of shock. The Israeli public has come to expect the worst of its politicians, after all. It also has grown increasingly disillusioned with an electoral system that enables small parties such as Liberman’s to dictate terms to their larger counterparts, and abuse their disproportionate power to topple governments at will.

Nothing new about that.

SOMETHING JAW-DROPPING certainly has been taking place, however, which explains precisely why Netanyahu has been the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history. In the past two weeks alone – with the threat of indictments by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit hanging over his head and a justified fear of Gantz forging a narrow coalition with outside bolstering from the anti-Zionist Arab parties – Netanyahu has been fighting a war on two fronts against Iran. And with a newly appointed defense minister, Naftali Bennett, to boot.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/arabs-against-boycotting-israel-11574293923

London

Boycotting Israel and its people has only strengthened both, while doing great harm to Arab countries, and not least to the Palestinians. For the sake of the region, it is long past time to move forward to a postboycott era.

That’s where the Arab Council for Regional Integration aims to go. The council formed this week in London and is made up of 32 civic actors from 15 Arab countries, including us. The council isn’t a government organization—members include heads of NGOs, prominent media figures, Muslim clerics, and even musicians. The only political figures who attended were a former Kuwaiti information minister and an Egyptian legislator who also heads a political party there. Regardless of profession, those gathered espoused a spirit of partnership that knows no borders and repudiates the culture of exclusion and demonization that has wreaked havoc across the Arab world. First on our list is the generations-old boycott of Israel and Israelis.

The boycott evolved in stages. In the mid-20th century, Arab elites enacted exclusionary policies against 900,000 Jews indigenous to Arab lands, culminating in their mass dispossession and forced migration. In the 1940s, the internal crackdown developed into an intergovernmental Arab effort to target the young country to which most of these Jews fled—Israel—through political, cultural and economic isolation. The goal was to uproot them and their European Jewish brethren from the area. Next came a ban on all civil engagement with Israelis, even and especially in countries nominally at peace with Israel.

The latest iteration is driven largely by foreigners: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement aims to drive a wedge between Israelis and their global partners. Each boycott has failed to defeat Israelis. Instead, the economic pressure inspired innovative responses that invigorated their economy and society.

The US position on the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) should be based on US interests in the context of a violent, volcanic, uncontrollable and unpredictable Middle East.

On September 18, 1970, the pro-USSR Syrian military invaded Jordan in an attempt to topple the pro-US Hashemite regime, which would destabilize the regional balance. The invasion was rolled back, largely, due to Israel’s deployment of its military, and Israel’s deterring posture on the Golan Heights and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria. Thus, Israel’s posture of deterrence spared the US the need to deploy its own troops (while it was bogged down in the Vietnam quagmire), in order to secure its Jordanian ally, and prevent a devastating ripple effect into Saudi Arabia and all other pro-US Arab Gulf States (at a time when the US was heavily dependent upon Persian Gulf oil).

Israel’s control of the mountains of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley – as well as the Golan Heights – dramatically catapulted its regional position from violence-inducing weakness to violence-deterring strength, reducing regional violence and threats to all pro-US Arab regimes.

Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – the cradle of Jewish history – has transformed the Jewish State from a supplicant and national security consumer to a strategic ally of the US and national security producer.  In the words of the late General Alexander Haig (former Supreme Commander of NATO and US Secretary of State), Israel has become the largest US aircraft carrier with no US boots on board, yielding the US a few hundred percent rate of return on its annual investment in Israel.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pompeo-busts-the-occupation-myth-11574207220

Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law. That is now America’s official view, announced Monday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The historic decision repudiates the conclusions of a 1978 State Department memorandum.

For decades, Israel’s detractors have appealed to consensus, asserting that settlements are illegal because the entire international community agrees they are illegal. As with Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the Trump administration has refused to be cowed by a hollow consensus. By dissenting, the U.S. has destroyed both the consensus and the frail arguments that relied on it.

The four-page 1978 memo, written by legal adviser Herbert Hansell, was hardly a thorough study. It painted with broad strokes across several issues and cited no precedent for its key conclusions. Most important, its legal analysis of occupation and settlements has never been applied, by the U.S. or anyone else, to any other comparable situation.

Hansell’s memo took two analytic steps. First, it concluded that Israel was an “occupying power” in the West Bank. Next, it invoked an obscure provision of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which says the “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Hansell concluded that Jews who have moved past the Green Line into disputed territory have somehow been “deported or transferred” there by the state of Israel.

https://worldisraelnews.com/israel-says-it-struck-iranian-military-targets-in-syria/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=vwo_notification_1574240011&vwo_powered=1

“The attack took place in response to the launching of rockets by an Iranian force from Syrian territory into Israeli territory,” says the IDF. 

Israel Air Force fighter jets attacked in Syria overnight, striking “dozens of military targets” belonging to the Iranian Quds Force and Syrian army, according to the Israeli army spokesman on Wednesday.

“The targets included surface-to-air missiles, command headquarters, weapons depots, and military bases,” said the Israeli military in a statement on Twitter.

“The attack was carried out in response to the launching of rockets by an Iranian force from Syrian territory into Israeli territory and an intent to cause damage in Israeli territory,” the statement added.

“We, as a military, will not allow Iran to entrench in Syria. We will not put up with Iranian entrenchment on our border and will stand up against it,” vowed the IDF spokesman.

The Israeli military also released a map which illustrated the locations of the targets which the Israeli jets struck, most near the Syrian capital of Damascus, but also close to the Syrian-Israeli border.

The IDF said that the attacks from Syria had come on Tuesday morning.

“Four rockets were fired at us,” said the statement on Twitter, adding that they were “intercepted by Iron Dome [air defense] batteries.”

The Israeli military says that it is “prepared for an attack and any scenario,” but that in the meantime, Israeli citizens living in the northern part of the country near the Syrian border could proceed with their daily routines.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/19/no-israeli-settlements-do-not-violate-international-law/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday that the United States is abandoning a Carter-era bureaucratic decision that Israeli settlements – the homes of Jews living in Judea and Samaria – are illegal under international law. Pompeo’s statement represents a dramatic reversal from the Obama administration, which under the auspices of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, publicly held that Israeli settlements constituted a violation of international law.

Pompeo’s action is particularly notable coming shortly after the European Court of Justice ruled the EU was required by international law to label Israeli products from the West Bank as made in “settlements” in “occupied” territory. That decision, like the Carter-era policy Pompeo rejected, applied a unique rule, crafted solely for Israel, and masquerading as international law. Pompeo’s latest statement serves as a reminder that the Trump administration does not bow to anti-Israel sentiment positing itself as “international law,” no matter what shape it arrives in.

In challenging the international law consensus, Pompeo noted that the labeling of Israeli civilian settlements as “inconsistent with international law” has not actually forwarded the objective of long-term peace. Pompeo’s declaration is also an affirmative nod to what a host of others in the international community, particularly Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, have been asserting in opposition for decades—the inhabitance of Jews in territories recaptured in the Six-Day War in 1967 does not violate international law.

The outrage over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s September announcement regarding the potential application of Israeli civil law in the Jordan Valley mirrors the current outrage being lodged at Pompeo’s declaration. Both Netanyahu and Pompeo’s assertions, however, find solid grounding in international law.

https://www.jns.org/writers/ruthie-blum/

Every action that his administration has taken stems from the understanding that the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian peace process” has failed repeatedly—not only as a result of being based on a false premise, but of following the same old paradigm.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s dramatic announcement on Monday that the “establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law” sent shockwaves around the world. In retrospect, however, it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise.

Since his election three years ago, U.S. President Donald Trump has been consistent in his efforts to reverse the policies of the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Not only in relation to Israel. But his pro-Israel stance has been steady and unapologetic from the get-go, which is as it should be.

Indeed, each of his decisions—such as recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the embassy accordingly, defunding the Palestinian “pay for slay” machine and acknowledging Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights—has been geared towards cementing the natural U.S.-Israel relationship in a healthy way. Every action that his administration has taken stems from the understanding that the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian peace process” has failed repeatedly—not only as a result of being based on a false premise, but of following the same old paradigm.

Team Trump has been engaging in what the high-tech sector refers to as “disruption.”

http://carolineglick.com/pompeos-statement-on-settlements-is-a-diplomatic-turning-p

Monday will long be remembered as a turning point in Middle East history.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy in the past generation. Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital has been a matter of U.S. law since 1996. There was little interest in Washington in recent years in pressuring Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. But the issue of the legality of Israeli settlements has been the defining issue of much of the international discourse on Israel for a generation.

In the vast majority of cases, the discourse has revolved around the widely held allegation – with no basis in actual law – that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal. This allegation has served as the justification for a continuous barrage of condemnations of Israel in international arena and for anti-Israel legal verdicts in international courts including the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 2004 and the European Court of Justice last week. The unsupported allegation that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal was also the basis for UN Security Council Resolution 2234 from 2016 and is a basis of the International Criminal Court’s ongoing probes of Israelis.

Pompeo made two revolutionary assertions in his statement. First, he said that “after carefully studying all sides of the legal debate,” like the Reagan administration before it, the Trump administration has concluded, “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”

Second, Pompeo noted, the near ubiquitousness of the false assertion that settlements are illegal has not advanced the prospects for peace. To the contrary, it has harmed the chances of getting to peace.

In his words, “calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/israel-world-leader-tech-diversity-human-frontpagemagcom/

Reprinted From World Net Daily.

With the aim of improving accuracy in reporting about Israel, the Israeli government press office hosted Christian Media Summit 2019 from Nov. 3-6. It kicked off at the Friends of Zion Museum, featuring speeches by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.

As a Summit delegate, I represented the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem-Canada. Most striking to me amid the pomp-and-ceremony, impressive lectures and historic sites was Israel’s embrace of life, which was evident in the fabric of its culture.

Israel is like a world unto itself and the epitome of diversity, despite the tainting of the word “diversity” by progressives. Israel’s Aliyah process of the return of Jews from the four corners of the earth, including Africa, China and India, makes its diversity obvious. One can also observe in a single day the catering to both devout Christian evangelicals and gay party seekers, the latter of whom must hide for their own safety in surrounding Islamic lands.

From Old Testament stories to the Crusades to the Ottoman Empire, and ongoing efforts to obliterate it, Israel has seen it all and has bloomed in adversity. But beneath Israel’s overt intrigue is her soul, which shines from her love of life, her appreciation of human worth and nurturing of it, contrary to the grim public image foisted upon her during decades of wrangling with a “peace process” through which her enemies have sought her delegitimization and dissolution. From the day Israel was born on May 14, 1948, she has fought for her life. Her first breath was already frail as she emerged from a Holocaust. Yet nothing has impeded her pursuits of life and liberty.

Conference of Jewish Affairs

(212) 252-6861    conferenceofjewishaffairs@gmail.com

November 18, 2019 — Conference of Jewish Affairs spokesman Rabbi Aryeh Spero made the following statement today regarding the Administration’s announcement that the United States will no longer consider Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem as “inconsistent with international law”.

“Conference of Jewish Affairs endorses President Trump’s and Secretary Pompeo’s breakthrough thinking and willingness to seek out and abide by historic and legal truths.

“President Trump and Secretary Pompeo are to be commended and admired for recognizing Israel’s historic and legal right to build housing on the Jewish land of Judea and Samaria and for boldly recognizing the right of individual Jews and the Jewish nation of Israel to implant communities and Jewish social life on the ancestral and holy ground which constitutes Eretz Israel.

“President Trump and Secretary Pompeo are trailblazers and the world is fortunate for their courage, vision, and consummate abilities.”

Rabbi Spero concluded, “Israel and the Jewish People have never had a greater friend than President Donald J. Trump.”