RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/polls-gaza-netanyahu-and-gantz/

Even members of the public forced into bomb shelters on a regular basis realize that the prime minister is doing the best he can to keep Hamas at bay, while reserving the option to launch a ground incursion into Gaza as a last resort.

During live coverage of the bombardment of southern Israel by Islamic Jihad rocket fire on Monday, a Red Alert siren sent a TV reporter—along with a local shop owner whom he was interviewing and other people taking cover from the terrorist barrage from Gaza—into a nearby stairwell.

Tragically well-versed in the drill, the handful of passers-by entered the building and positioned themselves, single file, down a flight of steps, with the broadcast journalist and his cameraman in tow. As all waited for the wail of the siren to subside—listening for the familiar sound of explosions from projectile landings, Iron Dome interceptions and Israel Defense Forces’ bombings of terrorist targets over the border—the interview continued.

But it didn’t proceed as the reporter had hoped or anticipated.

After bemoaning the near-bankruptcy that his shoe store has been suffering as a result of the security situation in his city, the interviewee praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“There’s nobody like Bibi!” he exclaimed, smiling broadly.

“No, no, let’s not talk politics,” the reporter admonished.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15602/fortunate-arabs

Meanwhile, there are other Arabs in the region who are more fortunate than the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: the Arab citizens of Israel. These citizens are lucky that they do not live under the rule of the corrupt and incompetent leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. These Arab citizens are fortunate because they live in Israel.

Here is more unwelcome good news regarding the Arab citizens of Israel: The Israeli government announced in 2018 that in the last two years, it has invested 4.5 billion shekels ($1.3 billion) in the Arab regions. The government also announced that it would invest 20 million shekels ($5.6 million) in the Arab high-tech market. Overall, the government has decided to invest 15 billion shekels ($4.3 billion) in the Arab-Israeli sector by the end of 2020….

The $50 billion dollars the Trump plan offered the Palestinians will end up being withheld because Palestinian leaders have something else on their minds: to continue enriching their own bank accounts at the expense of their people. No wonder, then, that when Arabs — including Palestinians — dream of a better life, they often dream of moving to Israel. No wonder, as well, that most Arab Israelis do not want to become part of a Palestinian state, and have been demanding to stay in Israel.

Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip can only dream about the quality of life their Arab brethren enjoy in Israel.

Thanks to the current leaders in the PA and Hamas, the Palestinian people are sunk in abysmal living conditions. Poverty, unemployment, and repression have been their lot for decade after decade. This is because the PA and Hamas have repeatedly rejected peace plans that offer prosperity to the Palestinians.

Recently, the PA and Hamas rejected US President Donald Trump’s plan for Mideast peace, which includes a $50 billion investment and infrastructure proposal to create at least a million new jobs for Palestinians. The plan calls for projects worth $27.5 billion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and $9.1 billion for Palestinians in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Projects “envisioned include those in the health care, education, power, water, high-tech, tourism, and agriculture sectors.”

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-jewish-palestinian/

The claim by the elected representatives of the Israeli Arab public that they are the original owners of the land while the Jewish citizens of Israel (and, by implication, the State of Israel itself) are “colonialist invaders” is a complete inversion of historical reality. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration about the legality of the West Bank’s Jewish communities, along with President Trump’s peace plan based on that principle, offers a unique opportunity to correct that mistaken notion by applying sovereignty to all Israeli West Bank communities.

The elected representatives of Israel’s Arab community claim that the Palestinians are the original owners of the land—an indigenous minority disinherited by foreign invaders. According to this notion, which is aimed at undermining the Zionist narrative about the Jewish people’s return to its historical homeland, the Arabs of the Land of Israel—like the Indians in America, the aborigines in Australia, and the Zulu tribes in South Africa—are victims of European imperialism/colonialism, which turned them into a disenfranchised and oppressed minority in their own land. From this standpoint, Zionism is a crude perversion of Judaism because the Jews do not constitute a people but only a religious community with no national attributes or aspirations, let alone any right to a state of their own in even a tiny part of the Islamic-Arab-Palestinian patrimony.

That thesis is not only baseless but a complete inversion of the historical truth.

It was Arab/Muslim invaders who came to the Land of Israel as an ascendant imperialist force in the decade after the Prophet Muhammad’s death and laid the groundwork for the colonization of this land by a long string of Muslim empires up to the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI. During this lengthy era, the non-Jewish and non-Christian residents of the land identified themselves as Muslims—not as Arabs, and certainly not as Palestinians—until WWI, when the idea of Arab nationalism gathered steam with the help of British imperialism.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15628/palestinians-condemn-american-help

Palestinians, in short, are saying that they refuse to accept funding by any party that does not accept their conditions and demands.

It is as if someone applies for a loan from a bank but demands that the bank accept his or her demands, and not the other way around. Usually, those who offer the money have the right to set the conditions.

For the Palestinians, it seems, the opposite is true. They seem to believe that they are the ones entitled to set conditions to those who are offering to improve their living needs and help them march towards prosperity and a better future for their children.

Palestinian leaders know that their society is floundering in every possible way. Yet, rather than welcoming the proposed US programs, they are condemning the Americans and inciting their people against the US administration for even making such a generous offer. This is precisely the disastrous dynamic that decades ago landed the Palestinian people in their quagmire, and it is precisely the same dynamic that keeps them trapped in that morass.

Palestinian leaders have gone to great lengths to explain their opposition to US President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled plan, “Peace to Prosperity,” for Middle East peace.

While these leaders are entitled to oppose Trump’s vision for peace, it is not clear why they are also rejecting US financial aid to Palestinians. By rejecting it, Palestinian leaders are denying their people the right to a better life and a strong economy.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Benny-Gantzs-cluelessness-on-US-politics-618267

Addressing a large audience of English-speaking Israelis on Monday, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz made a promise that he cannot possibly keep. This isn’t what made his vow laughable, however. It’s par for political candidates to give utopian guarantees to prospective voters, particularly during the final countdown to an election – or, in this case, the last days leading up to a third round of Knesset elections on March 2, which are likely to result in the same impasse as the previous two.

Nor did the message that Gantz conveyed to the 1,000 people present at the Tel Aviv International Salon event get muddled as a result of his heavy Hebrew accent. No, the contender to the premiership that has been held for more than the past decade by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said what he meant and meant what he said, as did his running mate, Yair Lapid, who shared the podium and the sentiment that Netanyahu is to blame for the growing lack of support for Israel in America’s Democratic Party.

“It’s very important that we return to the bipartisan relationship between Israel and the United States,” Gantz said. “This is something that Netanyahu, unfortunately, neglected.”

Gantz assured the crowd that, unlike Netanyahu – who shows favoritism for the Republican Party – Blue and White “doesn’t care if the American president is a Republican or a Democrat. If he is a good president for the United States, by definition, he will be a good president for the State of Israel, as well.”

According to Gantz, it is Netanyahu’s fault that Israel has become a partisan issue in the US, and it is the mission of the “anybody-but-Bibi” faction, if elected to head the next Israeli government, to remedy the sorry situation.

“We have rehabilitation to do with the Democratic Party,” Lapid chimed in. “But we also need rehabilitation with American Jewry.”

https://unitedwithisrael.org/us-lawmakers-tour-judea-and-samaria-discuss-israeli-sovereignty/?utm_source=

, JNS

Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), formerly head of the House Freedom Caucus, was joined by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee and head of the Republican Study Committee, and their wives toured Israel this week on a trip organized by the Yes! Israel Project, an organization that introduces political and business leaders to places often avoided by mainstream American Jewish organizations.

In July, Jordan tweeted in favor of a House resolution condemning BDS, saying “Israel is America’s closest ally and great friend. But radical left members of Congress are trying to take down a resolution in support of Israel.”

In January, Johnson tweeted an article about the impending publication of the Mideast peace proposal, adding the psalm to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

During the trip, Johnson also expressed support for Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

“I support the Trump [Mideast] deal that recognizes the Jewish connection to your homeland,” he told JNS. “It is important for Israel to apply sovereignty to these lands as soon as possible. We have reservations about the so-called ‘two-state solution’ that would establish a Palestinian state.”

From the Temple Mount to the Judean Hills

The congressmen began their tour on the “Heritage Trail” in Beersheva on Monday, where they learned about the biblical Abraham and the ties of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. They then traveled to Maon Farm in the southern Hebron hills, and then to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron.