RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/five-ways-trump-is-the-most-pro-israel-president/

President Donald Trump has taken five dramatic, unprecedented pro-Israel measures. They’re not the only factors that make him popular in Israel; others include his withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal and his sanctions on Iran and its proxy Hizballah. But those aren’t moves directed at Israel specifically. The explicitly pro-Israel moves include:

1. Declaring Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem

Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995; Presidents Clinton and Bush, as candidates, vowed to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and President Obama, as a candidate, criticized them for not doing so—and then didn’t do so himself. Candidate Trump promised to “move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem”—and President Trump did so. It’s deeply appreciated in Israel.

2. Cutting aid to UNRWA and the Palestinians

Trump, much more than any past president, has let the Palestinians know that there is no free lunch—that they cannot, along with their UN ally UNRWA, cultivate generations of Israel-hating “refugees” and cannot incentivize and reward terrorism while continuing to receive aid. Last year the administration cut funding to UNRWA and put the Palestinians on notice about U.S. aid and their pay-to-slay policy. Congress advanced its own initiative, and this year, fearing lawsuits in the U.S. over Palestinian terror attacks that have killed Americans, the Palestinian Authority itself requested—and “got”—a major aid cut from the administration.

https://worldisraelnews.com/updated-us-maps-to-show-golan-belongs-to-israel/?ut

The U.S. State Department announced this week that it will update its maps to reflect the Trump administration’s move to officially recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.A department spokesperson told Voice of America that the map modifications would be “consistent” with the proclamation the president signed on Monday, remarking that the United States “recognizes that the Golan Heights are part of the State of Israel.”U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told Voice of America that Foggy Bottom would “redraw” official maps and make them available “as soon as they are ready.”The editing, said Hook, reflects reality and a “need for Israel to have secure and defensible borders.”Last week, Trump posted on Twitter that he would make that recognition.“After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability!” he tweeted.Israel took control of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War.

https://bit.ly/2YfZ2TE

While US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights bolsters the national security of the Jewish State, it also yields major strategic benefits for the US.

Thus, President Trump’s endorsement of Israeli sovereignty over the strategically commanding Golan Heights – which may be reinforced by a Congressional resolution – highlights the synergy between the national security of the US and Israel. It underlines the mutually-beneficial, two-way-street strategic coordination and cooperation between the US and Israel.

This endorsement enhances the posture of deterrence of Israel – a systematic, unwavering, effective beachhead of the US in the Middle East – and therefore extends the strategic hand of the US, without the need to deploy additional US forces to the region.

In fact, Israel’s upgraded strategic profile has been a most effective US force-multiplier in the Middle East.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/03/opinion/strivers-sulkers-and-the-state-of-israel/

Nothing succeeds like success, and the State of Israel’s success in a range of fields has created more goodwill for the Jewish people than at any time in history, and also more enmity. The world’s strivers see Israel as an example, and the world’s sulkers view Israel as a humiliating reminder of their misery.

Joseph Dana argued in a March 25 opinion article on this site that “political Zionism raises the risk of anti-Semitism.” That is true only to the extent that success breeds envy. Success also elicits admiration, though, and Israel is admired by ambitious and upwardly mobile people around the world. On balance, political Zionism has brought about far more philo-Semitism than anti-Semitism.

Half a million tourists visited Israel in December 2018, twice the number of the previous December. South Korean high-school students are adopting traditional Jewish learning techniques. Books about Jewish success are best-sellers in China. Chinese students are applying to Israeli universities; 200 now attend the University of Haifa compared with just 20 in 2013, and nearly 200 are enrolled at the Technion, Israel’s elite science university.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273300/trumps-recognition-israeli-sovereignty-over-golan-ari-lieberman State Department lifers at Foggy Bottom must have been convulsing with horror this past Monday when Donald Trump announced that the United States would formally recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. There had been strong indications in recent months that US policy was shifting in favor of recognition.

In November 2018, the US opposed a yearly ritualistic United Nations General Assembly pro forma resolution condemning Israeli control over the Golan Heights. In previous years, the US abstained. Then in early March, the State Department’s annual report on global human rights issues referred to the Golan Heights as “Israeli controlled” rather than “Israeli occupied,” a subtle but significant distinction not lost on Israel’s enemies, chiefly Iran, Syria and Hezbollah and to a lesser extent, Hamas and the so-called Palestinian Authority.

On Monday President Trump made history again by shattering the unsustainable status quo and extending formal recognition to Israel’s claim over the territory. The Golan plateau, an area of approximately 400 square miles that overlooks all of Galilee, was liberated by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. In 1981, Israel passed the Golan Heights Law, a legal step tantamount to annexation. Predictably, the move was not recognized internationally, and was even condemned by stalwart allies wishing to preserve the status quo and avoid offending the Muslim world.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13931/palestinians-hamas-fatah-repression

Hamas is now accusing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah of exploiting the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip to call on Palestinians to overthrow the Hamas regime. Fatah, for its part, is accusing the “dark forces” of Hamas of acting on orders from outside parties to establish a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip.

The US administration says it will publish its long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East, known as the “Deal of the Century,” after the general elections in Israel on April 9. Perhaps it would be a good idea if the US administration came up with a plan to make peace between Palestinians and Palestinians before attempting to make peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

What is clear, meanwhile, is that the Fatah and Hamas leaders are more interested in warring with each other than improving the living conditions of their people. The two groups have already rejected the upcoming “Deal of the Century”: for now, that is the only deal they seem ready to make.

Hamas and Fatah, the two major Palestinian parties ruling the Gaza Strip and West Bank respectively, have been at war with each other for the past 12 years. They disagree on many things, but when it comes to repressing and violating the human rights of their people, Hamas and Fatah have proven that they are comrades-in-arms.

In the past week, Fatah has been launching scathing attacks on Hamas for using excessive force to suppress Palestinians protesting economic hardship in the Gaza Strip. Fatah says that hundreds of Palestinians, including political activists and journalists, have been arrested or severely beaten by Hamas security forces.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273203/palestinian-jihad-attack-claims-life-father-12-and-ari-lieberman

Sunday began as any other for Sgt. Gal Keidan but the 19-year-old soldier didn’t have a chance. He had no reason to suspect that the Palestinian approaching him as he waited at the Ariel junction in the Samaria District (northern West Bank) was going to produce a large knife and begin stabbing. Normal people don’t go on stabbing sprees. But Omar Abu Laila, the Palestinian stabber, was anything but normal. He was a product of a depraved culture steeped in gore, religious zealotry and vitriolic Jew-hatred.

From the day he was born, Omar Abu Laila was exposed to base hate where the Jew was compared to monkeys and pigs; where the Jew was reduced to a cowardly land grabber and usurper; where the Jew was deemed to be the consummate infidel. Abu Laila was exposed to this hate in the mosque, at school, on social media and through official Palestinian media outlets.

Faced with this incessant, Goebbels-like propaganda, that Abu Laila would turn out to be a blood-thirsty, Jew-hating murderer was a forgone conclusion. And the responsibility rests squarely with Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, and his so-called Palestinian Authority for encouraging and stoking this type of aberrant behavior.

Not satiated with the murder of Gal Kaidan, Abu Laila continued his blood lust. He grabbed Kaidan’s automatic assault rifle and began shooting at cars nearing the junction hitting 47-year-old Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, a resident of the community of Eli and father of twelve children.

https://saraacarter.com/hamas-targeted-tel-aviv-but-israelis-murdered-by-palestinian

In the six short days I’ve been back in Israel following a month-long absence, there have been several attempts – one successful – to murder Israeli Jews by Arab Palestinian terrorists.

Israelis live their lives pretty much the way most Americans live theirs. One distinction, however, is that all Israelis’ telephones do more than just connect them to friends and family. They are, in fact, a source of immediate information about the terror attacks. These attacks disrupt everyone’s consciousness on a regular basis.

My friend with whom I’m traveling is a terror attack survivor; she has myriad sources from which she receives updates on a continuous basis. I also have many news sources from which I receive near-immediate news.

So, no surprise, we learned immediately that Sunday’s attack at the Ariel Junction was successful. At least one Israeli had been murdered, along with several wounded.

A 19 year-old soldier, Gal Keidan, was guarding the entrance to the community of Ariel. Ariel is a Jewish community, but its university has hundreds of Arab students as well.

At about 9:45 a.m. a 20 year-old Arab Palestinian, later identified as Omar Abu Lila who is from a nearby village, approached Keidan and stabbed him. As soon as Keidan was wounded, the terrorist wrestled away the soldier’s M-16 rifle and shot Keidan at point blank range, killing him.

The terrorist then used the stolen rifle to fire at three vehicles passing by.