RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/they-should-be-ashamed-of-themselves-netanyahu-unloads-on-anti-israel-protesters-in-passionate-address-to-congress/

‘They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers,’ Netanyahu said, even as anti-Israel protesters congregated outside the Capitol.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had harsh words for anti-Israel protesters in his Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress, slamming the activists as “useful idiots” for Iran and other bad actors even as they congregated outside the Capitol.

“Defeating our brutal enemies requires both courage and clarity,” he said. “Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet, incredibly, many anti-Israel protesters choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers. They stand with people who come into the kibbutzim — into the home — with the parents and the children, the two babies in the secret attic, and murder the parents, find the secret latch to the attic, find the babies, and they murder them. These protesters stand with them. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Netanyahu referenced the claims from many anti-Israel protesters that Hamas terrorism constitutes legitimate resistance while Israel’s retaliatory war is out of bounds.

“They refuse to make the simple distinction between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians — between the democratic state of Israel and the terrorist thugs of Hamas,” he told the chamber.

The prime minister stressed in his speech that anti-Israel protesters are not just opposed to the existence of the Jewish state but are anti-American as well.

“These protesters burn American flags even on the Fourth of July,” Netanyahu said. “And I wish to salute the fraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina who protected the American flag — protected the American flag — against these anti-Israel protesters.”

After a brief round of “U-S-A” chants, Netanyahu took aim at Iran, referencing the recent revelation from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines that the Islamic Republic has been funding campus protests in the United States.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20813/hamas-october-7-reason

The Hamas document [which purports to explain why it massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023] lists a number of reasons, all of which can be easily refuted, as to why the terrorist group launched its attack on Israel.

This claim is totally untrue: there are absolutely no Israeli “plans” to split the Al-Aqsa Mosque into a Jewish and Muslim area or to convert it into a Jewish site.

The purported “plans” exist only in the imagination of Hamas and other Palestinians. It is simply part of a Palestinian campaign of defamation against Israel to try to justify the murder of Jews.

According to the “status quo,” formulated by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan in 1967, Jews would not be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount but would be able to visit the site.

While Israel has respected the status quo, Muslims have consistently violated it in an apparent attempt to deepen their hold on the holy site.

It is also important to note that Hamas and many Palestinians consider all Jews “settlers,” regardless of whether they live in Tel Aviv, or in a settlement in the West Bank, or in New York.

Hamas further claims that it launched its attack because of “thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails who are experiencing deprivation of their basic rights.”

Most of the “detainees” Hamas is referring to are convicted terrorists who were imprisoned for murdering or attempting to murder people (usually Jews). For many years, these terrorist prisoners have enjoyed comfortable conditions, especially when it comes to entertainment and leisure. A variety of exercise equipment – including ping-pong tables, stationary bicycles and pull-up bars (in addition to chess) – is available. Each prison cell is equipped with a television, and the prisoners have access to at least 10 channels. Palestinian prisoners, in addition, are entitled to family visits and unlimited access to lawyers.

In contrast, both the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have been accused by human rights organizations of “systematically torturing critics” in detention. A report published by Human Rights Watch in 2022 said: “PA and Hamas security forces routinely taunt and threaten detainees, use solitary confinement and beatings, including whipping their feet, and force detainees into painful stress positions for prolonged periods, including hoisting their arms behind their backs with cables or rope, to punish and intimidate critics and opponents and elicit confessions…”

As of October 7, 2023, an estimated 18,000 – 18,500 residents of the Gaza Strip held work permits issued by the Israeli authorities to enable them to work in Israel, where their pay is five times higher than in Gaza. As noted last month: “Many of those workers to whom Israel opened its doors were apparently working in Israel by day, and by night returning to Gaza and providing Hamas with highly detailed maps and drawings of every house in Israel’s border communities, and reports about everyone in them, including the pet dogs.”

Israel can only conclude that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Hamas also claims it launched its attack on Israel because of the “seven million Palestinians living in extreme conditions in refugee camps who wish to return to their lands.” If the “refugees” are living in extreme conditions, it is because their leaders have failed to permit the building of new homes for them or to improve their living conditions. There is no reason why “refugee camps” continue to exist under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, under Hamas in the Gaza Strip or anyplace else.

The same abuse applies to the Arab countries hosting Palestinian “refugees”: Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. What have these countries done to incorporate their Palestinian brethren? Nothing. There is no reason why a Palestinian living in an Arab country should be treated as a “refugee” or a second-class citizen.

Hamas, in its document, is actually stating that it sent its men to murder, rape and kidnap Jews because Israel refused to open its borders to millions of Palestinian “refugees” who are told to murder Jews and destroy the only Jewish state.

Finally, Hamas argues that it launched its attack because of the international community and world powers seeking to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.” This claim, of course, is completely false. In fact, most of the international community, including the United States, the EU, Russia and China, have long been pushing hard for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

If anyone is to blame for the failure of the “two-state solution,” it is Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The leaders of the PA were presented with multiple opportunities to create a state of their own, but each time declined Israel’s offer of peace without so much as a counteroffer.

[I]is laughable to hear Hamas lament the failure of the “two-state solution.” This is an organization whose charter openly calls for waging Jihad (holy war) to obliterate Israel… “Resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine will remain a legitimate right, a duty and an honour for all the sons and daughters of our people and our Ummah.” – Article 23, of the “new, improved” Hamas Charter of 2017.

Hamas’s attempt to defend its crimes against Israelis should be seen as part of its attempts to mislead and fool the international community.

The October 7 massacre was orchestrated by Hamas with the sole intent of slaughtering as many Jews as possible as part of its Jihad to destroy Israel. Period.

https://www.jns.org/were-americans-listening-to-netanyahus-message/?_sc=

What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his address to a joint meeting of Congress was important. Both Americans and Israelis need to understand that the war in the Gaza Strip is just one front in a conflict with Iran that is, as he rightly said, a battle “between civilization and barbarism.” He gave the best possible argument for Americans to understand that Iran’s fomenting of terrorist wars across the Middle East was a threat to their security. The speech was also a brilliant defense not only of the justness of Israel’s war policy and tactics, but of the Jewish people’s right to live in peace, security and sovereignty in their ancient homeland. 

Far more vital than what he said is whether enough people who matter are prepared to listen to that message and draw the appropriate conclusions. And, much like the outcome of the November election that will have a major impact on the future of U.S.-Israel relations, the answer to that question is yet to be decided.

That’s not just because there were many prominent members of the House and Senate who chose to boycott the speech or the presence of angry mobs of pro-Hamas antisemitic protesters as he spoke. Rather, it is because those who have hurled libelous charges at Israel since it was attacked on Oct. 7 as well as those—in the Biden administration, the media, pop culture and college administrators—who have feared to confront or offend them, don’t understand that they are illustrating America’s most crucial problem as much as their incomprehension of events in the Middle East.

The real argument

In this war “between civilization and barbarism,” those who spread the toxic woke ideologies of critical race theory and intersectionality essentially give aid and comfort to the latter. It’s important to realize that the debate among Americans about Israel isn’t really about its military tactics or the advisability of a ceasefire agreement or even if they comprehend the threat from Iran, key as those topics may be.

https://www.jns.org/congressional-address-reinforces-us-support-for-israel-netanyahus-position-as-leading-statesman/?

Amid a disturbing leadership vacuum in the United States and international institutions, moral leadership from the Jewish state is as critical as ever.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress for the fourth time on Wednesday, one more than any other foreign dignitary, surpassing the record of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Netanyahu has reached this milestone for several reasons.

First, it’s due to the importance and strength of the alliance of two of the world’s most consequential democracies in the last 200 years. Second, such a distinction requires the longevity of a leader that has remained in power through the tenures of multiple American presidents. And lastly, a leader would not be invited to return time after time, unless that leader was an exceptional orator and statesman.

Enter Netanyahu.

He arrived amid unprecedented political chaos in the United States, days after President Joe Biden suddenly announced that he would no longer seek re-election and just two weeks after former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt.

He also arrived during an unprecedented crisis in Israel, nine months after the horrific Oct. 7 massacre and an ensuing regional war the Jewish state has been fighting on seven fronts. As the conflict has raged on—and even as Israel has gone to extraordinary efforts in urban warfare to reduce civilian casualties to the barest of minimums—mainstream media and international institutions have attempted to delegitimize Israel and undermine American support for Israel, particularly among liberals with libelous claims of war crimes and genocide.

https://www.jns.org/the-icj-rejects-international-law/

What a pleasant thrill to see the most commonplace prejudices confirmed by the august body of the International Court of Justice. The United Nations’ top court—so noted for its love for Israel—just reached the single most unsurprising ruling in history: That Israel is the illegal occupier of the territory of a non-existent Palestinian entity.

The ICJ, which appears indifferent to the encouragement and collaboration it offers to global antisemitism, had already decided a few months before that Israel might be guilty of a genocide that the ICJ invented out of whole cloth. It must have taken enormous pleasure in offering Hamas a new and generous gift. The Palestinian Authority, of course, declared the ICJ’s decision a historic turning point. If it was referring to the total self-abasement of the “international community,” it is quite correct.

“Occupation” is a remarkable word. In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it means absolutely nothing. It is a buzzword that signals a self-granted if baseless moral superiority. By saying the magic world, one is suddenly a defender of the oppressed and dispossessed. You are in favor of self-determination, of course, though this elides the fact that, in this context, self-determination means Hamas’s “right” to determine itself on massacring civilians, taking hostages and digging tunnels beneath civilian areas—all with total impunity.

Indeed, the U.N.’s own Secretary-General António Guterres stood tall the day after Hamas’s genocidal attack on Oct. 7 to blame everything on “Palestinian suffering”—that is, the creation of the State of Israel.

That Israel’s existence is firmly based on international law means nothing to Guterres or anyone else in the “international community” because, despite their pious moaning, they do not believe in international law. For them, it is only a weapon they can use on behalf of Hamas—nothing more.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20810/hamas-and-genocide-in-israel

“Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such…” — Definition of genocide, The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, December 9, 1948.

Their genocidal aim, clear to the Hamas terrorists, was to murder Jews; others, such as Asians and Muslims, were also murdered. What is illuminating is how easily the civilized world, in this instance, accepted that as well as the abduction of 250 hostages. Those who slaughter and take hostages should be the subject of disgrace and condemnation. Instead, frequently, they were celebrated.

Israel, of necessity, responded to this massacre. Israel’s goals, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts “the Churchill of the Middle East,” are “returning hostages from Gaza, eliminating Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat against Israel and also returning displaced Israeli residents securely to their homes in both the south and the north.” Israel’s goal is not to destroy the Palestinians, Arabs or Gazan civilians.

The situation of displaced Gazans — temporary evacuations are allowed by Geneva IV, Article 49 — is certainly unfortunate; however, the main problem is the aggressive nature of Iran’s and Hamas’s totalitarian regimes. That is what has led to the October 7 massacre and is the seminal reason for the war and the Gazan casualties.

“Israel Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Nation in History”; “Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare: Why Will No One Admit it?” — John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point; Newsweek, January 31, 2024, and March 25, 2024.

It is, in fact, Iran and Hamas that should be on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“Hamas is a religious movement, and they are a raging religious movement against Israel. The mainstream media cannot say this because they are afraid to ignite a religious war. And what I say, it already is. They want to annihilate the Jewish people because they are Jewish people, because they are a Jewish state.” — Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, Fox News, October 23, 2023.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20796/a-big-win-for-israel

Reprinted by kind permission of JNS.

Following Israel’s recent strike on Houthi targets in Yemen, White House National Security Communications Advisor John F. Kirby said: “We did not participate in today’s Israeli attack on Yemen and did not help Israel.”

This is wonderful news. It shows to the Iranians, Arab states and others that Israel is an independent actor, not a “client state” of America. It also demonstrates that Israel is willing to go it alone against the advice or demands of the Americans.

It shows the Sunni Arab countries that Israel is a reliable partner against the Iranian regime because Israel will do what it must to protect itself and stop Iran and its proxies. As Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer often says, even if the Sunnis can’t have the 800-pound gorilla (the U.S.) to defend them against Iranian aggression, the 250-pound gorilla (Israel) has proved a reliable alternative.

What more can we learn from Israel’s attack on the (Shi’ite) Houthis?

First, the distance between Iran and Israel’s target in Hodeida, Yemen (about 2,000 kilometers) is beyond the flight range of the F-35 fighter jet. That means the Israelis had to refuel during the trip. Since America didn’t help them, the Israelis either figured out a way to do so by themselves or another country (Saudi Arabia, perhaps?) may have allowed them to refuel in or over their country or elsewhere. This is devastating news for the Iranians.

The flight distance between Israel and Hodeida is the same as between Israel and most of Iran. Tehran, for example, is only 1,200 kilometers from Israel. Thus, the strike is a serious warning to Iran. Iran’s government talks a big game, but given Iranian and Arab culture, when people brag about their abilities, they usually do so out of fear. They hope their enemy will be deterred. Thus, such braggadocio amounts to saying, “Hold me back because I’m afraid my enemy will destroy me.”

Israel’s raid and the damage it caused to the Shi’ite Houthis has allowed the Sunni Yemenis, who are the majority of the country’s population and formerly ran the country, to raise their heads in revolt. There are suddenly many more videos on X showing Sunnis revolting against the Houthis and Iran.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20793/palestinian-leaders-murderers-rapists

The Biden administration’s plan to “revitalize” the Palestinian Authority (PA) is being interpreted by Palestinian leaders as permission to form an alliance with the murderers and rapists of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas.

Instead of starting a “reform process” within the PA, as the Biden administration has demanded, Abbas and his top officials are still pursuing unity and reconciliation with Hamas, whose members carried out the October 7 atrocities against thousands of Israelis. It is hard to see how such an alliance between the two Palestinian parties would even begin to benefit the Palestinians or advance peace and security in the Middle East.

The Biden administration has so far refrained from demanding that the PA halt its efforts to form a partnership with Hamas, which is designated by the US as a foreign terrorist group.

Such statements show why there is basically no difference between the PA and Hamas. Both organizations believe that murdering Jews helps the Palestinians and advances their objective of preventing Israel and the Arab states from normalizing relations with each other.

The PA is lying when it states that it supports a two-state solution.

The PA has always stated that it prefers a one-state solution: a state of Palestine replacing all of Israel.

The Biden administration’s plan to “revitalize” the Palestinian Authority (PA) is being interpreted by Palestinian leaders as permission to form an alliance with the murderers and rapists of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas.

In November 2023, the Biden administration called for “revitalizing” the PA in the hopes that it would be able to oversee the Gaza Strip once the Israel-Hamas war ends.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the US looks forward to working with the new PA government headed by Mohammed Mustafa, which was established last April, “to deliver on credible reforms.”