RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270406/dont-repeat-peace-plan-futility-bruce-thornton

This month President Trump will unveil his plan for ending the seven decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Like his predecessors, the author of the Art of the Deal seemingly can’t resist the chance to close the biggest foreign policy deal since the end of World War II. But he should resist chasing this diplomatic unicorn, and instead use the conflict as an opportunity for putting to rest the foreign-policy paradigm that has skewed and distorted our relations with allies and adversaries alike.

That paradigm holds that all conflicts between states and peoples can be resolved through the give-and-take of negotiations in which each side gives something up in a process founded on “mutual respect,” as the hoary cliché has it. Because peoples don’t understand their own best interests, the paradigm goes, they stumble into disorder and violence, a process exacerbated by poverty, lack of education, religious superstition, historical crimes like colonialism, and irrational traditions, all perpetuated by illiberal and autocratic regimes. Clear away those impediments, promote economic development, replace faith with science, create institutions that promote political freedom, and educate people in rational thought, and warring peoples will find that a negotiated settlement of differences can give them what they really want––peace, freedom, and prosperity.

The colossal delusion at the heart of this paradigm is the assumption that all people everywhere want what we in the West have created: peaceful coexistence and prosperity founded on technological development, and a greater understanding of human nature based on science rather than the superstitions of faith or tradition. But that assumption is reductive and contrary to the evidence of history, which teaches us over and over that peoples are moved by conflicting “passions and interests,” as James Madison put it. And the fiercest of these “passions and interests” are those about creed: the ultimate answers to humanity’s deepest yearning, which is to live in a way that obeys our Creator in this world and unites us with Him in the next.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/to-jerusalem-and-back/

I land at Ben-Gurion Airport just before midnight and begin the long ascent to Jerusalem. The headiness hits me immediately and will remain until I depart 10 days later. A few hours later I sit bleary-eyed at breakfast ahead of a day spent trading ideas with some of Israel’s finest intellects from diplomacy, journalism and academia. I take lunch with the Director-General of the Foreign Ministry, Yuval Rotem, former Ambassador to Australia. A perfect specimen of energy meeting acumen, sneeringly called ‘cunning’ by Bob Carr in his diaries, Yuval at once sees the big picture while recalling the smallest detail. In the evening, I dine on Kurdish dumplings and hummus while discussing war and peace with a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister.

The following morning I depart for the Palestinian Territories to visit a Palestinian refugee camp, meet the Mayor of Bethlehem, and venture into darkest Hebron. I enter the camp, really just a common village of paved roads and stone houses, the entrance to which is adorned by an enormous key symbolising the Palestinian quest to return to what is now Israel. The enormity of the key aptly captures the degree to which the Palestinians are anchored in the past, unable to conceive of a future. Everywhere I turn I see the images of their ‘martyrs’. A corflute shows a young man with a Hamas headband and the smouldering wreck of an Israeli passenger bus he detonated. Where I come from such people are considered the lowest of cowards whose names should be blotted out. Here their names are exalted.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/exposing_bds.html

A lot can be said about the evil intentions of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and there is ample evidence showing BDS leaders’ hypocrisy and philosophical alignment with malicious actors with genocidal ambitions. One could readily find volumes of incriminating documentation about the group’s actions and alliances. And while it should be clear that a solid knowledge base is essential, we believe that it is just as important for the informed reader to take the next step and to educate others about the true nature of BDS. It is with this goal in mind that I provide an educational framework toward the end of this missive.

Firstly, we want to underline the importance of combating BDS because of the danger to Israelis and Jews worldwide allowing it to operate unchallenged presents, but also because its actions and goals should be unacceptable to all people of sound moral standing. While BDS tries to present itself as a human rights movement, it is precisely the opposite – an entity in pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish State by any means necessary, one that routinely violates personal liberties and treats individuals (including Arabs) as collateral damage. Boycotts of the Jews were practiced by some of the worst regimes in history, and BDS is a faux “grassroots” outgrowth of the Arab states’ seventy-year campaign to strangle Israel economically. As such, while BDS would like to be considered a “movement,” it may be more accurately perceived as an underhanded tactic.

Let us focus ever so briefly on the three BDS demands. The first BDS demand is for Israel to “end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall.” The phrasing is ambiguous, as many Israel-haters consider every inch of Israel, and not just the territories won by Israel in 1967, to be Arab land. Hence, the above can be interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel. “The Wall” is actually a life-saving security barrier that was built in order to stem the waves of Palestinian suicide bombers that were marching into Israeli cities in the early 2000s.

The Gatestone Institute recently ran an essay by a Muslim Arab writer based in the Middle East, Bassam Tawilhttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12467/palestinians-burn-the-jews

Here’s some excerpts from his article about fire kites being sent into Israel by those mainstream media’s “peaceful” Arabs across the Gaza border…

…The jubilant reactions of Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims to the reports about the kite fires that have destroyed thousands of acres of fields and agricultural lands in Israel also leave no doubt that this tactic is a violent jihad waged with the goal of destroying Israel and killing Jews. Each time a report about another blaze surfaces, many Palestinians take to Facebook and Twitter to shout the Islamic battle cry “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is Greatest”], echoing calls from ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other jihadi terror groups when they launch terror attacks against non-Muslims. The Arabs and Muslims are now referring to the kite launchers as “mujahideen” (warriors) – a sign that these terrorists are soldiers of Islam engaged in a jihad against the infidels, including, of course, the Jews…

The flaming kites should be seen in the context of the ongoing Palestinian terror campaign that began decades ago and the goal of which is to kill Jews and eliminate Israel. There is no difference between the kites and rockets and mortars. There is no difference between the kites, suicide bombings, stabbing and car-ramming attacks. There is no difference between the kites and drive-by shootings. There is no difference between the kites and the slaughtering of a Jewish family during a meal. The techniques may vary, but the goal remains one: to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth…

On a somewhat related matter, not long ago, a young Israeli soldier was crushed to death by a large stone block dropped from a roof on his head. Other Jews have been killed and seriously wounded by rocks and stones as well, including very young children.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270400/egypts-baghdad-bob-dies-51st-anniversary-six-day-ari-lieberman

June 5, 2018 marked the 51st anniversary of the Six-Day War, which, as its name implies, was won by Israel in six days. This past Monday, one of Egypt’s chief propagandists during the conflict, Ahmed Said, died. Said worked for the Voice of the Arabs, a Cairo-based station used by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to stir up the masses and whip them into a frenzied state of base Jew-hatred. Ironically, his death occurred on the 51st anniversary of the day that Israel humiliated his country and the Arab world at large. In three pivotal hours of the first day of the war, Israel transformed the Egyptian air force into an expensive heap of scrap metal.

Said was Egypt’s equivalent of the notorious “Baghdad Bob,” the nickname given to Iraq’s comical minister of information during the Second Gulf War, whose amusing government propaganda evoked both laughter and derision. While Israeli fighter aircraft – Mirages, Super Mysteres and Vautours – were flying over Egypt bombing and strafing Egyptian airfields, and Israeli armored and mechanized columns were thrusting into Sinai, Said was claiming that Egypt had shot down dozens of Israeli planes and that its tanks were marching on Tel Aviv.

Said’s imaginary phantom victory claims along with general Egyptian obfuscation as to the extent of the military disaster befalling the Egyptian army had calamitous consequences not only for Egypt but for Jordan as well. Fed on a steady diet of lies and misleading Egyptian broadcasts and government communiques concerning imminent Israeli defeat and Arab victory, Jordan’s King Hussein ordered his troops into action. Israeli pleas to the Hussein to stay out of the war had no effect on the “Little King,” who was by now undoubtedly intoxicated by the prospect of expanding his kingdom and “liberating” pre-1967 “Palestine” from the infidels.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/israel-shows-what-alliances-are-for/

A residual rancor against America’s $3 billion military aid budget to Israel still can be detected in the corners of the conservative movement. Yes, Israel is the only democracy in the region, and yes, Israel is an American ally, but Israel is out for Israel’s interests just as America is out for America’s interest — so why should American taxpayers subsidize the powerful and prosperous Jewish state?

Never mind that the $3 billion in military aid amounts to a Pentagon subsidy for American arms manufacturers. Never mind also that Israeli military technology and intelligence make an enormous (and largely untold) contribution to American security.

There’s a reason to maintain alliances in the cold light of Realpolitik which conservative isolationists refuse to consider: Allies can do things that we want done at much less risk to us and at far lower cost than if we were to do them directly.

Israel has substantially reduced Iran’s military capacity in Syria, for example, and has done so without provoking a confrontation with Russia. If the United States were to use its own planes to bomb Iranian installations in Syria, that would constitute a direct challenge to Russia’s presence in the country, and lead to a strategic confrontation that we do not want (and the isolationists want least of anyone). But Israel can do so, because Israel is no threat to Russia, and Israeli bombing raids in Syria do not humiliate the Kremlin. Israeli action keeps the matter on the local level, rather than escalating it to a matter of global tension.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12467/palestinians-burn-the-jews

There are two important factors that the international community needs to notice regarding the fire kites that the Palestinians are sending to Israel from the Gaza Strip. First: those who are launching the kites are making it clear that their ultimate goal is to kill as many Jews as possible and bring about the obliteration of Israel. Second: the Palestinians see all Jews living in Israel as “settlers.

The Palestinians are now also telling us that the terror kites they are sending to Israel accord with what the Quran orders Muslims to do in the fight against the “infidels.” They apparently see the flaming kites as part of the jihad (holy war) against the enemies of Allah and Islam.

“We want to set fire to Israel so that the Jews will be burned or forced to leave their country.” — Abu Al-Majd, terrorist.

The jihad of the Palestinians against Israel is the same jihad that ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic jihadi groups have also been waging on the “infidels” and “enemies of Islam” in the US, EU and other non-Muslim countries. We are witnessing a well-organized campaign of terror orchestrated by terrorists and activists belonging to Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians, who have been sending flaming kites from the Gaza Strip into Israel the past few weeks, say that their real goal is to “burn the Jews” and destroy Israel. They see the kites as a new weapon to achieve their goal. They are disappointed, they say, that no Jew has been hurt yet as a result of the fires triggered by the flaming kites.

The kites have ignited dozens of fires in Israeli fields and forests adjacent to the border with the Gaza Strip, much to the satisfaction of the Palestinians and their supporters in the Arab and Islamic countries, who took to various social media platforms to celebrate the “success” of the Palestinian terror kites.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/gaza_and_palestinian_nihilism.html

“One can understand the meaning of Gaza only when one hears their words about building a state in the context of their efforts to destroy a state.”

Gaza is a case study in obfuscation. Ostensibly the ruckus is all about a march to reclaim property in Israel. But, unless one sees the background one does not comprehend the entire picture.

Do the Palestinians really want a state; a country of their own?

Political logic may support a two state solution. But, the cacophony of allegations, tirades and threats are orchestrated to prevent a serious discussion of how this state will come about. Unfortunately, all of this mayhem makes it very hard to believe in the genuineness of Palestinian desire for autonomy. Perhaps, as was the case with Germany in the twentieth century, their hatred for the Jews has become a self-destructive force. While a useful political instrument, hate hardly constitutes a political philosophy capable of promoting an independent democratic society.

The altruistic idea of a Palestinian state is a projection of American evangelism. We hold to the belief that all people should be free and equal. Americans believed that democracy could be transplanted to the Arab world. However, as Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington argued, we are witnessing a “clash of civilizations.” Western ideals forged out of consensus, such as democracy, may not be compatible with Islamic civilization built upon an ethos of violence.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12422/palestinians-gaza-human-rights

Samah Abu Ghayyath still has not been formally charged with committing any crime. Hamas will not say why the mother of five was held in detention for 23 days.

This is the real tragedy of the Palestinians: failed leadership that has deprived them of international aid and a good life in favor of hating and killing Jews. Their leaders have dragged their people from one disaster to another — from Black September in Jordan in the ’70s, to the civil war in Lebanon in the ’80s and ’90s, to the Second Intifada during the 2000s, and to wars in the Gaza Strip that have claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians.

Where are all those who claim to be “pro-Palestinian” and are spewing hatred against Israel and Jews at college campuses in the US and Canada? If they really want to help the Palestinians, let them stand up and shout about the rights of women and gays living under Hamas’s repressive regime, and journalists who are being harassed and arrested by Mahmoud Abbas’s security forces.

Yelling lies about Israel and Jews does not make one “pro-Palestinian.” It only makes one an Israel-hater. Hating Israel does not improve human rights conditions for Palestinians living under Hamas and Fatah. Instead, it serves as a distraction and even facilitates Fatah and Hamas in suppressing public freedoms and human rights.

A Palestinian mother of five just spent 23 days in prison. During her incarceration, she was held in unspeakable conditions and denied family visitations. She was also prohibited from consulting a lawyer.

This is a story that no one has heard in the West.