RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/sunflowers-and-bad-news/

Friday afternoon. Gordon Beach in Tel Aviv. Less crowded than last year at this time. Fewer tourists.

It’s the fault of the war. Airline cancellations and El Al price hikes didn’t help.

Still, rows of chaises with tanning nymphets are packed. So is the water. The Mediterranean is calm. No black flags warning of undertow. Kids splash around. Parents play paddle ball.

Tattooed waiters bustle back and forth, carrying trays with iced coffee and watermelon. Couples seated at low tables bury their feet in the sand, talking about nothing in particular.

A hang-glider flies overhead. It’s startling for a second—reminiscent of Hamas’s infiltration on Oct. 7.

My phone vibrates with an incoming message from my son. It’s a photo of a field of sunflowers in the Gaza envelope. He stopped to snap it on his way back to the front. Beauty before battle.

The Home Front Command app informs of incoming rockets in the south: Sderot, Nir Am and elsewhere. Then drones along the “confrontation line” separating Israel from Lebanon: Dalton, Rehaniya, Kerem Ben Zimra. Afterwards, Kadita in the Upper Galilee. Again, the confrontation line: Daphna, Kibbutz Dan, Hagoshrim, She’ar Yeshuv, Snir.

Katzrin in the southern Golan Heights and Ma’ayan Baruch on the confrontation line are also in the crosshairs. More barrages in the Upper Galilee—in Gadot and back to Katzrin. A repeat performance at the confrontation line: Misgav Am, Kiryat Shmona … the list of Hezbollah’s targets goes on.

But no sirens here in Tel Aviv. It’s been more than two months since the last time the White City was hit with Hamas projectiles, forcing residents to run for cover.

https://www.jns.org/eurovision-handed-israel-the-win/

 Israel finished fifth overall in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. That surprise finish was widely celebrated by Israelis as a great success. In fact, it was a success greater than they realized.

The European public’s vote for a singer was a protest vote against the anti-Israel narrative of the elites and the antisemitic demonstrations marching through Europe’s cities by those celebrating Hamas.

“In a competition invaded by politics, the European public decided to respond and reject the clear bias and anti-Israel trend by supporting massively the Israeli candidate Eden Golan,” Daniel Shadmy, spokesperson of ELNET-Israel, a group dedicated to strengthening Europe-Israel relations, told JNS.

“After the judges of the competition snubbed the Israeli candidate, the European public voted with a loud and clear voice and put Israel as their second favorite song of the whole competition. Israel got top scores from 14 countries, this year’s record,” Shadmy said.

Israel actually won a 15th “country.” A new category, “Rest of the World,” includes voters from countries that aren’t participating in the contest.

Among countries whose public voted Israel into the top spot were the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, Portugal and Italy.

The Irish public, considered among the most hostile to Israel (although perhaps that assumption should be revisited), put Israel in a respectable second place, giving it 10 votes.

“It is noteworthy that countries that were very critical of Israel, both politically and during the competition itself, such as Belgium and Spain, were among those whose public gave the most points to Israel in a clear message of protest,” Shadmy said.

Eurovision voting is a tally of two sets of votes: public and jury. Each counts for 50% of the total tally.

ttps://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20641/palestinian-authority-fatah-gaza

The Israeli government, according to reports, is being pressured by the Biden administration to send the money to the PA. This addled and dangerous proposal amounts to expecting the Jews to support the same people who are murdering them. The Biden administration has also been launching a legal and diplomatic offensive to discredit, isolate, and penalize Israel for trying to defend itself against terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, the PA, instead of acknowledging that it is terrified to go back to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, is trying to pressure Israel into accepting the creation of a Palestinian state and releasing the tax revenues. Unbelievably, the PA and the Biden administration apparently want Israel to grant Palestinians a state that will be ruled by the same murders, rapists and kidnappers who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.

Abbas might one day return to the Gaza Strip – but only when he sees that Hamas has lost all military might and is no longer in control. Meanwhile, he feels safe and secure being in the West Bank, where Israel is in charge of overall security and is fighting against Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist proxies. He knows that without Israel’s security presence in the West Bank, Hamas would have killed him and toppled the PA long ago.

Allowing Hamas to win its war against Israel would delight two countries deeply committed to supporting terrorism. The first is Qatar, an oil-field protected by a US air base, and a country with which President Joe Biden’s brother, James, according to court testimony, might reportedly have had business dealings

The second country is Iran, repeatedly designated as the “leading state sponsor of terrorism” and currently racing toward nuclear weapons capability. The Iranian regime – which presently controls four Middle East capitals in addition to its own — Sanaa, Damascus, Beirut and Baghdad — wishes to take over the Middle East, as well as oil-and-mineral-rich Sudan. Iran’s rulers would undoubtedly not only pave the way for more October 7-style atrocities against Israel, but also other neighbors — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain — especially if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.

Abbas, fearful of being called a traitor, is reluctant to take action against the terrorists. It might mean his death. Additionally, he is most likely not pursuing the terrorists because they do not directly threaten him or the PA.

If a Palestinian leader does not even have the bravery to condemn the unimaginable Hamas atrocities of October 7, how can one expect him to confront terrorism emanating from his Palestinian Authority?

The Gaza Strip needs moderate and pragmatic leaders who will embark on a process of deradicalizing and reeducating Gazans to lead peaceful, prosperous and constructive lives, freed of subjugation by their leaders, who will finally prepare their people for peace in the region. At the moment, unfortunately, among the Palestinians, no such leaders exist.

https://jewishwebsite.com/opinion/americans-for-peace-now-broke-its-promises/98703/

The decision by Americans for Peace Now to publicly endorse suspending U.S. military aid to Israel directly violates the promises it made in order to gain admittance to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. It’s time for the Conference to reconsider Peace Now’s status.

When Americans for Peace Now (APN) applied for membership in the Conference of Presidents in 1993, some Jewish organizations were wary. They wondered whether the controversial group would be loyal to the pro-Israel consensus that the Conference represents.

Every member-organization in the Conference is entitled to its own opinions, on Israel and everything else. At the same time, the Conference stands for certain bedrock principles that all its members must support. 

That’s why extreme anti-Israel groups have never been admitted. J Street’s application was rejected. The anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace would never be welcomed. Neither would the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta.

Three of the Conference’s core principles are rejection of all Arab violence against Israel; support for an undivided Jerusalem under Israel’s sole control; and complete, unequivocal support for U.S. aid to Israel.

In their appeals to be admitted to the Conference, APN spokespeople repeatedly pledged that they would adhere to those positions.

“We are revolted by terrorism,” APN executive committee chair Shifra Bronznick insisted in a widely-circulated op-ed in March 1993. 

PREMIERE: Are the hostages in Gaza doomed after Rafah? – JNS.org

Episode 2: https://www.jns.org/is-israel-being-prevented-from-winning-the-war/

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/05/14/jews-cannot-afford-to-be-divided-over-israel/

Jews, like elephants, tend to have long memories. We see in the past warnings of the future. As Israel marks its 76th birthday on 14 May, perhaps the most relevant and terrifying precedent comes from the days of the Roman Empire.

After the First Jewish-Roman War ended in 74 AD, the Jews lost control of Palestine. Their temple was destroyed. Following a second rebellion, they were largely expelled from their promised land. They would not return in force for almost two millennia.

The most thorough account of those times was written by Josephus Flavius, a well-born Jewish priest who first joined the insurrection against Rome, but later embraced the imperial cause. The Israel Josephus describes sounds oddly familiar: a small country with a large diaspora, deeply divided about whether to accommodate the dominant Roman Empire or embrace various strains of zealotry. Many of these zealots spent at least as much time attacking each other as they did the Roman legions. He describes them as ‘falling upon the people as upon a flock of profane animals and cutting their throats’.

Josephus noted that such divisions made the Jews sore losers. When another, even less successful Jewish rebellion against the Romans broke out six decades later, the Jews were left largely exiled from Israel. They were often unpopular, in part due to their monotheistic beliefs, and they sometimes fought with other communities from Rome and Alexandria to Antioch. As the Greek Sibylline oracle proclaimed: ‘Every sea and land is full of you and everyone hates you because of your ways.’

The comparisons are chilling. The modern version of the Jewish State is similarly increasingly isolated. Even in the traditional liberal nations of the diaspora, including the UK, Jewish communities face renewed threats to their prosperity and even their existence. Anti-Semitic hate crimes in Britain, notes one survey, are now 10 times what they were just a few years ago. In the US, they are far more prevalent than the much-ballyhooed threat of Islamophobia.

https://www.jns.org/i-am-as-my-people-are/

One lesson Israelis should have internalized by now is that things can always get worse. As we moved on Monday night from mourning to celebration—when Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism abruptly transitioned into Independence Day—we’d have done well to remember what we were complaining about last year at this time.

In the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre, it’s impossible to believe that Israelis of all walks of life were treating judicial reform like a matter of life and death. Though it’s an issue that warrants serious debate under normal circumstances (whatever that means in the ever-besieged Jewish state), retrospect has a way of rendering previous concerns ridiculous. 

While duking it out over the selection of judges and the power of the Supreme Court, Hamas was deep in the throes of the genocidal plan it would carry out a mere few months later. Breaking down the border fence, the Iranian-backed terrorists, joined by gleeful Gazan civilians, committed atrocities impossible for any human being with half a soul to fathom.

Initially, the shock and horror of the that Black Sabbath—families snuffed out; babies burned; women and girls raped; young men beheaded; bodies left mutilated beyond recognition; and 250 people of all ages violently abducted to tunnel dungeons in Gaza—brought the nation together in grief and anger.

How, we asked, could the authorities have allowed this to happen? Where was the attention of the security services and government while Hamas was carefully plotting and training for its mass assault? Why did it take the Israel Defense Forces hours upon hours to come to the rescue of the victims, so many of whom perished while waiting?

https://www.jns.org/why-the-white-house-turned-on-israel/

The chattering class in Israel is struggling to understand American behavior. They ask: How did the United States go from supporting Israel in the first days of the war with Hamas in Gaza to essentially shielding the terror organization? The Israeli right asks: What happened to the Americans? The left asks: What has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu done to destroy U.S.-Israel relations?

I believe I have some insight into this. I held a senior policy position at the U.S. State Department for several years. Afterwards, I was a senior advisor to the vice president from 2001 to 2007 and then to the Trump administration’s National Security Advisor John Bolton. I also served a decade in the Pentagon as a senior intelligence officer. I have learned a great deal about the mentality of these bureaucracies.

It is important to understand that the U.S. State Department is not a foreign ministry. It is a super-bureaucracy with domestic as well as foreign functions. Its power over foreign policy far outstrips that of other countries’ foreign ministries.

The Biden administration’s National Security Council is ultimately a political body, but it is not opposed to State Department policy, which is increasingly pushed by younger staffers and senior figures aligned with progressive ideology. There are also the professional foreign service officers who have invested their entire careers advancing foreign policy paradigms that are now collapsing.

The NSC lacks a vast bureaucracy of its own. So, it outsources the drafting of policy to relevant bureaus. On foreign policy, this is almost always the State Department. As in any large organization, the person tasked with drafting the policy defines the policy. Everything that follows is a reactive revision, not a reset.

Intelligence agencies control and distribute information, including the information made available to the president. Thus, they also exercise significant power. But ever since the tenure of George Tenet as CIA director, the intelligence agencies have become active in the implementation of policy as well.