RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/12/the-peace-processors-return/

The true believers in a ‘peace-minded Palestinian state’ are clapping their hands, but no one in Israel believes in this Tinker Bell.

Middle East peace processing is a great career, or has been for a small but resolute group. Never successful but never daunted, immune to reality, unaffected by wars or elections, they never flag. That means they never stop going to nice conferences and writing articles about “the two-state solution.” Not even now.

The slaughter of Israelis by Hamas on October 7 has greatly affected Israeli opinion. Israelis on the left, including some of those living in the kibbutzim that were attacked, have understood the meaning of the event: A Palestinian state today is simply too dangerous. A couple of weeks ago, President Isaac Herzog of Israel, a former head of the Labor Party, called upon the United States to stop talking about this:

What I want to urge is against just saying ‘two-state solution’. Why? Because there is an emotional chapter here that must be dealt with. My nation is bereaving. My nation is in trauma. In order to get back to the idea of dividing the land, of negotiating peace or talking to the Palestinians, etc., one has to deal first and foremost with the emotional trauma that we are going through and the need and demand for a full sense of security for all people.

Dismissing Herzog’s appeal, two of the longest-serving peace processors, former State Department officials Daniel Kurtzer and Aaron David Miller, are at it again. In an article in Foreign Affairs dated December 22, Kurtzer and Miller want to “create an independent Palestinian state” as the only solution to conflict in the Middle East.

Here’s how: Their plan “would require the PA to run fair and free elections in the West Bank and Gaza and to convince voters that it really will aim to end Israel’s occupation and create an independent Palestinian state. Should it succeed, Israel would also need to demonstrate its commitment — in words and actions on the ground — to advancing a two-state outcome.”

https://www.jns.org/red-cross-finds-little-sympathy-among-israelis-amid-accusations-of-ineptitude-bias/

(December 27, 2023) “Humanitarianism,” “compassion,” “neutrality”—these are the words the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) would like linked to its name. In Israel, the word more commonly associated with the organization is “mud.”

The ICRC has come in for criticism from the Israeli premier on down, with the public consensus being that the ICRC is at best a glorified taxi service, and at worst the most prominent of the consistently anti-Israel and biased so-called “humanitarian” groups.

Israelis blame the ICRC for failing to reach the hostages held by Hamas. Eighty-one days into the war, the Red Cross still hasn’t managed to gain access to the remaining captives held by the terror group.

Israeli anger has intensified as reports emerge of the grim situation of the abductees, with reports of torture, sexual abuse, lack of food and medical care. Some hostages have been killed in captivity.

The ICRC didn’t help its cause when on Dec. 23 its president, Mirjana Spoljaric, blamed Israel, telling Channel 12 that “both” Hamas and Israel were responsible for the ICRC’s failure to reach the hostages. (Yehonatan Sabban, former ICRC spokesman in Israel, said he had to watch the interview four times because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.)

The ICRC’s main defense is that it can’t force its way in to see the hostages. It also says that its modus operandi is to work behind the scenes, the downside being that the public can’t see its efforts.

https://dianebederman.com/dear-jews-its-never-too-late-until-it-is-too-late/

Dear Israel, you are the body of Judaism and we, in the Diaspora, are the soul of Judaism. We need a strong, safe Israel. And Israel needs a strong, safe Diaspora. The time is late. You, Dear Israel, are the physical protection of the Jews, all over the world: we, in the Diaspora, are here to fight the Propaganda War which is attacking the soul of Judaism.

Just give us one more day and we will perform miracles. We need you to declare an official holy-day: San Remo: the anchor to debunking the Occupation Lie/Fabrication. The Jewish people are such a small minority in the world. There are 8 billion people: 2 billion Muslims; 2 billion Christian/Catholics and 15 million Jews. We have been on the receiving end of prosecutions, persecutions, pogroms, inquisitions, expulsions,  auto–da-fés, and then the Holocaust where the modern world not only CHOSE to ignore the Nazi death camps, they denied them.

Here we are in the 21st century, back in our homeland, and the modern world turns against us again. Why? Because we are Jews. Yet, God is always with us. And He has given us a gift that we must not let go to waste. He has given us San Remo. The official world declaration of the Jewish homeland in the Biblical Lands of the Jews – Israel. San Remo ended the occupation and colonization of Israel by the British (1918-1948),  the Arabs, and the Ottomans.

Yet, Israel is still occupied by Muslims – in Gaza and Judea/Samaria. Why are Muslims in our country; making demands of the Jews? Denying our rights? Denying our history.

Archaeologists unearthed a Seleucid fortification destroyed 2,100 years ago by the Hasmoneans in Lachish Forest. Our Chanukah story on the ground.

http://bit.ly/489Wxpq
*The Western attempt to distinguish between Hamas terrorists and the majority of Gaza Arabs defies Middle East reality, which documents that Hamas terrorists and most Gaza Arabs are interwoven with each other, socially, educationally, culturally, ideologically, and religiously.

*Moreover, Middle East reality highlights Hamas as a terror state (Gaza and potentially the West Bank), not as merely a terror organization.

*Therefore, most of the Arabs in Gaza enthusiastically celebrated the October 7, 2023 Hamas ISIS-like slaughter, rape, torture and mutilation of (mostly) civilians, heralding it as role model of sacrifice and heroism in the service of a Holy Islamic War and a demonstration of national liberation fortitude.

*The fact that the Arab population of Gaza lends itself to terrorism was underscored by a June 29, 1967 memorandum, submitted to the US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara by General Earle G. Wheeler, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff. The memorandum presented a map of Israel’s minimal security requirements, including Gaza, which “serves as a salient for introduction of Arab subversion and terrorism, and its retention would be to Israel’s military advantage…. It has served as a training area for [Palestinian terrorists]…. Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel would reduce the hostile border by a factor of five and eliminate a source for raids and training of [terrorists]….”   

*The terroristic potential of the population of Gaza has been leveraged since 1947 by the Muslim Brotherhood – the largest Sunni terror organization, which established Hamas in 1988 – when it established Gaza as one of its five centers in British Mandate Palestine (Haifa, Jaffa, Nablus, Jerusalem and Gaza). The Gaza branch collaborated closely with the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the birth place of the Muslim Brotherhood. Initially, Hamas’ popularity was limited to the Gaza middle class, such as the religious establishment, lawyers and businessmen. However, since the 1990s, Hamas has increasingly evolved into a focal point of social, ideological and religious cohesion with the Gaza population at-large.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-in-the-shadow-of-american-decline/

Strictly speaking, Israel’s Gaza war is not a tragedy, but rather a hideous accident. Many wars wait for years to happen until they can’t be stopped. Those are the tragedies. This one never should have happened. Israeli intelligence had the plans for the October 7 Hamas attack a year in advance, as well as urgent warnings from lower-echelon officers just before the event. But the top military and political leadership brushed them off.

This fits a venerable pattern. Stalin had the plans for Operation Barbarossa from his spy Victor Sorge; U.S. Naval Intelligence had warnings about the attack on Pearl Harbor; and the FBI had the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of 9/11, but failed to fit them together. Intelligence services are not rewarded for timely warnings, but for serving their masters’ political agendas, and Israel’s fabled spies turned out to be no different than their counterparts in other countries. Believing that $40 million a month in subsidies from Qatar and other economic concessions would keep Hamas quiet, the Israeli government refused to consider anything else.

There simply is no contest between 300,000 regular troops from the Israel Defense Forces and 30,000 to 40,000 lightly armed Hamas irregulars, any more than there was a contest between ISIS and the American army and its proxies. Whether Hamas is entirely or largely extirpated from Gaza depends on the extent to which Israel can resist American pressure to vitiate its operations. The outcome will not be much different in any case. Whatever happens, most of Gaza’s two million residents will spend the next couple of years in tent camps while the rest of the world dickers about what to do with them. Their living conditions will be similar to those of the more than 200,000 Jewish refugees who lived in tent cities for up to two years after they were expelled from Arab countries following the 1948 war.

For all the horrors of the October 7 attacks, they did not constitute an existential crisis for a country with the region’s most powerful military and an extraordinary capacity for national solidarity in the face of external threat.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/25/news/gaza-terrorists-reject-giving-up-power-as-part-of-any-peace-plan-sources/

Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups operating in Gaza have rejected an Egyptian-led truce proposal with Israel that would see the militants relinquish power in return for an end to the war, sources say.

The terrorists, who conducted the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, have refused to take part in one of the biggest conditions laid out by negotiators in Cairo on Sunday: an end to Hamas’ reign in Gaza by forming a Palestinian parliament and holding free elections, according to two Egyptian security sources.

The terrorist organizations instead reiterated that the only thing they’re ready to discuss is a prisoner swap that would see more than 100 Israeli hostages released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel’s jails.

But a Hamas official who was in Cairo during the negotiations added that even a new prisoner swap would only take place once Israel has withdrawn from war-torn Gaza.

“Hamas seeks to end the Israeli aggression against our people, the massacres and genocide, and we discussed with our Egyptian brothers the ways to do that,” the official told Reuters.

“We also said that the aid for our people must keep going and must increase, and it must reach all the population in the north and the south,” the Hamas official added. “After the aggression is stopped and the aid increased, we are ready to discuss prisoner swaps.”

A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, later told Al Jazeera, “No one accepts negotiating under fire – not Hamas, not anyone else.”

In terms of who would govern the Palestinian region after the war, Hamdan added, “Who will lead the Palestinians is an internal Palestinian issue. 

“The people must elect their own leadership. No one has a right to dictate, not the Americans, Israelis or any one else,” he said.

https://www.jns.org/voluntary-population-transfer-floated-as-option-for-gaza-residents/

(December 26, 2023 / JNS) South American and African countries have already expressed interest in taking in Palestinian Arab refugees from the Gaza Strip in return for monetary compensation, Likud Knesset member Danny Danon said on Monday.

Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, who has floated the idea of the transfer of Gazans as part of his five-point plan for the post-war period, told Israeli broadcaster Kan Reshet Bet that Israel should “make it easier” on those Palestinians who wish to leave the Strip for other countries.

Danon noted that Canada said last week that it would expand immigration for Gazans, referring to Canadian Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller’s Dec. 21 announcement that he would enact measures to allow extended families of Gazans with Canadian citizenship to enter the country.

“Migration happens in every war, look at what happened in Syria,” said Danon. (More than 5 million Syrian refugees are registered with the U.N.’s refugee agency. This does not include those who went to Europe.)

The interviewer questioned the feasibility of the plan as both Egypt and Jordan have cautioned that if Israel considers directing Gazans into their territories, it would mean war. Danon replied, “Look what happened during the Syrian civil war. Jordan made the identical statement. Now there are one-and-a-half million Syrian refugees in Jordan.”

The Arab countries, he continued, “have an obligation to help the Palestinians. Let them help instead of giving inflammatory speeches.”

He emphasized that the plan doesn’t involve large numbers.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/global-empire-of-palestine

Polls showing that Palestinians in the West Bank as well as Gaza continue to celebrate and support Hamas, with nearly 75% backing the Oct. 7 massacre that killed 1,200 in southern Israel, would seem to dash U.S. policymakers’ hopes of gaining momentum toward establishing a Palestinian state.

But for the Palestinians, that’s irrelevant. Why should they bother with arduous negotiations leading to compromise over two non contiguous plots of land when they already have something far greater and much rarer? Empire.

The ongoing marches around the world to “flood” Western cities, college campuses, and government office buildings, and halt traffic on major arteries and thoroughfares in support of Hamas, are evidence that the Palestinians have managed to create something much loftier than a mere political arrangement of institutions and offices that would make them no different from the 193 members of the United Nations. With Oct. 7 representing the high-water mark of their long campaign against the Jews, and Americans, the Palestinians have called forth from the nations those who are ready to awaken and celebrate the new spirit of the age.

Since Oct. 7, pro-Palestinian protesters—Arab and Muslim immigrants joined by locals—have filled the streets of European and North American cities with crowds of thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands in Berlin, Washington, Stockholm, Paris, Toronto, Oslo, Chicago, London, Rome, Los Angeles, and others. In Glasgow last week, they shut down a Zara’s outlet because, according to pro-Palestinian activists, the retail giant’s advertising campaign featuring mannequins wrapped in white cloth resembled dead Gazans. Students at Harvard University can’t study in Widener Library or walk to class without being confronted by mobs calling for Israel to be emptied of Jews “from the river to the sea.” It’s as bad or worse at other elite universities.

By continually ‘revitalizing’ the Palestinians, the stewards of global affairs have engendered something that by definition cannot survive in nature on its own: a society that celebrates death as its highest value.