RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/a-closer-look-at-the-legacy-of-george-floyds-death/

It is right to condemn excessive police force. To turn Floyd into a hero of a racialized morality play is inane.

T oday marks one year since the death of George Floyd in police custody — I can never get used to invoking the term “anniversary” in connection with such dark events. There is, as one has come to expect, no shortage of vaporous talk about Floyd’s “legacy.” We should not, however, conflate the man with the event.

Floyd should not have died as he did. For their complicity in his demise, four former Minneapolis police are being held accountable, beginning with Derek Chauvin, who was convicted last month. Still, a stubborn fact remains: Floyd bore significant responsibility for the tragedy that unfolded.

There was probable cause that he committed a crime. He was not profiled or otherwise singled out for harassment by police officers acting on suspicions rooted in “systemic racism.” To the contrary, a local food-store merchant complained to police that Floyd had passed a counterfeit $20 bill. That complaint was based on a report by the young black cashier who handled the transaction and whom Floyd willfully put in an unfair position — either speak up or be personally liable for the store’s loss. Before calling the police, store employees, including the cashier, twice implored Floyd (who was parked outside) to come inside and settle the problem that he had caused. He refused. And although Floyd had serious health issues — e.g., an enlarged heart, hypertension, narrowings in major passages near his aorta, and a recent bout with COVID — he continued to abuse illegal narcotics and was at the time ingesting a potentially deadly combination of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Floyd was a tragic figure, but not an admirable one. What happened last Memorial Day was not his first run-in with the law — far from it. In the decade beginning in 1997, when he was 23, he was arrested at least nine times. Several of these resulted in criminal convictions, generally for small-time narcotics and theft offenses. The resulting prison stints were usually short. But not all of them.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/bidens_unconscionable_validation_of_antisemitism.html

It is hardly a new phenomenon that the American left has over time become so radical that a vicious form of anti-Semitism has become its norm.  The Democrat party could, once upon a time, be counted upon to firmly support Israel against its enemies here and abroad, but no more.  The party now openly embraces proud anti-Semites like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and AOC.

Just the other day, Tlaib harangued Biden for thirty minutes on the tarmac at Detroit Airport.  She supports the terrorist organization Hamas and was furious that Israel was so effectively defending itself.  Biden praised her “passion” without a word of support for Israel.  Biden had recently handed over $234,000,000 to the Palestinians, which they promptly used to attack Israel.

Iran was and is completely on board, using Hamas as its proxy.  And even as twenty to thirty percent of their rockets fell on their own people, Hamas, as usual, using its civilian population as human shields, the Democrats still supported the terrorists.  They even voted against sanctioning foreign entities that provided financial aid to Hamas!  They voted against providing additional funding to Israel for the Iron Dome missile defense system.

The despicable AOC and her Squad have introduced a resolution that would block arms sales to Israel.  As any sentient person should know, there is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas.  And as everyone should also know, the destruction of Israel is the essence of Hamas’s charter.

Throughout the Hamas/Israel violence, Biden offered no support for Israel beyond his mild “Israel has a right to defend itself.”  In effect, he succumbed to Tlaib’s shrieking pro-Palestinian rant.  So, with the permission granted by default to anti-Semites everywhere, attacks on Jews are occurring everywhere.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/heading-to-new-york-with-trepidation-and-a-star-of-david/

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m actually nervous—as a Jew—about my upcoming trip from Tel Aviv to New York.

For one thing, the United States has been safer for the tribe than the rest of the Diaspora. For another, it’s pretty ridiculous to fear anti-Semitic assault in America after spending the past two weeks running for cover from Hamas rockets in Israel.

The worry is especially odd, given the many decades I’ve spent trying avoid and protect my family from Palestinian rock, Molotov-cocktail, suicide-bombing, stabbing and vehicular attacks. But there’s clearly something about the dangers one knows and has come to expect that make them less daunting, or at least more manageable.
Growing up in a rough Manhattan neighborhood the 1970s, I was no stranger to perils that felt familiar. The area around our apartment on the Upper West Side was rife with junkies, muggers and deinstitutionalized psychiatric patients. The subways, filled with vagrants, were filthy and covered in graffiti.
The stations, particularly at night, were so menacing that even the cops were hesitant to police them. Central Park, though passable in the daylight hours, was the site of rapes and murders after dark. Riverside Park was iffy at all hours.
And don’t get me started on Times Square, where drug dealers and prostitutes aggressively solicited passersby.
I took all of the above for granted, instinctively crossing the street before reaching a corner at which certain thugs hung out, for example, and knowing when not to “eyeball” the wrong group of girls sparring for a fight.
And though my complexion often made me somewhat of a sitting duck, my Jewishness never was an issue. Indeed, by the time that I moved to Israel at the age of 19, I had experienced a total of two anti-Semitic incidents.
The first took place at an Italian diner in the Bronx, where my best friend and I ate breakfast every morning on the way to school. The year was 1973, and it was the height of the Yom Kippur War.
The owner of the establishment—who, up to that point, had been very chummy with us—began to rant against Israel. While my friend promptly engaged him in a counter-argument, I was taken aback by the hostility in his tone, and I coaxed her off the premises.