RUTHFULLY YOURS

The author wishes to remain anonymous …..rsk

Subject: these times.

Hi all,

I feel the need to send out an update about our lives in this situation, but I honestly feel speechless. People’s ability to adapt is uncanny, and so, you just keep going..Today as I packed my bag for work in Jerusalem, I grabbed my water bottle, computer, and…swiss army knife.

When I drive into Jerusalem on the 443 road, I veer to the middle lane to avoid any potential stone throwing. I pass by the petrol station on my route and recall 2 recent terror attacks that took place there..

Earlier this week, I advertised in the community group list, offering a lift to anyone needing a ride to Jerusalem, as I was frightened to drive alone. What would happen if I was stoned, attacked, stuck? A lovely, elderly lady from the kibbutz responded that she would be grateful for a ride. Together we rode and with her beside me, I felt safer. Yes, people were being targeted on the streets but… she had a dentist appointment in talpiot!

Originally from chutz la’aretz, though having lived through many a conflict, war, and intifada, she continued to explain to me, that there was absolutely no where else she would ever imagine being. Uneasily, I dropped her off at a bus stop on French Hill, as I continued onto the campus to teach my class, a course on Trauma & Resilience. In the middle of class, a student apologized and blurted out that she just received word of the wave of terrorist attacks that took place that morning. “I can’t concentrate, I’m freaking out…” The duration of class, became much more practical than theoretical as we discussed what to do, how to cope, and how to move forward.

The government is finally trying to stamp out the fires of terrorism, but seems unaware that it has provided some of the fuel.

Since Hamas has admitted its role, the answer is obvious. But others are major contributors, especially PA incitement, the PLO’s Fatah, its armed wing, terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas’ Israeli branch, the Islamic Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Wakf (the Islamic Authority). They have created a culture of Jew-hatred supported by the Arab world. It’s called Jihad. This isn’t new, but two critical factors have been overlooked.

There are two important explanations for the outbreak of Arab terrorism.

First, the connection with prisoner exchanges – just as occurred previously.

The top propaganda tactics the administration is using to demonize the Jewish State.

After weeks of murderous Palestinian stabbing attacks upon innocent Israelis, how has the Obama Administration responded?

Although Israel has been killing or apprehending knife-wielding terrorists, while Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) has been inciting and glorifying their acts of murder, the Administration presents both sides as morally equivalent, while insinuating or even asserting Israeli responsibility.

Obama officials have been doing this in five ways:

1. Condemning violence and incitement on both sides: Specifically condemning attacks on innocent Israelis, Secretary of State John Kerry nonetheless also called upon “all sides to take affirmative steps to restore calm” and called for “leadership that condemns the tit-for-tat.” And State Department spokesman John Kirby explicitly stated, “we recognize that incitement can go both ways here.”

2. Refusing to identify or condemn PA incitement to violence: Despite disseminating falsehoods about Palestinian terrorists being innocents murdered in cold blood by Israel and Muslim supremacist calls by Abbas for Muslims to block imaginary Israeli take-over and “desecration” of Muslim shrines with “their filthy feet,” Administration officials don’t allude to this, much less condemn it. Quite the contrary: State Department spokesman Mark Toner implied Israel isn’t upholding the status quo on Temple Mount, while Mr. Kirby explicitly endorsed this false Palestinian claim, saying, “certainly, the status quo has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.”

3. Refusing to identify which side is using terrorism: Secretary Kerry has spoken of “a revolving cycle,” while Mr. Toner has referred to the “recent wave of violence,” not Palestinian terrorism, and refused to “assign blame” for the attacks. So did Mr. Kirby (“this isn’t about affixing … blame on either side”).

President Obama’s top science and technology adviser warned that man-made climate change is putting shrimp, lobsters, crabs and oysters at risk.

John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at a White House-sponsored event that some of the excess carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater to form carbonic acid.

Vice President Joe Biden, who also addressed the summit, said there would be “winners and losers” as the U.S. transitions to a sustainable energy source.

“This puts at risk all of the marine organisms that make their shells from calcium carbonate including shrimp, oysters, lobsters, crabs and many of the zooplankton near the base of ocean food webs,” Holdren said at the White House’s Summit on Climate & the Road through Paris: Business & Science. “We know too that climate change will continue for many decades to come.”

According to Holdren, the “pace and pattern of the changes in climate” that have occurred since the industrial revolution match with “great fidelity” what climate science told us would result from the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.