RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-a-country-that-chooses-resilience-over-trauma/

Editors’ note: Frontpage Associate Editor Christine Douglass-Williams recently had the honor of attending the Christian Media Summit in Jerusalem hosted by the Israel Government Press Office. Below, she shares her experience and analyzes the ongoing challenges facing the Jewish State.

With the goal of strengthening ties between Christians around the world and the State of Israel, the 2022 Christian Media Summit (CMS) convened in Jerusalem from Dec. 11-14 for dialogue and to experience Israel firsthand. Following my last attendance in 2019, I wrote at WND “Israel: World leader in tech, diversity, human development.” Israel’s culture of life and progress radiates, despite its coexistence with deadly enemies, its fight for survival and an effective propaganda war against it that propagates anti-Semitism. It is a country united by an inviolable collective determination that transcends partisanship, a determination that characterized this year’s summit.

The summit launched with a Gala Event featuring a warm welcome by Nitzan Chen, director of the Israel Government Press Office (who openly acknowledges that Jesus was a Jew) and speeches that included Rabbi David Rosen, international director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, who captured the essence of Christian-Jewish relations today: “We are living in the golden age of Jewish-Christian relations with some serious flaws and challenges. … We have never had a relationship with the Christian world as good as the one we have now.”

One disappointment drew some local media attention: the absence of a scheduled welcome by Benjamin Netanyahu, a favorite among evangelicals. Sentiments were split amid whisperings, yet an understanding prevailed that Netanyahu was under extreme pressure to form a coalition, and quickly. Yair Lapid could have greeted us, as could have Naftali Bennett or Isaac Herzog, but Israel’s government was in a crisis moment – in the face of global realignments to boot. Netanyahu’s absence, though felt, was hardly viewed by most attendees as a mortal sin given the political climate.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/israeli-liberals-arent-doing-the-lgbtq-flag-or-democracy-proud/

In a Army Radio interview on Monday, MK Yorai Lahav Hertzanu—an openly gay member of outgoing caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party—warned that the coalition deals currently being finalized could be deadly for the LGBTQ community. He was referring, in particular, to a Religious Zionist Party (RZP)-proposed amendment to existing anti-discrimination laws. The updated version would enable private businesses not to provide services that contradict their faith.

“I really think it will end in murder,” he said, dubbing the issue in question “incitement” by “irresponsible elected officials … Words will not be the end of it; words have power.”
Funny he should have mentioned that, given the incessant, ugly, anti-Orthodox vitriol his camp has been spewing, not to mention calls for civil insurrection against the not-yet-instated government. But then, Lahav Hertzanu is among the many disgruntled losers of the Nov. 1 Knesset election who distort the language of their nemeses, while displaying bald-faced hypocrisy in the process.

Let’s start with the first half of the double whammy. The latest brouhaha erupted when RZP MKs Orit Strock and Simcha Rothman defended the need to legislate the right of establishments to operate in accordance with their religious beliefs. Strock said that this should apply to doctors, if and when alternative physicians are available to take their place. Rothman gave hotels as an example.

Predictably, the response from the soon-to-be opposition has been to accuse Prime Minister-designate Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu of caving to his “homophobic” and “racist” partners. Petitions and letters rejecting the move, assumed by detractors to be targeting LGTBs—have popped up all over, from the ivory towers of academia and high-tech to the halls of hospitals.

The outrage, like that expressed by the “anybody but Bibi” crowd over the haredi parties’ demand for the right to hold gender-segregated events, wasn’t spontaneous, however. On the contrary, it’s been cultivated and nurtured over time to combust on command.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-new-government-isnt-what-youve-heard-free-market-religious-exercise-democracy-judicial-reform-eu-11672172820?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The U.S. media has vilified me and the traditionalist bloc to which I belong since our success in Israel’s November elections. They say I am a right-wing extremist and that our bloc will usher in a “halachic state” in which Jewish law governs. In reality, we seek to strengthen every citizen’s freedoms and the country’s democratic institutions, bringing Israel more closely in line with the liberal American model.

Israel is a Jewish and democratic state and will remain so. After five elections in less than five years and suffering the rule of a weak and fractious coalition dependent on a radical Islamist party’s backing for a year and a half, the country has finally formed a popular and stable government. Our bloc will strengthen Israel in the face of radical Islam and its terror proxies, open the country up economically, and usher in growth and prosperity for the benefit of all citizens.

As finance minister, I will pursue a broad free-market policy. This includes removing the government price controls and import restrictions that have limited competition and kept consumer prices high, as well as regulatory reforms and a loosening of bureaucratic control over small businesses. Inspired by U.S. right-to-work laws, we will pursue similar measures to reduce union control in Israel’s labor force.

On matters of religion and state, the new government will never seek to impose anything on a citizen that goes against his or her beliefs. We wish only to increase the freedom of religious people to participate in the public sphere in accordance with their faith, without coercion on secular people. For example, arranging for a minuscule number of sex-separated beaches, as we propose, scarcely limits the choices of the majority of Israelis who prefer mixed beaches. It simply offers an option to others. We also will work to guarantee that religious believers aren’t punished by the government for standing by their beliefs. This is no different from the rights the U.S. Supreme Court recently affirmed in its Masterpiece Cakeshop decision. Contrary to some American reporting, we seek to protect all citizens from coercion that would violate their conscience—nothing more.