RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/aramean-christians-train-to-fight-for-israel-e284ed6d?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Forty-eight Israelis graduated in February from Kinneret, a premilitary program, or mechina, in Kibbutz Beit-Zera, near the Sea of Galilee. They spent seven months undergoing training, lectures and field exercises to prepare for army service. Unlike the country’s dozens of other mechinot, Kinneret’s founder and half of its students are Aramean Christians.

The Jewish state is home to some 185,000 Christians, including around 15,000 Arameans, whose ancestors lived in the Levant before the Arab conquest and were early followers of Jesus. For decades Israel registered them as Arabs over their objection.

In 2014 Israel recognized the Aramean Christian community. That recognition was an important step toward fuller integration into Israeli society, says Shadi Khaloul, who founded Kinneret in 2017.

Mr. Khaloul, 48, was born in Jish, a mixed Christian-Muslim community in north Galilee, and educated in Haifa. His uncle served in the Israel Defense Forces, and his father was an Israeli policeman. It was no surprise, then, when he joined the army and became a paratrooper at 18. “I was taught that the Jews are our brothers and our allies,” Mr. Khaloul says. “This state is our state. We need to defend it too.”

He laments that young Aramean Christians study in Israel’s Muslim educational system, where they aren’t taught about their own heritage or historical ties with the Jewish people. Students “become anti-Israel under this system,” Mr. Khaloul says. “It’s what they are taught.” He says he filed a complaint two years ago with the Education Ministry after a Muslim teacher in Jish reprimanded an Aramean high-school student for honoring Israel’s fallen soldiers on Memorial Day. “This is not our holiday,” the teacher reportedly told the teenager. Mr. Khaloul says there are many such incidents in the schools.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chuck-schumer-israel-benjamin-netanyahu-75bf4d58?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The Israel-Hamas war is melting brains on the Democratic side of the aisle, and the latest evidence is a remarkable speech Thursday by Sen. Charles Schumer calling for new elections to replace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yes, the Majority Leader is telling Israelis to replace their government—or the U.S. “will have no choice” but to intervene to “change the present course,” whatever that means.

Mr. Netanyahu is the duly elected Prime Minister of an American ally. Israeli voters will have a chance to hold him accountable, if they choose, for whatever policy and security lapses left his country vulnerable to Hamas’s vicious invasion on Oct. 7. He also will have to answer for how effectively he has prosecuted the war, including whether he has struck the right bargains in exchanging temporary cease-fires for the release of Israeli hostages, and whether the ultimate end-state for Gaza leaves Israel safer or otherwise.

But precisely because Israel is a democracy, accountability for Mr. Netanyahu is baked in. The Prime Minister at this moment represents a broad consensus in Israeli society that the country can’t afford to allow Hamas to continue its violent and corrupt control of Gaza after the horrors unleashed on Oct. 7.

Mr. Schumer knows all this and said as much in his speech on the Senate floor. He blamed Hamas for the atrocities of Oct. 7, and he noted that the terror group has “knowingly invited an immense civilian toll during this war” by using Gazans as human shields. The Senator also allowed that Israel “is surrounded by vicious enemies.”

So what does the Democrat from New York want? He hopes a different Israeli Prime Minister would advance a two-state solution of the sort Mr. Netanyahu has resisted. This reflects the political neurosis developing among Democrats, who wish some deus ex machina would allow Israel to “win” the war against Hamas in a way that would minimize the anger of the anti-Israel left in the U.S.