RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamass-numbers-games-civilian-death-counts-casualty-data-b99140eb?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

As Israeli troops batter Hamas and drive its surviving forces to the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry has etched in the public mind a statistic that casts Israel’s war of self-defense as a bloodbath: 70% of the dead in Gaza are women and children, the Hamas-run ministry says, and more than 30,000 lives in total have been lost. Is it true?

President Biden, who pledged in October that Israel would never stand alone, has recently talked about “red lines” to prevent the Jewish state from eliminating Hamas’s final stronghold—because, as Mr. Biden put it, “they cannot have another 30,000 Palestinians dead.”

Mr. Biden isn’t alone in taking Hamas’s numbers at face value. The United Nations also relies on the Health Ministry’s data. The U.S. news media include the ministry’s latest numbers in its daily updates on the war. In October the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor vouched for Hamas, writing: “Many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable, given its access, sources and accuracy in past statements.”

Yet in a series of lengthy reports, the ministry admits that the figures the media treat as authoritative rely in part on reporting from . . . the media. The ministry says its casualty counts include two types of fatalities: those recorded by medical facilities and those reported by “reliable media sources.” In its March 31 report, the ministry attributes 15,070 of the dead, or 45.9%, to news reports. From which outlets? The ministry never says.

Its choices are limited, since Gaza has no independent media. It has networks like al-Aqsa that are extensions of Hamas and other armed factions. It has Al Jazeera, the Qatari state network that describes the atrocities of Oct. 7 as an “incursion” and denies that any “widespread and systematic” sexual assault took place. Western outlets report from Gaza, but they rely on the ministry for their casualty data.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-central-kitchen-strike-biden-israel-hamas-gaza-kabul-isis-1b5ddd1c?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Israel did the right thing this week by immediately investigating, taking responsibility and apologizing for its missile strike on Monday that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen in Gaza.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Israel’s top military officer said. “It was a mistake that followed a misidentification.” Israel’s Prime Minister, President and Defense Minister have also apologized and announced steps to try to prevent it from happening again.

We say “try” because many people who know better, including President Biden, seem to have forgotten that errors are a tragic and inevitable part of war. The President pandered to the anti-Israel faction in his party on Tuesday by harshly condemning Israel, lecturing it and then blaming it (not Hamas) for the larger humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

That apparently wasn’t enough. Egged on by the emerging anti-Israel liberal media consensus, Mr. Biden called on Thursday for an “immediate cease-fire” and urged Israel to make new concessions in hostage negotiations. The President then threatened, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it, that “if we don’t see the changes we need to see” from Israel, “there will be a change in our policy.”

This is Biden Administration opportunism, using the World Central Kitchen tragedy to push Israel to cut short the war and let Hamas survive. It’s also the worst thing the President could do to free the hostages.

The message Hamas will take away is clear: Keep rejecting hostage deals, do whatever you can to worsen the humanitarian catastrophe, and watch Mr. Biden blame and pressure Israel to compromise on its war aims. After Oct. 7, the U.S. demanded that Hamas release the hostages “unconditionally.” It is now closer to demanding that Israel unconditionally stop fighting.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-795247

Recognizing Jordan as a Palestinian state, while maintaining its status as a monarchy, reflects the national identity of a majority of its population.

The two-state solution calls for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state in all or most of what is called “the West Bank” (Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem) as well as the Gaza Strip. It would be controlled by terrorist organizations, however, so promoting it is a recipe for disaster.

This solution will also not solve the issue of self-determination for Palestinians and it will empower Israel’s enemies. Moreover, it makes no sense since a Palestinian state already exists: the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which was created in the eastern area of British Mandate Palestine and of which two-thirds of the population consider themselves Palestinians.

A new two-state solution – Jordan/Palestine and Israel – is more viable, reasonable, practical and realistic. It would save lives and offer Palestinians the opportunity of becoming productive and constructive, instead of living under the control of despotic terrorist organizations. That is the real “two-state solution.”

This plan would not require transferring all Arab Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan, but would offer them a choice. Those who want to live under Israeli sovereignty and abide by its laws and ethos as a Jewish state should be allowed to remain, either as citizens or residents. Those who do not and present a security threat would have to move to Jordan/Palestine, or another country. The Palestinian Authority/PLO, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations would also no longer be tolerated or accepted.

All UNRWA facilities would be closed, and international organizations would be required to accept Israeli sovereignty.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20544/israel-palestine-two-state-solution

Curiously, like President Joe Biden and his top national security officials, the ambassador [Martin Indyk] ignores a crucial element: radical Islam does not tolerate the existence of a sovereign non-Islamic entity (such as Israel) on land that once was conquered by Muslims (dar al-Islam, “abode of Islam”). As most Palestinians have been creditably straightforward about, there is no place for an Israeli state.

“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.” — Zuheir Mohsen, PLO official, Trouw, March 31, 1977.

Tangible land for intangible peace and billions of dollars will not change them — just buy them bigger weapons. Only re-education can hope to do that, if it would work…

“What is a ‘technocratic government’? It’s a front for the terrorists and composed of nonprofit executives, academics, economists and others… and extracting foreign aid from them. Hamas will not officially be part of the puppet regime, but will control the puppets…. [B]ut while Qatar is helping assemble a new ‘technocratic’ front for the terrorists, the Moscow summit made it clear that the real agenda of the new government would be terror against Israel and the U.S.” — Daniel Greenfield, Gatestone Institute, March 13, 2024.

“The ‘technocratic government’ will provide the Biden administration and other governments with the plausible deniability needed to go on funding terrorists. The Moscow summit revealed that a technocratic government will not end terrorism; it will disguise it, and it will not end the conflict, it will escalate it.” — Daniel Greenfield, Gatestone Institute, March 13, 2024.

How can Israeli Jews believe that the recognition of a Palestinian state by the United States and other countries… will bring peace? These countries have no means of enforcing any commitments undertaken by “Palestine” in a potential peace treaty, and even less will to do so.

Recognition of “Palestine” as a state, even if it were supposedly “demilitarized,” would enable it to enter into military alliances and “defense agreements” with whomever they chose — China, Russia, Iran, all of them? Why would such a state not be used as a base, as in the PLO’s 1974 “Ten Point Plan” of phases, from which to try to take “the rest”?

Equally alarmingly, the US has reportedly asked Qatar, Hamas’s main patron since 2007, to operate a supposedly temporary pier in Gaza, currently being planned, to deliver supposedly “humanitarian aid”… one has to ask: What else will come in with the humanitarian aid? With Qatar in charge, “demilitarization” will likely last less than a week.

Those who want to recognize or impose a Palestinian state, knowingly or unconsciously, aim at Israel’s destruction.

Peace will come when the Jews, the Americans and the Europeans support those fighting to preserve civilization, not to preserve terrorism.