RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/democrats-attitudes-towards-israel-reach-a-tipping-point/?utm_source=sendinblue&utm_campaign=Daily%20Syndicate%2003-21-2023&utm_medium=email

The history of the pro-Israel movement in the United States was always predicated on one goal: creating a bipartisan consensus in favor of support for the Jewish state. And for many years, it succeeded in doing just that. There is a strong tradition of support for the ideas of a Jewish state that dates back to the earliest days of the American republic so Zionism is baked deep into the nation’s DNA.

AIPAC activists, therefore, had little trouble cultivating rising politicians from both major parties. The result was that in the last half-century, the ranks of Congress were filled with politicians who could be counted on to support Israel, even if they had few Jewish constituents.

But it’s time to acknowledge that the era of bipartisan support for Israel is over.

As the latest Gallup tracking poll of attitudes towards Israel and the Middle East conflict indicate, when broken down by party affiliation, Democrats now sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel. Currently, 49% of Democrats favor the Palestinians with only 38% backing Israel.  By contrast, Republicans now back the Jewish state by a staggering 78-11% margin.

That’s the culmination of a trend decades in the making as the two parties have largely swapped identities when it comes to Israel in the last 60 years. In the first years of the Jewish state in the aftermath of the Holocaust, Democrats were overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel and took pride in President Harry S. Truman’s recognition of the fledgling nation on its first day of existence.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-protest-movement-cant-unravel-the-thread-of-israels-unique-tapestry/

Anybody who lives in and loves Israel is aware of its miraculously beautiful mosaic of inherent paradoxes. It’s Middle Eastern, yet Western; war-torn, yet peace-obsessed; provincial, yet cosmopolitan; frenetic, yet relaxed.

It’s religious, yet secular; conservative, yet woke; judgmental, yet empathic; marriage-oriented, yet a singles’ magnet. And it’s a bureaucratic hell, while also an entrepreneurship heaven.

Aside from all of the above, the tiny state—still young at its soon-to-be 75th birthday—is a major player on the world stage. This is both good and bad news for the Jews.

On the one hand, it means that we managed to return to our ancient homeland and make the literal and figurative desert bloom. On the other, such a miraculous success story, against all odds and surrounding enemies, comes with a price.

Indeed, as is the case with many blessings, this one often feels like a curse. The weight of responsibility—the burden of serving as a “light unto the nations”—is only part of it.

Perhaps a greater difficulty for a once-scattered nation demonized and slaughtered in the Diaspora is the realization that the “ingathering of exiles” didn’t put an end to envy-sparked antisemitism. On the contrary, what the late historian Robert Wistrich called the “longest hatred” was simply transferred to the Jewish nation-state under the cloak of “legitimate criticism.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/another-golan-expedition-for-convicted-us-member-of-palestinian-islamic-jihad/

Over the last few years, Hatem Fariz has been spending time in Israel – a lot of time. He did not always have that opportunity. Following his 2003 arrest and, later, his conviction for material support of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Fariz spent several years in jail, unable to travel, let alone overseas to Israel, the nation he and his co-conspirators allegedly sought to destroy. But Israel, it seems, has a serious gap in her security, and because of this, Fariz and his associates have been permitted to roam the countryside, including at times when Israel faces serious threats from PIJ. Last month was one of those times, as Fariz toured Israel’s Golan Heights.

Fariz had been part of a PIJ network run out of the Tampa Bay area of Florida, in the city of Temple Terrace. The ringleader of the network, fellow terror convict Sami al-Arian, was involved in PIJ’s establishment overseas and looked to install a PIJ hub within America. He did so by founding a mosque, a children’s school, a think tank, and a charity, all linked to PIJ. That mosque, Masjid Al-Qassam, a.k.a. the Islamic Community of Tampa (ICT), would be led by Fariz, following Fariz’s release from prison, and he continues to direct it.

Via Al-Qassam, Fariz manages a travel company, the Adam Travel Tampa Hajj Group, which he uses to bring others to the Middle East. While Adam Travel advertises that its trips are for visiting religious-oriented sites in Saudi Arabia, Fariz’s time is overwhelmingly spent trekking through various locations within Israel.

Many of the people Fariz takes with him on these trips have like feelings towards Israel and Jews in general. They post videos on social media of Israelis being blown up during ambushes and videos of successful rocket attacks on Israeli civilian structures. They post memorials for their favorite dead leaders from Hamas and PIJ. They call on “Allah” to “take revenge on the Jews.”

https://bit.ly/40ed8nH

Demography west of the Jordan River

In 2023, Israel is the only Western democracy endowed with a relatively high fertility rate, that facilitates further economic growth, which is not dependent upon migrant labor.  Moreover, Israel’s thriving demography provides for bolstered national security (larger classes of recruits), economy and technology and a more confident foreign policy.

In 2023, contrary to projections made by the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than the fertility rates in all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Sahara Muslim countries.

In 2023 (based on the latest data of 2021), the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab fertility rate (as it has been since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (as it has been since 2020).

In 2023, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than any Arab country other than Iraq’s.

In 2023, there is a race (which started in the 1990s) between the Jewish and Arab fertility rates, unlike the race between the Arab fertility rate and Jewish Aliyah (immigration), which took place in 1949-1990s (while the Jewish fertility rate was relatively low).  

In 2023, the Westernization of Arab demography persists as a derivative of modernity, urbanization, women’s enhanced social status, women’s enrollment in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. 

In 2023, in contrast to conventional demographic wisdom, Israel is not facing a potential Arab demographic time bomb in the combined areas of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank) and pre-1967 Israel. In fact, the Jewish State benefits from a robust tailwind of fertility rate and net-immigration. 

In 2023, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in reverberating the official Palestinian numbers without due-diligence (auditing), ignoring a 100% artificial inflation of the population numbers: inclusion of overseas resident, double-counting of Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Judea and Samaria Arabs, inflated birth – and deflated death – data (as documented below).

In 2023, Israel is facing a potential wave of Aliyah (Jewish immigration) of some 500,000 Olim from the Ukraine, Russia, other former Soviet republics, France, Britain, Germany, Argentina, the USA, etc., which requires Israel to approach pro-active Aliyah policy as a top national priority. 

In 2023, the Jewish demographic momentum persists (since 1995) with the secular Jewish sector making the difference, while the ultra-orthodox sector is experiencing a slight decline in fertility rate.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-734578

President Isaac Herzog began his much-anticipated address to the nation on Wednesday evening – to present his plan for judicial-reform compromise – by mentioning the revelation earlier in the day about a terrorist infiltration from Lebanon.

“The serious security incident that became public a few hours ago is clear proof that our enemies well recognize the severing of Israeli unity, and are acting accordingly,” he said.

“Nor is this the only threat,” he added, as a segue to discussing the dangers of internecine strife.

“The [events of] last few weeks are tearing us apart,” he continued. “They are harming Israel’s economy, security, political ties and especially Israeli cohesion. Shabbat meals have become a battlefield; friends and neighbors have become rivals. The conflicts are getting worse. Worry, fear and anxiety are more tangible than ever.”

Fair enough. Yet he didn’t go on to reprimand the “resistance” for its protests and appeals to foreign governments to delegitimize the state’s democratically elected officials.

No, he simply bemoaned the societal schism and warned against the possibility of an actual civil war that includes casualties.

https://www.jns.org/judicial-reform-protests-threaten-to-undermine-idf-former-commanders-say/

“You cannot have an army where people say that if the government doesn’t do what I want, I won’t serve. Today, it will be judicial reform. Tomorrow, it will be removal of settlements,” said Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi.

None of the anti-judicial reform protests that have roiled Israel in recent weeks have been so worrisome as Israeli soldiers’ refusal to serve. The most dramatic example was a squadron of over 30 F-15 reserve pilots who declared last week that they wouldn’t show up for exercises. They eventually backed down and agreed to show up to base (not to drill, to talk).

Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, CEO and founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), a group comprising thousands of former security officers, told JNS that the refusal to serve “poses an existential danger. If there is one thing that unites us all, it’s the army.”

“The IDF is not a professional army but an army of the people, where everyone sends their sons and daughters to serve. People need to set politics aside when they don their uniforms. When people bring politics into their units, which is what’s happening now, it breaks apart the very foundation that enables our army to function, because we will always have governments pushing policies that some people won’t agree with,” he said.

“There were times when the government did things that I, and everyone who was a part of our group, IDSF, felt was against our values. But it never crossed our minds even for one second to involve the army,” he continued. “Two years ago, there was a government that basically handed the keys to the Muslim Brotherhood. For many, that went 100% against the most basic principles of Zionism. Yet, they didn’t pull the army into it. You cannot have an army where people say that if the government doesn’t do what I want, I won’t serve. Today, it will be judicial reform. Tomorrow, it will be removal of settlements.”

https://www.jns.org/opinion/israels-two-faced-allies/

America and Britain claim to be allies of Israel. There is no gainsaying the deep links between them of military assistance, intelligence and trade. Israel is the invaluable strategic asset for America and Britain in the Middle East, a crucial bulwark in the defense of the West.

And yet, both America and Britain undermine Israel’s security and defense against existential attack by sanitizing, promoting and funding Palestinian Arabs, whose active cause remains the destruction of the Jewish state.

A recent event illustrated this particularly sharply when British diplomatic officials in Jerusalem effectively endorsed the Palestinian Authority’s agenda to eradicate Israel.

Palestinian Media Watch has revealed that at last Friday’s annual “Palestine Marathon” held by the P.A., seven British officials taking part as “#TeamUK” wore marathon T-shirts displaying the P.A.’s map that erases Israel and represents the whole country as Palestine.

The Jewish Chronicle reports that the team consisted of the UK’s Deputy Consul General Alison McEwen and Foreign Office colleagues. A picture of the team was tweeted from the official account of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, hailing “the incredible Palestine Marathon to support #FREEDOMOFMOVEMENT for all Palestinians.”

https://www.jns.org/opinion/false-depictions-of-israeli-reforms-and-the-fall-of-svb/

You’ve heard about the guy who killed his parents and then wailed about being an orphan, right? Well, what’s going on in Israel right now is even more astounding, with the anti-government protest movement taking the metaphor to a whole new level.
Its masterminds—along with gullible, genuinely scared fellow travelers—are not only premeditating the demise of the very institutions they’re claiming to cherish. They’re staging mass dress rehearsals, replete with costumes from the TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” for an I-told-you-so funeral of their own making.

But don’t take my word for it. Radio broadcaster and social activist Aybee Binyamin, a member of opposition leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party and a founder of the previous hate-fests against Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, proudly articulates the plot.

“The protest is progressing on several axes,” he tweeted on March 6. “The central axis is the Saturday-night demonstrations. The sub-axis is the ‘days of disruption’ and daily demonstrations. The second axis is the crushing of the economy. The third axis is the crushing of the [Israel Defense Forces] reserves. The fourth axis and the one that will deal the knockout blow is international isolation from democratic countries in general and European Union and United States sanctions in particular! Together we will win!”

Under this manifesto is a photo of a giant banner reading: “The government of the destruction of the Third Temple.” This is intentional projection—with the cynical abuse by secularists of ancient Jewish history to engage in it—at its finest.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2023/03/israels-judicial-reckoning/

Israel’s court is abnormally powerful and has caused half the nation to lose faith in its government. Reform will help, as long as it doesn’t cause the other half to do the same.

Anyone reading the press out of Israel these days would probably conclude that the country will soon cease being a democracy.

In January 2023, less than a month after taking office, Israel’s government unveiled a sweeping package of reforms to reduce the power of the nation’s Supreme Court, on the grounds that the court has undermined democracy by encroaching on traditional executive and legislative functions. The opposition, claiming that the reforms, not the court, are the true threat to democracy, responded almost immediately with massive protests. As the weeks have passed, the protests have intensified and spread beyond traditional opposition circles, and Israel has begun descending into chaos.

Where did this issue come from? Who is right? And what should Israel do now?

As someone who has written about the need to restrain the court’s excessive activism for three decades now—long before this became a partisan voting issue for many Israelis—in several major essays and dozens of shorter pieces, I consider most of these reforms not only within the bounds of normal democratic practice but in fact essential to bolstering Israel’s democracy. The current situation, in which half the public profoundly distrusts the Supreme Court, is clearly untenable for any country that wants to remain a democracy; because courts are a crucial mechanism for resolving disputes peacefully rather than through force, if they are widely distrusted, resorting to force becomes more likely. Yet at the same time, some of the concerns raised by opponents are valid and deserve to be taken seriously. Given the universal conviction that Israeli society is at a breaking point, balancing these two imperatives is an urgent task.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/denouncing-israels-judicial-reforms-wont-have-the-effect-herzog-desires/

 Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s latest plea for judicial-reform compromise was more than merely impassioned. Indeed, his speech to the nation on Thursday evening was downright angry, and with good reason.

As he pointed out in his concise address—delivered with a cracking voice and grim facial expression—he spent the previous 10 weeks “working around the clock, meeting with everybody, including with those who don’t agree with [him], even those who refuse to admit it.” He also mentioned the “harsh and hurtful” criticism he’s received for his efforts, though he claimed to take it “with love.”

That’s a bit hard to believe, given the wrath he incurred from anti-government protesters last month, when he dared to express sympathy for “both sides” of the debate. As a former head of the Labor Party, he wasn’t accustomed to the level of vitriol typically reserved for the right in general and Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu in particular.

But all he had to do to spark hate-filled demonstrations outside his residence—rife with threats against him and his wife—was acknowledge the concerns of each camp. The one that favors judicial reforms, he said on Feb. 12, “feels that an imbalance has developed between the branches [of government] and that lines have been crossed for years,” while the opposition considers the bills put forth by Justice Minister Yariv Levin to be “a real threat to Israeli democracy.”

To ignore either, he stressed—before presenting a five-point alternative plan as a “basis for immediate and decisive negotiations”—would be a “grave mistake.”