RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/opinion/erdogans-loss-is-israels-gain/

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared, during the lead-up to the country’s March 31 municipal elections, that “whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey,” he couldn’t have imagined that the catchy campaign slogan was going to energize his rivals and bode ill for his own continued reign of terror.

Even the initial mayoral victory of Ekrem Imamoğlu—the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate challenging Binali Yıldırım, a former prime minister from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)— three months ago in Turkey’s largest city didn’t seem to pose too great a problem for the Turkish despot. All he had to do was deem the election invalid on the basis of some phony “administrative error” and force a new round of polls. Which he did, on May 6, by having Turkey’s “Supreme Election Board” annul the Istanbul results.

If that didn’t work, he could always add a few dozen people to the already jam-packed jails, filled with anyone who dared to look at him cross-eyed.

Or so he must have thought.

What he didn’t realize, however, was that the extra few weeks before Sunday’s Istanbul election “redo” would work in Imamoğlu’s favor, enabling him to win by a far wider margin than the first time.

Imagine the Turkish tyrant’s horror at the massive crowds of secular CHP supporters, persecuted Kurds and disgruntled devout Muslims—sick and tired of backing the party hacks of an Islamist autocrat whose agenda never helped them improve their lot—gathering in the streets and hanging from balconies to cheer Imamoğlu.

https://bit.ly/2ZGSEoi

The US mindset on Israel – unlike the US attitude toward other countries – is a bottom-top phenomenon: a derivative of the US public worldview, which feeds legislators in the House and Senate and policy-makers in the White House.

The US mindset on Israel draws its strength from the religious, ethical, moral and cultural roots of the US society, which were planted in 1620 and thereafter upon the arrival of the Early Pilgrims, and bolstered by the Founding Fathers, who authored the US Constitution in 1787.

For example, the Early Pilgrims referred to their 6-8 week sail in the Atlantic Ocean as the “Modern Day Exodus” and “Parting of the Sea.” Their destination was “the Modern Day Promised Land.” Hence, the hundreds of US towns, cities, parks and deserts bearing Biblical names such as Zion, Jerusalem, Salem, Bethel, Shilo, Bethlehem, Dothan, Hebron, Gilead, Carmel, Rehoboth, Boaz, Moab, etc.

Furthermore, the Philadelphia Liberty Bell, which represents the Founding Fathers’ concept of liberty, features an inscription from Leviticus, 25:10, which presents the Biblical core of liberty – the Jubilee: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land and all the inhabitants thereof.” Moreover, Yale University’s seal is inscribed in Hebrew letters: אורים ותומים, which was the power of the High Priest during the Exodus from Egypt. And, the seal of Columbia University features the four Hebrew letters of God: יהוה (Jehovah) and one of God’s Angels: אוריאל (Uriel – Divine Light in Hebrew). The battle against slavery was based on Biblical values and themes, such as “Let My People Go,” and a key leader in that battle, Harriet Tubman, earned the name “Mama Moses.”

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/25/12-things-americans-can-learn-israels-pro-parenting-culture/

There’s longer maternity leave, better health care, designated days for families, and very little helicopter parenting. Can we learn from them?

Do rising expectations for parents help explain falling fertility rates? It certainly sounds logical, at least as one piece of a complex puzzle. Consider that our culture frequently paints parenting as joyless, anxiety-inducing, and expensive. So why would millennials and Generation Z be gung-ho about it?

In his Father’s Day column, Ross Douthat wondered whether current parenting norms are making parents unhappy. He observed that “parents everywhere seem harassed and exhausted, while marriage and childbearing both are falling out of fashion.” That’s true enough across the West—except for in Israel.

Consider that the total fertility rate for American women, “an estimate of lifetime fertility, based on present fertility patterns” dropped to a record low 1.73 in 2018. That puts us squarely below the 2.1 children per woman needed for populations to avoid shrinking. Israeli women, by contrast, average 3.1 kids apiece.

Before we consider why that gap exists, let’s stipulate that 8 million-plus people live in New Jersey-sized Israel, so this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. But I surveyed friends who’ve lived in both countries about the differences, and they offered several. Parenting in Israel is a completely different experience. Perhaps it’s time we consider improving our own parenting culture.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274098/amb-friedman-exposes-radicalism-obamas-israel-caroline-glick

Israel’s elections do-over has pushed back President Donald Trump’s planned roll out of his “deal of the century,” which will set out his administration’s plan for achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But all the same, members of his “peace team” are making headlines.

In an interview with the New York Times published on June 8, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman spoke in broad terms about what the Trump team envisages in regards to the ultimate disposition of the West Bank, otherwise known as Judea and Samaria.

Nearly a half million Israeli Jews live in the areas. Another 300,000 Israeli Jews live in neighborhoods in northern, southern and eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods. The Palestinians demand that in exchange for peace, Israel must expel all of the Israeli Jews and transfer their cities, villages, neighborhoods, and farms to the Palestinians.

Israel rejects these positions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear in his last term of office that he will not remove any Israelis from their homes and communities in Judea and Samaria, let alone in Jerusalem.

In his interview with the Times, Friedman said, “Under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

On Sunday, his colleague Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special assistant for negotiations, expressed his support for Friedman’s statement.

In an interview at the Jerusalem Post conference in New York, Greenblatt said, “I will let David’s comments stand for themselves. I think he said them elegantly and I support his comments.”

https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/06/24/arson-balloons-from-gaza-spark-8-fires-in-southern-israel/

On Monday afternoon, explosives-laden balloons floated over the Israel-Gaza border spark eight wildfires in the space of an hour. Security coordinator for one of the communities near the Gaza border blasts government’s lack of response as a “disgrace.”

Israel announced early Tuesday that it was halting the transfer of fuel to the Gaza Strip’s only power plant until further notice. The decision was a response to a surge of incendiary balloons launched from the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave into Israel.

Explosives-laden balloons floated over the Israel-Gaza border sparked eight wildfires in the space of an hour on Monday afternoon as they landed in Israeli territory.

The fires broke out in farmland near Shaar Hanegev and the Eshkol Regional Council. Firefighters and employees of the JNF and Israel Nature and Parks Authority were successfully battling the blazes in the Eshkol region.

One of the fires erupted at a memorial to the late Staff Sgt. Asaf-Yaakov Siboni near Kibbutz Nir Am. Siboni was a Nahal Brigade soldier who was killed when two IDF helicopters crashed in northern Israel in February 1997.

Another incendiary balloon sparked a fire at a nursery school in Kibbutz Saad, which was luckily empty at the time.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14431/palestinians-money-bahrain-conference

The Palestinian strategy is clear: to incite the Arab masses against their leaders and governments. The Palestinian attacks are no longer directed against US President Donald Trump… Now the targets are the Arab heads of state, particularly those who are seen by Palestinians are being in collusion with Israel and the Trump administration.

As the Palestinians were condemning Arabs for agreeing to attend the conference in Bahrain, Palestinian leaders repeated their appeal to the Arab states for financial aid. On the one hand, the Palestinians are condemning Arab countries for attending a conference aimed at boosting the Palestinian economy and improving living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On the other hand, Palestinian leaders have no problem begging their Arab brothers for urgent financial aid…. The Palestinians are asking the Arabs to give them $100 million each month to help them “face political and financial pressure” from Israel and the US administration.

The Palestinians realize that some of the key Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, are no longer prepared to wait for them and have decided to board the train whose final destination is prosperity and economic opportunities for both Palestinians and Arabs.

The decision of six Arab states to attend the Bahrain conference despite the Palestinian boycott call shows that the Arabs have chosen to endorse a new direction – one that will leave the Palestinians to fend for themselves in a hell of their own making. For their choice to thumb their noses not only at the US but also at influential Arab states, the Palestinians are likely to emerge as the biggest losers.

In 2009, the late Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz announced his country’s decision to donate $1 billion to contribute to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

The monarch made his announcement during an Arab economic conference in Kuwait. The Saudi pledge never materialized, mainly because of the continued dispute between the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip and Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.

The king undoubtedly had good intentions and sought to help his Palestinian brothers, especially the two million residents of the Gaza Strip who remain in dire need of financial and economic assistance.

When King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz died six years later, the Palestinians did not hesitate to show their contempt for the Arab leader who had offered to help improve their living conditions and ensure a better future for Palestinian children.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/palestinians_defy_trump.html

From the terrible squealing by the Palestinian leadership that greeted the unveiling of the economic component of Trump’s blueprint for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one would be excused for thinking that Trump was planning to take from the Palestinians $50 billion over the next decade, rather than give it to them.

In the past, Palestinians were rather more enthusiastic about taking money. Over the decades, billions came pouring from the international community, funneled through the UN into various projects and services, with not a few crumbs landing in the pockets of Palestinian leaders themselves — after all, Arafat is rumored to have died a billionaire; nor is Abbas exactly a pauper. But this time around, there was a difference: Palestinians rejected the offer outright: “The mask has fallen, and attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause in return for a handful of dollars have been made public!”

How does Trump’s plan “liquidate the Palestinian cause?” The answer is simple: not only the Palestinians get the money under the plan, but Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon do too. And apparently, those moneys are allocated to absorb Palestinians who now live in the camps, deprived of the right to work and participate in the larger society. Currently, they are segregated and live on a UN pittance. Apparently, Trump plans to make them full-fledged, happy citizens of the host countries, to the horror of Palestinian leadership who are decrying the $50 billion investment as “the price for liquidating the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees [UNRWA] and the rights of Palestinian refugees.”

So here we have it: Trump’s plan apparently includes normalization of the lives of those who are now huddled in the camps, deprived of normal lives. What exactly is wrong with them living well? Well, per Palestinian leaders’ thinking, it is this: by getting absorbed by their host countries, they will become unavailable for the role assigned to them by the “Palestinian cause” — of eliminating Israel through exercising the “right of return.”

https://freebeacon.com/blog/pa-intransigence-makes-peace-deal-unlikely/

The Trump administration rolled out the economic details of its peace plan on Sunday ahead of its “Peace To Prosperity” Workshop which opens in Bahrain this week. The problem is that the intended beneficiaries, the Palestinians, are having a meltdown.

“The Trump team is trying to restrict the Palestinian economy with the chains of occupation,” the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates declared Sunday, calling the plan “the obnoxious Trump Declaration.”

The PA had already decided to reject it before they knew what was in it. “The deal of the century, or the deal of disgrace, will go to hell,” PA president Mahmoud Abbas said on May 27 at a ceremony in Ramallah. “The economic project they are working on for next month will also go to hell.”

It has been fighting to wreck the Bahrain conference since it was announced (the fact that it’s now being called a “workshop” indicates the PA has enjoyed some success). And it has announced its rejection of any projects coming out of the conference, even if they are “painted in Arabic,” that is to say, initiatives funded by the Gulf States, not America.

Labeling the conference “a Holocaust against the Palestinian people,” Abbas’s Fatah movement has urged violence against Israel on the days it is to take place. Fatah deputy chairman Mahmoud Al-Alous, cited as possible heir to Abbas, (now in the 14th year of his 4-year term) describes the called-for violence as “national activities of rage.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/take-the-palestinians-no-for-an-answer-11561316980

This week’s U.S.-led Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain on the Palestinian economy will likely be attended by seven Arab states—a clear rebuke to foreign-policy experts who said that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory would alienate the Arab world. Sunni Arab states are lending legitimacy to the Trump administration’s plan, making it all the more notable that the Palestinian Authority itself refuses to participate.

The conference’s only agenda is improving the Palestinian economy. It isn’t tied to any diplomatic package, and the plan’s 40-page overview contains nothing at odds with the Palestinian’s purported diplomatic goals. Some aspects are even politically uncomfortable for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Given all that, the Palestinian Authority’s unwillingness to discuss economic opportunities for its own people, even with the Arab states, shows how far it is from discussing the concessions necessary for a diplomatic settlement. Instead it seeks to deepen Palestinian misfortune and use it as a cudgel against Israel in the theater of international opinion.

This isn’t the first time the Palestinians have said no. At a summit brokered by President Clinton in 2000, Israel offered them full statehood on territory that included roughly 92% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, along with a capital in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority rejected that offer, leading Israel to up it to 97% of the West Bank in 2001. Again, the answer was no. An even further-reaching offer in 2008 was rejected out of hand. And when President Obama pressured Israel into a 10-month settlement freeze in 2009 to renew negotiations, the Palestinians refused to come to the table.

After so many rejections, one might conclude that the Palestinian Authority’s leaders simply aren’t interested in peace. Had they accepted any of the peace offers, they would have immediately received the rarest of all geopolitical prizes: a new country, with full international recognition. To be sure, in each proposal they found something not quite to their liking. But the Palestinians are perhaps the only national independence movement in the modern era that has ever rejected a genuine offer of internationally recognized statehood, even if it falls short of all the territory the movement had sought.