RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/05/the-gaza-war-at-six-months-israel-increasingly-isolated-but-resilient/

In the aftermath of the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, the world united behind Israel. President Joe Biden pledged America’s rock-solid support, sent two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean, and visited Israel to express America’s support for the Israeli people. There was remarkable political unity in Israel as an Israeli war cabinet was formed on October 11, 2023, and divisive domestic political issues, such as reforming Israel’s Supreme Court, were set aside.

Six months later, Israel’s situation is very different. War fatigue has undermined support for Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas, especially in Western countries. Although most Israelis reportedly support the war, there have been growing protests to end it so the hostages taken by Hamas can be freed. There also have been efforts to undermine the Israeli government and how it has conducted the war in the United States and Israel.

The Israeli army has made significant progress in the war in Gaza, destroying 20 of Hamas’s original 24 battalions. It plans to soon destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. However, there is strong pressure from the West to end the war because Western leaders and audiences have succumbed to constant scenes of destroyed cities in Gaza, women and children digging themselves out of rubble, and reports of famine. Hamas and their supporters in the West have expertly manipulated press coverage of the war to blame this humanitarian catastrophe on Israel. Few mainstream media reports mention that Hamas started and is sustaining this conflict. The media will also not report that the reason Gazans are hungry is because heavily armed Hamas terrorists are stealing the aid sent into the enclave.

Growing demonstrations in Israel to end the war so hostages can be freed were part of Hamas’s original plan. Hamas knew Israelis value the lives of their citizens and that many would press to end the war early to secure the release of Israeli hostages, even if this meant not destroying Hamas or holding it accountable for the October 7 terrorist attacks.

Western nations and the United Nations condemning Israeli actions to defend themselves against Palestinian terrorists are not new. The UN has established itself as a stridently anti-Israel organization and has passed hundreds of resolutions in the UN Security Council and other UN bodies condemning Israel and questioning its right to exist. For decades, the United States used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block resolutions critical of Israel and its actions to defend itself. That changed on March 25, 2023, when the Biden administration abstained on a UN Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war without requiring Hamas to release any hostages.

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.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/biden_s_feigned_rage_against_israel.html

In a world fraught with conflict and misunderstanding, the recent tragic incident involving the accidental killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers by an Israeli strike in Gaza has become a focal point of international attention. While President Joe Biden’s expression of outrage over these deaths is understandable, it’s crucial to contextualize the incident within the broader canvas of the Israel-Hamas conflict, a struggle marked by Hamas’s relentless aggression and Israel’s efforts to defend its citizens.

The Biden administration’s reaction, while fiery and seemingly indignant, overlooks a fundamental reality: the exceedingly rare nature of such tragic incidents in the context of Israeli operations. For every one innocent life lost in these regrettable circumstances, there are countless more saved by Israel’s diligent efforts to target only the threats posed by Hamas. This organization, designated as a terrorist group by multiple countries, including the United States, has a long history of using civilians as human shields and launching unprovoked attacks against Israel. This tactic not only endangers the lives of Palestinians but also complicates Israel’s self-defense measures.

Israel’s commitment to minimizing civilian casualties is unparalleled, especially when compared to the indiscriminate violence and terror perpetrated by Hamas. The Israeli military goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, including the use of warning shots and leaflets to evacuate areas before strikes against militant targets. Contrast this with Hamas’s strategy, which intentionally places military assets in densely populated civilian areas, thereby increasing the risk to innocent lives.

https://pdavidhornik.substack.com/p/biden-in-full-hypocrisy-mode-slams?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1319513&post_

On Monday night, in a tragic and painful incident, seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen charity organization were killed in an errant Israeli drone strike on their three-car convoy in Gaza.

The words “tragic and painful” are not de rigueur. WCK’s work, which involved providing food both to Israelis and to Palestinians displaced by the war, was much appreciated by Israelis—not least because WCK was filling the shoes of UNRWA, the UN’s “pro-Palestinian” organization whose work in Gaza has been suspended because of their systemic collusion with Hamas.

When Israelis say that painful things happen in the fog of war, we know what we’re talking about and we mean it. On December 15, three Israeli hostages, young men who had escaped Hamas captivity in Gaza, were errantly shot dead by Israeli forces who feared they were Hamas terrorists pretending to be escaped Israeli hostages. Considering that Hamas regularly uses such tactics, and, in general, manipulates human beings to protect itself at a level unprecedented in history, the fear was understandable even if it had a terrible result.

Meanwhile Israeli leaders have sincerely apologized for the aid-workers incident and the IDF is investigating it thoroughly. We know so far that it happened at night, and that whoever gave the order for the drone strike was convinced there were armed terrorists in the convoy. Of course, that doesn’t rule out poor judgment or malfeasance.

But nothing, in any case, will put a dent in the uproar of harsh criticism of Israel over the mishap—and not least from that place of special geopolitical significance for Israel, Washington.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-death-cult-of-the-palestinians/

The self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell for the sake of Gaza brought to mind a friend who joined the International Solidarity Movement shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Steve had been returning home from San Jose State with the most astonishing supposedly college-educated facts about Israel that set my understanding of history and the world on its ear. But he invoked names like Noam Chomsky, whom my family had taught me to revere, so I just listened.

Eventually, my friend’s passion about “Palestine” led him to join the International Solidarity Movement. Steve used his connections in the international judo community as a pretext to enter Israel, after which the ISM smuggled him into Nablus, a city about 30 miles north of Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, the area today referred to as the West Bank.

Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian National Authority, the deadly rival to Hamas in Palestine, administers Nablus. But rivalries notwithstanding, both Hamas and Yasser Arafat’s groups try to persuade credulous college age kids to martyr themselves for Palestine.

While Steve served his month-long tour of duty in Nablus, I read about the ISM online, and I did not like what I found.

Lee Kaplan’s “StoptheISM” website was instrumental in helping me understand that the ISM was not a peace organization.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-takes-responsibility-who-else-does-gaza-hamas-war-bombing-ab8f4556

The breaking-news alerts on your smartphone seldom tell the whole story. Journalists are masters of compression, and the alert is a direct line to readers’ eyeballs. No room for elegance. No space for slant. So instead of complexity you get the short version—the convenient take or the capsule commentary.

Usually that’s enough to get the gist in a busy world. But every once in a while you get more than you bargained for in a bubble notice. You get facts that go beyond the news and reveal a deeper truth.

“Breaking News,” bleated my iPhone Tuesday morning with an alert from the Journal. “Israel has taken responsibility for a strike that has killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu said it was unintentional.”

War is hell. Everyone knows that. Bullets don’t discriminate. No bomb is smarter than the person who dispatches it. When the skies are full of lead, accidents are bound to happen, and when they do, political spinmeisters step forward to deny, deflect, delay and distract.

Not here. Israel has taken responsibility. What a concept.

And what a contrast with its adversary. The only thing Hamas takes responsibility for is doing what it loves: spreading terror and delivering death. When a bomb goes off in a marketplace, it claims responsibility. When a crazed maniac knifes random people on a bus, it claims responsibility. But when the subject is its failure to give Gazans a better life, Hamas throws up its arms. It didn’t take responsibility for the lies it told about the misfired terrorist rocket that hit Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital in October, or for that matter for using the hospital as a command center. It doesn’t take responsibility for the human calamity it has unleashed on its people with the unspeakable atrocities of Oct. 7.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/the-second-battle-for-shifa-hospital-shows-israel-will-accept-only-victory/

This is what a ‘sustainable campaign’ to eliminate Hamas looks like.

Those who camouflage their hostility toward Israel’s objectives in its defensive war against Hamas as little more than antipathy toward Benjamin Netanyahu must be frustrated today. The dubious claim that Israel is conducting a cruel war devoid of respect for human life is being rebutted today by one of the Israeli prime minister’s foremost domestic opponents.

In a Monday morning statement, former Israeli prime minister and current center-right opposition figure Naftali Bennett called the two-week operation to once again clear terrorist elements from Gaza’s Shifa Hospital an “amazing battlefield achievement.” Indeed, with roughly 200 Hamas fighters killed, another 500 captured, and 6,000 civilians evacuated without a single noncombatant fatality, the outcome was “unprecedented in urban warfare,” as Bennett put it. “These results undermine the false claim that the IDF is targeting civilians,” he said. “If we didn’t care about innocent lives, we’d have simply bombed the whole complex, without risking [the] lives of our own fighters.”

The war Hamas inaugurated on October 7, 2023, has now seen two battles to liberate Gaza’s largest hospital network from terrorist control. The first began late last year and concluded with an impressive IDF operation that cleared out the hospital while preserving the ongoing medical services Shifa provided Gaza’s civilians. The second wrapped up on Monday morning following a two-week operation in which only two IDF soldiers were killed, culminating in the seizure of a trove of weaponry and intelligence as well as the neutralization of the hospital as a terrorist command-and-control node.

Western media outlets don’t paint quite the rosy portrait of this operation that Bennett did. Israel’s pacification of the Shifa complex left “a wasteland of destroyed buildings and Palestinian bodies scattered in the dirt,” Reuters’ report began. That could be said of any military operation, the purpose of which is to defeat an armed opposition and deprive it of defensive infrastructure.