RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Biden’s National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby gets it right.

Thanks to National Review columnist Noah Rothman:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/does-john-kirby-know-who-hes-working-for/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

“When asked on Tuesday about a tragic incident involving an Israeli strike that Jerusalem admits accidentally targeted aid workers with the group World Central Kitchen, one of the few international humanitarian organizations Israel trusts to operate in the Strip, Kirby unloaded on Israel’s critics:

“Is firing a missile at people delivering food and killing them not a violation of international humanitarian law?” one reporter asked. “Your question presumes, at this very early hour, that it was a deliberate strike, that they knew exactly what they were hitting, that they were hitting aid workers and did it on purpose,” Kirby replied. “And there’s no evidence of that.” He might have stopped there, but Kirby continued.

“I would also remind you, sir, that we continue to look at incidents as they occur. The State Department has a process in place. And to date, as you and I are speaking, they have not found any incidents where the Israelis have violated international humanitarian law. And lest you think we don’t take it seriously, I can assure you that we do. We look at this in real time.”

 Daniel James Brown had been inspired to write his 2013 non-fiction novel, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, after a chance meeting with the elderly Joe Rantz.

In December 2023, the movie “The Boys in the Boat” directed by George Clooney was based on the true story of the come from behind rowing team at the University of Washington got to compete for gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

It’s a wonderful, patriotic and inspiring story. rsk

Taking the weekend off….back on Monday April 1, 2024.

To all who observe: Easter is a lovely holiday and one to appreciate the comity between our religions now in the face of outrageous and dangerous anti-Semitism and world-wide persecution of Christians. Israel is a GPS of churches protected by the Jewish authorities.

Here is the Basilica of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Israel.

May you have a happy, relaxing and blessed day. rsk

I have in equal balance justly weighed
What wrong our arms may do,
what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.’
The Archbishop of York in 2 Henry IV

The criticism tossed at Israel in the mainstream media and among the pro-Hamas protesters  that Israel’s response to the barbarism of October 7, 2023 is “disproportionate” is actually risible.

However, something in Israel is truly disproportionate. It is the outsize 24/7 research and development of technology, medicine, agriculture and water systems, that alleviate illness, famine, epidemics, and prolonged drought for billions of citizens throughout the world.

Got that? A nation about the size of New Jersey with a population of 9.73 million brings relief and hope to billions as Michael Ordman catalogs every week.

That is really disproportionate. rsk

September 2, 1945; At the conclusion of the Surrender Ceremony, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, broadcast this speech:
“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death — the seas bear only commerce -men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-cautionary-memoir/

My parents and my younger brother and I lived in Bolivia during the Holocaust. When we settled into life in America after World War II, most of my parents’ friends were European emigres. They were drawn to Jewish academics and physicians who always called each other ”Herr” or “Pan” or “Frau” or “Pani” in German or Polish, and never by first names.

I was particularly fond of the Jewish-German emigres. They had come from the belly of the Nazi beast. They became substitutes for the family I never met — grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all killed in Europe. They reciprocated my affection and always asked for me as soon as they entered: “Vo ist der tochter?”

While they hated Germany, they loved German poetry and composers and always listened to records and recited poems with translations for me. My favorite was Schiller’s “The Ring of Polycrates,” about a king who feared his good fortune and threw his beloved and very valuable ring into the seas, only to have it come back in a fish cooked for him. This was proof that he was doomed by fate. Decades later it became my daughter’s favorite poem.

I loved being with these people and often sat reverently next to them while they listened to an oratorio or piano concerto, followed by tea and pastries of chocolate mixed with jam. They brought me Snickers. I hungered for their stories about life in Germany before the war. They were all very voluble historians of their life and fate.

One of them was a professor in Hamburg until 1938.  He was so assimilated that he sported a “Messerschmitt” — a dueling scar popular among upper class Germans on his cheek, and a handsome bald pate.

He and his Frau had two sons who also assimilated until the 1930s when the Nazi state abolished all youth groups in Germany except the Hitler Youth or its female equivalent, the League of German Girls — and all Jewish children were barred. In January 1933, there were approximately 50,000 members of the Hitler Youth. By 1939, the vast majority of German children were part of the Hitler Youth organization.

Nonetheless, as the professor detailed it, they were optimistic that sanity would prevail and that Nazi ideology would disappear. And in any event, where could they go? As the infamous Evian Conference (Jul 6, 1938 – July 15, 1938) disclosed, of all the delegates from 32 nations, who all expressed caterwauling sorrow and shock, only one country agreed to absorb additional refugees: the Dominican Republic. And who would go to the jungle — something my parents, and so many Jews, gladly did to flee Europe.