RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://nypost.com/2021/05/22/inside-the-democrats-betrayal-of-israel-goodwin/

As presidential press releases go, this one was very short and enormously consequential. Eleven minutes after Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, the  White House issued a two-sentence statement.

The first said simply, “This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine and recognition has been requested by the provisional Government thereof.”

The second sentence made history: “The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the State of Israel.”

It was signed “Harry Truman.”

The president’s decision made America the first country to recognize the new nation and made him a hero to Jews around the world. It also helped make the Democrat Party a reliable ally of Israel for decades as war after war threatened its survival.

Unfortunately, Truman would not recognize his party today.

An anti-Israel faction has taken root among Democrats and was on full display during Israel’s recent clash with Hamas. Because that faction is largely synonymous with the party’s ascendant far-left wing, more moderate Dems are increasingly afraid to speak up for Israel, just as they are afraid to speak up against the emergence of socialism and anti-white racism in their party.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-the-israeli-cease-fire-11621550460?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

As we went to press, it looked like Israel and Hamas would put down their arms—for now. The truce comes less than two weeks after the terrorist group commenced its 4,000-rocket barrage on Israeli civilians—the most intense since it took over the Gaza strip in 2007. Israel’s leadership wouldn’t have approved a cease-fire if it hadn’t accomplished most of what it wanted through air strikes, but the question now is what lessons the region’s players take from the short war and the world’s response.

The cease-fire has no strings attached, so neither Hamas nor Israel won a strategic victory. Israel says Hamas suffered the destruction of its tunnel network and the death of many military leaders. The group may lack the capacity to launch another major war on Israel, which it wants to annihilate, for some time.

Israel’s casualties were more limited because of its Iron Dome anti-missile technology. Yet Hamas inflicted a blow to Israeli democracy by showing that it could foment ethnic violence among Arab and Jewish Israelis, both of whom rioted during the conflict. That’s a tragedy, especially after Arab parties have advanced in recent years within Israel’s democracy.

Meanwhile Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran saw that Democratic support for Israel in the U.S. has declined. We credited President Biden this week with not trying to dictate Israel’s security decisions, but he soon bent rhetorically to his party’s left, saying Wednesday he “expected a significant deescalation today.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/gaza-hamas-israel.html

As of this writing, terrorists in Gaza — the word “terrorist” fits people who take indiscriminate aim at civilians to achieve political goals — have fired some 1,750 rockets at Israel since Monday.

That’s a number worth pausing over, and not just because it has had the effect of overwhelming Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense. Gaza is often said to be sealed off and utterly destitute. Yet Hamas, which rules Gaza, seems not to have had too much trouble amassing this kind of arsenal, or too many qualms employing it in a way it knew was sure to incur a heavy Israeli response.

The usual rule in life is that if you throw the first punch you can’t complain if you’re counterpunched. The test of Western policy and public opinion is whether they will let Hamas break this rule.

That’s a test the Biden administration has so far passed: Both the president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have issued statements stressing that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Good. It’s more than can be said for progressives such as Bernie Sanders, who blamed “the irresponsible actions of government-allied right-wing extremists in Jerusalem” for the fighting without adding a word of condemnation for Hamas.

Now let’s hope the administration’s attitude lasts. The tactics of Hamas are to house its arsenals in schools and mosques, set up headquarters in the basement of hospitals and fire its missiles from sites next to crowded apartment buildings and hotels housing foreign journalists.

The idea is either to keep Israel from returning fire or, if it does, reap the propaganda benefits from televised and tweeted pictures of wrecked buildings and human casualties and “disproportionate” Israeli-Palestinian death counts that obscure the fact that one side is doing what it can to protect civilian lives and the other side is doing what it can to endanger them.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-truth-about-the-sheikh-jarrah-eviction/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

It’s worth rebutting the deceptions about the incident at the supposed center of a resurgence in violence between Arabs and Israelis.

The east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah has become the latest flashpoint in the Arab–Israeli conflict, sparking the very tension that Hamas seeks to exploit for its own political advantage.

Several Palestinian-Arab families living in Sheikh Jarrah face eviction from homes following a ruling from Jerusalem’s District Court. In anticipation of a Supreme Court hearing of an appeal of the ruling, Palestinian Arabs have rioted nightly in Sheikh Jarrah, joining violent Palestinian-Arab attacks related to the Ramadan holy month, and culminating in violent eruptions across the city, including at some of Jerusalem’s holiest sites.

Meanwhile, Hamas has capitalized on the unrest by launching some 1,000 rockets toward Israel, with at least seven targeting the capital city, in the hopes of killing Jews and inciting further violence.

Since Sheikh Jarrah is emerging as the battle cry of the Palestinian-Arab violence, it is worth discussing why the supposed “scandal” isn’t really a scandal at all.

For starters, the title to the land never belonged to the Palestinian Arabs currently residing on the property. There is nothing pernicious happening beyond a standard landlord eviction of non-paying tenants. But you wouldn’t know that based on the current media coverage and outcry on the progressive left.

For instance, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) penned a tweet labeling the evictions “inhumane” and stating she stood in “solidarity” with the Palestinian families being evicted from “their homes.” Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.) demanded that the evictions be halted, while Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) labeled the evictions “abhorrent and unacceptable,” asserting, “The Administration should make clear to the Israeli government that these evictions are illegal and must stop immediately.” Some progressives are even arguing to condition aid to Israel over the Sheikh Jarrah issue, suggesting that U.S. aid to Israel is being used to oppress Palestinian Arabs. In turn, the Biden administration has also expressed concerns over the evictions, albeit far less forcefully.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post just published an op-ed titled “Sheikh Jarrah highlights the brazenness of Israel’s colonialist project.” Or, not to be outdone, Reuters published a piece yesterday strangely lacking an opinion label, but nonetheless featuring the title, “East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah becomes emblem of Palestinian struggle.”

There is intellectual laziness, and then there is shameless misinformation. All of the above falls into the latter category.

https://bit.ly/3uKTBfp

According to the annual February 2021 Gallup’s country favorability rating, Israel is the 7th most favorable country among Americans, enjoying a 75% very/mostly favorability rating.

Israel’s favorability of 75% – compared to 66% in 2013, 69% in 2019 and 74% in 2020 – is above its 65% average since 2001, and just shy of its exceptional 79% favorability recorded during the 1991 Gulf War, when the US public was exposed to Iraqi missiles hitting Israel. 

According to Gallup, “In the latest poll, 85% of Republicans view it favorably, compared with 77% of independents and 64% of Democrats.”

Iran (13%) and the Palestinian Authority (30%) trail Cuba (45%), and are among the least favorable countries, along with North Korea (11%), China (20%), Iraq (21%), Afghanistan (21%) and Russia (22%).

Israel trails Canada (92% favorability), Great Britain (91%), France (87%), Japan (84%), Germany (84%) and India (77%).

However, unlike these countries, Israel’s 75% favorability is in defiance of systematic criticism (of Israel) by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other key members of the US media establishment, as well as by State Department spokespersons and the United Nations.

Israel’s high favorability rating occurs despite the spike in anti-Israel activities on US campuses, as well as the recent erosion of Israel’s stature on Capitol Hill (especially on the House side), which has been Israel’s consistent ally since 1948.