RUTHFULLY YOURS

IS IT ILHAN OMAR’S DEMOCRATIC PARTY NOW?

The battle to isolate the unapologetic pro-BDS user of anti-Semitic tropes has been lost. That leaves pro-Israel Democrats with some uncomfortable questions By Jonathan Tobin

https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-it-ilhan-omars-democratic-party-now/?fbclid=IwAR3bAVCvBT5jgWkGxRsktjHEZT03ECKLYIHI2ZHbOHUBDf7cTPawxzUuei4

Austin is a Texas college town better known these days for its trend-setting music scene than for being the capital of the Lone Star State. But last week, it also provided a test case that may say a great deal about the direction of the Democratic Party and the very uncomfortable dilemma facing pro-Israel Jewish Democrats.

What happened was that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was invited to be the keynote speaker at a citywide Iftar dinner there. That a local Muslim community would want to host her is hardly surprising. Omar is seen as a role model in the sense that she is, along with her friend Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), both elected last November, one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. As someone who wears a hijab even on the floor of the House of Representatives, her career is especially inspiring to Muslim Americans.

But unfortunately, Omar is more than just an illustration of how the American dream still works to provide immigrants and minorities with unlimited opportunities to succeed.

KRD Daily
May 23, 2019

The Rabbi was returning from Saturday evening services when he was attacked in the street. Those who witnessed the assault reportedly laughed…

RABBI BRUTALLY ASSAULTED IN BUENOS AIRES (Jerusalem Post, May 23)
https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Rabbi-brutally-assaulted-in-Buenos-Aires-590445?f

Rabbi Elyahu Shaman, who is also a cantor at a synagogue in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, was assaulted when he returned from prayer services on Saturday evening. According to a release sent to The Jerusalem Post from Argentina, he was attacked by a street gang.Shaman was injured on his face and hand during the attack, while the culprits called out racial slurs against Jews. Those who witnessed the violence laughed, according to the release.

It’s shocking how these students are being brainwashed. The excerpt below is just one of the examples given (and we know it is not just happening at universities in Australia). Click on the link for the full picture…KRD

WHEN AUTHORITIES TELL YOU TO DISSENT (By Zachary Snowdon Smith, Quillette, May 22)
 
https://quillette.com/2019/05/22/when-the-authorities-tell-you-to-dissent/?fbclid=Iw

The first indication I received that something had gone awry at Australia’s best university was in a criminology class titled ‘Violence, Trauma, and Reconciliation.’ According to the University of Melbourne handbook, this class ‘considers the forms of trauma people experience as a response to… forms of violence and explores how this trauma propels calls for apologies, truth commissions, retribution, and torture.’ The instructor, Dr. Juliet Rogers, devoted a lecture to female genital mutilation—a natural enough topic for a class on trauma. In Rogers’s view, however, the true source of trauma was not the practice of FGM itself, but the ‘violence’ of anti-FGM laws. After all, Western societies pressure women into body modification in the form of ear piercings—so who are we to pass judgment on those who practice clitorectomies and infibulations on children? And isn’t it true that legislators’ supposed concern with FGM is actually motivated by ‘Islamophobia’?

To quote the author, “The latest in the bizarro world of the US discussion about Israel. Misrahi Jews from all over the Middle East are now being told they are an ‘invented category’…”

MARC LAMONT HILL SLAMS MIZRAHI JEWS AS ‘IDENTITY CATEGORY’ OF PALESTINIANS (Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, May 22)

https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Marc-Lamont-Hill-slams-Mizrahi-Jews-as

In a Facebook post on May 20 slamming Hen Mazzig’s article in The LA Times, American academic and activist Marc Lamont Hill described Mizrahi Jews as an “identity category” that had been detached “from Palestinian identity.”…Hill’s latest excoriation of Israel, posted to his 90,000 followers, followed Mazzig’s argument that Israel is not a country of “privileged and powerful white Europeans.” Mazzig sought to emphasize the role of Mizrahi Jews in Israeli history and condemned the tendency of critics to define Israelis as Ashkenazi Jews alone…

In a Facebook post on May 20 slamming Hen Mazzig’s article in The LA Times, American academic and activist Marc Lamont Hill described Mizrahi Jews as an “identity category” that had been detached “from Palestinian identity.”…Hill’s latest excoriation of Israel, posted to his 90,000 followers, followed Mazzig’s argument that Israel is not a country of “privileged and powerful white Europeans.” Mazzig sought to emphasize the role of Mizrahi Jews in Israeli history and condemned the tendency of critics to define Israelis as Ashkenazi Jews alone…

I think I am in shock…

HAMAS LEADER ISMAIL HANIYEH MAY BE CHARGED AS WAR CRIMINAL (Batya Jerenberg, Times of Israel, May 22)

https://worldisraelnews.com/hamas-leader-ismail-haniyeh-may-be-charged-as-war-c

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is considering opening a war crimes probe against Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, according to a letter sent Tuesday to Knesset members by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ), which petitioned the court. “For the first time ever, the International Criminal Court in the Hague sent us an official response regarding our first request, sent in 2017… against Ismail Haniyeh,” JIJ CEO Flavia Sevald wrote the MKs… The human rights organization charged Hamas with committing a number of war crimes, not only by launching indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. JIJ’s exhaustive report also raised Hamas’s abuses of its own population.

Hah! This is what a real “peaceful protest” looks like…

ICELAND PRO-PALESTINIAN BAND MAY SUE EL AL FOR BAD PLANE SEATS (Times of Israel, May 22)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iceland-pro-palestinian-band-may-sue-el-al-over-bad

Iceland’s entry in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, Hatari, is considering filing a formal complaint with Israel’s El Al airline over claims ground crews intentionally seated the band’s members in undesirable seats on their Monday flight from Tel Aviv to London. The techno-metal steampunk act won effusive jeers during the song contest in Israel for displaying Palestinian flags when it was shown on TV briefly during the vote-tally stage of the show.
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon says a top Hezbollah leader’s book is “required reading”. The course is coming to a university near you…

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14251/palestinians-hamas-traitors

One of the Arabs who have dared to speak the truth about Hamas and Islamic Jihad is Nadim Koteich, a prominent Lebanese journalist, who recently accused Islamic Jihad of starting the last round of fighting with Israel.

In an interview with the Lebanese LDC TV channel, Koteich said that Hamas and Islamic Jihad, representing the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran respectively, should have turned the Gaza Strip after Israel’s withdrawal in 2005 into an opportunity for a national Palestinian compromise.

Instead, he said, the two groups have “thwarted all opportunities for peace” and have ended up in a prison called Gaza.”

Such voices from some Palestinians and Arabs are a sign they may have finally woken up to realize that Palestinian leaders, particularly Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are leading their people towards the abyss. If the voices of the critics grow, then there will be hope that one day the extremist camp among the Palestinians will be weakened.

The Palestinian Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip has never tolerated any form of criticism. It does not accept any criticism from Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip. It does not accept any criticism from its rivals in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ruling Fatah faction. It certainly does not accept any criticism from Israel or the United States.

Now, Hamas is saying that it does not tolerate any criticism from Arabs. Hamas claims that Palestinian Authority and Fatah leaders who dare to speak out against it are “traitors” and “collaborators” working with the “Zionist enemy.”

Arab media personalities who recently criticized Hamas and its allies in the Gaza Strip have now been placed on its list of “traitors” and “collaborators.”

Recently, some Arabs, particularly in the Gulf states, Lebanon and Egypt, have spoken out publicly against Hamas and held it responsible for the continued suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. These Arabs, in other words, have dared to speak the truth about Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two major forces in the Gaza Strip.

https://www.israel21c.org/the-top-12-ways-israel-feeds-the-world/

From drip irrigation to hardier seeds, Israeli innovations help fill hungry bellies everywhere, particularly in the developing world.

Food security is a critical concern as the global population expands and natural resources dwindle. Smart solutions for more efficient farming, hardier crops, alternative sources of nutrition, and safer food packaging and storage are essential.

No other single country – certainly not one as young and as tiny as Israel – has contributed more breakthroughs to this area than Israel.

Since the 1950s, Israelis have not only been finding miraculous ways to green their own desert but have shared their discoveries far and wide.

Here are 12 major ways Israel helps feed the world.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273811/israels-tourism-triumph-part-4-edwin-black

[Read Part I: HERE, Part II: HERE, Part III: HERE].

When the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement [BDS] mounted a campaign against Israel, it targeted more than Israel’s economy, including tourism—which has nonetheless flourished beyond any expectation. The “D” in BDS stands for delegitimize. So the anti-Israel movement also targeted the country’s very identity and legacy. A people’s future cannot be stolen unless first their history is abducted. BDS not only attacked Israel’s tourism industry, but also the country’s single greatest and most meaningful attraction—its multi-faith religious roots.

Yes, Israel features excitement and awesome beauty in its museums and architectonic urban spaces, stem to stern coastline, as well as the country’s deserts, caves, hill treks, river trips, zip lines, and jeep excursions, not to mention its nightlife. Then again, many nations offer outstanding museums, mountains, and wilderness. However, there is one unique tourist attraction that Israel possesses that no other nation can offer, and which the people of all nations crave—its unrivaled religious heritage. This heritage is inextricably woven into the country’s national identity.

All three major Abrahamic religions are anchored in Israel.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/palestinians-need-to-get-real-about-israel-11558391713

Jerusalem

As Palestinian officials nervously await the Trump administration’s peace plan, one fundamental reality shapes their long and bitter contest with Israel. Diplomatically, economically, militarily, Israel has never been stronger than it is today. By contrast, the Palestinian cause has never been in worse shape. Neither Hamas, which alternates between firing rockets and begging Israel to admit to Gaza the supplies it needs to stay in power, nor the Palestinian Authority, which is compromised by corruption and divided by factionalism, can find a viable policy either to defeat the Israelis or to make peace with them.

One result—as I saw on a recent visit sponsored by the Philos Project, a nonprofit Middle East engagement organization—is that Palestinians, especially young people, are increasingly giving up on having a state of their own. Instead they favor a “one-state solution”—a single, binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Yet in meetings with senior Palestinian Authority officials and political observers, it was clear that this is more a cry of despair than a serious political program. A Palestinian return to the policy of rejecting the two-state solution may spur American campus activists to new denunciations of “Israeli apartheid,” but it won’t help the Palestinian cause in the real world.

The argument for one state is straightforward. Israel is de facto in control of the West Bank and to a lesser extent the Gaza Strip; liberal principles say people should have a say in the government that rules them. Some Palestinians claim the situation is comparable to the South African system of “bantustans,” in which white South Africans created artificial “homelands” for the different tribes of black South Africans and used them as alibis to deny blacks citizenship rights in South Africa proper. The West Bank and Gaza are, some Palestinians argue, bantustans for Palestinians. Thus the solution, with no Palestinian statehood in sight, is to give Palestinians full voting and citizenship rights in the state that matters most in the neighborhood: Israel.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14247/hamas-islamic-jihad-terrorist-organizations

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) walked away from the negotiating table a long time ago and show no interest in returning. They have continually refused to do what the Trump administration has asked: stop funding terrorism. They have shown again and again that they do not want a state living peacefully alongside Israel; they want to displace Israel. They have rejected the most generous proposals made by Israeli prime ministers, such as one made by Ehud Olmert in 2008, which included a near-total withdrawal from West Bank and the end of Israeli control of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Middle East scholar, Daniel Pipes, observing that Israel’s leaders shy away from victory, writes: “The only way for the conflict to be resolved is for one side to give up.”

“[F]iring 600 rockets at civilian targets in a neighboring country is an act of war… and as such it grants the nation-state [Israel] the authority under the international law of armed conflict not just to disable the specific military assets used to carry it out but to destroy those who carried it out… It’s time for the world community to stop imposing these double standards on Israel, and start doing what international law requires: holding Hamas responsible for the devastation that results from Israel’s legal, necessary, and proper responses to its provocations. Only then will Hamas know that if it sows the wind, it could truly reap the whirlwind…” — David French, National Review, May 6, 2019.

On May 5 and 6, 700 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israeli territory in less than 48 hours. It was the most intensive rocket offensive on Israel to date. Four people were killed: three Israelis and one Palestinian Arab worker. One of the Israelis was hit in his car by an anti-tank missile. The Israeli military retaliated and resumed targeted killings. One was to a Hamas member, Hamed al-Khoudary, considered responsible for the transfer of Iranian funds to the armed factions in Gaza. On May 6, a spokesman from Islamic Jihad and Hamas announced a ceasefire and said they had got “what they wanted”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a short statement: “We struck a powerful blow against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The campaign is not finished, and it will require patience and careful judgment. We’re prepared for its continuation”.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-best-kept-secret-this-food-city-on-the-mediterranean-11557850111

““We don’t have Gucci Shmucci or any of those fashion shops [in Acre]. In fact, you won’t find one fashionable shop in the whole Old City market, because it’s just meant for all the locals who still come here to buy,” he said. “It’s all local food, with none of the plastic fantastic of the major global chains. And this is what makes Acre special.”

IT’S A STRETCH to call Maadali, a postage-stamp-size eatery in the northern Israeli city of Acre, a restaurant. This little stall, tucked inside the city’s Old Turkish Bazaar and featuring a single stovetop and three tightly packed tables, is no bigger than many home kitchens. You won’t find a set menu, or set operating hours, either.

But Adnan Daher, Maadali’s chef and owner, shrugs off the limitations of space and scope. A trip to Maadali is a trip to a mouthwatering one-man show, and Mr. Daher, who also serves as waiter, manager and short-order cook, turns out his own spins on hraime (spicy fish cooked in a simmering pickled mango sauce); fresh calamari with hyssop and tangy homemade yogurt; and roasted eggplant with smoky tahini and harissa.

Producing such big flavors in such a tiny space seems unlikely, but he does it. And in Acre (or Akko in Hebrew and pronounced Ah-koh), a 5,000-year-old port city that serves as the capital of Israel’s fertile Western Galilee, he is just one culinary magician among many.

Some of the best seafood in the Holy Land hides inside this creaking ancient town, where frothy, fish-packed waves beat against original Crusader-built sea walls and a Technicolor market teems with produce and spices. There’s Uri Buri, the now world-famous seafood restaurant beloved by Phil Rosenthal from the Netflix food series “Somebody Feed Phil”; there’s El Marsa, where homegrown chef Alaa Musa combines his Palestinian recipes with techniques he picked up in Sweden’s Michelin-starred kitchens; and there are endless hummus stands, fresh grills and salad bars. All anonymous and humble, they serve enough hyperlocal, slow food to wake up even the most jaded foodies.