Dear Family & Friends,

Today is Yom HaZikaron, Remembrance Day for our fallen soldiers & terror victims. Tomorrow is Yom Hatzmaut, Israel Independence Day at 68 years! Population 8.5 million, ten times 1948…6.337 million are Jewish or 74.8 %. Arab population is 1.771 million or 20.8%.

Celebrate! Have a BarBQue! Or a ‘mangel’ as they call it in Israel.

We have so many wonderful people & accomplishments to be proud of…especially our own cleverness to finally be here after so many years!

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

1.On celebrating Independence Day by Isi Leibler

2. ‘I always knew I would return’: Visitor center inaugurated in Gush Etzion

3.Remembrance – Zikaron by Yishai Fleisher

4.Time for a new Israeli diplomatic initiative By Caroline B. Glick

5.“As Israel turns 68, half of world Jewry calls it home,”

7.Applying Israeli law to W. Bank is not creeping annexation: former MAG

8.His last words before being shot and killed were: ‘I will remain a Jew’

9.Iran’s Plans to Control a Palestinian State by Khaled Abu Toameh 10.Arlene Kushner “Finding the Light”

2. ‘I always knew I would return’: Visitor center inaugurated in Gush Etzion

By Tovah Lazaroff JPost.com 05/11/2016 04:18

Politicians, settler leaders, area residents and survivors of the initial four communities that were built in that area prior to the War of Independence came to the center’s ribbon- cutting event.

Yochanan Ben-Yaacov next to a photograph of himself as a toddler standing with his parents Yaacov and Sima Klapholtz in Gush Etzion prior to the 1948 War of Independence.. (photo credit:Tovah Lazaroff)

The morning after the Six Day War ended, Yochanan Ben-Yaacov left his army unit and hitchhiked to the site of the former Gush Etzion kibbutz of Kfar Etzion.
“I arrived at 8:30 a.m.,” Ben-Yaacov recalled.
He has no memory of the first three years of his life, which he spent there with his parents, who were among the community’s founders. But he had grown up on so many stories about the place that he recognized it immediately, he told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday afternoon, as he sat in a new stone visitor center that was built on that same hilltop.
“I always knew I would return,” the tall, white-haired man said. “It was what I was taught and it was how I was raised.”
Politicians, settler leaders, area residents and survivors of the initial four communities that were built in that area prior to the War of Independence came to the center’s ribbon- cutting event.

The floor to ceiling screen at the new Gush Etzion museum
The center, housing also a museum, was constructed with NIS 15 million, partially from the government’s National Heritage Sites program and partially from private donors.
The museum’s permanent collection includes a new movie about the battle for Kfar Etzion that was waged by more than 130 men and women, including Holocaust survivors. It is based on the letters they wrote to friends and family members from the besieged kibbutz.
They held on for months with few supplies, out of a deep belief that they were defending both their new homes and Jerusalem. Ben-Yaacov was evacuated in the winter along with the mothers and children.
Initially, his mother, Sima Klapholtz, remained, but she left to join him when he suddenly fell ill. His father, Yaacov Klapholtz, remained. He was among the 129 fighters – members of the Palmah, Hagana and kibbutz residents – who were massacred in Kfar Etzion on that day.
The center’s opening was timed to mark the anniversary of that massacre, which in the Hebrew calendar occurred on the eve of Independence Day.
The story of Gush Etzion has come to symbolize the larger narrative of the modern State of Israel.
Ben-Yaacov, who turned his father’s first name into his last name, said he had reflected on that link on that June morning in 1967.
Three months later, when prime minister Levi Eshkol and his cabinet authorized the reestablishment of the settlement, Ben-Yaacov moved there to help rebuild the kibbutz, where he has remained ever since.
Gershon Shafat was born in Vienna in 1927 and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1934. He arrived in Gush Etzion as part of a unit attached to the Palmach to help create the national-religious kibbutz of Ein Tzurim.

Gershon Shafat
A photograph of his unit’s arrival at the kibbutz now hangs on the museum wall.
After the fall of Kfar Etzion, an order came from Jerusalem to surrender to the local Arab forces.
The families of Ein Tzurim were evacuated during the winter, leaving a group of some 50 young men and women to defend the kibbutz.
Fearful that they, too, would be killed, they insisted on putting down their weapons only if they could surrender to the Arab Legion. They hoped the legion’s ties to the British army would keep them from suffering the same fate.
“At least with the British, there was someone to talk with,” he recalled.
They explained this to representatives of the Red Cross who came to negotiate the deal.
“The Red Cross told us we were not in any position to negotiate terms,” Shafat said.
“But we told them, ‘If not, we will fight to the end.’” When the Arab Legion commander arrived in Ein Tzurim, he was shocked by their lack of weapons and ammunition, given how stiff the battle had been. He told them, “If I had fighters like you, I would have been able to make it to Tel Aviv,” Shafat recalled.
“We were held in Hebron for three weeks, and then we were taken to the border between Jordan and Iraq. It was 10 months before were released,” he said.
The Ein Tzurim families were relocated to the northern part of the country, outside of Haifa, where he has remained until this day. But the younger generation in his family has return to Gush Etzion. Shafat has two daughters who have raised their families there.
“It is a good feeling to be here today,” he said.

Op-Ed: As a paratrooper, the writer learned about Remembrance Day firsthand. He shares it with you.

In March of 1995 my friends and I were drafted to the Israeli army. We had passed some grueling tests and were accepted to the Paratrooper brigades, the Tzanchanim. The image of the red berets liberating the Western Wall was fused into our psyches like it was in so many young Israeli children’s, and more than anything we wanted to serve our country honorably and to the best of our abilities. Six painful months of basic training were ahead of us. In this period of time our minds and bodies were converted from civilian use and become the property of the IDF. We learned to push the envelope of our individual human capacity, and to harness the great strength inherent in an indivisible platoon.

All this time we kept our sights to the final day of basic training in which we would hike 86 kilometers, in utter silence with full infantry gear, up to Givat Ha-Tachmoshet, Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem, where many Tzanchanim had perished in 1967, and where we would receive our very own red berets and be inducted into the ranks of the paratroopers.

However, one fine day in May, barely three months after we began basic training, the pit bull-like sergeant major came into our barracks with a large box. We had no clue what its contents were. The sergeant major proceeded to open the box, and much to our surprise, unveiled red berets for each one of us in the platoon. “You don’t deserve to be paratroopers yet,” he told us. “But tomorrow you will leave the base and think of yourselves as full-fledged Tzanchanim for one day. You will not get to keep these,” he added, “but wear them with pride and respect.”

The next day was Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day, and the whole of the paratrooper brigade, thousands of men, would be released for one day to attend one of the many commemorations of fallen soldiers that took place in the cemeteries of this tiny nation. Each one of us was given precise directions to the cemetery and a plot number was also given to us. We were told that the plot number corresponded to a grave of a fallen paratrooper. We were ordered to stand next to that grave and next to the family of a young man who was once just like ourselves, wearing our red beret as he once did, and in a sense, to represent his memory and soul.

That next day, I had luck hitchhiking, the preferred mode of travel when in uniform. Hitchhiking was by no means a precise science, and though I had tweaked my “I’m a helpless soldier” stance to perfection, some days were better than others. I reached the gates of the cemetery about an hour early and the place was quiet and serene. I smoked a cigarette at the gate and then wandered in. The large space echoed silence and only the birds chirped in the large trees. Nature had overtaken this resting place and many of the walls were covered in ivy. I tried listening to the graves and heard no cries of pain, no last words, and no fear of death. The dead, it seemed to me, had made peace with their fate, they were no longer bitter at having fallen so young. Alone amongst my dead I stood, a bit in a daydream, under the sun.

Soon, people began to arrive and I straightened my stance and made sure my beret was on right. I was nervous at meeting the family I was assigned to.

Who would they be?

How would they react to me?

Will they cry next to me?

Will they ask me who I am?

Most of all my soul wondered:
What is it like for a parent to stand on the grave of his child?

How would my parents feel if I were that child?

How would I feel, if it were my child?

I thought about my own mother and her reservations about my army service.
Soon after, I spotted a family of three: father, mother and son, heading in my general direction. It was my family.

They greeted me kindly, and indeed, the father asked me who I was and where did I serve. The mother, who had been through this before, brought out some fruits and water to nourish the soldier with the red beret standing in front of her, and though she looked at me, I could see that her mind was far away, and that I was a painful reminder of her longing to nourish her own child.

As the somber ceremony began, once again I eyed my surroundings, and saw families standing by graves all around me. Interspersed amongst them were other Red Berets, for only the paratrooper brigade had this custom of representing their fallen. At this moment more than any other, tears welled up inside, for I realized that this was more than a personal tragedy of one fallen tzanchan, paratrooper, but rather the day that all of Israel remembered the men who had laid down their lives in the attempt to build a home for the Jewish people. The red berets standing at the cemetery that day represented to me that successful effort of rebuilding a home we had lost so long ago. The dead came back to life in the form of a new generation of young soldiers who stood at the graves on the land which God had promised them. While the living cried, the dead now rested eternally in the bosom of Eretz Yisroel, the Land of Israel.

My adopted family was now in tears and the horns blared and reverberated through the cemetery signifying the moment of silence and memory that had finally come. Hhhhhhhmmmmmm, like a primordial hum or a sound of the shofar the Jewish soul could not fight back tears.

In that one moment I though of gratitude: I am so thankful to you, fallen tzanchan, fallen Jew, fallen brother. Without you my parents would have had no place to run to from the choke hold of the Soviet Union, without you Jews of the world would never have shelter, and without you, I would not stand here today, wearing this uniform with a red beret that did not yet belong to me.

Shimon Peres finished speaking and the ceremony was over. The family thanked me for coming. They looked down onto their son’s grave and G-d only knows what went through their minds. They walked away slowly, the mother leaning on her husband, noticeably weaker than when she entered. I would probably never see them again.

Shalom EEMA, shalom ABBA, I said to myself.

Seven months after this story took place, Tom Kareen, one of the company’s commanders, was killed in a Hizbullah ambush. Also in that altercation, Yoav Be’er, a friend of mine in platoon two, lost an eye and a leg.

Tom Kareen and I did not get along too well throughout most of the service. However, a few weeks before his death, as I stood at an overlook guard post I saw him from a distance leading other soldiers while he carried a communications radio on his back. He saw me too, and from that distance he waved broadly with a big smile as to say “shalom friend, there is peace between us.” That wave struck me as being uncharacteristic of army behavior and it made me feel human again if only for a bit.

When he was killed, the battalion commander came to speak with us. He shared our sadness but told us not to cry at the funeral. He said: “The enemy should not see you weeping like babies in front of the cameras, we are an army, and death is a part of it.” I knew that he was right.

Tom was buried in the soil of his home kibbutz, Ginosar, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the Kinneret. It was the most beautiful cemetery I had ever seen. It was hard to fight back tears at the funeral as per our order, especially when Tom’s fiancee eulogized her dead man with such warm words and tears.

Today is the day of memory and the time for those tears.

4.Time for a new Israeli diplomatic initiative By Caroline B. Glick The Jerusalem Post May 10, 2016 The report is expected to include even more expansive assaults on Israel for refusing to deny Jews our civil rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. In a week or two, Israel will again be the focus of a well-dressed international lynch mob. According to news reports, US President Barack Obama intends to use the so-called Middle East Quartet, comprised of the US, the UN, Russia and the EU, as a tool to ratchet up Western condemnations of the Jewish state.

The report is expected to include even more expansive assaults on Israel for refusing to deny Jews our civil rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

It will likely ratchet up the false claims that have already been made to the effect that Jewish cities, towns, neighborhoods and homes beyond the 1949 armistice lines are illegal and a threat to world peace.

The Quartet statement will also brutalize Israel for lawfully destroying illegal construction projects undertaken by the EU in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. The EU engages in illegal building in order to subvert Israel’s rule of law and enfeeble the IDF.

Around the same time that Obama has scheduled his newest assault on Israel, France is expected to convene a so-called peace conference.

The stated purpose of the conference is to restart the fraudulent peace process which the Palestinians killed nearly 16 years ago and have never agreed to resuscitate.

The novel aspect of the French conference, which neither Israeli nor Palestinian diplomats will attend, is that other than the misleading headlines referring to their powwow as a peace conference, the French are making no effort to hide that the sole purpose of their initiative is to condemn Israel.

The purpose of the conference is to provide diplomatic cover for the French government to recognize a state called Palestine. When then French foreign minister Laurent Fabius announced the conference in January, he said that whether or not the conference leads to peace, France will recognize “Palestine.” And just to be clear, the “Palestine” France intends to recognize will be located in land controlled by Israel and to which Israel has a valid claim of sovereignty.

In the face of the approaching international onslaught, thought leaders and politicians on the Left insist that Israel must act. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they argue, must participate in the Paris conference, and he must announce an initiative now to vacate Judea and Samaria, or to stop allowing Jews to exercise their legal right to build homes in these areas and in Jerusalem.

If Israel takes the initiative, the reasoning goes, the international community will lay off of us.

They will see that we are serious about wanting peace. They will stop believing that we are antipeace.

And they may even notice that the reason there isn’t any peace here is because the Palestinians reject Israel’s right to exist, not because Israel is oppressing them.

There are two basic problems with this approach.

First, it is wrong.

And second, it is counterproductive.

Israel today is in the same position it has been in for at least 16 years, since Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yasser Arafat rejected statehood and peace and launched the largest terrorist war against Israel we had ever seen, under the flag of jihad.

Ever since Arafat walked away from the negotiating table at Camp David where then prime minister Ehud Barak offered him a state on half of Jerusalem, all of Gaza and 92 percent of Judea and Samaria, the position of the international community has been that Israel wasn’t sufficiently generous, not that the Palestinians reject peace.

In 2003, facing growing US pressure, then prime minister Ariel Sharon listened to the voices insisting that Israel would find itself isolated if he didn’t take the initiative.

As then president George W. Bush formed the Quartet and published the most anti-Israel diplomatic document ever to see the light of day in the form of the so-called Roadmap for Peace, Sharon took heed of the same voices that now insist that Netanyahu must preemptively cave to pressure.

Sharon announced that Israel was leaving Gaza and northern Samaria and that to this end, he would forcibly remove 10,000 law abiding citizens from their homes, farms and communities, vacate the international border between Gaza and Egypt and remove every IDF soldier from these areas.

Sharon and his advisers were sure that the international community would be impressed with his boldness. The striped-pants diplomats in Brussels and Washington would finally admit that Israel wasn’t the problem, the Palestinians are.

They would finally lay off of us.

In the event, after spending a news cycle or two joining Sharon and his media flaks in demonizing the peaceful farmers of Gush Katif, the Western media and the leaders of the international community determined unanimously that in light of Israel’s radical initiative, unprecedented in the history of nations, Israel was still “occupying” Gaza.

It was the determination of the Americans, the French, the UN, the Russians, the EU and CNN that Israel continues to bear legal responsibility for the lives of the Gazans. Israel continues to be responsible for feeding them, giving them free electricity, giving them free medical treatment, and protecting them from Hamas terrorists, whom the people of Gaza overwhelmingly elected to rule them 10 years ago.

In light of this experience, it is clear that the claims by the wise men of the Left that Netanyahu must follow in Sharon’s footsteps are utterly wrong and indeed, insane.

By offering up more of its land, all Israel will do is reinforce the false view that there is something legally or morally wrong with Israeli control over its capital city and historical heartland. And that’s the heart of the matter.

It isn’t that Israel cannot use diplomatic initiatives to improve its international position. It’s just that the Left’s view of diplomacy has things precisely backwards.

To strengthen its diplomatic position, Israel has to stop playing this sucker’s game. It has to stop playing the patsy.

The Left is right about one thing: Israel should announce a new diplomatic initiative.

But its initiative should be acquisitive, rather than self-destructive. It should be based on actual rights, not on mythical wrongs.

To this end, Israel should announce that given the Palestinians’ rejection of the rationale of land-for-peace which stands at the root of the long-defunct peace process, and given the absence of any Palestinian constituency that supports the two-state formula under which a Palestinian state will live at peace with the Jewish state, Israel no longer believes it is possible to effectively govern Judea and Samaria through a military government.

As a result, it is enacting a process of gradually applying Israeli law to these areas, to ensure their proper governance under Israel’s liberal legal code. The process will begin in areas not under the direct jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

That is, the new initiative will first be implemented in what is commonly known as Area C.

We can take for granted that such an act by Israel will be universally rejected and condemned by the international community. But at least it will change the narrative.

If Israel takes this initiative, for the first time since 1993 we will be able to stop granting legitimacy to Fatah, the terrorist group that runs the PA.

Last week, even Canada’s Federal Court recognized that Fatah is a terrorist group. And yet, so long as Israel continues to bow and scrape and justify its existence to the French, to the Obama administration, to the UN and the EU, the obvious fact that the Palestinians writ large are the obstacle to peace will remain largely hidden from view.

An Israeli initiative to assert its legal rights to Judea and Samaria is the only way to break the juggernaut of the international lynch mob. The time to act is now.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/OUR-WORLD-Time-for-a-new-Israeli-diplomatic-initiative-453560

5.JPOST EDITORIAL: Amazing era 05/10/2016 21:35

As we prepare to make the abrupt annual shift from memorializing our fallen soldiers to celebrating the independence of the nation for which they gave their lives, it is worthwhile to take a deep breath and acknowledge what an amazing era we live in.
5.“As Israel turns 68, half of world Jewry calls it home,” was this paper’s lead headline Tuesday.

Consider how many truly miraculous facts are packed into that short statement: Not only does a Jewish state exist on the same sliver of land in the Middle East where the story of the Jewish people began four millennia ago, but this state at the age of 68 is thriving to such an extent that it has managed to attract the majority of Jews throughout the world. Israeli soldiers salute as they stand next to graves of fallen soldiers at Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. (photo credit:Reuters)

Consider how many truly miraculous facts are packed into that short statement: Not only does a Jewish state exist on the same sliver of land in the Middle East where the story of the Jewish people began four millennia ago, but this state at the age of 68 is thriving to such an extent that it has managed to attract the majority of Jews throughout the world.

Today, not just refugees seeking shelter from anti-Semitic regimes or crushing poverty make their homes in the Jewish state (although they do as well, as evidenced from the recent rise in immigration to Israel from Ukraine or the arrival of Falash Mura). Contemporary Israel competes with the most advanced Western states in quality of living and opportunities for professional growth, and it is a place for Jews of all types and affiliations to make a home for themselves without feeling self-conscious about their Jewishness.
We take all this for granted. We take it in stride that Israel is overrepresented in the number of patents it produces per capita, or in the number of PhDs, published scientific papers, companies listed on NASDAQ, or start-ups per capita. And we do all this in a Hebrew that would be comprehensible to a character from the Bible.
We also take for granted that we accomplished all this while facing myriad challenges. We fought conventional and unconventional wars against all of our neighbors and an internal war against the Palestinian population. We absorbed a huge immigrant population that included millions from underdeveloped countries. We contain a huge Arab minority that at best does not identify with Israel’s Jewish symbols and character. We faced – and continue to face – societal rifts between religious and secular, Right and Left, Ashkenazi and Sephardi. And all along we somehow manage to maintain a strong and vibrant democratic culture of public debate in which people are free to speak their minds and the most fundamental moral questions facing our society are openly discussed.
These are no small accomplishments. Those of us with a spiritual or religious bent would call what happened here a miracle. At the very least, the wildly successful return of the Jewish people to their historic land is one of the most amazing stories ever. That the Jews are the protagonists of the Bible – the foundational document of the three monotheistic religions that repeatedly mentions the Jews’ return to Israel – makes the story exciting, provocative, a source of jealousy and a theological conundrum for hundreds of millions of Christians and Muslims around the world.
These astounding accomplishments came with a hefty, almost unbearable price. Today, Remembrance Day, we pay honor to the 23,447 casualties of war and terrorism who gave their lives for the cause of ensuring that no Jew would ever be forced to wander rootless, homeless and defenseless.
From anywhere in the world, a Jew can get on a plane and be home in a matter of hours. It was not long ago that such a reality would be unfathomable.
It’s true that Jews in Israel run greater personal risks than their brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. In places such as France, for example, Jews are less likely to be killed by anti-Semitic terrorists than in Israel. But there is something empowering in the knowledge that, as Israeli Jews, we need not rely on the continued largesse of those in power to see our children home safely from school or to protect synagogue- goers on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.
And unlike America, where assimilation endangers Jewish continuity, Israel is the only country in the world where the number of Jews is increasing.
Does 68-year-old Israel have challenges? By all means.
Perhaps the biggest is the unresolved conflict with the Palestinians.
And there are other challenges. Our education system needs a revamping; our business environment is plagued by needless bureaucracy; our productivity is too low; our public transportation system is underdeveloped; housing is too expensive.
Should we strive for improvement? Of course we should.
But as we transition from Remembrance Day to Independence Day, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that we live in an amazing Jewish era.

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The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed deep concern amid reports indicate that President Barack Obama is going to agree to a harsh, anti-Israel line in a Middle East Quartet report regarding “settlements” –– i.e. Jewish communities based in Judea/Samaria.

The Middle East Quartet (which consists of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the U.S.), set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to coordinate and bring about a common U.S./international policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, is intending to produce a report on the subject, to be issued in the last week of May, that is reportedly going to take a harsh and inaccurate anti-Israel line. Israel is working to prevent the report from mentioning future possible steps by the UN Security Council on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

One reason for the report was the Quartet’s decision to respond to the French initiative to call an international peace conference, which had been announced a few weeks earlier, and to ensure that the French did not take over leadership of the process in the international arena. It could also serve as a basis for the next U.S. president’s policies, or at least have a significant influence upon them. The possibility exists that the Report would falsely declare Israeli communities in the territories to be illegal, something which U.S administrations have refused to do, thereby altering U.S. policy accordingly.

The Quartet’s report’s conclusions could be used as a basis for further action by President Barack Obama before he leaves office next January, of whom it has been rumored, is contemplating withholding America’s customary veto in the United Nations Security Council over resolutions targeting Israel and wrongly holding Israel responsible for the lack of peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. The possibility exists that the Report would falsely declare Israeli communities in the territories to be illegal, something which U.S administrations have refused to do, thereby altering U.S. policy accordingly.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “As ZOA has repeatedly stated, it is morally wrong and politically dangerous to assert that Israeli/Palestinian peace is dependent upon Israel discriminating against Israeli Jews, and only Israeli Jews, because they are Israeli Jews, by preventing them from building homes and communities in Judea/Samaria — while the Arabs build in Judea/Samaria at 10 times the rate of the Jews. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas despite Israeli pleas has refused to negotiate with Israel for the last 7 years, even while Israel froze building in Judea/Samaria for 10 months, and during the last 18 months of a defacto freeze.

“(1) In fact, there have been no new Jewish communities built in Judea/Samaria. All new Jewish construction has been within the borders of the communities that were in existence when Oslo began in 1993.

“(2) Jewish communities comprise less than 2% of Judea/Samaria

“(3) Israel has given away to the Palestinian Arabs 40% of Judea/Samaria, where the Arabs have full autonomy outside of security issues.

“(4) Judea/Samaria is not Arab Land. England had legal control of Judea/Samaria from 1917-1947. It offered approximately 1/2 each to the Arabs and Jews of the 22% that was left of the Palestine Mandate to establish 2 states. (The other 78% of “Palestine” was temporarily given to King Abdullah as Transjordan in 1922 then permanently as Jordan in 1946). The Arabs were then offered their own state in 1937, 1947, 2000, 2001, and 2008. They said no each time because it meant accepting a Jewish state, which the Arabs refuse to do no matter what the borders may be. Since the Arabs rejected this offer — refusing to accept land offered them and went to war against Israel, the area of Judea/Samaria and Gaza became unallocated international land.

“(5) After the war, Jordan illegally occupied Judea/Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, while Egypt illegally occupied Gaza. Only 2 countries recognized this illegal occupation as legitimate. The UN never recognized it.

“(6) When Jordan illegally occupied Judea/Samaria and eastern Jerusalem from 1948-67, they never created a Palestinian State, and no Arab leader (except King Hussein a few times) even visited Jerusalem. The 1964 PLO Charter doesn’t even mention Jerusalem.

“(7) When Israel captured Judea/Samaria & Gaza in the defensive 1967 war against Israel, they offered the Arabs Judea/Samaria & Gaza in return for peace. The Arabs said, ‘no recognition, no negotiation, no peace.’ King Hussein relinquished claims to Judea/Samaria in 1988.

“(8) Jews are from Judea. The Arabs are from Arabia.

“(9) The land the Arabs claim does not even have an Arabic name. Its called “Palestine,” named by the Romans after they captured the area from the Jews 2000 years ago. The Romans named it after the Jews enemy, the Philistines. It has never been a sovereign Arab country. Never. Just as Jerusalem has never been the capital of any country except the Jewish state.

“(10) In the movie Exodus, Ari Ben Canaan stated he was a native born Palestinian which the entire world knew meant Jew. The Jewish paper there was the Palestine Post, the first Jewish orchestra was the Palestine Orchestra.

“(11) This is not Arab land. The Jews have a far greater political, historic, religious and legal claim to Judea/Samaria and Jerusalem.

“Jews residing in Judea/Samaria possess a fundamental legitimacy, and further, pose no genuine obstacle to peace — were Palestinians willing to conclude one — which they are not, as we have repeatedly pointed out, citing innumerable polls and other indicators.

“It is absurd to criticize and condemn such things as the mere announcement of an urban construction program in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, or some other major residential neighborhood that, in virtually any kind of peace agreement envisaged, would remain part of Israel.

“The true obstacles to peace are: Palestinian Arab refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state; their horrifying Nazi-like Jew-hatred; their demand for a Jew-free Palestinian state; Palestinian insistence on the nonsensical, Israel-destroying, so-called ‘right of return’; and the continued promotion of the murder and maiming of Jews in every aspect of Palestinian culture.

“President Obama tried in 2011 to have Israel condemned in the Security Council for the “illegitimacy” of Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria –– a legally meaningless and morally vacuous assertion. Had Arab states been willing to agree to this, President Obama would have taken the lead condemning Israel in the UN Security Council. However, at that time, the Arab states, insisted on saying these ‘settlements’ were ‘illegal’ –– a legal baseless assertion, stemming from a deliberately misreading of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention –– and President Obama vetoed the resolution.

“President Obama should immediately clarify that he has no intention of permitting the Quartet report or any subsequent Security Council resolution falsely condemning these Jewish communities as illegal and that the U.S. position has not changed.”

Read more: http://zoa.org/2016/05/10323696-zoa-pres-obama-should-clarify-there-will-not-be-u-s-support-for-quartet-report/#ixzz48IPKFW9D May 4, 2016

10.Arlene Kushner “Finding the Light”

Credit: headingupwards

Tonight at sundown Holocaust Remembrance Day begins. In Israel, it’s Yom Hashoah V’Gevurah – a day for remembering the Holocaust and the heroism. This particular date was selected by the Knesset in 1951 because it marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, a stunning example of heroism.

Especially this year there are reasons why remembering is important, and I will get to them. But for the very same reasons, it is also critical that we seek the light – the good things and the blessings of our lives. Dafka! as we say. And so I have chosen to begin with good news, as is my routine practice.

“According to the InterNations survey’s Family Life Index, in a roundup of the world’s 41 top countries to raise a family in, the best three countries are Austria, Finland, and Sweden. And right behind those wealthy, industrialized European nests of socialized everything and the baskets of goodies from the nanny state, in fourth place, you’ll find a country that’s been fighting for its life for almost 70 years, with a huge security budget, supposedly enormous gaps between rich and poor, and ceaseless ethnic strife — and there, according to the survey’s criteria, is the fourth best place on the planet to raise your children.” Israel. http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/internations-report-israel-fourth-best-place-to-raise-your-children/2016/04/26/

Mentioned were availability of childcare and education, and family well being.

The picture above of nursery school children in the community of Bruchin in the Shomron (Samaria) is part of the slide show on the Legal Grounds website homepage: http://israelrights.com

I once before shared a video, also from Bruchin, but it is so upbeat that it fits the theme of Israel as a good place to live, and so I gladly share it again: http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/just-like-the-bible-says-the-jewish-people-are-bringing-israel-back-to-life/ That, from the ashes of the Shoah, we now have communities such as Bruchin in a strong and vibrant Israel is nothing short of a miracle – if only we take the time to see it.

On Monday, I attended a class that is part of the Legal Grounds pilot law course named in memory of Salomon Benzimra z”l. We are very pleased at the progress of the classes – which provide important information about our rights in the land. (Write to me if you would like to know more.) This class was taught by Prof. Eugene Kontorovich.  Credit: thetower

Eugene has been moving in a direction that is brilliant. He has done a carefully researched survey of how the world approaches situations that are akin to the Israeli situation, with regard to “occupation,” “settlements” and the like, and how these situations are addressed by the international community. International law, after all, applies to various nations in the same situation – or at least it should.

He offered a good deal of valuable information in the course of his lecture. But I want to leave you here with one thought, which rather encapsulates our situation:

When nations, entities and international bodies criticize Israel, they very frequently rely upon the charge that Israel is not acting in accordance with “international law.” This tends to shut down argument. International law? The standard by which other nations are required to function? Well…surely Israel should be required to act the same way.

What he has discovered, however, is just the reverse of what should have been expected. While Israel is charged with failing to adhere to “international law,” it turns out that other nations that are in similar situations are not accused of breaking “international law.” For example, the term “illegal settlements” – a clear pejorative – is applied almost exclusively to building Israel does and not to that of other nations, even when those nations have taken over territory that is not theirs and have actively encouraged their nationals to settle there.

So we can forget international “law” – a highly dubious construct. What we see is international “bias.” That bias has always been with us, but there is an enormous and alarming burgeoning of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in certain parts of the western world now. This connects directly to issues of the Shoah & I want to consider several facets of what is going on. Anti-Semitism is the oldest and most persistent of hatreds. While it seemed to diminish significantly in the decades after the Holocaust, it never went away. Rather, it was suppressed: it was not considered good form to express Jew-hatred publicly after six million Jews had been horrendously murdered. But now that hatred has bubbled to the surface again and is considered quite acceptable in certain circles. Accompanying the public rise of this hatred is, of course, an increase in violence against Jews.

This situation is most critical in Europe, which has had a strong proclivity for anti-Semitism over the centuries. We’ve seen, in various parts of Europe at various times, expulsions, forced conversions, pogroms, blood libels, the inquisition, and the Holocaust.

Where we once associated anti-Semitism with the far right, which is perceived as fascist, it now also exists openly on the Left. Nowhere is this being exhibited more blatantly than in the British Labor party.

The list of anti-Semitic statements by members of Labor, too extensive to include in its entirety here, has been documented by The Telegraph (UK). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/30/pressure-grows-on-jeremy-corbyn-as-dossier-of-anti-semitism-in-l/

The anti-Semitic sentiments expressed by some officials and prominent members of Labor have precipitated their suspension from the party. Chief among those suspended is Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London, who said Hitler supported Zionism. While Ilyas Aziz was suspended for Facebook posts that said Israel should be moved to the US, and included an illustration suggesting that Israelis drank the blood of Gazans.

Jeremy Corbyn, from the far left of the party, assumed the mantle of leader both of the Labor Party and of the Opposition as the result of elections last September.

Credit: Huffingtonpost

While he publicly decries anti-Semitism in his party, and has, under pressure, appointed an independent panel to investigate, he is in fact far from clean on the issue himself.

“In a particularly disturbing reflection of attitudes on the Labor Left, Mr Corbyn is accused of having given his support to a controversial mural in Tower Hamlets of stereotypical Jewish figures counting money at a Monopoly-style board resting on the backs of the poor…“It was criticized as anti-Semitic even by the east London borough’s then mayor Luftur Rahman, who has himself been linked to extremists.

“Following complaints, Mr Rahman ordered the artwork to be removed, saying: ‘Whether intentional or otherwise, the images of the bankers perpetuate anti-Semitic propaganda about conspiratorial Jewish domination of financial and political institutions.’

“But Mr Corbyn questioned its removal.”

Credit; TheTribune

Corbyn also has close personal ties with questionable persons, such as Livingstone.

Sir Eric Pickles, the British government’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, said, when questioned by The Telegraph: “Jeremy Corbyn has legitimized and unleashed a strain of anti-Semitism that has been lurking in the shadows of the Left for quite some time.”

(Emphasis added)

While British commentator Douglas Murray (pictured) writes, about Corbyn (emphasis added):

“He is a man who has spent his political life cozying up to anti-Semites and terrorist groups that express genocidal intent against the Jewish people. He has worked closely with Holocaust deniers, praised anti-Semitic extremists and described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends.” (Hamas calls its ties to Corbyn “a painful hit for the Zionists.”)

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7937/uk-labour-antisemitism

In response to current Labor positions, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) observed:

”I don’t want to say this was expected, because it’s shocking how immoral these stances are. But it’s a clear example of radical Islam’s penetration in Europe, and France and the UK are among the clearest examples of it.”

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Erdan-Labor-a-shocking-example-of-radical-Islams-influence-in-Europe-452872

And, indeed, this is precisely to the point. The greater the influx of radical Islamists into Europe, the more virulently anti-Jewish will the positions of some European politicians be.

See this, from the Atlantic: “But what makes this new era of anti-Semitic violence in Europe different from previous ones is that traditional Western patterns of anti-Semitic thought have now merged with a potent strain of Muslim Judeophobia. Violence against Jews in Western Europe today, according to those who track it, appears to come mainly from Muslims, who in France, the epicenter of Europe’s Jewish crisis, outnumber Jews 10 to 1.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/

Richard Kemp and Jasper Reid, writing in Gatestone, pull no punches:

Citing British Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan – who says (emphasis added), “Anti-Semitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace“ – they arrive at a dire conclusion:

“The consequences of Western politicians’ continued weakness and appeasement are far greater than encouraging anti-Semitism and undermining the State of Israel. It is the fatal and irreversible descent of their own countries.” (Emphasis added)

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7963/britain-anti-semitism

It is fairly obvious from what I’ve written above, but I want to make it explicit: Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism most certainly still exists, but in many cases anti-Zionism replaces it or is conflated with it. While fair and honest criticism of Israel is remains legitimate, what we are seeing is a virulent hatred of Israel aimed at shutting down the Jewish state. This, in the end, is what the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement is all about.

By way of example – and examples are legion: The former mayor of Blackburn, in Britain, now a Labor councilor for the city, Salim Mulla, has declared that “Zionist Jews are a disgrace to humanity.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/211644#.Vyii1Xlf3IU

It is Europe that is on the edge at this point, because of that lethal mix of traditional anti-Semitism and Muslim Jew-hatred.

But I want to caution that Americans best not be too complacent about what is happening across the sea. America has neither the long-standing tradition of virulent anti-Semitism that Europe does, nor an influx of Islamists in the percentage that Europe is coping with (although this may be coming).

However, America, in point of fact, is only a few steps behind.

Dennis Prager, writing in “A Dark Time in America,” says:

“…at no other time has there been as much pessimism — valid pessimism, moreover — about America’s future as there is today…

“Every distinctive value on which America was founded is in jeopardy.” (Emphasis added)

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0516/prager050316.php3

“According to the hate crime statistics kept by the FBI, Jews are the primary victims of religious hate crimes. More than 50% of all hate crimes (57% in 2014) are committed against them. For a point of comparison, anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2014 were 16%.

“If you include other groupings by ethnicity, race, or sexuality, Jewish people are still at the top. They are more than three times more likely to be the victim of a hate crime than any other group.”

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2016/02/opinion-huffington-hated-groups.html

This, my friends, is in America. In 2014, anti-Semitic attacks increased by 21%.

Most alarming of all is what goes on at many prominent US campuses, where liberal values are shot to hell, and Jews and those who support Israel are intimidated.

In the academic year 2014-15, ADL reported a 38% increase in anti-Israel activities on campuses.

Following a coast-to-coast tour of American campuses, Peretz Lavie, president of the Technion in Haifa, wrote, in “’Eviction notice’ for Israel on US campuses” (emphasis added):

“What began several years ago as a local initiative in a few universities has turned into a poisonous, organized and well-funded campaign with clear goals – isolating and boycotting Israel in general and the Israeli academia in particular…

“…incidents include protests, mock ‘checkpoints’ and ‘apartheid walls,’ and even ‘eviction notices’ slid under the doors of Jewish and Israeli students.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4606400,00.html

You might want to see this well-known video from 2010 of David Horowitz, of the Horowitz Freedom Center, at the University of California, San Diego, confronting a student supporter of Hamas, during the question session after he spoke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fSvyv0urTE

And remember, this was six years ago.

Liberal pro-Israel Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz made quite a stir in January in a TV interview, when he spoke about the rampant demands for political correctness on college campuses.

University students, he lamented, have become “afraid of ideas” and have taken on a low tolerance for viewpoints that stand in opposition to their own.

Students, he observed, tend to display selective attitudes for which ideas are tolerated enough to have “safe spaces.”

“I know when I speak on college campuses in favor of Israel, I need armed guards protecting me from radical leftist students who would use physical intimidation. They won’t give me a safe space. They won’t give pro-Israel students a safe space…”

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/alan-dershowitz-rips-college-pc-culture-i-need-armed-guards-when-i-talk-about-israel/

There is little more to say. The notion that Dershowitz should require police protection in order to defend Israel on American college campuses should send chills up & down your spine.

This, then, is my Yom Hashoah posting. What I have written here is intrinsically tied to what went on over 70 years ago, and the message today is that we must genuinely learn from what happened then. “Never again!” is a facile cry unless there is commitment behind it.

Wake up! Wake up! Open your eyes and act with determination, before it is too late.

In Europe, it likely is too late already. America still has time.

If there is one overwhelmingly significant difference between the Shoah and the current situation, it is the existence of a vibrant and strong sovereign Jewish state. Israel provides refuge to Jews at risk and reaches out into the world to lend support as it is possible.

Conversely, Israel hopes for the support of every fair-thinking and honorable individual. Support in the public sphere, when Israel is maligned and attacked and there are attempts made to isolate her. And support on college and university campuses, so that pro-Israel voices might be heard again without fear.

Israel, with her struggles, is a beacon of light in a world growing dark. The future of the Jewish people.

Think about this: If US university students have their minds poisoned by anti-Israel vitriol today, then US leadership twenty years from now will be very, very problematic with regard to positions on Israel.

A video of an Israeli Air Force fly-over at Auschwitz in 2003:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1FHvsuMzAc

And Hatikvah – The Hope. Our national anthem, which, I’ve been told, was sung in Auschwitz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWcAIHFawc

As long as deep within the heart
A Jewish soul stirs,
And forward, to the ends of the East
An eye looks out, towards Zion.
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

Credit: vfntv1

© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution. If it is reproduced and emphasis is added, the fact that it has been added must be noted. See my website at www.arlenefromisrael.info Contact Arlene at akushner18@gmail.com

11.The Arabs’ Real Grievance against the Jews by Fred Maroun
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7953/arabs-jews May 7, 2016 at 5:00 am

As Arabs, we are very adept at demanding that our human rights be respected, at least when we live in liberal democracies such as in North America, Europe, and Israel. But what about when it comes to our respecting the human rights of others, particularly Jews?

When we examine our attitude towards Jews, both historically and at present, we realize that it is centered on denying Jews the most fundamental human right, the right without which no other human right is relevant: the right to exist.

The right to exist in the Middle East before 1948

Anti-Zionists often repeat the claim that before modern Israel, Jews were able to live in peace in the Middle East, and that it is the establishment of the State of Israel that created Arab hostility towards Jews. That is a lie.

Before modern Israel, as the historian Martin Gilbert wrote, “Jews held the inferior status of dhimmi, which, despite giving them protection to worship according to their own faith, subjected them to many vexatious and humiliating restrictions in their daily lives.” As another historian, G.E. von Grunebaum, wrote, Jews in the Middle East faced “a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.”

The right to exist as an independent state

Zionism stemmed from the need for Jews to be masters of their own fate; no longer to be the victims of discrimination or massacres simply for being Jews. This project was accepted and formally recognized by the British, who had been granted a mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations. The Arab world, however, never accepted the recognition formulated by Britain in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and it never accepted the partition plan approved by the United Nations in 1947, which recognized the right of the Jews to their own state.

The Arab refusal to accept the Jewish state’s right to exist, a right that carries more international legal weight than almost any other country’s right to exist, resulted in several wars, starting with the war of independence in 1948-1949. The Arab world still does not today accept the concept of a Jewish state of any size or any shape. Even Egypt and Jordan, which signed peace agreements with Israel, do not accept that Israel is a Jewish state, and they continue to promote anti-Semitic hatred against Israel.

The right to exist in Gaza, the West Bank & East Jerusalem

In 2005, Israel evacuated all its troops and all Jewish inhabitants from Gaza, in the hope that this would bring peace at least on that front, and to allow the Gaza Strip, vacated by Jews, to be a flourishing Arab Riviera, or a second Singapore, and perhaps to serve as a model for the West Bank. The experiment failed miserably. This is a case where Jews willingly gave up their right to exist on a piece of land, but sadly the Palestinians of Gaza took it not as opportunity for peace, but as a sign that if you keep on shooting at Jews, they leave — so let’s keep on shooting.

There are many opinions among Zionists as to what to do about the West Bank. These opinions range from a total unilateral withdrawal as in Gaza, to a full annexation, with many options in between. At the moment, the status quo prevails, with no specific plans for the future.

Everyone, however, despite the treacherous UNESCO’s rewriting of history, knows that before that piece of land was called the West Bank, it was called Judea and Samaria for more than two thousand years.

Everyone knows that Hebron contains the traditional burial site of the biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs, within the Cave of the Patriarchs, and it is considered the second-holiest site in Judaism. Every reasonable person knows that Jews should unquestionably have the right to exist on that land, even if it is under Arab or Muslim jurisdiction. Yet everyone also knows that no Arab regime is capable or even willing to protect the safety of Jews living under its jurisdiction from the anti-Semitic hatred that emanates from the Arab world.

East Jerusalem, which was carved away by the Kingdom of Jordan from the rest of Jerusalem during the war of independence, is part of Jerusalem, and contains the Temple Mount, the Jews’ holiest site. The Old City in East Jerusalem was inhabited by Jews up until they were ethnically cleansed by Jordan in the war of 1948-1949.

In May 1948, the Jordanian Arab Legion expelled all of the approximately 2000 Jews who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem, and then turned the Jewish Quarter into rubble.

Although Israel has twice in the past, first under Prime Minister Ehud Barak then under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, offered East Jerusalem as part of a Palestinian state, that offer is not likely to be made again. Jews know that it would mean a new wave of ethnic cleansing, which would deny the Jewish right to exist on the piece of land where that right is more important than anywhere else.

The right to exist in the Middle East now

During Israel’s War of Independence, Jews were ethnically cleansed from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and in the years that followed, they were ethnically cleansed from the rest of the Arab world.

Today, Israel’s enemies, many of them Arab, are challenging its right to exist, and therefore the right of Jews to exist, on two fronts: threats of nuclear annihilation and annihilation through demographic suffocation.

Iran’s Islamist regime has repeated several times its intention to destroy Israel using nuclear weapons. Just in case Iran is not “successful,” the so-called “pro-Palestinian” movement, including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, has a different plan to destroy the Jewish state: a single state with the “return” of all the descendants of Palestinian refugees. The refusal of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat to accept any two-state solution presented to them is part of that plan.

The right to exist elsewhere

Anti-Zionists claim that Jews are imperialists in the Middle East, as were the British and the French, and like them, they should leave and go back to where they belong. This analogy is of course not true: Jews have an even longer history in the Middle East than do Muslims or Arabs.

Do Jews belong in Europe, which tried only a few decades ago to kill every Jew, man, woman, or child? Do Jews belong in North America where until a few hundred years ago, there were no Europeans, only Indians?

Saying that Jews “belong” in such places is not reality; it is just a convenient claim for anti-Zionists to make.

The Jews will not give up

As Arabs, we complain because Palestinians feel humiliated going through Israeli checkpoints. We complain because Israel is building in the West Bank without Palestinian permission, and we complain because Israel dares to defend itself against Palestinian terrorists. But how many of us have stopped to consider how this situation came to be? How many of us have the courage to admit that waging war after war against the Jews in order to deny them the right to exist, and refusing every reasonable solution to the conflict, has led to the current situation?

Our message to Jews, throughout history and particularly when they had the temerity to want to govern themselves, has been clear: we cannot tolerate your very existence.

Yet the Jews demand the right to exist and to exist as equals on the land where they have existed and belonged continuously for more than three thousand years.

In addition, denying a people the right to exist is a crime of unimaginable proportions. We Arabs pretend that our lack of respect for the right of Jews to exist is not the cause of the conflict between the Jews and us. We would rather claim that the conflict is about “occupation” and “settlements”. They see what radical Islamists are now doing to Christians and other minorities, who were also in the Middle East for thousands of years before the Muslim Prophet Mohammed was even born: Yazidis, Kurds, Christians, Copts, Assyrians, Arameans, and many others. Where are these indigenous people of Iraq, Syria and Egypt now? Are they living freely or are they being persecuted, run out of their own historical land, slaughtered by Islamists? Jews know that this is what would have happened to them if they did not have their own state.

The real Arab grievance against the Jews is that they exist. We want the Jews either to disappear or be subservient to our whims, but the Jews refuse to bend to our bigotry, and they refuse to be swayed by our threats and our slander.

Who in his right mind can blame them?