The reality that Zionism is perhaps the ultimate root and repository of human rights - by Douglas Altabef

...Human rights is not the monopoly of the Left, nor of any other ideology. In a Zionist state, human rights concerns should be focused on those who have thrown in their lot with the Zionist mission: to normalize, protect and cherish the welfare of Jews, all Jews; and to be gracious, tolerant and respectful to those non-Jews who see in Zionism their own greatest opportunity for dignity and fulfillment.

Douglas Altabef..
Israel Hayom..
17 December '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/zionisms-embrace-of-human-rights/?redirected=326451

Human rights have appropriately been prioritized by many nongovernmental organizations, charities and movements seeking to elevate and ameliorate the condition of oppressed people.

That's the good news. The bad news is that human rights, as practiced by so-called HROs – human rights organizations – have become a conversation stopper. They are both a sword and a shield wielded by those whose political actions have often been rationalized or justified as being waged on behalf of certain beleaguered groups; as such, their actions are beyond reproach or analysis, not to mention criticism.

Inevitably, this has led to a prioritization of woe and distress. Who has it worse, who is more deserving of our pity and help?

When I was a child in the U.S., I remember watching a show called "Queen for a Day" in which a parade of housewives vied for having the most pathetic story. There was an applause meter based on the individual's plight, and of course a raft of prizes awarded to the one who tugged most at our heartstrings.

The Left's use of the cudgel of human rights is "Queen for a Day" writ large. It's also rather cynical, as one senses that victims are being used to further a political goal. In Israel, those goals inevitably seem to involve usurping the authority of the state and the government.

Yes, they would say all lives are important, at least in theory; however, in reality, some need to be protected more than others.

In practice, this leads to the fracturing identity politics gripping the U.S., whereby certain groups "matter," and are thereby deserving, while certain groups are "privileged," part of the repressive majority, and therefore have no standing, no vote, no voice.

The hypocrisy of this perspective is fully visible in Israel, as an industry of far-left NGOs sanctimoniously vilify and slander the only democracy in the Middle East all in the name of human rights.

Real Coexistence: The Israeli Hospital Experience - by Varda Meyers Epstein

It’s just the way it is. And so I look around me in the hospital and murmur quietly to my husband, “Apartheid,” and he laughs.

Varda Meyers Epstein..
Judean Rose/Elder of Ziyon..
27 June '18..

If you want to experience the real Israel, go to the hospital. It’s where you’ll meet all kinds of Israelis, and hear all kinds of Hebrew. But you’ll also hear lots and lots of Arabic, and see and interact with lots of Arab people.

Now it’s easy to stay in an Anglo bubble in Israel. You do it by living in neighborhoods that are mostly inhabited by those from English-speaking countries. Lots of people do it, including this writer. It makes it so much easier to be with people who have the same Western mindset. Living in the bubble also translates to local stores that cater to you and carry the products you remember from the Old Country. Things like Ocean Spray cranberry sauce and real maple syrup. If you like those sorts of things.

Live here long enough, however, and you’ll God forbid be forced to seek medical care. That means stepping outside that comfortable bubble and getting along with others. And since Israel is a melting pot, “others” means people from Russia, Ethiopia, Argentina, Morocco, Yemen, France, and so many other countries.

Not everyone speaks the universal language of English, of course, and not everyone speaks Hebrew, if it comes right down to it. As a result, just about everyone speaks sign language. Not the official kind of sign language for the deaf community, but the kind of sign language people resort to in the desperation of needing to be understood where there is no common language.

The real shock for the uninitiated, however, is that Israeli hospitals are full of Arabs. I can’t give you the breakdown for the percent of Arabs treated in Israeli hospitals. According to Elder of Ziyon, however, over 100,000 Palestinian Authority Arabs were treated in Israeli hospitals in 2015. The non-Israeli patient load at Safra Children’s Hospital of Tel HaShomer Sheba’s pediatric oncology ward is at times 75% of the total ward population, while Ichilov Hospital’s pediatric oncology ward patients are 90% non-Israeli, meaning the patients are largely foreigners and PA residents.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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It may be a dangerous and difficult neighborhood but have you seen my neighbors?

...These are our neighbors, our husbands, fathers, brothers and sisters but even this is a very incomplete image. The protectors of Israel, our heroes are most often, everyday people. They are the grey people you would never look twice at. They are not necessarily men, or strong, or even Jewish. Israel does not divide by religion, race or gender but by values. By people who stand for what is right and people who do not.

Stranger shields father and newborn
with his own body
(Operation Protective Edge 2014)

Forest Rain..
Inspiration from Zion..
First Posted 25 October '15..

There is a parable that says:

When God created the world he decided that Israel would be the land of the chosen people, the land of the Jews. The angels approached God, saying: “You are giving the Jews a land flowing with milk and honey in the heart of the world. Don’t you think it will make the other nations of the earth feel you are playing favorites?”

And God answered: “Yes, that is true… But have you seen the neighborhood?”

In reality, Israel was not “flowing with milk and honey” until Israelis made it so. We were not blessed with a land rich in any of what would normally be considered natural resources. What we have are human resources, the creativity and the drive to make something out of nothing. To solve problems and improve the world, for ourselves and for others.

On the other hand our “neighborhood” could easily be considered awful. We are surround by hostile countries. Blessed with similar (and often better) resources than Israel, our neighbors not only strive to destroy us but do very little to improve life for their own people. Continuing the neighborhood allegory, it is like living in a gang-riddled neighborhood where the neighbors not only break in to your home to steal your things (and possibly rape or murder your family on the way), they also leave their own homes to rot, neglecting their own children so that they too become criminals and even murderers.

It would be easy to look at Israel and conclude that this is a land of opportunity, of beauty and miracles plagued with the violence of the terrible neighborhood we are living in. Watching wave after wave of terror attack batter the people of Israel, it would be easy to think that this is a frightening place to live, that anyone in their right mind would do everything possible to escape the danger.

You could… however that would be missing the important point entirely.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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In the context of the ongoing war on the Jewish state - by Jonathan Tobin

...In a conflict in which Palestinian leaders and official media not only preach hate for Jews but honor those who act on their urgings as heroes, is it any surprise that most Israelis have little sympathy for those, like al-Sharif, whose only goal was to kill any Jew he met? Nor can we be shocked that parents of other young soldiers identify with the mental anguish of a teenager who has just seen one of his friends bleeding after a terrorist attack. Israel is a country where their enemies mark its entire people for murder. If some see the death of one of those foes—even if it was the result of a blatantly illegal act—as less grievous than the possibility that a young man who was serving his country will have his life ruined for acting impulsively, that just shows they are human and justifiably angry about the violence that is directed at their children.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
04 January '17..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/not-a-simple-case-of-manslaughter-elor-azaria/

The trial and today’s conviction of Israeli soldier Elor Azaria is being celebrated by some as an example of how Israel’s justice system has vindicated the honor of the nation. That’s true. Sergeant Azaria was convicted of killing a terrorist who had already been captured and disabled. A video of the shooting appears to prove Azaria is guilty of manslaughter and the court rejected the attempts of his defenders to claim that his actions were appropriate or an effort to save his comrades from a danger that not longer existed.

And yet it must be said that, contrary to the arguments of Israel’s critics, a wave of support inside Israel for the defendant among the general public and many politicians is not an indication that 50 years of “occupation” has destroyed the country’s moral compass. If, despite the evidence that compelled the court to convict Azaria, so many Israelis on both the right and the left view this as more than a simple case of manslaughter, it is not because they are immoral or indifferent to Arab suffering. Rather, it is because the context of this controversy is a brutal war in which Israel’s youth is placed in harm’s way by their country’s foes; not an ordinary criminal case.

Actually, Palestinians Hate Blue Israel Too - by Jonathan Tobin

...Whether or not they like Netanyahu, a clear majority know that Palestinians have repeatedly rejected peace and still have a conception of national identity that makes peace impossible for the present. Israeli society is split along religious, economic, security, and political fault lines. But when placed in the context of Palestinian hate, international anti-Semitism and Obama’s betrayal, the cultural divide between right and left is not quite as great as Israel’s critics would have us believe.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
03 January '17..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/palestinians-hate-blue-israel-too/

For the mainstream media, explaining Israeli politics is difficult work. A country where the poor and disenfranchised immigrants from the Middle East have traditionally supported the party of the right (Likud) while the wealthy and the upper middle-class of largely European origin are the last strongholds of the political left does not translate easily into American political context. In the United States, political culture is rooted in very different concerns than those of the average Israeli, where security issues and attitudes toward the Arab world still dominate. The temptation to make flawed analogies, it seems, is still irresistible. That led to the New York Times’s attempt to ascribe reactions in Israel to Secretary of State John Kerry’s astonishing attack on the Jewish state last week to a divide between “red state” and “blue state” Israeli voters. The piece not only failed to effectively analyze the Israeli response to the Obama administration but also the reason why the Middle East conflict hasn’t been solved.

New Times Jerusalem bureau chief Peter Baker isn’t entirely wrong when he says that there is a stark divide between left and right in Israel. For some who live in secular and liberal Tel Aviv, what goes in Jerusalem and even along the border with Gaza–let alone West Bank settlements–has sometimes been of little interest. I can recall conversing with Tel Aviv residents about a visit to Sderot in the south eight years ago, which at the time was besieged by Palestinian missile fire, in which they reacted as if I was speaking of what was happening in Afghanistan. The disconnect between the minority who blame their own country for the lack of peace and the majority who correctly see the problem as the function of Palestinian intransigence is great, even if Hamas’s 2014 missile attacks on the secular metropolis erased some of the left’s complacency.

Yet the left-wing establishment that once dominated Israeli politics and society was effectively marginalized by the collapse of the peace process in the carnage of the second intifada. In the wake of the Palestinians’ refusal of an offer of statehood from the last Labor-led government in 2000, the even split between left and right that had characterized Israeli politics since the 1970s was transformed into a new reality in which power rested with a dominant right and an ever-changing roster of centrist parties. The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now serving his third consecutive term in power and that the only viable alternative comes from Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid Party speaks volumes about how little influence leftist organs like Haaretz have, even as it continues to support attacks on the Jewish state from foreign critics like Kerry.

Now things will have to be different? Don’t worry, it will be OK. - by Vic Rosenthal

...It’s hard to change deeply embedded cultural attitudes, and the Israeli attitude is to distrust rules and regulations and improvise as the situation demands. As I have been told countless times in this country, “don’t worry, it will be OK.” But not everything can be flown by the seat of your pants or fixed in the field with duct tape. The air force learned this a long time ago, and the army learned it from the Second Lebanon War. Maybe it’s time the construction industry learned it too.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
09 September '16..

On Monday morning, an underground parking lot being constructed in Tel Aviv collapsed into itself, killing at least three workers and injuring some 20-odd others. As I write (Wednesday) there are still several workers unaccounted for, probably buried underneath piles of concrete and steel.

Since the collapse, literally hundreds of rescuers – Homefront Command soldiers, firefighters, MDA and Hatzalah workers, special rescue teams with dogs and high-tech equipment to seek weak signals from mobile phones, and others have been working nonstop to try to get to the remaining trapped workers. Some have been pulled out of the rubble, but as time passes it becomes less likely that they will come out alive. Rescue workers say they will not stop until everyone is accounted for. The Prime Minister and the IDF Chief of Staff have visited the scene.

Most construction workers in Israel are Arabs – Israeli citizens or from the territories – or foreign workers. One still missing is Mohammad Dawabshe, a member of the extended family from Duma in Samaria that was a victim of a murderous arson that has been controversially blamed on Jewish extremists.

So what can we say about this?

I don’t mind saying that Israelis care about human life, including non-Jewish human life. You might not believe this if you get your knowledge about us from the subversive, lying Ha’aretz newspaper or the biased foreign press, but they do.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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A symbol of the responsibility each one of us carries to make Israeli society better

...The cease-fire that took effect at the end of August led the way back to welcome routine. Tens of thousands of reservists returned home and the residents of the south also came back to their kibbutzim, their moshavim, and their towns. At the same time, Israelis started to take down their flags, fold them, and put them away. But why?

Itai Zilber..
Israel Hayom..
17 September '14..

The days of Operation Protective Edge brought out a sense of patriotism in most of us, and it seemed to be everywhere. Many citizens hung the flags they usually keep stored away for Independence Day from their balconies so that passersby would know that the people inside were "proud Israelis."

Local authorities hung the national flag along their communities' main streets and businesses added blue Stars of David to their ads to leave no doubt about their patriotism. Flags even poked out of cars, reminding us all that we are proud Israelis, even when we're stuck in traffic jams on the road to Jerusalem in the summer heat.

An Israeli flag waving in the wind was the symbol of an impressive -- some would say unusual -- rally in which one group of citizens showed solidarity with another. There is no Israeli who didn't encounter a project to collect underwear or socks for the soldiers at the front. Tons of supplies were loaded onto trucks and sent south. It seemed that even the soldiers didn't believe their eyes when they saw how much equipment had been donated.

But the solidarity wasn't just with the soldiers, it was with civilian society. Bed and breakfasts in northern Israel provided free accommodation to southerners looking for a break. Residents opened their homes to passersby looking for shelter during a siren, summer camps throughout the country held activities for kids from the besieged south so they could enjoy a bit of summer vacation, and residents of all parts of the nation chose to do their weekend shopping in stores in southern Israel to do their part to help the financial hardship.

And there were a few moments, little ones, that actually encompassed all that is "Israeli" -- tens of thousands of Israelis attended the funerals of two lone soldiers who fell in battle. News broadcasts showed the pictures from the cemeteries and deep inside, we all knew that this was Israeli-ness at its best.

The cease-fire that took effect at the end of August led the way back to welcome routine. Tens of thousands of reservists returned home and the residents of the south also came back to their kibbutzim, their moshavim, and their towns. At the same time, Israelis started to take down their flags, fold them, and put them away.

Sorry if Israel is a bit more complicated multifaceted country than you thought

...One can practically hear the outrage in his voice: How dare those Israelis elect legislators who care about the same issues American voters do–jobs, cost of living, education, crime, etc.–rather than exclusively about the peace process? The fact that Israelis actually have to live in their country–and therefore must care about those issues, which are vital to any country’s well-being–appears to have escaped him entirely.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
11 September '13..

One of the most pernicious and lasting effects of the Oslo Accords, whose 20th anniversary will be marked this Friday, was to warp the prism through which most non-Israelis view Israel: From a country with the same broad spectrum of concerns as all other countries, it became, in the world’s eyes, a single-issue country, where nothing but the “peace process” could possibly matter. This attitude is epitomized by a 1998 conversation between President Bill Clinton and his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, whose transcript was published in Haaretz two weeks ago. Though the main topic was an impending military operation in Iraq, Clinton also briefed Mubarak on the peace process:

I think the Israeli public is coming along [in regard to the Oslo process]. The problem is, when they have elections there, Israeli society is becoming more complicated, and a lot of people get elected to the Knesset for reasons that don’t have much to do with the peace process. Then we have trouble getting a solid majority to do the right thing.”

One can practically hear the outrage in his voice: How dare those Israelis elect legislators who care about the same issues American voters do–jobs, cost of living, education, crime, etc.–rather than exclusively about the peace process? The fact that Israelis actually have to live in their country–and therefore must care about those issues, which are vital to any country’s well-being–appears to have escaped him entirely.

Having presided over Oslo’s signing, Clinton was perhaps uniquely invested in the Oslo process. Yet his attitude is far from unique. After Israel’s new government took office in March, for instance, a Hungarian journalist called me with a burning question: How could Yair Lapid’s center-left Yesh Atid party possibly sit in the same government as Naftali Bennett’s right-of-center Bayit Yehudi? I explained that despite their differences on the peace process, Lapid and Bennett have similar views on many domestic issues, and since the peace process had at that point been frozen for four years and showed no signs of thawing, the election was mainly about Israel’s many serious domestic problems. To which he replied, “But how can they sit together when they disagree about the peace process?” After several iterations of this, we both gave up in despair.

Glick - Is Israeli society unraveling?

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com..
02 January '12..



On balance, Israeli society is extremely healthy.

Unemployment is at record lows. At a time of global recession, the Israeli economy is growing steadily.

Israeli Jewish women have the highest fertility rate in the Western world with an average of three children per woman. Education levels have risen dramatically across the board over the past decade with dozens of private colleges opening their doors to more and more sectors of the population.

Israel's diverse Jewish population is becoming more integrated. Sephardic and Ashkenazi intermarriage has long been a norm. Secular Jews are becoming more religious. A new educational trend that received significant media attention in recent months involves secular parents who send their children to national religious schools to ensure that they receive strong educational grounding in Judaism.

And as secular Jews become more religious, both the national religious and ultra-Orthodox sectors are becoming increasingly integrated in nonreligious neighborhoods and institutions. Ultra-Orthodox conscription rates have increased seven-fold in the past four years. In 2010, 50 percent of ultra-Orthodox male high school graduates were conscripted.

The IDF assesses that by 2015, the rate of conscription will rise to 65%.

While this is still below the general conscription rate of 75% among male 18-year-olds, the rapid rise in ultra-Orthodox military service is a revolutionary development for the sector.

With military service comes entrée to the job market. The trail towards employment integration was blazed by ultra-Orthodox women. Over the past decade, ultra-Orthodox women have matriculated en masse in vocational schools that have trained them in hi-tech and other marketable professions and so enabled them to raise their families out of poverty.

These ultra-Orthodox women, who are now being followed by their IDF veteran husbands, are part of a general trend that has seen women fully integrated in almost every sector of society and the economy. The fact that women make up the senior leadership echelons in both business and government is not a fluke. Rather it is a product of the largely egalitarian nature of Israeli society.

Nadra’s rights be damned

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
22 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

To protect her we’ll call her Nadra.

She hails from a large Sharon-region Arab town and used to be as modern, fashion-conscious and hip as my daughter. The two met while working in one of the nearby shopping malls. It was a few years ago. Nadra always did the Saturday shifts because, as a Muslim, she saved the employer legal headaches. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement and Nadra was paid double-time.

We knew her in jeans, cute tank-tops and assorted eye-catching coiffeurs.

Over time Nadra opened up to my daughter and revealed that her parents, ostensibly not traditional and certainly not Islamic zealots, had found a prospective husband for her in Jordan and were planning to marry her off there.

Nadra was beside herself. She didn’t want to go because “when I leave my town, I’m a free human being in Israel.

My life in Jordan would be nothing like it is here. I’d have to change all my habits, my appearance and become meek and obedient. I would die inside.”

Eventually both girls meandered elsewhere.

One day, as we left the supermarket, someone called our names. It was Nadra. We barely recognized her.

Despite the July swelter and stifling humidity, Nadra was swathed in a hijab, the scarf that envelopes Muslim women’s heads – ears included – tightly wraps their necks and reaches down to the shoulders.

Nadra brought us up to speed. She avoided the Jordanian match and convinced her parents to agree to the boy next door, hardly a religious sort and as free a spirit then as she was. It started out well.

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