The Folly of Humanitarian Aid 

Posted on May 30, 2025 | Comments Off on The Folly of Humanitarian Aid 

   (First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

We seem to be falling again into the same traps and repeating the mistakes of the past expecting a different outcome in the future. It is bad enough that any portion of this aid will be seized by Hamas, and even worse that it sustains a hostile population. Not only has there not been a single person from among these “innocent” civilians who has acted upon Israel’s offer of $5,000,000 plus free passage anywhere in the world in exchange for information leading to the liberation of even one hostage; but also, Hamas’ terrorist ranks have been steadily replenished from these same “innocent” civilians. Tens of thousands of terrorists have been killed but reportedly have been steadily replaced.

What do we gain by strengthening the enemy but the prolongation of the war? After all, breaking the will of the enemy is one traditional path to victory but we apparently eschew that at all costs out of humanitarian concerns. In truth, I cannot ever recall reading that the United States dropped pitot and pasta on Hiroshima and Nagasaki alongside the atomic bombs. Humanitarian aid to the enemy population comes after the war – not during the war – and the chimera known as “international law,” even in the hypocritical, distorted, and arbitrary manner it is misapplied to Israel, should not hamper our chances for defeating the vile enemy who attacked, massacred, raped, tortured, and kidnapped us on October 7, 2023.

There are four situations that render the provision of aid plausible.

  1. Surrender.

This is the traditional way that a defeated party ends the war, when it concludes that it has had enough, can suffer no more, and seeks a way out of the conflict. Countries that go to war surely plan how they are going to provide for their citizens while the battles rage. Hamas’ plan, obviously, was to plan not at all but cynically appeal to the world’s sympathy (and bias against the Jewish state) so that Israel, in wartime, should have to sustain its enemy’s population – i.e., the enemy population that voted Hamas into power a little less than twenty years ago.

If we do not insist on surrender, we are literally following the enemy’s game plan and ensuring its survival to maraud another day. There is no starvation in Gaza, period, although there are shortages and undoubted hardship. They want food, water, and electricity? Surrender. And if they don’t, then obviously failure to surrender has grave consequences, as defeated aggressors throughout history have learned to their detriment.

  • Release our hostages!

If Hamas wants its population fed, it can release all of our hostages, at one time, in one place, in exchange not for murderers already imprisoned, or the rapists, sadists, kidnappers, savages, and pillagers of October 7, but in exchange for food. If it does not want its population to be fed, that really is their problem, not our problem. We need not exhibit more compassion for the enemy population than their leaders show for them.

We are a naturally compassionate people, but it is easier to deal with the severe consequences if we, accurately, deem Hamas like the Nazis, and the people of Gaza as Nazis and future Nazis. They are raised to hate Israel and murder Jews. The deaths of people who dedicate their lives to these propositions should not disturb any normal and decent person. And if there are truly innocent people – who despise Hamas, love Israel, or would like nothing more than to leave Gaza permanently – they should be fast-tracked to leave.

  • Leave

We should not be feeding our enemy but we should be aggressively pursuing the Trump plan of evacuating the Gazans to safer habitations. For some reason, we are not. I would love to hear the Prime Minister, instead of repeatedly threatening to win the war but always hesitating, talk directly to the nations of the world – Arab, Asian, European, and American – and state unequivocally: “If you are sincerely concerned about the welfare of the citizens of Gaza, you would not be insisting that we do what you have never done – nourish your enemies in wartime. What you would do is rush to offer asylum to as many as one million Gazans anxious to leave. You would be sending large ships and planes – we will facilitate their departure – to accommodate these people for whom you express such deep concern. We can evacuate 30,000 a day. Within one month, the situation in Gaza would be permanently transformed for the good, the people would be fed and resettled, and the war would end.”

The more aid we provide, the less likely it is that they will leave. Don’t we realize that? The sooner they leave, the sooner the war will end – because it will only end when they taste defeat, which in their terms is exile and loss of land.

  • Feed our hostages first!

It is obscene that we are providing food and water to an enemy that is, by all accounts, starving and abusing the hostages. It is immoral. It is foolish. It is disgraceful. Consequently, we should insist that the hostages be verifiably fed first. It does not matter if the Red Cross provides the food, although since that tendentious and pretentious entity cannot be trusted, they will have to be accompanied by a third party of our choice. But I don’t care if it is the Red Cross, or the Blue Cross, or if Steve Witkoff himself delivers food to our hostages, but not one morsel or drop should be given to Gazans until our hostages are treated like human beings.

We seem to ignore the fact that they are being held against international law, which has not once been marshaled to demand their release. Apparently, international law only carries weight when it can be used against Jews, and never when it can be used to help Jews. Why do we play along with this charade?

We must stop validating our enemy’s tactic (more than fifty years old) of kidnapping Jews, killing them, and/or holding them in abusive conditions until our foes achieve their nefarious objectives. We are playing right into their hands. And those who call for an end to the war in exchange for the release of all hostages and full withdrawal of Israel from Gaza seem not to realize that Hamas will survive, prosper, threaten us forever, but worse – they will one day, soon thereafter, Heaven forbid, kidnap five children at a bus stop, or take a school class captive, and then demand even more, and more, until our demise becomes sensible to us. Releasing our hostages by paying the enemy’s price, again and again, only ensures that we will suffer more kidnappings, more hostages, more torture, and more national anguish. What rational entity would pursue such folly?

The eighth of the Ten Utterances we will read on Shavuot is “you shall not steal,” which the Sages interpreted as “you shall not kidnap,” a capital crime (Sanhedrin 86a). When we normalize a capital crime – literally nourishing it instead of punishing it harshly – we bring disaster on ourselves, and the uncivilized part of our world is strengthened and emboldened.

There are Israelis who hate our government so much they would rather lose the war and endanger our survival than clear a path to victory. There are others who, under the trauma of the last eighteen months, see no way out other than to surrender and declare victory, and pray that the next traumatic event never happens or just does not affect them. And there are still others – many in our government – who persist in negotiating with an enemy sworn to our destruction and indulging in the same failed policies and approaches of the past. We deserve better – new approaches that do not involve the release of those who murder us and laugh about it, or those who blow up our buses, shoot our vehicles, and stab our pedestrians knowing full well that they will get away with it from our side, and be paid handsomely by those who dispatched them.

We can also say “no” to Trump, Witkoff, and others who just want an end to war, some diplomatic achievement, and a signing ceremony, regardless of the day after costs and consequences. (It was actually amusing this week, to hear Steve Witkoff say he is providing a new “term sheet” to Hamas; “term sheet” is, of course, a real estate term, wholly inapplicable to high stakes diplomacy involving life and death, survival of a nation, and the ignominy and revulsion due to terrorists and their supporters. Talk about being in over your head.) If anything, Trump has repeatedly told Israel to “finish the job.” But we are bookended in our politics by a government afraid of victory and a fanatical left that welcomes defeat if only that will finally topple the government.

Of course, our “no” should be mitigated with these four choices: surrender, release our hostages, leave, and/or feed our hostages first. If not, then let the promised gates of hell open on our tormentors. It is impossible to conceive of more worthy targets.

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Why Mike Huckabee is the Right Man

Posted on May 8, 2025 | Comments Off on Why Mike Huckabee is the Right Man

(First published at Dailywire.com, on behalf of the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy)

United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee presented his credentials two weeks ago to Israel’s President, Yitzchak Herzog, and immediately demonstrated why he is the right person for this vital position at this critical time. It is true that Ambassador Huckabee has visited Israel more than 100 times, in his capacity as a Baptist preacher leading his congregation and as a politician accompanying his constituents, but even more importantly, he understands Israel, its uniqueness, its role in history, its abiding friendship with the United States, and its challenges.

Huckabee declared at the reception that he returns to Israel with “absolute joy and an overwhelming sense of awe that I am in a land where G-d Himself said, ‘This is mine, and these are My people.’” Such sentiments are not often expressed in Israel and not articulated often enough by Jews but they provide the foundation for defining the rightful place of the State of Israel, its reason for existence, and even the relentless antagonism of its enemies. The land of Israel was not only the land of the Bible in ancient times; it remains the land of the Bible and awaits the fulfillment of the prophetic vision of the future. Perceived through that prism, Israel’s struggles against implacable foes take on a new light that is visible only to someone who shares Ambassador Huckabee’s perspective.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine another ambassador having visited the country to which he was posted one hundred times before he assumes the role. It means that Huckabee’s commitment to Israel’s security stems from his correct understanding of America’s place in the world and its capacity to foster good and promote peace and prosperity. What should be on Ambassador Huckabee’s agenda, especially mindful that he is the US Ambassador who should advance American interests in the region?

The Ambassador has been outspoken in recent years as to the non-viability of a Palestinian state in the land of Israel, now rendered especially incongruous and perilous in light of the Hamas massacre of October 7, the ongoing war, and the Palestinian Authority’s reluctance to condemn that war. As ambassador, he can thwart the subtle encroachment towards a Palestinian state favored by Europe and some elements in the United States by reiterating a number of steps taken during the first Trump administration. He can again shutter the US Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA), located on Agron Street in the western part of Jerusalem, which was revived by the Biden administration in violation of US and Israeli law and functioned as a quasi-diplomatic mission to the Palestinians. During the first Trump term, this office was closed, and its services provided out of the American embassy in Jerusalem to which it reported directly.

The OPA as currently constituted is an affront to Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. Ambassador Huckabee, together with Israel’s Foreign Ministry, can use his good offices to limit or halt the activities of the several European consulates that are located in Jerusalem and operate as missions to the Palestinian Authority in defiance of Israeli and international law. The ambassador can persuade – and certainly the US government can act to support Israel’s closure of these hostile outposts in the heart of Jerusalem.

The Ambassador can urge the State Department to finally designate “Jerusalem, Israel” as an official place of birth on American passports. State has long embraced the chimera that Jerusalem’s status as part of Israel – as Israel’s capital, no less – is somehow still subject to the outcome of negotiations. This policy should be repudiated and US citizens born in Jerusalem who so desire should have their place of birth recorded as “Jerusalem, Israel.”

Ambassador Huckabee should also encourage the Trump administration to follow through on its temporary suspension of funding to UNRWA and make that suspension permanent. UNRWA, although barred by Israeli law from operating in Jerusalem, still maneuvers behind the scenes, controlling schools and in some cases economic development while advancing the interests of Hamas, with which it was integrally linked during the Gaza War. Cutting aid and resigning from UNESCO, another UN organization that is antagonistic to Israel and the United States, is also an American interest.

Additionally, for many decades under Democratic administrations, any type of residential or commercial building in Jerusalem by Jews – not by Arabs – drew immediate condemnations from the State Department. This too much end, and the ambassador is well positioned, as is President Trump, a real estate maven, to take the lead in supporting Israel’s plans to construct new neighborhoods in Jerusalem and even to explore the expansion of Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries to encompass satellite towns on its periphery.

To his great credit, President Trump has appointed two distinguished emissaries to Israel – David Friedman in his first term and Mike Huckabee in his current term. A person of faith, such as Ambassador Huckabee, deeply understands the centrality of Israel in the narrative of world history. But this ambassador also deeply understands the Israel of the future, and the pivotal role played by the city of Jerusalem, and even more how a secure and prosperous Israel will strengthen the United States and bring the world closer to the vision of peace on earth.

Rabbi Pruzansky is Senior Research Associate at the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy (JCAP.ngo).

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The People’s Republic of Israel

Posted on May 3, 2025 | 2 comments

Opposition leader Yair Lapid warned last month that “the crazy incitement” he alleges emanates from the government will lead to “political murder,” especially against failed Shin Bet head Ronen Bar. “We are on the way to another disaster. This time it will come from within… Jews will kill Jews.” Lapid’s threats should be taken seriously, although not for his stated reasons. It is because this pattern of the left inciting, fomenting, and committing acts of violence – and then blaming it on the right-wing – has a fairly long history in Israel.

While the identity of the murderers of pre-state Zionist leader Chaim Arlosoroff (assassinated in June 1933) remains a mystery, the Labor movement was quick to blame the Revisionists for the violence. The three charged were all eventually acquitted, but one of the open theories of some historians is that Arlosoroff was murdered to eliminate him as a political threat to his Labor Party rivals. (This would not be the first time the Hagana had committed a political assassination, having murdered Haredi spokesman Jacob de Haan in 1924. This technically remains an “unsolved murder,” although Hagana member Avraham Tehomi admitted decades later that he murdered de Haan on orders from above – and felt no guilt about it.) We will likely never know the full story.

Fomenting violence and blaming the right-wing reached its apogee in the year preceding the assassination of PM Yitzchak Rabin in 1995. As reported in devastating detail by Shimon Riklin in his recent Channel 14 documentary, the Shin Bet repeatedly tried to incite violence from settlers, including setting them up with weapons, choosing “targets,” and then intervening at the last moment. It even dispatched its agent, Avishai Raviv, to infiltrate the settlers (he even married under false pretenses an unsuspecting woman), instigate violence, and encourage Rabin’s assassination. Raviv infamously held up a poster at a right-wing rally depicting Rabin in an SS uniform, all so that the Labor Party could blame Netanyahu and the settler movement for this staged atrocity.

Note that well, because in the weeks before the Rabin assassination, Yitzchak Shamir even warned that “they are planning another Arlosoroff.” It does not matter whether their plan succeeded or went awry; what matters is the harsh reality that Israel’s “General Security Services” then continued the tradition of stoking the flames of violence in order to castigate, indict, and defame its political enemies.

When the head of the Shin Bet’s (“anti”-) Jewish division was recorded as saying about the youthful settlers that “we arrest these shmokim without any evidence at all,” he was escalating this tactic. Imagine arresting people on no grounds and no evidence, simply because you think the state has granted you such power, when it has not. He has since suspended himself, whatever that means, but in a functioning democracy, he would already be behind bars. That is unlikely in the extreme. And, as is well known, the Shin Bet has tortured Jews in order to extract confessions, genuine or not. For this, it pays no price, legal or political.

It is in this context that Lapid’s warnings should be perceived. If he speaks of the threat of imminent violence, it is all to prepare the ground for left-wing violence that can be imputed to the right-wing and then bolstered by a flood of echo chamber reports from the left-wing media. It also renders comically, absurdly hollow, Ronen Bar’s contentions that he is above the law and cannot be fired, fired because he has devoted himself to defending Israel’s democracy. And, having been fired, he announced that he will instead resign, on his own timetable, once he is assured that he can designate or approve of his successor. It is good to be the king, or at least to act like you are the king because the legal establishment is in your corner.

This is the stuff of secret police forces in brutal dictatorships. The more Israel’s self-appointed guardians of democracy – the secret services, the judicial establishment, and the mainstream media – trumpet their commitment to the people’s well-being and to the survival of Israel as a democracy, the more suspicious we should be of their real motives.

When journalists can be casually arrested, like the editor of the Jerusalem Post or the videographer of Riklin’s Shin Bet documentary, without major protest or backlash, we have entered dangerous territory. No one who espouses the “wrong” views is safe, to which even the Prime Minister can attest. He has been investigated for more than a decade and on trial for almost half a decade.

The weaponization of the legal system against disfavored individuals has long been a staple of autocracies but sadly has become common in putative democracies as well, such as Israel and the United States. Power – its uses and retention – is that seductive, and invariably corrosive. The legal system can always get someone for something and there is little downside in trying and no consequence even if a frivolous prosecution fails.

Beware of those who deign to speak in the name of the people or democracy, especially when they repeatedly lose elections (presumably the voice of the “people” and the instrument of “democracy”). Most dictatorships identified themselves as “People’s Republics,” such as today’s “People’s Republic of China.” For good measure, the world’s most tyrannical dictatorship (North Korea) is self-styled as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” whereas Algeria reverses its titles (the “People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria”).

Is anyone fooled by this? For sure, people who disdain elections and the rule of law while simultaneously crowing about preserving democracy and the rule of law are hazards to true democracy. For clarity’s sake, will we soon become the “People’s Republic of Israel” or the “People’s Democratic Republic of Israel”? Sadly, the elements are all there – a secret police leadership that is beyond control of the politicians, a judicial system that literally composes and enforces its own laws, chooses  its members, prosecutes citizens arbitrarily, and is beholden only to the world views and values of the individual judges and prosecutors, and a media that is an organ of the state when the left is in power and a useful tool of the opposition when, as has been the case for most of the last fifteen years, the right-wing heads the government.

Add to this the continuous blandishments that “the prime minister is a danger to the security of the state!” and we see the groundwork being laid for an attempted coup. Can it be averted? It would behoove PM Netanyahu, currently protected by the Shin Bet, to seek protection from another force, much like in the US where the Secret Service is not a branch of the FBI but rather part of Homeland Security (after a long stint as an agency within the Treasury Department).

The good news is that most members of the Shin Bet are dedicated public servants who adhere to the law and strive to protect Jewish life and the land and State of Israel. And there is a strong but still mostly silent majority of Israelis – also known as voters – who see through the left-wing charade, the judicial hypocrisy, and the media duplicity. They are good people who eschew violence and instead endorse political advocacy, possess good Jewish values, and appreciate the State of Israel and the opportunity of our generation to change the failed political and strategic dynamics of the last thirty years.

They no longer trust these institutions and are no longer enthralled by the tales told by the tendentious holders of prestigious posts. They recognize lies as soon as they are spoken and want to reclaim their rights and privileges as loyal citizens.

The government’s inability to fire appointed officials is bizarre and most anti-democratic, for it renders the public servants answerable to no one. Oddly, both officials slated for dismissal but who refuse to leave (!), Gali Baharav-Miara and Ronen Bar, share the exact same gematria (Hebrew numerology); each of their names equal 508, which is identical to the Hebrew word, cheresh, deaf. They are deaf to true democracy, deaf to the will of the people, and deaf to the needs of the moment. In addition to other acts of incompetence, both are defiantly clinging to power on the wings of a corrupt system. They should both resign, and Bar, having resigned, should leave immediately, for the good of the country.

We are celebrating 77 years of independence and are on the verge of dealing harsh, perhaps even fatal blows, to at least some of the many enemies that surround us. Perhaps the internal struggle – the collapse of important governmental and societal institutions – should concern us even more at this point. Ironically, those potentially plotting a domestic coup are also those who are also afraid of victory, fearful of vanquishing our external enemies, and petrified (unreasonably) about the implications of a truly Jewish state.

They will do anything to stop it. We must do everything to counter them, peacefully, persuasively, but also firmly and insistently, so that the best days of the State of Israel, now 77 years young, are ahead of us, en route to complete redemption.

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Holy Fire, Unholy Lies

Posted on April 25, 2025 | Comments Off on Holy Fire, Unholy Lies

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

There is literally no respite from the lies of our enemies. 

This holiday season, as always, brought thousands of pilgrims, tourists, and worshippers to all parts of Jerusalem to share in the festivities of the holidays of Passover and Easter. And, as always, it elicited from Israel’s enemies a torrent of lies, provocations, and baseless accusations, all of which deserve to be refuted.

The three-day Easter celebration was marked by thousands of Christian pilgrims enjoying Good Friday services, Holy Fire observances, and Easter Sunday in Jerusalem’s Old City, with special concentration on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But a host of Arab provocateurs rushed to the media to complain about hundreds of people turned away by Israeli police, including the Papal Nuncio, from entry into the Church. Some of the protesters turned violent and claimed that Israel was defiantly interfering with Christian freedom of worship.

There is a kernel of truth to the accusation that entry to the Church was restricted by Israeli authorities – but not for the reasons ascribed to Israel by the provocateurs. By prior agreement, admission to the ancient church for the Holy Fire ceremony was limited to 2,200 people who had received prior authorization, with another 1300 allowed to access the outer courtyard and the roof. Such limitations are common throughout the world – museums, today, are a typical example – and prior authorization for entry is common at synagogues in Europe and the Americas. These restrictions are imposed for security reasons, and not only to defuse the threat of Arab terror, but rather to protect the worshippers from the potentially deadly effects of overcrowding.

Indeed, entry to the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca is barred to all non-Muslims, but even the number of Muslim visitors to Mecca and the Grand Mosque are severely restricted during the holiday seasons out of concern for the safety and security of pilgrims. This year, entry to the city of Mecca is forbidden beginning on April 25 and through the month-long Hajj season, to any Muslim who does not possess a valid work permit, a Mecca residency ID, or a valid Hajj permit. But enemies of Israel only perceive tourist restrictions in Israel of any sort as problematic and offensive.

As is known, the interior of the Church is a very confined space, and subdivided – to the inch – between some half-dozen Christian sects. The Holy Fire ceremony involves the kindling of a candle, with the fire then shared with the various groups until hundreds of candles are lit in this small area. In 1834 – unfortunately for our enemies, long before the State of Israel could be blamed – hundreds of Christian pilgrims died in a stampede caused after fire spread throughout the Church at a Holy Fire observance. The restrictions are designed to avoid the recurrence of such a tragedy.

Israel is especially mindful of the dangers inherent in mass crowds assembling in ancient structures. In 2021, forty-five Jewish men and boys were crushed to death, and more than one hundred injured, when celebrants fell on slippery steps at Rabbi Shimon’s tomb in Meron causing a stampede. That is why limitations are imposed at such locations. Imagine if there were no regulation of entry at the Church, and tragedy ensued, how these same critics would be lambasting Israel for its indifference to Christian life.

The enemies of Israel have it backwards. Rather than these restrictions indicating Israel’s interference with Christian worship, they instead testify to the concern for the life and well being of all tourists, pilgrims, and visitors to the Holy Land. 

Israel should be lauded for its conduct here, not castigated.

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