Joe Biden: Gaffes, Lifelong Stutter, Or Cognitive Decline?

Joe Biden’s on-air jumbled utterances and odd behavior were first termed “gaffes,” now they are a lifelong struggle with a “stutter.” It appears, however, to be just another gambit to get the Democratic nominee elected. How do we know? 

A google search for “Joe Biden stutter” brings up lots of hits, for instance here and here, but none of these articles mention Biden’s aneurysms and how they are likely to have affected his speech. The word “aneurysm” does not appear, for instance, in the Atlantic article or in the New York Times article on Joe’s “stutter.” And when Lara Trump dared to mention Biden’s “cognitive decline” on the air, Jake Tapper ended the interview. 

Jake Tapper calls out Lara Trump for openly mocking Joe Biden's stutter.

Lara says, "First and foremost I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter. I think what we see on Joe Biden on stage is very clearly a cognitive decline."

Tapper isn't having it. pic.twitter.com/qGlfOLzd3k

— The Recount (@therecount) October 18, 2020

Joe Biden’s mental deficits, it seems, must be hidden from view. Especially this close to the election. He’s almost there, that much-desired event, a Democrat in the White House. Let’s keep Hunter Biden’s laptop out of this. And any damage to Joe’s Broca area, of course.

The suggestion that Joe Biden may have brain damage is not new. Nor was it cooked up by desperate Republicans anxious to win the election. Jill Biden, in fact, makes reference in her autobiography to that scary time after Joe’s second berry aneurysm:

"Our doctor told us there was a 50-50 chance Joe wouldn't survive surgery," she wrote. "He also said that it was even more likely that Joe would have permanent brain damage if he survived. And if any part of his brain would be adversely affected, it would be the area that governed speech."

It is certainly plausible that Joe Biden battled a stutter from childhood. But it is a fact that Biden suffered two berry aneurysms in adulthood for which he underwent two separate brain surgeries that may well have affected his speech. So why not mention that fact in articles covering Joe’s speech issues during this presidential campaign?

It may be because Joe’s word hiccups aren’t the sort of hiccups that bear any obvious connection to a stutter. Not remembering Obama’s name, or the year he, Biden, served as vice president, would not appear to have any connection to a stutter. 

#BarelyThereBiden spent the last year forgetting Obama’s name, who the last President was, and when he was Obama’s VP.

Will Joe even remember he has a fundraiser with Obama tonight?

When Obama told Joe “you don’t have to do this,” he meant it.pic.twitter.com/qLosBxWM2f

— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) June 23, 2020

Thread.

On multiple occasions, Joe Biden has forgot Barack Obama’s name.

"By the way, are you gonna stick with President on the following, President [awkward pause], the last guy, on this issue?"https://t.co/SUUXnsJpwy

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 5, 2020

Nor would a stutter appear to be responsible for Joe Biden falling asleep (!) while being endorsed by Hillary Clinton.

Is it a stutter that made Joe Biden refuse to share the results of his most recent cognitive assessment tests? Was it a stutter that had Joe Biden regaling the public with tales of nurses blowing into his nostrils? Or strangely, calling a college student at a campaign event a “lying dog-faced pony soldier?” 

.@JoeBiden: "I had nurses at Walter Reed hospital who would bend down and whisper in my ear, go home and get me pillows. They would … actually breathe in my nostrils to make me move, to get me moving.” pic.twitter.com/hxW1UYs7Ba

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 22, 2020

‘You are a lying dog-faced pony soldier:’ Joe Biden says to a woman at a campaign event in New Hampshire after asking if she had ever been to a caucus https://t.co/yTfLtve4df pic.twitter.com/O4CG8KsZaA

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 10, 2020

Now, in the final countdown, with only days to go, Biden's ability to string words together seems to be deteriorating rapidly, for instance when he spoke about healthcare, here.

Joe Biden: “Barack and I think it’s a right for people to have badakathcare.” pic.twitter.com/UqWELjSAMN

— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) October 31, 2020

Here, the slip occurs at about 10 seconds in. It is impossible to make any sense of his words, though the words themselves are clear and there is clearly no stutter.

Interesting quotes from Biden’s visit to the Fort Lauderdale campaign field office earlier today.
Biden says point-blank that Trump is sending Cuban-Americans (very powerful voting bloc in the state) back to Cuba. pic.twitter.com/pQRSCT4LNj

— Ernest Scheyder (@ErnestScheyder) October 29, 2020

No "stutter" here, but one long run-together nonsense word, that was probably supposed to have something to do with "international pressure" but in what context, no one will ever know. It's buried in the nonfunctioning recesses of Joe Biden's gray matter.

BIDEN: “I’ll lead an effective strategy to mobilize trunalimunumaprzure.”
pic.twitter.com/TAkj7bJndN

— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) October 30, 2020

The words come out all right. There's no stutter. But what does any of it mean?

And this? This is not a stutter but a TIME WARP! He's back in the Bush era. But no. He knows it's wrong, but for the life of him, cannot put his finger on Donald Trump's name. It's escaped!

For all we know, Joe Biden may indeed have a stutter, but that does not explain the various issues we see and hear during his public appearances. Biden very clearly has cognitive deficits. This is understandable after two aneurysms and subsequent brain surgeries. All the things we see and hear in relation to Joe Biden are well-explained by mental deficits. But not by a lifelong stutter. Nor does it pass muster that the many articles explaining away his frequently odd behavior would fail, at least in passing, to mention his brain incidents and subsequent surgeries.

Why does the media hide these important facts about the state of Joe Biden’s brain from the voting public? There can be only one reason: they don’t want you to know. Because if the voting public suspected the presidential candidate had cognitive deficits, they might not vote for him. And the thing is they are so close! They just need Biden to win the election, and then they will be free to push home their radical, pro-Communist, Muslim-loving, anti-Israel agenda.

It’s not good when the media hides basic facts about a presidential candidate. That holds true whether the facts are in regard to the contents of HunterBiden’s laptop or Joe Biden’s cognitive deficits. These efforts to hide the truth tell us that American democracy is at stake.

We can only hope that when it comes to telling us which candidate is ahead in the race for president, here too, the media is simply a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.

Btsalmo Demands Firing of Sabado Cartoonist After Antisemitic Cartoon

Btsalmo, a human rights organization based in Israel, has written to the editor of Sabado Magazine, demanding the dismissal of cartoonist Vasco Gargalo for his cartoon of a “Palestinian” Holocaust. The cartoon depicts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shoving a PA flag-draped coffin into an oven bearing the infamous slogan from the gates of Auschwitz, Arbeit Macht Frei, “work will set you free.”

The letter to the executive editor of Sabado was copied, among others, to the Portuguese Prime Minister, the Ambassador of Portugal to Israel, Israel’s prime minister, and the Israeli Ambassador to Portugal. Btsalmo CEO Shai Glick, notes in the letter that the cartoon qualifies as both Holocaust denial and minimization according to the official International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

Israel: No Need for a GA Makeover

The General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of America, to be held this coming week in Israel, has created a bit of a ruckus here in Israel. For one thing, the Tel Aviv venue is thought to betray an agenda. Important gatherings like this should be held in Jerusalem, in order to underscore the idea that the Holy City is the capital of the Jewish State. There’s a feeling that the choice of Tel Aviv over Jerusalem is meant to be “in your face” to President Trump, who moved the United States embassy in the opposite direction, something much desired by both Israeli and American Jewry up until now. Writer Caroline Glick believes the entire event is meant as an anti-Trump protest.

But there are other concerns. The GA has billed the event as “Israel and the Diaspora: We need to talk,” going on to describe what the organizers apparently see as a rift between Israeli Jews and American Jews. This rift, as they define it, seems to be about the liberal views of American Jews versus the conservative beliefs of most Israelis; the religious pluralism of American Jewry versus the Orthodox status quo in Israel; and finally, the desire of American Jewry for a two-state solution, something both Israelis and Arabs have rejected.

Do these issues really need discussion? If American Jews are liberal, believe in religious pluralism, and tolerance, why should there be any rift at all between the two communities? In a tolerant, liberal culture, is there not room for other beliefs, conservative or otherwise? And if not, is it really a tolerant, liberal culture that shuts out all other viewpoints?

If one believes in religious pluralism, shouldn’t that person believe that Israelis have a right to choose how they wish to run their religious affairs? If the shul that Israelis do not attend is Orthodox, is this something that liberal American Jews are unable to tolerate? Israel provided an egalitarian prayer space at American Jewry’s request/demand. The space is almost always empty of people. But the regular Western Wall Plaza, with its separate spaces for men and women, is packed, day and night, with prayerful Israeli Jews.

Would the organizers of the GA have us believe there is something wrong with Jews coming to the Wall in throngs, and praying according to Orthodox custom? We aren’t stopping them from praying as they wish. So why are they so bothered by our pervasive orthodoxy by choice? Do they wish us to be more religiously diverse? If so, is this not a form of coercion? Are we incapable of making our own religious choices that we need to be Big Brothered by American Jewry?

As for the two-state solution, none of the actors in the region want this. It’s an unworkable idea. Yet American Jews keep telling us we need to do this, as though we are incapable of formulating our own ideas about the things that directly affect our quality of life and security. It’s paternalistic. And simplistic. Because they are unable to even adequately explain why they demand we do this thing, since it makes no sense. Adherents of the two-state solution would seem to be ignorant of the fact that no one in the region wants this “solution.” And they just continue to repeat the idea wherever they are presented with a platform.

Why can’t the Federation come to Israel and appreciate that we have our own society and say vive la difference and live and let live? Are we not a sovereign nation to which they have pledged their support? And speaking of support, my personal bugaboo with the Federation is its refusal to fund projects in areas over the Green Line that Israel won in a defensive war in 1967.

Judea and Samaria are indigenous Jewish territory. Judea, where I live, takes its name from the Jewish people. The territories are our ancestral heritage. How can a major Jewish organization take the stance that Jews have no right to settle in their indigenous territory? It’s not only an affront to history and our biblical narrative, it’s the complete opposite of what it means to be a liberal.

Liberals are supposed to fight for indigenous land rights, are they not? Instead, liberals tell Israeli Jews they are somehow in the wrong for building homes in these areas. They tell them that the area must remain Jew-free, because settling the area is a provocation to Arabs, or unhelpful to a nonexistent peace process with a declared enemy.

How does it conform to the liberal standards to tell any group of people that it is wrong for them to live in this place or that? Would you tell Baptists they have no right to live in Ohio? Or blacks that they have no right to live in Boro Park? These directives would be deemed politically incorrect, intolerant, illiberal. Yet the Federation has no trouble telling Jews that they have no right to live in Judea. That it is somehow evil for them to build homes and lives on land that belonged to their ancestors.

The truth is, there is no rift, and nothing to talk about. American Jews must realize that in order to be true to their liberal ideals, they must support Israel not just with money, but for its views in all spheres, especially those that are at variance with their own. This is the truest expression of liberal values: to appreciate that at 70 years old, Israel is quite capable of deciding its societal norms and beliefs.

We’ve grown up. And we’ve earned the right to live our truth.

Come to Tel Aviv instead of Jerusalem if you must. But note that Israel is in no need of a makeover. We ask you instead, to open your (liberal) hearts and minds to the reality and beauty that is Israel, and like us just the way we are.

Grieving Ari: A Journal

Many people said that reading my Facebook posts cataloging my grief after the tragic murder of Ari Fuld, HY”D, helped them to process their own feelings of loss. The feelings slowly came out, and as they did, I had nowhere to put them but Facebook. It was a strong need to talk about the grief process.

I decided to gather these posts here together in one spot so that even people outside of Facebook might read them. (I am omitting some of the first angry posts that yell at Ari’s enemies, as I’m not sure these outbursts are helpful to anyone.)

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Normalcy after tragedy. Baking cookies. Too soon.

A post shared by Varda Epstein (@epavard) on Sep 17, 2018 at 10:39am PDT

Mudar Zahran Plays Hide the (Israeli) Flag

Mudar Zahran recently addressed a conference of the Friends of Judea and Samaria in the European Parliament.

The Friends of Judea and Samaria is a tiny lobby comprised of just 14 of the 715 members of the EU Parliament. The aims of this miniscule group are noble: they want the EU to stop funding Arab terror and to “abolish trade barriers of the European Union imposed on Jewish goods from the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).” But what on earth does any of this have to do with Mudar Zahran, the man who has duped the Jews into thinking he is the future ruler of Jordan?? And why did Zahran, after the fact, remove the Israeli flag and the sign that says Friends of Judea and Samaria from his own photos and video of the event? 

 

(NOTE: Zahran either removed the above, damning video or changed its privacy settings so it can no longer be accessed.)

Zahran’s name is nowhere to be found on the list of speakers for the event. Attendees instead, are vaguely told they will be addressed by Jewish and Arab businessman about their cooperation in Judea & Samaria.

Zahran is not a businessman and has no ties to Judea and Samaria. Mudar Zahran is a welfare recipient living in the UK.

Here is Mudar, claiming he spoke to the EU Parliament.

Our speech in the European Parliament – Foreign Relations Committee – 4 September 2018

“This is our last communication to the European Union, either stand with us and renounce the regime of Abdullah and Abbas, advocates of extremism and terrorism and anti-Semitism, otherwise you will go out

“We want peace and cooperation with Israel, the interest of our people and Israel is shared, and Israel is blessed only when we thrive and we thrive when Israel thrives.”

Fact check: Zahran didn’t speak to the EU or its Foreign Relations Committee. He only spoke to some 20 people, specific to the Friends of Judea and Samaria in the EU Parliament.

Here is a photo of him speaking at the conference in which you can clearly see the Israeli flag and the identity of his host: Friends of Judea and Samaria in the European Parliament.

Here is Mudar Zahran’s doctored photo in which the flag and all mention of the host organization is removed.

It is very sad that Jews continue to promote a fraud who doesn’t even acknowledge or appreciate their hosting him. That fraud now extends to members of the European Parliament, who have been exploited and lied about in this small man’s quest to gain legitimacy.

Perhaps the worst part of this is that now the Friends of Judea and Samaria in the European Parliament, this very small lobby of MEPs willing to work on behalf of Israel, now think that Mudar Zahran is a credible entity. One can only hope they will not fund his lifestyle.

WATCH: Tawil Fadiha, Minister of Uncontrollable Lies

Tawil Fadiha, was probably the late, lamented Latma’s most popular character. And that’s no small thing. For those of us in the trenches fighting the media bias against Israel, Latma was everything. It was our comic relief amidst the terrible frustration of not being heard, though we were telling the truth. We waited with eagerness for each new installment and we were downright crushed when the show lost its funding (in a really sneaky way).

So it’s a big deal that our beloved Tawil Fadiha, Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Lies is back with a new song on behalf of the Legal Grounds Campaign organization, an Israel advocacy group. Could this be the beginning of a serious Latma comeback? Doesn’t seem so, but let’s just enjoy this rare gem for what it is–a delightful takedown of the fake Arab narrative. (When is the last time you heard satire reference the San Remo Conference or the Temple Mount?)

Wish you could see some more Latma? “We Con the World” was the Latma clip that went seriously viral, satirizing the Mavi Marmara incident and garnering some 6 million views. Youtube took it down for copyright violation, even though there is no copyright issue in borrowing songs for satire. Caroline Glick, the journalist who founded Latma (and appears in the clip), fought like a lioness until they put it back up.

h/t Aharon Epstein

It Came So Close: The Halamish Massacre

After a terror attack, the connections come out. Israel is a small country. You almost always have some sort of connection to the victims.

With the Salomon family of Halamish, a friend I think of as a brother informed me that the young soldier who neutralized the terrorist through the kitchen window, a hero by all accounts, was his wife’s cousin, as is the young hero’s mother.

That was a nice connection, so to speak. One to make me feel pride by association. A comfort in the midst of grave horror.

But then a friend messaged me on Facebook. She wrote:

“Varda. Friday night, after we finished our Shabbat meal, some kids came to pick up our 12-year-old son Micha on their way to the youth gathering. One of those kids was Nitzan Davidi*, the niece of Michal Salomon. The Davidi* family lives not far from us.

“Later we heard there had been a pigua, a terror attack, but there were no details yet. Not until after Shabbat, when my husband came home from the synagogue and announced, “The Davidis have a new widow and her children in their home.”

“Nitzan’s mother is the sister of Michal Salomon.

“I was sick to my stomach, hunched over with terrible stomach cramps all that night. I know it’s not about me but—it came so close. Nitzan in our home while her uncle was being slaughtered.

“I went for a walk with my husband Saturday night, the night after the slaughter, to get some fresh air. We passed the Davidi home. People were milling about. Like a house of mourning. Then I saw the double stroller. I don’t know why that stood out for me, the stroller, but I was thinking: ‘Why a double stroller? Who, in the Davidi family, needs one of THOSE.’

“Later that night I read that the Salomons had one-year-old twins. One-year-old twins! What kind of monster kills a father! Sick. Just SICK.

“The whole thing was just so very close to home. I was consumed with the thought that Nitzan was in our home at the time of the slaughter, completely unaware. Just a normal kid on a Friday night, picking up her friends for a get together.

“I kept imagining Nitzan coming home happy and tired, going to sleep, and then waking up to the phone call and the keening.”

We both contemplated that for a minute. A young girl being woken from her Shabbat sleep with the worst possible news. Her home transformed to one of deep mourning.

My friend’s experience seemed to touch me by association. The murders in Halamish, the plight of the young widow and her children were more real than ever. I began to imagine the kids hearing their father, grandfather, and aunt being slaughtered, the screams. How would they ever be normal?

It was setting in, the horror, in a new way. There was a new association now. I felt like I knew the family. I could picture the Davidi family. The house. The stroller.

On Tuesday my friend had more to tell me. She eased into it with small talk about diet, mine and hers, working her way around to the terror attack.

“Nitzan’s father, the brother in-law of Michal Salomon? We were chatting and got to talking about the massacre, of course. It’s hard to think about anything else. Yaron* said that terrorists dope themselves up with drugs before they do their thing. They have to be high to do it.”

I shrugged, “Everyone knows that.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she said.

“Anyway, Yaron described the attack to me! He said that Elad [Salomon, Michal’s husband] had the terrorist in a bear hug as the terrorist was stabbing him. Thirty times the terrorist stabbed him in the back. Then he went to work on his face.

“I managed to ask Yaron about Nitzan. ‘When did she know?’

“‘Oh, she was already in bed and sound asleep when we got the call,’ he said.”

There was a pause while my friend let that sink in for me. Observant Jews don’t use the phone on Shabbat. There is only one reason a phone rings like that. It was Michal calling, telling them what had happened.

It’s good that Nitzan was able to sleep through that night, I thought. One more night of childhood innocence before learning of the evil that had hit her aunt and uncle, HY”D, may Hashem avenge the blood of the Salomons.

I know that all Jews are related to each other multiple times. We’re a small nation that was forced to marry cousins in the Diaspora. So I knew in theory that I was related to Michal Salomon, to her husband Elad, his father and sister, and to Nitzan and Yaron, too.

Now I felt it, as well.

These are the details you don’t see in the news. These are the quiet, intimate, awful details that are whispered, that almost aren’t whispered, so painful are they to speak of.

Most of us have been thinking about the brave soldier, thinking of Michal Salomon, her courage and strength in taking her children upstairs to the bedroom, locking the door, calling the police.

But now I am thinking of something else: there’s a different picture in my mind, the one that explains all that blood on the floor that we saw in the photos. I’m thinking of Elad, holding the terrorist in a bear hug with all his might, trying to keep him from hurting anyone else, taking all that pain, being stabbed thirty times in the back, and then finally, as his strength ebbs away, being stabbed repeatedly in the face, his final memory one of a knife coming much too close, so close, so many times.

And we don’t even know how it went with Elad’s father and sister.

It’s personal, you see. This massacre of a Jewish family. It hurts.

This is my family, even if I never knew them. This terrorist that came to hurt this beautiful family? He acted out of pure evil. His soul is black as tar. A monster, not a human being.

And now there is a new widow who must try to heal children who heard their father, grandfather, and aunt being slaughtered. Michal must try to make their nightmares go away while mourning the love of her life. But the nightmares will never disappear.

That is who they will always be, the Salomon children, from here on in. They and their mother: they will always be those nightmares. The massacre of Halamish.

And it all feels much too close.

*Names changed

WATCH: Yahud Always Lie

A German reporter presses an Arab woman, Maria Abunismeh, in order to understand the Arab objection to enhanced security measures on the Temple Mount, in the clip below. He asks: “So many people in Germany don’t really understand. They say, you know there was a terror attack, two policemen were killed by weapons that were inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. They came out, shot the policemen, and went inside. Why don’t you want these security metal gates, at the entrance?”

Her response?

“No, no. What they say it’s not true. Do you believe them? They say everything. Many stories say. But this is our Aqsa, this holy place. This is all Muslim.”

The German reporter responds, “So which part don’t you believe? That the policemen weren’t killed?” and this goes on and on, with Maria spinning her wheels weaving a nonsensical story, the German reporter trying to understand exactly what it is she believes.

The money quote? Maria, explaining that the official story about the terror attack and the need for heightened security are bogus, says, “Yahud always lie.”

Get that? Not “Israelis.” But “Jews.”

“Yahud” being Arabic for “Jews.”

But watch for yourselves. See how Maria weaves her story to an (illogical) conclusion: The dead policemen shot themselves!!!

Hat tip Aharon Epstein

Why Wonder Woman Must At All Costs Be Banned

Now that I’ve seen Wonder Woman I know exactly why Lebanon, Tunisia, and Algeria have banned the movie (and Jordan wanted to but couldn’t figure out how to legally do so). Gal Gadot is STUNNING and JEWISH and ISRAELI and her character Wonder Woman is STRONG and BRAVE and GOOD.

Just like the IDF.

The Arab world that slanders and hates us simply can’t take it that instead of being the evil thing they say we are, this movie, as embodied by Gal Gadot, portrays us as the good guy, the righteous ones. The ones who don’t like to fight but who are not going to shy away from making things right in the world. And if that means killing bad guy jihadists then we’re going to go full on CRAZY on them until they are DEAD and the world is SAFE.

Because that’s who we are. We’re JEWS.

The Jews brought morality to the world with our God-given Torah. Before the Torah, there was no concept that stealing or murder or sleeping around was wrong. We brought all that to the world.

The world? They can try to smear Israel and the IDF all they want, but we know who we are and Gal is a symbol of that, a symbol of morality.

We treat minorities in our country with utmost respect and tolerance.

We are the good guys.

And they just can’t handle that.

They don’t want their people to see that on a screen. Jews good? Can’t allow our people to see or know that. Even if it’s just a fantasy, just stunts and trick photography.

Because that film sums up the struggle of Israel and the Jewish people as a force for good in the world.

And Gal was chosen out of all women to play that role.

Because she is absolutely perfect.

Because she is who she is.

A strong, Jewish woman. Kind and good.

Thank you Sharon Katz for bringing 125 women together to cheer for Gal at Cinema City in the heart of the holy Jewish city, Jerusalem.

Apartheid: You Keep Using That Word

This disturbing sign labeling Israel “Apartheid” was spotted by my eyes on the ground in South Africa, Gillian Hirschfield Lawrenz. She wrote: “Seen today outside Oliver Tambo International airport in Johannesburg.”

It remains mind boggling to me that anyone in South Africa could compare the state of Arab Jewish relations in Israel with that of South Africa during the Apartheid era. In Israel, Arabs are treated in the same hospitals as Jews and even share rooms. Arabs shop alongside Jews in supermarkets and malls. Arabs ride alongside Jews on our trains and buses. We have Arab justices in the Israeli supreme court, and Arab members of Knesset.

Did you have all that in South Africa during Apartheid? Black judges in your high courts? Blacks shopping alongside whites? Blacks sharing hospital rooms with whites? Could blacks ride on buses with whites, sharing a seat perhaps?

Of course not. In the South Africa of the Apartheid era, whites looked down on black people. Black people were forbidden to mix with whites. And there isn’t anyone alive in South Africa who does not know this.

But you know where there is Apartheid in Israel? Wherever Arabs live, play, and work. Jews dare not ride Arab buses or enter Arab villages, or they’ll be LYNCHED. That’s not just talk. It has actually happened.

It is, by the way, against the law for Jews to enter PA territory. There are warning signs outside of every Arab village.

Note that the sign references “Israeli citizens.” Here’s a newsflash for you: no one is going to arrest an Israeli Arab for visiting his cousins. Where you see “Israeli citizens” read “Jew.”

Note also that the reason Abbas doesn’t want Jews to build settlements is because he not only wants Jewish territory, but wants it Jew free, or as they said in Nazi Germany, judenrein. Which is ironic, considering that Israel, on attaining statehood, didn’t expel its Arab populace. That’s right. All those supposed Arab “refugees” are those who left (and their children and children’s children) at the behest of the Arab states that attacked the new State of Israel. They said, in essence, “Get out of the way. We’re going to whup Jewish butt and then you can return home.”

Those Arab “refugees” left of their own volition. No Jew made them leave. That’s not how we roll.

Apartheid? They keep using that word. And in South Africa they know exactly what it means. Which means they’re simply LYING Sons of You Know Whatsies.

The Thank You Note: Because Real Men Understand Jewish Sisterhood

You’re about to read the most amazing thank you note ever. But first some background:

For the past half a year, I’ve been involved in the most amazing theater project. A brand new theater company, the Women’s Performance Community of Jerusalem, put on Count the Stars, an original musical by and for women. The musical is based on the journey of Abraham and Sarah, the Jewish patriarch and matriarch. We women of Jerusalem and Greater Jerusalem, rehearsed twice a week, week in and week out, for six months at the OU Israel Center.

During this time, the cast, comprised of women and girls of all ages, forged a powerful bond. Most of us had performed in a variety of shows through the years, but never did we experience such unity as we did this time around. There was just something special here. Something remarkable.

Some Count the Stars backstage fun

One cast member thought it was about the lack of ego among the performers. I thought it was about the dynamism of one of the founders of the performance company, Sharon Katz. Or perhaps it was about the fact that we were doing something totally new in theater, something new and Jewish, and doing it in the heart of the holy city of Jerusalem.

Whatever it was, that special something, and whatever the reason for it, it continues. We had our four performances at the Gerard Behar Theater. We had our cast party at the OU Center. And still, we’re just not ready or willing to say goodbye. That’s why we have a Chanukah party scheduled. We don’t want to see the holy atmosphere, the Jewish sisterhood we found here in Jerusalem, to dissipate.

This is something that must be nurtured, treasured, and indulged.

Now I’d like to say that even though I have a full time job, I felt pretty free to pick up and leave for rehearsals at the end of a work day. My kids are older. They can fend for themselves. I don’t know if I could have managed if they were younger. It was a big sacrifice for the women in our cast who are still raising young children. Or rather, it was a big sacrifice for their husbands.

Just how big a sacrifice became clear at our cast party, when our director, Shifra Penkower, read us a letter from the husband of one of our cast members. It seems that Betsalel Steinhart, a licensed tour guide and Jewish educator, sent this letter to the production crew with the specific intent that it be read aloud to the cast. He meant to surprise his wife Shoshana, a petite dancer who in real life, is an occupational therapist at Alyn Hospital Pediatric & Adolescent Rehabilitation Center.

The Steinhart family

He certainly succeeded. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as the letter was read. She was moved to the core. She was actually shaking with emotion.

Here is the letter:

Tuesday December 6th.                                                                                                    BS’D.

To the wonderful women of Count the Stars, from the long lost men in your lives…

I think I am speaking on behalf of all the Count the Stars men when I write these words. True, I have never met them, your husbands, boyfriends, fathers and sons, and can only see my wife, Shoshana, as she went through the last six months, but I am hazarding a guess that this applies to us all.

I am sitting in my quiet house, as a few miles from here the last performance is winding down.  My kids are sleeping or reading, and my wife, as usual, is not here.

I have two words for you all, the two words that have defined our nation since our matriarch Leah in this week’s Parsha named her fourth son Yehuda-Judah, meaning I will thank G-d, and eventually became the name of our people, Yehudim.

Thank you.

Thank you to Hashem for giving you the strength and ability to do what you did.

Thank you for your dedicated, hard work.  Especially to the team of Shifra, Sharon, Bati, Judy, Ellen & Avital, but to you all.

Thank you for putting on such a beautiful show that inspired so many.

Thank you for raising the lives of the women in our lives who mean so much to us, despite the price we have paid (Laundry-help!-What are delicates??? What should I make for dinner??? Is there a limit to how many times I can order pizza??? Which kid wears what size and which clothes?? Where is the cleaning fluid?? Ahhhhhh!!!)

Thank you for fanning that spark of creativity that burns within the women in our lives, that sent them to the tryouts for Count the Stars so long ago, and enabling that spark to become a burning flame of intense exuberance.

Thank you for the satisfied exhaustion that was on the faces of our women, when returning home late after yet another crazy practice, with the tiredness that only comes from doing something so fulfilling.

Thank you for giving them the opportunity to glow, to shine, to sing, to act, to dance, to radiate joy and happiness, to release all their tensions on stage as they gave their all, and to become the parts that they played with all that entails.

Thank you for giving expression to the confident, radiant smile that my wife only wears when she is in dance mode. One is only really in full flower when one is expressing their creative essence, and you gave them this chance to do so.

Thank you for caring about each other.

Thank you for building a kehilla, which by nature of its existence and the shared values that its members embody, brings forth a greater meaning and a more permanent sense of connectivity: you will never forget this, in essence.

Thank you for giving the religious women, who yearn for the opportunity to do the dances and sing the songs that maybe they wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in front of men, that opportunity to do so.

Thank you for returning our women to us, each invigorated and inspired in her own way.

Thank you.

Our one complaint? We just wish we could have been there to see you…and in that, I definitely speak on behalf of all the men.

May Hashem grant you all the strength to continue and to perform again and again,

We love you all, and welcome you back with open arms,

Betsalel Steinhart

It was such a beautiful letter that I felt the need to share it with the world, here in this space. It is not too many men that could or would write such a letter.

Which proves the point I’m trying to make.

We did something special here with this show. Something that is difficult to put into words. Something that I feel could only have happened in the Holy City between Jewish sisters.

And we should definitely keep it going somehow, do more shows, create more magic, make the bible come to life on the stage, make it enjoyable, and do it all with a whole heart, in happiness and love and sisterhood.

We made something real here.

And it took a real man to see that.

Bless you, Betsalel Steinhart, for seeing us.

ABC Does a Switcheroo and Tells A Whopper of a Lie

ABC lied today.

Somewhere between a school filled with panicked children and the mayor’s house, this morning a Qassam rocket, shot with malice and intent to kill as many Jews as possible,  struck hard. Buildings were damaged. Cars were damaged. And many people were treated in hospital for shock. 

But this is not what was reported in the mainstream media.

As ABC has it, Israel struck Gaza.

That’s not the whole headline. But you don’t need the whole headline. You’ve got the facts in the order ABC wants you to have them.

And ABC wants you to have the facts in that order because ABC wants you to think Israel struck out at Gaza in a vacuum, without reason.

And if you don’t buy that, then at least ABC wants you to think of this not as a strike by Arab terrorists against Jewish schoolchildren or the mayor but as some sort of squabble between very mismatched sides.

On the one side there is Israel with its huge army with planes and technological know-how. On the other side,  you have these lone poverty-stricken, oppressed Gazan refugees who have these dumb homemade rockets made out of sugar.

That is when Israel will let them have sugar. (Bad Israel. Mean Israel.)

Wait. There is more.

ABC wants you to think that anonymous rocket had no serious target. Not a school or children or the mayor. Just a city. Just in general.

And ABC wants you to OVERLOOK the rocket and look at the retaliation. The big guns. They want you to look at that FIRST.

They want you to look at that FOREMOST.

They don’t want you to dig too deeply, ABC. They don’t want you to find out how many rockets these lone poverty-stricken Arab refugees have shot into the city of Sderot, into its kindergartens, schools, and homes, since Disengagement.

ABC: The “D” Word

Remember Disengagement? ABC doesn’t want you to remember that. The “D” word is when the Jews expelled 11,000 of their own people from their homes in a unilateral gesture of peace and gave the land, lock, stock, and barrel to the Arabs, so they would have a state of their own and stop killing Jews. You know, the Arabs. The ones now shooting Qassam rockets at little kids, those amazing dual purpose Jewish children who can serve as sitting ducks in their classrooms while learning the Hebrew alphabet.

It’s more than 10,000 rockets, by the way. The number of rockets shot into this random “Israeli city.” It’s a number ABC doesn’t want you to know.

And these children? The ducks who learn the Hebrew alphabet? All of them have PTSD.

Bar none.

This too, ABC doesn’t want you to know.

See, this is how it works: shock, PTSD? These injuries are not visible. So ABC can say that since the injuries aren’t visible, they aren’t injuries. And since the invisible injuries were not reported by ABC, ABC can say these injuries were not reported.

Besides, ABC says there were no reported injuries. And if ABC says this, you must believe it. Because it’s the mainstream media.

It’s all about the spin. It’s all about the order of the words. The context, the lack of context.

Keep it yawningly general. Don’t mention schools, or schoolchildren. Don’t mention the mayor, don’t mention shock, hospitals, PTSD, the number of missiles shot into Sderot. Don’t call Sderot by its name. Israeli. City.

This is what happened today, on the first day back to school in Sderot after the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana. A Qassam rocket was shot. Either toward the school, where, with any luck, there would be many young casualties or toward the mayor’s house, which would indeed be a coup, a strike at the heart of Jewish government by hate-filled, blood-lusting Arab terrorists whose desire for a state is not desire for a state, but desire for everything the Jews have. All of it. All the land. Jew-free.

The attack today was not random. It was not general.  Injuries occurred and were reported in Israel.

ABC simply told you a kind of lie.

And they’ll keep doing it. They’ll keep lying to you.

If you let them.

They’ll keep lying to you as long as they can get away with it. That is to say until you stop believing them and their lies.

And stop tuning in.

You can hold them accountable by withholding your page views, your patronage.

And you must. Because it’s what you can do for the children of Sderot.

And because it’s the right thing to do.

WATCH: Shimon Peres at 54 in Operation Thunderbolt

Shimon Peres was 93 when he died today after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage two weeks ago. We thought of him as young at heart. But once upon a time, he was actually young.

In 1977, a much younger Shimon Peres had a cameo appearance in an Israeli film about Operation Entebbe. The movie’s English title is Operation Thunderbolt, but to Israelis, the movie (and the operation) will always be known as Mivtza Yonatan, after the brother of Binyamin Netanyahu. (Yoni Netanyahu was killed during the daring rescue attempt to free the Israeli hostages held captive in Entebbe.)

Shimon Peres would have been 54 at the time this movie was made. The movie isn’t a great one, but one that Israelis love. It’s part of our popular culture, and carved into our hearts. It expresses our national pride, our Israeli chutzpah in the face of extreme danger, because “ein breira,” there was “no choice.”

We don’t leave our people twisting in the wind, at the mercy of ANYONE.

So we all love that corny old movie. And I always get a kick out of seeing a young Shimon Peres. His nemesis, Rabin, is also there, as are some other more obscure politicians. See how many you can spot. I have the starting time set shortly before Shimon Peres makes his entrance, but really, watch the whole thing.

You see Shimon briefly at 1:39:33 in the movie, as well.

He was always debonair, even in jeans and a casual jacket.

Rest in peace, Shimon Peres,

Looking Occupation Full in the Face

Sarah Tuttle-Singer wrote a longish status about the word “occupation” yesterday. Except none of what she wrote has anything to do with occupation, the concept. Rather, she created a new definition for a word that already has a perfectly good definition as well as a well-defined legal meaning, as put forth by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

This is a predictable tactic, one favored by the left. They throw tons of ordure at the fan knowing some of it is bound to stick. And when I say ordure, I mean lies. They shoot out so much of it all at once that you cannot unpack it all without looking like a pedant. And their followers drink it in and regurgitate it back into the world like the sheeple they are, even though none of it makes any sense.

Here is a screenshot of the status:

The text:

After a break-out session at #ZionismV3 at the Oshman Family JCC, where I said the “O word” — Occupation — a woman came up to me and told me she prefers the term “Disputed Territories.”

Maybe some of you do, too, and since we know words are important, I’ll explain why the word “Occupation” is important:

When I use the term “Occupation” I’m not talking about land. I’m talking about people.

Specifically, over 2 million Palestinians living in Areas A, B, and C who are the mercy of our Minister of Defense.

And what does that mean?

It means that if the IDF is ordered to raze someone’s house because their brother’s kid stabbed someone, then an entire family is homeless.

It means that the IDF can kick down their doors in the middle of the night – because maybe someone has a brother who was planning a terror attack.

It means that freedom of movement is restricted and that you can’t get from point A to point B without a check point.

It means that water can be redirected away from Palestinian villages and toward the settlements if there’s a water shortage.

It means that there are children living 30 minutes from the beach who have never seen the sea.

It means that just because things are quiet in Israel does not mean they’re well, because over the Green Line there are a lot of people who are living under the control of our government – a government they had no say in choosing.

This is occupation. And that is not in dispute.

And I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that all of us living in Israel and dealing with all the various complexities of what that means — from sleeping in bomb shelters with our babies to sipping cappuccinos on Shenken to wailing over the open grave of our friend killed in a terror attack to swimming in warm sea water at midnight — need to look this full in the face without turning away.

Definition of Occupation

For the record, let us take a look at the first sentence of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which defines “occupation.”

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

What we are speaking about here is a belligerent nation that invades another country and forcibly transfers people to the area in an effort to create facts on the ground in order to strengthen its claim to the territory.

This does not in any way shape or form describe Israel’s relationship to Judea and Samaria. For one thing, Jews lived in Judea and Samaria before there was an Arab people and before Mohammed was a gleam in his mama’s eye. Use archaeological artifacts, Josephus, or the bible. You’re still going to happen on that unassailable truth.

The Real Occupation

In fact, it was the Muslims who occupied Judea and Samaria, expelling the Jews and installing Muslims in their stead. Of course, they weren’t the only people to occupy Judea and Samaria. The territory was occupied time after time in history by the following empires: Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman, and British.

But the Jews never lost hope that they would return. They prayed for rain in Israel during Israel’s rainy season. They prayed they’d have next year’s Passover Seder in Jerusalem. They said to themselves, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning.”

The Quran calls the Jews, “Yahud,” meaning the people of Judea. Which is also what “Jew” means, by the way. The Quran refers to the Jews as Bani Isra’il, the sons of Israel, or Bnei Yisrael, as we say in Hebrew. The Quran makes no claim to these territories, but rather describes the ingathering of the Jewish exiles:

To Moses We did give Nine Clear Signs:

As the Children of Israel: when he came to them, Pharaoh said to him:

“O Moses! I consider thee, indeed, to have been worked upon by sorcery! Moses said,

“Thou knowest well that these things have been sent down by none,

But the Lord of the heavens and the earth as eye-opening evidence:

And I consider thee indeed, O Pharaoh, to be one doomed to destruction!”

So he resolved to remove them from the face of the earth:

But We did drown him and all who were with him.

And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel,

“Dwell securely in the land (of promise)”:

But when the second of the warnings came to pass,

We gather you together in a mingled crowd. (2314)

surah 17:101-104 Al Isra’ (The Night Journey)

But back to the Geneva Convention and Article 49. The language is clear. It describes a forced population exchange. Nothing of the sort happened in Judea and Samaria. Jews are not alien to the land. No one forced settlers to move there. No one was living in the areas settled at the time the settlements were created. The Arabs live in the valleys, the Jews live on the hills. It’s the way it is. Look at a topographical map and know this as fact.

Between 1948 and 1967, Jordan held Judea and Samaria. Only two UN member states saw this as a legal occupation: Great Britain and Pakistan. When Israel took possession of Judea and Samaria in 1967, it was no invasion, Habibi. She was fighting off FOUR Arab armies. She was fighting for her life.

Not Occupation: Let Me Count The Ways

So, to sum up, let’s list the way Israel is not an occupier. Israel:

• Is not an invader, but rather, was forced to fight a defensive war against four armies
• Didn’t force people to move to Judea and Samaria, they volunteered
• Didn’t kick Arabs out of their homes to create settlements, but built on barren hilltops
• Didn’t transfer a non-native population into Judea and Samaria, rather the Jews are the indigenous people of the territory with their presence in Judea and Samaria actually predating the Arab people.

Now Tuttle-Singer thinks she can get around all that by prefacing her remarks with this statement:

When I use the term “Occupation” I’m not talking about land. I’m talking about people.

But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s nonsense. It’s like someone saying, “When I say ‘car’ I’m not talking about a vehicle, I’m talking about people who drive,” or, “When I say ‘butter’ I’m not talking about a dairy product but about people who dine.”

It’s a meaningless construct. And rather than explain the logic behind this assertion that even she can’t see, she mounts a soapbox and spouts several anti-Israel lies. Beginning with this:

Specifically, over 2 million Palestinians living in Areas A, B, and C who are the mercy of our Minister of Defense.

Tuttle-Singer does two things with this statement:

1) She gets in a dig at Avigdor Liberman, Israel’s Minister of Defense,  because to her he’s über right when actually he’s no different than any other politician and waffles like the best of them when necessary. He has no compunction ordering the demolition of a Jewish home just because.

2) She lies about Area A being under Israel’s thumb. Area A has had full Palestinian Authority autonomy in Arab villages and towns since the year 2000. Arab villages and towns in Area B are also under the PA, but Israel and the PA do joint patrols here. Finally, Area C remains to be negotiated and well, that’s up to the Arabs. Israel (unfortunately, in my opinion) remains open to negotiate at any time, with no preconditions.

Really, the Arabs could have just about anything they want, if they’d just stop acting like behemoths, stop the terror, and behave like human beings.  But back to Tuttle-Singer.

It means that if the IDF is ordered to raze someone’s house because their brother’s kid stabbed someone, then an entire family is homeless.

Seriously? So teach your children not to stab people. Teach them that knives are for eating steak, and not for murdering peace activists taking bus rides—peace activists like Richard Lakin, for instance.

Don’t blame the reaction to terror, the defense. Blame the CAUSE.   Blame TERROR.

And anyway, these relatives of terrorists aren’t so homeless. They get a warning. They take their stuff out. They cry to the EU, or to their neighbors and someone builds them a newer, nicer house. Also, they get a monthly stipend for being related to someone who murdered a Jew.  And they’re lauded as heroes.

When a Jew’s home is demolished, on the other hand, he’s not allowed to rebuild, no one gives him money to buy a new home, and rather than receive a monetary reward, he’s out a couple of hundred thousand shekels with no new home on the horizon. And that’s by his JEWISH government, regarding a home that sits in Jewish indigenous territory!!

A Case Study: Israeli Demolitions

After Mohammad Nasser Tra’ayra, 17, of Bani Naim, murdered 13 year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel in her sleep, stabbing her multiple times, his parents’ home was slated for demolition as a deterrent measure against terrorism.  The IDF Spokesman’s office released this film clip of the demolition.

However, this doesn’t tell the real story.

What really happened was this: the IDF knocked down just a few walls and this only after the family received advanced warning and were able to remove their furnishings and belongings. The family also managed to carefully remove and preserve the windows and faucets for future restoration of the home.

Arab youth pretending sorrow for the camera

They took down just a few walls, leaving the house mostly intact, and easily restored.

In the inimitable words of Allen Sherman: “And they knocked a hole in the wall. That’s all. No wall.”

Contrast and compare to these before and after photos of the demolition of the home of Jewish settler, Choni Kaniel of Maale Rahavam, on May 7, 2014.

Before

One day, the Israeli courts decided to redraw the blue line and rule his home illegal. The home was demolished.

After

But this was not a symbolic demolition as in the case of the family home of the Arab terrorist who murdered a 13 year-old girl in her sleep. It was not a show for the public.

Large machinery was brought.

The home was smashed to smithereens.

No walls were left intact.

Choni now lives in a tent on the spot where his home once stood.

Choni's new "home."

Choni created this meme to illustrate the disparity between the demolition of a terrorist’s family home and that of a Jewish home.

Un. Fricking. Real.

Tuttle-Singer writes:

It means that the IDF can kick down their doors in the middle of the night – because maybe someone has a brother who was planning a terror attack.

Well, again. Whose fault is that? Israel remains in a permanent state of war from 1948, when it declared statehood. The Arabs refuse to end the state of war, no matter how much land we give them, no matter what we do. And they murder us. They murder young girls sleeping in their beds. They murder whole families on quiet Shabbat evenings. They murder us on buses and in the streets. They murder us wherever they find us. Wherever and whenever we fail to stop them, fail to defend ourselves. We expelled roughly 10,000 of our own people from their homes in the name of peace, and still, they hunt us down and murder us. They did it before 1948, such as in Hebron in 1929 and 1936. And they’re still doing it now.

We have every right to follow the leads that may prevent the murder of someone’s mother, someone’s sister, someone’s son. That is what war means: the war they force on us by refusing to make peace, by refusing to be peaceful, by their nonstop terror. If they won’t sign a treaty, then we damned well WILL kick down the doors of potential terrorists to stop them from doing their horrible, ugly, violent deeds.

That Tuttle-Singer sings her song of woe on behalf of the violent and against her own people betrays the blackest of souls.

She writes:

It means that freedom of movement is restricted and that you can’t get from point A to point B without a check point.

This too, is the result of constant Arab terror against the Jews since way before the British Mandate. Don’t like having your freedom of movement restricted? Don’t. Murder. Jews.

Don’t like checkpoints? Don’t. Murder. Jews.

Why is her concern for the murderers and not for their victims and potential victims? Because she hates us.

Tuttle-Singer writes:

It means that water can be redirected away from Palestinian villages and toward the settlements if there’s a water shortage.

This is just a lie. One that’s been debunked.Over and over again. A burst water pipe is not a water “redirected” and has nothing to do with any water shortage. Israel has actually increased the water supply to Arab villages and towns.

Some footage of the bursted water line that is now repaired by #COGAT Civil Administration. pic.twitter.com/nclwCaOwBR

— COGAT (@cogatonline) June 15, 2016

Tuttle-Singer writes:

It means that there are children living 30 minutes from the beach who have never seen the sea.

This has nothing to do with Israel, but everything to do with democratically elected terrorist Arab leaders who keep their people imprisoned in camps and refuse to make peace with Israel. Does she really want to say this has anything at all to do with Israel?? Okay, yeah. It’s Israel’s fault because Israel EXISTS.

Since Israel exists, these people remain political pawns, held in place by their democratically elected terrorist leaders. So clearly Tuttle-Singer is working toward the eradication of the Jewish State because instead of doing anything meaningful to fight against the injustice, she blames the injustice on the wrong party, and backs those responsible for the injustice, instead. And those who are responsible for the injustice have vowed not to do justice, not to let their people out of the prison camps, until Israel is Judenfrei, with the Jews in the sea, the same one Arab children apparently are so desperate to see.

Which begs the question: why is Tuttle-Singer here in Israel with her children? By her/their presence, they perpetuate the refugee status of the Arab people who remain behind barbed wire, unable to see the sea. She could actually make a difference if she’d just get on a plane and LEAVE. (I know plenty of people who’d be happy to buy her a one-way ticket back to LA.)

Tuttle-Singer writes:

It means that just because things are quiet in Israel does not mean they’re well, because over the Green Line there are a lot of people who are living under the control of our government – a government they had no say in choosing.

But things are not quiet in Israel. We are right now experiencing an uptick in terror. And if it’s not quiet, it’s because the Arabs are not quiet. So as the “new media director” of the Times of Israel, someone who works for a NEWS OUTLET, what the Hell is she talking about?

What she is trying to say (but doing a poor job of it) is that Arabs are ruled by a Jewish government but don’t get to vote for that government. But this too, is a lie.

Israelis Arabs can vote. And there are Arabs in the Knesset.

The Arabs who don’t have Israeli citizenship are welcome to apply for Israeli citizenship if they live in areas under Israeli autonomy. Once granted citizenship, they can vote in Israeli elections.

Arabs who don’t live under Israeli autonomy can vote in PA or Hamas elections, depending on where they live. And if Abbas wants to serve way past his term, and not hold new elections, that’s not on the Jews, that’s on the Arabs who voted for him.

Tuttle-Singer writes:

This is occupation. And that is not in dispute.

“This” whatever “this” means, is NOT occupation. And that is absolutely no longer in dispute, seeing as I have now unpacked and refuted her every word on the subject.

Occupation is not anything but what it actually is, and there is no Israeli occupation of Arab land. Arabs who don’t have freedom of movement, don’t have it because of Arab terror, and because they vote for terrorists to lead them: terrorists who will never negotiate peace with Israel.

Tuttle-Singer writes

And I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that all of us living in Israel and dealing with all the various complexities of what that means — from sleeping in bomb shelters with our babies to sipping cappuccinos on Shenken to wailing over the open grave of our friend killed in a terror attack to swimming in warm sea water at midnight — need to look this full in the face without turning away.

I do know what the solution is. Everyone does. It’s simple: stop the murder machine. Stop the terror. Accept that Jews have a state on their indigenous territory. Accept that the Jews expelled their own people to give you land. Accept that Israel gives you arms (the better to shoot you with, my dear), autonomy, and citizenship. Accept that Israel offered you housing, gives you money, free electricity, tons of aid, medical care, places in the government, and on our Supreme Court.

Deal with it. Compromise! Lay down your arms, your knives, your car rammings, rocks, and firebombs. Live and love in peace. Give your children a better future.

This is not at all complex. This is what Tuttle-Singer needs to look full in the face, without turning away.

This is the solution.

And only this.