| Poll Finds Biden Hemorrhaging Support Among Crucial Voting Bloc — Even As They Trend Dem On Key Issues |
|---|
| 'Biden performs worse than the Democratic brand' |
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why Israelis Are So Happy
Amid domestic division and war, our families and community give us a sense of purpose.
By Gil Troy
You might have seen reports that America has fallen out of the top 20 countries on the 2024 World Happiness Index. They probably didn’t mention that Israel finished fifth, behind Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden.
Don’t confuse “happiness” with “comfort” or “self-indulgence.” Israelis began 2023 polarized politically—only to be united by Hamas’s invasion. Amid unspeakable suffering, Israelis have found comfort in one another and a higher calling. Too many Americans feel lonely and lost.
Israelis pursue happiness through family and community, by feeling rooted and having a sense of purpose. My son Yoni got married in Jerusalem midwar, while serving in the military reserves. He notes that “Israelis grow up with many outside influences, many adult role models, not just their parents. It starts with our large weddings, when you’re blessed to ‘build a faithful home in Israel.’ ”
That dance between the individual and the collective begins long before birth. It spawns Israelis’ high levels of “trust, benevolence, and social connections,” which, as the 2023 happiness report emphasized, nurture “well-being,” even “in times of crisis.” Alexis de Tocqueville called families the backbone of healthy democracies. Family inculcates loyalty, commitment and self-sacrifice. Belonging to communities—extended families—teaches citizens to care about and cooperate with others.
Despite disagreeing passionately, Israelis live in an intimate society that runs on trust and generates hope. Israelis feel they’re never alone, and that their relatives and friends will never abandon them.
Living in what Zionism’s founder, Theodor Herzl, called Altneuland, old-new land, Israelis don’t count in days and decades but in millennia and eternity. They feel part of a bigger story, Jews’ historical saga reaching back 3,500 years. The pain punctuating this story helps transcend passing traumas. Even as most Israelis experienced Hamas’s Oct. 7 killing spree as a Jewish event, powered by centuries of Jew-hatred, Israelis recall many redemptive moments too. Israelis’ favorite holidays, including Hanukkah, Passover, and Independence Day, re-enact this reassuring oppression-to-liberation arc.
Compare anti-Israel progressive students with their Israeli soldier peers. Many protesters are the avatars of America’s lost generation. Their pinched ideology deems the U.S. systemically racist and is intent on sorting everyone by “gender identity” and skin color. Rather than optimistically expand America’s economy for all, they pessimistically compete for reparations and indulgences—their “restorative justice” is often more vengeful than just.
These illiberal liberals trash traditional families, religion and America’s noble story of a flawed nation becoming “a more perfect union.” These campus commissars are among the unhappy Americans the surgeon general sees in the depths of loneliness and despair.
Israelis didn’t seek this war—but when attacked, they unleashed a patriotism, idealism, self-sacrifice and grit that today’s regressive progressives scorn. Israelis’ resilience, duty and love of life explain how this often polarized and besieged society remains such a happy place. Rather than demonize these heroes, protesters could learn from Israelis about the art of living—not only for their sake but for America’s too.
Mr. Troy is an American presidential historian and senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute. He is the editor of the new three-volume set “Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Biden’s New Policy: Pin the Blame on Israel
Unwavering initial support for Israel’s just war has deteriorated into unending criticism of its prosecution.
As a retired Marine veteran of 25 years, I think your editorial “Biden Exploits a Tragic Israeli Mistake” (April 5) is spot on in its use of Carl von Clausewitz’s term “fog of war” in describing the conflict in Gaza. That fog becomes even denser when fighting in an urban environment where the enemy blends in with the populace, uses it as human shields, and commandeers its humanitarian aid. It’s not as if the terrorists run around Gaza wearing T-shirts that say “Hamas terrorist” on them.
Lt. Col. Larry Kovalchik, USMC (Ret.)
Boerne, Texas
First gradually, now precipitously, President Biden has been disengaging from Israel. Unwavering initial support for Israel’s just war has deteriorated into unending criticism of its prosecution. Forgotten have been Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities and continuing abuse and endangerment of its own civilians. A wraparound media loop has fastened onto a tragic fog-of-war accident, for which Israel has apologized.
Nevertheless, the Biden administration has repeatedly warned Israel against any incursion into Rafah without making provision for the evacuation of civilians, as if the IDF wouldn’t do that. That so many Gazans now pack Rafah is entirely due to Israel’s numerous prior warnings, resisted by Hamas, for civilians to flee from imminent attack.
Misguided calls for an “immediate cease-fire,” not conditioned to the release of hostages, would result in Hamas’s survival from condign annihilation. It, not Israel, has turned down every cease-fire proposal, adamant in its maximalist demands. Not unrealistically, Hamas has expected world public opinion to spring to its rescue, triggered by manipulated civilian-casualty claims.
Richard D. Wilkins
Syracuse, N.Y.
Can I request a further article that explores why Israel alone is tasked with the responsibility to protect Palestinian civilians from their own government? In the West, we seem to assume that even though Hamas was elected by its people and long enjoyed popular support, it is relieved of all duty to protect and defend its populace. Instead, that burden falls on Israel, which was brutally attacked on Oct. 7. Why are there no stories written about Hamas aid workers?
Darryl L. Schall
Los Angeles
++++++++++++++++++++
LARRY KUDLOW: Lloyd Austin's defense of Israel is just what Joe Biden should be doing
Israel is going after Hamas because they're cutthroat terrorists, Kudlow says
By Larry Kudlow FOXBusiness
Larry Kudlow: Biden should defend Israel
FOX Business host Larry Kudlow reacts to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying there is no evidence Israel has committed genocide in the Middle East conflict on 'Kudlow.'
Of all the economic and other news items in the last day or two, I don't want anyone to miss the important words of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Mr. Austin said at a Senate Armed Services hearing that there was no evidence Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the Hamas war in Gaza. Now, the question was asked by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Mr. Austin said: "We don't have any evidence of genocide being committed."
According to reports, Cotton repeated the question. Secretary Austin replied, "We don't have evidence of that to my knowledge," and, further, Cotton mentioned that Austin has been accused of "greenlighting genocide," and Mr. Austin responded by saying this:
AUSTIN: What I would say, Sen. Cotton, from the very beginning, is we committed to help assist Israel in defending its territory and its people by providing security assistance, and I would remind everybody that what happened on Oct. 7 was absolutely horrible and, you know, numbers of Israeli citizens killed, and then a couple of hundred Israeli citizens taken hostage… American citizens as well.
COTTON: So, you deny the accusation that you greenlit genocide?
AUSTIN: I absolutely deny it.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, says if Israel does not get rid of Hamas, the world will see the troubles again and again on 'Kudlow.'video
Biden needs to stick up for Israel: Sen. Joni Ernst
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, says if Israel does not get rid of Hamas, the world will see the troubles again and again on 'Kudlow.'
Well, I’ll tell you, against the backdrop of recent actions and statements by President Biden and his various minions suggesting the administration is betraying Israel, and walking away from Israel's commitment to destroying Hamas, and all the various attacks on Israel about civilian casualties and deaths and famine, most of which are not true, and when they are true, Israel has apologized, but Hamas uses Palestinian human shields, and they — Hamas — are the ones committing war crimes, not Israel.
So, Defense Secretary Austin's statement in front of the Senate today was a very welcome development, in my judgment, and Sen. Cotton also mentioned that Austin's statement was a lot better than CIA Director William Burns' and National Intelligence Director Avril Haines', both of whom dodged the question at an intelligence committee hearing last month.
Now, of course, Israel is going after Hamas because they're cutthroat terrorists and murderers, and, as Secretary Austin just said, what happened on Oct. 7 was absolutely horrible, but Israel has no intention of destroying Palestinian civilians, though unfortunately they are blamed for this by people on the far-left who don’t know what they’re talking about, and it’s not true. It has never been true.
Then I went and looked up the legal definition of "genocide," and I found it. Section 1091 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code defines "genocide" as "violent attacks with specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Israel has not done this. Lloyd Austin is correct and Lloyd Austin's defense of Israel is just what Joe Biden should be doing and should have been doing and saying all along. I'm now waiting for Joe Biden to publicly back up his defense secretary.
Then we're all waiting for Mr. Biden to let Israel finish off the job by destroying Hamas, who are uncivilized barbarians and deserve to be destroyed.
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the April 9, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment