On the one hand, it's no secret that Israel would support a two-state solution -- with some kicking and screaming -- if the Palestinians would ever really accept one. On the other, Lapid is making a terrible mistake in an unfriendly forum.
That's right -- Israeli PM Yair Lapid told the UN, which is hostile to Israel, and where the Palestinians have been trying for decades to declare their "statehood" as an end-around to negotiations -- that Israel accepts a Palestinian state.
This jibes with Joe Biden's nonsensical claim yesterday that Palestinians are "entitled" to a state. No, they are not: they, like everyone else, have to build a state and agree to the basic rules of living in peace with their neighbors.
Perhaps Lapid made his announcement as part of some concession to the Biden administration -- perhaps to get Biden to back off the Iran deal, or to relieve some other form of pressure. If so, I doubt that deal will hold for very long.
The major criticism of Lapid's move comes from within Israel: that he is just an interim PM leading a collapsed government on the way to elections in November, and has no authority to offer such a momentous compromise.
The joke's on the little right-wing parties and politicians who, for reasons of personal ambition or narrow ideology, refused to allow Netanyahu to govern. Don't complain: you got what you should have known you were going to get.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
