06/05/2026
Friends of Israel
I had the good fortune to watch the Israel Day Parade in NYC on JBS. It was enormously inspiring, especially the energy and pride shown by the many youth that were involved. While the parade was monumental, Israel continues to be trashed by the media and since by the President of the United States. The media I watch, CNN, MSNow and NBC, has not covered the parade to any extent despite the estimates of attendance being somewhere between 50 and 100,000.
Nor have they clearly stated that Israel’s continued effort for security in Lebanon is a response to the thousands of bombs and drones that have attacked civilians in Northern Israel, not allowing many to return to their homes.
One of the articles below discusses the misconception by the west and some Arab countries that peace would be attained by giving the Palestinians a cut out state from part of Israel. That has already occurred when Israel left Gaza in 2005 and painfully removed all Jews and destroyed settlements. What happened in the 19 years before October 7, 2024 while Israel supplied water and power to Gaza and thousands of Gazans had stable daily employment within Israel? Hamas curbed the human rights of the Gazan population and created a War Machine. Their sole goal is to eliminate Israel and they will never forego that mission. (See Exterminate the Jews below). The west is confused regarding peace vs security. Israel can no longer be satisfied with a peace that ultimately leaves them insecure.
Internally, Haredi IDF service remains a very large challenge. The first vote in the Knesset passed to hold elections in September, which the Haredi desire to force the issue. Yeshiva youth demonstrate and block roads regularly against their being drafted. The rest of the country feels strongly that their service is both required and necessary to sustain the IDF effectiveness.
2. Michael Ordman's Feel Good Israel Column has not been published since April because of Illness
3.ACTION
Reject Amendment to Undermine U.S.-Israel Defense Cooperation
https://www.aipac.org/action
Strengthen & Expand the Abraham Accords
https://speak4.app/lp/qn01ynb1?ts=1777043332
Protect the Right to Worship Safely
https://hadassah.quorum.us/campaign/SACRED/
Urge Congress to Stand With the Jewish Community
https://hadassah.quorum.us/campaign/163093/
4. ARTICLES
The West still doesn’t understand why October 7th happened.
The West repeatedly confuses pauses with solutions. It treats conflict like an unpleasant workplace disagreement that can be resolved through dialogue, facilitated discussion, and sufficient emotional validation. Unfortunately, Hezbollah does not appear interested. Nor did Hamas. Nor the Islamic Republic of Iran. This brings us to the central strategic question facing Israel: What is the purpose of its military power?
The answer cannot be simply surviving attacks. Military power exists to create security. If threats repeatedly regenerate because wars end before strategic objectives are achieved, then those wars become enormously expensive exercises in postponement.
The lesson should now be obvious: Israel cannot outsource its security to Washington and, therefore, certainly not to anyone else. Israel should welcome allies, value alliances, and cooperate wherever possible. However, it must think like a country that stands alone. The Jewish state was not established because international guarantees proved reliable. It was established because international guarantees repeatedly proved worthless.
Nachum Kaplan, Future of Jewish, June 2, 2026
https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/the-west-still-doesnt-understand?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=844794&post_id=200235754
Israelis are extraordinary people in an ordinary land.
October 7th exposed this reality to the world. Within hours, hundreds of thousands of Israelis left offices, classrooms, construction sites, university campuses, restaurants, and living rooms. They did not wait to be transformed into soldiers; they already were soldiers. The uniforms were already in the closet, the training was already there, the responsibility was already understood.
That does not mean Israelis are fearless. It does not mean they are unaffected. The trauma, grief, exhaustion, and anxiety are real and visible everywhere. What is remarkable is that they refuse to stop living. The same society that mobilized hundreds of thousands of reservists also kept schools open, businesses running, hospitals functioning, and families moving forward.
Israelis do not become soldiers instead of living their lives. They become soldiers in order to protect the possibility of continuing to live with them.
Joshua Hoffman, Future of Jewish, May 30, 2026
https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/israelis-are-extraordinary-people?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=844794&post_id=199795126&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1tkxa2&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
More Israelis now define identity as Jewish first amid shifting Diaspora ties, survey finds
Israelis are increasingly defining their identity in Jewish rather than national terms, even as attitudes toward Diaspora Jewry become increasingly isolationist, according to a survey published by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry on Monday.
The study, published as part of the ministry’s Diaspora Week initiative, found that 57% of Israeli Jews now define themselves as “Jewish first,” compared with 34% in last year’s survey. That’s the highest level recorded in the past decade, and comes at a time when many fear that Israeli and Diaspora communities are drifting farther apart than ever on issues related to Israeli politics and security.
Zev Stub, Time of Israel, June 1, 2026
https://www.timesofisrael.com/more-israelis-now-define-identity-as-jewish-first-amid-shifting-diaspora-ties-survey-finds/
The Disease - Antisemitism
I recognize the disease, Anti-Semitism, because our region has wrestled with it for centuries. The idea was simple; Jews could survive among us only as a weakened minority. Protected sometimes, humiliated often, tolerated conditionally. They could pray, but not rule. They could exist, but never rise. They could remain visible only if they remained politically powerless.
And the moment Jews reclaimed sovereignty, the moment they stopped begging history for protection and started protecting themselves, the world lost its mind.
Mustapha Ezzarghani
MWC: I do not know who this author is, but the piece really resonates with me. Please read the whole thing
Facebook, May 2
Secret Weapon of US Commercial and Defense High Tech Israel!
*Supplying Israel dozens of advanced US military systems has always advanced US interests, economically and militarily.
*Supplying advanced military systems to Israel has always yielded to the US taxpayer an exceptionally high annual Return-on-Investment (R-o-I) on the annual $3.8BN investment in Israel (misperceived as “foreign aid”). This annual R-o-I includes mega-billions of dollars in research and development savings, increased export, expanded employment, additional income tax revenues to the US Treasury, and upgraded battle tactics for the US Armed Forces.
*Israel is not a recipient of “foreign aid.” Rather, it is a commercial and national security partner of the US, engaged in a mutually-beneficial two-way-street cooperation, which yields to the US taxpayer a bonanza, exponentially higher than the $3.8BN annual investment made by the US.
Yoram Ettinger, The Ettinger Report, June 4, 2026
https://theettingerreport.com/secret-weapon-of-us-commercial-and-defense-high-tech-israel/
PA Exterminate Jews "Do not leave even one"
Official PA TV has again broadcast a prayer for the extermination of Jews by a PA religious leader that is becoming a mantra on the network: "Count them, and kill them one by one, and do not leave even one." [Official PA TV, May 22. 2026] In the last two years alone, PA TV has aired sermons praying for extermination of Jews at least eight times, by PA religious officials – most recently on May 22:
The EU, France, Germany and other donor countries who fund the PA and regularly pay PA salaries, must understand that though they claim to be against Antisemitism, they are funding calls for the extermination of Jews that are as explicit as were the calls by N**i Germany
Ahron Shapiro. Palestinian Media Watch, Jun 2, 2026
https://palwatch.org/
AM YISRAEL CHAI !!!!!!
Shabbat Shalom
Michael
Palestinian Media Watch is a research institute that studies Palestinian society from a broad range of perspectives by monitoring and analyzing the Palestinian Authority through its media and schoolbooks. PMW’s major focus is on the messages that the Palestinian leaders send to the population.
