‘Toolkit’ Touts Hiring Actors With Disabilities

Screenshot from Facebook.

Question: Which group of people is the largest minority (roughly 20 percent) in the United States but usually is left out of current discussions about diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry?

Answer: Children, teens and adults with disabilities.

According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), less than 2 percent of scripted television characters in 2017 were portrayed as people with disabilities, and actors without disabilities played more than 95 percent of them — a trend called “ableism,” meaning discrimination in favor of people without disabilities.

RespectAbility, a national disability advocacy nonprofit based in Maryland, is working to change that storyline with its new “Hollywood Disability Toolkit: The RespectAbility Guide to Inclusion in the Entertainment Industry,” funded by a grant from the California Endowment.

The toolkit is designed to help entertainment professionals do a better job in disability inclusion across all platforms to “ensure more accurate, positive portrayals of people with disabilities in film and television,” said RespectAbility’s president, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi. “When it comes to disability inclusion, people often simply don’t know that they don’t know. As a result, they are afraid they will make a mistake. … By creating this guide, we hope to take away the fear factor from disability inclusion. We want to make it easy.”

“When it comes to disability inclusion, people often simply don’t know that they don’t know.” — Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi

At the Toolkit launch event, held at the offices of Bunim-Murray, reality TV pioneer Jonathan Murray, a RespectAbility board member, said: “Opening the inclusion umbrella for America’s largest minority — the 1 in 5 Americans with a disability — is the right thing to do as well as the economically smart thing, given that the disability market is valued at more than $1 trillion.”

The free, 47-page toolkit, which is available online, covers such areas as “Best Practices,” highlighting the ABC family sitcom “Speechless,” which has the role of J.J., the son with cerebral palsy, played by Micah Fowler, who has cerebral palsy. Another section, “Etiquette: Interacting With People With Disabilities,” informs readers that a mobility device such as a wheelchair is part of a person’s personal space and shouldn’t be moved without permission. It  also encourages people to treat adults with disabilities as adults, and not use baby talk in conversation with them.

A section about the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) provides definitions and guidance in following the law, and a reminder that in the ADA “disability is a legal term rather than a medical one.” Practical accessibility tips are included, such as keeping floors free of potential tripping hazards so individuals with visual disabilities and those using walkers or wheelchairs can move around more easily and find a place to sit.

The bulk of the toolkit consists of specific disabilities FAQs, lists of national organizations and examples of actors and artists with those disabilities. The guide covers 13 categories of disabilities such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), blindness-vision loss, Down syndrome and little people/dwarfism.

In the section about “Mobility Impairments Requiring the Use of a Wheelchair,” violinist Itzhak Perlman, who has polio, states: “I always say separate your abilities from your disabilities. You know, if I could play the violin, I don’t have to play it standing up. I can play it sitting down.”

Elaine Hall, founder and executive director of The Miracle Project, said she recently coached eight teenagers and young adults with autism on the set of the Netflix comedy series “Atypical,” whose main character is a high school student with autism. The eight are current participants or alumni of her theater program for children and teens of all abilities. “They were able to be on that set for eight to 10 hours, taking direction and being flexible with last-minute script changes. The crew was in tears, seeing what was possible.”

The toolkit is online at www.respectability.org/hollywood-inclusion.

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Michelle K. Wolf is a special needs parent activist and nonprofit professional. She is the founding executive director of the Jewish Los Angeles Special Needs Trust. Visit her Jews and Special Needs blog at jewishjournal.com/jews_and_special_needs.

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Wandering Israelis

If you had asked me as a child what I’d always remember from Jewish Day School, I doubt I would have counted Larry Milder’s song “Wherever You Go” among the minutiae I’d retain.

But the combination of really corny lyrics (no offense, Mr. Milder) and corresponding hand gestures really stitched them into my memory bank:

“Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish  / You’re never alone ’cause God made you a Jew / So when you’re not home, and you’re somewhere kind of new-ish / The odds are, don’t look far — ’cause they’re Jewish, too.”

Not exactly a cultural highpoint of Judaism, and yet, I confess, I find myself singing this song all the time. Partly because the melody is one of those super-catchy, can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head melodies, but also because of something deeper: Whenever I travel, I always run into Jews. And I know they’re Jews not because of beards and payot, but because they’re speaking Hebrew — meaning, they’re Israelis. And they’re everywhere.

The Israeli presence abroad is, for me, a source of never-ending delight. There is something profound and poetic about Jews returning to places where Jewish life has been destroyed, dulled or lost. But I’ve come to recognize many reasons behind the Israeli impulse to explore the Diaspora — and what it reveals about the Jewish psyche.

The Israeli presence abroad is, for me, a source of never-ending delight.

I first noticed the phenomenon of Israelis abroad when backpacking in Southeast Asia during Passover. I signed up with Chabad for what I assumed would be a modest seder in Phuket, Thailand, and was stunned when I entered a huge banquet hall with some 500 Israelis. I found them again in Inle Lake, Myanmar, where hotels were full of discarded guidebooks in Hebrew. Or in the Yangon airport, where hearing the sound of “Yalla, kadima!” turned into a daylong caravan with Israelis around the sites of the city.

I found them again in Budapest. And in Paris. And in Spain. When I told a friend I was interested in the “El Camino de Santiago” pilgrimage, he got me a book written by an Israeli about foraging for food along the way.

The Israeli draw to the world is deep and strong, propelled in part by the archetypal Jewish condition of wandering, which characterized Jewish life for thousands of years. But it’s also motivated by varying degrees of restlessness and dissatisfaction with the status quo that has inspired Jewish innovation and philosophy throughout the ages.

After completing their army service, the Israeli Student Travel Association estimates that from 30,000 and 40,000 young Israelis go backpacking every year. It’s their way of escaping the chaos and life in a war zone and reclaiming individual freedom. And they’re not alone: Last year, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics announced that more than 2.2 million Israelis had flown abroad in just a six-month period, leading one travel agent to declare, “The people of Israel are simply going on vacation at a rate not seen anywhere else in the world.”

Into the cities where synagogues and Jewish quarters are today exoskeletons of a vibrant past, come the vivacious, boisterous, beautiful citizens of Israel, each bearing the gifts of Jewish statehood. From the sonorous sounds of the Hebrew language to the country’s economic successes that made leisure travel possible, Israelis are the roving satellite sparks of a reinvigorated Jewish nation.

We are both rooted and worldly. From the Jews who built the shtetl to those who ushered the Spanish Golden Age, Jewishness has existed and flourished on almost every continent throughout time. Note that the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, does not celebrate the birthday of the Jews but the birthday of the world. We are tribal, but we have also always been universal.

Beyond Israeli tourism abroad, it is estimated that more than 1 million Israelis now live in the Diaspora — most of them in the United States. While it has undoubtedly expanded the reach and impact of Israeli culture, and been a significant political asset, it also may be compromising Israeli innovation, contributing to a so-called “brain drain,” and diminishing the Israeli census.

From 2012 and 2015, Israel lost more people to the United States (18,000) than it gained through American aliyah (13,000), according to the Department of Homeland Security. This prompted Israel’s Immigrant Absorption Ministry to launch the campaign “Returning at 70,” to draw Israeli expats back home. Their presence is needed.

But, of course, it’s the security of having a homeland that allows Israelis to wander and still feel safe.

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Max’s Very Special Bar Mitzvah

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Like many Jewish mothers, Jody Barrens Moran knew she wanted to do something extra special for her son Max’s bar mitzvah, but she wasn’t trying to come up with a crazy theme or have a horse gallop into the ceremony with the bar mitzvah boy in the saddle. She was just trying to figure out how to have a meaningful ceremony at Temple Emanuel, a Reform synagogue in Beverly Hills, for her 13-year-old son, who is nonverbal and can’t walk without assistance. As Barrens Moran says, she lives her life according to her favorite quote from actress Audrey Hepburn: “Nothing is impossible — the word itself says, ‘I’m possible!’ ”

Max has significant developmental delays in all areas, but doctors haven’t been able to diagnose him. He communicates with family members and those who know him by his expressive eyes, attends a special education program and participates in intensive physical and occupational therapy.

Rabbi Jonathan Aaron and Cantor Lizzie Weiss at Temple Emanuel embraced the idea of planning a joyful, nontraditional bar mitzvah, and created a unique prayer experience that would put Max in the center of all the activities, even though he wouldn’t be able to assume the traditional roles of leading the congregation in prayer or read Hebrew from the Torah scroll. So on Feb. 24, Jody Barrens Moran read from the Torah instead of Max, and a cousin Max’s age held the Torah on his behalf during the l’dor v’dor ritual, when a Torah is passed from grandparents to parents, and then to the youngest generation. Weiss wrote a custom tallit blessing that was titled, “We Wrap You in Love” and included these lines: “With each glance into your eyes we see your soul /And we see our Blessing.”

Max was beaming throughout the service that was attended by 150 family members and friends, recognizing and soaking up all the love in the room that was focused on him. “I really feel that my son knew what was going on and that everyone was there for him,” Barrens Moran said.

Instead of the usual bar mitzvah gifts or checks going directly to Max, Barrens Moran asked that guests make donations to Max’s third-party special needs trust, to enable the family to legally supplement vital government benefits such as Medi-Cal and SSI with private funds that can go toward ensuring Max with a high quality of life.

Barrens Moran encourages other parents of children with special needs not to let their kids’ disabilities stop them from having a full life. “Having a bar mitzvah for Max was part of my dream and it became a reality when I finally said I’m going to do it.”

Barrens Moran’s other dream is to create a home “for Max and for other children like Max [where they can] live in a loving environment. There will be about four or five kids at a time, and I’ll hire all the staff and the therapists,” she said.

The common thread that runs through all of these b’nai mitzvahs, however, is a powerful sense of holiness and love that permeates the sanctuary.

As Barrens Moran and Maxine, Max’s grandmother, described to me the beauty and moving nature of Max’s bar mitzvah, it reminded me of our son’s bar mitzvah, held almost a decade ago in Beth Am during Rosh Chodesh Hanukkah, which was also a unique, tailored service for his own set of special needs. We have also been guests at Valley Beth Shalom for so many of our friends who have children with special needs and also attended many wonderful special needs b’nai mitzvah through the Vista del Mar program called Nes Gadol, led by Rabbi Jackie Redner.

Abilities vary widely among teens with special needs, from those who can chant their haftarah flawlessly from memory, to some who use a voice-assisted communication device to speak, to others for whom dressing the Torah is a huge milestone. The common thread that runs through all of these b’nai mitzvahs, however, is a powerful sense of holiness and love that permeates the sanctuary as a group of people come together to honor the dignity and uniqueness of an integral member of the congregation.

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Michelle K. Wolf is a special needs parent activist and nonprofit professional.

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This Sacred Beauty

It is written in the Talmud, “Ten measures of beauty descended upon the world, nine were taken by Jerusalem.”

It is no surprise that many feel a visceral love for Jerusalem. The city, which has been destroyed twice and attacked 52 times, still emits a sacred beauty, a beauty that transcends religion and politics.

Most Jews feel this visceral connection before we have ever visited Israel, before we even understand our historical, cultural and religious connection to the land. The love we feel for Israel is not complicated or questioning. Rather, it is like the love we feel for our children, our soulmates — unconditional and eternal: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”

In the fall of 2013, I reluctantly joined Facebook to promote a book on “deep beauty,” beauty so profound that it touches you not just emotionally but spiritually. Each day I posted art and design that moved me, hoping to nudge the art world back to a deeper appreciation of beauty. I never posted about politics, although many of my art friends did.

When the Hamas war broke out in the summer of 2014, I (naively) expected these left-leaning justice-warrior friends to see which side justice was on. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

No matter what Hamas did, they blamed Israel — precisely what is happening today.

I started to defend Israel, but I also decided that maybe what was needed was for the world to again be touched by its sacred beauty. For more than a decade, the art world had only “allowed” sad, dreary, conflict scenes to be shown.

As the photo-book world follows the art world, there were many rejections before Skyhorse, a small publishing house, agreed to publish “Passage to Israel.” I chose 200 images to represent Israel, images from a wide variety of photographers. My primary requirement: The images were of deep beauty — images that would touch the soul.

Somewhat miraculously, I was introduced to Anderson Contemporary Gallery in New York City. Ronnie Anderson fell in love with the images; she didn’t care that she wasn’t supposed to love them.

And so the exhibition “Passage to Israel” opened in New York in the fall of 2016, with Matisyahu headlining. After its NYC stop, it traveled around the New York area before opening in Ariel, Samaria. It then went on to the Jerusalem Theater, Jaffa and Haifa.

The reaction has been extraordinary: The Israeli friend living in the U.S. who sat down and cried when she went through the book. The innumerable notes saying, “Thank you for reconnecting me to my love for Israel.” The many people who simply said, “I forgot that Israel is far more than just the conflict.”

Most shocking to me has been the reaction of the Arab world. When I created a Facebook page for “Passage,” I braced myself for daily hate and ugliness. Instead, more than a third of the likes are from Arabic names, many of whom heart and share the photos.

Most shocking to me has been the reaction of the Arab world.

Can deep beauty be the sacred bond?

The ultimate test was back where I started, with the art world. The Sagamore Hotel in the South Beach area of Miami Beach — the center of the U.S. art world — chose “Passage” as the centerpiece of a three-month #Peace70 exhibition. The Sagamore is now owned by Israeli Ronit Neuman, but the idea was the brainchild of curator Sebastien Laboureau, who branded it “art as the crosswalk for peace.”

A snowstorm prevented me from making it to the opening in the beginning of March, but from all accounts it was quite epic. Two Florida mayors spoke; major collectors and “tastemakers” roamed the stunning Sagamore, entranced by images of Israel. As one art patron put it, “I haven’t seen the Sagamore this packed since Art Basel 2012.”

As happy as I am about “Passage’s” ability to touch souls, it saddens me to see that, four years later, we’re still dealing with the same desire to believe Hamas’ lies, no matter how far-fetched. A week into the Gaza turmoil, Hamas flew a swastika between two Palestinians flags. As of yet, no mainstream Western journalist has reported it.

Ultimately, the last two sentences of the “Passage” book still stand: “Israel is indeed a mirror to one’s soul. Those who see the beauty, who stand up for the truth, who understand the meaning, will never regret where they stood in this moment in history, when silence is not an option.”

Am Yisra’el Chai.

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Karen Lehrman Bloch is an author and cultural critic.

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Why Israel?

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Last week, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. The government of Israel responded to that atrocity, as well as Iran’s use of Syria as a thoroughfare for weapons transfers to terrorist groups like Hamas, by bombing Syria’s T4 airbase. The media responded by castigating Israel: for example, the Associated Press headlined, “Tensions ratchet up as Israel blamed for Syria missile strike,” and accompanied that story with a photo of suffering Syrian children targeted by Assad, making it seem that Israel had targeted the children.

That media treatment was no surprise — the week before, the terrorist group Hamas used large-scale protests against Israel on the Gaza border as a cover for terrorist attacks on Israeli troops. When Israeli troops responded with force, the media falsely suggested that Israel had indiscriminately fired into the crowd. Meanwhile, reporters touted the story of a supposed photographer killed by Israeli forces; it turns out that the photographer was a known Hamas officer.

A few weeks earlier and some 2,000 miles away in France, 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll was stabbed 11 times and her body set on fire by a Muslim neighbor who knew her well, and had convictions for rape and sexual assault. In 2017, there were 92 violent anti-Semitic incidents in France, a 28 percent year-on-year increase.

Moving across the English Channel, Israel’s Labor Party finally was forced to cut ties completely with the leader of the U.K.’s Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime anti-Semite who has routinely made nice with terrorists and defended open Jew-hatred in public. And, of course, in the United States, the alt-right’s anti-Semitism continues to make public discourse more crude and the Women’s March continues to make nice with anti-Semites such as Louis Farrakhan.

In other words, there is a reason for Israel to exist.

Israel’s self-interest is good for the Jews, good for the West and good for the world.

That reason is biblical, of course: Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people and the wellspring of Jewish practice. God’s promise to the Jews is inextricably intertwined with the existence and future of the State of Israel.

But over the past few decades, too many Jews have forgotten about the practical need for the Jewish state. In the same way too many Jews ignored the Zionist movement, believing that assimilation into tolerant non-Jewish societies provided the best pathway to a decent life, too many Jews today see Israel as a remnant of a hackneyed and counterproductive ethnocentric worldview. That dislike for Israel’s very existence has led many Jews to demonstrate their “world citizen” bona fides by using every opportunity to criticize Israel.

But Israel’s existence is not about ethnocentrism. Israel is multiethnic and multicultural, of course: Judaism is a religion far more than an ethnicity, as Russian and Ethiopian Jews can attest. Israel’s existence, on a secular level, is about enshrining a state that is safe for Jews the world over — and that can defend Jews and Western values in the face of regional and international threats. When Israel stands up to Syrian atrocities, it is acting out of a Judaic commitment to prevent the degradation of human beings made in God’s image; when Israel offers a road for European Jews on the verge of extinction, it is acting not merely out of solidarity but out of decency. Israel is a decent country, because it was founded on a decent purpose — and because it was founded on the basis of a tradition of decency.

That doesn’t mean Israel’s government is mistake-free. Far from it. But Israel’s extraordinary treatment at the hands of the world community is a demonstration that Israel is an outlier — and that’s a good thing. The United Nations that condemns Israel is filled with repressive dictatorships and corrupt plutocracies; the supposed “family of nations” is more like a squabbling band of self-interested moral idiots.

When Syrian children, mostly Muslim, gasp from chlorine poisoning, it is Israeli jets that provide a possible respite. Israel doesn’t act out of the pure goodness of its heart; it acts from self-interest. But Israel’s self-interest is good for the Jews, good for the West and good for the world. Forgetting that means trusting that the better angels of others’ natures will persevere over their internal devils. Historically, that’s been a rotten bet.

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Ben Shapiro is a best-selling author, editor-in-chief at The Daily Wire and host of the podcast “The Ben Shapiro Show.”

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We Should Sacrifice, Not Just Celebrate

Yizkor stickers. Standing at attention. The blaring of a siren. Reading the names of fallen soldiers.

For many schools, these are the time-honored hallmarks of every commemoration for Yom HaZikaron. And although each component is important, the question is: Are they enough?

I reached out to my aunt and uncle, whose son was injured in Tzuk Eitan in 2014, to help me answer this question. In Tzuk Eitan, 67 soldiers were killed and 1,434 were wounded. My first cousin, Boaz, was one of those injured. My aunt, in talking about the “horim ha’shikulim” — the mothers and fathers whose children were killed and whose lives were forever changed one hot summer day in July 2014 — said:

“Each of these mothers will never again get to hear the front door opening and their son calling, ‘Hi, Ema! I’m home!’ Their beds will never be slept in, their clothes never worn, their seat at the table will always be empty, and their mothers will never get to see them grow into the people they were meant to be. This is a terrible, unbearable tragedy.”

But, she continued, “Boaz lives every day with the price he paid to keep us safe and our dream of Zion alive. Every day he deals with physical and emotional pain that few understand and fewer still can relate to. He will never be whole, and he will never be free of it. And like him are 50,000 other Israelis, all ‘nechai tzahal’ (injured veterans).”

Exposing our students to the wounded living heroes enables us to empathize with the very real struggles  of all Israelis.

The reality is that Israel, like many other countries, struggles with how to support its wounded veterans. It is easier to ignore them. Yet, we must be there for all the wounded soldiers. And exposing our students to the wounded living heroes enables us to understand and empathize with the very real struggles and anxieties of all Israelis.

Whose story should we tell? We need to honor the people who paid the ultimate price to protect all of us, and we need to honor those people who spend their lives continuing to pay the price for their sacrifice.

It’s no secret that American Jews have, in the past several years, been less enthusiastic in their support for Israel. The way to fundamentally combat this trend is, of course, at the level of education. We must develop curricula and school cultures that reinforce Zionist passion and identity. To that end, Yom HaAtzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) and Yom HaZikaron (Israeli Memorial Day) serve as ripe opportunities for students to establish a connection to the Jewish state, its inhabitants and its history.

The questions arise: Should we consider different approaches to how we commemorate Yom HaZikaron? Should we limit the ceremony to those who gave up their lives, or can we include the wounded as well?

Every citizen of Israel, as we all know, must answer the call of duty for military service. Of course, that call of duty comes with tremendous risk — of losing one’s life  or suffering psychological and physical trauma.

We need to recall that, as mythical Israel turns 70, real Israelis live each day with the pain of sacrifice to make it a reality.

Let’s make sure we don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. Let’s remember that Yom HaZikaron changed throughout the years. Israel used to commemorate only the fallen soldiers of the 1948 War of Independence but changed to also commemorate those who gave their lives in pre-state years. Israel used to commemorate only those lost in war and changed to commemorating victims of terror as well.

My point is this: It is less important to follow an almost talmudic preciseness of what the day traditionally calls for than it is to connect our students to the sacrifices that real people make so that our unbelievable country, our dream — Medinat Yisrael — could exist.

Let’s come together as educators, parents and students to realize that the most important things are for our youth to connect with Israel, love Israel and care about Israel, and to commemorate those who gave up their lives and those whose lives are forever impacted.

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Noam Weissman is senior vice president of education for Jerusalem U.  

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When Truth Comes Marching In

The pesky truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict finally came out last week — and hardly anyone noticed. After decades of hearing that the key obstacle to peace is the Jewish presence in the West Bank, the “March of Return” protests from Gaza exposed a more fundamental obstacle — the Jewish presence in Israel.

These violent protests had nothing to do with the Jewish “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinian leaders have long claimed they want to build a Palestinian state. No, the thousands of Palestinians gathered at the Israeli border with Gaza were dying to return not to Ramallah — but to Tel Aviv and Haifa.

This is the first time we’ve witnessed such a concrete expression of a Palestinian demand that is an absolute deal-killer: The “return” of up to 5 million Palestinian refugees to Israel proper. Even the most leftist peace groups concede that Israel could never allow that. This delusional “right of return,” which Palestinian leaders have nurtured for decades as a sacred right, has always been a ticking time bomb. Sooner or later, it was bound to explode.

Last week, on the eve of Israel’s 70th anniversary, the truth exploded. There was no more pretending. When Palestinian rioters did everything they could to breach Israel’s border fence, it was not a Palestinian state they were after, it was the Jewish state.

This is the first time we’ve witnessed such a concrete expression of a Palestinian demand that is an absolute deal-killer: The “return” of up to 5 million Palestinian refugees to Israel proper.

The mainstream media hardly noticed this sea change, instead focusing on the same old formula we’ve seen a million times — Palestinian demonstrators plus violence equals dramatic coverage. Never mind that, this time, the demonstrators were trying to invade Israel.

To his credit, Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, picked up on the change right away in a letter to The New York Times:

“This was by no means a peaceful protest,” he wrote. “It was organized with the theme of the ‘right of return’ and featured literal calls by Hamas leaders in the crowds to march ‘on to Jerusalem,’ a theme consistent with the ideology of Hamas, which is to destroy the Jewish state and to reject any efforts at reconciliation or peace.”

Remember, we’re talking about Gaza here — a coastal enclave that Israel completely evacuated in the summer of 2005, in a heart-wrenching action that nearly tore apart the country after 7,000 Jews were expelled from their homes. Because there was no more “occupation” for the Palestinians to rail against, their leaders had to find something else.

They found Israel.

As Ben-Dror Yemini wrote on YNet:

“This wasn’t resistance to the settlement enterprise. This was the desire to annihilate Israel  —  as the march’s organizers publicly declared … ‘Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud,’ which is the Muslim battle cry, from days of old, to slaughter Jews. Not Zionists. Not Israelis. Jews.”

Don’t be fooled by the anti-Israel propaganda that Israel is still “occupying” Gaza because of its “blockade.” In one week alone in March, Israel’s Defense Ministry reported, 2,728 trucks entered the Gaza Strip from Israel, carrying 74,202 tons of supplies, including 87 tons of medical supplies, 15 tons of agricultural products, 1,506 tons of food supplies, and 51,044 tons of building supplies.

Had Arab leaders accepted the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947, we would be celebrating two national birthdays next week instead of just one.

In addition, Israel supplies electricity to Gaza via 10 power lines and water via two pipelines. Of course, now that Palestinians burned 10,000 tires at the border to create havoc for Israeli forces, they’re complaining that Israel is not allowing tires to enter, just as they complained that Israel wasn’t allowing the entry of materials that would further a terror infrastructure.

Israel has made its share of mistakes over the years, but here’s a mistake it never made: Stopping Palestinian leaders from creating a “Gaza Riviera” in the Gaza Strip that would have become a world-renowned tourist destination. Had Palestinian leaders taken advantage of Israel’s evacuation to create a decent life for their people, Israel would have been the first country to help out.

It was not Israel’s decision to invest all that money in bombs and tunnels instead of schools, hotels and industrial parks. It was not Israel’s decision to teach the hatred of Jews in Palestinian schools rather than the love of life and peaceful co-existence.

While the media focus on the hell emanating from Gaza, Israelis imagine the hell that would emanate from the West Bank if it were controlled by a terror group like Hamas. Can you blame Israeli voters, who already see a genocidal Iran installed next door in Syria, if they dread the thought of a second Gaza on their doorstep?

Israel is not the enemy of the Palestinian people. The real enemy is their corrupt leadership that peddles hatred and pipe dreams instead of real hope.

Had Arab leaders accepted the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947, we would be celebrating two national birthdays next week instead of just one.

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