34 Bamidbar: Day 3 (Tuesday) | The Encampment

25 Iyar 5786 AM | 1 AVE.

Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us by Your Spirit and invited the nations to share in the richness of Your Word. We thank You for the people and state of Israel, including the Messiah, our First Fruits, through whom the harvest of life has begun.

Today is the thirty-eighth day of the Omer according to the minority Sadducean and Essene counts, which is 5 weeks and 3 days.

May the Spirit of Truth prepare my heart for the revelation of the 50th day.

Jonathan Writes:

Today's reading is Numbers 2:1-2:34.

This is the link to the Daily Chumash with Rashi at Chabad.

The Daily Wisdom from the Lubavitcher Rebbe is titled "Guarding Our Inner Sanctuary."

See 20 Tetzaveh: Day 2 (Monday).

The video today is 103: Why is the two-state solution so difficult to achieve?

Additional readings today:

• True to form, Boston mosque hosts Islamist troublemaker | JNS
• A (Jewish) state of political confusion | JNS
• Antisemitism, Islam and the future of the GOP | JNS
• Pew study: Muslims to outnumber Jews in U.S. by 2050 | POLITICO

Much brilliant and disturbing insight from the JNS team for me to think about this morning. I do still wonder what Jewish Israelis have in mind strategically when they say that the two-state solution is dead while they are in the middle of an ICJ genocide investigation and their Prime Minister is wanted by the ICC for war crimes. Are they intending to incriminate themselves? If the two-state solution is dead, what is the alternative? Genocide? Apartheid? Obviously, the Israeli Jews have neither of these in mind. But what, then, are they proposing?

It is accurate to say that I have at least one foot solidly in the evangelical pro-Israel-American alliance camp, but I differ from Trump strategically in that I place a much greater emphasis on the Rule of Law and UN reform. I believe we need a stronger rules-based global order, including in the areas of public health and climate change mitigation/adaptation. I worry that Trump and JNS strategists could be boxing pro-Israel Americans into an unwinnable position down the road. Why cede the two-state high ground? Is there really any question for Likud that a two-state solution is a strategic imperative? The problem is that Muslims at-large have rejected the two-state solution historically, from 1947 to the present, and they continue to reject the conditions that would make a two-state solution possible. Likud should be arguing for the Palestinians to start meeting the reasonable conditions that will advance all sides toward a fair two-state solution. If Hamas disarms in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2803, then the IDF can withdraw from Gaza, and this will advance the two-state solution. If the IRGC stops funding, training, arming and inciting anti-Zionist terror proxies throughout the region, this will advance the two-state solution. Everything that advances a just and balanced two-state solution is in Israel's best interest.

At least, that's it how seems to me right now. I am sure there is another way of looking at it that I haven't considered yet.   

Shalom.