“Life is full of surprises. Not all these surprises are pleasant, so you need to be ready for what life brings you.”

This anonymous quote encapsulates the situation prevailing today where many are still caught unaware by developments that with a little foresight, could have been anticipated.

Even when past events clearly pointed to disastrous and calamitous outcomes, an unerring ability to tread down the same path years later seems to prevail. For some inexplicable reason, Jewish people seem to be afflicted with this defective genetic attribute more than other groups.

Our history, ancient and modern, is full of examples of this phenomenon.

Just read the “tzoris” that Moshe had to put up with during the forty-year odyssey in the wilderness. After entry to the Promised Land, the same backstabbing and relapses reoccurred with monotonous and disastrous results.

Today, in addition to the eternal efforts of our enemies to target Israel and Jews in general, we continue to face undermining on the part of self-loathers who have this uncanny ability to join hands with external haters.

It is amazing how many times our decision-makers and non-elected Diaspora machers are surprised whenever the recycled slanders and machinations surface. One would think that by now they might have learnt the lessons of the past.

The latest crop of “surprises” should have been anticipated because, as King Solomon said a long time ago “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Hard on the heels of the Nakba Day fiasco at the United Nations General Assembly, where President for Life, Abbas, spewed a litany of lies and received a standing ovation for his efforts, the PA and others commemorated Naksa Day. You can be forgiven if you do not know what this particular piece of revisionist history is all about because so far it has received far less media exposure.

The first week in June is the anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War when miraculously, Israel managed to avert a planned genocidal massacre of Jewish Israelis. Anyone born before 1967 can still remember the events leading up to that fatal period. Nasser of Egypt, together with the leaders of Syria, Jordan and Iraq, were poised to attack Israel and hurl any remaining Jews into the sea. Their intentions were no secret and the mob hysteria among the masses is recorded for posterity. Israel stood alone in the face of this impending doom. Abandoned by the USA, which reneged on its promised support and by the UN and international community, which issued pious pontifications but preferred to look the other way, the days preceding the outbreak of war were filled with dread. Teenagers helped to dig mass graves in parks in anticipation of horrendous casualties.

Unfortunately, these moments leading up to the Six-Day War tend to be forgotten by those born since 1967. The revisionists have had a field day, completely erasing the genocidal threats and focusing instead on what followed. The complete and utter defeat of the Arab forces arraigned against Israel resulted in the liberation of Judea, Samaria, the Golan and Jerusalem. Following the failure to annihilate the Jews, the myth of a fake Arab Palestine with Jerusalem as its make-believe capital was born. Anointed as the “patron saint” of religious freedom, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan successfully whitewashed its own shameful ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Old City.

This is how Naksa Day was created. Like the commemoration of the catastrophic creation of Israel in 1948, it mourns the defeat of the plan to destroy Israel in 1967. Needless to say, the same individuals and groups, with the help of the usual media who have elevated Nakba Day to sacred status, join together on Naksa Day observing yet another lost opportunity to wipe out the Jewish State.

All that is missing is the “hechsher” of the UN. No doubt and unsurprisingly to all but those mesmerised by the progressive left, this will follow in short order.

The UN, of course, never fails to prove how toxic and irrelevant it has become.

North Korea has been elected to the World Health Organization executive board. This pariah nation which breaks every record by its human rights abuses and bullying tactics against democratic neighbours and successfully thumbs its nose at the world community is elected to the WHO. One couldn’t make this up.

If you think that this piece of Orwellian doublespeak is some sort of aberration, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Iran, which clearly articulates its ambition to rid the world of the “Zionist colonialist apartheid entity”, has been rewarded by being appointed as a Vice President of the UN General Assembly. Concurrently this same regime has also been appointed rapporteur of the Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Committee of the UN General Assembly.

Here is a regime that thumbs its nose at the international community, develops nuclear missiles, exports terror and persecutes women, gays and Baha’is. Iran is now being rewarded by an organisation too corrupt and morally bereft to stand up for its long abandoned principles.

The fact that the few remaining democracies at the UN do not collectively refuse to go along with this farce should surprise nobody.

Like their predecessors in 1939 and 1967 they prefer to kick the can down the road and believe that appeasing the bullies with diplomatic goodies will avert the evil decree. Most Israelis know from bitter experience that this agenda leads to ultimate chaos and disaster.

When, sooner rather than later, the inevitable mess hits the fan the only ones who will be surprised are those who live in a parallel universe of make-believe fantasy.

Meanwhile, back in the good old USA, where mass shootings are an almost daily occurrence, the Secretary of State and Vice President had nothing better to do than once again lecture Israel.

Antony Blinken in an address to AIPAC, uttered these “memorable” words of admonition: “settlement expansion clearly presents an obstacle to the horizon of hope we seek.”

Presumably, it is only the sight of Jews returning to their historical heartland which creates obstacles. One needs to ask what sort of horizon of hope is being sought. In the absence of any condemnation of PA incitement, sponsorship of terror and payments for the murder of Israelis one has to assume that, as usual, it is only the Jews who are the villains impeding the dawn of the age of brotherly and sisterly love.

With Abbas being given a pass to continue spouting revisionist garbage without any adverse consequences, the Biden Administration unsurprisingly continues to promote a totally warped and futile policy.

Kamala Harris, not to be outdone, burbled total nonsense about judicial reform. As Israel’s Foreign Minister aptly responded, “She has obviously not read a word of the proposed reforms.” Of course, she hasn’t, but why should she when prattling inanities written by an uninformed speech writer is par for the course?

Don’t be surprised when in the very near future, the Americans will triumphantly announce a breathtaking agreement with Iran. It may not take place in Munich, but the end results will be similar.

Now is the time for all the ostriches at the UN to take their collective heads out of the sand. Unfortunately, based on past performances, it will all be too late.

Hopefully, Israel will be the least surprised and act accordingly.

The Biden administration’s outgoing ambassador to Israel personally signed off on a controversial $1 million grant to a program critics said was meant to delegitimize Israel, according to internal State Department communications obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

U.S. ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides approved the funding project in a January 2022 internal “action memo,” according to a trove of internal emails obtained by the America First Legal Foundation through a Freedom of Information Act request for information about the grant. The emails detail how Nides personally cleared the State Department to offer $987,654 for groups to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

Those applying for the grant were instructed to probe the Israeli government for “documentation of legal or security sector violations and housing, land, and property rights.” The cash would essentially empower activist groups critical of Israel to pursue false claims that the Jewish state is systematically abusing Palestinians and stealing their land. With taxpayer cash at their disposal, these nonprofit groups could advance an agenda that pro-Israel advocates say fuels the delegitimization of Israel on the international stage by incentivizing a disproportionate focus on the supposed missteps and abuses of the Jewish State.

The taxpayer-funded initiative, which the Free Beacon first reported in March 2022, prompted a congressional investigation. Lawmakers accused the Biden administration of working to isolate Israel and bolster the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which wages economic warfare on the Jewish state. The United States government, critics said, should not be funding efforts to paint Israel as a pariah state.

The ambassador’s involvement in the funding effort is certain to attract congressional scrutiny as Israel’s defenders on Capitol Hill worry the Biden administration is alienating the Jewish State. President Joe Biden has been openly critical of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the State Department was found to be bankrolling far-left groups seeking to topple the prime minister’s governing coalition.

The emails show State Department officials working to get the grant approved so they could post it publicly on the department’s website. Subsequent emails show State Department employees discussing potential grant proposals submitted by various organizations looking to cash in. America First Legal, which began investigating the grant last year, says the emails indicate Nides, who is expected to vacate his post this summer, signed off before the grant was published.

“Best news to wake up to on a Monday!” one State Department employee wrote upon getting confirmation that the grant had been approved.

A State Department spokesman would not comment on Nides’s involvement in the program, saying, “as a general matter, we do not discuss internal government communications.”

While the State Department initially indicated to the Free Beacon that the grant had been canceled, it later clarified that statement to say that “no grant was awarded for this funding opportunity.” The spokesman, however, would not clarify what exactly that means, or provide the Free Beacon with updated information about the funding proposal.

“As the review of proposals is part of internal deliberations processes within the Department of State, we are unable to publicly share details regarding status or outcomes,” the spokesman said.

The ongoing opacity surrounding the program threatens to reignite a congressional battle with the State Department, which has been under pressure for more than a year to pull the taxpayer funding. Congressional sources who have been tracking the issue said it is unacceptable for the State Department to withhold information about a publicly available grant program.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and 11 other Republican lawmakers pressured the State Department last year to cancel the program, saying that it would embolden the global BDS movement.

“As a policy matter, it is wholly unacceptable for the State Department to fund NGOs to delegitimize and isolate Israel,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter, following the Free Beacon’s initial report on the grant. The State Department, the lawmakers said, is using taxpayer dollars to promote a “new anti-Semitism” that is “driven by a global network of anti-Israel nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights groups.”

Cruz, in separate comments to the Free Beacon last year, accused the Biden administration of using “American taxpayer money to subsidize the international NGO campaign to demonize and isolate Israel.”

The America First Legal Foundation, which discovered Nides’s involvement in the grant program through a FOIA request, also launched an investigation into the matter last year, the Free Beacon reported.

Lawmakers and pro-Israel advocacy groups view the funding as part of a larger effort to mainstream the BDS movement and undermine Netanyahu’s government at a time when Israel is facing a renewed wave of terrorism. The State Department in particular has come under scrutiny for hiring several people who worked in the anti-Israel community and promoted the BDS movement.

The State Department, in its comment to the Free Beacon, maintained that these “programs are intended to foster respect for human rights and the rule of law and support democracy globally.” The State Department “carefully reviews all eligible proposals per our well-established and rigorous review process.”