IDF rescues four hostages from Hamas captivity in daring Gaza operation - Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post Staff

Noa Argamani, Almog Meir, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv rescued; Unclear number of Palestinian terrorists, civilians killed.

 

Four hostages were rescued simultaneously from two separate nearby locations from Nuseirat in central Gaza in a high-risk joint operation by the IDF, Shin Bet, and Yamam and police in broad daylight, the IDF announced in a series of statements on Saturday.

Regarding the third such successful operation to rescue hostages since the war started on October 7, the IDF said that the rescued hostages were Noa Argamani (25,) Almog Meir (21,) Andrey Kozlov (27,) and Shlomi Ziv (40,) all of whom were kidnapped by Hamas to the Gaza Strip from the 'Nova' party.

An uncertain number of Palestinian terrorists and civilians were killed during the operation. The IDF implied that dozens of terrorists were killed, but left open the possibility that potentially some dozens of Palestinian civilians might also have been killed.

According to the IDF, around 90 Palestinians were likely killed, but the complexity of the hostages being held in civilian areas and a certain amount of chaos at points of the operation left the breakdown of terrorists to civilians unclear, with Hamas claiming the number was closer to 210, without providing any verifiable evidence.

The heroic operation put a new wind into the sails of the IDF and the Israeli public, but will likely also lead Hamas to improve its guard on other hostages, and it was unclear whether it would impact the broader strategic situation in which Hamas has held huge leverage over Israel by virtue of the around 120 hostages it still holds.

Relating to the operation, the military said, "The hostages were rescued by Shin Bet and Yamam fighters from two different locations in an operation in the heart of Nuseirat. Their medical condition is stable, and they have been transferred for further medical examinations at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. Security forces will continue to make every effort to bring back the hostages."

Later, in a televised statement, IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari spoke on the heroic operation, "The IDF and Yamam infiltrated two facilities while under fire by Hamas terrorists. A Yamam soldier was gravely wounded in the operation and has just reached the hospital. We pray for his well-being.”

Rescue under gunfire

A Palestinian fighter from the armed wing of Hamas takes part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2023. (credit: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS)

Ch.-Insp. Arnon Zamora, 36, the Yamam fighter who was wounded in Saturday's hostage rescue operation, succumbed to his wounds at the hospital, the Israel Police announced later Saturday.

The operation to free Argamani went off without much of a hitch, but the operation to free the other three hostages in a separate building around two meters away led to a significant exchange of gunfire in which Zamora was killed. Both buildings were around three to four stories high.

The operation started to be planned months ago, but was delayed a number of times to improve the exact intelligence about the whereabouts, risks, and security parameters related to rescuing the hostages.

At one point, the operation was going to be only to rescue Argamani, but at a later stage it was decided to carry out a higher risk simultaneous operation in both locations, lest Hamas guards in the second location kill the other three hostages, hearing there was a nearby IDF attack, and not realizing that they were not part of the operation.

Part of the operation was also facilitated by the fact that the hostages were being held in civilian apartments above ground, as opposed to tunnels, where many other hostages are held.

On the other hand, the fact that some of those holding the hostages were not official members of Hamas, but civilians who were paid to supervise them, to better conceal their location, created complications for the entire operation.

The operation was finally approved in principle by the war cabinet, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and National Unity party officials Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot (both former IDF chiefs of staff) on Thursday night.

Around 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar ordered the operation to be executed from a joint operations command center, with a belief that in this specific case, an operation in broad daylight would achieve greater surprise, despite the additional risks of being seen more vividly in daylight than in a nighttime operation.

Further, after all four hostages were taken out of the locations they were being held and brought into a land escape vehicle, the vehicle got stuck.

At this point, the hostages were more exposed and the entire operation could have ended in disaster with at least dozens of terrorists descending on the hostages and IDF rescue forces, with some of the terrorists armed with rocket propelled grenades that could kill both the ground rescue forces and rescue helicopters.

In response, additional forces of IDF division 98 and the air force let loose a massive barrage of fire.

Any Hamas terrorists who tried to attack the hostages and initial IDF rescue force were killed, along with potentially civilians.

Because this part of the operation was not only unplanned, but occurred under tremendous time pressure and in a mixed terrorist-civilian area, the IDF still does not know the exact breakdown of Palestinian terrorists to Palestinian civilians killed.

However, both in this and some past instances, the IDF was suspicious that Hamas was inflating the numbers of civilians to cover up its embarrassing military losses and to try to tar Israel’s legitimacy globally.

Eventually the mix of reinforcements and rescue helicopters successfully evacuated the IDF forces and the hostages.

Incidentally, it turned out that much of the operations that Division 98 has been carrying out in central Gaza and Nuseirat since the middle of last week were part of an elaborate decoy to make the Hamas terrorists feel like the IDF was nearby, but did not know where the hostages were, while allowing security forces to clandestinely setup a close by rescue operation.

In a statement, Hagari said, "This operation was a success in rescuing and returning four hostages. We will continue to do everything to return the 120 hostages still held in Gaza. We are confident that we will reach you, and this operation will not end until you are returned home.”

He added, "We will not give up on a single hostage. I want to say, it is a great pride seeing the security forces working together, shoulder to shoulder, in a vital operation: returning the hostages home. When the operation reached this level of intelligence and was approved [by the relevant bodies] ... only then were we permitted to proceed. Hamas intentionally hides the hostages in civilian neighborhoods."

When asked by KAN 11 if there were other hostages with them, "We cannot answer these intelligence questions about other hostages. We must be careful with information security. This operation could have ended very differently."

Earlier in the day, the IDF made an announcement that it was attacking terrorist structures in Nuseirat in the Gaza Strip.

 
Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-805424

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The West Keeps Rewarding the Terrorist Group Hamas - Majid Rafizadeh

 

by Majid Rafizadeh

It is unprecedented in world history for a terrorist group to attack another country, murder its people and take hostages, only to then be rewarded with a recognition of statehood – cordially facilitating its future actions, including against countries in Europe.

 

• Spain, Ireland and Norway recently formally recognized Palestinian statehood.... It is unprecedented in world history for a terrorist group to attack another country, murder its people and take hostages, only to then be rewarded with a recognition of statehood – cordially facilitating its future actions, including against countries in Europe.

• We have already seen this April "thousands of protestors" in Germany demanding a Caliphate with sharia law.

• The West's reward also sends a message that... the West will eagerly accept any antisocial behavior rather than stand up for the values of civilization that have defined it for centuries.

• The aim of anti-Israel protestors seems to be that stability can only be achieved after everyone has conceded to the terrorists' demands. Sadly, many politicians, perhaps hoping for votes from wherever they can get them, might be only too happy to comply.

• Perhaps Ireland, Norway and Spain would like to offer sanctuary to Gazans from Hamas?

• [The] intended beneficiaries of ...[Israel's] enormous sacrifice, have instead been undermining and demonizing Israel every step of the way, especially its fearless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts "The Churchill of the Middle East," who now finds himself, courtesy of the unlawful International Criminal Court, with an international warrant out for his arrest.

• The only reason countries are recognizing a Palestinian is that they will not have to live next to it. As Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and former New York City Council president Andrew Stein recently pointed out:

• "Consider the fact that no Arab or Muslim nation has been willing to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Perhaps these nations recall that anyone who has tried to help the Palestinians has lived to regret it. When Jordan took them in, the Palestinians tried to overthrow the government of King Hussein in 1970. The attempted coup, known as Black September, ended with the Palestinians being expelled to Lebanon. Once there, a civil war erupted between the Muslims, backed by the PLO, and the Christians, resulting in the PLO being expelled once again, this time to Tunisia in 1982. After Kuwait offered roughly 400,000 Palestinians visas and jobs, and Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990,the PLO sided with Iraq. After the liberation of Kuwait, an estimated 200,000 were expelled and another 200,000 were not allowed back."

• The more countries that will join Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in its assault by recognizing a Palestinian state, the more power and influence they will have in Europe to double their demands. Wait until Iran has its nuclear bombs and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. They will not even have to use them, only threaten to, as Putin is now doing in Ukraine so that US President Joe Biden will prevent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from winning.

• Such actions jeopardize stability not only in the Middle East but even more in Europe. Ireland, Norway and Spain seem to be under the illusion that if they pet the kitty, the kitty will like them. Unfortunately, that is not always the way kitties work. All that cuddling up to terrorists and their promotors really achieves is to weaken the West's credibility in defending its values, and the way of life we naïvely take for granted in the West.

It is unprecedented in world history for a terrorist group to attack another country, murder its people and take hostages, only to then be rewarded with a recognition of statehood – cordially facilitating its future actions, including against countries in Europe. Pictured: Hamas terrorists on their way into Israel from Gaza Strip, on their mission to murder Jews, on the morning of October 7, 2023. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

It is astonishing and difficult to comprehend how, after the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, the West has progressively adopted policies that support the terrorist organization Hamas and its influential backers, Qatar and Iran.

This policy is particularly perplexing given the violent nature of the attack and the well-documented connections, especially between Hamas and the Iranian regime, which has been a significant supporter of Hamas both financially and militarily. The West's stance also raises questions about the strategic and ethical considerations behind such policies, considering the implications for regional stability and the ongoing threat posed by these groups.

Spain, Ireland and Norway recently formally recognized Palestinian statehood, a decision that comes just seven months after Hamas invaded Israel, and savagely raped, tortured, beheaded, immolated and kidnapped Israeli and Western civilians. It is unprecedented in world history for a terrorist group to attack another country, murder its people and take hostages, only to then be rewarded with a recognition of statehood – cordially facilitating its future actions, including against countries in Europe.

We have already seen this April "thousands of protestors" in Germany demanding a Caliphate with sharia law.

The West's reward also sends a message that the West is fearful and willing to capitulate in the face of horrific acts. It suggests that instead of standing firm against terrorism and taking decisive action to hold perpetrators accountable, the West will eagerly accept any antisocial behavior rather than stand up for the values of civilization that have defined it for centuries. This perception can only torpedo West's ability to contain terrorism inside its gates, and, as in Germany, can only have serious repercussions for domestic and global security.

The aim of anti-Israel protestors seems to be that stability can only be achieved after everyone has conceded to the terrorists' demands. Sadly, many politicians, perhaps hoping for votes from wherever they can get them, might be only too happy to comply.

Perhaps Ireland, Norway and Spain would like to offer sanctuary to Gazans from Hamas?

The only reason countries are recognizing a Palestinian state is that they will not have to live next to it. As Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and former New York City Council president Andrew Stein recently pointed out:

"Consider the fact that no Arab or Muslim nation has been willing to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Perhaps these nations recall that anyone who has tried to help the Palestinians has lived to regret it. When Jordan took them in, the Palestinians tried to overthrow the government of King Hussein in 1970. The attempted coup, known as Black September, ended with the Palestinians being expelled to Lebanon. Once there, a civil war erupted between the Muslims, backed by the PLO, and the Christians, resulting in the PLO being expelled once again, this time to Tunisia in 1982. After Kuwait offered roughly 400,000 Palestinians visas and jobs, and Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990,the PLO sided with Iraq. After the liberation of Kuwait, an estimated 200,000 were expelled and another 200,000 were not allowed back."

This short-sighted agenda of course requires isolating Israel, which has been fighting not only for its survival but also the survival of Europe and the West with these intended beneficiaries of such an enormous sacrifice, instead have been undermining and demonizing Israel every step of the way, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts "The Churchill of the Middle East," who now finds himself, courtesy of the unlawful International Criminal Court, with an international warrant out for his arrest.

While the sanctimonious parliamentarians of Europe help Adolf Hitler finish what he started in the comfort of the volcanoes that have only intermittently blown under them so far – the Munich Olympics and the Berlin Christmas Market; the rapes in Cologne on New Year's Eve; the slaughter of Theo van Gogh; riots in Sweden; Denmark's Mohammad Cartoon furor and the murder at its Free Speech Society; London's 7/7 Underground bombings and the London Bridge attacks, Manchester's Ariana Grande Concert; the massacres at France's satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Paris's Bataclan theater, and the Bastille Day truck-ramming on Nice's croisette, the shooting of schoolchildren in Toulouse, as well as murders of individuals too plentiful to count (for instance, here, here, here and here) -- Iran and Hezbollah have been raining rockets down on the north of Israel, eager to go full bore on a country, smaller than New Jersey, by widening a second front.

The decision to recognize Palestinian statehood reassures the terrorists that the West is willing to overlook the ongoing threats and violent actions not only against Israel but against itself. Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah can clearly see that the longer they can keep their jihad on Israel going, the more the victim, Israel, will be demonized -- not the terrorist perpetrators -- and the better it will be for terrorism.

The more countries that will join Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in its assault by recognizing a Palestinian state, the more power and influence they will have in Europe to double their demands. Wait until Iran has its nuclear bombs and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. They will not even have to use them, only threaten to, as Putin is now doing in Ukraine so that US President Joe Biden will prevent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from winning.

Iran and Qatar have a long history of spreading Islamism and funding terrorist groups – Qatar through bankrolling terrorist groups and blanketing a good part of the globe with jihadi messages from Al Jazeera; and Iran by using its IRGC militia and proxies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- to take over more and more countries in the Middle East. So far, Iran had pocketed Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, as well as the Gaza Strip, and now appears to be eyeing the West Bank and Sudan.

Such actions jeopardize stability not only in the Middle East but even more in Europe. Ireland, Norway and Spain seem to be under the illusion that if they pet the kitty, the kitty will like them. Unfortunately, that is not always the way kitties work. All that cuddling up to terrorists and their promoters really achieves is to weaken the West's credibility in defending its values, and the way of life we naïvely take for granted in the West.

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on X (formerly Twitter)
  

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20687/rewarding-hamas-terrorists

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‘Associated Press’ blasts own reporting on Hamas casualty statistics - Andrew Bernard

 

by Andrew Bernard

“The media were remarkably credulous about this,” David Adesnik, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS. “It’s a pretty stunning admission.”

 

Palestinians at the site of a destroyed car hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the city of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, June 4, 2024. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.

The Associated Press released a report on Friday undercutting its own reporting of Hamas’s claim that more than two-thirds of the Palestinian casualties in Gaza have been women and children.

According to the AP’s new analysis of Hamas’s figures, the terror group’s “detailed reports” of casualty statistics reveal a much lower number of likely civilian casualties than Hamas claims.

“Among those fully identified, the records show a steady decline in the overall proportion of women and children who have been killed: from 64% in late October, to 62% as of early January, to 57% by the end of March, to 54% by the end of April,” the report says. “Yet throughout the war, the ministry has claimed that roughly two-thirds of the dead were women and children.”

“This figure has been repeated by international organizations and many in the foreign media, including the AP,” the report adds.

David Adesnik, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that the scrutiny of Hamas’s false claims about its own numbers is long overdue.

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“It’s a pretty stunning admission,” Adesnik said. “It’s probably not going to compensate for them repeating for months after months, time after time that 70% of the victims were women and children, but I guess better late than never.”

Hamas issues multiple types of claims about casualty statistics in Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry issues both daily casualty tolls without supporting data identifying the individuals as well as what the AP describes as “detailed reports,” issued irregularly, that claim to list and identify individual casualties. Hamas’s media office also issues separate, higher claims of Palestinian casualties in Gaza, which are likewise widely repeated in news reports, by human-rights groups and others.

The percentage of women and children killed is used as a rough approximation of the number of civilians killed, even though Hamas recruits women and children, and not all adult men are members of Hamas. The terror group also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its data, or between those killed in Israeli strikes and the substantial number of Palestinians who have been killed by Palestinian rockets that land inside the Gaza Strip.

According to the AP’s analysis, Hamas’s repeated claims that more than two-thirds of the casualties in Gaza are women and children are increasingly out of step with its own figures.

“By the end of October, women and people 17 and younger accounted for 64% of the 6,745 killed who were fully identified by the Health Ministry,” the report says. “As the intensity of fighting has scaled back, the death toll has continued to rise, but at a slower rate – and with seemingly fewer civilians caught in the crossfire. In April, women and children made up 38% of the newly and fully identified deaths, the Health Ministry’s most recent data shows.”

Despite the trend, Hamas claimed in February and March that women and children made up more than 70% of the casualties in Gaza, a level that the AP notes “was never confirmed in the detailed reports” and claimed by Hamas “even as underlying data clearly showed the percentage was well below that.”

The AP, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious wire services, says its reporting is viewed daily by 4 billion people. It continued to tout the two-thirds claim made by the ministry as recently as early May.

‘Hamas has everyone on a short leash’

Reports by Hamas on civilian casualties in Gaza are widely repeated in the news media, as well as by U.N. and U.S. officials, including U.S. President Joe Biden, who appeared to cite the Hamas-run health ministry’s death toll during his State of the Union address in March.

Defenders of the terror group’s statistics regarding Palestinian casualties argue that the health ministry’s past claims have ended up broadly comporting with Israeli and independent United Nations assessments.

In past operations in Gaza, however, the Gaza health ministry purported to distribute data it collected from Palestinian hospitals, whereas in the course of the current war, as Hamas began losing control of medical facilities, it has relied since November on what it calls “reliable media sources” to collect its data about casualties.

Adesnik told JNS that while the AP report reveals Hamas’s falsehoods about its own numbers, it does not explore why that methodology casts greater doubt on the accuracy of what Hamas claims in this conflict compared with past rounds of fighting.

“It really doesn’t talk about how many of the fatalities in the Ministry of Health death toll are based on supposedly ‘reliable media sources’—not hospital reporting or something more reliable,” Adesnik said. “I think that would be one of the biggest things that would really damage the credibility of the Ministry of Health.”

“In the first quarter of 2024—January, February, March—75% of the new deaths were supposedly gleaned from these media,” he added. “They’ve never said what these media are or why we should believe they’re credible. I don’t know what credible independent media they’re relying on in Gaza, where, of course, Hamas has everyone on a short leash. And the media were remarkably credulous about this.”

 
Andrew Bernard

Source: https://www.jns.org/associated-press-blasts-own-reporting-on-hamas-casualty-statistics/

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Court issues injunction blocking USDA disaster relief based on race or gender - Misty Severi

 

by Misty Severi

The group claimed the Biden administration has taken roughly $25 billion in disaster and pandemic aid approved by Congress for farmers in eight programs and devised a system to make awards based on race, and gender among other factors, which violates the fifth amendment.

A federal court in Texas on Friday ordered the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to stop discriminating against farmers on the basis of race or sex when awarding disaster relief.

"We just received a NATIONWIDE INJUNCTION in the Strickland v. Vilsack case, which halts the racially discriminatory farmer relief payments being made by the USDA," the Mountain States Legal Foundation said in a post to X. "The payments will no longer go out while the case proceeds! A proud moment for us & our partners."

The case was brought by the legal foundation and the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), who also confirmed the news.

"The court's nationwide injunction ordering the USDA to stop discriminating against farmers in the administration of disaster relief programs because of their race or sex represents a win for freedom and equality," the Southeastern Legal Foundation told Just the News in a statement.  "USDA has tried this before with other programs, SLF has taken it to court and won.  We won't stop fighting for the constitutional rights of American farmers until USDA earns their trust through fair and equal treatment."

A group of white farmers asked the court in April to approve an emergency injunction that blocks the department from using race, gender or other “socially disadvantaged” traits to determine who gets disaster and pandemic farm aid and how much, claiming that natural disasters do not discriminate, and neither should the USDA.

The group claimed the Biden administration has taken roughly $25 billion in disaster and pandemic aid approved by Congress for farmers in eight programs and devised a system to make awards based on race, and gender among other factors, which violates the fifth amendment.

“The Constitution promises equal treatment to all Americans regardless of their race or sex," the farmers said in a court filing. "It also promises the separation of powers. USDA broke both promises through the disaster and pandemic relief programs challenged here."

The group alleged that the department was discriminatory by "defining farmers who are black/African-American, American Indian, Alaskan native, Hispanic, Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or a woman as ‘socially disadvantaged,’” and then gave those people more money than people not considered "underserved," for the same thing.

The USDA's program appears to be rooted in an executive order from President Joe Biden.

Misty Severi

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/court-orders-agriculture-department-stop-discrimination-when-awarding

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With varying reasons, Silicon Valley moguls are backing Trump and adding to his campaign coffers - Ben Whedon

 

by Ben Whedon

Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire made headlines last week in the wake of Trump’s conviction in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money case.

 

Former President Donald Trump managed to raise $12 million on Thursday night alone. While the figure pales in comparison to his post-conviction hauls that have reportedly reached $200 million, the sum is noteworthy for one key reason:

He raised it in San Francisco.

The overwhelmingly liberal city has been a bastion of Democratic politics for decades and is represented by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The fundraising haul did not reportedly come from the city’s average citizens, however, but from large-dollar donors with ties to Silicon Valley.

In 2024, burglary is up by 44% in 2024 in San Francisco’s more residential Taraval police district, The New York Post reported. Burglaries are also up by 19% in Ingleside and 6.2% in the Richmond neighborhood. San Francisco has not has a Republican mayor since 1964, when served as the 34th mayor of San Francisco starting in 1956. 

Situated in the Bay Area, the Valley is home to many tech and venture capital firms. In recent weeks, many of its heavyweights, albeit for varying reasons, have thrown their support behind the former president.

"In 2016, the number of people from Silicon Valley I knew who supported Trump was a sample of one, which was Peter [Thiel]," former Palantir adviser Jacob Helburg told Reuters. "Today I count them in the dozens, if not more than that. Over the course of the past six months, we've started to see the dam break.”

Thiel made history in 2016 as the first openly gay man to address the Republican National Convention.

David Sacks

The $12 million fundraiser on Thursday evening took place at the home of venture capitalist David Sacks, who co-hosted the event with fellow venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya.

A Trump campaign official told Just the News that “[t]he event hosted by David Sacks and Chamath Paliphapitiya had over 100 attendees. Some of the most important investors and innovators from the tech industry sector were in attendance and they raised $12 million dollars.”

Sacks has been an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s handling of foreign policy, most notably the Ukraine War, and his analysis and calls for negotiations with Moscow have attracted considerable attention online.

Sacks on Thursday outlined his reasons for choosing to support Trump, highlighting the economy, foreign affairs, border security, and “lawfare” targeting the former president.

“With Biden, our choices are limited to fighting the proxy war to the last Ukrainian, or fighting Russia ourselves,” Sacks wrote. “President Trump has said he wants the dying in Ukraine to stop, and that he will seek to end the war through a negotiated settlement. Ukraine will no longer be able to get the deal we talked them out of in April 2022, but we can still save Ukraine as an independent nation and avert world war.”

Sacks also pointed to myriad economic metrics and insisted “[w]e can’t afford another four years of Bidenomics.” He also accused Biden of enabling a “de facto open border policy” and insisted that the Biden administration had pursued “elective prosecutions against his political opponents.”

Shaun Maguire

Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire made headlines last week in the wake of Trump’s conviction in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money case.

Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a 2016 payment his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, made to Stormy Daniels. Trump has vowed to appeal the conviction and maintains that the case is part of a broader political witch hunt designed to derail his 2024 bid for the White House.

“I just donated $300k to President Trump. The timing isn't a coincidence,” Maguire posted on X shortly after the verdict.

In a lengthy post explaining his decision, Maguire devoted a portion to what he deemed “lawfare,” asserting that “[t]his has been another radicalizing experience. I understand that normally when there's smoke there's fire, but in this case I think when there's smoke there's lawfare.”

He then loosely outlined concerns he had with Bragg’s case, as well as the prosecutions brought by special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis; and the civil suits from E. Jean Carroll and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“Fairness is one of my guiding principles in life and simply, these cases haven't been fair for Trump,” Maguire insisted.

Notably, Maguire’s explanation of his support for Trump shared a key rationale with that of Sacks, namely Trump’s foreign policy.

“I believe Trump was one of the best foreign policy Presidents in decades, and during the most complex period in almost a century, as the East rises, which leads to a changing set of rules,” he insisted. Among his key issues with the Biden administration’s handling of the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

“To anyone that follows me on X you know that I'm a staunch Israel supporter and also Zionist. I believe that Israel is one of America's most important allies in the world,” he added. “Somehow the Biden administration has chosen to cuddle up to Iran while driving Saudi Arabia and Israel away. This is unforgivably disastrous policy in my opinion.”

Elon Musk

In late May, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had met with Tesla founder Elon Musk about a potential advisory role in a prospective Trump administration. Musk has denied any such discussion.

Fueling the speculation, however, has been Musk’s prior political activity and policy decisions while leading the social media platform X. Musk, for example, participated in Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch in 2023, which occurred on the platform. 

After purchasing Twitter, Musk dramatically overhauled the company’s content moderation policies, reversing bans on prominent right-wing figures and rolling back censorious practices targeting COVID-19 cynicism and other positions. He further restored Trump’s own account, which the prior management had suspended in the wake of the Jan. 6 incident.

While Musk has not endorsed Trump outright, he has made no secret of his disagreements with the Biden administration, in particular on the southern border situation, and has publicly engaged with other figures backing Trump.

In response to Sacks’s post on Thursday, Musk himself replied with a succinct “thoughtful.” Like Sacks, moreover, Musk has attracted scrutiny over his positions on the Ukraine War, which have been out of step with the Biden administration. In late March, for instance, he called for a “negotiated settlement” to the conflict, warning that should it persist, Ukraine would lose more territory.

Musk has also appeared to confirm that X will soon host a town hall event with Trump, resharing an article announcing the event last week and saying “[t]his will be interesting.”

Reasoning: Direct interests

Among those three, foreign policy has emerged as a notable point of common criticism of the Biden administration. But other Silicon Valley heavyweights have identified policy positions more in line with their direct interests as motivating factors for backing Trump as well.

Tech executive and former Trump ambassador to Austria, Trevor Traina, moreover, pointed to the Biden administration’s veto of legislation limiting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to regulate cryptocurrency as a key issue.

"That might have been just the final domino," he told Reuters.

The Trump campaign has recently embraced cryptocurrency, announcing in late March that it would begin accepting donations in crypto. Trump has further taken aim at Democratic-led efforts to advance state-backed digital currencies.

"This addition to President Trump’s already groundbreaking digital fundraising operation marks the first time a major party Presidential nominee has embraced cryptocurrency for donations," the campaign said at the time. "As our President, Donald J. Trump has reduced regulations and championed innovation in financial technology, while Democrats, like Biden and his official surrogate Elizabeth Warren, continue to believe only government has the answers to how our nation leads the world.”

Trump himself attributed his appeal with tech leaders to his “high IQ.”

"These are brilliant guys — AI guys — these are the guys that are doing all the things you read about," he told Fox News. "These are just a brilliant group of people. And they can’t relate to Biden because he is a stupid person — and I have a high IQ." 

"They don’t like dealing with an IQ that’s like, you know, 1/3 of theirs, because it is a difficult thing when someone has an IQ of 180, it is difficult to deal with a man with an IQ of 70 — or maybe lower… Biden is a very low IQ individual,” he added.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X.

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/varying-motivations-silicon-valley-moguls-line-behind-trump-and

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Congressional report finds half of all new jobs are going to immigrants - Misty Severi

 

by Misty Severi

"Reports show that upwards of half the job gains under Biden have come from illegal immigrants, which belies a far weaker economy than Democrats want you to believe," committee chairman Jodey Arrington said in a statement. "Biden's illegal immigrant crisis has conveniently served as a 'two-for' - shoring up his vote tally and padding his dismal unemployment numbers."

 

The House Budget Committee released a report Friday that found more than half of all new jobs are going to immigrants, including those in the country illegally.

The report comes after the Labor Department released its jobs report for May, which saw a small decrease in labor participation, which shrank from 62.7% in April to 62.5% in May, and the unemployment rate ticking up slightly from 3.9% in April to 4% in May. Immigrants have filled 840,000 new jobs since November, according to the Washington Times. 

The House report also noted that the 4% unemployment rate meant 6.6 million people in the country were unemployed, an increase from the 6.5 million in April. The increase comes despite the country creating 272,000 new jobs in May.

"Reports show that upwards of half the job gains under Biden have come from illegal immigrants, which belies a far weaker economy than Democrats want you to believe," committee chairman Jodey Arrington said in a statement. "Biden's illegal immigrant crisis has conveniently served as a 'two-for' - shoring up his vote tally and padding his dismal unemployment numbers."

Democrats celebrated the country's economy as a whole, and noted 40 months of strong jobs growth.

“Wages are rising, unemployment remains near record lows for the longest stretch in decades, and gains are widespread across sectors,” said Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, per the Washington Times.

House Republicans however slammed the report, and saying certain demographics took a dip in May, including Asian Americans, blacks, and Hispanics, who reported an increase in unemployment. 

Misty Severi

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/congress/congress-report-finds-half-all-new-jobs-are-going-immigrants

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American Prometheus Chained at Mar-A-Lago - John J. Hopkins

 

by John J. Hopkins

From the moment he came down the escalator at Trump Tower in November 2015, Donald Trump challenged the Gods of Washington.

 

Oppenheimer, the 2024 Oscar winner for Best Picture, begins with a short but incomplete reference to the story of Prometheus. Whether appropriate or not to the story of the Father of the Atomic Bomb is a matter of perspective, but in just implying that he stole fire and was punished, the movie leaves much to be desired and much to be supplied.

According to Greek mythology, Prometheus was a Titan, living with the rest of the Gods on Mount Olympus. He decided to steal fire from the Gods and give it to Man. Man was then immediately given the gift of light, illuminating his way from the perpetual darkness. For his crime, Prometheus was to be punished. He was chained to a rock and every day, an eagle ate away his liver, only to have it regenerate overnight.

This eternal cycle of punishment was designed to last in perpetuity—no end, no finish. Giving fire brought Man light and knowledge from the darkness. Even though it was immensely helpful to the weak and powerless, it was a direct affront to the powerful. Only one with power could bring the Truth and the light, but in so doing, it exposed the sinful plan to keep Man in the dark. With his way illuminated, Man saw the false narrative of the Gods, the lies of equality of treatment, equality of protection of the law, and the lie that those in power function to give aid, not to strip dignity. Such an act needed to be severely penalized, as it was a crime that could never be forgiven.

From the moment he came down the escalator at Trump Tower in November 2015, Donald Trump challenged the Gods of Washington. He was, is and shall always remain a deadly threat to the entrenched slugs of both parties, who would rather stay in power than do what is right. His presence brought light to the darkness that consumed the country.

The First Amendment protection given to a free press so that darkness can be stripped away is a useless joke, as the majority of mainstream media would rather cheerlead a lie than investigate corruption. The darkness shows that there are indeed two sets of legal systems: one to protect Democrats and one to ruthlessly persecute Republicans. The darkness professes that the Constitution simply does not apply to Donald Trump, as the ends justify the means, believing it to be a righteous and noble deed to eradicate him from Public service, no matter the costs.

Two bogus, failed impeachments; five partisan and political indictments; the twisting of the 14^th Amendment Insurrection clause in an attempt to disqualify Trump from appearing on the ballot, then unanimously rebuffed at the Supreme Court; the absence of any such charges—much less a conviction—made such a notion repulsive. Now, a kangaroo court conviction has been set in motion by a blindly biased judge and a corrupt prosecutor. There seems to be no end.

The sad reality is that it will not end, as like the offended Titans of Mount Olympus, the Democrat Party and their sycophant stooges in the media feel in their delusional deity complex that they have a right, nay, a duty to punish not only Trump but all those with him so mistakenly allied.

It is no accident that most Americans schooled by public teachers do not know who Lavrentiy Beria was or his place in world history. The deputy Premier to Josef Stalin during his 1942-1953 reign of terror, in which more innocents were murdered than even under Hitler, was famous for targeting the man first, then fabricating the crime. “Show me the man, I will show you the crime.” If Beria and Stalin were alive today, is there any doubt they would be Democrats?

The successful prosecution of Trump, promised by Prosecutor Bragg while campaigning, then cobbled together by a mysterious, unnamed theory, and its violation of the 6^th Amendment, shepherded by the trial judge, was right out of the Stalin playbook, a truly sad commentary of a nation founded on laws. When the laws are prostituted, it is only the whore who stands at the bar of justice. This cannot and will not stand. Trump will be vindicated in the appeal, based on the incalculable number of errors in the trial.

But the election will be over before the cleansing ruling of a reversal. What does Donald Trump do then? Where does he get justice? Like any defendant wrongly convicted through prosecutorial misconduct, he brings an action for civil damages against the state, for numbers beyond imagination.

But this will do little to correct the underlying problem. Pearl Harbor has been attacked; there is no option but to do the hard work on the long road to Hiroshima and the elimination of those who pose the true “threat to Democracy.” Trump will ride into Washington on a horse named Revenge—not the best of motives, but one made necessary by the cowardly and unethical acts of others. Bringing the wrath of the criminal justice system against your political opponents is wrong when done by Democrats, and it would be wrong if done likewise by the new Trump administration. While two wrongs do not make it right, it does make it even. From the new reality of self-assured destruction, a respectful political dialogue can hopefully emerge, and the interests of the Nation made the new priority. Be not afraid.

John J. Hopkins is a practicing attorney in Alton, Ill., with 45 years of courtroom experience in southern Illinois. He also is a columnist at the Madison Record.

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/08/american-prometheus-chained-at-mar-a-lago/

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NATO’s Hairline Fissures Part 2: The Use of Western Weapons Inside Russia? - Thaddeus G. McCotter

 

by Thaddeus G. McCotter

When America and other NATO members allow their weapons to be used on Russian soil, what happens?

 

[Last week, we looked at NATO’s divisive debate over Ukraine’s membership. This week, we look at NATO’s disagreement over the use of Western weaponry on targets inside Russia.]

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded after World War II to defend the United States and our Western European allies against the Soviet Union’s and now the Russian Federation’s aggression. Presently, this mission includes collectively agreeing to defend non-member Ukraine against the revanchist Russian Federation’s invasion and occupation.

On his part, Mr. Putin’s chief tactic is to exploit the political divisions within NATO to stem its support for Ukraine and, ultimately, to splinter the alliance into impotence and irrelevance. To wit: NATO members’ debate over Ukraine’s use of NATO weapons on enemy targets in Russia.

The fiction in any proxy war is that while the direct participants are killing each other, a nation or nations supplying the belligerents are securely one step removed and, ergo, not engaged in direct conflict with them. One need not be a foreign policy or national security savant to realize the continuing erosion of the central fiction in this proxy war inches the world ever closer to a prospective use—and likely—exchange of nuclear weapons between Russia and NATO.

For example, if the U.S. and Canada engaged in direct conflict with Russia supplying weaponry to Canada to kill U.S. service personnel only on Canadian soil, most Americans would nevertheless deem Russia our enemy and demand it be militarily engaged by our armed forces as well. Such demands by the American public for retaliation would increase if Russia allowed its weaponry to be used by Canadian forces to kill U.S. forces on American soil.

Initially, in a rare, fleeting moment of strategic sanity, the Biden administration opposed the use of American weapons to kill Russian troops within Russia. As The Telegraph reported, “Joe Biden was left isolated in his refusal to allow US weapons to be fired into Russia by Ukraine after France and Germany relaxed their rules.”

Other NATO allies disagreed. Channeling the ghost of Charles De Gaulle in (of all places) a state visit to Germany, French President Emmanuel Macron theatrically held up a “map showing Russian bases being used to attack Ukraine in the latest offensives” to buttress his argument:

We must allow [the Ukrainians] to neutralise the military sites from which the missiles are fired, the military sites from which Ukraine is attacked. But we must not allow other targets in Russia to be hit, and obviously civilian capabilities. What has changed is that Russia has adapted its practices somewhat. If we say [to the Ukrainians], ‘you don’t have the right to reach the point from which the missiles are fired,’ in fact, we’re telling them ‘we’re delivering you weapons, but you can’t defend yourselves’.

Why NATO “must” or “must not” is assumed, not explained. That these weapons can be used on Ukrainian soil to kill Russian troops on occupied Ukrainian soil is beyond question: “Kyiv’s military has repeatedly used Western weapons such as the US-supplied Himars rocket launchers to hit groupings of Russian soldiers on occupied territory.” Nevertheless, Macron is not alone in his determination to expand NATO’s role in the war.

For example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed the international legality of Western weaponry use: “Ukraine has every opportunity to do so under international law. We have to say it clearly: it is under attack and can defend itself.”

So, too, NATO’s Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, argued that present limitations “tie the hands of Ukrainians behind their backs.”

Initially, the Biden administration has rightly tried to slow the brakes on expanding NATO’s participation: “‘Our position has not changed at this stage. We neither encourage nor permit the use of US-supplied weapons to strike Russian soil,’ said White House national security spokesman John Kirby, after the Franco-German announcement.’”

Other NATO allies and European nations agreed with the U.S. The European Union is “also deeply divided on the subject,” according to Josep Borrell, its top diplomat. The chief reason for the opposition is the fear of provoking the world’s second-most nuclear-armed nation—Russia—into using them.

Nonetheless, it did not take long for the Biden administration to revert to feckless form and cravenly capitulate to allowing American and other Western weapons to be used on Russian soil. Per Breitbart’s John Hayward: “The decision to let Ukraine strike back with long-range American weapons seems to have been made abruptly. As recently as Thursday afternoon [May 30th], Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh insisted there would be “no change in our policy.”

Less than a day later, that policy had changed. Mr. Hayward cited a “senior American official who had spoken to Fox News:

The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S.-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region, so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them. Our policy with respect to prohibiting the use of ATACMS [Army Tactical Missile System] or long-range strikes inside of Russia has not changed.

Mr. Putin and his kleptocratic cronies seem unassuaged by the administration’s lawyerly distinction between which U.S. weapons may now be used to kill Russians in Russia. This is after Russia had previously refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons if NATO continued to escalate its military support for Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, is quoted as warning:

Ukraine and its NATO allies will receive such a devastating response that the alliance won’t be able to avoid entering the conflict… Russia regards all long-range weapons used by Ukraine as already being directly controlled by servicemen from NATO countries. This is no military assistance, this is participation in a war against us – and such actions could well become a casus belli.

Vlad “The Vozhd” Putin threatened “serious consequences [tactical nuclear weapons],” ones that if they “occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons? It’s hard to say—do they want a global conflict?”

What the Biden administration wanted was to mend the hairline fissures between itself and key NATO partners like France and Germany. As had been done earlier by delaying the question of NATO membership for Ukraine, the Biden administration hoped this half-measure of allowing some, but not all, American weaponry to be used in Russia to kill Russian troops would forestall a growing divide within the alliance.

That the second most heavily nuclear-armed nation run by a warmongering former KGB Lt. Colonel with a Napoleon complex and delusion of being Ivan the Terrible 2.0 would be irate pales in comparison to the Biden team’s desire to lead from behind and appease its NATO allies France and, to a lesser extent, Germany and others.

Of course, while Russia was infuriated, Ukraine was elated, with President Volodymyr Zelensky calling the U.S. decision to liberalize its rules of engagement “a step forward.” Perhaps, but into what? More than anyone, Ukrainians are sadly already aware their nation is in dire straits, for the illegal Russian invasion and occupation have shown no signs of abating. Given the stakes and grave prognostications made by the leaders of NATO’s allied nations, one should be rightfully concerned about how far NATO can and will go to repel the Russian invaders and to perpetuate the unanimity of the alliance’s approach to Ukraine.

When a NATO member allows their weapons to be used on Russian soil, what happens if Russia directly attacks that alliance member with conventional and/or nuclear weapons? What happens if Russia retaliates against them? There will be little time to say “I told you so” before Article 5 is invoked for all members, regardless of their prior restraint and restrictions employed in the war. If it is invoked, it is quite possible some nations, especially those who did not allow their weapons to be used against targets inside Russia, may refuse to honor their treaty commitment and/or seek to withdraw from NATO. What if such a country initially decides to remain and become a collective belligerent, but a subsequent election turns out that government and installs one promising to exit the conflict and, likely, NATO?

There are scores of other scenarios where the splintering of the NATO alliance is more than a remote theoretical possibility. And all the while, Mr. Putin is doing all he can to exacerbate these divisions and rupture the alliance that is the primary obstacle to Russian hegemony in Europe.

Inexplicably, what abets Mr. Putin’s undermining of NATO is a misconception: as Ukraine is not a member of NATO, there is no mandatory need for unanimity of the alliance’s approach. If France, Germany and others wish to have their weapons fired by Ukraine into Russia, such is their ability as sovereign nations to do so (unlike their treaty obligations to pay their fair share of NATO dues). The U.S. has no treaty obligation to do so in the instance of Ukraine, which France and other NATO members realize. Why their insistence that we follow their lead?

It is hard to see France or Germany “going it alone” in allowing their weapons to be used on targets inside Russia. If they did and the Ukraine conflict escalated into their countries being attacked, the U.S. could plausibly refuse to declare war on Russia because our sage advice went unheeded. It certainly would guard against the U.S. being attacked by Russia with conventional and/or nuclear weapons. Alternately, however, if the U.S. is also allowing our weapons to be used inside Russia, it will ensure we have no option but to defend our NATO allies and open ourselves up to a Russian conventional and/or nuclear attack.

America remains western Europe’s security blanket—literally—and the Biden administration has allowed them to use us as a shield against the potential consequences of their saber rattling against Russia, against whom they have shown no desire to do what is necessary to adequately defend themselves. Still, what else can one expect from a Biden administration whose own recklessness and incompetence have manifested itself in the crisis in Ukraine?

Some will argue that preserving the unanimity of NATO’s approach to the defense of non-member Ukraine is worth the risk of widening the conflict into a global war, one that includes the specter of nuclear weapons. And it is true NATO remains a critical bulwark against Russian revanchism. Further, history also reveals how hairline fissures between friends can ultimately undo even the most successful of human endeavors. Indeed, in Part 1, we warned that if NATO’s cohesion is undone by internal political dissension, it will create the very weakness and disunity President John F. Kennedy warned would, above all others, pave the path to war.

Tragically, however, in allowing American and other NATO allies weapons to be used inside Russia to kill Russians, NATO and the world may painfully learn that the same path to war can also be walked with the heedless unanimity of lemmings leaping into the nuclear abyss.

An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012, and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars; and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.

Thaddeus G. McCotter

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2024/06/08/natos-hairline-fissures-part-2-the-use-of-western-weapons-inside-russia/

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America Can Choose to Be Great Again - Kurt Schlichter

 

by Kurt Schlichter

Do we measure up to our forefathers?

 

[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]

America is not over, no matter how dire everything looks. And it is dire – we’re becoming an impotent and impoverished banana republic that is pushed around by foreign scumbags overseas and perverts, crooks, and commies here at home. When you look at the depths into which our country has fallen, you have to wonder whether we Americans can ever rise to the occasion again. Is there greatness still within us? Can we ever be great again?

Hell yeah.

We are the inheritors of a legacy of greatness. Thursday, June 6, marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and if you’ve seen Saving Private Ryan, you have an idea of what it looked like on the French beaches on June 6, 1944. Here is a first-hand account written by an Army officer who landed that morning. They charged ashore against complex defensive positions covered by mortars and deadly MG42 machine guns. And they prevailed. Keep in mind those Americans, in both regular Army and National Guard divisions, were almost all civilians just two or three years before. Not pros – regular folks who were called, answered and rose to the occasion. They went up against a German army that had conquered most of Europe and had five years of war experience. And they kicked National Socialist butt.

That’s greatness.

But is there still greatness within us? Can we kick other kinds of socialist butt too?

The cynics say “No,” and it would be a lie to pretend that they have no evidence. After all, you look at the Greatest Generation and what they did to save the world from socialism in various forms and beat the Depression, and then you look at the next generation and how they put a man on the moon, gave us the 80s, and beat the socialists in the Cold War, and then you look with disgust at this generation and the best it can do is COVID panic, DEI, and resurrected socialism.

Let’s face it. America under Biden and the Democrats – who are not just flirting with the socialists but are jumping in the shower with them like Joe Biden and his daughter – is a pretty miserable place. The rule of law is in ruins, with Mad Libs prosecutions of Republicans while Democrat constituent criminals run rampant. Inflation has crushed normal people – I drove to Wendy’s on six dollars a gallon gas the other day, got a couple of burgers, fries, and a Coke, and it cost me $34. Weirdos are hailed as heroes – Happy Pride Month! You must celebrate and validate the two-spirit trans-furry experience. We suck up to enemies like Iran and screw over our few remaining friends like Israel. I’m almost as excited about paying to rebuild Gaza for the Palestinians as I am paying off the loans of purple-haired gender studies majors from the University of College.

Our institutions, under this garbage ruling class’s leadership, have uniformly failed, from the military to Hollywood to the government. We’re being led by President Pinocchio, a perv with a 5-foot nose who hopes that someday he will magically turn into a real chief executive. We have one political party trying to put the leader of the other in jail because they can’t beat him fair and square. They want to put you in jail, too. Some socialist scumbags set fire to a cop car and got 15 months in jail, while a 75-year-old lady tried to keep people from killing babies and got two years. They want to destroy the Supreme Court. They want to outlaw your free speech. They want to impose a racial spoil system where if your relatives came from north of the equator, and you know which bathroom to pee in, you are foreclosed from any position of authority or prestige. Our country is poorer, dumber, and, to judge by the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, fatter and uglier than ever before.

That’s not the America we grew up thinking we would inherit. The promise of America has been broken. But do we need to just accept that and resign ourselves to failure?

No. We know things can improve because we have seen it. America is not stuck with a one-way ratchet ever moving toward greater failures. We can turn it around. Ronald Reagan turned it around after Jimmy “At Least I Was Not As Bad As Biden” Carter. Rudy Guliani made grimy, crimey NYC a great city again. Even under intense fire, Trump made us prosperous again – for a while.

We can do it, but do we have the will? Each of us has to answer a question—are we just going to give up? Are we just going to pull away and hide in a little tiny community somewhere and hope that the coming commissars overlook us? Do we believe that Americans are no longer Americans?

I don’t. I don’t buy that crap at all. We’re pretty far down the road to chaos and dystopia, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pull a U-turn. You are never defeated until you’re defeated. It isn’t over until you quit. Nothing is over. As all-American hero Bluto Blutarsky asked of his fraternity brothers, “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” No, we can be America again – including making great movies!

Is there still courage and strength in Americans? Do we measure up to our forefathers? Yes. Let me tell you a story.

I was asked to represent the family of one of the Marines killed by Biden and his Pentagon’s shameful incompetence in Kabul, and I have permission to discuss it. I was present (with another lawyer and ex-colonel/battalion commander) when the Marine Corps sent a colonel out to brief the family on the investigation findings. That briefing differed from later testimony and revelations in key ways, but that’s not the issue here. What is important here is what those young Americans did.

They never backed off. They were courageous. They were heroes.

They were placed in a totally disastrous and unnecessarily dangerous position right up next to unvetted Afghan nationals. Their senior leaders failed them by failing to prepare for what became a rout (read about it here), but they never wavered. They never faltered. They performed their mission with incredible courage right up to the bombing. And there is drone footage of the Marines’ reaction right after the attack – textbook stuff. No one ran. No one panicked. They moved to secure the area and evacuate the wounded. None of the dead were commissioned officers, and I found that sketchy. I asked and got the right answer. The platoon leader was wounded. The company commander was wounded. The battalion commander was wounded. That meant they were upfront, leading, not in some bunker.

Yeah, Americans are still great. Greatness is still within us. And this fall, I say we choose to make America great again.

Kurt Schlichter

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/america-can-choose-to-be-great-again/

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Bringing Iran 'To Its Senses' - Lawrence Kadish

 

by Lawrence Kadish

There are lessons from policies and strategies forged nearly 85 years ago that need to be learned and applied as it becomes evident to those even in deliberate denial that Iran remains the malevolent force in the Middle East, masterminding the recent carnage inflicted by Hamas on Israel.

At the very least, the United States should return to a policy that seeks to bring Iran "to its senses" if not its knees. It is time to return and enforce strict economic sanctions immediately. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

As Imperial Japan pursued a strategy of aggression and murderous destruction in China, the United States in 1940 sought to confront Tokyo with a strategy of economic restrictions, trading embargoes, and the threat of frozen financial assets.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) said at the time it was not his intent to bring Japan to its knees but to its senses.

There are lessons from policies and strategies forged nearly 85 years ago that need to be learned and applied as it becomes evident to those even in deliberate denial that Iran remains the malevolent force in the Middle East, masterminding the recent carnage inflicted by Hamas on Israel.

Under FDR, the Commerce Department created a task force of specialists that identified key commodities they believed were vital to Japan functioning as a society and important to their military. From rubber and petroleum to chromium and silk, Japan's imports and exports were analyzed within the context of their war-making capabilities. The U.S. Treasury would also deploy their analysts to track Japan's cash reserves, including their tens of millions of dollars that, even then, was the crucial global currency for international trade.

Today, the United States is facing an Iran that has used diplomatic guile, terrorist surrogates, and hidden cryptocurrency transfers to handle everything from paying for imports to funding those who will do their bidding in Gaza, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. They are a sophisticated and ruthless enemy. Yet they are strategically vulnerable if America and her allies are prepared to use that most potent of weapons: economic sanctions.

Analysts report that Iranian oil exports have significantly increased over the past three years as U.S. sanctions eased. To no surprise, China has taken advantage of the opportunity to literally fuel their economy with Tehran's "liquid gold." But that is a minor sideshow compared to how Iran has used its resurging oil profits to instigate a conflict that has catastrophically harmed the ability of the Middle East to find peace. And tragically, it has been the misguided policies of the current White House that allowed these events to unfold.

Some may argue that, with militants in Syria attacking American forces at the direction of Iran, we have the right to respond by mining the waters off their oil terminals. That escalation would surely have unintended consequences, but our failure to enforce and sustain crippling economic sanctions requires us to understand the forces of evil we have allowed to be unleashed.

At the very least, the United States should return to a policy that seeks to bring Iran "to its senses" if not its knees. It is time to return and enforce strict economic sanctions immediately.

Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20685/bringing-iran-to-its-senses

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Palestinian Libels Against Jews: No Difference Between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas - Bassam Tawil

 

by Bassam Tawil

The Biden administration and some European countries that want to give the Palestinians a state fail to recognize that, when it comes to rejecting Israel's right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people and denying any Jewish link to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, there is no real difference between Abbas and Hamas.

 

• The only problem is: the claim [that Jews are trying to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque] is not true. Of course, there are no such plans. These plans only exist in the deranged imaginations of the Palestinian leaders fabricating the accusations against the Jews. In fact, it was Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who gave control over the Temple Mount to the Islamic Wakf authorities in 1967.

• In reality, Arafat had agreed that non-Muslims may, at certain times, tour the exterior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque -- the gardens and patios -- as long as they do not go inside and pray there.

• Abbas and his media nevertheless continue to portray the peaceful visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as violent incursions. On June 5, 2024, Abbas's official news agency Wafa reported: "Hundreds of Israeli colonists today broke into the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque...[they] raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba Gate and took provocative tours in its compounds."

• Needless to say, Abbas is again lying: no Jew had "raided" or "broken into" the mosque.

• The Biden administration and some European countries that want to give the Palestinians a state fail to recognize that, when it comes to rejecting Israel's right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people and denying any Jewish link to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, there is no real difference between Abbas and Hamas. If anyone is desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Palestinians who are using it to justify murder -- of Jews.

"The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and they [Jews] have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem. This blood is clean, pure blood, shed for the sake of Allah. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be rewarded by Allah." — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (Image source: MEMRI)

The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has claimed that its October 7 attack on Israel was a "necessary step and a natural reaction against Israel's plan... to establish complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem]." That is why Hamas called the assault, which claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis, "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood."

The only problem is: the claim is not true. Of course, there are no such plans. These plans only exist in the deranged imaginations of the Palestinian leaders fabricating the accusations against the Jews. In fact, it was Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who gave control over the Temple Mount to the Islamic Wakf authorities in 1967.

The Temple Mount Compound, on which the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits, is on a site holy to Arabs Christians and Jews.

This was not the first time that Hamas and other Palestinians had utilized the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a justification for attacking Israel and slaughtering Jews. The Palestinian are still propagating the lie that the Jews intend to demolish the mosque.

According to Nadav Shragai, an Israeli journalist specializing in Jerusalem affairs:

"Palestinians often hear from their leaders that a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem, al-Aksa mosque, is in danger of collapse – and the Jews are to blame. Whether printed in cartoons, preached in mosques or taught in schools, the lie is accepted as common knowledge across the Arab world. Millions of Muslims accept it as truth. The message is clear: Jews seek to expel the Arabs from Jerusalem.

"This lie is nothing new. For the past century, Palestinian leaders have told the 'Al-Aksa is in danger' lie in order to incite their people to attack Jews. It is important to expose and counter this fabrication because it remains a spark that can lead to bloodshed."

Shragai pointed out that "[t]he birthfather of the 'Al-Aksa is in danger' libel, the first in the new era to claim that the Jews were scheming to destroy the Al-Aksa Mosque and build the Third Temple in its place, was Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini," Adolf Hitler's friend and ally.

"Husseini exploited the Jews' struggle for their right to pray at the Western Wall... to whip up animosity against them and accuse them of much more ambitious aims: the destruction of the [Al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock] mosques and the building of the Third Temple in their stead."

Al-Husseini was known for his alliance with Hitler, whom he hoped would export his "final solution to the Jewish question" to the Middle East. "Arabs! Rise as one and fight for your sacred rights," Husseini is reported to have said. "Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."[1]

During a meeting between the two, held in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Hitler confirmed that the "struggle against a Jewish homeland in Palestine" would be part of the struggle against the Jews. Hitler stated that he would "continue the struggle until the complete destruction of Jewish-Communist European empire." When the German army looked as if it might approach the Middle East – it chose Russia instead -- Germany would issue "an assurance to the Arab world" that "the hour of liberation was at hand." It would then be al-Husseini's "responsibility to unleash the Arab action [against the Jews] that he has secretly prepared."

"All the explanations of the Jewish side that it had no intentions to take over the Muslim holy places were to no avail," Shragai added. In November 1928, the National Committee of the Jews of the Land of Israel published an open letter to the Arabs that stated, among other things:

"We hereby announce, honestly and sincerely, that no one from Israel has any intention of infringing the rights of Muslims to the places that are holy to them. However, our Arab brothers must also recognize the rights that Israel has in this land, to our own places.... Any attempt to describe the desire of the Jews to pray at this holy place, the Western Wall plaza, in peace, with respect and without restriction, as the creation of a strategic base for an attack on the mosques of the Muslims, is nothing but the fruit of a fevered imagination or a malicious libel. The aim of this libel is to sow tumult and confusion in hearts and arouse animosity and conflict between different peoples."

According to Shragai:

"Not only did this announcement not work, but al-Husseini and his Muslim Council further upped the ante. They forged an opening in the southern part of the Western Wall plaza so as to change the Jews' place of prayer into a passageway for both man and beast, and used various stratagems to further disrupt the Jews' worship. This campaign was orchestrated by the mufti Haj Amin. Some of the restrooms of homes alongside the prayer plaza were actually adjacent to the wall, and from time to time the Muslims would dump feces and garbage in the narrow plaza. In the spring of 1929, the Muslims in those residences abutting the plaza began conducting noisy ceremonies that included shouts, dances, and songs to the sounds of cymbals and drums...

"At the beginning of August 1929, Arabs attacked and injured Jews who had come to pray at the Western Wall. On August 15, the night of the Jewish holiday of Tisha B'Av [to commemorate the destruction of The Second Temple, destroyed in 67 CE, and all that remains of which is that retaining wall], the Betar movement and the Jewish community in the country brought tens of thousands in an impressive march to the Western Wall. The Arab protest, however, rose to a new pitch, with ceaseless harassment of the Jewish worshippers at the spot and an incitement campaign against the Jews' supposed aim to take over the Temple Mount and its mosques. This ongoing incitement, in which al-Husseini played a central role, eventually erupted in large-scale pogroms against Jews, which came to be known as the "1929 riots." A week after the Tisha B'Av march, the signal came from Al-Aksa. Masses of fellahin [Arab villagers] assembled, bearing clubs and knives. The inflamed Arab mass attacked Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and from there the pogroms spread to Jewish agricultural settlements such as Motza, Be'er Tuvia, and Hulda, Jewish urban concentrations such as Haifa and Tel Aviv, and the mixed cities of Hebron and Safed. The mayhem went on for a week. One hundred and thirty-three Jews, mostly in Safed and Hebron, were butchered. Three hundred and thirty-nine Jews were injured. Eight Jewish settlements had to be abandoned, and the events came to be etched as a terrible calamity in the collective memory of the Jews of Israel."

Since then, Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, together with many Palestinians, including Hamas, have been using the Al-Aqsa Mosque as an excuse to justify terrorism and other acts of violence against Israel and Jews.

In 2000, Arafat exploited a brief visit by Ariel Sharon (then leader of the Israel's opposition) to the Temple Mount to stir up hatred against Israel and Jews. In a speech at the Arab Summit in Cairo in October 2000, Arafat accused Sharon of "desecrating" the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its compound. It is important to note that during his tour of the compound, as had been agreed with Palestinian Authority security chief Jabril Rajoub, Sharon did not set foot inside the mosque.

Arafat's inflammatory rhetoric and lies triggered a violent Palestinian uprising, known as the Second Intifada, also known as the "Al-Aqsa Intifada," during which thousands of Palestinians and Israelis were killed. Twenty-four years later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is still in its place and Muslims continue to enjoy free access to the holy site in Jerusalem.

Arafat's successor, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has also been making false accusations against Israel surrounding the mosque. In a speech in 2015, Abbas said that Jews "have no right to defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet." He was referring to peaceful and routine visits by Jews to the Temple Mount. Abbas added:

"We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem. This blood is clean, pure blood, shed for the sake of Allah. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be rewarded by Allah."

Shortly after Abbas's speech, Palestinians took to the streets to stab Jews in what has become known as the "Knife Intifada." Thirty-eight Israelis were murdered, while 558 others were wounded.

Like al-Husseini and Arafat, Abbas denies any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, and its adjacent Western Wall. Abbas has also been spreading the lie that Jews are plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

In reality, Arafat had agreed that non-Muslims may, at certain times, tour the exterior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque -- the gardens and patios -- as long as they do not go inside and pray there.

Abbas and his media nevertheless continue to portray the peaceful visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as violent incursions. On June 5, 2024, Abbas's official news agency Wafa reported:

"Hundreds of Israeli colonists today broke into the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque...[they] raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba Gate and took provocative tours in its compounds."

Needless to say, Abbas is again lying: no Jew had "raided" or "broken into" the mosque.

This is the type of false propaganda that prompts Palestinians to shoot or stab the first Jew they encounter. There is no difference between the rhetoric used by Hamas and that used by Abbas regarding the lie that Jews are desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque and planning to destroy it. Hamas was undoubtedly inspired by Abbas's 2015 speech (Jews defiling with their "filthy feet" the Al-Aqsa Mosque) when it decided to call its October 7 massacre "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood."

Abbas bears equal responsibility for the October 7 atrocities because of his part in disseminating the falsehood that Jews are attacking and desecrating Islamic holy places, particularly the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Biden administration and some European countries that want to give the Palestinians a state fail to recognize that, when it comes to rejecting Israel's right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people and denying any Jewish link to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, there is no real difference between Abbas and Hamas. If anyone is desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Palestinians who are using it to justify murder -- of Jews.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. The work of Bassam Tawil is made possible through the generous donation of a donor who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.

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[1] More recent sources for this quote indicate that the primary source is the Federal Communications Commission's Weekly Review of Foreign Broadcasts, No. 118 3/4/44, Near and Middle East (United States National Archives, College Park, Record Group 165, MID, Regional File, 1922-44, Palestine, entry 77, Box 2719, folder 2930)

Particularly, see the listing of 3335 boxes under Formerly Security-Classified Intelligence Reference Publications ("Regional File") Received From U.S. Military Attaches, Military and Civilian Agencies of the United States, Foreign Governments, and Other Sources, 1922-1944 (Entry 77)

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. The work of Bassam Tawil is made possible through the generous donation of a donor who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20684/palestinian-libels-against-jews

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