GHF slams Reuters over 'false, so-called' document of Gazan relocation, 'deradicalization plan' - Jerusalem Post Staff, Reuters

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff, Reuters

GHF stated that it had informed the news agency that it had never seen, created, or been involved in this presentation prior to its publication.

 

Palestinians collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025.

(photo credit: REUTERS/STRINGER)

 

Editor's note: A previous version of this article featured the unconfirmed report. This has since been edited to show the Gaza Humanitarian Fund's response. 

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) slammed Reuters for its report that claimed it proposed building camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” inside - and possibly outside - Gaza to house the Palestinian population, outlining its vision of "replacing Hamas's control over the population in Gaza."

GHF stated that it had informed the news agency that it had never seen, created, or been involved in this presentation prior to its publication.

Another day, another false headline.@Reuters @aramroston @JonathanLanday referenced a so-called “GHF presentation” that we’ve never seen, never created, and had no part in. When we asked to review the document, they refused to share it. We told them clearly: GHF has no… pic.twitter.com/zFjPn27vBO

— Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (@GHFUpdates) July 7, 2025

"As we made clear to them [Reuters] repeatedly, GHF is not planning for or implementing Humanitarian Transit Areas (HTAs) now or at any point in the future," GHF said in a statement to The Jerusalem Post.

"It is disturbing that they falsely reported this disinformation despite repeated denials. Our sole focus remains on scaling up food aid operations to meet the urgent and overwhelming needs of the population in Gaza," the statement added. 

The son of displaced Palestinian woman Iman Suleiman, from Beit Lahiya, carries a box of aid the family received, distributed by the Emirates Red Crescent, in Gaza City, June 26, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/Khamis Al-Rifi)

The Post has reached out to GHF Director Reverand Johnnie Moore for comment.

Reuters reported that the $2 billion plan, created sometime after February 11 for GHF, was submitted to the Trump administration and recently discussed in the White House, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The plan, according to Reuters, describes the camps as "large-scale" and "voluntary" places where the Gazan population could “temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so.”

The Washington Post made a reference to GHF's plans to build housing compounds for Palestinian non-combatants in May.

A slide deck, according to Reuters, goes into granular detail on the "Humanitarian Transit Zones," including how they would be implemented and what they would cost.

It calls for using the sprawling facilities to "gain trust with the local population" and to facilitate US President Donald Trump's "vision for Gaza."

Reuters could not independently determine the status of the plan, who submitted it, or whether it is still under consideration.

The aid group, responding to questions from Reuters, denied that it had submitted a proposal and said the slides "are not a GHF document." GHF said it had studied "a range of theoretical options to safely deliver aid in Gaza," but that it "is not planning for or implementing Humanitarian Transit Areas (HTAs)."

Rather, the organization said it is solely focused on food distribution in Gaza.

A spokesperson for SRS, a for-profit contracting company that works with GHF, told Reuters, "We have had no discussions with GHF about HTAs, and our 'next phase' is feeding more people. Any suggestion otherwise is entirely false and misrepresents the scope of our operations."

The document included the GHF name on the cover and SRS on several slides.

 Fears of relocating Gaza's population

On February 4, Trump first publicly said that the US should "take over" the war-battered enclave and rebuild it as "the Riviera of the Middle East" after resettling the population of 2.3 million Palestinians elsewhere.

Trump's comments angered many Palestinians and humanitarian groups about the possible forced relocation from Gaza. Even if the GHF proposal is no longer under consideration, the idea of moving a large portion of the population into camps will only deepen such worries, several humanitarian experts told Reuters.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The proposal was laid out in a slide presentation that a source said was submitted to the US embassy in Jerusalem earlier this year.

The US State Department declined to comment. A senior administration official said, "Nothing of the like is under consideration. Also, no resources are being directed to that end in any way."

The source working on the project said that it had not moved forward due to a lack of funds. Reuters previously reported that GHF had attempted to set up a Swiss bank account from which to solicit donations, but UBS and Goldman Sachs declined to work with the organization.

The Israeli Embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, told Reuters it "categorically" rejects the GHF, calling it "not a relief organization but rather an intelligence and security tool affiliated with the Israeli occupation, operating under a false humanitarian guise."

Large-scale Humanitarian Transit Areas

The undated slide presentation, which includes photos dated February 11, said that the GHF is "working to secure" over $2 billion for the project, to "build, secure and oversee large-scale Humanitarian Transit Areas (HTAs) inside and potentially outside Gaza strip for the population to reside while Gaza is demilitarized and rebuilt."

The Humanitarian Transit Areas described in the slides would be the next phase in an operation that began with GHF opening food distribution sites in the enclave in late May, according to two sources involved in the project.

GHF coordinates with the Israeli military and uses private US security and logistics companies to get food aid into Gaza. It is favored by the Trump Administration and Israel to carry out humanitarian efforts in Gaza as opposed to the UN-led system, which it says lets terrorists divert aid.

Hamas denies this and says Israel is using hunger as a weapon.

In June US State Department approved $30 million in funding for the GHF and called on other countries to also support the group.

The United Nations has called GHF's operation "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules. The UN human rights office says it has recorded at least 613 killings at GHF aid points and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups, including the UN.

One slide outlining a timeline said a camp would be operational within 90 days of the launch of the project and that it would house 2,160 people, along with a laundry, restrooms, showers, and a school.

A source working on the project said that the slide deck is part of a planning process that began last year and envisions a total of eight camps, each one capable of sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

The proposal did not specify how the Palestinians would be relocated into the camps, or where the camps could be built outside Gaza, but a map shows arrows pointing to Egypt and Cyprus as well as other points labeled "Additional Destination?"

GHF would “oversee and regulate all civil activities required for construction, deradicalization and temporary voluntary relocation,” the proposal said.

Responding to questions from Reuters, three humanitarian experts expressed alarm over details of the plan to build camps.

“There is no such thing as voluntary displacement amongst a population that has been under constant bombardment for nearly two years and has been cut off from essential aid,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the Refugees International advocacy group and a former senior US Agency for International Development official who reviewed the plan.

The source who worked on planning for the camps told Reuters that the intent "is to take the fear factor away," enabling Palestinians to "escape control of Hamas" and providing them "a safe area to house their families."

Jerusalem Post Staff, Reuters

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-860262

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

'Security situation has completely collapsed': Hamas has lost 80% of its control over Gaza- report - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff

“Let’s be realistic here, there’s barely anything left of the security structure. Most of the leadership, about 95%, are now dead,” the Hamas official told the BBC."

 

Members of Hamas with the backdrop of the Gaza Strip, amid reports that Hamas has lost control of much of its territory.

(photo credit: Shutterstock/Ali Chehade Farhat, REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

 

Hamas has reportedly lost about 80% of its control over Gaza, a senior official from the terrorist organization told the BBC.

The official explained that Hamas’s command and control infrastructure had collapsed after months of Israeli airstrikes, which wiped out its political, military, and security leadership.

“Let’s be realistic here – there’s barely anything left of the security structure. Most of the leadership, about 95%, are now dead... The active figures have all been killed,” he said in the interview published Sunday.

“Logically, it has to continue until the end,” the Hamas official said. “All the conditions are aligned: Israel has the upper hand, the world is silent, the Arab regimes are silent, criminal gangs are everywhere, and society is collapsing.

“Let me be clear: the security situation has completely collapsed. There is no control anywhere.

“So, the security situation is zero. Hamas’s control is zero. There’s no leadership, no command, no communication. Salaries are delayed, and when they arrive, they are barely usable. Some die just trying to collect them. It’s total collapse.”

Determined to destroy Hamas' capabilities

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he and US President Donald Trump are determined to eliminate Hamas’s military capabilities, in addition to bringing the hostages home.

“We are still focused on the Gaza arena. We have also achieved great successes there, but there are still tasks to complete,” Netanyahu stated prior to his visit to Washington.

“We are also determined to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel. This means we will not allow a situation where there are more kidnappings, more killings, more beheadings, or more invasions. This means one thing: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities. Hamas will not be there.”

Hamas’s weakening grip on Gaza

In June, IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin stated that Hamas’s grip on Gaza was weakening as Israeli forces continued operations both above and below ground, The Jerusalem Post reported.

“Hamas is losing control. It continues to operate against its own civilians,” Defrin stated. He said the “distribution of food severely harms Hamas and its rule. Tens of thousands of meals are distributed daily to Gazans.”

The IDF has recently been operating near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation food distribution sites in southern Gaza to prevent Hamas terrorists and local clans from taking control of the food, thereby allowing Palestinian civilians to safely receive aid.

Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-860186

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Admitting defeat? Why Hamas officials say the terror group 'lost control' of Gaza - analysis - Seth J. Frantzman

 

by Seth J. Frantzman

Why would a high-ranking member of the Hamas terrorist group suddenly decide to leak these key details on the same day that ceasefire talks are ongoing?

 

Palestinian Hamas terrorists keep guard on the day Hamas handed over deceased hostages in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip February 20, 2025.

(photo credit: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/File Photo)

 

The same day that ceasefire talks took place in Doha, a report emerged on the BBC that suggested Hamas had “lost control over most of Gaza.”

The timing of the report leads to questions. According to the report, “A senior officer in Hamas’s security forces has told the BBC the Palestinian armed group has lost about 80% of its control over the Gaza Strip and that armed clans are filling the void.”

However, if Hamas has lost control why is it able to negotiate from a position of strength in Qatar and continue to hold onto demands it has made for the last year?

The report said that the source of the claims is a “lieutenant-colonel” in Hamas’s “security forces.” Why would a high-ranking member of Hamas suddenly decide to leak these key details on the same day that ceasefire talks are ongoing?

The talks are aimed at presenting Hamas's proposals to continue its rule in Gaza. The report would seem to weaken the Hamas position. However, the report could also strengthen the view of some Israeli officials that Israel has won in Gaza. If Hamas says it has collapsed, why not take its word for it and end the war and claim victory? Could the Hamas officer thus be leaking details that Hamas wants to be leaked?

The report said that the Hamas member said the group’s “command and control system had collapsed due to months of Israeli strikes that have devastated the group’s political, military and security leadership.”

The officer is presented as an anonymous source, and he left “voice messages” about the state of Hamas affairs. “The officer painted a picture of Hamas’s internal disintegration and the near-total collapse of security across Gaza, which the group governed before the conflict.”

Nearly all Hamas leaders killed?

The Hamas member claimed that 95% of Hamas leaders have been killed. “There’s barely anything left of the security structure.” How does Hamas continue to hold around 35%-40% of Gaza and rule over 2 million people?

Hamas also claimed it could deliver the hostages, according to reports of a possible deal. How can both things be true, that Hamas has no control, but controls 2 million people and the hostages?

“Criminal gangs are everywhere, society is collapsing,” the source claimed. “About the security situation, let me be clear: it has completely collapsed. Totally gone. There’s no control anywhere,” he said.

How is this possible? If there was a complete breakdown, wouldn’t we see video of it and evidence? He claimed that people had looted a Hamas security headquarters. Wouldn’t there be a video of this?

The Hamas source told the BBC that gangs or armed clans were taking over. This would dovetail with reports that Israel has backed militias and gangs in Gaza. Therefore, if Hamas is defeated and falling apart, why doesn’t the IDF simply sweep Hamas aside now? Instead, Israel is considering a new ceasefire that would appear to preserve Hamas in power.

The BBC report went on to claim that “six armed groups affiliated with powerful local clans have emerged as serious contenders to fill the void, according to the officer.” The report then mentioned Yasser Abu Shabab, who it says is backed by the Palestinian Authority. He is a militia leader who is also apparently accepted by Israel. “Israel confirmed last month that it was supplying him with weapons,” the BBC said. The report then portrayed this man as a potentially “unifying figure.”

This then leads to the second part of the article. After the anonymous source said that Hamas had collapsed, the article explained that Abu Shabab is “working to coordinate with other armed groups to form a joint council aimed at toppling Hamas.”

The article then portrayed Abu Shabab as also in touch with Egypt and he “maintains good ties with Mohammad Dahlan’s camp.” Dahlan is a former Fatah leader of Gaza who fled in 2007 and has reportedly resided in the UAE over the years.

This article is interesting because it appears to do two things at once. It claims that Hamas is collapsing and seems to raise up Abu Shabab as a new face of the resistance against Hamas in Gaza. It portrays Shabab as linked to Egypt, the PA and Dahlan. Via Dahlan, one could then extrapolate that he is potentially backed by Gulf countries.

However, at the same time, Hamas leaders in Doha are in talks about a ceasefire. How can both things be true at the same time? How can Hamas be collapsing but also in talks?

Hamas doesn’t appear under pressure in the talks. Hamas seems to know that Israel won’t go into the remaining 35% of Gaza that Hamas controls. These are the central camps and Gaza City and Mawasi areas. Israel has never entered these areas during the war for fear of harming hostages.

This gives Hamas an area to recuperate. Is there evidence that Hamas's rule in those areas has collapsed? So that, there is not. This raises questions about the motive of the source who spoke to the BBC and the motive of the article in portraying Abu Shabab as on the verge of apparently challenging Hamas for the rule of Gaza.

Seth J. Frantzman

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-860232

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Do Not Rely on Egypt or Any Arab State to Bring Security to Gaza - Khaled Abu Toameh

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

By turning a blind eye to the massive smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism, paving the way for the October 7 attack on Israel.

 

• There are also concerns that the tunnels could be used to smuggle terrorists into Gaza.

• The Egyptians chose to ignore the smuggling as long as the weapons were making their way into the Gaza Strip and not staying in Egyptian territory. After all, these weapons were being used against Israel, not Egypt. The weapons did not pose any threat to Egypt's national security. In addition, Egyptian military and police officers apparently benefitted by accepting bribes.

• By turning a blind eye to the massive smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism, paving the way for the October 7 attack on Israel.

• Egypt never did anything to stop Hamas from staging a coup against the Palestinian Authority and seizing control of the Gaza Strip. Egypt failed to stop the flow of weapons into the Gaza Strip. Egypt does not care about the Palestinians or Israel. It only cares about its own interests, and that is why it would be a big mistake to rely on the Egyptians or any Arab state to bring security and stability to the Gaza Strip.

By turning a blind eye to the massive smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism, paving the way for the October 7 attack on Israel. Pictured: A large Hamas tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, beneath the Philadelphi Corridor, discovered by the Israeli military, photographed on September 13, 2024. (Photo by Sharon Aronowicz/AFP via Getty Images)

Since the Hamas-Israel war began on October 7, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have discovered an estimated 90 tunnels crossing under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The tunnels have been used by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups to smuggle rockets and weapons into the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli military sources, there may be additional tunnels that have not been discovered. There are also concerns that the tunnels could be used to smuggle terrorists into Gaza.

The smuggling, which increased after Hamas's violent and brutal takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, took place under the watchful eyes of Egypt, if not with its willing assistance.

The Egyptians chose to ignore the smuggling as long as the weapons were making their way into the Gaza Strip and not staying in Egyptian territory. After all, these weapons were being used against Israel, not Egypt. The weapons did not pose any threat to Egypt's national security. In addition, Egyptian military and police officers apparently benefitted by accepting bribes.

"The feeling in Jerusalem is that Egypt is ungrateful," said Yoni Ben Menachem, Middle East intelligence analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, in September 2024.

"Now it turns out the Egyptians have been playing a double game. They've been letting Hamas smuggle weapons for many years, especially after [Egyptian President] Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power."

"Israel helped Egypt in its campaign against the Islamic State [ISIS] in Sinai," noted David Isaac, an expert on Jewish history, politics, and current events at Jewish News Syndicate.

"It allowed Cairo to double its forces in the peninsula, far more than allowed by the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Israel even conducted bombing raids against the Islamic State at Egypt's request. In 2014, Israel intervened on behalf of Egypt with the U.S. to ensure American aid continued."

Shortly after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel, the IDF confirmed that the Palestinian terror group smuggled weapons and ammunition through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border in the run-up to its massacre of 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals.

By turning a blind eye to the massive smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism, paving the way for the October 7 attack on Israel.

The idea that placing the Gaza Strip under Egypt's control would change the situation is simply unrealistic. Egypt, which ruled the Gaza Strip from 1948 until 1967, never wanted the Gaza Strip back, mainly because Cairo did not want to become responsible for the Palestinians living there. Egypt, in addition, did not want to be seen as meddling in the internal affairs of the Palestinians and having to face the challenge of confronting various armed groups inside the Gaza Strip.

Recently, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that the Trump administration and Israel have reached agreement on a plan that would "encompass four Arab nations (including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) to administer the Gaza Strip" after the end of the war.

In the past, Egypt rejected any proposal for it to administer the Gaza Strip. Earlier this year, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said:

"[A]ny proposals that circumvent the constants of the Egyptian and Arab position, and the sound foundations for addressing the core of the conflict, which relate to Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian Territories and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, are rejected and unacceptable, as they represent half-solutions that contribute to the recurrence of the conflict cycles rather than resolving it permanently."

"Egypt's rejection of the proposal is rooted in multiple concerns, with national security being the most critical," wrote Egyptian journalist Abdellatif El-Menawy.

"Cairo fears that assuming control of Gaza would create a significant security burden, particularly given the complex internal dynamics of the enclave and the presence of armed factions outside the control of the Palestinian Authority. If Egypt were to take administrative responsibility, it might find itself in direct confrontation with resistance groups, leading to unwanted conflicts that could destabilize Egypt's internal security."

Egypt has good reason to be worried about its national security. According to Israeli security sources, ISIS terrorists fighting against the Egyptian army in Sinai have cooperated militarily with Hamas. The sources revealed that Hamas's military wing had been paying the ISIS terrorists in Egypt to secure weapons shipments being smuggled through Sinai into the Gaza Strip.

The smuggling industry flourished after the IDF in 2005 withdrew from the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land situated along the entirety of the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. After the withdrawal, Israel and Egypt signed an agreement that authorized the Egyptians to deploy border guards along the route to prevent smuggling of weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. The Egyptians, needless to say, did not fully comply with the agreement.

Meanwhile, European Union monitors stationed at the Rafah Border Crossing, as part of an agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, suspended their operations after Hamas's 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip. If the PA and the EU monitors ran away from the Gaza Strip, there is reason to believe that Egypt would follow suit if it were put in charge. Even if Egypt accepts the alleged Trump plan, it would be doing so only to appease the US and receive more financial aid from the Americans. Once the Trump administration is gone or Palestinians start protesting against Egypt, the Egyptians will leave the Gaza Strip.

Egypt never did anything to stop Hamas from staging a coup against the Palestinian Authority and seizing control of the Gaza Strip. Egypt failed to stop the flow of weapons into the Gaza Strip. Egypt does not care about the Palestinians or Israel. It only cares about its own interests, and that is why it would be a big mistake to rely on the Egyptians or any Arab state to bring security and stability to the Gaza Strip.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter) 

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21732/gaza-security-egypt

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Pulitzer Follies: Trump lawsuit exposes uncomfortable truths about journalism's highest award - John Solomon

 

by John Solomon

New intel community report on Putin's intentions also undercuts factual basis of one of the award-winning submissions by The Washington Post.

 

President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board is forcing into the public eye uncomfortable revelations about how the news industry’s top prize giver handled the unraveling of Russia collusion allegations, exposing conflicts in testimony and an admission that people other than Trump complained about its 2018 awards to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of the now-discredited scandal.

While the litigation in an Okeechobee County, Florida courthouse makes its way to the Florida Supreme Court, new admissions by the intelligence community have undercut the factual basis underlying some of the stories that won the two newspapers the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting.

One of those stories was a December 2017 report by The Washington Post that accused Trump of ignoring or trying to downplay U.S. intelligence claims that Putin tried to help him win the 2016 election. “Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House,” the Post's award-winning story declared.

While there remains widespread consensus inside U.S. spy agencies that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton, the narrative the news stories spawned -- namely, that Russia’s intent was to help Trump win the election -- is disputed.

The claim that Putin was specifically trying to help Trump was included in a December 2016 Obama administration intelligence community assessment (ICA), but in fact there were concerns about that claim and the way that review was done inside the intelligence community, according to new evidence made public this month.

CIA's Russian experts objected to Brennan's inclusion of Steele Dossier

CIA Director John Ratcliffe revealed last week that the two top career CIA officials for Russia directly objected to former Director John Brennan’s inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Obama-era ICA and that its conclusion that Russia’s intent was to help Trump was not strongly supported by the evidence.  

Ratcliffe’s new report directly assailed the Obama-era Russia assessment that anchored the Post’s December 2017 story, concluding it suffered from significant failures of spy tradecraft and other irregularities.

“The procedural anomalies that characterized the ICA’s development had a direct impact on the tradecraft applied to its most contentious finding. With analysts operating under severe time constraints, limited information sharing, and heightened senior-level scrutiny, several aspects of tradecraft rigor were compromised—particularly in supporting the judgment that Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win,” the Ratcliffe report concluded.

Tradecraft-Review-2016-ICA-on-Election-Interference-062625.pdf

A spokeswoman for The Washington Post did not immediately respond to Just the News' request for comment.

The new admissions by U.S. intelligence last week aren’t the only ones undercutting entries in the Times' and Post's award-winning submissions.

Just the News reported in April that newly released FBI interviews with former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, a Navy admiral, show that the former spy chief directly refuted a Post article submitted in the Pulitzer-winning package that claimed Trump had “asked intelligence chiefs to push back against the FBI collusion probe” after former FBI Director James Comey “revealed its existence.” Rogers called the article’s assertions “wrong.”

“The interviewing team read to Rogers a quote from a media source that stated ‘President Trump urged [Rogers] to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election’ and ADM Rogers responded that the media characterization was wrong, and the President had asked about the existence of SIGINT [signals intelligence] evidence only,” the FBI report quoted Rogers as saying.

2025.04.10 - Adm Rogers NSA interview.pdf

Former Special Prosecutor John Durham concluded there was never any evidence that Trump colluded with Russia or Putin to hijack the 2016 election, and that the FBI engaged in significant wrongdoing in pursuing the case, including falsifying evidence and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get permission to spy on Trump advisers.

durhamreport (1).pdf

Despite Durham’s findings and the newly released FBI and intelligence documents, the Pulitzer Prize Board has stood by the Times’ and Post’s reporting and its decision to honor them as examples of journalistic excellence. In 2022, it issued a statement saying two separate reviews found no problems with the winning articles.

“Both reviews were conducted by individuals with no connection to the institutions whose work was under examination, nor any connection to each other,” the Pulitzer Board stated. “The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes. The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand.”

Letting the courts sort it out

After sending a letter complaining about the awards, and after the board's refusal to withdraw the awards, Trump sued over that statement in Florida state court, alleging that it defamed him by portraying the reporting as accurate.

“Defendants, with knowledge of its falsity and/or reckless disregard for the truth, issued the Pulitzer Statement to publish that ‘no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions’ that advanced the Russia Collusion Hoax had since been ‘discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.’ This statement is factually incorrect and intended to leave the reader with the false impression that the Times and the Post had correctly reported on the Russia Collusion Hoax in 2017,” Trump’s complaint alleged.

Affidavits and depositions conducted as the lawsuit — all a matter of public record — have put the Pulitzer Prize Board in a difficult light. It has had to admit Trump was neither the first nor the only person or organization to complain about the accuracy of the Times and Post reporting. 

“The Board began receiving complaints about the 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting, including from President Trump, before I became a Co-Chair,” Pulitzer Prize Board Co-Chairman Neil Brown stated in an affidavit filed last year in the case.

Brown’s affidavit did not specify how many complaints beyond Trump’s public complaint the board received, but he acknowledged the complaints prompted a slow-moving effort to conduct the two reviews and to issue the 2022 statement standing by the awards. The exact number of complaints the Board received about the Russia collision reporting remains unclear in the court record.

Marjorie Miller, the current Pulitzer Prize Administrator, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One of the former Pulitzer Board co-chairmen, Associated Press standards editor John Daniszewski, said in a deposition obtained by Business Insider that the board had "engaged two outside consultants" to consider "five or six complaints" about the prizes. Daniszewski said some of those complaints were about historical issues, and one was about Trump's complaint about the Times and Post awards.

"They recommended to the board that no action be taken and that the basis for the complaint was unfounded," Daniszewski said in his deposition, according to Business Insider.

Separate from his affidavit, Brown disclosed in a response to Trump's complaint that at least two outside complaints about the 2018 awards to the Post and Times came in before Trump made his complaint. “Defendant admits that, prior to Plaintiff's complaint, it received two complaints about the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting,” Brown’s filing stated.

The court filings also reveal a conflict in some of the facts among the Pulitzer Board members and staff.

Brown, for instance, stated in his affidavit that “I understand that (former co-chairwoman Katherine) Boo and Daniszewski worked with then-Acting Administrator Bud Kliment and later newly-elected Administrator Marjorie Miller to begin drafting a statement that the Board could issue publicly in response to those complaints."

But in an affidavit filed on the same day, Kliment, now the deputy administrator of the prizes, gave a different account by denying he was involved in drafting or editing the statement. “I did not draft or revise the Board Statement,” he stated flatly.

KlimentAffidavit.pdf

Such contradictions suggest that the journalists atop the Pulitzer Prizes don’t have their story straight – an important tenet of the news profession.

It’s not the only tenet of journalism being challenged in the case.

Transparency for thee, but not for me

In its description of what constitutes the “highest journalistic principles” honored by its awards, the Pulitzer Board states emphatically that “these include a commitment to honesty with both readers and the subjects of our work” and that “the best journalism is transparent about its sources and methods.” 

But in the course of the lawsuit, the Pulitzer Board refused to identify who conducted the two reviews in 2019 and 2022 affirming the awards or to release the actual reports. 

“Defendant admits that the independent reviews themselves have not been made public,” the Board states in one of its defense filings. "Defendant admits that the Pulitzer Prize Board afforded the 2019 reviewer(s) confidentiality and that the identity of the reviewer(s) remains undisclosed. […] Defendant admits that the Pulitzer Prize Board afforded the 2021 reviewer(s) confidentiality and that the identity of the reviewer(s) remains undisclosed” one of the board's filings said.

Judge Robert Pegg rejected the board's attempt to hide the identity of the reviewers in January, saying in his ruling that the defendants "did not make any actual showing that the discovery sought would cause him or any person annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. The record lacks factual support for good cause." 

After the ruling, the board dropped its challenge to the public disclosure of what it claimed were "internal deliberations." At least one of the internal reports, authored by former Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, is essential to Trump’s case. The board referred to Adler’s review — though without identifying him — in the July 2022 statement that dug in its heels over the award given four years earlier to the Times and Post. The statement also said none of the stories had been "discredited."

The Board also tried to argue — unsuccessfully — in court filings that Florida's courts had no jurisdiction over the matter. Despite having released the 2022 statement nationally on its website, Kliment said in an affidavit that “To the extent I had any intent whatsoever with respect to the publication of the Board Statement, I did not intend that it be directed specifically at a Florida audience.” Kliment’s affidavit echoed the language used by several of the Pulitzer Prize defendants in Trump's suit.

A long and winding road 

As is often the case with high-profile lawsuits, the volley of legal filings and rulings only represents the opening salvo. The board lost another motion in late May, asking the court to delay consideration of the case until after Trump was no longer president. According to The Hill, a spokesperson for the Pulitzer Board said “allowing this case to proceed facilitates President Trump’s use of state courts as both a sword and a shield — allowing him to seek retribution against anyone he chooses in state court while simultaneously claiming immunity for himself whenever convenient.” That motion was denied.

Responding to the ruling, the president said on social media that "In a major WIN in our powerful lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board regarding the illegal and defamatory “Award” of their once highly respected “Prize,” to fake, malicious stories on the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, by the Failing New York Times and the Washington Compost, the Florida Appellate Court viciously rejected the Defendants’ corrupt attempt to halt the case. They won a Pulitzer Prize for totally incorrect reporting about the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax. Now they admit it was a SCAM, never happened, and their reporting was totally wrong, in fact, the exact opposite of the TRUTH. They’ll have to give back their “Award.” 

In addition to monetary damages, Trump's lawsuit asked for a "judicial declaration that the Pulitzer Statement published by Defendants is defamatory," and seeks "permanent injunctive relief prohibiting further publication of the Pulitzer Statement." The case will proceed through discovery, and although more embarrassing facts about the Pulitzer Prize may be made public, there is no telling whether the case will be summarily dismissed or, instead, a jury will have the chance to weigh in on the matter.  

John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/monpulitzer-follies-trump-lawsuit-exposes-uncomfortable-truths-about

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

The Frightening Dream House of Zoran Mamdani - Victor Davis Hanson

 

by Victor Davis Hanson

Zoran Mamdani built his dream on radical chic—but now that he's winning, he's scrambling to bury the blueprint.

 

After his first-place win in the New York City mayoral primaries, Zoran Mamdani is furiously denying everything that he once glibly thought was cutting-edge and cool.

So, like a good postmodern relativist, Mamdani now claims he didn’t really mean that violence was merely a “construct.”

I suppose Mamdani asked Jewish New Yorkers—the target of 44 percent of all hate crimes in the city—and discovered that their concussions and blood were all too real.

As a good soldier in the ranks of Black Lives Matter, Mamdani now insists he did not trash the police and advocate defunding them. Neither did he really, really mean to claim falsely he was African-American when he applied to college nor did really, really mean to post a video mocking the Jewish holiday of Hannukah.

Mamdani once thought it was cool to boast about defunding the police when he was an edgy, rising, left-wing community activist.

But then it was smarter to play it down as a candidate. And now it is essential to lie and deny it as a front-runner.

As a good communist, Mamdani echoed Karl Marx by bragging about his ultimate agenda: “the end goal of seizing the means of production.”

But whose “means of production” would Mamdani start seizing?

Trump Tower? Tesla dealerships? Amazon warehouses?

Mamdani warns us, “I don’t think that we should have billionaires, frankly.”

Then, please tell us, how would you get rid of them?

Confiscate their money? Tax them at a 99 percent rate?

Maybe dox them and let the public handle the rest?

Mamdani brags he would “globalize the intifada.”

Given that most define the intifada (“shaking off”) as the two violent Palestinian waves of terrorism against Israel, what then does Mamdani mean by globalizing it?

Is the violence at universities like Columbia insufficient without escalating to the old PLO or current Hamas levels?

Mamdani said that, as mayor, he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to New York City.

But what crime would Netanyahu be guilty of?

Trying to stop another Hamas October 7 massacre of Jewish civilians?

Attempting to prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear bomb and thereby fulfilling their daily promise of destroying Israel?

If Mamdani believes the democratically elected Netanyahu deserves to be jailed, then would he similarly arrest a visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping for putting a million Uyghurs in labor camps?

How about arresting Venezuelan communist dictator Nicolas Maduro, who has “disappeared” some 20,000 of his own people?

How about Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, whose government executes homosexuals?

Or is it just Jewish leaders who would be subject to Mamdani’s warrants?

Mamdani promises to target “richer” and “whiter” neighborhoods for higher taxes.

But in all analyses of median family household income, so-called whites rank far from the top at a distant eighth.

Who, on average, ranks as the richest ethnic group in America?

Asian immigrants of Indian ancestry—like Mamdani and his own family.

So, why didn’t the supposedly erudite Mamdani say he was going after the statistically “richest” group in the nation for his tax hikes—like Indian-American households?

Or was race more important than income in Mamdani’s Marxist view of collective enemies?

Mamdani touts free transportation, rent control, and state-owned grocery stores as if they were new ideas. But they are stale, old-fashioned policies that have failed everywhere from the Soviet Union to Castro’s Cuba—and often here in blue-state university cities.

Mamdani reflects a pattern of affluent, left-wing, and highly educated immigrants from impoverished countries.

Barack Obama’s father, Kamala Harris’s father, and Rep. Ilhan Omar’s parents fled the poverty, violence, and corruption of their homeland only to find prosperity, even affluence, amid the safety and the rule of law in the United States.

They and their American-born children were often the recipients of generous government scholarships and favorable preferences in admissions, hiring, and career advancements under affirmative action and diversity/equity/inclusion protocols.

But instead of appreciating the unique security and magnanimity of their adopted country, they so often embraced boilerplate invective against America as an unkind, unfair, and unequal place.

For Obama, America needed to be “fundamentally transformed.” For Omar, her adopted homeland was one of the “worst” countries, and she added it had become even worse than the Somaliland dictatorship she fled.

For Mamdani, whose parents rank in the top one percent of income and educational brackets, the America his family sought as a refuge must be transformed into one of the socialist-communist nations of the sort that have failed everywhere.

The glib Mamdani has canned answers for all of his past embarrassments—except one.

Why would he wish to turn New York City into a social basket-case like Uganda, which his now-rich parents fled to reach America in the first place?

 

Victor Davis Hanson

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/07/the-frightening-dream-house-of-zoran-mamdani/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Business and Politics Are Not the Same, But the America Party Seems to Think They Are - Cynical Publius

 

by Cynical Publius

-

Elon Musk’s “America Party” may aim to fix politics with engineering precision—but in the messy world of democracy, third parties tend to short-circuit their own ideals.

 

As America watched President Trump sign his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law on Independence Day 2025, his erstwhile soulmate, Elon Musk, had other ideas. Offended by the prospect of the “BBB” adding to our national debt, and perhaps offended that many of his DOGE cuts could not be incorporated into the BBB thanks to the arcane rules of Congress on budgetary matters, Musk decided his best move was to announce the formation of his latest endeavor, the “America Party.” Assuming this is not one massive Elon troll job (which it might be, as the man has an epic sense of humor), I believe this is a tragic mistake, both for Musk and for America.

Let me begin by saying I greatly admire Elon Musk. He is one of the greatest Americans ever, a titan of industry, and free enterprise on par with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Musk has transformed reality and stood conventional wisdom on its head in so many areas: electric vehicles, Internet access, space travel, social media, and, soon, neurological disorders. But like Icarus flying too close to the sun, even great men have their failures. Thomas Edison once bet his fortune on an “electric pen,” and Henry Ford, despite his business acumen, was a spectacular failure as a politician. I submit that Musk’s foray into politics (beyond the America-saving help he gave Donald Trump in 2024) is destined for similar ignominy, both because of the historic failure of American third parties and because of the blind spot so many otherwise successful tech entrepreneurs have about how politics and human emotion work.

Now, I freely admit that I am a lesser man than Musk. Few of us will ever reach his level of extraordinary greatness, and least of all me, a pseudonymous Internet rando writing on X and American Greatness.

So you may ask, who the heck am I to opine on what Elon Musk does?

Well, I may not be especially great, but I do possess a unique background that may give greater insight into a new political party, the federal budget, and Elon Musk than most people possess.

The biggest part of my professional career was as a U.S. Army officer, and that career culminated in a Pentagon position where I was running a $17.1 billion budget item, and that position sent me scurrying often to Capitol Hill in my best Class A uniform to meet with Congressional staffers, where I learned that what Americans vote for and what their tax dollars get spent on are usually not the same thing. War is hell, but so are American budgetary politics, a lesson I learned with great angst and unhappiness, and a lesson that Elon Musk seems to have not yet learned.

More importantly, after retiring from the Army, I got the bright idea to become a lawyer, and for fifteen years now, I have been practicing as a Silicon Valley start-up/venture capital/mergers & acquisitions attorney. My client base consists almost exclusively of companies and venture capital firms run by wannabe Elons: engineers and scientists who get the entrepreneurial bug and want to turn their brilliance into dollars.

Thus, I consider myself an expert on the mentality of the average Silicon Valley boss, and I can say this with certainty—people with that background tend to routinely and almost exclusively engage in binary thinking: 1/0, yes/no, true/false.

They are hardwired this way.

Such tech business leaders constantly seek perfect, unambiguous knowledge and solutions. They have a very difficult time dealing with the messy realities of things like law, politics, social issues, and emotion, where ambiguities are the norm, words can have multiple meanings, and an absolutely, objectively correct answer is impossible to ascertain. I cannot count the number of times I have had to counsel an engineer or scientist on the unpredictability of legal outcomes. They want perfect yes/no answers, and they become intensely frustrated when none are forthcoming.

When confronted with such situations, people with such backgrounds feel the deep, visceral need to create a new set of circumstances where the ambiguity can be eliminated. I believe that is what Musk has done by creating the America Party. He wants to transform American political reality, as he has done for space travel and so many other areas, so he decided a new party will eliminate ambiguity and best achieve his absolute goals. However, I believe in this instance, his experiences and mindset are working against him.

After Musk announced the creation of his new party, I spent some time on X sharing my above thoughts and was roundly roasted by many people with similar backgrounds as Musk. The engineers and scientists came at me: “We deal with complexity all the time; you are so wrong.” But complexity is not ambiguity. When unraveling complex systems, the goal is to achieve the “right” answer—the answer that lets the rocket launch, or the program provide correct outputs, or the medical device save lives. Politics is not like that. There is no “right answer” in politics; there is only the compromise position that best allows you to at least partially achieve your goals while not getting thrown out of office. People like Musk despise this sort of uncertainty, and they seek to establish certainty where none is possible.

Thus, the America Party.

I will not spend too much time addressing the folly of third parties in American politics. Absent a transformational issue like slavery, third parties in the United States have never succeeded. Teddy Roosevelt, Gus Hall, George Wallace, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader accomplished nothing other than to help ensure that the candidate most opposed to their positions achieved office. While the Constitution does not explicitly favor a two-party system, the Electoral College, the Seventeenth Amendment, and the pervasive nature of American winner-take-all elections tend to doom any third party to irrelevance, an irrelevance that best serves the interests of the members of the two-party system least like the third party.

Musk has hung his hat on the idea that the national debt is unsustainable (and it is, but it is not solvable in the perfect manner Musk desires). He is completely unwilling to consider the idea that the BBB, with its elimination of illegal Democrat voters seeking the largesse of the American taxpayer, is a capital investment in the American people designed specifically to eliminate the deficit over time via growth in the incomes of American citizens.

Musk instead seeks the immediate, perfect answer: spending cuts in the current year that will eradicate the debt and the deficit. Mathematically this seems possible, and such mathematics appeal to the engineer in him, but he fails to understand that politically such an instant solution is utterly impossible and will accomplish nothing other than to turn America over to Democrats who care not even a little bit about the national debt and instead see that onerous debt as an essential component in achieving the America-destroying Cloward-Piven Strategy that will one day put the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into high office.

If you are one of those opponents of the “uniparty” who see Musk’s third-party efforts as supporting your longing for fundamental change, consider that his central issue of minimizing the debt will serve only to draw away GOP voters. Democrat voters care almost exclusively about entitlement spending, and a reduction in the national debt is anathema to this ideal. The America Party will serve only to draw away MAGA voters from the GOP and will provide Democrats with the marginal advantage they need to rule America’s downfall into a neo-Marxist hellhole.

I understand that Musk has stated the America Party will serve only to target certain senatorial and congressional districts in 2028. I hear this, and I know it will ultimately prove to be untrue. Political parties transcend their founders, and if the targeted state/district approach is successful, do you doubt for a moment that the America Party will set its 2032 sights on the presidency? Hello, President AOC.

The thing that disturbs me most is that Musk seemed to once understand that political transformation must occur inside the existing parties. When Barack Obama sought to “fundamentally transform” America, he successfully did so inside the Democrat Party (i.e., Obamacare, pervasive DEI), and when Donald Trump sought to do the same, he did so by taking over the GOP.

Elon, please think about this. Fundamental change is incremental; the BBB is incremental change, and you can work toward your goals best by eliminating squishy GOP senators and congresspeople inside the constructs of the Republican Party. Let’s eliminate the RINOs from Congress. Once we have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate and an untouchable majority in the House, true fundamental transformation—and elimination of the national debt—becomes possible.

Isn’t this a better solution than handing the House, the Senate, and the presidency to spendthrift Democrats? Surely your precision engineer’s brain can see this? I deeply hope so.

* * *

Cynical Publius is the nom de plume of a retired U.S. Army colonel and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who is now a practicing corporate law attorney. You can follow Cynical Publius on X at @CynicalPublius.

 

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/07/business-and-politics-are-not-the-same-but-the-america-party-seems-to-think-they-are/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Rabbi Hier: ‘This is a phenomenal time to bring Azerbaijan into the Abraham Accords’ - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff

Ahead of Netanyahu’s White House visit, a leading US rabbi urges adding Azerbaijan to the Abraham Accords as a key ally to deter Iran and spark wider Muslim participation.

 

Flag of Azerbaijan

(photo credit: REUTERS)

In an interview this week, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the rabbi who blessed US President Donald Trump at his 2017 inauguration, reaffirmed his call for the United States to expand the Abraham Accords and welcome Azerbaijan as a new signatory.

Referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming White House meeting with President Trump, Hier called this “a phenomenal time” for bringing Baku into the regional peace framework.

Azerbaijan and Israel have enjoyed close relations for more than 30 years. The secular, Shiite-majority state on Iran’s northern border supplies a significant share of Israel’s oil, buys Israeli defense equipment and shelters an ancient Jewish community. A recent Forbes analysis described Azerbaijan as a natural candidate to join the Abraham Accords, citing its role as an energy bridge between East and West and its close ties with Israel. According to the report, bringing Baku into the framework could boost regional energy stability and help curb Iran’s disruptive influence.

Hier praised Azerbaijan’s decision to include Holocaust studies in its national curriculum and to openly support its Jewish community. “Azerbaijan now teaches the Holocaust in its schools and its government openly supports its thriving Jewish community,” he noted. He added that these steps show why Azerbaijan “should join the Abraham Accords — that would be a terrific thing.”

He argued that Azerbaijan’s inclusion would send Iran a powerful signal after the recent conflict. “It would be a clear message that any aggression would be faced with a united front,” Hier warned, calling the current Iranian regime “an absolute disgrace… a reincarnation of what was once done by Adolf Hitler.”

The letters sent to Donald Trump. (credit: Azerbaijan Jewish Alliance)

Azerbaijan joining Abraham Accords can inspire others

Asked whether Azerbaijan’s move could inspire other countries, Hier said he sees a clear ripple effect. “I think it would be a domino effect. There are many people in the Arab world who are sick and tired of the extremists and would tell their governments to do what Azerbaijan did.”

During the conversation, Hier also recalled the letter he recently sent to Trump, praising his leadership for reshaping the Middle East and urging him to take “this bold step toward a stronger, more united region.” In that letter, he described Azerbaijan as “a true ally and a bridge between East and West.”

Hier, who has repeatedly called the Abraham Accords a historic breakthrough for genuine coexistence, concluded that he hopes President Trump will seize this “phenomenal moment” to widen the circle of peace.

Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/abraham-accords/article-860255

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter