Trump: Israel agrees to initial Gaza withdrawal line - JNS Staff

 

by JNS Staff

The U.S. president said the plan has been shared with Hamas, and that once confirmed by the terrorist group, the ceasefire and hostages and prisoner exchange will begin immediately.

 

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference announcing the U.S. peace plan for Gaza, Sept. 29, 2025. Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/White House.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Israel had agreed to an initial withdrawal line in Gaza as part of his proposal to end the war.

“After negotiations, Israel has agreed to the initial withdrawal line, which we have shown to, and shared with, Hamas. When Hamas confirms, the Ceasefire will be IMMEDIATELY effective, the Hostages and Prisoner Exchange will begin, and we will create the conditions for the next phase of withdrawal, which will bring us close to the end of this 3,000 YEAR CATASTROPHE. Thank you for your attention to this matter and, STAY TUNED!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, along with a map of the initial withdrawal line.

The president later posted a picture on Truth Social from Saturday night’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, featuring a large banner reading “It’s now or never” among the thousands in attendance.

Trump earlier in the day welcomed Israel’s decision to pause offensive operations in the Gaza Strip and applied pressure on Hamas to give his peace initiative a chance to move forward.

“I appreciate that Israel has temporarily stopped the bombing in order to give the hostage release and peace deal a chance to be completed,” Trump wrote on Truth.

“Hamas must move quickly, or else all bets will be off. I will not tolerate delay, which many think will happen, or any outcome where Gaza poses a threat again. Let’s get this done, fast. Everyone will be treated fairly!” he added.

Israel is preparing to implement the first phase of the plan to end the war against Hamas, which includes “the immediate release of all hostages,” the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem announced overnight Friday.

The decision followed Hamas’s response to the American proposal earlier on Friday. The Palestinian terrorist group said it accepted parts of the plan, including the release of all 48 remaining hostages—20 of whom are believed to be alive, “provided the field conditions for the exchange are met,” as part of ending the conflict.

In response, the Israeli political echelon ordered IDF operations in Gaza scaled back to “a minimum,” with ground forces restricted to defensive maneuvers, Army Radio reported on Saturday.

On Friday, Trump said that he believes Hamas is “ready for a lasting peace,” and therefore “Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the hostages out safely and quickly.”

Hours later, the U.S. president released a video statement in which he confirmed that Washington was waiting to get “the final word down,” while adding he “look[s] forward to having the hostages come home to their parents.

“This is a very special day, maybe unprecedented,” said Trump. “We were given a tremendous amount of help. Everybody was unified in wanting this war to end and seeing peace in the Middle East, and we’re very close to achieving that.” 

JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/trump-hamas-must-move-quickly-or-else-all-bets-will-be-off/

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Netanyahu: Hamas could free hostages as early as next week - JNS Staff

 

by JNS Staff

Israel halted offensive operations in Gaza overnight on Friday following Hamas’s response to a U.S. ceasefire proposal.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump announcing the U.S. peace plan for Gaza, Sept. 29, 2025. Credit: Daniel Torok/White House.

The Jewish state expects the release of the 48 hostages held by Hamas as early as this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday evening.

Israel hopes that “already during the Sukkot holiday, we can announce the return of all the hostages, with the IDF remaining in the depths of the Gaza Strip in various areas,” Netanyahu said in a televised address, speaking in the wake of Hamas’s response to the U.S. peace plan.

Sukkot, or the “Feast of Tabernacles,” is a weeklong Jewish holiday that this year runs from sunset on Monday, Oct. 6, to nightfall on Monday, Oct. 13 (Oct. 14 outside of Israel). 

“I instructed our negotiation team, headed by [Strategic Affairs Minister] Ron Dermer, to finalize the technical details of the hostage release,” said the prime minister. “Our intention, as well as that of our American friends, is to limit this to a few days.”

Noting that his government already freed 207 of the captives abducted by the terrorists, Netanyahu said the diplomatic and military pressure, primarily through the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza City, “flipped the script” on Hamas.

“Rather than Israel being isolated, Hamas is isolated. Following intense pressure on Hamas, they were forced to accept this deal,” he said.

“I have never forsaken the remaining hostages, and I have never given up on achieving the remaining war objectives,” Netanyahu stated, hailing the latest development as a “historic” achievement.

During the first phase, IDF soldiers will continue to hold the areas that they captured during the almost 24-month-long war in Gaza, he said.

“During the second phase, Hamas will be disarmed and Hamas will be demilitarized; this will happen either diplomatically, through Trump’s plan, or through military action,” Netanyahu added.

“From Gaza to Rafah, from Beirut to Damascus, together, we achieved significant achievements,” the premier concluded his remarks, as he addressed members of the Jewish state’s security forces.

The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem announced overnight on Friday that Jerusalem was preparing to carry out the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war against Hamas in Gaza, which includes “the immediate release of all hostages.”

“We will continue to work in full cooperation with the U.S. president and his team to end the war in accordance with the principles set forth by Israel, which are consistent with President Trump’s vision,” the PMO stated.

The decision followed Hamas’s response to the American proposal. The terrorist group said it “appreciates the Arab, Islamic and international efforts” behind the peace plan Washington unveiled on Sept. 29.

Hamas said it accepts parts of the plan, including the release of all 48 remaining hostages—20 of whom are believed to be alive—under the formula, “provided the field conditions for the exchange are met,” as part of ending the war sparked by its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

Trump expressed appreciation for the Israeli decision to “temporarily” halt aerial operations “to give the hostage-release and peace deal a chance to be completed,” in a Truth Social post on Saturday.

The president called on Hamas terrorists to “move quickly” toward the release of hostages, warning the deal would otherwise be off the table.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose Religious Zionism Party holds seven seats in Netanyahu’s coalition, slammed the prime minister’s decision to go on the defensive as a “grave error.”

Scaling down the fighting will allow Hamas “to stall and steadily weaken Israel’s bargaining position, both on securing the immediate release of the hostages in one 72-hour operation and on the war’s primary goal of eliminating Hamas and fully demilitarizing Gaza,” Smotrich said.

Sources around National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the coalition’s fiercest critic of Trump’s proposal, said his Otzma Yehudit Party could not support any deal that leaves Hamas standing in Gaza.

Ben-Gvir, who was reportedly summoned to the Prime Minister’s Office alongside Smotrich after Shabbat, informed Netanyahu that he would not quit the government at this stage, the sources told reporters.

“The current proposal calls for the release of all hostages, something that has never happened before,” they said. “He will tell the prime minister in the meeting: If Hamas continues to exist, officially or under another guise, that is a red line and we will not remain part of the government.”

Reach the hostages

Meanwhile, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Avi Dichter, a member of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, tweeted on Saturday night that the “immediate demand, which echoes President Trump’s statements, should be the return of all 20 surviving hostages within 72 hours as the first step that will determine the implementation of the next phases.”

He said that “Hamas has started deceptive moves, demanding that the IDF pull back so it can reach the dead hostages in the area where Israeli forces are deployed. The living hostages are not in territory currently under IDF control. Without that, there is nothing to advance in the agreement, and fighting should continue at full strength.”

A White House official told U.S. news site Axios on Saturday that Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, traveled to Egypt to finalize technical details “and discuss the lasting peace deal.”

Trump told Axios on Saturday that “we are close” to a deal with Hamas and said he would push to finalize it in the next few days. “I said, ‘Bibi, this is your chance for victory.’ He was fine with it,” Trump said. “He’s got to be fine with it. He has no choice. With me, you got to be fine.”

Forty-seven of the 48 hostages—living and dead, and held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip—were taken 728 days ago, on Oct. 7, 2023. The body of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin was taken to Gaza by terrorists on Aug. 1, 2014.

JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/netanyahu-hamas-could-free-hostages-as-early-as-next-week/

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Trump peace plan will not be implemented until all hostages in Israel, Netanyahu tells Forum Gvura - Amichai Stein

 

by Amichai Stein

Currently, there is no set deadline for the hostage release, although negotiations to finalize the plan are set to begin in Cairo on Monday.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Christian Conference in Jerusalem, on April 27, 2025

(photo credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

No part of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan will be enacted until all 48 hostages are returned to Israeli territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a meeting with The Gvura Families of the Fallen Forum on Sunday.

Additionally, Netanyahu stated that if the hostages are not released by Trump’s deadline, "Israel will resume fighting with full backing from all involved countries."

Currently, there is no set deadline for the hostage release, although negotiations to finalize the plan are set to begin in Cairo on Monday.

Netanyahu also confirmed that Israel will be responsible and involved in overseeing the disarmament in the Gaza Strip, and no representative of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority will be involved in controlling the Strip after the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in Washington, DC, US, September 29, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE)

Hamas 'committed' to reaching agreement to end Gaza war

The Hamas delegation arriving in Cairo for hostage negotiation talks will be led by Khalil al-Hayya, a source told Saudi channel Asharq on Sunday.

The source emphasized that Hamas is committed to reaching an agreement to end the war in the Gaza Strip.

The source also noted that the purpose of the Cairo negotiations is “to begin arranging conditions on the ground in preparation for the release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners.” 

Amichai Stein

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-869491

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Israel thwarts Palestinian attempt to pave over biblical city of Gibeon - Pesach Benson

 

by Pesach Benson

Historically, Gibeon was described as “the great city of Gibeon, one of the cities of the kingdom,” serving as one of the 13 priestly cities in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin.

 

Israel thwarts Palestinian attempt to pave over biblical city of Gibeon.

(photo credit: Binyamin Land Dept./TPS-IL)

Israeli authorities prevented what they described as a deliberate attempt by the Palestinian Authority to damage a major archaeological site in the Binyamin region. The operation, carried out on Monday, targeted PA engineering crews who were preparing large-scale infrastructure work at the Biblical city of Gibeon, a site of great historical and biblical significance.

According to the IDF and the Binyamin Regional Council, excavators and concrete materials intended for use at the site were seized in a coordinated effort with the “Guardians of Eternity” organization, which first identified the activity. Officials said the attempted work included pouring concrete, clearing ancient terraces, and preparing asphalt surfaces - actions they said would have caused irreversible harm.

“This is infrastructure work using heavy mechanical tools in the heart of the site, near the most important elements of the mound,” explained Adi Shargai, director of activities for Guardians of Eternity, an Israeli organization at the forefront of efforts to protect Jewish historical sites.

“Concrete pouring and clearing of terraces from the ancient stones of the site were identified. Piles of bedding ready for spreading and paving asphalt were scattered throughout the area, as well as mechanical tools such as a roller,” she said.

Shargai stressed the site’s vulnerability due to its location north of Jerusalem. Although it is in Area C, where Israel has both administrative and security jurisdiction, it lies adjacent to the Palestinian village of Al Jib.

A silver hoard from Maras ad-Din, circa 600 BC. (credit: Dr. Shai Bar)

“During the construction of the seam barrier around Jerusalem, the site was left outside the fence, which exacerbated the problem of accessibility and supervision,” Shargai said. “Today, access requires complex security coordination and escort. Seizing the tools is an important step, but ongoing activity and improving accessibility to the site are required to prevent future damage.”

The Biblical city of Gibeon is considered one of the region’s most significant archaeological treasures. Mentioned repeatedly in the Book of Joshua, it is where Joshua made a covenant with the Gibeonites and the site of the famed battle in which “the sun stood still at Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ayalon.”

Discoveries include a massive pool described in the Book of Samuel, elaborate winery cisterns known as the “Gibeon cisterns,” and an underground water system still connected to a functioning spring. Excavations conducted by James Pritchard in 1956 uncovered pottery handles inscribed with the name “Given,” confirming the site’s biblical identity. Scholars believe the city has been continuously inhabited since the Early Bronze Age.

Historically, Gibeon was described as “the great city of Gibeon, one of the cities of the kingdom,” serving as one of the 13 priestly cities in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin. It was home to King Saul’s family and played a central role in his kingdom’s fate.

‘Reality Hits Us in the Face’

The head of the Binyamin Regional Council, Yisrael Gantz, accused the PA of deliberately targeting Jewish history. “While the plan in question to end the war states that the Palestinian Authority must undergo ‘reforms’ so that it can accept responsibility for Gaza, reality comes and hits us in the face,” Gantz said.

“The same authority proves once again that nothing will really change, and is in fact responsible for another nationalist heritage attack aimed at erasing a biblical site. We will continue to fight with all our might to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and to impose Israeli sovereignty over all of the West Bank, including these important heritage sites that prove above all our exclusive right to the land of our ancestors.”

Officials said they intend to continue monitoring the site and to expand protective measures, warning that its remote location makes it an ongoing target for damage.

Responsibility for securing the West Bank's archaeological sites lies with the Civil Administration’s Archaeology Staff Officer. However, lawmaker Amit Halevy has proposed extending the Israeli Antiquities Authority’s jurisdiction to the West Bank. Proponents argue that the Civil Administration is not equipped to deal with the challenges of preserving and excavating sites. Critics warn that such a move may get all Israeli archaeology banned from international cooperation.

The Press Service of Israel reported in April that Israeli researchers find themselves blacklisted by the international academic community, unable to publish findings from some of history’s most significant sites in the West Bank.

In 2023, TPS-IL reported that the Palestinian Authority was illegally constructing a new neighborhood on Mount Ebal that would erase the Jewish heritage site.

An inspector from the Samaria Regional Council’s Lands Department discovered earlier this month that the P.A. had begun paving roads for 32 housing units on the ruins of the historic site, which is mentioned in the Biblical books of Deuteronomy and Joshua.

“This is an important reminder of why the State of Israel must ensure that it assumes responsibility for all heritage sites scattered throughout the West Bank, no matter where they are located, in Areas A, B, and of course in Areas C,” Guardians of Eternity said. “We must not abandon our heritage to those who wish to erase history using engineering tools.” 

Pesach Benson

Source: https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-869181

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Dutch court orders government to reconsider F-35 parts ban on Israel - JNS Staff

 

by JNS Staff

The government has six weeks to reevaluate its license, but is unlikely to resume deliveries to the IAF.

 

An Israeli F-35I from the 5601 Testing Squadron, bearing Mk-84 bombs fitted with GBU-31 JDAM kit, before a bunker-buster bombs dropping test, July 2023. Credit: Channel 14 via Wikimedia Commons.

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands ordered the Dutch government on Friday to reassess its suspension of a license to export parts for F-35 fighter jets to Israel.

The government now has six weeks to reevaluate the export permit over concerns of alleged violations of international law during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The suspension will remain in place for the time being, the Associated Press reported.

The order overturned a Hague Court of Appeal ruling from February 2024 that compelled the Dutch government to halt exports of U.S.-owned parts stored in the south of the country to Israel.

The Netherlands is home to one of three regional warehouses for F-35 parts (the others are in Fort Worth, Texas, and Williamtown in New South Wales, Australia).

Following the decision, the government appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that arms exports are a matter of foreign policy subject to the executive branch, not the judicial branch.

“The Court of Appeal was not entitled to make its own assessment of whether there is clear risk of serious violations of international humanitarian law,” the Supreme Court said in a written summary of its ruling, according to AP.

It added that “the Minister must reassess the license based on that criterion.”

Under a 2019 U.S. Department of Defense contract, Dutch consortium OneLogistics stores and ships spare parts for the more than 500 F-35s in use by European militaries and the Israeli Air Force.

“We have agreements with other F-35 countries on the distribution, and the Netherlands must remain a reliable partner. And Israel needs the F-35 aircraft to defend itself against threats emanating from the region, separate from Gaza,” Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Geoffrey van Leeuwen tweeted in 2024.

This time, however, while Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel welcomed the ruling, he suggested that it was unlikely that exports to Israel will resume “given the current situation” in Gaza, according to AP.

Michiel Servaes, a representative of one of the NGOs that filed the civil case against the arms exports, was quoted as saying that they were “disappointed” given the decision, but that a resumption of delivery of spare F-35 parts was unlikely.

According to Dutch government lawyers, a Dutch ban on parts transfers to Israel is of little practical significance, as the U.S. delivers the parts anyway, AP reported. 

JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/dutch-court-orders-government-to-reconsider-f-35-parts-ban-on-israel/

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Muslims accused of vandalizing church in Texas argue First Amendment right, so far jurors disagree - Bethany Blankley

 

by Bethany Blankley

The defendants allegedly spray painted “expletive Israel” and affixing pro-Palestinian/Hamas stickers to the exterior of the church.

 

(The Center Square) -

Three Muslims charged in connection with vandalizing a church in Euless, Texas, last year argue doing so was their First Amendment right.

So far, jurors have disagreed, convicting one man, Raunaq Alam, of vandalism but not of a hate crime.

Alam was one of three charged in connection to the vandalization of a nondenominational church, Uncommon Church in Euless, in Tarrant County in March 2024. They are accused of spray-painting “expletive Israel” and affixing pro-Palestinian/Hamas stickers on the exterior of the church building, among other actions recorded on a church security camera.

District Attorney Phil Sorrells initially charged them with felony criminal mischief. The charges were later increased to a third-degree felony hate crime, which carries a sentence of two to 10 years in prison. It was increased to a hate crime because the perpetrators targeted a church because of religion, the prosecution argued. 

Judge Brian Bolton issued a sentence of five years probation. Alam was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and $1,700 in restitution to the church. His probation terms include serving 180 days in jail, conducting 180 hours of community service, undergoing regular drug and alcohol testing, wearing a GPS monitor and issuing an apology to the church.

Alam was next indicted on a charge of committing perjury, and he faces a drug possession charge. His attorney argues her client is being targeted.

Co-defendant Afsheen Khan was also charged with felony criminal mischief, and her trial is set to start soon. A third defendant, Julia Venzor, agreed to testify against Alam and Khan as part of a plea deal. She pleaded guilty in exchange for the deal and also received five years of probation, WFAA News reported.

The vandalism occurred after the church put up an Israeli flag to express solidarity with Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack, Uncommon Church’s pastor, Brad Carignan, testified in court.

The case has been considered part of a pattern in Texas in which Christians, churches, Jews, synagogues and pro-Israel Americans have been targeted with unprovoked violence by Muslims.

In January 2022, a Pakistani Islamist held hostage Jewish parishioners at a Colleyville synagogue.

In 2023, two Hispanic Republicans in Texas’ congressional delegation – Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Monica De La Cruz – were targeted by Hamas supporters, The Center Square reported.

At least three public schools in Texas were identified by the Biden administration’s Department of Education last year for civil rights violations due to religious discrimination targeting Jewish students, The Center Square also reported. As antisemitic incidents escalated nationwide, pro-Palestinian/Hamas rioters called for the annihilation of Israel and protested Israel on college campuses, including in Texas.

In response, Gov. Greg Abbott directed Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to arrest them. The rioters argue their actions are protected by the First Amendment, Abbott maintains that calling for the death of Jews is not protected speech. He also maintains that college rioters should be arrested and expelled and faculty espousing antisemitism should be fired.

Muslim groups sued Abbott last year, arguing his directive violated the First Amendment, The Center Square reported. Abbott, a former Texas Supreme Court justice and former Texas attorney general, maintains it does not.

Jewish groups also sued Muslim groups arguing they were knowingly providing “continuous, systematic, and substantial assistance to Hamas and its affiliates’ acts of international terrorism,” The Center Square reported.

In the wake of increased targeted violence against religious institutions and ahead of the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, Abbott this week directed enhanced security measures to be taken around places of worship, The Center Square reported. He and the Texas legislature have also advanced numerous efforts to combat antisemitism, including in Texas public schools and universities. 

Bethany Blankley

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/muslims-who-vandalized-texas-church-claimed-first-amendment-right-jury

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Trump’s Second Term Resets Washington’s Playbook - Roger Kimball

 

by Roger Kimball

The FBI once chased Catholics and parents with the SPLC’s “hate map.” Now, under Trump, the grifters are exposed and America’s institutions are being reset.

 

 

Remember the good old days when the FBI would hang out in the parking lots of Catholic churches where the traditional Latin Mass was celebrated? The Bureau claimed that such churches were a breeding ground for what the Biden administration called “domestic extremism” and offered plenty of scope for what the FBI called “mitigation opportunities.” Hence, they jotted down the license plate numbers of the parishioners who just got done reciting really dangerous things like “Sanguis Christi custodiat me in vitam aeternam.” “See? See? They’re talking about blood!”

Those were the days. You could go to a school board meeting and watch hapless parents being tackled and hauled off by the police for complaining that they didn’t want little Johnny battened on books like Gender Queer or, come to that, they didn’t want that bloke Jack, who called himself Jill, moseying about the girl’s bathroom or playing touch football on the girls’ team. Wot larks!

That’s all over now. Sure, here and there, you will discover some pasty-faced feminist festooning her classroom with pride flags and banners instructing us to “globalize the intifada” or whatever. But those pathetic eructations are like the twitching of a frog’s legs after the dissection has begun: vestigial motor movements produced by stimulus, not life.

The magnificent address by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth last week was evidence of the new dispensation: “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses,” Hegseth said to the hundreds of senior officers he had summoned. “No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris.”

Whence this Novus ordo seclorum? Why, from Donald Trump, of course. It was he, barely inaugurated for the second time, who banned all “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives from any organization that received federal (i.e., taxpayer) funds and then went on to remake large swathes of the apparatus that governs us and the narratives through which we understand our identity and obligations as Americans.

The whirlwind that is Donald Trump has not slackened. If anything, it has picked up force and velocity since the heady days following his resumption of office on January 20, 2025. Eventually, we will be able to provide an inventory and assessment of Trump’s activities as the 47th president of the United States. That moment has not yet come.

Still, we can minute the results of individual initiatives. Pete Hegseth’s welcome call for warriors to be warriors, not social justice warriors, was one such result. So was FBI Director Kash Patel’s decision to cut all ties between the FBI and such racist, though putatively anti-racist, organizations as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Time was, the SPLC was the scourge of all manner of conservative organizations and individuals. The FBI would regularly consult its notorious “hate map” to see which Catholics, concerned parents, and Trump supporters they should monitor and harass. In a wide-ranging anatomy of the SPLC from 2019, the former DOJ lawyer J. Christian Adams summed up the SPLC as a “denunciation machine.” The founders of the SPLC, Adams noted, “built an effective fundraising machine that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars by exaggerating claims that America was filled with Nazis and dangerous conservatives. They succeeded in marginalizing groups that enjoy broad respect and espouse views that were mainstream only a decade ago.”

In the bad old days before Elon Musk extracted Twitter from its bondage to an Orwellian commitment to censorship and rebaptized it “X,” the social media platform relied in part on the SPLC to inform its “Trust and Safety Council,” a darkly comic effort to police speech and enforce ideological conformity on its platform. The left-wing online reference site Wikipedia continues to this day to rely on the SPLC’s “hate map.” Its entry on the David Horowitz Freedom Center, for example, bluntly informs readers in its opening paragraphs that the organization is “designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The world awaits the advent of “Grokipedia,” Musk’s promised alternative to “hopelessly biased” Wikipedia.

The commentator who described the SPLC’s “hate list” as “really a hit list” got it exactly right. Last May, Charlie Kirk noted that “The SPLC has added [Kirk’s organization] Turning Point to their ridiculous ‘hate group’ list, right next to the KKK and neo-Nazis, a cheap smear from a washed-up org that’s been fleecing scared grandmas for decades.” Somehow, Kirk noted, they

still rake in over $100 million a year peddling their “hate map” nonsense, sitting pretty in their Montgomery “Poverty Palace” while crying about “hate” to line their pockets. Even former staffers called their racket a “con.”

Their game plan? Scare financial institutions into debanking us, pressure schools to cancel us, and demonize us so some unhinged lunatic feels justified targeting us. Remember the Family Research Council? An SPLC-inspired gunman went after them. They’d love nothing more than to see TPUSA in the crosshairs.

But it’s 2025, and nobody with a functioning brain buys their garbage anymore. The SPLC is a laughingstock, a hollowed-out husk of an organization that’s been exposed as a grift time and time again. They’re not just irrelevant—they’re a cautionary tale of how to torch your own credibility.

How dangerous is the SPLC? The commentator Jack Posobiec notes that “One day before Charlie was shot and killed, he was featured in the SPLC’s ‘Hatewatch’ newsletter.” I am inclined to agree with Musk’s observation: “SPLC is guilty of incitement to murder Charlie Kirk.”

Back in 2023, in a column about the SPLC’s attack on traditional Catholics, an author for the Heritage Foundation cut to the chase. “The FBI,” he wrote,

has no business citing the SPLC’s discredited “hate map,” which inspired a terrorist to target the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., in 2012. The gunman told the FBI that he intended to shoot everyone in the building and smear Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches in their faces, sending a clear ideological message at a time when Chick-fil-A’s foundation had come under fire for funding socially conservative organizations.

Kash Patel is right to cut the FBI’s ties with the SPLC. It is part of the more general Trumpian reordering of the way our government does business, which is also a rewriting of the script directing our national self-understanding. We must wait a while for the denouement to reveal itself, but the route there has already shown us what civilizational recovery looks like. It is a pleasing and uplifting spectacle.

Roger Kimball is editor and publisher of The New Criterion and the president and publisher of Encounter Books. He is the author and editor of many books, including The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press), The Rape of the Masters (Encounter), Lives of the Mind: The Use and Abuse of Intelligence from Hegel to Wodehouse (Ivan R. Dee), and Art's Prospect: The Challenge of Tradition in an Age of Celebrity (Ivan R. Dee). Most recently, he edited and contributed to Where Next? Western Civilization at the Crossroads (Encounter) and contributed to Against the Great Reset: Eighteen Theses Contra the New World Order (Bombardier).

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/05/trumps-second-term-resets-washingtons-playbook/

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Victory at Sea: The Importance of Maritime Power Against the PRC - James E. Fanell

 

by James E. Fanell

China’s navy is racing ahead with stolen tech and rapid advances, while Trump calls for a return to steel warships and a renewed focus on true “Victory at Sea.”

 

 

With the upcoming 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy this week, the importance of maritime power was made manifest over the course of the past two weeks through a series of revelations from two very different perspectives.

The first was on September 22, 2025, when the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) announced that its second domestically-built aircraft carrier, and third overall, the Fujian (CNS-18), had, for the first time, successfully launched and recovered fighter aircraft (the J-35 and J-15T) and fixed-wing aircraft (the KG-600) via an electromagnetic aircraft launch and recovery system (EMALS)—a system that had been pioneered by the U.S. Navy and installed aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford since its commissioning in 2017 at a cost of $13 billion.

Most important from the video footage released on Chinese social media, and later by the PRC Ministry of Defense, was that the PRC conducted the first-ever launch and recovery, by any nation, of a 5th Generation stealth fighter, the J-35, using the EMALS technology—a capability that the U.S. Navy has yet to achieve aboard the EMALS equipped USS Gerald R. Ford with the U.S. 5th Generation F-35/Lightening II stealth fighter. The success of the PLAN’s training event in the South China Sea clearly demonstrates that the Fujian and the PLAN have reached a new level of combat readiness and power projection capability—ahead of the U.S. Navy.

The fact that the PRC was able to achieve this milestone ahead of the U.S. marks a strategic turning point in the PRC’s two-decade commitment to building China’s maritime power—a power focused on victory at sea. Not only has the PLA Navy surpassed the U.S. Navy in the number of ships and total tonnage produced, but it is now outpacing the U.S. in the latest in naval technology that the U.S. had prided itself on being ahead of Beijing since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Following this unprecedented launch and recovery of aircraft aboard the Chinese carrier Fujian, it was later revealed in open-source reporting that the PLAN was testing two extra-large unmanned undersea vehicles (XLUUVs) off Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Over 40 meters long, “these machines are about the size of a crewed attack submarine and are ten to twenty times larger than the uncrewed submarines the United States and Europe are experimenting with”—again, another visible demonstration of how the PRC has been able to steal technology and skip ahead of the U.S. As with moving from aircraft carrier ski jumps to EMALS, bypassing steam catapults, which the U.S. Navy spent nearly 80 years perfecting through blood, sweat, and tears, in what the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, has called the “fast following” skills of the CCP’s espionage and technology prowess—or what may be more appropriately termed “fast forwarding” through the use of stolen technology and intensive focus of national effort by the PRC.

And then this week, a PLA Navy unmanned trimaran warship built to be a networked ocean killer capable of launching anti-ship and air missiles, deploying torpedoes, and carrying drones for recon or strike missions, was unveiled to the public. Initial assessment is that this new unmanned 500-ton warship is designed as part of a distributed “kill‑web,” where multiple small vessels act together to overwhelm defenses through functions as sentry, ISR node, or ASW platform, supporting manned ships without replacing them. These new smaller, stealthy warships will be hard to hit and are already reshaping the concepts of traditional naval combat and are once again a demonstration of the PRC’s “fast following” prowess, as the sclerotic U.S. Pentagon acquisition system has been unable to field fully operational naval programs from the Ford-class carrier, the Littoral Combat Ship, or the Zumwalt-class cruiser over the past 15 years.

Against this backdrop of new PRC maritime power were President Trump’s words to the assembled Flag and General Officers at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico on 30 September. While most of the focus of his speech and that of the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has been about the restoration of America’s warfighting ethos, the president’s remarks about naval power are worthy of repeating and assessing.

Regarding victory at sea, the president said these words regarding the issue of battleships: “It’s something we’re actually considering… the concept of a battleship, nice six-inch side, solid steel, not aluminum, aluminum that melts if it looks at a missile coming at it. Starts melting as the missile’s about two miles away. No, those ships, they don’t make them that way anymore.” He expounded further with, “I look at those ships; they came with the destroyers alongside of them, and man, nothing was gonna stop them.”

The president presciently remarked that his comments about bringing back battleships will be dismissed as “some people would say, ‘No, that’s old technology,’ I don’t know, I don’t think it’s old technology when you look at those guns.” Yet the president’s remarks about the importance of having combat warships that can fight and survive in a battle against an enemy fleet are precisely what have been missing from the Navy for far too long.

Compare the president’s call for ships that can defend themselves while taking the fight to the enemy fleet with the approach ground forces have taken over the course of the past 35 years of fighting in the Middle East. When U.S. Army soldiers were being killed in Humvees destroyed by enemy improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the leaders of the Army didn’t shrink and say, “Well, the enemy can hit us with these IEDs, so we had better retreat from the threat.” Instead, Army, Pentagon, and Congressional leaders doubled down on putting armor on these vehicles and their soldiers in order to protect them and continue to take the fight to the enemy.

There is an interesting correlation between the past 35 years of building the “Woke Department,” as described by Secretary Hegseth, and the concurrent downsizing and weakening of the U.S. Navy. The more our admirals adopted political correctness, the more they were inclined not to pursue victory in war at sea.

So, as we see the PRC’s 25-year naval modernization program create the largest and possibly the most lethal navy on the planet, the challenge now for this administration and the new War Department is how to Make America’s Navy Great Again (MANGA). We must not retreat from the fight but must steam into battle prepared to fight and win, and only by focusing on “Victory at Sea” can we achieve that goal.

***

James E. Fanell served as a career naval intelligence officer whose positions included senior intelligence officer for China at the Office of Naval Intelligence and chief of intelligence for CTF-70, Seventh Fleet, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet. He is the co-author of the book Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure.

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/04/victory-at-sea-the-importance-of-maritime-power-against-the-prc/

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1,500-year-old synagogue uncovered in Golan Heights nature reserve - Joanie Margulies

 

by Joanie Margulies

Excavations in the Golan Heights have revealed a 1,500-year-old synagogue built of basalt and hewn stone, offering rare evidence of Jewish continuity in the region.

 

Avigail Rosenbaum Bracha, field manager of the synagogue area near Mashkof and Tabula Anasta.

(photo credit: Courtesy)

A magnificent 1,500-year-old synagogue, whose location was previously unknown to experts, has been uncovered in an archaeological excavation within the Yehudiya Nature Reserve in the Golan Heights. The discovery was announced on Sunday morning following an excavation led by the Nature and Parks Authority and the University of Haifa.

The site, which dates back to the Roman and Byzantine periods (1st century BCE to 7th–8th centuries CE), was confirmed by the recovery of dozens of decorated architectural items, lintels, and basalt columns.

The focused excavation revealed the building's southern wall for the first time. It was constructed of ashlars, or hewn stone blocks, and included three distinct openings. Near these openings, researchers found two lintels, one of which is decorated, close to their original positions.

For years, the synagogue’s exact location remained a mystery, despite hundreds of architectural items from the Byzantine period having been documented in the area.

Dr. Michael Ezband from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa explained that the breakthrough came during a multi-year study to document architectural items in the region. "We identified an unusual concentration of items and column fragments lying on a path in the abandoned modern village, and that's where we decided to conduct an inspection," he said.

Aerial photograph of the excavation, September 30, 2025, showing the southern wall at the bottom of the frame. (credit: Courtesy)

"Already at the beginning of the excavation, dozens of architectural items were uncovered, and later, to our surprise, the southern wall of the building was also uncovered, with three openings facing Jerusalem," Dr. Ezband added.

Evidence of a firm Jewish presence

The new find adds to the rich history of the Golan Heights during the Roman and Byzantine eras.

According to Dr. Dror Ben-Yosef, an archaeologist from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, this synagogue joins approximately 25 other ancient synagogues discovered in the Golan, "attesting to the firm hold of Judaism on the Golan".

Dr. Ben-Yosef noted that these synagogues served as centers not only for prayer but also for Jewish learning and literacy, visited by sages who spread knowledge throughout the community.

The Nature and Parks Authority plans to complete the excavation of the magnificent synagogue in the future and make it accessible to all visitors to the reserve. 

Joanie Margulies

Source: https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-869497

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