The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
Israel advocate Yoseph Haddad speaks with Arutz Sheva about the challenges and importance of pro-Israel activism and explains how Israel should get along with its neighbors.
Arab Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel
National News about the growing challenge of advocating for Israel on
the world stage.
Haddad explains that BDS supporters have millions
and millions of dollars and they outnumber us because they have
millions of people, from the Arab world and from the Western world, who
came from the Middle East to the West.
According to Haddad, the
anti-Israel side "prepared themselves for the judgment day, and the
judgment day was October 7th. While we only focused on the ground -
military force; we didn't focus on Hasbara (advocacy), on explaining
what's going on. Today it goes together."
He says the "Arab world
could not defeat Israel militarily so they focus their millions of
dollars and programs into the propaganda that they are using and they
put their virus everywhere: in politics, in academics, in sports, in
television, everywhere. They prepared themselves for exactly this
situation and that's why they are better than us. The only advantage we
have is the truth backed up by the facts and they lie. Every time we
expose those lies that's where we win."
To prove the importance of
advocating for Israel in hostile locations, Yoseph recounts a speaking
engagement in New York that only four students attended. "The event
organizer came and asked 'Do you want to just call it off?' I said, 'For
four people, I'm going to do a full lecture.' I did not realize who I
was speaking to. At the end of the lecture, a student told me that 'next
week, there is supposed to be a resolution against Israel and boycott
Israel. I am the head of the student body, I am going to block it. And
indeed, a week later he blocked that resolution. One student - one big
change. Every voice counts and that's why I will fight for every voice."
After
the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, the terror
organization celebrated it as a victory. Haddad comments on this
phenomenon and states: "If we decimate Hamas, and turn Gaza into a
parking lot, and one Hamas terrorist would be left, he would get up with
a V sign and say 'We won.' This is Hamas. So I'm not actually impressed
by it."
According to him, while Hamas may be claiming victory,
the Arab world and the people of Gaza know that the organization was
defeated. He explains that the reason they feel that they won while
Israelis feel like they lost despite the IDF having massive successes is
that "we treasure and value life and even if one Israeli was killed,
for us it's the whole world. That's why we feel like this. But the
Palestinians lost 40,000 people because of Hamas but they still
celebrate it. They do that to try to manipulate the world, but deep down
they know that they lost and they lost big time." He adds that the Arab
world also understands Israel's power.
As the main front of the
war moves from Gaza to Judea and Samaria, with Hamas calling on
residents of the region to fight Israel, Haddad has a message for those
residents: "If you don't want Jenin and Ramallah become Jabaliya and Kan
Yunis - do not fight."
With a new administration in the White
House, Haddad shows strong optimism: "The people who Trump chose to be
in his administration. All of them are Zionists - proper Zionists. They
speak better than a lot of Israeli Jews here. Donald Trump is a
businessman so you can't know exactly where he will go, but we can not
ignore the fact that he loves Israel and he wants to see Israel secure."
Yoseph
says that President Trump also understands the Arab world and relates
something an Emirati once told him: "The Arab world loved Barak Obama,
but did not respect him. The Arab world hates Donald Trump, but they're
afraid of him and that's why they respect him." He says that this
strength and respect will lead to the expansion of the Abraham Accords
between Israel and the Arab states.
He adds that he works to get
Israelis to understand that "we are a Western country, but we are a
Western country in the Middle East and if we do not, know how to balance
those two things, we do not have the right to exist here. That's why we
have to understand, if we want to be part of the Middle East, we have
to speak to our enemies in the language of the Middle East."
“We will not let lies and hatred prevail,” said Oded Forer, the lawmaker who proposed the bill.
Knesset member Oded Forer leads an Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora
Affairs Committee meeting at the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on Nov.
11, 2024. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
The Knesset passed a law unanimously that
criminalizes denying the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel
on Oct. 7, 2023.
Oded Forer of Yisrael Beiteinu proposed the legislation, which 16 members supported in its third and final reading on Tuesday.
לא ניתן להכחיש את זוועות 7 באוקטובר!
היום הכנסת אישרה את החוק שיזמתי: עונש של עד 5 שנות מאסר למי שיכחיש, ישבח או יביע אהדה למעשי הטבח הרצחניים של חמאס.
The law designates denying the massacre to defend or support Hamas or its partners, as a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
The proposal clarifies that statements
made incidentally, in good faith, or for legitimate purposes will not be
considered a criminal offense.
The Israeli attorney general must approve indictments under the new law.
The legislation is reportedly modeled on a 1986 law, which the Knesset passed and which criminalizes Holocaust denial.
“The horrors of Oct. 7 cannot be denied,”
Forer stated after the law was approved. “The truth is more important
than ever. We will not let lies and hatred prevail.”
Steve Witkoff tells Fox News he and the rest of the Trump team had nothing to do with the "mathematics" of the hostage deal, which was worked out by the Biden Administration many months ago.
Steve Witkoff REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
US President Donald Trump's Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve
Witkoff said that the hostage and ceasefire deal that went into effect
between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization on Sunday is a step
towards a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
"We
were able to demonstrate that President Trump's policies - peace through
strength - they work," Witkoff said in an interview with Fox News today
(Wednesday). "Getting those three people out, that was a big deal.
We've got four more coming out, I believe, this weekend. It's a
testament to how the world perceives President Trump's Presidency."
"We
had nothing to do with the mathematics behind the prisoner release and
the hostage release," he claimed. "That was set ... in the so-called May
27th protocol that was agreed to by Hamas, by the Israelis, and
monitored by the United States under the Biden Administration. That set
the mathematics around how many Palestinians in Israeli jails would be
released for each hostage who was coming out. Our job was to speed up
the process because it felt like it had bogged down."
Witkoff was
asked about President Donald Trump's statement that he is not confident
that the ceasefire will hold and replied, "I don't disagree with the
President. I think that the implementation of it is probably more
difficult than the execution of the deal." He added that if the
implementation "goes well, we'll get into phase two and we're gonna get a
lot more live bodies out."
When
asked about the prospects for a peace deal between Israel and Saudi
Arabia, he said, "I think that normalization is an amazing opportunity
for the region. It's basically the beginning of the end of war. The
beginning of the end of war means that the entire region becomes
investable, it becomes financiable. Banks do not have to underwrite
whether the Houthis, Hezbollah, or Hamas is going to fire a missile and
take down a hyperscale data center. So I think that normalization is
huge for the State of Israel, it's huge for the region, and hopefully it
happens."
"My own opinion is that a condition precedent to
normalization was a ceasefire. We needed to get people believing again.
First we needed the hopeful moment, and I like to think that we've
achieved that. And then on top of that, we needed to show people that
we could stop the violence and we could have conversation and dialogue.
This is the beginning of that," he said.
"I think you could get
everybody on board in that region," Witkoff said, singling out Qatar for
praise in negotiating with Hamas. "We have an opportunity to get
everybody bought-in to a better future for the region."
What’s next for Israel’s military and defense strategy after Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi’s resignation?
IDF CHIEF OF Staff Herzi Halevi attends a ceremony at the IDF Central Command headquarters in Jerusalem in July.(photo credit: OREN BEN HAKOON/FLASH90)
The last time an IDF chief resigned
midterm was when former commander Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz quit following
the military’s failures during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi’s
announcement that he will resign on March 6 after the military probes
of the October 7 massacre are issued and with the Hamas hostage deal
moving forward was expected.
But this is still a game changer.
His
resignation, along with that of the IDF Southern Command head Maj-Gen.
Yaron Finkelman leaves only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Shin
Bet chief Ronen Bar in place of the dozen or so major officials who are
generally viewed as responsible for October 7.
In some ways, these resignations will help the IDF close one of its most painful chapters ever in order to move forward.
Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi conducts an operational assessment in Jabaliya. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)
What will that future look like?
First
of all, Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Israel Katz – but mainly
Netanyahu, given that Katz has not shown any independence to date – will
choose one of the following current or former top IDF high command
major generals: Eyal Zamir, Amir Baram, or Tamir Yadai as the next chief
of staff, possibly as early as next week.
Zamir
is the favored candidate. He is known for his aggressive approach
regarding the use of military force and the readiness to go after Iran,
which fits well with the post-October 7 universe in which the military
is expected to take more preemptive actions to avoid having to spend as
much time on the defensive.
Still, extraordinary challenges lie ahead regardless of who leads the IDF.
Israeli
and US officials have recently echoed the drumroll in the form of
threatening Iran with a climactic attack on its nuclear sites or
striking a much more restrictive nuclear deal than the one agreed on in
2015.
Planning
for this will not just mean planning an attack but also substantial
planning with the US and regional Sunni allies to defend against an
expected Iranian counterattack, which could see double the number of
ballistic missiles fired on Israel compared to 2024.
Former National Security Council chief Gen. (res.) Jacob Nagel’s
committee emphasized the need to both increase Israel’s independence
from other countries in weapons production for offensive operations and
boost its defensive operations.
Yet,
other than a general 70% attack efforts and 30% defense efforts model,
the Nagel Committee did not prioritize what items should be purchased
first as Israel tries to realize this vision of greater independence in
weapons production in a concrete way.
If
there is only a budget this year for more advanced aircraft vs more
land-to-land long-range missiles, vs much-needed additional Arrow
interceptors to shoot down ballistic missiles, vs finding better
solutions to stopping drone attacks, what will go first?
Some
of these decisions will be made by Netanyahu and Katz, but most of them
will be based on recommendations by the new IDF chief.
As
the findings from the October 7 investigations emerge and tear into all
of the systematic issues that led to the failures that played out on
that day, the new IDF chief will need to examine how much progress has
been made since and what is still needed to fix these issues.
For
example, IDF intelligence has increased the size and influence of a
unit designed to second-guess the main, conventional recommendations of
the whole intelligence branch.
Is this change working to diversify views about how to handle potential threats?
For much of the war, the IDF had vast volumes of soldiers on every border to contend with ongoing invasions.
But
with ceasefires on all fronts, will the military and the government
still have the ability to maintain a much larger military presence at
Israel’s borders as they currently do?
Could
this continue even if there is no major attack over the next few months
or years? Or, will talk of a “smaller-smarter army” come back into
style, given humanity’s short attention span and general disregard for
history?
Moreover,
will a much stronger second line of defense be maintained on all fronts
in case an enemy does achieve initial surprise so as to mitigate any
initial losses and quickly retake any compromised border positions in
minutes or hours as opposed to the days it took in late 2023?
Are
the right personnel in place given that many of them, such as the new
IDF intelligence chief (since August 2024), Maj.-Gen. Shlomi Binder was
appointed by Halevi when no one was clear about what led to the October 7
disasters.
On
the one hand, Halevi went on to lead a very militarily successful
invasion of both Gaza and Lebanon, as well as bring Iran to its knees
and significantly reduce the existing threats in Syria.
Binder
was at the forefront of the victories over Hezbollah, destroying weapon
threats in Syria and Iran’s air defenses on October 26.
All
of that would suggest that Binder and those more recently appointed by
Halevi to top positions are worthy and can lead the military into the
future.
Alternatively,
as Yediot Aharonot pointed out on Wednesday, Binder was cleared of any
major failing related to October 7 in a probe run by Brig.-Gen. (res.)
Rali Margalit.
Notably,
though, Margalit served in the past under Maj.-Gen. Oded Basiuk –
Binder’s most recent direct boss – helping recommend Binder for the
promotion of leading the IDF’s intelligence branch.
Suspicions arise
Questions
have been raised about whether a complex triangle of assisting one
another took place between Margalit, Basiuk, and Binder that paved the
way to clearing the new IDF intelligence chief.
Some other military officials who were less a part of the triangle might have seen matters differently.
The Jerusalem Post
understands that Binder and Margalit were not friends and did not know
each other prior to the current war. Having Margalit, a reservist who
was no longer a career officer in the general chain of command, conduct
the probe in relation to Binder was viewed as a careful move aimed at
obtaining an unbiased outsider’s perspective.
Further, the Post
understands that the IDF would contend that any criticism about Basiuk
and Margalit being too close does not reflect on Binder poorly in any
way.
Moreover, the Post
has learned that the IDF would bristle at suggestions that it should
have had someone even further distanced from the IDF to probe Binder.
This
is because on January 4, 2024, when it was leaked that the IDF was
going to establish parallel internal and external mechanisms to probe
itself and national security failures, Netanyahu and his supporters went
into overdrive to block the external mechanism.
Accordingly,
the IDF would say that if critics are upset there was not even more
distance between those probing and being probed in the IDF, it is
Netanyahu who is to blame and not the military.
For
his part, though an external mechanism would have received more public
faith for its probe, Netanyahu was worried that parts of its
investigation might point the finger at him.
Regarding
the absence of a state inquiry, national security questions and
problems that even the next IDF chief will not be able to fully address
will remain if such an inquiry is not established to go beyond errors
made by the IDF.
In
any event, this debate about Binder is only one example, but it is
emblematic of the difficult questions that the next IDF chief will need
to sort through in terms of personnel.
These
are the longer-term challenges, but the next IDF chief will also need
to handle the aftermath of the current Hezbollah and Hamas ceasefires.
Military
altercations could break out on either or both borders between now and
March 6, and even if this does not happen then, it could happen in the
near future.
Any
new near-term military altercations will require recalibrating all of
the above issues in favor of a more challenging balance of continuing to
try to perform long-term planning while in the midst of a new crisis.
The
new IDF chief will likely need to figure out how and when the army
should withdraw from the buffer zone in Syria and what new arrangements
are needed to secure that border from potential additional Sunni
jihadist threats.
Currently,
the IDF is 7,000 soldiers short, owning to soldiers who have died or
have been wounded in war. There is no sign that the government, as it
now stands, is going to help provide any imminent relief by drafting
large numbers of haredim in the near future.
Balancing
these issues with the political aspect of it all will likely feel like
maneuvering through a field of land mines for the next chief.
The
IDF just started a large operation in Jenin, with the West Bank still
on fire for nearly three years running, dating back to March 2022.
At
this point, no one probably expects the IDF to fully extinguish that
fire without some new diplomatic developments, but the new IDF chief
will still need to confront that ongoing explosive issue, including the
complexities of dealing with the Palestinian Authority at a time when
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich retains certain building and
bulldozing authorities in the West Bank.
Finally,
the next IDF chief may have little backing from Katz vs Netanyahu when
there are professional military interests that do not work with the
prime minister’s political ones.
Halevi has felt the brunt of this since Katz took over for Yoav Gallant two months ago.
As of March 6, Halevi’s replacement will learn that sitting in the chair is a lot harder than peering at it from the side.
Iranian cargo vessels will reportedly carry over 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate, a key ingredient to make missile propellant.
IRGC commander Hossein Salami tours the new "missile city" at an undisclosed location in Iran, January 11, 2025(photo credit: IRGC/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS)
Two Iranian cargo ships may be seeking to move key chemicals for missile propellants from China, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The vessels could depart from China in the next few weeks, it said.
The report is based on “intelligence from security officials in two Western countries.”
This information appears to serve as a clear warning to Iran and China about these vessels.
According
to the report, “The Iranian-flagged ships – the Golbon and the Jairan –
are expected to carry more than 1,000 tonnes of sodium perchlorate,
which is used to make ammonium perchlorate, the main ingredient for
solid propellant for missiles.”
Iran
has suffered some setbacks in manufacturing missile propellants in the
last year. Axios reported in October that Israel had struck 12
“planetary mixers,” which Reuters said were “used to produce solid fuel
for long-range ballistic missiles.”
Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri and
IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh walk during the
unveiling of ''Kheibarshekan'' missile at an undisclosed location in
Iran, in this picture obtained on February 9, 2022. (credit: IRGC/WANA
(West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS)
Further,
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, “Early satellite
imagery revealed that Israel had destroyed solid-propellant missile
production facilities at Parchin, Khojir, and Shahroud.”
IRGC to receive missile fuel
The
Financial Times report said that this sodium perchlorate “could produce
960 tonnes of ammonium perchlorate, which is 70% of the propellant for
solid-fuel missiles. That amount of ammonium perchlorate could produce
1,300 tonnes of propellant, enough to fuel 260 mid-range Iranian
missiles such as the Kheibar Shekan or Haj Qassem.
“Ammonium
perchlorate is among the chemicals controlled by the Missile Technology
Control Regime, an international anti-proliferation body.”
Solid
rocket fuel contains an oxidizing agent such as potassium perchlorate
or sodium perchlorate. The Kheibar Shekan is an Iranian medium-range
solid-fuel ballistic missile.
This article in the Financial Times is very detailed and points to a
desire for this shipment to be stopped or interdicted by Chinese or
other authorities. US President Donald Trump’s administration may be
paying attention.
According to the officials mentioned in it, the chemicals are in thirty-four, 20-foot containers loaded on the Golbon.
That
ship left the Chinese island of Daishan on Tuesday. The island is just
south of Shanghai.As for the Jairan, it “is expected to depart China
with 22 containers in early February,” the article read.
It
will take three weeks for the ships to reach Iran, it continued. “The
officials said the chemicals were loaded onto the Golbon at Taicang, a
port just north of Shanghai, and were destined for Bandar Abbas, a port
in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf.
“Based
on data from vessel tracker Marine Traffic, the Golbon spent at least
several days off Daishan Island before leaving on Tuesday,” per the
report.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was not familiar with the situation, and Iran did not comment on the article.
Meanwhile,
in Davos, Mohammed Javad Zarif, who now serves as Iran’s vice president
for strategic affairs, discussed his country’s current position in the
region.
Zarif
downplayed Iran’s role in backing proxies and also said Israel would
continue to face “resistance” even if it had damaged Hezbollah and
Hamas.
He also
minimized the damage done to Iran’s air defenses in October. “The story
about destroying our air defense is a story, and there is a reason
behind it... We suffered, but it didn’t mean that we lost our air
defenses,” Zarif said.
Iran and its proxies have suffered setbacks in the production of rocket fuel.
For example, an Israeli raid in September 2024 destroyed a site for producing solid propellant rocket motors in Masyaf, Syria.
This
site had been used by the Syrian regime led by then-president Bashar
al-Assad and was linked to Iran’s role in the region. Assad’s regime
fell on December 8.
The
raid also destroyed industrial mixers that are used for the solid
rocket fuel. Solid rockets can be launched faster than liquid-fueled
rockets.
Solid rockets are also cheaper, easier to store and maintain, and easier to roll out and use.
However,
they are less easy to control compared to liquid-fueled rockets. These
are faster to deploy, so there is less time to detect them being set up
and readied for launch.
Other nominees are expected to be voted on soon or have their hearings.
On Monday, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to advance Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be Defense secretary.
Other Trump nominees that have not had their hearings yet include
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the head of Health and Human Services and
Tulsi Gabbard for the director of national intelligence.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the streets and media of Brussels have witnessed the normalization of unabashed Islamist discourse and Jew-hatred -- less and less hidden behind the pretext of "the fight against Zionism."
Brussels has entered a
wild-west era of "every man for himself," in which people try to protect
themselves as best they can without relying on the failing
"authorities."
Brussels' financial situation is also alarming.
[Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration] Nicole de Moor...
did acknowledge the problem of the high number of Palestinian
asylum-seekers in Belgium, and that they had already been recognized
elsewhere in Europe. Nevertheless, they demand to come to Belgium: it
guarantees them more than any other country in Europe.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the streets
and media of Brussels have witnessed the normalization of unabashed
Islamist discourse and Jew-hatred -- less and less hidden behind the
pretext of "the fight against Zionism."
Brussels has entered a wild-west era of "every man for
himself," in which people try to protect themselves as best they can
without relying on the failing "authorities." Pictured: Police work to
clear a street amid violent riots on November 27, 2022, in Brussels,
Belgium. (Photo by Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP via Getty Images)
When President Donald Trump compared Brussels, Belgium to a "hellhole" in 2016, the statement caused quite a stir, especially in Europe, and was treated with that mixture of contempt, ignorance and denial of reality
typical of a certain "elite" in the European Union. Trump had made
these remarks in the context of discussions on immigration and security,
and suggested that Brussels had changed for the worse over the years,
mainly as a result of uncontrolled lawless migratory submersion.
While the facts proved him right at the time, it might be said in
2025 that the Lebanonization of Brussels shows that his judgment was
visionary.
Crime explosion
Crime rates are rising
everywhere in Brussels, particularly in an area in the spotlight for
its frequent shootings: the Bruxelles-Midi Zone (Saint-Gilles, Forest,
Anderlecht). Between 2022 and 2023, notes the newspaper L'Echo,
robberies and extortion rose by 23%, robberies without weapons by 34%,
pickpocketing by 27%, and armed robberies by a staggering 53%. This area
is home to five of Brussels' 15 drug-trafficking "hot spots." These hot
spots are so "hot" in fact, that even the police hesitate to go there.
The Bruxelles-Midi zone therefore unsurprisingly suffers from a
severe shortage of police officers -- 20% of positions remain unfilled
-- mainly due to major recruitment difficulties, such as its low level
of attractiveness due to crime, which again unsurprisingly scares off
applicants. Are we talking about Mexico City? No, just Brussels. In
2023, gang-related shootings left 7 dead and 131 wounded. "Maybe
something's going on in Brussels. It's a hypothesis that we can put
forward," the Public Prosecutor's Office gingerly suggested.
"Brussels is a large urban center, which therefore attracts people and
does not have the most efficient police structure. It's the only city in
the world with six police forces and the federal police, which is no
guarantee of good management. The dispersal of resources makes security
costly" – and non-existent.
Criminologists have emphasized that these statistics are not
sufficient to describe the crime situation in Brussels. It is essential,
warns Vincent Seron, a criminologist at the University of Liège, and
Dieter Burssens, a criminologist at Belgium's National Institute of
Criminalistics and Criminology, to take into account the "black number" of crime:
"The concept of 'black number' covers the fact that the
criminal acts recorded by the police do not faithfully represent crime
on the ground. Police statistics, by definition, only count offenses
brought to the attention of the police. But the police force cannot be
everywhere, witness everything and therefore record every criminal act."
However, not all victims file a complaint, particularly when they feel that "it's no use" given the general level of impunity in Brussels.
Brussels has entered a wild-west era of "every man for himself," in
which people try to protect themselves as best they can without relying
on the failing "authorities."
Bankruptcy
Brussels' financial situation is also alarming. The Brussels-Capital Region government debt
has risen in just six years from €3.4 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in
2018 to €14.5 billion ($15.1 billion) in 2024. In 2024, the regional
government's revenues amounted to €5.69 billion, while expenditures
reached €6.99 billion euros -- a deficit of more than 20%. In addition,
between 2017 and 2022, the regional government's expenditures grew by
17.4%, far outstripping the increase in revenues. Currently, its
consolidated gross debt is expected to grow
from €14.5 billion in 2024 to roughly €22 billion in 2029, with an
average annual growth rate of 8.83%. This increase poses a major
challenge, potentially leading to a "snowball effect," exacerbated by a
possible rise in interest rates. The Brussels-Capital Region, in short,
is bankrupt.
During the last legislature, the Brussels-Capital Region's personnel
costs rose by almost 50%, from €1.2 billion to €1.8 billion. These
statistics are not available from the Brussels Institute for Statistics
and Analysis. It was Flemish liberal politician Frédéric De Gucht,
president of Open VLD Brussels, who discreetly revealed them. "Over the
last five years," he stated in an interview with the daily De Standaard, "the number of civil servants in Brussels has increased by almost 34%."
One of the most revealing problems, explains
Lode Goukens, a PhD student at the Free University of Brussels, is that
of STIB, the local public transport operator in Brussels. Under the
impetus of Groen and Ecolo — two far-left environmentalist parties in
the Brussels regional government — the number of STIB's employees has
risen from 8,798 in 2018 to 10,407 by the end of 2023. At the same time,
the number of passengers has fallen.
For Frédéric De Gucht, a candidate for the presidency of the liberal Flemish Open VLD party, such a situation means that it is no longer
possible to speak of a "sovereign entity". The Brussels-Capital Region
will have to rely on the intervention of Belgium's federal government to
ensure its financing. "We'll need someone else to co-sign our loans
with us," he admitted. It is now inevitable that the regional government
will be placed under the supervision of the federal government, itself
under heavy pressure from its own debt.
Permanent migration tsunami
Belgium, in 2024, received over 3,200 asylum applications just from Palestinians — representing around half of all Palestinian asylum applications in the European Union — and 40,000 asylum applications in total. Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor describes
that situation as "neither normal nor tenable". Many of these
asylum-seekers have already been granted asylum elsewhere, often in
Greece, which poses a problem. According to figures quoted
by Darya Safai, the General Commission for Refugees and Stateless
Persons (CGRA) grants asylum to 9 out of 10 applicants. There are
consequently accusations that the CGRA practices "collective
recognition" without assessing individually whether each applicant is
really in danger in his or her own country.
Nicole de Moor denied those allegations, but did acknowledge the
problem of the high number of Palestinian asylum-seekers in Belgium, and
that they had already been recognized elsewhere in Europe.
Nevertheless, they demand to come to Belgium: it guarantees them more
than any other country in Europe. The Secretary of State "hopes" that the EU's Pact on Migration and Asylum can better help to distribute these applications across EU member countries.
Political blockage
Finally, since the June 9, 2024 elections, the Brussels-Capital
Region has been singled out for its inability to form a functioning
government. Without going into the details of the Belgian institutional
web, establishing a government in Brussels presupposes a majority in the
two language groups -- French-speaking and Dutch-speaking -- in the Brussels-Capital Regional Parliament. These two groups, however, are not only unable to reach agreement between them, but even within their own ranks they are now unable to achieve a majority.
It is also worth noting the role now played in Brussels by Islamists, either in a political party of their own, or through "entryism"
within other left-wing and far-left parties. Since the Hamas attack on
Israel on October 7, 2023, the streets and media of Brussels have
witnessed the normalization of unabashed Islamist discourse and Jew-hatred
-- less and less hidden behind the pretext of "the fight against
Zionism." When commentator Vinz Kanté, on Brussels TV LN24, calls "the chosen people" (Jews) racist and xenophobic, the only pushback can be seen on social networks; this hateful commentator is kept on the air.
The capital of the European Union is crumbling before our eyes.
Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis,
University of Louvain), philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University
of Louvain) and PhD in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an
entrepreneur, CEO of a European private education group and director of
PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green Reich (2020).
"In Islam, they can't kill babies, they can't kill women, they don't kill innocent Israelis," Daoud claimed. "Hamas is an Islamic movement, Hamas not like Daesh, like Isis."
Zach Sage Fox in Ramallah(photo credit: SCREENSHOT/X)
Seated at a table with Palestinian ex-prisoner Arafat Mudar Mohammad Daoud, American comedian and entrepreneur Zach Sage Fox asked, "Do you like Hamas?"
"Of course, they are heroes. Freedom fighters," Daoud replied.
The interview was published this week as part of Fox's Wild West Bank Series, filmed during his trip to Ramallah over the summer. Fox spoke with The Jerusalem Post in July about his trip to the West Bank city, to which entry is forbidden for Israeli citizens.
“It was shocking,” he told the Post, “There was not one person who didn’t like Hamas - not even - I didn’t meet one person who didn’t love Hamas I think.”
“It was unequivocal. All of them hated Jews with every bone of their body.”
Fox was accompanied by a translator, producer, and cameraman. He did not reveal his Jewish identity.
I interviewed a freed TERRORIST, 4X arrested & released Palestinian prisoner in the West Bank, undercover to hide my Jewish identity. With a hostage deal here that will release 1000+ more like him, we thought it was important for the world to see this rare conversation NOW.… pic.twitter.com/eyMKPm0n2o
In the current interview, the final chapter of the
series, Fox interviews Daoud, who has been arrested, imprisoned, and
released four times by Israel for 'security threats.'
The
conversation covered important topics under the bracket of achieving
peace, including the presence of Jews in the land of Israel, the real
goals of Hamas, and the denialism of terror.
Fox mentioned that Hamas “killed innocent Israelis,” to which the man shakes his head and says no.
"I deny the killings, I deny the rape, we have a right to resistance," said Daoud.
“Give
me a picture for rape,” Daoud responded, to which Fox showed the video
footage of hostage Naama Levy being led away, blood on the crotch area
of her clothes. Fox told the Post that the man said nothing further on the subject.
In
the US, when people saw the photos of the hostages smiling when being
released, they thought it was because of the “psychological torture
these people were under,” Fox told the Post. "But this man, he actually believed [they were smiling]; he was using that as evidence.”
Daoud told Fox that when Israeli prisoners were released from Gaza, “they were smiling, they were healthy."
Fox asked if they were genuinely smiling or if they were scared for their life. “Who put this in your brain?” Daoud responded.
“It’s not like these were stupid people,” Fox told the Post. “It’s just how indoctrinated they are. This man had a master’s degree.”
Fox asked Daoud outright, "Don't you consider Hamas a terrorist group?"
"No, of course not," Daoud responded, adding that Hamas was democratically elected.
October 7
"Hamas [did what they did on] October 7 because they have 70 years of injustice," he continued.
Fox queried how the response to injustice could involve killing babies and women.
"In
Islam, they can't kill babies, they can't kill women, they don't kill
innocent Israelis," Daoud claimed. "Hamas is an Islamic movement. Hamas
is not like Daesh, like Isis."
Fox
interjected that Hamas, in many ways, seems worse than ISIS, which
Daoud replied was because the Israeli media and the American media make
them like ISIS.
"October
7 made people stop and think," Daoud continued. "Before October 7, in
the media, "Israel is the victim and Palestinians are terrorists."
October 7 flipped the narrative, Daoud explained.
"I
think you are in denial about Hamas," Fox told him. "And we are
probably a lot further along from peace because of what Hamas did on
October 7. If we deny what Hamas did on October 7, it feels like we are
just going to cause more friction, more denialism."
Daoud
said that the Israeli hostages were prisoners in jails in Gaza and that
focusing on this distracted from the oppression of Palestinians.
"If
you want to speak injustice," he added, "you need to speak about the
bigger problem. The Palestinians were here for many thousands of years."
Fox
asked Daoud if he agreed that "the Jews were the first people in this
land 3,000 years ago?" He responded that he didn't know.
Two state solution
Fox
dedicated time to addressing future options for peace between Israel
and Palestine, suggesting that a two-state solution may be the only
viable path to regional security and freedom.
"Why do you want to give the Jews a land from us?" Daoud responded. "Why? There are many lands in the world."
"We can take this land and give it to Palestinian refugees," he said.
"Hamas will make peace with Israel more than any other Palestinian parties," he added.
He
further noted that he believed that Israel wants to ethnically cleanse
all Palestinians, to which Fox responded, "If Israel wanted to genocide
Gaza, they could; they have the weapons to do it. They could do what we
[US] did to Japan."
"Hamas's number one goal is to kill Jews," Fox added. "It's in their charter."
Even though Daoud vehemently denied this, Fox showed him the quotes from Article 7 of Hamas's founding charter, which read:
The
Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill
them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and
trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come
and kill him." (Article 7)
Article 7, Hamas charter
Daoud's
response was that if Fox were to interview a Hamas leader and ask him
the difference between a Jew and a Zionist, he would give a simple
answer.
"The Jew is not our enemy; he will say that," he said.
"Do you think Hamas is going to win?" Fox asked him.
"Yes - because many of the Palestinian people like Hamas now."
Daoud's final words: "When Hamas controls all of Palestine, I will come to America."
Indoctrination
Daoud also spoke of his time in Israeli prison.
“I felt sympathy for him,” Fox told the Post. “But he didn’t feel the slightest drop of sympathy in his heart.”
Fox told the Post
that the man showed him his phone, his feeds, his algorithms. “He’s
seeing Hamas propaganda being fed to him because of his algorithm.”
Fox
mentioned that he even saw posts on the man’s phone praising Putin;
“it’s the internet ecosystem that scared me the most, it made me realize
that with a big enough misinformation campaign you can indoctrinate
people globally.”
Pressure builds on Speaker Mike Johnson to repudiate Democrat J6 panel’s flawed findings.
President Donald Trump wasted no time Monday night delivering the
pardons he promised Jan. 6 defendants – 1,500 in all. And in so doing,
he upped the pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson to repudiate the
findings of a Democrat-run panel whose findings have been factually
challenged and whose conduct required an act of clemency.
The conduct of the Democrat-run Select House Committee on the Jan. 6
attack garnered new scrutiny Monday when departing President Joe Biden
issued sweeping pardons for all lawmakers and staffers on that committee
as well as a handful of police officers who testified to the panel.
“You don't forgive somebody of something unless they have potentially
done something,” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the Georgia Republican who
took over the Jan. 6 probe from Democrats two years ago and exposed
major factual flaws with the original investigation’s findings.
“I mean, to me, this is basically, if not an actual admission, it's
truly the perception of admitting that there was wrongdoing done,”
Loudermilk told Just the News.
Loudermilk has pushed for months for Congress to vote on whether the
findings of the Jan. 6 committee that Democrats ran should be repudiated
for history’s sake. His request is rooted in his own investigative
finding showing the committee misled the American public, held
exculpatory evidence and possibly colluded with federal prosecutors.
Thus far he has not found the support from leadership, but he told Just the News that Biden’s sweeping pardon of all committee members and staffers strengthened his case.
“This pardon was a direct result of the work that our committee has
done, exposing the truth, the corruption, the lies, the predetermined
narrative, and not letting anything, including the truth or even laws
and rules and regulations get in the way of creating the narrative that
they wanted to create,” Loudermilk said of the prior Democrat committee
during an interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast.
Johnson was silent Monday on the issue. But legal experts said
Biden’s pre-emptive pardons for the committee and his own family members
raised serious legal issues.
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, suggested the pardons might not even be constitutional.
“This abusive pardon of the Pelosi Jan. 6 rump committee is a mockery of the Constitution. And likely not valid,” he wrote on X.
Biden suggested he took the action to avoid unfair retributions against the committee and his family.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength
of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Biden
said in a statement. “But these are exceptional circumstances, and I
cannot in good conscience do nothing.”
Trump himself weighed in at a post-inauguration rally and parade
during which he called the committee led by Reps. Bennie Thompson and
Liz Cheney the “unselect Committee of Political Thugs.”
The two leaders of the former panel thanked Biden in a joint statement that suggested they were victims and not criminals.
“We express our gratitude to President Biden for recognizing that we
and our families have been continuously targeted not only with
harassment, lies and threats of criminal violence, but also with
specific threats of criminal prosecution and imprisonment by members of
the incoming administration, simply for doing our jobs and upholding our
oaths of office,” Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, and Thompson, a
Mississippi Democrat, said in the statement.
“We have been pardoned today not for breaking the law but for upholding it,” they also said.
Some legal experts said the pardons opened a new door for Republicans
to pursue accountability through other means because members of the
committee or Biden family members could no longer hide behind a claim of
self-incrimination and therefore could be compelled to testify before a
grand jury or other proceedings, potentially creating new legal peril
if they lied.
“In reality, these pardons will not absolutely protect these
individuals from being subpoenaed to give new testimony on prior
claims,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley
wrote on X. “Lying in such interviews or hearings would constitute new
criminal acts.”
Loudermilk said Trump and Johnson each have told him they support a
continued investigation of the prior Jan. 6 committee, a vehicle that
could create such jeopardy for witnesses like former lawmakers and
staffers.
“I have talked to the President. Yes, he is 100% behind it, and has
told me that he's really proud of the work that we've done,” Loudermilk
said. “He just wants to get the truth and knows that we have more work
to do, and wants a select committee with me leading it to continue to do
that work.
“I had a brief conversation finally with the speaker last week, and
there's still questions, I guess, with how we're going to set it up,” he
also said. “But he has told me we will discuss that this week, and I
emphasize to him, we need to do this quickly. The clock is burning.”
Loudermilk also raised another tantalizing possibility: pursuing
committee members or staff under civil fraud statutes because they used
taxpayer funds.
“They didn't release certain documents that didn't support their
narrative,” he said. “This whole structure of the committee is not
within the constraints of what the legislation said, and they totally
ignored any security vulnerabilities here at the Capitol. So with that
in mind, I think we do have a case that it was misappropriation of
funds."
Silicon Valley billionaires broke with Democrats in 2024, boosting Trump and sparking a realignment that challenges California’s oligarch-driven, one-party dominance.
Donald Trump is again president of the United States, and Republicans
now control both houses of the U.S. Congress. In California, however,
Gavin Newsom is still governor, and Democrats remain in absolute control
of the state legislature. Whatever realignment may have swept the rest
of America in 2024 has not yet affected California. But adding critical
weight to the momentum of Trump’s victory was the decision by some of
California’s wealthiest entrepreneurs and investors to walk away from
the Democratic Party and support the MAGA movement.
Needless to say, this unexpected development has left Democrats
scrambling to discredit the defectors. One of the highlights of outgoing
President Biden’s farewell address on
January 15 was what he hoped would be accepted as a dire warning to the
American people. Two of his statements stand out. The first identifies
the alleged threat:
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth,
power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our
basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
The second describes, at least according to Biden, the possible consequences if the threat isn’t contained:
“But powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to
eliminate the steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis, to serve
their own interests for power and profit.”
It’s difficult to imagine a more hypocritical pair of utterances.
American politics have always been heavily influenced by oligarchs, but
in recent decades it is the Democratic Party that has been the primary
instrument of America’s oligarchy. In the modern era, the Democratic
Party’s embrace of the oligarchy took off when President Clinton
approved financial deregulation and gave a green light to offshoring American manufacturing. The process accelerated during Obama’s alliance
with Wall Street special interests and was again furthered during
Biden’s term with the Green New Deal. The Democratic party is now firmly
in the hands of oligarchs, and with Trump, the Republican party is now
the party of working families across America.
While Biden claims oligarchs are contributing to Trump’s MAGA
movement, everybody knows that for the last several election cycles,
billionaire donors have favored Democrats. Biden’s party is supported
by wealthy individuals
including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Reid
Hoffman, Fred Eychaner, James Simons, Stephen Mandel, and more.
Democrats also continue to receive support from Wall Street firms. Then
there are the billions in soft money going to Democrat-aligned C4
advocacy groups from the above-listed direct donors, along with George Soros, Laurene Powell Jobs, and thousands of other supporters who fly under the radar.
But something changed in 2024.
The billionaires split. And the schism happened in an unlikely place:
Silicon Valley. Biden’s Democrats, and the oligarchy controlling them,
went too far. They pissed off the so-called tech bros.
It’s hard to know exactly when the split began. You can go all the
way back to longtime libertarian Peter Thiel’s decision to support
candidate Trump, expressed in his speech
at the 2016 National Republican Convention. Or more recently, you can
point to Elon Musk’s realization that woke ideology had spawned
institutions that deceived him, at great personal cost, with medical
half-truths that were peddled as urgent and beyond debate. And then
there’s Mark Zuckerberg, who spent more than $400 million
in 2020 paying for get-out-the-vote efforts in Democrat-heavy precincts
in swing states, performing an abrupt political about-face to publicly
announce his political neutrality. Zuckerberg then claimed the threat to
free speech was coming from Democrats.
Even though the Democratic politicians who still run California are
doing everything they can to drive the tech bros and the companies they
run out of the state, it remains the epicenter of a political
realignment at the top. California’s oligarchs are no longer united,
which brings us to the second highlight of Biden’s farewell speech,
where he suggests these oligarchs want to “eliminate the steps we’ve
taken to tackle the climate crisis, to serve their own interests for
power and profit.”
Let’s be clear. The “steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis” so far, thanks to Biden’s oligarchs, have served their
interests for power and profit. The climate crisis industry is
literally the biggest money and power grab in the history of the world.
Biden, in his remarks, went on to paraphrase President Eisenhower’s farewell address, where he warned Americans of the military-industrial complex.
That’s almost funny because Biden perfectly embodies the menace he’s
warning us about. To use one of Biden’s own favorite phrases, here’s the
deal: The military-industrial complex is alive and well, along with the
woke-DEI industrial complex, the affordable-housing industrial complex,
the homeless industrial complex, and most definitely the climate-crisis
industrial complex. And all of these manifestations of special interest
regulatory capture, politically connected industries and NGOs, and
government bureaucracies— all prioritizing their own aggrandizement and
unconcerned about its impact on the American people—are products of Biden’s oligarchs. These are the oligarchs behind the Democratic Party.
Trump’s mandate is often questioned by people who underestimate its
strength. Outside of America’s big cities, which remain dominated by
political machines controlled by unions of government employees and
their cronies in the private sector, Trump commands supermajorities of
the American people. Any national map showing the geographic distribution
of Trump’s support proves this. Add to that, finally, the decision by a
handful of extremely powerful Silicon Valley titans to reject the
direction of the national Democratic Party, and you have a coalition
that wins national elections.
California is a mess. Its Democratic politicians are a disgrace. Watch these performances by Senator Padilla, Senator Schiff, Governor Newsom, and former Senator Harris.
These are California’s political elite: self-serving, malevolent hacks
who lack integrity or substance. Like Joe Biden, they will do whatever
their donors tell them to do. The idea that they care about the freedom
and prosperity of individual families is laughable.
We may hope that while the tech bros and their populist allies, the
American people, are busy cleaning up Washington, DC, they’ll focus some
of their attention on California. Because maybe, just maybe, the people
in that beleaguered state have had enough.
