By Joan Swirsky, ©2025

Oy vey! The glass is not half empty—it’s completely empty!

Oy gevalt! The sky really is falling!

That’s what our purportedly most astute and seasoned political commentators would have you believe about the ceasefire agreement that was reached just a day or so ago between Hamas and Israel.

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FDD | Jan 16, 2025

Peloni:  The next few months are critical for Trump on many areas of import.  Hopefully Trump will demonstrate that the huge cost of forcing Israel to accept this surrender deal will be worth the undisclosed potential benefits which may stand in the not too distant future.

Trump’s desire to seal a pre-inauguration deal forced Israel’s acquiescence.

Douglas Altabef |   Jan 17, 2025

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio   REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

There is widespread and justifiable disappointment, unto anger, about the just announced hostage deal. Yes, thankfully, hostages are going to be released. But the price being paid is steep.

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Peloni:  Trump must take back control securing the freedom of the seas, in such a way that it is seen that this is taking place on his terms and not those of the Houthis.  Failing to do so will only lead to the grasp of US impotence growing under the return of Trump to the White House rather than the opposite.

The message from the Houthis is that they decide the time and place of attacks. The message they think will resonate is that they got away with this. Time will tell if this is the case.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN | JANUARY 16, 2025

Peloni:  Turkey stands as a looming threat to regional stability, as it leads the radical Sunni axis in opposition to both the Iranian radical Shiite axis, as well as to Israel and the moderate Sunni states.

By Christine Douglass-Williams | Jan 17, 2025

Turkey is a dangerous Islamic supremacist state under its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has expansionary goals of a revived Ottoman Empire with himself as caliph. And he’s getting closer.

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The enemy within is already trying to burrow inside.

Daniel Greenfield | Jan 17, 2025

“The time may be soon to go back home,” Imam Husham Al-Husainy told CBS News. The year was 2003 and Al-Husainy, along with the other Iraqi Shiite ‘refugees’ filling Dearborn’s Muslim community, had gotten their fondest wish when the United States removed Saddam Hussein.

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Peloni:  Mike Benz continues to reveal significant aspects of the Bureaucratic Leviathan in Washington, but I have to admit that among the many report, scandals and revelations made by Benz, this piece exposes a particularly troubling aspect of the weaponization of modern society to support the nefarious goals of the intelligence community.  After all, medicine is meant to treat the ill, to cure the injured, and bring comfort to those in great need of it, so enveloping and manipulating the trust and inspirations of the medical field into a whole of society perversion towards other objectives, stands as an uniquely despicable project, and a complete betrayal of the moral compass upon which medical interventions are based.

In this segment, I go over CIA history and its merger with USAID in the 1960s. Then I go over scandals where the CIA got busted running fake vaccine clinics, the CIA’s strange role in Covid-19, and the role of vaccines as instruments of statecraft. https://t.co/a4E6XKEKLh

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) January 18, 2025

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Jo Elizabeth |  All Israel News  | Published: January 15, 2025

Ugandan judge, Julia Sebutinde, has strongly defended Israel against accusations of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and is now set to assume the presidency of the institution after the former head has stepped down.

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Peloni:  The strengthening of Hamas thru this hostage deal is highly damaging.  It demonstrates the strength of Hamas both inside Gaza, and to the Arab street inside Israel and the PA.  As KuperWasser describes it, terror pays off.  The repercussions for this debacle stand as a great betrayal to the lives which have been lost thus far in this war, and a resounding victory to those who advocated for Israel to capitulate to Hamas rather than persevere onward towards victory.

Gaddafi said Islam will conquer Europe without firing a single shot,”

warns @AmirOhana, one of Israel’s most powerful politicians.

“Europeans must take the Islamist threat seriously,” warns the veteran politician in a long format Visegrad24 interview.pic.twitter.com/D0Tkd5Upmo

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 17, 2025

What makes hospitals so deadly and how can we fix it?

Peloni:  This is a useful graphic, but it fails to note that there are many aspects of the deal which are yet to be clarified, over which negotiations will be ongoing as the deal unfolds, which will be used by Hamas to prevent a return of hostilities while they stall out negotiations.  Per the Biden camp, so long as negotiations are ongoing, hostilities will be blocked.  This only incentivizes Hamas to prevaricate and drag out negotiations.  Hence, it remains to be seen to what degree the incoming Trump administration agrees with Biden on this position.  In any event, as has been true since the war began, it will fall to Netanyahu to wield the national chutzpah which characterizes a sovereign nation, and make the decision independently, regardless of what the Trump administration insists upon.

One other issue regarding this deal, the condition of those being released, ie dead or alive, is completely unknonwn, and a comprehensive list of hostages, living or dead, being held by Hamas is still not being provided by Hamas.

According to the administration, Israel is not a security ally, tech ally, democratic ally or any other kind of ally.

Shoshana Bryen • JPC •  January 15, 2025

A microchip. (rawpixel)

Is the Biden administration computer illiterate? Is it technology-innovation-unaware? Is it malicious when it comes to Israel? The third seems to be the case.

On its way out, the administration’s “Interim Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,” announced on Jan. 13, would place new limits on how many artificial-intelligence chips companies, including Nvidia, Intel and AMD, can send to different countries without making special arrangements with the U.S. government. Israel is one of the countries for which they will have to get permission.

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‘Palestinianism’, not Iran, is the greatest threat to Israel. The answer is not geopolitics of regional accords, it’s the defense of the land and its borders against an enemy that lies within them.

Daniel Greenfield | Jan 16, 2025

“And a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.” Exodus 1:8

Every country fights Islamic terrorism alone. What should have been a world war against a common enemy has become a lonely battle in which each country strives separately against a global threat. And within each country, individuals have been abandoned by their governments to face sudden death.

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Peloni:  This deal and Trump’s support for it makes less and less sense…

By Robert Spencer | Jan 16, 2025

It’s bad for Israel, for America and for the world.

That a deal in which Hamas gets to claim victory, gets to keep Gaza and gets thousands of terrorists in trade for a handful of living or dead hostages is bad for Israel is obvious.

But it’s also terrible for America.

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