By Gadi Taub & Mike Doran, TABLET February 1, 2024
Team Biden is putting the squeeze on Israel. Washington is pressing Jerusalem to accept an unpopular hostage deal. It is also issuing an executive order sanctioning Israel for “settler violence,” directing the State Department to develop options for American recognition of a Palestinian state, and refusing to answer Israeli requests for arms. Meanwhile, there’s still no retaliation for the attack, by Iranian backed forces, that killed three American soldiers. Mike and Gadi connect the dots between the pressure on Israel and the inaction on Iran. The Biden administration sees “de-escalation” in Gaza as the road to “de-escalation” and stability in the Middle East. Will appeasement if Iran lead to a serious falling out between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Biden? Join us for the discussion.
By Tom Nash 2 February 2024
E. Rowell: In this video Mr. Nash discusses that Hamas’ landline communication system appears to be compromised or destroyed and Hamas is close to the end, but Sinwar will never stop fighting even if 2 million Gazans have to die. In addition he explains the hostage “deal” put forth by the US government essentially saves Hamas while destroying Israel in order for Biden to have a few months of “peace” before the election. It is the deal from hell.
By Sundance, CTH 2 February 2024
Obama and Biden like Iran. Obama and Biden are facilitating a pro-Iran policy. Obama and Biden don’t want to do anything against the interests of their pro-Iran position. That’s the simple baseline.
As a direct consequence, the same U.S. intelligence community that proclaimed the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation, now modify their prior intelligence to proclaim that Iran likely doesn’t have any control over the various terrorist networks they support. As a result, Biden cannot conduct a retaliatory strike against Iran because Biden cannot prove a direct link to Iran.
The great Russian writer affirmed both the gift of life and the criminal error of socialism in his 1866 novel “Crime and Punishment.”
>By Walker Larson, EPOCH TIMES
“Semionov-platz Mock Execution Ritual,” by B. Pokrovsky (1849). (Public Domain)
The firing squad leveled their weapons at the prisoners, who stood motionless, as though frozen, like the crystallized Russian winter landscape. Moments before, the prisoners had been made to put on the white shirts of condemned men, and told to kiss the Cross. Then they were tied to a pillar in the Semyonov drill ground, three at a time.
It was the end. What thoughts must have flashed through the prisoners’ minds in that all-consuming moment? One of the men, Fyodor Dostoevsky, in a letter to his brother, gives us a glimpse into the workings of his mind when, as he believed, his life was about to slip away.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke to Arutz Sheva about changes to be made in the humanitarian aid to Gaza and the price that Israel is ready to pay to continue this war until the end so that its citizens can return home safely.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed this evening (Thursday) in an interview with Arutz Sheva – Israel National News that Israel is preparing for a change in the way humanitarian aid is transferred to Gaza.
“The transfer of aid is one of the gravest mistakes we have been making since the beginning of the war. I have been warning the Cabinet about this, both in writing and orally, and I assumed that the situation will change in the coming days,” Smotrich stated.
Peloni: The US is blocking Israel’s attempt to use foreign workers in place of the Pals from J&S.
The US sent a strong message to Israel to avoid the process of recruiting foreign workers through private companies, for fear of their exploitation. As a result, the Ministry of Justice deleted this course from the plan that will be presented to the government on Sunday. The construction industry can only be saved with Palestinian workers, but Netanyahu fears the fall of his government.
Amitai Gazit, Calcalist 01.02.24
The construction industry is deeply mired in the mud resulting from a lack of workers following the absence of the Palestinian workers . The effort to recruit replacements for them through private personnel companies from foreign countries has so far progressed lazily. But now it seems that the tough conditions that the Ministry of Justice set for the plan to expand this policy will lead to its cancellation or at least a reduction. “Calcalist” has learned that one of the reasons for the demands of the Ministry of Justice is criticism from the American government, which is concerned that the process of hiring foreign workers will lead to their exploitation. As a result, the private route for hiring foreign workers was dropped from the government’s plan to accelerate real estate, which is supposed to go up for government approval this Sunday.
Peloni: A highly recommended video. This is in fact a very important analysis by Regavim as Naomi explores “What the blood libel was made up of, how it came to be, and what its objectives are.” The timing of this presentation was rather opportune, coming on the same day in which the US announced its sanctioning of individuals in Israel in the name of this blood libel.
Naomi Kahn, The Regavim Movement February 1, 2024
The sources and objectives of the campaign of defamation – real data versus anti-Israel “narratives
From Eugene Kontorovich:
“The new sanctions tools against Israelis announced by the Biden Administration is not about settler violence. First, it does not require acts of violence – anyone vaguely involved in doing or not doing anything the WH thinks undermines “peace” and “security” in WB qualifies.
As to violence, the language of the Order does applies to anyone complicit in acts of violence in WB – which should mean the entire PA government should have their accounts frozen because of Pay-for-Slay, which federal law has already determined to be complicity in violence. But we know that won’t happen, because this is really a set of sanctions on Jews the Administration doesn’t like – a revolting response to Oct. 7th.
It will be a massive focus of lobbying by far left groups to target pretty much any Israeli entity in the West Bank, as they see them all as undermining “security.” This and a Palestinian state is how Biden plans to get reelected.”
Order states that such acts of violence ‘undermine the foreign policy objectives of the United States, including the viability of a two-state solution.’
US President Joe Biden on Thursday signed an executive order declaring a national emergency to deal with the “threat posed by the situation in the West Bank, including in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction.”
The State Department has listed the four individuals who will be subject to the sanctions: David Chai Chasdai, Einan Tanjil, Shalom Zicherman, and Yinon Levi.
Bill would permanently stop millions in taxpayer funding for Hamas-tied group
WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
House Republicans on Thursday introduced legislation that would cut off millions of dollars in funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian aid organization and prevent the Biden administration from allocating funds following revelations the international agency’s employees participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree in Israel, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
By Victor Davis Hanson, AM GREATNESS 1 February 2024
Iranian-backed militias have attacked American installations and forces in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan some 170 times.
Ostensibly, these terrorist groups claim they are hitting US forces to coerce America into dropping its support of Israel and demanding a cease-fire in the Gaza war.
In reality, these satellite terrorists are being directed in a larger effort by Iran to pry the US. out of the Middle East, in the manner of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing.
A reflection on who took an active part in Oct 7.
Naomi Ragen, an Israeli writer, has been posting online a “Gaza War Diary.” A recent installment describes the hardening of Israeli attitudes toward Gazan “civilians,” beginning with those who joined Hamas operatives, and took part enthusiastically in the rapes, tortures, mutilations, and beheadings of Israeli men, women, and children on October 7. These “civilians” who entered Israel in the wake of Hamas also managed to kidnap some Israelis, whom they are presumed to be holding inside Gaza, where those kidnapped are likely being used as sex slaves, or simply as slaves, by these “civilians.” Freed hostages have testified as to how they were spat on and beaten by these “ordinary Gazans” when they were first paraded around Gaza by their Hamas captors. And the “civilians” in Gaza have, according to opinion polls, overwhelmingly approved of the atrocities committed on October 7.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a religious, “holy” war against Israel, known as Jihad.
The principle of Jihad rejects all laws of the Old World of infidels and calls for a revolutionary struggle for the triumph of Islam. At the same time, Jihad is interpreted as the use of violence in various forms to achieve a religious ideal.
Hamas called this war the Al Aqsa Flood after the name of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque.
This war was not started under the slogan of liberating Palestine, but as a war with a religious goal at its core.
A new generation of progressives has stumbled on old Soviet antisemitic propaganda
By Gil Troy, TABLET 31 January 2024
E. Rowell: While this article explores the evolution of a powerful, poisonous, political indoctrination campaign, it underlines the need for radical reform of the US educational system from kindergarten through college graduation to remove the perverse idea that Zionism is racism and that Blacks will never be free as long as Israel exists as the Jewish State.
Yasser Arafat, right, and Rev. Jesse Jackson embrace before their meeting in Beirut, September 1979/AP PHOTO
For over 50 years, the American left has tried rebranding the Palestinian cause by camouflaging Palestinian terrorism with the slogans of America’s civil rights movement. Today, a new generation of would-be radicals has stumbled onto this zombie corpse of ahistoric sloganeering with the confident excitement of college freshmen on their first beer run.
Caroline Glick, JNS January 31, 2024
A new framework is being negotiated for a hostage release in exchange for a prisoner release, aid, and a temporary ceasefire. Will this mean defeat for Israel and the end of the fighting of Hamas in Gaza? Can Netanyahu withstand the international pressure? What is the US endgame with this and other policies in the Middle East?
As one famed satirist said, Israelis have no patience for old stories about persecution.
By Joshua Hoffman, FUTURE OF JEWISH 31 January 2024
“Eretz Nehederet” (the Israeli version of Saturday Night Live) has taken aim at the BBC for its heavily biased coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Please be advised: This essay includes profanity.
A few days ago, a father sent a text message to his son, a famous Israeli comedian, asking how he is holding up.
His son wrote back, saying: “I’m okay, Dad, broken and worrying like everyone else. Your grandchildren are doing pretty well, making a lot of toast that I end up eating. Do you still have the old toaster? The one that presses on the toast?”
Read more…
Navigating radars, shwacking targets, preventing wars.
J. E. Dyer, The Optimisitic Conservative
Monday 29 January update: This article has to get posted sometime, so I’m officially cutting it off with a target-set observation on the most recent attacks by Iran’s proxies, including the attack on Tower 22 at the border of Jordan and Syria (near the U.S. base at Al-Tanf). At least 47 Americans are now said to have been injured by the drone attack there on Sunday, and three soldiers were killed.
Peloni: More threats to manipulate Bibi into accepting American demands.
David Wurmser’s response to the Axios report: “Recognition violates the Oslo Accords & international law. If Oslo is off, then far-reaching implications result: terminating the PA, removing the PLO’s waiver as a designated terror group, terminating funding and loan channels to the PA, etc. If Oslo is on, then unilateral moves that lack Israeli approval to change the status of the PA are forbidden. Frankly, and more importantly, it violates the 1922 Mandate as well. There is no legal authority for the U.S. and IK to determine sovereignty without the mandatory successor, Israel’s approving. Simply, the U.S. and UK cannot have it both ways. Either the Oslo Accords are trashed or they are not.”
Barak Ravid, Axios January 31, 2024
Secretary of State Tony Blinken asked the State Department to conduct a review and present policy options on possible U.S. and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza, two U.S. officials briefed on the issue told Axios.
Prime Minister in a statement: I have red lines – we will not end the war, we will not remove the IDF from the Strip, and we will not release thousands of terrorists.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday evening released a video in which he made a statement regarding the talks to reach a deal for the release of the hostages in Gaza.
“There is a lot of noise in the media about the efforts to get more hostages released, so I want to make it clear: We are working on another plan for the release of our hostages, but I stress: Not at any cost,” Netanyahu said.
IDF announces that project is operational and confirms for the first time that seawater has been pumped into the terror tunnels: ‘Only carried out in tunnel routes and locations that are suitable’
By Yoav Zitun, YNET NEWS 30 January 2024
The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday revealed new details about the Atlantis project to neutralize underground terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip by channeling large volumes of seawater into the tunnels, and announces that it has become operational. The announcement comes after of a report in the United States that the program was only a partial success.
