T. Belman. Included was “7. Demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address medical needs of all hostages;”
OAN’s Brooke Mallory Friday, December 22, 2023
A resolution calling for emergency aid for Gazans was approved by the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Friday by a vote of 13-0, however, it did not ask for a halt to the warfare.
Both Russia and the United States chose not to exercise their veto authority and did not participate in the voting. The resolution’s phrasing had reportedly prompted the United States to object.
T. Belman. This is crazy. I do not believe the results. . The WSJ refered to the poll and said “However, supporters of Netanyahu’s governing coalition prefer Trump over Biden by a 49-14 margin.” One cannot reconcile these numbers.
Poll finds Jewish public opinion has sharply swung in incumbent’s direction following support for Israel in wake of Oct. 7, after overwhelming 2020 support for Republican rival
By JACOB MAGID 22/12/23
US President Donald Trump (L) and Democratic Presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden on September 29, 2020. (Jim Watson and Saul Loeb / AFP)
Forty percent of Jewish Israelis want US President Joe Biden to be reelected in the 2024 presidential election, compared to just 26.2% who back Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, a poll conducted on Wednesday found.
The results of the poll indicated a massive swing in Israelis’ support for the current president, who has made a series of gestures to the Jewish state since the Hamas onslaught of October 7 while his predecessor has spent time at rallies mocking the intelligence failure that led to the devastating attack and criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
By MEMRI 21 December 2023
Jordan has recently foiled repeated attempts by Syrian cells to smuggle weapons and drugs into its territory. According to reports, these cells are operated by the Syrian security apparatuses, as well as Hizbullah and Iran, and the weapons are intended for Palestinian elements in the West Bank. On December 18, 2023, the Jordanian army announced that it had foiled a large-scale attempt to smuggle drugs, machine guns and – for the first time – rockets into the country, after several days in which the number of smuggling attempts had dropped.
The army reported that, early in the morning that day, severe clashes had broken out on the Syrian border between Jordanian border guards and the armed cells that were trying to bring in the contraband, and that Jordanian border guards had been wounded. In response, Jordan reportedly carried out several airstrikes in southern Syria in areas along the border where the smugglers were operating.
T. Belman. David Israel suggests that rejection of the Palestinian state is the defining issue. Also he points our that the earlier poll had a small sample.
Channel 14 on Thursday night released the first Direct Polls survey since the start of the war, showing Benny Gantz and his National Unity Party with 28 mandates (currently only 12), if elections were held this week. Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party are right behind him, with 27 mandates (currently 32).
Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid lags in third place with only 14 mandates (currently 24); Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beiteinu with 11 (6); Aryeh Deri’s Shas with 10 (11); Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit with 8 (6); United Torah Judaism with 7 (7); Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am with 6 (5); Ayman Odeh’s Hadash-Ta’al with 5 (5); and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism with 4 (7).
Read more…
Eve R. In this interview, Avi Abelow interviews Joshua Philipp of Epoch Times, identifying the historic role of China in the Palestinian jihad movements.
By Avi Abelow, PULSE OF ISRAEL 21 December 2023
T. Belman. Sherman has been banging this drum for over a decade. He argued that Israel should invest at least $1 B/yr in public diplomacy arguing it was as important as investing in the defense budget.
Events today show how right he was. Our failure to do so has resulted in the massive success of Palestinian propaganda. The whole world has turned against us.
The first order of business would be to devise and deploy a political “Iron Dome” to protect Israel from the incoming barrages of delegitimization and demonization.
By MARTIN SHERMAN OCTOBER 31, 2013
The State of Israel, the country that represents Jews throughout the world as much as its citizens, is slowly but surely abdicating its role by its action or perhaps better said inaction vis-a-vis public diplomacy. What has happened to the leadership of the past, men and women who were not afraid to state their minds and fight for what has always been rightfully ours? We are no longer respected and are at the mercy of a leftist faction and media who will stop at nothing to help in our destruction. – Naomi Romm, in a Facebook response to my previous column, “Dereliction of Duty”
The administration, and many who claim to back Israel, still favor a two-state solution the Palestinians don’t want. Unlike the Israelis, they’ve learned nothing from Oct. 7.
(December 21, 2023 / JNS)
It’s a debate the Israeli government neither wants nor thinks it needs to engage in right now. But as much as Jerusalem would like to postpone any discussion about who will govern or be responsible for security in Gaza until the war with Hamas is finished, it’s increasingly becoming clear that is impossible. U.S. President Joe Biden is already pushing hard for the revival of a peace process that’s been dead in the water for more than two decades, as well as for Israel to accept that the eventual outcome of negotiations will be the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside it.
T. Belman. According to this article “the resolution is expected to also call for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”. I doubt it because Israel would rightly say when the hostages are released, we will take “urgent steps “for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
This will render it meaningless.
Proposal said to call for ‘creating conditions for sustainable cessation of hostilities,’ unhindered humanitarian access, immediate release of all hostages;
The United States has signaled its support for a draft resolution in its current form on the war between Israel and Hamas, with the United Nations Security Council set to hold a vote on the proposal later Friday, diplomatic sources said.
This marked the fourth time the Security Council delayed a vote this week as diplomatic efforts were being made to get the US — a veto-wielding permanent council member — on board with the resolution.
T. Belman. These countries want Israel to choke on the Palestinians. They see them as a fifth column that will bring Israel to her knees. This is why UNRWA was created. Its mission is to maintain them, not resettle them.
Israel National News Dec 22/23
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told ABC News on Thursday that Egypt, as well as “pro-Hamas countries” such as Qatar, Iran and Turkey, should take in Palestinian Arabs who flee the war in Gaza.
Asked where Gazans who flee the fighting should go, Haley responded, “They should be going to the Rafah gate and [have] Egypt take them. But I’ve always said that what you should have is that they should go to pro-Hamas countries — Qatar, Iran, Turkey… send them there… Those are pro-Hamas countries.”
An Israeli soldier operates in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in this handout picture released on Dec. 20, 2023. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
The Israel Defense Forces has killed over 2,000 Hamas terrorists since the end of a temporary ceasefire on Dec. 1, according to IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
Hagari’s announcement brings the total number of eliminated Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip during the current war to around 8,000. Another 1,000 Hamas terrorists were killed in Israel on Oct. 7 and 8 after the Palestinian terror group’s brutal invasion of the Jewish state. These figures do not include wounded and captured terrorists.
“…if we remove [the ballots in question], all races are in question at that point.”
Shelby Busch, cofounder of We The People AZ
‘State of Denial’ tells the behind-the-scene story about the state of elections in Maricopa Co., AZ. The movie brings the receipts and shows the evidence! The question then becomes, why are they doing this? If you like this movie, please consider visiting www.state-of-denial.com/keepitfree to help support future films.
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY, NATIONAL REVIEW November 25, 2023
After the jihadist barbarities of October 7, Israel responded with aerial bombardments of Hamas havens in Gaza, in preparation for the now-ongoing ground invasion. As the bombs fell, Hamas heavyweight Mousa Abu Marzook was asked about the elaborate network of tunnels that the organization has built under the territory it has governed since being popularly elected in 2006. It is a virtual underground city stretching over 300 miles, constructed with untold billions of dollars in foreign-aid money diverted for the purpose (not to be confused with the aid money diverted to make billionaires out of Marzook and his fellow Hamas emirs).
Ezri ToBe responds to President Biden for his libel against the Jewish settlers of Judea and Samaria@whitehouse pic.twitter.com/77MSrMeymO
— ???? ??? (@YinonMagal) December 18, 2023
The scenario of the PASF (Palestinian Authority Security Forces) “turning their guns” and aiming them at the IDF forces, and/or the settlements in Judea & Samaria and those that border the Green Line, is rapidly developing into actuality. The warning signs are too numerous for us to ignore.
By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM 18 December 2023
Palestinian troops undergoing training/Usage under Israeli IP Law section 27a
The details of the overall situation in Judea & Samaria – Israel’s current “third front” – ostensibly appear to be rather mundane and routine. Another late-night arrest, another targeting operation, more shooting attacks on the roads, but only after you put all the small pieces of this large puzzle together do you get to see the terrible danger, the initial signs of which are just now coming to light.
Those who seek a Two-State Solution are urging nothing less than the creation of a determinably criminal aggressor state.
By Prof. Louis René Beres, INN Dec 17, 2023,
Now, in the midst of Israel’s law-enforcing war against Hamas terror- criminals, we are once again hearing demands for a Palestinian state (a so-called Two-State solution). Still, even if an expanding number of presently-sovereign states would argue for immediate or incremental recognition of “Palestine,” these approvals would have no binding legal effect. The Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1934) – the authoritative treaty defining the requirements of statehood under international law – explicitly identifies the criteria that must be satisfied. These binding standards do not include recognition.
Hamas is a less significant existential threat than the collapse of US leadership
By David P. Goldman, ASIA TIMES 21 December 2023
Image: Twitter Screengrab
And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. – Jeremiah 1:13-14
Strictly speaking, Israel’s Gaza war is not a tragedy, but rather a hideous accident. Many wars wait for years to happen until they can’t be stopped. Those are the tragedies.
This one never should have happened. Israeli intelligence had the plans for the October 7 Hamas attack a year in advance, as well as urgent warnings from lower-echelon officers just before the event. But the top military and political leadership brushed them off.
TIKVAH FUND
[CLICK ON IMAGE]
A few days ago, Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen sat down with Call Me Back podcast host and author Dan Senor to discuss the great awakening of American Jewry.
They explored why Jews and Israel are suddenly at the center of the civilizational challenges facing the Western world; why many American universities are no longer worthy of Jewish creativity and talent; and why now is a time to build and renew the soul-shaping civic institutions that perpetuate our Jewish, Zionist, and American values. They also discussed Tikvah’s plans and strategy for the years ahead—and why now, more than ever, Jewish ideas and Jewish leadership matter.
Peloni: This is truly sickening.
A source who advised hostages’ families said that the Richardson Center told them that ‘pressure on Qatar would be counterproductive because Qatar holds all the leverage.’
By Lahav Harkov, Jewish Insider December 18, 2023
Hadas Kalderon (C) and families of hostages march to a rally outside Israel Defense Forces headquarters on December 16, 2023, in the Kirya area of Tel Aviv, Israel. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which receives substantial funding from the Government of Qatar, advised the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza not to criticize the Gulf state, which is a major financial backer of Hamas.The Richardson Center “promotes global peace and dialogue by identifying and working on areas of opportunity for engagement and citizen diplomacy with countries and communities not usually open to more formal diplomatic channels,” according to its mission statement. One of the ways it does this is to negotiate for the release of hostages, and was involved in the release of American student Otto Warmbier from North Korea and Princeton student Xiyue Wang, and worked with the family of basketball player Brittney Griner when she was imprisoned in Russia.
EMET –
While many in the international community view the Hamas war on Israel strictly in narrow terms, as just another Israeli-Palestinian war, this war is different. This war is all about the Iranian axis of terror, and its threat to the entire free world. For an immediate ceasefire of the war that Hamas launched on Israel with their barbaric attacks of October 7th, Iranian-backed Houthis are attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea, cutting off a great deal of international commerce, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah has stepped up the launching missiles onto Israeli towns. Yet, calls from the international community for an immediate ceasefire are increasing. Renowned scholar, David Wurmser will be discussing the wider regional and geo-strategic ramifications of this war, and why calls for an immediate ceasefire will actually backfire against the United States, Europe, and the entire free, Western world.
