How close is Iran to a bomb?; UNC axes DEI; Senators ask IRS to sanction Tides, WESPAC

By Park MacDougald, THE DAILY SCROLL    14 MAY 2024

The United States claims that it supports Israel’s goal of an “enduring defeat” of Hamas, even as it has also struggled desperately to secure a cease-fire deal that it hopes would end the war while pressuring Israel not to expand its operations into Rafah. In a Tuesday story, anonymous U.S. officials spoke to The Times of Israel’s Jacob Magid to explain the apparent contradiction. What they said offered further confirmation of what we’ve been saying for a long time, which is that in Gaza, as in Lebanon, the United States and Israel are on opposite sides.

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By Andrea Widburg, AMERICAN THINKER    15 May 2024

Image (edited) from drobotdean.

I had to read American literature in both high school and college. I read Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Jack London, Maya Angelou, Herman Melville, John Knowles, J.D. Salinger, and many other famous American writers. Some I liked; some I didn’t like. What I invariably hated was how English teachers approached them, picking them apart to the point of inanity (and, in my day, always with an eye to sexual symbolism). However, none of my teachers used those books to advance Marxism. At Harvard, though, things have changed, with the American novel being used as a platform for destroying America and her values.

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Peloni:  This is a very insightful analysis by Strook.

by Minister Orit Strook, translated by Hillel Fendel | Bet El Friends | May 15, 2024

Are we truly independent? Can we free ourselves of the threat of “embargo?” Will the U.S. take the ethical path, as it did not always do during the Holocaust?

We find ourselves at an auspicious time – between the date marking the time of our utter helplessness (Holocaust Day), and that commemorating the so-many sacrifices that we have had to make to secure our national existence in our Promised Land (Memorial Day). And yet davka (specifically) now, we have once again reached a disconcerting, frustrating and stressful crossroads, at which the country that is supposed to be our greatest friend in the world declares quite purposefully that it will not support us against those who rise up to destroy us.

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Peloni: I have noted many times that it is vital for American Jews to make their political choices this November as if their future and that of their loved ones will be decided based upon that choice, because in fact, it will be.  More and more, we are seeing reports such as this article by Eli Lake suggesting that the Jewish Democratic faithful are reconsidering their allegiance to a political party which has abandoned them to well funded and targeted abuse, as well as to a selective enforcement of the law.  This is a very important revelation which will hopefully continue to unfold.

Donors who once worried more about Donald Trump now see the president’s bid for a second term as the greater threat to America.

Eli Lake | The Free Press | May 14, 2024

President Joe Biden delivers remarks regarding college campus protest in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday, May 2, 2024. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Joe Biden’s threat last week to freeze arms shipments to Israel along with reports that his administration is withholding intelligence about Hamas leaders’ whereabouts has reverberated throughout U.S. politics. Now, some Never Trump donors say the Biden administration’s policy toward the Jewish state is such a betrayal they’re considering jumping on board the Trump train.

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There’s no alternative to the alliance with the United States. But support from ordinary Americans and the GOP means it doesn’t have to sacrifice its security to please Biden.

The relationship between Israel and the United States has frayed since the start of war against the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip. Credit: FOTOGRIN/Shutterstock.

The Biden administration wants us to believe two contradictory things at the same time. Depending on the circumstances or the audience to which President Joe Biden and senior members of his foreign-policy team are addressing, they’re either committed to supporting Israel and in favor of eliminating Hamas. Except when they’re not.

In just the last week, Biden pledged at a Holocaust memorial ceremony that he would always stand with Israel and never forget what the Hamas terrorists had done on Oct. 7. A day later, he flipped the script.
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NYT | May 16, 2024

Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia on a visit to Prague in February. Credit…Michal Cizek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, a fixture in the country’s politics and known for defying his fellow leaders in the European Union, underwent hours of emergency surgery on Wednesday after being shot five times and critically wounded in a town in central Slovakia, in what officials said appeared to be a politically motivated assassination attempt.

His deputy, Tomas Taraba, told the BBC that the operation appeared to have gone well. “I guess in the end he will survive,” he said.

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Peloni:  The Ukrainian forces are betrayed by the very same corruption which was highlighted to support the two color revolutions in Ukraine over the past 20 years.  Notably, while it was Yankee dollars which were being diverted from the war effort, this corruption has come at the cost of Ukrainian lives on the battlefield and led to a significant advantage for Russia to exploit.

Martina Bohuslavets | Ukrainska Pravda | May 13, 2024

Hundreds of millions of hryvnias could probably steal fortifications in Kharkiv region, where now “rsnya” is actively coming. Multimillion-dollar contracts for the construction of fortifications, which were spent there in total 7 billion hryvnias, Kharkiv OVA poured on the base firms of avatars.

In particular, the Department of Housing and Communal Services (ZKG) and the fuel and energy complex of Kharkiv OW concluded direct contracts for the supply of wood for fortifications with firms with signs of fictitiousness.

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By Abe Greenwald, COMMENTARY    June 2024

In April, a long-haired flower child on the campus of Princeton University was captured on camera. The picture, posted on social media, shows him sitting on his guitar case, guitar in hand, ready to play. Spread on the grass before him, completing this otherwise faithful portrait of hippiedom, is not a peace sign or a tie-dyed bedsheet but the flag of the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Look closer, and you’ll spot the keffiyeh around his neck. But what is incongruous about the picture—the pairing of hippie garb and jihadist imagery—is nothing of the sort in real life. This tree-hugging terrorist supporter is the moronic face of a harmonious marriage.

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By Joseph Ford Cotto, AMERICAN THINKER    15 May 2024

In the annals of American economic history, few measures have left as indelible a mark as the monumental tax relief efforts spearheaded under the leadership of President Donald Trump.

Undoubtedly, his tenure heralded a paradigm shift, championing the cause of the middle class with an unparalleled fervor.

Through the implementation of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a landmark legislation of historic proportions, Trump etched his legacy as a stalwart defender of the financial interests of hardworking, upwardly mobile Americans.

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Joe Biden is a weak and evil man who cannot tell good from evil — and he, not Trump, is responsible for wrecking America’s reputation, power, and influence abroad.

By Mark Meckler, INN    14 May 2024

Mark Meckler

During Donald Trump’s presidency, the liberal establishment made it a habit of lecturing him about how his actions were detrimental to America’s reputation abroad.

“Four years of neglect, unilateralism, and failed diplomacy have left America’s alliances in tatters,” fretted Pete Buttigieg. “Indeed, among all of Trump’s foreign-policy legacies, none may be more consequential than the damage he has done to America’s standing, influence, and power in the world by weakening the system of partnerships and alliances the country has created and relied on for decades.”

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E. Rowell:  The idea stated below that Turkey has a “nuanced” stance towards Hamas is not supported by evidence.  Turkey has been a strong supporter of Hamas throughout Erdogan’s administrations.  Oh and the idea stated by President Erdogan that Hamas is “fighting for its liberation” is as accurate a statement as saying Hitler and the Nazis were fighting for their liberation.

Terror group’s plans reportedly found by Israeli army in Gaza home of senior official

By Foreign Staff, TELEGRAPH    14 May 2024

Hamas planned to set up a base in Turkey from which to carry out sabotage and assassinations, according to documents reportedly found by the Israeli army in Gaza.

The papers, shown to The Times, were discovered in the home of Hamza Abu Shanab, chief of staff to Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, the Israeli military said.

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The rift is all about the U.S. State Department’s desire to reassert control.

David Wurmser | JNS | May 9, 2024

The chattering class in Israel is struggling to understand American behavior. They ask: How did the United States go from supporting Israel in the first days of the war with Hamas in Gaza to essentially shielding the terror organization? The Israeli right asks: What happened to the Americans? The left asks: What has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu done to destroy U.S.-Israel relations?

I believe I have some insight into this. I held a senior policy position at the U.S. State Department for several years. Afterwards, I was a senior advisor to the vice president from 2001 to 2007 and then to the Trump administration’s National Security Advisor John Bolton. I also served a decade in the Pentagon as a senior intelligence officer. I have learned a great deal about the mentality of these bureaucracies.

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Ironically, Biden’s decision has freed Israel’s leadership of some of their reluctance to counter American dictates. Oh, and its also helping Trump’s campaign.

By DOUGLAS ALTABEF, JPOST MAY 15, 2024

In his never-ending attempt to cultivate the “Where would they go anyway?” Arab vote in Michigan and other possible swing states, US President Joe Biden has opened a Pandora’s box that he is likely to regret.

I suggest that he has just succeeded in creating for himself a “four-bag error,” one with potentially decisive significance, by refusing to arm Israel with kits to be used for providing greater precision for missiles and shells in attacking Gaza.

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Peloni:  Fatah is Hamas.  They are both genocidal terrorists whose rule must be ended, their organizations must be eliminated, and their leadership must be executed.  This should be the only role offered to them and their like in pursuit of peace.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military arm of Fatah led by Mahmoud Abbas, confirms that its fighters participated in the brutal attack on Gaza surrounding villages and IDF bases on October 7th and kidnapped ‘many Zionists.’

Dalit Halevi | INN | May 14, 2024

Kibbutz Be’eriTomer Neuberg/Flash90

Abu Muhammad, the official spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the military arm of the Fatah movement led by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), confirms in an official statement that the organization’s fighters participated in the October 7th attack on Gaza surrounding villages and IDF bases.

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Nan Jacques Zilberdik  | Palestinian Media Watch | May 13, 2024

Mahmoud Abbas: “The independence of the State of Israel…is a big lie… there is no independence”

PA TV preacher [last week]: It is our “duty to fight” Israel “Palestine will return free, from its [Mediterranean] Sea to its [Jordan] River”

PA doesn’t recognize Israel in any borders – countless maps denyIsrael’s existence

“Map of Palestine” includes Israeli cities “Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Lod, and Ramle” and is “drawn in Martyrs’ blood”- Fatah official

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The Oct. 7 attacks pumped badly needed economic and political capital into a failed state

by Judith Miller | Tablet  |   May 14, 2024

Last fall, Egypt was on the brink of economic collapse. A decade of debt-fueled spending on a pharaonic-scale had emptied its Central Bank coffers. By February, Cairo’s public debt was 89% of its gross domestic product. External debt had soared to 46% of GDP. The pound, its currency, was one of the world’s worst performing. Unable to import supplies and repatriate profits, foreign companies were leaving, or threatening to leave Egypt in droves. Annual inflation was over 35%, and double that for some food staples. Egypt seemed on the verge of a sovereign default—its first ever.

Then came Oct. 7.

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T. Belman. Biden’s concern that the bombs shouldn’t be used in crowded areas just at a time when UN cuts by more than half the number of women, children ‘identified’ as killed in Gaza and Israel is in the process of evacuationg all civilieans from Rafah.

The obvious question is, what did Israel have to agree to in return?

First major deal since president said he would stymie sales of offensive weapons includes ammunition for tanks, mortar rounds and tactical vehicles

By AP  Today, 5:04 am

Backdropped by smoke rising to the sky after an explosion in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli tank stands near the Israel-Gaza border as seen from southern Israel, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP/Leo Correa)

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said Tuesday.

It’s the first arms shipment to Israel to be announced by the administration since it put another arms transfer — consisting of 3,500 high-payload bombs — on hold earlier in the month. The administration has said it paused that earlier transfer to keep Israel from using the bombs in its growing offensive in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah.

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Douglas Murray dedicated his Hamilton Award to the people of Israel for their national response to the October 7th massacre.

INN | May 14, 2024

British author Douglas Murray was honoured with the Hamilton Award recently, and in his speech mentioned the October 7th massacre and the resultant Swords of Iron War.

“On the 8th of October I went down to Times Square, and there were these men and women waving signs celebrating the massacre of the previous day. They weren’t calling for a two-state solution,” he said.

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