E. Rowell:  This is one of the most courageous acts of the war that Hamas/Iran started and that Israel will finish.

The structure reportedly targeted by the Israeli Air Force was said to house the Iranian consulate and the ambassador’s official residence.

By JNS    1 April 2024

Slain IRGC Quds Force commander in Syria and Lebanon Brig. Gen. Mohammad Zahedi. Source: Social media.

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force responsible for Syria and Lebanon, was killed in an alleged Israeli strike on a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus on Monday, Reuters reported.

Zahedi is the most senior regime official to be killed since the death of leading Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran in an assassination attributed to Israel four years ago.

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The idea that all Jews are brothers, no matter what, is a basic, shared value in the one and only Jewish State, and everything that happens in it, controversies about haredi draft included, must rest on that truth. Opinion.

By Rochel Sylvetsky, INN    1 April 2024

Haredi near draft office

Protecting Jews in the Jewish State

This past Lag Ba’omer, I sent a link to a live broadcast of the Boyaner Hassidim’s annual festivities at Meron to a grandson, now deep in Gaza, but then a hesder (army-yeshiva program) student doing his combat IDF service during a period of relative quiet. The broadcast showed hundreds, perhaps thousands of bearded and black-hatted Hassidim watching as the Boyaner Rebbe lit the bonfire in memory of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Simeon Bar Yochai, an honor passed down to him by the first Sadigura Rebbe. It continued with the Hassidim and Rebbe singing and dancing until the early morning hours.

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Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claims that invading Rafah must be done regardless of US support.

By Hezki Baruch, INN  Apr 1, 2024, 4:35 PM (GMT+3)

Minister Bezalel Smotrich in the Knesset Plenum?????: ???? ????????, ?????? ?????

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called at his party meeting to increase military pressure on Hamas because, according to him, this is what will make Hamas agree to a deal.

“We are at war,” Smotrich began his speech, “At this moment our sldiers are in Khan Yunis and are fighting face to face with the Nazis of Hamas-ISIS, defending us and actively attacking Hezbollah in the north, and operate every day in Judea and Samaria. We are fighting against those who rise against us to eliminate us. In war, one must act as in war and the first and central thing is to preserve our unity which we rediscovered after Simchat Torah”.

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E. Rowell:  It has been such a long road for Turkish citizens, under the yoke of totalitarian Islamist rule.  Erdogan has held dictatorial power, and there is a chance he will up the ante in the face of this defeat.  We can only hope this is truly a new beginning of freedom for the people of Turkey.

After 22 Years Secular Party Surpasses Ruling Party for First Time Sparking Nationwide Celebrations 

By Jim Hoft, GATEWAY     1 April 2024

The political landscape of Turkey has undergone a seismic shift after Sunday’s local elections.

The main secular opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), seized control of key cities and broke President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP) ‘s 22-year rule.

The CHP not only retained its hold over Istanbul and Ankara but also extended its influence to traditionally AKP-dominated provinces.

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BILLIANT

By Flavio Pasquino, RUMBLE    1 April 2024

‘If Europe does not wake up, you will all be dead,’ says Naomi Wolf, author of Facing the Beast
.
‘Facing the Beast’ is the title of the new book by American writer and journalist Naomi Wolf, a book about ‘trust, courage, and resistance in a new dark time’. Program maker Flavio Pasquino invited her to Edam to talk about, among other things, the creation of her new work.

Islam must undergo reforms, and that process must begin immediately.

By Uzay Bulut, EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVE.   31 March 2024

Photo by Tarisco / Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed

Since the invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and the massacre of around 1,200 people there, antisemitic, pro-Hamas marches have swept both majority-Muslim countries and Western nations.

In London, antisemitic hate crimes are up 1,350% according to police, and pro-Hamas protestors chanted, “Oh Jews, the army of Muhammad is coming.” In the Tunisian city of Al Hammah, hundreds of people were filmed setting fire to a synagogue. In Russia’s Muslim Dagestan region, hundreds of people stormed into the main airport and onto the landing field, chanting antisemitic slogans and seeking passengers arriving on a flight from Israel. In California, a Jewish dentist was killed, and two others injured in a shooting by a Muslim. In Chicago, a Jewish man was attacked by anti-Israel protesters at an October 7 documentary screening in the Logan Square. In Paris, a Jewish man was attacked outside a synagogue; and another was stabbed in Zurich.

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This unsolicited commentary is a response to three essays by Professor Salim Mansur (retired from the University of Western Ontario) — “Rabin’s Murder is Prehistory of Gaza-Israel 10/7 [broadcast as an interview],” The UNZ Review, Nov. 3, 2023; “Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus,” March 4, 2024; “Israel – Beyond the Pale,” March 20.

by Mordechai Nisan, NEW ENGLISH REVIEW  (April 2024)

I became acquainted with Salim Mansur in 2017 at a conference in Jerusalem, (on the Jordan Option hosted by Ted Belman) where he presented a positive view of the right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. As a Muslim, he pointed out that the Quran validated this primordial connection. In the same year, he wrote The Qur’an Problem and Islamism in which he defined Jew-hatred as a pathology, though not embedded in the holy book of Islam. Mansur had earlier co-authored (with Geoffrey Clarfield) an article in The National Post (Toronto), Aug. 6, 2015, titled “The Fictional Kingdom [of Jordan],” a modern state bereft of roots and legitimacy. This stood in distinct contrast with the Jews returning by right “to their ancient homeland,” a bonding with the land…”never severed or questioned, and recognized by the League of Nations.” After a second reference to the “historical and legal right” of the Jewish people, Mansur appended the definitive statement— “there is no [Israeli] occupation” —placing himself decisively on the right side of the conflict. In his own words, Israel “deserves admiration.”

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E.Rowell: The ruling elites of the West have pushed a culture of victimhood.  In the culture they offer, the highest praise goes to the most victimized.  The information war used by Palestinians is to present themselves as the greatest victims of Western civilization and thus their aggression and violence is justified.  This is a race to the bottom:  a culture that feeds on victimhood, encourages it, values it, and justifies untold aggression based on it.  It signifies a culture in serious moral decay, and it is this “critical race” culture that the majority of Americans are now rejecting en masse.

By Irwin J. Mansdorf, JCPA     26 March 2024

• Global opinion has moved from outrage at Hamas on October 7, 2023, to criticism of Israel just months later. How? A Palestinian strategy manipulates perception to distort and present an alternate reality.

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The further the elite pushes its contempt for the American working class, the more they feel morally entitled to stop Trump from returning to power. By any means necessary.

By Sven R. Larson, EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVE   30 March 2024

Photo: bianca-stock-photos from Pixabay

Some pictures paint themselves.

On Thursday, March 28th, Donald Trump attended the wake of a New York police officer who had been killed in the line of duty. That same day, Democrat President Joe Biden was joined by two former Democrat presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, at a fundraiser where attendees had to pony up $500,000 to get in the door.

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Cotton: ‘Biden administration is trying to flout Congress’s ban on UNRWA funding’

By Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON  29 March 2024

A Palestinian man rides a vehicle in front of the logistics base of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on July 30, 2019. – An internal ethics report has alleged mismanagement and abuses of authority at the highest levels of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees even as the organisation faced an unprecedented crisis after US funding cuts. Lacking natural resources, the Gaza Strip suffers from a chronic shortage of water, electricity and petrol. More than two-thirds of the population depends on humanitarian aid. (Photo by SAID KHATIB / AFP)

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By David Israel, JEWISH PRESS       April 1/24

Two weeks after the IDF’s surprise raid on Shifa Hospital in Gaza, a.k.a. Hamas central headquarters, and after the elimination of senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and the arrests of hundreds of rank-and-file terrorists, the IDF has withdrawn from the largest so-called hospital in the Gaza Strip. An IDF spokesman on Monday morning confirmed Arab media reports that showed hundreds of Gaza Arabs near the destroyed and burned buildings.
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The Channel 14 poll contradicted polls of the other major Israeli TV channels three weeks ago, which showed the opposition leading by a wide margin.

JNS   APRIL 1/24

A Likud-led right-wing bloc will again win the most Knesset seats if elections were held today, according to a survey published on Sunday and conducted by Direct Polls Institute for Channel 14.

Likud and its constellation parties would win 58 Knesset seats against a center-left coalition (52) and Arab parties (10).

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E. Rowell:  The globalist overlords have sacrificed Ukraine but in the process are sacrificing Europe and the United States. They cannot stop themselves from parasitizing the lives of all the citizens and taxpayers of Ukraine, Europe and the US.  Since the people of Europe and the people of America are against all of this destruction taking place, it is just a matter of time before these Satanic predators are forcibly removed from power.

By Arta Moeini, COMPACTMAG                                               25 March 2024

Photo: AP

The West’s Ukraine policy appears to have reached an inflection point. Washington and Brussels have now spent more than $200 billion on the war—a figure that, adjusted for inflation, far exceeds the entire cost of the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe in the wake of World War II. After the failure of last year’s much-touted Ukrainian counteroffensive, leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have found allocating new money to the war effort an increasingly daunting task. The European Union finally pushed through a €50 billion ($54 billion) funding package for Ukraine last month, but this came after months of pushback from Hungary. Meanwhile, war-skeptical parties are surging in the polls in several countries, propelled by voters reeling from the severe cost-of-living crisis the war and Western sanctions have unleashed.

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By Edward H. Kaplan and Evan Morris, NEWSWEEK      MAR 29/24

Jewish and Muslim students give a presentation together at Hebrew University.

We represent a group of 25 Yale faculty who have just returned from a five-day visit to Israel. Our mission was to learn from and make meaningful academic connections with our Israeli counterparts. Much of what we learned and observed astounded us.
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E. Rowell:  I am a little surprised that the attorneys for the plaintiffs did not raise this distinction.  I don’t know how crucial this distinction will be in deciding the case, but the case itself is extremely crucial for a country teetering on the edge of totalitarianism.

The government’s relationship with social media is not analogous to government interactions with print media.

By Aaron Kheriaty, THE FEDERALIST      28 March 2024

DIEGO CAMBIASO/FLICKR/CC BY-SA 2.0

Along with my co-plaintiffs, I was at the Supreme Court last week for oral arguments in our Murthy v. Missouri case, in which we are challenging the federal government’s alleged censorship on social media. The Supreme Court will likely rule in June whether to uphold, modify, or strike down the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ injunction against five federal agencies, in what, the district court judge wrote, “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

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E. Rowell:  On the individual level, people who want to murder a group of people are people brought up to feel they are victims of non-Muslims’ aggression.  Thus when they kill non-Muslims, they feel a sense of victory or triumph over their previous sense of shame and victimhood. The community around them supports their feeling of triumph, justifies the murder, and honors them.  All of this would need to be addressed at the community and individual level.  In the community, not only would there need to be a zero tolerance policy for violence of any kind, but educational efforts would need to be made to help children grow up feeling a sense of agency and personal responsibility for themselves and their community.

Muslim countries have a key role to play in deradicalizing the strip

By Nachum Kaplan, MORAL CLARITY   30 March 2024

Defeating Jihadism is essential if rebuilding Gaza is to be a success.

Mainstream media is focused on Israel’s diplomatic isolation, but the real story is not how upset Western leaders are with the Jewish state, but how pragmatic key Arab ones are.

Diplomacy takes place behind closed doors more than on the floor of the ineffectual United Nations. While Western leaders are having performative seizures, modernizing Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are talking a different game. They may be dismayed at the death toll in the Israel-Gaza War, but they have told Israel clearly that they would like to see Hamas destroyed, and that they will help rebuild Gaza after the war, including financing it.

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Peloni:  Caroline Glick, who is discussed in the below commentary, retweeted this report a couple of days ago.  The Qatargate scandal in Israel has not received much attention in the English press, but this extensive scandal has been discussed with some import in the Hebrew press, most recently following the irregular move by Gantz to unilaterally decide to travel to the US to converse with his American associates without authorization from his own govt.  As @arbelaue notes, his commentary here is far from a full expose on that scandal, but he does provide some important reflections and assertions as well as sourcing for further inquiry.

@arbelaue, X  March 28, 2024

Photo: Eli Zahar

News 15: Ram Ben Barak and the Fifth Dimension I will not go into the whole story of the Fifth Dimension here (it’s a lot) but only what is related to Ram Ben Barak but before that I need some background, which I will take from Avi Weiss’ website (and edit. Link in comments [0] ).

Background: For a long time now, retired general John Allen has been under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation – FBI on the suspicion that he concealed his activities as an agent of Qatar in 2017, without reporting it. [1]

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Elizabeth Rimini, Rumble  March 31, 2024 – 12 minute video

Prof. Moshe Sharon, one of the greatest orientalists and scholars of the Middle East alive today.

He served as a professor at the Landegg International University in Switzerland, a research fellow at Oxford. He was a visiting professor at Princeton, Michigan, Columbia, New York, Maryland, Wayne State and Northwestern universities, as well as at private universities in Japan. He lectured in the Senate and Congress in Washington and at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and in Finland, and of course he is a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was one of the students and friends of the late Prof. Bernard Lewis. He wrote dozens of articles and books, and also dealt with the practical aspects of his research subjects in the field, including living for about a year in a Bedouin encampment, and advising Prime Minister Begin and military officials.

Here he summarizes a long interview with the journalist Akiva Bigman, in which he reviewed the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict and draws his conclusions.

A free society is only as strong as the citizens willing to defend it. Reflections and videos from my time on the ground in Israel.

By Bari Weiss, THE FREE PRESS                                                    12 March 2024

An IDF reservist watches the sunset at the beach on the fourth day of the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas on November 27, 2023, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld via Getty Images)

This is a special kind of story. Inside my column you’re going to see three mini-documentaries from our recent trip to Israel. The first two cover the massacres at the Nova Music Festival and Kibbutz Kfar Aza and the aftermath of those tragedies. In the third, we travel to the West Bank to talk to ordinary Palestinians about October 7, the war, and their futures. To watch the other interviews I did on that trip, and to make sure you never miss a Free Press video, subscribe to our YouTube channel. —BW

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