T. Belman.  This is crazy, Israel has the best record of avoiding civilian deaths. No one else comes close.

Yet the US says We will not accept any more thousands of innocent deaths in Rafah, like in Gaza and Khan Yunis.”

imra@imra.org.il

Joint Command Center and targeted raids: the American outline for activity in Rafah.

The American position that was conveyed to the Chief of Staff: “We will not accept any more thousands of innocent deaths in Rafah, as in Gaza and Khan Yunis.” In addition, the Americans expressed frustration that Israel had not yet prepared plans regarding the control of Gaza the day after.

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THE ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS YOU SEE IN JORDAN ARE ALL STAGED BY QUEENLET RANIA HERSELF, WHO CONTROLS JORDAN’S INTELLIGENCE. In reality, nobody could even come close to the Israeli embassy’s building without the Jordanian police facilitating it, let alone holding mass rallies right…

— Mudar Adnan Zahran ???????? ????? (@Mudar_Zahran) March 30, 2024

E. Rowell:  What Nash describes appears to be a potential turning point in the war started by Hamas.  The UAE is offering to build the pier and is telling Team Biden that they have all the money and they do not have the hatred of Jews and Israelis that Qatar has.  The US has wanted the Iranian axis to have control of the Middle East, so they are most likely to try to stick with Qatar.  But doing so might just be an end run around Israel’s attempt to defeat Hamas.  Because if Qatar controls shipping into the port of Gaza, that will allow Hamas to re-supply and remake themselves.  If, on the other hand the US chooses the UAE, it will be a game changer.  It would be supportive of not just Israel, but of all the countries in the Middle East which are being threatened by Iran.

By Tom Nash                                                                                              29 March 2024

Biden claims he is a lifelong friend of the Jewish people and a Zionist, but these empty words are cover for a decades-long antipathy

BY JULIE STRAUSS LEVIN, TABLET

For some American Jews, the months since Oct. 7 have felt like a horror movie, as they watch, with increasing alarm, as our president—for whom many voted, and in whom many placed inviolable trust—seemed to, moment after crucial moment, throw Israel under the bus.

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As Defense Minister Gallant met with US envoy Amos Hochstein in DC, escalations by Hezbollah cast doubt on notion anything but a military solution will deter the terror group

Troops of the 226th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade carry out a drill in northern Israel, in a handout image published January 27, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

The last few days on the Israeli border with Lebanon can be defined as violence-heavy. Both sides are on an escalatory ladder, and both are climbing it, trying to stay on top — while avoiding stepping too high.

A symmetry of sorts has taken shape in the north over the last five months, as Hezbollah has maintained its near-daily attacks on Israel and the Jewish state has responded in kind, a symmetry reflected not just in strikes but in the civilian toll as well. Just as Israel felt compelled to establish a kind of “security zone” in the north, evacuating tens of thousands of residents from towns near the border, similar action has been taken in south Lebanon. Some 80,000 residents of northern Israel have been forced to leave their homes amid the hostilities. According to Israeli estimates, more than 120,000 Lebanese have become internally displaced by the fighting.

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John Spencer / Times Radio / March 28, 2024

“Somebody who says 30,000 people dead is too much, even though it’s an existential threat to Israel… That means they want a much more violent world.” John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the War Institute, says there is no such thing as the right number of civilian casualties in Israel’s fight against Hamas: “that’s not the way war works.”

E. Rowell:  I thank the author of this article for her act of kindness in sharing these thoughts with us.  It shows how one act of kindness grows into other acts with effects unknown and unknowable far beyond earlier kindnesses.

By Julie Ponesse, BROWNSTONE                                                            29 March 2024

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.

Naomi Shihab Nye

It was one of those days.

Nothing catastrophic happened but it seemed that, if a little thing could go wrong, it did. The morning that began with a symphony of micro-disasters — stepping into a deceptively deep puddle and forgetting to put grounds in the Moka pot — culminated in a comical exit from the local grocer. One too many bags in one hand and an exasperated toddler in the other, just as I was getting a grip on my chaotic entourage, one of the bags gave way to a tumble of bruised bananas, runaway limes, and an upside-down carton of half-cracked eggs. Threads unraveling, whits end, all that.

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Americans are drowning in thousand-page rule books that stifle liberty.

By Donald Devine, AMERICAN SPECTATOR                               29 March 2024

Philip K. Howard speaks on fixing broken government in 2011 (Long Now Foundation/YouTube)

What would you think about a Washington insider who was a partner in a big D.C. lobbyist law firm called Covington & Burling, the founder of a self-identified “nonpartisan” advocacy group called Common Good, and was a self-described “radical centrist,” whose main goal was to reform government administration to make it more effective?

Your first impression would probably be wrong.

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Peloni: Tobin once again provides clarity for the path facing Israel:

“Those who care about Israel must take these lessons to heart and realize that the only solution to its current situation is for Jerusalem to ignore its critics and push through to victory, no matter how difficult that might be in terms of its military and diplomatic challenges.”

The answer to the Jewish state’s diplomatic dilemma is victory. Heeding the world’s demands to stop the war and let Hamas win will only make it worse.

Jonathan Tobin / JNS / March 29, 2024

Israeli flag. Credit: Pixabay.

Israel’s critics and outright foes are right about one thing: Nearly six months after the Oct. 7 massacres, its isolation is growing. With each day that the war against Hamas continues, more allies of the Jewish state are turning into critics, and more critics are turning into outright enemies. And those enemies are increasingly open about their belief that the problem isn’t so much the supposedly brutal tactics of the Israel Defense Forces in pursuing the elimination of Hamas terrorists as it is their belief that the one Jewish state on this planet is illegitimate.

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EPOCH TIMES, American Thought Leaders    Mar-28-2024

“Think about this: If you’re going to do an investigation into January 6, who’s one of the first people you would call to testify, even behind closed doors? FBI Director Christopher Wray—they never interviewed him. They never interviewed Steven D’Antuono, who’s in charge of the Washington Field Office who oversaw the entire January 6 criminal investigation.”

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By Dogan Akman

On Monday, March 18 inst. Parliament voted in favour of an amended anti-Israeli motion sponsored by Heather McPherson of the NDP (Vote no.658)

As to be expected from the NDP, the motion was full of anti-Israeli diatribe which was originally unacceptable to the Liberal government; rejected in its entirety by the Conservatives and, as to be expected, readily acceptable by The Bloc Quebecois.

In this kind of situation, the usual practice is to simply defeat the motion. But where a motion concerns the Hamas- Israel war, the Liberal government prefers instead to ignore the usual practice and save the motion.

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And is this is a paradox?

By Fransisco Gil-White, THE MANAGEMENT OF REALITY  27 March 2024

• Iran publicly announces that it means to destroy Israel.
• US bosses—presenting as protectors of Israel—claim to oppose that.
• But US bosses have pushed for a PLO/Fatah State on strategic Israeli land.
• Is that consistent with protecting Israel?
• Not if PLO/Fatah (the ‘Palestinian Authority’) and Iran have a special relationship…

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Column: The president’s incoherence and the US-Israel divide

By Matthew Continetti, FREE BEACON                            29 Marc 2024

On March 25, the United States abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. (The resolution separately called on Hamas to release its captives.) It was the first time since the war began six months ago that America has failed to protect Israel from efforts at delegitimization through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. The United States could have vetoed the resolution, as it has done in the past. It chose not to. The shameful decision emboldened Hamas terrorists and undermined our alliance with the Jewish state.

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By David Israel, JEWISH PRESS  29 March 2024

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, February 25, 2024/Photo Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Thursday Bezalel Smotrich beat the Biden administration at its own game.

On March 14, the US Treasury Dept. announced new sanctions against two Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria that the administration accused of being used as a base for attacks on innocent PA Arabs. The Treasury Dept. also sanctioned three Israeli settlers: Moshe Sharvit, Zvi Bar Yosef, and Neriya Ben Pazi.

They followed earlier sanctions against four other Jewish settlers, which Israeli banks promptly blocked from accessing their personal accounts.

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E. Rowell:  At this moment in time it is especially important to hear directly from Prime Minister Netanyahu that he stands firm and that all of Israel is standing firm in their goal of destroying Hamas.   Despite the fact that Iran’s propaganda has paid for angry pro-Palestinian demonstrations that verge on violence around the world, the support for Israel in the US is extremely high.  Read the comments underneath the YouTube video.

By ALL ISRAEL NEWS     28 March 2024

“Jerusalem Minute” with Middle East correspondent Josh Hasten, Ep. 12

What will be the repercussions of the United States allowing a U.N. ceasefire resolution to pass? Has this irreparably harmed the relationship? Has it opened Israel up to new attacks?

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By Pete Riehm, RENEW AMERICA  26 March 2024

Most of his life, Donald Trump was the darling of Hollywood and friends with Democrats and Republicans alike, until he announced his candidacy for president in 2015. Since that fateful day coming down the escalator in Trump Tower, Trump has endured the most egregious vicious political persecution ever seen in American history. He has been maliciously smeared, wrongly prosecuted, and now faces government sanctioned plunder of his property. They have tried everything to destroy Trump but assassination!

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The federal government is using its vast resources and its largest agencies to register new voters and expand mail-in balloting, with the help of nonprofits.
By Kevin Stocklin, EPOCH TIMES     March 28, 2024