By Lilach Shoval and i24NEWS 17.7.23

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a cabinet meeting Monday that threats by IDF reservists to refuse to serve unless the government halted the judicial reform were endangering the security of Israelis.

“In a democracy, the military reports to the elected government and not the other way around. Whereas in a military regime, the government is subordinate to the army and more precisely to a group within the army. This is the fundamental difference between a democracy and a military regime,” Netanyahu said.

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By Thomas Lifson, AM THINKER

It’s hard to overstate the potential impact of a move underway that – thanks to Biden’s catastrophic diplomacy — could result in China replacing the US a security guarantor for the petro-monarchies that control so much of the world’s oil reserves.  Bloomberg reports:

Oil-rich gulf monarchies are leveraging their wealth to deepen ties with China amid anxiety about the future of their longstanding security partnership with the US.

Seven months after President Xi Jinping participated in the first China-Gulf summit in Riyadh, economic exchanges between the world’s second largest economy and nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been accelerating — moving well beyond crude purchases where Beijing has been dominant for years.
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T. Belman. I did a little research on the situation in Israel and found 61% of Israelis support equal rights for LGBTQ people and the % keeps growing, year by year. So does the % of woman who don’t marry by the age of 40. In 1980 it was 4% and now is 28%. Its a whole new world we live in.

People should be able to live the life they want.  My question is this. Should change come from the top down or the bottom up? Is it right for the left or the government to manipulate such change even to the point of restricting free speech?

More and more, governments are telling you what you must think (by managing the information you get and intimidating wrong thought) rather than asking you what you think. Such actions are not democratic.

A teacher who claimed there was no reason to teach kindergartners about same-sex households was removed from a discussion on the topic.

Israel National News 17.7.23

In a conversation with Israel National News, Sara Yiscah Sar-Shalom, a kindergarten teacher, recalls what happened when she expressed a position on the issue of LGBT families.

Sarah spoke about the WhatsApp group she was a member of until recently, a group made up of female kindergarten teachers from all over the country and whose purpose is to transfer information, opinions and discourse of kindergarten teachers from all over Israel and facilitating internal discussions concerning the education of the children.

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‘Trudeau is a modern-day Caligula,’ Nathaniel Pawlowski told EU Parliament to applause

By Jon Brown | Fox News

Ingraham guest facing 10 years in jail after speech at trucker blockade over COVID vaccine mandates

The son of a Canadian pastor drew raucous applause from the European Parliament earlier this month when he pleaded for international pressure in the case of his father, who potentially faces 10 years in prison after delivering a sermon to truckers blocking the U.S.-Canada border last year.

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By J.B. Shurk, AM THINKER

Sometimes it feels as if we are drowning in a torrent of bad news.  I would suggest, however, that the worse people feel, the more they are waking up to the serious contests of our time.  If you are unhappy with the political, economic, and social powers manipulating the world today, the critical first step in fighting those forces is changing the way people think about them.  By that measure, people today are changing their minds about the culture and institutions around them faster than ever.  Consider some of these fundamental shifts in thinking:

(1) Good vs. evil
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By Michael Ordman, VGNI

In the 16th July 23 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

• Israeli personally tailored therapies can cure infections and infertility.
• Israeli surgeons don’t need electricity to save a life in Ethiopia.
• Israeli scientists won awards from France and NASA.
• A new European fund is to invest a quarter of a billion dollars in Israeli startups.
• An Israeli startup will generate electricity from Taiwan’s choppy seas.
• The Israel Premier Tech cycling team won the 9th stage of the Tour de France.
• An Israeli NGO is saving the bees – one swarm at a time.

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By Salim Mansur

Scott has produced a documentary on Zelensky and its first part, “Agent Zelensky, Part I”, was released to coincide with the July 11-12 NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. If you have not seen this release, the link is below. I cannot emphasize enough how revealing Scott’s production is in unmasking the fraud at immense cost to the people of Ukraine that the US and Britain along with the collective West (NATO/EU) through Zelensky have perpetrated by pushing their wicked war to undo the Russian Federation.

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The GOP Should Bet Their Money on Addressing Campaign Spending and ‘Dark Money’ Shortfalls, Not Chasing Elusive Mail In Ballots

By William Doyle, AM GREATNESS July 12, 2023

Respected Wall Street Journal reporter Kimberley Strassel recently joined the chorus of prominent Republican voices suggesting that it’s past time that the GOP mounted a counterpart to the Democrats’ mail in voting, ballot harvesting scheme.

According to Strassel, it will be straightforward: “Republicans (like Democrats before them) will…obtain lists of voters who have requested ballots and set up ballot-chasing programs. In many states, that means knocking on doors and prodding voters to get their votes in [on] that day. In states that allow ballot harvesting, it will mean paid field operatives who outright collect finished ballots.”

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T. Belman. Administrative detention is a drastic tool to legalize as it overturns too principles of criminal law, namely habeas corpus and “innocent until proven guilty”. Even so, in a democracy, martial law if declared suspends these two principles. In general, the suspension of these rights should not be entertained without great justification.

“According to the proposal, Ben Gvir would be able to approve renewable administrative detentions for up to six months for anyone the minister thinks poses a danger to the public, if the move is requested by the police commissioner and with the approval of the attorney general, the state attorney or one of their deputies.”

How likely will these pre-conditions be met”

Defense minister tells Justice Minister Levin legislation giving national security minister power to use administrative detention could bring ‘harm to national security’

By TOI STAFF    

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, center, speaks to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir after a Knesset vote in Jerusalem, February 15, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has reportedly sounded the alarm against a bill that would grant far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir the ability to order criminal suspects detained indefinitely without trial, among other expanded powers, slamming the legislation as a potential security threat.

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The Editors, WPR April 21, 2023

Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s new president, waves to the media after casting his vote at a polling station in Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2021 (AP photo by Ebrahim Noroozi).

President Joe Biden entered office promising to return the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. But doing so has proven tricky for Biden’s administration, in part because of the complex politics surrounding the deal in both Washington and Tehran, but also because of the tense relations between the two countries, which soured significantly under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.

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The U.S. generously publicizes joint drills with Israel, while it expects Israel not to take unilateral military action ? On the judicial crisis and calls to refuse duty, Defense Minister Gallant – a minister the U.S. still sees as a partner to dialogue – is both right and wrong

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during an exhibition of the country’s nuclear industry achievements in Tehran earlier this month.Credit: Wana News Agency / Reuters

Things are going pretty well for Iran these days. The hijab protest has waned, the tightening relations with China and Russia are bearing fruit, and the Arab states, aware of the new international strategic reality, are looking for routes to rapprochement with Tehran. But for the regime there, the crowning glory is likely related to a deal with the United States.

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The secret target of Facebook’s Twitter clone may well be Elon’s personal finances.

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., WSJ

Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk PHOTO: /GETTY IMAGES

By Melanie Phillips JNS      July 14, 2023

Over the past six months, the mass protests in Israel over judicial reform have elicited loud cries in the West that Israel is “in crisis.” In its eagerness to identify such crises, however, the West looks everywhere but in the right direction.

Three years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today.”

In a video interview conducted in 2022, which has now gone viral following the latest riots in France, Mohammad Tawhidi, an Australian Shiite cleric and Islamic reformist, pointed out that, in general, the Muslim world is doing rather well. The crisis is in the West.

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The Biden Admin is also Threatening Israel for Trying to Prevent Them?

By Majid Rafizadeh, GATESTONE  •  July 15, 2023

• Secret attempts by the Biden Administration to reach an interim deal with the mullahs threaten not only to add an estimated $100 billion into the treasury of the Iranian regime’s struggling economy, but, worse, catapult an Iranian nuclear menace onto the world.
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Lex Fridman Podcast

SPELLBINDING

T. Belman.  I disagree. My response to his argument is “yes” and “no”. The issue at hand is should the PA be destroyed or supported? Neither the Hashemites nor Egypt should have any say in the matter. Allowing the PA to disintegrate is not the end of the world. It can obviously be replaced by something better. The Regional Approach only works if Mudar Zahran is the President of Jordan.

By Colonel (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman, JSS

Under the impact of terrorist attacks on Israelis and lawless vigilante raids on Arab villages, it is difficult to envision a return to conflict management of the Palestinian issue. Moreover, reactions in the West seem to feed Palestinian expectations of a backlash against Israel hence a reluctance to return to the Aqaba process. However, as the Palestinian security forces know all too well, there are no good alternatives to resuming dialogue within the regional framework.

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Stephen Gardner