John Spencer | Jul 23, 2025

(Photo by Jaber Jehad Badwan – Jaber Jehad Badwan, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia)

In his New York Times op-ed titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It,” Omer Bartov accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. As a professor of genocide studies, he should know better. Genocide is not defined by a few comments taken out of context, by estimates of casualties or destruction, or by how war looks in headlines or on social media. It is defined by specific intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group in whole or in part. That is a high legal bar. Bartov did not meet it. He did not even try.

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Peloni:  Lies, lies and damned lies.

by Bassam Tawil  •  Gatestone Institute  •  July 23, 2025

• There is no evidence… that Jews were behind the alleged arson.

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Peloni:  It is interesting to see much of what was once already released long ago being treated as all new material, it will be interesting to see how these new revelations are handled, noting that crimes ignored are not criminal at all.  Prosecutions and convictions of those in the intel community and media, along with those in the DOJ and political realm will demonstrate that justice has returned to Washington, and nothing less than this will do.

Update:  DNI Gabbard referring Obama for criminal prosecution.  Such an outcome does seem remote given the latitude which SCOTUS offers POTUS, but time will tell if this is more than showboating

Jason Cohen | Daily Caller |  July 23, 2025

Legacy media’s biggest players — NBC News, The New York Times (NYT) and others — appear to be in full damage control mode over the “Russiagate” revelations Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard unveiled Friday.

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By Christine Douglass-Williams | July 22, 2025

Image by Unknown author – static-cdn.toi-media.com/www/uploads/2025/05/Gaza-Humanitarian-Foundation-Memo.pdf, Public Domain, Wikipedia

Israel cannot possibly stop the war until it is certain of its survival. What sane person wouldn’t want the war in Gaza to end? That includes Israel. The problem is that no one is saying how it can end, while guaranteeing Israel’s safety.

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Peloni:  Exactly so.

The Arabs consider all the territory west of the Jordan to be the goal of “free Palestine,” and they openly declare this. Israel must declare its ownership of the land promised in the Bible.

Alex Maistrovoy | Jul 23, 2025

Whenever and under whatever circumstances the war in the Gaza Strip ends, it must end with an Israeli victory. And victory in this case is not the destruction in the territory of the strip, not the extermination of the leaders of Hamas, and not the return of hostages. Victory is the annexation of part of the land in the Gaza Strip by the Jewish state.

This statement is due to a few factors.

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Peloni:  It is time to make this policy and not just simply a symbolic gesture.  As Naomi Kahn recently indicated, we are at a tipping point in time on many issues, but on this issue in particular, it is vital that the results tip in the correct and just direction.

Leonard Grunstein 

Hopefully, the Trump Administration will recognize Israel extending Israeli Law and civil administration for the benefit of Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. Indeed, how can anyone object to extending civil rights under Israeli Law to Israelis living in Judea and Samaria.I don’t use the term annexation because it belongs to Israel. The League of Nations and President Coolidge under the 1924 Anglo-American Convention approved by Senate (and therefore ‘the supreme Law of the Land’) legally recognized right of Jewish people to live and have sovereignty over all of Israel (then called Palestine), between Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. https://www.amazon.com/Because-Its-Just-Right-Recognition-ebook/dp/B0C82R56PN

Image from X.  [Resized]

By Sha’i ben-Tekoa | July 23, 2025

 The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism is well-intentioned but a cumbersome 37 words long.

I prefer my own three-word definition: “Antisemitism is… lying about Jews.” That is all one needs to explain this behavior of telling and believing in lies about Jews that often lead to homicidal violence against them.

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Peloni:  Smart move.  They are going to lose in any event.

(By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Pam Bondi, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikipedia)

A major American city is changing its sanctuary policy amid escalating pressure from the Trump administration.

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Peloni:  And the number of Qatari allies among US power brokers continues to grow and grow…

Qatar supports terrorism around the world, hosts Hamas leaders in Doha, is deeply involved in human trafficking, and yet holds the position of Major Non Nato Ally with allies in key positions in Trump’s administration…

Someone please make sense of this.

UPDATE: Bill Bennett too…

Breaking: I just discovered that former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett registered this month as a foreign agent for Qatar.

Per the new FARA filings, he’s being paid $30k per month for 7 months to, and I quote, “publicize the fact that Qatari higher education efforts do… pic.twitter.com/CyFCiLsB56

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) July 22, 2025

Peloni:  Please share this. So while the US is constantly pushing Israel to send more and more aid to the acknowledged Hamas controlled population in Gaza, they are allowing the Syrians to institute a siege of the Israeli allied Druze by the US allied Turkish proxy forces in Syria under Jolani.  Recalling the report of Amb. Barrak stating that there was no Plan B to Jolani’s full control of Syria, while suggesting that the minorities, such as the Druze, recognize they are better off under this Turkish proxy, Zell’s depiction of Jolani’s seige of the Druze becomes all the more disturbing to read.

Mark Zell, chairman and vice president of Republicans Overseas published the following on X:

I met today with a senior Israeli Druze leader and former IDF commander who is well informed about the current situation in Suweida — the principal Druze area in southern Syria. He reports:

1. There are about 800,000 Druze living in southern Syria.

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Turkey’s Erdo?an and Israel’s Netanyahu Have Both Defensive and Offensive Motives to Fight in Syria

Daniel Pipes | MEF | July 22, 2025

How to understand the fighting in Syria between the central government in Damascus and its many foes, including Alawites, Kurds, Druze, and the Israel Defense Forces?

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Peloni:  Pursuing this now seems somewhat late.  How much more powerful of a statement this would have been had this been the announcement made previously when it was announced that the Epstein case was being dropped.  Reports on this topic don’t even make it clear if the negotiations with Maxwell are for public consumption alone, or if this is really the first contact between Bondi’s “exhaustive” investigation and this key actor in Epstein’s crimes.

Hudson Crozier | Daily Caller |  July 22, 2025

Photo by Federal Bureau of Prisons – NY Post, Public Domain, Wikipedia

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday that he expects to meet convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “in the coming days” to discuss potential evidence in the case of her late partner, Jeffrey Epstein.

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Peloni: Amb Barrak: “Strong nation states are a threat – especially Arab states are viewed as a threat to Israel,…I think all of the minority communities are smart enough to say, we’re better off together, centralized.”  

Is Barrak intending this statement to include the Druze minority which just suffered being slaughtered by Jihadists, the same Jihadists which Jolani described as being “Syrian heroes”???

Meanwhile US citizens are among those being slaughtered by those Syrian heroes, “Folks I am going to save you the graphic and gruesome video of the murder the American Druze in Syria”

Doubling down on this policy of a centralized power under Jolani will not bode well for the future regional  stability, any more than it has for the Druze community over this past week, so Plan B would seem to already be in place by the Jihadists on which Amb. Barrak is doubling down his suspport.

Truce in Syrian Druze areas holds, Bedouin civilians evacuate from Suwayda

All Israel News Staff | Published: July 22, 2025

Tom Barrack met with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Syria in May 2025.  Photo by Ambassador Tom Barrack – X, Public Domain, Wikipedia)

Washington sees no alternative to continue working together with the Syrian government that is dominated by former members of Islamist terror groups, Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria and Lebanon, said in Beirut on Monday.

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There was no fire at the church in Taybeh.
Here is a translation of journalist Elisha Yered's report on the July 7 incident, posted yesterday,followed by the conclusion of the @israelpolice
Investigation.

I’m joining this event late, unfortunately, but we must shatter the lies.… https://t.co/1eUW0JfFQA

— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) July 22, 2025

Peloni:  Exactly right!  The support of Islamic radicals will not secure the stability required in the region for the US to make their pivot to Asia. The road to stability lies thru the empowering of individuals who want peace, who eschew Jihadism, oppose radical Islamist teachings, and who are not Muslim Brotherhood.  Investments in the future stability require more care than simple acts of expediency, the latter being the road towards ever greater regional instability.

There may be no Nobel Peace Prize for not supporting Islamic terrorists but it is the safest and most reliable path to peace.

by Daniel Greenfield | July 22, 2025

Al Jolani’s Liberation Speech at Damascus Mosque.  (Photo by Presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic – Presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic, Public Domain, Wikipedia)

The New York Times has a special video appeal to President Trump that at once condemns him and promises him that he can ‘win a Nobel Peace Prize’ if he follows in Obama’s footsteps and betrays America, Israel and the free world by supporting Islamic terrorist states in Iran, Israel and across the region.

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