Despite War, Israel Ranks 5th in World Happiness Report

 Despite five months of war with Hamas, Israel ranked fifth in the 2024 World Happiness Report, which was released on Wednesday.

The annual report ranked the happiness of 143 countries based on life evaluation, positive emotions, and negative emotions, among other factors.

Anat Panti, a happiness policy researcher at Bar-Ilan University University in Ramat Gan, explained,

 “Even this year, which was one of the most difficult in the country’s history, Israel is ranked in the top five of the international happiness index. The reason for this lies in the fact that life satisfaction, the index by which the level of happiness is measured, is a stable index over time and refers more to the characteristics of the country itself such as the strength of the economy, the degree of social involvement, and the health services in the country, than to fleeting feelings.”

Finland was ranked as the happiest country for the seventh consecutive year. Israel finished behind Denmark, Iceland and Sweden.

Afghanistan edged Lebanon as the least happy country.

“In order to give a more accurate picture of the state of happiness in all countries, the editors of the report refer to the average life satisfaction in the last three years when calculating the ranking. Therefore, Israel’s ranking in fifth place in the happiness report marks the stability in life satisfaction in Israel over the last few years, and not only in this one,” Panti explained.

“For example, even during the Corona period, which was traumatic all over the world, it was still possible to see that the top ten of the global happiness ranking includes more or less the same countries every year.”

The annual report is based on data from US market research company Gallup, and analyzed by international experts led by the University of Oxford.

In addition to self-assessed evaluations of life satisfaction, analysts also assess each country’s healthy life expectancy, freedom, GDP per capita, social support and more.

Unbelievable: Fani Willis Said that Jesus Told Her to Go After Trump!

 

The Georgia criminal defense attorney who alleged an “improper” relationship between Fani Willis and Nathan Wade called out the Fulton County District Attorney over a speech she made claiming “Jesus” told her to prosecute Trump.

Ashleigh Merchant, who filed a bombshell motion alleging Willis’ relationship with Wade, whom she appointed special prosecutor on the case, appeared on Megyn Kelly’s show Tuesday where she told the host that she “still [hasn’t] gotten over the church remarks.”

“When someone says that Jesus himself told them to prosecute this case, how do you defend against that?… That’s insane. I’ve never dealt with that… Nobody says this. This doesn’t happen. People don’t take to the pulpit,” Merchant told Kelly.

Merchant filed the suit against Willis on behalf of her client, GOP political operative Mike Roman.

Only in New York Can a Landlord Get Arrested For Changing the Locks While the Squatters Remain

 

A New York City property owner recently ended up in handcuffs following a fiery standoff with a bunch of squatters she has been trying to boot from her family’s home, tense footage of the ordeal shows.

Adele Andaloro, 47, was recently nabbed after she changed the locks on the $1 million home in Flushing, Queens, that she says she inherited from her parents when they died, ABC’s Eyewitness News reported.

“It’s enraging,” the homeowner said of the squatter saga. “It’s not fair that I, as the homeowner, have to be going through this.”

Andaloro claims the ordeal erupted when she started the process of trying to sell the home last month but realized squatters had moved in — and brazenly replaced the entire front door and locks.

Request passports and ID’s (te’udot zehut) online

The Knesset plenum approved the Interior Minister's proposal to allow citizens to submit online requests for biometric passports, without needing to go to the Population and Immigration Authority.

On Tuesday the Knesset plenum accepted Interior Minister Moshe Arbel's proposal for passport reform, enabling the issuing of passports and identity cards (te’udot zehut) online.

The proposal was approved by a temporary order for six months and can be extended by another six months.

The new process will go into effect on April 31st and will allow any citizen over the age of 18, who has a biometric identification document and whose fingerprints have been stored in the biometric database, to submit a remote application and receive an identity card (te’udat zehut) which will be valid for up to five years.

The new procedure will not apply to those who have never issued biometric passports and IDs, nor to children under the age of 18.

In addition passports may be issued online only if they have expired within the previous six months or are valid for a year ahead, as well as for those who are in Israel at the time of submitting the application.

Interior Minister Arbel said, "This is a dramatic step initiated by the Interior Ministry and the Population and Immigration Authority, to meet the needs of citizens and provide a solution for a large sector of the population, who will not have to go to the official offices and will be able to order a passport or identity card (te’udat zehut) without leaving their home. We have set a goal to improve services to the citizens of Israel and I am pleased to take another step forward to achieve this national goal."

WSJ: “Biden Treats Israel Like An Enemy, Working For ‘2-State’ Solution: Michigan & Nevada”

 

The TWO Gangsters

In an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Democrats Turn Against Israel,” its Editorial Board excoriates President Joe Biden for turning on Israel in order to “cater to the anti-Israel left without alienating the bulk of U.S. voters who would find it unconscionable to turn on the Israeli people in wartime.”

“The joke around Jerusalem is that while Mr. Biden once worked to help Israel after Oct. 7, he’s now working on the ‘two-state solution’: Michigan and Nevada. Israelis notice that the President rarely speaks of defeating Hamas anymore. Instead, he bashes Israel under the cover of bashing its Prime Minister.

What Henry Kissinger once said about Israel having no foreign policy, only domestic politics, Israelis are now saying about America. How else to explain Mr. Biden’s “red line” on Rafah, Hamas’s final stronghold?

Last Monday’s release of a U.S. intelligence assessment casting doubt on the political viability of Mr. Netanyahu’s wartime leadership and predicting “large protests” against him was highly unusual. That’s how the U.S. once treated enemy dictatorships, not allied democracies.

Mr. Biden has also endorsed Sen. Chuck Schumer’s extraordinary declaration last week that Israelis must depose the elected Mr. Netanyahu. Other Democrats are piling on.

Even more serious are delays in U.S. weapons transfers, leaked threats to cut off arms, and sotto voce Biden Administration efforts to discourage other countries from exporting weapons to Jerusalem. Ammunition supplies are a major concern, but Israel’s existential nerve has been touched, and it doesn’t need a timid Biden Administration to give it the green light on Rafah. Israel is now producing more of its own munitions, and the mood is that it will fight with its fingernails if it has to.

Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t treat the U.S. as an unapproachable black box, which spits out a presidential policy and that’s final. He knows U.S. public opinion can be influenced to constrain the President’s power. If Mr. Biden thinks he’s the only one with leverage here, in advance of a U.S. election, he’s wrong.

Behind this spat is the dawning of knowledge in Israel that perhaps the U.S. can’t be relied on. As a Thursday column in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper notes, “Even if the radical wing does not take over, it is already a permanent force that no Democratic Party leader can ignore.”

There is more hope in Israel for a Trump Administration, but also wariness. For now the Republicans who would abandon Ukraine still speak up for Israel. Will that always be true?

At present the U.S. doesn’t appear willing to help Ukraine stave off defeat or Israel clinch victory. The world is watching, and the key for the Middle East isn’t to see that Israel can compromise with the Palestinians, but that it can carry U.S. support all the way to victory against Iran-backed terrorism.”

Newsweek: “Israel Did More To Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Nation, Including U.S.”

 

A Newsweek article by John Spencer, the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, asserts that “Israel has taken more measures to avoid needless civilian harm than virtually any other nation that’s fought an urban war.”

Spencer added that “in fact, as someone who has served two tours in Iraq and studied urban warfare for over a decade, Israel has taken precautionary measures even the United States did not do during its recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“I say this not to put Israel on a pedestal or to diminish the human suffering of Gazans but rather to correct a number of misperceptions when it comes to urban warfare.

Biden''s Top Official Uses Antisemitic Propaganda to Slam Israel ..

 

A senior White House advisor falsely accused Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu of interfering in U.S. politics. It was an egregious claim, and according to Breitbart’s Joel Pollak, it reeked of antisemitism.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made the antisemitic claim Monday in a White House press briefing. He provided no evidence of his claim that Israel interfered in American politics, and admitted that it had nothing to do with the question he had been asked.

Sullivan was asked to respond to Netanyahu’s claim that he had the support of the majority of the Israeli people in his plans to attack Rafah.

He replied: “Well, first of all, inherent in the question is a kind of an interesting irony, which is you have the prime minister speaking on American television about his concerns about Americans interfering in Israeli politics, and then your question is should Americans be speaking into Israeli politics, which in fact we don’t do nearly as much as they speak into ours.”.

He then conceded, “But that’s not a constructive answer to your question, just an observation.”.

Pollak wrote: “The Anti-Defamation League has specifically identified the claim that Israel or Jews control American politics as a form of antisemitism, common in anti-Israel propaganda in the Middle East.”

He added, “There is no known example of Israel interfering in an American election — and certainly no Israeli leader has ever demanded that the U.S. replace its president, as President Joe Biden did last week with regard to Netanyahu.”

Netanyahu’s observation about having the overwhelming support of the Israeli people is backed by polls. One survey found that 75% of Israelis support an attack in Rafah.

Young Peleg Protestor Puts Himself Under the Rear Wheels of a Bus .... Great Shidduch prospect

 

Chabad Bar-Mitzva Boy Brings Water Station to a Town in Africa.....

 

Chassidishe Guy Sings a "Leibele Waldman" Song ... Great Job in Yiddish!