Zera Shimshon Parshas Ki - Savoi

 

Lebanese Health Minister: 32 killed in communication device explosions over the past two days.

 

NTC Offers $1 million to Queers for Palestine to hold parade in Gaza

 

The New Tolerance Campaign (NTC), a U.S.-based watchdog organization, announced a $1 million offer on Monday to “Queers for Palestine” or any U.S. LGBTQ advocacy organization to host a Gay Pride Parade in Gaza or Judea and Samaria.

“This isn’t a joke. It’s not a publicity stunt. Our offer is real,” said the organization’s president, Gregory T. Angelo, who is gay and the former president of Log Cabin Republicans, in a statement on the group’s website.

“For the past year, we’ve seen so-called ‘Queers for Palestine’ and allied LGBTQ organizations insist that the Palestinian territories are ‘inclusive’—well, here’s their chance to prove it. We’re willing to put our money where their mouths are to underwrite a Gay Pride Parade in Gaza or the West Bank.”

NTC has secured commitments for the $1 million prize, which is being offered to potential parade organizers. The offer is good for the next six months, until March 16, 2025.

NTC said it had attempted to publicize the campaign with full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today. All three newspapers declined, citing safety concerns.

Times Square in New York City also declined to run the ad, saying the buildings displaying it could become targets of violence.

Not to be deterred, NTC began circulating mobile billboards on Monday around Columbia University on the Upper West Side of New York City; the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C.; and the University of California, Los Angeles.

The mobile billboards will run through Wednesday. Additional dates may be announced.

“The campaign will also allow everyday Americans to send messages directly to the senior leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, the LGBTQ Task Force, and Advocates for Trans Equality encouraging them to actually fight for LGBTQ rights rather than taking a political stance against the only gay-friendly country in the Middle East, Israel,” NTC’s website stated.

“This project highlights the lack of human rights for the LGBTQ community in Palestine while noting LGBTQ people live freely in Israel. It also has the potential to be a breakthrough moment for pluralism and peace throughout the Arab world,” said Angelo.

According to the rules of the challenge, the recipient group must be a recognized U.S. 501(c)(3) organization; the parade march must be at least one kilometer (approximately half a mile) in length and on a major street; and include at least 200 participants, 80% of whom must be Palestinian, and from Judea and Samaria or Gaza.

In addition, participants must outwardly “show” LGBTQ pride symbols or dress, including but not limited to rainbow flags, trans flags, full leather outfits, or drag.

At least half of the parade signs must be in Arabic and the parade filmed by NTC.

Clocking in to work in Lebanon this morning.

 

Amjad Taha أمجد طه

 

You dared to strike at a smart and courageous nation on October 7th—committing genocide, kidnapping their children, and violating their women. You thought they would fall, but they rose again, returning after 11 months to correct what had only momentarily slipped—their…

— Amjad Taha أمجد طه (@amjadt25) September 18, 2024

Newsweek says that Israel's Pager Strike Have Arab Leaders (Quietly) Cheering

 In the wake of the alleged Israeli assault on thousands of Hezbollah members, whose pagers and walkie talkies simultaneously exploded on Monday and Tuesday, Arab governments rushed to condemn the attack, expressing fears that it would escalate the region's conflict.

Yet many of their citizens had other ideas.

In the days following the explosions, Arabic-language social media have been full of memes of Hassan Nasrallah, the militant group's chief, with a blown-up backside; schadenfreude remarks of how Hezbollah got what it deserved; claims that the explosions were divine justice and songs praising the operation. In Northern Syria, soldiers even handed out sweets to passing cars to celebrate the "Hezbollah massacre."

This isn't the first time since the Iran-backed terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7 that Arabs have cheered on brazen operations—allegedly—pulled off by the Jewish state against Iran and its allies. Indeed, according to The Media Line, a U.S.-based independent news agency that reports on Arabic and Hebrew-language media, the Arab world largely favored the assassination of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in July and some Arab commentators even supported Israel's assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh last month. When Israel bombed the Houthi-controlled Hodeida port in Yemen, Saudi and Yemeni journalists and social media users rejoiced.

One of the many important nuances of the Middle East conflicts is that most victims of Iran and its proxies and clients such as Hezbollah and Hamas are not Jews but Arabs.

In Syria, Iran has propped up the despotic president Bashar Al Assad, who has used barrel bombs and chemical weapons against his own people, ethnically cleansed certain Sunni districts and strengthened violent and criminal militias such as Hezbollah and the ethnic-Afghan militia Liwa Fatemiyoun.

In Yemen, Iran-backed Houthis have torn the country apart, abusing their citizens and prioritizing fighting a faraway Israel while almost 3 million Yemeni children are either acutely or severely malnourished.

Lebanon, once known as the "Switzerland of the Middle East" for its snowcapped mountains and stability that led to it being the banking capital of the Arab world, has been hijacked by Iran and put on the brink of a war with Israel that would send it back to the Stone Age.

Not "Bashert" for Trump to Eat At Gottleib's in Williamsburg as Mr. Gottlieb Sr Passes Away

 In an unexpected turn of events, the highly anticipated visit of former President Donald Trump to Williamsburg has been modified and possibly canceled.

The visit was planned for today at the renowned Gottlieb’s Restaurant, owned by Menashe Gottlieb. However, the sudden passing of Menashe's father, R' Shulem Yosef Gottlieb, has led to the visit's cancellation.

R' Shulem Yosef, a respected figure in the community, passed away earlier today, leaving his family and the broader Williamsburg community in mourning. As a result, plans for the former president's visit were quickly called off out of respect for the family.

Trump supporters had previously been seen preparing for the visit, with signs of welcome hung around the neighborhood, including a portrait of the former president displayed at Gottlieb’s Restaurant. 

Details surrounding the rescheduling of Trump’s visit, if any, are yet to be confirmed. 

Stay tuned to Williamsburg365 for further updates.

*HAPPENING NOW:* Israeli fighter jets are reportedly flying over Beirut as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivers a speech.

 

Moti Maman 72 Israeli businessman indicted in Iranian plot to assassinate Israeli leaders

 

An Israeli businessman based in Turkey was indicted Thursday on serious security charges, accused of being recruited by Iranian intelligence.

Prosecutors say he was smuggled into Iran twice and demanded a $1 million payment in advance for various missions, including plotting to assassinate top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

The Shin Bet and Israel Police revealed that the suspect, later identified as Moti Maman, a 72-year-old resident of Ashkelon, was arrested in August in a joint anti-terror operation by the Shin Bet and the Israel Police’s Lahav 433 serious crimes unit on suspicion of committing security offenses on behalf of the Iranian regime.

The investigation revealed that while living in Turkey, the suspect maintained business and social ties with Turkish and Iranian contacts. In April, through the mediation of two Turkish nationals, identified as Andrey Farouk Aslan and Junayd Aslan, he agreed to meet a wealthy businessman in Iran named Eddy to discuss potential business ventures.

AOC Totally Unhinged! Attacks Israel for Blowing Up Innocent Hezbollah Terrorists

 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Wednesday night tweeted this – I am not messing with you:

“Israel’s pager attack in Lebanon detonated thousands of handheld devices across of a slew of public spaces, seriously injuring and killing innocent civilians. This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict. Congress needs a full accounting of the attack, including an answer from the State Department as to whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology.”