I hate to say it everyone, but I think Witkoff is going to be a disaster.
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) January 19, 2025
First of all, here he appears to draw a moral equivalence between Hamas and right-wing Israelis who oppose the deal—which is gross.
And just below it, he demonstrates zero understanding of Hamas' ideology pic.twitter.com/TNCztTyW37
IDF TAKES OUT CAR LOAD OF HAMAS CELEBRATING VICTORY
— 💙Hostage Release Live 🇮🇱🇺🇲🇬🇧🇮🇳Jerusalem🔥 (@JerusalemDiary) January 19, 2025
They came out a few minutes too early https://t.co/doA8c9MLN3
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has re-hired Maher Bitar, a former White House staffer who spent his student years as a pro-Palestinian radical in Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and played a major role in the Biden administration.
Bitar’s new job is confirmed by Legistorm. He also previously worked for Schiff during the first impeachment effort against then-President Donald Trump, who will return to office on Monday.
As Breitbart News reported last year:
Maher Bitar, the White House Coordinator for Intelligence and Defense Policy at the U.S. National Security Council (NSC), was a radical pro-Palestinian activist and a leader within Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
The SJP is one of the most prominent groups involved in the pro-Hamas, antisemitic “encampment” protests that have taken over dozens of university campuses. Its parent group is also the target of a lawsuit by survivors and families of victims of the October 7 terror attack that alleges SJP is a propaganda front for Hamas in the U.S.
In addition, conservative author Daniel Greenfield wrote about Bitar’s record for the Jewish News Syndicate:
At the PSM [Palestine Solidarity Movement] conference in Georgetown [in 2006], Bitar had run a session describing how to best demonize Israel. Next year, he facilitated a Palestinian Student Society summit addressed by Joseph Massad, who had called Israel a “Jewish supremacist state” and praised terrorism.
…
A few years later, Bitar could be found presenting at a Sabeel conference featuring some of the worst bigots like Rebecca Vilkomerson of JVP, who had invited a terrorist to address the BDS hate group, and Richard Falk, who had endorsed a book which wondered whether “Hitler might have been right after all.”
…
Bitar went to work for UNRWA, interned at the misnamed and militantly anti-Israel Foundation for Middle East Peace and studied at Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, writing papers on the so-called “Nakba” and on “Palestinian” activism. He appeared to describe Israel’s security barrier as a “segregation wall.”
Schiff is considered a pro-Israel Senator, by the standards of the Democratic Party, but his reliance on Bitar for advice on national security policy signals a possible shift mirroring the anti-Israel drift of much of the rest of his party.
Romi Gonen, 24, from Kfar Vradim, was abducted from the Novas music festival. At 10:15 a.m. on October 7, 2023, she told her mother, Merav Leshem-Gonen, on the phone that she had been shot. Her family confirmed earlier today that she will be among the hostages who are released today.
Emily Damari, 28, from Kfar Gaza, is a British citizen. Her mother, Mandy, expressed deep concern in an interview with the BBC last month that her daughter was no longer alive. “I am desperate for a sign of life,” she said.
Doron Steinbracher, 31, from Kfar Aaza, worked as a veterinary nurse when she was kidnapped from her home on October 7. She was among the three hostagess who appeared in a video released by Hamas on January 26.
The hostage release is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. this afternoon.
Hamas was supposed to have provided the names of the three hostages who are to be released today by 8:30 a.m. this morning. However, it only provided the names of the hostages at about 10:00 a.m., an hour and a half after the deadline, delaying the start of the ceasefire by that amount of time.
A small number of hostages will be released every week over the course of the first phase of the ceasefire, which will last six weeks. 33 hostages are expected to be released in total during the first phase, out of 98 hostages who are still being held in Gaza.
A man fatally shot two prominent hard-line judges in Iran’s capital Saturday, officials said, both of whom allegedly took part in the mass execution of dissidents in 1988.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the shootings of the judges, clerics Mohammad Mogheiseh and Ali Razini. However, Razini’s involvement in the 1988 executions had likely made him a target in the past, including an assassination attempt in 1999.
Their killings, a rare attack targeting the judiciary, also come as Iran faces economic turmoil, the mauling of its Mideast allies by Israel and the return of Donald Trump to the White House on Monday.
Both clerics served on Iran’s Supreme Court, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. A bodyguard for one of the judges also was wounded in the attack at the Palace of Justice in Tehran, which also serves as the headquarters of the country’s judiciary and typically has tight security.
The attacker, who was armed with a handgun, killed himself, IRNA said.
“According to initial investigations, the person in question did not have a case in the Supreme Court nor was he a client of the branches of the court,” the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said. “Currently, investigations have been launched to identify and arrest the perpetrators of this terrorist act.”
Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, separately told Iranian state television that the shooter had been an “infiltrator,” suggesting he had worked at the courthouse where the killings took place.
Later in the day, Jahangir told state TV that others were involved. “In this regard, some individuals were identified, summoned or arrested and investigations of them have begun.”
Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, the Iranian Supreme Court has many branches spread across the country. It is the highest court in Iran and can hear appeals on decisions made by lower courts.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a message offered his condolences for the “martyrdom ” of both judges.
Razini had been targeted previously. In January 1999, attackers on motorcycles hurled an explosive at his vehicle, wounding him as he left work as the head of the judiciary in Tehran.
Mogheiseh had been under sanctions from the U.S. Treasury since 2019. At the time, the Treasury described him as having “overseen countless unfair trials, during which charges went unsubstantiated and evidence was disregarded.”
“He is notorious for sentencing scores of journalists and internet users to lengthy prison terms,” the Treasury said. Mogheiseh had pressed charges against members of Iran’s Baha’i minority “after they reportedly held prayer and worship ceremonies with other members,” the Treasury said.
Both men had been named by activists and exiles as taking part in the 1988 executions, which came at the end of Iran’s long war with Iraq. After Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a U.N.-brokered ceasefire, members of the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, heavily armed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise attack.
Iran ultimately blunted their assault, but the attack set the stage for the sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as “death commissions.”
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed, while the MEK puts the number at 30,000. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Khomeini’s orders, though some argue that other top officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.
The MEK declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press.
While Mogheiseh never addressed the accusation he took part in the 1988 “death commissions,” Razini gave a 2017 interview published by Iran’s Shargh newspaper in which he defended the panels as “fair and completely in accordance with the law.”
“Our friends and I who are among the 20 judges in the country, we did our best to ensure the security of that time and the years after and from then, we guaranteed that the hypocrites (the MEK) could never become powerful in this country,” he reportedly said.
“The president has been a great friend of Israel, and now it’s time to be a friend back,” Witkoff said. He added that Trump was “exasperated” by delays and warned there would be “all hell to pay” if an agreement failed to materialize.
Sources familiar with the meeting revealed that Witkoff told Netanyahu his negotiating team must be empowered to make decisions, warning, “If Netanyahu didn’t want to work that way, everyone should just pack their bags and go home.”
Following the meeting, Netanyahu ordered his team—comprising representatives from Mossad, Shin Bet, the IDF, and political advisors—to travel to Qatar for urgent talks aimed at finalizing the agreement.
The deal, reached in Doha on Wednesday and approved by the Israeli government on Shabbos, closely resembles a proposal put forth by U.S. President Joe Biden in May. However, Netanyahu had resisted that earlier plan, citing pressure from his far-right coalition partners and concerns about maintaining Israel’s military position.
In July, he reportedly told hostage families, “If we give up on victory over Hamas, we are all in danger,” according to a recording obtained by the WSJ.
After Witkoff’s meeting with Netanyahu, Trump claimed on Truth Social that Arab officials observed he had more influence on Netanyahu in one meeting than Biden had over the past year.
Witkoff reportedly alleviated concerns from Hamas that the IDF would resume fighting after the release of hostages in the agreement’s first phase. “If everyone abides by the agreement, then Trump would encourage meaningful negotiations in Phase 2,” a source said.
The troubling exchange, described by Johnson in an interview with Bari Weiss for the Free Press, paints a chilling picture of a president who, at 81, appeared incapable of recalling critical actions taken under his own leadership.
“I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We are in serious trouble—who is running the country?’” Johnson said.
During the meeting, Johnson pressed Biden on the order, which paused LNG export permits to European allies—a move he argued bolstered Vladimir Putin’s war machine by forcing Europe to rely on Russian energy. For Louisiana, a state responsible for 61% of U.S. LNG exports in 2023, the decision had devastating economic implications.
“Why would you do that? You understand we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you are fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine,” Johnson told the president.
To Johnson’s astonishment, Biden denied issuing the order. “I didn’t do that,” Biden reportedly said. Johnson reiterated that the decision was having catastrophic effects on both national security and his state’s economy. Only after prolonged prodding did Biden seem to recall signing the order, justifying it as necessary to “study the effects of the fuel.”
Johnson, however, remained unconvinced. “I don’t think he was lying. I genuinely believe he didn’t know what he had signed,” he said.
The episode is just one of many alarming signs of Biden’s cognitive decline that have come to light. A bombshell December report revealed that White House staff had been concealing Biden’s mental struggles since the start of his presidency. As early as January 2021, aides had restructured his schedule to minimize public gaffes and limit in-person interactions. Despite these efforts, Biden’s mental lapses became increasingly evident over time.
The president’s decline came to a head during a disastrous 2024 debate performance against President-elect Donald Trump. Biden froze mid-sentence, gave incoherent answers, and frequently lost his train of thought, leaving even his staunchest defenders shaken. Days later, he announced he would not seek re-election, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris instead. Harris went on to suffer a crushing defeat to Trump in November.
The implications of Biden’s mental decline extend far beyond one troubling meeting with Speaker Johnson. The question of who truly ran the country during Biden’s term looms large, as aides and advisors appear to have wielded unprecedented influence over key decisions.
Speaker Johnson reveals that Biden had NO clue about a crucial executive order he signed.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 18, 2025
Johnson asked Biden “why?” And Biden basically replied, “I didn’t do that…”
This is chilling. He’s either that demented or he WASN’T running the country.
pic.twitter.com/I5adc7xgjL
