US Revokes Visas of Palestinian Officials Ahead of UN General Assembly

 

In a move aimed at confronting Palestinian support for terror, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States will deny entry to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The Trump administration has suspended the visas of Abbas and top PA officials, underscoring its demand that Palestinian leadership abandon policies that glorify violence and undermine peace.

“In compliance with the laws and national security interests of the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA),” State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

Pigott made clear that U.S. policy will not reward the PA’s ongoing campaigns against Israel. “Before they can be taken seriously as partners for peace, the PA and PLO must repudiate terrorism, lawfare campaigns at the ICC and ICJ, and the pursuit of unilateral recognition of statehood,” he added.

The only exception will be waivers for the PA’s UN mission, in line with U.S. obligations under the UN Headquarters Agreement.

While often portrayed as a “moderate” counterweight to Hamas, the Palestinian Authority continues to fund and encourage violence against Israelis. Central to this policy is the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund, which pays stipends to families of terrorists killed, jailed, or injured while carrying out attacks. Critics argue that this so-called “pay-for-slay” program serves as a direct incentive for terror.

By blocking Abbas’s trip to New York, the administration is signaling that business as usual is over. U.S. officials emphasized that re-engagement is possible — but only if the PA takes verifiable steps to end its financial and political backing of terrorism.

Zera Shimshon Parshat Shofetim

 

Florida cracked down on ‘billboard lawyers’ — and is reaping the rewards

 

For decades, “billboard lawyers” were untouchable as they plastered highways with promises of easy money, weaponized emotion and turned lawsuits into a profit machine.

As personal-injury law firms flourished, industries and governments cowered, insurance premiums soared, and ordinary Americans — playing by the rules — paid the price.

But Florida decided enough was enough, and the results are impossible to ignore.

Two years ago, lawmakers in the Sunshine State rolled out a series of reforms targeting the very engine of the scam: runaway attorney fees, exploitative claims practices and a court system primed to reward volume lawsuits.

Florida Republicans’ tort-reform efforts in 2023 cut off the special fee system that allowed personal-injury attorneys to cash in endlessly, shut down an auto-glass provision that turned courts into casinos, and set deadlines so cases would not drag on for years, jacking up lawyers’ take.

Rav Yitzchak Yosef And Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein Cave and Approve IDF Enlistment For Non-Yeshiva Students

 

After all the ill will created by the previous pronouncements of these three individuals, they are now backtracking – notwithstanding their claim that these are only “clarifications”. 

However, there’s already been tremendous damage done to the standing of Torah and Rabbanim amongst the Israeli population due to the extreme positions previously expressed by these individuals and their fellow leaders of the Chareidi community – the Chilul Hashem is staggering, and they were ultimately forced to back down anyway. “Eizehu Chacham? Haro’eh es Hanolad.” There were some major blind spots here…

I only hope that the Mesirus Nefesh shown by other groups of Shomrei Torah uMitzvos in the defense of Klal Yisrael will help mitigate the damage.

In the last few days, three leading charedi rabbis have clarified their positions regarding enlisting in the IDF. All three qualified previous statements which implied that they were opposed to IDF enlistment even for those who are not studying in yeshiva and are working full time.

Rabbi Moshe Maya initially signed a letter which prohibited all forms of enlistment in the IDF even for those who are not currently studying. However in recent days he stressed that if the IDF order enables a charedi to maintain his religious lifestyle in the army, he would not oppose enlistment for charedim.

Former Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, who has been one of the strongest opponents of attempts by the IDF to conscript yeshiva students, and even stressed that those who are not learning should tear up their draft notices, qualified his statement and said that he was only talking of those who are going through a difficult period in their enthusiasm for study but are still connected to yeshivos, but those who are working as waiters in restaurants can definitely be conscripted into the IDF.

Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein, the rabbi of Ramat Elchanan and a son-in-law of Rabbi Elyashiv zt’sl, also qualified a statement attributed to him, claiming that a person can desecrate Shabbat rather than serve in the IDF if it will lead him to abandon his religious lifestyle. Rav Zilberstein stressed that the frameworks approved by Rabbi Steinman (Nahal Charedi, and apparently the new Chashmonaim brigade) would be good options for those who are not studying in yeshiva, and are the preferred option if they are wasting their time otherwise.

Israel Porush Has Given Up on Torah and his Creator ...Wants a Chrisian to Intervene to Help Avoid the Draft

From Rationalist Judaism 

Israel Porush is the son of MK Meir Porush and chairman of Magen u’Moshia, the “Campaign against the Enlistment Decree,” whose logo features hands in handcuffs. He  appealed to Ambassador Huckabee to recruit the US Adminstration (who he apparently considers to be the real Magen u’Moshia):

Porush spreads the same explicit and implicit lies as the “Gedolim” and Hofstedter. There is no acknowledgement of the terrible crisis caused by the manpower shortage in the IDF. There is no acknowledgement of the over eighty hesder yeshivot (now including several charedi hesder yeshivos) which combine Torah study with army service. There is the terrible slander that yeshiva students are being imprisoned for the “sole offense” of their dedication to Torah study. And there is no acknowledgment that tens of thousands of these young men are not even learning Torah! And it doesn’t end there. Three members of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudas Yisroel of America traveled to Washington, D.C. yesterday for a meeting with Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. These were Rav Aharon Feldman, Rav Malkiel Kotler, and Rav Elya Brudny (who made it clear last year that he does not consider Dati-Leumi Jews to be religious). Note that these “Gedolim” did not visit Washington at any point in the last two years of war on behalf of Israel, and all three opposed their communities traveling to Washington for the rally on behalf of Israel. They have also repeatedly insisted that “Torah and Tefillah” are the real weapons in the war. But apparently when it comes to their own personal wars, they do not rely on Torah and Tefillah and instead leave yeshiva in Elul to engage in hishtadlus. According to the report, “The roshei yeshiva strongly emphasized that the Torah world in the United States stands shoulder to shoulder with Klal Yisroel in Eretz Yisroel, united in its commitment to safeguard the spiritual integrity of bnei Torah.” But how dare they speak about standing shoulder to shoulder with “Klal Yisroel”?! The vast majority of Klal Yisroel, who are acutely aware of the enormous suffering of the reservists and their families due to the IDF manpower shortage, desperately wants charedim to enlist! Does “Klal Yisroel” only refer to charedim?! As it happens, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter himself is a rabbi who learned in a hesder yeshiva, served in the IDF, and lost a son in this war who left behind a widow and six children. And so I trust that despite his smile for the camera, he inwardly regarded these “Gedolim,” who consider him and his fallen son to be not part of the religious Jewish community, to be not even part of Klal Yisroel, with the contempt that they deserve. And is it really true that, as these “Gedolim” claim, the Torah world in the United States supports the blanket Israel charedi refusal for any of the 80,000 charedim to enlist - even all the tens of thousands of charedim who are not seriously learning or who are not learning at all? It’s true of the top rabbinic leadership, but is it true of a majority of people in the US yeshivish community?

 

Britain's Wheelchair Basketball Team Turn their backs on the Israeli National Anthem and Get Beaten by the Israelis

 

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Pepper spray is close to being legalized in New York — and it’s about time

 

by Rikki Schlott

Pepper spray, aka mace, is an effective, non-lethal form of self-defense. And yet, it’s just about impossible to get in New York, thanks to a state law that bans shipping it to addresses here and only allows specially licensed pharmacists and firearm dealers to sell it.

But that might finally change soon. A new bill proposed by State Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton would remove restrictions on which businesses can sell pepper spray and let New York residents buy pepper spray online and ship it to their homes without hassle.

“This is about, first and foremost, making sure people feel safer and feel they have some defense against someone who has nefarious intent,” Scarcella-Spanton, a Democrat representing New York’s 23rd District, told The Post. “It’s just very, very common sense.”

She’s totally right. As a young woman living in New York City, pepper spray has been my saving grace in sticky situations with predators on the street. I always carry it on my keychain. I’ve only had to brandish it three or four times, and, thankfully, I’ve never had to deploy it.

The closest I came to actually spraying someone was in 2022 when I was aggressively pursued in Union Square for blocks by a stranger who threatened to rape me.

Dumb Jewish Minneapolis mayor uses school shooting to speak out about transgender rights

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey preached about trans rights during a presser on the mass shooting that left two children dead at Annunciation Catholic School, hours after it was revealed gunman Robin Westman identified as a transgender woman.

“I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community,” Frey told reporters at an update presser Wednesday afternoon.

“Anybody who is using this … as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity. We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone,” the mayor said.

Frey stated emotionally that instead of the shooter’s gender-identity and state of mind, public focus should be put on the child victims —- and then he segued into calls for gun control.

“Look, we need to be doing more than talking. It can’t just be words there needs to be action. When we have seen school shooting after school shooting. When we have seen church shootings by horrible actors,” Frey pontificated.

“To recognize that we’ve got more guns in this country than we have people. And it’s on all of us to recognize that we can’t just say that this shouldn’t happen again and then allowed to happen again and again beyond that,” Frey intoned.

Westman, 23, who killed himself on scene, changed his name to Robin and began to identify as a female in 2019, Fox News reported. 

His mother, Mary Grace Westman, who worked at Annunciation Catholic School as a secretary until retiring in 2021, signed that document approving of the name change for Robert, according to the outlet. 

On a page of the shooter’s deranged writings that he shared on YouTube, one page had a trans pride flag sticker with “Defend equality” printed across the bottom, A black AK-47 sticker laid on top of it.

In that YouTube video, which has since been taken down from the site, Westman is seen stabbing the manifesto as he flips through its pages, muttering in deranged voices, and whispering at one point, “Nothing makes me want to stop my plans.”

Westman carried out his plot Wednesday morning, slaughtering two children and injuring at least 17 others when he opened fire through the stained glass windows of Assumption Catholic Church in Minneapolis during Mass.

“Where is your God?” Westman wrote on one of the magazine clips he posted in the video manifesto.

 

Rav Zilberstein Backtracks: I did not say to leave Israel on Shabbat

 

Rabbi Yitzhak Zilberstein, a leading Lithuanian-haredi rabbi and a member of the Council of Torah Sages, responded to questions from followers following reports attributing to him a halachic ruling permitting the desecration of Shabbat to avoid military service, Lechatchila newspaper reported.

Asked during a Torah class about his statement, Rabbi Zilberstein said, "Whoever publicized that does not know his right hand from his left hand. One didn't hear what I said, and publicized it. It's all a tale."

He explained that he had asked hypothetically what a Jew should do in a place where the government bans Torah study. In such a case, it would be permitted to leave the country on Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath, when travel is prohibited - ed.) in order to escape.

"But where is that happening here in the Land of Israel? Do the authorities prevent Torah study? Of course not! If when they do their army service, they want to learn Torah - will someone oppose that? G-d forbid!" he continued. "This was said only about a scenario where the nations of the world ban Torah study."

When one of the listeners said his son is desecrating Shabbat "because Rabbi Zilberstein said to desecrate Shabbat and not to enlist," the rabbi responded, "Maybe he had a dream. Maybe he dreamed a dream! I did not say that."

Regarding young men who are not dedicated to Torah study and instead spend their time in the streets, Rabbi Zilberstein responded that such a young man should "enlist where Rabbi Shteinman said - of course. What's the question? Of course he should."

The unit in question is the IDF's Netzach Yehuda battalion, created specifically for soldiers from haredi backgrounds, and intended for those who cannot study all day. Netzach Yehuda soldiers combine military service with Torah study.

Trans Shooter Who Killed 2 Children and Injured 17 Hated Jews but Killed Catholics

 

Minneapolis school shooter Robin Westman is a transgender woman whose mother worked at the school where two children were slaughtered.

In a deranged video posted on YouTube, the shooter explained how he was 'feeling good' about committing a 'devastating tragedy' at Annunciation Catholic School.

Westman also showed a rifle magazine labeled 'For the children, hahahahahahaha.' 

Court records seen by the Daily Mail indicate that Westman had previously been known as Robert, having petitioned to have his name changed in 2019. 

According to court papers filed in Dakota County, Minnesota, Westman asked the court to change his name to Robin. 

Westman's mother Mary sign the application for a name change as he was still a minor at the time.