Free Malky Rally in Monroe!!
“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
Free Malky Rally in Monroe!!
The Mothers of IDF Soldiers group led a demonstration last week of army mothers, reservists in the Israel Defense Forces, bereaved families and other concerned citizens outside the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. They demanded that President Joe Biden stop leveraging power to force Israel to resupply Hamas.
The following day, hundreds of Israelis, including parents of soldiers, families of hostages and terror victims gathered outside Ashdod Port. For hours, they blocked trucks laden with supplies for Gaza from exiting the port. Activists have been blocking trucks from entering Gaza via the Kerem Shalom and Nitzana border crossings for more than two weeks.
Speaking to the crowd in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, Shifra Shahar, who runs a nonprofit organization that cares for the needs of soldiers, addressed her remarks to Israel’s leaders:
“Government of Israel, defense minister, IDF chief of staff, get ahold of yourselves!
“No other nation feeds and sustains its enemy! It’s truly an Israeli start-up.
“We had elections last year. I don’t recall voting for [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken! Blinken is sitting in the war cabinet and protecting the interests of my enemy. … We have sons in Gaza. We have sons fighting. The entry of the trucks endangers them, prolongs the war, increases the number of casualties and delays the return of the hostages!
“They tell me, ‘There are constraints.’ He who is constrained doesn’t win the war.
“They tell me, ‘The Americans are threatening not to provide us with ammunition.’
“To this, I say, if we were besieging them, we wouldn’t need ammunition! The war would end. They’d be screaming for help, returning the hostages and the war would end!”
The rising expressions of rage at the Biden administration from ordinary citizens are a testament to the shock and anger Israelis feel at what they perceive as a betrayal of Israel’s most basic interests by Biden and his top advisers.
Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich on Monday afternoon excoriated the Biden administration for implementing sanctions against four Israeli “settlers” for alleged violence against Palestinians and for subsequent reports that Israeli banks froze the accounts of two of the “settlers” due to the US sanctions.
“Last week, the Biden administration decided, in an unprecedented manner, to impose severe sanctions against citizens of the State of Israel as part of a false and anti-Semitic campaign of ‘settler violence’ led by BDS elements and Israel’s enemies,” Smotrich said.
“The Biden administration is taking measures that are usually taken against terrorists and terrorist organizations and besmirches over half a million law-abiding Israeli settlers who these days are at the forefront of the war on terrorism and are paying, together with Israeli society, unimaginable prices with their lives. The State of Israel cannot accept the action of the US government that marks over half a million residents of Israel as enemies instead of friends and allies.”
“It is unfathomable that an Israeli citizen with Israeli money in an Israeli bank is deprived of rights and assets due to a US order. I am in conversation with the Supervisor of Banks. The conclusion is clear – such a reality must not be allowed. How to do this – we will have to hold an in-depth discussion on the legal and procedural aspects of the matter.”
Smotrich also spoke about the UNWRA. “The UNRWA refugee agency has become another battalion of Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades,” he stressed. “Hamas took over UNWRA and turned it into a fighting force against the State of Israel and IDF soldiers. Our soldiers found weapons and tunnel shafts in all of UNWRA’s facilities in Gaza. UNWRA’s shelters serve as cities of refuge for Nukhba terrorists. The most serious thing is that Hamas is re-establishing its power and its control over Gaza with the help of the humanitarian aid that reaches it.”
“The State of Israel must act with all its power to bring about the closure of the UNWRA as soon as possible, and the IDF must hand over all the materials in its possession that point to UNWRA’s deep involvement in terrorism in order to promote this action. I instructed the professional team at the Finance Ministry to act with all the tools at our disposal to restrict UNWRA’s actions in Gaza, Yehuda and Shomron, and Jerusalem so that we bring about the cessation of its activities and its closure.”
“From the first day of the war, I said in the Cabinet and in relevant forums that the way humanitarian aid enters Gaza needs to be changed. Unfortunately for many weeks, it has been carried out incorrectly. The IDF, as part of the occupation of the Strip, must manage humanitarian aid in Gaza. This is part of the war effort and it serves well the goals of the war – the destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the return of our hostages.
The incident occurred about a month and a half ago. Malchiel related to Channel 14 on Sunday how his battalion had fought in Gaza for two and a half months in such places as Gaza City’s Shejaia neighborhood.
They had been given 48 hours for rest and recuperation inside Israel before receiving an order to re-enter Gaza. Malchiel brought up the rear of his 450th Battalion. Fighters ahead had already entered houses ahead of him.
At one point his group halted and he took advantage of the opportunity to pray before the sun set. He turned east towards Jerusalem, the direction of all Jewish prayer, and in the midst of his prayer spied movement.
“I perceive, 10 meters from me, 15 meters from me [30 feet to 50 feet], something like that, metal moving on the ground. I said to myself it’s a cat or some animal,” Malchiel told Channel 14‘s show “The Patriots.”
A moment later he saw the metal lid of a tunnel, which the battalion hadn’t noticed as it passed, fly open and a terrorist emerge carrying a rocket-propelled grenade. The terrorist moved swiftly westward towards soldiers who had already entered a house.
“I’m south of him and he doesn’t observe me,” Malchiel recalled.
Malchiel, who admits he was in shock, managed to shout at the terrorist, who spun to face him. Malchiel fired at the terrorist, hitting him. In that split second, his friends, who had not spied the terrorist, turned and immediately opened fire as well.
“Thank God, we dropped him before he could fire his RPG,” said Malchiel.
Malchiel also threw a grenade at the tunnel opening to eliminate any additional threats.
He asked himself why he hadn’t prayed earlier that day as he had had other opportunities but was grateful that he didn’t.
Malchiel, an observant Jew, said that before that event he was sometimes joined by other religious soldiers in prayer, but since the incident, non-observant soldiers are eager to pray with him as well, a comment that produced general laughter from the audience.
The 450th Battalion is composed of soldiers from the Negev-based School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders (known by its acronym Bislamach), which in peacetime trains the IDF’s Infantry Corps squad commanders and platoon sergeants.
New video from October 7th show Gazans celebrating as Hamas terrorists return from Israeli territory with hostages, dead Israelis and stolen cars pic.twitter.com/HlGFqh4XgZ
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 5, 2024
As the world seeks to create an unnatural distinction between “civilian” Gazans and the members of the Hamas terrorist organization, it is important to note that the ordinary Gazans were not just complicit in the Oct. 7th massacre, with some actively taking part in the arson, rape and abduction of Israelis, but also gave strong support to Hamas for its actions.
A video clip taken on October 7th and recently revealed shows a stolen car carrying Israeli hostages, either dead or alive, with a huge mob following the car and calling out its support for Hamas actions.
October 7 they didn't cry.
— REAL JEW (@THEREALJEW613) January 28, 2024
Watch how excited civilians in Gaza were when they saw Hamas taking back innocent hostages to Gaza, they were literally jumping for joy at the sight of kidnapped Israelis.
Now they can cry 😭😭 I don't care! pic.twitter.com/Qn1sswUahT
In another clip, Gazans can be seen jumping for joy when they witness hostages being brought back into Gaza.
Israel will work to bring in 65,000 foreign workers from India, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan to replace Palestinian construction laborers amid the war with Hamas, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Sunday.
Hamas killed around 1,200 people, including foreign workers, in a massive attack launched from Gaza on Oct. 7, which included the firing of thousands of rockets and the infiltration of terrorist forces.
Before the attacks, some 190,000 Palestinians, nearly all from Judea and Samaria, were employed throughout Israel. More than 95,000 of them worked in construction.
In addition, thousands of foreign workers fled the country, while many Israelis have been called up for reserve duty, leading to a situation where half of Israel’s building sites have been closed down.
The new batches of foreign workers are expected to touch down in Tel Aviv in the coming weeks as Jerusalem aims to avoid a dramatic rise in real estate prices, the Construction and Housing Ministry said on Sunday.
An official in the Prime Minister’s Office declined to say on Monday whether the decision to recruit workers in India, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan reflected a policy change going forward.
In late October, Israel authorized the entry of 8,000 Arab workers from Judea and Samaria amid a severe shortage of labor. With the approval of security services, Palestinians were dispatched to “vital” industrial areas, food factories, medical facilities and burial societies, an official told JNS.
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that it is considering a pilot to admit additional Palestinian workers aged 45 and older who have undergone security screening and hold existing entry permits.
Plans to let in even more Palestinians have been met with dismay by coalition and opposition lawmakers alike.
In a December vote, the measure was opposed by almost all 15 members of the Socioeconomic Cabinet, which is smaller than the full government but includes the finance and economy ministers.
“Letting workers from the territory of an enemy population into Israel during a war is a terrible mistake that will cost blood,” Minister-without-Portfolio Gideon Sa’ar said at the time.
A jailed Palestinian terrorist serving life for five murders is said to be top of Hamas' list for any exchange of prisoners for Israeli hostages.
Marwan Barghouti, a veteran West Bank leader who was jailed in 2002 for murder, is known as the 'Palestinian Nelson Mandela' to his supporters and is seen as the key to a ceasefire in Gaza.
However, the Israeli government has not yet agreed to his release or confirmed that it is now inevitable, despite many negotiators believing it was close
A statement in Barghouti's name called for support for Hamas in the current war, something which his wife denies. Following this, his family says he was brutalized in prison, transferred to solitary confinement and held in the dark with loud music playing for days.
The Israeli prison authorities have not commented on the specific allegations but say they 'operate strictly according to rules and procedures
Imprint of the personal seal of the Ramban, found at Tel Kissan, Israel. You can see an image of the actual seal here. |
It was in his twilight years that the great Ramban (R. Moshe ben Nachman, “Nahmanides” in Christian Renaissance parlance) left Girona, in the northeast of Spain, where he had resided all his life. Born c. 1194, he departed Spain for Israel in 1267, aged over seventy. The legacy he left behind was a rich, complex, and enduring one that would continue to shape Sefardi culture in Spain for generations to come. It consisted of a robust halachic tradition nurtured in the “school” of the Ramban, eventually settling at the great beit midrash (study hall) of Barcelona and encompassing the scholarship of the Rashba, Ritva, and Ran, to name but a few of the most prominent of Ramban’s protégés and students-of-students. In addition to this, an early school of Kabbalistic tradition runs through the intellectual legacy of the Ramban. Scholars debate whether and to what extent Ramban’s Kabbala was a part of the Gironese school, or whether it belongs to another strain altogether. It was, to be sure, one of the most important pre-Zoharic esoteric traditions circulating in Spain. Together this twin legacy of halachic rigor and esoteric wisdom would characterize Sefardi intellectual culture in the Christian period.
In some regards, there are lines of similarity to be drawn between the trajectories of the Ramban, the exemplar of Christian Sefard, and of R. Yehuda ha-Levi, the paragon of Muslim Sefarad. Both men were not only steeped in the local Sefardi culture of their time, they were celebrated representatives of it. Both turned away, in later life, from the institutions they had built and towards the faraway promised Land. And both men had deep spiritual stirrings that led them to undertake aliyah. However, the character of Ramban’s move is strikingly different from R. Yehuda ha-Levi’s. Ha-Levi’s aliyah—which has been described as a pilgrimage—was intensively documented, in a spiritual sense, in his poetry and embedded in his philosophy. There are also many physical documents, such as letters, attesting to his pilgrimage. It was a principled turning-away, a statement about the nature of life in Spain. Ramban, in contrast, despite deep feeling for Eretz Yisrael and a sustained exploration of its spiritual dimensions in his work, left Spain as a matter of necessity and less so as a turning-away. Ramban’s move occurred more abruptly, with less explicit literary exposition, though he left rich testimony to his aliyah in his works, as we’ll see.
'Ben Gvir's remark is quite accurate. It is reasonable to assume that most Israelis would agree.'
Yisrael Asulin eulogized his brother, Sergeant First Class (res.) Shimon Yehoshua Asulin, 24 years old, who fought in the 924th Engineering Battalion of the Harel Brigade and was killed in action in southern Gaza.
Shimon was a student in the Midbara KeEden Hesder Yeshiva in Mitzpe Ramon, and the son of Rabbi Rafi Asulin, the dean of the Sha'alei Torah Yeshiva high school in Beit Shemesh.
Sid Rosenberg, the host of 77 WABC's Sid and Friends in the Morning, spoke to Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about his decision to come broadcast from Israel precisely during these times.
“That decision was actually made on October the 7th, but logistically it took some time to put this trip into place. I've got a huge, huge show back in New York, in the US, so we had to make sure that the company back home, WABC, had its ducks in order. I have a guy on the ground here in Israel, in Gush Etzion. He's a wonderful friend, Yehuda Honigman, who actually put the whole trip together for us. He got One Israel Fund to pay for the most part, so between Yehuda working on a sponsor, my station getting their ducks in order, it took a couple of months to get this thing going, but the truth is I made the decision to come all the way back on that tragic day, the worst day, October the 7th,” he said.
Even though Sid has been hearing the news and reporting the news from his studio in New York, he still felt that he needed to come here, to be here. "People keep saying to me, ‘Why now?’ I've got a friend who lives in Netanya. He has a house on the beach. He says ‘Why now? Everything was so beautiful. We've got beautiful weather. It was safe.' Why now? The answer is in the question. Because now is the time to come. It's easy to come to the beaches, when everything is going well, and the sun is shining. The question is when people need you, are you going to be there."
Politico reported on Sunday that US President Joe Biden is deeply suspicious of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and privately has called the prime minister a “bad f***ing guy,” people who have talked to the president said.
According to the report, Biden fears that Netanyahu is eager to drag the US into a wider war in the Middle East, a conflict that would ensure American weapons keep flowing to the region, troops soon follow and international pressure on him to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and his domestic political difficulties both dissipate.
Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said in response, “The president did not say that, nor would he.”
He added that the two leaders have “a decades-long relationship that is respectful in public and in private.”
The quote attributed to Biden came as part of a report about the support for Biden among liberal voters amid concerns by Democrats their coalition unraveling over Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby last week commented in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News on the tensions between Netanyahu and Biden over their disagreements about how to handle the day after the war in Gaza.
“Netanyahu and Biden have known each other a long, long time. And they didn't always agree on everything. And I don't think anybody should expect that they're going to agree on everything going forward. But because they have the kind of relationship where they can be frank and honest,” Kirby clarified.
NBC News reported several weeks ago that the Biden administration is laying the groundwork with other Israeli leaders in anticipation of a post-Netanyahu government.
The report said that the Biden administration and Netanyahu’s divisions over Israel’s handling of the war with Hamas, as well as Netanyahu’s refusal to consider US proposals for a post-war Gaza, have only become more pronounced since Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s most recent visit to Israel.
Three senior US officials quoted in the report said that the Biden administration is looking past Netanyahu to try to achieve its goals in the region. The officials told NBC News that Netanyahu “will not be there forever.”
Josh is back.
— Daniel Berke (@DanielBerke1) February 2, 2024
Politely explaining that the Gaza Strip wasn't occupied for quite some time....@afneil @jordanbpeterson pic.twitter.com/itgsylXsMK
Josh, the adorable and brilliant 12 year old interviewer from Manchester, has done it again, politely and calmly embarrassing a pro-Hamas protester by quoting the facts.
In this video, the protesters attempted to justify (while claiming she did not justify) the Hamas terror attack by claiming it was a response to the “occupation”. Josh pointed out that Israel gave back Gaza in 2005, and was not occupying the land.
Queva, senior scheduling coordinator and playout planner at BBC Three, also posted a host of other antisemitic messages—often typo-ridden—including saying that Jews have “none zero zilch blood connection to the land of Palestine or Israel historically.”
“To be JewISH is to practice a religion loosely based on the Hebraic faith,” the senior BBC employee said. “To be JewISH has zero to do with ethnicity.”
She also interpreted Noah’s blessing to his sons in Genesis to mean that Ashkenazi Jews aren’t really Jews, but instead “the synagogue of Satan.”
Of the Holocaust, Queva wrote that although 26 million Russians died during World War II, “all we here [sic] about and made [sic] never to forget are the JeWISH 6 million. Never mind the Rothschilds funded their own holohoax.”
She also accused Jews of kidnapping, raping and enslaving Africans “for 30 generations,” committing genocide against Palestinians and controlling the media.
“We don’t comment on individual members of staff and we have well-established and robust processes in place to handle such issues,” a BBC spokeswoman said. “We do not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia or any form of abuse, and we take any such allegations seriously and take appropriate disciplinary action wherever necessary.”
Speaking via Zoom for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy on Jan. 31, Ross offered some expected, perfunctory criticism of Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah. But again and again, he managed to bring in one-sided and unfair criticism of Israel.
Referring to Israel's counter-terrorism actions in Judea and Samaria, Ross said: "West Bank violence [by Arabs] is not disconnected from Israel's policies in the West Bank."
That's just absurd.
The terrorists are not responding to Israeli policies. They were murdering Jews long before there were any settlements or so-called occupied territories. They oppose Israel's existence, not its borders. It's these terrorists who are the aggressors, and Israelis must respond to them.
When he began shouting at Netanyahu, families of the wounded and others present at the time attempted to ask him to leave, saying that it was not the place for a protest.
Noam Ben-Shalosh, a soldier from the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade who had lost his leg in combat, told Kan about the incident, which he says constituted a traumatic trigger for some of the soldiers who had been wounded in combat.
“He began to shout, and it didn't impress me to begin with. Many people asked him to leave because this was neither the time or place, among them my mother. He became angry with her and called her stupid. When I heard that, the soldier in me was reawakened. They had to calm me down.”
Footage of the incident shows Ben-Shalosh pursuing the protester while hopping on one leg and shouting at the protester. He recounted in an interview: “You cannot take advantage of the rehabilitation wing, where there is also mental rehabilitation going on, for a protest. There are people who were burned by politics and the senior officials responsible for the security of the state. If you begin to say things connected to that, it triggers them.”
“You cannot shout that the blood of the soldiers who were killed in action is on Netanyahu's hands. You're talking about my blood and that of sixteen of my comrades who were killed that day. It seriously upset me.”
"The army must undergo a reform and a fundamental change from within. The change must be carried out in two ways: from the top down, and from the bottom up. In other words," explained Pollard, "a change must be made at the top of the military system by replacing the Chief of Staff and changing the face of the entire General Staff so that the spirit Change first at the top of the system and then go and infiltrate down to the last of the soldiers as well. But even more important is the change that needs to come from below, from the junior echelon that is gradually occupying the key positions in the system. This is the right thing to do in order to transform the IDF into an army that fights according to the tradition of Jewish values, for the sake of the Jewish people living in Israel."
"This is where the importance of Torah students comes in because you are the ones who will create the Jewish army, who will fight for the sanctification of God," he said. "Everyone is fighting now, the secular, the traditional, the religious and the ultra-Orthodox side by side in a wonderful way and that is blessed. But we want to make sure that the army is united around the goal of protecting the Jewish state and the Jewish identity of the state."
Pollard also referred to the hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza and said: "I know the captives well and intimately. I know how difficult and complex it is, but right now we need a victory over Hamas and a victory that will bring the kidnapped back home. It is forbidden to agree to deals with Hamas under any circumstances. The main goal of the war is the complete victory over Hamas and its complete destruction. Regarding the abductees, we will do everything so that they return at the same time. That's the only way we can bring them home, all of them." He added: "We have 8 million "kidnapped" if we agree to deals with Hamas. 8 million more Jews who live in the country and the duty is to protect them too at all costs. We do not have the authority to pay too heavy a price."
Are Israelis resilient? You bet! Watch this and enjoy the celebration of this beautiful young couple, building a life together even in the most difficult of times. pic.twitter.com/kWmv0AF9WY
— David M Friedman (@DavidM_Friedman) February 1, 2024
A 16-year-old boy was beheaded by lSlS terrorists for missing Friday prayers.
— Azzat Alsalem (@AzzatAlsaalem) January 30, 2024
He was publicly beheaded as punishment for missing the prayers and warning for others to follow sharia law! pic.twitter.com/YzNmm0UajR
A Johannesburg city council member lodged a complaint when he saw city councilor Daniel Schay (@2Schay) wearing a Star of David on his tie.
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) January 31, 2024
Another councilor steps in and says "Freedom of religion is protected by the constitution. It is the first time in this Council's chambers… pic.twitter.com/3CopV0tDyv
Yesterday in India, over 10,000 people queued to be checked for elligibility for construction work in Israel, instead of Palestinians. Many slept at the site overnight.https://t.co/YzsRuGIqfz pic.twitter.com/wmCjaWpnqx
— Imshin (@imshin) January 31, 2024