Netanyahu Caves into Biden Pressure and agrees to freeze settlement construction, demolition of illegal Arab homes

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to a number of concessions to the Palestinian Authority, as part of the Biden administration’s push to broker a deal between the two sides to lower tensions during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Walla reported Sunday evening.

According to the report, two Biden administration officials say that the US has secured “understandings” with Jerusalem and Ramallah, under which both Israel and the Palestinian Authority will refrain from unilateral moves over the next few months.

The understandings, disclosed earlier this month, were reportedly finalized only following heavy pressure from the Biden administration.

Under the tacit agreement, the Palestinian Authority will hold off on its plans to have the United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution condemning Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria.

The resolution, drafted following the Israeli Cabinet’s decision to authorize nine communities in Judea and Samaria, is slated to be brought up for a vote by the 15-member council on Monday, and would demand Israel "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory."

The text "reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law."

The United States hinted Thursday it would likely veto the resolution, with State Department spokesman Vedant Patel calling the resolution “unhelpful.”

To avoid being forced to use its veto in the Security Council, the Palestinian Authority is expected, under the new arrangement, to call to have the vote on the resolution dropped from the Council’s agenda.

In exchange, Israel has reportedly agreed to freeze construction projects in Judea and Samaria and to halt or significantly reduce the demolition of illegal Arab structures in eastern Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.

The duration of the construction freeze and reduction in demolitions is unclear, though the report claimed the US is hoping to reduce tensions during the upcoming Islamic month of Ramadan which lasts from March 22nd to April 20th.

An Israeli diplomatic official quoted in the report denied that any understandings regarding construction freezes in Judea and Samaria were reached.

Former WH doctor for Trump, Obama blasts 'alarming' Biden health report: 'The cover-up needs to end'

 

Texas GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, is calling for an end to the "cover-up" of President Biden's health after the president's physical earlier this week claimed that he is healthy and fit to serve as commander in chief.

"The majority of Americans can see that Biden's mental health is in total decline, yet there is no transparency from the White House on what’s going on, if anything, to address this issue and his inability to do his job," Jackson told Fox News Digital. "Yesterday's written physical exam report released by Biden’s physician, Kevin O'Connor, further confirms that this administration is still adamant about concealing the truth."

Jackson also took issue with the fact that the report from Biden's physical, the second one he's taken since entering office, made no mention of the president undergoing a cognitive test amid his "deteriorating mental health."

Is Netanyahu Considering Betraying Coalition Partners in Exchange for Plea Deal?

 

By

 David Israel

Against the background of the protest against the judicial reform and the growing concern in the legal community and the left-center politicians, there have been quiet, unofficial talks recently between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s associates and representatives of the circles opposed to the legislation, with the aim of reaching a solution, Maariv reported on Friday.

Anyone reading the Maariv report is instantly reminded of the “Greek island affair” of 2001, where businessman David Apple employed Ariel Sharon’s son Gilad as an extremely highly-paid consultant – which the police and the prosecution believed was Apple’s way of bribing Sharon Sr. In 2004, the case against PM Sharon was dropped, and shortly thereafter, Sharon decided, after decades as the “father of the settlement enterprise,” to turn into the executioner of the settlement enterprise, by expelling some 10,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.

Look out, Jewish brothers and sisters, we may be treated to a remake of the same movie, this time starring defendant Benjamin Netanyahu who is facing three criminal indictments.

Officer Who Molested Female Otzma Yehudit MK Is Lapid Activist

 

Border Guard Superintendent Yasser Asadi, who was documented this week blocking Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har Melech to stop her from interfering with the uprooting of a Jewish vineyard in Binyamin, was active in the election campaign of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, Makor Rishon reported on Friday.

In an incident recorded during the evacuation of Kerem Ben-Eliyahu in Shiloh, Binyamin, four Border Guard officers surrounded Har Melech to prevent her from protesting in front of the bulldozers that uprooted the trees or trying to block them with her body

Justice Aaron Barak Former Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court is an Enlightened Despot

 

This article is a must read. It was first published in the New Republic in 2007! 

Aharon Barak, a long-serving justice (eventually the chief justice) of the Supreme Court of Israel, who recently reached mandatory retirement age, is a prolific writer, and this is his most recent book. It is an important document, less for its intrinsic merits than for its aptness to be considered Exhibit A for why American judges should be extremely wary about citing foreign judicial decisions. Barak is a world-famous judge who dominated his court as completely as John Marshall dominated our Supreme Court. If there were a Nobel Prize for law, Barak would probably be an early recipient. But although he is familiar with the American legal system and supposes himself to be in some sort of sync with liberal American judges, he actually inhabits a completely different--and,to an American, a weirdly different--juristic universe.

 I have my differences with Robert Bork, but when he remarked, in a review of The Judge in a Democracy, that Barak "establishes a world record for judicial hubris," he came very near the truth.

Florida Jewish man brutally sucker punched.

 

A Jewish man speaking Hebrew on his phone while riding his bicycle in Broward County, Florida was sucker punched by a passerby who also hurled antisemitic abuse at him.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office (BSO) said it was still looking for the suspect, Local 10 reported.

The incident occurred in Dania Beach on February 7 at approximately 5:30 p.m., the department added.

BSO said in a statement that the vicious punch “caused the victim to fall off the bike and to the ground.”

“The attacker then approached the victim, who stood up. A few seconds later, the subject walked away,” they said.

Law enforcement identified the attacker in a separate incident caught on video in which he was in a verbal altercation with workers near the scene of the assault.

He was also captured on cell phone video accosting people who ran over to help the victim after he was knocked off his bicycle.

Rabbi Joe Soshtain of the Young Israel of Hollywood Synagogue called the incident “appalling.”

“That you can’t walk on your own streets and ride in your own streets, it’s a terrible, terrible feeling and things have to change,” he told the news outlet.

The victim was taken to hospital but has been released and is expected to recover.

Iran is ‘mapping’ Jewish leaders worldwide

 

The Iranian government is “mapping” Jews around the world with plans to kill them if Israel attacks Iran, according to a report in London’s Jewish Chronicle.

Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a Middle East scholar and research fellow at a think tank, met Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in February 2017. She believes that he was unaware that she is Jewish.

According to Perez-Shakdam, the only thing Khamenei fears is an Israeli attack. “He believes Netanyahu’s threats, and he knows that for now, Israel is militarily superior,” she told the paper. “He feels that the Iranian regime can’t sustain a defeat.”

During her trip, Perez-Shakdad was told of a plan to “map key Jewish figures around the world for Iran’s assassination squads,” per the Chronicle.

“The idea was to identify all prominent NGOs run by Jews, who was doing what in each business sector, the important rabbis,” she said. “They wanted to figure out their influence and where they lived with their families in order to target them.”

The paper noted that in November, British intelligence’s MI5 stated it had foiled 10 assassination attempts in just one year. It did not say if any of those attempts targeted Jews.

Zera Shimshon Parshas Mishpatim

 

UFO shot down by $400K US missile may have been a $12 hobby balloon

 

One of the UFOs shot down last weekend by the US Air Force with a $400,000 missile may have simply been a $12 balloon belonging to an Illinois enthusiast club, a report said.

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade told Aviation Week on Thursday that it fears one of its diligently-tracked gasbags that recently went missing was mistaken as the mystery object taken out by the military over Canada on Saturday.

The Pico Balloon — a silver-coated, cylindrically shaped object — reported its last position at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska on Friday.

By Saturday, based on the balloon’s projected path, it would have been over the central part of the Yukon Territory around the same time a military Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same Canadian vicinity, the outlet reported.

Human remains found in area where Moshe Kleinerman vanished

 

Over the last few weeks, the Israel Dog Unit (IDU), a nonprofit specializing in search and rescue, has been searching an area in the Meron region where human remains had been located.

The search comes as part of ongoing attempts to locate multiple people who have vanished in the area, including Avraham Moshe Kleinerman and Moshe Ilovitch, and was conducted alongside Israel Police officers, ZAKA volunteers, and park rangers from the Nature and Parks authority.

Rabbi Arrested, Banned From Cleveland Universities Over His Anti-palestinian Activism

 

For days, students and police at Cleveland State University had been trying to figure out who stole a banner belonging to a campus Palestinian rights group.

The banner, which belonged to the student group Palestinian Human Rights Organization, read “CSU Solidarity for Palestinian Rights” and was illustrated with an outline of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip collectively emblazoned in the Palestinian flag. A dove holding an olive branch appeared on top of the image.

Then, on Jan. 19, police charged their top suspect: a local Orthodox rabbi, whose presence on campus had become all too familiar. A few days later the man confessed to the theft on Instagram, announcing that he had stolen the banner from the school’s student center “as an act of civil disobedience.”

“This incitement to annihilation of Israel should have never been permitted at CSU,” Rabbi Alexander Popivker, a 46-year-old Cleveland Heights resident whose neighborhood is six miles from the school, wrote on social media accompanied by a picture of the flag he stole.

Suspect in LA Shul Shootings Arrested

A man has been arrested in the case of two shul shootings this week in LA.

The LAPD says the suspect was arrested in Riverside County and evidence was seized that included a rifle and handgun.

Although police initially said there was no evidence to confirm antisemitism, they say the circumstances led them to pursue the investigation as a hate crime.

Earlier, the LAPD issued a press release stating that the February 15 and 16 shootings on Pico Boulevard “may have involved the same suspect”: an Asian male with a goatee driving a white compact vehicle.

“The Los Angeles Police Department is aware of the concern these crimes have raised in the surrounding community,” the statement said. “We have been in close contact with religious leaders as well as individual and community stakeholders. In addition, we are re-allocating police resources to provide a highly visible preventative presence in the area.”

The report certainly increases the likelihood that the shooter is an antisemite who was specifically targeting Jews.

In addition, the Jewish Journal quoted a reputable source who claimed that the local police informed him that they had apprehended a suspect, however that has not been confirmed.

On Thursday, an orthodox Jew was shot by a man in a car, after leaving Shul. It was the second such incident in two days. According to reports, at 8:20 a.m. a man was walking out of shul when a suspect identified as a white male shot him.

The incident happened near S. Bedford Street and Pico Boulevard on the westside of Los Angeles.

Less than 24 hours prior, a man was shot leaving a Shul at about 10 a.m. nearly a block away. That victim was also struck in the arm and listed in stable condition.

Rapid cancer test can diagnosis patients with just a splash of urine

 

A simple urine sample may be all you need to diagnosis cancer soon. Researchers in South Korea are developing a new rapid test that looks at the metabolites in urine which reveal the presence of certain cancers in the body. Their success is paving the way for a simple strip-type sensor that alerts patients long before life-threatening symptoms emerge in late-stage cancers.

Right now, the team says this test can detect prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer with near-perfect accuracy. The test works by irradiating light after placing a small volume (10uL) of urine droplets on the testing surface.

Study authors focused on the differences in metabolomic components present in the urine of cancer patients and healthy people. When cancer cells start to multiply in a person’s body, they secrete different metabolites into urine because the disease is altering the patient’s metabolism.

Researchers developed a surface-enhanced Raman scattering sensor which amplifies the signs of these metabolites by more than one billion times. They did this by forming a coral-shaped plasmonic nanomaterial on porous paper. When scientists put a patient’s urine into the sensor and irradiate it with light, the cancer metabolite signals literally “light up” on the sensor surface. Using artificial intelligence to analyze their results, the team was able to distinguish up to 99 percent of prostate and pancreatic cancer patients from healthy samples.

Daniel Dresner A Therapist in Monsey Beat and Sexually Abused his Chareidie Clients

 

Ben Gvir Comforts Bedouins after The IDF Son is killed

 

This is not a "news story" - so you won't see it appear in any Western media outlet. But it is extremely revealing, a counter-narrative to the misconceived preconceptions of so many who spew hate against Israel, and particularly against those on the right. Look, listen, and… https://t.co/CxCiW9Zmbe

— Pini Dunner (@pinidunner) February 15, 2023

Biden Sent $1 Billion to the PA and Israeli Deaths Rose 900%

 

After Biden sent $1 billion to the PLO, Israeli deaths rose 900% https://t.co/X3iaz2DLc1 via @JNS_org

— Mike Newman (@MikeNew19512115) February 15, 2023

'Israel has a Biblical claim on Judea and Samaria' Mike Pompeo

 

"Creating peace is in America's best interest, not drawing lines on a map," says former Secretary of State.

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he believes Israel has a Biblical claim on Judea and Samaria and is, therefore, not an occupying force.

“[Israel] is not an occupying nation. As an evangelical Christian, I am convinced by my reading of the Bible that 3,000 years on now, in spite of the denial of so many, [this land] is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people,” the former official told the One Decision podcast.

Pompeo was asked about the Israeli government's planned judicial reform and whether he felt that American's historic partnership with Israel was conditional on adherence to democratic principles. Pompeo responded that although he prefers not to discuss foreign countries' domestic policies, he would note that while the American government always advocates for democracy, it still maintains close ties with several nations that are not democracies, such as those in southeast Asia and the Middle East. He added that if an ally planned to do something that was perceived as inconsistent with US interests, they would ask them to refrain.

Nonetheless, Pompeo insists that Israel's judicial reform is a relative non-issue compared to other problems in the region. "If you look at the list of troubles we have in the Middle East, that doesn't make the 'hit parade,'" he said. "Let's start with the fact the Iranians continue to hold people with US passports and British passports, or we could start with the observation that the Iranians are trying to kill Americans here at home, including former US senior government officials."

The former Secretary of State also discussed the Abraham Accords and the benefit they bring to the American public. "I'm happy about the Abraham Accords because the chance that a US Marine will have to fight and die is substantially lower now that peace and prosperity are on the march in the region. We fundamentally took down the risk for the United States of America as a result of the Abraham Accords," he stated.

"What’s in America’s best interest? Is it to sit and wait for Abu Mazen [PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas], a known terrorist who’s killed lots and lots of people, including Americans … to draw a line on a map? That’s what the State Department would do. The previous Secretary of State ran back and forth from Tel Aviv to Ramallah and tried to draw lines on a map. We said: ‘That’s not in America’s best interest. Let’s go create peace,’ and we did.” he said.

Throughout the interview, Pompeo refused to voice support for a two-state solution, saying that he supports an outcome that guarantees Israeli security and makes life better for everyone in the region.

Incompetent Biden Now Shooting Down Weather Balloons?

 

The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Letter Arrived 55 Years Late, But At Exactly The Right Time

 

 Journalist Yossi Elituv, who recently lost his father Rabbi Shimon Elituv, one of the prominent disciples of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, described how a letter addressed to his father by the Rebbe and sent 55 years ago had arrived at exactly the right time.

Elituv, who is the editor of the Mishpacha magazine, tweeted that “to receive a condolence letter from the Rebbe over the passing of our father during the shloshim seems like a message from heaven.

“This is how it happened. On the 5th of Av 5728 (1968), 55 years ago, the rebbe sent a letter full of comforting words about the month of Av to our father. However the letter never arrived as our father had moved to Romania and the letter, addressed to Jerusalem, was returned.

“An hour ago a person who was close to the Rebbe called with a message: I discovered by chance a condolence letter the Rebbe sent to your father which never reached him. Now is its time, I’m sending you a copy with shaking hands, or more correctly, the Rebbe is sending the family condolences.”

In the letter the Rebbe wrote that “may Hashem, the merciful father, comfort his people Yisrael with a double comfort, double strength. This double does not mean two times as much but rather a number which is priceless, and soon these days will become joyous and festive.

Elituv concluded, stating that “My father got 130 letters from the Rebbe in his lifetime and only one with words of comfort arrived tonight, when we most needed comforting.”

 

לקבל מכתב ניחומים מהרבי זי״ע על הסתלקותו של אבינו הכ״מ בתוך השלושים לפטירתו, זה גובל באות משמים.
ומעשה שהיה כך היה: בה׳ מנחם אב תשכ״ח, לפני 55 שנים, שיגר הרבי אגרת מלאה בדברי ניחומים על חודש אב לאבינו. אלא שהמכתב לעולם לא הגיע ליעדו. באותם ימים אבא העתיק את מגוריו לרומניה.
1/1 pic.twitter.com/oDKlALdY02

— יוסי אליטוב Yossi Elituv (@yoelituv) February 14, 2023

Have $50 Million Dollars Lying Around You Can Buy This Chumash

 

Sotheby’s auction house is selling a Hebrew Bible that Richard Austin, its global head of books and manuscripts, calls “undeniably one of the most important and singular texts in human history.”

Codex Sassoon dates to the late ninth or early 10th century and derives its name from its most prominent owner, David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942). It “has been definitively dated as the earliest, most complete text of its kind,” Austin stated in a release.

Sassoon’s Hebrew manuscript and Judaica collection is among the most renowned of its kind.

“It stands as a critical link from the ancient Hebrew oral tradition to the modern, accepted form of the Hebrew Bible that remains the standardized version used today,” added Austin.

Sharon Mintz, senior Judaica books and manuscripts specialist at Sotheby’s, said the volume represents “a monumental transformation” in the history of the Hebrew Bible.

“ ‘Codex Sassoon’ marks a critical turning point in how we perceive the history of the divine word across thousands of years, and is a transformative witness to how the Hebrew Bible has influenced the pillars of civilization—art, culture, law, politics—for centuries,” she said in a release.

Sotheby’s stated, “Coming to auction for the first time in more than 30 years with an estimate of $30/50 million, Codex Sassoon will be the most valuable printed manuscript or historical document by estimate ever offered at auction.”

The auction is slated for New York in May.