Monday, January 1, 2024
Dennis Ross Warns Biden’s Growing Pressure on Israel Will Backfire
Dennis Ross, who served as Director of Policy Planning under President George H. W. Bush, special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton, and special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, last week warned in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that while President “Biden’s strong response to the trauma of Oct. 7 has given him a great deal of credit with the Israeli public,” however, “threatening to withhold US aid unless Israel changes its policies would only have the effect of making the Israelis feel they must go it alone.”
“The reality is that US aid to Israel has never been a blank check,” writes Ross, and Washington has frequently used military assistance to push Israel to take risks for the sake of peace, or to help deter America’s enemies in the region. But “Israel is a democracy, its policy choices are often shaped and determined by public opinion, and history shows that if Israeli voters think the US is making unreasonable demands, it will reject them, regardless of the costs.”
US aid to Israel “is not simply a favor to Israel—it serves American geopolitical interests while also channeling much of the aid back to the US defense industry,” Ross points out, and acknowledges that “Israel has developed and shared critical new military technologies, whether ‘active armor’ to protect tanks, or the Arrow and Iron Dome anti-missile defense systems.”
After being ridiculed for purchasing Twitter Elon Musk Reclaims Title of the "World's Richest Person"
BREAKING: After being ridiculed for purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk has reclaimed the title of the world’s richest person and is set to end the year with a net worth of $232.4 billion, a $95.4 billion increase year-to-date.
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) December 30, 2023
Bulldozers: A key weapon in the Gaza war
On October 7, Hamas terrorists attacked dozens of points along the border with Gaza. They broke through the security fence and massacred people in Israeli communities. It took days of fighting to secure the border area again on Israel’s side of the fence. When the fighting was mostly done and Israeli communities retaken, the damage had to be repaired, and Israel had to consider its next steps in the Hamas-run enclave [in Gaza].
Into the breach came key units from the Combat Engineering Corps. In the first month of the war, the engineers helped repair and reinforce the breaches in the security fence. When the ground operation in Gaza began, they were pressed into action to help neutralize explosive devices and create access routes for forces to enter the Gaza Strip.
One IDF statement in early November noted that “during ground operations in the Gaza Strip, combat engineering troops created access routes, cleared the area of explosive devices, and neutralized terror infrastructure and terrorist cells found in the area. Furthermore, combat engineering and infantry soldiers located and struck military compounds used for planning and executing terror activities.”
Today, some of the engineering forces and their vehicles have been brought back from the tough battles in Gaza. I drove down to the Erez Crossing to meet with members of the unit.
Sunday, December 31, 2023
Israel investigates reports of tunneling in West Bank as locals fear imminent Oct. 7 style attack
Israeli officials have ordered new investigations into reports of digging noises under an Israeli town near the West Bank this week.
Residents of Bat Hefer have reported hearing digging noises beneath their homes, which lies just across the border from the West Bank city of Tulkarem.
Officials have conducted three previous checks and found no evidence of tunneling, but the city council has now ordered an additional two checks, according to the Times of Israel.
One Bat Hefer resident recorded the noises and played them on a public broadcast, according to Israeli media.
Citizens across the country remain in a heightened state of tension as they fear another attack similar to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.
“We take the reports very seriously, and are working overtime to check the issue in a comprehensive and professional manner, using various methods. So far, three checks have been carried out and two more checks will be carried out in the coming days. So far, there have been no findings to indicate digging,” The Emek Hefer Regional Council told Israeli media.
Residents of the town say they remain afraid as they see Hezbollah launching missiles and rockets across Israel’s northern border.
“The situation is really not good,” resident Gadi Ohayon stated on Israeli radio. “We live in a constant state of insecurity, the settlement is targeted with direct and indirect fire almost every day. We can show you pictures of shells from our yards.”
“We take the reports very seriously, and are working overtime to check the issue in a comprehensive and professional manner, using various methods. So far, three checks have been carried out and two more checks will be carried out in the coming days. So far, there have been no findings to indicate digging,” The Emek Hefer Regional Council told Israeli media.
Residents of the town say they remain afraid as they see Hezbollah launching missiles and rockets across Israel’s northern border.
“The situation is really not good,” resident Gadi Ohayon stated on Israeli radio. “We live in a constant state of insecurity, the settlement is targeted with direct and indirect fire almost every day. We can show you pictures of shells from our yards.”
Musli Jihadist Murder 100 Christians "For Sport" in Nigeria ... World Silent
 |
| Families bury the dead in a mass grave after deadly attacks in Nigeria’s central plateau region. |
DIN: Interesting that the article below hardly mentions that the murderers were all Muslims.
A never-ending massacre of Christians being “killed for sport” is reportedly happening in Nigeria, yet the world appears to be largely deaf to the matter.
While much of the world this week has been celebrating a beginning – Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ – in Nigeria they are mourning the end of life – the deaths of more than 100 Christians – as the world remains virtually silent.
Armed bandits ran amok, according to Amnesty International, in some 20 communities across central Nigeria, killing more than 140. In a country where accurate statistics are traditionally hard to come by, some sources have put the death toll closer to 200.
The Christians were killed in a wide swath across an invisible line that separates the mostly Muslim north and the predominately Christian south in the country’s Plateau State. According to multiple sources, Christians represent 46% of Nigeria’s population.
“There was yet another Christmas massacre of Christians in Nigeria yesterday. The world is — silent. Just unbelievable,” tweeted leading evangelist the Rev. Johnnie Moore on X, formerly Twitter.
More than 52,000 Christians “have been butchered or hacked to death for being Christians” since 2009 in Nigeria, according to Intersociety, a civil society group based in Onitsha.
“The U.S. Mission in Nigeria condemned the recent attacks in Plateau State and expressed heartfelt condolences for the tragic loss of life,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital in response to a question. Calling for accountability, the spokesperson added, “We are deeply concerned by the violence, and we are monitoring the situation.”
“Not a day goes by when Christians are not terrorized in western Africa in the most grotesque ways imaginable,” he continued. “Christians are killed for sport, especially Christian children. For every massacre which you hear about there are probably ten others which happened in the shadows. The death tolls are routinely in the hundreds.”
“Entire villages are burnt and pillaged. Thousands of churches have been destroyed. Children and women are hunted. Countless Christians have been kidnapped. I met one pastor whose two previous churches were burned down. Yet, he stayed in harm’s way because he was determined to be a light in the darkness, even if it [costs] him his life, and it probably will.”
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Coming soon to a sanctuary city near you!
https://t.co/8shfZH4YGX— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) December 27, 2023
Standing on a high podium against the backdrop of the green marble wall of the main UN meeting room, Miriam Novak said into the microphone
At the extraordinary UN General Assembly in New York (2021), held at the request of the leaders of the European Union and the New Arab Bloc, Israeli representative Miriam Novak spoke.
Standing on a high podium against the backdrop of the green marble wall of the main UN meeting room, Miriam Novak said into the microphone:
Ladies and Gentlemen! As you can see, eighty years ago, Europe, led by Germany, carried out an ethnic cleansing:
it destroyed almost all the Jews living there. The French, Belgians, Dutch, Norwegians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians - all helped the Nazis.
You killed at least six million Jews along with their newborn babies.
Each of them could give the world children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, so you can safely multiply the number of those killed four or five times...
And now, when we are again robbed, beaten and killed in all your countries, and your courts set the murderers free, you tell us that we have no right to defense?
Don't we have the right to warn our enemies that we will respond to a new ethnic cleansing with an even more powerful blow?
Maybe you can name another nation that your new international community led by Iran is so fanatically striving to destroy? And for what?
For two thousand years we lived among you, giving you our knowledge, discoveries and inventions.
We have given you the alphabet, the Bible, the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, the twelve apostles, Spinoza, Disraeli, Columbus[?], Newton, Nostradamus, Heine, Mendelssohn, Einstein, Singer, Eisenstein, Freud, Landau, Gershwin, Offenbach, Rubinstein, Sen -Sans[?], Kafka, Lombroso, Montaigne, Mahler, Marcel Marceau, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Yehudi Menuhin, Stefan Zweig, Arthur Miller, Maya Plisetskaya, Stanley Kubrick, Irving Berlin, Edward Teller, Lyon Feuchtwanger, Paul Newman, Robert Oppenheimer, Benny Goodman, Eugene Ionesco, Imre Kalman, Marcel Proust, Charlie Chaplin[?], Marc Chagall, Barbra Streisand, Claude Lelouch, Steven Spielberg, Anouk Aimee, Leonard Bernstein, Norbert Wiener, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Andrew Lloyd Webber and thousands of other scientists and educators.
Just imagine how many of the same geniuses the millions of Jews you killed, and then their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, could give birth to the world!
But these unborn geniuses disappeared forever in the ovens of crematoria, burned synagogues and mass graves.
So do you really think that with your resolutions, boycotts and sanctions we can be driven into gas chambers again?
No, gentlemen!
11 senior Iranian officers killed in Israeli airstrike on Syrian airport
An Israeli airstrike on an airport in Syria has reportedly killed 11 senior Iranian officers, Saudi Arabian news outlet Al Arabiya reported, citing unnamed sources.
The officers were part of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and they had been at Damascus International Airport to welcome a "senior delegation," per the report.
The IRGC members managed Iran-backed forces in eastern Syria, the report adds.
The IRGC has refuted the claim, with Ramezan Sharif, a spokesperson for the group, labeling the report "baseless," Iranian state media agency the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
The Israel Defense Forces told Business Insider it had "no comment" on the reports.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that "should the strike be independently verified, it would be more proof of Israel being able to hold back and deter elements of the Axis of Resistance in other geographies while fighting to defeat Hamas in Gaza."
Iran-backed groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq have launched attacks on Israel and its allies in support of Hamas.
Taleblu added that "the IRGC has long seen Syria as a critical regional hub to project power into the Eastern Mediterranean" and that "it should come as a shock to no one that Guard Corps elite are operating there."
It comes after an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital on Monday killed a top commander and senior advisor in the IRGC.
The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, said Israel had committed a "strategic mistake" by killing General Sayyed Razi Mousavi in the strike, saying it would increase resistance against the country, per the IRNA.
The IRGC responded to the news by saying Israel would suffer for the killing.
"The usurper and savage Zionist regime will pay for this crime," the group said in a TV statement, per Reuters.
Two-month investigation reveals new details showing how Hamas terrorists systematically used sexual violence during the October 7 massacre.
A newly-released two-month investigation by The New York Times has uncovered horrific, painful new details, proving that during Hamas' brutal massacre on the morning October 7, its attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a larger pattern.
The investigation relies on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors. In it, the Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls were seen sexually assaulted or mutilated.
The investigation also examines the accounts of four witnesses, who described the horrors in graphic detail, as well as several soldiers and volunteer medics who described over 30 bodies found both at the site of the music festival near Re'im and in two kibbutzim. All of the victims were in a similar state, showing signs of abuse in their genital areas, with their clothes torn off, and more. The Times also viewed footage of two dead IDF soldiers - women who had been shot in the genitals.
Due to the nature of the matter and to avoid as much as possible exposure to Hamas' psychological warfare, Israel National News - Arutz Sheva will not include details of the scenes.
One of the most important testimonies is that of Sapir, a 24-year-old accountant, who hid from the terrorists after being shot in the back and was witness to the rape and murder of at least five women. She has provided investigators with graphic testimony, and a friend hiding near her has confirmed that she was witness to the horrors.
Sapir said that in addition to the violent rapes and other mutilation, she watched the terrorists slice the face of one of their victims, and saw terrorists carrying the heads of three other women.
Another testimony is that of Raz Cohen, a young Israeli man who attended the festival and also found cover from the terrorists. From his hiding place, Raz said that he saw five men wearing civilian clothing and carrying knives, and one carrying a hammer, dragging a "young, naked, and screaming" woman across the ground.
"I still remember her voice, screams without words," he told the Times. "Then one of them raises a knife, and they just slaughtered her."
Captain Maayan, a dentist who worked at the identification center, said she had viewed the bodies of at least 10 female soldiers from Gaza observation posts with signs of sexual violence.
Volunteer medics and soldiers who arrived in Kibbutz Be'eri and Kibbutz Kfar Azas spoke of at least 24 bodies of women and girls who were "naked or half naked, some mutilated, others tied up, and often alone."
Friday, December 29, 2023
How individual, ordinary Jews fought Nazi persecution − a new view of history
 |
| Lizi Rosenfeld, a Jewish woman, sits on a park bench bearing a sign that reads, 'Only for Aryans,' in August 1938 in Vienna. |
Story by Wolf Gruner, Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History; Founding Director, USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences •
In Nazi Germany, Hertha Reis, a 36-year-old Jewish woman, performed forced labor for a private company in Berlin during World War II. In 1941, she was evicted by a judge from the two sublet rooms where she lived with her son and mother – she was unprotected as a tenant because of an anti-Jewish law.
In plain daylight, in front of the courthouse in the heart of the Nazi capital, she protested in front of passersby.
“We lost everything. Because of this cursed government, we finally lost our home, too. This thug Hitler, this damned government, these damned people,” she said. “Just because we are Jews, we are discriminated against.”
Historians knew of clandestine acts of resistance, of course, and of armed group resistance, such as the Warsaw ghetto uprising. But in the dominant understanding of the Nazi period until now, the act of speaking out publicly as an individual against the persecution of Jews seemed unimaginable, especially for the Jews.
But in July 2008, I stumbled on the first trace of such public acts of resistance in the logbook of a Berlin police precinct, one of the few chronicles of its kind that had survived in the Berlin State Archive.
The entry, bearing the label “political incident,” was written by a police officer who had arrested a Jewish man protesting against the Nazi anti-Jewish policies. At the time of the discovery, I had studied the persecution of German Jews intensively for almost 20 years, but I had never heard of anything like this.
Intrigued, I started investigating. Subsequently, finding more and more similar stories of resistance in court records and survivor testimonies began to shatter my established scholarly beliefs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)