White Supremacist Ties Probed as NJ State Trooper with Giant Hitler Neck Tattoo Fired
Edited by: TJVNews.com
A New Jersey state trooper with a giant neck tattoo citing a well-known Hitler Youth slogan was fired by the department last year following an investigation into the ink and his other white supremacist-linked tattoos, as per a New York Post report.
Trooper Jason Dare was let go from the department on Nov. 27 after nearly two decades on the job, according to a newly published annual state police disciplinary report and an NJ.com report.
Dare’s shocking body art was only flagged by the department after New Jersey State Police put out a public missing persons alert for the trooper in March 2023 after he left a Pennsylvania medical facility and disappeared.
The detective, who was described as “missing and endangered” in the alert, was found safe days later.
Yet it wasn’t his disappearance that was noticed by the public — but the massive “Blood Honor” text written across the bottom of his neck, which was visible in a photo the department shared with his missing persons report, as was revealed in The Post report.
“Blood and honor” was the motto adopted by the Hitler Youth during World War II as noted by social media users who commented on the state police’s post hoping to find Dare.
The Post also reported that internet sleuths later found photos on Dare’s Facebook page that revealed he had more troublesome ink, including Iron Crosses on his wrists and a pit bull illustration matching the logo of a Pennsylvania-based white supremacist group, the Keystone State Skinheads, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
He had also shared posts on Facebook alluding to white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability launched an internal investigation into Dare following the complaints about his tattoos, the Post reported.
The probe found that he violated law enforcement policies on conflicts of interest through his “visible tattoos associated with groups espousing racist ideology,” according to NJ.com.
The annual personnel disciplinary report published by the state police does not list Dare’s hate-linked ink as the reason for his termination, though his charges include “uniform and grooming standards.”
“[Dare] violated the terms of a previously negotiated plea agreement for misconduct by leaving a medical facility without making proper notification to the Division and entering an unoccupied residence in Pennsylvania without permission,” the report states, as was indicated in The Post reported.
“The member also discharged one round from a shotgun through the front window of his residence. The member was terminated from employment with the Division.”
State police have not disclosed any information on the circumstances of Dare’s medical treatment and disappearance or the firearm incident.
The report in The Post said that the Attorney General’s Office told the local outlet that Dare was let go on Nov. 27 following its investigation.
A spokesperson for the office didn’t immediately respond to a request for information from The Post.
Celebrity Stylist Who Attacked Chelsea Rabbi Taken Into Custody After Video Went Viral
Edited by: TJVNews.com
In a shocking incident that unfolded outside the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, Aleksander Janik, a well-known personal shopper with a high-profile client list, was taken into custody following an altercation with Rabbi Chezky Wolff, as was previously reported by The New York Post. The confrontation, captured on video, quickly escalated into a physical assault that has drawn significant attention and controversy.
The altercation began on Tuesday night when Rabbi Wolff requested Janik to leash his dog, Hudson, which had wandered near the open doors of the Chelsea Shul where Wolff works. The seemingly mundane request sparked a heated dispute. The Post reported that according to Wolff, Janik responded with an anti-Semitic tirade, accusing him of making derogatory remarks about “dirty Jews.” Janik, however, vehemently denied these accusations, asserting that his mother was Jewish and that he harbors no anti-Semitic sentiments.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) June 5, 2024
The situation rapidly deteriorated, culminating in Janik striking Wolff with a heavy tote bag. The video footage shows Janik bashing Wolff on the head, causing his glasses and yarmulke to fly off. As per The Post report, despite the clear evidence of the physical assault, Janik downplayed the severity of his actions, describing the incident as merely a “push” with his bag. He claimed he acted in self-defense, feeling threatened by Wolff who he said was following and recording him.
“I protect my dog and myself. A stranger man who’s following me with their phone in my face, I ought to protect myself. I don’t know him,” Janik told The Post. He further denied that his actions were driven by anti-Semitism, insisting that he supports the Jewish community and respects all religions.
The next time someone thinks about paying their money for movie tickets to watch a Mark Ruffalo movie, just remember this. Ruffalo is an antisemitic, anti-Israel Jew hater Marxist who hangs out with this violent antisemitic Jew hater Aleksander Janik Sobieski and Ruffalo funds… pic.twitter.com/BwKQ7QHETR
— Saint James Hartline (@JamesHartline) June 5, 2024
The incident has elicited strong reactions from various quarters. Carey London, Wolff’s lawyer and a member of the Chelsea Shul’s congregation, dismissed Janik’s self-defense claims and accused him of lying to cover up his anti-Semitic behavior. “We have no response to an antisemite’s lies. Again — the Jewish people just want peace,” London stated, as was noted in The Post report.
London also noted that the tote bag Janik used appeared to be filled with heavy objects, likely books or a laptop, which left a visible mark on Wolff’s head, the report added. This assertion calls attention to the potential severity of the assault, highlighting the need for a thorough investigation.
Janik’s social media presence paints a picture of a man deeply embedded in the world of glitz and glamour. His Instagram account is replete with images of him at high-profile events, posing with celebrities such as Celine Dion, Rihanna, Brooke Shields, and even New York City Mayor Eric Adams, The Post report revealed .The account opens with the word “Ubuntu,” an ancient African term meaning “humanity to others.” This ironic juxtaposition between his public persona and the violent act captured on video has not gone unnoticed by the public and media alike, The Post report noted.
As of early Friday afternoon, Janik had not been formally charged. The incident raises critical questions about public behavior, accountability, and the societal undercurrents of discrimination and violence. While Janik maintains his innocence and claims the anti-Semitic assault was a defensive act, the video evidence and Rabbi Wolff’s account suggest a different narrative.
The case will likely proceed through the legal system, where all evidence will be scrutinized to determine the truth and ensure justice is served. This incident serves as a stark reminder of the persistent issues of anti-Semitism and violence that continue to plague society, and the need for ongoing dialogue and action to address these deep-seated problems.
(JNS) – According to a report in the New York Post, a labor organizer at The New York Times has defended Hamas and smeared liberals who reject her radical views.
Nastaran Mohit, organizing director of the NewsGuild of New York, wrote on X that “all these Zionist Butchers know how to kill. Children. Families. The next generation. Depraved monsters who will meet their fate one day.”
Mohit also attacked the Times and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for failing to embrace her far-left views on the conflict.
Clinton said in a comment shared on social media, “I think it’s fair to say Hamas cares nothing about the civilians who are being murdered or killed, both by Hamas still in Gaza or through military operations by Israel.
“If Hamas would agree to a ceasefire there would be a ceasefire,” she continued.
Mohit blasted back with a reposting of the statement on Feb. 8, calling the former first lady’s claim “an objective lie, you bloodthirsty savage of a human being. Rot in hell.”
Following the Times award of a Pulitzer Prize for articles about Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Mohit called the publication a “decrepit institution” and said that the win was “utterly reprehensible.”
A spokesperson for the Times told the Post that the publication would not comment on “internal union matters.”
Mohit has made her X postings protected. She describes herself on the platform as “Labor organizer. Iranian-American. Queens girl for life #FreePalestine Views are my own,” and features a watermelon emoji in her name. With its red and green colors, the fruit has evolved into a symbol of the pro-Hamas protest movement.
(JNS) In a move certain to exacerbate tensions between Jerusalem and the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres will place Israel on its annual so-called list of shame.
Each year, Guterres compiles a list of countries and armed groups he deems to have committed grave violations against children during conflict, and delivers a report on the matter to the U.N. Security Council in mid-July.A senior Israeli diplomatic official confirmed to JNS an earlier media report that Guterres has informed Israel of his decision.
“Today the U.N. added itself to the black list of history when it joined those who support the Hamas murderers,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, per an English translation that his office provided. “The IDF is the most moral army in the world; no delusional U.N. decision will change that.”
While the list carries no penalties, the fallout could be immensely damaging, with Israel at risk of decreased diplomatic standing and in jeopardy of sanctions, arms embargoes and other boycotts.
Sixty-six countries and groups, including Russia and the Myanmar military, appeared on last year’s list, as Guterres resisted pressure to add Israel. But, the high youth casualty toll Hamas claims Gazans have suffered from Israel’s counteroffensive following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, combined with the increasingly deteriorating relationship between Guterres and the Israeli government, appears to have factored into his decision.
Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for Guterres, refused to comment to JNS or confirm Guterres’s decision, other than to say, “We can expect the report to go to the Security Council on its due date.”
A spokesman for the Israeli mission to the United Nations also declined comment.
While it appears the Israeli government is planning a response to the report’s release following months of failed talks and pressure on the subject, the head of the Israeli opposition, Yesh Atid Party leader Yair Lapid, said in a statement that “putting the State of Israel on the blacklist is a serious and baseless political step by the U.N. secretary-general, who has long since lost all moral direction.”
While blaming the Netanyahu government that Lapid claims “has lost all ability to stop Israel’s political deterioration,” he pointed out Hamas’s murder of “over 1,400 innocent citizens, women and children” by terrorist wretches who still hold young women and old people captive.”
(Daily Caller) Dr. Phil struggled to keep a straight face as presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump ripped into Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff in an interview that aired Thursday on “Merit Street” network.
Trump reflected on Schiff’s fervent promotion of “the Russia hoax,” telling Dr. Phil how the California congressman dragged his son, Donald Trump Jr., into the issue by suggesting his son would “go to jail” in front of the press.
“The whole system is rigged. I mean, it’s just a nasty system. Uh, the saddest is — I’ll give you one quick example. I have a son, Don, he’s a good kid. And he wants to help people. And they said he was involved with Russia. He knows less about Russia than that young person sitting right over there, who I’m sure knows nothing about Russia,” Trump said.
“Adam Schiff comes out and says, ‘Donald Trump Jr. will go to jail because of what he’s done with Russia.’ And it was Adam Schiff and Hillary Clinton and some others in the DNC that, they made up — think of how bad you have to be,” Trump continued. “You make up a phony story about Russia, Russia, Russia, the Russia hoax. You have the dossier, the whole thing, it’s all fake. They paid $12 million or something for the dossier, $12 million! They gave this guy, Steele, a fortune to do a fake story. It’s called the fake dossier, right?
Trump told Dr. Phil that he called Donald Trump Jr. after Schiff’s remarks and asked if he was “okay” and whether something occurred that he was unaware of. He slammed the Democratic representative for pushing a “fake” story.
“How do you deal with that as a father?” Dr. Phil asked. “Because I’ve had that happen to me. I mean, you met my son Jordan. My other son, Jay. I’ve had stories about them and it infuriates me.”
“It’s, I mean I called him, I called him up. I knew it wasn’t true, but I said. This guy, these are not stupid people. I call him watermelon head! He’s got the thinnest neck I’ve ever seen. How it holds up that head? He’s got a neck that’s about a size six,” Trump told Dr. Phil, who appeared to be holding back a laugh.
“Very unattractive guy, both inside and outside. And people say, ‘Oh, that’s such a terrible thing to say.’ That’s okay. Very unattractive guy,” Trump continued as Dr. Phil appeared to be suppressing a smile.
“But here’s the thing, these are, these are bad people. And it’s not easy to deal with, you know, when you have your kids involved, or your family, your wife, and you read stuff, and most of it is untrue. It’s just totally untrue,” Trump said. “But think of that. They make up a story and say, ‘Your son’s going to jail’ for something that they know is false. These are bad people.”
The Steele dossier, the key source behind the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign for allegedly engaging in 2016 election interference with Russia, was debunked after it emerged that the FBI offered in Oct. 2016 to pay ex-British spy Christopher Steele $1 million for proof that he could corroborate claims made in it. Steele was unable “prove the allegations” in the dossier. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) later paid a $113,000 fine for not reporting that the dossier was funded via the Perkins Coie law firm.
(JNS) If the story is true, then it’s a scandal. But even if the reporting of The New York Times and the leftist NGO source for the story about Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs creating fake social-media accounts to influence the U.S. Congress is accurate, what’s outrageous is the newspaper’s attempt to portray the Jewish state as the main source of disinformation about the war it is waging against Hamas in Gaza.
If it were interested in highlighting the places where the overwhelming majority of the lies and distortions about the conflict were found, then the Times would do far better to investigate its own reporting and that of most of its corporate liberal media colleagues than this small-scale operation. And if the newspaper’s editors were truly concerned about misleading propaganda campaigns aimed at deceiving Americans about the cause and conduct of the war, then they might devote more space to probing how a vast network of blatantly anti-Zionist and antisemitic groups have helped flood social media with the denial of Hamas atrocities and the terrorists’ intentions, as well as lies about Israel.
The piece, which led the Times’ website for a while this week, raised some serious questions about the judgment of some in the Israeli government, specifically in the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which categorically denied the allegations. It allegedly involved the ministry contracting with Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm, to create “hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments.”
The point of the effort, which was said to use ChatGPT technology to create posts and also manufactured fake news sites containing pro-Israel articles, was to influence members of Congress to maintain support for the Jewish state. Among those targeted were African-American Democrats such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), both supporters of Israel, as well as Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who is not.
A negligible effort
Even if we accept this as truth, the Times acknowledged that the scale of the project was relatively small, with the fake accounts only generating 40,000 followers across several social-media platforms. Since many of those were bots rather than humans, the scope of its influence was negligible. Though the expenditure amounted to $2 million (not very much when compared to most political or commercial campaigns), the money would appear to have largely been wasted.
But that didn’t stop the Times and its main source, Fake Reporter—an organization deeply hostile to Israel—from proclaiming that it put the Jewish state in the same category as “Iran, North Korea, China and Russia.” The newspaper did point out that U.S. intelligence plays a similar game when, as it often does, it seeks to intervene in the politics of other nations.
Still, no less a figure than Michael Oren, a widely respected historian who also served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013, said he was appalled and asserted that if the story was true, it was “a flagrant violation of American law and an inappropriate interference in the internal politics of our most important ally.” Going further, he said that “the campaign causes strategic damage to the State of Israel in wartime. I call on the Government of Israel to immediately and thoroughly investigate the claim, to disassociate itself and denounce any such campaign, and to dismiss all the individuals involved.”
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli is the man in charge of the ministry in question. His relative lack of government experience might have led his ministry to make such a mistake. Chikli has been a strong and articulate voice pushing for a more vigorous conduct of the war, and a better information policy from within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. He’s also a particular target of Israel’s far-left.
Fake Reporter was founded by the so-called “Breaking the Silence” group, which has engaged in smears of the Israel Defense Forces and is bankrolled by the leftist New Israel Fund. That’s why many Israelis dismissed the accusation out of hand.
Chikli responded to Oren’s statement by saying there has been no engagement with the firm the Times said ran the operation. He also attacked Oren and noted that the former diplomat sits on a board that oversees such engagement at his ministry.
Nevertheless, Oren and others who care about Israel’s reputation aren’t wrong to take this seriously—and so should Netanyahu. Though the United States plays the same sort of games abroad, Israel is in no position to behave in the same manner. And if any of it rings true, it’s because it’s exactly the kind of hare-brained and ill-considered sort of project possible to imagine coming from well-meaning volunteers from the high-tech sector—who reportedly met in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 with government bureaucrats to consider how they could best help Israel win the information war—cooking up as an emotional response to the barbaric attack on their country.
Israel-bashers were delighted by the way the Times story seemed to discredit all efforts to make the case for the Jewish state. However, if serious debate is on the table about disinformation being spread about the fighting in Gaza, a project to create fake accounts that relatively few people saw isn’t the place to start or finish.
The real disinformation machine
Let’s start by noting that while the methods of the alleged Israeli project were illegitimate, the information it sought to spread about what Hamas has done and the efforts that Israel has made to avoid civilian casualties even while pursuing a just war against a ruthless enemy that hides behind non-combatants was clearly true.
That doesn’t excuse the creation of fake accounts, but taken in perspective in the course of a war that began with the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, it hardly rises to the level of importance that the Times gave it. Indeed, anyone who is outraged about this project but not about the systematic rape, murder, kidnapping, torture and wanton destruction deliberately employed by Hamas on Oct. 7—or indifferent to the denial of those crimes and the way the terror group has lied about casualty figures—has no moral authority to judge even the most foolish Israeli effort to counter them.
Indeed, a genuine interest in disinformation about the war would lead honest observers to concentrate on something far more consequential when it comes to altering the nature of public discourse about the war. Namely, it’s the way that some of the most respected sources for news in the world, including the Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the BBC and The Guardian have spent the last eight months often acting as Hamas’s stenographers rather than independent journalists.
Indeed, within 24 hours of Times readers being fed a lurid story about Israelis creating fake social-media accounts, the newspaper was promoting the latest edition in a series of Hamas propaganda stories involving Israel bombing a U.N. school complex. As with a host of other stories about supposed Israeli atrocities in which Hamas accounts are taken at face value before being ultimately debunked, the media again accepted and published the Palestinian talking points about who was targeted by the Israeli airstrike and the nature of the casualties without verifying the facts. Here again, it was only after publishing stories about grief-stricken, innocent Palestinian civilians that most of the media then covered Israel’s assertion that the U.N. facility was being used by Hamas fighters as a place to hide and plan future attacks.
The Israel Defense Forces has tried to get ahead of such misinformation being spread by the media and to publish the facts about its efforts in real-time. But the demonstrated anti-Israel bias of outlets like the Times has translated into a willingness to take the mouthpieces of a genocidal terrorist group at their word while regarding anything that comes from a democratic-elected government and an armed forces that acts with a higher degree of ethics and transparency than other nations with skepticism. That means the Israelis are often forced to respond and explain why the initial stories were wrong after the distortions have already been widely spread in a way that makes it difficult if not impossible to counter.
The information war matters
The kerfuffle about fake media accounts matters because the information war about Gaza is a crucial element in the battle for American opinion. It is precisely the sort of lies about Israel wantonly attacking schools and hospitals or the vastly inflated Palestinian casualty statistics that are not only inaccurate but ignore the fact that it is likely that as many as half of those killed were terrorists, not noncombatants. And it represents the source of pressure on Israel to end the war before Hamas is completely defeated or even before all of the remaining hostages are released, a point often left out of the conversation.
The pro-Hamas mobs on American college campuses and in the streets of our cities chanting their support for Israel’s destruction and spewing lies about “genocide” are being fueled not just by the toxic myths of critical race theory and intersectionality that are forced down the throats of students by leftist professors. The distortions of the mainstream media—aided by the lies promoted on social media by far-left antisemitic groups like Students for Justice for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace—have created a political environment in which President Joe Biden has adopted policies that will essentially ensure that Hamas wins the war it began on Oct. 7.
Those who rightly seek to counter these lies need to understand that they will be under far more scrutiny than those who promote the fake narratives that rationalize and justify Hamas atrocities, and that seek to delegitimize everything Israel does and act accordingly. Still, the effort to divert the world from the massive propaganda campaign that has been undertaken to falsely claim that Israel is guilty of “genocide” or “apartheid” does not alter the truth about who is really spreading disinformation about Gaza.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him @jonathans_tobin.
Following a D-Day commemoration on Thursday, ABC‘s David Muir asked US President Joe Biden if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports the recent three-phase ceasefire and hostage release deal.
“Publicly, he says he is,” Biden replied. “Our European friends are in on it. We have to get a ceasefire.”
Muir reminded Biden that he called Israeli’s military response to Hamas was “over the top” and that he had warned Israel against the Rafah operation.
Biden implied that he prevailed upon Israel to lessen the severity of the Rafah campaign.
He said, “I think he’s listening to me. They were going to go into […] Rafah […] full-bore, invade all of Rafah, go into the city, take it out, move, move with full force. They haven’t done that.”
Returning to the subject of the hostage and ceasefire deal, Biden said, “And what they’ve done is they’ve agreed to a significant agreement. ”
Although Hamas has yet to approve the deal, “It’s being backed by Egypt, being backed by the Saudis, being backed by almost the whole Arab world. We’ll see. This is a very difficult time,” Biden continued.
In the most recent version of the plan, the first phase of the ceasefire would require the release of the women, elderly, wounded, and ill hostages, as well as the bodies of deceased hostages.
This is a departure from an earlier agreement that emphasized the release of living hostages in the first phase and of bodies in later stages.
The second phase of the deal would see the release of the remaining hostages, including male soldiers, and a withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza.
Biden said of the second phase, “As long as Hamas lives up to its commitments, a temporary ceasefire would become, in the words of the Israeli proposal, a cessation of hostilities permanently.”
The third phase would usher in “a major reconstruction plan for Gaza” and the release of the remainder of the bodies of Israeli hostages.
Leftist political commentator Briahna Joy Gray, the former national press secretary to Bernie Sanders, was fired from the Hill days after repeatedly demeaning an Israeli hostage’s sister and dismissing her pleas, while pushing common pro-Hamas talking points, including Israel’s culpability for the stall in hostage talks, denial of October 7 atrocities, and even the suggestion that support for Israel led to the 9/11 terror attacks in a “disturbing” interview.
After being fired from the Hill, host Briahna Joy Gray took to social media to report on the matter, accusing the news outlet of “suppressing speech — particularly when it’s critical of the state of Israel.”
A spokesperson confirmed to the New York Post that she no longer works at the media outlet. “It finally happened. The Hill has fired me,” she wrote on Thursday evening.
“There should be no doubt that @RisingTheHill has a clear pattern of suppressing speech — particularly when it’s critical of the state of Israel,” she added. “This is why they fired [Katie Halper], & it was only a matter of time before they fired me.”
However, the Tuesday interview on The Hill’s Rising saw Gray consistently demeaning Yarden Gonen, the sister of Romi Gonen who is currently being held hostage in Gaza.
The 23-year-old Romi, a choreographer who Yarden described as someone who loves to paint and work with autistic children, was among those kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7. After hiding for hours, Romi was ambushed by terrorists, resulting in her being shot and taken.
“Mommy, I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go,” were the last words she spoke to her mother on the phone amidst the chaos.
Gonen, who is a nurse, described how terrorists, some as young as 18 years old, had dragged her sister by the hair, debated whether to kill her, and pistol whipped her head until she blacked out while kidnapping her to Gaza.
While Gonen insisted that the “entire free world is at risk” because of Hamas, Gray persistently attempted to put the blame for the hostages’ fate on Israel and not Hamas.
Addressing the complexity of returning the hostages through a ceasefire while also ensuring the elimination of the existential threat to Israel posed by Hamas, Gonen offered an analogy of a terror organization in Mexico attacking Americans and posing a threat to the U.S.
However, Gray shockingly responded, “I don’t think we would endeavor to eliminate all Mexicans if that were to happen.”
Gonen responded by saying she didn’t say anything about eliminating all Palestinians before attempting to pivot back to her sister.
Gray also dismissed photographs taken by ZAKA, an Israeli voluntary emergency response organization, claiming that the group’s reporting “has been roundly discredited by both Israeli and American media sources.”
ZAKA’s reports from October 7 have offered extensive details of the aftermath of the massacre.
When Gonen highlighted the minimal food her sister was likely receiving as a hostage, Gray accused Israel of blocking aid to Gaza. However, Gonen noted that most aid trucks make their way to Gazans and that Hamas has repeatedly blocked aid from reaching their own civilians.
Gray, who has nearly 400,000 followers on X, continued to push Gonen in an attempt to blame Netanyahu for the current hostage situation, with the hostage’s sister finally firing back: “I see you really want to discuss political [matters] and that is not my profession,” noting that an Israeli deal is currently “on the table” and “we’re waiting for Hamas to say yes.”
“I’m here to talk about my sister, please help me spread her story [and] make people understand what she’s going through as a woman in 2024” she pleaded.
“We are not [living] 200 years ago; it is not ok that we have a terror organization that’s controlling the free world and people in the west are letting it happen …. What did I do wrong? Or my sister? We did nothing wrong,” she added.
After Gonen warned that cowering to terrorism could lead to another 9/11-like attack, citing recent Michigan rallies that saw residents chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” Gray pushed back saying there was no threat of terrorism posed by the radicalization of Arab and Muslim communities in the Wolverine State, even going so far as to say that “one of the rationale that was presented for 9/11 was discussed with America’s support of Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine.”
Gonen concluded by telling Gray that “I really hope that you, specifically, will believe women when they say that they got hurt…,” but was cut off by the irritated host, who rolled her eyes, sighed and stopped her mid-sentence, stating, “Alright, thanks for joining….”
In response, many expressed outrage on social media over Gray’s callousness.
“The family member of an Israeli hostage pleads with Briahna Joy Gray to believe Jewish women who have been abducted, tortured, and raped by Hamas. Instead of projecting empathy, as a normal person would, Gray rolls her eyes, her mouth dripping with contempt,” wrote Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY).
“Gray has a hatred for the Jewish State so visceral and fanatical that it renders her cruelly indifferent to the value of Jewish life,” he added.
“This woman, Briahna, is so filled with antisemitic contempt it’s almost unbelievable. I’ve never seen an interviewer display such a disgusting unprofessional and disrespectful attitude towards their own guest,” wrote journalist Emily Schrader.
“Is it really that hard to stand against sexual assault — as a woman no less?!” she added. “I think we should send Briahna to Gaza.”
“No low this person won’t sink to, truly disgusting,” wrote activist and writer Hen Mazzig, senior fellow at The Tel Aviv Institute.
“This is one of the most disturbing interviews I have ever seen. Both interviewers treated Yarden Gonen, the sister of Israeli hostage Romi Gonen, with such disrespect and disgust … persistently discredited the atrocities committed on 10/7 and then had the audacity to roll her eyes at Yarden, when she asked her to believe all women,” wrote one X user.
In response to Gray’s rant about being fired, many refused to sympathize with the “heartless” host.
“I have as much sympathy for Briahna Joy Gray as she has for the hostages. None,” wrote Congressman Ritchie Torres.
“Briahna Joy Gray, who specializes in parroting the propaganda of Hamas, falsely accuses Israel of genocide, murder, and starvation — all lies and libels,” he wrote in response to her attacking Israel in her reply to him.
“Is she wishing violence upon a sitting United States Congressman?” he added.
“As a regular The Hill columnist, I could not be more delighted that they fired Briahna Joy Gray!” wrote international human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky. “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”
“She repeatedly defended Hamas and made light of their victims,” he added. “Just an awful, heartless person.”
“So you’re saying shilling for genocidal terrorist groups, parroting KKK smears against the Jewish state, and showing open contempt for Jewish rape victims *doesn’t* pay? Go figure,” wrote media personality Avi Mayer.
Conservative political commentator Mike Cernovich mocked Gray by citing her own post from 2017 in which she had declared that free speech “doesn’t mean freedom from social consequences from your actions.”
Gray has faced severe criticism for promoting antisemitic tropes, denying Hamas’s sexual violence on October 7, and defending those advocating for Israel’s destruction.
In December, Gray came under fire for appearing to deny the expulsion of more than 850,000 Jews from Arab countries after Israel’s establishment in 1948.
She also declared that “there’s not a group on earth that’s killed more people and enacted more global terror than white Christians.”
Last month, Gray was mocked after suggesting that Hamas, a U.S.-designated Islamic terror group whose charter calls for relentless jihad, seeks to build a peaceful democratic state.
The Jewish State is currently at war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the October 7 massacre, whereby the terrorist group perpetrated the deadliest attack against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust. The massacre saw the torture, rape, execution, immolation, and abduction of hundreds of Israeli civilians, as well as widespread Palestinian support for it.
The Iranian proxy Islamist terrorist organization targeted attendees at a music festival and those in southern Israeli towns, all while thousands of rockets rained down on Israeli civilian centers.
The massacre resulted in terrorists killing approximately 1,200 people and wounding more than 4,800, with at least 242 hostages taken — more than half of whom remain in Gaza. The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include dozens of American citizens.
Concerns about Hamas’s treatment of hostages continue to be raised, as Israeli authorities investigate substantial allegations of rape and sexual assault related to the October 7 massacre, having collected over 1,500 testimonies — including of gang rape and post-mortem mutilation.
IDF International Spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht stated that the Israeli army is “absolutely” concerned about such violence against hostages. His comments came amid firsthand accounts of freed captives at a meeting with Israeli officials, after several shared testimonies of various abuses during their captivity in Gaza.
Over a dozen young Israeli women remain hostage in Gaza.
Actually, no it won’t. Just kidding. The Washington Post is melting down because it leaned hard into the Year Zero cultural revolution that’s completely transformed almost every elite institution in the past several years and the newspaper is now bleeding money.
People are no longer buying what they’re selling.
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What’s happening at the Post is a microcosm of a much larger and more significant phenomenon. More on that later.
First, let’s review what’s happened at the Post this week.
Publisher and CEO William Lewis announced Sunday that the newspaper would remove Executive Editor Sally Buzbee, hired in 2021 from The Associated Press.
Buzbee is being replaced by former Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Matt Murray, who will remain in an interim capacity through the 2024 election cycle, according to Fox News.
Buzbee decided during her tenure that The Washington Post wasn’t nearly left wing enough and chose to limit the publication’s appeal to the same demographic as NPR’s.
The result was that the newspaper found a way to lose $77 million last year amid collapsing readership numbers.
NPR gets taxpayer dollars (rather shamefully, in my mind); the Post doesn’t. So, the higher-ups looked at the Post’s dwindling readership and catastrophic financial losses and decided enough was enough.
“We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around,” the Post quoted Lewis as saying. “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
The people who run The Washington Post seem to understand that there is a crisis—losing lots and lots of money being the prime indicator. The question is, do they understand what the real source of that problem is?
The response to Buzbee’s removal dropped hints about the deeper, underlying issue with the Post and other institutions that decided to replicate the culture and power structure of American higher education.
Instead, they come from the fact that the newspaper chose to prioritize DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) over everything else and to empower a militant clique of employees who seem to think that promoting their agenda is a privilege that doesn’t have to adjust to reality.
According to Vanity Fair, after the announcement of the Buzbee ouster one reporter complained that “we now have four white men running three newsrooms.”
The Post will reportedly be subdivided into three newsrooms. One for news, one for opinion, and one for “service and social media journalism,” which I imagine will be the loony bin.
Vanity Fair reported that the Post had a meeting Monday about the shakeup and it went about how you would expect, with employees obsessing over diversity initiatives rather than the journalistic merit of the new editors.
During the meeting on Monday, the executives were grilled by reporters at the Post on the lack of diversity in the hires replacing Ms. Buzbee — Mr. Murray, Mr. [Robert] Winnett and Mr. [David] Shipley are white men.
According to a recording obtained by The New York Times, one of The Washington Post’s star political reporters, Ashley Parker, asked how the newspaper had arrived at its decision, adding that one skeptical interpretation might be that Mr. Lewis was simply hiring his associates to help run the Post.
…
“When you were here before, you talked very movingly about how you care about diversity—and people talk about diversity—but then when push comes to shove, they say, ‘Well, I looked around and I couldn’t find anyone,’” Ms. Parker said.
In response, Mr. Murray said that diversity would be a “constant commitment” at the Post, adding that he had “the most diverse masthead that the Journal had ever had” during his years as the top editor at The Wall Street Journal.
It’s clear that the DEI today, tomorrow, and forever folks aren’t going to let go, nor will they accept a direction that doesn’t entirely align with their narrow political ideology.
The question is: Will the new management be able to make a genuine pivot? It’s doubtful.
It appears that those in charge of The Washington Post—whether Buzbee or the new bosses—are unwilling to fundamentally challenge the central tenets of DEI. At no point are they willing or able to say, “My commitment is to running the best, most effective newsroom regardless of the race, gender, or background of our reporters and editors.”
Instead, we get a quasi-religious kowtowing to the “constant commitment” to diversity.
Maybe that will change in the coming days, but the early returns aren’t great.
As independent writer Wesley Yang noted in a post on X, several other massive media companies have been given this choice in the past: Go woke or go broke. They chose to go broke.
This may seem surprising, but from an individual perspective, this has often been the “right” decision.
It’s far easier to jump ship from one failing newspaper or corporation and hop on to another as long as one maintains commitment to the overarching left-wing faith. That’s how the game has been played.
Rebuking or even wavering in commitment to DEI has been a one-way ticket to never working in an elite, “mainstream” institution ever again. It’s better to fail or demonstrate outright incompetence than to question orthodoxy and risk excommunication.
Welcome to life in the USSR.
This is in many ways the heart of the problem, not just for The Washington Post but for our country and even Western civilization more broadly.
In the interlocking world of elite institutions, where even the gap between what is governmental and what is private has become blurry, ideological gatekeepers determine who is promoted and who is denied employment, who is worthy of praise or destruction.
The Washington Post has acted as one of the more prominent gatekeepers.
But it isn’t 2020 anymore.
Although most elite institutions remain as compromised as ever, the “racial reckoning” and DEI revolution have created a serious and determined “populist” backlash.
Huge numbers of Americans, even ones who have generally found themselves on the Left, are tired of the nonsense. They are tired of being fed a constant diet of left-wing agitprop and refuse to live by lies.
This doesn’t mean the revolutionary fever has entirely broken, or that everything will now return to normal. Far from it. We will continue dealing with the profound and terrible consequences of what this ideology has done to our society for a long time to come.
What it does mean is that the power of DEI gatekeepers has waned. The revolution has literally been eating itself, as similar movements have in the past. And now there is a serious counterrevolution—both legal and political—to reduce their poisonous influence on our society.
Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist and commentator who has perhaps done more to produce this turnaround than anyone else, described this moment succinctly.
(Daily Caller) The teachers union in Portland, Oregon, has reportedly sparked controversy with a curriculum that portrays Jewish people In Israel as engaged in “settler colonialism” and positively represents pro-Palestinian protests.
Titled “Teach Palestine!” and co-published by the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT), this curriculum targets students as young as four and five years old, according to City Journal contributor Chris Rufo. The PAT “represents over 4500 educators in the Portland Public School system,” the organization’s website reads.
The curriculum, co-published by the Portland teachers union, is called “Teach Palestine!” The union promotes the curriculum to its 4,500 and provides them legal justification to include it in the classroom—beginning with children as young as four and five years old. pic.twitter.com/w9DgNUh9h5
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 5, 2024
The union promotes the curriculum to its more than 4,500 members, providing legal justification for its inclusion in classrooms, Rufo reported.
For pre-kindergarten students, the curriculum includes a workbook from the Palestinian Feminist Collective, which depicts Zionists as bullies who stole Palestinian land. A fictional character says, “A group of bullies called Zionists wanted our land so they stole it by force and hurt many people.”
It also offers “a sensory guide for kids” to prepare children for attending protests, with slogans like “Abolish Prisons,” “From The River To The Sea” and “Save Gaza,” Rufo reported.
Finally, the hardcore ideology. The curriculum encourages students to chant in support of Palestinian martyrs and suggests that violence against Israel is justified: “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” “We salute all our martyrs!”; “No peace on stolen land!” pic.twitter.com/Y0am6SRNco
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 5, 2024
In kindergarten, the curriculum intensifies with an “Art and Action for Palestine” lesson plan, according to Rufo. Activities include sharing “keffiyehs, flags, and protest signs” and creating agitprop materials with slogans such as “FREE PALESTINE,” LET GAZA LIVE,” and “PALESTINE WILL BE FREE.”
Objectives of the lesson include celebrating “Palestinian culture and resistance throughout history and the present,” tying “histories of settler colonialism from Palestine to the United States” and practicing “taking collective action in support of Palestinian liberation,” Rufo reported. \
Another part of the curriculum is a pamphlet titled “All Out For Palestine,” according to Rufo. This document encourages students to chant in support of Palestinian martyrs and suggests that violence against Israel is justified, with slogans like “Resistance is justified when people are occupied: we can stick to our principles without going into details about the actions/forms of resistance.”
The PAT has also alleged that the school district is “actively censoring teachers” advocating for pro-Palestinian views, prompting the union to provide a legal guide for teachers to promote the lessons under state curriculum standards, Rufo reported.
Rufo noted that Portland has a history of radicalism in its public school system, which has long pushed students towards political activism.
(Daily Caller) George Clooney reportedly contacted one of President Joe Biden’s top aides last May to express concern over the president’s criticism of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) actions against Israeli leaders, The Washington Post reported.
The issue touches close to home for George, as his wife, Amal Clooney, has been involved in the ICC’s work on the case, according to The Washington Post. George allegedly called Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president. The call came after Biden denounced the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as “outrageous.”
The ICC is also pursuing warrants for top Hamas leaders. George was particularly upset about the administration’s initial consideration of sanctions against the ICC, which could have impacted his wife, The Washington Post reported. Despite this tension, George remains committed to supporting Biden and is scheduled to appear at a high-profile fundraiser for the president’s reelection campaign in Los Angeles on June 15.
The White House and the Biden campaign have downplayed the notion of significant concerns over George potentially withdrawing from the fundraiser. George has a history of supporting Democratic candidates, having donated over $500,000 to Biden’s campaign in 2020 and co-hosted a virtual fundraiser that raised $7 million, The Washington Post stated.
George’s call came after the ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s announcement May 20 of charges against Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, The Washington Post reported. Amal has been assisting the ICC prosecutor by reviewing evidence and providing legal analysis. She stated that no conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, supporting the ICC’s actions as a step towards justice for victims in Israel and Palestine.
Biden, along with other Democratic and Republican leaders, criticized the ICC’s move, arguing it unfairly equates Israel’s defensive actions with Hamas’s terrorist activities, The Washington Post stated. While Biden initially signaled openness to sanctions, the administration later clarified that sanctions were not the right response, though it would work with Congress on other measures.
Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) said Wednesday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that he was not a progressive while responding to criticisms that he is not liberal enough.
Fetterman said, “Now, in Pennsylvania, the border security is an important issue and we do all believe that we should have a secure border. I never thought it was unreasonable for any Democrat to wanted to make our border more security.”
Sen. John Fetterman says he NO LONGER identifies as a “progressive.”
Host Dana Bash said, “I want to ask you personally about your own sort of journey, as the kids say, some Progressives have criticized you for being a different senator, then you suggested you would be when you were a candidate for Senate. What do you say to that?”
Fetterman said, “Well, I wasn’t I was very clear for saying that for years. So I’m not a progressive. I just identified myself as just a regular a Democrat. So it really wasn’t any noon news. Now, eight years ago, I was a progressive, but the situations change and I’ve been very clear that I didn’t leave that label, that label leaves me.”
He added, “I think it’s much more important to be focusing on Donald Trump instead of kinds of purity tests and those kinds of issues.”
(AP) — Spain became on Thursday the first European country to ask a United Nations court for permission to join South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
South Africa filed its case with the International Court of Justice late last year. It alleged that Israel was breaching the genocide convention in its military assault that has laid waste to large swaths of Gaza.
The court has ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the enclave. Israel has not complied and shows no sign of doing so.
“We take the decision because of the ongoing military operation in Gaza,” Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in Madrid. “We want peace to return to Gaza and the Middle East, and for that to happen we must all support the court.”
Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya and the Palestinians are waiting for the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, to grant approval to their requests to join the case.
Israel denies it is committing genocide in its military operation to crush Hamas triggered by its deadly Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel.
Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 250 more hostage in the surprise attacks. Israel’s air and land attacks have killed 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Once admitted to the case, Spain would be able to make written submissions and speak at public hearings.
Spain’s request is the latest move by the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to support peacemaking efforts in Gaza.
Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognized a Palestinian state on May 28 in a coordinated effort by the three Western European nations. Slovenia, a European Union member along with Spain and Ireland, followed suit and recognized the Palestinian state this week.
Over 140 countries have recognized a Palestinian state — more than two-thirds of the U.N. — but none of the major Western powers, including the United States, has done so.
While Sánchez has condemned the attacks by Hamas and joined demands for the return of the remaining Israeli hostages, he has not shied away from the diplomatic backlash from Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that by recognizing a Palestinian state, Sánchez’s government was “being complicit in inciting genocide against Jews and war crimes.”
Sánchez’s backing of the Palestinians is generally supported in Spain, where some university students have followed their American counterparts in protesting on campuses. Spaniards will vote in elections for the European Parliament elections on Sunday.
Last year, the International Court of Justice allowed 32 countries, including Spain, to join Ukraine’s case alleging that Russia breached the genocide convention by falsely accusing Ukraine of committing genocide in its eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and using that as a pretext for the invasion.
Preliminary hearings have already been held in the genocide case against Israel, but the court is expected to take years to reach a final decision.
Albares said the decision by his government had the immediate objective of adding pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to follow the court’s interim measures to stop bloodshed in Rafah.
“I insist once again that these interim measures must be complied with,” Albares said. “Whether this is genocide or not, that is for the court to decide, and Spain of course will support its decision.”
Israel sent troops into the southern city of Rafah in early May in what it said was a limited incursion, but those forces are now operating in central parts of the city. Last week, Israeli strikes hit near a U.N. Palestinian refugee agency facility in Rafah, saying they were targeting Hamas militants. An inferno that followed ripped through nearby tents housing displaced families , killing at least 45 people.
More than 1 million people have fled Rafah since the start of the operation, scattering across southern and central Gaza into new tent camps or crowding into schools and homes.
(AP) — Consumers are increasingly struggling to pay their credit card bills, raising concerns about severe delinquencies spiraling and sapping consumer spending.
The share of credit card debt that’s more than 90 days overdue rose to 10.7% during the first quarter, a 12-year high, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s report on first-quarter household debt.
A year ago severe delinquencies totaled only 8.2% of credit card debt. The first-quarter jump in severe delinquencies was the biggest since 2012. Meanwhile total credit card debt rose to $1.12 trillion from just under $1 trillion a year ago.
Those in their 20s and 30s are having the most difficulty paying their credit card bills. Those age groups typically have a mix of less earnings power and lower savings.
The Federal Reserve hiked its key interest rate rate to a 23-year high to combat four-decade high inflation, which peaked in June, 2022 at 9.1%. Those rate increases made borrowing more expensive on mortgages, auto loans and credit cards.
Consumer spending fuels economic growth, so trouble paying credit card bills is a worrisome signal. The direction of the labor market could determine whether debt stress becomes a bigger concern. Job and wage growth helped counter the hit to consumers wallets from rising inflation, but a continued slowdown or reversal there could tip the scales.
“While these indicators do not necessarily predict a recession, especially with a robust labor market, a weakening in employment conditions could exacerbate household financial instability,” said Gregory Daco, EY chief economist. “The combination of subdued job growth, sluggish income progression, and diminished savings could lead to increased delinquencies and a potential retrenchment in consumer spending.”
Wall Street has so far brushed off concerns about rising credit debt levels and payment struggles, forecasting earnings growth to accelerate from 5.6% in the first quarter to 17.1% by the fourth quarter.
Still, retail spending unexpectedly stalled in April in a sign of consumer fatigue and worry. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, has said its customers are spending more on necessities and less on discretionary goods like home furnishings and electronics.
Coffee chain Starbucks lowered its sales expectations for the year as people visit its cafes less often, and McDonald’s is offering more deals as people cut back on fast food and eating out.
The Fed is now faced with the prospect of inflation remaining stubbornly high around 3%, above its target of 2%. The mix of high inflation, expensive borrowing rates and a slowing economy has thrown more doubt around the central bank’s ability to tame inflation without causing a recession.
Credit cards only make up about 6.5% of consumer debt, according to a Bank of America Global Research report. That alleviates some concerns, but the increase in delinquencies seems to be outpacing income growth and there is likely a large group of consumers who are paying their minimum balances and staying out of delinquency, but are too financially stressed to actually pay their full balances. A worsening of the economy could push those consumers into severe delinquency.
“If our forecast of a benign moderation in the labor market is correct, we think consumer spending will remain resilient,” wrote Michael Gapen, Bank of America Global Research analyst. “However, elevated credit card delinquencies among lower-income consumers could increase the sensitivity of these consumers to an adverse labor market shock.”
Christian K. Caruzo(Breitbart)
Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, a 19-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant accused of shooting two New York police officers, told police that a member of the Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization recruited him, the New York Post reported on Wednesday.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested Castro Mata on Monday after a shootout with NYPD police officers that resulted in officers Richard Yarusso and Christopher Abreu being shot and wounded. The 19-year-old Venezuelan, who was also wounded in the shootout, was arraigned from a Queens hospital bed on 17 counts — including two counts of attempted murder for having allegedly opened fire at the two NYPD officers — and potentially faces 80 years to life in prison.
The Post claimed in its report that Castro Mata told police he was recruited by a Tren de Aragua “coordinator” in New York to join a crew of “snatch and grab” moped thieves and was “encouraged” to get tattoos that showed his allegiance to the transnational criminal organization.
In his statement, the 19-year-old Venezuelan allegedly claimed that the “coordinator” provided the crew’s members with mopeds used to steal mobile phones, a criminal tactic commonly employed by gang members in Venezuela.
The Post cited anonymous sources who said Castro Mata was already believed to be part of the Tren de Aragua due to a tattoo of a clock attached to an anchor on one of his arms and social media posts he published.
According to statements from NYPD officials, Castro Mata illegally entered the United States in July 2023 through Eagle Pass, Texas, and engaged in criminal activities before Monday’s shooting, such as alleged phone snatching and attacking a woman, stealing her credit card and eventually using it in a smoke shop in Queens.
Less than a month before the shootout, a federal immigration judge reportedly had Castro Mata’s deportation case dismissed. As such, Castro Mata, while not granted asylum in the United States, was not a priority for deportation and was no longer monitored by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), effectively rendering him an undocumented immigrant.
The Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization, whose criminal activities have spread across several U.S. states and Latin American countries, first began as a local trade union gang in the eponymous Venezuelan state of Aragua in 2012. It is largely believed that the criminal organization has deep ties to Venezuela’s socialist regime, which allegedly allowed the gang to expand its criminal activities to its current transnational status. The Tren de Aragua’s crimes are believed to range from theft, homicide, extortion, contraband, and kidnapping to drug, human, and arms trafficking.
In May, law enforcement officials in Louisiana dismantled a sex trafficking network linked to the Tren de Aragua. The trafficking network was reportedly able to smuggle its victims to the United States and taught them how to request asylum before forcing the victims into prostitution to pay for the “debt” from having been smuggled into the United States.
Reports published in February indicate that FBI officials suspect that Tren de Aragua members in New York have brokered an alliance with the Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang.
Venezuela’s socialist regime has repeatedly insisted that the Tren de Aragua “does not exist” and that the gang is part of an international smear campaign against the rogue regime, which is led by dictator Nicolás Maduro. Venezuelan officials publicly stated that the Maduro regime “dismantled” the Tren de Aragua after it “raided” the Tocorón prison in September 2023, which served as the gang’s main headquarters in Venezuela.
The whereabouts of Tren de Aragua’s leader, Héctor “the Child” Guerrero, remained unknown following the raid. Numerous reports have asserted that Guerrero, who, at the time of the raid, was serving a 17-year sentence on multiple criminal charges, negotiated to hand over control of the prison and escaped long before the raid began.
According to reports published in April, the Maduro regime has enlisted the aid of the Tren de Aragua to persecute Venezuelan dissidents abroad. The most notorious suspected case of such persecution is that of Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda, a former member of the Venezuelan military who lived in exile in Chile. In late February, three men linked to the Tren de Aragua allegedly abducted and murdered Ojeda, whose body was found ten days later, buried inside a suitcase under a concrete structure in Chile’s Santiago metropolitan region.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
The IDF has identified 9 terrorists of possibly dozens who were killed in a targeted overnight operation on Thursday at a UNRWA school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza.
The operation was launched to eliminate 20-30 terrorists, some of whom took part in the October 7th massacre.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari on Thursday night said the operation “stopped a ticking time bomb” since the army was acting on “concrete intelligence from multiple sources the terrorists inside the school were planning more attacks against Israelis.”
The nine terrorists who have been identified so far are Matzav Hafat Daryush, Rashid Bavli, Salim Afash, Abd al-ati Masmach, Ahmad Tzalach Mansour, Ali Hasin Bana, Mohammed Barham, Mahmoud Machtasav, and Ahmad Hatib.
The IDF said it would continue to identify the names of terrorists killed in the operation as more details come to light to demonstrate that those who were killed were terrorists and not civilians.
The IDF took measures to try to avoid civilian casualties, including putting off the operation twice to prevent the deaths of women and children and non-combatant civilians.
“The terrorists were operating from this UN school,” he added, “planning and conducting attacks from inside classrooms.”
Hagari noted that this was the fifth time the IDF has had to fight Hamas terrorists who embedded themselves in UNRWA facilities.
He criticized news outlets that merely reported that Israel attacked a school without describing how Hamas operates from schools and hospitals in clear violation of international law.
Initial reports from CNN focused heavily on accounts and figures of “civilian casualties” from Hamas-run media, which it referred to as “The Gaza government” in updates shortly after the incident.
According to UNRWA, 35-45 Palestinians were killed, and Hamas media claimed that 14 children and 9 women were killed and 74 others were wounded.
Although CNN interviewed Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, who said he “wasn’t aware of civilian casualties” and that Israel used a “precision and intelligence-based” strike to target terrorists, a skeptical disclaimer was added.
At the end of the article, the CNN journalist wrote of Lerner, “The spokesperson did not provide evidence for his claims.”
However, CNN reporting of unverified figures given by Hamas and terror-supporting UNRWA did not include any such disclaimer.