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Columbia Law School Students Send Menacing Email to Jewish Classmates: ‘You Threaten Everyone’s Safety’

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Ivy League universities such as Columbia (pictured above), Harvard, Rutgers, UPenn, and MIT are places where anti-Semitism has not only found a foothold but has also been allowed to flourish, often unchecked. Credit: YouTube.com

Jessica Costescu- Free Beacon

An anti-Israel student group at Columbia Law School sent a threatening email on Friday telling Jewish students that they will be neither “safe” nor “free” until “everyone is safe” and “Palestine is free.”

 

Columbia’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild—a radical group that has defended Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel—put out a statement condemning the school for calling in the NYPD to clear out an occupied building. The statement also told Jews that they are not safe and accused Jewish students who oppose divestment of threatening everyone’s safety. While no students publicly signed their names on the letter, the group’s organizing committee took credit.

“To the Jewish students, faculty, and trustees blocking divestment and urging the violent crackdowns on campus: you threaten everyone’s safety,” the group said.

“Our safety cannot be predicated on the oppression of others, whether campus protestors or Palestinians,” the statement added. “No Jew is safe until everyone is safe, and no Jew is free until Palestine is free.”

The warning to Jews at Columbia was attributed to “the Jewish members” of the National Lawyers Guild chapter.

The chapter’s board members for the 2023-24 school year were Mark Scaggs, Melanie Mignucci, Michael Sosnick, Mikhal Kidane, and Avraham Tsikhanovski, according to a source familiar with board membership. It’s not clear whether the board turned over in April. The above-named students didn’t return requests for comment.

Columbia’s Progressive Jewish Law Society, which was led by Molly Allen and Ariel Sheffey in the 2023-24 school year, promoted the email to its members, calling the statement “beautiful.” Allen and Sheffey didn’t return requests for comment.

The National Lawyers Guild chapter’s inflammatory statement came just days before the Ivy League school announced on Monday that it had canceled its main, university-wide commencement scheduled for May 15 in favor of smaller school-level ceremonies, which it relocated to an off-campus location. The school has said it will focus its resources on keeping the ceremonies “safe, respectful, and running smoothly.”

Columbia Law School didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Students have the right to resist police brutality in their fight for justice, just as Palestinians have the right to resist their genocidal oppressors in their fight for liberation,” the National Lawyers Guild chapter said. “We try not to allow our fear and rage to consume us, but sometimes that is all that one can feel. Use that feeling. And let that feeling not only radicalize you. Let it liberate you.”

Last month, the international arm of the National Lawyers Guild signed off on a letter announcing “support” for “Iran’s right to defend itself against Zionist aggression.” And a day after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians, the association released a statement in support “of the right of the Palestinian people to resist illegal military occupation.”

13 Federal Judges Say They Will No Longer Hire Law Clerks From Columbia University, Citing ‘Virulent Spread of Antisemitism’ and ‘Explosion of Student Disruptions

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FILE - New York City police in riot gear stand guard outside the Columbia University campus after clearing the campus of protesters, April 18, 2024, in New York. Columbia University canceled in-person classes Monday, April 22, 2024 and police arrested several dozen protesters at Yale University as tensions on U.S. college campuses continue to grow over the war in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)

Aaron Sibarium-Free Beacon

Thirteen federal judges said Monday that they would no longer hire law clerks from Columbia College or Columbia Law School after the university allowed an encampment on its lawn to spiral into a destructive occupation of a campus building. The judges cited the “explosion of student disruptions” and the “virulent spread of antisemitism” at Columbia, which has now canceled its main graduation ceremony because of the unrest.

Led by appellate judges James Ho and Elizabeth Branch, who spearheaded a clerkship boycott of Yale Law School in 2022 and Stanford Law School in 2023, as well as by Matthew Solomson on the U.S Court of Federal Claims, the judges wrote in a letter to Columbia president Minouche Shafik that they would no longer hire “anyone who joins the Columbia University community—whether as undergraduates or as law students—beginning with the entering class of 2024.”

“Freedom of speech protects protest, not trespass, and certainly not acts or threats of violence or terrorism,” the judges wrote. “It has become clear that Columbia applies double standards when it comes to free speech and student misconduct.”

The letter’s signatories include Alan Albright, a district judge who hears a fourth of the nation’s patent cases; Stephen Vaden, a former general counsel at the Department of Agriculture who now sits on the United States Court of International Trade; and Matthew Kacsmaryk, the district judge who suspended approval of the abortion drug mifepristone in a controversial ruling last year. Others are well-known district judges appointed by former president Donald Trump.

While 12 judges joined the Yale boycott anonymously, Monday’s letter marks the first time that more than two judges have said on the record that they will not hire graduates from an elite university.

It also marks an about-face for Solomson—one of the letter’s lead signatories—who previously criticized the boycotts of Yale and Stanford as a form of collective punishment. His decision to spearhead the Columbia boycott underscores just how much good will the school has lost over the encampment, which effectively put the campus on lockdown.

The letter, which comes one week after students occupied Columbia’s main administrative building, Hamilton Hall, with support from faculty, argues that the rot has spread too deep for judges to hire from Columbia “absent extraordinary change.” It is likely to fuel debate about the value of an Ivy League degree, which, per a much-discussed prediction by statistics guru Nate Silver, “is going to go down a lot.”

“Recent events demonstrate that ideological homogeneity throughout the entire institution of Columbia has destroyed its ability to train future leaders of a pluralistic and intellectually diverse country,” the judges write. “If Columbia had been faced with a campus uprising of religious conservatives upset because they view abortion as a tragic genocide, we have no doubt that the university’s response would have been profoundly different.”

The letter marks a new front in the hellish public relations war that has consumed Columbia and cost it major donor capital. As the encampment drew throngs of outsiders to the university’s doorstep—some of whom promised daily repeats of the Oct. 7 attacks—pressure mounted on Shafik, the university’s president, to lay down the law.

She did not do so until April 30, after nearly 5,000 alumni signed a petition demanding that the police clear Hamilton Hall. In the interim, Columbia lost one of its most prominent patrons, Robert Kraft, who said he could not in good conscience donate to a school awash in “virulent hate.” Billionaires Leon Cooperman and Henry Swieca have also cut ties with the university.

The clerkship boycott represents one of the most extreme forms of outside pressure yet. It targets a key source of the university’s prestige and could deter right-leaning high school seniors with an interest in law from applying to Columbia for college, at a time when some families are revisiting enrollment decisions amid the unrest.

Unlike the boycotts of Yale and Stanford, which apply only to the universities’ law schools, the moratorium on Columbia clerks extends to undergraduates as well.

“As judges who hire law clerks every year to serve in the federal judiciary, we have lost confidence in Columbia as an institution of higher education,” the letter reads. “Columbia has instead become an incubator of bigotry.”

Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ho and Branch, the two judges, announced in 2022 that they would no longer hire clerks from Yale Law School, citing a string of incidents in which speakers were shouted down and students were threatened with discipline for exercising their free speech. They extended the boycott to Stanford after a mob of students shouted down their colleague, Kyle Duncan, with help from the law school’s diversity dean.

Both boycotts focused on administrators who Ho and Branch said had encouraged student radicalism and cultivated an ideological monoculture. At Columbia, by contrast, the protests’ biggest boosters have come not from the administration but from the faculty.

Joseph Howley, a classics professor who chairs a required first-year humanities course for all undergraduates, gave interviews from inside the encampment and said there was “no evidence” of anti-Semitism on Columbia’s campus. Numerous faculty groups have condemned Shafik’s decision to call the police—both at the start of the encampment to arrest protesters and last week to clear Hamilton Hall—with the university’s chapter of American Association of University Professors calling for a vote of no confidence. In the history department alone, well over half the faculty signed a statement condemning the “criminalization” of the protest, which violated numerous laws and school rules.

“Both professors and administrators are on the front lines of the campus disruptions, encouraging the virulent spread of antisemitism and bigotry,” the judges write. “Significant and dramatic change in the composition of its faculty and administration is required to restore confidence in Columbia.”

The boycott could spur that change by exploiting the logic of supply and demand. Clerkships are a coveted commodity among law students, and part of the selling point of elite law schools is that they help their students land one. Since there are far more conservative judges than there are conservative law students, law schools rely disproportionately on conservatives to boost their clerkship placements and prestige—a dynamic that confers significant leverage on the right side of the federal bench.

While it’s hard to measure the success of past boycotts, Yale Law School made a number of reforms in the years following Ho and Branch’s pressure campaign. It hired two conservative law professors—previously the school employed zero—and announced that one of them, Keith Whittington, would launch a new center devoted to the study of academic freedom. Stanford also made noise about its commitment to open debate, parting ways with the diversity dean, Tirien Steinbach, who had disrupted Duncan and requiring a cursory session on free speech for all law students.

At Columbia, the judges are demanding “serious consequences” for the students and professors who participated in the encampment. Though the school has promised to expel the occupiers of Hamilton Hall and suspend others for trespassing, it has been vague about the terms of those suspensions, which followed weeks of amnesty and extended deadlines as the university tried to negotiate with protest leaders.

Some suspended students were also spotted at the encampment after they’d ostensibly been kicked off campus—including Khymani James, the protest leader who declared that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Another student, Aidan Parisi, who was suspended for hosting an unauthorized event with members of Palestinian terror groups, remained on campus for weeks after being told to leave.

The judges suggest that the school’s disciplinary actions so far have been inadequate. “In recent years, citizens have been told that unlawfully trespassing on and occupying public spaces is a sufficient basis to warrant incarceration,” the letter reads. “So that same conduct should surely be sufficient to warrant lesser measures such as expulsion or termination.

Leader of NYC Pro-Hamas Group Urged Protesters to Use BLM Riot Tactics; Has Cuba Ties

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Leader of NYC Pro-Hamas Group Urged Protesters to Use BLM Riot Tactics; Has Cuba Ties

Edited by: Fern Sidman

Manolo De Los Santos, the 35-year-old executive director of The People’s Forum (TPF), a Midtown-based nonprofit, has become a central figure in the wave of anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, as was reported on Monday in the New York Post.  His life and career are marked by a deep commitment to radical activism, influenced heavily by his extended stays in Cuba and his roots in the Dominican Republic.

Born in the Dominican Republic and relocated to The Bronx at the age of five, De Los Santos’s journey into activism began early. His initial visit to Cuba in 2006 with the progressive religious group, Pastors for Peace, marked the beginning of a long-term engagement with the socialist state, according to the Post report.  Over the years, he has traveled back to Cuba, including a trip as recent as March, to protest the US blockade, which has been in place since 1962.

As the leading voice of TPF since 2018, De Los Santos has been a polarizing figure. His public statements and actions have frequently sparked controversy, especially given his recent descriptions of the October 7 Hamas attack as “heroic” and his calls for Israel to be “erased from history,” as per the Post report.  De

Los Santos’s advocacy extends beyond the confines of TPF. His history of participating in disruptive protests in New York City, often accompanied by provocative, incendiary rhetoric, paints a picture of a man whose methods and statements are on the extreme, as was indicated in the Post report.  His stance against “US hegemony” and support for the “defeat” of the “US empire” align with his broader anti-establishment philosophy, reflecting a consistent pattern of promulgating a Marxist agenda.

This radical approach has not only made De Los Santos a figure of admiration among certain left-wing circles but also a subject of intense scrutiny and criticism. His refusal to engage with mainstream media, demonstrated by his recent decline to speak to The Post, adds to the aura of a staunch radical unwilling to moderate his stance for broader appeal.

Speaking at a public gathering, De Los Santos declared, “When we finally deal that final blow to destroy Israel, when the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism in our lifetime,” the Post report said. This statement, captured in a now-viral video, has sparked a firestorm of criticism and condemnation.

The severity of De Los Santos’s language prompted Ritchie Torres, a Democratic Representative from South Bronx, to denounce his speech as akin to “Nazi rhetoric,” as was noted in the Post report.  Torres’s condemnation extended to urging Goldman Sachs to sever its philanthropic connections with TPF, which he linked not only to these inflammatory comments but also to associations with the Chinese Communist Party, the report added.

The specific reference by De Los Santos to the “final blow” to Israel mirrors historical extremist rhetoric, particularly disturbing given the context of ongoing violence in the Middle East, where, as Torres noted, “Thousands of Israelis were massacred, maimed, mutilated, abducted, raped, and tortured at the murderous hands of Hamas,” according to the information contained in the Post report.

Following the backlash, De Los Santos issued a response on the TPF website, where he refused to apologize for his comments. Instead, the Post report affirmed that he framed the criticism as a “propaganda trick by the apologists for genocide,” pushing back against media portrayals of his speech as hate speech.

The call by Rep. Torres for financial disassociation by Goldman Sachs emphasizes the growing concern over the influence of donor funds in supporting organizations whose leaders may promote extremist views, as was suggested in the report.

On January 27, De Los Santos was one of ten protest leaders arrested during a chaotic day that saw anti-Israel demonstrators create substantial disruptions. The protesters descended on Manhattan, effectively blocking parts of the Brooklyn Bridge and attempting an ambitious plan to “flood” JFK Airport in Queens, the Post report said.

De Los Santos leverages a robust social media presence to further his cause, with over 31,000 followers on X. His posts glorify Hamas, the terrorist organization responsible for numerous attacks, including the October 7th brutal massacre in which 1,200 Israeli civilians were murdered. As was noted in the Post report, on that day, De Los Santos shared a propaganda video from Hamas, which depicted paratroopers preparing for the attack. Subsequently, he posted an image of Hamas fighters brandishing automatic weapons, celebrating their offensive against Israel.

 

Mark Levin: ‘Diabolical, Evil, Nasty’ Biden Backed White Supremacists, Racists for Politics and Votes

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The Jewish Voice had the distinct privilege of speaking with Fox News television talk show host, Mark Levin. Mr. Levin is the host of the Sunday evening program on the highly rated network called “Life, Liberty and Levin.” Photo Credit: FoxNews.com

By Jeff Poor (Breitbart)

On Sunday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Life, Liberty & Levin,” host Mark Levin reminded his viewers how President Joe Biden once backed white supremacists and racists in the Democratic Party as he is going out to criticize Republicans as racists on the campaign trail.

Transcript as follows:

[Y]ou know, I’m watching Joe Biden, I am listening to Joe Biden or not. The speech he gave the other night about the horrendous Jew hatred and antisemitism swelling in the country and anti- Americanism was contemptible. Absolutely contemptible.

And then I got the thinking, you know, I’m not the youngest guy on Fox and I grew up in the Reagan era, and I worked in the Reagan administration.

I worked on the confirmation of Robert Bork. I saw what he did as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I saw what he was saying about the Israelis, about Ronald Reagan, and other people. This is a diabolical, evil, nasty man, and I want to give you a taste of it.

NBC News: A couple of years back. Joe Biden didn’t just compromise with segregationists, he fought for their cause and schools, experts say. This is NBC, which of course loves Biden.

In a 1975 Senate hearing, the legendary Civil Rights lawyer Jack Greenberg had something to say to freshman Senator Joe Biden, Greenberg, longtime director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund took Biden to task for sponsoring a bill that would limit the power of courts to order school desegregation with busing.

It was a move that followed the wishes of many of Biden’s white constituents in Delaware. The bill he said heaves a brick through the window of school integration, said Greenberg, one of the lawyers who won the Brown v. Board of Education case that ended legal school segregation 21 years earlier.

And according to Greenberg, Biden was the man with his hand on the brick. Political experts and education policy researchers say Biden, a supporter of Civil Rights in other arenas did not simply compromise with segregationists, he also led the charge on an issue that kept black students away from classrooms of white students.

His legislative work against school integration advanced a more palatable version of the separate, but equal doctrine and undermined the nation’s short-lived effort at educational equality, legislative and education history, experts say.

Joe Biden: Racism and segregation, if it was good for Joe Biden, if it would get him votes, he would support it. Here we have the Gazette. We must never forget. Joe Biden wants Americans to remember their country’s racist legacy. They say while we should take his advice, their advice is as follows:

There were 37 members said Biden, of the House of Representatives who were open members of the Klan. There were five, if I’m not mistaken, it could have been seven, I think it was five members of the United States Senate, open members of the Klan.

Millions of white Americans belonged to the Klan and they weren’t even embarrassed by it. They were proud of it, said Biden in a speech. Right, and Biden seem proud of them. He sided with notorious segregationists to oppose integrated busing, saying in 1977, he didn’t want his white children to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a “racial jungle.”

Biden called Senator Robert Byrd a friend. At Byrd’s funeral, Biden called him a mentor and he was a guide. Even more, Byrd elevated the Senate he said. This is a man who knew exactly what he was doing, Biden said while he eulogized Byrd, Biden has praised or boasted about friendship with at least six segregationists that would include Byrd, Talmage of Georgia, Eastland and Stennis of Mississippi. That’s four and there were two others, lecturing the American people talking about us as if we were the white supremacists and racists when he was, and he did it for votes and he did it for politics.

Here’s a piece from our friend Marc Thiessen of The Washington Post a couple of years back. President Biden wants credit for nominating the first black woman to the Supreme Court, but here’s the shameful irony.

As a senator, Biden warned President George W. Bush, that if he nominated the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, he would filibuster and kill her nomination.

The story begins in 2003 when Bush nominated Judge Janice Rogers Brown has served on the US Court of Appeals for DC, considered the country’s second most important court and has produced more Supreme Court justices than any other federal court.

Brown was immediately hailed as a potential Supreme Court nominee.

Well, Biden did what he does best, character assassination. He tried to destroy her. He filibustered her. He blocked her because he didn’t want George Bush getting credit for potentially the first black woman nominee to the US Supreme Court.

Although Biden called the filibuster, the relic of Jim Crow, he threatened to use that against the black woman who actually lived under Jim Crow. That’s Brown.

And who was this woman? She was the daughter and granddaughter of sharecroppers, grew up in rural Alabama during the dark days of segregation, where her family refused to enter restaurants or theaters with separate entrances for black customers.

She rose from poverty and put herself through college in UCLA law school as a working single mother. She was a self-made African-American legal star, but she was an outspoken conservative. So Biden set out to destroy her.

Clarence Thomas’ “Created Equal.” Clarence Thomas, in his own words: He lashes out at the Democrats, and Biden, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and oversaw his confirmation process. Among other things, he says: Do I have like stupid written on my back of my shirt? I mean, come on, we know what this is all about. That is the effort to destroy him.

People should just tell the truth. This is the wrong black guy. He has to be destroyed. Just say it, that now we’re at least honest with each other.

The idea was to get rid of me, and then after I was there, it was to undermine me. While Thomas doesn’t mention Biden by name, he is asked by filmmakers to respond directly to Biden’s line of questioning during the hearings on his use of natural law.

I have no idea what he was talking about. I understood what he was trying to do. I didn’t really appreciate it. Natural law was nothing more than a way of tricking me into talking about abortion.

This Biden is a sleaze. He has been a cancer on the body politic from the day he walked into the US Senate. Look what he did to Robert Bork, one of the most renowned brilliant legal scholars in the history of this country.

John Paul Stevens who has a very liberal appointee to the Supreme Court by Gerald Ford, the longest serving liberal justice in modern times has lamented the treatment of a conservative judge prevented from joining him on the Supreme Court by Joe Biden. The failed Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork changed public perceptions of would-be jurists, seen now more for their political views than legal experience and qualifications, says retired Justice John Paul Stevens.

I’ve always ranked him (meaning Bork) as the most persuasive solicitor general who represented the United States before the Supreme Court. While I was a justice, I thought and still think he was eminently qualified for the position. Of course, President Reagan nominated him.

Then Senator Joe Biden, he was the chairman of the committee presided over Bork’s confirmation hearings and is viewed as having helped lay the groundwork for a hyper political nomination battles that persist today. Joe Biden destroyed the confirmation system in the Senate. He unleashed the filibuster against judges and judicial nominees, really in a major way and the first time in American history.

Before Bork was nominated to the High Court, Biden said he would support his nomination for the Supreme Court. But Biden reversed his position as Senate Democrats and liberal groups opposed Bork and launched a campaign to derail his nomination, to smear him, to character assassinate him.

The confirmation battle set up stage for ideological wars over Supreme Court nominees ever since. They’ve centered on traditional philosophy rather than on a qualifications and give rise to the verb “to Bork” defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as to attack or defeat unfairly through an organized campaign of harsh public criticism or vilification.

The tactics of Bork’s opponents included misstatements about his views. (This is Justice Stevens speaking) any certain amount of unfair comment on his character, motivated in part by a fear that disapproval might lead to the reexamination and possible overturning of Roe v. Wade, Stevens wrote.

What about Reagan? What did Reagan think of Joe Biden? Reagan was a very kind man. Well, the Reagan administration has adopted a foreign policy of unwise intervention and rigid ideology which has failed in the Soviet Union, Nicaragua and South Africa. Democratic presidential contender, Joseph Biden said yesterday at the Kennedy School of Government (this is 1987).

Biden, who will officially announce his candidacy said that Reagan had lost the confidence of both the American people and the Western European nations by sponsoring, “military adventures” around the world by avoiding normal foreign policy channels.

He said military interventionism as embodied in the Reagan Doctrine is in tatters. It has led to the deceiving of our allies, trading arms to terrorists, circumventing Congress and most profoundly losing the confidence of the American people and our European allies.

One of the greatest presidents in American history who destroyed the Soviet Union, who pushed communism out of our hemisphere. This is Joe Biden, who is a disaster in so many respects — foreign policy at the top.

Biden said that American foreign policy has failed to adapt to changing realities and has instead been characterized by outdated approaches to the Soviet Union and world problems, particularly in Central America and South Africa. That’s Biden attacking Reagan.

What did Reagan think? President Joe Biden is absolutely right (writer in “The Washington Examiner, Quin Hillyer) to make a case now on behalf of arming Ukraine, but the way he chose to do it was hypocritical as can be.

Biden used as a model of behavior the late President Ronald Reagan’s famous speech in the Gipper in Berlin said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

One problem, Biden at the time hated that speech, you heard it. He said it was dangerous rhetoric. In Reagan’s personal diaries, the Gipper rarely mentions Biden, but after his Berlin Wall speech, Reagan was infuriated by Biden, who at the time was in a race for president that would fizzle to nothingness when Biden repeatedly lied about his heritage in his resume.

Biden had blasted Reagan’s speech and the Reagan Doctrine of arming people willing to fight for their own freedom against autocratic regimes.

In his diaries, Reagan wrote there was some talk about Senator Biden, now candidate for president. I saw him on CNN last night speaking to the JFK School of Harvard University, he is smooth, but pure demagogue, out to save America from the Reagan Doctrine.

Reagan was right. Biden is a pure demagogue and always has been.

Robert Gates, served under every president since Nixon say Bill Clinton, what did Gates say, and I paraphrase, Biden has been wrong about foreign policy and national security in every major respect for 40 years. That’s close enough We all know it to be true.

What about Biden’s treatment of the state of Israel? Oh, he loves Israel. Oh my gosh. Decades of it. Great piece by Barry Shaw in Israel, “Hayom.” Joe Biden is once again at loggerheads with Israel, he wrote just a few weeks ago, this has been brewing for decades, Biden infamously admitted telling Benjamin Netanyahu Bibi, I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you say.

Biden seems to have learned nothing from his personal contentious relationship with Israel going back decades. Biden’s animus towards Israel has not been confined to Netanyahu.

Biden’s long and contentious relationship with Israel goes back to June 1982 when as senator, he threatened another Israeli prime minister, we’ve talked about this, Menachem Begin with holding back US aid to Israel which cause Begin to respond, in other words, just like he is blackmailing Netanyahu, just like he’s behind the ICC effort to issue an arrest warrant against the prime minister of Israel.

This is his modus operandi. You can see throughout his life on the Senate floor with the racists, you can see what he’s done to the Senate Judiciary Committee, how he attacked Reagan and Bork and Thomas and not just attacked them, he character assassinated them.

And when Begin said, don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid, it won’t work. I’m not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We’ll stand by our principles. We will defend them and when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid, he says to Biden.

Eyeball to eyeball, 1982, Senator Biden reportedly banged on the table with his fist to which Begin retorted, this desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. You think that because the US lends us money, it is entitled to impose on us what they think we must do. We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened.

I am a proud Jew, 3,000 years of culture behind me and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note, we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us. It seems Biden failed to learn from that experience as a fledgling senator, Biden made his first visit to Israel in 1972, just days before the Arab attack against Israel from the Yom Kippur War.

Biden visited a worried Golda Meir (then the prime minister) having come from Egypt, and according to one official who was present at the meeting, Biden told a tensed Israeli prime minister, don’t worry, Egypt is not preparing for war against the Jewish state because as he put it, they accepted Israel’s military superiority.

Biden was wrong, again, 40 days later, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan launched their war against the Jewish state, on Judaism’s holiest day, Biden had been deceived by the Arabs and brought a deceptive message to Israel. Some people are saying he’s doing the same thing today.

As vice president in the final days of the Obama presidency, Biden played a key role in delivering the anti-Israel vote in the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, December 23, 2016, which in its deceptive language cast Israel’s illegally occupying land in 1967 that had been illegally occupied by Jordan since the Arab War of 1948 on territory that had been granted to Israel by virtue of a majority vote for the UN Partition Plan Resolution.

This was Obama’s stab in Israel’s back as they were preparing to leave the white House after their defeat at the hands of Donald Trump. Obama has been upset by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s vocal challenge to the Obama-Biden disastrous appeasement policy toward a nuclear ambitious Iran.

Biden’s role in this duplicitous diplomatic move was delivering the votes for Obama who deliberately failed to apply the US veto to a damagingly anti-Israel bill, he effectively supported.

The name calling, the character assassination. “New York Post,” a month- and-a-half ago, Biden called Netanyahu a bad effing guy.

He is undermining Netanyahu with the international community, publicly and privately. He is undermining Netanyahu’s government. He is now backing the ICC, this corrupt left-wing European court that is planning to issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu. All he has to do is say no, Biden, but he won’t. Why? Because he is behind it.

But Biden does praise certain people. This is from “The Daily Beast.” Biden praises fighter, Rashida Tlaib, promises to keep her family safe. This is a Marxist, Islamist, America-hating, Jew hater and Biden praises her while he is trashing Netanyahu.

I admire your intellect. I admire your passion. I admire your concern for so many other people, Biden said at the Dearborn Ford plant, and it’s from my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family are well. I promise I’m going to do everything to see that they are in the West Bank. You’re a fighter and I thank you for being a fighter, just as he kissed AOC’s lower half the other day as well.

So this is who Joe Biden is. And now, his focus is on Donald Trump. How do I destroy Donald Trump? And in POLITICO, they leak, Biden blasts Trump as a despicable danger to democracy.

See, you see the man who has fought integration, who was supported racism and segregation. The most antisemitic president in American history, who is undermining the state of Israel, who is attacking the prime minister of Israel, day in and day out and wants an arrest warrant issued against him by the notorious ICC.

A man who will not let Israel defeat Hamas while he is funding Iran and the terrorists that surround Israel. The man who sits silently for weeks on end, while the Jew hatred is spreading through the colleges and universities that he is relying on for votes, for Dearborn, Michigan that he is relying on for votes, that is Democratic Party voters.

He comes out with a lame pathetic statement, no profile in courage, certainly won’t go down as one of the great speeches in American history, couldn’t barely get it out, three-and-a-half minutes, who has done nothing, hasn’t lifted a finger to fight antisemitism in this country, just as he never lifted a finger to fight racism and segregation when he went into the Senate, quite the opposite.

Now you see if you don’t vote for him, Donald Trump threatens democracy. Donald Trump is Hitler. Donald Trump is a dictator. Donald Trump will imprison his opponents, which of course is what exactly what Biden and the Democrats are doing. Donald Trump needs to be painted, well, as he painted Reagan, as he painted Bork, as he paints Netanyahu, as he painted Menachem Begin, as he painted Clarence Thomas.

That’s who Joe Biden is. He is a thug.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

Hamas claims it accepted Gaza ceasefire proposal, Israeli officials warn of possible ruse

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FLASH 90

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

The Hamas terror organization claimed Monday evening that it has accepted a proposed hostage deal with Israel, even as Israeli officials warn of a possible ruse.

Hamas chief-in-exile Ismail Haniyeh informed mediators from Qatar and Egypt Monday evening that Hamas has agreed a ceasefire proposal.

Shortly thereafter, a Hamas spokesperson issued a statement regarding Haniyeh’s messages to Doha and Cairo.

“The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniya, spoke by phone with the Prime Minister of Qatar – Mohammed bin Abd al-Rahman al-Thani, and with the head of Egyptian intelligence – Abbas Kamal, and informed them that Hamas agrees to their proposal for a ceasefire fire,” the terror group said.

Hamas did not offer details regarding the precise terms if has accepted, and the Israeli government has yet to offer any formal response to the announcement.

The most recent ceasefire offer tabled by Israel would include the freeing of 33 Israeli captives over the course of a six-week ceasefire, in exchange for the release of hundreds of jailed Arab terrorists.

 

Israel is “checking which ceasefire formula Hamas has agreed” to, an Israeli official told i24NEWS.

A senior Hamas official said Israel must decide whether to sign on to the ceasefire deal.

“After Hamas agreed to the mediators’ proposal for a ceasefire, the ball is now in the court of Israeli occupation, whether it will agree to the ceasefire agreement or obstruct it,” the Hamas official told AFP.

Crowds gathered in Gaza to celebrate Hamas’ declared support for the ceasefire agreement, with revelers chanting “Allahu Akbar” and shooting in the air.

The Israeli negotiating team on Monday night received the terms to which Haniyeh has agreed to a ceasefire, and is currently scrutinizing Hamas’ response.

Several Israeli officials have warned, however, that Hamas has added a number of additional clauses into the prior draft of the deal, fundamentally changing the proposal agreed upon by the Israeli and Egyptian delegates.

“This is not the same proposal,” one official told Channel 12, noting that “All kinds of clauses” have been inserted into the ceasefire deal.

The new clauses reportedly concern the conditions for ending the current war, though no details have yet been reported.

WATCH: Pro-Hamas supporters chant outside Auschwitz during March of the Living

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As the March of the Living was occurring terror supporters chanted ‘Free Palestine,’ and mockingly wore yellow stars as the Jews did during the Holocaust.

World Israel News – Latest News from Israel

 

Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day amid war and fears for hostages

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Holocaust survivors and thousands of participants from around the world march the path leading from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), marking the 80th anniversary of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Auschwitz, Poland. Apr 18, 2023. (Yossi Zeliger/TPS)

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Israelis marked Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday amid war, with a nationwide minute of silence and commemorations, honoring the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.

Schools had special Holocaust ceremonies, lawmakers read aloud names at the Knesset, and television aired movies and documentaries about “the Shoah,” as the Holocaust is called in Hebrew.

A nationwide moment of silence was held at 10 AM.

But the war with Hamas and the fate of 133 hostages remained at the forefront.

During a wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial and museum, a heckler called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.

In a video of the ceremony circulating on social media, a man called out to Netanyahu, “We must not descend into the abyss again. What else is necessary for you to go home? Let the people of Israel remember their abandoned sons,” a reference to the hostages Hamas holds in Gaza.

Addressing the ceremony, Netanyahu drew a parallel between Hamas’s October 7 attack and the Holocaust.

“Let me clarify, the terror attack was not a Holocaust, but not because the intention was different. It’s the same. Hamas is driven by the same goals as the Nazis,” Netanyahu said.

Vowing to bring the hostages home, Netanyahu added, “We are committed to putting an end to this ongoing menace. We will fight against the monsters of Hamas until the organization is eradicated. I say monsters, not only because of their atrocious acts but because they revel in them.”

Meanwhile, President Isaac Herzog drew attention to Holocaust survivor Alex Danzig, who is among the captives in Gaza.

The 75-year-old Danzig was born in Warsaw and settled in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Some 180 of the kibbutz’s approximately 400 residents were killed or kidnapped on October 7.

He worked as a historian and educator at Yad Vashem. Danzig frequently worked with Israeli tour guides who led annual high school trips to the concentration camps in Poland.

Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary on the Hebrew calendar of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

The Nazi Holocaust was carried out through genocide, forced labor, starvation, mass shootings, and extermination camps.

At least 1,200 people were killed and 240 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Around 30 of the remaining 133 hostages are believed dead.

Columbia University Cancels Main Commencement After Weeks of Pro-palestinian Protests

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The horrific events at Columbia University where cries to “Kill Jews” and replay the October 7th Hamas massacre 10,000 times have sent shockwaves throughout the world, Credit: AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura

(AP) — Columbia University is canceling its large university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled its campus and others across the U.S., but it will hold smaller school-based ceremonies this week and next, the school announced Monday.

 

“Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15,” officials at the Ivy League school in upper Manhattan said in a statement.

Noting that the past few weeks have been “incredibly difficult” for the community, the school said in its announcement that it made the decision after discussions with students. “Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families,” officials said. “They are eager to cross the stage to applause and family pride and hear from their school’s invited guest speakers.”

Most of the ceremonies that had been scheduled for the south lawn of the main campus, where encampments were taken down last week, will take place about 5 miles north at Columbia’s sports complex, officials said.

Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia’s green or occupied an academic building were arrested in recent weeks, and similar encampments sprouted up at universities around the country as schools struggled with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.

The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue. Students abandoned their camp at USC early Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with arrest.

Other universities have held their graduation ceremonies with beefed-up security. The University of Michigan’s ceremony was interrupted by chanting a few times Saturday, while in Boston, some students waved small Palestinian or Israeli flags as Northeastern University held its commencement Sunday in Fenway Park.

The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. The student protesters are calling on their schools to divest from companies that do business with Israel or otherwise contribute to the war effort.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.

Judge Finds Trump Violated Gag Order For 10th Time

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In all, his personal net worth is roughly $6.4 billion. For the first time ever, Trump will be on the world’s top 500 wealthiest people in the world, based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Credit: AP

(DCNF) Judge Juan Merchan found former President Donald Trump violated his gag order for the 10th time, warning next time he would consider imposing a jail sentence.

Merchan previously held Trump in contempt for nine violations of the order, fining him $9,000 and warning future violations could result in jail time. Prosecutors argued during a hearing last week that Trump should be held in contempt for an additional four violations since the start of the trial.

“Going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Merchan said.

Merchan said the “magnitude” of the decision was not lost on him. “But at the end of the day, I have a job to do,” he said.

 

Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanceh argued last week that Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, has been “inviting and almost daring” Trump to respond through his continued attacks. The gag order prevents Trump from making statements about witnesses, prosecutors other than the district attorney, court staff and jurors, as well as family members of the staff, district attorney or judge. (RELATED: Defense Attorney Tells Judge Gag Order Prevented Trump From Responding To Biden’s Comments On Trial)

Blanche also argued that the gag order prevented Trump from responding to remarks President Joe Biden made about the trial.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Biden admin officials coordinated with anti-Israel group to isolate Israeli Jews in Judea and Samaria, emails show

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By Adam Kredo, The Washington Free Beacon

Senior Biden administration officials have been coordinating since at least early 2022 with an outside anti-Israel group to isolate Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank, internal government emails show.

The previously unreported emails show top officials at both the State and Defense Departments fielding concerns from Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a human rights group that is highly critical of the Israeli government and has lobbied the Biden administration to cut off military aid to the Jewish state.

At the time, DAWN sparked an internal push at both departments to stop American officials from engaging with Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank and other contested areas of Jerusalem.

DAWN is leveraging its clout with the Biden administration to push fresh sanctions on Israeli military units for alleged human rights crimes, having provided the State Department with a list of Israelis to punish.

DAWN’s anti-Israel lobbying campaign traces back to at least 2022, with the internal government emails shining new light on the level of access and influence it peddles inside the Biden administration.

IRAN FLOODING PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY WITH WEAPONS: REPORT
In February of that year, DAWN’s then-advocacy director, Adam Shapiro, emailed two top Pentagon officials—Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, and Jennifer Zakriski, then the deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

In the email, Shapiro raised concerns about U.S. officials engaging with Israeli “settlers,” citing “media reports documenting a trip to Hebron by 2 US military officers, organized by an [Israel Defense Forces] commander and hosted by a settler affiliated with the Hebron Fund,” a nonprofit group that provides education about the city of Hebron’s Jewish history.

“From where I sit,” Shapiro wrote, “I think this raises serious questions about the purpose of this trip to occupied territory and the ideological nature of the presentation and messaging—and seeming endorsement by US military personnel.”

Stroul elevated Shapiro’s email a day later, when she forwarded it to Hady Amr, now the Biden administration’s special representative for Palestinian affairs, who was then serving as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs.

“Hi Dana,” Amr responded to Stroul: “We saw the reports and spoke to [Gen. Michael] Fenzel about it a day or two after it happened.”

“We’re good,” Amr added at the end of the note, a portion of which was redacted by the State Department prior to releasing the internal correspondence.

US LAWMAKERS SLAM BIDEN’S ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ ULTIMATUM TO ISRAEL
Fenzel is a three-star general who serves as U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

He was recently identified in media reports as a central player in the Biden administration’s campaign to sanction Israeli Jews whom the administration accuses of festering violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Many of the claims about Israel peddled by Fenzel served as the basis for a set of sanctions the United States recently imposed on Israel, Tablet magazine reported in February.

“This email confirms that Biden officials were coordinating with fringe anti-Israel NGOs to undermine Israel and Israeli Jews for years,” said one senior Republican congressional official who has received briefings from administration officials on the issue.

“These officials were coordinating with each other to launder anti-Israel talking points and policies from fringe NGOs into the administration.”

The internal emails cited in this report were provided to the Free Beacon by America First Legal, a conservative watchdog group that obtained them through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The State Department would not elaborate on its dealings with DAWN.

“That was a private note between colleagues and does not reflect the close relationship that the State Department, [the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs], and the Special Representative enjoy with [the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator] and General Fenzel, which has only grown stronger over the last two years of the General’s tenure,” a spokesperson said on background.

CHRISTIAN ZIONIST GROUP, US LAWMAKERS RIP BIDEN’S CALL FOR GAZA CEASEFIRE
The coordination with DAWN is attracting renewed interest on Capitol Hill in light of the Biden administration’s current deliberations over possible sanctions on Israel.

DAWN and other anti-Israel advocacy groups recently provided the State Department with a list of Israelis they believe should be sanctioned for human rights abuses.

Reed Rubinstein, America First Legal’s senior counselor and director of oversight and investigations, said the emails paint a disturbing picture about the Biden administration’s coordination with outside groups that are highly critical of Israel.

“The State Department’s partnership with and reliance on the DAWN organization—a virulently anti-Israel propaganda group that brags about ‘sponsorship’ by the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front group called the ‘Council on American-Islamic Relations’—is even more evidence that key Biden officials are infected with a fundamental, and deeply perverse, hatred for Israel and the Jewish people,” Rubinstein said.

“This administration rejected peace and stability,” Rubinstein went on. “Instead, it has chosen to subvert Israel’s democracy, subsidize Hamas, Fatah, and Iran, and fan a worldwide firestorm of anti-Semitism.”

WATCH: Gaza protesters earn $7,800 for 8-hour demonstrations – report

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An anti-Israel encampment at NYU. (Twitter Screenshot)

The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which organizes college encampments, has received nearly $700,000 from elite investors such as George Soros.

World Israel News – Latest News from Israel

IDF Urges Rafah Evacuations; Drops Flyers in Gaza; Attack Imminent

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‘Joel B. Pollak

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) urged residents of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, to evacuate to nearby “safe” zones on Monday as a long-delayed attack by Israel against the last Hamas strongholds appeared to be imminent.

The apparent mobilization of the IDF came after Hamas fired rockets from close range at the Kerem Shalom crossing, where humanitarian aid crosses from Israel into Gaza, on Saturday, killing four soldiers and wounding several others.

The U.S. has been telling Israel, privately and publicly, not to attack Rafah since February. Israel insisted it would do so, regardless of international pressure and regardless of hostage talks, to complete its goal of destroying Hamas.

The IDF has been dropping flyers on Rafah with maps indicating where residents should take refuge during the fighting.

RAFAH, GAZA – MAY 06: Israeli army warns Palestinians to evacuate Rafah with brochures prior to the army’s land assault, urging them to head west in Rafah, Gaza on May 06, 2024. (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted examples of these flyers on social media on Sunday:

 

The IDF elaborated in a statement (original emphasis):

In recent hours, flyers were dropped calling on the residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate temporarily toward the expanded humanitarian area.

Calls to temporarily move to the humanitarian area are conveyed through flyers, SMS messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in Arabic.

…

Attached is the corrected version of the English translation to the flyers:

Red flyer:

To all residents and those currently in the areas of Al-Shuka, Al-Salam, Al-Janina, Taba Zaraa, and Al-Yarmouk, and the blocks: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 28, 270.

The IDF will be operating against the terrorist organizations in the area where you are located, as it has operated until now.

Anyone found near terrorist organizations endangers themselves and their family members.

For your safety, the IDF urges you to evacuate immediately to the expanded Humanitarian Area in the Al-Mawasi area.

We warn you that Gaza City is still a dangerous active combat zone. Avoid returning north of Wadi Gaza.

We warn you to stay away from the eastern and southern security fences.

Israel Defense Forces.

Blue flyer:

The IDF announces the expansion of the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi.

From now on, the area will spread out from Deir al Balah in the north and up to blocks 2373, 2360, 2371 in the south and in the east to the center of Khan Yunis, as shown in the attached map.

In this area the expanded humanitarian aid will continue.

The IDF will continue fighting the terror organizations that use you as human shields.

Therefore:

Gaza City is a dangerous fighting zone; avoid crossing to the north of Wadi Gaza.

It is prohibited to come near the eastern and southern security fences.

In a separate statement, the IDF explained:

There has been a surge of humanitarian aid going into Gaza. The IDF has expanded the humanitarian area in Al- Mawasi to accommodate the increased levels of aid flowing into Gaza. This expanded humanitarian area includes field hospitals, tents and increased amounts of food, water, medication and additional supplies.

In accordance with the approval of the government, an ongoing situation assessment will guide the gradual movement of civilians in the specified areas, to the humanitarian area.

Calls to temporarily move to the humanitarian area will be conveyed through posters, SMS messages, phone calls and media broadcasts in arabic.

The IDF will continue pursuing Hamas everywhere in Gaza until all the hostages that they’re holding in captivity are back home.

The apparent mobilization of IDF forces to begin the Rafah operation could be an elaborate bluff to increase pressure on Hamas to accept a hostage deal. Hamas has held out for an Israeli commitment to end the war with any such deal.

Talks are said to be deadlocked on that point. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns shuttled between Doha, Qatar, and Jerusalem, Israel on Sunday and Monday in a last-ditch effort to save a potential deal.

Rafah is strategically significant because it is along the Egyptian border and controls underground smuggling routes through which Hamas obtains its weapons, and through which its leaders might hope to escape if Israel relents.

The vast majority of Israelis back an attack on Rafah, though the Israeli public is split over whether an operation in Rafah should precede a hostage deal. Hamas’s attack on Kerem Shalom may have made the decision for them.

The IDF’s moves toward an attack came on the nation’s Holocaust memorial day, hours after Netanyahu warned: “In the terrible Holocaust, there were great world leaders who stood by idly; therefore, the first lesson of the Holocaust is: If we do not defend ourselves, nobody will defend us. And if we need to stand alone, we will stand alone.”

The message was interpreted by some observers to be a message to U.S. President Joe Biden about Israeli intentions in Rafah.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Hamas says latest cease-fire talks have ended. Israel vows military operation in ‘very near future’

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(AP) — The latest round of Gaza cease-fire talks ended in Cairo after “in-depth and serious discussions,” the Hamas militant group said Sunday, reiterating key demands that Israel again rejected. After earlier signs of progress, the outlook appeared to dim as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to resist international pressure to halt the war.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed Hamas wasn’t serious about a deal and warned of “a powerful operation in the very near future in Rafah and other places across all of Gaza ” after Hamas attacked Israel’s main crossing point for delivering badly needed humanitarian aid, killing three soldiers. Israel’s military said it believed Hamas was targeting soldiers massed on the Gaza border in preparation for a possible Rafah invasion. Hamas said it targeted soldiers in the area.

But Israeli media reported that CIA chief William Burns, a main mediator in the talks, would meet with Netanyahu on Monday. An official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Burns was traveling to meet the prime minister of Qatar, which along with Egypt has been an intermediary dealing with Hamas. It was not clear whether a subsequent trip to Israel that had been planned would happen. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.

Israel didn’t send a delegation to the latest talks. Egyptian state media reported that the Hamas delegation went for discussions in Qatar, where the group has a political office, and will return to Cairo for further negotiations on Tuesday.

Another threat to talks came as Israel ordered the local offices of Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network to close, accusing it of broadcasting anti-Israel incitement. The ban did not appear to affect the channel’s operations in Gaza or the West Bank.

Netanyahu, under pressure from hard-liners in his government, continued to lower expectations for a cease-fire deal, calling the key Hamas demands “extreme” — including the withdrawal of Israel forces from Gaza and an end to the war. That would equal surrender after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that triggered the fighting, he said.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a statement earlier said the militant group was serious and positive about the negotiations and that stopping Israeli aggression in Gaza is the main priority.

But Israel’s government again vowed to press on with a military operation in Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city on the border with Egypt where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents now seek shelter from Israeli attacks. Rafah is a key entry point for aid.

Israeli soldiers jump off a tank at a staging ground near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Israeli soldiers jump off a tank at a staging ground near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Kerem Shalom, now closed, is another. The Israeli military reported 10 projectiles were launched at the crossing in southern Israel and said its fighter jets later struck the source. Israel’s Channel 12 TV channel said 10 soldiers remained hospitalized. It was unclear how long the crossing would be closed.

The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, called for an independent investigation and “accountability for the blatant disregard of humanitarian workers.” He also said Israel this week denied him entry to Gaza for a second time.

The closing of Kerem Shalom came shortly after the head of the U.N. World Food Program asserted “full-blown famine” in devastated northern Gaza, one of the most prominent warnings yet of the toll of restrictions on aid entering the territory. It was not a formal famine declaration.

In the full NBC interview, WFP chief Cindy McCain said famine was “moving its way south” in Gaza and that Israel’s efforts to allow in more aid were not enough. “We have right now a mass on the outside border, about enough trucks and enough food for 1.1 million people for about three months. We need to get that in,” she said.

Gaza’s vast humanitarian needs put pressure on cease-fire talks. The proposal that Egyptian mediators put to Hamas sets out a three-stage process that would bring an immediate, six-week cease-fire and partial release of Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7, and would include some sort of Israeli pullout. The initial stage would last for 40 days. Hamas would start by releasing female civilian hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

An Israeli soldier walks past a line of tanks at a staging ground near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
An Israeli soldier walks past a line of tanks at a staging ground near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Netanyahu claimed that Israel has shown willingness to make concessions but “will continue fighting until all of its objectives are achieved.” That includes the stated aim of crushing Hamas. Israel says it must target Rafah to strike remaining fighters there despite warnings from the U.S. and others about the danger to civilians.

In a fiery speech for Israel’s annual Holocaust memorial day, Netanyahu added: “I say to the leaders of the world, no amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself.”

An Israeli strike Sunday on a house in an urban refugee camp near Rafah killed four children, including a baby, and two adults, all from the same family, according to Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital. Another Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least five people, according to Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies. Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas command center in central Gaza. It didn’t mention casualties.

The Hamas cross-border attack on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others. Netanyahu is under pressure from some hostages’ families to make a deal to end the war and get hostages freed.

Israeli’s air and ground offensive has killed over 34,500 people, according to Palestinian health officials, who don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but say women and children make up a majority of those killed.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths, accusing it of embedding in residential and public areas. The Israeli military says it has killed 13,000 militants, without providing evidence to back up the claim.

$400 Million Boost in Federal Funds for Security at Places of Worship

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(AP) — A $400 million increase in federal funding is available for security in places of worship, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Sunday.

The boost in money comes as concerns rise over threats against Jewish and Muslim communities, fueled in part by the Israel-Hamas war.

Places like synagogues and mosques could apply to use the money to hire security personnel or install cameras under the new increase in funding to the existing federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program, Schumer, a Democrat, said from New York City.

“We’re going to keep funding so that no synagogue or other religious institution is going to have to live in the fear that they now live with,” Schumer said.

The program allocated $305 million last year to nonprofits to help protect their facilities from potential attacks.

Three New York City synagogues and the Brooklyn Museum received bomb threats through email on Saturday, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department said. The threats prompted two synagogues to evacuate, though no explosives were found.

Houses of worship will need to apply by May 21 to tap into the first round of funds.

As NYC’s Migrant Crisis Continues, Posh Bdwy Hotel Converts into a Shelter

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Migrants prepare to be transported by bus to processing faciities in Yuma, Arizona, on May 18, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

As NYC’s Migrant Crisis Continues, Posh Bdwy Hotel Converts into a Shelter

By:  Ilana Siyance

In the latest sign of the looming migrant crisis, another posh hotel in the center of Broadway is reportedly being utilized as a shelter.

As reported by the New York Post, The Square Hotel, located at 226 West 50th Street between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, across the street from Gershwin Theatre, has been converted into a shelter. The Square Hotel posted a message on its Facebook page saying: “To our valued guests: it is with great sadness that we announce the Square Hotel will be closed for the foreseeable future. We appreciate your patronage and hope to welcome you back someday soon.”  The hotel’s website has a similarly cryptic post, making no reference to its use as a shelter, saying: “Please pardon our appearance as we slip into something new! We look forward  to welcoming you in the future.”

The 141-room boutique hotel, centrally located in the theatre district and less than 10 minutes’ walk to  Rockefeller Center, was built in 1904 and last renovated in 2017. The 7-story hotel boasts “Art Nouveau styled hotel rooms”  with “sophisticated furniture, plush beds with down comforters and deluxe linens, flat-screen televisions with cable”, and a rooftop terrace.  It still features a Japanese restaurant and bar in its lobby.  According to the information in the Post report however, the scene inside the hotel has completely changed.  There is now a National Guard soldier stationed at the entrance of the lobby. A couple signing in with luggage was escorted by National Guard troops.

Critics were disappointed that the hotel would convert into a shelter.  “These hotels could be doing a fine tourist business right now, but they are being lazy, and a sure-thing 100-percent occupancy on the city dime, and without having to provide traditional hotel services, is just too good a deal to pass up,” said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan  Institute in a highly astute comment.

Other pro-business advocates said it’s sad that the city and the hotel industry are turning the iconic Broadway District into a hub for illegal migrants.  “We consider the Broadway District a key to the city’s economy. There is only one Broadway —in the entire world!” said state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, who seeks to preserve the legacy of the “Great White Way” and what it means for New York City.

The head of the Hotel Association of New York City said hotels are helping the city deal with the migrant  crisis.  “The hotels make their own choices as to whether or not to participate. During the Covid crisis, hotels stepped up to the plate, and when it ended they went back to their normal course of tourism business,” Hotel Association CEO Vijay Dandapani said, in a statement, according to the Post report.

For their part, the migrants say the shelters are their only hope as they flee their homelands, which are

in upheaval and where poverty is the only option.  They say the shelters act as a lifeline while they adjust and find work to become self-sufficient.  “We all pay the price for one or two bad guys. One guy goes to do something bad and then they say all Venezuelans  are bad,” Jesus Delber, 27, told The Post.  “But not everyone is like that. I came to work. I didn’t find work for three months. But I didn’t give up. If you are willing to work hard, life will always help you find honest work,” added Delbert.

Trump Vows to Deport ‘Nearly 20 Million’ Illegal Migrants from the United States 

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In all, his personal net worth is roughly $6.4 billion. For the first time ever, Trump will be on the world’s top 500 wealthiest people in the world, based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Credit: AP

 

By:  Ilana Siyance

As the 2024 Presidential election heats up, former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican candidate, vowed to resolve the migrant crisis via mass deportations.

As reported by the NY Post, Mr. Trump has frequently spoken about his deportation plans, and recently said in a TIME Magazine interview that he would utilize local law enforcement as well as the National Guard and the military to move his plan forward to fruition.  The Trump campaign has said there are “nearly 20 million” illegal migrants currently in the United States,  potentially ripe for the “largest” deportation operation in American history.  Such an initiative would follow on the heels of former President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Operation  Wetback”, during which over 1 million migrants were shipped out of the country in 1954.

The Trump campaign has not specified the details of what resources would be needed to identify, detain and deport the illegal immigrants, but clearly such a big operation would require a massive expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, generous funding from congress, and collaboration with the State Department, former ICE officials told The Post.

Experts have backed the Trump campaigns’ estimate figure of migrants.  The 20 million stated from the Trump campaign is “not an unreasonable estimate” given the record-breaking  number of migrants entering the country under the Biden administration, Eric Ruark, NumbersUSA’s director of research, told The Post.  “There’s probably between 15 and 20 million, given the number of people we’ve seen coming over,” Ruark said, in stark  contrast with the US Census Bureau’s official estimate of 11 million.

Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE under former President Trump, said the agency has “systems in place that are very good at identifying people,” but that the speed of the deportations would depend on the resources allowed and cooperation from other branches of government.  “A lot of that is going to be up to Congress … We need officers, we need detention beds,  we need transportation contracts … because [we would have] more flights heading out of the country and more bus removals down to the border,” Homan said.

“We would still prioritize criminals and national security threats first, they are the most dangerous  for the country.” he added. “But I would say no one is off the table. If you’re in this country illegally… then we’ll remove you.”  Asked by The Post if he would return to work under Trump term if reelected, Homan said he would “strongly consider” taking a job if asked.

Jon Feere, former ICE chief of staff under Trump, said ICE already has the capacity to detain more migrants  than are currently being held by the Biden administration.  Still, he said “there’s no doubt that ICE would benefit from a significant increase in officers, agents and detention space” and that if elected Trump would “undoubtedly” make that request of Congress.

Feere told the Post, “I’m sure I will be” involved “in some capacity” if Trump takes office, but he stopped short of specifying what role he might take on.

Aside from potential resistance from the Democratic-led congress and reluctance to cooperate from sanctuary cities, such a massive plan for deportation would also run into obstacles if the countries of origin refuse to allow reentry to their migrants. Such a situation would need to be handled by the State Department, which would need to take on a hard line foreign policy, the former officials told The Post.  Feere said the State Department could use the Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to issue visa sanctions against countries that refuse to take back their citizens.  “When a country hears  that the United States will not allow its residents in if they don’t take their people back, those countries quickly cooperate,” he said.

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