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Colombia Threatens to Break Ties with Israel if it Doesn’t Comply with a UN Cease-Fire Resolution

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Israel if the country doesn’t comply with a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

By: Manuel Rueda

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Israel if the country doesn’t comply with a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Petro made the announcement on X, formerly known as Twitter. On Monday, he published another message in which he celebrated the resolution’s approval and urged other nations to suspend ties with Israel if it doesn’t cease its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 32,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry replied to Petro’s threat on Tuesday with a tweet, which said that the Middle Eastern nation will “continue to protect its people and will not give in to any pressures and threats.”

The foreign ministry accused Petro of being a “supporter of Hamas terrorists” who massacred children and women during an Oct. 7 raid on Israeli communities that unleashed the current invasion of Gaza, and said that Petro’s stance is a “disgrace to the Colombian people.”

The confrontation on X signals a growing deterioration in the relations between both nations, which have gone from being military and commercial partners, to becoming bitter ideological rivals.

For decades, Colombia used Israeli-built warplanes and machine guns to fight drug cartels and rebel groups, and both countries signed a free trade agreement in 2020.

But relations began to cool in 2022, when Petro was elected to office.

Petro, a leftist and longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause, has described Israel’s military offensive in Gaza as “genocide.” In February, he suspended military purchases from Israel, after the country’s troops fired on Palestinians who gathered around aid trucks, in a tragedy in which more than 100 people were killed.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry had suspended defense cooperation with Colombia in October, after Petro had failed to condemn the Hamas raid on villages in southern Israel, and instead compared Israel’s military to Nazi troops.

Military analysts in Colombia have said that the deterioration of relations with Israel jeopardizes the South American nation’s defense capabilities.

Colombia depends on Israeli companies for the maintenance of its fleet of more than 20 Israeli-built Kfir jets, which are the only planes in Colombia’s arsenal that are capable of launching laser-guided bombs.

Colombia has also made multiple contracts with Israel for the provision of military communications equipment, and produces assault rifles for its troops under a license from an Israeli manufacturer.

In other news related to Colombia, the AP reported last week that President Petro suspended a ceasefire with one of a handful of armed groups with which he hoped to negotiate peace accords, saying its fighters violated the truce by attacking an Indigenous community.

The government said that starting last week it would resume military operations against Estado Mayor Central, a group of fighters who broke away from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia when it signed a peace pact in 2016.

Indigenous leaders in the war-torn western region of Cauca said an attack by the dissident group Saturday wounded at least three people and a young student was taken away by force.

(AP)

Ukraine Ramps Up Spending on Homemade Weapons to Help Repel Russia

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A worker assembles mortar shells at a factory in Ukraine, on Wednesday, January 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

By: Hanna Arhirova

Ukraine needs any edge it can get to repel Russia from its territory. One emerging bright spot is its small but fast-growing defense industry, which the government is flooding with money in hopes that a surge of homemade weapons and ammunition can help turn the tide.

The effort ramped up sharply over the past year as the U.S. and Europe strained to deliver weapons and other aid to Ukraine, which is up against a much bigger Russian military backed by a thriving domestic defense industry.

The Ukrainian government budgeted nearly $1.4 billion in 2024 to buy and develop weapons at home — 20 times more than before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

And in another major shift, a huge portion of weapons are now being bought from privately owned factories. They are sprouting up across the country and rapidly taking over an industry that had been dominated by state-owned companies.

A privately owned mortar factory that launched in western Ukraine last year is making roughly 20,000 shells a month. “I feel that we are bringing our country closer to victory,” said Anatolli Kuzmin, the factory’s 64-year-old owner, who used to make farm equipment and fled his home in southern Ukraine after Russia invaded in 2022.

Yet like many aspects of Ukraine’s war apparatus, its defense sector has been constrained by a lack of money and manpower – and, according to executives and generals, too much government red tape. A more robust private sector could help root out inefficiencies and enable factories to churn out weapons and ammunition even faster.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Russia controls nearly a quarter of Ukraine and has gained momentum along the 1,000 kilometer (620 mile) front line by showing a willingness to expend large numbers of troops to make even the smallest of advances. Ukrainian troops regularly find themselves outmanned and outgunned, and this has contributed to falling morale.

“You need a mortar not in three years, you need it now, preferably yesterday,” said Taras Chmut, director of the Come Back Alive Foundation, an organization that has raised more than $260 million over the past decade to equip Ukrainian troops with machine guns, armored vehicles and more.

Kuzmin, the owner of the mortar factory, fled the southern city of Melitopol in 2022 after Russia invaded and seized his factory that mostly made spare parts for farm equipment. He had begun developing a prototype for mortar shells shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, when it illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

Kuzmin took over a sprawling warehouse in western Ukraine last winter. His long-term goals include boosting production to 100,000 shells per month and developing engines and explosives for drones.

He is just one of many entrepreneurs transforming Ukraine’s weapons industry, which was dominated by state-owned enterprises after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Today, about 80 percent of the defense industry is in private hands — a mirror image of where things stood a year ago and a stark contrast with Russia’s state-controlled defense industry.

Each newly made projectile is wrapped in craft paper and carefully packed into wooden crates to be shipped to Romania or Bulgaria, where are loaded with explosives. Several weeks later, they’re shipped back and sent to the front.

“Our dream is to establish a plant for explosives,” said Kuzmin, who is seeking a partner to make that happen.

(AP)

UK Court Says Assange Can’t be Extradited on Espionage Charges Until US Rules Out Death Penalty

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A British court ruled Tuesday that Julian Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won’t get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site’s publication of classified American documents. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali

By: Sylvia Hui & Jill Lawless

A British court ruled Tuesday that Julian Assange can’t be extradited to the United States on espionage charges unless U.S. authorities guarantee he won’t get the death penalty, giving the WikiLeaks founder a partial victory in his long legal battle over the site’s publication of classified American documents.

Two High Court judges said they would grant Assange a new appeal unless U.S. authorities give further assurances within three weeks about what will happen to him. The ruling means the legal saga, which has dragged on for more than a decade, will continue — and Assange will remain inside London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, where he has spent the last five years.

Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson said the U.S. must guarantee that Assange, who is Australian, “is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed.”

The judges said that if the U.S. files new assurances, “we will give the parties an opportunity to make further submissions before we make a final decision on the application for leave to appeal.” The judges said a hearing will be held May 20 if the U.S. makes those submissions.

The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday.

Assange’s supporters say he is a journalist protected by the First Amendment who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan that was in the public interest.

Assange’s wife Stella Assange said the WikiLeaks founder “is being persecuted because he exposed the true cost of war in human lives.”

“The Biden administration should not issue assurances. They should drop this shameful case, which should never have been brought,” she said outside the High Court in London.

The ruling follows a two-day hearing in the High Court in February, where Assange’s lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said American authorities were seeking to punish him for WikiLeaks’ “exposure of criminality on the part of the U.S. government on an unprecedented scale,” including torture and killings.

The U.S. government said Assange’s actions went beyond journalism by soliciting, stealing and indiscriminately publishing classified government documents that endangered many people, including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped U.S. forces.

The judges rejected six of Assange’s nine grounds of appeal, including the allegation that his prosecution is political. They said that while Assange “acted out of political conviction … it does not follow however that the request for his extradition is made on account of his political views.”

The judges also said Assange could not appeal based on allegations, made by his lawyers, that the CIA developed plans to kidnap or kill Assange during the years he spent holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, to prevent him from trying to flee.

The judges said “plainly, these are allegations of the utmost seriousness,” but concluded they had no bearing on the extradition request.

“Extradition would result in him being lawfully in the custody of the United States authorities, and the reasons (if they can be called that) for rendition or kidnap or assassination then fall away,” the ruling said.

They accepted three grounds or appeal: the threat to Assange’s freedom of speech, Assange’s claim that he faces disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen, and the risk he could receive the death penalty.

U.S. authorities have promised Assange would not receive capital punishment, but the judges said that “nothing in the existing assurance explicitly prevents the imposition of the death penalty.”

Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange’s lawyers, said that “even if we receive the assurances, we’re not confident we can rely on them.”

Assange, 52, a computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on charges over Wikileaks’ publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

U.S. prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange faces 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, though American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower.

Assange’s wife and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles and confinement.

“My concerns about the precarious mental health of Julian Assange and his unfitness to be extradited, as well as the potential for him to receive a wholly disproportionate sentence in the United States, have not been assuaged by the court,” said Alice Jill Edwards, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, an independent expert for the world body.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women. In 2012, Assange jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.

The relationship between Assange and his hosts eventually soured, and he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019. British police immediately arrested and imprisoned him for breaching bail in 2012. Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

A U.K. district court judge rejected the U.S. extradition request in 2021 on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. Higher courts overturned that decision after getting assurances from the U.S. about his treatment. The British government signed an extradition order in June 2022.

(AP)

Netanyahu: UN Resolution “Gives Hamas Hope” – Cancels Delegation to WH

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Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN, casts her abstention during voting on the resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the month of Ramadan. Photo Credit: AP

Edited by:  TJVNews.com

Israeli government officials have expressed strong condemnation in response to Monday’s U.N. Security Council resolution, which demanded a two-week halt to the war in Gaza that was launched by the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists in early October. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu particularly criticized the decision of the United States to abstain from exercising its veto power in the Security Council.

The Jewish News Syndicate reported that in a statement released by his office, Netanyahu remarked, “The United States has abandoned its policy in the U.N. today.” He highlighted the recent support from Washington for a draft resolution that directly tied a call for a ceasefire to the release of hostages held by Hamas; contrasting it with the current resolution’s more ambiguous stance.

Netanyahu expressed dismay over the resolution, stating, “Resolution 2728 gives Hamas hope that international pressure will force Israel to accept a ceasefire without the release of our hostages,” emphasizing the potential harm to both military operations and diplomatic efforts.

The U.N. resolution, aimed at halting the fighting until the end of Ramadan on April 9, garnered support from 14 nations, including veto holders China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France. Notably, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield abstained from the vote, effectively allowing the measure to pass.

Ambassador Gilad Erdan, Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. Photo Credit: news.un.org

The resolution, while calling for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” has left room for interpretation regarding its connection to the ceasefire demand. This aspect of the resolution has drawn significant scrutiny from Israeli officials.

Likud Party lawmaker Danny Danon, who served as ambassador to the United Nations between 2015 and 2020, echoed Netanyahu’s sentiments. According to the JNS report on Monday, Danon likened the situation to the U.N. Security Council’s 2016 vote, during which the Obama administration chose to abstain instead of exercising its veto power. That resolution, known as UNSC resolution 2334, condemned Israeli construction beyond the 1967 lines.

Danon also cautioned against the implications of allowing the resolution to pass, stating, “One cannot ignore the fact that allowing this resolution to pass is a change in policy; our colleagues in Washington are aware of it. This isn’t only about the language, which is problematic. This is a slippery slope for more resolutions to pass.”

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, weighed in on the resolution, emphasizing its shortcomings.  The JNS report indicated that Goldberg pointed out that while the resolution demands both a ceasefire and the release of hostages, it fails to establish a direct link between the two. This observation underscores the concerns raised by Israeli officials regarding the resolution’s efficacy in addressing the ongoing conflict.

Goldberg further highlighted what he perceived as a significant policy shift on the part of the United States. He noted that the decision to abstain from the vote represented a departure from the administration’s previous stance, despite assertions from the White House to the contrary.

According to Goldberg, the recent proposal by the Americans for a draft resolution that explicitly tied the ceasefire to the release of hostages underscores the inconsistency in the U.S. approach. According to the information provided in the JNS report, he noted, “Just last Friday, the Americans proposed a draft that called for a ceasefire in connection with the release of hostages. Three days later, the standard is merely that you talk about a ceasefire and the release of hostages in the same general location [of the text], not that the two must go hand in hand.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed dismay over the resolution, stating, “Resolution 2728 gives Hamas hope that international pressure will force Israel to accept a ceasefire without the release of our hostages,” emphasizing the potential harm to both military operations and diplomatic efforts. Photo Credit: AP

Furthermore, the Goldberg added, “The United States makes itself look weaker on the world stage by abstaining on the resolution backed by China and Russia…The more Washington projects distance from a close ally, the more America’s adversaries take note and get emboldened,” as was noted in the JNS report. This sentiment reflects concerns over the broader implications of the U.S. abstention in terms of global perceptions of American strength and resolve.

In response to the developments at the United Nations, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office took decisive action, canceling the departure of a high-level delegation scheduled to fly to Washington, the JNS report said. This decision reflects the seriousness with which Israeli officials regard the implications of the U.S. abstention for ongoing diplomatic relations.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who arrived in the U.S. capital on Monday, emphasized the moral imperative of continuing military efforts in Gaza as long as hostages remained in captivity. JNS reported that he also warned of the potential consequences of failing to achieve a decisive victory, cautioning that it could escalate tensions and lead to further conflict with Iranian proxies in Lebanon.

Minister-without-Portfolio and War Cabinet member Benny Gantz echoed Gallant’s sentiments, vowing to persist in military operations “until the hostages are returned and the terrorist threat is removed,” as was reported by JNS.

The leader of the National Unity Party in Israel dismissed the UNSC decision as “lacking operational significance” for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). While downplaying the resolution’s impact on military operations, he reiterated the determination to continue the fight against Hamas until all hostages are safely returned home.

Gantz urged Netanyahu to travel to the United States for direct dialogue with President Joe Biden and senior officials, the JNS report revealed. Emphasizing the importance of the special relationship between Israel and the United States, Gantz stressed the need for continued engagement, even in the face of challenges and disputes.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz took to Twitter to assert Israel’s stance, stating, “The State of Israel will not cease fire. We will destroy Hamas and will continue to fight until the return of all hostages to home.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich echoed similar sentiments, pledging to continue fighting in Gaza until the Iranian-backed Hamas terror group is completely destroyed and all hostages are returned. As was pointed out in the JNS report, he too criticized the U.S. decision not to impose a veto in the Security Council, arguing that it plays into Hamas’s hands and undermines efforts to stabilize the region.

Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, expressed disdain for the UNSC’s decision, using the Hebrew expression “Um-Shmum” to convey his utter disgust for the bias against Israel, according to the JNS report. The term “Um-Shmum” was first coined by Israel’s very first prime minister, the late David Ben Gurion. His tweet reflects the frustration felt by many Israeli officials towards the patently unfair treatment of Israel by international bodies.

Amichai Chikli, Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism, condemned the UNSC resolution, accusing the body of having lost its moral compass. He highlighted what he referred to as “Hamas rapists and child murderers,” underscoring the gravity of the situation and the need to address anti-Semitism at the international level.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies pointed out that while the resolution demands both a ceasefire and the release of hostages, it fails to establish a direct link between the two. Credit: YouTube.com

In a poignant address, an unnamed official directed a rhetorical question at those in leadership positions, questioning their commitment to the victims and hostages of the conflict, as was noted in the JNS report.  “You claimed to stand with the victims when their blood was flowing; you claimed to stand with the hostages when their cries still echoed; are you deserting them now?”

Meanwhile, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party directed his criticism primarily at Netanyahu, accusing him of fabricating unnecessary clashes with the Biden administration for political gain. JNS reported that Lapid described Netanyahu’s actions as “alarming irresponsibility,” suggesting that they risked damaging diplomatic relations without serving Israel’s interests. However, Lapid also noted that the recent Security Council decision held little practical importance for Israel, signaling a nuanced perspective on the broader implications of the resolution.

Despite political divisions, recent surveys suggest that even Israelis who do not support Netanyahu’s leadership continue to back some of his key war policies. This includes opposition to the two-state solution and a steadfast insistence on defeating Hamas battalions in Rafah, as was detailed in the JNS report.

In the diplomatic arena, Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant held separate meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington, D.C., to discuss Israel’s ongoing military operations against Hamas on Monday, the JNS report said.  Gallant reiterated Israel’s commitment to continuing operations in Gaza until all hostages are returned, emphasizing the need for a decisive victory to bring an end to the conflict.

In response, the U.S. State Department reaffirmed its support for defeating Hamas, including in Rafah. However, there was opposition expressed to a major ground operation in the city, with Secretary Blinken advocating for alternatives that would ensure Israel’s security while minimizing harm to Palestinian civilians. Additionally, the JNS report indicated that discussions centered on the urgent need to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza to address their immediate needs amidst the ongoing conflict.

Gallant’s meeting with White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan delved into crucial topics, including securing the release of hostages held in Gaza and dismantling Hamas’s military infrastructure. JNS reported that the meeting, which lasted over an hour and was held in private, underscored the gravity of the situation and the importance of close coordination between the two allies.

“The outcomes of this war will shape the region for years to come,” remarked Gallant, highlighting the significance of the conflict not only for Israel but for the broader Middle East, according to the information in the JNS report. He emphasized that the resolution of the conflict would send a signal to common enemies shared by both Israel and the United States.

Sullivan echoed these sentiments, expressing satisfaction with the constructive nature of the discussion. He tweeted, “I was pleased to welcome Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant to the White House today. We had a constructive discussion on how best to ensure Hamas’ lasting defeat in Gaza,  JNS reported. Sullivan reaffirmed President Biden’s unwavering support for Israel’s security and defense against all threats, including Iran, while also acknowledging the need to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Gallant’s visit to Washington also included a scheduled meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, further highlighting the depth of engagement between Israeli and American defense officials. As was noted in the JNS report, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, outlined the expected focus of the conversation, stating, “Addressing the threat of Hamas, while also taking into account civilian safety,” as a key priority.

Meanwhile, Hamas reiterated its demands for a “permanent ceasefire,” despite earlier praise for the passing of a temporary ceasefire resolution by the U.N. Security Council. The terrorist group accused Netanyahu and his government of obstructing negotiation efforts and thwarting the possibility of reaching an agreement.

Despite the deadlock in negotiations, interlocutors from the United States, Egypt, Israel, and Qatar have been actively engaged in shuttle diplomacy, seeking to broker a ceasefire agreement that would see the release of remaining hostages held by the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, JNS reported. This comes in the wake of the October 7th massacre in the northwestern Negev, where 253 hostages were captured by Hamas and over 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were brutally slaughtered by the Iranian-backed terror group,

Recent developments have seen Israeli delegations, led by Mossad chief David Barnea, engaging in talks in the Qatari capital. Reports suggest that Israel may have softened its stance on critical components of a potential deal, awaiting a response from Hamas’s leadership in Gaza, according to the information contained in the JNS report.  While the main delegation returned to Israel over the weekend, a small group of Mossad officials remains in Doha for ongoing negotiations.

Responding to the resolution,  Hamas expressed a willingness “to engage in an immediate prisoner exchange process that leads to the release of prisoners on both sides.” Additionally, the group articulated its hope for “a permanent ceasefire that leads to the withdrawal of all Zionist forces from the Gaza Strip and the return of the displaced [Palestinians] to the homes from which they left.”

Netanyahu on Monday canceled a high-level delegation’s planned visit to Washington after the Biden administration failed to veto the resolution.

Following Monday’s vote, Jerusalem announced that “in light of the change in the American position, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that the delegation will not depart.”

Netanyahu said that the changed U.S. position “hurts the war effort and the effort to release the hostages” by giving the Hamas terrorist organization hope that international pressure will bring about a ceasefire without freeing the captives, the JNS report said.

The prime minister on Tuesday responded to the Hamas terrorists rejection of the latest proposal, saying that the terror group’s “position clearly proves that the terrorists are not interested in continuing negotiations for a deal, and is an unfortunate testimony to the damage of the Security Council’s decision,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

“Hamas once again rejected any American compromise proposal and repeated its extreme demands: an immediate end to the war, a complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip and remaining in power so that it could repeat the massacre of October 7 again and again, as it had promised to do,” the premier continued.

In news from the battlefield in Gaza, JNS reported on Sunday that Israeli forces arrested 480 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists as part of the battle at the Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza City that has gone on for almost a week, the Israel Defense Forces said.

In addition, troops located weapons and terrorist infrastructure in the medical facility.

Meanwhile, Hamas announced the death of Yagev Buchshtab, 34, who was abducted from Kibbutz Nirim on Oct. 7 along with his wife, the JNS report said. Rimon Kirsht Buchshtab, 36, was released on Nov. 28 as part of a deal brokered by Qatar and the United States.

The terrorist group said on its Telegram channel that he died “as a result of a lack of medicine and food.”

Meanwhile, the IDF on Sunday announced the death of Staff Sgt. Lior Raviv, 21, from Rishon Lezion, who was killed in action in the northern Gaza Strip. His death raises the total number of soldiers killed in action since the start of the Gaza ground invasion on Oct. 27 to 252, with 596 on all fronts since the start of the war on Oct. 7.

(Additional reporting by: Fern Sidman)

With its Soldiers in Gaza, Israel Fights a Battle at Home Over Drafting the Ultra-Orthodox

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Israeli police officers scuffle with Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men during a protest against a potential new draft law. Credit: AP Photo/Leo Correa

By: Melanie Lidman

As Israel battles a prolonged war in Gaza, broad exemptions from mandatory military service for ultra-Orthodox men have reopened a deep divide in the country and rattled the government coalition, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fellow War Cabinet members staunchly opposed to his proposed new conscription law.

By the end of the month, Israel’s government must present legislation aimed at increasing recruitment among the religious community. As the deadline approaches, public discourse has grown increasingly toxic — a departure from demonstrations of unity early in the war.

Netanyahu’s government so far has survived the public angst sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war, but the draft issue has put him in a bind. The collapse of the three-member War Cabinet would undermine the country’s stability at a sensitive time in the fighting. But a loss of the ultra-Orthodox parties would bring down his broader governing coalition and plunge the country into new elections as he and his Likud party are badly trailing in opinion polls.

“Politically, this is one of the most concrete threats to the government,” said Gilad Malach, an expert on the ultra-Orthodox at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.

Most Jewish men are required to serve nearly three years followed by years of reserve duty. Jewish women serve two mandatory years. But the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox, who make up roughly 13% of Israeli society, have traditionally received exemptions if they are studying full-time in religious seminaries. The exemptions — and the government stipends many seminary students receive through age 26 — have infuriated the wider general public.

The Supreme Court has ruled the current system discriminatory and given the government until April 1 to present a bill and until June 30 to pass it.

Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz — who with Netanyahu comprise the War Cabinet — say the prime minister’s proposed law doesn’t go far enough toward increasing the number of ultra-Orthodox who will join the army. Critics say some aspects, such as raising the age for exemption, could even depress the numbers.

Gantz, Netanyahu’s top political rival, said he’d leave the Cabinet if the enlistment law is weakened or fails to pass by the deadline. Defense Minister Gallant said he’d support a new law only with the support of Gantz and more centrist members of the country’s emergency wartime government.

The government is composed of ultra-Orthodox and religious ultranationalist parties who were joined in the early days of the war by a faction led by former military generals, including Gantz. The union was meant as a show of unity in the aftermath of Oct. 7, but the parties differ widely on the issue of conscription.

After Hamas’ attack, Israel activated 360,000 reservists, its largest mobilization since the 1973 Mideast war. Many have since been released but will be expected to return to active duty in coming months. The increased reserve duty and talk of lengthening mandatory service have deepened public anger.

Among Israel’s Jewish majority, mandatory military service is largely seen as a melting pot and rite of passage. The ultra-Orthodox say that integrating into the army will threaten their generations-old way of life and that their devout lifestyle and dedication to upholding the Jewish commandments protect Israel as much as a strong army.

“We prefer dying to serving in the Israeli army,” said Yona Kruskal, 42, a father of 11 and full-time seminary student, as he blocked traffic in Jerusalem with about 200 others last week in one of the frequent protests against the conscription law. “There’s no way you can force us to go to the army, because we are hell-bent that the army and religion contradict one another.”

As the ultra-Orthodox scuffled with police at the protest, other Israelis berated them, chanting “Shame! Shame!”

“My friends are sitting in Gaza while you’re here, sitting on the ground,” one man yelled. A woman screamed at the protesters that her son was serving in Gaza to protect them.

Oren Shvill, a founder of Brothers in Arms, a protest group representing reserve soldiers who oppose Netanyahu, said the ultra-Orthodox are benefitting from the army’s protection without participating. “There’s one law for everyone, and it should be enforced equally,” he said.

Economists say the system is unsustainable. With its high birthrate, the ultra-Orthodox community is the fastest-growing segment of the population, at about 4% annually. Each year, roughly 13,000 ultra-Orthodox males reach the conscription age of 18, but less than 10% enlist, according to the Israeli parliament’s State Control Committee, which recently held a hearing on the matter.

“One of the things that in the past was debatable and now is much more clear is that we need more soldiers,” said Yoaz Hendel, a former Netanyahu aide and Cabinet minister who just finished four months of reserve duty as commander of a special forces unit. He said the burden of service should be shared equally among all sectors of the population.

The shock of the Oct. 7 attack appeared to ignite some enthusiasm among the ultra-Orthodox to serve, but no large enlistment materialized, according to Israeli media. The army declined to comment on the ultra-Orthodox enlistment rate.

The debate has long divided Israel, and a string of court decisions have repeatedly found the system unjust. But Israeli leaders, under pressure from ultra-Orthodox parties, have repeatedly stalled. It remains unclear whether Netanyahu will be able to do so again.

The rift over exemptions was exacerbated last year when Netanyahu’s government pressed ahead with an overhaul of the legal system supported by ultra-Orthodox governing partners who sought to override court decisions on conscription. The government froze the overhaul after the war broke out.

The army has attempted to accommodate the ultra-Orthodox by creating separate units that allow them to maintain religious practices, including minimizing interaction with women.

Ephraim Luff, 65, a full-time seminary student in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, dismissed such efforts, saying the men who enlist in these units are not “real Haredim,” as the ultra-Orthodox are known in Hebrew.

“The army is the final stage of Israeli education to make people into secular Israelis and to disconnect them from their Jewish heritage,” said Luff, who described how one of his eight children “strayed from the path” of full-time learning and served in the army as a truck driver for a year and a half.

One of the country’s two chief rabbis, Yitzhak Yosef, said this month that the ultra-Orthodox “will all move abroad” if forced to enlist. The comment drew both condemnation, for encouraging Israelis to leave during a national crisis, and ridicule, because many secular Israelis would have no problem with the ultra-Orthodox leaving en masse, said the Israel Democracy Institute’s Malach.

On the contrary, the ultra-Orthodox leadership’s unwillingness to compromise even as other parts of Israeli society make significant sacrifices has alienated more of the public, Malach said.

“In this government, I don’t see a real opportunity for change,” he said. “But if there are elections and there is a coalition without haredim or with weakened haredim, there could be a change.”

(AP)

Israeli Lawyer’s Ordeal: Abducted, Brutally Raped & Held Captive in Gaza

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Amit Soussana, a 40-year-old Israeli, has bravely stepped forward as the first to publicly recount her traumatic ordeal of brutal sexual assault during captivity following the Hamas-led October 7th massacre in southern Israel. Credit: LinkedIn

Edited by: TJVNews.com

Amit Soussana, a 40-year-old Israeli, has bravely stepped forward as the first to publicly recount her traumatic ordeal of brutal sexual assault during captivity following the Hamas-led October 7th massacre in southern Israel. In a series of interviews with The New York Times, primarily conducted in English, Soussana provided chilling details of the 55-day nightmare she endured.

Her personal account, corroborated by reports from two doctors and a social worker within 24 hours of her liberation on November 30, sheds light on the horrifying realities faced by Israeli hostages held by the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists, the NYT report indicated. While the specifics of the sexual violence are withheld out of respect for Soussana’s privacy, her testimony underscores the egregious nature of the abuse she suffered.

According to accounts provided by Soussana herself during extensive interviews with The New York Times in mid-March, her abduction unfolded in a terrifying manner. She was forcibly taken from her home by at least 10 armed Hamas terrorists and dragged into Gaza, where she endured unimaginable horrors at the hands of her captors.

Throughout her captivity, Soussana was subjected to dehumanizing treatment, including isolation and physical violence. According to the NYT report, she described being held alone in a child’s bedroom, chained by her left ankle, with her guard frequently intruding into her personal space. The guard, who identified himself as Muhammad, would enter the room, lift her shirt, and touch her, creating an atmosphere of constant fear and vulnerability.

As days turned into weeks, Soussana’s ordeal took a darker turn. On one fateful morning around October 24, Muhammad launched a violent attack against her. The NYT report revealed that after unlocking her chain and leaving her momentarily unguarded in the bathroom, he returned with a pistol in hand, threatening Soussana with lethal force.

In a chilling recounting of the events, Soussana recalled Muhammad’s menacing presence as he brandished the firearm and subjected her to physical assault. As per the information contained in the NYT report, despite her desperate attempts to resist, she found herself at the mercy of her captor, forced to endure unspeakable acts of violence and degradation.

During her captivity, Soussana was shuttled between roughly half a dozen locations, ranging from private homes to subterranean tunnels. The NYT report said that in one particularly brutal episode, she recounted being suspended between two couches by her captors, who subjected her to relentless beatings.

For months, the Hamas terrorists and their sympathizers vehemently denied allegations of sexual abuse against hostages, dismissing them as propaganda, as was noted in the NYT report. However, a recent United Nations report has refuted these claims, citing “clear and convincing information” of sexual violence inflicted upon hostages. This acknowledgment underscores the severity of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.

Despite the immense trauma she endured, Soussana initially remained reticent about her experiences in the Gaza Strip, wary of reliving the horrors she faced. The NYT report also said that even as she was filmed by her captors moments before her release, she feigned compliance, fearing that speaking out could endanger her chance of freedom.

In the wake of her release, Soussana wasted no time in sharing her ordeal, seeking medical assistance and support to cope with the trauma inflicted upon her. Hours after regaining her freedom, she spoke candidly with Dr. Julia Barda, a senior Israeli gynecologist, and social worker Valeria Tsekhovsky, recounting the horrors she endured, as reported by The Times.

Dr. Barda remarked on Soussana’s remarkable ability to articulate her experience with clarity and detail, not only concerning the sexual assault but also the multitude of other challenges she faced during her 55-day captivity, the NYT report revealed.

The following day, Soussana bravely shared her account with a doctor from Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine, adding another layer of corroboration to her narrative. According to the NYT report, Professor Siegal Sadetzki, a respected figure at Tel Aviv University’s medical school, affirmed the consistency of Soussana’s testimony, highlighting the authenticity of her claims.

Soussana’s decision to speak out serves as a beacon of hope for other survivors and underscores the urgent need for accountability and justice in addressing the plight of the remaining Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity. As her story continues to reverberate, it serves as a courageous act of defiance against the perpetrators of violence and a testament to her resilience in the face of unspeakable adversity.

As Soussana continues on her path to healing, her bravery in speaking out serves as a beacon of hope for countless others who have suffered similar fates. It is a stark reminder of the indomitable human spirit and the power of resilience in the face of unimaginable hardship.

Trump Urges Israel to ‘Finish Up’ its Gaza Offensive; Warns of Global Support Fading

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Former President Donald Trump said he would have responded the same way as Israel did after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. Credit: AP

By: Adriana Gomez Licon

Former President Donald Trump said he would have responded the same way as Israel did after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas but urged the country to “finish up” its offensive in Gaza and “get this over with,” warning about international support fading.

“You have to finish up your war. You have to finish it up. You’ve got to get it done,” he said in an interview with Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. “We’ve got to get to peace. You can’t have this going on, and I will say Israel has to be very careful because you are losing a lot of the world. You are losing a lot of support.”

Trump, who earlier this month became the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, brought up global criticism of Israel’s offensive even as he has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict.

According to the newspaper’s transcript of the interview, Trump said “Israel made a very big mistake” in releasing photos and videos of its offensive in Gaza, commenting the country’s public image is “in ruin.” A video shared of the interview does not show those comments.

“That’s a terrible portrait. It’s a very bad picture for the world,” Trump said. “I think Israel wanted to show that it’s tough, but sometimes you shouldn’t be doing that.”

The Israel Hayom is widely seen as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Soon after the attack in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages, Trump denounced Netanyahu for allegedly letting him down while he was in the White House. He also said Netanyahu “was not prepared” for the deadly incursion from Gaza.

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

Trump also again suggested that American Jews were wrong to support Democrats, days after being criticized by some Jewish advocates for saying Jewish Democrats were being disloyal to their religion. He alleged that Biden “supports the enemy.”

Also on Tuesday, AP reported that a New York judge issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president’s history of “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” remarks about people involved in his legal cases.

Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision, echoing a gag order in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, came a day after he rejected the defense’s push to delay the Manhattan trial until summer and ordered it to begin April 15. If the date holds, it will be the first criminal trial of a former president.

“Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” Merchan wrote in a four-page decision granting the prosecution’s request for what it deemed a “narrowly tailored” gag order.

The judge said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s statements have induced fear.

Trump’s lawyers fought a gag order, warning it would amount to unconstitutional and unlawful prior restraint on his free speech rights. Merchan, who had long resisted imposing a gag order, said his obligation to ensuring the integrity of the trial outweighed First Amendment concerns.

“President Trump’s political opponents have, and will continue to, attack him based on this case,” Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles said in a recent court filing.

(AP)

The IRS Helps UNRWA Fund Hamas

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UNRWA USA’s report claims that it was able to provide $3.8 million to UNRWA in 2022. That money and previous funds raised by UNRWA USA could have bolstered Hamas before Oct 7. Credit: AP

While nations drop support for UNRWA over terror funding, the IRS lets the cash flow.

By: Daniel Greenfield

Before Ismail Haniyeh became the leader of Hamas, he was a teacher at UNRWA.

The UN agency dedicated welfare agency for the Arab Muslim colonists who call themselves “Palestinians” had long since become a terrorist front.

“I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll,” a former UNRWA Commissioner General said, “and I don’t see that as a crime.”

A former official boasted “that UNRWA was raising thousands and thousands of cadres” and “first and foremost, we can mention Ismail Haniyeh, who was an UNRWA teacher, and so was Dr. Talal Naji, Secretary-General of the PFLP-GC.” The PFLP is also a terrorist group.

The UNRWA’s Gaza staff has its own union. In a 2012 election, a pro-Hamas bloc won the support of most of the union with 25 out of 27 seats on a union board. When there was talk of reforming the UNRWA by removing Hamas members from its ranks, the editor of a Hamas paper wrote that, “they are all members of the ‘resistance,’ in its various forms.”

How true is that? Israeli intelligence estimates that 1 in 4 male UNRWA employees had ties to Hamas and 1 in 2 employees had family ties to terrorists.

On Oct 7, multiple UNRWA employees took part in the attack. One UNRWA teacher was recorded boasting “I’m inside, I’m inside with the Jews! We have female hostages, I captured one!” while using the Islamic term for sex slave. At least 30 UNRWA employees took part in other parts of the attack, running an ops room, carrying antitank missiles and invading Israel.

Within a group of 3,000 UNRWA staff members, there was widespread celebration on Oct 7.

Hamas kept key assets, including a data and command center, under UNRWA’s headquarters and has regularly deployed its rockets at UNRWA sites and hidden in UNRWA supplies. Hamas has taken UNRWA supplies so that aid and funding for it supplies the Islamic terror group.

As a result of these revelations and more, a number of nations paused their funding to UNRWA.

But despite evidence of Hamas ties, UNRWA USA continues to retain nonprofit status in the U.S. Providing material aid to Hamas, a sanctioned terrorist group on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list, is illegal, and illegal acts violate tax code regulations.

Survivors of the Oct 7 attacks including Lishay Lavi, who had to watch along with her daughters while Hamas kidnapped her husband, David Bromberg, who hid for 7 hours while watching others at the Nova music festival being massacred by the terrorists, and Natalie Sanandaji, an American woman who had been in Israel for a wedding and then had to run for her life, along with other survivors have sued UNRWA USA.

The lawsuit alleges that “UNRWA USA collects donations in the United States and then transfers nearly all its funds to UNRWA” which “redistributes those funds to Hamas members on their payroll, some of whom are directly engaged in acts of terrorism, including but not limited to, the October 7th atrocities.”

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) depends heavily on two international NGOs, UNRWA USA and another in Spain. UNRWA USA, despite cultivating an image as an aid group, features veteran anti-Israel activists on its board, including Nadia Saah, Lara Friedman, and Shibley Telhami. The latter took part in an event with a Hamas apologist.

UNRWA USA’s report claims that it was able to provide $3.8 million to UNRWA in 2022. That money and previous funds raised by UNRWA USA could have bolstered Hamas before Oct 7.

While survivors and their families are entitled to sue UNRWA USA, the IRS has failed to act.

This is in sharp contrast to the IRS pursuit of pro-Israel groups under the Obama administration.

Z Street, one of those groups, launched a legal battle that exposed the administration’s targeting of political opponents.

Z Street’s founder, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, told Front Page Magazine that, “One of the excuses given to Z Street by an IRS official was that the IRS had to make sure we were not ‘engaged in terrorism’ because we mentioned ‘terror’ in our mission statement. The part of Z Street’s mission that mentioned terror? ‘We will not engage with, negotiate with or appease terrorists.’”

The IRS however appears to have a different position on terrorism. And that may explain its actions.

Among the more recent targets of the IRS has been the David Horowitz Freedom Center which spent 5 years battling the federal agency because we reported on Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Front Page Magazine had previously exposed the role that the IRS has played in enabling the funding and political support for Hamas in the United States by 501(c)(3) charity nonprofits.

But UNRWA may be the single large beneficiary of the IRS’ willful blindness to Islamic terrorism.

What is true of UNRWA is also true of much of the United Nations.

“Hamas is not a terrorist group for us, as you know, it is a political movement,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths recently argued.

But UNRWA is unique as a UN agency that functions as an employment agency for Hamas, provides it with facilities and aid, and political cover for its campaign to kill Jews.

The lawsuit by the survivors of the Hamas attacks states that, “UNRWA USA was fully aware that UNRWA employees supported, engaged in, and celebrated the terrorist attacks on October 7, but Defendant continued to fund UNRWA and its terrorist activities before, during, and after the October 7 terrorist attack.”

Even as the investigation of UNRWA goes on, the IRS has expressed no interest in examining the nonprofit status of UNRWA USA as they did Z Street, the David Horowitz Freedom Center and other conservative and pro-Israel groups who have been targeted for political reasons.

The Freedom Center and Front Page Magazine will not stop holding the IRS and those organizations, like UNRWA, that aid and abet terrorism against America and Israel accountable.

(FrontPageMag.com)

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Israeli Officials’ Attire Conveys ‘Urgency’ Amid War, Experts Say

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(From left) Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Israeli Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi in Tel Aviv on Dec. 18, 2023. Credit: Chad McNeeley/U.S. Department of Defense.

“Gallant and Netanyahu should wear the suit and tie in official meetings and keep the all-black casual look for when they’re on the ground,” Beverly Hallberg, of District Media Group, told JNS.

By: Menachem Wecker

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has tended to appear in public in a green or other military-style uniform since Russia attacked his country in February 2022. Just as his attire often contrasts starkly with more formally attired Western counterparts, senior Israeli officials have often appeared dressed down compared to U.S. colleagues.

Standing alongside Lloyd Austin, the U.S. secretary of defense, who was clad in a suit and tie during a Dec. 18 meeting in Tel Aviv, Yoav Gallant, Israeli minister of defense, wore a black button-down shirt, tucked into black pants with a black belt. He did the same during a Dec. 14 meeting in Israel with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also gone with a black button-down shirt in meetings with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and he went tieless alongside U.S. President Joe Biden. In all three instances, the U.S. and British politicians wore suits and ties.

“There is a time-honored manner of dress for American male politicians seeking to show urgency and concern,” political commentator Chris Stirewalt, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and contributing editor and weekly columnist at The Dispatch, told JNS.

Sometimes, U.S. officials have donned “a branded windbreaker, pullover or vest. Oftentimes, it is a dress shirt, open at the collar, with the sleeves rolled up” when meeting with law-enforcement officials at disaster scenes, or other times “it would be helpful to indicate activity and engagement,” added Stirewalt, a former Fox News Channel political editor who also co-hosts the podcast Ink Stained Wretches.

Stirewalt thinks that Zelenskyy’s attire is the sort “we would call a military uniform, not unlike what Winston Churchill and other foreign wartime allies have worn on U.S. visits, but the messaging is similar.”

“Israeli leaders fall closer to the U.S. norm, but I think it all falls into the same effort to show urgency and engagement,” he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo by Avi Ohayon/GPO.

On a recent, unsanctioned visit to Washington, Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli War Cabinet, wore a suit and tie during a meeting with Blinken, although he went without a tie during a Tel Aviv meeting on March 22 with the U.S. secretary of state and a meeting with Blinken last month.

Beverly Hallberg, founder and president of District Media Group, trains politicians and others to appear on camera, among other interactions with journalists.

“I’m a firm believer that one should dress for the occasion and setting matters. For example, when a candidate is running for office, it would be disorienting if he or she wore a suit to the state fair,” Hallberg told JNS. “But once that same candidate goes from the state fair to a town hall meeting, he or she would need to wear more professional attire.”

A polo shirt or casual attire is appropriate for a journalist covering the U.S. border, “but we would expect that same reporter to wear business professional attire when he or she goes into the studio for an interview,” added Hallberg, a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.

She was “more comfortable” with Zelenskyy’s casual “wartime” look when he met with the U.S. Congress virtually, “since he was live from a war zone.”

“But even then, a collared shirt would have been more appropriate given his audience,” Hallberg said. “When he came to the United States and met with Congress in person, his casual wartime wardrobe no longer made sense, and it seemed disrespectful that he didn’t wear a suit.”

“Setting matters and one should dress appropriately,” she said.

Gallant and Netanyahu appear to be making “a concerted effort to dress in all-black—no jacket and no tie,” noted Hallberg. “I think the black understandably symbolizes the tragedy of lives lost and the dire situation.”

She doesn’t see that attire as more casual European or Middle Eastern attire than U.S. fashion. “Americans are notorious for wearing jeans and tennis shoes while on vacation,” said Hallberg. “Americans can be embarrassingly inappropriate with their casualness.”

She likes the jacket-less and tie-less look “when on the ground.”

“I don’t like it in professional meetings. For example, it was appropriate that when George W. Bush spoke at ground zero he wore a windbreaker. It would have looked completely wrong for him to wear a suit,” Hallberg said. “Gallant and Netanyahu should wear the suit and tie in official meetings and keep the all-black casual look for when they’re on the ground.”

“You never want to be more casual than the people you are leading,” she added.

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that he focuses on foreign and defense policy—and not on leaders’ fashion choices.

“Helping Ukrainians defeat Putin’s unprovoked invasion and helping Israelis defend themselves against a murderous terrorist enemy is a wise investment for Americans,” he said. “Those who get distracted by questions related to the clothing of foreign leaders are missing the main point.”

(JNS.org)

Protecting American Data: Why the TikTok Divestment Bill is Essential

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TikTok, the popular social media platform is to sever ties with its parent company, ByteDance, based in Beijing, Photo Credit: AP

In a resounding victory for American data security, the House of Representatives took a decisive step last week by passing a bill that demands TikTok, the popular social media platform, to sever ties with its parent company, ByteDance, based in Beijing, as was recently reported in The Wall Street Journal.  The overwhelming 352-65 vote in favor of this bill marks a crucial moment in safeguarding our nation’s digital sovereignty.

This legislative action reflects a necessary response to the undeniable threat posed by TikTok, an app that has long deceived users regarding the privacy and security of their data. Despite assurances from TikTok that U.S. user data remains beyond the reach of the Chinese Communist Party, recent revelations have shattered this illusion. Leaked recordings and investigative reports have exposed TikTok’s egregious data collection practices, revealing that sensitive information, including user locations, browsing histories, and biometrics, are not only accessible but actively exploited by ByteDance and its affiliates.

The admission by ByteDance in December 2022 that some of its employees clandestinely spied on American journalists underscores the urgent need for action. Despite promises to isolate U.S. data, subsequent reports have shown continued data sharing among TikTok staff and ByteDance, raising alarming concerns about the extent of Chinese government influence within the company.

To protect our national security and uphold the integrity of our digital infrastructure, it is imperative to implement measures that sever TikTok’s ties with China. The divestment bill represents a prudent and necessary step towards achieving this goal. By mandating TikTok’s separation from ByteDance, the bill ensures that American user data remains free from foreign interference and exploitation.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies during a hearing for the House Energy & Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

Critics may argue that such measures are unprecedented or overly restrictive. However, it is crucial to recognize that the United States has a long history of safeguarding its communications infrastructure from foreign control. The Federal Communications Commission’s ban on telecom carriers and equipment from companies such as China Mobile and Huawei exemplifies our commitment to protecting national interests in the digital realm. Moreover, existing federal laws already prohibit foreign governments from holding broadcast licenses, reflecting a consistent stance on safeguarding our sovereignty.

In light of these precedents and the clear evidence of TikTok’s complicity in data exploitation, the divestment bill is a prudent and proportionate response. It is not about stifling innovation or impeding international cooperation but about safeguarding American interests and ensuring that our digital landscape remains free from foreign influence.

As the Senate deliberates over the TikTok divestment bill, it is crucial to dispel any misconceptions regarding its constitutionality. Despite claims to the contrary, requiring TikTok to sever ties with the Communist Party does not violate the First Amendment. On the contrary, it represents a necessary step in safeguarding national security and preserving the integrity of our democratic institutions.

Critics of the bill often invoke the First Amendment, arguing that it protects TikTok’s right to free speech. However, this argument overlooks a crucial distinction made by the Supreme Court between laws targeting the content of speech and those regulating conduct. The TikTok divestment bill squarely falls into the latter category, as it addresses TikTok’s actions, which pose a significant national security threat, rather than the content of its users’ speech.

The landmark Supreme Court case of Arcara v. Cloud Books (1986) provides clear precedent for the constitutionality of laws targeting conduct rather than speech. In Arcara, the court upheld a New York state public-health nuisance statute aimed at closing a bookstore being used for prostitution. Despite objections from the owners citing First Amendment protections, the court recognized that the statute targeted unlawful conduct unrelated to expressive activity.

Similarly, the TikTok divestment bill is directed at addressing espionage and national security concerns, not restricting speech. The Constitution does not require the government to turn a blind eye to threats posed by foreign adversaries simply because a platform also facilitates speech. Just as the government can prosecute individuals for using a pen to commit theft, it can regulate platforms like TikTok when they engage in conduct detrimental to national security.

It is essential to understand that the bill does not infringe on the freedom of speech or expression. Americans remain free to engage in any form of speech, including on platforms like TikTok. However, when such platforms are exploited by foreign actors to undermine our national security, it is the government’s responsibility to take appropriate action.

View of the new logo of ByteDance at the headquarters of Beijing ByteDance Technology Co, owner of Chinese personalized news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and short video platform TikTok, in Beijing, China, 6 August 2018. Credit: Imaginechina via AP Images

The TikTok divestment bill aligns with both the letter and spirit of the Constitution and reflects our longstanding commitment to protecting against foreign adversary control. By addressing the conduct of TikTok and its ties to the Communist Party, the bill prioritizes national security while upholding the fundamental principles of democracy and free speech.

Letters to the Editor

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The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Dear Editor:

The Arab-Israeli conflict is intractable.

From the Israeli perspective, it is the right to live in its ancestral homeland.

For Muslims, it is a religious war. Jews and Christians are Dhimmi. They are to be dominated and humiliated. The Arab term for blacks is Abeed, meaning slave.

The first Arab-Jewish conflict occurred in Medina in 622, where the Prophet Mohammed found shelter among the Quraysh Jews after being rejected in Mecca. The Jews operated camel caravans and were prosperous. They signed the Constitution of Medina, ensuring co-operation and laying the foundation for a Muslim community.

In 629, the Prophet abrogated his agreement, beheaded the Jewish men and boys and took the women captive.

The principal of lying to the Infidel to gain an advantage is called Taqiyya.

The Arabs spread out of Arabia, conquering and colonizing much of the known world, from Asia through southern Euro and North Africa. They believe any land, once Muslim, is Muslim forever.

In World War One the allies defeated Germany and the Ottoman Empire. The San Remo Accords established mandates for Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

The 1920s saw the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the rise of Nazism in Europe. The Brotherhood’s aim is to replace the West with a Caliphate.

The leader of the mandates’ Arabs was Nazi war criminal Haj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He instigated pogroms against Middle East Jews from the 1920s. In Germany during WWII, he formed the Bosnian Muslim 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar.

Following the defeat of Germany and its Arab partners in World War Two, the United Nations suggested splitting the British mandate, promised the Jews by the League of Nations and Article 80 of the UN Charter, into Arab and Jewish states. The Jews agreed. The Arabs did not and launched the Nakba to ‘drive the Jews into the sea’.

Before 1964, only Jews were called Palestinians. In 1964, the Soviet KGB created the Palestine Liberation Army to thwart America influence. They called Israel, ‘Palestine’ and non-Jews, ‘Palestinians’. Terrorism was their tool to focus attention on the ‘Palestine’ narrative.

Seventy-five years after the establishment of the state, Islamo-fascists still have not accepted that Israel is a permanent part of the Middle East. It is the 10th most powerful country in the world and the 5th happiest. It is a liberal democracy with robust political parties. It’s per-capita GDP exceeds that of Canada, New Zealand, Australia or the UK. Its hospitals have Jewish and Arab staffs and patients.

It’s time for Islamists and the useful idiots who support them, to face reality and to solve the horrible refugee problem created by corrupt Arabs and the United Nations.

Israel is not the problem. Radical Islam is.

Sincerely
Len Bennett, Author of ‘Unfinished Work’


 

A Warning to the Wise & United Call to Action

Dear Editor:

As of the writing of this open letter, it’s been 170 days since 10/7. The war in Gaza and here at

home—on social media, college campuses, the streets, and in places of public assembly—has

never been more pivotal and perilous. As we fend off our adversaries abroad, we are confronted

with the stark reality that our grasp on public support for Israel is gradually slipping away. And

while we confront this daunting reality, we also face an unprecedented surge in

anti-Semitism—all because Israel dared to defend herself from barbaric terrorists.

I could readily expound on all the significant arguments for why Israel merits international

support, but alas, those have been exhausted to memory for most that are reading this. What I

will emphasize is that as a Jewish people, we bear a profound responsibility to take more

decisive action. Presently, the most prominent anti-Israel, arguably pro-Hamas, political force

that has successfully elected surrogates to Congress and local office is the Democratic

Socialists of America (DSA).  DSA, whose primary mission is addressing social justice issues,

has fervently embraced this cause. Since the days following 10/7, before IDF troops even set

foot into Gaza, DSA chapters and their affiliates vehemently protested in support of the brutal

attack, justifying the savagery as ‘resistance by any means necessary against an apartheid

country’.

DSA, which is a far-left organization with over 90,000 members in NYC alone, has successfully

framed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as one rooted in race—a notion utterly divorced from

reality. In doing so, they frequently employ terms like ‘colonizers’ for Israel, likening Israelis, and

in many cases Jews, to ruthless white Europeans endeavoring to seize the land and homes of

people of color. Clearly, the geopolitical conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis has

absolutely nothing to do with race, yet this strategy is remarkably effective in recruiting

individuals deeply sympathetic to racial inequality in America. In fact, as recently as a couple of

weeks ago, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a black DSA surrogate Congressman representing

Westchester, tweeted about a personal fundraiser to challenge AIPAC, which is supporting his

opponent. In the race baited tweet he insinuated that AIPAC is opposed to black men serving in

Congress.

The court of public opinion is in session, and we are losing ground. Thankfully, the

overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress remain supportive of Israel and endorsed the

recent budget, allocating over $3 billion in unconditional aid to Israel. However, this support is

starting to wane at the fringes of both ends of the political spectrum. While left-wing social

justice warriors oppose Israel due to their moral stance on the conflict, an increasing number on

the right seek to withhold funding from Israel on fiscal grounds, labeling foreign aid to Israel as

incompatible with an ‘America First’ stance.

Let us be unequivocal—America is Israel’s foremost ally and defender outside of the Almighty.

While other nations are retreating, we must not allow America, the home to more Jews outside

of Israel, to fall into the trap laid by Israel’s primary adversaries abroad and at home. As a proud

Modern Orthodox Jew, Zionist, and Democrat, I am deeply concerned that fringe DSA agitators

are garnering attention and support from mainstream Democrats who may otherwise be

indifferent or even supportive of Israel. We must remember that, while we may be surrounded

by like-minded individuals on this issue, we as Jews constitute only a fraction of America’s

population. If public sentiment turns against us, there will be little incentive for our

representatives, whether Democrat or Republican, to continue championing our interests.

Sincerely
An anonymous contributor and staffer to a NYC Congress Member

The Bitter Truth About Anti-Zionism

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A person holds a sign reading “Another Jew Against Zionism, Colonialism, Apartheid, Occupation, Genocide” at a protest at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, Canada, on Oct. 18, 2023. Credit: Jenari/Shutterstock.

When it collides with anti-Semitism, it’s anything but an accident.

By: Ben Cohen

Collisions are often unintentional. Bumping into someone as you walk down a busy thoroughfare with one eye on your cell phone or scraping a parked car as you reverse along a narrow street are experiences most of us have had at one time or another. And generally speaking, because these events are accidents, reasonable people can reach an understanding in their aftermath.

So my concern when I saw the headline above a March 11 opinion piece in The New York Times by columnist Michelle Goldberg—“Where Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism Collide”—was that readers would interpret the word “collide” here as an indicating an unintentional accident, thereby reinforcing the widely held view that while anti-Semitism is an unacceptable, intolerable phenomenon, anti-Zionism is a legitimate, morally founded viewpoint that deserves to be engaged.

Hatred of Zionism isn’t a self-contained phenomenon that just happens to collide on occasion with hatred of Jews: That would amount to an unfortunate accident. But anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are intimately related. Like non-identical twins, they have a handful of unique features, but fundamentally, they are the same. Hatred of Zionism is a natural outgrowth of the hatred of Jews. Of course, not all of those who define themselves as anti-Zionists see it that way, but that’s because they lack the historical and intellectual grounding to make that determination. When anti-Zionism collides with anti-Semitism, it’s anything but an accident.

Goldberg, it should be said, doesn’t belong to that crowd. While there was much to disagree with in her piece, I respected her frankness in admitting that as a secular Jew enjoying “the great privilege of an American passport,” she doesn’t feel much of a personal connection to the State of Israel. What she does understand is that the core fixations of anti-Zionism—and particularly its goal of dismantling the Jewish state and replacing it with an Arab one “from the river to the sea”—sound discordantly anti-Semitic in the ears of the vast majority of Jews in America and around the world.

“I can’t fault Jews who see, in the mounting demonization of Zionism, the replay of an old and terrifying story,” she wrote. “After all, anti-Zionism isn’t always anti-Semitism, but sometimes it is. And right now, some opponents of Israel seem to be trying to prove that the mainstream Jewish community is right to conflate them.”

This statement is basically true, but it doesn’t reveal the deeper, underlying truth, which is why Goldberg’s piece is fundamentally unsatisfying.

I’ve written in past columns about what I regard as the critical difference between “anti-Zionism” with a hyphen and “antizionism” without one. In historical terms, “anti-Zionism” was a phenomenon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that commanded the loyalty of many Jews, who mistakenly if honestly believed that a separate Jewish state was not the answer to centuries of Jewish persecution. Not all the early generations of anti-Zionists were free of anti-Semitism—the Bolshevik ban on Zionist organizations and the study of Hebrew in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution was clearly anti-Semitic, for example—but there was a greater willingness to critique Zionism on the basis of its claim to be the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and less reliance on the conspiracy theories and crude memes that pass for critique on social media today.

“Antizionism” without the hyphen marks a new and far more dangerous phase, however. Essentially, it involves tearing up a complex reality in favor of an ideologically blinkered, implacably hostile caricature of what Zionism actually is.

Today’s “antizionists” have made their hatred of Israel’s sovereign existence the main focus of their anti-Semitism, which then uncomplicatedly imports older themes—Jews as disloyal to the countries where they are citizens, Jews as engaged in well-funded conspiracy to mask the malign effects of their actions—into its discourse. This explains, as Goldberg seems to realize, how a Lyft driver in San Francisco is moved to punch a passenger in the face upon realizing that he is Jew from Israel, or how a literary magazine in Brooklyn can abruptly remove an essay on Israel and cancel its Jewish author solely because of the pressure of a fanatical mob.

The other overarching issue that troubles Goldberg is the unresolved Palestinian question. Again correctly, she understands that a binational state is a pipe dream, arguing that if the Walloon and Flemish nationalities in Belgium can’t get along, how could Israelis and Palestinians possibly do so? Yet what she seems unable to perceive is that the Palestinian vision of what such a state would look like for its Jewish citizens was provided on Oct. 7 last year, when Hamas terrorists executed a bestial pogrom against defenseless Israelis and opinion polls in its immediate wake indicated overwhelming support for the atrocities among ordinary Palestinians.

Indeed, it made a mockery of the notion of a binational state. From the river to the sea, a “free” Palestine will be a place where Jews are brutally subjugated as a prelude to their eventual expulsion or even elimination. The stream of statements from Palestinian politicians—not just Hamas, but also Fatah, and notably Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas—describing Israel as a colonial interloper, the Holocaust as a fabrication and the Oct. 7 pogrom as an act of noble resistance are all the evidence we need here.

Acknowledging this ugly reality doesn’t, it is true, automatically suggest how the Palestinian question can be resolved humanely. And for most Israelis, frankly, that is not a priority right now, as they understandably are more concerned with preventing another Oct. 7 from occurring. If that outcome could be secured through a political solution, then few would object. But such a solution is only possible if two conditions are satisfied: Firstly, that the Palestinians recognize Israelis as human beings with a right to self-determination in their historic homeland; and secondly, that any solution focuses on the physical separation of the two peoples, rather than attempts to bring them closer together.

For American liberals and progressives, among them many Jews, such a viewpoint is distasteful and jarring, to say the least. For Israelis, though, this is literally a matter of survival. Stop trying to kill us, let us live in peace, they are saying, and our guns will fall silent, and we’ll make a deal. That is the message the Palestinians refuse to hear, in large part because their political culture is saturated with anti-Semitism. For as long as the outside world mollifies them in this regard, nothing will change for the better.

(JNS.org)

Ben Cohen writes a weekly column for JNS on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics. His writings have been published in the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Haaretz and many other publications.

Biden’s UN Betrayal of Israel is a Victory for Hamas

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The U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 2728 (2024) 14-0, demanding an immediate ceasefire to Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip during Ramadan and immediate release of all hostages taken from Israel and being held in Gaza, with Washington abstaining, March 25, 2024. Credit: Loey Felipe/U.N. Photo.

The terrorists were certain that the West would save them from defeat in Gaza. The administration has now confirmed that they were right.

By: Jonathan S. Tobin

Don’t believe the Biden administration’s claim that it hasn’t changed its stance on Israel’s war on Hamas. The U.S. abstention on the vote in the U.N. Security Council for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza isn’t just a routine political or diplomatic maneuver. It’s a fundamental betrayal of the U.S.-Israel alliance, whose consequences go far beyond the immediate circumstances in which the White House believes that its political interests require it to force the Jewish state to give up its goal of eliminating Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

Rather than merely sacrificing Israel’s security, it is also handing a major victory to both Hamas and its Iranian allies. With the United Nations demanding an end to the war, there is no reason for Hamas to stop trying to hold onto those parts of Gaza it still controls. Nor is there any reason for it to release the hostages it still holds captive except for a deal that will force Israel to acquiesce to a return, in one form or another, to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo. That will ensure that it gets away with having committed the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, as well as asserting its primacy over Palestinian politics in the foreseeable future.

That doesn’t just expose the administration’s supposed quest for Middle East peace as a sham, since it is essentially anointing an organization pledged to Israel’s destruction and Jewish genocide as the primary voice of Palestinian nationalism. It also sends a signal to the region and the rest of the world that the United States is no longer interested in defeating Islamist terrorism or in keeping faith with allies.

 

A two-faced strategy

Security Council resolutions have the force of international law, and if Israel continues its operations to eliminate Hamas—as its government has rightly said it must—this resolution could be used as a basis for international sanctions against the Jewish state. Yet the Biden administration claimed that the resolution, which called for a cessation of fighting for the remaining two weeks of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (though the world body had nothing to say about Muslim attacks on Jewish holidays like Simchat Torah, the day of the Oct. 7 atrocities), as well as the release of the hostages and for the free flow of aid into Gaza, is “non-binding.” In this way, it continues to try and talk out of both sides of its mouth about the war—on the one hand seeking to stop Israel from winning while claiming on the other that it’s still a faithful ally.

Given that Hamas has not ceased its violence and continues to hold Israeli hostages, it can be argued that Israel has a legal right to continue its battle. But Israel’s enemies around the world—at the United Nations and in the United States—aren’t interested in the fine points of international law. What they want is for the fighting to conclude with Hamas still standing with the ability to regroup and rearm, and make good on its promises to keep killing Jews.

While the U.N. vote must be considered a turning point in the history of relations between the United States and Israel, it cannot be considered a surprise. President Joe Biden has been steadily walking away from his initial pledges of support for Israel after the Oct. 7 massacre. At the time, Biden didn’t just condemn the barbaric terrorist attacks on 22 Israeli communities in southern Israel that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead, with thousands wounded and more than 250 others dragged into captivity in Gaza. He agreed with Israel’s government that Hamas, which had governed Gaza as an independent Palestinian state in all but name since 2007, must be eliminated.

 

Letting Hamas get away with murder

Ever since then, Biden and his foreign-policy team have shown themselves to be more worried about conforming to a narrative in which the suffering that the Palestinians brought upon themselves by starting a war that included rape, torture and firebombing homes, in addition to killing and kidnapping, invalidates Israel’s right of self-defense or any accountability for barbaric crimes.

The notion that Israel’s counter-offensive into Gaza was “over the top,” as Biden mischaracterized it (let alone the big lie put forward by Hamas propagandists and their Western dupes that it was “genocide”) remains contrary to the facts. Though many Palestinians have died, Israel’s efforts have been more measured than those of any other modern army faced with similar issues related to urban warfare and resulted in historically low levels of civilian casualties relative to those of enemy combatants.

If Hamas is to be defeated—and it must be if justice is to be served and the security of Israelis assured—then the Israel Defense Forces must be allowed to finish the job it started after Oct. 7. The Israeli government is right to assert that it has a moral obligation to root it out of its remaining stronghold in Rafah, as well as guarantee that it doesn’t use its tunnel network to reassert control in other parts of Gaza.

But unlike any other war that has been waged by Western forces against Islamist terrorists, the international community appears to be unwilling to tolerate an Israeli victory if it means the elimination of Hamas. The reason why Israel is treated in this way has nothing to do with the graphic pictures of Palestinian suffering or even the inflated statistics about deaths in Gaza supplied by Hamas to its willing accomplices in the corporate media.

At the heart of this betrayal is a belief that Israel and its genocidal Islamist opponents are somehow morally equivalent. Were Biden trying to maintain the alliance with Israel, then he would have continued to assert that Hamas must be defeated before any ceasefire and that any aid going into Gaza—most of which has been stolen by Hamas for use by its remaining forces hidden in the tunnels with the hostages they are holding—must be kept out of its hands.

A morally serious American government would assert that any and all casualties in Gaza are the responsibility of Hamas, not Israel, and that the only way to save the Palestinian people from more suffering is the immediate and unconditional surrender of the terrorists. But for Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the rest of the chorus of Democrat officeholders and liberal media outlets clamoring for a ceasefire are not interested in Hamas’s surrender. They insist that the impact of the war on the Palestinians is more important than ensuring that Gaza is no longer controlled by people who are intent on using it as a platform to carry on a century-old war on the Jews.

 

Escalating pressure on Israel

Nor is this resolution the end point of a pressure campaign not on the Palestinian murderers who remain in Rafah, but on Israel to cease a war of self-defense. As The New York Times reported, the abandonment of Israel in the United Nations is just one prong of a multifaceted plan of action being employed by the White House to force Israel to tolerate a Hamas victory in the war. It is prepared, as the Times aptly put it, to “coerce” Israel to give up the war by starting to stop weapons shipments that enable Israel to continue fighting effectively. If that doesn’t work, the article, based on calculated leaks from the administration, said that Biden will then proceed to enact sanctions on Israeli officials.

In plain terms, Biden is contemplating applying measures to Israel that it has used against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. And it is thinking of doing that at the same time that it continues to waive sanctions on the world’s leading state sponsor of terror in Iran, in which it has gifted Tehran billions of dollars of much-needed aid to that despotic regime.

This turn against Israel won’t help the Palestinians. Allowing the ceasefire resolution to pass will only deepen Hamas’s resolve to keep fighting and to hold onto the hostages. They deliberately created a situation in which their human shields are being killed or enduring privations precisely in order to orchestrate international pressure against Israel. The more the Palestinians are hurt by the war, the better it is for Hamas.

Nor will it speed the release of the hostages since the resolution encourages Hamas to refuse to give in, secure in the knowledge that support from the international community gives them the leverage to hold them in captivity indefinitely until Israel not only pays an exorbitant price in ransom but also acknowledges that Gaza will remain in the terrorists’ hands.

 

Biden’s political motives

A rational U.S. policy would have been one in which the U.N. Security Council would not be allowed to become a forum in which Hamas terrorism was effectively endorsed and Israeli self-defense treated as a war crime. It would have continued to insist that any resolution about a ceasefire must be dependent on the release of hostages and the demand that Hamas be labeled as a terrorist group that must lay down its arms.

But Biden and his advisers are obsessed with the idea that criticism of his early support for the war will cost him the election because left-wing activists and Arab-Americans—cheered on by liberal media—think that Israel, and not Hamas, is the villain of the war. They have tried to have it both ways for months, simultaneously genuflecting to leftist critics of Israel by validating the smears of its conduct in Gaza while maintaining both support in the United Nations and the flow of arms. They orchestrated a campaign of defamation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as if he were continuing the war for his own purposes rather than following the will of the Israeli people to ensure their security and rights.

This development can be considered worse than the similar betrayal of the Obama administration at the United Nations during its last days in office in 2016, when it let the Security Council pass a resolution that essentially labeled the presence of every Jew in Judea and Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem, as illegal. That happened only weeks before everyone knew that the incoming administration led by Donald Trump would reverse this stand, as it did.

This vote happened at a moment when Biden has, at a minimum, another 10 months left in office during which he can implement his plan to render Israel defenseless and to acquiesce in a U.N. campaign of delegitimization that could have a devastating impact on the Jewish state’s ability to go on functioning in the world economy. This shift in policy means that if Israel is to defeat Hamas, it will have to do so alone with its sole superpower ally increasingly determined to force it to give up and let the terrorists reconstitute their state.

 

Liberal Jews fail to speak up

This is also a moment when friends of Israel throughout the American political spectrum ought to be working together to apply the sort of pressure on Biden that will cause him to return to a position of support for Israel’s war of survival. But Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer regard solidifying the liberal base behind Biden’s re-election campaign as a priority. Mainstream liberal Jewish organizations are equally unwilling to use their political capital with the same ruthless determination that Israel’s intersectional leftist foes have employed to force Biden to bend to their will.

If Jewish Democrats and liberal Jewish groups are prepared to tolerate this betrayal or are willing to endorse the administration’s gaslighting about it all being Israel’s fault, then that will be just one more nail in the coffin of the bipartisan consensus that they have long touted. Biden will not unreasonably conclude that he will pay no political price for undermining the Jewish state’s security. Or at least none until he finds that there are more votes to be lost in the political center by abandoning Israel to the jackals at the United Nations than on the left from those who think he was insufficiently hostile to the Jewish state.

This is one more signal to America’s Arab allies that they are kidding themselves if they think that Washington would ever defend them against Iran. Worse than that, a world in which Hamas is allowed to win the war it started with atrocities on Oct. 7 is one in which no one, including Americans, should consider themselves safe from terrorism.

Yet as ominous as those consequences may be, the singling out of Israel in this manner must also be viewed as part of the surge in antisemitism since the war began. Jew-hatred from the left has been legitimized in ways that right-wing antisemitism never has been. A policy that lets a terrorist movement bent on Jewish genocide win can only be seen as part of this.

Biden’s feckless behavior has created a long list of disasters, including out-of-control inflation, the rout in Afghanistan and the collapse of the border that let in as many as 10 million illegal immigrants. But by extending a lifeline to one of the planet’s most vicious terrorist groups, the president has set in motion a series of events that could undermine American security just as much as he is harming Israel.

(JNS.org)

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him at: @jonathans_tobin.

The Shochet: An Unparalleled Autobiographical Account of Life in the Shtetl – Part 1

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Volume I of The Schochet was published in October 2023. Volume II will be published in September 2024.

Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn’s enduring faith amidst suffering and loss

By: Yaakov Ort

Every author needs to have a primary audience in mind before setting out to write. The ultimate test of the effectiveness of the work, regardless of the genre, is whether or not the writing was an agency for change in the lives of his or her target readers. Whether the work is short or long, fiction or nonfiction, poetry or polemic; whether it is meant to educate or entertain, inform or inspire, or achieve some combination of all the above, the work must result in some kind of shift in readers’ feelings, knowledge or perspective to be deemed a success.

In the very first page of his autobiography, Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn (1848-1930) tells us who his primary audience is and what he hopes to achieve.

I wrote this book for my children and relatives who are spread throughout numerous countries … I wanted them to be able to understand what their father endured during his lifetime and how G‑d always helped him and never abandoned him. I also want those who plagued and tormented me and are currently in Russia to read this in order to learn the moral lesson that there is a G‑d in the world who protects the harassed and oppressed and repays everyone according to his deeds.

May they repent.

The Shochet—A Memoir of Jewish Life in Ukraine and Crimea— is an unparalleled autobiographical account of faith and piety amid poverty, suffering and loss experienced by a smart, rambunctious and traumatized orphan living in the fast-disappearing traditional Jewish communities in late 19th-century Eastern Europe. As a child, adolescent and even as a young adult, Goldenshteyn, known as Pinye-Ber, was tossed between a succession of families and communities that didn’t know how to handle him.

For the story of Goldenshteyn’s life to serve as a role model and inspiration for teshuvah—repentance—by his descendants and and his tormentors, the first requirement is for him to simply tell the truth about what he went through without embellishment or exaggeration, and he does that convincingly.

Thanks to Michoel Rotenfeld’s scholarly and deeply engaging translation—the memoir was originally written in Yiddish and published in the Land of Israel in 1928-29—and introduction, Goldenshteyn comes across as someone without guile or pretense, a person who has neither the desire to highlight the faults of others nor the need to hide his own shortcomings and mistakes.

But his life was not just any life. It is the life of the archetypal orphan who, almost a century after his passing, arouses feelings of love, protection and compassion.

His life was a heroic journey in which he finally found his identity far from home in the village of Lubavitch, in the ideology of Chabad and the courts of the third and fourth Chabad Rebbes, the Tzemach Tzedek and the Rebbe Maharash (Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch). He found his occupation as a shochet (a ritual slaughterer) and spent many of his adult years practicing his trade and raising a large Jewish family in Crimea, a place seen as a Jewish backwater and thus a center of assimilation that negatively impacted his own children’s Jewish observance. He then tried to find refuge in immigration to Ottoman-controlled Palestine before World War I, but his difficulties only increased, as did his trust and faith in G‑d.

A Tragic Childhood

Born in 1848 in Tiraspol in the Tsarist Russian province of Kherson—a part of historical Ukraine—Pinye-Ber was the youngest of eight siblings who were born to a poor, pious, loving Jewish family of Bersheder Chassidim, who instilled in their children a desire to above all to live a G‑dly life immersed in Torah and Chassidic traditions. But his mother died when he was 5 years old, his father passed away less than two years later, and the children found themselves living in abject poverty. As Pinye-Ber recalls:

The orphaned children all lived together in a tiny, little dwelling … Understandably their expenses could barely be met. More than once they did without food or drink to at least have money for heating so they would not freeze; but even so, there was not enough money for heating.

One by one, Pinye-Ber’s older siblings died, or settled for unhappy marriages and then died, leaving the young boy alone in the world. The succession of tragedies in his life is so remarkable that if this was a work of fiction, it would be proper to admonish the author: “Enough tragedy already. You’ve made your point.”

With no close relatives to care for him, the boy was taken into foster care by distant relatives—a wealthy, childless merchant called Reb Elye the Vinegar Maker, and his cruel, shrewish wife. As bad as it was at home, school was worse.

By nature I was happy; if I chuckled or simply had a happy expression on my face, I was given a blow of the strap across my face or back. It made no difference where the strap struck as long as it hit me well. I was never beaten on account of my learning, because I knew the sections of Talmud and khimesh with Rashi’s commentary as soon as I reviewed them once on Monday. So I was left with nothing to do all week except listen to the others constantly reviewing Sunday’s lessons and still not mastering them by Thursday. Naturally, I had to laugh at them. But since they were children of the well-to-do, I was slapped because they were blockheads. I was slapped so much that I became disgusted with the kheyder and melamed. If only things would have gone well at home, but things were no good there either.

Desperate to escape from school after a particularly severe beating from his teacher, Pinye-Ber leaped out the window and ran off to the cemetery where his parents were buried.

Here was where my sisters would come during difficult times of loneliness and hardship to cry out their hearts to our parents. Here I too had come to plead and cry for my parents to somehow help me and make my life easier. And I was then all of eight years old.

Although he was found after a short while and returned to his sisters’ home, the next two decades of Pinye-Ber’s life are highlighted by stories about his running away: running away from foster families who first gave him hope, fleeing yeshivahs where he briefly felt he could make his mark as a scholar, running away from promises of matrimony, and along with it, a comfortable income of a young scholar from a good family supported by his in-laws; even running away from a wife he loved and respected and children he adored for the sake of imagined material or spiritual benefits that he would find someplace other than where he was.

Each of these attempted escapes from the reality of his life provides rich details in the tableaus of time and place, as well as insights into the daily and religious lives of Jews and Jewish communities bound to tradition and oblivious to the tectonic shifts going on around them. – Chabad.org

(To Be Continued Next Week)

The Media Aids Hamas

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Aid deliveries being inspected before crossing from Israel into Gaza on March 14th, 2024. Photo Credit: Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories

By: Sean Durns

Hamas is losing on the battlefield. And its allies in the Western press are doing everything that they can to save the terrorist group. Their efforts are already bearing fruit.

On March 7, 2024, President Joe Biden announced the construction of a “temporary pier [that] would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.” The President added: “Israel must do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the crossfire.”

Details of the plan remain vague. On March 9, 2024, the U.S. Army Vessel General Frank S. Besson, a logistics support vessel, departed Joint Base Langley-Eustis for the Eastern Mediterranean “carrying the first equipment to establish a temporary pier to deliver vital humanitarian supplies,” the U.S. Central Command noted. More than 1,000 U.S. military personnel will take part in the mission.

Yet the day before, at a press conference, when a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder if they thought Hamas would fire at U.S. troops, Ryder said: “that’s certainly a risk…but if Hamas does truly care about the Palestinian people, then again, one would hope that this international mission to deliver aid to people who need it would be able to happen unhindered.”

But Hamas doesn’t care about the Palestinian people. Indeed, its entire strategy is to sacrifice them in the name of murdering Jews. This includes using civilian population centers, such as hospitals, schools, and playgrounds, to plot and launch attacks. But it’s also evident in the terrorist group’s strategy of hoarding aid from Gazans—a fact that has been amply documented, but often ignored by major media outlets.

Indeed, if some Western policymakers are blaming Israel for Gazans not getting aid, they’re but regurgitating a narrative pushed by many in the press.

Unsurprisingly, the Washington Post is foremost among them. CAMERA has documented the newspaper’s anti-Israel bias, which includes promoting blood-libels and parroting casualty statistics supplied by Hamas. The Post’s coverage of Gaza aid has been similarly lackluster.

At seemingly every turn, the Post has downplayed or ignored Israel’s efforts to get aid to the Gaza people while simultaneously ignoring the root of the problem: Hamas. The problem with aid flowing to Gazans isn’t the Israelis. It’s not a supply problem. Rather, it’s a distribution problem. Hamas steals aid.

Yet the Post has pretended otherwise. Take, for example, a March 1, 2024 dispatch by David Ignatius (“Food convoy carnage distills what’s gone terribly wrong in Gaza”). The Post columnist asserts that “Israel’s war aim is to destroy Hamas, but sadly, it is also destroying any vestige of orderly life in Gaza.”

This, of course, is nonsense. Would Ignatius claim that the Islamic State presided over an “orderly” rule? That those living under its authoritarian fist had an “orderly” life? Would he blame the Allies for the conditions that Germans dealt with in the closing days of World War II? Somehow Hamas is judged by a different standard.

Indeed, Ignatius writes that “Palestinian civilians have been bombed out of their homes, driven into refugee camps, deprived of food and sanitation, and now this: clawing at [aid] trucks in their struggle to survive—while Hamas hides underground, and Israel protects its own troops but not the civilian population.”

This is risible. As John Spencer, the chair of urban war studies at West Point and a combat veteran, pointed out “Israel has taken more measures to avoid needless civilian harm than virtually any other nation that’s fought an urban war.” In his Jan. 31, 2024 Newsweek Op-Ed, Spencer catalogues the extensive efforts employed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to limit civilian deaths, including the use of certain munitions, advance warning to evacuate urban areas, and other methods. Israel, he notes, “has taken precautionary measures even the United States did not do during its recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

All this information is open-source and was readily available to Ignatius. He just chose to ignore it, preferring to put the onus on an American ally instead of a genocidal U.S.-designated terrorist group whose strategy is to encourage civilian casualties.

Ignatius insists on blaming the Jewish state for issues with aid distribution in Gaza, even claiming that aid distribution was going “smoothly” until Israel started targeted Gazan police who were supposedly preventing rioting and looting from “armed gangs.” The police, he asserts, were but “affiliated” with Hamas.

This too is inaccurate. The police are run by Hamas. They report to Hamas. Just as it was under the Islamic State. Or, for that matter, the police in Nazi Germany. This is a fact detailed in numerous studies on Hamas. It is also odd to draw sharp distinctions between terrorist groups and armed gangs. Ignatius’s claim that aid distribution was going “smoothly” is also suspect. Israeli forces have—for months—found copious aid, including fuel, food, and medical supplies, being hoarded in tunnels and headquarters used by Hamas.

A March 3, 2024 dispatch by Cairo bureau chief Claire Parker repeated many of Ignatius’s mistakes, but characteristically added more of her own. Parker previously claimed that Hamas perpetrated the October 7th massacre—the largest slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust—because Israel was “stroking tensions” with a counterterrorist raid on al-Asqa mosque.

As CAMERA documented, this was literally a regurgitation of Hamas propaganda, and it also overlooked obvious facts, including that such an attack required months, perhaps even years, of planning. Indeed, it was later revealed that the attack had been planned for years and that it was approved by Hamas’s benefactor, Iran. This itself was obvious to those who closely study the region and follow its developments—but such people seem to be in short supply at the Post.

Like Ignatius and other Post colleagues, including Ishaan Tharoor, Shadi Hami, and Karen Attiah, Parker puts the onus for aid not getting to Gazans on Israel as opposed to the terrorist group that is stealing and hoarding it. Notably, Tharoor, Hamid, Attiah and Ignatius are opinion columnists, whereas Parker is supposed to be engaged in strait-laced reporting as opposed to editorializing. But at today’s Washington Post such lines are so thoroughly blurred as to be meaningless.

In contrast to the Post, a March 6, 2024 Newsweek op-ed by Spencer, entitled “I Have Delivered Aid in War Zones. They Were the Missions We Feared Most,” provides essential facts and context. Spencer points out that Hamas, like other terrorists, targets aid convoys, seeking to disrupt distribution in active war zones. “We know Hamas dressed in civilian clothes have been walking up to armored vehicles to place magnet bombs and fire into the crowd during aid distribution,” he writes. Such details are not reported in the Post.

Nor were they noted in a Feb. 18, 2023 Post guest column by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Peter Welch (D-VT) entitled “The U.S. Should Go It Alone on Humanitarian Relief in Gaza.” Regrettably, the Senators also put the onus for aid not getting into Gaza on Israel, as opposed to their Hamas oppressors. Notably, several of these Senators have also recently stated their support for restoring funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an agency that has been caught collaborating with—even employing—Hamas operatives. In fact, UNRWA supplies—funded by American taxpayers—have routinely been found in Hamas headquarters.

Another Washington Post report, “Israel faces crisis of its own making as chaos and hunger engulf Gaza,” also blamed the Jewish state. Indeed, its very headline was taken from an anonymous White House source who asserted that Gaza “was the chaos of Israel’s own making.” Using an anonymous source to craft a headline is questionable journalism. But this is par for the course for one of the Post reporters involved. As CAMERA has highlighted, Yasmeen Abutaleb has previously engaged in soft denial of the mass rapes perpetrated by Hamas on October 7.

Other news outlets have also provided inaccurate and incomplete coverage of the aid situation in Gaza. Politico and USA Today, among others, have blamed the Jewish state while minimizing both Hamas’s role and the difficultly in supplying aid to an active war zone. Notably, all of these outlets have ignored recent events, including Gazan terrorists hijacking six aid trucks and Israel reportedly taking out a top Hamas commander, Mohammad Abu Hasna, who was responsible for seizing humanitarian aid and distributing it to Hamas fighters.

Israel seems to be the only country in history that is expected to effectively aid, feed, and empower the very enemy that it is fighting against. This double standard is revealed in press coverage that is short on details and context and replete with omissions. And it has very real policy implications.

(CAMERA.org)

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) is an international media-monitoring and educational organization founded in 1982 to promote accurate and unbiased coverage of Israel and the Middle East. CAMERA is a non-profit, tax-exempt, and non-partisan organization under section 501 (c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. To learn more or receive our newsletters please visit CAMERA.org.

What Is Passover (Pesach)?

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The eight-day Jewish holiday of Passover is celebrated in the early spring, from the 15th through the 22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan, April 22 - 30, 2024. Passover (Pesach) commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Credit: Art by Sefira Lightstone

Passover 2024 will be celebrated from April 22-30

By: Chabad.org

What Is Passover?

The eight-day Jewish holiday of Passover is celebrated in the early spring, from the 15th through the 22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan, April 22 – 30, 2024. Passover (Pesach) commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Pesach is observed by avoiding leaven, and highlighted by the Seder meals that include four cups of wine, eating matzah and bitter herbs, and retelling the story of the Exodus.

In Hebrew it is known as Pesach (which means “to pass over”), because G‑d passed over the Jewish homes when killing the Egyptian firstborn on the very first Passover eve.

 

Passover History in a Nutshell

As told in the Bible, after many decades of slavery to the Egyptian pharaohs, during which time the Israelites were subjected to backbreaking labor and unbearable horrors, G‑d saw the people’s distress and sent Moses to Pharaoh with a message: “Send forth My people, so that they may serve Me.” But despite numerous warnings, Pharaoh refused to heed G‑d’s command. G‑d then sent upon Egypt ten devastating plagues, afflicting them and destroying everything from their livestock to their crops.

The Israelites left in such a hurry, in fact, that the bread they baked as provisions for the way did not have time to rise. Six hundred thousand adult males, plus many more women and children, left Egypt on that day and began the trek to Mount Sinai and their birth as G‑d’s chosen people. Credit: Art by Sefira Lightstone

At the stroke of midnight of 15 Nissan in the year 2448 from creation (1313 BCE), G‑d visited the last of the ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. While doing so, G‑d spared the children of Israel, “passing over” their homes—hence the name of the holiday. Pharaoh’s resistance was broken, and he virtually chased his former slaves out of the land. The Israelites left in such a hurry, in fact, that the bread they baked as provisions for the way did not have time to rise. Six hundred thousand adult males, plus many more women and children, left Egypt on that day and began the trek to Mount Sinai and their birth as G‑d’s chosen people.

In ancient times the Passover observance included the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, which was roasted and eaten at the Seder on the first night of the holiday. This was the case until the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in the 1st century.

 

How Is Passover Celebrated?

Passover is divided into two parts:

The first two days and last two days (the latter commemorating the splitting of the Red Sea) are full-fledged holidays. Holiday candles are lit at night, and kiddush and sumptuous holiday meals are enjoyed on both nights and days. We don’t go to work, drive, write, or switch on or off electric devices. We are permitted to cook and to carry outdoors.

The middle four days are called Chol Hamoed, semi-festive “intermediate days,” when most forms of work are permitted.

 

No Chametz

To commemorate the unleavened bread that the Israelites ate when they left Egypt, we don’t eat—or even retain in our possession—any chametz from midday of the day before Passover until the conclusion of the holiday. Photo Credit: Art by Sefira Lightstone

To commemorate the unleavened bread that the Israelites ate when they left Egypt, we don’t eat—or even retain in our possession—any chametz from midday of the day before Passover until the conclusion of the holiday. Chametz means leavened grain—any food or drink that contains even a trace of wheat, barley, rye, oats, spelt or their derivatives, and which wasn’t guarded from leavening or fermentation. This includes bread, cake, cookies, cereal, pasta, and most alcoholic beverages. Moreover, almost any processed food or drink can be assumed to be chametz unless certified otherwise.

Ridding our homes of chametz is an intensive process. It involves a full-out spring-cleaning search-and-destroy mission during the weeks before Passover, and culminates with a ceremonial search for chametz on the night before Passover, and then a burning of the chametz ceremony on the morning before the holiday. Chametz that cannot be disposed of can be sold to a non-Jew (and bought back after the holiday).

 

Matzah

Instead of chametz, we eat matzah—flat unleavened bread. It is a mitzvah to partake of matzah on the two Seder nights (see below for more on this), and during the rest of the holiday it is optional. Photo Credit: Art by Sefira Lightstone

Instead of chametz, we eat matzah—flat unleavened bread. It is a mitzvah to partake of matzah on the two Seder nights (see below for more on this), and during the rest of the holiday it is optional.

It is ideal to use handmade shmurah matzah, which has been zealously guarded against moisture from the moment of the harvest. You can purchase shmurah matzah here.

 

The Seders

The highlight of Passover is the Seder, observed on each of the first two nights of the holiday. The Seder is a fifteen-step family-oriented tradition and ritual-packed feast.

The focal points of the Seder are:

 

Eating matzah.

Eating bitter herbs—to commemorate the bitter slavery endured by the Israelites.

Drinking four cups of wine or grape juice—a royal drink to celebrate our newfound freedom.

The recitation of the Haggadah, a liturgy that describes in detail the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The Haggadah is the fulfillment of the biblical obligation to recount to our children the story of the Exodus on the night of Passover. It begins with a child asking the traditional “Four Questions.”

 

Why Passover Is Important

Passover, celebrating the greatest series of miracles ever experienced in history, is a time to reach above nature to the miraculous. But how are miracles achieved? Photo Credit: Art by Sefira Lightstone

Passover, celebrating the greatest series of miracles ever experienced in history, is a time to reach above nature to the miraculous. But how are miracles achieved? Let’s take our cue from the matzah. Flat and unflavored, it embodies humility. Through ridding ourselves of inflated egos, we are able to tap into the miraculous well of divine energy we all have within our souls.

 

Passover FAQ

Passover, also known as Pesach, is the 8-day Jewish holiday celebrated in the early spring that commemorates the Israelites’ emancipation from slavery in ancient Egypt.

 

What is the history of Passover?

After decades of slavery to the Egyptian pharaohs, G‑d saw the Israelites’ distress and sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand their release. Despite numerous warnings, Pharaoh refused to heed G‑d’s command. G‑d then wrought upon Egypt 10 devastating plagues. By the last, Pharaoh’s resistance was broken and he virtually chased his former slaves out of the land.

 

Why is it called Passover?

During the last of the 10 plagues, death of the Egyptian firstborns, G‑d spared the children of Israel, “passing over” their homes—hence the name of the holiday.

 

How is Passover celebrated?

During Passover, chametz (leavened bread) is strictly avoided, and matzah is consumed instead. The highlight is the Seder, a ritual-packed feast conducted on the first two nights, during which we eat matzah, drink four cups of wine, recline, and recount the story of our freedom.

 

What is chametz?

Chametz refers to any food or drink that contains leavened grain, such as wheat, barley, rye, oats, or spelt. It includes bread, cake, cookies, cereal, pasta, and most alcoholic beverages. Chametz must be completely removed from possession or sold to a non-Jew before Passover.

 

How can I sell my chametz?

Ideally one should sell their chametz by contacting their local orthodox Rabbi. If that isn’t an option, you can sell your chametz online.

 

What is matzah?

Eating matzah—flat, unleavened bread—is a central component of Passover. Handmade shemurah matzah is considered ideal. It is eaten during the Seder and can be consumed throughout the holiday.

 

What is the Seder?

The Seder is a 15-step ritual-packed feast held on the first two nights of Passover. It involves eating matzah and bitter herbs, drinking four cups of wine or grape juice, and having the children ask the Four Questions. The Haggadah, a liturgy detailing the story of the Exodus, is the guidebook.

 

Why is Passover important?

Passover commemorates the miraculous liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It is a time to reflect on humility, Divine energy, and the potential for miracles.

(Chabad.org)