COMMENTARY / OPINION
Welfare fraud racket TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS
JAN 26, 2025
Did you know that the head of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) isn’t a Lutheran OR a Christian at all? She’s a progressive Communist (atheist) who used to work for Obama & Hillary at the State Department and as Michelle Obama’s policy director? In other words, all these “refugee resettlement” operations that pretend to be organizations of faith are false prophets.
They renamed LIRS as “Global Refuge” to further confuse people.
CHARLIE KIRK: “Allow me to explain how the government sanctioned so-called refugee resettlement “non-profits” really work.
These are large companies that make more money from taxpayers the more “refugees” the government lets in. It’s another cog in the mass migration racket. They build in margins for each refugee they resettle, so when we stop admitting people, so does their financing. This represents an existential crisis for them.
So they misrepresent the scriptures, and they emotionally blackmail Americans on Sunday shows and in op-eds to gin up controversy and sob stories to game the refugee programs against our national interests. It’s a financial racket that Trump just slammed shut. We will not be manipulated anymore.”
The Lutheran Refugee Resettlement agency (LIRS) hired a progressive Democrat, non-Lutheran, and Michelle Obama’s former policy Director, as its President in 2019. That tells you all you need to know.
The ELCA’s Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) is one of the largest refugee resettlement agencies in the United States along with Catholic Charities. It was originally founded in 1939 and partners with other resettlement organizations across the country – including some of the largest ones in the Twin Cities and St. Cloud – in Minnesota.
These resettlement “charities” make over $6,000 profit per “refugee” they resettle in America. It’s a huge profit center. President Trump’s previous policies, including limiting migration from nations that sponsor terror, have put a huge damper in their financial statements. The ELCA alone boasts of bringing 379,000, mostly Muslim, refugees to America – which translates to $2.2 billion in total revenue. How many of them are you seeing converted to Christianity by the ELCA? Right.
Many people wonder why Minnesota is home to so many Somali refugees? Why do so many Somali refugees end up in Minnesota when they are first brought to OTHER states? Because they MIGRATE to Minnesota after they are first sent to other states because of free everything. I’m going to illustrate what is going on using Minnesota because it is my home state and I know it. Here’s one example:
A mother from Somalia and her seven kids were on their way to Minnesota, less than two months after they arrived in Phoenix from Somalia:
“We didn’t know how to get jobs in Phoenix, and even if we did, we didn’t know how we’d get to them,” she explained through an interpreter because she didn’t speak English.
In Phoenix, without a car, they found themselves lost: Where were they supposed to get groceries? How did they go about setting up long-overdue doctor’s appointments under their new free ObamaCare program? How would they find work if they had no skills and didn’t speak English or Spanish? How would they get around without a car? How would they pay rent after their initial stipend from the U.S. government ran out?
The Somali Association of Arizona stepped in, providing groceries and setting up doctor’s appointments for the family. But they couldn’t do anything about the fact that the fact that with limited English and no training, they weren’t qualified for any jobs.
Worried that her rent would be cut off soon, the Mother decided they should move to Minnesota, where the benefits are excellent and where she, like virtually all Somalis, have family. The program coordinator for the Somali Association of Arizona says that her story is a common one.
As many as half the Somali refugees resettled in Arizona AND other states end up leaving for Minnesota.
The biggest challenge for Somali refugees is finding a job. Even jobs cleaning hotel rooms or washing dishes in a restaurant come with a requirement that applicants speak English — or, unofficially, Spanish. They speak neither. So how did Minnesota become a hub for Somali refugees?
“A lot of Somalis brought here to America moved to Minnesota from other states for jobs. Almost every Somali in Minnesota who came here between 1991 and 1998 worked at the chicken factories in Faribault and Marshall.”
Bill Clinton bragged back then that he was responsible for this – he thought Minnesota was too white and didn’t work hard enough. He said that these are the factory jobs that Americans won’t do…
Most credit the strength of Minnesota’s “voluntary agencies” – called VOLAGS. These quasi-governmental agencies welcomed the first wave of Somali refugees in the early 1990s, and others soon followed.
It should be noted that none of the VOLAGS are actually really associated with the true teachings of the church, they just hijack the name for political expediency or they have been instrumental in infiltrating certain denominations to take them over for the Communists. The U.S. State Department decides where new refugees (determined by the UN) should end up and it often depends on how many voluntary agencies are in the area to expedite the process.
Here’s how the refugee resettlement programs work. The United Nations High Commission on International Refugees selects and “vets” refugees to be distributed to the United States. The US sets an annual refugee cap and the US State Department contracts with voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) to help refugees get settled in their new homes.
Five of the top nine VOLAGs in America are so-called “Christian” non-profits (Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, World Relief Corporation, Church World Service, and Episcopal* Migration Ministries.) The other four are Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the Ethiopian Community Development Council.
The primary VOLAGs in Minnesota are:
-Catholic Charities
-International Institute of Minnesota
-Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota
-Minnesota Council of Churches: Refugee Services
-Arrive Ministries
I believe that Lutheran Social Services is associated with the ELCA, not the Missouri Synod or WELS Lutheran church. Minnesota has the highest number of refugees per capita nationwide. With 2 percent of the nation’s population, Minnesota has 13 percent of its refugees. Minnesota is a refugee magnet because Minnesota has what refugees want — jobs, good social welfare programs, and plenty of people from their home countries.
Refugees cost Minnesota taxpayers an estimated $107,000 each in food, housing, education, aid, medical expenses and other services. Communities have no control over the in-flow of refugees, yet they must share the cost of supporting them. And residents often don’t speak out or even ask questions of the process for fear of being called racists.
The VOLAGs work with 350 subcontractors and are paid up to $4,225 per head to resettle refugees in Minnesota. Though they are officially “non-profit” organizations, these quasi-Governmental organizations are profiting from lucrative contracts with the Federal Government to resettle refugees in the United States.
Refugee resettlement is quite profitable. VOLAGs have almost no real responsibilities for these refugees after they are settled. After 4 months, the VOLAG is not even required to know where the refugee lives.
There are multiple ways for these VOLAGs to generate revenue from refugee resettlement:
Bought and Paid For: How Qatar Turned Trump’s Envoy into Hamas’s Advocate RABBI PESACH WOLICKI
JANUARY 26, 2025
The truth is painfully clear: Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s envoy on the hostage issue, has been bought and paid for by Qatar, compromising American foreign policy and endangering Israeli security at a critical moment in the war against Hamas.
WATCH [5:21]
The damning evidence begins with a real estate deal gone wrong. In 2013, Witkoff, a New York real estate investor, purchased the prestigious Park Lane Hotel with Malaysian businessman Jho Low for $654 million. When their luxury apartment conversion plans collapsed and Low was exposed for embezzling billions from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, Witkoff found himself trapped in a financial quagmire. Unable to unload the property at his billion-dollar asking price, he was forced to take out a massive $615 million loan in 2019 just to stay afloat.
Enter Qatar’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, riding to the rescue in August 2023 with a $623 million bailout. The timing couldn’t be more suspect – just as Trump’s campaign was gaining momentum, Qatar shrewdly purchased not just a hotel, but influence within Trump’s inner circle. Their investment has paid off handsomely, as Witkoff’s appointment as special envoy has advanced Qatar’s agenda of preserving Hamas’s iron grip on Gaza.
Witkoff’s recent statements about Hamas are nothing short of shocking. In a jaw-dropping Fox News interview, he actually praised Qatar’s role in negotiations and welcomed Hamas’s supposed willingness to “dialogue” with America. This isn’t just naive – it’s dangerous. Hamas isn’t some misunderstood political movement; it’s a terrorist organization explicitly committed to Israel’s destruction and the genocide of Jews worldwide.
WATCH [8:01]
Witkoff’s position stands in stark opposition to other senior Trump administration officials. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, incoming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio all adamantly insist that Hamas must be eliminated. Even Trump himself has stated this. Yet here’s Witkoff, suggesting Hamas might hop aboard some imaginary peace train.
Let’s be crystal clear about Qatar’s role in this mess. They are Hamas’s sugar daddy, bankrolling their terrorism while cynically posing as peace brokers. Qatar funds anti-Israel demonstrations on American campuses, harbors Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and birthed the very ideological cesspool that spawned Hamas, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda. Now they’re exploiting the ceasefire to pump millions of gallons of fuel directly into Hamas’s hands – fuel that will power their terrorist infrastructure, not help civilians.
The ceasefire deal Witkoff helped ram through appears precision-engineered to keep Hamas in power. Qatar is now flooding Gaza with “humanitarian aid” that flows straight into Hamas’s coffers, strengthening their military capability and political control. This isn’t humanitarian assistance – it’s a terrorist resupply operation wrapped in humanitarian packaging.
‘We Are Going to Behead You and Get a Big Reward’: The Persecution of Christians, December 2024 by Raymond Ibrahim
January 26, 2025
- “Experts warn of a growing trend of youth radicalization through online platforms, where extremist groups exploit vulnerabilities to indoctrinate and recruit individuals. This year alone, 15 minors have been arrested across Spain for terrorism-related offenses….” — rmx.news, January 2, 2025, Spain.
- “Despite the declarations of tolerance and inclusion by the new government in Syria, this attack on Christian sites is not the last, because jihadists continue to act and have fought for the new Syrian government. In particular, some, who are as close as two peas in a pod to the Islamic State, with the same patches on their combat uniforms.” – caliber.az, December 24, 2024, Syria.
- Ahmed al-Sharaa, jihadist warlord and current leader of Syria, swiftly turning into an Islamic state, confessed in a Dec. 17 interview that, “When we build the Islamic caliphate, Christians will pay Jizya under Islamic Sharia.” — X.com, December 17, 2024.
- The word jizya — a payment for protection — is often translated to “tribute” or “tax.” The requirement originates in Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah, nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth [Islam], until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves humbled.”
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of December 2024.
Jihadist Hate and Terror for Christmas
Germany: On December 4, an Iraqi asylum seeker was arrested for plotting a terror attack, by plowing his vehicle into the crowd at a popular Christmas market in Augsburg. The man, known only as Ali al-G, has a long “history of posting pro-IS content on social media.” The report adds:
“This incident is the latest in a series of thwarted plots targeting Germany’s Christmas markets, which are particularly vulnerable to attacks. Last month, a 17-year-old male of Turkish descent was arrested in Elmshorn, Schleswig-Holstein, on suspicion of planning a truck attack on a local market. In November 2023, another Iraqi national was detained in Hanover after authorities discovered plans for a similar assault. Two teenagers were also apprehended last year for conspiring to execute an attack in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, using a fuel-laden truck. Authorities have been on heightened alert following the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack that claimed 12 lives.”
Hostage theatre and setting up the next intelligence failure CHANANYA WEISSMAN
October 7 demands a sequel
JAN 26, 2025
Source is here, hat tip to the Hitnagdut Telegram group.
As part of the “hostage deal”, this week Hamas will be receiving 5 bulldozers of the very type that were used on October 7. Surely these are needed to build schools and hospitals.
They also have shiny new Toyota pickup trucks, and thousands more foot soldiers. No doubt there will be plenty of weapons and ammunition to go around for all of them. To protect the schools and hospitals.
You are allowed to believe the puppet leaders of the Freemason state of Israel are stupid, crazy, or cowardly, but under no circumstances can you believe that they are deliberately arming and working with executioners to do the dirty work for them.
Why can’t you believe this? Because they are Hebrew-speakers with biblical names like Binyamin, Yair, Betzalel, and Itamar. If their names were Adolf, Hans, Boris, or Vladimir, it wouldn’t be difficult.
That’s really all it takes. Because everyone knows Jews are smart.
Hamas and Israel work for the same production company (Hebrew)
This has over 13,000 views on Facebook. Many Israelis realize that the hostage release was a big theatrical production that made no sense…and that IDF soldiers were sent into death traps on purpose to be killed…and that we’re being fed a steady diet of ridiculous lies as part of a larger agenda.
But far too many STILL don’t realize it.
We need to accelerate the learning curve.
It seems that there were two categories of hostages: the peasant slaves who were actually taken hostage and didn’t fare too well, and state actors who were hidden away somewhere until such time as it was convenient to be “freed” in a theatrical way, and then continue serving the propaganda agenda. The latter were fed better than IDF soldiers.
On that note, none of the female lookouts who were just released in a theatrical production seem at all upset that the IDF ignored their warnings on October 7, allowing their friends to be slaughtered and them to be put through hell for the last 15 months in captivity. Remarkable.
World Economic Forum shill Eli Beer spreads ridiculous BS
Remember Eli Beer from Hatzalah in full regalia weaving a tall tale about how terrorists dressed as Arab farmers duped the IDF by the Gaza border on October 7?
Tell me again, Eli, how you were on the brink of death from covid and had a miraculous recovery before shilling for the shots.
Somehow the leftists trying to bring down Bibi have managed to hide all this from him for 16 months. Someone really needs to let him know! Ben Gvir and Smotrich, too!
For more than 15 months the cover story was that the IDF was “too surprised” to react on October 7. They were lying all along, they knew they were lying all along, the controlled media played along with the lie, and the useful idiots parroted it all this time. Are you just going to let this go? They are counting on that.
There have been several such cases of techiyas hameisim [revival of the dead,] but unfortunately none when it came to Jewish soldiers who were deliberately sent into death traps, while the brainwashed sheep cheered the elimination of hired assassins who were alive and well.
Another intelligence failure.
What else are they lying about?
What aren’t they lying about?
BREAKING: President Trump Asks, “How About Just No Tax, Period?” 2ND SMARTEST GUY IN THE WORLD
Nemo agit in seipsum.
JAN 25, 2025 – Readers of this Substack appreciate that “income” taxation is one of the more pernicious social engineering scams leveraged under color of law and threat of State violence…
Memorandum of Law: The Legality Of Income Taxation In The “50 States” Of The Union 2ND SMARTEST GUY IN THE WORLD
APRIL 2, 2024
…and over the last year or so President Trump has been dropping various hints about ending all “income” taxation in America.
And just now he once again floated his vital thought experiment:
How about just no tax, period?
[APPLAUSE]
You know, if the tariffs worked out like that, a thing like that could happen.
[MORE APPLAUSE]
Years ago, 1870 to 1913 we didn’t have an income tax. We had— what we had is tariffs. Where foreign countries came in, and they stole our jobs and they stole our companies, they stole our product, they ripped us off.
You know, they used to do a numbers— and then we went to tariff— a tariff system— the tariff system made so much money. It was when we were the richest, from 1870 to 1913.
Then we came in with the— brilliantly— we came in with the income tax, that we don’t want others to pay, let’s have our people pay.
And then you had the Depression in 1928-1929— I call it 1929 that was a bad time, but you didn’t have tariffs. The tariffs ended in 1913.
But— uh— it was the richest our country ever was…
And President Trump of course is absolutely correct:
His recent promise of ‘no taxes on tips’ is an excellent start, but in order to truly free We the People he must end the IRS, and also end the Federal Reserve.
Speaking of the Fed and the Great Depression that President Trump was referencing, it is this privately owned central planning politburo that has been directly responsible for all of the market crashes since it was scammed into existence through an act of congress when most had gone home for Christmas holiday on December 23rd, 1913. No recess was called, and only three senators passed The Federal Reserve Act with a unanimous vote of just 3-0.
And here is exactly how the Fed caused this Great Depression that President Trump was referring to:
It is no mere coincidence that both the 16th Amendment and The Federal Reserve Act was foisted on We the People in 1913.
If President Trump does do away with both the IRS and the Fed, then he may very well go down as the greatest POTUS in America’s history, his misguided and ruinous Operation Warp Speed notwithstanding.
They want you dead.
Do NOT comply.
Egyptian-Born Filmmaker Aims to Tell the Truth about October 7th Massacre [4:53]
January 23, 2025 CBN News – What would drive an Egyptian filmmaker, born a Muslim, to make a documentary about Israel’s October 7th massacre?
“The truth has to be told,” Majed al-Shafi told CBN News. “Israel has a special place in my heart, and God used Israel to save my life.”
Born in Egypt and raised as a Muslim, Majed became a Christian and was persecuted for his faith. He fled to Israel because it was the only place in the Middle East where he could find asylum and now he’s in Canada where he started One Free World International. Fast forward to October 7th, and the film Majed made about that day, “Dying to Live,” so he could let Israelis know they’re not alone in this fight.
Read the full story from CBN Israel’s Julie Stahl: https://cbn.com/news/israel/egyptian-…
Israel must win this war Caroline Glick
The Palestinian Arab war against Israel is a zero-sum game—either Israel wins, ensuring its survival, and the Palestinian Arabs are defeated; or they win and Israel’s countdown to destruction begins. Opinion.
Jan 24, 2025, 2:47 PM (GMT+2) Israel National News – (JNS) On Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis saw what the end looks like.
Thousands upon thousands of Palestinian Arabs invaded the country in wave after wave. They were unified in their barbaric hatred of Jews and bloodlust. The atrocities the Palestinian Arabs committed against their overwhelmingly Jewish victims were like nothing we had ever imagined. And they were made all the worse by the fact that everyone participated.
Roaring crowds handed torches to 10-year-olds, giving them the honor of lighting homes ablaze, burning entire families alive. The Palestinian Arab hordes photographed, whooped and laughed in ecstasy as they raped, tortured and murdered their victims.
And when they arrived home to Gaza with their hostages—dead and alive—they were greeted by crowds of thousands as conquering heroes. Yes, Hamas planned the sadistic genocide. Yes, Hamas led the charge. But it was a whole-of-society endeavor.
Somehow, over the past two weeks of President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s dealmaking, the events of Oct. 7 seem to have faded from view. The deal he demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept is incomprehensible in the context of that day.
Ignoring Oct. 7, Witkoff and his Israeli cheerleaders present the deal as a step on the road to peace. When the ceasefire becomes permanent, he has said, the Saudis will rush to make peace with Israel. So will Qatar and everyone else. Indeed, Witkoff told Fox News on Wednesday, even Hamas would be welcomed at the table. And Trump will get a Nobel Peace Prize.
In the same Fox News interview, Witkoff explained that his deal is precisely the deal that former president Joe Biden tried to coerce Israel to accept last May. The Biden deal, at its core, was a ransom deal. Israel, Biden said, would pay Hamas “generously” for the release of some of the hostages. How generously? Well, it depended on which phase you were in.
The Biden/Witkoff deal is a three-phase deal, and each phase is essentially a separate agreement. The first involves massive Israeli concessions to Hamas that are rife with dire strategic consequences for Israel in exchange for 33 hostages—including all of the women hostages.
To receive the 33, Israel is required to free nearly 2,000 terrorists, hundreds of whom are convicted mass murderers. It must withdraw its forces from the cities of Gaza and from the Netzarim Corridor, permitting the mass return of Palestinian Arabs to northern Gaza. And it must permit the full resupply of Gaza, still under Hamas control. All told, Israel is paying for the 33 in a manner that risks all of its soldiers’ hard-won gains on the battlefield over the past 15 months of war.
While that is a steep price, it pales in comparison to the price of moving to the second phase. Under the terms of the Witkoff/Biden agreement, in the second phase, Israel is to withdraw all of its remaining forces from Gaza, including from the border separating Gaza from Egypt. In other words, Israel must cede control of Gaza to Hamas. In exchange, Hamas will return the remaining live hostages to Israel—but retain the bodies of the hostages it has murdered.
Phase 1 will make it difficult for Israel to restore its previous gains and go on to achieve victory in the war.
Phase 2 secures Hamas’s victory.
The implication of a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is that Hamas wins the war. It survives not only intact, but in full control of Gaza, respected worldwide as the jihadist force that committed genocide and survived to rebuild and do it again and again.
Phase 3, if implemented, involves Hamas’s return of the bodies of the dead in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian proto-state controlled by Palestinian Arab terrorists. So if implemented, Phase 3 ensures that Hamas will renew its genocidal assault on Israel sooner rather than later.
Biden’s administration sold this deal by ignoring the strategic implications of Oct. 7. He and his advisers abjectly refused to draw the necessary conclusion from what happened. The atrocities of that day showed that the Palestinian Arab war against Israel is a zero-sum game—either Israel wins, ensuring its survival, and the Palestinian Arabs are defeated; or the Palestinian Arabs win and Israel’s countdown to destruction begins.
Instead of accepting that self-evident reality, Biden and his advisers talked about Israel as a “traumatized society.” A traumatized society is not one that needs to win. It is a society that needs a hug.
Israelis who demanded the destruction of Gaza were demonized as genocidal extremists rather than realists who understood the implications of the bloodlust. The administration refused to accept the legitimacy of Israel’s war goals of destroying Hamas and preventing Gaza from ever posing a threat in the future. They placed hostages at the center of the narrative instead. The Palestinian Arabs weren’t an enemy, they were victims of Israel, which was waging a war for no reason. Israel had the right to defend itself, but not to harm its enemy.
The hostage ransom deal as crafted by Biden administration officials was a means of joining Hamas in exploiting Israel’s anguish over the plight of the hostages to prevent Israel from winning the war. Israel, Biden and his advisers believed, would be ensnared in the deal as Phase 1 moved to Phase 2. The deal was structured in a way that would make it almost impossible for Israel to walk away.
Negotiations for Phase 2 are to begin 16 days after implementation of Phase 1 begins. And if Israel walked away, the last of the 33 would remain behind.
Given the stakes, two questions arise.
What does President Donald Trump intend to do with Biden’s agreement going forward; and what does Israel intend to do?
President Trump’s messaging regarding the deal has shifted several times over the first week of implementation. Initially, he said the deal will bring all of the hostages home—a statement that indicated he expects all three phases will be implemented. A couple of days later, the president said he is uncertain that the second and third phases will be implemented.
By adopting Biden’s framework, Trump placed himself in a box. Trump wishes to prevent new wars from happening in the Middle East. But if he maintains faith with this deal, he ensures that even larger wars will break out in the region during the course of his four years in office. He also guarantees that massive jihadist assaults in the U.S. and the West will occur. After all, if Hamas’s success in murdering 1,200 Israelis in a day gave rise to the avalanche of antisemitism and jihad worldwide, there can be little question what a Hamas victory over Israel in the war will bring.
This is doubly true if the reports that President Trump is insisting that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon next week and that he is urging Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear installations are true. Hezbollah has not withdrawn its forces north of the Litani River. And the Lebanese Armed Forces, which are supposed to force Hezbollah forces to decamp to the north, are helping them to remain in the south. Under the circumstances, an Israeli withdrawal projects weakness that invites a future invasion.
As for Iran, if Hamas survives and Hezbollah survives, then Iran will emerge as the victor in this war. If Iran, the victor, is also permitted to keep its nuclear installations, it will quickly cross the nuclear threshold.
The Iranian regime is not interested in a deal. It is interested in destroying Israel and the United States.
That is why it has been trying to assassinate President Trump. And that is why it built terror armies all around Israel and has deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guard personnel to Central and South America, all while building nuclear weapons.
To win the peace of the Middle East, Trump must walk away from Biden’s failed policy of standing with Iran and its terror proxies Lebanon and the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza. He must restore his first term’s doctrine of supporting America’s allies against America’s enemies.
If Trump backs Israel in returning to the battlefield to secure Hamas’s defeat in Gaza, and maintaining its buffer zones in Gaza permanently to prevent the area from threatening the Jewish state in the future, then he will build the foundation for a long-term peace between Israel and the Arabs of the region.
If President Trump stands with Israel and backs its requirement for a security zone inside Lebanon that will prevent Hezbollah and other terror forces from invading northern Israel, and if he stands with Israel in its efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations and supports the Iranian people that have fought for their freedom from the regime for decades, then he will restore America’s standing as the only significant superpower in the region.
If he fails to do these things, then he will cede the U.S.’s position to China.
China has been a beneficiary of Biden’s weakness and determination to realign the U.S. away from its allies and toward Iran and its terror armies.
As for Israel, the dilemma is whether to sacrifice its future collective security for the salvation of the hostages today, or to secure its national survival. Israelis who support the first option speak of the damage to Israel’s soul if we accept that the hostages may continue to suffer.
For those who receive their news from most Israeli media outlets, the dilemma isn’t too large. With a few notable exceptions, the Israeli media have been serving the public a diet of demoralization for nearly a year. Israel cannot win, they are told. There is no purpose to the fight. All it does is prolong the suffering of the hostages. The only reason we are still fighting is that the man they have spent the past decade demonizing—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—refuses to quit. He refuses to capitulate despite the futility of the fight, because fighting is the only way he stays in power.
The media—like the Biden administration— prefer to ignore the strategic ramifications of Oct. 7, which they prefer to present as a one-off. The Palestinian Arabs aren’t really the people who beheaded their victims, and who mutilated their bodies as they butchered them. That was a mistake, or something. And anyway, fighting is futile. Bring them home.
This week, former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren wrote an article resonating this view. Oren admitted that the deal means that Hamas wins the war. But then he counters that Israel will save its soul by showing its devotion to the lives of its hostages by losing. “Our victory is moral, deep and long lasting,” he crooned.
The problem with Oren’s argument and the broader claim of the deal-at-any-price advocates is that the war is not futile.
Our heroic soldiers are winning and can win. And they must win.
Oct. 7 will only be a one-off if Hamas is annihilated and Gaza remains pacified forever. They are willing to pay a steep price to secure the freedom of 33 hostages, but the fight cannot be forsaken.
Hostage taking is the cruelest form of psychological warfare. And it is the most powerful weapon that Israel’s enemies have in their arsenal. They know that while they sanctify death, the sanctification of life is the foundational creed of the Jewish people.
Those who seek a deal at all costs are right about the soul of Israel. Our collective soul was bludgeoned on Oct. 7, and the wound remains unhealed every day the hostages remain in Gaza. As the years pass, the wound will become a scar that every Israeli and every Jew on earth will carry till the end of time. But our ability to carry those scars requires Israel to survive.
Oct. 7 showed us our enemy. And now that we have seen it, we cannot ignore the truth. For the nation of Israel and the State of Israel to survive, Israel must win this war no matter what the cost.
Caroline B. Glick is the senior contributing editor of Jewish News Syndicate and host of the “Caroline Glick Show” on JNS TV. She is the diplomatic commentator for Israel’s Channel 14, as well as a columnist for Newsweek. Glick is the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington and a lecturer at Israel’s College of Statesmanship.
