COMMENTARY / OPINION
Why We Cannot Trust the FBI [VIDEO 16:00] By Larry Johnson
Jan. 3, 2025 2:00 pm – It gives me no joy to write this, but it must be said — the FBI is a broken law enforcement institution and should be dismantled. I believe the same about the CIA, but that’s a topic for another day.
Based on the FBI’s conduct over the last eight years, I find no reason to trust anything that FBI officials say with respect to the recent attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Yes, I think both acts qualify as terrorism, but I have little confidence that we are getting, or will get, the true story.
I worked closely with the FBI during my time in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism at the Department of State (1989 -1993).
During my first months on the job, I was one of two State officers writing country clearance cables regarding the investigation of the bombing of Pan Am 103, i.e., a message to one of our embassies requesting permission for FBI agents to conduct an investigation in a particular country.
In addition, I worked on exercises and real-world missions with members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team who served as members of the Foreign Emergency Support Team (aka FEST).
I also had the privilege of coordinating with Floyd Clarke, who was the Deputy Director of the FBI, on implementing an advertising campaign for the Terrorism Rewards Program. The FBI agents I worked with were honorable, professional men. They were apolitical.
That is not the case today. The leadership of the FBI has become a gang of partisan, political hacks. What is the evidence?
Let’s start with the Russiagate investigation, which was the first big warning sign for me. The FBI, working with the CIA and the United Kingdom’s MI-6, carried out a deliberate operation to sabotage the campaign and subsequent Presidency of Donald Trump.
The FBI knowingly lied on multiple FISA warrants and suffered no consequences.
Even after Trump’s surprising victory, the FBI — conspiring with the Department of Justice — manufactured a crime to destroy Trump’s National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn.
Mike committed no crime, but was saddled with criminal charges that bankrupted him financially and defamed his reputation.
Then there was the Hunter Biden laptop. My friend, JP Mac Isaac, was the unfortunate soul who received two damaged computers from Hunter Biden.
Despite repeated attempts to contact Hunter and have him retrieve his property, JP became the rightful owner of the hard drives — by virtue of abandonment — per the work agreement that Hunter signed.
JP and his dad, Steve, made repeated attempts to contact the FBI to turn over the hard drives. It was only in December 2017 that the FBI finally showed up and took possession.
But, instead of conducting an investigation of the ample evidence of criminal activity present on the hard drive, the FBI buried it.
The FBI turned into an American version of the Stasi in the events leading up to and surrounding January 6. There was a legion of FBI informants in the crowd who had one mission — create a riot and a predicate crime for arresting Trump supporters.
The subsequent persecution and prosecution of Trump supporters conjured up images of political purges associated with the reign of Joseph Stalin. The FBI, in my opinion, became adept at creating crimes rather than solving them.
Over the past two years, several FBI whistleblowers came forward to raise the alarm about the criminal misconduct of their leaders but, instead of being celebrated, they faced retaliation, including losing their jobs.
All of my retired FBI buddies, guys and one gal (Coleen Rowley), are sickened by what has become of an organization they were once proud to be a part of. I think the downward slide started with Louis Freeh and the decline accelerated as the FBI partisan political outfit under Robert Mueller and Jim Comey.
I did my own video today discussing the latest news regarding the attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
Maybe these were nothing more than isolated incidents.
But I cannot rule out the possibility that these two attacks are part of something darker — a threat to our Republic hatched by insiders. Senator John Kennedy promises there will be an accounting. I hope he is right.
We SEE-AYE-A you TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS
JAN 03, 2025
There were two major “terror-like” incidents that occurred over New Year’s that killed and maimed many people.
One was in New Orleans, just hours before the Sugar Bowl in the French Quarter. The FBI claimed at first that it wasn’t a terror attack. Then they changed the story many times.
The second one happened in Las Vegas outside the Trump Hotel when a Tesla (made by Elon Musk’s firm) blew up. Again, the FBI and the fake news said this was not a terror attack at first either and then changed the story many times. In fact, they tried to frame Elon Musk and say the explosion was the fault of the car when it was later learned that it was caused by a bomb!
The person they blamed for the Tesla explosion was trained in explosives and would never have chosen this method:
His body was destroyed beyond recognition but his paper passport survived the blast to ID him. Right. The FBI says he rented the Tesla in Colorado, drove to Trump tower, shot himself in the head with his wrong hand, and then blew himself up. Uh huh.
New Orleans terrorist: Why did FBI quickly change its tune about his New Year’s Day truck attack? LEO HOHMANN
First he was not a terrorist at all, then he was a terrorist ‘not acting alone,’ then he was a terrorist but of the ‘lone wolf’ variety
JAN 02, 2025
The FBI has been all over the board when it comes to its description of the New Orleans truck jihadist who killed 15 people and wounded 35 on New Year’s Day.
First, they said it was not an act of terrorism, then they said it was indeed terrorism and the jihadist, Shamsud Din Jabbar, did not act alone but as part of a larger cell. Now they’ve switched back to saying he did act alone.
Which theory should we believe?
Former FBI agent Bobby Chacon told Fox News that he believes Mr. Jabbar was likely part of a sleeper cell that had been activated and included at least three or four other people. This indicates we should expect more terrorist attacks in the final 19 days before Trump’s inauguration, and likely even more after he’s sworn into office.
The more chaos the better, as far as the globalists are concerned. But they will also use law enforcement and the media to continue propping up the matrix, a society where a large segment of the population continues to live in ignorant bliss, for as long as possible.
The reason law enforcement changed their tune and said Jabbar acted alone was because the alternative was too scary and would have caused people to lose business leading up to tonight’s big Sugar Bowl college football game. If there are three or four other terrorists at large in the New Orleans area, that’s bad for business. Too many football fans pack up and go home under that scenario, before emptying their wallets at the city’s restaurants, hotels and bars.
So, the cops changed their story and said Jabbar was a lone-wolf terrorist, not part of a cell.
The truth is, we have many sleeper cells awaiting activation here in the United States of America.
However, if you know anything about how local law enforcement works in American cities, it’s all about the money. And keeping the money flowing into your town means catering to visitors and tourists. That’s where the money comes from and politicians and bureaucrats will go to great lengths to keep that stream of income flowing.
That’s just the reality. Police chiefs don’t work for the people. They work at the pleasure of the mayor and council, offices that are manned by politicians who are sold out to the Chamber of Commerce. Period.
Sheriffs are not much better than police chiefs, although they do have to answer to the public, at least in theory, as they are elected every four years.
I worked as a local newspaper editor for 28 years in suburban markets around Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C. During that stint, it became obvious to me that the most important edorsement any candidate for sheriff could attract was from the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber-endorsed candidate was almost always the candidate that won. And the Chamber is about one thing, making sure the interests of local businesses were met from a law-enforcement perspective.
If you want to understand law enforcement in America, follow the money.
Biden Admin Freed Al Qaeda Terrorist From Gitmo Days Before Attack by Daniel Greenfield
Islamic terrorists continue to attack us because our governments enable them.
January 2, 2025
In the days before the Islamic terrorist attack in New Orleans, the Biden administration freed Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi from Gitmo and released him to Tunisia.
Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi had been described by a Gitmo review as a longtime Jihadist whose activities go back to the mid 90s, as an Al Qaeda terrorist, a possible Osama bin Laden bodyguard and a member of Bin Laden’s Arab Brigade, who was also described as the “emir” of Al Qaeda’s Tunisian faction.
Al-Yazidi had specifically operated in Europe, especially in Italy where he was involved in terrorist financing. He received training in explosives and was rated as a high-risk detainee.
The report also noted that “detainee’s extensive connections to senior al-Qaida officials and other jihadist factions, along with his leadership role in Afghanistan, increase his intelligence value. He also has information on extremist operations and organizations in Bosnia and northern Italy and Afghanistan.”
The Biden administration chose to release him days before Islamic terrorists struck again in America. This is treason. And it’s a reminder that Islamic terrorists continue to attack us because our governments enable them.
Drain the Swamp Larry P. Arnn, President, Hillsdale College
NOVEMBER 2024 | VOLUME 53, ISSUE 11
The following is adapted from remarks delivered on November 19, 2024, at a Hillsdale College reception in San Diego, California.
The recent election is the product of a decades-long struggle in American politics that has intensified since 2016. The election produced a victory for the man who caused the intensification, Donald Trump. He caused it by convincing a people, jaded from broken promises, that he would “drain the swamp.”
He also convinced the people who inhabit the swamp, and they have scorched the earth to stop him. He has been canceled, derided, slandered, libeled, investigated, searched, impeached, arrested, prosecuted, tried, convicted, shot, and yet…reelected!
Now the battle will begin anew. What will it be like? There are so many problems. The border. Crime. Inflation. Education. War. Ukraine. China. Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran. Debt stacked to the far reaches of a SpaceX mission. Which matters most?
Last February, I paid a visit to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. He might be, I told him, on the threshold of a historic opportunity. It may become possible to restore constitutional government in place of the administrative or bureaucratic state that has almost overtaken it. He replied that he prayed about that every day.
That is the issue that matters the most. The worst evils stem from it. The strongest resistance guards its entrenchment.
It is not only the 23 million who work in the administrative state, many of them fine people. It is the universities who inspire and guide it while enjoying its emoluments. It is the corporations it regulates, protects, and subsidizes. It is the press that keeps its secrets and tells its fibs. It is the education bureaucracy that outnumbers the teachers with whom it interferes. It is the half of the American economy it occupies. It is the regulations it gushes, the prosecutions it wages, the verdicts it renders. It is the influence on elections it peddles in the grandest conflict of interest of all.
The administrative state is a different kind of thing from constitutional and representative government. It is a vastness, an idea whose time ought never to have come. It has gone from strength to strength here and over other parts of the West since its birth more than a century ago. It is embodied in the European Union and in socialist Britain, France, and Germany. It is seen as well in communist China, where its iron fist operates without a glove. The administrative state is marked by the eclipse of elected legislatures and executives by tenured civil servants, making laws in uncountable profusion and pretending to be above politics. As Winston Churchill characterized them: “no longer servants and no longer civil.”
Look what it has done to America since the swamp began to fill in the 1930s, and especially since the 1960s.
In 1930, government consumed twelve percent of the gross domestic product of the nation. That was about how it had been from the beginning. Today, government handles a little over 50 percent of the nation’s wealth. This is a gigantic transfer of resources from the private to the public sector, which defies the meaning of a free society. To quote again Churchill, a champion of the free society, “money should fructify [bear fruit] in the pockets of the people.”
Here in the United States, between the presidencies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the government owned the biggest asset any government ever owned: the western lands, most of the area of the country. The Homestead Act, signed by Lincoln in 1862, gave away ten percent of the land of the United States to anyone who would live on it and work it. That is the spirit of free government at its best.
Over the past century, the transfer of assets has been moving the other way. Somehow, we have come to think that the fruited plains bear more fruit when the government owns them. Certainly, we should have national and state parks and open expanses. But to enjoy them, we must make a living. We must farm, mine, travel, and work as we please. We must act on our own initiative and by our own efforts. We need resources to live on and use, readily available to anyone who wants to work. That is the spirit of a free people.
Another significant change has been the centralization of government. In 1930, more than 60 percent of the money in government was raised and spent in counties, cities, and towns. The public money was held near the people who contributed it. The federal government controlled less than 20 percent. Now those numbers are reversed. Through a long and steady process, we have moved money out of the pockets of the people and into a treasury far, far away. We have converted America from a bottom-up to a top-down country. Rules proliferate. Expense piles up. Anything dependent upon the government moves like molasses on a winter day, except when an interest of the government is at stake.
How we allowed this to happen is a very long story. Early progressive policies were presented as common-sense adjustments to a government that needed not revolution, but reform. Increasingly, problems were presented as emergencies that had to be fixed no matter what. Then the news was orchestrated to produce new emergencies, requiring new regulations to solve them and new agencies to manage and enforce the regulations. Each step increased the size and reach of government.
During the George W. Bush administration, I told a senior presidential advisor that the No Child Left Behind Act would not do much good. Yes, our K-12 schools are struggling to teach children to read. Adding more regulations and bureaucrats—and enabling them to write high stakes testing to drive curricula—is only more of the same. He asked, “How can parents know if their children are learning if we don’t test?” I replied, “They live with the children, and it is not hard to tell if a child can read. Also, they love them and raise them. That is the system of real accountability.” To fix what is wrong in K-12 education, make it less top-heavy. Decentralize authority to local districts and schools, put parents first, and address the problem that more than half the employees in public education are administrators, not teachers.
Today, after more than 100 years of trying, the weakness of the progressive regime becomes apparent. At its core, it undermines the principle of consent of the governed. It vaunts expertise and professionalism over politics and the principle of representation. Over time it has become unable to hide its contempt for American citizens. Its leaders have called them deplorables and worse. It seeks to take children from their parents and prosecutes parents if they complain. It seeks to restrict speech to assertions that enjoy its sanction.
These policies stifle the native strength of our country, which is the source of American greatness. Take an example from the progressive attempt to disarm Americans. Hillsdale College is a sponsor of the U.S. Olympic shooting teams, who train at our Halter Shooting Sports Education Center. One of the best shotgun shooters in the world is Vincent Hancock, who just won his fourth gold medal in Paris. He recently gave a talk on our campus in which he noted that in the competition for shooting medals, China is ahead. It wins about ten medals every Olympics, and the U.S. wins about five. Of course, he continued, there are so many more Chinese than there are Americans—but whereas in China no one is allowed to own or fire a weapon except with official sanction, any American can own guns and become proficient with them. America has more great shooters than any country—people who have trained by their own efforts and for the love of it, and who could no doubt dominate at the Olympics. But of course, we don’t conscript Olympic athletes as China does.
Alexis de Tocqueville writes that in America every community and every person is the best judge of the things that concern mainly itself and himself. The army of America is the population of America. So too the workforce. No public-sector army or workforce should be allowed to become dominant. The key to restoring our political and social institutions is to understand that we need strong government, but it must be limited. This is possible only if we govern ourselves in most things.
What does President Trump propose to do? Since his election, appointments and announcements have come rapid fire. My favorite directly addresses the problem of the administrative state. It is the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk introduced certain efficiencies at Twitter. He eliminated six of the seven letters in its name to call it X. He eliminated 6,500 of its 8,500 employees, which comes to 76 percent. He fired most of the “moderators,” the people who prevent users of the platform from saying things. Doesn’t this suggest a pattern for government? Ramaswamy came to national prominence protesting companies who forgot about their customers in favor of a woke agenda. He had made a lot of money remembering his customers. Doesn’t this also suggest a pattern for government?
The DOGE will work as an advisory group outside the government to find a cheaper and better way to do things—or not to do things! It will work with the Office of Management and Budget, the office in the White House that has final approval over regulations. It can do a lot, but fundamental change rightly requires legislation.
Trump’s party controls both houses of Congress by narrow margins. Will they pass legislation to abolish a department? To alter the tenure rules for bureaucrats? Or even to confirm Trump’s appointments? If not, achievements by executive order can disappear in a day in the next administration. The recent history of Congress, which created and has been operating alongside the administrative state for decades, does not encourage optimism. It will help that Trump won the popular vote, a moral victory, and that the politics of Trump have been changing the party. But will it be enough?
To “expect the unexpected” is a logical contradiction that contains a truth: we do not know what will happen. We sail where we have not been. No president has ever staked his administration on overcoming the administrative state. Reagan, the best of Trump’s modern predecessors, was hindered by having the priority of dealing with the Soviet Union, and his party never controlled the House. Others who talked about reducing bureaucracy never attempted to do so in a fundamental way.
***
If politics and policy at home will be an unpredictable battle, there may be literal battles abroad. We are subject to direct and sudden attack by nations that are more numerous than we. The Chinese navy is larger than ours and gaining every month. Our defense industry is calcified, and military recruitment is down. We have spent trillions attempting to build democracy in nations that had never known it—and still do not. Our national debt piles to the moon.
We will need the wisdom of Winston Churchill, born 150 years ago this month, on these matters. He has been ill understood by Republicans in recent years. Some thought they were following Churchill’s example, for instance, in attempting over many years to build a democracy in Iraq. Indeed, Churchill ruled that country as colonial secretary for 20 months after Britain inherited the problem of Iraq following World War I. But his policy, unlike ours, was to leave as soon as practically possible and meanwhile cut the cost.
Different Republicans have suggested that Churchill caused World War II. In fact, he struggled for almost a decade to avoid it by calling for weapons production to deter Hitler. He had warned of the dangers of modern war throughout his life. That danger was not only physical destruction and death, but also the conscription of national life at the expense of freedom. For Churchill, as it seems for Trump, war is something to be avoided and, when it must be fought, fought fiercely to a rapid conclusion. He called World War II, in which he won his glory, “the unnecessary war.” Whatever their differences, Trump has these ideas in common with Churchill.
Our great advantage is the same that Britain has enjoyed: bodies of water between us and our worst enemies. But the oceans, like the English Channel, are not as wide as they used to be. To a greater extent we must be protected by diplomacy and weapons. In his first administration, Trump built weapons, and his diplomacy was highly successful. It may be harder this time.
***
Despite the trials we face and those to come, we would be wrong not to expect success. It is necessary. To remain free, we must have a government accountable to us. That is the first precept of constitutionalism. That is what must be restored.
We are made for freedom. Its beauty calls to us as much as goodness and knowledge call to us, and for the same reason. This is apparent every day in the operation of Hillsdale College. Everyone here is a volunteer. No one comes to Hillsdale without understanding what it is and without promising to help it thrive according to its 180-year-old mission. That is why we are able to cooperate, to think freely, to argue all we want, and to remain civil to each other. That is why we have few rules: goals freely adopted are better than rules and enforcement. We are able to have what the word college means: a partnership.
The country is the same. Founded with a beautiful Declaration that makes its mission clear, governed under the longest surviving written constitution in history, Americans built a society, a culture, and an economy of freedom from the ground up, under the shelter of political institutions that we made for this purpose and with the help of Providence.
The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence will fall under President Trump’s second administration. I know from my service on the 1776 Commission, during his first administration, that he will wish to celebrate it with a loud voice and a full throat. May we all go from strength to strength in recovering the meaning of that document and restoring the Constitution that enabled us to make America great in the first place.
Al Qaeda Behind the 10/7 Massacre! Brigitte Gabriel
Is America Next?
JAN 02, 2025 ACT FOR AMERICA
Sarah Adams, an award-winning intelligence analyst and former CIA Targeter and counterterrorism analyst, has carved a notable path in national security. Known for her work on the 2012 Benghazi attacks, Adams served as a senior advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi, offering deep insights into the security and intelligence failures surrounding the incident. Her expertise has further been documented through her co-authorship of “Benghazi: Know Thy Enemy,” a book that unravels the complex web of events and individuals involved in the attack, alongside her involvement in “The Benghazi Committee Report,” reflecting her commitment to transparency and accountability in national security.
In a recent interview with Sarah Adams, provides significant insights into the clandestine cooperation between Hamas, Al Qaeda, and Iran, particularly in relation to the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. *Covered at the one-hour mark.
The training for the Hamas attack reportedly took place in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda has been running camps where approximately 1,400 terrorists were trained for the attack, which included fighters from various groups, indicating cooperation beyond just Hamas.
There was a series of meetings in Kandahar and Kabul where the attack was planned. These meetings involved not only Al Qaeda but also members from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Taliban, showcasing a multi-faceted collaboration.
The date for the attack, October 7, was chosen with historical significance linked to the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, further illustrating the deep strategic thinking involving multiple parties.
Iran played a pivotal role by facilitating the operations through its Quds Force, with notable figures like Qasem Soleimani before his death and his successor, Mohammed Kazemi, who was tasked with protecting key figures from Al Qaeda, including Hamza bin Laden, whom the US government still refuses to declare publicly is alive.
Adams and her team uncovered evidence that significant financial support came from Iran, with specific mentioning of a budget involving millions directed towards these operations.
Al Qaeda, under Hamza bin Laden’s leadership, has been pushing for an “Islamic Army” where different terrorist groups operate under one umbrella for strategic attacks. This includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and even ISIS, focusing on shared goals like attacking Israel and the U.S.
Both Al Qaeda and Iran aim to maintain a level of secrecy about their involvement in such attacks. Al Qaeda, in particular, does not claim responsibility for attacks to protect its safe havens in Afghanistan and to avoid direct retaliation.
Much of the planning was conducted over Telegram, highlighting how modern communication tools have been utilized for coordinating attacks across different organizations.
The 10/7 Sabbath Massacre attack was executed with Hamas as the front, but with the backing and strategic input from Al Qaeda and Iran, demonstrating a successful case of coordinated terrorism.
The cooperation between Hamas, Al Qaeda, and Iran in the October 7 attack underscores a sophisticated level of strategic planning, operational support, and ideological alignment among these groups. This collaboration not only facilitated one of the deadliest attacks in recent history but also signals a potential increase in coordinated threats against Western interests. The involvement of high-level operatives from Iran, combined with Al Qaeda’s training infrastructure and strategic oversight, paints a picture of a formidable alliance capable of executing complex terrorist operations.
Adams explicitly warns that this attack is part of a broader wave of planned attacks, including those aimed at U.S. embassies and potentially the U.S. homeland, orchestrated by this coalition.
The recent New Year’s terror attacks in New Orleans, with evident ties to ISIS, and the explosion of a Tesla Cyber Truck outside a Trump Hotel in Nevada, are likely interconnected, and we anticipate numerous revelations in the coming days and weeks. Sarah Adams, alongside other experts, is vigorously attempting to alert both authorities and the public, urging us to heed these warnings.
I assure you, we are listening.
Jimmy Carter Was Never a Good Man by Daniel Greenfield
And Carter and Biden have a lot in common.
December 31, 2024
Outgoing President Joe Biden urged incoming President Donald Trump to learn “decency” from permanently outgoing former president President Jimmy Carter. Biden once set his sights high by trying to compare himself to FDR and JFK, now has to settle for being the second Carter.
On his way out the door, the media continues to insist that Biden is a good man. And that Carter, despite presiding over one of the worst administrations in history, was a good man.
Biden and Carter had many things in common, record unpopularity, crooked brothers, and empowering Islamic terrorists, but decency was never one of them.
Joe Biden was not a good man. Neither was Jimmy Carter.
Carter ran for office promising an administration “that’s turned away from scandal and corruption and official cynicism and is once again as decent and competent as our people.” That was a lie.
That “new morality” turned out to be a corrupt triangle between Billy Carter, Jimmy’s version of ‘Hunter’, a drunk who peddled foreign influence and mismanaged the family business, only to be bailed out by the National Bank of Georgia, whose president Bert Lance, was a Carter appointee, adviser and head of the Office of Management and the Budget.
Lance was forced to resign and was indicted on charges of bank fraud in a trial that required testimony from Carter’s mother and involved accusations of improper loans to family members.
Peanuts from the Carter warehouse were being used as collateral for loans from the bank complete with forged documents allowing the family business to sell the ‘collateral’ and a special counsel was appointed to investigate whether the dirty money found its way into the Carter campaign funds. The media argued that the actions of his brother and OMB director had nothing to do with Jimmy Carter. Even when Carter expressed his support and pride for Lance.
When Billy Carter shilled for Libya, the media also claimed it had nothing to do with his brother. And then Jimmy left office and began shilling for so many dictators that the full list would run for pages. Over the course of his long retirement, Jimmy Carter not only met with Gaddafi, who had paid his brother $220,000, but with Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, Kim Il Sung of North Korea, Venezuela’s Maduro and Hugo Chavez, Syria’s Assad and Fidel Castro in Cuba.
And Carter not only met with them, he loved them and covered up for them. He claimed that he “never doubted Hugo Chávez’s commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen” and on Castro’s death remembered “fondly our visits with him in Cuba and his love of his country.” The more people Jimmy’s tyrants killed, the harder he hugged them.
Jimmy Carter loved terrorists and so he not only embraced Arafat, but also Hamas.
In April 2008, Jimmy Carter met with Hamas and claimed that the Islamic terrorists wanted to live in peace with Israel. The next month, as a peaceful gesture Hamas fired a rocket at an Israeli shopping mall, wounding 90 including a mother and her 3-year-old daughter.
But the more tyrants and terrorists Jimmy Carter met with, the more he built up his reputation as a good man just trying to fix the world. But Carter wasn’t fixing the world by empowering some of the worst mass murderers in the world, he was continuing to break it and make it worse.
Carter met with mass murderers responsible for starving half a million people to death and then with terrorists aspiring to take over countries like Israel not because he wanted to stop the violence, but because he wanted to dial it up further by providing them with legitimacy.
Jimmy’s ‘Carter Center’ claimed to monitor foreign elections while sanctioning corrupt leftist takeovers like the one in Venezuela which led to protests, starvation and mass migration to America. His activities on behalf of enemies like Saddam Hussein and North Korea went well beyond lobbying or even violations of the Logan Act and into a territory of outright treason.
That included contacting world leaders and urging them to oppose the United States and making announcements in America’s name at meetings with foreign leaders. A normal D.C. lobbyist would have gone to prison for half the things that Carter did. And no one except a former president wearing the media mantle of sainthood could have gotten away with it.
Why did Carter go to such trouble for Saddam Hussein and North Korea? Why did he go on a fundraising mission for the Islamic terrorists of the PLO? While Carter claimed to be a peacenik, tens of millions of dollars were pouring into the Carter Center including from foreign governments. Long before the Clinton Foundation, Jimmy Carter had built a massive foreign influence machine under the guise of a humanitarian operation that “came to him in a dream.”
Even Habitat for Humanity, a key element in the rebranding of Carter as a humanitarian, couldn’t escape the sleaze when he led efforts to cover up sexual harassment at the organization.
It wasn’t the first time that Carter let out the lust in his heart and protected sexual abusers.
Biden’s mass commutations for murderers and rapists shocked a nation, but before him Carter had pardoned Peter Yarrow, of the group, Peter, Paul & Mary, for sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl.
Jimmy Carter had covered for tyrants and terrorists who had murdered entire populations. Compared to that, what was the worth of the life and innocence of a single teenage girl?
The worst thing about Carter was the way he had of converting his crimes into virtues. Unrepentant until the day of his long-delayed death, Carter and his defenders always claimed that everything he did only came about because he was too trusting and forgiving.
Any other man with that the same political and family corruption, the cronies and associates who ripped off businesses and the country, the parade of terrorists and dictators, would have been denounced, but Jimmy Carter beatifically smiled, acting as if his ties to sinners made him that much more of a saint, and that embracing evil was evidence of his moral superiority.
The worse Jimmy’s monsters were, the more he acted like he was saving their souls.
Joe Biden could only dream of wearing that same fake religiosity that Jimmy wore through the White House and to Havana, Pyongyang and Caracas, or of a post-presidency redeeming himself by courting the world’s monsters. Biden may have been the second coming of Carter, but the stars aligned so that the first coming concluded weeks before the second coming was done.
Daniel Greenfield 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.
Remembering the President Who Sided with Hamas [28:19]
January 1, 2025 JNS TV | Israel Undiplomatic – President Jimmy Carter passed away at age 100 this week. He left behind a legacy of being a peacemaker between Egypt and Israel who subsequently turned on the Jewish state, calling it an “apartheid” nation and claiming Hamas terrorists were more interested in peace than Jerusalem.
JNS senior contributing editor Ruthie Blum and Mark Regev, former Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom—both former advisers at the Prime Minister’s Office—discuss the late president’s policies & actions both during his time in office and in the decades that followed.
They also discuss what the new year potentially holds for Israel, the Middle East and America.
Chapters
00:00 Inauguration of the new studio
01:09 Controversial reflections on Jimmy Carter
02:36 Carter’s role in the Egypt-Israel peace treaty
09:40 The unintended consequences of Carter’s policies
13:32 Carter’s impact on Iran and radical Islam
18:44 Carter’s legacy and criticism
25:27 Predictions for Middle East peace in 2025
Reminder: Elon Musk Gave DOJ the User Data of Every MAGA Account on Twitter by Sundance
January 1, 2025 – There are many people who only became aware of Elon Musk after he dropped Ron DeSantis and took up a position in support of President Trump.
Most of those people do not have a reference for Musk complying with the platform control demands of Brazil, France and Turkey [Durov (Telegram), and Pavlovski (Rumble) did not].
Most of those Pro-Elon people also do not have a reference for Musk claiming he and his legal team did not know former FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker was the legal counsel for Twitter at the time of the purchase, until after independent journalist Matt Taibbi was researching the Twitter Files and complained about Baker filtering information. {GO DEEP} Musk fired Baker, and eventually, Musk kicked Taibbi out and shut down the Twitter File reviews.
Additionally, almost all of the Musk supporters do not know about Elon Musk giving the DOJ/FBI user data of all MAGA accounts following Donald Trump on the Twitter platform. {Go Deep}
Taken as a whole, this is a small portion of the context that explains my long-standing issues with Elon Musk, who has now seemingly achieved demigod status as an untouchable elite in the orbit of President Trump according to those who support him.
The issue with the transmission of user data to the DOJ/FBI is not an issue of Elon Musk complying with a subpoena; the bigger issue was Musk simultaneously telling the public that Twitter user data was secure and would not be compromised by government.
At the same time Musk was saying the platform and user data would be secure from government intrusion, he was sending the FBI/DOJ all of the metadata for Trump supporters on Twitter. That was/is a big issue that many now pretend not to remember.
To be fair, at the time of his public statements, Musk was not supporting Donald Trump. In fact, he was intending to use his platform to elevate the status of his favored candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. As a result, Musk had no motive or intent to impede the effort of the DOJ/FBI targeting of President Trump or his supporters. However, that doesn’t change the reality of what took place.
Setting aside all of the financial issues in/around the purchase of Twitter -which are numerous- the real issue behind the metadata was Musk saying something false; while knowing he was complying with government. This was a point when Musk’s integrity on these matters was revealed.
Beyond the H1B visa issue, this history is part of the reason why many people are concerned about Elon Musk’s proximity and influence with President Donald Trump.
Just as President Trump is likely unaware the full scope of what Pam Bondi did in George Zimmerman case to support a false witness, so too is President Trump likely unaware of Musk’s involvement with the DOJ/FBI to send them MAGA targeting information. Quite simply, there is no one in President Trump’s orbit who would ever share these specific details.
Elon Musk was also an attendee at the 2016, Sea Island summit in Georgia – the original assembly of 54 billionaires who agreed to work together and fund the “stop Trump” movement.
WATCH [21:36 https://rumble.com/v64kpa1-steve-bannon-calls-for-a-moratorium-on-all-immigration.html
CTH is not always in alignment with Steve Bannon, but on this issue we are.
Do you know how many H1B visa engineers work at tech heavy Rumble? … ZERO. Not One.
Having said that, we accept that President Trump is attached to Elon Musk now. Quite simply, there is no way for President Trump to separate himself from Elon Musk having embraced him so close. If President Trump were to dispatch Musk now, the media would spin the separation into a weakness of Trump not able to cope with another globally influential person in his orbit.
Annex Gaza, Judea and Samaria Dr. Harold Goldmeier
Activists for a Greater Israel want the government to annex Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. Former ambassador David Friedman seems to agree in his recent book. Review.
Dec 31, 2024, 6:23 PM (GMT+2) Israel National News
The Time is Ripe
The wind is at their backs. Activists for a Greater Israel want the government to annex Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman seems to agree in his recent book, One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Humanix Books, 2024)
Gaza is no longer a factor among the existential threats to Israel. According to Jared Kushner, the airstrip sliver of land can be gentrified into Vegas with a seashore. Hezbollah is enervated but police actions similar to America’s war on drug cartels ought to suffice. Iran is all talk until the Trump administration and the women of Iran overthrow their abusers. Houthis are busy getting rich off blackmail payoffs from shipping magnets. Iraq is a political and military mess. Syria barely survives as a viable nation and is ruled by rebels. The Arabian Gulf States are morphing into Middle East Disney theme parks. Democrat Party leaders appear pathetic, the party in tatters, and without a clear message.
This simmering stewpot undergirds the hardihood of Religious Zionists, extreme-nationalists, and Evangelicals to fulfill their dreams to expand the state equal to or bigger than the Kingdom of David and Solomon. Imagination has them envisioning Jewish communities from Lebanon’s Litani River to Eilat, from the Mediterranean through Gaza to the eastern border of the Jordan Valley abutting Jordan. Friedman’s talks only of Gaza. Unfolding events make anything possible including France enforcing peace in Lebanon, chaos in Syria, Pres-elect Donald Trump filling critical U.S. government positions with politically hard-right thumpers, and few in Israel besides the judiciary willing to challenge Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The Manifesto
Team members responsible for the historic Abraham Accords are visionaries. Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was a key member of the team. They all deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, at the very least. The Abraham Accords is so authentic it survives the October 7th barbaric, genocidal attack by Hamas against Israel, the vicious battles in Lebanon, the Red Sea attacks, and Israel-Iran hostilities. One Jewish State is David Friedman’s manifesto about where the Middle East goes from here.
Friedman calls for an end to the conundrum of the two-state solution. Friedman is convinced that one state, ruled by Jews – Israel – is the only solution to stability and peace in the Middle East. Friedman offers America’s rule over Puerto Rico as the model for a one-state rule by Israel.
He gives no quarter to the possible desire for self-determination and national pride driving Palestinian Arabs. He believes that Palestinian Arabs lust far more for the blood of the Jews than for a national homeland. The two-state solution has been a failing talking point from colonial British times through Donald Trump’s 2020 “deal of the century.” A state of its own will train and arm terrorists to erase Israel. Friedman points to a survey claiming that 85% of Palestinians agree with Hamas regarding October 7. He sighs, “Perhaps that says it all.”
In the last chapter, Friedman claims Israel tried living in peace, side-by-side with Gazan Palestinian Arabs since 2005; they had local self-rule and economic independence to build a prosperous, peace-loving, Palestinian pearl on the sea. Instead, terrorists took charge: “We cannot repeat the mistake in Gaza.” Only a Jewish-ruled state governing Palestinian Arabs can safeguard Israel.
Ambassador Friedman ignores that Israel lives in relative peace with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and the Gulf states. The book would be more useful if Friedman had researched and exposed why Israeli Druze are patriotic. Or what are the ingredients for successful coexistence with the Arabs of Abu Ghosh, the African Hebrew Israelites, and Bedouins? How can Israel make the formula work with Palestinian Arabs? Israel is home to 97 embassies most established following the Oslo Accords. Attempts at peace have had their blessings. Friedman ignores this peace progress.
In a greater Israel, he argues, Palestinian Arabs will be ruled akin to US rule over Puerto Rican islanders. It is his model for coexistence in which they cannot vote in federal elections but are otherwise self-fuled. But it took some 300 years for the Spanish and US colonizers to drive out any notion of self-determination and nationalism. Massacres were helpful. The U.S. government maintains army and air force bases and the National Guard is federalized at will. Puerto Ricans prefer statehood but Americans refuse. Still, it works.
What, Ambassador Friedman, is Israel prepared to do with its Palestinian Arabs–massacre is out, so perhaps deport or offer citizenship including Israeli passports? Allow free movement and civil rights? Manage their healthcare system, schools, and economy? Provide police for civil order and peace on the streets. We barely do any of these things for Arab-Israeli communities.
Is Israel ready to deploy soldiers in Palestinian Arab neighborhoods full-time, forever? Will peace escape us for another 250 years until self-determination and nationalism are wiped from the Palestinian ethos?
Takeaway
Friedman ignores that, de facto, one Jewish-ruled state has ruled Judea and Samaria, more or less, for 57 years. Palestinian Arabs and world leaders call it “occupation.” Both sides have documented the extent of that rule. A responsible overview is detailed in a May 28, 2024, article for the Council on Foreign Affairs, titled “Who Governs the Palestinians?”
Daniel Gordis tells the story in one of his books about a colleague who is a popular, soft-spoken, and dedicated Palestinian teacher. They were friendly so he asked the colleague’s opinion about the conflict. To paraphrase, she calmly responded that conquerors have come and gone across Palestine for centuries and one day the Jews will be gone, too, speaking as if the Arabs were always there and not colonizers who conquered the land during the 7th century while the Jews had been there from time immemorial.
Friedman’s vision of one Jewish-ruled state means another 250 years of “occupation.” It is, he asserts, “the last best hope to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The book lacks the vision Friedman and his colleagues brought to the Abraham Accords, but perhaps that is because the starting points are very different. Still, we need another episode of that vision.
Harold Goldmeier teaches international university students at Touro College Jerusalem. He is an award-winning entrepreneur who received the Governor’s Award (Illinois) for family investment programs in the workplace from the Commission on the Status of Women. He was a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard, worked for four governors, and recently sold his business in Chicago. He is a managing partner of an investment firm, a business management consultant, and a public speaker on business, social, and public policy issues.
He was a Jew, not a Palestinian Jeff Dunetz
This season, social media were filled with the fabrication that Jesus was a Palestinian. Op-ed.
Dec 31, 2024, 6:55 PM (GMT+2) Israel National News – Jesus was a Jew, NOT A Palestinian.
This season, social media were filled with the fabrication that Jesus was a Palestinian. At times, it seemed that every other text on X and many texts on Truth Social made that Jesus is a Palestinian lie. Five different groups have been created on Facebook about Jesus being a Palestinian.
Anyone who believes that deception is trying to delegitimize Israel or is an imbecile with no knowledge of basic math or history.
Oops, before I start, my son, who graduated cum laude with a degree in applied mathematics, arrogantly says addition and subtraction-type calculations are not math. They are arithmetic.
Because I am Jewish and live 2,000 years after Jesus, I can’t speak to Christian theology. However, my Christian friends gave me the basics. They told me when and where he lived and where they believed he was crucified. According to Christian tradition, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which, at the time, was in Jewish Judea. Then, his family moved to Nazareth, which, at the time, was in Jewish Samaria.
To explain the arithmetic, per Christian theology, Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Humble) calculated the calendar to make the Year 1 (not 0) the year of Jesus’ birth, but he miscalculated. Various guesses put the birth within 1-4 years B.C.E. No estimate counts the number zero. Using the earliest number of those estimates, if Jesus was born in the year 4 B.C.E, it was in Judea, a Jewish state. Judea wasn’t defeated until 135 C.E, a 139-year difference.
There seems to be some consensus that the crucifixion date is April 3, 33 C.E., or 106 years before the Romans destroyed the Judean state. According to sources, when Jesus was crucified near Jerusalem in Judea, he was 33 to 40 years old. Again, the numbers do the work.
Those who say the Jews have taken over a Palestinian land have no understanding. During the time of Jesus, the Jews were called Hebrews, Israelites, and The Children of Israel. After the Romans defeated Bar Kochba in 135 C.E., they were called Judeans, which eventually was shortened to Jews.
Jews have lived in the Holy Land ever since Moses turned over the leadership of the former slaves to Joshua, who led them across the Jordan River. When the haters say “from the river to the sea,” the river was the Jordan River, which Joshua split, and the sea was the Red Sea, which Moses split. That’s “from the river to the sea.” (By the way, God seems to help Jews control water. I would advise those haters to stay away from bodies of water near the holy land.) King David was crowned King of a united Kingdom (all 12 tribes) around 1,000 B.C.E. Using that as a base, it means the Jews have been the indigenous people of Israel for over 3,000 years.
After the Bar Kochba revolt which was defeated in 135 C.E, the Romans punished the Judeans (Jews) for rebelling for the third time in sixty years. To poke those rebellious Judeans in the eye, the Romans changed the Jewish State’s name from Judea to Syria Palaestina. The Romans used Palaestina because it was the Latin name of the ancient enemy of the Jews, the Philistines. The Philistines didn’t exist anymore (they had disappeared from existence around eight hundred years earlier) so they didn’t protest.
The people in Palaestina were not called Palestinians because they were primarily people who followed the Jewish religion. The Romans tried to throw out as many as they could from their own country, creating the Jewish exile that lasted till 1948. Not all the Jews were thrown out. Jews lived in the Holy Land, although they did not rule it, through 1948 when a Jewish state was declared the eternal homeland of the Jews.
The Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire, formed from its eastern provinces. They took control of the holy land around the year 330 C.E. Three centuries later, in the year 638 C.E., the land was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate, which was the first of four caliphs who took over (basically, colonialists) after Muhammad died. Eight hundred years ago, the land became part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire (in the 1400s).
After WW1, the League of Nations made the entire Homeland of the Jews a British protectorate, known as the British Mandate Of Palestine. That lasted until 1948, when the modern Jewish State, Israel, was created. Throughout that period, from the year 135 C.E. through the year 1948, there was a large population of Jews living on the land. In fact, before 1948, Jews living in the holy land were also called Palestinians. When the UN partitioned, the partition document (UN 181) called for an Arab state and a Jewish state, but the plan did not mention a Palestinian state because there was no nation called by that name – it was basically a geographical location.
Putting the timeline together, it is clear to anyone who knows basic math (sorry, son) or has mastered arithmetic skills that Jesus couldn’t have been a “Palestinian”. Based on Christian theology, the land was called Judea until a century after Jesus died. Muslims didn’t control the area until 600 years after Jesus. Even then, it was part of a Caliphate, not an independent state. It became part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1400 C.E. After World War I, Christian Great Britain was given the holy land as part of the British Mandate. Those who call themselves “Palestinians” today, are Arabs who live in the area the Romans renamed Palaestina, some are recent arrivals and others descendants of the Moslem hordes who conquered and colonized Judea in the 7th century.
Answering the question and putting the timeline together, it is clear that anyone with basic arithmetic or history skills could not claim that Jesus was a “Palestinian”.
Anyone claiming that Jesus was a “Palestinian” is trying to create a new history, which is part of the Palestinian Arab strategy of trying to erase the Jewish people’s historic connection to their Indigenous homeland.
Jeff Dunetz is editor/publisher of the blog “The Lid.” and a contributor to Israel National News and The Jewish Press. He is a weekly Thursday Guest on The Schaftlein Report, a National Board Member of Herut North America and Herut Representative on The AZM Board
When did the Palestinian Arabs become the good guys? Jack Engelhard
Back then…once upon a time…Democrats were good guys. The Jews were the heroes. Opinion.
Jan 1, 2025, 8:28 AM (GMT+2) Israel National News – Picking the Palestinian Arabs as your home team is like rooting for the Miller Gang against Gary Cooper in “High Noon.”
Israel is Gary Cooper. That’s a pure fact to people who understand that the world is made up of two sorts, good guys and bad guys. Woe to him who gets them mixed up, as you did, Mr. Biden. You started out fine after the October 7th massacre, but then you got confused and began telling Israel how to fight – and God forbid, lose – its existential war.
Bibi did what he could to work around your threats.
Of bad guys, in most books, like this one, the Grand Mufti of the 1930s/40s shared secrets with Hitler on how best to murder the Jews, and out of that grew the fiction of a “Palestinian People.”
That’s the side you chose to prevent us from utterly defeating?
Did the Gazans stop drowning puppies and kittens for sport? Raping women, burning babies in ovens?
Have their friends in the Palestinian Authority quit the business of slaying Jews for profit?
On what merits did they become so attractive that you forced Israel to allow them to be overfed so they could claim famine? On what merits did you believe their falsified numbers of casualties?
Of the Hitler/Mufti tag-team, it’s even in the movie “Exodus,” which was written by Dalton Trumbo, from Leon Uris’s book, and Trumbo was no particular friend of Israel. Uris was.
The truth had to be told, even from a reluctant screenwriter, a good man, whose heart and typewriter were always with the oppressed, though sometimes he forgot which was which.
Typical of socialists and communists.
The “Exodus” movie came out in 1960. President John F. Kennedy saw it and said he liked it very much. He approved of the historical accuracy from both the book and the film.
The Jews were the heroes. There was no confusion about this. Not for JFK. What happened to you, Mr. Biden? Ms. Harris?
What happened to you both and to your Party, that within a generation lost the means to tell right from wrong, the sacred from the profane, heroes from villains?
Back then…once upon a time…Democrats were good guys.
Truman did right, and JFK consistently reaffirmed America’s special relationship with the Jewish State.
Like you, he was Catholic. Our first as president. You are the second, and The New York Times once named you our most religious president ever.
It was noted that you quoted the Bible frequently.
Then you know that the Hebrews are the stars and the heroes of the Bible and that the Promised Land was promised to them alone.
Those weren’t the Palestinian Arabs who received The Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, first because they wouldn’t know what to do with them, and second because there were no Palestinian Arabs then. Nor are there any today, except as a collection of people from different tribes and countries who gave themselves that name, around 1964…months later than the Beatles.
They’ve been nothing but trouble ever since, and not just for the Israelis. During the 1970s and 1980s, under Arafat, they turned their attention to Jordan and Lebanon.
After a thousand acts of terrorism…brother against brother, they left both places in shambles. No one wants to let them in so they are happily harboring Nukhba terorists in Gaza and letting them continue to endanger Israeli soldiers, even launch a missile here and there.
But their terrorism was always global, and the Munich Olympics Massacre, although a long time ago, is just one example of their blood-thirsty reach.
Over the decades the Israelis have made miles of concessions to them, in order to make peace with them, and are now considering concessions to free the hostages they took, because perhaps some are still alive.
So far as terrorism, they can’t seem to kick the habit.
Their school books glorify murder. So it goes from one generation to the next…which is why Trump tucked them safely away.
You brought them back front and center, while you stiff-armed the Israelis, the good guys since Abraham, Moses and King David.
What Bible were you reading? Let us hope Trump has the original.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
Jack Gleason: A Serious Warning for January 6th and the Inauguration
Justin Trudeau’s Mother Talks About Castro Being The DAD! [1:52]
A Year in Review CLANDESTINE
DEC 31, 2024
Welp, 2024, it’s been a good ride.
We experienced the most intense presidential campaign/information war in human history, accompanied by assassination attempts, threat of nuclear war/WW3, and unprecedented corruption.
But in the end, the People triumphed over the corrupt trillion dollar media machine. With Elon’s help, we were able to influence the nation enough to overcome voter fraud, made it too big to rig, and we got Trump back into the White House.
2024 will be remembered as the year that the MSM officially died, and was replaced by a decentralized media, run by We the People. Human civilization is on a new trajectory now.
So while the past year was arduous and unforgiving in the heat of mass-propaganda and brainwashing, the future looks much brighter. The shadow war is not over, but we have the upper hand, and we have stripped the Deep State of their most valuable asset, which was control of public perception. We are the media now.
2025 will mark the beginning of a new Golden Age of prosperity and awakening, as truth is now allowed to walk freely without censorship, and the public are keen to MSM lies.
We have many reasons to be optimistic for the future. Let’s make the most of our opportunity.
https://bioclandestine.substack.com/p/a-year-in-review
THE SPIRIT OF CHANUKAH OR WHERE ARE THE MACCABEES WHEN WE NEED THEM THE MOST? By Bill Narvey,
December 29, 2010
For a great many Jews, the 8 day celebration of Chanukah is a time to call the kids and grandkids to wish them Happy Chanukah, a time to send out Happy Chanukah cards by snail or e mail, a time for parents to give their kids and grandkids Chanukah gifts, a time for family and friends to gather for Chanukah dinners begun with the lighting of the Chanukah candles and recitation of blessings and a time for all gathered to enjoy the spirit of Chanukah bound up in the aroma of Chanukah latkes, the lively table chat on matters having nothing to do with Chanukah and the warm, loving and friendly atmosphere surrounding and filling those gathered at the Chanukah table.
An impartial observer witnessing how a great many Jews celebrate the 8 days of Chanukah, could easily confuse those celebrations with Christians celebrating Christmas.
For a great many and an increasing number of Jews, but for recalling why Chanukah is celebrated over 8 days, the real spirit, meaning and significance of Chanukah to be found in history has been ignored, forgotten or never learned.
The history of Chanukah is fairly laid out at: Ancient Jewish History: The Greeks & the Jews (332 – 63 BCE) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-ancient-greeks-and-the-jews-jewish-virtual-library
The thumbnail historical sketch is that in the 4th century B.C.E. Alexander the Great had conquered many lands, including Judea. After him, the region remained under Greek rule by a group in the south known as the Ptolemies with its capital in Egypt and the Seleucids, in the North with their capital in Syria which territory included the land of Israel, then called Judah.
With that, Greek culture came to Judah. Many Jews began to assimilate Greek culture into their style of dress, customs, thought, language and lifestyles.
In 169 B.C.E., Seleucid King Antiochus IV angered by a Jewish revolt to depose and replace Antiochus’ lackey Jewish high Priest, Menelaus, slaughtered a large number of Jews, declared martial law, banned certain Jewish practices as capital crimes, specifically Shabbat and circumcision and he profaned and defiled the Temple by introducing foreign worship and Greek statuary.
Antiochus was supported by some Jews, however his actions and decrees were intolerable to a group of Jews led by a priestly family, the Hasmoneans, being the father Mattathias and his 5 sons, one of whom became famously known as Yehuda Maccabee (the hammer). The name Maccabee became synonymous with Hasmoneans, who as leaders, united the Jews in revolt against Antiochus’s armies and against all odds, ultimately defeated them in 165 B.C.E.
With victory, the Jews cleansed, restored and rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem. The Hebrew word Chanukah means dedication. We Jews have since, for just over 2 millennia been celebrating the 8 days of Chanukah in recognition of this victory.
The Maccabee’s Chanukah victory was not however, just about restoring the Temple and Jews winning the right to live as Jews and practice their religion in a Greco cultural world.
Just as significantly, if not more so, the Maccabees led the Jews of Judah back from the brink of extinction by assimilation into the Greek world that was being forced upon them and hastened under the hand of Antiochus IV.
Today, while our right to live as Jews and practice our Judaic faith is not threatened, our will to exercise that right is and that will is being sapped by assimilation.
Over the past number of decades, we have witnessed the devastating toll taken on our world Jewish population by all facets of assimilation.
This time however, there is no Antiochus IV to force assimilation upon us.
Rather, growing numbers of Jews are willingly embracing assimilation for various reasons such as being enticed by secularism that allows for belief without the effort of observant religious practice or of learning from whence those beliefs came and social acceptance, integration and advancement within a largely non-Jewish society.
History and statistics, be it of increased intermarriage without the non-Jewish spouse converting, children of such mixed unions and even of Jewish unions, not being exposed to, nurtured in and educated about things Jewish, lower Jewish birthrates or simply Jews abandoning Judaism and taking on no religion, paint a very clear and unmistakeable picture of the dimming prospects for long term Jewish survival as growing numbers of Jews consequently leave their Jewishness behind.
Before the Holocaust, the world Jewish population stood at 19 million. After the Holocaust that population was about 13 million and there has been no growth since, as that still is the number of the world’s Jewish population, some 60 plus years or 3 generations since the Holocaust. Some of those statistics, readily accessible via the internet are even more dire as they speak to a declining world Jewish population.
The European Jewish Press reported in a recent article, Rabbi: assimilation is ‘biggest threat’ to Jewish people that at a 2009 annual conference of the Rabbinical Center of Europe (RCE) in Paris, 300 Rabbis all expressed shock on hearing of U.S. statistics “showing that out of 100 Jews from the first generation only 3 are left as Jews in the fourth generation,” concluding that “assimilation is a “bigger threat” than anti-Semitism and terrorism for the future of Jews.” http://www.ejpress.org/article/35149
Well HELLO! Have these European Rabbis been asleep all these years?
And where have our North American Rabbis and Jewish leaders been all these years on this issue?
Certainly not in the forefront to aggressively lead us Jews who care about Jewish survival, in a revolt against assimilation as the Maccabees, against all odds so bravely led Klal Yisrael against the forces of assimilation which ultimately saw all Jews rejoicing in the victory celebration of the first Chanukah.
The world’s Jews are again in grave existential peril as we are being overwhelmed by the forces of assimilation, so where are our Maccabees to lead us, now that we need them the most?
Mahmoud Abbas reveals his true colors By MOSHE PHILLIPS
If Abbas wanted peace, he would have said that Shubaki was wrong to participate in terror attacks, serve as a terrorist leader, or purchase tons of weapons.
DECEMBER 30, 2024 01:28 The Jerusalem Post – Who cares what Mahmoud Abbas said in his eulogy for the late PLO finance director Fuad Shubaki?
We should all care – very much. Because in Abbas’s words, we see all too clearly the true attitudes and intentions of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority.
According to the PA’s Wafa news agency, Abbas “expressed deep sorrow” at Shubaki’s passing last week, at the age of 84. Abbas “praised Shubaki’s exceptional life and contributions to the Palestinian cause,” Wafa announced.
He “highlighted the late leader’s steadfast commitment to the Palestinian Revolution, his leadership role within the Fatah movement, and his tireless efforts in defending the rights of the Palestinian people and their just struggle for freedom and independence.”
Abbas also “offered his heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased” and to “his fellow comrades in the struggle.”
So who was this man that Abbas considers such a wonderful hero?
Fuad Shubaki devoted his entire life to murdering Israeli Jews and seeking the destruction of Israel. He started on the path before there were any “settlements” or “occupied territories.” Wafa tells us that Shubaki “was one of the first to join the Palestinian fedayeen movement in the mid-1960s.”
In other words, the territory Shubaki and his fellow terrorists were trying to “liberate” was pre-1967 Israel.
We may not know exactly which attacks Shubaki carried out, but his Wafa obituary makes it clear that he had plenty of Jewish blood on his hands: “He underwent training in the camps of the Palestinian revolution and participated in its battles.”
Shubaki soon rose to the leadership ranks of the terror movement.
He became a member of both the Palestinian National Council and Fatah’s Revolutionary Council. Then Yasser Arafat appointed him to manage Fatah’s “military financial administration,” Wafa reports.
Shubaki followed Arafat from Gaza to Jordan. When the Jordanians expelled them, Shubaki followed Arafat to Lebanon, then from there to Tunisia, all the while devoting himself to financing the bombers, snipers, grenade-hurlers, stabbers, and rock-throwers waging jihad against Israel.
Then came Oslo. Arafat, Abbas, and Shubaki declared they would live in peace with Israel. They signed the first Oslo Accord in 1993 and the second (Oslo II) in 1995. They pledged they were giving up terrorism, promised to arrest and extradite terrorists, and to stop teaching anti-Jewish hatred in their schools.
Those promises didn’t hold up very well. Within weeks, terrorism resumed. Arafat set up thinly disguised front groups, such as the “Fatah Hawks” and the “Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,” to carry out the attacks so that he would not be directly blamed.
Israel requested the extradition of terrorists; Arafat ignored them. Israel asked Arafat to stop making jihad speeches; Arafat laughed at them. And Shubaki continued arranging the funds for terror.
On the morning of January 3, 2002, the Oslo myth was shattered, once and for all. That was when Israeli forces intercepted the Karine A, the ship carrying 50 tons of weapons to Gaza. It was Shubaki who arranged to purchase them from Iran.
Fifty tons – 100,000 pounds – of Katyusha rockets, mortar shells, Kalashnikov assault rifles, sniper rifles, anti-tank missiles, anti-tank mines, ammunition, and explosives.
Abbas is no “man of peace”
In short, Arafat, Abbas and Shubaki, the “men of peace,” were stocking up for war. The Oslo agreements had been a ruse. The Palestinian Arab leader had never intended to live in peace with Israel. The accords were just a way for them to gain control of Gaza and the major Arab cities in Judea-Samaria; to create a de facto army posing as a security force; to shelter fugitive terrorists; and to build up a vast arsenal of weapons.
If Abbas really wants peace – as J Street and the State Department keep telling us – he would not have heaped praise on Shubaki in his eulogy. He would have said that Shubaki was wrong to participate in terrorist attacks, wrong to serve as a leader of a terrorist movement, and wrong to arrange the purchase of 50 tons of weapons.
If Abbas is really a moderate – as most of the international news media keep claiming – he would have announced that the PA will not be providing any payments to Shubaki’s family. But instead, the Shubaki family will be added to the ever-growing list of families of dead terrorists that receive monthly payments from the PA.
That’s what Abbas does for those whom he considers heroes.
So if you want to know what Mahmoud Abbas really thinks about Israel, peace, and terrorism, just read his eulogy for Fuad Shubaki. Everything you need to know can be found there.
Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.
The Houthis Who Stole Chanukah [1:46] Eylon Levy
Dec 27, 2024 – On the second night of Chanukah, the Houthi Pirates in Yemen fired another ballistic missile at Israel. It sent millions of Israelis running to bomb shelters in the middle of the night for the fourth time in a week. The Houthis are the Iranian regime’s jihadi pirates in Yemen, who are attacking international ships. Israel won’t let them threaten world peace—or steal Chanukah.
Israelis have been suffering Houthi missile attacks since the October 7 Massacre. Comment how you think Israel should stop the Houthi Pirates stealing Chanukah!
[Ed.: The Houtis got the cooties and we gwan’ kick them in their pooties! Nah, nah, nah!]
Ms. Candace–-Pretty Little Virulent Racist by Joan Swirsky
“HATE IS TAUGHT”
(Dec. 29, 2024) — Pretty counts, and pretty girls know from the time they’re two years old that prettiness has power.
Brains count, and pretty girls with brains are quite thrilled when they realize––about age four or five––that they’ve been doubly blessed.
Pretty brainy Black girls who were born into the right era came of age during the Obama regime. But sometimes those pretty brainy Black girls realized that if they wanted to get noticed, they could never join the poor-me, I’m-a-victim, racist mantra of Obama’s Democrat Party.
They knew they would have to distinguish themselves in an original and unexpected way, sort of like the hooker Gypsy Rose Lee in the Broadway musical “Gypsy,” who sang “Ya Gotta Have a Gimmick.”
Aha! Why don’t we go the conservative route? Here is just one list of strong, independent-thinking, and often courageous Black women who were authentic in their embrace of conservatism.
Also on that list is pretty, brainy Black Candace Owens, but who was 100% fake and fraudulent in her conservatism––which is not racist––but who cleverly used that political identity to insinuate her way into widespread recognition.
WHEN BEING A PHONY WORKS
From the start of her Oscar-worthy performance as an authentic conservative, Candace wanted you to know that she was nothing like those historically racist Democrats who created the Ku Klux Klan and created the Jim Crow laws which mandated racial segregation in all public facilities and were embraced by President Woodrow Wilson, Alabama Governor George Wallace (“segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”) and West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, et al – all Democrats! The Party that also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Acts of 1968, and the Equal Opportunity Act of 1972.
Ms. Smarty Pants Candace wanted you to know how loathsome she considered racism and that she was acutely aware of and in contempt of the facts that:
- In the 1980s, Democrat Senator Joe Biden supported the election of Robert Byrd (D-WVA), a former Exalted Cyclops and Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan who also recruited 150 of his friends to start a new KKK chapter, as well as using the N-word on live television in 2001. When Sen. Byrd died, Sen. Biden delivered an impassioned eulogy about his treasured friend.
- In the 1970s, a Democrat Congress named the Old Senate Office Building in honor of Richard Russell, a staunch segregationist from Georgia.
- And going back, in the late 1930s, Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt nominated Hugo Black, also a former Klansman, to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served for decades.
- Even further back, it was Democrats who fought ferociously against President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed 3.5 million Black slaves.
Ms. Candace wanted to emphasize that she, Ms. Conservative, was totally unlike those vicious racist Democrats, those “tolerant” liberals.
THE TRIGGER FACTOR
Then came October 7, 2023, when the career terrorists from Hamas violently raped, tortured, and gleefully slaughtered 1,200 Israeli civilians, took hundreds of hostages, and then filmed their savagery in order for the world to see their maniacal, murderous mentality.
Apparently, this bloodthirsty act animated Candace Owens, mobilized something within her that she had successfully concealed from the people who put her on the map––most prominently Orthodox Jews Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro––and unleashed her colossally virulent, indeed malignant, hatred of both Jews and Israel. Just go to any search engine and put in Candace Owens – antisemitism to see the geyser of invective and lies she has vomited out since October 7, 2023.
Since then, she has been a leader in the pack of anti-Semites which recently garnered her the top award––among stiff competition––from StopAntisemitism.org as Anti-Semite of the Year for her non-stop blood libels, manufactured narratives, vicious lies, and fanatical obsession with, yep, both Jews and Israel…even going so far on her YouTube channel to defend Hitler and question historical facts about the Holocaust.
THE HATE FACTOR
In the history of the world, there has never been a baby born with hate in his or her heart. Hate is taught. Hate is learned, usually at a very early age, from people who have great influence in shaping the thoughts and feelings of the recipients of their hate.
Did Candace learn her volcanic hatred of Jews from her parents, teachers, coaches, counselors, religious gurus, TV, radio, Democrats?
Or is Candace yet another “I’m a victim” Black person who is angry that Democrats destroyed the Black family, and that Democrats destroyed Black education, but like them suffers from terminal envy at the success of the Jews, who only comprise a miniscule 0.2 percent in America––or about six-million Jews, out of a population of over 330 million––while Blacks comprise a significantly greater number at 14 percent?
THE HUMAN PSYCHE
The human race is driven by emotion. It’s nice to fantasize that we’re driven by empiricism, facts, objective truths. But both history and everyday life contradict that fantasy. Emotion rules the day.
The most powerful human emotion is fear. We all know that it was fear that literally shut down the entire world because of the Covid-19 so-called pandemic.
The second most powerful emotion is jealousy. Most crimes––including murder––are committed in the name of this raging sentiment, and lesser crimes and everyday hostility are also caused by the monster of green-eyed envy.
On the surface, it seems obvious that Candace and her ilk are experiencing blind jealousy. “How come,” they seem to be asking themselves, “that with all my intelligence, talent, charm, connections, good looks and money, it’s the Jews who run Hollywood and the music business and Wall St. and the media…and me???”
After jealousy, the third and hugely powerful emotion is anger, an easy emotion to access, whether it involves dealing with an irritating relative, witnessing a boyfriend who hurt your daughter’s feelings, hitting a pothole that breaks your axle, even trying to reach your doctor by pushing 2, then 4, then 7, then more horrible music.
THE LAST LAYER OF THE EMOTIONAL ONION
Underneath the paralyzing layer of fear, below the obsessive nature of jealousy, under the blind rage and anger, there is the devastating emotion of despair. Of feeling that it’s all too much, too impossible, too overwhelming. This is the stuff of clinical depression. This is the stuff of suicide.
After all, fear and jealousy and anger are mobilizing! What can I do? Which protest group can I join? Who can I wreak my revenge on?
But despair has no allies. It is lonely. It is scary. It is immobilizing.
It is also what the legion of anti-Semites are most afraid of, with good reason, as suicides among Blacks have recently escalated dramatically.
Is this what Candace Owens’ fanatical obsession with Jews and Israel is all about? Does this explain her fulminating vomitus of rage? Is she fleeing from despair, or is she exulting in being the Black version of David Duke?
Bottom line, it doesn’t matter. Like all soapbox fanatics, her influence will wane, and she will join the pantheon of other racists who are remembered solely for their rank repulsive racist hatred.
At this point, Candace fits neatly into my Vessel Theory of human behavior, which is simply that no matter how fancy or decorative a [human] vessel appears to be, the real measure of its value is its contents. A beautiful crystal vase, for instance, might contain urine; a ceramic creation, sludge, while a plain vessel might pour out pure spring water.
Lesson: what’s inside is the real thing!
THE SOLUTION
The absolute cure for Black rage, jealousy, anger, and despair lies in one simple word: Emulate!
Spend one month of your entire life living with an observant Jewish family, reading the Bible, learning of the extreme emphasis Jews place on family unity, education, philanthropy, and mitzvahs––good deeds that can range from a simple smile to building a cancer research center to rushing all over the world to help in disaster areas.
Study why Jews, because of vicious discrimination, were forced literally to create Hollywood, why they were forced to build some of the best medical and research centers in America because they were barred from internships and residencies; the list of survival strategies is long and impressive.
Stop your jealousy. Stop your rage. Start joining us Jews in fighting the real enemy, the actual powerful forces that have kept you down, defeated, and depressed: Liberals, Leftists, and Progressive Democrats and a horrific public-education system.
Or, alternatively, stay in your perpetual rageful victim mode and see how far you’ve progressed in the next five or 10 or 1,000 years!
Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com, and she can be reached at joanswirsky@gmail.com
Khamenei: Iran’s warmonger leading Iran to ruin Erfan Fard
There is no meaningful distinction between Khamenei, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Osama bin Laden, Hassan Nasrallah, Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Qasem Soleimani—they all share the same doctrine of terrorism and oppression. Op-ed.
Dec 29, 2024, 7:46 AM (GMT+2) Israel National News – The clerical regime in Iran, led by Ali Khamenei, has driven that country to the edge of an inferno. Under his rule, Iran has become a pariah in the international arena, known for terror, repression, and a relentless, misplaced obsession with Israel’s destruction. As Khamenei stokes the flames of conflict, his unyielding fanaticism reveals not a leader of vision or strength, but a delusional fanatic whose policies hinge on blind hatred, a warped interpretation of faith, and a willingness to sacrifice his people and region to achieve a dangerous agenda.
The roots of this tumultuous trajectory were laid in 1979 when the Shia mullahs rose to power in Iran with the assistance of Marxist and Islamist terrorist groups—all tied to the KGB. Even the followers of the popular and unruly Prime Minister Mosaddegh, who could be compared to Ahmadinejad in his populism, joined forces with Khomeini, transforming into foot soldiers for a brutal theocracy. Many of them trained in the terrorist camps of Yasser Arafat, where they mastered sabotage and extremism, hiding behind Mosaddegh’s portrait while ardently praying for Khomeini’s theocratic dreams to succeed.
In 1980, Khomeini ignited one of the region’s most devastating conflicts, a brutal eight-year war with Iraq. Though Saddam Hussein, with Arab backing, was ready for peace after the first two years, Khomeini dragged the conflict on, indifferent to the catastrophic toll on Iranian and Iraqi lives. His intent was neither righteous nor self-sacrificial but rooted in his Islamic caliphate’s ambition.
Khomeini’s priorities lay in consolidating his influence, a ruthless goal that led him to even broker covert arms deals with Israel and the United States—the infamous Iran-Contra affair of 1985-1986. He auctioned off Iran’s wealth to prolong the fight, all the while quelling internal opposition. His slogan, “Allahu Akbar,” echoed even as his forces killed thousands, mirroring Saddam’s mantra on the other side of the border. Khomeini believed himself a divine emissary, but in the end, he drank his own “cup of poison” and perished in 1989.
One would have hoped that with Khomeini’s death, the bloodthirsty drive of Iran’s leadership might fade. But his successor, Khamenei, took up the mantle, declaring himself God’s representative and the supposed deputy of the twelfth Imam, a mythic figure rooted in Shia superstitious. Khamenei’s illusions have led him to push the Middle East into an abyss of war, spreading devastation in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. His regime has left a trail of ruins and massacres wherever it has intervened.
At home, Khamenei’s quest for power has come at the expense of Iran itself, driving the country into bankruptcy and ruin. This warmongering, deceitful, and brutal leader’s support for the recent events of October 7 illustrates the regime’s unyielding thirst for conflict. Just as Iran’s Islamic IRGC supported al-Qaeda in 2001, Khamenei’s Islamic Republic continues to nurture similar groups today. Khamenei’s boasts and threats, however, serve only as a facade of strength.
Inside Iran, Khamenei’s reign has relied on a “success through spreading fear” strategy, enabling the mullahs to enforce years of brutal repression. Yet, barbarism and terror cannot build a stable foreign policy. When the regime orchestrated missile attacks on Israel, the mullah was exposed as a paper tiger, stripped of its supposed ferocity. In reality, despite the mounting tensions and frequent skirmishes between Iran and Israel, Khamenei lacks the courage for a full-scale confrontation and instead resorts to missile launches and inciting terrorist proxies to do his bidding.
Historically, tyrants like Khamenei have favored flatterers and sycophants who eagerly sing his praises, even crafting poetic fantasies of his supposed “conquests.” Such praise inflates the regime’s fragile ego, depicting Khamenei as a heroic figure whose army would supposedly march into Jerusalem by dawn, should he give the order. But these fantasies fall apart upon close examination. Why, if he is truly the “conqueror of wars,” has he never led or won any?
While Iran is led by Khamenei, a snake poised to strike at any moment, the Iranian people themselves are not complicit in this aggression. The vast majority of Iranians do not harbor the mullahs’ zeal for war or terrorism. Khamenei and his clerical elite have long used Iraq as a staging ground for attacks, often timed to align with politically sensitive moments, like the upcoming U.S. elections. The Quds Force, Iran’s infamous paramilitary wing, leverages Shia networks in Iraq to exert influence, with silence from Arab, Sunni, and Kurdish factions, which could pose a threat to the region’s fragile stability.
Khamenei’s grave miscalculation in provoking a potential war with Israel has set the Islamic Republic on a path to collapse, as its defense infrastructure lies in shambles, and its missile facilities stand defenseless and vulnerable.
Khamenei’s contempt is, paradoxically, often greater toward his internal enemies—the dissatisfied Iranian populace—than toward foreign adversaries like Israel or the United States. He has shown an unrestrained willingness to crush dissent, branding his people as enemies if they refuse to support his deadly ambitions.
The Iranian nation does not stand behind Khamenei; this is not their war, nor is it one they wish to fight. For many Iranians, any external act that challenges Khamenei’s grip on power, such as an attack on his headquarters, might spark a glimmer of hope. After nearly 45 years of oppression, the idea of popular protests looms as a nightmare for the regime, while Iran’s current leadership clings to power in its final throes.
Iran’s situation is grim. Corruption and criminality among the regime’s officials have drained the nation, with the world watching as Iran sinks further into the abyss. For decades, global leaders have placated this rogue state, choosing diplomacy over decisive action and wasting precious time. But the world can no longer afford such leniency; change is inevitable, and Israel’s efforts to disrupt Iran’s network of terror reflect this shift. The Iranian regime, a balloon inflated with its own propaganda, has begun to deflate. For the mullahs, there is no longer any hiding behind rhetoric and religion; Israel has seen through the facade and will not hesitate to remove this threat, regardless of the international political climate.
While Iran faces its greatest turmoil in decades, Khamenei and his propaganda machine downplay Israel’s counterstrikes, trying desperately to mitigate the damage. Yet, doubts gnaw at the minds of the Islamic Republic’s officials, who find themselves caught between fearing an escalation they cannot control and dreading the implications of appearing weak. Failing to respond to Israel could inflame hardliner pressures within Iran, stirring unrest and leading to accusations of capitulation from the regime’s most fervent supporters.
Under Khamenei’s rule, the Iranians live in a reality shaped by deceit, cruelty, and a sinister alliance of criminals who rob the nation of both its wealth and its humanity. Iran has been stripped of culture, wisdom, and intellectualism, with the criminal ayatollahs steering society toward superstition, violence, and ignorance. For 36 years, Khamenei’s authoritarian rule has cast a dark shadow over the nation, fostering a culture where prejudice, vindictiveness, and ignorance take precedence over freedom and justice.
There is no meaningful distinction between Khamenei, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Osama bin Laden, Hassan Nasrallah, Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Qasem Soleimani—they all share the same doctrine of terrorism and oppression, their actions fueled by fanaticism and a disregard for humanity.
Israel has seen through the regime’s bluster, understanding it as nothing more than a fragile facade. By disrupting the Iranian mullahs’ terror network, Israel seeks to sever the regime’s influence and further destabilize its grip. This mock empire, once exposed, will crumble. Whether it is Trump or Harris in the White House, the time for action is now, and Israel will not relent until this threat is eliminated.
Iran is in turmoil, with its propaganda machine faltering in the face of Israel’s calculated responses to its provocations. The officials of the Islamic Republic may try to mask their growing panic, but the cracks are evident. They dread the consequences of further escalation, both politically and economically, while also fearing the backlash from hardline elements who expect unwavering aggression. As this vicious cycle continues, Khamenei’s regime approaches its breaking point, while the Iranian people, weary and disillusioned, await the dawn of a new era.
[Ed.: That’s okay about Ali KaKhamenei, he’s next! (But you can call him ‘Al’!]
As Israel searches for Eli Cohen’s remains… Moshe Phillips
Let’s remember the legendary Eli Cohen’s doctrine – and continue his legacy. Opinion.
Dec 29, 2024, 7:58 AM (GMT+2) Israel National News – Earlier this month many news outlets reported that in the aftermath of the fall of Assad and the Ba’athist party Israel was searching for the remains of the Mossad agent Eli Cohen who was executed in Syria nearly 60 years ago.
The story of Eli Cohen’s life should be recalled today even if he had never gone undercover in Syria.
When Eli Cohen was publicly executed by the government of Syria on May 18, 1965, it was clear to Israelis and Syrians that he had succeeded in becoming a friend of the president of Syria, and had penetrated the innermost Syrian government circles. What was not yet known, however, was that he had gathered the intelligence that would later save the State of Israel from being destroyed.
More than any other one man, Eli Cohen, an Egyptian-born Jew, earned the Mossad its reputation as one of the best intelligence services in the world, and paved the way for Israel to win on the Golan front in the Six-Day War in June 1967.
He was deeply moved as a young man in Cairo by the 1944 trial of two members of the Stern Group (the LEHI), Eliahu Bet-Zouri and Eliahu Hakim. Hakim and Bet-Zouri were the assassins of the anti-Semitic British High Commissioner of the Middle East, Lord Moyne.
The young Cohen helped to organize demonstrations in support of Bet-Zouri and Hakim. The demonstrations proved fruitless. The men were sentenced to hang, but on the scaffold they maintained their dignity and self respect, and sang Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah.” It has been said that thoughts of Bet-Zouri and Hakim bolstered Cohen as he himself was led to be executed.
Later, Cohen was instrumental in establishing an “Underground Railroad” that smuggled Egyptian Jews to Israel. In the early 1950s, Cohen was recruited by the Mossad to participate in an espionage operation that spied on Nasser’s ex-Nazi scientists, who were attempting to build rockets; reportedly, Cohen also engaged in sabotage.
After the Mossad activities in Egypt were discovered and most members were rounded up, Cohen moved to Israel in 1956. After a brief time adjusting to life in Israel and his service in the Israel Defense Forces, Cohen was approached to become an information analyst for the Mossad.
The Mossad eventually accepted Cohen’s request for field duty.
Cohen adopted the persona of a rich Arab merchant who had emigrated to Argentina and then returned to his Syrian homeland, calling himself Kamal Amin Taabes. Under this cover, Cohen gained access to the most influential sectors of Damascus society, and joined the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party.
Cohen became very active in the party, and friendly with its leaders. After a coup d’etat, the Ba’ath Party came to power — and remains in power until today. Among the men Cohen had befriended, many became officials in the new government and were high-ranking military officers — including the head of intelligence, Colonel Ahmad Suweidani, and Syrian President Amin al-Hafiz.
Cohen was among the only civilians to ever inspect Syrian installations on the Golan Heights. He was able to send photographs and sketches of the entire Syrian front-lines back to the Mossad. In one case, he was able to warn Israel of an impending attempt by Syrian commandos to cross the border.
In addition to his espionage work, Cohen was assigned to assassinate escaped Nazi war criminal Franz Rademacher, who was living in a Syrian colony of ex-Nazis. The 1962 attempt on Rademacher failed. Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man, was another Nazi who was offered refuge by Syria. Cohen participated in an attempt to target Brunner as well. This part of Syrian history is well worth reflecting on today: even before Assad came to power the Syrian government hated Jews so much that it offered a haven to Nazi war criminals. Famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal labeled Brunner as “doubtless the worst…living criminal of the Third Reich” in 1988.
When Cohen was finally discovered, quite by accident when his radio equipment was detected by KGB agents, he was being seriously considered to become either Minister of Defense or Assistant Foreign Minister.
After two lengthy trials, Eli Cohen was finally sentenced to death by hanging. Cohen was 40 years old, and left a widow, three daughters, and a son. In his final letter to his wife, he wrote “I beg of you not to waste time crying for me. Always think of the future.”
Cohen left advice for future leaders of Israel. He once said, “Against the Arab you mustn’t defend yourself. You must attack…” [Emphasis added]
Eli Cohen’s advice was adhered to by the late Menachem Begin in 1981, when he was prime minister and ordered the Israeli Air Force to destroy the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak. The strike on Osirak established the Begin Doctrine, which unconditionally declared that the surprise raid was not a one time thing, but, as Begin himself explained a June 15 interview on CBS’s Face the Nation
“This attack will be a precedent for every future government in Israel. … Every future Israeli prime minister will act, in similar circumstances, in the same way.”
The doctrine could have just as easily been called the Eli Cohen Doctrine.
October 7th showed us that Israel had forgotten it. Let us hope that the doctrine is not ever forgotten again.
Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.
A sense of Déjà vu Dr. Martin Sherman
All the current “mainstream” proposals for the “Day After” in Gaza represent the triumph of misguided hope—or at least, misconceived correctness—over bitter experience. Op-ed.
Dec 28, 2024, 7:01 PM (GMT+2) Israel National News
You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.—Albert Einstein
Sadly, the discussion of the fate of Gaza in general, and of the “Day After” in particular, is taking on an eerily familiar look—ominously reminiscent of the discussions of yesteryear.
Misperceptions and misconceptions
Draped in the same misperceptions and misconceptions of the Oslowian era, the debate on Israel’s emerging post-October 7 policy initiatives appears to be treading down the very same tragic path that precipitated the grisly events almost 15 months ago.
After all, it was the Oslo process that handed over Gaza to Yassir Arafat, in the hopelessly misguided hope that he had relinquished the path of violence and wished to build a more peaceful and prosperous future for his people.
Indeed, the entire Oslo process was predicated on the assumption that Israel could locate some “domesticated” Palestinian Arab, with both the will and the authority to forge a lasting peace with the Jewish state.
This is, of course, precisely the conceptual underpinning of all the current mainstream proposals for the various “Day After” scenarios—with the amical (or at least non inimical) Palestinian Arab entity/ies being either:
(a) some non-Hamas strongman such as Mohammed Dahlan, himself a man with “impressive” terrorist credentials),
(b) chieftains of local clans (hamulot), who have expressed little appetite for taking on such challenge, or
(c) some flimsily disguised re-concocted version of Palestinian Authority, something which could not possibly more myopic or misconceived, and unmistakably evocative of the definition of insanity as repeatedly trying the same thing while “expecting a different result”.
Triumph of hope over experience
Indeed, even under the highly implausible assumption that some as yet-be-identified Palestinian Arab interlocutor could be located, who has both the genuine desire and necessary authority to initiate—and endeavor to establish—conditions of non-belligerent stability alongside the Jewish state, this is something that is most unlikely to endure.
After all, it is more than probable that any such arrangement will face stiff resistance both from within and without Gaza, with recurring attempts to violate it and to overthrow those party to it. Accordingly, as all the various “Day-After” proposals envisage any future governing entity in Gaza as being demilitarized, any prospective pliant Palestinian Arab partner/s will be totally dependent on the IDF to ensure not only his/their continued ability to administer his/their allotted obligations—but also his/their continued ability to breathe.
Thus, at best, all these schemes represent the triumph of hope (or at least politically correctness) over bitter experience. For they are all born of a denial of the fact that Arab animosity is not rooted in what the Jewish state does, but in what the Jewish state is—i.e., Jewish.
Accordingly, the Palestinian-Arabs cannot be considered a prospective peace partner but an implacable enemy. They must be treated as such.
Even in Gaza. Even the “Day After.”
Iran’s Regime-Change Transcends Economic Sanctions Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
December 29, 2024
*Driven by a 1,400-year-old fanatical religious vision – which eclipses financial and diplomatic benefits – Iran’s Ayatollahs have surged as the leading epicenter of anti-US Islamic terrorism, such as Yemen’s Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas. In addition, the Ayatollahs have fueled civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Sudan) and West Africa (Mauritania). They have subverted and terrorized pro-US Sunni Arab regimes in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bharain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, etc. Since the early 1980s, Iran’s Ayatollahs have collaborated – along with Hezbollah terrorists – with Latin America drug cartels, terror organizations, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and all anti-US governments. They have established sleeper cells on US soil and have served as a focal point of global drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems.
*The Ayatollahs’ conventional capabilities have made them the lead igniter of regional and global instability, terrorism and wars.
*The 46-year-old US diplomatic option has not moderated Iran’s Ayatollahs, but – unintentionally – has facilitated their transformation from “The American Policeman of the Gulf” to the leading anti-US perpetrator of wars and terrorism. Contrary to US policy makers, who consider negotiation (and economic sanctions) as a means to advance reconciliation, the Ayatollahs have viewed negotiation as a means to advance theiranti-US vision of subjugating the “apostate Sunnis” and the “infidel West.”
*President Trump’s maximum pressure economic sanctions managed to cripple the Ayatollahs’ economy and constrain their capabilities of assisting terror entities. However, as expected, President Biden proved them to be reversible and short-term in effectiveness. Moreover, surging unemployment and inflation, a disastrous shrinking of oil exports and a dramatically reduced GDP did not induce the intended policy changes by the Ayatollahs. Moreover, in the long run, the reversible economic sanctions enhanced the strategic posture of the Ayatollahs, who demonstrated their capabilities to overcome Western assaults.
*Economic sanctions are insufficiently effective when imposed on fanatical ideology-driven, apocalyptic regimes, as documented in their constitutions, school curriculum and official media. These regimes are less susceptible to the Western “Money Talks,” adhering to the Middle Eastern “Radical Vision Talks.”
*According to Tufts University’s Prof. Daniel Drezner, “Sanctions can be circumvented through third-party trade, with countries friendly to the sanctioned nation, serving as a substitute for both imports and exports from the countries that are sanctioning. For example, Russia’s trade with the European Union fell by about 5% compared to the 2017-2021 average in the wake of sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine. However, at the same time, there were spikes in trade between Russia and Armenia, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Hong Kong. Those countries also experienced increases in trade with Europe and the U.S….”
*Furthermore, 40 years of economic sanctions have not induced the Ayatollahs to abort their nuclear plan, or to refrain from flexing their highly destabilizing conventional rogue muscles. In fact, economic sanctions have incentivised them to develop creative ways to bypass sanctions, enhancing trade with China, Russia and other countries, which oppose sanctions.
*Iran’s Ayatollahs have evolved into a role model of ruthless, apocalyptic despotism and imperialism, driven by an ideology, which mandates subjugation and degradation of internal and external opponents, such as domestic dissidents, ethnic and religious minorities, women, “apostate” Sunni regimes, the “infidel” West (religiously, culturally and strategically), “The Great American Satan” and “the illegitimate Zionist entity, the vanguard of the US in the Middle East.”
*Contrary to economic sanctions, regime-change is irreversible. It eliminates the threat, and cannot be restored by succeeding Presidents. Moreover, regime-change in Iran would bolster the US’ strategic stature (including in Latin America, the US’ soft underbelly), by removing the Ayatollahs’ machete from the throats of all pro-US Arab regimes, eliminating the chief global destabilizer and core of Islamic terrorism. This would also induce Saudi Arabia and Oman (and possibly Kuwait, Indonesia and additional Moslem countries) to join the Abraham Accords.
*The track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs, the self-destructive nature of the US diplomatic option, and the reversibility of crippling economic sanctions, underscore the fact that the Ayatollahs should not be partners to negotiation, nor a target for maximum pressure economic sanctions, but a target for regime-change. Also, the potential cost of regime-change would be dwarfed by the horrific cost of facing a nuclear Iran.
WATCH THE CLIP THAT EARNED CANDACE OWENS THE ANTISEMITE OF THE YEAR AWARD [VIDEO 0:30] by Phil Schneider
December 24, 2024 – “Child Sacrifice?” Somebody has gone way off the deep end. It is downright shocking that someone with the wisdom that Candace possesses could get to the point of intellectually believing Middle Age nonsense. Sigmund Freud was a Kabbalist? Where on earth does she come up with these preposterous notions? There is much that needs to be clarified about how Candace Owens could have had such a prominent place on so many mediums that featured Jewish people at the helm of the organizations. Then one day, for seemingly intellectual reasons, she throws it all away in order to become the spokeswomen of hatred of the Jewish people in general and the State of Israel in particular.
More recently, Candace took up the issue of Israel’s supposed “intentional” attack on the USS Liberty back in June 1967. The Israel Guys explain clearly that the calumny of the IDF attack on the USS Liberty back in June 1967 is very indicative of everything that Candace is doing to malign the State of Israel. The evidence that Israel thought it was a US ship is not strong. Yes. there was an American flag on the ship. But it definitely was not supposed to be that close to Israel. It was almost definitely a mistaken attack, and it was a terrible incident that will always be a stain on the amazingly successful Six Day War in Israel.
But the anti-Israel line is to always look at the anti-Israel angle on matters that can be interpreted in both ways. For example, did the Israeli pilots see the American flag on the American ship? It is not clear. But perhaps the most incriminating piece of evidence against what Candace argues is that Arthur Goldberg, the US Ambassador to the UN, made it clear to the entire UN, two days before the attack, that there are no US vessels anywhere in the area of the war. Does that at least throw some shade on the conspiratorial notion that it was an intentional attack?
The “evil Zionists” are not the source of evil in the world. Actually, Israel is perhaps the greatest source of blessing in the world.
The Danger of Islam [46:51] Avi Abelow
November 30, 2024
Join me as I have a fascinating in depth discussion with Bob Meyer, an expert on Islamism.
Unfortunately, not enough people in the Western world are familiar with this Islamism. With its growth throughout Western countries, it is critical for people to understand what this is about in order to save the freedom-loving world as we know it.
A few weeks ago, we posted my interview with Bob on the Jewish people’s right to our ancestral homeland according to international law.
Click here to visit Bob Meyer’s website.
[Ed.: Re-posting:
Warning! Missionaries Targeting the IDF and Holocaust Survivors! [6:53] Rabbi Tovia Singer
December 25, 2024 – Help us combat aggressive Jewish evangelism in Israel: https://outreachjudaism.org/partners/
HUGE MAGA VICTORY!! Trump gets incredible news while Biden gets BLASTED!! [17:33] Stephen Gardner
Dec 28, 2024
*Summary of Key Topics in Today’s Discussion*
- **Media’s Attempt to Divide**:
- The media is allegedly trying to create tension between Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump.
- Vivek’s emphasis on family values, education, and skill-building aligns with Trump’s platform, despite receiving backlash.
- **Focus on Education and Skills**:
- Vivek’s comments on strengthening education and skills mirror Trump’s call to abolish the Department of Education.
- American schools continue to decline since the “No Child Left Behind” era under President Bush.
- Cultural deterioration in the U.S. glorifies entertainment over academia, leading to falling behind other nations.
- **Family Discussions**:
- Personal conversations about blue-collar jobs and entrepreneurship underscore the importance of guiding youth.
- Prioritizing the nuclear family and traditional values is key to societal recovery.
- **H-1B Visa Debate**:
- Charlie Kirk raises concerns about the misuse of H-1B visas, which may harm American workers and prioritize foreign labor.
- **Legal Updates**:
- Georgia judge forces Fani Willis to testify before the State Senate regarding alleged misconduct in Trump’s RICO case.
- A $50 billion class action lawsuit is set to expose the DOJ’s alleged weaponization during January 6 prosecutions.
- **Criticism of Biden’s Presidency**:
- Scott Jennings highlights Biden’s lack of accountability for Afghanistan and recent controversial pardons.
- Trump critics, including Jack Smith’s team, are reportedly preparing for potential investigations under a Trump DOJ.
- **Trump’s Second Term Outlook**:
- Trump claims less resistance from powerful figures like Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook compared to his first term.
- Trump supports saving TikTok, citing its importance for small business advertising and economic impact.
A Real MAGA Civil War or Sabotage? SASHA STONE
A short take.
DEC 28, 2024
I will admit that I knew nothing about the debate over H-1B Visas until it erupted on Twitter over the past few days. I watched the MAGA Right transform into something that looked much like the party I had just escaped. They wanted softer language, not hard truths. They were prepared to banish Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy from their version of utopia.
Say it ain’t so.
People I admired were piling on in creepy ways, reminding me how easily we can become corrupted by even the smallest bit of power. We should be able to debate issues like immigration, H-1B Visas, and cultural differences in how American children are raised without people dividing such a powerful movement.
And the media is dining out on all of it.
How convenient just before Trump is sworn in, just before January 6th.
So what’s going on? Vivek Ramaswamy posted something about America that offended the Right, you know, the side that makes fun of the Left for being easily offended?
Vivek’s Tweet:
