COMMENTARY / OPINION
DAAS TORAH: Harav Dov Landau Paskens That Any Association With Zionist Institutions Is Assur Gammur (unequivocally forbidden)
February 18, 2025 Yeshiva World News – Hagaon HaRav Dov Landau, Rosh Yeshivas Slabodka, wrote a Psak: All Charedi representatives must immediately withdraw from Zionist institutions.
This letter appeared in Tuesday’s Yated Ne’eman,
The letter states “The Zionist movement exists solely to uproot Klal Yisrael from its Torah’dige foundation, built on kefirah [opposition] and meridah [rebellion] b’Malchus Shamayim [in the Kingdom of Heaven]. All of its institutions are steeped in this foundation. There is no heter [gain/benefit/advantage] whatsoever to participate with them, hold any position within them, or vote in their elections.”
The Rosh Yeshiva further stresses that there is no comparison between the heter allowing participation in Knesset elections and any engagement with Zionist institutions – which is now being declared unequivocally assur [prohibited]. [Translations mine]
Jonathan Pollard: IMMINENT WAR with Egypt? [44:51]
Feb 18, 2025 Machon Shilo – Discussion between the head of Machon Shilo Rabbi David Bar-Hayim & Jewish hero Jonathan Pollard
The Security Company CHANANYA WEISSMAN
Any resemblance to recent events is purely intentional
FEB 18, 2025
Originally published on October 11, 2024
Consider the following scenario.
A man and his family lived in a dangerous part of the world, surrounded by savages thirsting for blood. Many of these savages were heavily armed and organized, and even the “civilians” among them supported their violent activities. It was part of their culture, their identity, even the focal point of their lives.
To make matters worse, this man and his family were in their crosshairs. They regularly issued open death threats to the man and his family, and attempted to carry out these threats on numerous occasions. They meant business, and there was no running away.
Being a responsible fellow, the man took these ongoing threats very seriously. He remained vigilant even during extended periods of relative calm. Everyone knew it wasn’t a question of if his enemies would try again, but when, and he could not afford to let his guard down for even a moment. Fortunately he was a man of means, and he hired the best private security company to protect him and his family around the clock. This security company utilized the most sophisticated weapons and technology, its bodyguards received the most advanced training, and their intelligence gathering was the best in the industry. They knew virtually everything about the man’s enemies and monitored their every move.
Not satisfied with outsourcing his personal protection, the man received training from the security company and carried a gun – just in case.
One day officials from the security company came and demanded he surrender his personal firearm. They claimed that it would be unsafe for him to keep it with him, since there might be an accident, or enemy thieves might steal it. Besides, he didn’t really need it, since the security company had an elaborate defense system in place that far outclassed the enemies. The enemies wouldn’t be able to get near the outermost layer of the defense without being detected and neutralized, let alone the many additional layers.
The man was impressed with the security company, but uncomfortable relinquishing his weapon. There had been occasional incidents over the years in which enemy attacks had been repelled, or at least minimized, with the help of an armed civilian. The man didn’t want to be helpless in the unlikely but plausible event that he found himself in danger.
The security company suggested that he deposit his gun inside one of their bases, where it would be kept safe. If he were attacked by enemies, he could drive over to one of the bases to pick up his gun.
The man didn’t think this idea made any sense. When someone is under attack, they cannot hit the pause button to travel somewhere and obtain a weapon. Additionally, there was a disturbing history of large quantities of weapons being stolen from these bases, by the very enemies who threatened this man and his family. He insisted on holding onto his weapon.
The security company refused to accept this. Since the man’s arrangement with them stipulated that he could only carry a weapon with their approval, and he depended on their protection, his options were limited.
Finally they arrived at a compromise. The man’s weapon would be stored in an armory in his neighborhood. One authorized person in the neighborhood would hold the key to the armory. In the event of an attack, this individual would open the armory and local clients of the security company could retrieve their weapons.
The security company assured the man that if the enemy attacked, there would be plenty of time for the man to retrieve his weapon. After all, there were numerous bases and layers of defense between him and the enemy, and the alarm would be sounded the moment the enemies made a move.
Shortly after the man relinquished his weapon to the armory, surveillance balloons monitoring the enemy were removed.
Scouts who watched the enemy every moment of the day and night reported that the enemy was preparing for a massive attack. Their warnings were dismissed. The scouts continued to raise the alarm. The enemy movements were highly unusual and clearly indicated that an attack was coming. Instead of taking these warnings seriously, their supervisors threatened the scouts with severe punishment if they continued to raise the alarm. They did not explain this deviation from normal procedure, which nullified the very reason for the scouts being there in the first place.
A civilian radio operator had an excellent track record of listening in on the enemy’s radio communications and relaying warnings to the security company. At around this time, the security company confiscated his radio license and demanded he cease his activities.
Not long after, the security company moved large numbers of its forces far away from the border, leaving only a skeleton crew. They offered the vague justification that they were expecting trouble elsewhere.
The man and his family had little idea any of this was happening, and generally felt secure. Soon thereafter, the enemies attacked. Although their weapons were far inferior to those of the security company, they somehow managed to breach a previously impenetrable border in record time, with no resistance. They breached a massive wall in dozens of places with no response. A slow-moving bulldozer drove up and broke through part of the wall. Truckloads of armed attackers simply drove right in, while throngs of looters gleefully followed. These included children and elderly men with canes. Somehow the door was wide open, and everyone could come right in.
The security company was very slow to respond. It took them many hours to muster a serious response. During this time, the attackers raided dozens of neighborhoods. They had their way with the local population, slaughtering massive numbers of people, torturing many of their victims, burning homes, looting, and celebrating as they went. It was as if they somehow knew the security company would not be rushing there imminently with a massive counterattack.
Meanwhile, the security company warned local media not to report on what was going on. The people were left to find out on their own – losing precious time, and, for many, any chance of escape. The people were also left to fend for themselves, with whatever small weapons they might have had. The man tried to retrieve his weapon from the armory, but, by some tragic coincidence, the first person killed by the enemies when they entered his neighborhood was the one person who had a key to the armory. This coincidence occurred more than once. It was almost as if the enemies were informed who to target first and where to find him.
The man was fortunate to survive the attack, but many members of his family suffered unspeakable horrors.
In the aftermath of the attack, the man was livid with the security company. How could this have happened? He demanded immediate answers and accountability.
The managers of the security company insisted that now was not the time for questions. They first needed to wage a counterattack against the enemies. This would take many months, maybe even years. When all was settled, the man could ask his questions. The company promised to investigate themselves to determine what went wrong and share their findings (as long as they weren’t too sensitive) with the man.
They promised to learn from their mistakes and do better next time. The man should continue to trust them and give them another chance. He must continue to trust them and give them another chance.
They further insisted that all surviving members of the man’s family who were of fighting age should join this counterattack, under the direct command of the security agency. They too were expected to obey every order without asking questions. Under no circumstances, however, would they ever be permitted to rise to the upper echelons of the command structure, no matter how valiantly they fought or how successful they were. They would never be allowed to set the policy for the security agency that they supported with their money and their blood, but only carry out their commands. If they asked bothersome questions or disobeyed commands, they would be ruthlessly punished.
Additionally, if they defended themselves too well against enemy attacks, or if enemies complained that the conscripts were using too much force, the conscripts themselves would be jailed and tortured.
Furthermore, the security agency sent many truckloads of aid to the enemies on a daily basis. The mysterious coincidence that the enemy never seemed to run out of weapons and ammunition no matter how many losses they suffered was never seriously investigated.
The security agency demanded that the man occupy himself with worrying about hostages, commemorating the dead, honoring the fighters, and praising the occasional spectacular accomplishments of the security agency.
Somehow these spectacular accomplishments never managed to even briefly interrupt the activities of the enemies, who maimed and killed conscripts and civilians on a daily basis, and in fact only increased their attacks as they were supposedly being decimated and in hiding.
The metaphor might not be perfect, but it does not have to be.
Should the man accept the claims of the security agency that everything that happened was a perfect storm of intelligence failures, negligence, arrogance, and a long series of highly unlikely coincidences? Should he entrust the lives of his remaining loved ones to these same people and send them into a war zone under their command?
Should he accept their argument that questions should not be asked and serious answers should not be demanded until some vague, distant point in the future?
Should those who conclude that the massive failure was the result of a widespread, deliberate betrayal on the part of the security company, and that the man and his family were set up, be treated with hostility?
Should they in fact be treated with more hostility than the security agency itself? In light of all the facts, is the suggestion that the failure was caused by betrayal and collusion as part of a larger agenda unreasonable?
Should the man continue to trust this security agency and their management at all, about anything?
Should he continue to do everything the same as before, and expect different results?
If so, can we continue to think of this man as a responsible fellow?
Jonathan Pollard: IMMINENT WAR with Egypt? [44:51]
February 18, 2025 Machon Shilo – Discussion between the head of Machon Shilo Rabbi David Bar-Hayim & Jewish hero Jonathan Pollard
Judicial Coup by Daniel Greenfield
Federal judges are illegally seizing power by blocking Trump’s policies.
February 18, 2025
In the weeks since President Trump took office, federal judges have arrogated to themselves the authority to control how the government spends money, whether the government can issue orders to government personnel and even the content displayed on government websites.
Federal judges have claimed that the White House can’t offer buyouts to federal employees, can’t fire political appointees from the previous administrations, can’t pause funding, can’t cut funds to government programs, can’t change formulas allocating government grants and also can’t remove transgender ideology from government websites put there by its predecessors.
And if the White House doesn’t even control government websites, what does it control?
Conversely, federal judges can control any and all of these things at their whim and will. And that means that they control everything and that actual elected officials control nothing at all.
In the aftermath of a landslide election, government unions have contended that the Department of Government Efficiency should not be able to access federal databases and that USAID and potentially other unwanted parts of the federal government cannot be restructured.
Federal judges have mostly agreed that the government ought to be run by judges for the benefit of government employees and that the people who elected Trump have no say in it.
After 60,000 federal employees accepted a proposed buyout, government unions sued arguing that they have no right to receive or accept such a buyout. Another federal judge agreed. Still more federal judges contended that the federal government had no right to pause appropriations to verify that they were not in conflict with Trump’s executive orders.
These judicial coups were masterminded by federal judges unilaterally deciding that Trump administration decisions that they disagree with lacked a basis. The lawsuit and decision forcing the restoration of transgender ideology content to HHS, CDC and FDA websites argued that the “removal decisions were ‘completely unreasoned’ and thus were not the product of reasoned decision making.” The addition of such unscientific ideology to these websites in the first place however was surely “completely reasoned” and the product of “reasoned decision making.”
Such things are in the eye of the beholder. The American people voted decisively against transgender ideology in the last election and even recent New York Times polls showed that a majority of Democrats now oppose transgender procedures being inflicted on minors.
A federal judge insisting that business continue as usual on transgenderism isn’t just overruling Trump, he’s overruling the American people. And that’s the real purpose of the coup.
The ruling relied on the Administrative Procedure Act which has been one of the leading tools used by federal judges to substitute their own worldview for that of the legally elected president.
Numerous lawsuits against the Trump administration have been filed under the Administrative Procedure Act, urging sympathetic federal judges to find Trump administration policies to be “arbitrary and capricious” based on their own dislike of them. But that’s an abuse of the APA.
The APA was not meant as a tool for allowing federal judges to govern from the shadows by willfully overriding the executive branch in any matter that they pleased, but to rein in the power of unelected administrators and officials which FDR had described as threatening to “develop a fourth branch of government for which there is no sanction in the Constitution.”
The report by FDR’s Attorney General Frank Murphy, later a Supreme Court justice, which led directly to the APA, specifically stated that the committee drawing up the baseline for the APA was not concerned with “the wisdom or propriety of regulations promulgated by the agencies, not with the correctness of the decisions in individual cases.”
The APA’s presumption was that federal agencies had become too sprawling to be managed properly and that the public needed some recourse against them. Its purpose was more in line with the recent Supreme Court decision ending Chevron Deference (which the same Democrats turning to the APA to attack Trump vocally protested) than to interfere with the president.
Federal judges are abusing the APA’s interdiction of “capricious” rule-making by bureaucrats to block policies that are coming directly from the White House for entirely well-known reasons.
There is no mystery as to why, for example, government websites are taking down transgender materials. It requires no ‘rule-making’ process or ‘comment period’ to understand why that is so. It’s part of a very public debate that has been going on across the country and that the losing side is trying to abuse by exploiting the APA to claim that it’s unreasoned or capricious.
During Trump’s first term, Justice Roberts along with the leftist justices executed the ultimate coup by arguing that a citizenship question could be blocked from appearing on the 2020 census because it violated the APA and it “appears to have been contrived”. Roberts seized the right to second guess the administration’s judgement over the political spin used to justify a decision and veto the president’s move on the grounds that he did not like his reasoning.
All of that was subjective, not objective, and it was a massive power grab by the judiciary.
The APA had been meant to shift power away from unelected officials and to the people by means of judicial review, and instead the judges cut out the people and took power themselves. Federal judges are not following the law, but substituting their own values and judgement for those of the elected officials whom the public chose to implement common sense policies.
A federal judge blocked the Bureau of Prisons from moving male offenders who falsely claim to be women out of female housing, arguing that “the public interest in seeing the plaintiffs relocated immediately to male facilities is slight at best.” The women who have been sexually assaulted by ‘transgender’ male offenders in custody might disagree.
The Constitution divided the United States government into three branches, but those branches are more informally divided between elected officials who follow their gut instincts and the whims of the public in making policy and the judiciary which follows the law. A president with no initiative or independent thinking is a mere administrator, not a leader. If his decisions follow precedent, law and existing policy alone, he ceases to represent the people. By contrast, a judge who follows his gut instincts, thinks independently and advocates for causes is a tyrant.
Under the constitutional scheme, judges cannot both serve as the leaders who make policy and who check those leaders who make policy. That’s not a judiciary, that’s a tyranny.
If that sounds like mere rhetoric, it comes from the highest of all sources in American history.
Thomas Jefferson cautioned that judges have “the same passions for party, for power” and “their power is the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.”
“The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that, to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign with themselves.”
He warned that “to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions” would be “a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy”.
The federal judges blocking President Trump’s decisions on spurious pretexts such as the APA are engaged in a judicial coup that Jefferson, Lincoln and our greatest leaders had defied.
If President Trump follows in their footsteps, he will not be defying the law, but standing up for the power of the people and the integrity of the Constitution.
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.
The Saudi tells it like it is!
DOGE Keeps Winning [6:14] JEROME R. CORSI, PH.D.
Deep State Rats’ Defense Crumbling
FEB 17, 2025
The more the Deep State is being held accountable by DOGE and the Trump Administration, the more most Democrats and Neocons double down in defense.
Recently, DOGE uncovered $2.7 Trillion in Medicare payments illegally going overseas. Yes, that’s TRILLION. Attorney General Pam Bondi didn’t stop there, she slapped New York’s Governor Kathy Hocul and AG Letitia James with charges of prioritizing illegal aliens over American Citizens. Maxine Waters also said the quiet part out loud. Dr. Jerome Corsi breaks it all down.
JIMMY CARTER, MAN OF HATE by Jeff Dunetz
February 17, 2025 Magshimey Herut North America
Note: This post refers to what’s commonly known in America as “the Jewish people” as “the Jewish Nation.” This does not refer to Israel, the Jewish state, but all Jewish people everywhere because in Genesis 12 2, God says, “And I will make you into a great nation.”
It’s one month since former President Jimmy Carter passed away, therefore, we’ve waited long enough to tell the truth about the man.
In a 2016 interview with the NY Times, Jimmy Carter said, “When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights.”
I agree with him. But why, then, did he single out the Jewish people for hatred. And why didn’t others point it out?
Believe it or not, when he was in the Oval Office, President Carter rejected someone for a position on the board of the Holocaust Memorial Council because the guy’s name was for the Holocaust Memorial Council. Monroe Freedman, who was executive director of the council during Carter’s presidency, told a reporter that Aaron Klein, a noted Holocaust scholar who was a Presbyterian Christian, was rejected from the council’s board by Carter’s office because the scholar’s name “sounded too Jewish.”
Freedman said he sent a memo to Carter’s office containing recommendations for council board members. The memo was returned with a note on the upper right-hand corner that stated, “Too many Jews.” The note, Freedman said, was written in Carter’s handwriting and was initialed by Carter.
The famous law professor Alan Dershowitz also feels that Carter is a Jew-hater. In an essay talking about Carter’s anti-Semitic claims that the Jews control foreign policy and the media, he wrote:
“The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks. It is Carter, not me, who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves. It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter’s own standards, it would be almost economically “suicidal” for Carter “to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine.”
“(…) If money determines political and public views as Carter insists ‘Jewish money’ does, Carter’s views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter’s off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter.
And don’t talk to me about Camp David. Yes, he moderated Between Begin and Sadat, but he also tried to kill the process as it was starting.
The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was signed in Washington, D.C., on March 26, 1979. However, the treaty almost didn’t happen because U.S. President Jimmy Carter tried to scuttle the talks at their origin—when Anwar Sadat said he would visit Jerusalem. Sadat went anyway and arrived at the Israeli Capital 40 years ago today, November 19, 1977.
Thus, the two began bilateral talks, according to Yossi Alpher, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. However, the brother of Billy Beer’s creator continued his attempts to muck up the works.
When Sadat announced he was going to Jerusalem, the Carter administration understood the move as yet another attempt, this time by an Arab leader, to scuttle its scheme to bring everyone together in Geneva. Carter wanted a comprehensive process [every Arab state vs. Israel].
(…) By December 1, 1977, three weeks into the Sadat peace initiative, the Carter administration had offered only the faintest approval for the Egyptian president’s visit to Jerusalem,
Sadat’s liaison initiative spoke volumes about his reasons for wanting to make peace with Israel. He wanted an alliance with the American superpower, and he wanted to kill Carter’s Geneva initiative. His trip to Jerusalem signaled a major reorientation of Cairo’s place in the global scheme of things, from the Soviet to the American camp.
Carter’s acceptance of the proposed liaison scheme would have signaled American backing for Sadat’s unprecedented peace initiative.
Before we continue, allow me to explain the Jewish Nation is the Indigenous people of the land now called Israel. It has been their land since Joshuah led the Nation across the Jordan River about 3,400 years ago. Denial of the Jewish Nation’s historic connection to that land is Anti-Semitic. So is denial of the Jewish Nation’s right to self-determination and statehood in their eternal homeland, Israel. Legitimate criticism of Israel’s government not related to the above is not Antisemitism.
Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish Nation since King David captured it from the Jebusites over 3,000 years ago. However, one part of that land was not captured. In the Second Book of Samuel, we learn King David purchased the threshing floor owned by Araunah the Jebusite for shekels of silver and oxen. That purchase is now known as the Temple Mount.
In August 1980, the UN Security Council (UNSC) voted on a resolution condemning Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem. The condemnation was based on Israel’s 1980 Jerusalem Law, which declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. With a no vote, the United States would have vetoed the resolution, but Carter had his ambassador abstain. For the first time ever, the U.S. allowed an anti-Israel resolution to become international law via the UNSC. Interestingly, as the book of Samuel is part of the Christian canon, Carter’s vote hurt a close ally and denied his faith.
After Carter’s death, the former failed President was praised for the Carter Center and his role as a man of peace worldwide. That praise ignores Carter’s Antisemitism via his public hatred of Israel.
Ambassador Marc Ginsburg was Jimmy Carter’s deputy senior adviser on the Middle East and, from 1977 through 1980 and the White House liaison to the State Department. He has a unique perspective on Carter’s Middle East dealings. According to the Ambassador, Carter blamed American Jews for his 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan.
“I think there’s no doubt — particularly given the vantage point I had in the White House at the end of his administration — that he resents the way in which Israel and the American-Jewish community have failed to express sufficient gratitude for his efforts on behalf of peace in the Middle East.”
“In my judgment, there’s no other explanation,” Ginsberg says
Then, in 2006, came Carter’s major hate-filled tome. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” which was so Antisemitic that 14 members of the Carter Center community board resigned in protest. One of the 14 who resigned was Dr. Kenneth W. Stein, a professor and scholar who was an advisor to Jimmy Carter when he was President. Stein wrote;
“Peace Not Apartheid, Carter’s twenty-first book and his second to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict, is deficient. He does what no non-fiction author should ever do: He allows ideology or opinion to get in he way of facts. While Carter says that he wrote the book to educate and provoke debate, the narrative aims its attack toward Israel, Israeli politicians, and Israel’s supporters. It contains egregious errors of both commission and omission. To suit his desired ends, he manipulates information, redefines facts, and exaggerates conclusions. Falsehoods, when repeated and backed by the prestige of Carter’s credentials, can comprise an erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and policymaking. Rather than bring peace, they can further fuel hostilities, encourage retrenchment, and hamper peacemaking.”
Oh, and one more thing, Jimmy Carter hated Menachem Begin. REALLY hated him.That hatred grew until the former Prime Minister passed away. In political slang, “Menachem Begin was living inside Carter’s head.”
William Bradford Smith, Chair of the Division of History, Politics & International Studies at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, once sent a letter to the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia, which said in part:
“When I taught at Emory University, I used to see former President Jimmy Carter on a fairly regular basis, and it was all I could do at times to stop myself from spitting at him.
Carter’s hatred of Israel and, by extension, of all Jews (and make no mistake, if you spend any time in the man’s presence, his discomfort at being in the same room with someone who merely appears to be Jewish is palpable), is rooted in the man’s megalomania, and his unflinching belief in his own rectitude.”
Carter didn’t hate everything in the Middle East. In May 2015, he met with Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas. He didn’t meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu, saying it would be a waste of time. Carter glowed over Masshal, saying he wanted peace and that Hamas wasn’t a terrorist organization.
I couldn’t find a comment in the news, but I wonder what former President Carter said about the October 7, 2023 massacre committed by that organization he said was not terrorists.
He would probably blame the Jews.
Jeff Dunetz is the Director of Special Projects, Herut North America
A Purely Theoretical Question CHANANYA WEISSMAN
Because YOUR leaders would never betray you or use you as cannon fodder
FEB 17, 2025
As new death traps, operational accidents, negligence, and intelligence failures are being prepared for our intrepid warriors — our remaining intrepid warriors after the last 16 months of utterly worthless carnage, after which we are worse off than before, with thousands of terrorists let loose to boot — IDF soldiers are increasingly starting to question whether religious obedience to authority is more frightening than a flickering display of disobedience.
There’s still a very steep learning curve to be traversed, and our people are paying bitterly for their education, but they are learning:
Soldiers in the Carmeli Brigade send sharply worded letter to the brigade commander
“We do not want to be cannon fodder for deals of surrender,” the soldiers wrote, adding, “How can we have the motivation to return, fight, and risk our lives in operational activities on land that will be handed back to our enemy in a few days? Our home is not ready to receive us, either disabled or in coffins, when all our efforts will only serve as leverage for deals to release terrorists.”
The following is not a call to action, just a purely theoretical question for entertainment purposes.
Some guy with more pins on his uniform than you, with an impressive track record of intelligence failures, negligence, heresy, and conflicts of interest with foreign entities (but absolutely no chance of treason), orders you to go into Gaza, where you are quite likely to get killed or your limbs blown off for no truly justifiable reason. How do you respond?
A) Yes, sir! Whatever you say, sir!
B) Full steam ahead! Until victory!
C) I don’t want to get killed or maimed for nothing, but an army cannot function without discipline and total obedience to authority, so I am willing to get maimed or killed primarily so the army can continue to function.
D) After you.
E) Try and make me. I dare you.
Riding the Jerusalem light rail today I spotted a secular woman at an intersection waving a big yellow flag. I wonder if she was getting paid by the state-sponsored Bring Them Home Now psy-op or if this is her substitute religion.
Also, shouldn’t it be a white flag?
Thomas Friedman at the NY Times: A 30-year Anti-Israel Legacy Moshe Phillips
For half a century now Tom Friedman has been struggling to get Americans to adopt a Blame Israel First Policy. Opinion.
Feb 15, 2025, 10:09 PM (GMT+2) – Longtime New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been using the editorial pages of the newspaper to criticize Israel for over 30 years.
Friedman often overlooks facts in his efforts to harm Israel. In his February 13 column Friedman provides two glaring examples of this.
Friedman states that “every U.S. president since George H.W. Bush” supported the creation of a Palestinian state. In fact, President George H.W. Bush never publicly advocated a Palestinian state, and neither did Bill Clinton while he was president. American presidents in office have supported Palestinian Arab statehood in only 21 of the 76 years since Israel was established. For the other 55 of those years, a Palestinian state was not part of US policy.
Friedman writes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has refused to ever identify a plan to translate Israel’s military victory in Gaza into a sustainable political one.” The truth, though, is that Netanyahu has repeatedly articulated a very clear plan: to turn over rule of Gaza to non-Hamas residents, to demilitarize the territory, and to deradicalize the Gaza school system and media, so young Gazans will no longer be raised to hate and kill Jews—exactly as the U.S. and its allies did in Germany after World War II.
The fact that it may be hard to find non-Hamas Gazans, and may take longer than Friedman would like, is not Israel’s fault—it’s the natural result of decades of antisemitic indoctrination.
For half a century now Tom Friedman has been struggling to get Americans to adopt a Blame Israel First Policy.
It was on November 12, 1974, that Friedman began his career in attacking Israel. That was the day he and some fellow-students at Brandeis University placed an open letter in The Brandeis Justice (the student newspaper) denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the American Jewish community for opposing Yasser Arafat’s appearance at the United Nations.
Friedman and his friends declared that the mass Jewish rally outside the UN would “only reinforce Jewish anxiety and contribute to Israel’s further isolation.” They demanded that Prime Minister Rabin “negotiate with all factions of the Palestinians, including the PLO.” Remember that it was a time when the PLO was not even pretending to be moderate or ready to live in peace with Israel. He appeared at the UN carrying an olive branch and a gun, and AP and others publicized pictures that concealed that fact. Just months earlier, PLO terrorists had proudly massacred dozens of Israeli schoolchildren in the towns of Kiryat Shmona and Ma’alot.
Friedman was very proud of his pro-PLO extremist position—until a few years later, when he realized that it would be to his advantage to pretend he had never criticized Israel before.
In 1982, Friedman was a junior reporter on the staff of the Times when he was assigned to cover the Israel-Lebanon war. He wrote a series of front page articles denigrating Israel, then turned those articles into a 1989 best-selling book, From Beirut to Jerusalem. Its theme was that he was a strong supporter of Israel until he saw Israel’s actions in Lebanon, which “disillusioned him” and made him into a critic of Israel. And that canard has been the theme of his very lucrative career ever since.
The entire premise of the book was a lie, as his attacks on Israel at Brandeis demonstrated. But in the pre-internet era, reporters weren’t going to take the trouble to comb through back issues of a student newspaper in Massachusetts. So Friedman got away with it.
As the Times’s bureau chief in Jerusalem from 1984-1988, and then as a Times op-ed columnist ever since, he has been one of Israel’s harshest critics in America. He has even tried to influence U.S. foreign policy. According to then Secretary of State James Baker, Friedman would feed him anti-Israel policy advice when the two played tennis.
Baker credited Friedman for the notorious episode in which Baker publicly humiliated Israel by sarcastically announcing the White House phone number and declaring that the Israelis should call when they got serious about peace.
Over the years, Friedman’s rhetoric has become even more extreme.
In his Times column of February 5, 2004, Friedman declared that Israel’s prime minister has “had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office…surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who’s ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates…”
Friedman also claimed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Jewish lobbyists, Vice President Cheney, and unnamed “political handlers” were “all conspiring to make sure the president does nothing [regarding Israel].” Former New York City mayor Ed Koch called Friedman’s statement, with its conspiratorial allegations about Jews, “an anti-Semitic slur.”
In his December 13, 2011 column for the Times, Friedman actually wrote that the standing ovations Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received when he addressed Congress that year were “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” !
On November 19, 2013, Friedman wrote that there is “a growing tendency by many American lawmakers to do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations.”
If a white supremacist accused Jews of bribing Congress, controlling the president, and “killing for killing’s sake,” he would be universally denounced as a bigot. It’s hard to see why Tom Friedman doesn’t deserve to be described the same way.
Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization. www.AFSI.org
Elica Le Bon Reveals How To FINISH OFF Hamas Forever! [8:52] Yishai Fleisher
Feb 16, 2025 – Overthinking, confusion, and disunity are obstacles to the solution Elica LeBon lays out. She shows that it is within reach to move beyond constant conflict and chaos in the Abrahamic Region spreading ripples of strife to the world. We can do better – she has the recipe.
[Ed.:
Don’t Be Fooled: The Palestinian Authority Did Not Halt Payments To Terrorists by Bassam Tawil
February 17, 2025 at 5:00 am Gatestone Institute
- “Abbas claims to have ended the ‘Pay for Slay’ program – but it’s just a rebranding… Terrorists and their families will still receive payments, just through a ‘foundation’ under Abbas’s control instead of a ministry. The new foundation remains tied to the PA, making this a deceptive move, not real reform. The PA must truly end terror payments and incitement – not just change how they guise them.” — Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, X.com, February 12, 2025.
- The Palestinian Authority has made it clear that it is making this change not because it believes it is wrong to fund terror, but because it needs US money. The Arabic version of the decree clearly states that the main goal is to “restore international aid programs that were suspended in the past years, which we need to implement development and economic recovery programs.”
- While several international media outlets continue to argue that Abbas halted the payments to the terrorists, Monica al-Jaghoub, a senior official with the PA’s ruling Fatah faction (headed by Abbas), denied the claims.
- The reality is that Abbas did not — and never will — stop the payments to terrorists and their families.
Did Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas halt payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families? Or is he just trying to fool the Americans to persuade them to resume financial aid to the PA?
On February 10, the American media outlet Axios reported:
“Abbas has issued a decree revoking the system of payments to families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails or to families of Palestinians who were killed or wounded during attacks against Israelis.”
The payment program is known as “Pay for Slay.”
PA officials told Axios that they hope Abbas’s decision will improve relations with the Trump administration and with Congress and lead to the resumption of US financial aid to the PA.
In 2018, US President Donald Trump signed into law the Taylor Force Act to stop American aid to the PA until it ceases paying stipends through the PA’s “Martyrs Fund” to individuals who commit acts of terrorism and the families of deceased terrorists.
Abbas, however, has not ended the “Pay for Slay” program. He simply changed its name, with the aim of deceiving and misleading the US and other Western donor countries.
Abbas’s move is not a policy change. It is nothing but a sneaky maneuver designed to attract more international funding.
The Palestinian Authority has made it clear that it is making this change not because it believes it is wrong to fund terror, but because it needs US money. The Arabic version of the decree clearly states that the main goal is to “restore international aid programs that were suspended in the past years, which we need to implement development and economic recovery programs.”
“Abbas claims to have ended the ‘Pay for Slay’ program – but it’s just a rebranding,” according to the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy.
“Terrorists and their families will still receive payments, just through a ‘foundation’ under Abbas’s control instead of a ministry. The new foundation remains tied to the PA, making this a deceptive move, not real reform. The PA must truly end terror payments and incitement — not just change how they disguise them.”
The reports about the alleged cancellation of the payments to the terrorists were based on a “presidential decree” issued by Abbas on February 10:
“President Mahmoud Abbas… issued a decision-law to cancel articles contained in the laws and regulations related to the system of paying financial allowances to the families of prisoners, martyrs, and the wounded… transferring the computerized cash assistance program, its database, and its financial, local, and international allocations from the Ministry of Social Developments to the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment.
“All families that benefited from previous laws, legislation, and regulations are subject to the same standards applied without discrimination to all families benefiting from protection and social welfare programs,”
Abbas is actually saying that the payments will no longer be made by the PA government, but by a new NGO managed by a Board of Trustees appointed by him. The move is aimed at avoiding being directly blamed by the US for maintaining this program under the pretext that the allowances are now coming from private parties, not the PA government. The decree simply “restructures” the payment system so that its beneficiaries will receive the same benefits from the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment.
“Did the Palestinian Authority stop paying imprisoned terrorists?” wrote Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which played a vital role in exposing the “Pay for Slay” program.
No. The PA has not stopped paying imprisoned terrorists, but because of US pressure, it will be paying from a different account that also includes welfare recipients. According to several PA/Fatah sources, the salaries will remain very high, identical to what they were, while according to a different reading of the law, they will be based on social welfare needs. The law seems intentionally ambiguous.
“The difference between the PA terror payments for people who murder and its welfare payments for people in need is shocking.
“The PA currently rewards terrorists in prison between 1,400 to 12,000 shekels [$400 – $3500] a month, depending on how long there have been incarcerated. PA welfare benefits based on financial need range from 250 to 600 shekels/month [$75 – $170].”
While several international media outlets continue to argue that Abbas halted the payments to the terrorists, Monica al-Jaghoub, a senior official with the PA’s ruling Fatah faction (headed by Abbas), denied the claims. In an interview with the Saudi-owned Al-Hadath TV channel, al-Jaghoub said:
“These reports are false. President Abbas did not stop the salaries of anyone. President Abbas issued a law transferring these salaries, in their entirety, to another body. Instead of receiving their salaries from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Commission, the prisoners will from now on be paid by the social welfare system. The salaries will not be affected.”
Palestinian columnist Dalal Iriqat wrote:
“The decree may be to restructure the mechanism for proving support to prisoners and families of martyrs in a way that reduces the financial and political targeting of the Palestinian Authority… Instead of disbursing allocations directly, released prisoners will be included in ‘economic empowerment’ programs, a step that may be an attempt to circumvent Israeli measures…”
Iriqat is referring to the Israeli law passed in 2018 to deduct the amount that the PA pays to the terrorists from the taxes and tariffs Israel collects on behalf of the PA.
The reality is that Abbas did not — and never will — stop the payments to terrorists and their families. He knows that the moment he does so, his people will revolt against him, denounce him as a traitor, and try to kill him.
It is time to remind the world of what Abbas himself said in the past:
“If we had one single penny left, we would spend it on the families of the martyrs and the prisoners. We consider the martyrs and the prisoners to be stars in the sky of the Palestinian people and struggle. We value and respect this group of people. They way we see it, they are paving the path for the liberation of Palestine for the sake of future generations.”
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple of donors who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
The U.S. plan for Gaza: Good idea? [13:45] Rabbi Manis Friedman
Feb 16, 2025 – Watch the full video at • “Told you so!” – How to be right grac…
Analyzing President Donald Trump’s plan for the United States to take over Gaza.
Election Integrity Update [1:57] JEROME R. CORSI, PH.D.
Investigations Are Uncovering Additional Facts Proving the Stealing of Elections
FEB 16, 2025
Dr. Andrew Paquette continues to perform deep dives into the voter registration databases of several states. In each one, he has found alogrithms (Software code) that has been inserted to enable cloned voters, and thereby false votes, which can be used by the criminals to inserts into election results at all levels to change the outcome. In 2024, Dr. Jerome Corsi exposed the Democrat plan to steal yet another presidential election, and by the grace of God, that was averted. However, the criminals merely diverted their efforts into stealing “down ballot” elections (Senate, Congress, etc.).
The Black Box TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS
FEB 16, 2025 – Did you know that the big bankers have been using the cargo holds of commercial airplanes to haul pallets of gold to America from overseas due to fear of Trump’s tariffs?
I’ll write more about why they are doing that and why President Trump WANTS the gold here in America in my next newsletter – but I want you to think big picture about the many reasons our enemies might want to down a commercial plane. It’s not just WHO is on board – it’s also WHAT is on board.
This is part 4 of my report on the DC crash. If you haven’t read the 1st three parts you might want to do that first.
DC Crash – Part 1
DC Crash – Part 2
DC Crash – Part 3
DC Crash – Part 4
I will examine the Black Box, the REAL audio conversation between the so-called pilots, the recent threats against Trump and the REAL reason that the helicopter (or helicopters) were flying in DC – where they weren’t supposed to be – in the first place.
In my analysis, I have found many discrepancies (and holes) between what the media and ‘expert’ pundits are telling the public and what actually happened.
I’ve listened to several different audio clips of alleged conversations between the airplane pilots and the helicopter pilots and ATC that evening – but there is a complete 30-minute version of that posted on LiveATC.net. It’s worth your time to listen to the entire conversation.
I also examined flight information from the Reagan DC airport from Flight Aware. You can see how easy it is for ANYBODY to track any plane arriving or departing this way in real time. If you and I can do it, so can ATC & the pilots and our enemies.
In the last chapter of my report, I suggested to you that the evidence showed that the helicopter did NOT respond to ATC and that the conversation seemed EDITED OR ALTERED to make it look like they did – and that the helicopter was flying dark and the altimeter might have also been tampered with.
I showed you evidence that two airport employees were arrested for sending video of the crash to CNN – a sure sign that something was up that they didn’t want us to see.
NTSB came out yesterday with an update that confirmed I was correct. THE HELICOPTER DID NOT APPROPRIATELY RESPOND TO ATC AND THE ALTIMETER READINGS WERE NOT CONSISTENT OR CORRECT.
NATO’s super-expensive proxy war against Russia has finally run its course, ending in total failure. This may result in the obliteration of post-World War II norms in which U.S. fights Europe’s wars.
FEB 16, 2025
European leaders are screeching and hollering over being left out of President Trump’s peace talks seeking an end to the bloody Russia-Ukraine border war.
Despite all of the financial and military assistance from the West, Ukraine has not been able to defeat Russia. And let’s be frank, it never will.
This is the opinion of the former chairman of the NATO military committee, Harald Kujat.
The retired German Air Force general surmised that after three years of conflict, the Ukrainian army lies in ruins, despite the billions invested in it, the weapons supplied, the training of personnel and the unprecedented assistance from the West. The U.S. alone has invested some $200 billion in the failed effort to deal Russia a black eye via the Ukrainian proxy.
General Kujat emphasized that Zelensky failed to take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself, and he will not have another chance. But really, it was the U.S. and Europe who failed in the war, not Ukraine, which was never Russia’s equal on the battlefield and never will be.
The German general believes the continuation of military action with the aim of “finishing off Russia” as proposed by some delusional Western politicians who still clamor for Russia’s defeat, will only lead to an even greater humiliation for Ukraine.
Kujat was quoted by European media as saying:
“It is time for our politicians and media to take note of the bitter truth that for three years, despite enormous financial and material support from the U.S. and European allies, as well as training and modern weapons systems, Ukraine has not been able to achieve military success. And that such a possibility, if it ever existed, no longer exists.”
The Russian online journal, Military Review, stated:
“For our part, we note that there is a group of countries in Europe that want Russia to be defeated. It is headed, as you might guess, by Great Britain and France. There is also a bunch of countries yapping along, but of a lower status. The most important question now is whether they will dare to go against the USA.”
That, of course, was a reference to the new American administration of Donald J. Trump, who campaigned on a promise to end the war in Ukraine and seems to have stepped up his efforts in recent days to do exactly that.
But now the war-mongering Europeans are barking about wanting a seat at the table to negotiate the terms of peace between Russia and Ukraine. Trump seems to sense that allowing the Europeans in on these peace talks would enable them to throw down deal-breakers at every opportunity, for London and Paris really don’t want peace with Russia. They want an extension of the war for as long as it takes to ramp up their own forces to invade what they hope will be a weakened Russia.
Why should they get any say in the peace process when they have expressed zero interest in peace until now, when Trump comes into the picture demanding it?
London, Paris, and to a lesser extent Berlin, want a say in how the terms of peace will be drawn between Russia and Ukraine. These countries want equal footing with the U.S. but they want the U.S. to foot the majority of their defense bills.
In short, they want to use U.S. military power for their own geo-political advantage while shouldering only a fraction of the financial burden.
With the ascension of the Trump administration, that day is over. Even Ukrainian President Zelensky is prodding the Europeans to step up and put their money where their mouth is.
Addressing the Munich conference, Zelensky called for the creation of a new “Army of Europe” amid rising concern that Washington may no longer be willing to play the fool.
Zelensky stated: “We can’t rule out the possibility that America might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it.”
WATCH [1:52]
The Ukraine leader said per the AP that “three years of full-scale war have proven that we already have the foundation for a united European military force. And now, as we fight this war and lay the groundwork for peace and security, we must build the armed forces of Europe.”
Good luck. I say go for it.
Zelensky claimed that such an army would not represent “replacing” the NATO alliance but it’s rather “about making Europe’s contribution to our partnership equal to America’s.”
He added that:
“A few days ago, President Trump told me about his conversation with Putin. Not once did he mention that America needs Europe at the table. That says a lot. The old days are over when America supported Europe just because it always had.”
Of course, we all knew this day would come, when Europe seeks to raise its own continent-wide army. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for that for years. Maybe the time is finally ripe for such a move. Why should the U.S. shoulder the burden for Europe’s defense?
And here’s the bigger question: What if Europe isn’t looking for “defense,” but rather something more akin to an aggressive “offense?”
Europe is filled with wealthy countries. They need to man up. And when they do start to foot their own defense bill, their taxpayers will likely realize that their politicians have been lying to them. Russia is not interested in taking them over. Russia just wants to be respected as the sovereign nation and global superpower that it is and will no longer be bullied by the West, dictated to in terms of where and how much of its own natural resources it can sell on the global market and at what price.
Russia wants open markets for its oil and gas and other resources. It does not want the responsibility of governing European countries.
Throughout its history, whenever Russia experimented with imperialism, it did not turn out well for them. Putin understands this. Besides, he has been in office for 24 years and has not once tried to storm his troops into any NATO country. The entire basis for the Western European case against Putin lies in his intolerance of Ukraine joining the NATO alliance.
Having a militarized Ukraine on Russia’s border has always been unacceptable in Moscow’s eyes, and the West knows it. Characterizing him as a military threat to the Poland, the Baltics, and Western Europe seems irrational at best, fear-mongering propaganda at worst.
And if Europe is so intent on stirring up fear among its people of the Russian bear, you have to wonder if maybe it’s not Europe that would like to make war against the bear, rather than the other way around.
Perhaps that’s what this European Army is really all about. Not defense, but offense.
Whatever the purpose, the cost of building up a capable European army would bring an end to many of the social programs, early retirements and cushy work schedules so many Europeans have grown accustomed to, and see it as part of their birthright.
If President Trump is smart, he’ll call the Europeans’ bluff and let’s see where they take this idea of a European Army.
Parents, Teachers, and the Image of G-d By Rabbi Francis Nataf
Author’s Note: This essay is in memory of my mother, whose yahrzeit is on 19 Shevat
5 Shevat 5785 – February 13, 2025
The great American writer James Baldwin once wrote how it was actually his public school math teacher who planted the seeds of his creative work.
Mr. Porter… soon gave up any attempt to teach me math. I had been born, apparently, with some kind of deformity that resulted in a total inability to count. From arithmetic to geometry, I never passed a single test. Porter took his failure very well and compensated for it by helping me run the school magazine. He assigned me a story about Harlem for this magazine, a story that he insisted demanded serious research. Porter took me downtown to the main branch of the public library at Forty-second Street and waited for me while I began my research. He was very proud of the story I eventually turned in. But I was so terrified that afternoon that I vomited all over his shoes in the subway.
One thing that strikes me immediately is the completely extracurricular connection that this extraordinary teacher made with Baldwin. Today, a teacher might be called to task for such “unprofessional” behavior. But one need not worry, since nowadays even the most committed teachers can’t seem to find the time to endeavor such a connection. And while it is true that our lives are perhaps more busy than teachers in the 1920’s and 30’s, the greatest reason that teachers don’t have time to help students outside of school is that it is not important enough to them. Put succinctly, we are less willing to have children vomit on our shoes. We are even less willing to go with them from Harlem to 42nd Street and spend a whole afternoon at a library when we have so many other things that we “need” to do. I am aware that there are still rare exceptions to this but one gets the sense that they are a vanishing breed.
It gets worse. It is not just for teachers that children have less importance. On some level, teachers are really surrogate parents. The rabbis teach us that someone who teaches a child Torah is as if he brought them into the world. And yet even natural parents to whom teachers are only compared also seem to be able to find less and less time to devote to their children. I wonder if we don’t actually welcome the incredible amount of music, sport and other after-school programming that we allow our children mostly because it buys us more time away from them. No doubt, much of it can be very valuable but only if doesn’t prevent us from being our children’s mentors.
It works the other way as well. If teachers are surrogate parents, a good parent is also a surrogate teacher. Indeed, the Shulchan Aruch tells us that in the ideal, the parent is to be his child’s teacher. The reason for this is that Jewish tradition expects the teacher to be a mentor – to guide and to truly shape the child, and to be with them both inside and outside of the proverbial classroom.
Being such a tall order, it is only the very few who will be willing to truly mentor other people’s children. There is another unfortunately topical advantage to the mentorship of a parent over that of a stranger. The true intimacy created between the mentor and his protégé creates emotional ambiguity that is far less of an issue between parent and child. Intimacy can be confusing when not clearly defined by certain standardized roles.
I was fortunate in that my first teacher was my mother z’l. Since she was vocationally a teacher, among many other things, she provided me with mentorship about mentorship itself. All children love to go to their parents’ work place, but seeing my mother in action was a particular treat. There were two things one immediately felt in her classroom. The first was the aspirations that she had for her students. Anyone who signed up for her classes knew that you were expected to achieve. It was clear that she would not settle for mediocrity and that no one else should either. Taking work seriously was a manifestation of being created in the image of G-d, a G-d which she would often mention to us, her children. But to her students, she didn’t have to mention Him. Saying things is often less educational than the creation of a reality. In her case, her clearly internalized reality was passed on to her students by a type of educational osmosis.
The other thing one felt in my mother’s classroom was her “connectedness” with her students. Though she exposed her students to the dignity of being human, she also knew when to laugh. Academic tension was mixed in with a light touch that most clearly conveyed her interest in the young people in front of her. As a result, bonds were created that often lasted for years after her students graduated.
Contemporary educational thinker Parker Palmer makes the related observation:
One young woman told me she couldn’t possibly describe her good teachers because they were all so different from each other, but she could easily describe her bad teachers because they were all the same.
I said, “What do you mean?” And she said, “With my bad teachers, their words float somewhere in front of their faces like the balloon speech in cartoons.”
I thought this was an extraordinary image, and I said, “Do you mean that somehow with bad teaching, there is a disconnect between the stuff being taught and the self who is teaching it?” And she said, “Absolutely.”
There is a distance, a coldness, a lack of community because in a secularized academy, we don’t have the connective tissue of the sacred to hold this apparent fragmentation and chaos together…. But if you go deep, the way you go when you seek that which is sacred, you find …. the community that a good teacher evokes and invites students into, that somehow weaves and reweaves life together.
Palmer is right that it is awareness of the sacred that allows for mentorship. Whether the community is made up of two or thirty is not critical. Rather, critical is the sense that anyone created in the image of G-d is wholly worthwhile. Though time, ability and other limitations prevent us from doing everything we would like to do for them, we should never be limited by the sense that our charges are not important. Again Jewish tradition informs us that each individual is worthy of the creation of the entire world. At first glance, the seems to be extreme hyperbole. Perhaps it is so hard for us to really accept because the vast majority of people are so far from fulfilling their potential. But is that not because they weren’t inspired by their parents and teachers to believe in that potential?
There is one great payback to mentoring. It brings one a certain type of immortality even in this world. Mentors replicate themselves. Not in the sense of cloning individuals that will think and act exactly as they do. Rather, depending on how close we are with our children and students, our vision often become theirs as well.
In this sense, my mother lives on in my own appreciation of the responsibility that comes with being human, a responsibility so sensitively translated by the Jewish tradition that she so proudly bequeathed to us. Her memory will be a blessing.
Rabbi Francis Nataf Rabbi Francis Nataf (www.francisnataf.com) is a veteran Tanach educator who has written an acclaimed contemporary commentary on the Torah entitled “Redeeming Relevance.” He teaches Tanach at Midreshet Rachel v’Chaya and is Associate Editor of the Jewish Bible Quarterly. He is also Translations and Research Specialist at Sefaria, where he has authored most of Sefaria’s in-house translations, including such classics as Sefer HaChinuch, Shaarei Teshuva, Derech Hashem, Chovat HaTalmidim and many others. He is a prolific writer and his articles on parsha, current events and Jewish thought appear regularly in many Jewish publications such as The Jewish Press, Tradition, Hakira, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Action and Haaretz.
“Wishful Thinking with No Connection to Reality” By Alex Grobman PhD.
18 Shevat 5785 – February 16, 2025
“In Palestine I had been met every day by evidence of the Jewish blindness to the Arab problem,” asserted Richard Crossman, British Labor M.P., who served as a member of the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.
Arab failure to annihilate Israel by force has convinced them to embrace the Marxist-Leninist “people’s war” strategy used with much success in China and Vietnam asserts historian Joel Fishman. He quotes Stefan Possony, an American military strategist, who explains that a people’s war “is a conflict between societies,” involving political and military elements.
A “people’s war” employs asymmetrical warfare enabling a revolutionary movement to wage war against a militarily superior enemy. “Since the late 1960s,” Possony said, “the political campaign has sought to divide Israeli society and delegitimize the country through incitement in Arab textbooks and media describing them as Satan, sons of apes and pigs, a cancer and demonize her at the UN by branding Israel a racist and pariah state.”
Part of this strategy Fishman notes is that after the Six-Day War, Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962), advised Palestinian Arab propagandists to adopt to the following principles:” Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others.
Wipe out the impression…that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.”
Oslo Accords
Another part of this strategy Fishman asserts was to sign the Oslo Accords to secure land from which to launch a guerilla war to destroy the Jewish state and replace it with an Arab one. The late Faisal Husseini, Palestinian Authority minister for Jerusalem Affairs, called this ruse a “Trojan Horse.” Husseini urged the Arabs “to look at the Oslo Agreement and at other agreements as ‘temporary procedures, or phased goals’: This means we are ambushing the Israelis and cheating them. Our ultimate goal is [still] the liberation of all historical Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, even if this means that the conflict will last for another thousand years or for many generations.” The negotiations were a means toward “an extension of continuing conflict and not an opportunity for two peoples to reach a new rapprochement.”
Temporary Concessions
Agreeing to temporary concessions to achieve their primary goal was suggested to Yasser Arafat and Abu Iyad, his top lieutenant, at a meeting with the North Vietnamese in early 1970. In his book My Home, My Land: A Narrative of The Palestinian Struggle, Iyad avowed: “Our ultimate strategic objective was to set up a unitary democratic state on all Palestine, but we hadn’t provided for any intermediary stage, or any provisional compromise.” Members of the Vietnamese Politburo explained to Arafat and Iyad how in their struggle for independence they had made difficult compromises, including dividing the country into two separate independent states, while waiting for a more positive shift in the balance of power.
Fatah (the largest Palestinian political party) accepted this strategy, which Iyad later justified by pointing out that David Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders had accepted partition in 1947, although they claimed all of Palestine. The same applied for North and South Korea. Even Lenin had forfeited a large section of Soviet territory in the Brest-Litovsk treaty, to ensure the survival of the Bolshevik government. Weren’t the Arabs entitled to the same “margin of flexibility and maneuver” the Zionists had afforded themselves, Iyad asked, especially since Israel would “remain invincible in the foreseeable future?” There is a difference, he noted, between surrender and compromise.
Fishman points out that if the Arabs were prepared to accept an interim solution such a two-state solution or a series of solutions, without acknowledging that this was only an interim phase, this would defuse criticism of the PLO in the West while playing for time to achieve their objective. Iyad observed that their Vietnamese comrades do not “hesitate to sacrifice the details so as to preserve the essential.”
Failure to Recognize the Blatantly Obvious
Why has it been difficult for so many Israeli and American Jews to recognize that the attacks against Israel by Arab religious and political leaders constitute a threat to our very existence as a people and as a nation?
How many Israelis have to be killed or maimed by homicide bombings, how often do Jews have to be portrayed in the Arab media and in sermons as Satan, sons of apes and pigs, and as a cancer, how often do Israelis have to have their connection to the Jewish holy sites refuted and the Holocaust denied, before we acknowledge the true extent of Arab enmity and their real objectives in dealing with the Jewish Question?
The Oslo Syndrome
In The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege Kenneth Levin, a clinical psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, offers a plausible answer as to why, in the face of continuous killing of Jews, open declarations to destroy Israel and blatant violations of agreements made with the Jewish state, many Jews still disregard this evidence and cling to the notion that Arabs want peace. Israelis, Levin says are in “state of chronic siege” which causes them to seek ways to extricate themselves from this predicament. This has produced “the Oslo approach,” which is based on “wishful thinking divorced from reality.” Maintaining this position regardless of countervailing evidence and tolerating no debate is textbook “delusional,” according to Levin.
This self-delusion, he says, manifests itself in a number of other ways as well. One is to believe that they can actually maintain some kind of control of the situation. By accepting the condemnation of their enemies and appeasing the terrorists, Israelis think they will themselves bring an end to hostilities. If only the Jews would make enough concessions to the Arabs, and stop obsessing about defensible borders and other strategic issues, peace would soon be at hand and such concerns would become irrelevant.
Why do some Israelis respond in this way? Levin suggests that since Jews were historically subjected to so much abuse, elements within the community are so eager to escape this painful experience that they interpret the ostensibly improved conditions under Oslo as proof that the past is behind them.
There is also an element of arrogance to “this self-delusion.” Jews assume a responsibility for something over which they have no control, in order to ward off despair. Levin suggests that this is similar to an abused child who feels responsible for his plight and views himself as “bad.” The child maintains, “the fantasy that if he becomes good enough,” his father will cease hitting him, his mother will give him attention and whatever other form of abuse he suffered will stop. In the same way, some Israelis are delusional when they assume they can control Arab behavior.
Another myth is to describe Arab intentions as “moderate,” even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
A third assumption is the “fellowship fallacy”-that the Palestinians share Jewish values, goals and positions. Some Israelis have met informally or in public forums with high-level individuals from Judea and Samaria who are connected to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Israelis hear more nuanced statements about the conflict in these discussions than are usually heard from the Palestinian Arab leadership.
The October 7th massacre has changed the thinking of a number of Israelis about the existential danger the Arab terrorist organizations pose to the Jewish State. Whether this awareness will translate into a more realistic approach by the Israeli government and the IDF to dealing with this threat remains to be seen.
President Trump’s policy toward Israel – underlying assumptions Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
February 16, 2025
1. President Trump is not an impartial leader. As expected, he is driven by US interests, determining that Israel’s capabilities and track record have been a unique force and dollar multiplier for the US, commercially and militarily, technologically and operationally.
2. President Trump views Islamic terrorism as a threat to Western democracies, including the US (“The Great American Satan”) – a mutual threat to both the US and Israel. He is aware of NATO’s vacillation (No Action Talk Only), and its unwillingness to flex any effective military and political muscle against Islamic terrorism. Also, all pro-US Arab regimes have the machetes of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood at their throats. Thus, Israel is the most potent, reliable and experienced ally in the US’ battle against Islamic terrorism. Trump views Israel as an essential ally in his attempt to end wars and terrorism, which requires the obliteration – not containment – of the epicenters of war and terrorism (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hamas and Hezbollah).
3. President Trump aspires to minimize US military presence in the Middle East. However, he does not ignore the critical role played by the Middle East as the main epicenter of global anti-US Islamic terrorism and drug trafficking, and the site of 48% of global oil reserves. Also, the Middle East is a junction of critical trade routes between Asia and West Europe, stretching between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf and between Europe, Asia and Africa. President Trump considers Israel as the only effective ally to fill in the vacuum created by a US military withdrawal, serving as a US strategic beachhead, while not requiring US military personnel, only US military hardware – the largest US aircraft carrier with no Americans on board.
4. President Trump (just like most Americans, most Capitol Hill legislators and his entire foreign policy and national security team) identifies Israel as part of the forces of Good in their battle against the forces of Evil, which underscores Islamic terrorism.
5. President Trump realizes that Islamic (and Palestinian) terrorism is driven by a fanatic anti-Western ideology, not by despair. He has concluded that terrorism must be defeated, not contained.
6. President Trump supports Israel’s obligation to defeat terrorism, not just Israel’s right to defend itself. He is aware that Israel’s victory over Islamic terrorism is also a US’ victory.
7. President Trump realizes that Israel’s capabilities have played a key role in the defense of all pro-US Arab regimes (e.g., Jordan), which are targeted by Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and other forms of Islamic terrorism.
8. During his first Administration, President Trump evicted the establishment of the State Department from the center stage of policy-making, because Foggy Bottom has systematically failed in its Middle East policy. Thus, it was the defiance of the State Department’s Palestinian-centered worldview, which paved the road to four additional Israel-Arab peace treaties (the Abraham Accords).
9. Unlike the State Department’s worldview, President Trump does not consider Israel to be part of the problem, but a major part of the solution. He does not believe in soothing – but defeating – terrorism, and considers Gaza as a terror-state, where the population idolizes terrorism.
10. Contrary to the multilateral and cosmopolitan worldview of the of the State Department’s establishment, President Trump does not aspire to establish a policy-common-denominator with the traditionally anti-US and anti-Israel UN and UN-related international organizations. President Trump prefers independent US national security action in collaboration with effective allies, such as Israel, rather than mortgaging US policy to the UN and ineffective Western allies.
11. President Trump is aware that Israel’s posture of deterrence has made it a unique ally, enhancing the US’ regional and global strategic posture. He appreciates Israel as a site of an innovation center for some 250 US high tech giants, which has contributed to the US global technological edge. Moreover, he knows that Israel has been the triple-A-store and cost-effective battle-tested laboratory of the US defense and aerospace industries, yielding a mega-billion-dollar bonanza to the US taxpayer through research and development savings, enhanced US competitiveness in the global market, increased US exports and expanded US employment.
From JFK, to Trump’s “new frontier” Jack Engelhard
Go ahead say it…history repeats itself, only this one took some 60 years to happen again. Op-ed.
Feb 16, 2025, 7:40 AM (GMT+2) Israel National News – After all these years, we still don’t know for sure who killed President John F. Kennedy, though I have my own view.
Can’t say who fired the shots, but I can say who, in my opinion, ordered the hit.
We will know more any day, now that Trump wants those documents declassified.
When it comes to JFK and the 1960s altogether, humbly I propose that the best source material comes from “The Days of the Bitter End,” a book that I wrote…and it starts like this:
“This was morning in America. America was a nation on the move, happy to leave behind the torpor of the Eisenhower years to heed this new president’s call for sacrifice and greatness.
“Not since Washington and Jefferson had America felt such a surge of renewal as embodied in this president and even more glamorous First Lady, Jackie.
“Together they gave us style, romance, adventure, a vision of glittering greatness without end.
“Even rational minds presumed that no mere bullet was strong enough to bring down the most powerful man on earth, certainly not this president, so youthful, so handsome and so virile, for JFK was more than a mortal in terms of America. He was a star! As such he was impregnable and as for power, wasn’t he second only to God?”
Re-read that, interpose one name for another, and up to a point, that would be Trump I was writing about.
But I wrote the book in 1974.
Back then, of course I did not foresee another “morning in America,” nor another “surge of renewal” as today we have it under Trump.
Go ahead say it…history repeats itself, only this one took some 60 years to happen again.
From JFK’s inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1961, with surely the Soviets in mind: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Sounds like Trump.
From the point of view of the book, the Kennedy years were the best years of our lives, yes, Camelot, and we did not know or care about his Nazi-doting father.
Nor did we know about his love life. Jackie wasn’t enough?
We did indeed celebrate ourselves, before it all came crashing down. It was a time to celebrate poets and musicians and writers.
Mostly, it was a time to be young…regardless how old you really were. JFK set the tempo.
JFK was a class act. The flaws would show up later. Meantime we frolicked. Bob Dylan was here, and the Beatles were coming.
The folk tunes celebrated peace and love, as meanwhile the Soviets threatened us with annihilation.
We were blessed, and we were doomed.
JFK got the Peace Corps started…a call to the young to share our bounty with the rest of the world.
Vietnam was looming over the horizon.
We were high on our sense of greatness, and some were high on drugs.
If you don’t know Lenny Bruce, then you don’t know the 1960s, and if you don’t know the 1960s, you don’t know America.
Together with JFK, it was hip to be anti-Establishment, and it was cool to be pro-Israel.
Ditto Trump.
The bungled Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Cuban Missile Crisis were there to remind us that great as we were, we did not have the world to ourselves.
JFK’s new frontier included the moon, and by the end of the decade, mission accomplished.
JFK, and the rest of us still had promises to keep, but then came November 22, 1963, and as I have it in the book: “By the time they reached their Sullivan Street hideaway, the President of the United States was indeed Lyndon Johnson, seen taking the oath of office on television next to a stricken and blood-soaked Jackie Kennedy. Johnson was sworn in at 3:38 p.m. aboard Air Force One.”
No doubt in my mind that it was LBJ.
He despised JFK. By hook or by crook, he finally got what he wanted.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
The Darkness Hidden Under Silicon Valley’s Cloak – Part 2 [49:23] Jerome Corsi
FEB 15, 2025 – Underneath the sea of suits, Starbucks and pocket protectors of Silicon Valley is a level of Darkness one might think is far-fetched and unbelievable until one reads “Silicon Satan” by Cregg Lund, a former member of the Silicon Valley Elite coerced into joining their underground world of Satanism, ritual and manipulation. Lund discusses what happens in his book, published by Post Hill Press, to reveal what really happens beneath the slick Hollywood-esque veneer.
Corrine Lund, wife of Cregg Lund, former of the Silicon Valley powerful and author of the new book, Silicon Satan, joins Dr. Jerome Corsi for the 2nd in a series of conversations about what really happens underneath the glamour, slickness and tech savvy of the Silicon Valley Elite’s world.
The Jihad Against Israel [39:41] Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Feb 13, 2025 International Christian Embassy Jerusalem – Watch this informative and insightful Current Affairs update by Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Israeli scholar on Islam. Gain a deeper understanding of the complex challenges Israel faces in today’s geopolitical landscape.
