COMMENTARY / OPINION
Judean Jews breaking fear and living free w/ Eve Harow | Judeacation w/ Josh Hasten [27:41]
March 16, 2025 JNS TV – Welcome to the first episode of Judeacation hosted by Josh Hasten, JNS Middle East correspondent. This new series takes you inside Judea and Samaria—the heartland of Israel. Meet the pioneers and personalities living on the front lines, defending Israel’s future while preserving its ancient past.
🎙️ Guest: Eve Harow – Tour guide, Director of Tourism & Education at One Israel Fund, and host on the Land of Israel Network.
🔥 Topics Covered in This Episode:
✅ What life is really like in Judea & Samaria post-October 7th
✅ The truth about security, terrorism, and Jewish rights in the region
✅ The battle over Israeli sovereignty and the role of U.S. policy
✅ The rise of Christian Zionist support and global advocacy for Judea
✅ Why Judea & Samaria are crucial to Israel’s security and identity
Why Israel is Firing Its Most Powerful Official w/ Dr. Yaacov Ben-Shemesh | Basic Law [50:41]
March 16, 2025 JNS TV – Welcome to “Basic Law,” the new JNS show hosted by Aylana Meisel, Executive Director of the Israel Law and Liberty Forum. This series dives deep into Israel’s legal system, dissecting the most pressing legal and constitutional issues facing the nation today.
🎙️ Guest: Dr. Yaacov Ben-Shemesh – Constitutional Law Scholar, Professor at Ono Academic College & Tel Aviv University
⚖️ Topics Covered in This Episode:
✅ The role and unprecedented power of Israel’s Attorney General
✅ Why the Israeli government is moving to dismiss the AG
✅ The clash between judicial activism and democracy in Israel
✅ The debate over legal reform and the future of the Supreme Court
✅ October 7th, the ICC, and legal challenges facing Israel’s leadership
Jonathan Pollard: Trump & EGYPTIAN WAR PLANS [49:20]
March 16, 2025 Machon Shilo – Discussion between the head of Machon Shilo Rabbi David Bar-Hayim & Jewish hero Jonathan Pollard
Madame President? – Part Three TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS
MAR 16, 2025
This is Part 3 of my series on Madame President? You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
This is what a female Democrat, Batya Sargon, who now calls herself a populist Trump supporter, said about Trump’s agenda. She is 44 years old and writes for Newsweek. She said this to Bill Maher recently and has received critical acclaim – even from Democrats:
President Trump basically took an ax to the Republican party of the past and turned it into a populist party for both the left and the right. He appointed the highest-ranking openly gay person, Scott Bessent, as our Secretary of Treasury. He sidelined the pro-life wing of his party and returned the abortion issue to the states. By his actions, I believe that Trump thinks abortion should be legal for 12 weeks.
On foreign intervention, he’s anti-war. He’s trying to bring an end to all of these wars. He also does not believe in free trade – he believes in fair trade that benefits the American worker. He looked at our destroyed manufacturing base. He looked at the downwardly mobile working class. He looked at the fact that working-class Americans can no longer afford the American dream.
He looked at why both parties agreed to ship five million good manufacturing jobs overseas to build up China and Mexico and all that did was bring in millions and millions of illegal migrants to compete with the jobs that remained here. And what Donald Trump said was, “We have to stop selling out the working class.”
Batya was very compelling and even Maher didn’t know how to respond. That bodes well for Trump and MAGA.
What do her comments have to do with my series on my life story and on whether a conservative woman could get elected as President of the United States in today’s world? Because, whether you agree with her or not, I think she reflects the growing sentiment of female voters in America and she understands why President Trump won.
She is a product of 9/11, the MeToo wars, the abortion generation, transgenderism and the LGBTQ movement. IMHO, it’s important to understand how she was shaped if one wants to be ELECTED as a female leader in today’s America – and be able to honestly and openly, without shame or arrogance, address her questions and concerns.
Remember, if you want to lead others you need to MEET THEM WHERE THEY ARE – and lead them to where you want them to go.
In the next Chapter of my story, I’m going to tell you what both women and men, that I became close to in the workforce, told me about WHY they chose to identify as gay or lesbian. I believe this is important for female leaders to understand and address – just like the abortion issue. It was a surprise to me and I think it will be a surprise to many of you.
But, first, before we get into the why, let’s document what percentage of the female population now identifies as non-heterosexual. These are not small numbers.
In 1973, pre-Roe, homosexuality was still defined as a mental disorder. Kinsey’s report in 1948 suggested 1-2% of women had engaged in same-sex relationships. A 1970s National Opinion Research Center study found less than 1% of women openly identified as lesbian across all ages.
The 1980s saw growing visibility of gay rights amid the AIDS crisis, but public acceptance remained low. By 1987, homosexuality was no longer listed as a mental disorder in the DSM.
The 1990s brought more visibility to the PRIDE movement driven primarily by Ellen DeGeneres’ coming out in 1997 – but widespread acceptance was still developing.
The 2010s marked significant advances in women identifying as LGTBQ with surveys like Gallup beginning to track LGBTQ identity systematically.
Millennial women drove a notable rise in LGBTQ identity, with women in this age group more likely to identify as bisexual AND lesbian.
Same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in the United States in June 2015 under Obama.
By 2024, under Biden, acceptance of LGBTQ identities for women soared, especially among the younger generations.
What are the estimates today of girls and women who identify as LGBTQ?
- 18% of Millennial Women (who are currently 29–44 years of age) identify as lesbian, transgender or bisexual
- 31% of Gen Z Women (currently aged 13–28) identify as lesbian, transgender or bisexual
- There is no information on Gen Alpha girls (0–12) but estimates are that 40% will identify as lesbian, transgender or bisexual when they reach voting age
This is a WHOLESALE change from the world we all think we know.
Think about that. 30-40% of future female voters in the US say they will identify as lesbian, bisexual or transgender. While young males are clearly becoming more conservative and traditional, the same is not necessarily true for young women.
Even worse, I believe, many mothers of the abortion generation, who aborted their first born children, and who are ashamed and angry with themselves for doing so, have chosen to turn against men, or to try to turn their sons into girls or their girls into lesbians so that they feel better about themselves!
How in the world will a female leader navigate that nightmare (including the abortion realities we talked about earlier) – much less get elected – without an understanding of why girls and women have made the conscious choice to seek non-traditional partners – and a willingness to address it openly and honestly.
They can’t. Male candidates may be able to sidestep these questions – but female candidates will not. I’ll show you why in Part 4.
Menachem Begin Still Speaks to Us, We Just Have to Listen
March 16, 2025 Jewish Breaking News – In his book, The Revolt, Menachem Begin wrote:
The seeds of Jewish destruction lie in passively enabling the enemy to humiliate us. Only when the enemy succeeds in turning the spirit of the Jew into dust and ashes in life, can he turn the Jew into dust and ashes in death.
During the Holocaust it was after the enemy had humiliated the Jews, trampled them underfoot, divided them, deceived them, afflicted them, drove brother against brother, only then could he lead them, almost without resistance, to the gates of Auschwitz. Therefore, at all times and whatever the cost, safeguard the dignity and honor of the Jewish people.
Stand united in face of the enemy. We Jews love life, for life is holy. But there are things in life more precious than life itself. There are times when one must risk life for the sake of rescuing the lives of others. And when the few risk their own lives for the sake of the many, then they, too, stand the chance of saving themselves.
So, yes, we have come full circle, and with God’s help, with the rebirth of sovereign Israel we have finally broken the historic cycle: no more destruction and no more defeats, and no more oppression – only Jewish liberty, with dignity and honor.
There are things more precious than life and more horrible than death, Menachem Begin wrote in his book, The Revolt. That phrase has stayed with my all of my life since the time I first read them as a young teenager dreaming of living in this land. Yes, there are things more precious than life – because in protecting them, ultimately, we are indeed protecting life itself. This concept is reaffirmed in the Torah. There are three things that Jews are commanded to avoid, even at the cost of death.
Today, Israel’s soldiers are breaking the historic cycle yet again. Jewish liberty. Jewish dignity. Jewish honor. And most important, Jewish lives are at stake.
October 7 was very much an attempt to humiliate Israel and Israelis. First, by catching us off guard and in this they succeeded. Second, in hurting us so deeply that the pain would be unbearable and yes, in this too, they succeeded. We who love life were decimated by the inhumanity, the barbarity of the attacks. What human being does what they did? What kind of “man” is so filled with depravity that he could torture innocent children, desecrate lives and bodies as they did?
To contemplate what they did for any length of time brings only pain and madness, so I choose to focus on now and our response. Ultimately, their goal was to destroy us and claim for themselves that which is and always has been, ours. And in this, they will fail.
In our long annals as a nation, we rise, we fall, we return, we are exiled, we are enslaved, we rebel, we liberate ourselves, we are oppressed once more, we rebuild, and again we suffer destruction, climaxing in our own lifetime in the calamity of calamities, the Holocaust, followed by the rebirth of the Jewish State.
That was the cycle of which Menachem Begin wrote. That is the cycle broken on May 14, 1948 and we will not return to that cycle, just as we will not be exiled again. We will not return to the ghettoes of Europe or the gas chambers built for us.
The world clamors for a “ceasefire” and because we were the ones who did not start firing, we alone are the ones to choose when we stop. So we have sent our sons and daughters to battle the devil that lives in the hearts and souls of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and every Palestinian, European, or American who sides with those who butchered 1,200 men, women and children on October 7 and kidnapped 251 people. Or side with those who have fired over 10,000 rockets at our cities, our families, our homes.
It is long past time for the Jewish people to accept that we have no moral or legal or historical obligation to be better than anyone else, except before God. We don’t have to convince the United Nations, we don’t have to cater to Biden the EU or the UN.
We are a thriving, creating, caring, democratic, open and fair nation, more moral than most, more justified in calling this our land than almost any other people can call their country home. We don’t have to convince the world; we owe no one an explanation.
One big toothache TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS
MAR 16, 2025
The barometric pressure in my area has been at record lows for the last three days.
If you live in the upper Midwest and it seems like every little symptom or ache you’ve ever had is pronounced right now – I’m guessing it’s because of the extreme low barometric pressure system we have been in. I, for one, have felt like crap – I was actually nauseated from the latest extremely low barometric pressure system. The good news is that this too shall pass & today is a better day.
I’m a firm believer that lack of sunlight and low barometric pressure make a huge difference in how we feel on a daily basis.
Barometric pressure, also known as atmospheric pressure, is the force exerted by the weight of the air above us in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s typically measured in units like inches of mercury (inHg) using a barometer. At sea level, the average barometric pressure is around 29.92 inHg, but it fluctuates with altitude, weather changes, and geographic location. High pressure usually means clear skies, while low pressure often signals storms or unsettled weather.
As for how it affects your body, it’s all about balance—or imbalance—between the external pressure and the internal pressure in your tissues, sinuses, and joints. When barometric pressure drops, like before a storm, the air pressing down on you decreases. This can cause tissues to expand, which can press on nerves or inflame sensitive areas. People with arthritis, migraines, GERD, past injuries, or sinus issues often report flare-ups during these shifts. It’s not only the low pressure but quick changes in pressure can wreak havoc on your body.
You know how your ears pop on a plane? That’s barometric pressure at work, forcing your eustachian tubes to equalize. Rapid pressure swings can throw your body off kilter and exacerbate things like tinnitus or dizziness or vertigo as well.
You know how good you feel standing in a warm pool of water? Standing in a warm pool of water doesn’t quite simulate an increase in barometric pressure in the atmospheric sense, but it does create a different kind of pressure effect on your body that might feel analogous in some ways.
Barometric pressure is the weight of the air pushing down on you from above, acting uniformly across your whole body. When you stand in a pool, you’re dealing with hydrostatic pressure—the pressure exerted by the water itself—which increases with depth. Even in a shallow pool, say waist-deep at 3 feet, you’re feeling extra pressure on your lower body, on top of the atmospheric pressure already there. People with arthritis or circulation issues often report relief in warm pools, similar to how stable high-pressure weather can ease symptoms.
I’ve been documenting this for years. Low pressure systems cause all sorts of physical maladies (GERD, COPD, joint pain, sinus pain, vertigo, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, fibromyalgia, migraines) that are blamed on other things. My mother used to say that low barometric pressure made her whole body feel like one big toothache.
Symptoms Linked to Low Pressure
Headaches or Migraines
Mechanism: Drops in pressure can alter blood vessel dilation or oxygen levels in the brain, triggering pain.
Feels like: Head pounding, fatigue, or nausea—mimicking a flu-like state.
Joint or Muscle Pain
Mechanism: Lower pressure may cause tissues to expand slightly or affect fluid pressure in joints, aggravating arthritis or old injuries.
Feels like: Achiness, stiffness—similar to a cold or overexertion.
Fatigue or Lethargy
Mechanism: Pressure changes might disrupt the autonomic nervous system or oxygen availability, leaving some feeling drained.
Feels like: That “under the weather” sluggishness.
Dizziness or Lightheadedness
Mechanism: Shifts in pressure can affect inner ear balance or blood flow, especially during rapid drops (e.g., before a storm).
Feels like: A vague, unwell sensation, sometimes with vertigo.
Digestive Discomfort (e.g., GERD)
Mechanism: As mentioned earlier, low pressure might influence esophageal or stomach pressure dynamics, worsening reflux.
Feels like: Nausea, bloating, or heartburn—mildly illness-like.
Sinus Pressure or Congestion
Mechanism: Pressure drops can cause air pockets in sinuses to expand, leading to discomfort.
Feels like: A sinus infection or cold, even without actual illness.
This is why so many people move to places with the least barometric changes like Hawaii and San Diego, California. I would too if I could afford it. Barometric pressure changes are most pronounced during the transitional seasons—fall and spring. In the Midwest, April and October are the worst months.
I’ve often wished somebody would invent a system where you could adjust the barometric pressure in your house to make it comfortable regardless of what’s going on outside. A girl can dream. Hugs!
Two French Ghosts and President Macron by Amir Taheri
March 16, 2025
- In the past two weeks… Macron has been all over the place with the alacrity of a butterfly. He has assumed that the 80-year alliance between European and American democracies is over, that NATO is dead, that Russia is determined to conquer Europe and that war — if not World War III — is inevitable.
- Talleyrand might have invited Macron to wait and see if the Oval Office show doesn’t have a sequel that might twist the plot in another direction, now that Zelensky has opened a new dialogue with the new US administration.
- [Talleyrand] would have asked the French president to wait and see whether or not Trump attends the planned NATO summit to be held in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 24-25.
- Foch would have advised Macron not to assume that the US will sit back and watch as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army of North Koreans, Uzbeks, Chechens and Kazakhs, backed by Iranian drones, march into the Champs Élysée.
- Foch could have quipped that you can’t push back a foe just by big-talk. If you really wish to pin Putin’s back to the floor, then end his control of Ukrainian skies. That means giving Ukrainians some of the warplanes that EU member states own.
- Should Europe regard Russia as an eternal mortal foe or consider turning it into a tolerable neighbor — if not a friend — in a few years’ time?
As France’s President Emmanuel Macron casts himself as Europe’s new leader in a joust against US President Donald Trump, he might do well to have a look at two great Frenchmen who advised against haste and hubris.
The first is that paragon of diplomacy, Talleyrand, who managed to survive four regimes, including one created by a bloody revolution and another that set Europe on fire before drowning it in blood.
One day, Talleyrand was called in by an angry Napoleon, who ordered him immediately to draft a declaration of war on Austria in reaction to “insults from Vienna”. The diplomat did so but, as he later recalled, kept the war declaration under his pillow until the following day, when the Emperor ordered him to forget about it as France wasn’t ready for war.
Prudence was the better part of valor.
The next great Frenchman that Macron should have a look at is Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Allied Commander on the western front in World War I. Receiving cables from frontline generals begging him to visit urgently, Foch got into his car, commanding the driver: “Make haste slowly, I am in a hurry!”
Foch is also known for other gem quotations, including this one from one of his cables to Paris from the frontline: “My center is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking.” Later, he commented on the Treaty of Versailles: “This is not a peace treaty; it is an armistice for twenty years.”
In the past two weeks, however, Macron has been all over the place with the alacrity of a butterfly. He has assumed that the 80-year alliance between European and American democracies is over, that NATO is dead, that Russia is determined to conquer Europe and that war — if not World War III — is inevitable.
But what caused that haste, which, as we know, can’t but produce waste or worse?
The answer is the political version of “The Apprentice” reality TV show that Trump staged with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Officer, plus a few of the hundreds of tweets, or whatever they call them now, that the US president darts at the world each week.
What might the ghosts of Talleyrand and Foch advise?
Talleyrand might have invited Macron to wait and see if the Oval Office show doesn’t have a sequel that might twist the plot in another direction, now that Zelensky has opened a new dialogue with the new US administration.
Talleyrand would have also invited Macron to take no notice of John Bolton’s broken record about Trump planning to destroy NATO, a record played for almost six years. Instead, the foxy diplomat would have asked the French president to wait and see whether or not Trump attends the planned NATO summit to be held in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 24-25. All we know is that NATO Secretary-General and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is working with Washington Sherpas to prepare the summit.
Talleyrand might have drawn Macron’s attention to another rendezvous penciled in the Élysée Palace’s agenda: the G7 summit to be held in Alberta, Canada on June 15-17 — this time with the European Union’s chiefs given seats at the high table.
Justin Trudeau has been replaced as Canadian Prime Minister by Mark Carney, who owes his success in the Liberal Party leadership contest partly to a surge of Canadian nationalism prompted by Trump’s talk of rising tariffs and annexation. A banker and economist, Carney is better placed to reduce the political heat and promote a serious review of trade and economic ties between the two neighbors.
Foch would have advised Macron not to assume that the US will sit back and watch as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army of North Koreans, Uzbeks, Chechens and Kazakhs, backed by Iranian drones, march into the Champs Élysée.
While the threat from Putin must not be minimized, it would be foolhardy to exaggerate it out of nervousness. For four decades, Russia occupied two-thirds of the European continent from the Oder-Neisse line to the Urals. The USSR’s population was twice that of Russia’s today. With Warsaw Pact allies, the USSR had the world’s biggest war machine, with thousands of tanks and warplanes, and millions of men in infantry divisions, not to mention thousands of nuclear warheads.
Yet, military historians agree that the Soviet juggernaut was never in a position to conquer Europe even if the US had not been on the side of the Europeans. After all, in World War II, Britain managed to fight the German military giant alone for more than two years, albeit with the lend-lease arrangement from the US.
In June 1994, Russian troops had to leave Germany in trains hired from the French SNCF and Deutsche Bahn, which means that had they wished to march on Paris they would have had to hitch a ride.
The wily Foch might have noted that building the kind of war machine that Macron and Ursula von der Leyen talk about could take between five and ten years.
Foch could have quipped that you can’t push back a foe just by big-talk. If you really wish to pin Putin’s back to the floor, then end his control of Ukrainian skies. That means giving Ukrainians some of the warplanes that EU member states own.
The 10-year Soviet war in Afghanistan ended when President Ronald Reagan provided the Mujahedin with Stinger missiles to destroy Soviet helicopter gunships that controlled the skies of the war-torn land.
Macron talks of building a European defense system, which requires a massive leap forward in industrial development, scientific and technological research and economic and political re-configuration, all of which require massive popular support, something that EU leaders take for granted at their peril.
The two French wise men of the past might have made another suggestion: Why not try to stop a war that one protagonist can’t win and the other can’t lose? That requires thinking before acting, rather than vice versa, a fact that injects the element of time in any calculation.
In two years’ time, with US mid-term elections, will Trump be in the unassailable position he is in today? Does Putin have the stamina of a long-distance runner in a war that has given him advances at a snail’s pace? Should Europe regard Russia as an eternal mortal foe or consider turning it into a tolerable neighbor — if not a friend — in a few years’ time?
In other words, as the ghosts of Talleyrand and Foch might have said: Don’t do today what tomorrow you may regret having done.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
Cryptocurrency: ‘Digital Gold’ or ‘Monopoly Money’? by Lawrence Kadish
March 16, 2025
As Jack and his beanstalk can tell you, there are no magic beans. Unfortunately, those who believe cryptocurrency is their ticket to enormous wealth or financial security will soon find out that they, too, have no magic beans. What they may have is Monopoly money.
With that in mind, it needs to be said that recent actions to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve opens the door to potentially serious issues.
Equally chilling is the vulnerability of cryptocurrency to hackers. Media reports reveal that North Korean hackers recently stole $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency from Bybit, described as the world’s second-largest crypto exchange. One can probably assume those hackers were operating under instructions from their government.
Perhaps the larger issue is that there is no “there” there when discussing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. At the core of a digital currency’s existence is only an algorithmic ledger. Yet it reflects the same dynamics that have historically created speculative bubbles that leave investors stunned and broke.
Consider the Tulip Mania of the 1630s. Dutch tulip bulb prices reached extraordinary heights before collapsing dramatically. Like a cryptocurrency, it featured “value” largely driven by certified scarcity and speculative trading.
A similar bubble occurred in 1720, when Britain’s publicly traded South Sea Company speculated on emerging South American trade opportunities. The eventual collapse of that pursuit was so widespread that it actually damaged the entire British economy. However, one needn’t travel back centuries to chronicle the cycle of grand promises that went up in smoke.
The dot-com bubble at the end of the 1990s saw internet companies with limited revenue but rosy visions attract massive investment before the market crashed. Coming even closer to our current crypto era, there was the mortgage-backed securities crisis of 2007. Complex financial instruments obscured underlying risks to investors who were chasing illusionary profits until it all collapsed.
Now we have cryptocurrency being promoted as a parallel currency to the US dollar and other currencies.
There are any number of serious issues facing a digital currency. They include financial exclusion, where those without reliable internet access or computer literacy will have no access to their money. There are, and will remain, enormous privacy concerns. Digital currencies could enable unprecedented financial surveillance, allowing governments to track the spending of their citizens. And as hackers daily remind us, there are cybersecurity vulnerabilities through which digital currencies will face threats, from fraud, theft, loss and system failures that would compromise an entire nation’s financial stability. There is no margin for currency error.
When the cryptocurrency bubble does eventually burst, I suspect one’s account won’t even be able to “Pass Go – collect $200.”
The alliance that alarms the Ayatollahs Dr. Martin Sherman
As Iranian regime inches closer to its desired doomsday weapon, the rationale for a countervailing triaxial alliance between the US, Israel and Azerbaijan has never been more compelling. Opinion.
Mar 14, 2025, 2:22 PM (GMT+2) Israel National News – “When a wise man hears of the Tao, he immediately embraces it. When an average man hears of the Tao, he ignores it. When a foolish man hears of the Tao, he mocks it. If he did not mock it, it wouldn’t be the Tao.”
Tao Te Ching (Ancient Chinese philosophical text) – Verse 41
The landslide victory of Donald Trump in the November 2024 elections set the proverbial cat among pigeons. Suddenly, things that previously appeared totally impossible—or at best, highly improbable—look increasingly feasible.
“Red Alert” in Iran
This seems particularly true concerning the Iranian nuclear program and the chances of defusing the danger it presents.
In this regard, earlier this month, Iran Daily, which functions as the official mouthpiece of the Iranian regime, published a front-page article titled “Israel’s Growing Footprint in Azerbaijan Raises Red Alert,” urging Iranian security and government institutions to closely follow developments in the Caucasus region.
In conveying its concern over the winds of change blowing from the White House, the article refers to a January 2023 policy paper by a leading Israeli think tank that features prominently in a recent article of mine, discussing the potential value of a Washington-Jerusalem-Baku axis. I ended that article with a proposal that such an axis “is something the new U.S. administration should factor into its foreign policy in its endeavor to engender enhanced stability across the globe.”
Judging from the Iran Daily’s reaction, it seems that Tehran not only recognizes the likely potential of such an axis, but is greatly alarmed by such a prospect.
A triaxial alliance
Indeed, the Iranian paper mentions a more recent paper, published by the very same think-tank, of a more recent article articulating, if anything, even more expressly, the potential benefits such an alliance could entail.
Given the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the global order, the paper suggests that Azerbaijan’s significance—both for U.S. and Israeli strategic interests—has increased even further. It lists several possibilities in which Baku’s advantage and capabilities can be effectively leveraged to benefit the more robust American administration and its major Middle East ally, Israel.
Among these factors is the virtual stranglehold Azerbaijan, having shared borders with both Russia and Iran, could exert on a sizable portion of Moscow’s current land-based trade with Tehran. But of paramount importance, the paper suggests leveraging Azerbaijan’s advantages and capabilities “to exert maximum pressure on Iran to force it to abandon its nuclear program.”
The relevance of this for current US policy was underscored by a March 7th declaration on Iran by Trump in an Oval Office press conference when he elaborated on his position concerning Iran, stating: “We’re down to final moments. We’re at final moments. We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon…”
“Taking Iran’s nuclear program off the table”
This echoes the position taken in early February, when President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) “taking Iran’s nuclear program off the table” and “restoring maximum pressure on the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, denying Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon.” The memorandum underscores that “President Trump will not tolerate Iran possessing a nuclear weapons capability.”
All of this is good news for Israel, having endured four years of thinly veiled animosity from the Biden presidency and its flaccid appeasement of the ayatollahs’ regime, allowing it to creep ever-closer to weaponised nuclear capability.
Of course, even under the restrictive Biden-era diktaats, Israel showed remarkable military capability, once it recovered from the initial shock of the October 7th, Hamas attack,
Indeed, distinguished historian Victor Davis Hanson catalogued these achievements in a recent video.
“If we had this conversation a year ago, and I said to you Iran is going to send 500 projectiles into Israel, only about 1% are going to do anything—and no damage. And in retaliation, Israel is going to send 300 planes and destroy entirely their air defenses. Then, they are going to go into Hezbollah, and they are going to target with pagers and walkie-talkies and blow up 4000 explosions.
“And then they are going to go into Lebanon, and they are going to destroy the whole apparat ]of] Hezbollah and then they are going into Gaza after October 7th and destroy those terrorist[s], Hamas. And then they are finally going to retaliate [against the] Houthi, and destroy their port facilities and their power grid, and oh by the way, they’re going to so weaken Iran and so weaken Hezbollah that the Syrian Assad arch enemy of the United States is going to fall, no one would believe you.”
“Israeli attack worse than a nuclear Iran”
While all this is true, all the Israel action taken under Biden has been largely retaliatory and usually limited in scope, often to specific targets. What is emerging now is, that to cripple the Iran’s nuclear project, there is need for strikes on a far wider and more sustained scale. This is an ever-emerging scenario in which Azerbaijan can play a pivotal role, both in terms of intelligence and in the provision of physical facilities. Indeed, it was a Foreign Policy feature article, Israel’s Secret Staging Ground, that raised precisely such a possibility. Citing well-informed sources, it wrote: “I don’t think there’s any doubt — if Israeli jets want to land in Azerbaijan after an attack, they’d probably be allowed to do so. Israel is deeply embedded in Azerbaijan”.
Adding substance to this position are reports that the Obama administration deliberately thwarted Israeli plans to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities from Azerbaijan by leaking details of the plan. This motivated John Bolton, who served as America’s UN Ambassador and National Security Advisor to declare that former Democratic regimes felt that “an Israeli attack [on Iran] is worse than an Iranian nuclear weapon.”
Never more compelling
Of course, today, things are a far cry from that. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of an administration more amenable to Israel and more understanding of the existential threat it faces from Iran.
Clearly, today Israel’s air power has been considerably enhanced both in terms of weaponry, range and refueling—as recent strikes on Yemen have illustrated. However, including Baku in the effort to eliminate the scourge of an Islamic nuclear bomb, by offering assistance in pre-operation intelligence gathering and in possible post-operation search-and-rescue missions, should any Israeli aircraft be downed.
Accordingly, as the ayatollahs inch closer to their desired doomsday weapon, the rationale for a countervailing triaxial alliance has never been closer—or more compelling.
King David’s hostage negotiations Daniel Greenfield
Purim and the Bible’s modern-day message for Israel after Oct 7. Pursue the release of captives through the destruction of the enemy and by no other means. Opinion.
Mar 15, 2025, 8:42 PM (GMT+2) Israel National News – As Jews around the world celebrate Purim, the annual commemoration of the divine salvation from extermination has a special resonance this year.
Haman, the Purim story’s central villain, the Persian Empire’s grand vizier, descended from the Amalekite peoples, has traditionally served as a stand-in for contemporary villains like Hitler, Stalin (Russian Jews celebrate a Stalin’s Purim marking the Communist tyrant’s death before he could execute his own holocaust in the USSR) as well as Hamas and other jihadists.
But the events of Purim taking place some 2,300 years ago are also intimately linked to the Exodus from Egypt, 3,300 years ago, and the establishment of the first Jewish monarchy several hundred years later under King Saul followed by King David and his dynasty.
And to the very different styles of the two rulers.
After the miraculous Exodus from Egypt, Amalek defied God by ambushing and attacking the Jews. In response, God commanded an eternal war against the nomadic bandit rovers (Exodus 17) and (Deuteronomy 25:19) and tasked every Jewish king with waging that war.
When King Saul receives the divine command to destroy Amalek, he flinches from the mission and loses his right to the monarchy. It falls to the aged Prophet Samuel to finish the job, confronting King Agag of Amalek and telling him bluntly, “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women” (1 Samuel 15:33) before striking him down. The story of Purim describes Haman as an “Agagite” descended from that very king.
But it is King David who faces a crisis similar to the one that Israel is still living through.
After Saul and his army fall to the Philistines, the kingdom is in disarray. David and his small band of men return to their town only to find that the Amalekites had overrun it, “burned it with fire,” and that “their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives.”
“David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep” (1 Samuel 30:4). “The people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters” but David turns to God in search of answers. And God tells him, “Pursue; for thou shalt surely overtake them, and shalt without fail recover all.”
David and his men chase after the enemy. A third of them cannot go on, but the rest continue. The Amalekites are overtaken “eating and drinking and feasting” with their spoils and David surprising them, strikes at twilight, defeats them and rescues all the captives.
In sharp contrast to Saul, King David puts his absolute trust in God, commits totally to a course of action, the destruction of the enemy and the rescue of the hostages, and follows through as rapidly as possible with no hesitation and no other considerations. Where Saul is held back by his insecurities as a leader, David inspires men who were on the verge of stoning him by rallying them to fight with him. Saul is stymied by political considerations while David trusts in God.
That incident has important lessons for the present day as Israel, after going to war nearly a year and a half ago, has once again been reduced to trading terrorists for hostages or their bodies. The initial courageous statements of principle after Oct. 7 gave way to political pressure from the Biden administration, the E.U., the U.N. and other global forces, and then to domestic pressure campaigns insisting that hostage releases take priority over the destruction of Hamas.
What started out as a Davidic war of principle and courage gave way to a Saulite political slog. And this is what Hamas and its backers in the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar and others around the world had been counting on. The more Israel tried to demonstrate that it was fighting a “just” war as gently as possible, the more accusations of genocide and war crimes were hurled at it.
And Israel was back in the same familiar no-win scenario of fighting Islamic terrorism.
Saul’s mercy on Amalek was not a sign of his compassion, but his weakness and insecurity. In his desperate efforts to avert the prophecy and prevent David from succeeding him, he would violently lash out at everyone from his own son to the priests who had provided his rival with bread. This led the sages to warn that “one who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately be cruel to those to whom he should show compassion.” A commonplace liberal pattern today.
Israel could learn a good deal from King David’s determined approach to “hostage negotiations.” He does not parley with the enemy or waste time on internal debates before turning to God to determine what to do. It’s not that he doesn’t feel the agony of the losses. We are told that he wept along with his men until they could all no longer cry. But after that period of sorrow was done, he acted as quickly as he could, determinedly pursuing the enemy until they were his.
Today, anyone who argues that the priority must be to destroy Hamas and win the war is accused of not caring enough about the hostages. The cycle of recriminations over what happened on Oct. 7 and the fate of the hostages has been cynically exploited by Qatar, which has embedded its corrupt operatives among some of the families of the hostages, by the media and the left, to undermine and divide Israelis.
King David refuses to engage in recriminations or to be subject to them. His purpose during Israel’s ancient hostage crisis is not to debate the past, but to act resolutely. He also refuses to divide the fate of the captives from that of the war. Instead, he pursues the unitary purpose of destroying the enemy and saving the captives.
That is only possible because King David acts boldly, rapidly and unpredictably, following the Amalekite raiders at a faster speed than they ever expected and ambushing them. He does not come to negotiate, but to slay them and save the captives, and putting his trust in God, he has no moral qualms about his mission. A problem that continues to trouble Israel even after Oct. 7.
There is much that Israel could have learned and still can learn from King David’s approach to hostage negotiations. The first thing is to eliminate moral doubt about its rightness through faith. The second is to act quickly and debate later about the “endgame” of the conflict. The third is to pursue the release of captives through the destruction of the enemy and by no other means. And finally, to recognize that wars are only won when the debate ends and the battle begins.
Hamas tactics, aided by Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and the media, has been to delay Israel’s response, to stir up moral doubt using a propaganda campaign of fake atrocities and war crimes, with false accusations of genocide and constant lies about every military operation, and by demonstrating that it would kill hostages rather than allow Israel to rescue them.
That slowed down Israel’s response at every turn of the Oct. 7 war. And the more the battles slow down, the more debates set in. Victory is the best answer to any argument. Israel would need to worry less about the opinions of every pro-terrorist institution from the U.N. to Haaretz if it delivered consistent mission-focused victories by acting decisively, accepting the risks and rebounding from losses with new operations rather than wallowing in the futility of disproving every lie and arguing over what could have been done differently. Doubt, moral and operational, is corrosive. It corroded King Saul’s nerve until he went mad while King David refused to doubt.
The secret of King David’s decisiveness was the same moral conviction that began when as a boy he confronted Goliath and told the Philistine giant, “You come at me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin; and I come at you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted.” That moral certainty is sadly lacking today.
King Saul did not lack courage in response to some outrage, such as when Nahash the Ammonite besieged Jabesh Gilead and refused to accept its surrender unless each man agreed to have an eye put out. It’s only when the way was not clear, doubt set in and the people no longer seemed to be behind him that Saul tended to become insecure and lose clarity.
That is still Israel’s problem today. Its men are courageous when facing armed assaults, but arguments, smears and accusations rob them of their certainty and their momentum. Israel doesn’t lose wars, instead it loses image campaigns and peace negotiations. And unless it reclaims the certainty that it had on Oct. 7 and that Americans had on 9/11, that will continue.
Purim marked the return of certainty as the Jews of Persia who had become all too comfortable, who stayed in Shushan instead of returning to Jerusalem, were faced with sudden annihilation. Some blamed the small minority of Jews who had returned from exile to resettle Israel, others Mordechai for refusing to bow to Haman, but that distant descendant of Saul did not doubt. He had become a Jew, a Man of Judah, not by descent, but through the moral certainty of a David.
And an exiled and downtrodden people suddenly found the strength to fight for its survival.
Daniel Greenfield – is a Shillman Journalism Fellow and the Executive Vice President of Programs at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His book, Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against the Left, tells the story of the Left’s 200 Year War Against America.
[Ed.:
Curbing Judicial Obstruction with Impeachment @AMUSE
MAR 15, 2025
The judiciary’s independence is sacrosanct, but it was never meant to be an unchecked autocracy. While Article III grants lifetime tenure to federal judges contingent on “good Behaviour,” it does not render them immune to consequences when they systematically abuse their power. Today, the increasing use of nationwide injunctions by activist judges has become a favored weapon of the Left to obstruct President Trump’s duly enacted policies, often without a clear constitutional or statutory basis. If unchecked, this trend threatens the balance of power between the branches of government. The Founders provided a remedy for judicial misconduct: impeachment. While removal by the Senate may be politically impossible, the process itself—lengthy, costly, and reputationally damaging—can serve as an effective deterrent against overreach. Republicans must be willing to wield impeachment strategically, not necessarily to remove but to punish and deter judges who act as unelected policymakers.
Hamilton, in Federalist No. 81, made clear that impeachment was intended as a check on judges who engage in “a series of deliberate usurpations” of the authority of the other branches. Judges who repeatedly issue nationwide injunctions against the executive branch are precisely such usurpers. A nationwide injunction is, in effect, a judicial veto on the president’s agenda. It allows a single unelected judge—often forum-shopped by left-wing litigants—to impose their policy preferences over the entire nation, circumventing the democratic process. While the Supreme Court has signaled skepticism toward this practice, lower courts continue to wield it aggressively.
A strategy of impeachment, even if the Senate does not convict, can curb this judicial activism. The moment a judge is impeached by the House, their professional life is consumed by defending their record. They must lawyer up, face grueling hearings, and endure the stain of impeachment on their legacy. Historically, even the threat of impeachment has influenced judicial behavior. In 1996, federal judge Harold Baer Jr. reversed his own controversial decision after bipartisan calls for his impeachment gained traction. Impeachment, therefore, serves as a powerful mechanism of accountability even without removal.
Critics may argue that impeachment should be reserved for criminal misconduct, but this is a narrow and ahistorical interpretation. The Constitution defines impeachable offenses as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” a term the Founders deliberately left broad to encompass abuses of power. Gerald Ford once quipped that an impeachable offense is “whatever a majority of the House considers it to be at a given moment in history.” This flexibility is precisely why impeachment remains an essential tool. When a judge repeatedly and willfully obstructs the president’s ability to govern through legally dubious nationwide injunctions, that judge has violated the public trust and warrants impeachment proceedings.
Moreover, the process of impeachment serves an important signaling function. Judges observing their peers face impeachment for nationwide injunctions will be less inclined to issue such orders themselves. A judiciary that fears political backlash will be more restrained in inserting itself into policy disputes. While Democrats have normalized lawfare against Trump—weaponizing indictments and civil suits to exhaust his political viability—Republicans have largely failed to adopt similar tactics. Impeachment, in this context, is not an abuse of power but a measured response to judicial excesses that threaten constitutional governance.
Historically, judicial impeachments have been rare but impactful. The impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in 1804, while unsuccessful, helped delineate the boundaries of judicial partisanship. More recent examples, such as the impeachment and removal of Judge Walter Nixon for perjury, demonstrate that the process remains viable when misconduct is clear. While current political realities make Senate convictions unlikely, the mere act of impeachment puts judges on notice. Judges are not above scrutiny. If they wish to issue sweeping injunctions that override the executive branch, they should be prepared to defend their decisions under the harsh spotlight of an impeachment inquiry.
To be clear, this is not an argument for impeaching any judge who rules against a conservative policy. The standard should be a demonstrable pattern of activist rulings, particularly those that extend beyond traditional judicial authority to halt executive actions nationwide. Congress must establish a clear framework: if a judge issues multiple nationwide injunctions in cases where statutory or constitutional justification is weak, that judge becomes a legitimate target for impeachment. This is not a partisan weapon but a constitutional safeguard against judicial imperialism.
Republicans must recognize that they are engaged in a political struggle where only one side is playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules. If Democrats can launch impeachment proceedings against Trump on flimsy grounds, there is no reason Republicans should hesitate to hold unelected judges accountable for egregious abuses of power. The Constitution provides the tool. It is time to use it. The judiciary must be reminded that their role is to interpret the law—not to dictate policy for an entire nation. Impeachment, wielded strategically, can restore that proper balance.
