COMMENTARY / OPINION
Must We Honor a Pope Who Dishonored Israel? By: Rabbi Elie Mischel
April 22, 2025
In the streets of Rome, flags fly at half-mast. Catholics worldwide mourn Pope Francis, a pontiff remembered for his humility, embrace of the poor, and efforts to reform the Church. His advocates point to his compassion during the refugee crisis, his environmental advocacy, and his attempts to confront sexual abuse within the Church’s walls.
Yet behind this veneer of humility lies a troubling record when it comes to Israel. In 2014, Francis visited both Yad Vashem (Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust victims) and the separation barrier (the security fence Israel built to prevent terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada). At the separation barrier, Francis was photographed resting his head against the wall in prayer – mimicking the posture of Jews at the Western Wall – creating a false moral equivalence between a security measure that saves Israeli lives and Judaism’s holiest site. This gesture deeply offended many Israelis and Jews worldwide.
When visiting Judea and Samaria, he bypassed Israeli sovereignty by entering through Jordan instead. In 2015, he warmly received Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, reportedly calling him an “angel of peace” – a bewildering description of a man who glorifies terrorism and funds the families of suicide bombers. That same year, the Vatican under Francis formally recognized the “State of Palestine,” undermining peace efforts and dismissing Jewish historical rights in Jerusalem.
Even after Hamas’s October 7 massacre – the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust – Francis quickly pivoted from condemning the initial slaughter to criticizing Israel’s defensive response as “cruelty” and even labeling Israeli airstrikes as “terrorism.” In his final months, he publicly questioned whether Israel’s campaign constituted “genocide,” inflammatory language that emboldened Israel’s enemies.
Is it possible for a religious leader to be remembered fondly despite actively opposing God’s chosen nation? Can papal kindness in other spheres outweigh hostility toward the children of Abraham? Does the good Francis accomplished in his life compensate for his persistent antagonism toward Israel?
Genesis 12:3 stands as one of Scripture’s most decisive declarations:
וַאֲבָרֲכָה מְבָרְכֶיךָ וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ אָאֹר וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה׃
This divine principle hasn’t expired. It wasn’t nullified by the New Testament. God established an everlasting covenant with Abraham’s descendants that remains in force today.
The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God’s covenant with Israel is olam – everlasting. God’s relationship with the Jewish people isn’t a temporary arrangement but the backbone of His redemptive plan. When world leaders position themselves against Israel, they aren’t merely expressing a political preference – they’re challenging God’s sworn word.
Why does God make blessing and curse completely dependent on how one relates to Israel? Is God being rigid?
No – God is being clear. The treatment of Israel functions as a spiritual litmus test. When a religious leader consistently sides against Israel while embracing its enemies, something fundamental is revealed about their understanding of Scripture and God’s purposes.
The pope’s antagonism toward Israel betrayed not a secondary flaw but a foundational one. In his 2013 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Francis wrote: “We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for ‘the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29).” Yet his actions directly contradicted these words. Francis could not truly accept that the Church’s 1,900-year replacement theology had been wrong. He could not humble himself before the miracle of Israel’s rebirth – the clearest evidence in our time that God keeps His covenantal promises.
In the Book of Numbers, we read how God turned intended curses into blessings for Israel. The prophet Balaam declared:
מָה אֶקֹּב לֹא קַבֹּה אֵל וּמָה אֶזְעֹם לֹא זָעַם יְהֹוָה׃
How can I damn whom Hashem has not damned, How doom when Hashem has not doomed?
Yet Francis did what even Balaam would not do – he positioned himself against the survival of the Jewish state.
When then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni addressed the Vatican’s recognition of Palestine, she stated bluntly: “I regret that the Vatican decided to participate in a step that blatantly ignores the history of the Jewish people in Israel and Jerusalem.” This wasn’t merely diplomatic frustration – it highlighted how Francis’s Vatican systematically elevated Palestinian narratives while dismissing Israel’s security concerns and historical rights.
This pattern persisted throughout his papacy. Time and again, Israel expressed dismay at the Vatican’s tendency to privilege politicized Palestinian narratives while brushing aside Israeli concerns. Whether during the canonization of Palestinian nuns or in statements following clashes in Jerusalem, the Holy See consistently seemed more interested in defending Palestinian identity than acknowledging Israel’s security challenges.
The principle at stake is not whether Francis performed acts of charity elsewhere. The question is whether someone can truly align themselves with God’s purposes while opposing His covenant people. When we read throughout Scripture that God identifies so closely with Israel that those who touch them “touch the apple of His eye” (Zechariah 2:8), we understand that this relationship defines how God evaluates human leadership.
Francis’s care for the poor and environmental advocacy cannot redeem his hostility toward Israel. His charity work is rendered hollow by his rejection of God’s foundational covenant. When standing before God’s judgment throne, no amount of good works can outweigh the betrayal of Israel. The treatment of God’s chosen people isn’t merely one factor among many – it defines one’s entire spiritual legacy. By positioning himself against Israel, Francis opposed God Himself.
The Bible leaves no room for compromise: those who curse Abraham’s descendants align themselves against God, regardless of their titles or accomplishments. Francis will not be remembered as the humble reformer he aspired to be, but as someone who perpetuated the medieval Christian arrogance toward the Jewish people.
As the College of Cardinals prepares to select a new pope, believers must pray for leadership that honors Scripture’s clear teaching. The next pontiff faces a choice: continue Francis’s antagonism toward Israel or align with God’s unchanging covenant. For those who take Genesis 12:3 seriously, only one path leads to blessing.
Rabbi Elie Mischel Rabbi Elie Mischel is the Director of Education at Israel365. Before making Aliyah in 2021, he served as the Rabbi of Congregation Suburban Torah in Livingston, NJ. He also worked for several years as a corporate attorney at Day Pitney, LLP. Rabbi Mischel received rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. Rabbi Mischel also holds a J.D. from the Cardozo School of Law and an M.A. in Modern Jewish History from the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies. He is also the editor of HaMizrachi Magazine.
Zionism should be valued, not misunderstood Moshe Phillips
It’s instructive to review how some groups asking American Jews for financial support describe themselves.
April 25, 2025 JNS – Why do so many American Jewish organizations today seem so reluctant to speak forthrightly about their support for Israel and even more reluctant to use the word Zionism?
Why have so many American Jews let Zionism become a dirty word?
Like many American Jews in the days before Passover, I received a great many email appeals from organizations asking me to make a financial contribution. Admittedly, I may be looking too closely at solicitations like these since becoming chairman last summer of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI). But I am finding these solicitations, as well as many of the websites for these groups, disappointing in the way they portray their missions.
It’s instructive to review how some of the groups asking American Jews for financial support describe themselves.
For example, the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC), in its 350-word Passover appeal, makes no mention of either Israel or Zionism.
Jewish Federations advocate for ‘financially vulnerable’ in Washington
April 3, 2025
This seems like more than an oversight: The NJAC also omits both Israel and Zionism from its 187-word mission statement on its website. The website features an additional 48-word description that is not defined as a mission statement—or anything else. Again, no mention of Israel or Zionism.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) features a similar 49-word description. Once again, there’s no mention of Israel or Zionism.
The NJAC and ADL use much of the same language in these depictions, including antisemitism, hate, community, combat/combating and organization/organizations.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) is the successor organization to the National Community Relations Advisory Council (NJRC), although it makes no mention of this on its website. It should be pointed out that, unlike its predecessor, JCPA is no longer connected to federations and the official Jewish community, but is an independent left-wing group.
Still, its leaders avoid mentioning Israel or Zionism on their 269-word “About JCPA” webpage.
So what does the JCPA say about itself?
“JCPA’s work is rooted in the understanding that only by overcoming lines of difference and fostering solidarity across communities can we advance an inclusive future in which Jews—and all people—are safe and free.”
There seems to be tremendous overlap in what these three groups say about themselves.
This avoidance of the word Zionism is not just a left-wing phenomenon. The National Jewish Advocacy Center would have to be objectively categorized as right-of-center. Its “counsel” is David Schoen, the former short-term national chairman of the Zionist Organization of America, who also served as an attorney for President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial and Steve Bannon in his 2022 criminal trial.
On the other hand, there’s J Street—the controversial Washington, D.C.-based Jewish pressure group that was created in 2007 specifically, and almost exclusively, to lobby for an independent Palestinian state. On its “About Us” page, J Street spends 218 words talking about “Who we are” and “What we do.” It does say that it was “created to serve as the political home and voice for pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans.”
The word Zionism does not appear once.
But this should not surprise knowledgeable observers. J Street is not really Zionist. Its supporters are the type of American Jews who are uncomfortable with the word Zionism, and J Street is playing to that audience.
Recently, however, J Street’s website has featured prominent pop-up ads for the Hatikvah Slate in the World Zionist Congress elections. These are not paid ads; J Street does publish paid advertisements, but these are not among them.
One of the main components of the Hatikvah Slate is Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI).
PPI, just months before the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, hosted a webinar where Israeli speakers discussed changing the lyrics to—wait for it—“Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, which in English means “The Hope.”
“Hatikvah!” And now PPI, J Street and their allies are calling their slate by that name.
The webinar featured former Knesset member Avraham Burg and Haifa University professor Faisal Azaiza.
Throughout the webinar, the two shared their vision for completely stripping Israel of its Jewish identity. Burg said the music to “Hatikvah” would be retained, but the lyrics would be removed. The national flag would no longer display a Star of David. Instead, it would be “a color.”
The Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to any Jew who needs or wants it, would be repealed. Instead, Burg stated that “an individual Jew who is persecuted might be given a fast track to citizenship.” He quickly added that “Palestinians seeking shelter would have the same right.”
Burg explicitly denounced the idea of any connection between Israel and world Jewry. “Israel does not belong to the whole Jewish people; it belongs only to the citizens of Israel,” he asserted.
Why is the Hatikvah Slate allowed to run in an election that calls itself Zionist? We know why these groups want representation in the Zionist Congress—so they can lobby there for a Palestinian state.
A record number of American Jews are participating in the World Zionist Congress elections. These voters should also be demanding more from our organizational leaders on a regular basis.
JCPA says it “has served as the national convener of Jewish coalitions working to build a just and inclusive democracy.” But far too many Jewish students on America’s campuses are being targeted by masked terrorism supporters at out-of-control protests. What these students do not need is “conveners.”
Let’s instead call on our community’s institutions to put teaching Zionism at the center of their work … or close up shop.
MOSHE PHILLIPS Moshe Phillips, a veteran pro-Israel activist and author, is the national chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI). A former board member of the American Zionist Movement, he previously served as national director of the U.S. division of Herut and worked with CAMERA in Philadelphia. He was also a delegate to the 2020 World Zionist Congress and served as editor of The Challenger, the publication of the Tagar Zionist Youth Movement. His op-eds and letters have been widely published in the United States and Israel.
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Witkoff: Hamas Can Stay in Gaza By Daniel Greenfield
April 21, 2025
Steven Witkoff, the Trump administration’s official envoy who had past business ties to Qatar, sat down with Tucker Carlson, the former FOX News talking head turned Qatari apologist who had recently featured Qatar’s leader, to talk about how wonderful Qatar is.
“Sheikh Mohammed… is a good man,” Witkoff gushed.
“He certainly is,” Tucker Carlson agreed.
“He’s a special guy. He really is,” Witkoff said.
“In the case of the Qataris, they’re criticized for not being well motivated. It’s preposterous. They are well motivated. They’re good, decent people. What they want is a mediation that’s effective, that gets to a peace goal. And why? Because they’re a small nation and they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker.” Witkoff said of a country that serves as a state sponsor of every Islamic terrorist group from the Taliban to Hamas, and which harbored the mastermind of 9/11.
Tucker complained that Witkoff was being attacked for working for Qatar by the “news media and social media.” The truth is that the news media praises Witkoff, he’s being condemned on social media.
Witkoff replied by defending Qatar. “I’ve had a couple of experiences where first I was attacked as being pro Qatari sympathizer. By the way, Qatar is a mediator here. They’re not a party to the conflict, they’re a mediator. So I am—how could I not collaborate with the mediator? And if I’m not collaborating with the mediator, I’m bound to be ineffective. It’s not even possible that I could do the job. I had to know everything that they knew. So that means collaboration.”
Qatar is not a mediator. It’s a state sponsor of Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups. By collaborating with Qatar, Witkoff is by definition collaborating with Hamas.
Witkoff praised Biden envoy Brett McGurk. According to Witkoff, McGurk told him, “this is where I want to get to, Steve.”
And that’s what led to the first disastrous deal with Hamas.
Tucker Carlson then lied that this approach of appeasing Islamic terrorists was “so different from the posture that the last couple of generations of diplomats have taken, which is like, here’s what we want. Shut up and do it. And I just don’t think, leaving aside moral considerations, I don’t think it’s been very effective.”
In reality, trying to win over terrorists is exactly what Bush, Obama and Biden did.
And it never worked.
Tucker knows it. He’s talked about it back when he wasn’t acting like an employee for the Gulf Muslim oil states.
Tucker Carlson then lied that Qatar are “often accused, almost universally accused in the US Media of being agents of Iran.” In fact the media bends over backward and promotes anything that Qatar and its Al Jazeera media outlet say. There’s virtually no criticism of Qatar in the media here. Tucker knows it. He’s propagandizing for Qatar to his conservative audience by making it seem like it’s at odds with the media.
In reality, the media is in Qatar’s pocket.
“They’re a Muslim nation. In the past, they’ve had some views that are a little bit more radical,” Witkoff claimed. “From an Islamist standpoint than they are today, but it’s moderated quite a bit. There’s no doubt that they’re an ally of the United States. There’s no doubt about that.”
Tucker agreed with Witkoff at every turn about how wonderfully moderate Qatar is.
Witkoff told Tucker that he had never spoken to Hamas, but “I think you have to trust the Qataris. If I didn’t trust the Qataris, then that would be really problematic, not meeting with Hamas.”
After the Qatari propaganda, Witkoff and Tucker turned to Hamas.
Witkoff then made an argument for the UN’s 15-20 year reconstruction plan for Gaza.
“What’s acceptable to us is they need to demilitarize. Then maybe they could stay there a little bit. Be involved politically. But they can’t be involved militarily. We can’t have a terrorist organization running Gaza because that won’t be acceptable to Israel,” Witkoff said.
So from a starting point of expelling Hamas and Gazans, we’re now down to Hamas getting to be “politically involved” in running Gaza as long as it goes through some show of disarming.
“You know, what we heard in the beginning of this conflict is Hamas is ideological. They’re prepared to die for a whole variety of reasons,” Witkoff told Tucker. “I don’t think that they are as ideologically locked in. They’re not ideologically intractable. I don’t. I never believe that.”
The contention that Hamas is not really ideological and is willing to make a deal was a feature of both the Bush and Obama administrations.
“Smart. Smart. That is total. That is smart. But it’s. How hard was it to come to that conclusion?” Tucker cheered.
The rest of the conversation essentially had Tucker Carlson channeling the Saudi line, claiming that “looming over all of these countries and their remarkable success both economically and socially, there’s like great countries, in my opinion is the conflict in Gaza. And not just Gaza, but the idea that, wow, this could all blow up tomorrow because we don’t know what the Israeli plan is.”
During the conversation, Tucker repeatedly demonstrated that he knew nothing about the region except whatever the Saudis and whoever else in the Gulf oil states was feeding him, leading him to say at one point that, Turkey’s “Erdogan is seen by some in his country as a tool of Israel.” In reality, Erdogan recently threatened war against Israel and praised Hamas.
Tucker claimed “that the conflict in Gaza, which is of course streamed in everyone’s iPhone, a lot of people killed in Gaza, a lot of kids. And that’s inflaming the populations of some of these countries again, specifically Egypt and Jordan.”
Tucker complained to Witkoff that the ‘two-state solution’ has become controversial.
Witkoff said that “the Israelis going in is in some respects unfortunate and in some respects falls into the “had to be” bucket. It kind of had to be. Hamas was not responding. And their responses were unreasonable.”
Then Witkoff recycled most of the Bush/Obama calls for “real elections in Gaza”.
That’s how Hamas took over Gaza in the first place.
One of Tucker’s parting remarks to Witkoff was, “I hope for our sake you wind up in Tehran.”
[Ed.: “You have to trust the Qataris.” “Hamas can stay in Gaza.” – nit-Witkoff]
Imagine the world being swayed to accept digital money and biometric digital IDs by a popular pope who is charismatic and more likable than the often ornery Francis. In short, he will be a unifier.
APR 21, 2025 – The Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio, aka Pope Francis, died Monday morning, the Vatican announced. He was 88 years old.
The Vatican said Francis’s cause of death was heart failure due to a stroke. Below is my analysis, including what to look for as the Vatican chooses the next pope two to three weeks from now.
It’s interesting that U.S. Vice President JD Vance had just met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Easter Sunday, just hours before the pope died early Monday morning. You can see in a video of the meeting that the pope was barely lucid in his final hours and it’s interesting that the Vatican put him out in such a public show anyway. Did they know he was about to die and wanted his last public appearance to include a meeting with the Catholic American Vice President and heir apparent to Donald Trump?
Vance had only good things to say about Francis, which is what you would expect under the circumstances, despite the fact that Vance’s outspoken positions on political issues are almost all diametrically opposed to those espoused by Pope Francis.
Vance wrote in a post to X:
“I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him. I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill. But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful. May God rest his soul.”
Francis was the Roman Catholic Church’s first Jesuit pope and was a committed globalist and socialist. Many believe he was an outright Marxist.
During the peak of Covid, Pope Francis energetically enforced the closing of Catholic churches and then later pushed the devastating mRNA injections. The pope said it was the “moral obligation” for all Catholics to get their shots.
He was also the first real DEI pope, speaking profusely and persistently about the need to change the church’s age-old teaching about homosexuality being a serious sin.
Francis fired many conservative bishops around the world and declared virtual war on the traditional Latin mass, attended by millions of conservative Catholics. He excommunicated the conservative anti-globalist Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who served as papal nunsio to the United States under the previous Pope Benedict.
In the final analysis, Pope Francs will be remembered as a very divisive pope who catered to the liberal wing of Roman Catholicism with his controversial decisions to welcome unrepentant LGBTQs into the church, pushed mRNA injections on humanity, advocated the World Economic Forum’s climate-change agenda, and introduced other controversial measures into the church. He gave his blessing a few years back to a pagan ceremony that took place in St. Peter’s Square and was devoted to the South American fertility goddess Pachamama.
Like it or not, the papacy is a position of great influence in the world.
Francis used that position for great evil.
- He shut down a planned audit of the corrupt Vatican Bank.
- He sent the pedophile Cardinal Ted McCarrick to negotiate a deal with the Chinese Communist Party that placed the final authority for choosing Chinese bishops in the hands of the corrupt communist government in Beijing.
- He normalized LGBTQ filth.
- He dismissed conservative priests and bishops, replacing them with liberal ones.
- He taught that there was no literal hell and that the souls of unrepentant sinners simply disappear into nothingness.
I have many friends who are Catholic, and the majority of my extended family are Catholic. The overwhelming majority of them did not trust or follow the teachings of Pope Francis. They saw right through him.
With Francis gone, I would not be surprised to see the next pope be cut from the same cloth, but in a less obvious or recognizable way. Perhaps he will be more likable and therefore more capable of deceiving the masses of Catholic faithful. Imagine if the world had a likable, lovable, charismatic pope who was able to unify the religious world in favor of the one-world agenda of the Great Reset, convincing all nominal Christians and religious folks in a time of suffering and confusion that the way out of the global crisis is with biometric digital ID and digital programmable tokens replacing paper cash. Perhaps he also convinces the masses in the aftermath of World War III that submitting to the digital surveillance state will also make them safer and more secure.
Just as the leftist Joe Biden administration paved the way for Donald Trump and the appearance of a conservative backlash on the political level, I expect the outragious antics of Pope Francis will lead to the selection of the next pope being, at least on the surface, a man who will be seen as more conservative in tone and content.
One marker to look for will be if the next pope is chosen from the group of cardinals appointed by Francis. If that happens, you know he is not a true conservative or even a moderate, even if the media portrays him that way.
As always, pray for peace but prepare for war. Question everything that comes from the mainstream media and puppet governments installed by moneyed interests. Compare what you’re hearing from people in positions of authority to the Word of God, not necessarily to what the opposite party is saying. That’s how the globalists are able to manipulate public opinion, by playing the statements of one political faction off against the other in a fake left-right paradigm. In the final analysis, it should be apparent that neither side is preaching biblical truth, even if one sounds more favorable to the conservative Christian ear. Both sides will lead us off a cliff. Only Christ and his Holy Word are trustworthy arbiters of truth and justice.
BOOM! MARK LEVIN’S SPOT-ON INTERVIEW HAS MADE THE ISRAELI LEFT GO MAD [6:24] by Phil Schneider
April 20, 2025 Israel Unwired – Mark Levin lives in the United States of America but understands the genuine challenges in the State of Israel better than most people in the State of Israel. But his criticism is a bit too biting. His criticism of Israel’s Director of Intelligence is certainly partially true. But credit must be given to Israel’s intelligence for the massively successful beeper operation in Lebanon, the downfall of Syria, and the successful defense and counterattack against Iran. So, a more balanced analysis is necessary.
As much as the Supreme Court in Israel is overreaching and seemingly all powerful, Levin exaggerates a bit. The Prime Minister also has more power in Israel than the Executive Branch does in the United States. Due to the parliamentary system, as long as the Prime Minister has 61 votes in the Knesset, he can play one party off another, even if it means that the will of the people is disregarded.
Similarly, the Army Brass in Israel has more impact on political decisions during a war than they should. When a group of top Army Generals present the civilian leadership with limited options due to their political biases, it creates enormous pressure on the leadership to accept the Army’s options, even if they are wrongheaded.
In a nutshell, Israel is a country without sufficient checks and balances. Therefore, there are competing power structures that all wield too much power. But it is not only the Supreme Court that has too much power. Even much of the press has too much power due to archaic laws that allow monopolies to continue to dominate on TV and Cable channels.
But very few understand this as well as Mark Levin. He is not just a true friend and supporter of Israel. He truly sees what very few see and is willing to say what very few are willing to express.
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Hanson argues that Europe’s elites, in their pursuit of globalism and moral relativism, have abandoned the very values that once made the West strong—reason, national identity, and civic responsibility. Instead, they have embraced a postmodern vision that undermines sovereignty and silences dissent.
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2,979 views • Premiered 2 hours ago • JLMinute
A bombshell New York Times report reveals that President Donald Trump rejected a proposed joint U.S.-Israel military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, opting instead for last-ditch negotiations. Join JNS CEO and Jerusalem Bureau Chief Alex Traiman and JNS Middle East Correspondent Josh Hasten as they debate whether Trump’s strategy is a sign of weakness or a smart play to corner Tehran diplomatically before the gloves come off.
Also covered in this episode:
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One great way to improve Homeland Security: Get rid of the TSA By Post Editorial Board
April 19, 2025 – Here’s an issue for the new Trump appointees to the Homeland Security Advisory Council: deep-sixing the Transportation Security Administration’s airport-screening work.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently ended collective bargaining with the union representing TSA agents after DHS found that more TSA employees are busy doing “full-time union work” than actually screening passengers on any given day, while 60% of “poor performers” don’t get fired.
But as any beleaguered traveler can contest, TSA’s issues go far beyond that: Virtually the whole security/screening apparatus is a pointless circus.
Having understaffed teams of low-wage workers screen millions of air passengers a day brings painfully long lines, contradictory and arbitrary “rules” (Are we taking off shoes today? Laptops out of the bags? It depends!) and countless invasive searches that turn up nothing but pocket lint.
Take off your belt, empty your water bottles, throw out your aerosols, step aside for a random hand-swab — it’s all security theater, and all for nothing.
Yes, TSA still catches thousands of guns each year, some even in carry-on — but it evidently misses even more.
In 2017 covert tests, DHS sent ringers through airport security lines with fake weapons: TSA agents reportedly failed to catch 80% of the fakes — an improvement on two years before, when 95% of weapons slipped through.
It’s been this way in testing since the agency’s founding.
How is this more than a make-work program?
Perhaps nothing reveals the scam more than the fact that for $78 you can buy your way out of the worst of the experience by signing up for PreCheck — or cough up $179 a year and skip to the front of the line with a private company like Clear.
Everyone else gets to sweat about missing their flight.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has been calling for Congress to abolish the TSA for years; his colleagues should listen.
At the least, privatize the screening work: That’s already the case at 20 US airports, including San Francisco and Orlando.
Set up to provide a sense of security amid the post-9/11 panic, TSA is still clunking along with little rhyme and less reason because that’s how government agencies roll.
America needs something less intrusive and less onerous — more efficient, competent and pleasant.
Michael Goodwin: Left-leaning AP is out of step with the rest of the US By Michael Goodwin
The AP lost its spot among a tight press pool that covers the White House.
April 19, 2025 – As a lifelong journalist, I should be on the side of The Associated Press in its ongoing legal fight with the Trump White House.
And I would be if the AP were the neutral, fact-driven wire service it used to be.
Unfortunately, it has become just another outlet peddling leftist opinion disguised as straight news.
And as its fight with the White House demonstrates, it also reeks of a sense of elite entitlement.
The case involves the AP’s claims that its freedom of speech was violated when it was booted from its long-standing spot in the press pool, an elite, small group of legacy news outlets that get near-daily access to the president.
The AP was one of three wire services in the group, along with Reuters and Bloomberg.
Others getting special access include television and cable companies, photographers, radio reporters and rotating members from print outlets.
Refused to adjust
Because there was just one spot reserved for print reporters, most got only a monthly chance to question the president in small-space events, such as the Oval Office and Air Force One.
The AP got the boot from the group after it refused to change its influential stylebook and continued to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico” after President Trump officially changed the name to the “Gulf of America.”
I agreed with the federal judge who ruled the demotion unfairly punished the AP, but have come to admire even more the way the White House has used the case to carry out a much-needed move to democratize access to the president.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who at 27 is the youngest person to hold her job, took office wanting to open the door to new media outlets, including edgy podcasts, political influencers and specialized wire services.
That the new access would involve adding some conservative voices and diluting the near-monopoly of leftist, legacy media was inevitable.
A first step involved a clever response to the court order, which said the AP “cannot be treated worse than its peer wire services.”
So instead of putting the AP back into its guaranteed spot, the White House removed all three wire services and included them in a group of 31 other organizations, while adding a second print spot for the small-space events.
The new rotation means that instead of a guaranteed daily spot, each of the wires will get into the small events about once a month.
Naturally, Reuters and Bloomberg are also howling about their diminished access, and the AP went back to court, claiming the White House move violated the judge’s order.
The judge, Trevor N. McFadden of the federal District Court in DC, disagreed.
He said Friday that he needed more time to study the issue but that the White House seemed to be acting in “good faith,” presumably because the new policy follows his order about the AP and its peers.
Indeed, as the White House put it, “No other news organization in the United States receives the level of guaranteed access previously bestowed upon the AP. The AP may have grown accustomed to its favored status, but the Constitution does not require that such status endure in perpetuity.”
Beyond exposing the AP’s sense of entitlement, the case opens the door to the administration’s plan to break up the stranglehold legacy media have on privileged access to the White House as well as to other federal agencies, such as the departments of State and Defense.
Gatekeeper mentality
Their gatekeeper mentality has become an acute problem in Trump’s two terms because so many of the legacy outlets are openly hostile to him and the Republican Party.
There are next to zero “straight” reports, with nearly every story every day distorted by personal animus toward the president and conservative ideas.
The approach is the opposite of how those same organizations covered the Biden presidency.
Their lockstep behavior in those years featured soft-ball, friendly coverage even as the public turned thumbs down on inflation and open borders, adding to the evidence that big media is out of step with most Americans.
The resulting decline in public trust in the media is warranted, with nearly all of those organizations ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
And despite supposedly being guardians of free speech, none opposed the censorship schemes orchestrated by the White House to protect the first family from reports in The Post and elsewhere of corruption.
Moreover, none of the legacy outlets showed any curiosity about Joe Biden’s obvious mental and physical decline.
Indeed, some like The New York Times, repeated the White House lie that claims of the president’s decline involved altered videos and right-wing talking points.
It was only after Biden’s disastrous debate performance last June, and the panic that Trump would win the election, that the media noticed his condition and declared, in unison, that he had to drop out of the race.
As soon as he did, they all jumped on the Kamala Harris bandwagon and unanimously declared her campaign full of “joy.”
So they can spare us now their claims that they are essential to good government and public knowledge. Too often, they have shielded corruption and misled the public.
This control of like-minded outlets creates a near-monopoly of coverage, one that involves the White House Correspondents Association.
It is a private group that has for decades set up the pool for small-space events and also assigns the 49 seats in the separate briefing room, all of which are held by legacy media.
Upset media apple cart
They, along with the Times and others, are furious that Leavitt has upset their apple cart by scrambling the pool and opening the briefing room to newcomers.
Often as many as 20 people with new credentials can be seen standing along the sides of the room, with some getting a chance to ask a question.
And now reports say she is considering going even further by changing the assigned seats.
Oh, no, the Sky is Falling, screams the correspondents’ association.
Acting like a thuggish union losing its grip on power, it is warning Leavitt against making changes to the seating chart.
In a statement, it said the White House “should abandon this wrong-headed effort and show the American people they’re not afraid to explain their policies and field questions from an independent media free from government control.”
Therein lies the conceit — that only media hostile to Trump are “independent.”
This is the attitude the AP took with grossly inflated claims that its demotion “centers on the government blocking AP’s access to cover events,” as if the agency had been banned from the White House.
Fact check: False!
In truth, Trump is the most accessible president in modern times, and probably takes more questions in a month than Biden took in four years.
To even suggest otherwise is fake news, which unfortunately describes what the AP and its fellow travelers are peddling these days.
“The Warsaw Ghetto in the American Jewish Press”* By Alex Grobman, PhD
April 19, 2025 – On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an act of Jewish resistance in German-occupied Poland undertaken to oppose the Nazis’ final effort to transport the remaining 55,000-60,000 Jews in the ghetto to extermination camps, began.
The effort to build bunkers and smuggle weapons and explosives into the ghetto had begun after the summer of 1942, when the German Nazis deported more than a quarter of a million Jews to be murdered in Treblinka.
On April 19, 1943, the ghetto refused to surrender to the Nazi police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop.
First Report
The first news of the ghetto uprising was published three days later, on April 22, on the front pages of The New York Times and the Yiddish daily Forward.
The Times transmitted a dispatch from the Associated Press in Stockholm, Sweden, which reported that, one night earlier, April 21, the secret Polish radio had appealed from Poland for help, after which “suddenly, the station went dead.”
The AP report continued, “The broadcast, as heard here, said, ‘The last 35,000 Jews at Warsaw had been condemned to execution. Warsaw is again echoing to musketry volleys. The people are murdered. Women and children defend themselves with their naked arms! Save us….’”
Appeals
On April 22, the Forward reported that the Nazis were slaughtering the last Jews in Warsaw, explaining that, on January 21, an appeal was sent by these Jews that was not received by the Jewish Labor Committee in New York until April 21.
According to the Forward, six requests were made, only a few of which could be revealed to the public. One was that 10,000 of the remaining children in the ghetto be exchanged for German prisoners of war. The Jews of the ghetto also demanded material help, including food.
The appeal ended with the warning: “Brothers, the remaining Jews in Poland believe that in these most frightening days of our history, you didn’t help us. Answer now, at least in these last days of our lives; this is our last appeal to you.”
“In the Name of All That Is Sacred”
On April 23, the Times’ story was headlined, “Warsaw’s Ghetto Fights Deportation—Tanks Reported Used in Battle to Oust 35,000 Jews.”
The article reported that the American representation of the General Jewish Workers’ Union (the Bund) had sent a telegram to President Franklin D. Roosevelt imploring him “in the name of all that is sacred, to do your utmost to speed up the rescue of the doomed victims of the Nazi beasts.”
The Bund’s demands were included in their statement to the Anglo-American Conference on Refugees, which was held in Hamilton, Bermuda, from April 19 to April 30, 1943, ostensibly to examine the problem of Jewish refugees and to suggest solutions.
Bermuda Conference
One of the first articles to discuss the failure of the Bermuda Conference in light of the Ghetto Uprising appeared in the Forward on April 24, in which the paper noted that an entire week had passed, leaving the Jews in England and the US still waiting for a sign that something would be done.
The only sound was the hopeless cry for help emanating from the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, a voice that would never be heard again. While most of the press neglected the Warsaw Ghetto and only sporadically condemned the Bermuda Conference’s lack of progress, the delegates in Hamilton continued to declare their inability to solve the refugee crisis.
At a Passover Seder, held on April 25, 1943, under the auspices of the National Labor Committee for Palestine, some delegates to the Bermuda Conference declared that the only solution to the tragedy was immigration. The speakers did not mention the Warsaw Ghetto or the need to accelerate the rescue of the Jews.
Mourning and Pleading
On April 27, The New York Times reported that a tentative arrangement, a compromise, was being considered “on a plan to relocate European refugees temporarily in French North Africa, the Cyrenaica portion of Libya, and the Diredawa region of Ethiopia.”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported that the chairman of the American delegation to the Bermuda Conference, Harris Willis Dodds, a conservative Republican who served as president of Princeton University, assured the press that the rescue proposals had been thoroughly examined. However, he refused to comment on whether any had been acted upon favorably.
These news reports prompted many Jews to initiate six weeks of mourning and pleading for aid to the victims of Nazi terror. The Synagogue Council of America, then the umbrella organization representing the three major Jewish religious movements, demanded that, at the very least, efforts had to be expended to save the children.
“Cruel Mockery”
The final communiqué from the Bermuda Conference, released on April 29, dispelled any hope for immediate rescue. Given wide press coverage, the report made clear that the only agreement reached was that the war against Germany had to be won. US immigration quotas were not raised, nor was the British prohibition on Jewish refugees seeking refuge in the British Mandate of Palestine lifted.
On April 30, The New York Times headlined its piece on the end of the conference with the suggestion that “Hopeful Hint Ends Bermuda Sessions.” The article reported that the delegates had rejected recommendations that they said were incapable of being accomplished under war conditions and would most likely delay the war effort.
On May 3, the JTA reported that then-Assistant Secretary of State A.A. Berl, Jr., re-emphasized that there would be no changes to official US government policy. He warned Germany and her satellite states that they would be held responsible for crimes against the Jewish people, but he admitted there would be no immediate relief for those still trapped in Nazi-occupied Europe. “Nothing can be done to save these helpless unfortunates except through the invasion of Europe, the defeat of the German army, and the breaking of the German power. There was no other way,” he said.
On May 4, the American Zionist Committee for a Jewish Army ran an advertisement in The New York Times condemning the efforts in Bermuda as a mockery of past promises to the Jewish people and of Jewish suffering under Nazi-German occupation: “To 5,000,000 Jews in the Nazi Death-Trap, Bermuda was a Cruel Mockery.”
Jewish Powerlessness
Throughout the Bermuda Conference, many American Jews were disturbed by the absence of any concrete plans for rescue and distressed at their own inability to present their case in a forceful manner that might have resulted in a different outcome.
Many believe such feelings are not without merit. According to Ghetto Speaks, the monthly magazine of the General Workers Union of Poland, for an entire year before his suicide on May 11, 1943, Szmul Zygielbojm, a Polish-Jewish socialist politician, Bundist trade union activist, and member of the London-based National Council of the Polish Government in exile, had received “appeal upon appeal, cry upon cry, from the tortured Jews of Poland.”
In May 1942, the Bund issued a report informing readers that the German Nazis had “embarked on the physical extermination of the Jewish population on Polish soil.” The Bund stressed that “it is estimated that the Germans have already killed 700,000 Polish Jews.”
Protests and Meetings
On July 21, 1942, the American Jewish Congress, in cooperation with the American Jewish Labor Committee and B’nai B’rith, held a demonstration in Madison Square Garden, attended by a crowd of 22,000, to denounce the atrocities committed by the Nazis. In messages sent to the demonstrators by FDR and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, neither mentioned the possibility of rescuing European Jewry.
According to historian Yehuda Bauer, the most American Jews were demanding was to threaten Germany with retaliatory air raids.
The 1942 edition of the American Jewish Yearbook found that while there had been a paucity of productive results for their attempts to save the Jews of Europe, there was no lack of effort by American Jews in registering their disapproval of Nazi horrors. There had been worldwide demonstrations of sympathy, including a “Voice of Washington” rally. There had been work stoppages, mass meetings, protests, a day of fasting, memorial services, and periods of silence in memory of the dead.
On December 8, 1942, a prominent delegation met with FDR at the White House to appeal for action to stop the Nazi massacres.
On March 1, 1943, barely six weeks before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 300,000 demonstrators filled Madison Square Garden in a “Stop Hitler Now” protest. At least 75,000 others tried to enter the Garden and, along with more than 10,000 others remaining in the streets, heard the speeches over loudspeakers.
Nevertheless, historians consider the resolution adopted at the demonstration too moderate to prompt any government action.
No Illusions
Shortly before he committed suicide, Zygielbojm received a message from the Warsaw Ghetto delivered by a Gentile leader of the Polish underground, Jaczynski, who had been told by ghetto leaders, “Jewish leaders abroad won’t be interested. At 11 in the morning, you will begin telling them about the anguish of the Jews in Poland, but by 1pm, they will ask you to halt the narrative so they can have lunch. This is a difference that can’t be bridged. They will go on lunching at the regular hours at their favorite restaurant. So they cannot understand what is happening in Poland.”
The Jews of Warsaw urged the Jews of London to go to the American Embassy and the British Foreign Office and remain until the government was changed. If imprisoned, they should fast until death.
The Jewish leaders in the Warsaw Ghetto had no illusion that any of this would happen. In fact, they knew from the beginning that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was doomed and their survival unlikely. Marek Edelman, the only surviving commander of the ghetto’s Jewish Combat Organization, said the motivation for the fighting was “to pick the time and place of our deaths.”
Cry “to Jolt the Indifference”
In desperation, on May 11, Zygielbojm, who had just learned that his wife, Manya, and 16-year-old son, Tuvia, had been killed in the ghetto, took his life with an overdose of sodium amytal in “an energetic cry of protest against the indifference of the world which witnesses the extermination of the Jewish people.”
In a long suicide note, he said that while the Nazis were responsible for the murder of Polish Jews, “the whole of humanity” was indirectly culpable. He accused the Western allies of “looking on passively upon this murder of defenseless millions of tortured children, women, and men,” and no one doing enough.”
“I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being murdered. My comrades in the Warsaw Ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people,” he wrote.
He asked Polish-in-exile officials, including President Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski, to “embark immediately on diplomatic action…in order to save the living remnant of the Polish Jews from destruction.”
His suicide provoked a significant reaction in the press to what was happening in Poland, but it was too late. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had succeeded in quelling the Ghetto Uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto was liquidated and destroyed; its Jewish residents were either murdered or captured and sent to Majdanek or Treblinka.
A Final Note
The Bermuda Conference was not the first attempt to find a solution to the refugees frantically in search of a haven. From July 6-15, 1938, the US organized the Évian Conference from July 6-15, 1938, at Évian-les-Bains, France.
At a news conference following the failure of the delegates to solve the problem of stateless refugee Jews, historian Martin Gilbert quotes a journalist from a Swiss newspaper who asked Golda Myerson (Meir), the Jewish observer from Palestine, for her assessment. “There is one ideal I have in mind,” she answered, “one thing I want to see before I die—that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.”
*Portions originally published in The Wiener Library Bulletin Volume XXIX, New Series Numbers 37/38
Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He has an MA and PhD in contemporary Jewish history from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
