Daily Shmutz | COMMENTARY / OPINION |8/1/25

COMMENTARY / OPINION 

 

Italian Comedian OBLITERATES Hamas Propaganda (and Crowd Goes CRAZY!)   [26:28]   Nicholas Do Santos

July 20, 2025  JewishUncensored

 

Now What?   by Victor Rosenthal

August 1, 2025

Today, Jews cannot walk down the street in North America, Europe, or even Australia without the possibility of being spat on, beaten, or even murdered. Country after country mulls punishing Israel and rewarding Hamas [!] by the absurd recognition of Palestine, a non-country without defined borders. Almost 700 days after Israel was invaded and more than 1200 Israelis viciously slaughtered, tortured, raped, kidnapped – Hamas survives, receiving water, food, fuel and electricity from Israel. The war in Gaza is static, almost 900 Israeli soldiers have been killed and countless wounded, and 20 living hostages still remain in the tunnels under the Gaza strip.

How we got here is not the issue. International and domestic politics, manipulation of consciousness, covert financing of ‘popular’ movements, religious imperatives, power struggles, wars, terrorism, honor and shame, and of course, the oldest hatred all played a part. But the hour is too late for historical analysis and philosophical arguments. It’s time to act.

I can’t speak for diaspora Jews. I only have one piece of advice: take what’s happening seriously. The golden age for Jews in North America is over. Create a strategy to protect yourselves and implement it.

Israel, too, needs a whole new set of strategies. She needs a strategy for the kinetic war in Gaza and the closely related information war, both of which she is losing despite her clear military superiority.

Someone recently said that on 7 October 2023 we were the “good guys,” but Hamas propaganda quickly turned us into the “bad guys” in the story. That isn’t correct. It’s true that Hamas’ propaganda – crude as it is – has been remarkably effective, but that is because it falls on very fertile ground. We became the “bad guys” the moment the news of the obscenely vicious pogrom perpetrated by Hamas hit the professional and social media.

There are two reasons for this: one is the prior preparation of opinion leaders in the West by a decades-long takeover of the educational system and media by a red-green alliance financed by Arab petrodollars with ideological direction from the anti-Western Left. The other is a fundamental fact of human psychology: people, like turkeys, admire the strong, and peck the weak or injured ones to death. The horrors of 7/10, just like the gas chambers of Auschwitz, caused people to identify with the perpetrators, rather than the victims (incidentally, this is why so much “Holocaust education” has the opposite of its intended effect).

This is the paradox of the response to Hamas’ propaganda. Although they present the Gazans as victims, they proudly broadcast live video on 7/10. The open brutality of Hamas is contrasted with the weakness of Israel, which is forced to make concession after concession, including freeing hundreds of murderers of Jews (an act that incurs great dishonor), in order to get her tortured hostages back. Israel has even been forced to feed and supply its enemy with fuel and electricity, for which Hamas has given nothing in return.

This is why it doesn’t matter when the numbers of dead Gazans provided by Hamas are shown to be false, or when the emaciated children on the front pages of Western newspapers turn out to be suffering from various wasting diseases rather than starvation. Concern for the suffering of Gazans is an excuse, a rationalization for a deeper, less attractive emotion. Indeed, the less convincing the propaganda, the better. The important subtext is that despite its tanks and air force, Israel is a weak, wounded, loser. Hamas represents a courageous indigenous people who are winning, despite their suffering. Nobody likes a loser.

Practically speaking, the success of its information warfare has encouraged Hamas to hold on, believing that the world will come to its rescue and stop Israel before they are forced to give up control of Gaza.

There is little that can be done now to overcome the indoctrination of young people, including those who have begun to move into positions of power in Western media and politics. Reversing that damage will be a long and expensive process. But Israel can adopt a strategy to gain a psychological, as well as physical, victory over Hamas. And that will require her to change her behavior by 180 degrees.

Israel has responded to the false Palestinian claims of genocide, deliberate starvation, and so on by taking extra care to avoid civilian casualties. She has endangered her own soldiers to this end. She has allowed truckloads of food and fuel to be handed over directly to Hamas. She has even airdropped food to Palestinians in Gaza, something unprecedented in war. All of these actions send a message of weakness and submission. They in essence say, “yes, we’ve been bad, we’ll make ourselves better.” Israel has allowed herself to appear both evil and weak at the same time. No wonder the world holds her in contempt!

Rather, Israel must act like the stronger party, which in fact she is. She must use her firepower to defeat Hamas, in all parts of Gaza. No aid can be permitted to reach Hamas. Our government understands that Hamas will never release all the hostages in return for anything less than complete surrender, and it must make it clear, inside Israel and to the world, this is a price that we will not pay. If the UN, Europe, and the US want to ameliorate the condition of the Gazans, then they should force Egypt to allow refugees from the war to enter the Sinai where the UN can take care of them, and from where they can emigrate to other countries. Their welfare is not Israel’s responsibility.

Israel should make it clear that she does not accept the narrative of Palestinian peoplehood and ownership of our land, and emphasize this by annexing parts of Gaza and applying Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and Area C in Judea and Samaria. She should make it clear that after the Second Intifada and 7/10, the idea of a Palestinian state in the territories is permanently off the table. No terrorist murderer should ever again be freed from an Israeli prison in return for a hostage, and a death penalty for terrorist murder should be instituted.

We do not have unlimited time to do these things. Although they would provoke condemnation in Europe and other places, I think they would be acceptable to American president Trump, which would enable us to weather the storm. But he will not be president forever, and the demographic changes in the US and other Western countries are not favorable. If we don’t act soon, we may be prevented from acting at all.

 

🚨 LIVE: Israel Ready To ANNEX Gaza As Islamists “Disappear“  [35:11]  Mahyar Tousi

July 31, 2025  Tousi TV

 

The Tragic Truth Behind Israel’s War Strategy   JOSHUA HOFFMAN

Israel can’t both rescue the hostages and defeat Hamas. It’s a devastating moral dilemma, but reality always beats wishful thinking.

JUL 31, 2025

As negotiations between Israel and Hamas sputter into nothingness, what we all knew was true the whole time (but never quite wanted to admit) is that Israel cannot accomplish both of its goals in this war: rescuing all the remaining hostages and defeating Hamas.

The emotional pull of the hostages — innocent men, women, children, and elderly brutally torn from their homes on October 7th — has dominated the national psyche. Their faces are etched into posters, prayer cards, graffiti, and the very soul of Israeli society. And rightly so. The idea of leaving even one Jew behind feels unthinkable, un-Jewish, unacceptable.

But the strategic reality is colder. Hamas does not release hostages without extracting a heavy price. Every deal so far has involved a pause in fighting, the release of convicted terrorists, a return to diplomatic limbo, and a strengthening of Hamas’ narrative that kidnapping Jews works.

To recover the remaining hostages, Israel would almost certainly have to stop short of total victory, allowing Hamas to retain its grip on Gaza, if not militarily, then politically and symbolically.

Hostage-taking is not just a war crime; it is a war strategy. Hamas understood that capturing Jews, especially children and grandmothers, would send Israel into a moral spiral.

Every democratic society faces this trap: The more you care about human life, the more hostage-takers can manipulate your conscience. The pain is not incidental to Hamas’ strategy; it is the strategy. It’s psychological warfare disguised as humanitarian tragedy.

And while Israel wrestles with this moral nightmare, the world watches with cold detachment — quick to condemn any military action that risks harming hostages or civilians, yet slow to hold Hamas accountable for making them human shields in the first place.

So let’s face the two bitter truths that lie on either side of this fork in the road.

Scenario One: The hostages return, but Hamas remains.

If Israel succeeds in bringing the hostages home but fails to defeat Hamas, the cost will echo far beyond Gaza. Hamas will declare victory. It will say: We survived the mighty IDF. We outlasted the siege. And we got Israel to negotiate. Again.

A battered but intact Hamas regime would mean that southern Israel remains under threat. Kibbutzim won’t be fully rebuilt. Young families won’t return to the border. Billions of shekels in reconstruction aid will flow into Gaza only to be siphoned into bunkers, rockets, and terror tunnels. Hamas will rearm, possibly even faster than before, now buoyed by renewed legitimacy in the eyes of its supporters.

In this outcome, Israel may save some lives now, but it would be condemning others later. It would be trading today’s tears for tomorrow’s funerals.

Worse, the more Israel trades hundreds of convicted terrorists for a handful of hostages, the more it incentivizes the next kidnapping. Each deal whispers to Israel’s enemies: If you want leverage, steal Jews.

And Hamas’ survival is not just a local problem; it sends a message to Iran, Hezbollah, and other terrorist establishments that Israel can be bled and stalled. It undermines the Abraham Accords, discourages moderate Arab partners, and gives momentum to radical Islamists who dream of Jerusalem under the banner of jihad.

Scenario Two: Hamas is defeated, but the hostages are not all rescued.

If Israel succeeds in destroying Hamas — removing it as the governing power in Gaza, disbanding its military infrastructure, and reclaiming control over the narrative of deterrence — it may do so at the cost of the remaining hostages’ lives.

This is a cost that feels unbearable. And yet, from a strategic standpoint, the defeat of Hamas is not just about this war; it’s about preventing the next one and weakening Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” that has poisoned the Middle East and North Africa. It’s about ending the cycle in which Palestinian terrorist factions attack Israel, hide behind civilians, and then bargain their way back into power through international sympathy and political manipulation.

The defeat of Hamas would send a message — not just to Gazans, but to Hezbollah, Iran, the Houthis, and every other group watching carefully: Israel will not allow terrorism to pay.

Even in the excruciating case that not all hostages return, Israel’s long-term security, regional stability, and deterrence would be strengthened. The lives of those lost would not be in vain. They would be memories not only of a massacre, but of a turning point.

And Jewish history reminds us that these are not new dilemmas. The mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, redeeming captives, has always been sacred. But there have been times — during pogroms, during wars, even during modern Israeli operations — when impossible decisions had to be made. From Masada to Entebbe, we’ve chosen survival over sentiment. Not out of cruelty, but out of clarity. Not out of coldness, but out of the fire to ensure there is still a Jewish future to fight for.

Some have argued that Israel could increase pressure on Hamas through more aggressive territorial and political maneuvers — annexing parts of northern Gaza, for example, or permanently occupying strategic corridors like the Philadelphi Route to squeeze Hamas into submission. In theory, these steps could force Hamas to negotiate more urgently. But this theory rests on one fatal misunderstanding: that Hamas is a rational actor.

They are not. They are jihadists — messianic fundamentalists who thrive on death. The more death, the merrier. They worship destruction more than they value their own people. Hamas does not respond to pressure the way nation-states or even militant insurgencies do. Its leadership does not fear death, nor care about infrastructure, nor seek compromise. It seeks martyrdom. The more Gaza burns, the more they believe they are winning.

This week, one former high-ranking Israeli intelligence official even suggested that Israel try to bribe Gazans who may be holding hostages — to offer them money, protection, and a better life in exchange for freeing the captives. But that won’t work. Hamas will hunt them down and kill them. Humanitarianism is not rewarded in Gaza; it’s executed.

Their sponsors, too — from Iran to Qatar — do not bankroll Hamas for pragmatic outcomes. They fund Hamas to spread chaos, to disrupt Israeli normalization with the Arab world, to keep the Jewish state in a perpetual state of siege. You cannot out-leverage an enemy that wants to die if it means you die too.

Ultimately, there was never a version of this war in which both objectives — freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas — could be fully achieved. To get the hostages, Hamas must survive. To destroy Hamas, Israel must be willing to accept that not all hostages will make it out.

It is a cruel and unjust reality. But it is reality nonetheless.

And if Israel must choose, it must choose the path that ensures Jewish hostage-taking is not incentivized. That our enemies learn stealing humans is not a tool; it is a death sentence for your regime. That future generations do not inherit a Middle East where terrorism reigns, and murderers become martyrs.

To defeat Hamas is to reclaim the future. It is not the easier choice. It is the harder one. But it is the right one.

The families of the hostages deserve not just our sympathy, but our admiration. Their pain is immeasurable, and their voices are essential. Yet even many of them understand the unbearable trade-off: If Hamas wins, the cycle never ends. Their loved ones become pawns in a game that will be played again — and again.

Choosing to defeat Hamas is not abandoning the hostages; it’s refusing to let their captivity define our destiny. It is choosing a future where Jews are no longer hunted, no longer kidnapped, no longer bargaining chips in a game of genocidal terror.

It is not the easier path, but it is the one that ensures there will still be an Israel for their memory, and for all who come next.

 

Anti-Israel virtue-signaling on Gaza is immoral  by Jonathan S. Tobin

Hamas terrorists are counting on Jewish empathy to let them survive to continue pursuing the genocidal war they began on Oct. 7. Anyone who does their bidding is despicable and dangerous.

July 31, 2025  JNS.org

The avalanche of anti-Israel propaganda as a result of a flurry of reports of alleged starvation in the Gaza Strip is starting to overwhelm even the most stalwart supporters of the Jewish state. The images of suffering, even if some of them are fraudulent, have created a sense among many observers that the international opprobrium directed at the Jewish state is so great that it’s no longer a point that can or even should be disputed. They argue that regardless of who is to blame, it’s incumbent on Jerusalem—as the most powerful actor in the conflict—to put an end to the problem, no matter what that might mean.

Some even argue that this is true even if the food crisis is the result of manipulation by Hamas. A ceasefire and flooding the Strip with aid will give the Islamist terrorist group a lifeline, enabling them to emerge triumphant from the war they started on Oct. 7, 2023, with the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. But Israel’s critics, including some who claim to love the Jewish state, now tell us that’s unimportant.

What’s more, others—whether religious groups like the Reform movement, prestigious liberal journalists like The New Yorker’s David Remnick or secular comics like the Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart (who used his show to platform the anti-Zionist Jewish journalist Peter Beinart, who believes in Israel’s elimination) or Jewish actor Mandy Patinkin, are loudly asserting that Israel has betrayed Jewish values in fighting its defensive war against Hamas.

An ‘as a Jew’ moment

As such, and perhaps more than in any other moment in the history of the modern state, this is the quintessential “as a Jew” moment, when many of those who are Jewish or who can claim some association with the Jewish people have come out of the woodwork to condemn Israel, alongside others who have been bashing it nonstop for years.

Those engaging in these arguments speak as if they have the moral high ground that Israel has conceded because of its wartime conduct. The emotional appeals about hunger in Gaza, with some Jews arguing that nothing—not the Palestinian crimes committed on Oct. 7, the necessity to ensure that doesn’t happen again or the possibility of Hamas’s revival—can justify the situation are supposedly rooted in the values of Jewish tradition and faith that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is allegedly betraying.

These claims are false, despicable and dangerous.

To reject this view is not to deny that Palestinians are suffering. They are and have been since civilians began paying the price for tolerating a Hamas government in Gaza and its genocidal fantasy of an endless war to destroy the neighboring Jewish state. And that suffering has only increased as the war has dragged on into its 22nd month, with no end in sight as long as Hamas continues to reject even the generous terms for a ceasefire and hostage release deal sponsored by the United States.

Indeed, once their celebrations of the Oct. 7 atrocities, in which thousands of Palestinian civilians as well as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters took part, the people of Gaza have been the human shields behind which the terrorists hide, allowing them to continue the war and holding onto 50 hostages, both living and dead. That is a tragedy. And even though the Hamas casualty statistics are exaggerated to the point of being largely fictional, there should be no denying that many thousands of Arab civilians have been killed, wounded or endured privations as a result of the war begun by the organization that claims to represent them.

An immoral argument

The notion that Israel’s determination to continue the war until Hamas is eradicated and all hostages are released is not merely wrongheaded. It is itself immoral. Simply put, the responsibility for the suffering of the side that started the war and seeks to continue it in order to kill more Jews and destroy the one Jewish state on the planet belongs to Hamas—and its foreign enablers and fellow travelers—not to Israel.

The century-old conflict between Jews and Arabs over the small country between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, about the size of New Jersey, may be one that is complex, with both sides having historical grievances that are real. But the war that started on Oct. 7 is not morally complex. Any argument that it should be allowed to end with Hamas still standing and in control of any part of Gaza should be labeled for what is—no matter the motivations or the origins of those who make it—an unconscionable surrender to a genocidal organization that means to engage in similar orgies of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction.

Yet that is the argument that much of the world, as well as misguided, faint-hearted Jews, have been echoing for much of the last 22 months.

Logical arguments about the war are deemed irrelevant. Even President Donald Trump, a strong supporter of Israel who only days earlier was calling for Israel to “finish” Hamas in response to the terror group blowing up the negotiations for a ceasefire-hostage release deal that he was pushing for, seemed to have been persuaded by the deluge of images of starving Palestinians on television to change his tune.

Add to that the way France, Britain, and now, Canada are threatening to recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly in September, coupled with the demands of 25 countries and the European Union that Israel end the conflict, and it’s fair to say that the Jewish state’s isolation is increasing.

Instead of pushing back against these stands that are rooted in cynical political motives rather than humanitarian concerns, Jewish critics of Israel are engaged in moral preening, asserting that they are standing up for Jewish values against an immoral Israel.

The hearts of many Jews are always ready to bleed for victims of war, wherever they are to be found, even among those who wage war on Israel. But they ought to understand that granting a reprieve to Hamas because of, and not in spite of, the suffering they have imposed on their own people is neither moral nor a rational response to a difficult problem. And by doubling down on misleading and false media narratives about the conflict or claiming that the accuracy of the Hamas propaganda about casualties or starvation that the mainstream media parrots, they are only encouraging Hamas to continue to hang on rather than to give up.

It is true that Jewish tradition teaches us to pity such victims. But as the Midrash Tanchuma teaches, “Anyone who has pity on the cruel will show cruelty to the merciful.” That is certainly an apt description of policies that extend a lifeline to Hamas.

Losing the information war

The irony is that there is no question that Israel is losing the information war, even as it has achieved real victories on the battlefield. Public relations (hasbara in Hebrew) has never been an Israeli forte as it goes about the business of living. While the conflict in Gaza is dragging on to the point where it has exhausted the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli people, the idea that defeating Hamas is a fantasy cooked up by Netanyahu and his associates remains profoundly wrong. The terrorists are a shadow of their former strength. The war that they initiated has turned into a decisive victory for Israel, in which Hamas, Hezbollah and their Iranian sponsors have all suffered decisive defeats that have only bolstered the Jewish state’s strategic position.

The reason why Hamas is continuing a bloody guerrilla war in Gaza, even after its military formations and capability of inflicting rocket fire on Israeli civilians have been smashed, is that they are—as they have been long before Oct. 7—counting on public opinion in the West to hand them an undeserved victory. That is why they have done everything they could to maximize civilian deaths by fighting among and underneath them in tunnels, as well as using hospitals and schools as strongholds.

It’s also why they have deliberately created a food crisis by stealing the massive amounts of aid that Israel has allowed into the Strip, and then hoarding most of the food for their cadres and selling some of it to the population at exorbitant prices. They have also used terrorism to make it difficult, if not impossible, for civilians to access food brought in by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created by Israel and the United States.

This has created great suffering. However, it should be noted that these privations are apparently not enough to create a mass movement among the residents of Gaza to resist Hamas or to demand that it do the one thing that would have ended the war at any point since Oct. 7: release all the remaining hostages and corpses of the murder victims that they continue to hold.

As has been the case for decades, those who criticize or condemn Israel act as if the Palestinians have no moral agency for their conduct or fate.

Instead, Israel-bashers and the “more in sorrow than anger” critics who lament its alleged betrayal of Jewish traditions seem to think that the Palestinians have no responsibility for what has happened and must be saved from the consequences of their actions, no matter how often they reject peace or even just a cessation of hostilities. They don’t care that Israel has fought this war with greater morality and concern for the safety of civilians than in any prior instance of urban combat. Instead, they demand something unique in history: that an aggrieved combatant in a war forced upon them assume complete responsibility for the enemy population even before their opponents surrender.

Israel has gone a long way toward doing just that by allowing aid into Gaza throughout the current conflict. Even that unprecedented gesture has not been enough to silence critics.

Israel isn’t perfect, and neither is Netanyahu. But the prime minister’s resolve in pursuing his country’s war goals in the face of overwhelming American pressure prior to Trump returning to office in January and the drumbeat of unfair international opprobrium since Oct. 8 has enhanced his country’s security immeasurably. Treating the continuation of the war until victory as merely a cynical political ploy on his part or a hateful desire for revenge on the Palestinians is unfair. It also does real damage to Israel’s ability to defend itself against enemies that are still seeking to shed Jewish blood.

That’s why it’s vital to understand that the Jewish virtue-signaling about Gaza is more than just misguided moral posturing.

By taking sides against Israel and joining the chorus of those who seek to delegitimize its self-defense and force an end to the war in a way that clearly grants a triumph to Hamas, these “as a Jew” critics, like Stewart or Patinkin, are giving aid and comfort to genocidal Islamists that is as real as the suffering of the Palestinians. The same is true of many in the Reform movement who have allowed their progressive politics to get in the way of the religious denomination’s moral compass.

It’s also important to point out that those who make these criticisms have no answers as to how Israel can defend itself in a way that will not harm Palestinian civilians, while at the same time, Hamas is determined to maximize their suffering. Anguish about the situation of the Palestinians won’t make things better for them. On the contrary, by lending their voices to the information war against Israel, they ensure that they remain under the thumb of Hamas and others who are similarly committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Joining the mob

Though those who speak for Israel and the IDF can always do better, the information war against Israel that is being conducted in bad faith won’t be won by better communication strategies. The only way through is for Jerusalem to stick to its justified demands for an end to Hamas rule in Gaza and for those who care about the Jewish state to give it their backing, despite the temptation to join the mobs smearing it.

Virtue-signaling about Gaza starvation isn’t a reflection of Jewish values. It is a gift to the enemies of the Jewish people, whose goal is the shedding of more Jewish blood.

War remains, as it has always been: sheer hell. The only moral way to end this one is with Hamas’s surrender of control of every inch of Gaza and freedom for all of the hostages. Those who deviate from those demands are doing great harm to both sides in this war to feel good about themselves and to stay in sync with liberal political fashion. And that’s not merely wrong, but deeply, deeply immoral.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

 

Diplomatic Terrorism?: France’s Recognition of an Imaginary Palestinian State   by Drieu Godefridi
July 31, 2025 at 5:00 am

• International law — particularly Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention — defines the criteria for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and the capacity to engage in relations with other states. Yet neither of the two Palestinian political entities meets these criteria.
• By choosing to recognize a “Palestinian state” that clearly fails to meet these established criteria, France departs from any international law. Macron’s declaration is not a matter of legal recognition, but a political gesture — ideological and electoral — masquerading as diplomacy.
• [T]his recognition serves as a reward for terrorism. It offers no humanitarian benefit. As US President Donald Trump put it: “What Macron says is irrelevant—it won’t change anything.” The sole concrete outcome is the political legitimization of a jihadist, anti-Semitic, genocidal movement.

On 24 July 2025, France announced its decision to recognize the existence of a “Palestinian state” in September. President Emmanuel Macron portrayed this move as an act of “justice” and “peace.” In reality, however, this recognition constitutes a geopolitical fiction. Once again, France finds itself on the wrong side of history. Not on the side of human rights. Not on the side of peace. But on the side of lies, dishonor and collaboration with the enemies of humanity. Pictured: Macron meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 25, 2024. (Photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)

On 24 July 2025, France announced its decision to recognize the existence of a “Palestinian state” in September. President Emmanuel Macron portrayed this move as an act of “justice” and “peace.” In reality, however, this recognition constitutes a geopolitical fiction — contrary to international law, flagrantly at odds with the facts on the ground, and laden with profoundly harmful moral implications.

1. What State?

International law — particularly Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention — defines the criteria for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and the capacity to engage in relations with other states. Yet neither of the two Palestinian political entities meets these criteria.

On one side stands the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by Mahmoud Abbas—a feeble administrative remnant, ostentatiously corrupt, loathed by his people and devoid of democratic legitimacy. No presidential election has been held since 2005. The PA’s limited authority extends over only a portion of the West Bank, and even there, it operates with the conditional consent of Israel and under the close oversight of the Israeli military, on which it depends for its own security.

On the other side lies the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamist organization Hamas, designated as a terrorist group by the European Union, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. Hamas, which perpetrated the massacre of October 7, 2023, is not a state actor, but a theocratic militia. It is waging war not only against Israel but also against Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction. Hamas, in a coup, forcibly expelled the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip in 2007 in a Palestinian civil war that has claimed hundreds of lives over the years.

Thus, the “Palestinian state” that France purports to recognize possesses no unified government, no monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and no effective sovereignty. It exists solely on the papers of a few diplomatic offices — not in reality.

2. What Territory?

Recognizing a state entails recognizing its control over a territory — even if disputed at the margins. Yet here too, confusion reigns, and for good reason: Palestinian territorial claims are anything but coherent. The 1949 armistice lines (frequently but mistakenly called the “1967 borders”) have never been recognized as international boundaries, either by Israel or by key UN resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967. That resolution calls for withdrawal to “secure and recognized boundaries” but leaves their definition open.

Hamas, by contrast, rejects any notion of coexistence with Israel. Its founding covenant from 1988 (revised in 2017) continues to call explicitly for Israel’s destruction, and the 2017 revision claims all the land “from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west” — that is, all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. This vision necessarily entails the eradication of the State of Israel and the displacement — or extermination — of its people.

To recognize a state with no defined territory — and whose territorial claims involve ethnic cleansing — is to lend legitimacy to a genocidal project.

3. What Authority?

Since the launch of Israel’s Operation Swords of Iron in response to the jihadist slaughter of October 7, 2023, Hamas has lost control over large portions of the Gaza Strip. The IDF now conducts daily operations there, systematically dismantling Hamas’s military infrastructure and administrative apparatus. The so-called Hamas “government” no longer possesses functioning ministries, a budget, or significant logistical capability. Its leadership is either dead, exiled, or in hiding.

In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority has lost credibility. It is widely perceived as corrupt, authoritarian and subservient to Israel. It controls neither borders nor resources. It cannot even maintain public order in many areas, such as Jenin and Nablus, which have devolved into strongholds of lawless paramilitary factions.

In sum, there is no Palestinian authority exercising sovereign control over any territory.

A Legal Fiction, a Moral Disaster

Under international law, the recognition of a state is a sovereign act — discretionary, but not arbitrary. It presupposes, in principle, the existence of objective facts demonstrating a genuine state within the legal meaning of the term. By choosing to recognize a “Palestinian state” that clearly fails to meet these established criteria, France departs from any international law. Macron’s declaration is not a matter of legal recognition, but a political gesture — ideological and electoral — masquerading as diplomacy.

The timing only compounds the problem. One year and eight months after the atrocities of October 7, 2023 — acts of barbarism targeting civilians, including women, children, the elderly and even babies — this recognition serves as a reward for terrorism. It offers no humanitarian benefit. As US President Donald Trump put it: “What Macron says is irrelevant—it won’t change anything.” The sole concrete outcome is the political legitimization of a jihadist, anti-Semitic, genocidal movement.

For those who still doubt that reality, Hamas leaders have articulated their aims with chilling clarity. In an interview on October 24, 2023 with Lebanese television channel LBC, Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, declared:

“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight.”

When asked whether this meant the annihilation of Israel, he responded without hesitation: “Yes, of course.”

Once again, France finds itself on the wrong side of history. Not on the side of human rights. Not on the side of peace. But on the side of lies, dishonor and collaboration with the enemies of humanity.

Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain), philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain) and PhD in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an entrepreneur, CEO of a European private education group and director of PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green Reich (2020).

 

“Trump Did It… And Now They’re SCRAMBLING… | Victor Davis Hanson”   [18:09]

Jul 30, 2025  Inner Vision

In this video, Victor Davis Hanson exposes the left’s contradictions in their attacks on Donald Trump and his trade policies. In this video, Hanson dives deep into how progressive critics consistently misrepresent Trump’s use of tariffs, portraying them as reckless or harmful without acknowledging their strategic purpose. He argues that the left’s opposition isn’t based on economic facts, but on a broader ideological rejection of Trump’s America-first agenda.

From renegotiating trade deals to holding China accountable, Hanson highlights how Trump’s tariff strategy was a deliberate effort to restore fairness and protect American industry—something past administrations failed to address. Meanwhile, the same critics who decried Trump’s tactics often supported similar measures under different presidents, revealing a clear double standard.

Hanson contends that Trump’s presidency didn’t just disrupt global trade norms—it exposed how deeply entrenched and emotionally charged the left’s narrative has become. Ultimately, this video unpacks how Trump’s unorthodox methods—and the left’s fierce reaction to them—shine a light on the deeper political and cultural divide in America.

 

Europe’s New Policy: Punish Jews, Reward Islamists   JOSHUA HOFFMAN

The UK wants to recognize a Palestinian state based on bizarre logic. Hamas is thrilled, of course — but what happens when we apply the British prime minister’s own reasoning to the Palestinians?

JUL 30, 2025

There is great literature produced by Byron Katie, a best-selling author and speaker, called The Work.

A central part of her framework is “the turnaround,” a cognitive tool that encourages people to flip their judgments and examine them from the opposite perspective.

If someone says, “My partner doesn’t respect me,” Katie’s framework prompts them to consider turnarounds to see if they might be true, such as “I don’t respect my partner,” or even “I don’t respect myself.” The point is not to excuse bad behavior, but to challenge the rigidity of our narratives — and to confront double standards, blind spots, and projections that cloud our understanding of truth.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer could benefit from reading Byron Katie.

On Tuesday, Starmer announced that the United Kingdom would formally recognize a Palestinian state in September — unless the Israeli government takes “substantive steps” to end the war in Gaza and meets additional conditions, including recommitting to a viable peace process.

It’s a classic example of what happens when political posturing replaces actual moral reasoning. And it gives us a great opportunity to apply Byron Katie’s turnaround technique. What if Starmer had said something like:

“The UK will not recognize a Palestinian state unless the Palestinian people and their governments (there are at least two — the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza) take substantive steps to end the war against Israel and meet several other conditions, including recommitting to a viable peace process.”

Let’s not pretend like Adam and Eve were born yesterday and there’s no history here. Since the 1930s, many Jews (and later, the State of Israel) have consistently pursued a viable path to peace. But the same cannot be said for the majority of Palestinians, nor for many of their so-called Arab “brothers and sisters,” who have repeatedly rejected coexistence wholesale in favor of indiscriminate violence, kidnappings, murder, and martyrdom.

After the horrors of the Second Intifada (from 2000 to 2005), during which Palestinians murdered over 1,000 Israelis (most of them civilians), a sobering reality set in for many Israelis: Peace with the Palestinians is not only elusive, but perhaps unattainable, no matter how deep the concessions or how sincere the desire for a two-state solution.

Those who truly understand Israeli and Palestinian society know this: Israel is a nation of builders, a people who could have anchored their identity in Holocaust victimhood for generations, but instead chose resilience, renewal, and progress. In contrast, the Palestinians have fabricated and clung to a narrative of perpetual victimhood — one largely fictionalized, endlessly repeated, and weaponized to excuse violence, evade responsibility, and halt any path forward.

So, what exactly is Starmer on about?

Hamas is still in control of Gaza, openly calling for the annihilation of Israel as it has been since 1988. The Palestinian Authority — the so-called “moderate” Palestinian faction in the West Bank — continues to glorify terrorists, funds their families, and refuses to engage in direct negotiations. What Starmer is asking of Israel (unilateral concessions in the middle of a war started by the Palestinian side) he would never dare ask of the Palestinians.

Why is that?

Recognition of statehood ought to reflect reality on the ground, not wishful thinking or political coercion. No one demanded the Taliban end terror before recognizing they controlled Afghanistan. No one made Serbian nationalists meet peace benchmarks before negotiating with them during the Balkan wars. But when it comes to Israel, recognition of its adversaries is wielded like a threat.

It’s a form of diplomatic extortion — dangling a prize not to reward good behavior, but to punish the wrong side for existing.

Excuse my bloody ignorance, but what kind of peace process can exist when rockets are still flying, hostages are still held, and Hamas still promises to repeat October 7th again and again? Demanding Israeli concessions in this context is not diplomacy; it’s delusion. It’s like asking a firefighter to negotiate with an arsonist while the blaze is still raging.

No country on Earth would accept these terms for itself. But for Israel, whose very survival is perpetually up for debate, somehow this standard becomes not only acceptable, but morally superior.

You want “substantive steps”? Let’s look at what the Palestinian leadership is doing right now. Hamas, which has significant support amongst Palestinians, openly states: “We love death the way Israelis love life.” The Palestinian Authority’s school system teaches children that Jews are subhuman invaders. Longtime Palestinian Authority dictator Mahmoud Abbas routinely denies the Holocaust and calls terrorists “heroes.” The Palestinian Authority pays stipends to the families of murderers — the more Jews you kill, the higher the payout.

What, exactly, does Starmer imagine will change between now and September? If these are not deal-breakers for recognition, then we must ask: What is?

Starmer’s remarks embody the soft bigotry of low expectations. He implicitly assumes Palestinians are powerless, choiceless victims — rather than moral agents capable of rejecting terrorism, building institutions, or choosing a different future. Western leaders talk about Palestinians like the latter is mostly a bunch of babies and toddlers. The underlying premise is that only Israel is expected to act like a respectable grown-up.

In this worldview, Palestinians are exempt from accountability because to demand anything of them would be “insensitive.” But what could be more insulting (or more racist) than treating an entire people as too emotionally or politically fragile to be held to the basic standards of decency?

There is something disturbingly familiar about Starmer’s tone: the patronizing confidence of an empire that still imagines itself as a referee in other people’s lives. The British government has a long history of carving up the Middle East without regard for Jewish or Arab lives. From the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the 1939 White Paper that barred Jews from escaping the Holocaust, Britain has always played both sides. Starmer’s remarks suggest the habit dies hard.

But the British Empire is no longer the policeman of the world. And Israel is no longer a subject to be managed; it is a sovereign state that will do what it needs to do to ensure its safety and security.

If the UK rewards Hamas’ war by recognizing Palestinian statehood now, what message does that send to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and even Iran? That violence works. That hostage-taking works. That terror pays.

It sets a precedent in which terrorist groups don’t need to win wars; they just need to survive long enough to be legitimized by the West. It teaches the world’s most violent actors that the road to statehood runs not through reform, democracy, or peace — but through bloodshed.

And let’s call a spade a spade: Starmer and his pals in France, Norway, Iceland, and Ireland are among a growing list of out-of-touch leftist leaders across the West who pretend to be authentic advocates for “Palestine” and “the Palestinians.” They are performing a kind of moral theater, one meant to appease rising domestic pressures — especially from growing Muslim immigrant communities and radicalized youth movements that demand symbolic shows of solidarity with Gaza.

This isn’t diplomacy; it’s demographic damage control.

These leaders are projecting their own political crises onto the Middle East — using Israel as a convenient scapegoat for their failure to integrate immigrant populations, control extremism, and maintain national cohesion. That’s why we get announcements like that of Starmer: empty threats and deadlines directed at one of Europe’s great partners (Israel), while groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are treated with kid gloves.

It’s a dangerous charade. Because recognition of a state is not a charity prize; it’s a serious geopolitical act. And to recognize a Palestinian state right now, with Hamas still armed and governing, is to reward terror and punish the very concept of peace.

Imagine applying the same logic to other conflicts. Would the UK have recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan in the middle of 2001, while they were still harboring al-Qaeda and repressing women? Would they have granted legitimacy to the Irish Republican Army while bombs were going off in London?

Katie Byron’s turnaround technique forces us to ask: If Starmer truly believes recognition should be tied to “substantive steps” and a “viable peace process,” then why is that standard applied only to Israel?

The answer is uncomfortable. It reveals how low the moral bar has been set for the Palestinians — and how high it’s been set for the Jews. And it reminds us that the West’s obsession with “Palestine” has far less to do with actual Palestinians and far more to do with the guilt, decay, and political cowardice of many Western ruling elites.

If Starmer is seriously concerned about peace, dignity, and safety, he might start closer to home — with Britain’s Jewish community, which has not faced this level of hostility in decades.

Since October 7th, antisemitic incidents in the UK have surged to levels unseen in the 21st century. Synagogues require constant police presence. Jewish schools have been forced to go on lockdown or hide their insignias. Jewish students at British universities are afraid to speak openly, fearing harassment from peers and even professors. Some Jewish businesses have been vandalized. Others have quietly removed any public sign of their Jewish identity — not in Gaza, but in London, Manchester, and Birmingham.

This is not happening in the shadows. It’s on the streets — in marches where mobs chant, “From the River to the Sea!”, a genocidal slogan that calls for the eradication of Israel. It’s in Parliament Square. It’s on the BBC. It’s in the heart of British civil society.

Yet somehow, Starmer’s idea of leadership is not to address this hate, not to challenge the ideology behind it, but to validate it — by rewarding the very political project that justifies violence against Jews around the world.

Jewish life in the UK is under siege. Not by accident. Not because of a misunderstanding. But because Hamas launched a pogrom on October 7th, and far too many in Britain responded not with moral clarity — but with moral confusion. Instead of standing with their Jewish neighbors, they made excuses for their murderers. Instead of protecting one of the UK’s oldest and most integrated minorities, they turned their wrath on them.

And now, Starmer wants to crown that betrayal with a diplomatic gift to the very forces that unleashed this grotesquely antisemitic wave of hate.

Brilliant, mate.

 

Israel must end this war — by winning it.   BOB GOLDBERG

Feeding the enemy, trading hostages for terrorists, and extending the war under the banner of morality are not acts of ethics; they are acts of madness.

JUL 28, 2025

“Brutal, comprehensive, and swift” is how Henry Kissinger advised Israel on ending the First Intifada.

In the annals of wartime diplomacy, few statements are more jarring — and more correct — than Kissinger’s quiet counsel to then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Cut off the television crews, and do what South Africa did: Fight without apology, win without spectacle.

It was a hard truth delivered in soft tones. But it was truth nonetheless: When war becomes inevitable, the moral thing to do is end it — quickly, decisively, and without self-delusion.

Today, Israel is at war again. This time with Hamas. But unlike 1987, Israeli leadership isn’t being told to finish the job. It’s being told to hold back. To tread lightly. To feed the enemy, negotiate with kidnappers, and seek praise from the United Nations rather than protection for its people.

And while U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have signaled that maybe Hamas needs to be defeated entirely, we have heard that several times over the past year. I hope I’m wrong, but such assertions should not be taken seriously. Instead, the war will drag on. The hostages remain. The soldiers fall. And their families suffer. All for the sake of a delusion: that moral restraint in war means moral success.

It doesn’t. It is immoral.

Let’s start with the most scandalous contradiction in modern conflict: the belief that sending food, fuel, and medical supplies to your enemy is humanitarian. No nation has internalized this inversion more tragically than Israel. Since October 7th, it has been sending aid trucks into Gaza while its citizens bury their dead, its hostages languish in tunnels, and its soldiers fight booby-trapped corridors beneath hospitals. Israel is, in effect, the first country in history to fund both sides of its own war.

The delusion is global. The United Nations hails this arrangement as “restraint.” NGOs trumpet it as “empathy.” The media spins it as “civilized warfare.”

But as former Israeli politician Einat Wilf brilliantly pointed out:

“There are perfectly capable people in Gaza, as we saw on October 7th. That massacre required billions of dollars, years of investment in infrastructure, leadership, strategy, and vision, of the most perverse kind. What it shows is that the people of Gaza are not lacking capacity or resources. Their problem is ideological. It is not a humanitarian crisis; it is a political project of destruction disguised as victimhood. And what does the international system do in response? It keeps funding it.”

Wilf is right. Gaza isn’t starving because it’s poor. It’s starving because its rulers choose tunnels over bomb shelters, rockets over roads, and martyrdom over medicine.

To add insult to injury, by focusing on the situation in Gaza, Western governments and anti-Jewish media make it seem that if Israel would let the UN in, all would be well. In fact, the UN has turned aid distribution into suicidal humanitarianism.

During the Syrian civil war, the UN routed over $23 billion in aid through regime-controlled agencies that funneled food to loyalists while besieging opposition areas. The World Food Programme proudly reported that it fed nearly seven million Syrians in 2021, but neglected to mention that much of that food sustained the same military that gassed its own people in Douma.

In Yemen, UN agencies were forced — yes, forced — to use subcontractors approved by the Houthis rebel council, a regime that murders women for dress code violations and lobs missiles at Saudi civilian airports. Houthis-controlled agencies like the Bonyan Foundation, linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, now act as gatekeepers of humanitarian aid — skimming money, fuel, and food before anything reaches civilians.

After the 1994 genocide, Hutu génocidaires regrouped in UN-run refugee camps in eastern Congo. There, they taxed aid deliveries, built armed militias, and launched cross-border raids into Rwanda — all under UN protection. Goma became a haven not for civilians, but for militias rearming with Western-funded rice.

In 2009, al-Shabaab was skimming an estimated 20–to–80 percent of all food aid entering its zones of control in Somalia. They used stolen UN vehicles for bombings and extracted “customs fees” from aid workers. At the peak of the famine, the UN faced a moral dilemma: Feed starving civilians and enrich al-Shabaab, or cut them off and be called complicit in a humanitarian crisis. They chose the former. Al-Shabaab chose to bomb aid convoys anyway.

In Ethiopia, both Ethiopian federal forces and Tigrayan rebels were accused of blocking, looting, and redirecting aid supplies. As in Gaza, aid trucks became pawns on a strategic chessboard. World Food Programme warehouses were raided. Trucks went missing. Rebels distributed food not by need, but by allegiance.

In each case, the same pattern emerges: Humanitarian aid, designed to alleviate suffering, becomes a mechanism for prolonging it. In this context, in this struggle, Israel’s supply of food, medicine, and other materials is suicidal.

Here’s a fact you won’t hear at the next UN Security Council session: International law is not stupid. Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention permits aid to pass, but only under strict conditions: that it reaches children under 15, pregnant women, and the wounded, and that it is not diverted for military use. If there is credible concern that the aid will help the enemy, the besieging power may refuse it.

Let me repeat: Israel is not obligated to supply fuel, food, or water to Gaza. And certainly not when that aid is rerouted to Hamas tunnels or used to shield hostages.

Here’s Einat Wilf again:

“International humanitarian law was not written by pacifists. It was written by people who understood that wars must be waged, and wars must be won. It is stupid — yes, stupid — to supply your enemy while they’re trying to kill you. And Israel is being pressured to do just that.”

Indeed, the pressure has consequences. Every aid truck into Gaza buys Hamas another hour — every delay in total victory results in more IDF casualties, more hostage videos, more funerals.

Which brings us to the most dangerous moral mirage of all: hostage deals. Since October 7th, Israel’s war policy has been paralyzed by a single goal: the return of the hostages. Now, let’s be clear: The rescue of hostages is a sacred duty. Pidyon shvuyim (the redemption of captives) is considered one of the highest mitzvot in Jewish law.

But Jewish tradition is not naïve. The Mishnah (Gittin 4:6) teaches that captives must not be redeemed for more than their worth. Why? Because of tikkun olam, to prevent public endangerment. As the Talmud explains, paying excessive ransoms encourages more kidnappings and burdens the community. It’s not just a financial warning; it’s a warning against strategic collapse.

Ronen Shoval, Dean of the Argaman Institute, put it to more bluntly:

“The prioritization of hostage recovery above all else is a mistake. It signals to Hamas that kidnapping Jews is worthwhile. Hamas uses hostages as shields. They will not release them except through force. The longer we wait, the more soldiers die. The more children become orphans.”

And they have. The war has dragged on not because of a lack of military capability, but due to a lack of political will. Shoval again:

“Israel’s position right now is the worst of all: Soldiers are dying, the hostages remain, aid is flowing to Hamas, and there are no orders to win.”

This is not a war; it is a slow-motion hostage negotiation with gunfire in the background. The so-called “hostage deal” on the table — cheered on by European diplomats, editorial boards, and a small chorus of Israeli protestors — is not a plan to free all the captives. It is, at best, a theater of concessions designed to spare Hamas the fate it richly deserves.

Months have passed. Thousands of lives lost. Cities reduced to rubble. And what have we seen from Hamas? Not a single act of good faith. Not one verifiable list of hostages. Not one gesture suggesting an intent to end this horror. Just perpetual stalling, extortion, and ghoulish media manipulations.

But the real tragedy is not Hamas’ behavior; who expects morality from a genocidal death cult? The tragedy is that Western leaders and Israeli Far-Left voices continue to indulge the fantasy that if we just bend a little more, surrender a few more principles, offer another ceasefire, or release another batch of murderers, then, maybe, just maybe, Hamas will keep its word.

Meanwhile, unhinged voices in the West and Israel insist, as a headline in the Far-Left Ha’aretz blared, “Bring Back the Israeli Hostages, at Any Price.”

But the fact is, you cannot simultaneously provide a long ceasefire and unlimited humanitarian assistance (some are now urging Israel to flood Gaza with aid) and expect to destroy Hamas’ rule in Gaza and get all the hostages back. Each objective sabotages the other when pursued together.

In addition to the incoherence of the hostage-above-all ideology, there’s a missing reality check: Hamas will never release all the hostages. Never. They are its human shields, its bargaining chips, its insurance policy. To Hamas, hostages are not people; they are currency. And the moment you signal that kidnapping Jews is a winning strategy, you invite not just more terror, but a marketplace for it.

To leave Hamas intact, especially with control of humanitarian aid flowing through its tunnels and couriers, is to embolden that ideology. It is to fund it. Subsidize it. Reward it.

Every truck of fuel, every bag of flour, every ceasefire day spent resupplying Gaza is a gift to the very people who promise to repeat October 7th “again and again.” This is not conjecture; Hamas leaders explicitly said it.

What message does it send to Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to the next terror cell waiting in the wings when Israel trumpets its determination to bring back every hostage at considerable cost of blood, treasure, and social stability? That Jewish lives are negotiable. That terror works. That if you are cruel enough — if you dismember babies on camera — eventually, the West will tire and Israel will fold.

Let us be clear: Hostage rescue is a sacred duty, but not at the cost of making hostage-taking a national sport. Indeed, the Mishnah forbids paying excessive ransoms because it destroys the social order. Why? Because once you show you’ll pay any price, you’ll be made to pay every price. Again. And again.

The cost of this “hostage-first, Hamas-intact” strategy has been paid several times over.

As of July 2025, 895 Israeli soldiers, officers, and reservists have been killed in this war, including the initial massacre and ongoing operations. There 315 widows and widowers who will spend the rest of their lives speaking to tombstones. There are over 600 orphans who will never again celebrate holidays with a parent.

The Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that the number of injured in the current war has surpassed 16,000, including amputees, those with brain injuries, and hundreds who lost eyes, limbs, or mobility. They are not just numbers; they are men and women who will never hold their children with both arms again; they are newly paralyzed veterans who once stormed enemy lines but now struggle to climb stairs.

Combat-related PTSD cases soared in the first months of the war. Over 1,600 soldiers began showing signs of psychological trauma by January 2024, and 76 percent were sent back to the front lines after receiving “treatment in the field.” The suicides continue — quiet, solitary casualties of a war we refuse to finish.

It is painful to say, but I believe it to be sadly true nevertheless: Placing a premium on releasing all the hostages (a delusion as deep as that which brought Oslo Accords into being) ignores a costly moral calculus: that trading temporary respite for enduring threat ensures more death, more captives, more war. Hamas has never bargained in good faith. It has played the hostage card with masterful cruelty, extracting fuel, food, ceasefires, and diplomatic paralysis in exchange for mere lists, photos, and promises.

It is time for a brutal truth: a war not waged to win is a war waged to lose. Feeding the enemy, trading hostages for terrorists, and extending the war under the banner of morality is not moral; it is madness. The kind of war that ends terror is not the one that wins applause at the UN; it is the one that breaks the enemy’s spine and sends a message: never again.

Henry Kissinger, though controversial, understood this. The best wars, morally and practically, are the ones that end quickly. The worst are those prolonged by false mercy. Humanitarianism that fuels murder is not compassion; it is complicity.

We are told to pity Gaza. To fund its people, rebuild its infrastructure, and treat its leaders as partners. But Gaza, as Einat Wilf warned, is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a militarized theocracy, armed to the teeth, fanatical in purpose, and funded by those who still believe that all suffering is innocence.

It is not.

Hamas, and the many Gazans who support Hamas and eagerly participated in and cheered the slaughter and circus like release of previous hostages, chose suffering and have weaponized death, destruction, and deprivation. It is not Israel’s legal or moral responsibility to resupply Gazans any more than it was the Allied Forces duty to care for Germans or Japanese civilians left to live among the ruin and rubble wrought by their respective death cults.

It is time to end the illusion. End the hostage deals. End the fuel transfers. End the food and medicine deliveries. End the other countries that condemn Israel and yet shut their borders to Gazans. End UN complicity in terror.

And end the war the way just wars are meant to be ended: by winning it. Wars end not through charity but through clarity — by defeating the enemy, breaking its will, and ensuring it cannot rise again.

Bob Goldberg   I co-founded the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) in 2005. And I led Manhattan Institute’s Center for Medical Progress and its 21st Century FDA Task Force.

 

 

Jabotinsky’s enduring Zionist legacy  by Moshe Phillips

There could be no national revival without moral and physical strength, and no lasting peace without respect—earned through resilience and integrity.

July 28, 2025  JNS

“So, today, I would like to reflect on these three sometimes-forgotten American virtues—honor, tradition and optimism.”

With those words, historian and pundit Victor Davis Hanson began the essence of his 2025 commencement address at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Although he was speaking of American ideals, these chosen virtues resonate powerfully in the life and legacy of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the towering Zionist leader whose death we commemorate this August—85 years since he passed away in Hunter, N.Y., in 1940.

For Jabotinsky, these three values were not abstractions. They were demands—practical, moral and political—that were woven into the consciousness of the then stateless Jewish people striving for rebirth in their ancient, indigenous homeland. He sought to build a generation of Jews defined not by exile and victimhood, but by self-respect, service and hope. These virtues formed the foundation of the Brit Trumpeldor youth movement, the Revisionist Zionist vision and Jabotinsky’s militant spirit that helped forge the Jewish state.

Honor, for Jabotinsky, was a matter of national dignity.

In an era when Jews were seen by others (and too often by themselves) as passive and powerless, he preached self-defense and self-respect—or what he called Hadar. Whether organizing Jewish self-defense units in Odessa, advocating for a Jewish Legion to fight alongside the Allies in World War I or forging Jewish youth in Jerusalem in the 1920s into a trained fighting force, Jabotinsky worked to instill a sense of pride and obligation. Jewish honor, he believed, meant not waiting for rescue but taking personal responsibility for Jewish destiny.

This commitment to honor explains why Jabotinsky broke from the mainstream Zionist movement when he felt it was compromising on fundamental principles. It’s why he insisted on clarity about Jewish rights in all of historic Eretz Yisrael. For him, there could be no national revival without moral and physical strength, and no lasting peace without respect—earned through resilience and integrity.

Tradition was the cultural and historical spine of his worldview.

Although Jabotinsky was a modernist in many respects—European, cosmopolitan—he had a profound reverence for the Jewish past. He understood that Zionism was not merely a political revolution but a national renaissance. The Hebrew language, Jewish customs and biblical memory were all essential tools in this process. A Jewish state had to be Jewish—not just demographically or geographically, but spiritually and historically, recalling biblical heroes such as David and Samson in his poetry and fiction.

He engendered this understanding in Brit Yosef Trumpeldor—the Betar movement, which he founded in 1923. The Zionist youth movement’s uniforms, rituals, songs and literary education were designed to revive Jewish identity in a way that was proud, disciplined and forward-looking, while always conscious of the sacrifices and glories of Jewish history. Tradition, to Jabotinsky, was not a museum. It was a foundation for growth and freedom.

Most strikingly, Jabotinsky was a prophet of optimism.

In a world darkened by antisemitism, statelessness and approaching catastrophe, he dared to believe in—and work for—a bright and profoundly Jewish future. His belief in a sovereign Jewish state with a Jewish army and a flourishing Hebrew culture was seen by many of his contemporaries as fanciful or extremist. Yet he charged forward.

His 1923 essay, “The Iron Wall,” argued that only by establishing an unbreakable Jewish presence in the Land of Israel could peace eventually be achieved with the hostile surrounding Arabs. Though criticized in its time, the core insight—that strength and security are prerequisites for peace—has since been vindicated. It was this realism infused with hope that made him such a powerful motivator of young Jews. He knew the road would be hard but believed victory was possible.

Jabotinsky’s optimism was not naïve. It was a moral obligation. To despair, he believed, was to betray future generations. He understood that the Jewish people had survived for millennia not by accident, but through determination, vision and faith.

Eighty-five years after his untimely death on Aug. 3, 1940 (at 60 years old), Jabotinsky’s legacy remains not only relevant but urgently needed. In Israel today, as in Jewish communities worldwide, the virtues he championed face erosion—from ideological confusion, historical amnesia and external threats. Honor, tradition and optimism are under pressure everywhere—in education, culture and civic life.

Yet these are precisely the virtues that can sustain Jewish identity and ensure the strength of the Jewish state. They are the building blocks not just of Zionism but of all healthy nations. That an American thinker like Victor Davis Hanson would select these same values in addressing young citizens shows just how universal and enduring they truly are.

Jabotinsky died before seeing the fulfillment of his vision. He did not live to witness the founding of the State of Israel or the heroic battles fought by the generation he helped train. But his influence was undeniable. From the underground Irgun and LEHI fighters to Israeli prime ministers like his spiritual heirs, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, Jabotinsky’s ideas shaped history.

For decades, his remains stayed in New York, per his will, which stipulated that they should not be moved to Israel unless requested by a Jewish state. Israeli founding father and first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, his longtime political rival, refused that request. Only in 1964 did Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol reverse that policy and formally approve the transfer.

Jabotinsky was finally reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem—his resting place now standing beside the very nation he helped bring into reality.

On this 85th anniversary, let us remember not only Ze’ev Jabotinsky as the leader, writer and soldier, but Jabotinsky the teacher of values. Let us re-embrace the virtues he taught: the honor of self-respect, the tradition of shared memory and the optimism that fuels perseverance.

These are not just Zionist values; they are Jewish values. They are not just relics of some distant past but signposts for the future of the Jewish people. Jabotinsky knew it. Hanson reminds us. The challenge now is to live them.

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.

 

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Muslims storm Catholic church, murder at least 34 people  BY ROBERT SPENCER

JUL 27, 2025 5:00 PM  Jihad Watch

Some people actually believe that all religions are equally capable of inciting their adherents to commit acts of violence. Some people actually believe that Islamic jihadis, though they are found all over the world and base their appeal to peaceful Muslims on their strict obedience to the commands of the Qur’an and Sunnah, are twisting and hijacking the beautiful religion of peace.

“Islamic State-backed rebels attack a Catholic church in eastern Congo, killing at least 34,” by Justin Kabumba and Ope Adetayo, Associated Press, July 27, 2025:

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Islamic State-backed rebels attacked a Catholic church in eastern Congo on Sunday, killing at least 34 people, according to a local civil society leader.

Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, in the Ituri province, told The Associated Press that the attackers stormed the church in Komanda town at around 1 a.m. Several houses and shops were also burnt.

“The bodies of the victims are still at the scene of the tragedy, and volunteers are preparing how to bury them in a mass grave that we are preparing in a compound of the Catholic church,” Duranthabo said.

Video footage from the scene shared online appeared to show burning structures and bodies on the floor of the church. Those who were able to identify some of the victims wailed while others stood in shock.

At least five other people were killed in an earlier attack on the nearby village of Machongani….

Eastern Congo has suffered deadly attacks in recent years by armed groups, including the ADF and Rwanda-backed rebels. The ADF, which has ties to the Islamic State, operates in the borderland between Uganda and Congo and often targets civilians….

Follow me on X

[Ed.:  The root cause of the problem is Islam!]

 

Italy: Playground for Terror   By Robert Spencer

July 27, 2025 – Recently in Milan, a vacationer from New York City discovered the harsh realities of the new Europe. He wasn’t the first to do so, and will by no means be the last.

Staten Island native Nick Pellegrino, according to a Saturday report in the New York Post,  “was attacked on a train Tuesday by a pair of North African migrants, who stabbed him in the neck with a 5-inch knife before making off with his luggage and jewelry — leaving him to die in a pool of his own blood in his family’s homeland, which has experienced a surge in criminal migrants over the past four years.”

It is not an incidental detail that Pellegrino was stabbed in the neck. The Qur’an tells Muslims, “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (47:4). Neither Italian authorities nor the New York Post have any interest in the fact, but it actually could illuminate a great deal not only about the motivations of those who attacked Pellegrino, but of Muslim migrants to Europe in general. Are European Union officials really wise to invite into the continent a large and ever-growing number of migrants among whom are many who see the natives as prey to be attacked?

Pellegrino, speaking from his hospital bed, observed: “With these very loose, lefty immigration laws, these immigrants come into these countries and they’re running amok, trying to murder people. It’s a playground for terror, for the vicious. It’s f**ing crazy. I know America has a big immigration problem, but it is worse here.”

Pellegrino recounted that he was minding his own business when the attack occurred. He was “looking down at his phone as the train from Melegnano to Milan Bovisa rolled into the San Giuliano Milanese station.” Then, “when the train doors opened, his mid-20s, Arabic-speaking attackers darted towards him, stabbing him in the neck, nicking his jugular vein.” Said Pellegrino: “They looked like the 9/11 hijackers. I remember looking at the floor in the train and just seeing the blade of the knife, and the most frightening amount of blood I have ever seen.”

The Post notes that “before stealing his luggage and leaving him for dead, Pellegrino’s homicidal attackers snatched the gold crucifix from around his neck.” Now, why would they want that? Maybe only because it was gold. Still, it was unlikely to get them any significant amount of money. If, however, they were indeed believing and observant Muslims, they may have found it particularly offensive that Pellegrino was wearing a symbol that Islam teaches is an insult to Allah.

The Qur’an claims that Jesus was not crucified, or even killed (4:157). Islamic theology holds that the very idea of a crucified prophet (which is what the Qur’an considers Jesus to be) is absurd; Allah would have protected his prophet from such a humiliating death. Islamic tradition holds the idea of the crucifixion to be so offensive to Allah that when he returns to earth during the end times, Jesus will “break the cross.” (Bukhari 46.37.2476)

How long can Europe survive this growing number of migrants who hold its religious and cultural heritage in violent contempt? It is telling that the Post makes no mention of the Islamic character of the behavior of the North African migrants who attacked Pellegrino, and there is no doubt whatsoever that the Italian police made no mention of it, either. Can Europe survive a challenge that its authorities, as well as the international media, refuse to notice or name? Can Europe withstand an onslaught from a group of people while simultaneously insisting that those people are entirely benign, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is a racist “Islamophobe”?

“We’ll always have Paris,” Rick assures Ilsa at the end of Casablanca, and it was true then, but now it isn’t even clear that we’ll always have Europe in general. While denial and indifference are still all-pervasive, not just France, but Italy, Germany, and Sweden, as well as Britain, are rapidly becoming unlivable for their natives, as Muslim migrants continue to pour in and grow more assertive and aggressive by the day. We won’t always have Milan, or Paris, or Berlin, or London, or Stockholm. In fact, we hardly have them now, and their end as delightful outposts of a grand civilization is nearer than most anyone imagines.

[Ed.:

 

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: The Stealth Islamization of America   By: Amil Imani

The infiltration is real, and the stakes are apocalyptic. Muslim candidates in U.S. elections don’t just campaign for office – they’re executing a calculated strategy to subvert American values and impose Sharia law. These wolves in sheep’s clothing present as moderates, cloaking their true intentions in promises of unity and progress. Once elected, they unleash an Islamification agenda that erodes freedom, undermines the Constitution, and reshapes communities into enclaves of Islamic dominance. The evidence is undeniable, the patterns are clear, and the consequences are catastrophic. Below is a thunderous expose of their tactics, backed by concrete examples and a catalog of their insidious practices.

The Deception: Campaigning as Moderates, Governing as Radicals

Muslim candidates master the art of deception, running campaigns that mimic American values while hiding their allegiance to Sharia. They speak of equality, community, and justice, but their actions in office betray a relentless push for Islamification. The Muslim Brotherhood’s playbook – proven in Egypt and Tunisia – guides their strategy: blend in, win trust, then strike. This isn’t speculation; it’s a documented pattern seen across U.S. elections.

• Keith Ellison (Minnesota, 2006-Present): Elected as the first Muslim U.S. Congressman, Ellison swore his oath on a Quran, signaling his priorities. While campaigning as a progressive Democrat, he has pushed policies that align with Islamist goals, including advocating for Palestinian causes over American interests and downplaying the threat of radical Islam. His ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group with documented Hamas connections, reveal his agenda. Ellison’s tenure has helped normalize Islamic influence in Congress, paving the way for others to follow.
• Ilhan Omar (Minnesota, 2018-Present): Omar ran as a champion of social justice, but her record demonstrates anti-American tendencies. She dismisses concerns about Sharia law, calling them “Islamophobic,” while advocating for resolutions that undermine national security, like opposing Trump’s travel ban on terror-prone nations. Her public statements – such as downplaying 9/11 as “some people did something” – show a reluctance to confront Islamic extremism. Omar’s district in Minneapolis now experiences practices similar to Sharia, with businesses adopting sex-segregated spaces and halal mandates.
• Rashida Tlaib (Michigan, 2018-Present): Tlaib’s campaign leaned on her working-class roots, but her actions in office prioritize Palestinian activism and Islamic interests. She’s fought against anti-Sharia legislation, framing it as bigotry, while her district in Dearborn becomes a hub for Sharia-compliant governance. Local councils increasingly cater to Muslim demands, from prayer rooms in public schools to halal food mandates in city facilities. Tlaib’s rhetoric fuels division, accusing critics of her faith of hatred while advancing policies that erode secular governance.
• Amer Ghalib (Hamtramck, Michigan, 2021-Present): As mayor of America’s first Muslim-majority city, Ghalib campaigned as a unifier but governs with an iron fist. His endorsement of Trump in 2024 was a calculated move to exploit conservative frustration, yet his policies mirror Sharia’s influence. Hamtramck’s council banned Pride flags and restricted non-Islamic displays, citing “community values.” Ghalib’s leadership has turned the city into a testing ground for Islamic governance, with public spaces bowing to religious edicts.

The Practices: How They Advance Islamification

Once elected, these candidates deploy an arsenal of tactics to entrench Islamic influence. Their playbook is methodical, leveraging political power to reshape laws, culture, and institutions. Here’s how they do it:

1. 1.Legislative Creep: They introduce bills that seem innocuous but pave the way for Sharia. Examples include resolutions against “Islamophobia” that silence criticism of Islam, weakening free speech. Omar and Tlaib have backed such measures, framing dissent as hate to shield their agenda.
2. 2.Community Control: They transform local governance by prioritizing Muslim interests. In Dearborn and Hamtramck, councils now mandate halal options in schools and public events, while public spaces accommodate sex-segregated facilities. These aren’t cultural accommodations – they’re steps toward Sharia’s dominance.
3. 3.Exploiting Victimhood: They weaponize accusations of bigotry to deflect scrutiny. When challenged on Sharia or ties to radical groups, they cry “Islamophobia,” shutting down debate. Ellison’s defense of CAIR and Omar’s attacks on critics exemplify this tactic.
4. 4.Building Alliances with Radicals: They align with groups like CAIR and Jetpac, which funnel resources to Muslim candidates and push Islamist agendas. CAIR’s 2024 voter guide explicitly calls for Muslim political dominance, not integration.
5. 5.Incremental Sharia Implementation: They push for policies that align with Islamic law under the guise of inclusivity. Examples include advocating for Islamic banking laws, prayer rooms in public buildings, and exemptions from secular regulations for Muslim businesses. Minneapolis schools now allow prayer breaks, disrupting schedules for all students.
6. 6.Foreign Policy Manipulation: They prioritize Muslim-majority nations’ interests over America’s. Omar and Tlaib’s vocal support for Palestine and criticism of U.S. allies like Israel shift foreign policy toward Islamist goals, weakening national security.
7. 7.Cultural Erosion: They promote Islamic norms in public spaces, from dress codes to religious observances. In Hamtramck, non-Muslims face pressure to conform to Islamic practices, with businesses adopting halal standards and public events centered on Islamic holidays.

The Evidence: A Pattern of Betrayal

The Islamification process isn’t theoretical – it’s happening now. In 2022, 89 Muslim candidates won seats across the U.S., with groups like Jetpac boasting of their growing influence. By 2024, Michigan’s Muslim voters – 200,000 strong – tipped the presidential election, proving their electoral muscle. Cities like Dearborn and Hamtramck are no longer American; they’re becoming Sharia enclaves where non-Muslims are marginalized. Schools prioritize Islamic holidays, businesses enforce halal standards, and councils bend to religious demands.

Globally, the pattern is even clearer. In the UK, Muslim candidates won seats in 2024 by exploiting Gaza tensions, overturning Labor strongholds with sectarian campaigns. In Tunisia and Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood candidates posed as democrats only to impose Sharia once in power, banning dissent and enforcing religious law. America is next unless we act.

These candidates aren’t here to assimilate – they’re here to conquer. Their moderate masks hide a ruthless agenda to replace American law with Sharia’s tyranny. Every election is a battlefield, and every vote for them is a surrender. Americans must wake up, expose their tactics, and reject them at the ballot box. Demand transparency, scrutinize their ties to groups like CAIR, and fight for the Constitution with unrelenting fury. The wolves are at the gate – drive them back before it’s too late.

 

How to Respond to the Deniers of Israel’s Right to Exist

 

‘This Is Not Going Away’: Stephen A. Smith Tells Dems It’s Time to Panic Over Obama Russiagate Scandal    By Joe Saunders

July 27, 2025

For anyone who follows American politics or American sports, Stephen A. Smith is the kind of personality who doesn’t pigeonhole well.

As bombastic as any media commentator, he’s got a mixed record when it comes to critiquing current events, whether it’s attempting to inject race into NFL personnel decisions, or hitting the nail right on the head when it comes to analyzing President Donald Trump’s political support.

But in a “special edition” of his “Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast published Friday, he sounded a warning that should have Democrats panicking.

Commenting on the release of information by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that directly implicates former President Barack Obama in a scheme to weaponize national intelligence agencies against Donald Trump in his first term as president, Smith laid out exactly what Democrats really should be worried about.

And he did it in terms so simple, even a liberal should be able to understand it.

The crucial point, Smith said, is not that Democrats tried to derail Trump’s administration after his upset win over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Opposition parties are expected to oppose the party in power — the country has survived and thrived for nearly two and a half centuries with political opponents doing exactly that.

What’s different about the charges Gabbard is making, Smith said, is that they involve a sitting American president abusing the powers of his office to enlist ostensibly nonpartisan intelligence agencies — agencies bankrolled by all American taxpayers — in a political smear to kneecap the man who was succeeding him in the Oval Office.

“You know the opposition is always looking to derail an administration,” Smith said. “If you’re a Republican in the White House, Democrats are going to try to derail you. If you’re a liberal in the White House, the conservatives are going to try to derail you.”

He acknowledged, “That always, always, always happens.”

“But the weaponization of intelligence agencies to pull that off brings on an entirely different problem,” Smith continued.

To many, if not most, conservatives, Obama’s role in the “Russia collusion” hoax that took up so much time and energy in Trump’s first term is taken as a matter of course. The federal government’s abuse of conservatives during the Obama years — whether it was the IRS or the Justice Department — is too well documented for it to be much of a surprise that the CIA might have been tainted, too.

But if the wider American public starts to see political corruption in the Obama years at the highest levels of government — in the offices of now-former CIA Director John Brennan, now-former FBI Director James Comey, and in the Oval Office itself — then the relentless decade-and-counting campaign against Trump will be seen in a new light, too, Smith said.

The country, beyond the right wing, will see the establishment media pursuit of the “Russia collusion” story for the propaganda it was. It will see the lawfare — an exercise in persecution that convicted Trump of 34 spurious felony counts in New York, treated him like a common criminal in Georgia, and pursued him in federal courts — for the disgrace that it was.

In short, when it comes to the ongoing grift Democrats have played on Americans with the help of a complicit establishment media, Obama might have ruined everything.

“When you think about how they went after him, and they engaged in lawfare to take him down — the 34 felony counts and convictions and all of this other stuff — [voters] are going to say, ‘See, see? He wasn’t guilty of any of this stuff. They did everything they could to derail him from being the president, because the mission was to keep him from getting back into the White House,” Smith said.

“They’re going to bring up the Hunter Biden scandal, with the whole laptop controversy,” Smith added. “And they’re going to say, ‘From 2016, to 2020, to 2024, each and every single time, they were lying.”

Smith warned Democrats, “This is not going away.”

Being Smith, of course, he couldn’t let the subject of Trump stop there. Even a guy who has Smith’s record of butting heads with Democrats can’t let Trump off the hook.

He spent the next four minutes expounding on the case of the Epstein files, drawing what appeared to be a strained parallel between the two subjects, and even noting that the controversy over the deceased sex criminal could be Trump’s “Achilles heel.”

But he returned again to the allegations Gabbard is making against Obama and the damage it can do.

He laid out the truth about Gabbard’s revelations, even while acknowledging that he will always give Obama “the benefit of the doubt.” (Any liberal at least toying with going into Democratic politics would have to do the same.)

Smith warned that the story isn’t going away anytime soon.

That’s advice Democrats should be listening to.

[Ed.:

Hamas’s Dream: Turning Palestinians Into a ‘Nation of Martyrs’   by Khaled Abu Toameh
July 28, 2025

• [Hamas official Ghazi] Hamad made the threat [to carry out more massacres against Israelis… until Israel was annihilated] from Qatar, where he and several other leaders of Hamas have been leading comfortable lives for the past few years.
• Hamas’s leaders do not care if another 50,000 Palestinians are “martyred” in the war they started in 2023. The more bodies pile up, the more they can blame Israel.
• It is easy for someone well-fed and sitting in a villa or hotel in Doha to talk about the suffering and pain of others in a war far away.
• Hamad and the Hamas leaders sheltering in Doha and Istanbul should be apologizing to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip… In fact, they should be arrested and put on trial for their crimes against both Israelis and Palestinians.
• Hamas also has no problem lying to Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff, as they have probably already figured out.
• After months of direct and indirect negotiations with Hamas, Trump and Witkoff have finally understood that Hamas is not acting in good faith and, as Trump put it, “want to die.” To be more accurate, it is not Hamas’s leaders who want to die. Instead, they want ordinary Palestinians to die so that the leaders can stay in power forever and remain wealthy — some are, or were, billionaires.
• Since its establishment in the late 1980s, Hamas has been consistent and clear about its goals: the elimination of Israel through jihad. That is the real reason Hamas has never accepted any peace process with Israel. That is also the real reason Hamas views as traitors those Palestinians who recognize Israel’s right to exist and are willing to make peace with Israel.
• Meanwhile, Hamas’s leaders evidently do not mind if dozens of Palestinians are killed and wounded every day, because the international pressure is directed against Israel.

On October 24, 2023, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad threatened that his Iran-backed terror group would carry out more massacres against Israelis — time and again until Israel was annihilated. Referring to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel that resulted in the murder of more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, Hamad said:

“The Al-Aqsa Flood [the name Hamas uses to describe its October 7 slaughter] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth…. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

Hamad, whose group continues to hold captive 50 Israeli hostages (only 20 of whom are believed to be alive) repeated Hamas’s call for the elimination of Israel:

“The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears.”

Hamad made the threat from Qatar, where he and several other leaders of Hamas have been leading comfortable lives for the past few years. Qatar and Turkey are among the few countries that continue to host and protect the leaders of the Palestinian terror group whose members committed the worst crimes against Jews since the Holocaust. Hamad and other Hamas leaders have no problem boasting about the October 7 massacres and threatening to launch similar attacks against Israel from their villas and hotel suites in Doha and Istanbul. The Hamas leaders feel safe because they know they enjoy the luxurious support of governments far away from the fighting in Gaza.

On July 25, 2025, Hamad gave an interview to an Arab television station from Qatar. This time, however, he sounded different. Asked about the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip because of the war Hamas launched nearly two years ago, Hamad said that his group’s primary goal now was to end the war with Israel. “This is a painful and horrific war,” he remarked. “We fully understand the pain and suffering of our people in Gaza.” Hamad went on to praise the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for their “steadfastness and patience” during the war.

The Hamas leader’s recent statements came as Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to complain about death, destruction and lack of food. According to Hamas sources, more than 55,000 Palestinians have died since the beginning of the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.

Hamad’s statements also came shortly after US President Donald J. Trump announced that Hamas does not want to release the Israeli hostages and reach a ceasefire deal.

“I think they [Hamas] want to die, and it’s very, very bad,” Trump said. “It got to be a point where you’re gonna have to finish the job.”

Hamad and the Hamas leadership are in no rush to release the hostages or reach a ceasefire agreement with Israel because they would like to see more Palestinians sacrificed as “martyrs.” As Hamad said two years ago, “We are called a nation of martyrs.”

Hamas’s leaders do not care if another 50,000 Palestinians are “martyred” in the war they started in 2023. The more bodies pile up, the more they can blame Israel. Hamas’s leaders seem convinced that the international community is on their side. Hamas tells the international community that Israel is killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In response, many in the international community rush to condemn Israel. Buoyed by the condemnations, Hamas then calls on Palestinians to display more “patience and steadfastness” and encourages them to continue sacrificing themselves as “martyrs.”

Hamad has the wakkaha (effrontery) to tell the Palestinians who have fallen victim to the death and destruction brought upon them by their October 7 atrocities that Hamas “understands” their pain and suffering. It is easy for someone well-fed and sitting in a villa or hotel in Doha to talk about the suffering and pain of others in a war far away.

Hamad and the Hamas leaders sheltering in Doha and Istanbul should be apologizing to the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip instead of praising them for their “patience, resolve and steadfastness.” In fact, they should be arrested and put on trial for their crimes against both Israelis and Palestinians.

If Hamas leaders really cared about the suffering and pain of their people, they would have released all the hostages, disarmed and relinquished control of the Gaza Strip long ago. Hamas leaders, however, seem determined to turn all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip into a “nation of martyrs.” Hamas wants more October 7-style attacks because it wants to see more Palestinians sacrificed as “martyrs” in its jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel.

Hamas leaders are selling illusions to their people that they are winning the war and that it is not impossible to exterminate Israel. They are telling the Palestinians that, thanks to their patience and steadfastness, as well as daily attacks on Israeli troops in Gaza, Israel will soon be defeated.

Hamas also has no problem lying to Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff, as they have probably already figured out.

After months of direct and indirect negotiations with Hamas, Trump and Witkoff have finally understood that Hamas is not acting in good faith and, as Trump put it, “want to die.” To be more accurate, it is not Hamas’s leaders who want to die. Instead, they want ordinary Palestinians to die so that the leaders can stay in power forever and remain wealthy — some are, or were, billionaires.

Those who actually know Hamas have always been aware that the terror group never acted in good faith. Hamas’s leaders have never hesitated to murder anyone who stands in their way, whether Israelis or Palestinians.

Since its establishment in the late 1980s, Hamas has been consistent and clear about its goals: the elimination of Israel through jihad. That is the real reason Hamas has never accepted any peace process with Israel. That is also the real reason Hamas views as traitors those Palestinians who recognize Israel’s right to exist and are willing to make peace with Israel.

The only reason Hamas’s leaders might want a ceasefire is to allow their members to rearm and regroup. The leaders want to ensure that after the war with Israel, they will continue to hold onto power in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Hamas’s leaders evidently do not mind if dozens of Palestinians are killed and wounded every day, because the international pressure is directed against Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter)

 

USA Blocked Syrian-DRUZE Rescue  [29:08]   Mansur Ashkar

July 27, 2025  Chaim Malespi |The Real Israel Podcast Ep 26 | –

Israeli Druze officer Mansur Ashkar reveals shocking details: America reportedly pressured Israel to STOP defending 500,000+ Druze and Christians being massacred by ISIS in Syria.

Why? To make terrorist leader Jolani “look good” for PR while innocent families are slaughtered.

Over 1,500 already dead. The world stays silent.

This is the story media won’t tell you.

 

🚨 LIVE: Victory For Iran’s Crown Prince As He Becomes Revolution Leader  [31:13]   Mahyar Tousi

July 27, 2025  Tousi TV

 

Red States, Blue States July 26, 2025

[Ed.:  Look at that map for a few moments, please.  Just look at it.  “Know Thy Enemy” is a phrase that originates from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,”   … (No, not biblically, silly!)

 

“The Moment Has Come to Reveal Everything… | Victor Davis Hanson”  [23:36]

Jul 26, 2025 – In this video, Victor Davis Hanson lays it bare: if you erase the name Barack Obama, what you’re left with is a conspiracy to sabotage a presidential campaign, cripple a presidency, and rewrite the rules of power. The intelligence community knew there was no Russian collusion—but they fed it to the White House anyway. Why? To make it actionable.

Hanson connects the dots between Brennan, Clapper, and Obama—while Tulsi Gabbard uncovers the smoking gun: foreign intel revealing Hillary’s team made it all up. The Dutch intercepted Russian chatter—they were confused, not complicit. But that didn’t stop the Obama administration from launching the most destructive political hoax in modern history.

Now the Left is caught in its own trap.

Raiding Trump’s home? That’s precedent.

Prosecuting ex-presidents? Precedent.

Ballot bans? Precedent

They set the rules—and they may be next. With no real power left, the Left clings to rogue judges and politicized juries. But as Hanson warns, destruction is easy—rebuilding is hard. And the reckoning is just getting started.

Turn on notifications to stay updated! 🔔🔔🔔

[Ed.:  Re-instate the (good ‘ole’) firing squad for treason!  No more, no less.]

 

“There’s Something BIG Brewing Within Israel, And It’s Getting Serious…”  [40:56]

Jul 16, 2025  JNS TV – Israel Undiplomatic

Is Syria the new front in Israel’s multi-pronged war and could a known terrorist become an unlikely strategic ally?

Senior contributing editor at JNS Ruthie Blum and former Israeli Ambassador to the U.K. Mark Regev, both former advisers in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, break down Israel’s rapidly evolving security landscape, where threats from the north and south exacerbate political instability at home.

As the IDF strikes the brutal forces of Al-Julani, Blum and Regev unpack what’s really behind Israel’s intervention to protect the embattled Druze community. Is this about Israel’s moral obligation, strategic deterrence or a long-term bet on future alliances?

In Gaza, civilian evacuations and intensified military operations continue as delicate hostage negotiations unfold in Qatar. Could a new deal be close? Or is Hamas once again stalling for time? The hosts scrutinize the risks and paradoxes facing Israeli decision-makers: How do you balance rescuing 50 remaining hostages with minimizing IDF casualties and eradicating Hamas once and for all?

Back in Jerusalem, Netanyahu faces not only war on multiple fronts, but also legal troubles and a brewing coalition collapse over ultra-Orthodox military service. With a government on the brink and elections possibly around the corner, Blum and Regev ask: Can Netanyahu govern through crisis, or is the clock ticking?

Chapters

00:00 Israel’s Strategic Decisions in Syria

08:59 The Complex Dynamics of the Syrian Conflict

18:24 Negotiations and Military Operations in Gaza

28:00 Political Challenges and Coalition Stability in Israel

 

Genius   TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS

JUL 26, 2025

If you still don’t understand why President Trump introduced a new STABLECOIN through the GENIUS act – and what it means for YOU and me – the Epoch Times put together a good explanation that’s easy to understand:
“Communist China views the U.S. military and dollar supremacy as the two pillars that support the United States’ global leadership. Prevailing on either would enable China to replace Washington at the pinnacle of power.
For years, the United States has been on the defensive as China has established its own Renminbi-based payment system and led the BRICS bloc, countering U.S.-led Western democracies. BRICS is a coalition of nations (led by Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa.)
BRICS members obtain payments in Renminbi through exporting commodities to China. In return, they use the Chinese currency to buy goods from China, such as electric vehicles. That trade cycle has significantly contributed to the Renminbi’s 4 percent share in global payments.
Although the share is still small, the Chinese Communist Party is accustomed to making efforts for decades, if not 100 years, to sabotage the United States. It’s a strategic direction the Party commits to and will remain so.
Communist China also holds a significant amount of U.S. debt. That means the Chinese regime can sell off U.S. treasury bonds to drive up the interest rate the United States has to pay on these debts if no other buyers are able to absorb the volume China releases.
The dollar’s supremacy, based on its status as the world’s reserve currency and the primary currency for global transactions, has enabled the United States to borrow more at a lower cost.
Therefore, everything hangs in the balance if the dollar’s special status is compromised. President Trump is keenly aware of that and everything he does is designed to STOP that and cement America’s position as the leader of the free world.
President Trump has said many times that BRICS aims to “destroy the dollar so that another country can take over and be the standard.”
TRUMP: “If we lost the world-standard dollar, that would be like losing a war, a major world war. We would not be the same country any longer.”
The GENIUS act – a new law created by the Trump administration and enacted on July 18 has neutralized many of the risks.
The GENIUS act will enable the CREATION of a new group of creditors of U.S. Treasuries, with holdings that rival China’s. It also turns the tables on Beijing, potentially rendering the Renminbi irrelevant in global trade.
The GENIUS Act, also known as the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, defines stablecoins as a means of payment or settlement and establishes a federal regulatory framework for them.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value, typically pegged to a stable asset like the US dollar.
All permitted issuers will have to back their issuance with either cash or U.S. Treasury bonds.
Stablecoins are digital money pegged to a fiat currency at a one-to-one ratio. The issuers guarantee holders that they can convert the money back at any time. Therefore, stablecoins can provide the decentralization and cost-effectiveness of digital money, combined with the stability of a traditional fiat currency.
Stablecoins are a “creative” response to the challenges that Communist China poses to the dollar.

“Stablecoins can theoretically enable unlimited purchase of U.S. Treasuries. The sky is the limit.”
Stablecoin issuers generate revenue by investing the dollars that they receive in exchange for the digital tokens, and they have already emerged as a significant holder of U.S. debt. Currently, they hold more than $120 BILLION in Treasury bills.
Their holdings are expected to increase to more than $1 TRILLION in US Treasuries by 2028, according to an April report by the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee. That means that stablecoin issuers may become the largest holders of Treasury bills, over China and Japan.
With the GENIUS Act, the United States has also officially staked its claim in the world of digital wealth. The new law has extended the U.S. dollar’s supremacy in the physical world to the digital world.

BESSENT: “Stablecoins represent a revolution in digital finance. The dollar now has an internet-native payment rail that is fast, frictionless, and free of middlemen. This groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency, expand access to the dollar economy for billions across the globe, and lead to a surge in demand for US Treasuries, which back stablecoins. The GENIUS Act provides the fast-growing stablecoin market with the regulatory clarity it needs to grow into a multitrillion-dollar industry. The signing of this bill marks a seminal moment for digital assets and dollar supremacy.”

Today, physical assets still dominate total global wealth. However, digital assets, or wealth converted from real-world assets via tokenization, may reach $30 trillion to $50 trillion by 2030, based on estimates by the Security Token Market, a research firm that tracks asset digitalization.
The next five years are crucial, and the GENIUS Act has effectively converted the U.S. dollar to the “earth” dollar, or the money of the planet, giving the United States a significant advantage over China.
By contrast, Renminbi is closely controlled and doesn’t offer the same level of liquidity. That goes against the decentralization benefit of digital currencies; hence, the digital yuan introduced in 2020 hasn’t gained traction.
The “earth” dollar has the potential to render the Renminbi irrelevant in global trade in the future, and Beijing is now on the defensive.”
The GENIUS Act requires all issuers of U.S. stablecoins to back every digital coin they create with either cash or U.S. Treasury bonds, which are essentially loans to the U.S. government.
This works in simple terms as follows:
When a company wants to issue new digital dollars (stablecoins), it must purchase and hold an equal value of either U.S. dollars or U.S. Treasuries.
For example, if it wants to issue $1 billion in stablecoins, it must hold $1 billion worth of Treasury bonds or cash in reserve.
This requirement creates new, automatic demand for U.S. Treasuries, since every extra stablecoin dollar must be matched by buying and holding these bonds.
Over time, as the stablecoin market grows, these issuers as a group could end up holding as many (or even more) U.S. Treasuries as some of America’s largest foreign creditors, such as China. Instead of being mainly held by foreign governments, a growing share of U.S. debt will now be held by stablecoin issuers.
The largest companies issuing stablecoins in 2025 are:
Tether Holdings Ltd. (issuer of USDT)
Circle Internet Financial (issuer of USDC)
Ethena (issuer of USDe)
MakerDAO (issuer of DAI)
First Digital Trust (issuer of FDUSD)PayPal (issuer of PYUSD)
Other notable issuers include Stables Labs (USDX) and TrustToken (TUSD).
These issuers are typically either regulated financial technology companies, payment networks, or blockchain-focused organizations. Many, like Circle or PayPal, have U.S. regulatory approval under frameworks such as the GENIUS Act, while others partner with licensed banks to issue stablecoins.
Who do they sell to?
The primary buyers are institutional trading firms, such as hedge funds, cryptocurrency exchanges, and payment processors, who use large amounts of stablecoins for trading, settlement, and remittances.
Retail users also buy stablecoins to save, transfer value, or make payments, especially in countries where access to U.S. dollars is difficult or local currencies are unstable.
Merchants and global businesses increasingly accept stablecoins for payments and cross-border settlements to reduce remittance costs and transaction times.
Stablecoin issuers typically do not sell coins directly to most individuals. Instead, they issue (or “mint”) new stablecoins when large clients deposit equivalent U.S. dollars or Treasuries with them. These clients then distribute the coins through trading platforms, exchanges, wallets, and other channels to the broader market.

What are the advantages of Stablecoins? Stablecoins offer several advantages for issuers and sellers (i.e., businesses and merchants) beyond simple price stability:

• Faster Transaction Settlement: Payments made with stablecoins are typically settled almost instantly, improving cash flow for sellers by giving them immediate access to funds and reducing risks associated with delayed settlements or chargebacks.
• Lower Transaction Costs: Stablecoins often cost significantly less to transfer compared to traditional payment methods like wire transfers or credit cards, allowing sellers to retain more revenue per sale.
• Global Reach and Accessibility: Businesses benefit from the ability to access global markets directly, bypassing banking intermediaries and associated regulatory or paperwork hurdles—especially useful for cross-border payments or in regions with limited banking infrastructure.
• Operational Efficiency and Reliability: The transparency and programmability of blockchain-based stablecoins enable automation of payments, payroll, or supplier settlements through smart contracts, streamlining business operations.
• Financial Inclusion: For sellers operating in 3rd world countries, underbanked areas or unstable economies, stablecoins provide access to a stable, dollar-equivalent asset and participation in global commerce without needing a traditional bank account.
• Reduced Volatility Risk: Unlike other cryptocurrencies, stablecoins ensure merchants do not face sudden losses from crypto price swings after accepting payments, making budgeting and accounting much more predictable.
• Enhanced Liquidity Management: Immediate settlement paired with deep, global on-chain liquidity enables businesses (or issuers) to reinvest funds, pay suppliers, or transact with other partners efficiently.
• New Revenue Models: Some stablecoin issuers (often within legal boundaries) can generate interest yield for themselves by holding and investing reserve assets that back the stablecoins.
• Bypassing Traditional Financial Barriers: Stablecoins allow businesses to transact outside of legacy payment rails, eliminating many of the friction points associated with banks, card networks, and international correspondent banks.
• Transparency and Auditability: Transactions on public blockchains can be independently verified, increasing trust and allowing for easy compliance checks or regulatory reporting if needed.

These advantages position stablecoins as an increasingly attractive tool for both digital-native and traditional businesses, although regulatory and consumer protection considerations remain important.
This is all part of Trump’s multi-faceted plan to SAVE AMERICA. For more information, you can read my 7-part series on that here. I don’t pretend to understand all the financial details, but my report covers the parts you need to know!

You may think none of this is important to you or your family – but you would be wrong. All of Trump’s plans to SAVE AMERICA involve keeping AMERICA FIRST – and that means everything:
Saving America: Part One (A Team of Rivals)   TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS   AUGUST 29, 2024

People are wondering why all of a sudden President Trump has reached out to liberals and wealthy tech donors like Elon, RFK Jr., Bill Ackman, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Larry Ellison, Sam Altman & Marc Andreessen to form a Team of Rivals like Lincoln did. He’s shining a light on all of them – may the best man win!

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