Joe Biden’s threat last week to freeze arms shipments to Israel along with reports that his administration is withholding intelligence about Hamas leaders’ whereabouts has reverberated throughout U.S. politics. Now, some Never Trump donors say the Biden administration’s policy toward the Jewish state is such a betrayal they’re considering jumping on board the Trump train. Call it the rise of the Never Bidens, donors who once were more worried about Trump but now see Joe Biden’s bid for a second term the greater threat to America. The Free Press spoke with four donors who contributed tens of millions of dollars in the last election cycle. They say they are reconsidering their political giving in light of the president’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war. READ MORE
GATESTONE Egypt’s Duplicity, the World’s Silence This is just another example of how, when Palestinians become victims of oppressive measures taken against them by their Arab brothers, the world does not care a bit. About a decade ago, when Egypt demolished dozens of houses and buildings in Rafah as part of a campaign to combat terrorism, no one said a word against the Egyptians — or even bothered to look…If the Egyptians actually cared about the Palestinians, instead of blocking the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, they could easily coordinate with Israel through alternative border crossings such as the nearby Kerem Shalom terminal.
…In fact, virtually every decision Biden has made has prolonged the war and enabled Hamas to survive. This shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise, given the presence of Maher Bitar, a holdover from the Obama administration. Bitar now serves as Biden’s coordinator for intelligence and defense policy within the National Security Council. He is also a former Executive Board member for Students for Justice in Palestine, the extremist anti-Israel group which has been banned on dozens of college campuses due to their promotion of antisemitism and violent tactics. The administration’s incessant and hypocritical focus on preventing civilian casualties in Rafah – despite the fact that by virtually every metric, Israel has set the standard in terms of fighting a war against a terrorist group embedded in urban civilian areas – is the only reason the war hasn’t ended yet. READ MORE
WASHINGTON EXAMINER Jewish Biden appointee resigns over president’s stance on war in Gaza: ‘Blood of innocent people on his hands’Lily Greenberg Call, special assistant to the chief of staff in the Interior Department, cited her Jewish heritage as the reason for her resignation. In her letter, she related her deep ties to the United States and Israel but expressed deep opposition to Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza, calling it a “genocide.”
College protests against Israel’s war in Gaza are dominating headlines. But only a sliver of students are participating or view it as a top issue, according to a new Generation Lab survey shared exclusively with Axios. The poll hints that the war — and the accompanying protests — might not hurt President Biden’s election prospects among young voters as much as previously thought. Only a small minority (8%) of college students have participated in either side of the protests, the survey of 1,250 college students found. Students ranked the conflict in the Middle East as the least important issue facing them out of nine options. It landed behind health care reform, racial justice and civil rights, economic fairness and opportunity, education funding and access, and climate change. READ MORE
The female voices rose high-pitched and shrill above the crowd: “Five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terrorist state.” “We don’t want no Zionists here, say it loud, say it clear.” “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.” The voices that answered them were also overwhelmingly female, emanating from hundreds of students chanting and marching around tents pitched in front of Columbia University’s neoclassical Butler Library, part of an effort in late April to prevent the university from uprooting the encampment. The femaletilt among anti-Israel student protesters is an underappreciated aspect of the pro-Hamas campus hysteria.READ MORE
This isn’t the first dispute between the governments of the United States and Israel. Nor is it the first time that Washington has used the supply of arms to try to pressure the Jewish state to bend to its will. But there is no precedent for what President Joe Biden has just done. By declaring that he will stop supplying weapons to Israel, including high-tech heavy bombs and artillery shells, if it seeks to enter Rafah and eliminate Hamas’s last remaining stronghold in Gaza, the president was making a clear declaration that the United States was mandating an end to the war that the terrorist group began with the massacre of men, women and children on Oct. 7. READ MORE
JNS Netanyahu: ‘If necessary, we will fight with our fingernails’Jerusalem will win the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip with its fingernails, if necessary, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Thursday night, a day after U.S. President Joe Biden said he would cut arms supplies to the Jewish state if Israel launched a major attack in Rafah. “If we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” he stated. “But we have much more than fingernails, and with that same strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we will win.” The premier noted that Israel will celebrate its Independence Day on Tuesday, per the Hebrew calendar.
ASSOCIATED PRESS US paused bomb shipment to Israel to signal concerns over Rafah invasion, official says The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S., a senior administration official said Tuesday. The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs…with the focus of U.S. concern being the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban setting.
TIMES OF ISRAEL GOP senator calls for Biden’s impeachment over holdup on arms shipments to IsraelRepublican Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas calls on X for the impeachment of US President Joe Biden over withholding arms from Israel “to help with reelection.” He points to the Democrat-led impeachment of former president Donald Trump in 2019, in which Trump is accused of withholding aid to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cooperate with his campaign against Biden. “Only with Biden, it’s true,” writes Cotton.
Political leaders Thursday reaffirmed Israel’s determination to eliminate Hamas and secure the return of hostages held by the terror organization after US President Joe Biden threatened to withhold weapon shipments if the IDF entered Rafah. “Israel will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction. There is no more just war than this,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz tweeted. His fellow Likud lawmaker Dudi Amsalem warned “whoever kills Jews will die,” suggesting Israel would press forward undeterred. While not commenting officially, Netanyahu tweeted his speech from Yad Vashem from a few days earlier in which he vowed that Israel would fight Hamas without bowing to any external pressure. READ MORE
The recent wave of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses came on suddenly and shocked people across the nation. But the political tactics underlying some of the demonstrations were the result of months of training, planning and encouragement by longtime activists and left-wing groups. At Columbia University, in the weeks and months before police took down encampments at the New York City campus and removed demonstrators occupying an academic building, student organizers began consulting with groups such as the National Students for Justice in Palestine, veterans of campus protests and former Black Panthers. READ MORE
TABLET MAG The People Setting America on FireAs in the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, “outside agitators”—professional radicals and organizers, black bloc antifa thugs, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, and Palestinian and Islamist radicals—have played a central role in organizing and escalating the campus protests, just as they have organized and escalated the wider anti-Israel protest campaign that began almost immediately after Oct. 7. This largely decentralized network of agitators is, in turn, politically and financially supported by a vast web of progressive nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and dark-money groups ultimately backed by big-money donors aligned with the Democratic Party.
This year’s Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, holds extra significance for the country, following the loss of many loved ones on October 7 and in its aftermath. Yuval Solomon cherished life and lived it fully. His father shares the story of his brave confrontation with terrorists who infiltrated their home on Simchat Torah, which was also Yuval’s birthday. Sahar Saudiyan, deeply committed to her country and its people, served as an Iron Dome officer to save lives. Her family recounts how she intercepted thousands of rockets that morning, protecting civilians before her own tragic death. Both Yuval and Sahar leave behind legacies to learn from, and their families have felt immense support, love, and purpose in living in a nation that views itself as one big family.
It’s the viral image that captured the clash between the anti-Israel protesters who stormed Columbia and the campus workers who tried to stop them. As the mob invaded Hamilton Hall in the early hours of April 30, a facilities worker was photographed pushing a demonstrator against a wall. Later, it emerged that the protester was a 40-year-old trust fund kid named James Carlson, who owns a townhouse in Brooklyn worth $2.3 million. The man who tried to hold him back was Mario Torres, 45, who has worked at Columbia—where the average janitor makes less than $19 an hour—for five years. Now, in an exclusive interview with The Free Press, Mario Torres describes the experience of being on duty as protesters stormed the building in the early hours of the morning, breaking glass and barricading the entrances. READ MORE
ArchitectGuy on Israel 