Foreign Minister Israel Katz: “The historic ban on US funding to UNRWA that passed today with overwhelming bipartisan support, demonstrates what we knew all along: UNRWA is part of the problem and can not be part of the solution.”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel lauds US ban on UNRWA financing until 2025 under new government funding bill
Jacob Magid
March 23, 2024

The US Congress passed a massive appropriations package early Saturday including a one-year ban on US funding to UNRWA. The ban is the latest blow to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, following allegations earlier this year that 12 of its employees actively participated in Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught and that many others have ties to terror groups. The approved legislation banned UNRWA funding “for any amounts provided in prior fiscal years or in fiscal year 2024, or for amounts provided in fiscal year 2025, until March 25, 2025.” The clause was separated from the rest of the appropriations package and is stipulated as a calendar-year ban, which leaves open the potential for allocating any leftover funds to UNRWA after March 2025. READ MORE

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Hamas caught fabricating stories of rape at Shifa Hospital

I24NEWS
Hamas admits women not raped by IDF at Shifa hospital, following deleted Al Jazeera report
March 25, 2024

Al Jazeera columnist and former managing director Yasser Abuhilalah acknowledged “through Hamas investigations” that a story which the Qatari broadcaster aired was fabricated, and Israeli soldiers did not rape women at Shifa hospital as was alleged. While Al Jazeera itself issued no formal correction, retraction or acknowledgement, all the content related to the allegation were reportedly removed from the Qatari broadcasting channel. “It was revealed through Hamas investigations that the story of the rape of women in Al-Shifa Hospital was fabricated,” Abuhilalah wrote on X, yet accusing Israel of “genocide.” READ MORE

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A new type of “cancel culture” targets Jews

DEADLINE
Jewish Reggae Artist Matisyahu Has Chicago House Of Blues Cancel Performance Over Protest Fears
By Bruce Haring
March 8, 2024

Reggae artist Matisyahu has had the House of Blues in Chicago cancel his scheduled performance Friday because of the “threat of protests.” Matisyahu said that House of Blues had canceled the show and paid the contractual penalty, which he promised to donate to an organization that advocates for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The Chicago date is the third cancellation for Matisyahu on his current U.S. tour…In Los Angeles, Jewish author Brett Gelman and TV personality Mayim Bialik also had events canceled or interrupted because of their outspoken support for Israel. READ MORE

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Unpacking Douglas Murray’s Masterclass Debating Al Jazeera, Anti-Israel (but I repeat myself) Journalist

SPECTATOR UK
Douglas Murray schools Al Jazeera journalist on Israel-Gaza conflict
Steerpike
22 March 2024

When you’re interviewing an expert, it never hurts to come prepared. But when Al Jazeera journalist Jane Dutton quizzed Douglas Murray on the conflict in the Middle East, the unsuspecting interviewer quickly became the interviewee in a rather humiliating twist…‘You’ve got to inform your viewers of the facts, and you just misled them,’ Murray told Dutton during a heated debate about the Israel-Gaza conflict. First discussing the definition of genocide, the Al Jazeera reporter quickly moved on to state that there was an illegal occupation of Gaza by Israel, adding that ‘Israel is internationally recognised as an occupying state’. ‘No, no, it’s not at all. That’s your view,’ Murray hit back. ‘Our views may differ but the facts are the facts, and I want to pick you up on something you just did.’ ‘I’m interviewing you,’ Dutton fumed. ‘I know, but I think you’re uninformed,’ Murray replied. Ouch…READ MORE

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UC Berkeley: “It is crucial to me that no speaker—Jewish or Muslim or Palestinian or Israeli—be barred from speaking”

JNS
Professor ends ‘sleep-in’ protest of Jew-hatred after Berkeley agrees to requests
Melissa Langsam Brsunstein
March 21, 2024

Ron Hassner, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has attracted national coverage by sleeping in his office to protest antisemitism on campus, announced on Thursday that the university had agreed to his three requests, thus ending his nearly two-week “sleep-in.”…“Some 80 to 100 guests came to my office every day to eat, drink, chat, meet friends, and discuss antisemitism and free speech,” he wrote. “Students, parents, alumni, community members, rabbis, administrators and colleagues dropped by with food and encouragement. Jewish and non-Jewish students, pro-Israel and even some anti-Israel students spent hours around my coffee table, late into the night, to talk about their identity and their politics.” READ MORE

REAL CLEAR EDUCATION The Campus Antisemite’s Secret Weapon It’s time to expose campus antisemites who hide behind anonymous social messaging apps and use them to threaten violence and spread bigotry. Ideally, companies and college administrators would hold antisemitic perpetrators who use these apps accountable. Many aren’t, despite Congressional investigations. And that means the government will need to do even more to help students and parents.

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Dermer: “Israel will enter Rafah even if entire world turns on us, including the US”

REUTERS
Israel determined to take Rafah despite ‘potential breach’ with U.S.
Dan Williams
March 21, 2024

Israel will take control of Rafah even if it causes a rift with the United States, a senior Israeli official [Ron Dermer] said on Thursday, describing the Gazan city packed with evacuees as a final Hamas bastion harboring a quarter of the terror group’s fighters. The prospect of tanks and troops storming Rafah worries Washington, which says Israel must have a plan to move more than a million Palestinians who have sheltered there since being displaced from elsewhere in the Gaza Strip during the five-month-old war…Dermer, a former ambassador to the United States, said Israel would hear out American ideas for Rafah, but that the city on Gaza’s border with Egypt would be taken whether or not the allies reach agreement  READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL IDF: ‘Very significant’ Hamas commanders among 650 nabbed at Gaza’s Shifa hospital Troops have captured some 650 terror suspects, including several “very significant” senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders, during an ongoing operation at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency said Thursday, as talks continued in Qatar to secure an extended truce and hostage deal. According to the IDF, at least 358 of the detainees were confirmed to be members of terror groups. The IDF said that Islamic Jihad operatives holed up at the medical center surrendered to troops, including Hussam Salameh, the commander of PIJ’s observation and intelligence unit in Gaza City, and his brother, Wissam Salameh, head of the terror group’s propaganda unit in Gaza City. READ MORE

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Glick: “If the government remains politically stable, if the military continues its brilliant fight in Gaza and if U.S. opinion remains supportive, Jerusalem can flip Hamas’s machinations on its head.”

JNS
Israel’s strategic game of survival
Caroline Glick
March 16, 2024

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s obscene call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ouster from power on the Senate floor on Thursday was the latest sign that Hamas’s strategy is working. On the “Caroline Glick Show” this week, U.S. Military Academy professor Col. John Spencer, who chairs West Point’s Urban Warfare Studies Program,  explained that the terrorist organization’s goal for victory is a concerted political-military strategy. Hamas, he said, knew that Israeli Defense Forces would respond with force to its Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel. “They wanted Israel’s counterattack, and then they wanted to hold in the tunnels and use the hostages just to buy time for the international community—namely, the United States—to stop the IDF in their operations.” READ MORE

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A question for Senator Schumer: “Do you think that calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Israel will help you and your political party with radically anti-Israel and anti-American Jew hating voters located in certain districts in Michigan, Minnesota and other potential swing states?”

JEWISH PRESS
Schumer’s Rabbi Rachel Demands Israelis Dump Netanyahu or Face the Consequences
David Israel
March 17, 2024

Rachel Timoner, the clergy at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spends Yom Kippur and where his daughter got married, on Saturday told Politico that “In this speech, he said what most of us think.” She was referring to the Senate Majority Leader’s call on Israel to go to new elections ASAP so that they and the Biden administration can finally rid themselves of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…“I think that he said out loud what the overwhelming majority of American Jews are saying to each other, which is that Bibi Netanyahu is making the world less safe for Jews and making Israel less safe for Israelis.” And how does the elected Israeli prime minister (leading a 76 to 54 majority coalition government) make the world and Israel less safe for Jews? Timoner explains: “Netanyahu himself has said that he completely opposes a two-state solution. And so, he is an obstacle to peace.”READ MORE

CITY JOURNAL With Guardians Like These: Chuck Schumer’s recent comments about Israel exhibit arrogance and ignorance. Instead of coercing Israel, Schumer should pressure the international community to withdraw support from the aged and corrupt Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas—now in the 18th year of his four-year term and disliked by 90 percent of Palestinians. Moving on from Hamas and Abbas is the only way moderate Palestinians might come forward as partners for peace. Israelis will reckon with Netanyahu and his failure to protect their country at a time of their choosing. Meantime, the self-styled shomer should bite his tongue.

Robert Henoch, a former federal prosecutor, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, former US Army officer, and New York voter has written a strong letter to Senator Schumer, a passage of which is below. Send a copy of this letter to Senator Schumer

Dear Senator Schumer,

Yesterday there were media reports that you have called for elections in Israel and the removal of the Prime Minister in Israel. It is not appropriate for the Senate Majority Leader of the United States Senate to call for the overthrow of a leader of a democratically elected country. Have you ever called for new elections in France, or Britain, or Italy, or any other democratic country? Has any other US Senate Majority Leader ever done so? Israel is a sovereign democracy.

Do you think that calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Israel will help you and your political party with radically anti-Israel and anti- American Jew hating voters located in certain districts in Michigan, Minnesota and other potential swing states? Should the desire for power and reelection govern all of your actions? Should it be your sole or even your primary motivation in deciding on US policy?

You and the President and the President’s staff and his supporters continue to make false accusations against Israel, the IDF and Netanyahu based on Hamas’ obviously false casualty numbers. Why do you wish to feed the narrative that Israel is at fault for the Palestinian invasion of October 7 in which Palestinians murdered, gang raped, beheaded, set on fire, and kidnapped Jews, US citizens, and citizens of at least another half dozen countries?

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Killings among Palestinians for those considered “collaborators” with Israel are somewhat common

ALGEMEINER
Palestinian Teen Murders Brother Suspected of Collaboration With Israel
Troy O. Fritzhand
March 21, 2024

In an act of brutality in the West Bank city of Jenin, a 19-year-old Palestinian was executed [tortured and beheaded] by his twin brother for allegedly collaborating with Israeli security forces, according to Palestinian media reports. Karim Jabarin, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group, was caught and confessed his alleged crimes of working with Israel before he was killed by his brother and other PIJ operatives, Palestinian media reported. Crowds of onlookers reportedly kicked and slapped Jabarin’s body, cursing him. His family disowned the young man and said, “We don’t know him,” according to the reports. Videos purporting to show the scene circulated on social media. READ MORE

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Qatar prepared to expel Hamas leaders if asked by the US, adding “that no such request has been made since”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Qatar emir proposed expelling Hamas officials in meet with Blinken days after Oct. 7
Jacob Magid
March 14, 2024

Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani proposed expeling Hamas’s leaders from Doha during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken days after the terror group’s October 7 onslaught, two officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. The proposal was made in somewhat of a roundabout way during the emir’s opening remarks at an October 13 closed-door meeting in Doha with Blinken. Thani began by expressing his horror over Hamas’s attack in which some 1,200 people in Israel were slaughtered and another 253 were abducted into Gaza. He then asked whether it was time for the US to ask Qatar to expel the Hamas’s leaders, the two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. READ MORE

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