Smotrich and Ben-Gvir condemn deal

JPOST
Smotrich demands IDF return to fighting after first phase of deal
Eliav Breuer
January 16, 2025

The Religious Zionist Party will leave the government if it does not receive assurances that the IDF will resume its military operations in Gaza, the party announced on Thursday following a meeting in Jerusalem. The party said in a statement, “Alongside the longing for the return of all of our hostages, the Religious Zionist Party forcefully opposes a deal. The party stands behind the demand of party leader [Finance] Minister Bezalel Smotrich from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to ensure Israel’s return to war to destroy Hamas and return all hostages, while changing the approach to decisive victory, immediately at the end of the first stage of the deal, and this as a condition to the party’s remaining in the government and coalition.” READ MORE

FUTURE OF JEWISH ‘Human rights are dirt’ I read the terms of the ceasefire to a friend who doesn’t follow the news so closely. “Hamas will release three hostages on the first day, then four more on day seven,” I told her. “Israel will free 30 prisoners for each civilian hostage and 50 for each female soldier, and finally there will be an influx of aid to Gaza.” “That’s crazy,” she said as she wrinkled her nose. “What kind of person would even think something like that up?” That’s my view exactly. This agreement makes it painfully obvious that we live in a world in which human rights are dirt. Innocent people should not be kidnapped from a music festival and held captive in tunnels for barter, but that is exactly what world governments have allowed Hamas to do and are in fact now even praising.

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Michael Oren: “The sacrifices of this proposed agreement are the cost of Israel’s weakness on October 7”

FREE PRESS
The Hostage Deal Is the Price of Israel’s Failures
Michael Oren
January 15, 2025

…From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army as long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all. Still, Israel believed that by increasing military pressure on Hamas, it could compel the terrorists to free the hostages. The strategy appeared to work when, in November 2023, Hamas released 105 of its 251 hostages in exchange for a weeklong ceasefire and the freeing of 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. READ MORE

BEN SHAPIRO Trump gets hostage deal in Gaza The Biden Deal vs the Trump Deal

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AJC calls “60 Minutes” segment “biased and misguided”

ALGEMEINER
Jewish Groups Condemn ’60 Minutes’ Segment Criticizing US Support for Israel During Gaza War
Shiryn Ghermezian
January 14, 2025

The investigative news television program “60 Minutes” has been widely criticized for airing a “one-sided” and “biased” segment on Sunday night that featured former US State Department officials who condemned American support for Israel’s defensive war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip…AJC also denounced the CBS show for promoting the “outlandish notion” that, after Hamas’s atrocities in southern Israel, the Jewish state should have made efforts to make peace with the Palestinian terrorist group rather than engage in self-defense to rescue the hostages taken to Gaza and target the Hamas terrorists who threatened to perpetrate similar deadly massacres in the future. READ MORE

CAMERA BLOG Tamar Sternthal: Strong words, feeble reporting: “60 Minutes” on US support for Israel A “60 Minutes” segment on Gaza platforming disgruntled former State Department officials was packed with strong words standing in for strong arguments. Blaming Arab terrorism targeting Americans on U.S. support for Israel is nothing more than toxic and tired extremist Arab propaganda.

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Mike Huckabee’s nomination as Ambassador to Israel “the greatest thrill and joy and culmination of an entire lifetime of having a love for the land of Israel and for the Jewish people”

ARUTZ SHEVA
Huckabee tells Jews to take antisemitism ‘as a badge of honor’
Sara Lehmann
January 15, 2025

Perhaps one of the most consequential new nominations of US President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory this past November is that of former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee as the newly appointed US Ambassador to Israel. As a longtime and vocal supporter of the State of Israel, Huckabee is an obvious pick for Trump. He is a fierce advocate for Israel’s sovereignty and security, championing the historic right of Jerusalem as its eternal capital and the right of Jews to live in all parts of their Jewish ancestral homeland. Huckabee is a frequent visitor to the Jewish state, having travelled there close to 100 times, starting as a teenager in 1973. He has led dozens of delegations to Israel and has participated in many missions to Israel with organizations, notably the Israel Heritage Foundation (IHF). READ MORE

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ADL leader Jonathan Greenblatt: “Data shows Jew-hatred at an all-time high, while “we are gaslit and told that what happened was something we imagined or blamed for the act in the first place”

JNS
ADL poll shows nearly half of adults worldwide harbor antisemitic views
Mike Wagenheim
January 14, 2025

A new survey released by the Anti-Defamation League shows nearly half of the global population holds elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes. The Global 100 poll found that an estimated 2.2 billion people, representing 46% of the world’s adults, “harbor deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes,” the ADL stated. That figure is double the level from a decade ago and the highest on record since the group monitoring Jew-hatred began examining worldwide trends. Through its polling partners, including Ipsos, the ADL surveyed more than 58,000 adults from 103 countries, covering some 94% of the world’s adult population, with responses solicited between July 23 and Nov. 13, 2024. READ MORE

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One of many Israel-hating mosques awarded funds by Biden admin: The Islamic Center of Detroit, whose imam prayed to Allah to “eradicate” the “sick, disgusting Zionist regime”

FREE BEACON
Biden Program Meant To ‘Protect Jewish Institutions’ Pays Out Six-Figure Grants to Mosques That Preach Anti-Semitic Hate
Chuck Ross
January 10, 2025

The Biden White House and Senate Democrats have touted their funding for an anti-terrorism initiative they say “has been critical to the security of Jewish institutions.” But the program has given hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent months to mosques whose clerics have preached anti-Semitic hate, cheered Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, and been accused of raising money for terrorist groups. The Department of Homeland Security has awarded $150,000 in grants since November to Masjid Jamaat al Mumineen, the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent, and the Islamic Center of Bothell as part of its “Nonprofit Security Grant Program,” according to federal records. READ MORE

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“Trump has chosen people who understand the threat of government coercion—because they have experienced it firsthand”

CITY JOURNAL
Cabinet of the Canceled
Abigail Shrier
Winter 2025

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently expressed what many felt at the reelection of Donald Trump: not triumph so much as relief. “I hope this last ten years increasingly is just going to feel like a bad dream,” he told podcast host Joe Rogan. “I can’t believe we tolerated the level of repression . . . and anger and . . . emotional incontinence and . . . cancellation campaigns.” Much of it was orchestrated or encouraged by our government. One could say many things about Trump’s cabinet picks. At times, they seem to embody Government by Middle Finger. But they also, undeniably, represent Government by the Canceled: an assemblage that doesn’t need to be reminded of the administrative state’s ability to coerce the American public by calling in favors from Big Tech or pulling the levers of regulation, audit, or investigation. Many have experienced such treatment firsthand. READ MORE

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Los Angeles slashed fire and other basic services after Mayor Karen Bass awarded fat contracts to government workers

CITY JOURNAL
L.A.’s Total Leadership Failure
Steven Malanga
January 10, 2025

The devastating wildfires in Los Angeles have spotlighted questionable state and local government policies in California that may have contributed to the blazes and left areas like Hollywood vulnerable due to insufficient firefighting resources. Mayor Karen Bass’s budget cuts to the city’s fire department, enacted just months ago amid warnings about the city’s deteriorating finances, stand out as a striking example of misplaced priorities. The cuts stemmed from a budget crisis triggered by her administration’s decision to reward city employees with rich contracts and benefits—even as it dismissed worries that the reductions would hurt services. “Predictions that city services will be impossible to deliver,” deputy mayor Zach Seidl told the press, “are simply false.” Few public statements have aged as poorly—or as hauntingly—as this one. READ MORE

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Hillel Neuer: UNRWA is no longer a humanitarian agency — it has become a full-fledged partner to terrorist organizations like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad”

NEW YORK POST
UN watchdog group urges dismantling of UNRWA for ‘enabling crimes against humanity’
Carl Campanile
January 6, 2025

A United Nations watchdog group says the infamous UN relief agency that provides $1.5 billion a year to Palestinians should be disbanded for colluding with terrorists and “enabling crimes against humanity.” “The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is neither independent nor neutral,” says a scathing new report by the Swiss-based group UN WATCH. “UNRWA’s senior management not only employs individuals tied to Hamas terrorism but also allows terrorist groups like Hamas to influence and obstruct critical agency decisions and policies. READ MORE

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Nearly all House Republicans, several Democrats back legislation punishing the ICC for going after Netanyahu and Gallant

TIMES OF ISRAEL
US House votes to sanction ICC over Israel arrest warrants
Jacob Magid, Reuters Staff
January 10, 2025

The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to sanction the International Criminal Court to protest its decision to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over Israel’s campaign against the Hamas terror group in Gaza. Lawmakers voted 243 to 140 in favor of the “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act,” which would urge sanctions on any ICC official or entities backing The Hague who advance “any effort to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies.” The sanctions include blocking or revoking visas and prohibiting US property transactions. READ MORE

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