+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have maintained politics and re-election will force Biden to cave and those I respect disagree. I hope they are right and will allow Israel to totally rid the world of Hamas. I hope I am wrong.
I have been told Iran denies they instructed Hamas to act and for show they are allowing Hezbollah to send a few rockets south but they do not want a confrontation with America or the war to widen. Thus, this could explain Biden's response actions.
Time will tell.
To date Biden has made few if any correct decisions and is also corrupt and thus compromised.
On another topic, I suspect Biden will talk about weather/climate as the greatest threat to America with Xi as they meet in a sanitized San Fran Wednesday (11/16.)
+++
To Jewish College Students Who Are Scared
“Charging Jews with ‘genocide’ is not an objection to occupation, but a lie that justifies opposing Jews ‘by any means necessary.’”
by SARAH HURWITZ
:
I recently had the privilege of speaking with some of you during visits to Hillels at campuses across the country. While news stories have focused on a handful of extreme incidents at colleges — Jewish students being assaulted or threatened by their classmates, professors celebrating violence against Jews — the stories you told me revealed that the problem is far more widespread, far more insidious.
You spoke about how, on some of your campuses, organizations devoted to social justice and inclusion — from clubs representing minority student communities to socialist and environmental groups — are allying themselves with Students for Justice in Palestine, which celebrated Hamas’s savage terrorist attacks on Israel as “resistance.” When I asked students on one campus which clubs are allying with Jewish students, there was an awful silence, and then one muttered, “None of them.”
Another student explained that if you go to a campus Hillel, even if just to attend a Shabbat dinner, or study Jewish texts with a rabbi, or cry in the office of a caring staff member, you may be ostracized for being a “Zionist.” On many campuses your classmates have twisted this word into an epithet, wrongly claiming it means supporting “colonialism” and “apartheid,” and they hurl it at you regardless of your views on Israel or how you actually define Zionism for yourself.
Many of you spoke about your fear and isolation — about classmates who you thought were friends posting hateful things on social media, roommates who’ve become increasingly hostile, professors who you worry will deny you letters of recommendation.
My heart ached as I listened to you. I wanted to beg the adults on your campuses who are supposed to be in charge to do more to protect you. And when our meetings ended, I did not want you to leave the safety of Hillel’s walls.
I know you already know this, but it’s still worth stating: This is antisemitism. Your classmates’ demands for “intifada” and chants of “from the river to the sea” are not critiques of the Israeli government and too often serve as calls for violence against Jews. Charging Jews with “genocide” is not an objection to occupation, but a lie that justifies opposing Jews “by any means necessary,” which apparently now includes killing parents in front of their children, raping women, kidnapping toddlers, and mutilating and murdering babies. And when your classmates demand that you disavow your ancestral homeland in order to be accepted, they are claiming the right to define your identity for you, an act of domination we would never tolerate against any other minority group.
I know the intensity of this Jew-hatred is new for most of you. It is for me as well. I went to college in the 1990s, and I cannot recall a single moment when I felt uncomfortable as a Jew. But what you are seeing on your campuses is actually a very old story, one that rests on the belief that Jews are overwhelmingly, terrifyingly, preternaturally powerful. That’s what the Germans claimed in the 1920s and 1930s. They were obsessed with Jewish power. They accused Jews of deliberately undermining Germany’s efforts in World War I, leading to their defeat; of causing a massive economic crisis; and of polluting Germany with their inferior race and perverse modern ideas. It did not matter that Jews were less than 1 percent of the German population, and it does not seem to matter today that there are only 16 million Jews on the entire planet — about the population of Istanbul. If anything, the massacres of October 7 and the explosion of antisemitism worldwide— like the pogroms, expulsions, inquisitions, and crusades stretching back through history— remind us just how limited our power is.
Because your feelings are often dismissed, you’ve learned to seek out facts and get them straight before posting on social media, and you understand that feelings are not a substitute for critical thought.
Despite these facts, on many college campuses — where critical thinking has been replaced by the simplistic idea that the world can be divided into oppressors and oppressed — Jewish students have somehow become the oppressors. As a result, I know some of you have been told you have no right to speak, and if you do, anything you say is suspect. When you try to express your grief and fear, you’re mocked and humiliated, your social-media feeds littered with nasty comments, as if you are not entitled to basic human emotions. It seems that you are seen as somehow less than human. Like I said, it’s a very old story.
And I know some of your Jewish classmates aren’t helping when they declare that Israel has no right to exist, and that it is the product of white European colonialism. It is an incredible privilege to hold such an opinion. Perhaps they do not realize that millions of Jews do not have this privilege. Perhaps they are unaware that more than half of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi–they and their ancestors lived in Middle Eastern and North African countries for centuries, even millennia, until they fled brutal antisemitic persecution in the second half of the 20th century. Israel was their refuge. They are not white. Erasing the bodies, lives, and experiences of these millions of people of color is not exactly consistent with being an antiracist. Also, for the record, Ashkenazi Jews in Europe were not considered white by the Europeans who murdered them during the Holocaust.
Jews who hold such opinions are part of this very old story, too. There have been plenty like them throughout history — Jews who proudly side with the majority around them and disdain their fellow Jews. Sadly, they’ve met the same fate as the rest of us when we are attacked. The only difference is that they were surprised.
As I listened to your stories, I felt both heartbroken and infuriated. But I also felt something else: amazement and overwhelming pride.
I have to admit, before I began my visits with you, my expectations were low. I figured you were part of a generation whose brains had been softened by social media, who think in hashtags and memes. I expected that you would shout over one another, shut one another down, and speak in slogans.
But what I found was the exact opposite. You spoke with nuance, care, and precision. You would express an opinion, and then immediately list arguments against it and then the counterarguments to those counterarguments. You listened respectfully to one another — even as you expressed wildly diverse opinions — and gently corrected classmates when they had gotten their facts wrong. And even though you’re angry and afraid, you’ve been holding dignified vigils where you mourn the lives of innocent Israelis and innocent Palestinians, and express anguish about hostages and about humanitarian concerns, and keep on singing and praying even in the face of classmates who try to disrupt you.
I couldn’t get over it — and I couldn’t figure it out. How had you turned out this way?
But I think I get it now. Because your feelings are often dismissed, you’ve learned to seek out facts and get them straight before posting on social media, and you understand that feelings are not a substitute for critical thought. Because you know your classmates will relentlessly question your arguments, you’ve learned to question them yourself. Because your stories are often decentered, you spend a lot of time listening to others’ thoughts, emotions, and opinions, and they inform your own. You have learned to hold these opposing viewpoints, to wrestle with them.
This is all so deeply Jewish. It’s the very process of Jewish tradition. As Amos Oz and his daughter Fania Oz Salzberger wrote, Jews are “not a bloodline but a textline.” For thousands of years, we have been questioning, debating, challenging, and wrestling with our sacred texts — agonizing about what it means to be a good person, live a worthy life, and serve something greater than ourselves. We’ve held fast to these texts, carrying them with us across the globe, living proudly by their wisdom, and enraging so many people for so many centuries with our stubborn refusal to disappear. The Ammonites, the Hittites, the Moabites — they’re all gone, but we are still here, still uttering the same prayers we offered in our ancient Temple in Jerusalem, still painting street signs in Tel Aviv and posters advertising Hillel events here in America, with the same letters we etched into parchment thousands of years ago.
You all have taken your place in that tradition, and I am so incredibly proud — in awe, really — of all of you. You fill me with hope about the future of our people.
With love and admiration,
Sarah
SARAH HURWITZ is former head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama and author of Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life—in Judaism (After Finally
Choosing to Look There).
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For those few who still believe in facts the solution is simple. All that needs happen is for Palestinians to agree Israel can exist.
This is virtually impossible because Palestinians have invested in war, in lousy leadership in teaching their children to hate.
Consequently, misery will continue to be their future.
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Never trusted the S.O.B and was sharply criticized but held to my view and now I believe I have ben vindicated and was prescient. Obama is a fraud and influenced by his many radical associations. ++++The ex-president makes Israel’s moral equivalence to Hamas socially respectable.
“Many of them,” she said of her colleagues, “have shown me that Palestinian lives simply do not matter to them, but I still do not police their rhetoric or actions.” This from a congresswoman who posted a video on social media accusing Joe Biden of supporting the “genocide of the Palestinian people.”
Then there’s the Obama approach. At about the same time Ms. Tlaib was drawing condemnation even from Democrats, the “Pod Save America” podcast released a clip from an interview. In it Mr. Obama also made a case for moral equivalence. But he went about it in an underhanded manner that is more damaging to Democratic unity and support for Mr. Biden’s policy than anything Ms. Tlaib could do.
It’s all wrapped in his call for an admission of “complexity.” The 44th president did declare that what Hamas did on Oct. 7 was “horrific” and unjustified. But complexity means it’s also true the “occupation” was “unbearable” for Palestinians and that “nobody’s hands are clean.”
Get it? To look at the atrocities of Oct. 7 and conclude that Israel has the right to ensure that Hamas can never again pull off such an attack lacks nuance. Mr. Obama didn’t criticize Mr. Biden by name or say Hamas and Israel are morally equivalent. Then again, he didn’t have to. Everyone understood it for what it was: a jab at the Biden administration’s support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he takes on Hamas.
Yet unlike Ms. Tlaib, Mr. Obama’s moral equivalence drew only scattered criticism outside a few commentators such as “Real Time” host Bill Maher. The silence from Democrats is deafening.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is an exception. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business, he accused Mr. Obama of having “lied through his teeth” when he spoke of the unbearable occupation (presumably Israel’s, though it left Gaza in 2005).
“To compare those disputed claims with the rapes, beheadings, burnings, kidnappings, it’s just obscene and despicable,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “And what it does is it lends support to those students basically, who are saying, ‘Well, what Hamas really did was not so bad. . . . It was in response to the occupation.’ ”
Mr. Dershowitz added: “Although he said that the attacks by Hamas are not justifiable, he made them justifiable because if life really is unbearable, as it’s not, then you can do anything you want.”
These columns haven’t been friendly to Joe Biden. But the president doesn’t deserve to have his backing for an ally’s counterterror campaign undermined by a man whom he served faithfully as vice president for eight years. Especially when people with Ms. Tlaib’s views are threatening to tear the Democratic Party apart.
Unlike other former presidents who returned home after their time in the White House was over, Mr. Obama never left Washington. Unlike Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama influences hearts and minds. While he would never use any language as incendiary as Ms. Tlaib’s, and doesn’t believe the extreme claims she makes, Mr. Obama is more corrosive because what he says gets repeated in America’s genteel quarters.
So while Ms. Tlaib’s censure was welcome, it was easy. As the resolution’s text pointed out, she has “defended the brutal rapes, murders, be-headings and kidnapping” of Hamas; “spread the false narrative that Israel intentionally bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital”; and used the river-to-the-sea rhetoric that is a genocidal call to wipe Israel off the map.
But her influence is limited because she is recognized by the American public as a left-wing kook.
Mr. Obama would never be so crude as to invoke the river-to-the-sea language or actually come out and say that Israel is as evil as Hamas. But notwithstanding his more-moderate views, the former president’s call for “complexity” and his declaration that the “whole truth” means we are all complicit in the bloodshed serve the same purpose: clouding fundamental moral distinctions and undermining Mr. Biden’s backing of Israel’s campaign against Hamas.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) addressed both Ms. Tlaib and Mr. Obama in comments on the Senate floor. “Unfortunately,” he said, “the shameful moral equivalence that has been creeping across elite and influential corners of the left has now been embraced by a former commander in chief.”
When Rashida Tlaib makes the case for moral equivalence, she is outrageous and extreme. But when Barack Obama does, his argument is smooth and sophisticated. That’s what makes it all the more pernicious.
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Radicals always seem to be first but eventually the decent respond
and I believe we have reached that stage. We will continue to have
pro Hamas marches and anti-Semitism. That said, 80% of
Americans, according to polls, support or are empathetic with
Israel's plight and are beginning to be heard as I always thought they
would.
We have a very weak and afflicted president and it would be far
more effective if he were not but you must play with the hand you
are dealt..
+++
Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus will testify before
Congress on November 14 — for the third time in two weeks — on
campus anti-Semitism. As before, this testimony will air live on
YouTube.
On Tuesday, November 14 at 10:00 a.m. EST, Chairman Marcus will
testify before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce
Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development in
a hearing titled “Confronting the Scourge of Antisemitism on
Campus.” The hearing will examine the increase of antisemitism on
college campuses in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel. The
hearing will air live on YouTube at 10:00 a.m. EST.
To better understand the threats Jewish students face on campus –
escalating dramatically since the Hamas massacres of October 7 and
the resulting Hamas-Israel war in those atrocities’ aftermath, you’ll
want to watch what Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus
tells Congress.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I watched the D.C Rally for Israel on a TV screen at the Jewish
Community Center. It was impressive. The extraordinary crowd
was well behaved, no one wearing masks. The speakers were
supprtive and validated my belief that when it comes to decent
Americans they are still there.
I also believe radicals now have a competing message to contend
with and their propaganda, which is predicated on lies and
distortions, will begin to fade.
Time will tell.
+++
Israel’s 39th Day of War
By Sherwin Pomerantz
39 days into the war with Hamas and the numbers continue to grow. 44 of our troops have died in the fighting to date with 365 killed since October 7th while 239 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza. The IDF now claims it is in control of Gaza but seemingly not sufficiently so to have been able to identify where the hostages are being held. The frustrated and worried families of the hostages began a walk to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv today as a protest against the perceived inaction of the government on this issue
The IDF confirmed this morning that 19-year-old Cpl. Noa Marciano, a soldier in the Border Defense Force, was killed while being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. On Monday, Hamas published footage showing Marciano's body. The circumstances of her death remain unclear. A representative of the IDF visited Marciano's family on Monday after the genocidal terrorist group earlier released a video of the captive soldier, still alive.
On the northern border with Lebanon, cross border incidents continue with the IDF reconsidering its strategy regarding Lebanon.
The IDF is coordinating the transfer of 33 incubators for newborns as well as three adult respirators from an Israeli hospital to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the military stated early Tuesday morning. “The IDF remains committed to upholding its moral and professional responsibilities to distinguish between civilians and Hamas terrorists,” the military spokesperson said. In a phone call released by the IDF, an officer from the Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) to Gaza, speaking with the Director General of Al-Shifa Hospital, can be heard offering the incubators as well as helping evacuate children and patients from the facility. The only question that remains is whether Hamas will permit the hospital to accept the incubators given that yesterday they did not permit them to accept fuel supplied by Israel.
A number of my readers have asked me how I think the war will play out? My assessment is that at some point the domestic pressure on President Biden may be so strong that he will have to reluctantly contact Prime Minister Netanyahu and say “enough.” It will be a painful move for the President, as I believe he knows in his gut that it is bad for us and for the entire world not to complete the work that Hamas forced us to undertake.
However, while we would like to think that we can make independent decisions of this type, the fact is that we are dependent on the good graces of the US for the continuing supply of ammunition, Iron Dome anti-rockets, and the like which the US has been supplying non-stop. So, on a practical basis, if we don’t have US support, reason indicates that it will be logistically impossible to continue our military activity at its present level.
Should that occur, a lot of questions remain unanswered. What do we do about the hostages? What do we tell the families of the 239 captives in Gaza? How do we justify to those who have lost loved ones in battle that perhaps we cannot actually “finish the job?” What does Gaza look like if we have to stop? What would it look like if we did finish the job? Who will take control of Gaza on a permanent basis? Will our people return to live in the south if we have not finished the job?
All we have is a lot of questions and the hope that there are sufficient strategic thinkers among our political and military leadership who are wrestling with these issues and can figure out how to deal with them.
For those of us who have faith, we retain our belief that the good Lord is on our side and will guide us to the correct decision. May that be so.
Sherwin Pomerantz has lived in Israel for 40 years, is CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., a international business development consultancy. He is also the Founder and Chair of the American State Offices Association, former National President of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel and a past Chairperson of the Board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Poor little rich girl! Hated America until her husband, became president, as a result of misplaced white guilt, and then made a fortune after destroying our nation.
+++
A brilliant observation:
“If there’s one thing we Jewish people have learned in the past
few weeks it’s this: The world doesn’t care about us as much
as we hoped, but we care about each other a lot more than
we realized.”
+++
As for university professors who support Hamas. If various
university administers had any guts and were driven by a
clear and decent sense of morality they would fire them,
not because they hate Israel but because they hate humanity.
+++
Why is the GOP building the FBI a new building? We know upper echelons. including the Director, are liars and corrupt.
+++
FBI targeted agents over conservative political views: whistleblowers
The FBI said it "does not target or take adverse action against employees for exercising their First Amendment rights or for their political views."
The Post Millennial
Whistleblowers have accused senior officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation of retaliating against agents who express conservative or Christian beliefs by conducting unnecessary security clearance investigations, and in some cases, revoking their privileges.
The allegations were made by at least three FBI agents in disclosures to the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month.
According to the Washington Times, among those targeted were current employees who had any association with former agents who were interviewed for Dinesh D'Souza and Dan Bongino's recent film, Police State, which attempts to prove that the Democrats worked with FBI, CIA, and Justice Department officials to censor and imprison their political opponents.
Whistleblowers alleged that officials in the FBI's security division, SecD, assigned agents to specifically target agents who they suspected had in any way participated in the making of the film. It was also claimed that SecD wanted to hire 100 to 300 temporary employees to investigate the security clearances of "whistleblowers, conservatives, and employees with an unacceptable political affiliation or belief."
Among those targeted was former agent Kyle Seraphin, who had his security clearance investigated after being confronted by an out-of-jurisdiction police officer about Seraphin practicing his shooting at a gun range. Whistleblowers, however, pointed out that this should have been a minor infraction, but was instead blown out of proportion because Seraphin had refused to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, and was thus clearly conservative.
Those who came forth with the allegations accused SecD Section Chief Section Matthew Nagle, Deputy Assistant Director Lawerence Buckley, and Assistant Section Chief Dena Perkins of violating the Security Executive Agent Directive 4, which outlines the justifications for security clearance investigations.
Whistleblowers claimed the agency was "intentionally misinterpreting the SEAD IV guidelines so that it can deny, suspend and revoke security clearances of FBI employees because of political affiliations and beliefs."
"The FBI does not target or take adverse action against employees for exercising their First Amendment rights or for their political views," the FBI said in a statement to the Times. "To allege otherwise is false and misleading. The FBI is required to follow established policies and procedures, to include a thorough investigation, when suspending or revoking a security clearance."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mission Brief from IDF Spokesperson to the International Media, Lt. Col.Richard Hecht |
|
"First, I want to start with a quick reminder. It’s been 39 days since Hamas’s attack on Israel. 45 days in which 239 hostages have been held in Gaza. Men, women and children - even babies - all held by a terrorist organization so hellbent on destroying Israel that it jeopardizes its own population’s safety and security. Hamas shoots at Gazans to stop them from evacuating to safer areas. Hamas digs tunnels in mosques, manufactures weapons near schools and, as we’ve been saying again and again…has transformed hospitals into terrorist positions. So yesterday, I went into Gaza to see it for myself, together with Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the IDF Spokesperson, and two major media outlets.
That’s me on the left. 
What I saw there was staggering. I invite you to watch the six minute video below to see for yourself what it looked like. While you’re watching, pay attention to a few things:
- The amount of weapons in a basement under a hospital.
- Ask yourself if you’ve run into that many weapons when checking into an emergency room.
- The fact that there are cable ties on the floor next to a chair. Also, not something you’ve likely encountered when getting urgent care.
- The little tragic, everyday reminders, that babies are being held hostages. The diapers. The pacifiers.
- The ‘Al Aqsa Flood’ (Hamas’ name for the October 7th Massacre) guard duty calendar.
Click HERE to watch the video. I want to be careful here. We’re still waiting for forensic evidence to unequivocally determine that hostages were held there. But either way, what you’re looking at is yet another example of how Hamas prioritizes fighting Israelis over protecting Gazans. By the way, right across the street from the hospital is a school. And right next to the school is a Hamas terrorists’s house and a terrorist tunnel between them. Schools, hospitals…for Hamas it all just means the same thing. Human shields. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
|
Subject: Fwd: Interesting observations from an attorney
As an attorney, I hesitated to forward this as it can be considered to be an indictment against my profession. But I believe there is much truth to the article below. Lawyers are adversarial and are trained to try to win at all costs. It may work in litigation but does not work well when governing our nation. Trying to win at any cost creates the polarization and hatred that now fills our country and leaves no room for common sense or legitimate debate.
Every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school, although Gore did not graduate. Joe Biden (no surprise) was at the bottom of his class. Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Barack Obama was a lawyer Michelle Obama was a lawyer. Hillary Clinton was a lawyer. Bill Clinton was a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is a lawyer. Former Senator Harry Reid was a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Trump was a businessman. Presidents Bush 1 and 2 were businessmen. Vice President Cheney was a businessman. President Eisenhower was a 5 star General. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. Ex-House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastics manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against actor Ronald Reagan in 1976. The RepublicanParty is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers. I had never thought about it this way before.
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Trump, Bush, and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich. The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. In the eyes of the Lawyers Party, we have seen the procession of official enemies grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, which, in this case should be the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side. Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.
When politicians, as lawyers, begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws. We are contorted by judicial decisions. We are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers. Tort or legal reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you, and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER THESE FACTS THE NEXT TIME YOU STEP INTO A POLL BOOTH TO VOTE.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What price ceasefire?
By DOUGLAS ALTABEF
Israel needs to be the “unreasonable” party, not an enabler of Western moralizing.
The desirability of a ceasefire in the current war between Israel and Hamas—especially if it involves the release of Israeli hostages—is seemingly obvious and self-evident to everyone. Except for us.
Of course, we want, we yearn to have our hostages released. But we know two things all too well: The deferred cost of releasing terrorists and the danger to our soldiers during a ceasefire that will be observed only by our side.
In the ongoing behind-the-scenes hostage negotiations, I fear Israel is underestimating our leverage and minimizing our bargaining position.
At the moment, we are slowly but surely dismantling the terror infrastructure Hamas leaders have spent many years and billions of dollars building.
The IDF’s performance has been breathtaking. We have very much avoided the myriad traps and snares Hamas commanders were confident would envelop us. We have picked off many key Hamas commanders. Perhaps most importantly, we have done all this with casualty numbers far lower than was previously estimated and feared.
We understand that there is considerable pressure on us to do something that allows foreign leaders, particularly U.S. President Joe Biden, to stay in the good graces of their anti-Israel progressive constituency.
But Israeli leaders also have a constituency—us. We want our hostages released, but we also demand the dismantling of Hamas so that the risk of future hostages is greatly minimized and hopefully eliminated.
This leads me, and I suspect most of my countrymen, to demand that, this time, we do not consent to being the easy marks, the reasonable guy. This time we must act like people who live in this neighborhood.
We are going to be inflexible, insistent, on message and not at all reasonable.
In this regard, like it or not, like him or not, the spotlight falls squarely on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has shown himself uniquely adept at handling foreign pressure and he knows that his legacy will depend on how he manages the war.
So, where does that leave us? Netanyahu has been on message insisting that there be no ceasefire without the release of all our hostages.
Contrary to what many assume, and consistent with the posture I think we must adopt, this cannot be seen as an opening gambit. Instead, it should be the position to which we hold with absolute resolve.
First, the status of every single hostage should be made clear to us. We need to know who is still alive and who has died in Hamas captivity. There needs to be verifiable third-party proof of this. The Red Cross, which has proven once again to be a thoroughly shameful organization, can begin to redeem itself by providing it.
This verification should be a sine qua non. We should not be talking about any exchange, let alone a ceasefire, until we know what the current situation is.
Regarding a prisoner exchange, we should demand that the world adhere to its professed principles. The incessant sanctimonious insistence on “proportionality” should be honored: We will release one prisoner for each hostage released. Anything else dishonors the standard made sacrosanct by a biased world.
If all the hostages are released and the sanctimonious ask why we will not then release all of theirs, the answer should be that their hostages are terrorists and ours are not. So, the only way we will do this is “one for you and one for me.”
Then, we must carefully vet each prisoner to be exchanged. We cannot repeat the horrific mistake of the Gilad Shalit nightmare, in which we ended up releasing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who returned the favor by being a key figure behind the Oct. 7 massacre. We should refuse to release any terrorist with blood on his or her hands.
We must then pay close attention to the release process, so it can be performed in the least amount of time, since the length of the ceasefire is tied to the time necessary to process and effect the release. Here too, third parties might be able to play a useful role.
Lastly, it must be absolutely clear that if a ceasefire is violated, it’s over. We are not going to observe a ceasefire unilaterally, especially when we have so many soldiers embedded in the very heart of the enemy’s territory.
At every step in this process, Netanyahu needs to point to a unified citizenry hellbent on destroying Hamas and not at all interested in being the reasonable person in the room. One of the existential punches absorbed on Oct. 7 was that being that more moral, reasonable and understanding party is an invitation to death and destruction.
We are willing to play the game on the same basis our monstrous enemy is willing to do so. If there is going to be a ceasefire, it is only to get our hostages back and we must make absolutely sure that we are not putting our soldiers in harm’s way as a result.
If all this sounds unreasonable, well, I am just taking pages out of the playbook of our enemies.
When Biden says to his progressive constituents, “Well, what do you want from me? These Israelis are being unreasonable jerks,” you’ll know we’re doing something right
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